On June 4th, 1957, my mother, father, two older brothers, younger sister, nanny, and I, climbed the gangplank of the SS Mauretania in New York City, waving good-bye to my grandpa, who thought he would never see us again, as we were heading for exotic, mysterious India, on the other side of the earth.
We set sail, we crossed the Atlantic in a giant storm, we rented a Renault and handed the reins of our three weeks in England to Nanny, as this was her land, we waved good-bye to her when we crossed the channel into France, we got quarantined in France for a month as my sister got sick in the town of Honfleur, we drove to Switzerland and Dad yodeled from the top of the Yungfrau, we drove to Italy where the Colosseum was inhabited by wild kittens, and then we drove to Naples.
All of this took four months. Four months of the car over-heating and all of us laughing and eating yards of french bread and pounds of cheese, four months of fields of poppies and dewy eyed cows, four months of magnificent cathedrals and art galleries with Mom as the tour guide, four months of one brother sketching, one brother woo-ing beautiful girls, my sister and me running and playing with other children and making up stories of living in castles, four months of wonder and adventure. And then Naples.
We were going to sail on the SS Asia from Naples, through the Suez Canal and around to Bombay. On the night before we left, we were due to stay in a convent near the port. We drove into Naples in the late afternoon and in a flash, something happened that will stay with me viscerally, forever.
I saw poverty.
What was this? Who were these people? What had happened to them? Where were their clothes? How were they so dirty and thin? How could the babies be just crying and crying? Where were the kleenexes for the runny noses? And the sick looking eyes? What about the scared looking dogs? Why are the children all standing around with no parents? What was this?
The next morning when we boarded The Asia, my heart felt heavy. I was confused. A feeling of safety and lush comfort no longer existed. I watched the wake of the ship when we sailed away and wondered what India would be like.