Reading for the most part is a solitary downtime activity, yet feels like one that can be done all the time, no matter how many people are around. You can will yourself to be alone in a book regardless of circumstance. I for one read when I sit down and I read when I wait and I read while I walk; occasionally I read while I walk into things. I read when I spot a scenic view with a bench (not the point, I know) and to avoid surroundings that are less than appealing. There is something especially enjoyable about reading on trains and on planes and in coffee shops, where the gesture constitutes a futile cultural rebuke to everyone else’s tablet or smartphone. They never notice.
But you might not notice things either. You’re not necessarily aware of what’s going on around you. You miss things and you leave people out, and this might bother others. Some are inherently unnerved by another person reading alone, not seeing it as “I choose to read now,” but rather as “Leave me alone” or “I’m lonely.” There is something inherently melancholy about reading alone in a restaurant, for example. You get the sad looks that seem to say either “Your date didn’t show?” or “You didn’t have a date.”
And sometimes, if you’re me, you can be so oblivious to the signals around you that you end up in trouble. This actually only happened once, but it was decisively unpleasant. I was in Florence. I had just finished a semester abroad in Paris and had a month to spend traveling northward from Rome to the Dolomite mountains. Italy is usually sunny and beautiful, but to the chagrin of the tourist industry and the tourists there that particular month, it rained during every single one of those Italian days. Because youth hostels and convents had no food service, all my meals were eaten out in restaurants and cafés, where I’d arrive alone, pathetic and sopping wet. Each time, I’d steel myself for the host’s pitying look when I requested a table for one.
I’d allow these stares to abate before sealing my lowly status by sneaking a book out of my bag. Reading alone at a dinner table in Italy is basically against the law. At the very least, it’s culturally insensitive. Apparently, nobody there sees it as a potentially romantic gesture. No one, it seemed, imagined that the solitary reader might secretly hope that if she only read the right book alone, a handsome stranger would come along and ask, “What’s that you’re reading?” and it would all end happily ever after. Perhaps that was reserved for Audrey Hepburn.
But you could resolve to be open to the possibility—to look up occasionally, to appear friendly, to offer an entrée into conversation, not to be such a New Yorker. This was Italy! These things happened here, at least in fiction.
On my third day in Florence, I was deep into Hemingway’s Nick Adams Stories (cliché!) over stracciatella at one of the city’s premier gelaterias, which I’d carefully selected from my battered copy of Let’s Go. (My entire budget in Italy went toward food.) As I was waiting for the rain to stop so I could visit a nearby Masaccio fresco, a dapper older gentleman with hat and briefcase approached and asked whether I minded his joining my table. Be friendly, I told myself, fighting the instinct to bury nose in book. He may not be Marcello Mastroianni, but he could be interesting to talk to. With my tentative assent, the man sat opposite me and then, without word or gesture, a larger man with his own briefcase took the seat next to him and crossed his arms as if he had a train to catch and awaited the precise hour of departure.
The dapper older gentleman spoke fluent English. He spoke fluent French. He spoke knowledgeably about art and literature. He asked about my travels, the details of my itinerary, my background. I was flattered that someone so erudite would bother with my trifling collegiate opinions. Under the spell of his encouragement, I spoke at length. We talked about literature; we talked about art. He knew the Masaccio I wanted to see and was delighted to accompany me there. His driver—he nodded at the man next to him—would take us in his car, parked right outside. Do not worry about the rain.
Just a quick visit to the bathroom first, I explained, watching my manners, keen to impress. On my way back to the table, a man stopped me and whispered urgently, “Run! That man has a gun.” I looked up and saw the older gentleman and his thug conferring with each other, maneuvering their briefcases.
And then I ran. The two men got up immediately, pushing their chairs aside, and gave chase. The dapper older gentleman executed a surprisingly nimble leap into a black sedan parked outside; there was already a driver at the wheel, who gunned the engine. The thug bolted after me on foot.
Somehow I managed to lose them, dashing into a church and hiding under a pew. I stayed there for hours, holding my breath. Only when the church filled with a group of tourists did I unfold my body and dart away. Feeling stupid and embarrassed, I didn’t go to the police. Instead, I slunk back to my youth hostel, where I confined myself to the vacant girls’ dormitory, skipping dinner altogether. What an idiot! What an easy target I’d made. That night, I woke up in a full-sweat panic attack, shaking on the bathroom floor, ready to vomit. Later, I read about Mafia teams kidnapping women to be drugged and sold into sexual slavery abroad; in all likelihood that’s what I’d narrowly escaped, if not something “milder” like ransom or rape.
I left Florence first thing the next day. In my haste, I lost my Eurail pass on the train to Lucca. The train ticket had been a graduation gift from my father, and it hadn’t been cheap. I certainly didn’t have money to buy a new one, and I needed it to last two more months. Feeling rotten, I called him collect from a pay phone to self-flagellate and grovel and beg for another. “I thought you were calling to wish me a happy birthday,” he said. “It was yesterday.”
I deserved to be alone.
For a long time after that, reading by myself in public made me feel vulnerable. By highlighting my solitude, I’d made myself a mark. Here I am, come and get me, I seemed to be signposting to the wolves. I willed myself to become so outwardly tough and impenetrable that nobody would ever again mistake me for someone who was lost. “Go away,” my new body language said. “Can’t you see I’m reading?”
The worst part was that I loved traveling independently and reading while I did it. Most of the time, I didn’t feel lost or lonely. Quite the opposite—with a truly engrossing novel, you could feel found. Reading may not always give you full access to the world around you, but it’s an entry to another world and the company of the people inside it. It’s possible to explore two worlds at once.