Halliwell has also made a video in whichrnshe appears dressed as a nun. But the formerrn”Ginger Spice” is no longer only arnsinger: She has been appointed rovingrnU.N. Population Fund Goodwill Ambassador,rnfrom which posihon she promotesrnsafe sex and the wider use of condoms.rnDoes Gore support her innovative approachrnto diplomacy, insulting andrnmocking the head of a sovereign state?rnBefore Americans go to the polls onrnNovember 7, they might want to knowrnthe Vice President’s answers to thesernquestions.rnAlberto Carosa, the editor of FamigVmrnDomani Flash, writes from Rome.rnLetter From Rietirnby Andrei NavrozovrnGood Help NowadaysrnI start this story not at my own desk in thernPalazzo Mocenigo, but in a hammockrnsuspended between two graceful pinerntrees in a place called Oliveto, up in thernSabine Hills, an hour’s drive from Rome.rnThe settlement of a dozen houses is dominatedrnby the Villa Parisi, a medievalrncasale set in a large hillside garden,rnwhich some friends from London haverntaken for a week’s stay. The nearest bigrntown, with a population of 45,830 accordingrnto the 44esima edizione dellarnGuida Michelin found in the rented car,rnis Rieti, but I did not come here to fretrnabout sightseeing in Northern Lazio. Irncame here to make jokes, play cards,rnsleep, drink, and talk about the servants,rnhi England, there is a name for this kindrnof summer diverhssement, which is supposedrnto take place somewhere beyondrnthe confines of the former Empire, usuallyrnin Greece, Spain, or Italy. It is called arnvilla holiday.rnOf course, the arrangements havernbeen made through a London agency,rnwhich knows as much about Italy as thernMoscow correspondent of the New YorkrnTimes knows about Russia, and — if suchrna monster can be imagined —is evenrnmore defensively verbose. Accordingly,rnonce the promised luxuries have beenrnpaid for in advance, the tenants receive arndescriptive folder of several hundredrnpages, complete with slightly inaccuraternmaps and wholly imaginary menus, thatrnboils down to something like this: “Justrnbring your own bloody towels, buy yourrnown bloody Scotch, stay on the bloodyrnterrace, and for Heaven’s sake don’t botherrnthe servants. They are foreign, and werndon’t know what they’re saying.” Consequently,rnwhat we are given here is thernkitchen equivalent of Vladimir Putin’srnautobiography, which may be just asrnwell. Like Byron in Venice, I worryrnabout getting fat.rnWhat do I tell my English friendsrnabout the servant problem? That there isrna reason why I fell for their idea of the villarnholiday, apart from the pleasure of seeingrnthem. Our Stakhanovite nanny andrnhousekeeper of four years, Sandra, whornhad come with us from London to Rome,rnand later to Venice, handed in her resignationrna few weeks ago. In London, shernonce chased away an Evening Standardrnreporter, who thought he would take arnsentimental photograph of my son playingrnamong the daffodils in Hyde Park,rnwith a softly spoken Russian phrase thatrnmeans “I’ll rip your mouth.” In Rome,rnasked what she thought of the Italians,rnshe answered: “They are a noisy andrnshameless people.” It was in Venice thatrnthis loyal, hardworking, and God-fearingrnwoman was finally corrupted, and, ofrncourse, it would be hypocrihcal to blamernher: The purple pink light of the settingrnsun reflecting off the stone facades of thernGiudecca is clearly unsuited to the task ofrnvacuuming a child’s bedroom. Like me,rnpoor Sandra realized that what she reallyrnwanted was to sit in the cafe all day andrndrink Aperol spritzers, and that this greatrnpleasure actually cost very little.rnThe corruption takes hold of the victimrnin slow increments, Italian life as arnwhole only too ready to supply an objectrnlesson at everv’ step. “Buon giomo, Sig7ioral”rnIt would never occur to the averagernRussian of Sandra’s generation, the last torngraduate from Stalin’s university of life, torncomment on the weather to a totalrnstranger. “For that we have meteorologists.rnAh, you beg to differ? Then )’ou’rernprobably a Trotskyist spy.” It would neverrnoccur to us to address a maid asrn”Madame.” “What’s that you’re playingrnat? Bourgeois egalitarianism? In ourrncountry people are shot for less.” Indeed,rnit has taken the death of 100 million ofrnour countrymen to teach the other 100rnmillion to mind their own business, so itrnwould seem that the very least I canrncount on there, by way of personal benefit,rnis a good maid.rnBut eventually the bonhomie routinerngrinds down the toughest Stakhanovite,rnand she dissolves in all that wretched civilityrnlike powdered sugar. Before yournknow it, she is no longer an anodizedsteelrnbolt holding together an infinitesimalrnpart of a vast statist machine—suchrnas the employer’s household —but a vulgarrnWestern chatterbox, a nosy know-itallrnwith a diversity of subjective preoccupations,rna “wicked and slothful servant”rnlaboring in the belief that disobedience isrna substitute for talent. She has become arnperson, a citizen, a god.rnIf individual talent is, as I believe, thernonly acceptable excuse for democraticrndelusions of this kind, then Margarita,rnour cook, represents the Western ideal.rnMargarita speaks only dialect, with thernconsequence that when she wants to expressrnthe most basic thought—even onernso proverbiallv simple as “differentrnstrokes for different folks”—something altogetherrngorgeous and outlandish, likernthe San Marco cathedral, emerges fromrnher island brain. “Ghe se queo,” she says,rnrolling up her sleeves to plunge a pair ofrnpowerful arms into the colorful chaos of arnpostprandial sink, ”che ghe piase ciuciarrnel caenasso,” meaning, “some people likernto lick a lock.” We all adore her, a Venetianrnto the marrow of her soup bones, inrnpart because her Italian is as bad as ours.rnI met her through her husband, a leadingrnfishmonger in the Rialto market whornhad already won our not inconsiderablerncustom. Then, one day, my friend Albertornbrought over a dozen wild ducks hernhad shot, still in feather. With that millstonernaround my neck, in pouring rain —rnit was some time before the Madonnarndella Salute, and unless you are a hunterrnthe weather is terrible —I made fruitlessrnrounds of Venice’s butchers, hoping tornget them plucked at any price, until finallyrnI came to the Rialto and saw Beppe, inrnhis white apron, presiding over his banco.rnBefore I could finish my talc of woe, hernswept all the fish remains before him intornthe gutter with a majestic stroke of a giantrnblade and, with the same gracefullyrncurved movement, cut the tie that boundrnthe birds together.rnIt was a kind of European Communit)’rnnightmare. Feathers flew as far as the eyerncould see, drifting flirtatiously over thernsnow’ banks of bass and sole. Under thernroof of the covered market, a crowd gathered,rnVenetians and foresti in equal numbers.rnThe foreigners spoke in hushed un-rnNOVEMBER 2000/37rnrnrn