vicisti, Galilaee

My express train to Rome was largely empty, and this time a polite young female conductor came by and checked my ticket.  I stared up at the dramatic sky -- dark clouds alternating with deep blue and shafts of sunlight -- and was thankful that I was no longer in an airplane.  I pulled out the small portfolio I received while doing temporary work at a large prestige cosmetics company in the late 1990s and consulted the documents I had printed out related to my trip.  I decided to call the small hotel slash hostel where I would be spending the next three nights.  As the phone rang, I noticed that I hadn't followed the instructions in the confirmation e-mail to reconfirm 48 hours before my arrival.  I panicked, but the audibly young woman who answered the phone didn't seem concerned.  My guidebook described the staff at this accommodation as "multilingual and very friendly".

Termini Station was much less crowded than on my initial arrival, and I made my way through to a nicer subway line that took me to the Ottaviano station.  I saw that the next station was called Cipro, which I was later saddened to learn just meant "Cyprus".

My hotel was near the Vatican.  I emerged from the subway into a bustling, beautiful neighborhood.  I walked down the moderately upscale via Cola di Rienzo and looked in the many shops selling elegant clothes.  The area seemed full of life, and, despite the proximity to the Vatican, empty of tourists.  The neighborhood reminded me of Paris, capital of the country of the most civilized people in the world.  Attractive Roman persons of all ages and sexes were rushing around, looking wonderful.  I am exaggerating slightly, but the worst-looking Roman man resembles New York Times columnist and winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Paul Krugman, and it only gets better from there.  I was reminded of my crush on the centrist politician and former President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Pier Ferdinando Casini, a person who could have terrible political views of which I am entirely unaware.  I learned about him six or seven years ago while watching the Italian news while riding on a stationary bike at the gym I attended before the gym I attended before joining the infamous gym of which I am no longer a member.

I found my hotel slash hostel and began the check-in process.  The attractive young woman behind the counter was of ambiguous nationality.  She had blond hair, but she had a spark behind her eyes that she would not have possessed had she been Germanic or Nordic, peoples who keep an icy wall up to hide their feelings, if they even have any.  She could have been a blond Italian, of course.  They exist, and she could have also had highlights, something I only learned existed a few years ago.

"Oh, we don't have your key!" she said, alarmed, but adorably.  She looked around for a while, and then handed me a key from a ring filled with many keys.  "Go check to see if the key is in your room.  This is our only other key, so you have to give this back."

I forgave this completely inappropriate way of dealing with a paying customer because she was so pretty.  I contribute to the many injustices in the world, I thought.

I went up to the room.  It was simple but fine, although the flat-screen television promised by the guidebook -- but never by the hotel -- was not there.  I looked around and there was no key.  I went back down to the desk.

"Give me back that key, and I will see if one of the other people working here has seen it.  If she hasn't, when you come back tonight we will give you this key," she said, her charms diminishing by the second.

"Well, I need it again to go back to the room to change."  Now that Barack Obama was President of the United States, I felt that it was within my rights to be somewhat assertive.

I changed to head out to eat dinner, alone.  I decided to go to a restaurant that my primary care physician had recommended to me.  He had written the name of it on the back of a piece of voided prescription pad paper.  Later, when I went back to photograph it in the daylight, I realized that he misspelled it slightly.

The restaurant was near the former Roman Ghetto, by the Great Synagogue, which is why my doctor had found it.  My doctor is amused that I study Hebrew and likes to discuss Israel with me, sometimes while holding parts of my body that make such discussions difficult (those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour).  Anyway, I was avoiding Jewish sites on this trip.  I knew that Faruq would be disappointed if I visited the Great Synagogue, although I don't think I have I have ever even been inside a synagogue, anywhere.  So even though I was reading Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations by Martin Goodman (a Jew) during my trip (a book given to me by Faruq), I didn't visit the synagogue, although I walked by it nearly a dozen times.

Anyway, I left my hotel slash hostel, crossed the Tiber, and walked back down Via Giulia.  After being in relatively backwards and sleepy Sicily, Rome seemed like the most sophisticated and exciting city in the world.  I walked past a gallery opening where well-dressed and attractive people were drinking wine in the street.  I walked through the Piazza Farnese, in front of the French embassy, and stared at the two fountains made out of bathtubs from the Baths of Caracalla.

I wanted to climb in.

I made my way to the restaurant, Al Pompiere.  I felt a twinge of panic before entering.  I steeled myself and walked in.  I went up a stairway and apologized to the maître d’hôtel.  "Solo uno," I said, in a shamed manner.

The restaurant was crowded.  I was placed at my table-for-one right next to a table-for-fourteen.  I tuned away from the large, happy group and saw a non-heterosexual male couple eating dinner at another table, so I changed chairs to ensure that I couldn't see their faces.  I wouldn't have been able to eat had they remained in view.

I ordered my food, along with a half-liter of wine that I would need to get over the embarrassment of dining alone.  I sat there awkwardly while I waited for something to arrive at my table.  I sent a text to Pierluigi, just to have something to do.  I took out my guidebook, but, since this place seemed less touristy that the other restaurants I had been to in Rome, that made me feel even more self-conscious.  Finally, the wine arrived.  I drank two glasses relatively quickly.  Then my food started to show up.  Again, I had bresaola, arugula, and parmesan for an appetizer.  It was predictably wonderful.  My main course (which was only a primo piatto, but I'm no glutton) was a pasta with artichokes.  It was delicious.  Artichokes are thought of as a distinctly Roman but also a distinctly Jewish dish.  This restaurant was clearly not kosher, but since the Jewish community of Rome is extremely old (most other Romans are descended from migrants from the rest of Italy), Jewish Roman food is considered to be some of the most authentically Roman food, along with tripe and organ meats and other things I didn't really want to try.  

I had read that the ancient Romans loved a condiment made from fermented fish, but thankfully this foodstuff went extinct before the Middle Ages.

I somehow acquired a different waiter during the course of the meal, and he and I started conversing in French after a botched attempt to locate the restroom in Italian.  I ordered a coffee.  He asked me how my meal was.

"Merveilleux," I said.  Good grief, where did that word come from? I thought.  It sounded embarrassingly queer.  I wouldn't even ever use the English equivalent of that word.  I blamed the wine.

I had nowhere to go but didn't have the courage or interest to go out to a bar (owing to andropause; also, how could anything inside a non-heterosexual club compete with the glories of the Eternal City?), so I just walked slowly back to my accommodation.  I crossed over the Tiber, where I could see an outdoor art installation on a small island: cocktailed persons were milling about in a roofless room where images were being projected on the walls and music was playing.  I tried to make out what it was all about, using my laser-corrected vision, but couldn't.  Still, it seemed exciting.  I was in one of the most beautiful and vibrant cities in the world!  The wine couldn't take all of the blame.  It was simply marvelous.

By the time I made my way through the Trastevere neighborhood and up to the Vatican, I had an urgent need to visit what was once called a water closet.  I considered using a wall of a building owned and operated by the Holy See, but I didn't want it to be misinterpreted as a religiopolitical statement, despite my many quarrels with the Bishop of Rome.  Thankfully I made it to my room in time.

I read in my book:

The modern notion that the whole biography of Jesus to be found in the various Gospels was pure invention is deeply implausible -- not least because a story of this type about the career of a Galilean peasant was neither characteristic of religious literature of the time nor obviously helpful in spreading to the wider world the central Christian message that Jesus was also Christ and Lord.

The next morning, after giving up on eating the free breakfast provided by the hotel slash hostel (every table in the tiny breakfast room was either occupied or covered with dirty dishes; I drank a glass of grapefruit juice while standing up and then went out to a cafe; awkward standing around with strangers first thing in the morning while trying to access food is a superfluous unpleasantry that I no longer have time for), I headed over to the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the many remaining sites on Faruq's list.

As I entered, I noticed a statue of Saint Anthony with small pieces of paper stuffed all around it.  Intercessory prayers were written thereon.

 

I've noticed yet another trend that does not bode well for moderate and liberal, intellectualized religion, which tends to look down on things like this.  Sympathetic agnostics have been voicing their disapproval for the Karen Armstrong-type religion of which I am a fan, and saying that religion in which people pray directly for stuff -- that my grandfather doesn't die of cancer, a passing grade, a promotion, the girl of my dreams, a puppy -- is more honest and desirable than vague, amorphous concepts like "centering prayer" that are popular among my ilk.

It's depressing, to me.

I admired mosaics from the Middle Ages.

Outside the church there were a number of ancient stone fragments.  I liked the cartoonish look of some of them.

I looked up at a 12th century mosaic of the Virgin breastfeeding, using the zoom function of my camera.

 

I then made my way to the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.  The late-Renaissance sculpture of Saint Cecilia was quite beautiful and subtle, considering that Saint Cecilia was decapitated after attempts to smother her to death with steam had failed.  Actually, the decapitation didn't go so well either, but she finally died after several days of singing to God with her head hanging off her neck.  That is the story, at least.

 

In the book Faruq gave me, I read:

In contrast to the uncertainty, agnosticism or denial of many Roman pagans and some Jews, all Christians asserted with total confidence their belief in a life after death and the restriction of that life to those saved through Christ.

I examined the apse.

 

I then paid to look at the archaeological museum and the crypt where the relics were kept.  I wanted to visit the famous frescoes by Pietro Cavallini, only accessible through the adjacent nunnery, but I had gotten there too late.  I would have to come back again the next day.

I ran over to the Villa Farnesina, a Renaissance villa that Faruq insisted I visit.  There were frescoes by Raphael, and also by the painter curiously known as Sodoma.  I paid a substantial entry fee and was then informed that one of the four rooms open to the public was closed.

Photography was not permitted, but the frescoes were quite impressive.

I went to examine the post cards and other items for sale.  There was a children's book about the villa for sale that I decided I would buy for Faruq.  I asked the extremely attractive man sitting at the ticket desk if I could buy it.

"Up the stairs and to the right," he said, dismissively, yet sexily.

I went up the stairs and to the right.  There was a toilet.  I realized he probably used that answer for any question in English from a male person.  Luckily, there were rooms upstairs I hadn't known about, so I looked around in those before going back downstairs.  There was a new extremely attractive man behind the ticket desk.

"I'd like to buy this children's book," I said.

"It is only in Italian," he replied, in a less dismissive but equally sexy way.

"That's fine," I said.  I wondered what it would feel like to touch his face.

After eating in a restaurant I had been to with my parents (the waitress was an elderly woman whose probable grandchild kept running excitedly through the place), I headed back down to the area we had seen on our expensive tour of obscure sites.

I walked around Monte Testaccio, the mound created by thousands (millions?) of pieces of broken clay pots, or amphorae.

 

They seemed suspiciously orderly, as if Germans had been involved.  I thought about the Catalan word for "bottle", ampolla, which obviously comes from amphorae, although ampolla means "blister" in Spanish.  Similar idea, I guess.

The mound is now ringed by nightclubs, I saw as I walked around it.  Since it was daytime, the area didn't seem so bad, but I could imagine it was probably awful at night, like our horrible Meatpacking District in New York, although it's unlikely anything could be that hellish.  At least Roman women appeared to have some dignity and didn't dress like prostitutes or act like they were in their own private sequel to the Sex and the City franchise, and I didn't see any Roman men as grotesque as the kind of men who go to nightclubs in New York, men involved in the immoral and shameful professions of finance, real estate, public relations, advertising, and the selling of gym memberships.  Those occupations are much worse than prostitution.

I decided to visit the non-Catholic cemetery.

 

I knew, and know, nothing about the Romantic poet Shelley.  I examined his grave.

 

Later I learned that he considered himself an atheist, but he was the beautiful, interesting kind of atheist, not like the smug and predictable kinds we have now.  But it's understandable: the quality of atheism has declined along with the quality of religion.

Still later, because of a humorous comment written by a correspondent, I read his poem, "Ozymandias":

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I saw a curious sign as I approached the fence overlooking the Pyramid of Cestius. 

I felt something brush by my feet.

 

I walked over to look at the grave of Keats, someone about whom I also knew almost nothing.  There was a young man (he couldn't have been 25) sitting on a bench in front of this grave, smoking and staring at it intently.  He had a un-Italian aspect.  I tried to photograph the grave, but he glared at me.

 

Much later I looked back over towards the grave and this young man was still sitting there smoking and staring at the headstone in an intense manner.  I hadn't realized that Keats inspired such grim devotion.

I looked at the grave of the famous Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci.

There were many beautiful graves.  Since it was a non-Catholic cemetery, it was full of unusually interesting people, since they were all people who had made their way to Rome from somewhere very different, or, like Gramsci, had become something very different.

 

I love cemeteries, I thought.  I used to be afraid of them, back when I was an agnostic or atheist who believed in and feared ghosts and evil spirits.

I tried to use the men's restroom before leaving, but it was occupied by one of the pyramid cats.

I went to the nearby gelateria I had gone to with my parents on our expensive tour of obscure Roman sites.  I just wanted a small taste of gelato, but I accidentally ordered a giant portion that arrived with metallic tassel decorations stuck into it.  It was quite embarrassing, and, including a bottle of sparking water, it cost €10.  I took two bites from the huge, inappropriately festive dish and left.

I walked to the Baths of Caracalla, which were the inspiration for the design of the original Pennsylvania Station in New York, destroyed in 1963 by short-sighted persons. 

"One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat," wrote Vincent Scully, about the destruction of Penn Station and its uninspiring replacement.  Thankfully, gods are out of fashion.

The Baths of Caracalla were destroyed by short-sighted Ostrogoths.

I sat down and read from the book Faruq gave me.

This sense of mission set Christians apart from other religious groups, including Jews, in the early Roman empire.  The notion that it is desirable for existing enthusiasts to encourage outsiders to worship the god to whom they are devoted was not obvious in the ancient world.  Adherents of particular cults did not generally judge the power of their divinity by the number of congregants prepared to bring offerings or attend festivals.  On the contrary, it was common for pagans to take pride in the local nature of their religious lives, establishing a special relationship between themselves and the god of a family or place, without wishing, let alone expecting, others to join in worshipping the same god.  Christians in the first generation were different, espousing a proselytizing mission which was a shocking novelty in the ancient world.

I walked back through the Piazza Farnese to see the bathtubs from the Baths of Caracalla by daylight.

 

I paused at the angel with the sponge on the Ponte Sant'Angelo.

As I walked through the Vatican back to my hotel slash hostel, I noticed the racially problematic coat of arms of the current Bishop of Rome.

I got back to the hotel slash hostel (they had never found my key, so they reluctantly gave me the reserve one) and decided to go out to Cola di Rienzo to buy some presents for others and some more underwear for myself (the pair my mother bought for me in Sicily could no longer be worn with a clean conscience or a clean bottom).  I went to the Coin department store.  I had a feeling that the name Coin was related to Cohen, so I hoped Faruq wouldn't be upset.

I decided to splurge.

No one would be seeing these pairs of underwear but me, I thought, even though I was on the threshold of my 40s and should be taking advantage.  In any case, the sight of me in these might give a mutton-dressed-as-lamb effect.  But all underwear is overly sexualized these days, so what can be done?

I bought a scarf and tie for Asaph.  I liked being part of the bustle of Roman shoppers, but I felt a bit like a pile of rotting garbage in comparison.

I had dinner plans with Pierluigi, so I went back to the apartment to read Faruq's book.

How far had the Christianity adopted by Constantine strayed from its Jewish roots?  Christians like him did not follow most of the customs which made Jews distinctive in the eyes of their fellow citizens, such as the Sabbath, circumcision, and dietary laws.  They talked less about physical purity as a metaphor for sanctity and more about sexual asceticism.  They saw marriage as an unbreakable bond rather than a contract between man and wife.  They revered the same Bible as the Jews but reinterpreted it in the light of a New Testament that did away with the plain meaning of the shared text.  And (crucially) they saw no value in animal sacrifices, had no desire to worship God in any temple, and so had no interest in rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem.

On the other hand Christians like Constantine preserved the Jewish notion of history as a divinely ordained progression from creation to final judgement.  Like Jews, they placed high value on sacred time (leading to intense debates about, as we have seen, the correct date to celebrate Easter each year).  They believed, like Jews, that God had laid down how humans should live well, and they shared the Jewish notions of sin, guilt, confession, repentance and divine forgiveness for those who strayed.  Members of Christian communities supported each other as Jews did in their synagogues, with similar opposition to infanticide and similar emphasis on charity and the duty to care for widows and orphans.  Like Jews they were puritanical about indulgence of sex outside marriage and prudish about nudity.  And, as we have seen, Christians, like Jews, adamantly refused to participate in the worship of gods other than their own.

The successful imposition of such alien ideals on traditional Roman society, even by the most forceful of emperors, was necessarily difficult.  Theatrical performances, dance, gladiatorial games, wild beast shows, all continued in the fourth century, popular despite the disgust expressed by some Christians, much as they had flourished in the early empire despite the disapproval of some thoughtful pagans like the younger Pliny.

I hadn't realized that the early Christians were already obsessed with abortion (and infanticide) and sexual purity.   But ancient Rome was a pretty brutal society.

Pierluigi picked me up at my hotel slash hostel and took me to another distinctively Roman restaurant.  He ordered us something to snack on before we had even finished sitting down -- I felt like I was dining with Asaph!  The restaurant was well-lighted and crowded.  We had some delicious food served to us by a surly older man, but there was plenty of funny and grumpy Italian back-and-forth between him and Pierluigi.

I gave him a rundown of my trip to Sicily and told him how modern and exciting and advanced Rome seemed in comparison.  He talked about the longstanding difference in development levels between the north and south of Italy.

"I was just in Parma for work.  Everything functions perfectly there.  It is like Switzerland."

I wondered if that was really a compliment, since the Swiss are such a terrible bunch.  I imagined Parma to be very nice, however, especially ham- and cheese-wise.  Asaph probably wouldn't care for that feature, but Faruq would.

Pierluigi drove me up the Aventine Hill to the Villa Malta, where there is a keyhole through which you have a direct view of St. Peter's, framed by rows of hedges.  We passed the Church of Santa Sabina in the car.  I remembered that this church was on Faruq's list, so I would have to come back the next day.

Pierluigi then drove me to the Esposizione Universale Roma, or EUR, the fascist neighborhood initiated by Mussolini and featured in many exterior scenes in Julie Taymor's Titus, her film adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.

I love this movie and play, despite its extreme bloodiness.  Whenever the religious right succeeds at passing legislation restricting the rights of non-heterosexuals, I always repeat a line said by Tamora, Queen of the Goths, when Titus insists that the Roman religion requires the sacrifice of her oldest son to the gods.

We walked around the EUR in the dark.  The area was well maintained and full of businesses -- it was no museum.  I had noticed the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana from a distance when my parents and I were driven to the airport to go to Sicily.

Then Pierluigi took me to a non-heterosexual party held at the edge of the city.  He parked illegally, and we walked under an aqueduct.  We arrived at the club, called Circolo degli Artisti. I thought that was a great name.  The non-heterosexual party was called Omogenic -- not as great, but still clever.  The club had a large outdoor area with bars and tables amidst greenery and pergolas.  It was crowded with non-heterosexuals, talking Italian.  We greeted some of Pierluigi's friends and then went inside.  It was like a regular dance club, with a crowded dance floor.  What a great place, I thought, combining discothèque with Biergarten.  The plans of Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman have borne fruit.

We chatted and drank and wandered around back outside.  "Who are you interested in?" asked Pierluigi.  Oh, brother, I thought.  I don't have the energy to be interested in anyone, my mind and spirit being clouded with too much art and history.  I should have tried to have some sort of adventure, given that I was mere minutes away from middle age, but my soul was already cloyed with beauty.  I had a loss of appetite for anything else.

Then I worried if this anorexia was a symptom of something more serious.

Pierluigi and I started speaking in French.  After a few minutes, he said, "We should switch back to English because your French is very bad."

Pierluigi overheard some people speaking American.  He approached them.  "He is from America too," he said, pointing to me.  There were two guys sitting and talking loudly, with pronounced sarcastic hipster accents.  They were dressed in traditional hipster garb, as well.  They didn't look like non-heterosexuals.  They had ironic but unflattering facial hair, disfiguring piercings, and loose jackets and pants.  I think I saw corduroy.

"Where are you from?" I asked, unenthusiastically.

"New York," one said.

"Oh!  Me too.  Where in New York?"  I tried to make an effort.

"Brooklyn, actually.  Williamsburg."

Of course.  They had come to the club for a concert held earlier.

"Did you realize that this was a [non-heterosexual] party?" asked Pierluigi.

"It's a [non-heterosexual] party?" one said, alarmed.

Pierluigi gave the poor lost hipsters some idea of where they should go, although I was skeptical that any Italian woman would be interested in these two sad specimens.

After some time, we decided to leave.  We got back in Pierluigi's car so that he could drive me to my hotel slash hostel.  We started talking about our mutual friends in New York.

"So, which ones have you gone to bed with?" he asked.

Good grief.

The next morning I tried to get up early.  I went and drank a glass of grapefruit juice in the breakfast room while others stood around staring at the dirty tables, then went back to the same cafe for coffee and a pastry.  Then I ran back over to Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, hoping to see the Pietro Cavallini frescoes in time.  

When I arrived, I was dripping in sweat.  My clothes had large wet spots and, despite dabbing my head with a tissue, new perspiration kept coating my forehead.  I tried to figure out where to enter to see the frescoes.  There was a door with a small sign in Italian near the entrance to the church, but it was locked.  I saw a doorbell but decided I would sit by a fountain to try to dry off a bit before I rang it, since I looked like a feverish weirdo.

I sat and read Faruq's book.  I decided that I was very intrigued by the Emperor Julian, called Julian the Apostate by Christians.  He was the Roman emperor who tried to reinstate Hellenic paganism as the official state religion.  He also tried to have the Jewish temple in Jerusalem rebuilt.  Christians had claimed that the destruction of the temple was God's punishment to the Jews for failing to accept Jesus as the Messiah.  Julian thought that having it rebuilt would be a nice passive-aggressive way to annoy the Christians, whom he called Galileans (he had been raised a Christian).  His plan did not come to fruition, however, owing to an earthquake, which was interpreted as God's punishment for attempting to rebuild the temple.

Julian was pretty clever and funny.  Later, I would read that he wrote this: 

These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.

I decided that I would read Gore Vidal's historical novel about Julian on my next church retreat at the monastery on the Hudson River.

I looked up and saw that two men had rung the doorbell and were asking in Italian if they could see the frescoes.  The door was buzzed open for them, and I jumped up and ran over.  They tried to close the door on me but I forced it back open.  The two men looked surprised.

In front of us stood an elderly nun, wearing an old-fashioned habit that could have been used as a costume for a high-budget production of The Sound of Music.  One rarely sees nuns like that nowadays.  One of the men asked, in Italian, if they could see the frescoes.  Then they looked at me, waiting for me to state why I had pushed my way inside.

"Si," I said.  I hoped that would be enough.

We paid a nominal sum to the smiling old nun, and then we were instructed to follow a younger non-nun.  She took us into an elevator, and then released us into a room that overlooked the church.  She kept an eye on us at all times.  Photography was not permitted.

The frescoes had been damaged and partially obscured when the choir in which we were standing had been built.  Still, what remained was beautiful.

The two men were speaking in English.  One was probably in his mid-60s, and spoke fluent English with a slight non-English-speaking accent.  The other was probably in his mid-50s and sounded Irish, to my partially trained ear.  I tried to come up with questions to have an excuse to talk to them.

We were taken back down in the elevator and said grazie, sorella or something like that to the older smiling nun.  She was standing next to a table with books and soaps for sale, but it would have been unacceptably awkward to examine them.

After we went outside, they asked me where I was from.

"New York.  I was here in Rome for a week with my parents, then we went to Sicily, and now I'm back for a couple of days by myself.  Are you Irish?" I looked at the younger one.  He nodded that he was.  "And you?" I looked at the older one.  I was embarrassed by my directness, but desperate measures are sometimes required.

"I am from Sweden, but we live in Ostia, nearby, and also in London."

A couple!  Why hadn't I figured that out?  Unless they were in some sort of religious order, I wondered, but the Swedish element made that unlikely.  I briefly fantasized that these two would be my companions for the rest of the day, showing me more hidden treasures, regaling me, telling me scandalous yet cultured stories, introducing me to exotic Roman characters, maybe even going out for drinks and catty gossip with Georg Gänswein, the Pope's handsome secretary.  I would become frequent guests at their beautiful home in Ostia and their cozy apartment in London, and, after the younger one passed away, I would be willed their properties and substantial fortune.  I was thrilled at my luck!

"Well, this is certainly a great neighborhood of Rome to explore.  Enjoy your day," said the Swedish one.  They walked away.  I was crushed.

I wandered around for a while, neglecting Faruq's list.  I kept crossing the Tiber.  I tried to do some more shopping.  I was reminded of Asaph's gorgeous accountant.

 

I walked up and down the seven hills, give or take.  I was awed by the Column of Marcus Aurelius (if you know what I mean).  I somehow wandered up to the Piazza del Popolo, gawking at yet another massive Egyptian obelisk and the copious amounts of young carabinieri.  Pierluigi had made a joke about dumb carabinieri putting their hands over the symbol on the front of their hats when it rains.

 

I walked back down a long street lined with shops.  There were people, and churches, everywhere.  It seemed like every pagan temple had been turned into a church, along with every site of a Christian martyrdom and every home where Christians had met.  There was such a feeling of history, yet Rome was still colorful and electric and full of life.  Why can't Israel be more like Italy, I wondered.

At that same time, in Berlin, Faruq sacrificed a goat to Isis, in praise and thanksgiving.

Night was falling.  I saw a frightening swarm of starlings.

It reminded me of a scene in the HBO/BBC production of "Rome" in which Calpurnia has a dream of a swarm of starlings forming the shape of a skull the night before her husband Julius Caesar is assassinated.

It's different in the Shakespeare play:

She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,
Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood, and many lusty Romans
Came smiling and did bathe their hands in it.
And these does she apply for warnings and portents
And evils imminent, and on her knee
Hath begg'd that I will stay at home today.

I realized that I had wasted too much time strolling around and enjoying the city.  I consulted my map to try to find the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, where there were important Caravaggios.  I had tried to find this church earlier but had not been successful.  I finally located it; the façade was completely obscured by scaffolding.

I entered the dark yet cozy church.  As the national church of France in Rome, it smelled perfumed, possibly with Chanel.  I made my way to the Carvaggios.  They were amazing.

The Inspiration of Saint Matthew depicted a young male angel poking down from the top of the canvas, to inspire (if you know what I mean) St. Matthew.

 

There was a large sign that read NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY.  So I took a photo without a flash.  Then, when I went over to look at the Domenichino frescoes of the Histories of Santa Cecilia, I saw a sign that read NO PHOTOGRAPHY INSIDE CHURCH.  I felt guilty, so I deleted my photos and bought some postcards.  I don't like disobeying orders.  I also put coins into the machine that illuminated the Domenichino frescoes, as an improvised self-imposed fine.

I went around the corner to the Church of Sant'Agostino, since it was also on Faruq's list, owing to another Caravaggio.  As I walked in, there was the Swedish-Irish same-sex male (probably) couple!  They smiled and waved.  You will not break my heart again, I thought.

"The Caravaggio is over there," said the Swede, gesturing to a side chapel.  I nodded and smiled, trying not to seem too friendly or desperate.

There it was: the Madonna di Loreto.

 

There was a mass going on, so I was afraid I might be reprimanded for conducting what signs in Italian churches called a visit during the service.  But the only person who worked in the church that I could see was a young man standing behind a counter selling postcards and religious articles, and he was hunched over the counter speaking in an intimate and flirtatious manner with a woman with whom he obviously had more than a spiritual connection.  I bought a few postcards from him.

I was trying to get a glimpse of the Prophet Isaiah by Raphael, but it was on a column in the middle of the chairs set up for mass.  So I took a seat under it and listened to the sermon in Italian.  I couldn't make out much of it, but it seemed to go on for quite a long time.  I had been under the impression than Roman Catholic sermons were short in duration.  I stared up at the fresco, hoping it would look like I was meditating on the words being spoken and not that I was conducting a covert visit.

I imagined that Faruq probably disapproved of Raphael's choice of subject.

I headed all the way back towards the Colosseum, through the throngs of tourists, to go to a restaurant I had eaten at with my parents.

It was a little silly to walk so far, but I wanted to go back there.  When I arrived, the place was still mostly empty.  I couldn't tell if the owner recognized me, but when I said "solo uno", he made an exaggerated sound like he was disappointed.  Then he smiled, so I assumed he wasn't really mad at me.  He looked perfect, for a man my age.  He could have been slightly older or slightly younger, but I couldn't imagine anything much better.  I loved and envied him.

I ordered salad and rabbit, and a half liter of wine.  The rabbit was a lot of work to eat: it wasn't like all of the plump rabbits I ate over the years of going to northeastern Spain with Centfocs.  After a coffee and a limoncello, I headed out into the night. 

It was my last chance to be a dissolute in the Somerset Maugham/W.H. Auden/Christopher Isherwood tradition of elderly [non-heterosexual] men, but I had already been to the Baths of Caracalla, and that was close enough.  I walked the several miles back to my hotel slash hostel.

I had ordered a taxi for 8:00 the next morning, but when I went to get my key, I was told that the time was changing that night for the fall.  I then started to worry -- what if there was a This-is-Italy! occurrence and the taxi company didn't set their clocks back?  Then they would arrive an hour early.  So I needed to get up an hour early to make sure I didn't miss them.  But I was using my mobile phone as an alarm clock, and it was automatically synchronized with the local time.  But what if it didn't automatically fall back during the night?  Then I would think it was new 7:00, but it would actually be new 6:00. But how would I know unless I stayed up all night and watched the clock on my phone? 

I did not sleep well.

My taxi arrived at the new 8:00, and the (of course) attractive young man driving it loaded my bags into the car.  I didn't want to leave!  I stared out the window, trying to get as much Rome into my brain as possible.  I felt my body and soul resisting the departure.  Once on the highway, the driver started to go around 170 km/h, coming up right behind any car going going slower.  Exciting, I thought.  Although I was in no hurry to get to the airport.  I am not around swaggering young men like this very often.

When we pulled up to the curb, I paid, and thought, just this once, I will suppress my natural paranoid instinct and not say "remember I have bags in the trunk" before getting out.  He drives people to the airport for a living, I reasoned.  I got out and shut the door.  The taxi driver revved up the engine and sped off.  I ran after him, screaming.

He was apologetic when I caught up with him.  I forgave him because (of course) he was attractive.

My Lufthansa flight to Munich was uneventful.  I had taken an anti-anxiety pill, so I was only moderately terrified.  I sat next to a nice American couple in late middle age who had just finished two months of cruising around Europe.  They were thrilled that they didn't have to pay extra for beer on the flight.

I took another pill (washed down with a glass of white wine) before boarding my flight in Munich.  I was fading in and out of consciousness in my aisle seat when the nervous-looking young man next to me asked to get up the minute the fasten-seat-belts sign was turned off.  He came back a few minutes later, but then asked to get up again.  Finally he appeared with what looked like a glass filled with an effervescent antacid.

"Do you mind if we change seats?" he asked, in a thick French accent.  "I am very sick."

I greatly prefer the aisle seat, but I didn't want to have him stumbling over me to do whatever awful thing he needed to do.  I agreed.  A little while later, a flight attendant appeared at his side and started to ask him questions.  He took his pulse.  Then I overheard words that I knew could only mean trouble: "I have a pain in my chest".

A request for a doctor was made over the loudspeaker.  A forty-ish German man appeared with the flight attendant.  He was very serious, as Germans are.  It was determined that the young man's English wasn't good enough, so a younger French guy (who was adorable) was retrieved to translate.  I fell asleep for a bit, and when I woke up, the seat next to me was empty.  I fell asleep again.

I woke up a short while later because I could hear that we were decelerating.  I looked at the flight map monitor.  We had just flown past the Netherlands, but we were no longer continuing on the same trajectory.  Then, an announcement from the captain.  I understood the German but waited for the English: "Ladies and Gentleman, because of a sick passenger, we will need to land at the Amsterdam airport."

The anxiety-reducing effects of the pills I had taken had worn off, and now I just felt nauseated.  We descended, dumped our fuel into the ocean, and landed.  Extremely blond and tall medics boarded the plane and removed the young man, who vomited repeatedly as he was taken up the aisle.  The German doctor and the adorable French kid went with him.  I was feeling awful myself, witnessing this spectacle, and with the motion sickness and hangover from the anti-anxiety pills.  Finally the doctor and the adorable Frenchman returned, rubbing their hands with alcohol-based hand sanitizer as they retook their seats.  We refueled and took off again.  The pilot announced, "There have been some questions about whether the sick passenger had swine flu.  Let me assure you that he did not.  He had a heart problem."  I found this unlikely: the kid couldn't have been over 25, and was probably much younger, and even though vomiting is possible with a heart attack, it is not common.  I guessed that he probably had winter vomiting disease or food poisoning or some sort of anxiety attack.  But saying that the passenger had a heart problem was probably the best way to keep the rest of us from grumbling.  Also, it was good to know a way to make the plane land before reaching its scheduled destination, should I ever feel the need.

I didn't move to the aisle seat, since I couldn't imagine that anyone would come sit there, but after a while I emerged from unconsciousness to see that the flight attendants were placing a woman there.  I was too groggy to protest.  She looks like the type of person who listens to National Public Radio and brings her own canvas bags when she shops at the organic food shop, I thought, but not the fun and happy variant of this kind of person.  I was not having good luck.  The next time I awoke, she was sitting on the floor, cradling her head in her arms on the seat.  This is not an approved way to sit during a transatlantic flight, I thought.  I considered saying, "That's where the removed passenger got sick, right where you are laying your face."  But I didn't.

When I landed in Newark, I called my parents and told them about the flight diversion.  They had had a bad experience on their flight as well, fighting with a crazy American woman about their seats.  They had flown through Heathrow airport.  Then my father said, "When we were waiting for our flight from London to the U.S., I started looking around for you... For a second I had forgotten that you weren't with us anymore.  Mom and I really missed you!"

I developed a temporary breathing and swallowing problem upon hearing this.

"So," he continued, "we want to go to Cornwall next spring.  Any interest in coming with us?"

How could I refuse?  I couldn't.

Comments

[hughman]

marvelous. as always.

i would perhaps have headaches from thinking so much. they might, in fact, cause me to feel nauseous on the plane home. thankfully yours only result in your expansive writing. the ending was particularly poignant and generous. thanks.

[Bourgeois Nerd]

Some day, when I finally go to Italy, I'm using this marvelous travelogue as my guide.

That disgusting Roman fish paste was called "garum" and the mind reels to contemplate them building an empire on the back of rotted fish smothered over everything.

[R J Keefe]

Now that you've been to EUR (how I envy you!), you must see Antonioni's "L'eclisse," prontissimo!

As for rotted fish sauce: Worcestershire

[Stan]

Cornwall? In the Spring? Good grief, in spades!

Thanksgiving at the monastery on the Hudson. Packed, but no sign of the former governor of New Jersey.

[Carl]

Garum or liquamen was probably very similar to the delicious and useful fish sauces of Southeast Asia, e.g., nuoc mam, nam pla, etc. I think you'd like it.
(And thank you for another marvelous travel essay.)

[nagaijin]

By coincidence, I'm in the midst of reading Gore Vidal's early novel, The Judgment of Paris (half of which is set, oddly enough, in Rome), and was also planning to read Julian sometime soon. I always make the mistake of reading your blog entries before attempting to write mine, and then I give up on mine because there's no way I can match (let alone top) your wonderful style. Sigh.

[henry]

I know why you are doing it, but, for the love of God, repent! My German heart and soul (yes, we have those!) are bleeding, my recordings of the Winterreise are getting worn out, I am plunged into despair and driven to write wildly romantic and very dark poetry!

Cornwall sounds like fun. Tristan & Isolde is required preparatory listening!

[Marc]

Indeed, marvelous.

[Boomer]

Marvelous post. (Sorry, I couldn't help it.) We just returned from Rome yesterday and also had an amazing trip. Thanks also to both you and Faruq for many of the suggestions on things to see.

The men are GORGEOUS! Especially the local law enforcement officers in Firenze...and their cute little uniforms made them look especially hot.

The only thing that dissappointed me was not being able to see the columns of Jupiter at San Giovanni due to an ill-timed half day transit strike during which your phrase, "That's Italy" was invoked several times as well as when, upon arrival, it took 4.5 hours to retrieve our bags due to a ground crew strike at FCO...but truly "That's Italy!"

[jason]

"Up the stairs and to the right," he said, dismissively, yet sexily.

Sexy as in close to ask being tied up?

[jeph]

wow! i'm headed to rome next spring..this has me more excited than ever. thanks for such a well-written entry.

can you share the name of your hotel/hostel, if you would indeed recommend it?

[father Tony]

Eric, what a delicious account.
Al Pompiere was popular when I was a Roman way back in the 70s. It was one of 40 restaurants in which we perpetually cycled ourselves. I think it had a cellar with a vaulted brick ceiling?
The pastor of Santa Cecilia was a friend of mine in those years. He ran a program for local boys. An Italian Bing Crosby/ Bells of St Mary. You made excellent choices about what to see, and your account stirred the embers of my love for Rome. I think that my allergy to Catholicism has worn off sufficiently so that I can return there. But as we all know, going back to a place you once loved is difficult. On my last day of four years living there, as the taxi took me to the airport, I pressed my hand against the glass of the rear window and cried audibly.

[hostel jerusalem]

My sister lives in Rome, so I get to go there at least twice a year. My husband and I have fallen in love with this city. Our Favorite place is Piazza Navona, I don't know why, there`s something magical about that place (for us anyway:))beautiful post!