One Summer Day in Rome

by Mark Lamprell

  Alice faltered then smiled to cover her loss of nerve.

  A series of responses tumbled out over each other.

  “Well, hello,” said one boy with a posh accent and a Prussian-blue backpack.

  “Let’s make babies together,” said a large oaf wearing a coral-pink polo shirt.

  “Lads,” chided a guy in a pea-green T-shirt.

  “She has no idea what I’m saying,” said Pink Polo. He turned to Alice. “Do you, sweetie?”

  Alice pressed on with her fake Italian accent, “I in big hurry. I go before you?”

  “You can go wherever you want if I get to look at that spectacular arse,” said Pink Polo.

  Green T-shirt thumped Pink Polo on his shoulder.

  “Of course. You go right ahead,” said Slick Rick to Alice.

  “Ow, ow, ow,” complained Pink Polo.

  Alice stepped up to the counter. A woman wearing a navy-blue uniform and a lot of orange-tinted makeup said, “Dimmi.” Alice wasn’t exactly sure what this meant. She wavered; her bravado fractured. She was also aware of being ogled from behind and suddenly felt a surge of fury for putting herself in this position. Her capacity for artifice abandoned her, and she explained plainly in English that she had just come from New York and her backpack was missing.

  Alice knew that the boys were listening to her American accent. The jig was up. She hoped they wouldn’t be too angry or seek any kind of weird retribution. She resolved to apologize for deceiving them and be on her way.

  “Can you give me a description of the bag?” said the orange-tinted lady, as comfortable in English as she was in Italian. At that moment, the man from the carousel appeared in Alice’s peripheral vision. “Signorina, è suo questo zaino?”

  She turned. He was holding her avocado-and-lime backpack.

  As the man helped her strap the backpack on, Alice took care to keep her eyes averted. She thanked him and finally turned to face the faces of those she had deceived. To her surprise, she was greeted by admiration, not accusation. These guys clearly thought she was the bomb. New Alice seized the reigns from Old Alice. She smiled broadly at her audience and said throatily, as if she smoked fifty cigarettes a day, “Good luck with your bags, boys. And have a nice day.” This time, she did not sashay away. She sauntered.

  In the arrivals hall, she began to calculate the costs and complications of taxi, bus, and train transport into Rome when it struck her what New Alice would do: hitchhike, of course. She had never hitchhiked in her life, but suddenly it seemed like a thrilling and appropriate next step.

  Declining the offers of several heartbroken taxi drivers, Alice made her way out of the airport on foot. An abrupt end to sidewalks and pedestrian access soon made it very clear that this was an irregular undertaking. She found herself standing on the cracked asphalt shoulder of a four-lane highway. Being a native New Yorker, Alice was accustomed to edgy driving, but she had never seen anything like this. Without any regard for the orthodoxy of the dividing lines, cars sped and swerved around one another, drivers honking and gesticulating. For one terrifying moment, six cars drove parallel to one another in the four lanes, millimeters from shredding one another’s side mirrors.

  New Alice consulted Old Alice, and together they decided it would not be admitting defeat to retreat at this point. Waiting for a break in the traffic, Alice saw five motorini putt-putting slowly toward her. Judging from their pace and a certain lack of technique, she concluded they must be a group of learner-drivers.

  The first driver passed her and waved. It was Slick Rick, looking as surprised to see her as she was to see him. The other British boys passed in quick succession. The last of the drivers was Pea Green T-shirt, apparently so astounded by the vision of Alice that he literally could not take his eyes off her, causing him to miss the crucial fact that his compatriots were slowing in front of him.

  Alice suddenly saw what was about to happen and began to point and motion wildly. Pea Green T-shirt turned and saw what Alice was seeing: his stationary friends, screaming, shouting, and waving, directly in his path. A surge of adrenaline prompted him to squeeze the brakes so hard that his motorino’s tires locked. In a screeching puff of rubbery smoke, the bike stopped. The boy gripped the handlebars, but his feet lost their purchase and momentum propelled them skyward, as if he had been catapulted from the saddle of a bucking bronco. Several structures in his brain simultaneously registered that the inevitable resolution of his trajectory would be to slam directly into his friends. He gripped tighter to the fulcrum of his handlebars, injecting all the will he could muster into reconfiguring the physics of this rapidly unfolding equation. His feet stopped midair, almost directly above his hands. Ceasing his trajectory, he bounced back onto the seat. There was a moment of silence. Clapping and cheering ensued.

  Alice shouted at the boys to get off the road as a massive semitrailer led a fresh cluster of traffic toward them. The boys scrambled to the edge of the asphalt. Alice lugged her backpack over to them. Pea Green seemed particularly pale, but in a bluster of chortles and backslaps they assured her that they were all hunky-dory.

  Slick Rick offered Alice a ride into town, and she accepted. She explained that she would only be staying overnight in Rome before catching a train to Florence the following afternoon and had hence chosen a backpacker hostel near the Termini station. Rick, who professed to know Rome like the back of his hand, consulted a map and located her hostel. He pronounced that the area around her hostel was dirty and dangerous and suggested she try to get a room in the “authentic” old-school guesthouse where they were staying.

  It flashed through Old Alice’s head that this could be part of an elaborate revenge strategy, but New Alice looked at the five pairs of puppy-dog eyes waiting eagerly for her response and decided to risk it. Moments later, the small fleet of motorini was back on the road with Rick bringing up the rear, Alice clinging tightly to his torso. The wind whipped her hair around her face. It was the first time she had ever been on a motorbike, and she found it completely and utterly thrilling.

  “You okay?” Rick shouted to her.

  “Fine!” she shouted back, smiling so broadly her jaw ached.

  “You can hold on tighter if you like. I won’t break.”

  Alice liked him flirting, however tame it was. On reflection, she liked the flirting precisely because it was tame; somehow this lack of genuine frisson meant she was not being disloyal to Daniel.

  “How come just one day in Rome?” said Rick.

  “I’m meeting someone tomorrow night in Florence,” she answered.

  “Male or female?”

  “I know it’s hard to tell but I’m female,” said Alice, hijacked by New Alice.

  “No, your friend in Florence.”

  Not a great sense of humor, thought Alice. “Sorry? What was that?”

  “I was asking about your friend in Florence.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I was…” Rick gave up shouting into the wind. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You staying here long?”

  “A week or so. To see the buildings. We’re architects,” he said, perking up again.

  “You mean architecture students?”

  “Yeah, students,” said Rick, digesting the unintended put-down.

  He had asked for it, of course. It was obvious they were students—scruffy, foul-smelling, backpacking students. They were all on summer break from the University of Sheffield and had left it too late to book accommodations in San Sebastián with the other half of their architecture chums. An opportunity had come up in Rome because, fortunately or unfortunately, Rick’s sister’s fiancé had balked at marrying her four weeks before the wedding, and Rick’s sister’s Roman bachelorette event was suddenly canceled, leaving rooms available near Piazza Navona. It wasn’t a Spanish beach party, but at least it was Latin.

  “Maybe we could meet up in Florence,” said Rick.

  Alice smiled into the wind. “Let’s see how we do in Rome before we make any major
commitments,” she said.

  They drove in silence for a while. When Alice turned again, she discovered Pea Green riding parallel, watching her. It startled her. Not because he was watching but because there was something deeply familiar about him. Why had she not noticed this before? Pea Green smiled and waved. She waved back but, unable to hold his gaze, turned away and looked over Rick’s shoulder. In the lane next to them, directly in front of Pea Green, the brake lights of a black limousine lit up. For the second time in less than twenty minutes, Alice motioned madly to Pea Green. He turned back to the road and, clocking the slowing vehicle, swerved around it, narrowly avoiding a collision with Rick and Alice.

  Jesus, thought Pea Green, I’ve nearly crashed twice and fallen in love with the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my entire life. What a day.

  FIVE

  Saint Christopher and the Vicolo del Polverone

  WE DO NOT SUFFER BY ACCIDENT.

  —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

  Inside the black limousine, the Sardinian-born driver, Jean-Paul (whose mother had been a devoted Francophile), glanced in the rearview mirror at his two wealthy American tourists. Each stared bleakly out their respective windows, which gave him a chance to gawk at them. Despite the fact that they were obviously unhappy, Jean-Paul felt quite satisfied that they belonged together. They were a handsome pair, these two—they matched, and not in the creepy brother-and-sister style of some couples; they would make nice babies. It occurred to him that he would quite like to watch them making babies.

  Jean-Paul glanced apologetically at the small medallion of Saint Christopher bobbing just below his rearview mirror, hoping that the saint had not intercepted his lascivious thought. Of course he knew this was ridiculous—Saint Christopher knew everything he was thinking—but instead of submitting to his default guilt position, Jean-Paul felt a small flash of rebellion. Christopher had been letting him down all morning, leading him from one traffic jam to another; maybe it was time to remind the holy big cheese who was driving whom around Roma.

  In the backseat, Meg watched the ancient ruins whizzing by, planning the menu she would have served had her sixteen-year-old son, Campbell, submitted to her plans for a sit-down six-course birthday dinner on the tennis court for 120 rather than the small Australian-themed barbecue by the pool on which they eventually compromised.

  The shape of the large field that they were passing penetrated her consciousness. “Circus Maximus,” she said to no one in particular. The elongated oval-ended racetrack was almost obscured by overgrown grass, but she could still imagine the thundering of the charioteers. She turned to Alec and registered the slight sagging of skin around his jaw. No point mentioning it; he’d never agree to a nip and tuck. She was going to say, “This is what I love about Rome. You can drive through two thousand years of history like it’s an everyday event.” But she didn’t. Instead she said, “Maybe we should try to find that hotel with the kissing concierge. What was his name?”

  By the time Alec turned from his window, she was looking out hers.

  “Bronco,” he said.

  “Bronco!” she exclaimed to her own reflection.

  “Please don’t pretend to forget. It’s extremely irritating.”

  Ah, we’re playing it like this, she thought.

  In the driver’s seat, Jean-Paul was also extremely irritated. He had already turned off the Via Appia Nuova to avoid a traffic jam, only to get stuck in a crawl on the Via Appia Pignatelli. Now he was having to duck and weave through traffic one might expect in peak hour but not in the middle of the day. Up ahead, cars were grinding to a halt, unraveling his brilliant plan to skirt around this side of the Centro Storico. Jean-Paul avoided looking directly at the saint dangling in the peripheral vision of his left eye, but clearly someone had heard someone else thinking things they didn’t mean to think and were now being punished for thinking. Well, he (Jean-Paul) wasn’t taking it. Particularly from someone who wasn’t a real saint anymore anyway.

  Abandoning his plans for the Via Luigi Petroselli, Jean-Paul changed gears, threw a left and a right, and roared victoriously onto the Lungotevere that shed its name for a new one every block or so as it curled its way along the banks of the river Tiber. Meg noted the Tiber on her left and could hear the roar of the current as the river split into rapids around both sides of Tiber Island. They were a little off-course, weren’t they? Ah, what did it matter? She had already paid for the limousine online; this was on the driver’s dime, not hers. She was happy to enjoy the sights. And besides, she was not going to be distracted and let Alec’s mean little comment fall by the wayside. She knew he had been waiting for her to respond and had deliberately left him hanging in the air.

  Finally, she turned and, smiling at a point slightly above the top of his head, said, “Are you sure it was Bronco?”

  “You know what his name was,” he said.

  “I prefer you when you’re jealous. You get this really interesting edge.”

  “This is not an interesting edge,” he replied. “This is fear of death.”

  Indeed, Jean-Paul was driving very fast, even for a Roman. When the traffic once again slowed before him it was the last straw; Christopher was clearly toying with him, and he would not be toyed with. So he peeled the limousine down the Via Giulia, running a red light and beeping at two young nuns in battleship-gray habits who had stepped onto the pedestrian crossing. The sisters leaped backward onto the sidewalk. Ha! thought Jean-Paul, smiling into his rearview mirror.

  Catching his eye, Alec said, “Slow down please, driver.” And then, recalling their initial exchange in broken English, searched for some Italian words that he hoped meant slowly or softly and added, “Dolci, dolci.”

  Why is he saying “sweets”? Jean-Paul wondered. Did the American signore want to stop at a bakery? There was a very good forno not far in Campo de’ Fiori. Without slowing, he turned to look at Alec. “Signore?”

  Meg was no less concerned that the driver had completely turned away from the road to address them, but her pleasure in Alec’s fear was greater than her own fear. Smiling at her reflection, she said helpfully, “You appear to be ordering dessert.”

  Alec signaled frantically at Jean-Paul, gesturing in staccato circles. “Regardez la rue! La rue!”

  Making a mental note to treasure this moment always, Meg said, “I don’t think he speaks French.”

  This was correct. If only Jean-Paul’s mother had been with them, she would have been able to translate perfectly.

  Realizing his error, Alec scrambled for some more Italian. “Um. Via. La via dolce!”

  Finally, Jean-Paul turned back to the road but continued the conversation in the rearview mirror. “Ahh. La Dolce Vita! Si, signore, they make this film in Roma. Not here. On the other side, the other side!”

  Alec looked across at his wife; she was limp with laughter.

  “Help me,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t be such a baby. This is how everyone drives here. When in Rome, you know.”

  “Signora?” asked Jean-Paul, assuming she had been talking to him.

  “My husband was saying how he enjoys your driving. He likes going fast.”

  “Oh, fast, vroom, vroom,” said Jean-Paul. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Faster?”

  “Oh, yes, please,” said Meg.

  Jean-Paul put his foot down; Meg felt the exhilarating acceleration; Alec looked slowly, murderously across at his wife.

  Up ahead, a busload of French Jesuits stopped and started to disembark, smack-bang in the middle of the Via Giulia. There was no way around them without running over a few, an idea that Jean-Paul entertained for the briefest of moments. He knew that Christopher was behind this latest obstacle and frankly found the gaggle of black-frocked priests in white collars a tad predictable. Not to be outdone by his meddlesome saint, he suddenly turned the wheel, and the limousine’s tires squealed across the cobblestone as they roared in to narrow Vicolo del Polverone.

  This is w
here disaster struck.

  Thirty meters up the Vicolo del Polverone on the left-hand side, a dusty blacksmith’s window displayed a beautifully forged baby’s cradle and a set of portable iron steps, ideal for accessing the top of a tall bookcase. Next door, a cavernous store sold vintage furniture, mostly art deco, but with some pieces dating back to pre-Christian times.

  At that moment they were taking delivery of a large Chinese urn of uncertain and possibly scandalous provenance. The current owner of the urn, who identified herself only as “Maria” to the owner of the vintage store, had inherited it from her father, who claimed it was a gift from Princess Orietta Pogson Doria Pamphilj. Maria’s father had worked as a domestic, specializing in hand polishing (with beeswax harvested from the family estate) the floor of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj that took up an entire city block on the Via del Corso in the center of Rome. One day, in 1956 or 1963—Maria’s father had forgotten which—when part of the roof collapsed after a heavy snowfall, Maria’s father worked tirelessly through the night (with the other servants presumably) to clean up and rescue what was left of the broken antiquities below. As a sign of her undying gratitude, the princess presented him with a large blue-and-white Ming Dynasty urn.

  Even as a little girl, Maria felt there was something fishy about this story. As an adult she suspected her father had probably pilfered it in the chaos after the ceiling collapsed; it would not have been out of character. All these years later, more than half a century after it had been “gifted,” the urn remained uninsured. This puzzled Maria until it came into her hands, and she realized that to insure it, she would need to have it appraised—and if she had it appraised, certain unorthodoxies about its provenance might be established. So the giant urn sat in a corner of Maria’s small apartment until, like many of her contemporaries, she started to feel the financial pinch of living in Rome and decided to sell it. Discreetly.

  Which is how it came to be carried from a van by a sweating, round-bellied courier, just as a black limousine screeched around a corner and hurtled toward it.