Clara Callan (22 page)

We were glad to be on our own and so we visited the famous chapel in the Vatican, standing in an enormous lineup behind German tourists who were growling away and eating ice cream. Nora is taken with all this Catholic art, sentimental about the stained windows and statuary; she was forever lighting candles or kneeling at yet another plaster Virgin Mary, looking appealingly pious in her kerchief and sundress.

“What are you praying for, Nora?” I asked. “Anything special?” She bristled at that.

“Are you going to be sarcastic too? Don’t I get enough of that from him?”

I said I was sorry and I was.

In Keats’s house in the Piazza de Spagna, we climbed the narrow marble stairs behind some English schoolgirls who were chattering and giggling, hushed at by their teacher. We stared at the books and the manuscripts in their glass cases, and gazed at the stone fireplace with its strange carved heads. Finally, we stood by the deathbed and listened to our guide, a tall homely Englishwoman about my age, describe Keats’s final hours: the poet clutching Fanny Brawne’s cornelian, sipping milk brought by the faithful Severn, watching the winter sunlight move across the walls, listening to the voices from the street and the splashing of the fountain in the square. Then the cold
sweat clinging to his brow, the mucous-clotted throat, the approach of the final darkness.

“Lift me up — I am dying — I shall die easy — don’t be frightened — thank God it has come.”

Through the waning afternoon light he lingered. But at four o’clock he heaved a sigh and departed this life
.

At the end of the Englishwoman’s recitation, many of the schoolchildren were in tears, and I was not far from them myself, marvelling at the woman’s passion for this morbid house and the sad tale she was obliged to repeat for visitors each day. I wondered about her life in Rome; here in this ornate Catholic city with her long Protestant face, her tightly bound hair, the large white hands clasped to her breast as she spoke, the shapeless violet-coloured dress. Where did she return to at the end of the day? Did she live with retired parents or in a room alone with her books and a gas ring?

In the sun-splashed piazza, we again encountered the clamour of life and the young English girls, released from the gloomy spell cast by the guide, soon forgot their tears and busied themselves taking snapshots of each other by the fountain. Nora and I had lunch at a trattoria across the street. To please her I had a glass of wine.

“I’m so glad you came along, Clara. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been on my own.”

I was glad I had come along too, and I was happy sitting there with my sister, sipping wine and looking out at the square in the Roman sunlight. From our table, we could see the entrance to Keats’s house and we watched the Englishwoman come out and lock the door. I suppose it was her lunch hour. She stood by the doorway in her awful violet dress. Then a young man came by on a bicycle and stopped in front of her. He was twenty-five or so, and handsome enough for a painter’s model, though poorly dressed in an ill-fitting brown suit that looked soiled. He wore cheap yellow shoes and bicycle clips and a “berretto,” a kind of tam that seems popular here with working men. He and the Englishwoman embraced and kissed.

Nora (astonished): “Will you look at that?”

Myself (equally astonished): “Yes. Who would have guessed it?”

The Englishwoman was now sitting on the crossbar and the young man began to wheel her through the crowd. As he peddled away, I caught a glimpse of bare ankles above the ridiculous yellow shoes. Nora thought he must be some kind of gigolo.

“How else could a woman who looks like that attract such a handsome guy? She has to be paying him. I actually felt sorry for her when she was telling us about the poet.”

Nora sounded a bit vexed by it all. But I thought this: Perhaps she was paying him, but did it matter? Was she not having an adventure? At this very moment, she was confounding the expectations of others: of parents, of relatives, of schoolmates who had foreseen only a strict and virginal solitude for this woman. And I too felt chastened. Had I not also confined her to a room with only books and a gas ring? Or evenings alone with aged parents? This homely Englishwoman had triumphed over all our presumptions and was now pursuing a life of romantic adventure, reminding me that things are never as they seem, and that in fact we know very little about the lives of others.

Just in and glad to be alone after a tense evening among L.M. and his Roman acquaintances. It began well with a good dinner near the famous Trevi Fountain. L.M. had invited a fellow American named Donald Packard. He has lived in Rome for years and is an expert on Italian Renaissance painting. He writes articles for art magazines and teaches at some kind of academy. Mid-forties, small and finely made, almost delicate, with a head of bright yellow hair which I’m afraid I stared at from time to time; it was so unusual, and it took me half the evening to see that it was a wig. An outlandish effeminate man with extravagant mannerisms and a cruel tongue. His friend was a handsome young Italian (did all foreigners have such companions in
Rome?) This Gino or Giorgio said little but seemed amused by us all; I’m not sure he understood much of what was said.

There was a good deal of drinking. Cocktails and then bottle after bottle of wine. It is all this drink that transforms people into such monsters. At first everyone is amiable and courteous, but as the evening wears on and people empty the bottles, things begin to turn. A chance remark or imagined slight or perhaps just rancid cruelty sours the air. And so it was this evening. At first the yellow-haired man wanted to know all about Nora’s program and, of course, she went on and on about it. Nora couldn’t read the signs around the table (Nora can never read such signs), and so she could not see that she was turning into a source of amusement for Packard who grew increasingly satirical.

“And so now your poor listeners don’t know where you are? They still think you are wandering around the streets of this mythical little American town with this frightful amnesia occasioned by the fall down the library steps when, if the truth were told, you are right here in the Eternal City having a whale of a time. Have I got that much right so far?”

L.M. was enjoying this and it finally occurred to Nora that she was being mocked by this horrible little man. She grew increasingly flushed and so Packard turned on me, small white hand rotating the wineglass.

“And Lewis tells me you are a teacher in some hamlet in the wilds of Canada. I’ve never been to Canada, but I am told it’s very English and very Puritan. I have it on good authority that as a people you are suspicious of vice and who can blame you? Do you have any artists there? Should I know who they are?”

And plenty more of that sort of thing. The evening ended predictably with a quarrel between Nora and L.M. Gino/Giorgio put us into a taxi and we returned to the hotel on our own. A tipsy and tearful Nora. “It’s all turned out so badly, hasn’t it, Clara? And for months, I looked forward to this trip.”

Yesterday was grey and humid with the heat finally broken by an afternoon thundershower. Nora spent the day reading her book and I finished Keats’s letters. Wrote a poem about the Englishwoman and tore it up. Today, we visited the Coliseum and I tried to imagine the ancient city of Caesars, but I couldn’t make head nor tail of the ruins. L.M. busy interviewing various people and so we didn’t see much of him. Just as well.

Nora claims she is unwell from something she ate, but I suspect she wants to finish
GWTW
. So I ventured forth on my own. This afternoon the streets were almost empty, and as I walked I could hear radios from open windows, the shouts of a crowd and the excited voice of an announcer. People were listening to the Olympic Games from Berlin.

After I came out of the Pantheon, I went down several narrow streets, turning first one corner and then another. Of course, I lost my way and my little map was useless. A hundred feet or so ahead of me, two scruffy-looking men were leaning against a building, smoking. They watched me approach. I felt a little panic then and turned around. When I looked back, they were following me, sauntering along. One of them waved and shouted something, and I felt a little sick to my stomach. Quickened my pace. I could hear a radio in that narrow street, but there was no one else except the two men and myself. Perhaps I was too nervous about everything. After all, I was in the middle of the city; I could hear the traffic from a street nearby, yet I had no idea how to get there. Those two men had unsettled me. I was saved then by a flock of priests. I heard the strangest sound (turned out to be the rustle of their cassocks) and then they came around a corner, a dozen or so in their black robes and sandals. They looked anxious
to get past me, but I was trying my guidebook Italian
on them, and they stopped to stare in wonder at this woman in the street. Under their soup-plate hats, their faces were palely severe as I tried to explain my predicament. Finally one of them beckoned me to follow, and so I did, this way and that, around corners and down alleyways, myself among these men of God (their large hairy toes in the rope sandals), until at last we came out onto an avenue of restaurants and stores. A few moments later inside a taxi, I looked out and saw the two men. One of them held up a hand, arranging his fingers in what I took to be an obscene gesture. He was grinning. Just like Charlie. I turned to watch the priests as they crossed the wide avenue, the last one lifting the skirts of his robe as he stepped over a puddle. Carnality and piety side by side on this Roman street.

At dinner, L.M. was in good spirits. He had received a letter from the philosopher Santayana who was not in Rome at all, but in Paris for the summer. Nevertheless, he agreed to an interview in a few weeks and L.M. regards this as “a coup.” Santayana is a “cornucopia of knowledge.” In his excitement, L.M. is oddly appealing; to be so enthusiastic about ideas is an attractive trait in a man. Nora and I were both rapt listeners throughout the meal. “Santayana has a great mind. Have you read
The Last Puritan
?” I haven’t. “I can’t wait to hear what he has to say about Hitler and Mussolini. Stalin. The man knows his stuff.”

What a grimly bizarre adventure was in store for us today! It began after lunch when L.M. and Nora drank too much. L.M. started with martinis, which he claimed were the best he’d tasted since leaving New York. He went over to congratulate the bartender who had learned his trade in America. Everything was fine when we left the restaurant, but I sensed trouble ahead; L.M. was far too cocky and grand in the taxi. We looked out at the Piazzo Venetia, the Quirnale, etc., with L.M. providing commentary.

“All these flags. The symbolism is very powerful.”

“No more so,” said Nora, “than the States on the Fourth of July.”

To annoy her I’m sure, L.M. remarked on the Roman women. “Look at all these beautiful dames! I’ll bet they’re just dying to get laid by Il Duce. I’m told he has two or three different women a day. Takes them right in his office. On the floor apparently. Between meetings.”

I could see the driver’s eyes in the mirror looking back at us with dislike as we passed a yellow stucco mansion, its black iron gates patrolled by soldiers.

“The residence of Il Duce,” said the driver in a tone so respectful that even L.M. was silenced.

On the Corso, L.M. proposed that we walk to the Borghese Gardens, though Nora complained of heat and fatigue. It was early afternoon and the hottest part of the day, perhaps not the best time for walking, but L.M. would not be swayed. We had not gone far, however, when he stepped into a pile of fresh dog dirt. He had been pointing to the statue of a man on a horse, some heroic figure whom he was at pains to identify and lecture upon. Hence, the misstep. I watched repelled as one of his expensive shoes sank deeply into the thick brown excrement. Looking down at his shoe so enraged the man that he began to curse the Romans for their slovenly public habits. It is true that dog excrement is everywhere in Rome; you have to be careful where you place your feet. But L.M. had clearly taken leave of his senses. Using the curb to scrape away at his shoe, he shouted, “Bastards, sons of bitches. Look at this ____ing mess!” I have never heard anyone carry on so in public. Nora too was appalled, though she sounded
like some lady in a genteel English novel.

“Lewis, really! There is no need to behave like this. You’re making a scene.”

Crimson-faced with rage and drink, L.M. continued his tirade. “Look at the dog shit on the streets! It’s everywhere for Christ’s sake. A ____ing public disgrace! They brag about how progressive they are, but can’t clean up after their ____ing dogs.”

A shopkeeper in a long white apron came out from his doorway to
watch all this, and soon he was joined by others. A small man, dapper in suit and tie, startled us by speaking English. “You should not talk like that against our country,” he said to L.M. “You have no business talking like that. I have been to London. You also have the remains of the dogs on your streets.”

L.M. stared at the little man in disbelief. He looked about ready to throttle him. “I am not an Englishman, goddamn it, I am an American.”

“No difference,” said the little man. “You are a foreigner coming to our country and making the criticism. What is a little dirt on your shoe? You are making something of nothing.” He was growing stronger with indignation. “It is all unnecessary.”

L.M. could do no better than, “Mind your own ____ing business.”

Turning to the small crowd in front of the shop, the man began to explain what was going on, or I assumed that’s what he was doing. Then a policeman arrived, a brutal-looking fellow with an unattractive, pockmarked face. Frowning at everybody. What is going on here, etc., etc. He and the little man exchanged rapid-fire comments and then the policeman said something to L.M. in Italian. The latter waved him off and continued to scrape his shoe against the curbside. The policeman then began to scold L.M., and the little man inclined his head backwards, and with his right hand mimed the act of drinking. The crowd was made to understand that they were watching a drunken foreigner criticizing their city over nothing more than a little dog dirt. A good many glares directed at all three of us, and Nora was now tugging at L.M.’s arm. “Lewis, for goodness’ sake, let’s go. Just forget it and let’s get out of here.”