Root (31 page)

***

The traffic was horrendous, but we finally
reached a place called Termini, which sounded kind of fatal. I had
exact no address for Karla, only the vague sense that she lived
within walking distance of the Vatican, since she had said she
often attended mass under that alabaster dove. So I headed off on
foot in that general direction, thinking I’d save a little cash by
not taking the subway.

Rome dazzled me right off the bat. The Termini
area was a little blah, but I was soon cutting through alleys and
plazas that looked like something out of a movie set. It was so
unlike Central Florida or Ohio. I loved it.

I stopped in front of a few restaurants and
looked at the menus posted by their doors. The stuff I saw on
people’s plates looked amazing, but the prices made me lose my
appetite. If only those Euros didn’t count for half again as much
as a dollar, maybe I would have sprung for a bowl of pasta. For now
I kept walking, consulting the free map I had picked up from an
information booth at the Termini.

The sun was getting low. I came to this square
dotted with several fountains. These Italians were big on
fountains.

There were tourists all over the place,
including lots of kids my age or slightly older. I got the feeling
though, that most of them weren’t nearly as worried about their
money, from the looks of all those shopping bags and the way they
didn’t blink at shelling out the Euros for those overpriced bottles
of water from the refreshment carts.

The map told me I was getting closer to the
Vatican. I was about to turn left when I reached another plaza with
yet another fountain and steps that seemed to go on and on up a
series of terraces. I couldn’t help but be drawn up to the top,
even though it was the opposite direction from where I wanted to
go.

I scanned the faces sitting on the steps as I
went up, and they spanned the spectrum. There was a middle-aged
woman crying and being consoled by a young woman I assumed to be
her daughter. There were couples making out. Young men drinking
beer. Old men trying to catch their breath.

I didn’t stop until I reached the railing at
the top and there, down a long avenue brushed with shadow and
glinting in the late afternoon sun, was the dome that could only be
St. Peters Basilica—the very place that harbored the alabaster
window with the dove.

The thought of being so close to the real
Karla Raeth was enough to send me soaring over Rome.

Chapter 27:
Vaticano

From the heights above the Spanish Steps, I
could see these huge boulevards leading like spokes down to the
river and to the Vatican City beyond. For some reason, the sight
brought Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz to mind. Who was I?
Dorothy?

I trotted down those steps in triumph. I
hadn’t felt this glorious since before the whole depressing deal
with Dad and Mom and the house went down. It felt like I had
survived some trial by fire and emerged hardened and ready for the
next phase in life.

I hung a right at the fountain and made my way
down the long and wide Piazza di Spagna. Some sort of commotion was
going on around several islands of grass and palm trees edged by
curbing. Each island was crowded with little tents and protest
signs. Apparently, this was part of Occupy Roma.

It didn’t look like much. There were people
banging away on laptops, handing out food to whoever wanted it, and
another bunch standing in a circle banging on drums. I stood beside
the other tourists and gawked for a bit before continuing
on.

I weaved my way through and around the
throngs, cruising all the way to the river into the blinding sun
without stopping. I crossed the Tiber just as the river fell under
shadow. I knew it was the Tiber from the plaque in the middle of
the bridge—the Ponte Umberto.

All these ancient marble arches and glittery
domes made my head flutter with the unreality of being here. The
place seemed so ethereal and surreal, even more so than Root. Each
time I stepped it felt like my feet were not quite landing on the
ground.

There again was that dome in the distance—St.
Peter’s. I recognized it from a picture on a tourist map I had
rescued from a trash barrel. Karla had said that she lived only a
few blocks away from St. Peter’s Square, which was called Piazza
San Pietro on the map. I decided to focus my search on a couple
neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the Vatican City.

I hurried along while there was still light,
coming up on this huge fortress-looking thing called the Castel
Sant’angelo. When I came to the next intersection and crossed the
road, there was that dome again, looming ever larger.

I saw some people on the corner make the sign
of the cross, so I did the same, for good luck and to blend in, if
nothing else.

The apartments in the few residential
buildings I passed on the main road had huge doors, lavish
balconies and picture windows. They looked like places bankers and
business executives might live—way too upscale for Karla. Something
about her made me doubt that she was a rich girl.

I turned up a small street past yet another
small church, until I found a street where the apartments looked
more humble, built on a more human scale.

My head threatened to flutter off my
shoulders. I suspected that some of my giddiness was due to low
blood sugar. I had to eat something, so I stepped into this
neighborhood pizza joint. My lack of Italian proved less of a
hurdle than expected, once I figured out their ass-backwards system
for paying for food.

I pointed at a couple of squares of cheese
pizza and they whisked them up, wrapped them in paper and ribbon as
if they were a birthday present, set a skinny can of Coke beside it
and then handed me a slip of paper that looked like a receipt. But
the big guy behind the counter refused my money, and when I went to
reach for the pizza, he yanked it away.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder and pointed
to a lady at a cash register behind me. I handed her the receipt
and a ten Euro note. She rang up the order and handed me back a
different slip along with some change. This was the ticket to free
up my gift-wrapped pizza. I walked out of that shop victorious,
feeling like I had mastered some arcane ritual.

So I went down the street, munching pizza and
systematically examining the names on every mailbox and doorbell in
the foyers and outer walls of each building, looking for
Raeths.

That pizza was gone before I had reached the
end of the block. And man, that crust made Sbarro’s taste like
sawdust. Even the Coke tasted better here, somehow less sweet than
the American stuff and much more effective at quenching my thirst.
I kind of liked this Roma place.

***

Street after street, building after building I
searched and found not a shred of luck. I couldn’t find a name
posted anywhere that was even close to Raeth. It was enough trouble
finding names on name plates that didn’t end in vowels.

I did buzz a Carla with a ‘C’ at one point,
just to be thorough, but he turned out to be a man whose brother’s
name was Andrea. Go figure.

I worked my way up another short block, all
the way to this major east-west thoroughfare between the castle and
the walls of the Vatican. It was starting to get dark. Though the
sidewalks were well-lighted, in some doorways I had to squint to
make out the writing on the mailboxes. I wish I had brought a
flashlight.

When I started, I was determined to find her
if it took all night, but now I was beginning to wonder if I had
badly miscalculated. Not every apartment was marked. Some buildings
had no names above the buzzers, only numbers.

So I had probably bypassed dozens of anonymous
apartments by now. Karla could be a needle living in a part of the
haystack that I never got to see. That realization made my stomach
bottom out.

I sat down to rest on a bench just outside the
walls of the Vatican, on a street called the Via Belvedere. It had
been dumb of me to assume I could just show up and find her without
an address.

If I could only get back to Root, I could
simply ask her. There, I knew where she lived.

But coming to Italy had raised the stakes,
Would she be more or less likely now to tell me where she
lived?

Why she had to play so coy with me, I didn’t
know. It didn’t seem fair. She knew I was risking my skin, coming
all this way.

I closed my eyes and invited those viny
tendrils to come and wrap me in a ball and take me away. And when I
felt something brush against my leg, I thought I had hit pay dirt,
but it was just someone’s cat strolling by.

Though, I was starting to feel discouraged, I
was a long way from abandoning all hope. Just being in Rome meant
there was the possibility if running into her simply by chance, and
as long as any shred of hope remained there would be no Root and no
Karla. Coming to Italy had trapped me in a vicious
cycle.

One would have thought that realization alone
would suffice to drive me down a spiral of despair. But something
was gumming up the works, and that something was that I was too
darned close to finding her. For all I knew I could be sitting in
her fucking neighborhood.

I still believed I could still find Karla here
in Rome. I would just need to try a different tact.

Chapter 28:
Bells

I was beginning to doze off on the bench when
some police showed up in a little blue and white car and shooed me
along. They were nice enough about it, though I couldn’t understand
a word they said.

I really needed a nap, though. With the time
difference it was only about six o’clock on the east coast, but I
was running on fumes.

I went down this narrow, cobbled street called
the Via dei Corridori. There were scooters and apartment buildings
to my left and what looked like a low castle wall with bricked-in
arches to my right. The wall looked just like the castle walls I
used to doodle when I was eight, fighting slots and all. It was
weird seeing plastic dumpsters juxtaposed against all that medieval
architecture.

The Via met up with this larger street that
curved around a massive set of columns that opened into a large
open space just beyond. At this point I was just looking for a
place to crash. I crossed the street, passed through the columns
and … whoa! There was this giant obelisk in the middle. This was
freaking St. Peter’s Square.

I sat down on some steps and just gawked,
blown away by the immensity of it. There were scads of people
wandering about. I wondered, what were the odds that one of them
was Karla? I would have prayed if I thought that had any
possibility of increasing my chances, but instead I just sat there
in a daze, hunting through the swarms of faces for the one I
sought.

I saw another policeman roust some bums on the
other end of the steps and I knew I was going to be next, so I
retreated, looking for someplace a little less public and exposed.
By that point, even the dumpsters on the Via dei Corridori were
looking attractive. I found an alley leading to a courtyard with
some pocket gardens packed with parked Vespas.

I spread some paper on the ground and cozied
up to a rosemary bush, only to be awakened a few minutes later by
the end of a broom handle that some witch of a lady jabbed into my
ribs.

I moved on to the next courtyard, found
another space in the deep shadows beneath a broken street lamp and
did the same. My arms were my pillow and this time the locals left
me blessedly alone.

***

I was awakened by bells. Massive bells. Earth
shuddering bells. There was an old woman watering flowers on the
balcony above me, sending withering glances my way. I rolled over,
my face coming inches from some dog poop and rose up. I smiled and
waved at her before moving on, eyes crusted and all groggy. I’m
sure I looked drunker than shit, though in truth I was more sober
than a nun.

I couldn’t even see the sun yet, but I knew it
was up because though the buildings remained dark, they were
silhouetted against a brightening sky. Street lamps flickered off
as I wobbled down the alley, heading to the St. Peter’s Square and
the source of the ringing.

I found a fountain with a drinking spout. It
seemed sketchy to drink from such a place, but I had seen other
people doing it, so I rinsed my mouth and swallowed.

While I was at it, I dunked my head and rinsed
my hair, wishing I had some soap. One of these days I would have to
bite the bullet and find a cheap hotel room if such a thing existed
in Rome, otherwise I wasn’t going to be able to tolerate being in
my own skin. Being a clean freak and homeless was a frustrating
combination.

I had to pee really bad, but there were too
many people around to just let loose on some wall. I saw a crowd
lining up to get into St. Paul’s so I joined them, figuring they
might have public restrooms in there.

I was wondering how steep the admissions
charge would be when saw there was no one selling tickets. The line
was just for security. They were checking purses and having people
empty their pockets.