by Mark Rader
He wasn’t supposed to know anything about it, of course; he’d taken a vow to not find out. He understood the love of God, which he did feel powerfully, genuinely, sometimes in silence, or under the thrall of beauty, and in the general loving presence of his family. You were supposed to love one another like brothers and sisters, in the way of the earliest Christians, and he had done that too, felt that love in return—when saying Mass, when with his extended family, sometimes when hanging out with his classmates. But never had he been chosen and accepted or chosen and been accepted. God he now imagined more as Emerson’s transparent eyeball than a limitlessly expansive bearded man frowning down on him, arms crossed, from on high, as he had as a boy. A force something like a fire, a pilot light that never went off. Though a knowing fire, a force that kept tabs—that saw what others didn’t. So he knew to be careful when it came to Luca. He promised himself he would. It was true, on the other hand, that God had watched Norb do what he’d done too, and Norb wasn’t yet a pillar of salt. But Norb was straight. The critical difference.
The next day, on his way to meet Luca, the bus Paul was riding hit a Fiat trying to beat a red light. The car’s driver was a young Ethiopian guy, who emerged from the wreckage improbably unscathed, only to be assaulted by their bus driver, a bald middle-aged man, who cursed him—for endangering his passengers, for being a stupid immigrant—before kicking the man in the knee and ribs. A minute passed this way, the driver kicking, the Ethiopian holding up his arms and pleading for him to stop, until a cop on a motorcycle finally arrived and dragged their driver away by the arm. As Paul and the other passengers emerged from the bus, the cop told them to stay put. And yet, if he did, he’d be late to meet Luca, even later than he already was. So Paul slipped away, trotting down an alley even as he overheard some of his fellow passengers calling after him.
He was slick and itchy with sweat when he arrived, more than forty-five minutes late, and resigned to Luca having already left. Walking quickly despite his certainty that every step was beside the point, he felt angry at the Ethiopian man for his carelessness, then angry at himself for not bringing extra money in case of an emergency so he could have hailed a cab, then vaguely guilty that he hadn’t stopped the bus driver before the cop showed up. But as soon as he caught sight of Luca, sitting on the bench they’d agreed to meet at, arms slung over the back, all of his dark thoughts evaporated and he felt only relief.
Up close, Luca’s blue T-shirt was dark with sweat at the armpits, and there were thatchy green stains on the knees of his white jeans.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Paul said.
“I was just about to leave,” Luca said. “I figured you’d stood me up.”
“I would never stand you up.” He explained what happened: the accident, the assault, his long walk over.
“So that’s why you’re so sweaty,” Luca said with a smirk, glancing down at his chest.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I take it you weren’t hurt in the crash.”
“No, I’m fine. Sweaty but fine.” Paul took a big breath and smiled; how nice that so quickly they’d turned disaster into a joke. “I was worried you wouldn’t be here.”
“I was going to leave in five minutes,” Luca said. “Good thing you walked so fast.” He smiled back. “So, since we seem to be without a bocce set, want to grab a drink instead?”
Paul said he did, he just didn’t have any money.
“That’s fine,” Luca said, waving his excuse away. “My treat.”
The place Luca led them to was nearly empty: two German couples, an old man with an enormous wart on his nose, reading the newspaper, and them. Luca ordered a Campari and soda, Paul ordered a glass of the house wine, and for a while they talked about their families. Luca was the baby, the youngest by eight years. “An oopsie baby,” he said in English. He had two sisters, one who had left the country right after high school and worked as a stewardess; the other was married with four kids in Sicily. His father had fought in World War II and had left their mother when Luca was four for the mistress with whom he had a daughter, his half sister, on the other side of the city. His mother had never agreed to a divorce—holding out was the last bit of power she had. And she still lived in the apartment he’d grown up in, in the southeast suburbs; managed a dress shop; and, other than going to and from work, rarely left the house. No other men since then. He’d lived there, he said, until he was nineteen.
“You must be close with her then, being the only child for all those years.”
“We were, yes,” he said. “But now we don’t speak.”
“What? Why?”
He cleared his throat and shifted back in his seat. “She turned me away. She thinks I’m a bad person.”
“How is that possible?” Paul said.
“It’s complicated,” Luca said, picking at the cuticle of his thumb with his pointer finger—a nervous tic. “Family stuff.” He squinted one eye. “How about you? What’s your family like?” Sidestepping the subject, just like that.
Paul described the farm he’d grown up on, his mother, his father, Britta. He’d planned to talk about seminary life a little, but Luca wanted to know more about back home. Was it a big farm? A small farm? What kind of animals?
“It must have been nice,” Luca said. “All that space to yourself.”
“I guess it was,” Paul said. “But it wasn’t an easy life. If things didn’t go right, there was nobody to fix it but you. And the work never stopped. My parents have taken a vacation maybe three times in thirty-five years.”
“That’s very American, no?” Luca said. “Nose to the headstone,” he said in English, “right?”
Paul laughed. “Nose to the grindstone. You’re close.”
“And your sister?”
“She’s a little like you and your friends. A free spirit. I’m a little concerned about her, to be honest.”
“And me? You’re concerned about me then too?”
“No,” Paul said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Why are you concerned about her?”
“I just don’t want her to get hurt. She sometimes thinks she’s tougher than she is.”
Luca downed the last of his drink. This answer seemed to satisfy him. “So you never wanted to fall in love and get married then, I guess?”
Here Paul looked at him closely. Luca seemed tentative, curious, unaware of where they both stood. It was disappointing: he would have preferred if they could have understood each other completely already.
“I don’t feel it was what I was put here to do,” he said. “I feel I have a different calling.” See, Norb, he thought. See how that works?
“So you’ve never kissed a girl?” Luca asked.
Paul was used to this by now: cousins’ kids were full of the same questions, which of course were apologized away by their parents. Though the parents tended not to leave until they’d heard his answer either.
“Just one. Sally McPherson, my third cousin. It was at a family reunion. But it was against my will.”
Luca laughed, fulfilling the point of the deflection.
“I’m sure you’ve had many girlfriends,” Paul then found himself saying, thinking, A face like yours.
Luca sized him up for a moment. “No. No girlfriends.”
“Really?” Paul said. “The way you look?”
Luca looked at him and blushed. Paul felt his own neck get hot as if in response.
“No,” he said. “None.”
For a while, the noises around them seemed a little louder, as if someone had turned a radio dial to the right. The warty old man coughed up phlegm. A German woman shook her head no but said, “Ja, ja, ja.” Luca avoided Paul’s eyes.
“So what do you do for fun?” Luca finally asked. “Other than play bocce and pretend to read books.”
“That’s about it. Movies sometimes. Actual reading sometimes too.”
“My roommates are having a party tomorrow night,” Luca said. “You
should come.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“Why not? Are parties not allowed?”
“No,” Paul said. “It’s not that.”
“Then why not? We’re friends now, aren’t we? Yes?”
“Sure.” It was alarming, Luca’s saying it this way. But it was also a relief. A new friend. He was right: Why not just call it what it was? Fast-forward to that being clear?
“Think of it as research for understanding your sister.”
Paul thought of what it would be like being at a party with Britta. She would be protective of him. She whom he’d protected as a girl, now the worldlier of the two of them by far.
“Are these the friends who think you’re an old woman?”
Luca smirked. “Only two have said that.”
“Won’t they think it’s strange?” Paul asked. “You bringing along a priest? I’d be really out of place.”
“I think they would find you interesting. They’d ask you all kinds of questions.”
“I’d be a curiosity, you mean,” Paul said.
“If they’re rude to you, I’ll kick them out.”
At the idea of this—slight, gentle Luca wreaking havoc—Paul had to laugh. “But they live there.”
“Well,” Luca said, “I’ll do something. I’ll insult them in very creative ways.”
“It’s nice of you to offer. I’ll think about it.”
“Or you could just say you’re coming right now,” Luca said. “I already know you have nothing else to do.”
Paul looked at him, absorbing the challenge. “What time will it start?”
“Nine, nine thirty.”
Paul pictured himself in his room, rereading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Maybe wandering down to the social table to challenge someone to a game of chess. Lying on his narrow bed, listening to the sounds echoing up from the street. Alone.
“All right. You win.”
“So yes?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s too strange for you, I’ll leave with you,” Luca said. “I don’t really care.”
“Wouldn’t that seem rude to your friends?”
Luca shrugged and bunched his lips. “I’ve only known them a few months.”
They stayed awhile longer, neither of them ordering another drink, the conversation somehow breezier in the knowledge that they’d be seeing each other soon. When it was time to settle up, Luca took out a battered old leather coin purse that opened like a clamshell.
“And you wonder why they call you an old lady,” Paul said.
Luca bugged out his eyes, mock angry. “Maybe I won’t pay for your drink after all.”
“I’m sorry,” Paul said, smiling. “I take it all back.”
“Hmm.” Luca squinted a single eye at him, pretending to be upset in a way that made Paul’s heart swell, and as he tugged at the tightly rolled lire inside, a few coins fell to the ground and careened in a circle until they fell. Two German marks, a U.S. quarter and penny. Paul bent down to pick them up and set them on the other side of the table.
“Why do you have American money?” Paul asked.
“I find it sometimes,” Luca said, not meeting his eyes, pretending to look around for other coins. “The tourists drop them everywhere.”
He was hiding something: Paul could already tell.
The question of what to wear, which reared its head late the next afternoon, was made easier by the fact that all of Paul’s clothes looked alike. Four button-down short-sleeved shirts in blue, light blue, dark green, black. Two light blue dress shirts with sleeves. Two dark sweaters with leather patches at the elbows. Two clerical shirts, collars tucked inside, for the formal events where that was required. All variety of dark or light beige cotton trousers. Two black belts. It didn’t matter which arrangement he went with: he’d stick out like a sore thumb. But what was the alternative? Go out and buy a fringed buckskin jacket? Go back in time and grow out his sideburns?
Sideburns: they had nearly caused him an identity crisis. Some of the guys at Il Castello and a few of the priests back home had grown theirs an inch below their ears; some still had the same hair they’d had as teenagers in the fifties. After much consideration, he had ended up somewhere in the middle. Just an inch down from where they’d been three, four years before, but still above the bottom of the ears. Enough to acknowledge his awareness of the progressive movement in the world, but not so much as to make people think he was part of the irresponsible crowd. Of course, to the people he’d meet tonight, the extra inch would mean less than nothing; they’d see a square, or whatever the word was now. Though, he told himself, this insecurity was silly. He was a grown man, more accomplished than any of them. In front of his little notebook-sized mirror, as he combed his not-short, not-long hair, defining the part a few inches above his right ear, he regrouped his confidence: I am what I am. Popeye’s motto, it occurred to him. But, tonight, his too.
He couldn’t imagine curfew would be an issue, but of course he didn’t know what to expect, which was why his heart beat like a jackhammer as he walked down the steps to the courtyard, hair still damp from his shower, and toward the giant doors, nodding at Tom and Dom, who were loitering at the entrance, smoking, surely off to see a movie, and waiting for Dale, who was always late. (Oh, the useless things he knew about people!) A nod hello and he walked south.
In his pocket were the gate key, his room key, his wallet, directions he’d figured out from consulting his disintegrating city map, and the bar napkin with the address in Trastevere written down in Luca’s left-leaning hand. He’d memorized it, but thought it wise to bring it anyway, just in case.
As he crossed the moon-lit river, Paul thought of something the monsignor had told them when he’d arrived in the city nearly three years before: Gentlemen, Trastevere late at night can be an unsavory place. By day? Fine, sure, go enjoy the history, check out the flea market, chat up the hippies, buy a pin of Che Guevara for your commie friends back home. (Har-hars from the crowd.) But at night, you’d be advised to be careful. It can get a little wild. Until now, Paul had obeyed. He knew Trastevere from his walks, but when he did head out in the evening, it was always east of the Tiber, in the city center. He knew no one in Trastevere: it was simple as that. But now he did, and suddenly here he was striding alongside the river, then veering south, a vague vertiginous feeling, nervous about the party, but not scared of the neighborhood at all. Why would he be? It was fine: middleaged guys in work pants; a young local girl riding a bike, hands at her sides; cars, trees, lights; rumpled young people and, naturally, a whiff here and there of marijuana. A group of white men with Afros hogging most of the sidewalk, playing “House of the Rising Sun” badly on guitars. No one cared that he was here. Whatever judgment he felt came only from himself.
The streets narrowed and darkened the farther he got from the main roads. Less traffic, more trees, less shops, more silence, but for the whoops of laughter and music escaping from open windows. An ancient man with dark eye sockets passed him on a bicycle. A young man swayed and zipped on a Vespa. Out of sight but close by, two cats fought, crying out in waves, like sirens. And then he was close, on a street narrow as an alley, the buildings flanking it three, four stories up. A street like a tunnel. Up ahead, on the other side, a drunk swayed a little, dipping in and out of the light of a streetlamp, furtively digging into his pants pocket. Above, an old prostitute stood smoking in her window, waiting for him to find what he was looking for. Finally the drunk freed his hand, held up two coins. “I only have one thousand lire!”
“For that, just one,” she said.
“One? Not one! Both!” he said.
“One or nothing,” she said, and began to close the shade.
“All right, one! One!” the man said, understanding he was powerless.
Paul was too far down the street now to turn around and find another way past, and besides, he’d written down only this one way and didn’t want to risk getting lost. The drunk tosse
d up one coin and then the other, surprisingly focused, and the whore snapped them up—one, two—hands like two Venus flytraps. Then, without fanfare, she pulled down the right half of her dress, and out flopped a huge, veiny breast, dark areola pointing to the ground. It was as big as her head, a cow’s one-nippled udder. For a few seconds, the drunk just stood there transfixed, feet nailed to the ground but the rest of him swaying as he took it all in. Worshipful. As he passed, Paul couldn’t help but stare either, and the woman caught his eye. A look of bored hatred.
“Hey!” the drunk man yelled, now behind him, now in the past. “Not yet! Not yet!”
“Basta,” said the woman, “Go home to your wife.”
Soon after, he was at Luca’s building—one of the many in Rome that seemed cut from one long, gigantic block of rust-colored stone. Paul buzzed and waited. A minute passed, then another. He buzzed again. Finally, a tall, pale guy with long, thin brown hair and a necklace strung with giant wooden olives appeared, his bulbous features rearranging into annoyance the moment his eyes landed on Paul. Not who he’d hoped for. He asked Paul who he was and seemed dubious somehow of his answer. But then he nodded Paul in, and Paul was following him up the stairs.
When the white door at the top opened, Paul saw two rooms: a living room and what would have been a dining room if not for the mattress taking up half the floor. The space was lit only with old lamps, Christmas tinsel hanging like strands of limp silver seaweed from the dead fixtures, and a poster of Mussolini with two huge tits spray-painted on it was tacked to one of the walls. The incense inside was thick as fog, and huddled here and there were about twenty people. His stairwell guide walked over to a still-burning cigarette perched on a speckled ashtray and yelled, “Luca, someone’s here for you!” and a few faces swiveled toward him. As he’d decided whether to come and as he’d walked over, Paul had thought mostly of Luca—of talking to him, looking at him, making him laugh; the other people would be backdrop, curiosities. But of course there was the obligation to account for oneself. The eyes on him now reminded him of this, and for a moment he was paralyzed with fear. He was a stranger in a strange land, a babe in the woods. But then Luca appeared in the hallway: tan stains in the armpits of his white T-shirt, dark blue jeans, a coffee mug in hand, sweat glossy at his temples. He smiled a good, pure smile—his face was happy—and when he reached out his hand, Paul shook it. In this room, Luca was the person from the park—and someone else.