by Pat Conroy
“General Sherman, General Sherman,” a girl’s voice cried out. “We’re leaving now.”
The voice was exaggerated and Southern and my mother laughed and said, “He’s coming, Elizabeth.”
I ran toward the voice and the outstretched hand and was surprised to see it was Shyla.
Part III
Chapter Eighteen
As a travel writer, I know my airports and I know every square foot of the Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome by heart. But on the day my mother touched down for her first visit to Italy the following December, the airport itself seemed transformed and magnified by the significance of my mother’s arrival. We had nearly lost her in that first week when she had been in the coma and her recovery had assumed magic proportions for all of us. It had brought me back into the family circle after a long intermezzo of sadness and lost time when I tried to heal a spirit badly damaged by Shyla’s death. I had reconnected with something of the highest consequence and the repercussions of that visit rang in the deepest channels with an echoing richness that amazed me. Going back to see my stricken mother, it never occurred to me that I would encounter my lost self waiting for me at her bedside.
As the passengers began to make their way out of the double doors, past the customs inspectors and the unsmiling soldiers armed to the teeth, I pointed out my mother to Leah and said, “Go give that woman a hug. That’s your grandmother, Leah.”
Leah moved easily through the crowd and I trailed behind her. As Lucy searched for us, Leah approached her and said, “Ciao, Grandma. I’m Leah McCall, your granddaughter.”
Lucy looked down at her dark-eyed, lovely grandchild and said, “Where you been all my life, darling?” then knelt down on the floor and folded Leah into her arms. Then she rose and kissed me. We collected her bags and Lucy, holding Leah’s hand, followed me out of the Rome airport and into a Roman taxicab.
My mother’s recovery was remarkable and her face shone with a ruddy good health that seemed impossible after the no-holds-barred assault her body had just withstood. Her hair had grown back though it was very short; her step was light, and I saw more than one middle-aged Italian man give her the once-over with their languorous, appreciative glances. She had written me that she was walking five miles a day and had only missed a single month of checking the beach each summer morning for the signs of a nesting loggerhead turtle. Even in December, my mother had the best suntan in the airport.
Lucy looked out at the throngs pressing forward to meet travelers and shook her head at the noise and congestion. “Gives new meaning to the phrase ‘Chinese fire drill,’ ” she said.
“I’m trying to raise Leah not to be a racist, Mom,” I said good-naturedly.
“That’s not racist. I’ve never seen a Chinese fire drill in my life,” Lucy said, “until just now.”
She took out her Italian money, which she had acquired in Savannah for the trip, and showed it to Leah. Holding a thousand-lire note, she said, “I don’t know whether that’s worth a nickel or a billion dollars.”
“Think of that as a one-dollar bill, Grandma,” Leah said.
“What a smart little girl,” Lucy said. “A girl with a head for figures doesn’t need to worry about hers.”
“You look great, Mama,” I said. “Remission becomes you.”
“I was bald as a pig for a couple of months,” she said. “If you’ve got any extra money lying around, invest in wigs, son. You’ve got beautiful hair, Leah. Just like your mother had.”
“Thank you, Grandma,” Leah responded.
“I’ve got more presents for you in my bags than I have clothes,” Lucy said. “Everybody in Waterford sent you a present, because they want you to know how badly we want you to come home.”
“December 27,” Leah said. “We’re going back to Waterford with you. You’re going to love Christmas in Rome, Grandma.”
“Do you remember how much I loved you as a baby, Leah?” Lucy asked, hugging the child to her.
“I can’t remember anything about South Carolina,” Leah said. “I’ve tried, but I just can’t.”
“Next summer I’m going to have you work in my turtle program on the Isle of Orion. We’re saving the great loggerhead turtle from extinction.”
“Wow. And I can see all this?” Leah said happily.
“See it?” Lucy said. “I’m going to train you to be a turtle lady.”
“Waterford must be so wonderful,” Leah said. “Do you know, Grandma, you’re the first person I’ve ever met who knew the Great Dog Chippie besides Daddy.”
“Chippie?” Lucy said glancing sideways and oddly at her son. “A great dog.”
“I tell stories about Chippie to Leah,” I explained.
“What’s to tell,” my mother said, puzzled. “Chippie was a mutt. A stray.”
“No, Mama,” I said and she caught the slight disapproval in my voice. “Chippie was a magnificent beast. Fearless, brilliant, and a great protector of the McCall family.”
“He sure saved the McCall family a bunch of times, didn’t he, Grandma?” Leah said.
Lucy finally got it. “Oh yes,” she said. “I don’t think any of us would be here today if it wasn’t for Chippie.… That great, great dog.”
That night, when I was putting Leah to bed, she hugged me tightly and thanked me for allowing her grandmother’s visit.
“I love your mother, Daddy,” Leah said. “She is so sweet to me and you’re exactly like her.”
“Please,” I cautioned. “Don’t go overboard.”
“It’s true,” Leah said, “and she said I’m the spitting image of Mama. What does that mean?”
“Spitting image?” I said. “It means you look exactly like your mother. Would you like me to tell you a story? How about the time that Shyla and I fell in love at the beach? Or any of the others?”
“Was your mother a good storyteller, Daddy?”
“She was the best,” I conceded. “No one could lie like my mother.”
“Is a story always a lie?”
I thought carefully before I answered. “No, a story is never a lie,” I said. “A story gives only pleasure. A lie gives mostly pain.”
“Then I want my grandmother to tell me a story,” Leah said. “That won’t make you feel bad, will it, Daddy?”
“Let me go get her,” I said.
“Good night,” Leah said, kissing me. “I only like Great Dog Chippie stories when I’m feeling sad. Tonight, I feel happier than ever.”
In the living room, I looked out on the Piazza Farnese and watched the Romans hurrying through the cold, shut-down streets. I could see both the pedestrians and my own anonymous image in the reflected, back-lit window. In the same pane of glass, I could have an unseen surveillance of unknown Romans or the luxury of self-study. The travel writer was looking inward and I examined myself.
I had just turned thirty-seven years old but the slouching figure I saw squinting back at me in light and glass high above the piazza had felt inanimate and peripheral to the main flow of action for too long now. The figures below me seemed charged with purpose as they made their way across the piazza and disappeared into one of the seven streets that led into the heart of Renaissance Rome. They strode with purpose, armed with resolution, whereas everything I did seemed insubstantial and forced. I longed for engagement, intrusion, and a little more Mardi Gras than Lent in my life. Perhaps because of my mother’s arrival and her surprising vigor, I realized that I had satisfied myself with observer status in the human race for too long. Caution had wounded me. Fear had gotten too tight a hold on me; it had slowed my step, eclipsed my spontaneity, my willingness to take a corner on two wheels. I saw myself as I was, framed in that window—a man afraid of women, of love, of passions, and the staying power of friends. At this crossroads of my life, all ways looked appealing and I knew that was exactly what was wrong with me.
I heard my mother enter the room behind me: “It’s cold as Alaska in here. Don’t they believe in heat in this country?”
“Also be a darling and get your sweet mama a Chivas Regal on the rocks,” Lucy murmured. “They do have ice in this country, don’t they?”
I fixed her a drink, made myself one, turned up the heat, and walked back toward the living room. Lucy was standing in front of the long glass windows that I had just left, watching the movement of people below.
“What are those folks doing?” she asked.
She turned to receive her drink and said, “Thank you, darling. I feel perfectly dreadful, like a herd of bison just trampled me downwind.”
“It’s jet lag. You probably should get to bed.”
“I’ve got dozens of letters to give to you,” Lucy said. “And messages galore, but they can wait. What’s this rumor about you and Jordan Elliott?”
“Just a rumor,” I said. “There’s nothing to it.”
“There’s nothing more tacky than a son telling lies to his dying mother,” Lucy said.
“You’re not dying,” I said. “Don’t talk like that.”
“I’m officially dying,” Lucy said proudly. “I’ve got a letter from my doctor to prove it. Tell Jordan this is my last chance to see him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, feeling trapped by the woman who had both taught me to hate lies and to use them when necessary.
“He would adore seeing me,” she said, for it was impossible for Lucy to believe that any man would deny himself the pleasure of her company.
“Is there anything you’d like to see especially during your time in Rome?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Lourdes,” she said.
“Lourdes?” I asked.
“Yes. Lourdes,” Lucy answered.
“That’s in France, Mama,” I said. “This is Italy.”
“Isn’t that just up the road?” she asked.
I laughed and said, “No. It’s not just up the road.”
“Well, if my life is so unimportant to you, I guess we can just skip Lourdes,” Lucy said, pouting.
“Mama,” I said, “I’ve been to Lourdes. It’s all bullshit and it’s a thousand miles from here.”
My mother answered, “It is not.”
“Mama, I’m a travel writer. I know how far it is from fucking Rome to Lourdes.”
“You don’t have to resort to vulgarity,” Lucy admonished.
“The miracle business is in a slump,” I said.
“Well, I heard there were some churches in Rome where miracles’ve occurred,” Lucy continued.
I snapped my fingers. “Why didn’t I think of that? Of course, Mama. You want miracles. This city’s loaded with miracles. There’s the church with a piece of the true cross and the one with the crown of thorns. We’ll have a ball. We’ll go to every miracle-working church in the city and I haven’t even mentioned St. Peter’s.”
“I must go to the Vatican,” Lucy said.
“I’ve gotten you an audience with the Pope,” I said, “and we’re all going to Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s.”
“An audience with the Pope,” Lucy exclaimed breathlessly. “What dress should I wear? Thank God I have my real hair back. I look kind of trampy in my wig.”
“Get some sleep now, Mama,” I said. “You’ll need to get rested before you can start enjoying Rome.”
“I’m enjoying it already,” she said. Then she paused. “Is there any special lady friend you might want me to meet?”
“No,” I said. “There is no special lady friend I’d like you to meet.”
“That little girl deserves a mother,” Lucy said. “It may not be my place to say it, but Leah’s simply starved for feminine affection. She’s got those funny eyes that a motherless child always gets.”
“She does not,” I said, irritated.
“You can’t see it,” Lucy said, “because you don’t want to see it. You need to be out beating the bushes, flushing out that poor girl a mama.”
“She doesn’t need a mother,” I said, angry that I could not purge the defensiveness from my voice. “Maria loves her as much as any mother could.”
“Maria doesn’t speak English,” Lucy said. “How can Leah learn about maternal love from someone who can’t even speak the language.”
“I’d be better off if you hadn’t been able to speak English,” I said.
Her laughter was a shiny thing, like pewter flung high in the air, and she laughed all the way down the long hall to her bedroom.
We visited the churches, chapels, and basilicas of Rome seeking the saint that would intercede for Lucy. And while we did I taught her to appreciate the coffee of Rome, stopping often for a quick espresso or cappuccino. Each day we had lunch at Da Fortunato and Freddie would wait on us with his impeccable manners and fractured English. Freddie doted on Lucy and lunch became both a feast of antipasti and pastas and a time for Lucy at the age of fifty-eight to practice the art of innocent seduction in a city that honored food and seduction far more than innocence.
Altogether we visited twenty-one tombs of exalted individuals lucky enough to have made it into the Calendar of Saints. Lucy kept a meticulous list of the tombs she had prayed before. She revealed that she was certain that a delegation of these saints would be there to greet her if her prayers went unanswered and she happened to die. I would roll my eyes, but my mother was unflappable and tireless as I escorted her through those dark, ornamental streets whose buildings blushed with the harmonious rouges of time, some ocher, some tinted with cinnamon, some with a brushed, uncertain gold.
In each church, as we were leaving, Lucy would take handfuls of holy water and scoop it up and douse her lymph nodes where the killer cells of her leukemia had clustered. Then she would walk gamely out of the church dripping holy water off her winter coat for half a block. This baptismal ceremony seemed ludicrous to me, to say nothing of embarrassing.
“It comforts me,” Lucy would say, sensing my displeasure. “Just put up with it.”
“Why don’t I just have a priest bless the water in the Trevi Fountain,” I asked, “and you can swim a couple of laps in it every day?”
“You always fail when you try to be witty,” she said.
“We’re going to be the first people ever arrested for excessive use of holy water,” I said.
“The Church can afford it, son,” Lucy said.
“Finally, we’ve reached an area of theological agreement,” I said.
Since I give one of the great tours of the Forum, I thought I would trick my mother into some real sight-seeing by taking her down into the ruins of that unburied city. But nothing I told her about the workings of the Roman Senate or the rise and fall of Caesars interested her in the slightest. She was single-minded in her unswayable desire to win sympathy and medical intercession from some minor saint and had no curiosity about pre-Christian Rome at all.
“These are just rocks,” my mother said as I explained why the Arch of Titus was erected. “If I wanted to see rocks, I’d take a ride up to the Smokies.”
“This is one of the places Western civilization sprang out of,” I intoned.
“You sound like a brochure,” she said, looking at the guidebook I had written. “Your books are hard to follow.”
“You don’t have to look at the book, Mother dear,” I said. “You’re with me.”
She said, “You just go on and on so. Just summarize. Wrap it up.”
“Oh,” I said, barely containing myself. “That’s the Forum, Mom. Now let me take you to other piles of rock. But before we go, let me show you the Temple of Saturn. Ask this God to cure your leukemia.”
“What God?” my mother asked.
“Saturn,” I said happily. “Top of the line Roman God. It can’t hurt.”
“I’ll not have strange gods before me,” she said proudly.
“Picky, picky,” I said, turning toward the eight columns. “Saturn, please cure my poor mama of cancer.”
“Don’t listen to him, S
aturn,” Lucy said, “The boy’s cutting the fool.”
“Just covering all the bets,” I said, leading my mother up toward the Campidoglio.
The day before Christmas, I took Lucy to the Church of Santa Maria della Pace so she could cleanse her soul of all sin before she received Communion at Midnight Mass on Christmas. We ambled through the Piazza Navona, stopping at booth after booth so Lucy could buy figurines of the Holy Family, gaudily decorated wise men, and placid-faced shepherds for her manger back in Waterford. The piazza shimmered with a seasonal carnality and hustlers moved with the ease of lynxes among the tourists. An elegant woman in a fur argued with a shrill peasant from the Apennines over the price of a recumbent Christ Child. A street artist without a smidgen of talent chalked a portrait of a Japanese woman who complained that the artist had made her look Korean.
Entering the church, I pointed out the graceful expressive sibyls painted by Raphael, but once again, my mother was uninterested in art when there was work to be done on her soul. She looked around at the dark line of confessionals and said, “How do I confess when I don’t know a word of Italian?”
“Here’s an Italian dictionary,” I said, handing her a small book.
“Very funny,” Lucy said. “This is one dilemma for pilgrims that never occurred to me.”
“But it occurred to Mother Church,” I said, pointing to a confessional at the rear of the church. “There’s an English-speaking priest in there. What are your sins? It’s hard to commit a sin on chemotherapy.”
“I despaired a few times, son,” Lucy said, not understanding that I was trying to joke with her.
“That’s not a sin, Mama,” I said. “That’s modern life tapping you on the shoulder and saying ‘hi.’ ”
“I shouldn’t be long,” my mother said as she entered the brown-curtained confessional and I heard the priest’s screen slide back with a click.
I listened to the murmur of my mother’s voice behind the velvet curtain and the lower register of the priest’s voice in response. Kneeling, I tried to pray, but I could not feel much action in the regions where the soul most frequently moved about looking for comfort. So often when I came to a church I would find myself considering the floor plans of nothingness instead of trying to strike up a conversation with God. As a child I spoke easily with him, but I had a gentler gift for small talk then and took myself less seriously.