by John Metcalf
As each coach pulled up, we looked inquiry at one or other of the young men. “This is not yours,” said their hands. “Patience.” “Do not fear. When your conveyance arrives, we will inform you,” said their gestures.
We were both startled by the entry of a large, stout man with a shaved head who barged into the tiny office saying something that sounded challenging or jeering. His voice was harsh. He limped, throwing out one leg stiffly. Helen sat up in the plastic chair and drew her legs in. Something about his appearance suggested that he’d survived a bad car-crash. He leaned on an aluminum stick which ended in a large rubber bulb. He was wearing rimless blue-tinted glasses. His lip was permanently drawn up a little at one side. There was a lot of visible metal in his teeth. He stumped about in the confined space shouting and growling.
The young man with the mauve leather shoes shouted “no” a lot and “never” and slapped the counter with a plastic ruler. The other young man picked up a glossy brochure and, gazing fixedly at the ceiling, twisted it as if wringing a neck. The shaven-headed man pushed a pile of pamphlets off the counter with the rubber tip of his aluminum stick.
A coach pulled up and a young woman in a yellow dress got down from it and clattered on heels into the office. They all shouted at her. She spat—teh—and made a coarse gesture.
The young man with the mauve leather shoes went outside to shout up at the coach driver. Through the window, we watched him counting, pulling each finger down in turn.
. . . five, six, seven.
Further heart-rending pantomime followed.
Still in full flow, he burst back into the office brandishing the tickets in an accusatory way. Peering and pouting into the mirror of a compact, the girl in the yellow dress continued applying lipstick. They all shouted questions at her, possibly rhetorical. The horrible shaven-headed man shook the handle of his aluminum cane in her face.
She spat again—teh.
The bus driver sounded his horn.
The other young man spoke beseechingly to the potted azalea.
“Is that,” said Helen, “the Castelli Romani coach? Or isn’t it the Castelli Romani coach?”
There was silence as everyone stared at her.
“It is, dear madam, it is,” said the horribly bald man.
“Good,” said Helen.
And I followed her out.
We nodded to the other seven passengers as we climbed aboard and seated ourselves behind them near the front of the coach. They sounded American. There were two middle-aged couples, a middle-aged man on his own, rather melancholy-looking, and a middle-aged man with an old woman.
“Here he comes goosewalking,” said Helen.
“Stepping,” I said.
The shaven-headed man, leg lifting up and then swinging to the side, was stumping across the road leaning on the aluminum cane. His jacket was a flapping black-and-white plaid.
“Oh, no!” I said. “You don’t think he’s . . .”
“I told you,” said Helen. “I told you this was going to be awful.”
The shaven-headed man climbed up into the bus, hooked his aluminum cane over the handrail above the steps, and unclipped the microphone. Holding it in front of his mouth, he surveyed us.
“Today,” he said with strange, metallic sibilance, “today you are my children.”
Helen nudged.
“Today I am taking you into the Alban Hills. I will show you many wonders. I will show you extinct volcanoes. I will show you the lake of the famous Caligula. I will show you the headquarters of the German Army in World War II. Together we will visit Castel Gandolfo, Albano, Genzano, Frascati, and Rocca di Papa. We will leave ancient Rome by going past the Colosseum and out onto the Via Appia Antica completed by Appius Claudius in 312 before Christ.”
He nodded slowly.
“Oh yes, my children.”
Still nodding.
“Before Christ.”
He looked from face to face.
“You will know this famous road as the Appian Way and you will have seen it in the movie Spartacus with the star Kirk Douglas.”
“Oh, God!” said Helen.
“Well, my children,” he said, tapping the bus driver on the shoulder, “are you ready? But you are curious about me. Who is this man, you are saying.”
He inclined his shaved head in a bow.
“Who am I?”
He chuckled into the microphone.
“They call me Kojak.”
Cypresses standing guard along the Appian Way over sepulchres and sarcophagi, umbrella pines shading fragments of statuary. Tombs B.C. Tombs A.D. Statuary contemporaneous with Julius Caesar, of whom we would have read in the play of that name by William Shakespeare. It was impossible to ignore or block out his voice, and after a few minutes we’d come to dread the clicking on of the microphone and the harsh, metallic commentary.
You will pay attention to your left and you will see . . .
A sarcophagus.
You will pay attention opposite and you will see . . .
“Opposite what?”
“He means straight ahead.”
“Oh.”
. . . to your right and in one minute you will see a famous school for women drivers . . .
Into view hove a scrap-metal dealer’s yard mountainous with wrecked cars.
You will pay attention . . .
But despite the irritation of the rasping voice, I found the expedition soothing and the motion of the coach restful. The landscape as it passed was pleasing. Fields. Hedges. Garden plots. The warmth of terracotta tiles. Hills. White clouds in a sky of blue.
The Pope’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo was a glimpse through open ornate gates up a drive to a house, then the high encircling stone wall around the park.
Beech trees.
In the narrow, steep streets of the small town, the coach’s length negotiated the sharp turns, eased around corners, trundled past the elaborate facade of the church and through the piazza with its fountain by Bernini.
The famous Peach Festival took place in June.
At Lake Albano we were to stop for half an hour.
No less, my children, and no more.
The coach pulled into the restaurant parking lot and backed into line with more than a dozen others. The restaurant, a cafeteria sort of place, was built on the very edge of the lake. It was jammed with tourists. Washrooms were at the bottom of a central staircase and children ran up and down the stairs, shouting. There was a faint smell of disinfectant. Lost children cried.
In the plastic display cases were sandwiches with dubious fillings, tired-looking panini, and slices of soggy pizza that were being reheated in microwave ovens until greasy.
The man from our coach who was travelling with the old woman sat staring out of the plate-glass window which overlooked the lake. The old woman was spooning in with trembling speed what looked like a huge English trifle, mounds of whipped cream, maraschino cherries, custard, cake.
Helen and I bought an ice cream we didn’t really want. We stood on the wooden dock beside the restaurant and looked at the lake which was unnaturally blue. There was a strong breeze. White sails were swooping over the water. I felt cold and wished we could get back in the coach.
“So this was a volcano,” said Helen.
“I guess so.”
“The top blew off and then it filled up with water.”
“I suppose that’s it.”
The man from our coach who was on his own, the melancholy-looking man, wandered onto the other side of the dock. He stood holding an ice-cream cone and looking across the lake. He looked a bit like Stan Laurel. We nodded to him. He nodded to us and made a sort of gesture at the lake with his ice cream as if to convey approval.
We smiled and nodded.
The engine of the coach was throbbing
as we sat waiting for the man and the old woman to shuffle across the parking lot. The stiff breeze suddenly blew the man’s hair down, revealing him as bald. From one side of his head hung a long hank which had been trained up and over his bald pate. He looked naked and bizarre as he stood there, the length of hair hanging from the side of his head and fluttering below his shoulder. It looked as if he’d been scalped. The attached hair looked like a dead thing, like a pelt.
Seemingly unembarrassed, he lifted the hair back, settling it as if it were a beret, patting it into place. The old woman stood perhaps two feet from the side of the coach smiling at it with a little smile.
And so, my children, we head now for Genzano and for Frascati, the Queen of the Castelli . . .
We did not stop in Genzano which also had Baroque fountains possibly by Bernini in the piazzas and a palazzo of some sort. Down below the town was the Lake of Nemi from which two of Caligula’s warships had been recovered only to be burned by the retreating Adolf Hider.
The famous Feast of Flowers took place in May.
“Why do I know the name Frascati?” said Helen.
“Because of the wine?”
“Have I had it?”
I shrugged.
“I had some years ago,” I said. “Must be thirty years ago now—at a wedding. We drank it with strawberries.”
“Whose wedding?”
“And I don’t think I’ve had it since. Um? Oh . . . a friend from college. I haven’t heard from him—Tony Cranbrook . . . oh, it’s been years.”
“There,” said Helen, “what kind of tree is that?”
I shook my head.
Frascati.
The wine was dry and golden.
Gold in candlelight.
The marriage of Tony Cranbrook had been celebrated in the village church, frayed purple hassocks, that special Anglican smell of damp and dust and stone, marble memorials let into the wall:
. . . departed this life June 11th I795 in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection and of the life everlasting . . .
Afterwards, the younger people had strolled back through deep lanes to the family house for the reception. I’d walked with a girl called Susan who turned out to be the sister of one of the bridesmaids. She’d picked a buttercup and lodged it behind her ear. She’d said:
Do you know what this means in Tahiti?
Late in the evening they’d been wandering about the house calling to us to come and eat strawberries, calling out that I had to make another speech.
Jack?
We know you’re there!
Susan?
Jack and Su-san!
The larger drawing-room was warm and quick with candlelight. In the centre of the dark polished refectory table stood a gleaming silver épergne piled with tiny wild strawberries. By the side of it stood octagonal silver sugar casters. The candelabra on the table glossed the wood’s dark grain. Reflected in the épergne’s curves and facets, points of flame quivered.
You will pay attention to your right . . .
Traffic was thickening.
Fisher!
The bus was slowing.
Susan Fisher!
. . . above the piazza. The Villa is still owned by the Aldobrandini family. You will notice the central avenue of box trees. The park is noted for its grottos and Baroque fountains.
“Doubtless by Bernini,” I said.
“Is that a palm tree?” said Helen.
The Villa is open to tourists only in the morning and upon application to the officials of the Frascati Tourist Office. If you will consult your watches, you will see that it is now afternoon so we will proceed immediately to the largest of the Frascati wine cellars.
The aluminum cane with its rubber bulb thumping down, the leg swinging up and to the side, Kojak led the straggling procession towards a large grey stone building at the bottom end of the sloping piazza. A steep flight of steps led down to a terrace and the main entrance. Kojak, teeth bared with the exertion, started to stump and crab his way down.
“Oh, look at the poor old thing, Jack,” said Helen. “He’ll never manage her on his own down here.”
I went back across the road to where they were still waiting to cross and put my arm under the old woman’s. She seemed almost weightless.
“I appreciate this,” he said, nodding vigorously on the other side of her. “Nelson Morrison. We’re from Trenton, New Jersey.”
“Not at all,” I said. “Not at all. It’s a pleasure.”
The old woman did not look at either of us.
“That’s the way,” I said. “That’s it.”
“She’s not a big talker. She doesn’t speak very often, do you, Mother?”
Step by step we edged her down.
“But she enjoys it, don’t you, Mother? You can tell she enjoys it. She likes to go out. We went on a boat, didn’t we, Mother?”
“Nearly there,” I said.
“Do you remember the boat in Venice, Mother? Do you? I think it’s a naughty day today, isn’t it? You’re only hearing what you want to hear.”
“One more,” I said.
“But she did enjoy it. Every year you’ll find us somewhere, won’t he, Mother?”
Inside, the others were sitting at a refectory table in a vaulted cellar. It was lit by bare bulbs. It was cool, almost cold, after coming in out of the sunshine. In places, the brickwork glistened with moisture. Kojak, a cigarette held up between thumb and forefinger, was holding forth.
The cellars apparently extended under the building for more than a mile of natural caves and caverns. In the tunnels and corridors were more than a million bottles of wine. Today, however, there was nothing to see as the wine-making did not take place until September. But famous and authentic food was available at the cafe and counter just a bit further down the tunnel and bottles of the finest Frascati were advantageously for sale. If we desired to buy wine, it would be his pleasure to negotiate for us.
He paused.
He surveyed us through the blue-tinted spectacles.
Slowly, he shook his head.
The five bottles of wine on the table were provided free of charge for us to drink on its own or as an accompaniment to food we might purchase. While he was talking, a girl with a sacking apron round her waist and with broken-backed men’s shoes on her feet scuffed in with a tray of tumblers. Kojak started pouring the wine. It looked as if it had been drawn from a barrel minutes before. It was greenish and cloudy. It was thin and vile and tasted like tin. I decided to drink it quickly.
I didn’t actually see it happen because I was leaning over saying something to Helen. I heard the melancholy man, the man who was travelling alone, say, “No thank you. I don’t drink.”
Glass chinking against glass.
“No thank you.”
A chair scraping.
And there was Kojak mopping at his trouser leg with a handkerchief and grinding out what sounded like imprecations which were getting louder and louder. The melancholy man had somehow moved his glass away while Kojak was pouring or had tried to cover it or pushed away the neck of the bottle. Raised fist quivering, Kojak was addressing the vaulted roof.
Grabbing a bottle-neck in his meaty hand, he upended the bottle over the little man’s glass, wine glugging and splashing onto the table.
“Doesn’t drink!” snarled Kojak.
He slammed the bottle down on the table.
“Doesn’t drink!”
He flicked drops of wine onto the table off the back of his splashed hand.
“Mama mia! Doesn’t drink!”
Grinding and growling he stumped off towards the cafe.
He left behind him a silence.
Into the silence, one of the women said,
“Perhaps it’s a custom you’re supposed to drink it? If you don’t i
t’s insulting?”
“Now wait a minute,” said her husband.
“Like covering your head?” she added.
“Maybe I’m out of line,” said the other man, “but in my book that was inappropriate behaviour.”
“I never did much like the taste of alcohol,” said the melancholy man.
His accent was British and glumly northern.
“They seem to sup it with everything here,” he said, shaking his head in gloomy disapproval.
“Where are you folks from?” said the man in the turquoise shirt.
“Canada,” said Helen.
“You hear that, June? Ottawa? Did we visit Ottawa, June?”
“Maybe,” said June, “being that he’s European and . . .”
“It’s nothing to do with being European,” said Helen. “It’s to do with being rude and a bully. And he’s not getting a tip from us.”
“Yeah,” said June’s husband, “and what’s with all these jokes about women drivers? I’ll tell you something, okay? My wife drives better than I drive. Okay?”
He looked around the table.
“Okay?”
“I’ve seen them,” said the melancholy man, “in those little places where they eat their breakfasts standing up, I’ve seen them in there first thing in the morning—imagine—taking raw spirits.”
The old woman sat hunched within a tweed coat, little eyes watching. She made me think of a fledgling that had fallen from the nest. Her tumbler was empty. She was looking at me. Then she seemed to be looking at the nearest bottle. I raised my eyebrows. Her eyes seemed to grow wider. I poured her more and her hand crept out to secure the glass.
“Jack!” whispered Helen.
“What the hell difference does it make?”
I poured more of the stuff for myself.
June and Chuck were from North Dakota. Norm and Joanne were from California. Chuck was in construction. Norm was on a disability pension and sold patio furniture. Joanne was a nurse. George Robinson was from Bradford and did something to do with textile machinery. Nelson and his mother travelled every summer and last summer had visited Yugoslavia but had suffered from the food.