“Helmets. You know,” Iris repeated, placing both hands on her head as he glanced over his shoulder to look at her. “Those hard hats you wear so you don’t get killed?”
Ba-ba-ba-bam! Fabrizio gunned the engine again and laughed. “You don’t need in Rome!”
“Oh,” Iris said, wondering what was the worst that could happen. Hoping he wasn’t ticklish, she clasped her arms around Fabrizio’s waist, as the moped shot forward like a bucking bronco, down the wide avenue with too few trees and too many apartment buildings, accelerating and braking its way through the city’s coughing traffic that didn’t seem to know the difference between night and day.
“The ancient wall of Aurelius!” Fabrizio shouted after some minutes, pointing to an old stone wall that flanked the road.
Iris stole a quick look, then shut her eyes again.
“Over there we cross the Tevere, see? By Castel Sant’Angelo, there is a bridge,” Fabrizio continued, using his left hand, which Iris didn’t think he could spare, to point. As Iris peeked out of one eye, she recognized the monumental cylindrical-shaped construction adorned with statues she had seen the previous day when Fabrizio’s mother had accompanied her and Auntie Rosa to St. Peter’s, where they lit candles for special intentions (what better place to beg forgiveness for skipping months of Sunday Mass?) and bought rosaries blessed by Pope Paul VI himself. Had she known about this little excursion, she would have added it to the list of things to pray for, but at the sight, her fear was supplanted by awe.
“Wow! It’s even more beautiful at night!” she said. The orange glow of the lighted monument filled the May night with magic, the waters of the Tiber with shimmering reflections, her heart with joy.
“Bellissimo!” Fabrizio concurred, as he jerked and maneuvered his Ciao through the jammed traffic. Horns blared, Vespas and mopeds zigzagged, their passengers balanced precariously behind the drivers, holding their arms high in the air, bearing huge flags that unfurled in a blur of red and orange.
“What’s going on, Fabrizio? Is it a holiday or something?” Iris shot the question directly in his ear to be heard over the din.
“Yes! A holiday! Today is the day Roma won!” Fabrizio called over his shoulder.
“Won what? Its independence? Like the fourth of July?”
“Yes, the historic battle of Roma against Atalanta! Our team won the football match!”
“You mean the Atlanta football team came over here?”
“Not Atlanta, Atalanta. The soccer team from Bergamo, that’s up north.”
“You mean they’re all driving around with flags because Roma won the soccer game?”
“It’s tradition! Me, I don’t care much about soccer,” Fabrizio said with a shrug of his shoulders. “But we have fun driving around, no?”
Iris laughed. “Sure!” She took a deep breath, wrinkling her nose at the exhaust fumes, and vowed to keep her eyes open, focused, alert. From now on, she wasn’t going to miss a thing.
And she didn’t. Not all that night, as she clung to Fabrizio, hopping on and off the moped on a whirlwind tour of the center, starting with Piazza Navona, where the cacophony of Roman voices was accompanied by the languages and laughter of foreigners, and where she licked the creamiest vanilla ice cream she had tasted in her entire life from a fragrant wafer cone, thinking if she were the mayor, she would outlaw the little cardboard cups and plastic spoons that littered the cobblestone streets. Fabrizio showed her an authentic Egyptian obelisk, and a fountain more beautiful than any she had ever dreamed of, which he told her was by Bernini, and called La Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. Then he scooted her off to Piazza Venezia, to show her the colossal Altare della Patria, built in honor of Vittorio Emanuele II, and home to the tomb of the unknown soldier, but derisively dubbed “la macchina da scrivere,” or typewriter, by the Romans, who had many more splendid monuments than this in their backyard. Taking his role as tour guide seriously, Fabrizio pointed out the balcony from which Mussolini delivered his spirited speeches, and the area where once stood the house in which Michelangelo died. He would not rest if Iris did not elbow her way to the Trevi Fountain and toss in three coins, before he whisked her off for a cruise past the Forum and the Colosseum, the sight of which filled her with the desire to take a course in Ancient Roman History, and sparked the fantasy of throwing to the lions anyone caught defiling the scene with discarded Coke cans and cigarette butts. She wondered how anyone living in such a city, seeped in such a glorious past, could stay focused on the present or worry about the future.
Sleep was slow in coming that night, as the sounds of her tour of the Roman evening reverberated in Iris’s ears, drowning out the snores of a slumbering Auntie Rosa: the screeching and honking of the knotted traffic, the animalistic shouting of the Roma supporters, the raucous laughter and shrieking voices of the silly girls whose dark beauty Iris would have admired more in a painting. From her bed, she could hear the grinding whir of traffic still clogging the thoroughfares several floors below; she closed her eyes, wondering how she could possibly sleep, wondering where she could possibly find the words to describe the spectacular sights that danced behind her closed lids, unwilling to end a day that would never be forgotten.
Iris awoke early, her spirits floating on the magnificence which a night of fitful sleep had cleansed of impurities, but which were soon dampened by the pitter-patter of rain against the closed shutters, and the realization that their time in Rome was drawing to a close. “Roma piange,” Fabrizio said, holding an umbrella over her head as they dashed from the car to the train station, as quickly as their cargo of suitcases would allow.
“Rome cries?” Iris said, taking a stab at the translation after recognizing the verb piangere, and mentally reviewing its conjugation.
“Yes, Roma cries because you leave!” he said. Iris was sad to say the first goodbyes of her trip at the Termini station, where she and Auntie Rosa prepared to board their train. She wished they could stay longer, instead of going up north to Genoa, to visit the widowed cousin of a cousin of Auntie Rosa’s, whose father was also from Abruzzo. Iris wondered if the lady would have fat ankles like Grandma Capotosti’s paesan friends in Rochester. Despite the chaos and crowds that left her exhausted at the end of each day, she regretted leaving Rome, and Fabrizio, whom she might even have ended up kissing, if it weren’t for the thoughts of Peter Ponzio that kept her fantasies in check.
Despite her reluctance to leave, Iris had been looking forward to her first train ride, and to the eight hours of travel it would take to get to Genoa. She planned to enjoy the time reliving her recent experiences and committing them to her journal, reading her book, writing postcards, flipping through an Italian magazine, thinking. Once settled in their seats, she was relieved to see Auntie Rosa take out her prayer book and cross herself, meaning she was content to talk to God instead of Iris for a little while.
As the train rumbled through the densely constructed outskirts of Rome, Iris decided that although she adapted easily to different environments, she was essentially uncomfortable in big cities. They seemed to sap the energy from her, confuse her, alienate her. A sense of peace began to pervade her as the ugly high rise buildings and unsightly industrial areas were left behind, and the view switched to poppy fields and herds of sheep grazing as they soaked up the morning sun that had broken through the clouds. Iris had first glimpsed the Mediterranean from the plane, and now she was thrilled to get a closer look from the train window. Checking her map as they headed north, she learned that the portion of sea flashing by to her left was referred to as the Tyrrhenean, while the mountains she admired off in the distance to her right were the Apennines.
A few hours into the journey, she was delighted by views of the Tuscan shore, with its groves of umbrella pines clustered near the sea, and marveled at how precisely the neat rows of cypresses standing guard on the inland hills corresponded to her idea of a typical Italian landscape. She was perplexed at the sight of snow on the slopes of the chunky Apuan Alps, until it
dawned on her that she was looking at marble quarries. This was the very spot where Michelangelo had toiled to obtain the stone into which he chiseled life through his art. She was reading these very stories in the book that rested face down on her lap, open for the past two hours to page two hundred and twelve. Her mind had been too occupied to concentrate during the train ride, but as other passengers came and went from their compartment, she soon realized the English title was an effective deterrent to unsolicited chatter.
She looked at Auntie Rosa, who sat directly across from her. Her head lolled and her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. It was odd to see her so completely devoid of animation and purpose, so utterly relaxed and peaceful. Her hands rested in her lap, still clutching her frayed prayer book and her spanking new rosary that had not yet logged in its first hundred Hail Marys. Sunlight streamed in the window, bathing her in gold, conferring upon her a saintly aura. Iris imagined her aunt laid out in a casket, just like this, and was certain the gates of Heaven would fly open at the mere sight of her, no matter what those born-agains in Buffalo said. She would probably joke with St. Peter as he waved her in, just like she had done with the customs and immigration officers at the airport.
Iris opened her bag, deciding this would be an ideal time to write the postcards she had bought for another Peter, Peter Ponzio. It vexed her that his letters had been less frequent since she had written to him of her plans to visit Italy. Instead of being excited for her, he had said something about it being her life, and she being free to do what she wanted. She didn’t know exactly what he meant by that, but she had promised to send postcards, and she would keep her word, even if so far, she had only gotten as far as buying them. She arranged the cards in chronological order according to when she had visited the places depicted, accurately backdated them, and addressed them to his APO address in England. Even though she knew it wasn’t completely honest to put different dates on the cards to give the impression she had written them day by day, as she had intended, she didn’t really think it could be considered lying.
“Ciao from Roma! Arrived safe & sound after a long trip. Auntie Rosa’s cousins are super nice and hospitable. There is so much history and art everywhere you look! The Colosseum is spectacu-”
Her writing was interrupted by the total darkness that suddenly invaded the compartment. Through the window Iris had opened one more time than the other passengers had closed it, came a deafening rattle as the train lurched through a tunnel. Just seconds after reemerging in the daylight, the train was swallowed up again, and again, as the rapido bolted through the bowels of the Ligurian coastal cliffs, each tunnel eclipsing the sun and sky and sea, echoing the screeching and rumbling of the train on its tracks. Tiny harbors and storybook hamlets flashed in and out of view, as Iris struggled to read the blurred signs that hung at each station: she made out the name Monterosso on one, Levanto on another. Each time the train burst through the end of a tunnel, her eyes were astonished by the saturated colors in the slide-show of exotic palms and cacti and multicolored blossoms. There were olive trees, too. Scores of them.
At last the train decelerated and ground to a halt, metal screeching against metal. Iris stood and looked out the window; a sign said they were in Rapallo. Auntie Rosa’s eyes popped open and quickly surveyed her surroundings. It made Iris happy to witness her features gradually register the fact that she was on vacation somewhere in Italy, instead of in the midst of some medical emergency.
“Oh, honey!” she said. “I guess I must have drifted off. Last thing I remember I was saying my prayers, but I don’t think I finished. Son of a gun!”
“Shame, shame, shame, the devil knows your name, Auntie Rosa!” Iris said, running the index finger of her right hand over the index finger of her left. “First you start drinking wine with dinner, then I catch you having a glass at lunch, and the next thing you know, you’re falling asleep in the middle of prayers!” Iris laughed at the look of astonishment in her aunt’s eyes, as she bit her lower lip and shook her head, reflecting on her rapid moral degeneration. “Don’t worry, God understands. And we did receive the Pope’s blessing, which must be worth something. By the way, you drifted off about three hours ago!”
“Son of a gun!” Auntie Rosa repeated. “Can you believe that? Where are we?”
“Some place called Rapallo.” She could see rows of apartment buildings towering over the tracks, but the station only had two platforms; it must be a small town, but densely populated. Thinking back on the sense of suffocation she had sometimes felt in her dorm room, Iris wondered how people managed to live in such close quarters, with no space to cushion contact with the outside world, or with each other. Even when all fourteen people in her family had lived under the same roof, at least they didn’t have to share it with strangers. It was their haven, for however imperfect it might have been, and for all the chaos and all the infighting, the Capotosti household put up a formidable common front against the outside world.
“Rapallo? Already? The ticket man said it was the stop before Genoa.”
“Then we’d better get ready,” Iris said, packing up her belongings. She was grateful they had more trust in Italian train passengers than did the authors of the tour guide she had read, and left their suitcases in the corridor. They would never have been able to get them down from the overhead racks without assistance, and Iris hated asking others for help.
Half an hour later, Iris helped Auntie Rosa down the steep stairs that folded out from the door of the train, which seemed to have been designed with young athletes in mind, and certainly not for older women with short legs and ailing knees, nor for any woman in high heels or a tight skirt. Iris was glad she had stuck with jeans and sneakers, which she dressed up with Lily’s rosebud blouse. It was light, and feminine, and wearing the blouse made her feel she was somehow sharing her experiences with her sister. After assisting Auntie Rosa, she hopped down to the crowded platform, where she was greeted by a malodorous bouquet arising from the abandoned cigarette butts still smoking on the concrete, urine, engine grease, and other train station smells still unidentifiable to her inexperienced nose.
“You just stay here,” she said to Auntie Rosa, as she deposited the first two suitcases next to her on the platform, and climbed back up the stairs to retrieve the heavier ones. She was still pushing and pulling and dragging and kicking them down the narrow corridor when the train whistle tooted, signaling its imminent departure. What would happen if it left while she was still on board? Perspiration sprang from her pores, making her frantic hands slippery, her brow glisten, her armpits dampen the rosebud blouse, whose tight shoulders and cuffed sleeves hindered her movements. She would have no idea how to contact Auntie Rosa, or her distant relative whose name she couldn’t remember, who was supposed to pick them up.
A second series of whistled warnings prodded her to make one final, Herculean heave to the door. She climbed over the suitcases, jumped down to the platform, and began tugging at the first one, which came crashing down the steps, until she managed to block it with a bent knee. She was unsure of how to disentangle herself from this position without ending up under the suitcase, or under the train, but knew she must act fast. While her muscles trembled with exertion, her ears registered the whooping of Auntie Rosa’s unrestrained laughter somewhere behind her. Iris was starting to panic, knowing she couldn’t resist much longer, when she felt a hand on her right shoulder, firmly but gently nudging her aside. Another hand reached in front of her, grabbed the suitcase by its handle and lowered it to the ground. Shaking and sweaty, she pivoted on her heels to thank the owner of the arms. Her face was level with his neck, where she noticed the perfectly formed knot of a regimental tie held in place by the button-down collar of a light blue Oxford cloth shirt beneath a navy blue blazer with gold buttons. Iris raised her eyes a few inches and encountered a polite smile nestled between a sandy moustache and matching goatee; a few inches above the smile, a pair of amused blue eyes gazed down at her.
“
Thank you so much,” Iris said.
The man rescued the second piece of luggage from the train just before the door slammed shut and it began to move.
“Grazie,” she added, to make sure he understood. The next time she traveled to Europe, she swore she would only carry what would fit in her little blue valise.
“Prego.”
One softly spoken word, one silent gesture of kindness was enough to set this man in a world apart from the loud, showy types in Rome who had begun flirting with Iris as soon as a friendly word or innocent smile of hers somehow led them to believe she was up for grabs.
“I’m Gregorio,” the man introduced himself, in English. “Gregorio Leale, Isabella’s son. I just met Rosa. The picture Mamma gave me was very old, but I recognized her right away.”
Iris quickly processed each new bit of information, each firsthand observation, and within seconds was forced to discard the unappealing images she had conjured up in her mind to prepare herself for inevitable disappointment of the Ligurian leg of their trip. Whether or not his mother was an old lady with fat ankles who spoke an incomprehensible dialect, this Gregorio was a handsome man, probably around the same age as her oldest brother, who knew enough English to make himself understood. “Auntie Rosa has looked the same ever since I can remember,” she said. “My name’s Iris.”
“Yes, I know. But Mamma had no picture of you.” Gregorio smiled apologetically. No big deal, Iris thought. Her own mother probably didn’t have a picture of her, either.
“Piacere,” she said, extending her hand, as she had seen the Romans do. She couldn’t say much in Italian, but it only seemed polite to use what few words she knew instead of making him do all the work.
“Il piacere è tutto mio,” Gregorio replied, extending his hand; it was warm, but dry, unlike hers, which was embarrassingly clammy. His grip was neither limp nor overpowering; it seemed the handshake of an honest man.
[Iris and Lily 01.0 - 03.0] The Complete Series Page 52