by Peter Murphy
“Some say,” Giovanni jumped in when Signore Pontecorvo paused to sip his coffee, “that it was the people who started to put the messages on the statue, telling the rest of the people what was really happening: ‘Da quando è Niccolò papa e assassino, abbonda a Roma il sangue e scarso è il vino.’ Since Nicholas became pope and murderer, there is more blood than wine in Rome.”
Now it was Davide’s turn to sit back and smile as Giovanni leaned forward with one elbow resting on his thigh. He turned his hand downwards as if to settle things. “But other people say that it was the ghost of Pasquino. He didn’t like when the bishops and the cardinals acted like the big shots and wanted the people to see. The statue told the people the truth, and the popes—they no like it.
“Pope Adrian, he want to throw Pasquino’s statue in the river, but the people of Rome, they no let him. Then he send his soldiers to try to keep Pasquino’s statue from talking, but the spirit of the people could not be silenced and the statue of Marforio began to talk too. ‘Dimmi: che fai Pasquino?’ Tell me, what are you doing, Pasquino? it asked; and Pasquino’s statue say, ‘Eh, guardo Roma, chè non vada a Urbino.’ I watch over Rome, to make sure it’s not moved to Urbino.”
“And then,” Giovanni added, when they finished laughing, “Madama Lucrezia joined il Congresso degli Arguti, the Shrewd Congress. And l’Abate Luigi.”
“And don’t forget il Babuino.” The two old men were laughing at his expense, but Patrick didn’t mind. He envied them for all that they could share.
“They called it the conversation of wits and it goes on to this day. In Rome”—Giovanni leaned forward again for emphasis—“even the dead get to have their say: ‘Quod non fecerunt Barbari fecerunt Barberini.’ What the Barbarians did not, the Barberini did.”
As Patrick walked back to Trastevere he thought about it all. The old men had been having fun with him and he didn’t mind. He was just happy to be included. It made him feel that Rome was finally coming to accept him—that they no longer saw him as one of those who just passed through for a few days or a few years. Patrick Reilly, once from a small biteen of a place a few miles from Windgap, was becoming a citizen of the Eternal City.
He’d known about the pasquinades but didn’t say. The old men knew that, too, but their retelling was far more Roman, and he wanted to immerse himself in that. He was tired of the world outside, still in constant strife despite everything the rise and fall of Rome had taught them—that the gold and glory of empires and nations went to those at the top and the rest of them snapped and snarled at each other for the little that trickled down. Beaten back into submissions until their master’s enemies were at the gate. Then it was for them to go out and pay for the sins of their leaders.
He couldn’t go along with it all anymore and was beginning to cut himself off from all that was current. He spent his free time thumbing through the dusty pages of the old books that Signore Pontecorvo had found for him, one every other week or so. He’d been avoiding John, too, since Christmas. The old Jesuit was filled with broodings, seeing the portents of doom at every twist and turn.
Miriam was also quiet and hadn’t written. Patrick was no expert on relationships but even he could see that she and Karl were having difficulties. He thought about offering some help and support but what could he do? Relationships were just not his forte.
*
Deirdre felt the same way. For the first few years after her marriage ended, she had privately laid most of the blame on Danny. Even though she’d admitted her own faults, he was the one who trampled over everything they were together. Yet as time passed, it always nagged her that there was more to it than that. She didn’t dwell on it. She didn’t have time for pondering the depths of her own psyche anymore. She was far too busy raising kids and holding on to her career. Women like her had everything and the burden was far more than they had ever considered. “Be careful what you wish for,” her mother’s voice often reminded her.
She had supported and encouraged Deirdre through all that happened, but always with a faint hint of condescension, as if somehow more could have been done to help Danny. It still haunted Deirdre on those nights when she lay awake, too tired to sleep. The accusation stung but when she argued, she sounded like all those other women who blamed all their failures on men.
They were everywhere. Many of the women at work were convinced it was the only reason they were overlooked. Particularly those who spent most of their days socializing and gabbing on the phone, criticizing anyone who managed to get ahead, intimating that they had slept their way up. “Give head to get ahead,” they whispered to each other with disdain and knowing nods.
That infuriated Deirdre. She knew better than to shit where she ate and was meticulous about keeping her lives separate. She attended work functions but always left early after one drink and after she had done the circuit, chatting with colleagues’ wives, sharing what they had in common as mothers. Superficially, of course. They all had perfect children and stable homes and made a point of saying that she was marvelous for being able to do it all alone.
It always felt like a slap with a long silk glove, but she’d learned to keep smiling and how to politely excuse herself. Single women, especially accomplished ones, were not very welcome in the good wives’ club.
Besides, they really had so little in common. Most of them were trophy wives to older executives doing it all for the second time. Most of them had nannies and cleaners and therapists for when the husband’s other children intruded. And when their husbands drifted off to talk about golf or the market, they would drink too much and share far too many details of their married lives—always casting themselves as empowered, except when their husbands did something without permission, like spending money on themselves or their other children. Then they portrayed themselves as victims.
Deirdre hardly listened. She knew they were really frightened of her. She got to spend the day with their husbands who had left other wives. She was tempted to flaunt that sometimes but she knew the men she worked with. They were, despite their suits and spacious offices, just little boys who should never be encouraged and sometimes had to be discouraged.
“I really feel sorry for them,” she had told Miriam the last time she visited.
“And well you should. Poor little trophy girls with nothing but rich husbands and pampered lives. They never get to go out and play in the real world like the rest of us. But don’t worry too much; they’re specially bred for it.”
“Listen to us—we’ve become a right pair of misogynists.”
“Not at all,” Miriam corrected her, so nun-like. “You just have to keep up with the times. Feminism today is all about self-justification. Today’s woman must be empowered and have no room for doubts.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“And for you. You will always be able to tell yourself that you did the best with what you had.”
“Are you referring to my failed marriage?”
“Not in particular, but now that you mention it . . .”
“Yes, Miriam. I picked Danny Boyle knowing everything I did and I was an active participant in all that happened between us. Happy now?”
“I would have been much happier if you had listened to me and never got mixed up with him.”
“That die had been cast long before you came along.”
“Predestination, you’re such a bitch.”
It was. That was why she had been so indulgent with Grainne, compensating and trying to make things right. She knew she had to move past all of that. “It is,” they had told her at Al-Anon, “all very well to be in touch with your feelings, but you can’t give them control over your life.”
She was guilty of that. Every time her feelings were hurt she set about reordering the world around her, convinced she was doing it to make things better for all of them. Sometimes she was, but other times she was simply trying to impose what
suited her through the passive-aggressive way that mothers had—the iron fist in the velvet glove.
“They have always had it,” Miriam had assured her when she confessed to it. “Women always had the power to change things. Women raise families and hold the future in their hands.”
“Even when they were chattel?”
“The men who imposed that were some mothers’ sons.”
“Oh, Miriam, you have no idea how it works.”
“Really? Where do women learn to be such little bitches to each to other? It’s not something that’s taught in schools. It’s there by the time they get there. Mind you, nothing is done to discourage it.”
“Should we go back to teaching the example of Mary?”
“No, but surely we can teach them not to be so self-absorbed. And to have the confidence to be themselves and not a clone of someone they see on TV.”
“Oh, the changing times,” Deirdre mocked a little. Sometimes she was miffed, being lectured on parenting by a childless ex-nun.
“Seriously, Dee. They can’t even think for themselves. Or about anybody else. And they’re only happy when they’re shopping.”
“Not like when we were young?”
“No, Dee, not at all like when we were young.”
Raising children was such a crap shoot, particularly alone. Deirdre had been lucky with Martin, and while she wanted to assume all the credit for how he turned out, Grainne exposed her for all that she could have done better. And she wasn’t the worst of them. The neighborhood kids were even worse. Deirdre had done well with what she had.
Still, while relationships could be broken by the actions of one, far more often they were nothing more than lopsided arrangements people found themselves trapped in after attraction had faded. And she and Danny were no different. All the warnings signs had been there from the beginning but she ignored them. Then, after the children came, she bound herself in the sanctity of family and prolonged everyone’s misery, including Danny’s. And even though it was all in the past now, it still mattered. It mattered in how she was with her kids and it mattered in how she was going to deal with Eduardo.
He had left his wife again, just after Christmas, and called her as if he expected Deirdre to invite him straight back into her life. She didn’t. She listened to him complain about all the terrible things he had been put through. He said his wife was still a peasant at heart and didn’t understand him. Deirdre did. He was just a little boy who liked to fall in and out of love. Deirdre listened but didn’t take sides. And when he was finished and waited for her to agree, she told him that he had to sort his life out before he called her again.
He did. He found an apartment and called again at the beginning of February. It had been a long, cold day and he always knew how to make her feel warm inside, so she gave in and agreed to meet him again. She had to check the family schedule, but she would. She was too young to be alone.
Friday the sixteenth was best. Grainne would be staying over with a friend and Martin and his friends were going to Buffalo for a hockey game. They would all pile into Doug’s mom’s minivan and spend the night in a motel. Deirdre didn’t want to think about what the rest of them might get up to, but she could trust Martin to stay out of trouble.
“That will be perfect.” Eduardo almost purred. “We can make it our special Valentine’s.”
She had to laugh at that. He could do romance so effortlessly and she was so much wiser now.
However, she was a little foolish after a few bottles of wine and agreed that he could come back for a nightcap. “One drink,” she warned him as they got out of the cab and hurried inside before the neighbors noticed.
“Dee-Dree?” He stood with his arms by his side and his palms turned forward, as if to show he had nothing up his sleeves.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She laughed as she ushered him inside.
“Like what?” he murmured as his lips fluttered against hers. She didn’t even get to take her coat off. He just opened it and wrapped his arms around her, touching her through her clothes; and when she responded, hungrily searching for his lips, he backed her against the wall and reached between her legs.
She let him because she wanted him. It had been far too long. She curled her leg around his hip and pulled him closer as he tugged at the buckle of his expensive Italian belt. And when he was free, she draped her arms around his neck so he could raise her a little. He didn’t even stop to remove her panties. He just pulled them aside and plunged into her. She gasped loudly and threw her head back against the wall, but that only urged him on. His face straining as he pushed harder and harder, pushing her up against the wall, and letting her slide down as he pulled back. He moved slowly and deliberately, sensing her and responding as her intensity grew. She moaned and clasped the sides of his head so she could see his eyes. “Yes,” she encouraged, “oh, yes.”
She started to pound down upon him and he had to brace his knees and press against the wall with one hand, the other tight around the small of her back, holding her against him.
“Oh Christ,” he announced, and let it all out.
“Jesus,” she agreed as they both came in a flurry of twitches and groans until they were spent.
They did it twice more in her big bed and were tired and sore by morning, when she rose and showered without waking him. She made coffee, too. Small dark espressos. But he came down before she could surprise him. He was wearing her long white robe, tied at the waist but still showing his broad, dark chest.
“Morning,” he tested, boyishly.
“Morning.” She smiled back and let him take her in his arms, his scent evoking little spasms deep inside her. He kissed her gently and his breath was fresh. So was he, and she had to fight him off and send him upstairs to get dressed before Grainne came home.
“Last night?” he asked when he came back down.
“Yes,” she mewled. “Last night?”
“Does it change things?”
“Yes.”
“Does it mean we can be together again?”
“It means we can be lovers, for now.”
“Just lovers?”
“For now. Let’s just take things slowly until we are both sure that this is what we want.”
“I don’t need to take things slowly. I know what I want. I want to be with you.”
“And I think I want to be with you, Eduardo, but I have my children and I will not change things until I am sure.”
“Love is not something to think about. It does not happen here.” He patted his head. “It happens here.” He took her hand in his and placed it over his heart. “This is where I carry you.”
She would think about it and probably still do it, but not yet. And after he had gone she had more coffee and smiled to herself. It would be so much fun to introduce him to the good wives club.
*
They were still cold when they came out. Martin took off his jacket and wrapped it around Rachael’s shivering shoulders. The sun was bright but it was March and they had just been chilled to the soul. They had been to the Holocaust Museum on a school outing so that they, and future generations, would never forget. How could they? They had been face to face with the grainy images of men, women and children who had been vilified from birth and finally sorted and marked for extermination like vermin—a sad legacy of the world their parents brought them into. Most of the kids had walked around in stunned silence, but Martin had kept one eye on Rachael all the time.
Usually, when they went to the art gallery or other museums, some of the kids would horse around until their teachers reined them back, but not here. Overwhelmed by the horror, they knew they were there to bear solemn witness and to make sure it could never be allowed to happen again.
It must have been even harder on Rachael who touched the names on the wall like she was touching all that was left of friends and
family. She cried openly and Martin didn’t try to stop her. He just stood close to her, touching her arm when it was time to move on.
It got to him too. Pictures of broken people with haunted eyes, behind barbed wire, waiting for the horrible end plotted by minds that had been seduced by pure, unadulterated evil. It made him angry and it wasn’t just for Rachael’s sake. He was angry that he belonged to a species that could do something like that. He could understand blind rage—he had seen it often enough on the ice—but this was something different. This was what happened when men sat behind their desks, coolly and calmly designing and planning the most efficient way to exterminate an entire race. That frightened him.
They kept meticulous records, too, as if they were proud of it all. And pictures; undeniable proof that would live forever even after the smoke from the crematoriums had blown away. Martin had read about it and thought he understood but here, face to face with the ghosts of the six million, and listening to the faltering voice of an old survivor, it became so real that he too had to fight back his tears.
“It might be better,” Rachael said to him as they got closer to her house, “if we don’t mention where we’ve been.” She had recovered for the most part but her dark eyes were still soft from all her tears.
“Okay, but why?”
“Because of my father. The Holocaust brings up all kinds of bad memories for him.”
“I can understand why.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking, Martin.”
He looked at her and saw the veil of mystery close behind her eyes. He had yet to meet her parents and she said as little as possible about them.
“Okay.” He took her in her arms and held her against him. She seemed to melt against him and raised her head and smiled. “You know,” he added as he tried to keep his heart from bursting, “that I will never let anything happen to you.” It was clumsy but it was how he felt.
“I know, Martin.”