stared at it with an equal lack of affect. The doorman strode over and took the paper from the driver and studied it, and then said 84 / ANNE RIVERS SIDDONS
to Joe, “You are sure? The old city. It is not such a good spot for Americans. Not so much of the night life.”
“It’s a private home,” Joe said. “We are going to a party there. Un ricevimento .”
“Ah,” said the doorman. “A party.” And he nodded wisely.
He leaned into the taxi and spat out a rapid command to the driver, who nodded and closed the window. We glided away down the mountain in the lowering dusk as if in a gondola, sealed away from Rome in new vinyl and steel and chill air. For the first time since we had reached the airport in Munich that morning, we relaxed and took deep breaths.
At the end of this ride would be lights and festivity and love, and faces we knew, and language we spoke. There would be food and drink and laughter. Colin’s voice on the telephone was jubilant and assured, somehow different, somehow very…Italian. Maria’s was vibrant and full of something I had not heard before, a kind of teasing sensuality, a small, very feminine something.
“It’s so beautiful you won’t believe it, Joe,” she said. “Like a fairy tale. And I can’t wait for you to meet Sam. He says tell you to tell the driver to look for the lamppost with the wreath of white flowers on it; it’s the third door down from that, on the left. The street numbers are all worn off on this block. Oh, I’m going to give you such a hug! Hurry up!”
“I think Maria’s been into the vino,” Joe said, hanging up the telephone. It sat on a pretty blond wood desk overlooking our balcony, which did not, after all, overlook all of Rome, but instead commanded the back parking lot and a line of low hills and a kind of mesa in the distance, upon which sat what I took to be a hydroelectric plant. The room we had reserved had been “I regret, occupato ” when we arrived, and rather than wait
HILL TOWNS / 85
for another on the front to be made up, a process that would, the contrite little man at the desk said, take three hours, we accepted this one and a reduction in our bill. After buying Joe pajamas and two form-fitting shirts of some silky material in the appallingly priced men’s shop off the marble lobby, we showered and left immediately for Trastevere. I wore a flowered cotton sundress more suited to a morning in Florida than an engagement party, but I did not care. Joe, in the stylish Roman shirt, did.
“I feel I should have on a stretch satin Speed bikini under my pants,” he said.
“It will probably come to that. I can’t imagine where we’re going to find Brooks Brothers oxford boxers,” I said, smiling at him. Joe hated the new shirt. He looked as unlike Joe Gaillard as it was possible to look in it, foreign and rakish and showily handsome. I started to say something about gold chains and chest hair but thought better of it.
We could not see much of the panorama of Rome on the ride down the mountain. The sky had deepened to violet, but few lights had come on yet, or perhaps Rome did not light up at night like an American city. Some few pinpricks dotted the plain below, strung like a necklace, and a pepper-ing marked the suburbs we glided through, but the neon signs had not been lit. Only the white ghost of a fingernail moon hung in the sky, far to the west of us. It was impossible to tell where we were in relation to anything at all. Somehow, we did not speak much.
We reached the bottom of the mountain and turned, and passed through a neighborhood I thought I recognized from the trip up, filled with newish apartment buildings and shops and outdoor cafés and teeming crowds on foot and in the stubby little cars that Romans
86 / ANNE RIVERS SIDDONS
seemed to aim at one another like ballistic weapons. Fiats and Vespas darted everywhere like bright shoals of fish. It all looked gay and friendly and somehow very real, and I wished
to Joe, “You are sure? The old city. It is not such a good spot for Americans. Not so much of the night life.”
“It’s a private home,” Joe said. “We are going to a party there. Un ricevimento .”
“Ah,” said the doorman. “A party.” And he nodded wisely.
He leaned into the taxi and spat out a rapid command to the driver, who nodded and closed the window. We glided away down the mountain in the lowering dusk as if in a gondola, sealed away from Rome in new vinyl and steel and chill air. For the first time since we had reached the airport in Munich that morning, we relaxed and took deep breaths.
At the end of this ride would be lights and festivity and love, and faces we knew, and language we spoke. There would be food and drink and laughter. Colin’s voice on the telephone was jubilant and assured, somehow different, somehow very…Italian. Maria’s was vibrant and full of something I had not heard before, a kind of teasing sensuality, a small, very feminine something.
“It’s so beautiful you won’t believe it, Joe,” she said. “Like a fairy tale. And I can’t wait for you to meet Sam. He says tell you to tell the driver to look for the lamppost with the wreath of white flowers on it; it’s the third door down from that, on the left. The street numbers are all worn off on this block. Oh, I’m going to give you such a hug! Hurry up!”
“I think Maria’s been into the vino,” Joe said, hanging up the telephone. It sat on a pretty blond wood desk overlooking our balcony, which did not, after all, overlook all of Rome, but instead commanded the back parking lot and a line of low hills and a kind of mesa in the distance, upon which sat what I took to be a hydroelectric plant. The room we had reserved had been “I regret, occupato ” when we arrived, and rather than wait
HILL TOWNS / 85
for another on the front to be made up, a process that would, the contrite little man at the desk said, take three hours, we accepted this one and a reduction in our bill. After buying Joe pajamas and two form-fitting shirts of some silky material in the appallingly priced men’s shop off the marble lobby, we showered and left immediately for Trastevere. I wore a flowered cotton sundress more suited to a morning in Florida than an engagement party, but I did not care. Joe, in the stylish Roman shirt, did.
“I feel I should have on a stretch satin Speed bikini under my pants,” he said.
“It will probably come to that. I can’t imagine where we’re going to find Brooks Brothers oxford boxers,” I said, smiling at him. Joe hated the new shirt. He looked as unlike Joe Gaillard as it was possible to look in it, foreign and rakish and showily handsome. I started to say something about gold chains and chest hair but thought better of it.
We could not see much of the panorama of Rome on the ride down the mountain. The sky had deepened to violet, but few lights had come on yet, or perhaps Rome did not light up at night like an American city. Some few pinpricks dotted the plain below, strung like a necklace, and a pepper-ing marked the suburbs we glided through, but the neon signs had not been lit. Only the white ghost of a fingernail moon hung in the sky, far to the west of us. It was impossible to tell where we were in relation to anything at all. Somehow, we did not speak much.
We reached the bottom of the mountain and turned, and passed through a neighborhood I thought I recognized from the trip up, filled with newish apartment buildings and shops and outdoor cafés and teeming crowds on foot and in the stubby little cars that Romans
86 / ANNE RIVERS SIDDONS
seemed to aim at one another like ballistic weapons. Fiats and Vespas darted everywhere like bright shoals of fish. It all looked gay and friendly and somehow very real, and I wished
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