Rome by Night

MARIO PICCHI

I WAS thinking of certain private affairs of mine while the bus tore headlong down the Passeggiata Archeologica; on the avenue at that time of night there’s not a soul, and the cars can go as crazy as they want to; I looked out of the window, beyond the first and the second row of trees, beyond the pitch-black leafage of their tops, away over to the other side of the ball park, closed off at one end by a screen of tall dark-green trees, and other trees, in flower, violet-colored, leaning directly against the sky, where puffy white clouds were flying; and I saw all this confusedly, by the wan light of the moon and the streetlamps, through the bouncing windows of the bus.

At the end of the avenue there’s a square where lots of streets come together, and the bus turns left. Now they’ve put a rotary there, they’ve planted a big round bed of flowers; but it wasn’t there then.

All of a sudden, the bus swerved hard, jerking heavily to one side; it rolled on, screeching, for another several yards, and then stopped abruptly, throwing me from the back platform almost into the arms of the ticket collector, who was crying, “Porca miseria!“

I turned around and saw that he was looking out the window, making gestures with his hand. There weren’t many passengers at that time, after midnight, four or five people who were looking at each other, amazed. The ticket collector kept getting excited and moving his hand. “Look at him there, poor thing.”

I saw the driver stand up and cry, “Just look at him, the unlucky devil! I missed running over him in the nick of time!”

He opened the doors, and I jumped off behind the ticket collector, who had hurried down.

On the ground, right next to the back wheels of the bus, was a boy holding onto one leg with his hands; beside him, an overturned bicycle; while I was bending over to help him, along with the ticket man, I saw, about twenty yards away, almost at the junction of the square and the avenue that goes along the city walls, a parked car. Nothing else; and silence.

The boy looked at us, scared to death, holding onto that leg of his.

“Did you get hurt?” the ticket collector asked him.

He shook his head no.

“Give us a look-see.” We helped him up, and he said “Oh,” but stayed on his feet, and after a minute went to pick up his bicycle.

“Nothing’s the matter with her either,” he said.

The driver, hands on his hips, looked toward the car; it was still parked, and you could tell someone was in it only by the red lights which were on.

The passengers had also left the bus.

“Poor little darling, let’s have a look,” said a woman with gray hair and men’s shoes on. “Why, you’re pale.”

“What else would you expect?” said another of the passengers. “He must have seen those things right next to his head,” and he pointed at the two double wheels, black and enormous.

“Are you feeling all right?” asked a second woman. I recognized her; she was an usher at the Sala Umberto. “You ought to drink some water.”

The driver took a step toward the car, muttering, “Not a stir out of that son of a gun, not a stir. Just watch me make him get a move on!”

The driver was wearing boots and had a rolling walk. We saw him approach the car and bend his head toward the inside. I walked up, too. He gestured at me and said, “Look here.”

inside there was a girl with her hands resting on the steering wheel who was staring straight ahead. She didn’t even seem to notice us.

“Hey, lady,” said the driver, “now, is that any way to drive? Have you got any idea what you’ve done? That you made that boy tumble down, and I missed running over him in the nick of time? Have you got any idea what a mess it would’ve put me into?”

The girl remained motionless; not a word from her.

“Excuse me, miss, what’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling well?” I said, touching her shoulder with a finger. She let out a sigh.

“Aren’t you feeling all right?” repeated the driver.

When she heard that rough voice, the girl sighed again and seemed to come to. She turned her head toward us, as we stood there with our faces against the window, and looked at us, moving her lips. She was cute, with her hair cut short, a lovely little nose, a lovely mouth, and she had on a lovely yellow sweater.

“What’s she saying?” the driver asked me.

“I can’t make anything out of it,” I answered.

“What’s happened?” said the girl. “I don’t remember anything.”

“Get that, she doesn’t remember,” said the driver, turning toward me and nudging me with his elbow. “She doesn’t remember. I guess that means nothing’s happened.”

“Oh, good Lord, what’s happened, what’s happened?”

“But we almost had a terrible accident, we nearly ran over a little boy, thank the Lord he’s safe, and you ask me what’s been going on! But it almost happened — do you get it? — it almost happened!”

“Let me out, I feel awful,” said the girl in a thin voice.

She got out by herself. She was really cute. Over there a way was the small group of passengers around the boy, and the parked bus, empty, with its doors open. The sky was of an almost black turquoise, and there were the white clouds, like cotton candy, sailing in it. I felt as if I were Somebody, walking beside that girl.

“Excuse me, dear,” she said to the boy, stroking his cheek. “But I didn’t do it on purpose.” And saying that, she began to cry and seemed about to fall.

“That would’ve taken the cake, if she had done it on purpose,” grumbled the woman with the men’s shoes on. I took the girl by the arm, supporting her.

“And now what are we going to do?” asked the ticket collector.

“Have you given the boy some water to drink?” asked the driver. “Great stuff, there’s not even a trickle of a fountain around. Get him to urinate.”

“He can’t, nothing comes out,” said the usher at the Sala Umberto.

“Then he’s got to drink something, or else he’ll be sick,” said the driver, looking around.

“I’d like something to drink, too,” said the girl. “I got such a scare.”

“There’s a restaurant here at Montedoro — let’s see if it’s still open,” I said.

The driver looked at his watch. “Oh, well, we were on our way to the garage anyhow. Let’s go see,” he said.

“And what about us?” asked one of the passengers. “Are you just going to leave us here?”

“With the terrible accident that almost happened, you’re worried about five minutes?” replied the driver. “You come along too.”

“But I’m sick, I have to go home.”

“Sick? Honestly? What’s the matter?”

“Diabetes.”

“Oh, well, diabetes is no disease that stops you from moving. I bet it’ll do you good.”

The man with diabetes eyed the others, who looked right back at him; then we all started off, I next to the girl, who seemed very weak and smiled with difficulty.

MONTEDORO is just a stone’s throw away, where the street that goes to the Porta Latina begins; there’s a big vine arbor and room for three hundred people. We went up the stairs just as the restaurant was closing.

“Didn’t you people notice anything?” I said. “A terrible accident nearly occurred.”

“Madonna mia!” exclaimed an old woman who had come out of the kitchen.

“Set yourself down here,” said the usher at the Sala Umberto, and she made the boy sit on one of the benches that are around the marble tables under the trellis. “Better bring us some water for this boy — he almost got run over by the bus.”

We sat down around the table, too; the girl, silent, next to me. I said a few words to console her. She looked at me, still in a kind of stupor. There were nine of us in all. The bus driver said, “And what about us? It’s not as though we hadn’t gotten a scare too. Bring us some wine, ma’am.”

The girl seemed to perk up a little. “Oh, yes, we’ve had such a scare,” she said, looking around her. Everyone burst out laughing.

“You’re the right one to say so,”said the driver. “Come on, miss, don’t be so upset; it’s all over now. Have a drink and forget it.”

It was pleasant, sitting under the vine arbor, in the fresh air; from the trellis hung lots of electric wires, with light bulbs attached. The bus driver had taken off his cap and was looking at the wine against the light; the usher at the Sala Umberto was explaining what had happened to the owner of the restaurant and the old woman, who stood there listening and looking now at the boy, now at the girl; the boy was drinking his water slowly, studying the inside of the glass; the girl was contemplating the white wine.

“What were you doing out on the streets at this time of night?” the old woman asked the boy.

“I had gone to the obelisk to see if the pilgrimage of Divine Love was leaving tonight. I live close by, in that house before the city walls.”

We exchanged glances and laughed, while the driver ordered another half liter, as if we had all known each other for a long time. You could hardly see the sky, covered by the leafage of the trellis vines, but opposite us, beyond the little wall that went along the street, beyond the black umbrella tops of the pines and the black cypresses, on the turquoise fields, arose the Terme di Caracalla.

“Over there the ancient Romans used to take their baths,” the ticket collector told me.

“Great people, those old Romans, eh?” said the passenger with the diabetes.

“We, too, are Romans,” said the driver. “We, too, like wine, as they did.”

I noticed that seated nearly opposite me was a girl with red hair hanging down loose at her shoulders. She was wearing a white raincoat; she hadn’t said a word and stayed there silent as could be, holding her glass, which was half full, absolutely still in front of her. I saw she was looking at the girl with the car, trying not to let her realize it. The other girl was looking to one side.

“Rome is a beautiful city,” said the woman with the men’s shoes on.

“Beautiful? There’s no other city like it,” said the owner of the restaurant. “Lots of foreigners come here to eat, and they all say so. They all are astonished at it. Here there’s everything, old and new; and the Pope’s here too.”

“Yes, and nobody else has him,” said the usher at the Sala Umberto.

“But once there was an antipope too,” said the bus driver.

“I shouldn’t care, because I’m sick,” said the passenger with the diabetes, “and yet I’m crazy about these things.”

We talked for a while about the antipope; then the subject changed to car accidents. The girl with the car stiffened, pretending not to hear.

“Say something, too,” I told her. “Everything’s over, and you mustn’t think about it anymore.”

“It was terrible, but now I’m afraid I’m staying out too late,” she said.

A gust of soft air brought us a perfume of resin and grass; we heard the wind rustle in the leaves, like a confused movement: it seemed an enormous hand that was stirring slowly to caress the tops of the holly oaks, of the pines, of the gigantic trees that covered all the terrain around us, the stretches of grass. I felt like lying down in a field, like sinking deep into the soft grass and letting my gaze wander over the sky, where the spandy clean clouds were flying.

I sipped some more of the wine and caught between my fingers a dandelion seed which had landed on the marble. I explained how the seeds of plants manage to travel, and the tricks of the flowers, the reason why they have bright colors, and perfume, and nectar, which are used to attract insects so as to dirty them with pollen, which is made up of very tiny male seeds.

Everyone looked at me with interest. I spoke of carnivorous plants; I spoke of the ants and their terrible struggles for the conquest of the supremacy of the Earth, as I had read in a magazine. They all looked at me with their mouths open.

They were nice people. The ticket collector at a certain point asked me, “And volcanoes?”

I said something about volcanoes, which are like those boils that come on people’s faces to let out infections and evil humors.

While we were standing up, the usher at the Sala Umberto asked me, “Do you know anything about the increase in old-age pensions?”

I said I was sorry, but I didn’t.

“Life is strange,” said the ticket collector, as if following a line of thought.

The driver turned to look at the ruins.

“Rome is always Rome,” he concluded.