The Rome Incident

A short story

The short walk from Spagna station to the plaza is more of a pilgrimage in August. I pass white sandstone terraces hot enough to fry a dead emperor, sticky bitumen roads spilling over like gelato. I see drivers melt on leather seats, stone statues sigh, disorientated vendors shout at air-conditioners, exhausted waiters curse beneath menu-cards.

The city's trees, few and far between, have become tiny refuge islands where a homeless man tries to outsleep the summer. Beneath me the green Tiber River crawls with 2000 years worth of shit, piss and corpses. A grand illusion of relief.

Viva la Roma.

And one million tourists marching like a foreign legion under various flags. Riding down the seven hills in taxis and Ubers, on a quest to conquer every landmark in sight armed with mobile phone and selfie stick.

In the plaza a small regiment occupies the shaded bench where Roberto instructed we meet. He is not here yet which comes as no surprise. Italians are always late. To the Italian, time is nothing but a strange abstraction reserved for science fiction and tourists.

I cast a brief eye over the cafe umbrellas where those who can afford to, sit with long cocktails and soak up the mediterranean air purified by human distress. Any minute now I expect they’ll march over to the colosseum in white togas demanding a real show.

Lost in thought, somewhere between 6 B.C. and present day, I didn’t notice an old merchant trying to sell me a straw cubano hat. The merchant was scarcely half my size in height but due to the thirty hats stacked on his head, each with a different coloured ribbon tied around it, I felt like the short ass. He was a pro, no doubt about it. He could pull the topmost hat off with a long stick and land it neatly on my head without missing a beat. Pretty neat. And only 15€.

I passed on the offer but the merchant insisted I see how ridiculous I look in a shop window first (like the old man and the sea, except I’m not old and the sea is a long way off). I declined again but the old stickler wouldn’t take no for an answer and pulled another hat down on my head. And another. And on.

An attractive woman was smiling at my public humiliation in the window’s reflection.

I turned to the woman and made a gesture which said, ‘How unfortunate for someone such as you to find me in such circumstances embarrassing as this, please kill me… now’.

Italians are experts at sign language.

Now I saw her in all her splendour. She was cool and relaxed, leaning back on both elbows, dangling a tan sandal off the end of her big toe as if to say ‘ciao’. Nothing could penetrate her demeanour. Her olive oil skin had its own ozone layer, her indifference was hotter than a ceramic tile in the sun. She was gorgeous. Suddenly, I wanted her more than all the shade in the world.

The woman smiled and gave a shrug.

I tried to get away but the merchant was concrete on closing the deal. Upon request, I looked again at my silly reflection in the window but found the woman was missing.

To hell with hats. To hell with Roberto. To hell with Rome.

I went headlong into the sea of people after her, cubano hat and all (this one had a red ribbon). I climbed the necks of the elderly, trampled the toes of infants, dived through salty armpits and came out the eye of a gelato cone covered in sweat, spit, and hair.

The woman was nowhere to be seen. I beat my thighs, I cried, I swore; the whole thing. Roberto would later tell me I should audition for the lead in a divine comedy someday.

For now Roberto was standing beside the merchant who looked furious beneath his twenty hats. He wanted to cut out my balls for stealing.

I took 50€ from my wallet and held it in the air like a white flag. It was no use asking for change. He snatched the money and shoved off through the crowd, still spitting a stream of curses at me.

I watched as the tower of hats weaved their way through the crowd autonomously, bodiless, without hesitation. I watched until their owner came back into view, climbing the Spanish steps with an easy gait, only stopping once near the top to take the hand of a woman. A woman with olive oil skin.

Roberto put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t take it personal” He said, “We Italians are a crazy people.”

Vic Spandrio 2023