Paolo and Sally had become the center of a dining group which would form shortly after they arrived. There would be the portly Gino, whom everyone referred to as “the Cardinal.” It was never clear to Sally why. When she asked, Paolo would only say, “Oh, it just seems like that's what we should call him.” The “Cardinal's” wife, Lila, seemed a bit askew to Sally. She must have been pretty once, but now she looked worn out, like a good witch. She seemed interesting, but Sally noticed that none of the men would take her seriously, nor let her talk much.
Sally and Lila were the only women regulars in this group, which also consisted of Mario, who actually made a living as a painter of Roman scenes, and Alberto who was a member of one of Italy's smaller, off-beat political parties. Neither Mario nor Alberto ever brought their wives to dinner.
And in her heart Sally knew that for all the constant fuss that Paolo's friends made about her, she herself would not be welcome for a minute without Paolo.
In addition, there was Ottavio, a perpetually out of work lawyer whose brilliance made it hard for him to deal with the petty needs of everyday business, and who, as a result, was living home again with his mother and younger brothers. Once in a while they would also be joined by Giorgio, a familiar actor who was often seen in a Fellini movie, many of which were made around the city.
Paolo was well loved by his friends. In spite of the soft veil of sadness around him, he was essentially very lively and very funny. But most Italians were lively and funny. Paolo offered them something more: he had a kind of bedrock wisdom, a fondness for humanity, and a twinkling wit in spite of his private grief.
And Sally could see that everyone respected him. Paolo's no-nonsense honesty was always served on a platter of irony at no one's expense, or often only at his own.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
It was drizzling slightly that soft autumn evening when Paolo picked up Sally after work.
“Let's take a ride,” he said. Sally was always willing. Rome had layers and layer of things she wanted to see and understand.
“There's a little restaurant in the countryside on the old Appian way,” Paolo said. “I thought that might be nice for a change.”
“The Appian Way! Wonderful,” Sally said. “Somehow, I can't get it into my head that it's possible to still have a 2,200 year old highway that you can actually drive on ….even though some roads in New York feel that way. Seriously, it's so hard for me to believe the first major road of all of Western Civilization is still in existence! I mean, it is possible, isn't it? Or did someone just put a pile of old stones there for tourists and call it 'the Appian Way'?”
Paolo laughed. “A very interesting idea. And not a bad one, actually. But, sorry, no. Somehow we Italians would never be able to agree on how or where this little gambit should be done, or who would do it, and so it would never get done at all. It has to be the real thing. It's the only way it could possibly be there.”
He's not kidding with his kidding, Sally thought. And he's even half proud of it. How a whole country could take pride in perpetual chaos and seeming incompetence was a mystery to her.
“Don't you ever get tired of all this chaos and incompetence?” Sally asked rudely.
“Ah, tonight we have the American Sally with us,” Paolo replied. Then he added, “What's the difference between the American hell, and the Italian hell....?”
“Is this a joke?”
“Sort of.”
“OK. I don't know. What's the difference?”
“Well,” Paolo began, “this man dies and he goes to hell where the devil greets him to give him a tour. The devil says, 'Listen, you've been a bad guy, but not so bad that you don't get a choice. Come, I'll show you two versions of hell and you can pick the one you want.' So the devil takes this guy to a doorway and says, 'This is the Italian hell.' The man sees a beautiful big room with marble floors, and wonderful paintings on the walls. There is music, and revelry, endless food, and lots of good-looking women. 'Wow,' the man says, 'this one looks terrific. I'll take it.' 'Not so fast,' says the devil, 'I have to warn you that after 12 days and 12 nights of this, we take you out, hang you upside down, and boil you in oil for all eternity.' ' Brrrrrrr...' said the man, 'no thank you. I'd like to see my other choice.' So the devil takes this guy to a doorway and says, 'Ok, now this is the American hell.' The man sees a beautiful big room with marble floors, and wonderful paintings on the walls. There is music, and revelry, endless food, and lots of good-looking women. 'Wow,' the man says, 'this one looks terrific. I'll take this one instead.' 'Not so fast,' says the devil, 'I have to warn you that after 12 days and 12 nights of this, we take you out, hang you upside down, and boil you in oil for all eternity.' 'Well, I don't get it.' says the man, 'What's the difference between the Italian hell and the American hell?' So the devil says, ' Well... in the Italian hell...sometimes they can't find the matches, sometimes they run out of oil, sometimes the ropes break....'“
Yes, that's it, Sally thought. Italy is one of those gloriously maddening places where its vices are also its virtues. Who cares if the government keeps falling, if you can’t get anything done, if no one ever shows up on time, if the mail doesn’t go through, if the telephones don’t work, when I can just enjoy this delicate light, this sweet air, this adorable man.
“Why are you grinning?” Paolo asked.
When they got to the narrow, bumpy old stone road lined with the outstretched branches of the famous “umbrella” pine trees, it was dark and the drizzle had turned to rain. No one else seemed to be driving on the single-lane road. Paolo stopped the car.
“Look,” he said. The headlights reflected back small patches of smooth, flat, shiny stones, glazed by the rain. Everything else was very dark and very quiet.
“Let's get out.” Paolo said.
“Out? Here? In the middle of the road? What if a car comes?”
“It will see us,” Paolo said.
So it would, Sally thought, and got out.
They walked in front of the car's headlights. They didn't speak as they put one foot down on the ancient stones, and then another. They went from stone to stone with the rain ping-ing on their bent heads and shoulders. One stone after another. One at a time. One foot at a time. A thrill ran through Sally. She saw and felt nothing else but flat, old, very old, stones. She thought of all the horse and oxen hooves, and chariot wheels of the Roman Legions on this road that once stretched from Rome to the southern Adriatic seaport of Brindisi; this narrow way that helped the original road builders of the Western world develop a 'global' Roman Empire.
Sally realized she was walking the same road as all the sandled feet of early Christians heading for their secret catacombs, which in fact now surrounded her; over the same stones as the Caesars being hailed; as the toga-clad citizens going to their suburban villas; as the slaves carrying baskets of produce on their heads; as all the saints, sinners, and revolutionaries: Hannibal, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Cleopatra, the Borgheses, Garibaldi, Mussolini, Nazi tanks, Allied jeeps....all of it rose up from the bottoms of the soles of her feet and shaky knees, straight into her stomach with a blow struck with the weight of more than 200 centuries.
She was mesmerized, the way deep sea divers get, losing all connection with the physical present. She was wandering, going to the edge of physical darkness, moving out of the headlights. She would have walked straight down that black road to the edge of the world.
“Sally,” Paolo called. “Come on back. Let's go.”
She was soaking wet. Paolo was standing with the car door open for her. She got in without saying a word. Even she couldn't tell if her wet face held tears.
This gift, she thought.... blessed man, thank you for this gift.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
It had started out as an ordinary late lunch on the way back from the tiny hill town of Palestrina. The sky was very blue that clear sunny day as they climbed the narrow cobblestone steps of the very old village. The town wound up a terraced hillside, and when Paolo
and Sally reached the top they were like eagles overlooking the green valley. It was quiet. Once in a while, a woman would come by carrying laundry in a big basket on her head, or a mule would stroll through, making slow clicking sounds on the street, followed by a toothless farmer. So close to Rome, and yet this could still be centuries ago. I hope they never catch up, Sally thought.
But they had caught up, at least once in their lifetime. The deep, regular line of bullet holes, where the German and American machine guns had run up the white stucco walls of houses caught in the war’s countryside fighting, could still be seen.
Before heading back to Rome, they stopped for lunch at a small inn where the outdoor terrace hung over a cliff. They didn't need to speak. They just looked at the beauty around them, breathing it in deeply, thinking their own thoughts. There was no one else there and no one came to wait on them. The only sound was a muted, but audible, radio tuned into a station which played popular songs.
Paolo took Sally's hand. He always held her hand. In the car. Out with friends. In the street. At a cafe table. Paolo stroked Sally's hand, and looked into her eyes so fiercely that she almost turned away. She smiled. He didn't. The radio was playing one of Sally's favorites, the exuberant yet seductive “Quando, Quando, Quando?”--”Tell me when, when, when?” The rhythm was going all through her body and passing from her hand through to Paolo. Sally stopped smiling and returned Paolo's probing look.
A harried woman finally came out of the kitchen to take their order.
“We want a room,” Paolo told her.
“You don't want to eat..?” she replied, giving them a look that said what-are-you-doing-messing-up-a-table-if-you-don't-want-to-eat.
“We'd like a room,” Paolo said, standing up, “Do you have one free?”
The woman glanced disapprovingly at American Sally in her American yellow dress. “Madame, “Paolo said with Italian male authority,” we'll take the key to a room.”
He took Sally's hand as they went to the desk where the woman gave Paolo a key, all the while studying Sally. Well, Sally thought, apparently not all of Italy loves lovers.
The room was small and plain, but filled with that extraordinary light that helped make Italian painters among the best in the world. Soft. Slightly peach. A third presence.
Paolo knew exactly what had to be done, as his face began to show all the fervor of Mediterranean male desire set irrevocably aflame.
Sally needed the love they made everyday like air. The one day that Paolo had to be away, she felt as if her flesh were being pulled to where he was. Until she met Paolo, she had never even known she had these feelings in her. Sally often thought, it is amazing how excited he can get me.
Later while Paolo was doing ordinary, daily things, she would look at him and remember. She would think that it was as if he were a magician, making all kinds of things happen for which she was not fully prepared to believe. And she would wonder incredulously: How do you do that?
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Paolo told Sally “Maybe we could set up a time this week for you and Tonino to get together.”
“Are you sure it will be ok?” she asked.
Tonino had a lot of difficult things going on in his young little life now, and Paolo--a more doting and protective father than Sally had ever imagined--was treating him with kid gloves. Several times Sally suggested that Tonino join them, but Paolo always said “not yet.”
It was Tonino who gave Paolo his sad eyes.
At first Paolo hadn't wanted to discuss the situation with Sally. It wasn't the kind of problem one injects into the early giddiness of courtship. But when it became clear that the exhilaration they felt for each other was from a deep, not shallow, place, Paolo shared more and more of his real life with Sally. In his real life, Paolo had custody of his child from a broken marriage to an erratic and unstable mother. A mother who seemed only too willing to give up the boy and go on with her rather disheveled life. Apparently content to see Tonino one afternoon a week, she sometimes even cancelled that. The break-up of his parents created enormous conflicts for Tonino, and domestic burdens for Paolo.
Paolo never stayed the whole night with Sally. He said it was important that he be home when Tonino woke up, even though the grandmother was always there.
But this wasn't the real issue. Touchy and delicate as it may have been to inject a new woman into the life of a young boy still reeling and confused from so many drastic changes, it was more than that.
Worse than any harm new stress could bring to the quality of Tonino's already shaky life was the fact that Tonino's life itself was at stake.
“So you see,” Paolo had explained to Sally when he first told her that the doctors had discovered problems with Tonino's blood--Paolo wouldn't say the word 'leukemia', protesting that it was too soon to make a prognosis--” he is still very weak. When he left the hospital after the last infusion they said it would take time for him to be able to lead a normal life again. Even then we'll have to be careful. Right now, he isn't going out much so we can't make any plans to get together with him.. I never know how he'll be from one day to the next.”
Sally's first instinct when she heard about Tonino was to reject all this information. She was not eager to embrace any looming dark clouds in paradise. “But he'll be alright,” Sally stated to Paolo as much as asked. Optimistic Sally, ever the good American, believed that you could make anything happen the way you wanted it to.
“We're hoping so,” Paolo said. As he talked, his whole face and body showed the heaviness that was usually in his eyes. “But in any case, I also don't want to give him anymore things to handle right now.”
Sally had accepted that part of it, and Paolo did such a good job of juggling everybody's needs that Sally never felt the impact of a child--never mind a sick child--on their relationship.
Now all that was about to change.
Tonino was finally strong enough to be up and about. He would probably even go back to school. Paolo told the boy that he wanted him to meet a new friend. That sounded innocent enough.
That is until Tonino actually met Sally. Then, immediately his unsullied radar picked up “Alert! Alert! Replacement for my mother! Replacement for me!”
The encounter was a disaster.
A small, thin, pale child holding tightly to his father’s big hand greeted Sally when she opened the door. Tonino looked as if even a gentle breeze might blow him away. Standing next to his tall, tanned, healthy father, Tonino seemed as if he were already disappearing. His tiny, sallow face held two enormous brown eyes, which were almost as sad as his father’s.
Sally wanted to love him immediately, and would have hugged him “hello,” except that from out of that little face shot the most hostile back-off look she had ever seen. Naturally, Sally quickly checked her instincts. She politely led both of them to the sunny terrace where she had a couple of new comic books waiting for Tonino, and asked him if he wanted some ice cream. Paolo smiled appreciatively at Sally.
“No, thank you,” Tonino muttered, not looking at her. He picked up the comic books and showed them to his father. “I already have this one,” he said in disgust.
Sally made coffee for herself and Paolo, and tried to tempt Tonino again with ice cream.
This time he just shook his head. Sally tried to tell Tonino about the resident lizard. Tonino looked around, didn’t see the prehistoric creature, and lost interest.
After coffee, Paolo decided to go. He had an uncanny sense of pacing, and realized that as much as could be accomplished today was already done. Besides, Tonino, in addition to being sad and hostile, was clearly losing what little energy he had.
“I'll see you later,” Paolo said as he and Tonino got on the elevator.
“Bye, Tonino,” Sally smiled and waved. “It was good to meet you.” The elevator doors closed on Tonino's downcast face.
---------
“So...that didn't go too well,” Sally informed Paolo of the obvious when he returned after g
iving Tonino an early supper and seeing him to bed.
“You're too impatient,” Paolo said. “It was fine. It will take time. And it would help if you wouldn't be jealous.”
“JEALOUS!!!!?????”
Well, that did it, Sally thought. First she is browbeaten by a kid, and now she is accused by his father. “Jealous!!!?? Are you crazy!?”
Paolo held his ground, but took her hand. “It's only natural,” he assured her.
“But where on earth did you get an idea like that!?” she protested. Sally tried to run the events of the day through her mind as quickly as possible. She had been surprised at the change in Paolo when he was with Tonino. Usually his eyes were always on Sally, he always sat close to her, confided in her, listened to her. But today, he watched only Tonino. He fussed over him, made him comfortable, talked mostly to him. Sally felt extraneous to them both that day.
If she hadn't been jealous before, she was getting jealous now.
“Well, you have to admit,” Sally said to Paolo, “neither one of you treated me very well today.”
“Sally,” Paolo said wearily, “he's the kid. You're supposed to be the adult.” A feeling of injustice flashed across Sally's face.
Paolo stroked her hair affectionately. “Come on, it's going to work out. You'll see, with time, we're going to be a family.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Sally was impressed, as she watched Paolo lovingly take care of Tonino. It gave her another, different, view of him. Still, sometimes it was hard to lose her place as the sole center of Paolo's attention.
Yet when Tonino was not around, Paolo remained riveted to her. So much so that Sally had actually become a little cocky in his love for her. She realized how secure she felt when she laughed the first time he turned to her and said “I don't like you today.”
True, it had taken her by surprise, but she also thought it was funny. Maybe it was the “today” part of it that made her realize that he was also saying, “but every other day I do.”
“Why don't you like me today?” Sally asked.
“I'm not sure,” he said. And then it was over. His hand would touch hers and he would smile.
How wonderful, Sally thought, that he loves me enough to trust telling me this. After all, no one likes anyone, everyday. Not even themselves. But he says it, she thought, knowing it can’t break our bond, and by saying it, it goes away. She thought she must be crazy to get such a kick out of his fearless honesty at her expense, but it was this trust in each other that let Sally be patient when Paolo gave most of his attention to Tonino.