Skylark Read online

  “I'm a good father,” Paolo said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They drove hurriedly back to the city laughing as each tried to think up a more fantastic, elaborate or lurid excuse for being so late to their separate jobs.

  “Next week I'm going to take you to my special place for the best artichokes in the world,” Paolo said. “Do you like artichokes?”

  “I don't know how to eat them,” Sally confessed.

  “I'll show you how.”

  “It sounds very nice, but as I told you, some friends are coming from New York.”

  “When are they coming?”

  “It's a she--my best friend, actually--in about a week.”

  “That's plenty of time for artichokes.”

  “I don't think so. Between that and the problems at the office, I'm really quite busy.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I want you to meet my dead grandfather on Saturday morning,” Paolo said when she picked up the phone.

  “What...!!??” she laughed.

  “You'll see,” he said.

  “I can't. Really. I have too much to do.”

  “How can you say 'no' to my dead grandfather,” Paolo said. “He wants to meet you.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I don't understand,” Sally said as they walked up the long steps of the Etruscan museum. “You said your grandfather was dead? Then, how can I meet him here, and how could he possibly want to see me?”

  No doubt about it, Sally was intrigued. It was a good line for sure, because it worked. Smooth as silk, this Paolo, she thought.

  But what really made her go was that it was Saturday morning. Saturday mornings were for friends, and after some of the difficulties of her first year in Rome, having many different friends became important to her.

  Besides, it was a good chance to go to the Etruscan Museum which was a “must-see” on her long list. The more of Rome she saw, the longer her list grew, and by now the mysterious Etruscans had made it to the top.

  Almost nothing was left of this sophisticated civilization after it was wiped out by the warrior ancestors of present day Romans. But while the early Romans may have killed off the Etruscan civilization, they absorbed many of the people. Sally was often startled to see modern Roman faces that were exact images of Etruscan statues many thousands of years old.

  After Sally and Paolo had marveled for about an hour at the strange household items, and tiny bronze body parts that the Etruscans sculpted to show the gods what parts of them was ill, Sally decided to play with Paolo at his own game.

  “So, where is this grandfather of yours?” she asked. “Actually, I think that was just a brazen tease.”

  “Not at all.”

  “There is no grandfather, is there?”

  “Of course there is, and we're going to meet him now.”

  Paolo led her to a somber, quiet room of stone coffins. On each coffin was a stone

  sculpture in the likeness of the person within. Not a death mask, but a life mask: a full-length rendition of this person at his or her living best. Young, strong, smiling, adorned with the riches of the then world. Among these burial monuments, or sarcophagi as they were called, was one unusual one. Paolo led her right to it.

  “This is grandpa,” he said.

  On this coffin were two figures, a man and a woman, lovingly huddled together.

  The stone man, who gave off more life than many of the living, was smiling happily. With his arm gently around the woman's soft stone shoulder, it was clear he was content in death because she was there.

  “This is grandpa,” Paolo said, like many other Romans, assuming himself to be a partial descendant of these ancients. “You can see he believes there are women a man would be happy to be with forever. So I wanted him to meet you.”

  “Yes,” Sally thought again: “Smooth as silk, this Paolo.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Afterwards they went for coffee at a small cafe in the park.

  “Well, now I know you have a ‘grandfather’,” Sally stated. “And from what you said the other day, I assume you also have a child. Are you married?”

  “No.

  Yes.

  Not really.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sally loved Ruth. Since they first met when they were eleven, they shared everything. All the questions of the teenage years; all the excitement about their futures; the adventure of going away to school, of finding jobs as scared beginners, and a one-room apartment in New York City, where together they explored the theater, ballet, museums, concerts; split a budget, the laundry, food shopping.

  They had something very rare. In addition to being friends, they had the natural rhythm of partners. For Sally, something didn't really happen until she shared it with Ruth. So it was important that Sally be able to reveal Rome to Ruth as spectacularly as Sally herself had come to see it.

  But she laughed as she remembered the disaster it had almost been, and the part Ruth unknowingly played in getting her through it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sally came to Italy because she had gotten the opportunity to work aboard a cruise ship which sailed through the glorious Mediterranean, with its last port of call in Naples.

  It had been a “pinch-yourself-this-can't-be-real” job. Her simple duties on board were to work with the publicity director, writing news releases about how the prominent passengers were enjoying their trip. She would then send this information and a photo to the passenger's hometown newspaper: “Today in mysterious Morocco, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, of Trenton, New Jersey, disembarked from the luxury liner ODYSSEY, ...... and blah, blah, blah.”

  Not only did Sally travel first class in order to mingle with the publicity- worthy passengers, but she also went ashore at each port as a trouble shooter. But there never was any trouble, so she traveled liked someone's spoiled and overindulged rich niece. The irony and pleasure of this was not lost on her as she recalled her blue-collar upbringing in an unheated railroad flat in Brooklyn.

  When the opportunity for this trip came up, Sally knew no one in Italy. But she did have friends who had friends there, so she thought if she studied the language and saved a little money, she could leave the ship in Naples when it went into dry dock for refurbishing and perhaps spend a month or two exploring all the postcards and posters of Italy that had always made her heart stop. After two weeks at sea and sightseeing, the ship arrived in Naples. Sally got up at dawn to be on the Bridge as they sailed slowly into that horseshoe harbor at sunrise.

  “That's Mt. Vesuvius,” the First Mate said as the ship's pilot maneuvered the big liner into port. “It buried Pompeii---you can still see some of it in that direction--some 2,000 years ago and it's still active.”

  “It is?” Sally was surprised. She studied the looming volcano and all the houses clinging to the mountainside. “Why don't they move?” she asked.

  “Ha! Do they move from California? Besides, who would move if they could spend their lives looking at that?” He gestured around the bay and Sally got her first glimpse of the twin island jewels rising out of the sparkling sea.

  “Oh, how beautiful!”

  “Yes, Ischia and Capri have gotten that reaction ever since the Caesars and Emperors of ancient Rome used them as vacation play lands. Now the whole world does.”

  “And what is that quaint little town over there?”

  “That's Sorrento. I bet you thought that was just the name of your neighborhood Italian restaurant.”

  Sally laughed because it was true. But she vowed to correct that impression by coming back to see it all.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  After Sally got through the long wait at Customs on the pier in Naples, she tried to get her suitcases organized to catch the train to Rome. Until this moment, Sally hadn't realized how much luggage she had brought with her. It was one thing to have muscular longshoremen load and unload this mini-household on board a ship as big as a high-rise hotel. It was another to be dragging it all behind he
r through strange, noisy, and confusing Italian railroad stations. A great anxiety was beginning to overtake Sally. As she made herself as comfortable as possible in the crowded third class train compartment, she realized she was scared. She was even beginning to think she was, if not totally crazy, certainly an enormous fool.

  The game was over. Now she was on her own, unprotected. All she had was a few words of Italian, if she could remember any from that course she took in New York on Tuesday nights for a mere six weeks. She had only a small sum of money which would now immediately change her temporary shipboard status as a pampered princess to someone living in the real world, in a country where she didn’t yet know what the real world was.

  She had no place to stay, except the name of a cheap rooming house in the middle of town where a friend told her one of her students once stayed. She did have the name of two friends of friends, one an American Fulbright scholar, the other an Italian nurse. But at this moment she didn't know if either of them knew she was coming or even cared.

  She also had the name of a young Roman who had come to her Italian class in New York. He was the visiting nephew of the teacher and sat in on the lessons to pick up some English before he returned home. He would also join the students later for coffee. They practiced their Italian on him, he tried some English on them and no one understood anyone. They all had a good time, and he gave out his address and phone number in Italy.” If you ever come to Rome, call me,” he told them.

  They all understood that.

  Sally made the mistake of wearing a very pretty wide-brimmed black hat on the trip to Rome. She liked it because she thought it made her look like a 1940's movie star. However, on the Rome railroad platform it just made her look like a confused American tourist in a big, strange hat.

  She found a porter who piled her luggage onto a large cart and headed for the station exit without being told. She tried to ask him to take her to a taxi, but he just said, “yes, yes” in irritable English and took her to a waiting black car. “Is this a taxi?” she asked the porter. She knew an Italian taxi would not be a New York yellow cab, but she didn't know what one would look like.

  “Same price. Same price,” the driver said.

  She just decided to get on with it and figure out all the problems later. She showed the driver the name and address of the pensione, or small rooming house, that her friend gave her. After a very long ride they came to a building that looked like an apartment house.

  Once in the large, old entrance, they found that the rooms were on the fifth floor. She asked the driver to help her upstairs with all her multiple bags of luggage. After they got off the tiny elevator, the driver put her suitcases in the empty waiting room. She paid him and he left.

  Sally was not impressed. This entrance was rather seedy and dark, it smelled of old decay, and obviously no one was making an effort to welcome guests.

  “Hello,” she called a few times. By now she didn't know if she had made a mistake and was in someone's home. Finally a middle-aged woman dressed in black entered. It was clear that she was annoyed and looked at Sally quizzically. Sally's heart fell.

  “I'm sorry,” Sally said in terrible Italian to the woman, “I am looking for the Pensione della Piazza.”

  “Si. Si.,” said the woman, scowling. “All full up. All full up,” she said in obviously memorized English phrases.

  “But I wrote to you !” Sally cried in dismay. “I thought I had a reservation!”

  “No reservation. No reservation. All full up.”

  Ordinarily Sally would have pressed, but she immensely disliked this place and wanted to get out immediately, never mind fight to spend the night here. Struggling through a combination of bad Italian and worse English, Sally learned that the best place to find rooms would be at the Tourist Service Center. There they spoke English and would call around for her to the various rooming houses, checking availability, price, and location.

  The Center was back at the railroad station.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sally and her luggage finally got back down to the street. She looked around and saw the magic words: taxi. The black and green car was parked with several others in an area obviously designated for taxis. She managed to signal one and the cheerful driver put all her suitcases in the commodious trunk.

  “Stazione Termine-the railroad station,” Sally sighed, and settled back for the long ride.

  They were there almost immediately and the fare was a fraction of the first price. Sally realized that previously she had literally been “taken for a ride.”

  Great, Sally thought. Well, let's erase all this and start over again. Not quite. She lugged her luggage back into the station where the indifferent Tourist Center clerk apparently never heard that the customer was always right. But he did manage to help her locate a room nearby that really existed, and was in her price range.

  By now it was late and dark and she was extremely tired, hungry, and disappointed. Whatever this place is, I can surely handle one night of it, she thought. I'll get really settled tomorrow. She took another taxi to the little hotel. The taxi was for her bags. It was close enough to the railroad station that she could have walked.

  This time the room was at the end of a long corridor. The place had the same smell of decay as the other. She would learn that this smell was common in Rome. Millennia of living had soaked into the thick stone walls and marble floors. And while the sun nearly always shone on the city, it never penetrated into the heart of these musty old buildings.

  In the room Sally turned on the dull yellow light. She would also learn that in a city where electrical energy was a highly expensive and precious commodity, the lamps were always dull, and hot water and sometimes elevators had to be paid for separately. But this night the dreariness just made her sad.

  Sally opened the shutters to the incredible noise of the street, found her overnight bag among her trunks and suitcases, and put it on the shaky double bed that almost took up the whole room except for a small sink and mirror behind the door.

  There was no bathroom. She freshened up a bit and decided to keep her hat on for confidence and made a stop at the communal bathroom down the hall before going out to eat. I'll never take a bath in that tub, Sally vowed.

  She asked the woman who showed her the room where she could find a restaurant for dinner. “It's very late and all the restaurants are closed,” she was told, “but there is a bar on the corner where you can get a little to eat.” Sally was not crazy about the idea of going to a bar, but maybe she could get something and take it back to her room. She soon learned that a “bar” in Rome is a really a kind of fast food stand with sandwiches, pastries, and coffee in addition to wine and liqueurs. This one even had outdoor tables, and several women were there having coffee.

  Because of that Sally thought the place must be ok, so she and her hat entered this unfamiliar establishment where most of the patrons inside were men. They actually seemed startled to see her, and more or less stopped what they were doing. I must be imagining this, she thought. I need to eat and sleep.

  She went to the sandwich counter but didn't know what to choose, or what the prices meant, or if she had enough Italian cash with her, since most of her money was still in American travelers checks. The men openly stared at her. She was quite uncomfortable, so she hurriedly chose something that looked like a hot dog, asked for a cup of tea and held out her hand like a child with a palm full of money so the cashier could take what she owed. She put the rest away and rushed outside to the tables with her food.

  The “hot dog”, or whatever it was, was cold and the tea was lukewarm. Here, on her first night in the city where food and coffee were so outrageously wonderful that a whole lifestyle was built around it, she was sitting by the railroad station eating a cold hot dog and drinking tepid tea.

  At this hour of the night she noticed that only men were on the street. Except for the women at the cafe whom she was sitting near. The men were very rude, she thought. They would
stop and talk to the women without asking, and they even stood in front of her table studying her. It must be the hat, she thought, and finally took it off. When that didn't work, the light dawned.

  I don't believe it! she suddenly thought, I'm surrounded by prostitutes!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Two thoughts ran through her mind, but the first was cancelled by the second.

  I’m terribly uneasy, was the first. But then she thought, No, on the contrary, given the circumstances, these men are not threatening at all. They have been fairly gracious about not pushing themselves on me even though I look like I'm deliberately here to attract their attention.

  But Sally could tell that all the subtle cultural signals of this foreign city were going to give her trouble for a while and so she decided she needed a friend, or at least a guide, quickly. She would call that young man who had been in her class. Why not? He gave her his number. She had not planned to use it except for an emergency. Somehow this was all beginning to feel like an emergency.

  She went back inside, showed the cashier her money, pointed to the phone and asked “which?” The cashier took a few coins and gave her a token which she looked at blankly. The cashier smiled and pointed to the token.

  “Telefono. Telefono,” he said.

  She dropped this odd coin in the obvious slot in the phone box and dialed the number. A man's voice answered.

  “Marco, hi!” she said quickly, “this is Sally from your class in .....”

  The voice on the other end kept saying “Pronto. Pronto.” louder and louder and then hung up.

  “Hmmm. I guess he couldn't hear me,” she thought, so she tried again. This time she was much louder.

  “Hello,” she yelled, “this is Sally.....”

  The voice on the other end also loudly cried “Pronto! Pronto!” and hung up again.

  Sally redialed and screamed into the phone, “HELLO. THIS IS SALLY. DO YOU REMEMBER ME FROM.......”

  Suddenly one of the men at the bar came up to the phone, smiled at her, and pressed a button. The token slid down, and the person on the other end heard her. She stopped screaming. Marco wasn't there. It was his brother.

  Sally wondered if he understood what she said. Would Marco get the message? By now she didn't care. It was a lost cause. She was going to go back to her smelly room to cry in bed.