Provoked in Venice: The Rider Quintet, vol. 3

A Winter Night in the City of God

A WINTER N I G H T IN THE CITY OF GOD "Rome, a dark jungle, a good place to hide." MARcELLo in La Dolce Vita But asso often happens whenyou find yourself going down the wrong path following ludicrous, ridiculous,even illicit leads something almost always seems to intervene, like a kind of internal LoneRanger, to break up, bash topiecesyour reverie which could be closer to that of the hassissin— than evenyou would wish. It's true, but it happens so strangely. How strangely? There I am wandering around Rome. You mean roamingThe Eternal City. You make me sound like a cat. Strange that you should introduce that phrase at this moment? (Pause.) Why strangely you say? I was waiting for you to ask. Life has no time to waste. Then why should it waste so much of everything else? 43 Try The City of God asasynonym. To you it is a city; to me, intoxicated by toxic gasoline fumes and cigarette smoke (until my lungs signal me to leave)—as well as a garden with palm fronds, umbrella pines, decapitated statues, soccer fields, waterfalls, a maze, a casino and views ranging from EUR to Vatican City—it is a savannah. You're in the park once you pass under the ancient arch, but you must go down the long gravel path, past the staggered torsos, before you're really in the garden. My first time in I stayed until night and the rain began to fall simultaneously and I had crossed over some invisible boundary from where everything I had just seen had disappeared from view. I headed for the first exit. The first couple I encountered said it was at least eight miles to my point of origin if I continued on city streets. "But if it was only two miles to here . . . " The man made circuitous circles with his forefinger. "Thanks," I muttered, disheartened . "You're better off going back the way you came." "I see that." Wet, cold, lost and hungry, I wandered onto a grassy knoll, where I saw three young people, two men and a woman, moving in my direction with slow and easy strides. I waved. They waved back. They told me what markers to look for to retrace my steps and offered me a joint. I said I'd love to if I weren't lost, and was too proud to ask him to repeat the directions since I remembered only the most general ones—such as where I made the wrong turn that brought me to this place, and "once you can see the casino you are home free." And whenyou were home free? I stopped at the cafe nearest to my apartment and downed several espressos laced with grappa. The owner noticed how ragged I was and asked to hear what happened. A small crowd gathered while I told him the story. An American painter was at the bar, clearly amused by the interest and good will for which I was more grateful than I wanted to reveal. "They seem to like you here," she said, "and you'll never get lost in that park again." "You've lost me there." "The hypocanthus. It's evolutionary." I continue to get lost daily, but without the nervousness. I make a point of getting into bed no later than 2 AMbut rarely get to sleep 44 long before the sky, approaching dawn, is gray, and wake, to avicious inner alarm clock at 7:53,sniffing, roaming the apartment like a lair, almost afraid to open the shutters to the unanswerable blast of light. Leave it toyou not to have Venetian blinds. Andyou neverwere an early riser. It's not just the light, it's vaporsand smells that incite me to rise even though I'm desperate for rest and hurry to the cafe to catch Rome on the prowl with arestless beautifully purposeless fervor, destinies never in for questioning, before the senses are numbed by the imminent influx ofhabitues arriving on growling motorcycles, which make up in noise what they lack in horsepower, converging on the cafe, the near empty space suddenly flooded with cool cats who light up theirfilterlessCamels in unison and blow smoke into each other's faces with the intensity of alifeguard giving artificial respiration to a rescued child. When you said "savannah" I thoughtyou were leading up to marshes, grassyplanes, wild animals grazing. . . It's...