Scenes From an Italian Restaurant IV
By Harriet Gilbert-Savage
On hopeful returns
It is forbidden to sit on the Spanish Steps. I learned this the first time I came to Rome a few years ago. It was early July, and the green cross that dangled from the pharmacy interrupted its psychedelic light show to chirpily announce that it was 40 degrees, completely ignorant of the zombified stupor such a dizzying temperature induced in the swarm of tourists below. The cobblestones smouldered; a faint smell of charring dust weaved through the crowds. The air was dense, suffocating, claustrophobic, without even a ripple of breeze to afford the slightest relief. The mosquitos offered up a spluttering murmur, too exhausted to perform their usual spritely buzz. I was knocked and barged and shoved by the throngs of tour groups desperate to reach the next Church – if only to seek salvation from the heat, yet my brittle eyes remained fixated on the steps, longing to sit down and relieve my weary feet.
Today, the steps’ desolate state extends to encompass the square. And while the staircase tumbles down forcefully into the piazza, it no longer feels domineering or imposing; instead it offers protection and comfort. These steps have always been resigned to a lonely fate, now they offer consolation to the square, vulnerable in this unfamiliar state of solitude.
I scamper through the tapestry of streets, disoriented by their sedated state and hastened by the feeling that I shouldn’t be here. I pass restaurants and bars whose unusually gloomy interiors are silently explained by a clumsily handwritten sign ‘DA ASPORTO’. As I round a corner, the street feels charged with a quiet anticipation, a simmering excitement. In front of my coffee shop’s window, people stand like bowling pins: they are orderly, obedient, yet the formation is utterly ambiguous in determining who should next cross the shop’s threshold. It’s the Mediterranean interpretation of a queue. After exchanges of ‘Lei è l’ultimo?’, pointing, raised eyebrows, and shrugs, I pick an equally obscure spot to wait for my turn. As I linger, I admire the bar’s wonderfully 1970s façade: bold, unevenly sized letters, underscored by great swirling lines, i’s dotted with stars that all of those artisan coffee shops might brand as gaudy. But to me, it’s the sign of an effortlessly great bar, one that doesn’t need fancy décor to entice people in: a reputation sealed by generations of approval attracts enough attention.
A couple emerges from within clutching pastry prizes wrapped in royal blue paper and tied with a silver bow; finally it is my turn to enter. I am greeted by a whirlwind of chaos; in its wake lie a rubble of receipts and an avalanche of crockery. In the eye of the storm an elderly man dashes from bar to cash register to coffee machine; a baritone bellow of ‘arrivo!’ is the thunder to his shock of lightning-white hair. As if by magic, a sticky pastry is procured from behind a mirror, the secret window onto the in-house bakery. I take my box of treats in one hand and my coffee in the other, gleeful as I revel in the envy of those waiting.
I stumble back to Piazza di Spagna, impatiently fumbling to open the box with one hand. My attempts are hopeless, yet the coffee provides the perfect solace: it is revivifying, mind-clarifying, sense-sharpening. I hover hesitantly next to the Spanish Steps, but the flicker of a glare on a carabiniere’s face serves as sufficient warning for me to abstain from sitting down. I trace gentle circles, straying from the steps as I try to contain the cream that oozes from the pastry, and my bumbling pace allows me to see what I had previously failed to noticed. A sign stands to the left of the steps, proud yet modest. It doesn’t serve to inform or warn, merely to delight; it displays Cesare Pavese’s Passerò per Piazza di Spagna. Pavese envisages the day he shall return to the square, where his love shall await him upon the steps, when ‘s’apriranno le strade’, ‘s’aprirà quella strada’, ‘s’aprirà una porta’. His unshakeable, unwavering certainty for the future proffers the hope that one day I, too, shall return to the Spanish Steps and once again be jostled and jolted by great swathes of people. And I shall not sigh at the impossible heat, nor whine on behalf of my worn-out feet. I shall not scowl at an advancing mosquito, nor hope for rain. I shall rejoice in the return of normality.