I Regret Everything (25 page)

Why was I bedeviled by Decline and Fall thoughts when we had come for a picnic? Because now I could imagine being one with every Roman soldier, citizen, aristocrat, slave, painter, sculptor, traveler, and priest, of a piece with every person who only existed in memory, and this was not a pleasant thought.

Spaulding reclined, her fingers linked behind her head, eyes closed. A platoon of ants was approaching the remains of the bread and with a godlike hand I swept them away. In the distance a few tourists wandered around snapping pictures of the ruins. Her right hand closed and she rolled onto her side and curled up. I stroked her shoulder and she mumbled something unintelligible in her sleep and bit her lower lip. By the time a fleck of saliva appeared at the corner of her mouth I was overcome by a feeling of the purest gratitude because I was not alone.

In the afternoon we drove through easy streets past the monument of Vittorio Emanuele II, through the shadow of the black-domed brooding Pantheon, down the Via Veneto where decades earlier eager paparazzi shot shimmering black and whites of glamorous starlets, to the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini.

Thirteen years had passed since I first encountered the unusual contents of its dim environs on a damp winter day. As we walked through the nave, Spaulding observed the stained glass, lugubrious paintings, dark shades, and suffering, and asked why we were here.

“You'll see.”

I handed the bespectacled old nun stationed at the door to the crypt ten euros and beckoned Spaulding to follow. The crypt was a warren of tiny chapels decorated, and yes, that would be the word,
decorated
with the old white bones of thousands of monks all of whom donated their mortal remains to the glory of this display.

Spaulding shivered and when I placed my hand on the small of her back to guide her along she spun away. Every visitor should experience the crypt her own way, so I chose not to say anything.

We wandered beneath archways constructed of human skulls, masses of bones stacked like logs, walls decorated with geometric patterns assembled from fibulas and tibias, full standing skeletons that looked ready to ambulate, through the Crypt of the Resurrection, the Crypt of the Skulls, the Crypt of the Pelvis, the Crypt of Leg Bones and Thigh Bones, and the Crypt of Three Skeletons where the center skeleton held a scythe in one hand and a scale in the other. The effect was at once overwhelming, horrific, and, in its whimsically crafted sheer fantastic abundance of death, darkly hilarious. Did the catacombs resonate with her? The place was macabre but Spaulding's sense of humor ran in a dark direction. Being here was life affirming, wasn't it?
Memento mori
and all that.

“It's as if the world's most morbid interior decorator was given free rein,” I said.

“Why did you take me here?”

We were standing in the Crypt of the Skulls surrounded by mounds of exquisitely arranged craniums. Thousands of empty eye sockets stared. Row upon row of teeth grinned. The centerpiece of the dimly lit chamber was a massive church door constructed entirely of skulls. In front of this were arrayed the skeletons of three monks in dusty brown cassocks, all standing, facing the tourists and pilgrims and looking for all the world as if they were going to start singing. Arching over this jolly trio was a giant cap festooned with a pair of Mickey Mouse ears designed in keeping with the prevailing cranial motif. Flanking this display were two smaller skulled arches, each occupied by languidly reclining skeletons, their cassock-cloaked limbs arranged in casual dishabille. Once one became accustomed to the idea that these were the remnants of men who had lived and breathed, eaten, shat, loved God, fought, prayed, and died, the utterly lunatic nature of the display was disarming. I told Spaulding I thought she'd like it.

“It's awful.”

The knowing look, the groan, the eye roll, the usual Spaulding reaction that would cut through all of the death imagery and turn it into a laughter-in-the-void moment did not come. Instead, she was upset. I tried to comfort her but she pushed me away and then she was gone. When I caught up with her on the sidewalk, she was livid.

“What is wrong with you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I get it, Jeremy. Life is fleeting. We're all going to die. Forgive me if I'm not so accepting of that right now, okay?” When I put my hand on her shoulder she shoved it away. Then she started to cry. Not loudly or histrionically, but with quiet sorrow that rendered me mute and helpless. She sat down on the steps of the church and I sat next to her. Across the street an old lady hobbled along on a cane. A gaggle of uniformed schoolchildren fluttered past us into the church.

“I thought you'd love the catacombs,” I said. Spaulding didn't react. I tried again. “I'm sorry if they upset you.” Still nothing. Is this what happens when a person spends too much time in his own head? The whole idea of this trip was to connect and already I had made a hash of it.

A youthful mother in a stylish dress walked past pushing a pram. Her hair was bobbed and she looked to be in her late twenties. She wore sunglasses and a chic bag was slung over her shoulder.

“
Mi scusi
,” Spaulding said, no longer crying. “
Avete un fazzoletto
?”

“
Ho questo cosa
,” the woman said and smiled. She reached into the pram and pulled out a plastic container. Opening it, she took out a baby wipe and handed it to Spaulding, who daubed her face. “
Qualunque cosa sia non puo essere cosi male. L'amore è difficile
.” The woman smiled and resumed her stroll.

“You speak Italian?”

“
Un po'
. I studied it in school.” Spaulding folded the baby wipe into a neat square and stuck it in her purse. Without looking at me she said, “First of all, you don't even know if you're dying.”

“That's true.”

“So to bring me here to show you're cool with it . . . I don't know . . . it's a little premature, maybe? And totally fucked.”

“You're right,” I said. “I can see how you would think this place was a little over the top.”

“Whoever thought of it must have been tripping. And please tell me how he convinced anyone to go along with the plan.” I could see she had been more upset than angry. “Don't you want to buy a souvenir?” she said. “A nice femur for your desk?”

“Ha ha.”

“But I didn't see a gift shop,” she said with mock innocence.

Death had begun to terrify me and perhaps taking Spaulding to the crypts was my attempt to weaken its power. Going alone was not something I could have done. Was it fair to drag her along? Another time and it would have been a lark, but not that day. I was sorry and said so again, but she had already collected herself and was walking toward the Fiat.

“We're going to the Capitoline Museum,” she said. “There's something you need to see.”

It turned out that Spaulding had visited the museum complex with her class from boarding school and remembered it well. We parked near the Piazza del Campidoglio and I followed her past a throng of tourists and into a neoclassical building, through the soaring foyer, and up the wide stairs. We turned right and skirted sculptures of the infants Romulus and Remus suckling a she-wolf, Roman soldiers wielding swords, gods and mortals nude, standing, sitting, reclining, their physiques perfectly articulated, and then we were in front of a statue of a goddess. Her serene face, smooth hands, and feet carved from black onyx. Arms outstretched, wrapped in a marble cloak. But this was not the smooth marble cloak that clothed a nearby emperor. This cloak was adorned with the fruit of the Earth, apples, pears, grapes cut from marble.

“Do you get it?” Spaulding said. At a loss, I stared at the statue. Jet-black face, supplicant hands, she looked like nothing else in the gallery. “She's a fertility goddess.”

“Ah,” I said.

“She's beautiful, right?”

“Exquisite.”

“Life, Jeremy, okay?”

“Yes,” I said. She punched me in the arm. “Yes.”

“
Tu non sei ancora morto
. You're not dead yet.”

Spaulding was wearing the clothes she wore back in New York so we found a store nearby and bought a pale yellow skirt and two linen blouses, cream and mint green, and a linen jacket. A brown leather satchel caught my eye. It was perfect for manuscripts and I pictured myself carrying pages in it as I traveled. In a fit of optimism, I bought that, too.

At ten o'clock that evening the Piazza del Popolo was dotted with tourists strolling back to their hotels. We had consumed a rack of lamb with a 2011 Montepulciano (my last “cheat day”) and were walking it off. On the sidewalk a Senegalese vendor displayed counterfeit Rolexes on a folding table. As a gag, I bought one for Spaulding and she slipped it on her wrist.

“Now I'm classy,” she said.

“This watch is connected to the heart of the universe,” I said. “When it stops running, time stops. And everything remains exactly how it was at that second for all eternity. Like a poem.”

“But only when it stops because if it's running . . .”

“Then it's just some made-in-China piece of crap.”

“And when it stops?”

“It's a poetry watch.”

“A poetry watch? That is an epic name for a fake Rolex.”

We drove south on Via del Corso. The car windows were rolled down, the night air warm on our skin. I was sated from the dinner and feeling expansive.

“Have you ever seen a movie called
Gianni and the Pope
?”

“I don't think so.”

“There's a scene that takes place on the banks of the Tiber and I want to show you where they shot it.”

We cruised from Ponte Sisto in the southern end of the city all the way north to Ponte Milvio. I drove slowly and peered toward the river. Cars, trucks, and Vespas flowed past us. For half an hour we looked but the physical site appeared to have evaporated with the era of the film. When I wasn't able to find the place a strange emptiness came over me like the sour feeling one gets after missing a train, the sense that everything was moving further away. Why did I want to show Spaulding a location from a film she hadn't seen in the first place? I expressed my disappointment and aimed the Fiat back toward the center of the city.

“Hey, don't worry,” she said. “It's only make-believe.”

She pointed out a low-slung building on the other side of the river and said it looked like a giant pastry. The wind ruffled her hair as she examined her new wristwatch. That we couldn't find what we were looking for didn't matter to her at all. We were at a red light near Piazza Bainsizza when she asked me to pull over. I turned onto a side street and parked.

“You have to stay in the car. And don't look.” Spaulding climbed out and disappeared. Pop music played in a nearby apartment. There was a sidewalk café on the corner and several couples lingered at tables. My gloom dissipated. It didn't matter that I couldn't find where the scene had been shot. This was plenty.

After a moment, I heard, “Now back up really slowly, like, one foot.” I had no idea what she was doing but released the brake, shifted into reverse, and inched backward. “Okay, that's great.” Then she was in the passenger seat.

“What just happened?”

Spaulding beamed and held up her wrist to show me the now-squashed fake Rolex. The headlights of a passing car illuminated a miniature constellation in the cracked glass of the newly minted poetry watch. For less than a second, tiny dots of light glistened. The time was 11:14.

 

Sunday in the Villa Borghese we sat on a bench and ate shaved ice. Skateboarders wearing Vans, tee shirts, and baggy shorts slalomed through musicians stationed behind open instrument cases dusted with coins and bills. A pair of skinny kids bashed out a punk tune on beat-up acoustic guitars while a four-man African drum circle traded rhythms. A flaxen-haired harpist who looked like she had wafted in from a Wagner opera intently tuned her instrument. A Roman family was having a picnic, grilling sausages on a hibachi. Grandparents, aunts, uncles drank wine and older kids chased each other while cherubic toddlers in bright outfits rolled in the grass. Shirtless teenaged boys played pickup basketball, their muscles slick with sweat. A vendor sold roasted chestnuts to an older couple who didn't look up when a six-foot transvestite wearing a silver lamé dress and wielding a wand glided by on spangled roller skates. A child ran past us holding a yellow balloon on a string.

“Look at that little goofball,” Spaulding said. She laughed and I thought, How many more times will I see the color yellow?

I gave money to the guitarists and the drum circle, then placed a wad of euros into the harpist's upturned hat. Spaulding was surprised at the amount but I told her someone had to let the harpists of the world know that what they did was important. Spaulding was wearing her broken watch and before we left the Villa Borghese, I saw her glance at it. The tiniest gestures made me the happiest.

Dirk's plane was waiting for us at Fiumicino Airport.

 

* * *

 

Because we were never on European time I didn't have any jet lag and woke up Monday refreshed and marveling at the vagaries of chemotherapy. It was one of those late-summer New York days when the mercury hits ninety-five by ten in the morning. I was at my desk catching up on work. Spaulding and I had returned the night before and stayed together at my apartment. That morning I had gotten on the scale and noticed I had dropped five pounds. Determined to put the weight back on, I ate a bacon cheeseburger for lunch that I chased with a chocolate milkshake and was polishing off a blueberry muffin when Reetika came into my office to tell me she had an audition and Ed Simonson wanted to see me.

Pratt and I had not encountered each other since the dust-up on the boat and he looked considerably less jovial than usual when I passed him on my way to Ed's office. We nodded frosty hellos, our friendship suspended.