Italian for Beginners (21 page)

“Because the way you talked to my son,” she said after a moment, “is not the way someone who is capable of leaving talks.”

I started to interrupt, to say that a twenty-minute conversation was hardly indicative of my ability to be a mother, but she
cut me off.

“You are a kind woman,” she continued. “I was horrible to you, and you forgave me. This Francesco was horrible to you thirteen
years ago, and you forgave him. It may not always be a good thing, but you are a woman who tries to make things work. You
are a woman who doesn’t walk away.”

It felt like she had knocked the breath out of me. “But… ,” I began, but I found myself at a loss for words.

“But what if your mother was that way, too?” Karina filled in gently. “Is that what you are trying to ask?” I nodded; it was
exactly what I’d been thinking. Karina shook her head resolutely. “She wasn’t.” I started to protest, but she cut me off.
“She wasn’t,” she repeated. “A woman like you would never become a woman who walks away.”

I let the words settle on me. Karina took another sip of her wine. My mind was swirling. I’d never had this conversation before.

“Your mother, she is Italian?” she asked after a moment.

Surprised, I nodded. “How did you know that?”

Karina smiled. “Because you have the Italian spirit,” she said. “And you haven’t been here long enough to have earned it on
your own.”

I smiled and shook my head. We were silent for another moment. I sipped my wine, lost in my own world.

Then Karina spoke again. “Is she from Roma?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“Is she here now?”

I felt another pang. I realized I hadn’t told Karina what had happened after my mother walked away. “No,” I said. “She died.
When I was eighteen.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay,” I said. It was my rote response.

She looked at me for a long moment. “This explains a lot.”

“What?” I asked.

“This is why you came to Rome the first time, no? Thirteen years ago?”

I shook my head. “No. She was already gone.”

“
Sì
,” Karina said. “But you came to be with her past, didn’t you? To discover where she came from? Where you came from?”

I opened my mouth to protest. But Karina was looking at me as if she could see right through me. “Maybe,” I admitted.

“Does she have family here?”

“I think so,” I said.

“You never found them?”

I hesitated. “I never looked,” I admitted.

Karina arched an eyebrow at me. “Why?”

“I wanted to,” I said. I thought for a minute. “I think maybe I planned to when I came here. But I don’t know. I was scared,
I guess.”

“Scared of what?”

I shrugged.
That they wouldn’t want me. That they would see whatever my mother saw in me that made me so easy to leave.

I felt choked up that moment. I couldn’t force the words out.

“She didn’t leave because of you,” Karina said.

“I know.” I waved her words away like I was swatting flies.

“No, you don’t know,” she said. “She didn’t leave because of you.” She repeated the words slowly, enunciating as best she
could in a firm voice.

I looked down at my lap and tried not to cry. I felt humiliated, stripped bare.

“Well,” Karina said after a moment. She clapped her hands together decisively. “We will find them, then.”

“What?” I looked at her in confusion.

“But it is what you are here for, no?” Karina asked.

“No!” I exclaimed. “That’s all in the past. I came here to see Francesco.”

“And yet you are still here,” Karina said. “There is something in this city that won’t let you leave.”

I shook my head. “No.”

But Karina just shrugged, as if finding my mother’s family was already a foregone conclusion. “It is the only way you will
see the situation for what it is.”

She stood up before I could protest and walked my empty plate into the kitchen. I stared after her, open-mouthed, wondering
what had just happened.

When she returned, it was as if someone had flipped a switch. She was smiling again, and she poured us each some more wine.
“So,” she said brightly. “Are you going to tell me where you went last night? Or am I going to have to pull that out of you,
too?”

Her abrupt change of subject jarred me. But I was so relieved to move away from talking about my mother that I almost didn’t
mind being asked about the previous night.

“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled, looking down.

“Hmm,” Karina said. “Who is he?”

I stared at her. “Who is who?” I asked, hating how guilty I sounded.

“The man you went home with?” she asked with a hint of a smile. “I assume you went home with a man.”

“Not exactly,” I said. She looked at me in surprise. “I mean, I did,” I clarified. “But not in the way you would think.”

Slowly, I told her the story of Marco defending me in the bar and then finding me on the bench and of how convinced he was
that I was trying to reenact a scene from
Roman Holiday
. Karina was curious, too, why I’d never seen the famous film, but as I had with Marco, I dodged the question. I couldn’t
handle another Dr. Karina psychoanalysis tonight.

“So he was handsome?” she asked when I was done.

I felt the color rise to my cheeks. “Yeah.”

“And kind.”

“Well, yes,” I said. “You’d have to be to take home a lost stranger with no ulterior motives, right?”

“Then you will go see him.”

“What?”

Karina smiled patiently. “Tomorrow. You will go see him. At Pinocchio. I know this restaurant. It is close to here. You will
go see him and meet him properly.”

I hesitated. “I can’t.”

“Phhhh!” Karina made a dismissive noise. “Of course you can! And you will!”

T
he next morning, I woke up at eight. Apparently, my body was finally beginning to adjust to Italian time. I lay in bed for
a little while, listening to the morning street noises below and thinking about what I’d do with my day. I wasn’t used to
having nothing planned. But today was blissfully, entirely free. I made a mental note to call my father and sister to check
in and let them know where I was staying. They could certainly reach me on my cell if they needed to, but I supposed it would
be smart to tell them that I had stormed out of Francesco’s and was now staying with a crazy Italian woman.

An hour later, after a long shower, I headed out of the building in a cream-colored sundress and my gladiator sandals, with
my brown leather bag slung over my shoulder and my hair back in a ponytail. It was going to be a hot day, and I planned to
do a lot of walking around the Eternal City. Before I left, I tucked the address of Pinocchio in my wallet, just in case.
But would I really go there? I was sure Marco was just being polite, and I certainly didn’t want to out myself as a fool by
showing up there like I thought his invitation was a genuine one.

Still, Karina had seemed convinced that I had nothing to lose. And maybe she was right.

I started off at the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, just a stone’s throw from the Pantheon. We had passed it on the
way home with Nico yesterday, and it had piqued my interest. I’d always heard of it, but I’d never gone inside. The summer
I lived here, I’d been dually absorbed in my studies and in studying Francesco, and I hadn’t seen nearly as much of the city
as I should have. Sure, I’d done the obligatory trips to the Pantheon, the Forum, the Colosseum, and Vatican City, but I’d
missed so much of the heart of the city. I vowed to make up for that this time around.

The outside of the church was relatively unimpressive; the cream facade was plain and rectangular, punctuated by three dark
doorways and three circular windows. In front of the church was a curious statue, a stout Egyptian obelisk that reminded me
of the Bernini statue from the Piazza Navona, growing from the body of a somber, tusked elephant on a pedestal. I stopped
and gazed at it for a while; it appeared oddly out of place in Rome, and particularly in front of a church, as it seemed to
have no religious significance. I searched my mind for a Bible story about an elephant in Egypt, but I came up empty.

Shrugging, I checked my watch. It was just past nine, and I wasn’t sure whether the church would be open yet. But the front
door pushed in easily, and I entered, my eyes adjusting to the interior light.

I blinked a few times and stared. Nothing about the plain, unassuming facade could have prepared me for the stunning interior
of the church. It seemed to stretch on for the length of a football field, a series of columns that held aloft brilliant blue
vaults that reminded me of canopies over a childhood bed. The ceiling shone with golden stars and paintings of cherubic angels,
separated by red ribs that arched toward gilded domes. The marble floor glistened and led toward an altar that shone with
several tall candles, backlit by pale stained glass windows.

I took an English-language brochure from the receptacle near the doorway and sat down in a back pew to read. The church, it
said, was the only Gothic church in Rome, and it had been built atop the ruins of an ancient temple dedicated to the goddess
Minerva. Completed nearly 650 years ago, it housed the remains of Saint Catherine of Siena, who had died nearby. There was
also a Michelangelo statue housed here, to the left of the main altar.

I fished in my shoulder bag for my camera and pulled it out gingerly. I hadn’t used it since Becky’s wedding. It felt nice
to have it in my hands again. I always felt different, somehow, when I could see the world through its lens.

I glanced around, wondering if I’d run into a nun or a priest who would scold me. But the church seemed to be empty. And I
figured that as long as I left the flash off, I wouldn’t be doing any harm.

I walked toward the altar, stopping here and there to take pictures of the expanse, which seemed bathed in the ceiling’s brilliant
blue color. I adjusted the aperture and shutter speed a few times, almost by rote, until the pictures were coming out perfectly,
almost jumping off the two-inch screen. I smiled at the images appearing and then focused on the lovely ceiling for another
series of shots. I didn’t want to forget the power of standing beneath the canopied, stardusted sky conceived centuries ago.

By the time I reached the altar, I was fully absorbed in what I was doing. I snapped photo after photo of the light pouring
in from the stained glass, of the candles flickering on the massive pedestal. I got close-ups of some of the intricately detailed
rose windows, of the massive columns, of the walls full of religious artwork.

To the left of the altar was the Michelangelo statue I’d read about in the brochure, a larger-than-life marble likeness of
Christ looking over his left shoulder while clutching the cross on which he’d be crucified. I gazed at it for a while before
beginning to take pictures. I was transfixed by the incredible realness of the statue. Although I’d gone to Catholic school,
I wasn’t exactly the most religious person in the world. But there was something about seeing the resoluteness Michelangelo
had sculpted onto his Christ’s face, about the way the man was standing, as if embracing his fate instead of running from
it, that made emotion swell within me. I stared for a long time.

I raised the camera and began shooting, zooming in alternately on the statue’s face, on his strong hands grasping the cross,
on his perfectly formed knees, and on his realistic feet, which seemed slightly more worn than the rest of the statue. I marveled
at the visual contrast between the pale marble of the statue and the darker, shadowed marble of the wall behind it. I knew
without looking at the screen that these would be amazing images.

By the time I emerged from the church into the morning sunlight a little while later, I felt breathless and exhilarated. It
had been weeks since I’d last worked with my camera, and even though I was on the other side of the world, I somehow felt
more at home than I had in a very long time. While I had my camera out, I took several shots of the elephant statue and of
the church’s facade. I also snapped a few street shots, just normal Romans going about their daily business, before finally
putting the camera back in its case and slipping it into my shoulder bag.

I sighed and checked my watch. It was ten thirty. I stared in disbelief. I’d been in the church for nearly an hour and a half?
It didn’t seem possible.

I felt my stomach growling as I stood outside in the sunshine, and I realized I hadn’t eaten yet. It was still early, but
I knew I could make my way back toward the apartment, where there was a bakery open all day. Or I could try to find my way
to Pinocchio and see if Marco was there. My heart jumped a little as I considered it. I took a deep breath. Why not?

I checked the address and then located it on the map of Rome I’d brought with me. It wasn’t far. I thought about it for a
moment, checked my makeup and hair in the compact mirror I dug out of my bag, and headed off in that direction.

Ten minutes of twisting, cobbled streets later, I found myself standing down the block from the restaurant, a tiny corner
spot with a pale red canopy bearing the restaurant’s name and a little picture of its long-nosed namesake. I took a deep breath
and started toward the place.