I.i
It’s 8am and the bells are ringing. The bells are always ringing in this city. They ring from the seven low summits and the shallow valleys between; they count time and call the faithful and otherwise remind a man of his own mortality.
There’s an empy bottle of cheap chianti on the nightstand, and next to that a Bible, and on top of that a pack of cigarettes, and next to all of this is a bed, and in the bed a young man stirred. The young man sat up, and looked around the room. Barren, cool, stoic. He blinked the sleep away and banished his hangover with a wince and got to his feet. The stone floor chilled him as he walked to the window, and the crucifix on the wall hung heavily as he passed. His room was littered with books and empty wine bottles, mostly philosophy and mostly red. A new day, a new bottle, the same book.
The young man pushed open the wooden shutters, and he was filled with Rome. He’d been here only two weeks, and was therefore still enjoying the novelty. His cell phone was perched on the windowsill, and the juxtaposition of the new and the ancient charged his creative side.
“Bongiorno Tomasso!” bellowed the ebullient priest as the young man descended the stairs and entered the kitchen. Like his room, the kitchen is spartan, old, charming. The mason work is medieval, and the morning sun pours into the tall room through the highly mounted windows, giving the room a warm, cavernous glow which matched the demeanor of the priest within.
“Bongiorno Padre,” said Thomas, “how are you?”
“In Italiano, Tomasso, in Italiano!” he replied, with a viscuos accent.
Thomas nodded and offered a weak smile. “Come stai?”
“Bene, bene! I have made you breakfast, Tomasso. Please, sit, sit.”
Thomas took at seat at the long, wooden table in the center of the kitchen. He thought it was oaken, but thought it might also be poplar. He was not carpenter. It is smooth and worn and beautiful, like everything in this city. With a faint waddle, the priest made his way over to the young man, an affable grin on his face. And Thomas wondered, as he often had before, Why is this guy always so happy? And Thomas was aware of a grinding in the back of his mind which he recognized as jealousy.
“Here you go Tomasso,” said the priest, “eggs and toast and black coffee, just like you told me. Just like in America, yes?”
Thomas smiled and said, “Yes, Padre, just like in America, just like home. Grazie.”
“Prego!” said the priest, “You Americans, Tomasso, your breakfasts are interesting to me. They are big, like a lunch. Why are they this way?”
Thomas put down his mug and jabbed at his eggs. “I’m not sure, Padre. I guess we just need the energy to get through the day.”
“Si, you Americans, you love to work,” said the priest, and shook his head and clucked his tongue. Thomas ignored this.
“Speaking of,” said the young man as he finished his coffee and stood up, “I need to get going. I don’t want to be late.”
Thomas did not love work. He didn’t love much of anything, for that matter. But like most of his countrymen, he saw his job as a duty and a means to an end, though he wasn’t sure why. Sometimes he wondered if work was just a way of biding his time until the end, the end of it all, but he generally saved those thoughts for afternoon trips to bars and taverns and nights alone.
Thomas walked through the central courtyard and exited the monastery though the heavy, bronze plated doors. The springtime air on the Aventine Hill is crisp and lingering and abuzz with the life of the city below. Thomas liked this, and it reminded him a bit of central California, where he grew up. He lit a cigarette and walked along the Clivo dei Publicci, down the hill to the bus stop, where he would catch a ride to the catacombs.
