I never knew why Dad took me to Rome - but he did. It happened every Sunday, and we came in his red Fiat which we would leave in one of those quieter streets in central Rome that tourists could never find. Dad knew those streets well, and I felt a strange sense of pride. We would then walk towards the Colosseum and the Roman Forum in complete silence, and this silence was like a magical bubble that was only occasionally disturbed by the rare pinpricks of my questions. In a way, there was no need to talk in this big old city which, to me, looked like the intestines of an ancient dinosaur. I hated Rome. Rome frightened me. It frightened me with its perpetual noise and its thunderous conversations and its overwhelming filth. And yet, despite all that, I loved coming here with my Dad. Him in his glamorous, slightly oversized black suit with a white shirt sticking out from the chest and me in my faded jeans and the tucked in shirt of light blue which mother would iron for just this occasion.
Once in a while, Dad would stop at some place and get me a slice of pizza or show me the remnants of ancient ruins which at some point started to look indistinguishable from one another. And it was the same with the churches, too, which would all become a blur and which would occasionally save us from the sweltering sun and the sudden rain. We would walk past fish restaurants smelling of chlorine and we would drop into a bar where my Dad would smoke and drink a long glass of beer and I would sit close by sipping the extra cold Coke which would sometimes make my teeth numb with pain. I hated Rome, but I loved being part of this Sunday ritual. Besides, the sheer vastness and the ugly deformations of the city made my Dad less scary than he would be at various other points of my life. Rome was much too big, even for my Dad, and it swallowed him up like it did with everyone and everything else. Like it did at those moments when Dad disappeared behind the back door of the bar and did not come back for ten of fifteen minutes. But even as he was away, I felt no imminent danger. I felt secure.
And then, past a drug store and a noisy park with yoga mats and sparkling glasses of champagne and short grass burnt by the sun... and it was here, by the side of a corrugated gate, where the man was. The first time, I had actually caught sight of him way before my Dad stopped me and spoke those rare words. It was not even the man that I noticed - rather, it was his naked leg which was all black and full of a million cracks. The leg looked like a charred piece of wood and I believed that if he was to stand up and try to walk, the leg would crackle under pressure and break down into a thousand splinters. When we walked past the man (I tried not to see him but I could not look away), my Dad grabbed me by my shoulder and stopped me in the middle of a busy street. "There", he said, taking out a few banknotes. "Give it to that man". And so I did, because my Dad asked me to. Because there was not a cell in my body which could fathom saying no. With my hands trembling I approached the man as inconspicuously as I could. I knew that if he noticed me, I would have to greet him and perhaps even answer some sick question that he had for me. I knew that if I would just throw the money into his coffee cup and run away, he would not be able to stop me. And then I would also have to hold my breath, because I did not want to feel the rotting stench of the black leg. The stench that could, in all probability, kill me.
But, again, I could not look away, and so he always noticed my presence and the hungry pair of eyes fixed on him. I threw the money into his cup and ran away, holding my breath and trying not to hear the muffled voice that contained all the heat and the filth of the city. Then I ran to my Dad and, once again, the world was back to normal. Dad never explained this, and yet on our way through Rome we would pass hundreds of beggars and it was only this man, the creepiest one, the one with the charred leg, who made him stop and look for money. My Dad avoided being seen by that man, or so I thought, and there were times when I had to wonder (to myself, of course, never out loud) if the man was not the reason why we never changed our route. Why we came to Rome in the first place.
On our way, I would also notice those wonderful street magicians that could do things even my Dad could not explain. There was one bearded black man in particular who was levitating in the air like an evil ghost, and sometimes I dragged my Dad by the edge of his sleeve but he just shrugged his shoulders and started another cigarette. Rome was enormous, ugly, impenetrable.
But then we came upon the Colosseum. You could never anticipate it, not even if you sensed its quiet onslaught from a mile off. It crushed you, it caught you unawares. Small and completely overwhelmed, I would be feeling dizzy and even nauseous. I remember looking at my Dad and noticing his Adam's apple moving faster and faster as his breath kept growing in depth and intensity. He was breathing in the Colosseum, he was trying to get it, the full extent of its giant dilapidated carcass, into his chest. I tried to do the same, but the Colosseum slipped away and I could not understand it. Nothing in my imagination and the way I saw the world could prepare me for the sheer enormity of what I was witnessing. And yet each time the Colosseum seemed to be the apex of our trip to Rome. Whatever we did later on would feel meaningless and have a dull effect of an anti-climax. Dad never took me to galleries or museums. It was not something that interested him. We went to the Colosseum, and then, later, after another slice of pizza by the Arch of Constantine, we found our way back to the car and went home.
However, I remember the day when my Dad inserted the key into the ignition and did not turn it. Instead, he yawned and remained motionless. He said he was exhausted and suggested that we both sleep for a while. I remember feeling uneasy about that as I believed it was late and mother was probably waiting for us at home. Still, I could not say anything, not to my Dad. Besides, he soon fell asleep and the peaceful snore filled my heart with an unknown kind of restlessness. I looked out of the window, and the dust was making the view blurry and unattractive. In the end, I decided to open the door and slipped out onto the street.
Roman heat was at its most unforgiving during that part of the afternoon. It was slimy and fatigued and it filled your lungs with something heavy and dangerous. And yet I did not want to go back to the car and instead, wandered cautiously down the street. I did not want to get too far away, though, and kept the red silhouette of Dad's Fiat within eyeshot. What caught my attention was something that I had seen many times before and that I had never dared to mention to my Dad. It was a small kiosk squeezed between two narrow buildings with a young woman half-hidden behind the counter and making fresh orange juice. Holding red oranges in her right hand, she was pressing them tightly against this clever contraption which transformed fruit into liquid. The intense smell of that liquid I could feel on the other side of the street, and it seemed to me as if this was the smell of the girl's long black hair, dense and lit by the sun. It was a mesmerising sight, and at one point I got so carried away by the act that I walked a little too close to her. Taking note of my curiosity, she looked straight at me and offered a glass of orange juice. I blushed, made an embarrassing sound that felt like a short squeak and quickly walked away. I was so busy walking that I did not even notice how I got lost. At some point I realised that I could no longer tell where Dad's car was standing, and it filled me with fear - the idea that Dad could wake up soon and not see me in the back seat of his car.
Still, I kept walking along those streets trying to find something I could recognise. At some point I ran into an old couple who were walking in my direction, slowly, hand in hand. With my voice uncertain of itself, I asked them where Colosseum was, but they said something in a language I did not understand. I was living inside a nightmare now, one which had probably come to me before. It was a nightmare of being lost in this enormous city whose present was lost in its history and with a million foreign tourists none of whom could help me find my way. Currently, I was trying to hang on to something, anything at all, and in my despair I discovered a butcher's shop where a giant bald man was standing behind the wooden counter cutting huge chunks of pork with a big set of knives of various sizes. Again, this seemed hypnotic, and the man was so deft with all those instruments, so elegant and so gruesome. He was kneading that meat, slicing it, chopping, carving and throwing onto a different table. Thankfully, the work was too demanding and he did not notice me and I could be standing there for hours.
But then, all of a sudden, a strong wind gathered, and I could see how glasses and plates were blown off the tables on the terraces. Sharp sandstones flew into my eyes, and Rome was growing darker. The wind spelled late afternoon, and I was forced to rush into another street. This time, I was lucky as I finally discovered something I had seen before: a park, and a broken gate as its entrance. The man with the charred leg was still sitting there and suddenly I realised that he was the only person I knew in this whole city. I saw the man from the distance and I tried to think of what I was supposed to be doing now that I was so close to him. This time, I could finally understand what he was saying, and this frightened me. It felt dirty and wrong. He was saying that I could get closer to him and that everything would be okay. I tried to explain about my Dad and about Sundays, about the Colosseum and the Fiat. I tried to describe my Dad to the man but words failed me time and time again. He listened, though. He tried to catch my words as they dangled in the air like a swarm of dead flies. Desperate and out of breath, I then grew silent and stared at him.
"The leg?" he said at last, noticing where my eyes were. "You want to touch it? Be my guest".
I winced and I looked away. Then, however, I did touch it, and it was a different sensation from what I had expected. It was soft and smooth and it did not frighten me anymore. There was a smell, too, but I could not really tell what it was. For some reason, I thought the leg smelled of burned plums and the smell was not altogether unpleasant. You could get used to that smell. Then a pinprick of memory, and I realised that I could not find my way to the car and the dusk was growing thicker and more hostile. "Do you remember me from earlier?" I said to the man, trying to stay close. "I gave you money earlier today?" The man nodded vaguely, as if realising what I was doing, humouring me, indulging the game, and I kept throwing questions at him so as not to lose his attention. "What happened to your leg?" This time, he spoke. This time, he explained that it was a red car and its wheels ran over his leg a long while ago. "Did it hurt?" He nodded again, and this time his nod seemed clearer and more confident. "It doesn't hurt anymore, though".
He then told me to pick up the cup and count the money. I did that, after which I took one note for myself and carefully placed the rest of the money into his bag. As ever, he was weak, and I had to hold his hand and lead him to the back of the park where our spot was. It was a good spot, one of the best you could get once the yoga mats and the champagne glasses were gone, and the man told me that he had cracked the mystery of the bearded magician. However, I did not want to listen. He asked me not to leave him again for so long, and I felt the warmth and the sadness which I also knew as love. He then told me that I was in luck today for if I looked hard - I could see the upper edges of the Colosseum. I looked, I looked really hard - but I could not see anything. "Well?" he whispered. “Do you see?” I nodded, the way I always did. I did not want to disappoint him. Besides, the night was upon us and I could always dream it.
