Con la luce di Roma

Part 1 - The Soup

I eat with my sunglasses on. It's not sunny, I just want to preserve the distance. 

I am in the corner, looking out the window. The trattoria sits in the shadow of Piazza Margana, but light finds its way in. 

We only arrived yesterday. Cousin Helen, practical as ever, insisted we take the hop-on hop-off bus to the hotel. It was her version of efficiency.

"We’ll see Rome on the way," she said.

My mother and I sit on opposite sides of the bus, the suitcases shifting in the empty space. The only thing still moving between us.

There are only four of us, but you wouldn’t know it from the amount of food that keeps arriving. Broad beans with pork, saltimbocca, oxtail, a pizza for Aunt Berta. Then Tiramisu.

"There’s enough chicken in this soup," she says, fishing out large chunks with her spoon. "Finally, someone knows how to cook."

My mother doesn’t speak. Her eyes are steady on the brick wall. The heavy, garlic air sits between us.

It’s nearly summer in Rome. The crowd is building everywhere we go. Open, exposed, an ancient body enduring endless human contact.

We finally found a quiet spot. I’m leaning against the exposed brick wall behind me, ordering deep-fried artichokes and Frascati.

Outside, the piazza lives without asking anything of us.

A woman with a tiny black poodle on her lap sits with an espresso, facing the sun. 

A little girl, in a bright red summer dress, her face covered in gelato. An old man leans toward her, cleaning her cheeks.

A couple, holding each other, walk past and disappear into a narrow street.

Rome carries on. It bathes in the softness of late spring light.

Part 2 - The Hospital Room

"I’m such an attractive woman," Aunt Berta says to her reflection, as she fixes her straw-like hair.

We are in the same room: Aunt Berta, her twin brother, my dying father, and me.

He is not in pain anymore, not fighting for every breath. He is asleep, somewhere between this room and where his mother is. We hear him call her name now and then.

He has been talking about his mother a lot these past months.

I don’t remember him speaking of her much before. But he keeps returning to the same story — how his mother, a pianist, would take only him,  a five-year-old boy, with her to piano practice, leaving Berta, his twin, behind.

Now Berta is wearing a heavy sheepskin coat, wool out. She is one with it.

"There’s never enough chicken in her soup," she says. "No wonder he’s weak."

I’m in the corner next to my dad.

Her sheepskin makes me think of my own — tsigeika, worn by all Soviet kids.

I remember falling while ice skating and running to Berta’s apartment nearby, convinced my arm had split in two. A nurse, she pulled it straight out of my tsigeika sleeve and said the coat had protected it.

That night, it was set in a cast. The break was bad enough to keep me away from school for weeks.

My dad died the next morning. His suffering stopped. 

Part 3 - The Walk

I leave the table before dessert arrives.

I don’t wait for the bill or Berta’s opinions on Roman cooking.

Helen shouts after me, asking for my tiramisu.

I slip out, following the light, sunglasses still on — a silent defection.

The heat of Piazza Margana hits me.

Midday sun. The mix of old stone, jasmine and coffee. 

I don't need a map. I let the unfolding geometry of the streets decide my turns. 

Rome doesn't care about my father or the chicken in the soup. It has seen thousands of daughters walk these travertine streets with heavy hearts. 

I find myself near a fountain—not a famous one, just a mascaron dripping into a mossy basin. It sits in the middle of the square, and so do I. 

I take off the sunglasses.

The light settles differently now. 

I put my hand into the water. It is shockingly cold. The kind that burns the skin before the mind catches up.

I think of the pianist, my grandmother, taking the five-year-old boy to practice. I never met her. I know she never walked these streets.

Behind me, somewhere, Berta is still fishing for chicken in her soup.

The sun lowers. It doesn't hurt my eyes. Amber light settles on the crumbling plaster. It looks warm enough to touch.

I take a long breath. La Luce di Roma.