Chapter 10

A Tough Day on the Road

Rome, Italy

September 20

When our happy, gluttonous week in Sardinia came to an end, it was time to head for Rome. We wedged our luggage into a rented green minivan and headed for the ferry. Devi maneuvered the van up a long metal ramp and onto the deck of a hulking old vessel called the Gallurica. There, a crew of rough Italian deckhands waved and whistled us into place and lashed our wheels to the deck with thick sisal ropes.

That accomplished, the entire family piled out of the van and found a spot along the stern rail where we could enjoy the maritime scene. We watched the dock workers, far below, as they tried to load a six-car freight train into the cavernous hold of the ship. It was an impressive sight at first, and Willie and Lucas were both fascinated by the process. But as soon as the last boxcar disappeared into the hold, the entire ferry shuddered, creaked, and listed ten degrees to port. Willie yelled, “Hey, the boat’s tipping over!” And Lucas fairly leapt into his mother’s arms.

Down on the pier, the stevedores also looked concerned. They backed the train out of the hold, and after some animated discussion, they took another crack at it. This time the ferry remained more or less upright, but when we steamed out of port, we weren’t as relaxed as we might have been.

As it turned out, this was the inauspicious start of our worst travel day yet. As we steamed eastward into the Tyrrhenian Sea, the skies clouded over; a cold drizzle developed; the wind kicked up whitecaps, and salt spray whipped across the deck. Within an hour, the Gallurica—freight train and all—was heaving rhythmically over leaden ten-foot swells.

For a while, Willie and I found the storm rather exhilarating, and we stayed up on deck riding the bucking ship and boldly leaning into the wind. But the novelty of playing Captains Courageous soon wore off, and we retreated, damp and bone-chilled, into the ferry’s shabby, smoke-filled passenger cabin. We found the rest of the family huddled around a small metal table in the ship’s bar shivering in their seats and complaining about the cold. I thought a good, hot meal would do everyone a world of good, so I herded the kids across the rolling cabin into the ferry’s pint-size cafeteria, where the cooks were ladling out a hearty chili and rice dish. That seemed like just the thing to warm our bellies, and we all cleaned our plates.

That, of course, proved to be an enormous mistake, because as everyone knows (except us, apparently) mal de mer is a creeping affliction. As the weather grew heavier, the ferry bucked and pitched over mounting swells and the chili inevitably revolted. Betty and Lucas were the only ones who literally lost their lunch, but by the time we reached the Italian mainland six hours later, Devi was drained and nauseous and the kids were draped ashen-faced across their chairs.

When we drove off the ferry into the port of Civitavecchia, Devi and I breathed a sigh of relief. With the rough passage behind us, we thought our troubles were over. But in fact, they were only beginning. It was pitch-dark, raining harder than ever, and every window in the van fogged up like a bathroom mirror. We tried to clear the condensation in the usual ways, blasting the defogger and opening the windows in spite of the rain. When that didn’t work we pulled off the road every mile or two and wiped the inside of the windshield with an old T-shirt. Eventually we found that the only effective way to clear the windshield for more than a minute at a time—other than not breathing that is—was to turn up the air-conditioner. Since it was a cold rainy night to begin with, the van quickly became a rolling freezer unit—but at least we could see where we were going.

With that problem more or less solved, Devi and I turned our attention to the road. Usually, I’m the navigator, but on this occasion Devi got detailed directions from a smooth Italian guy on the ferry. She handed me the written instructions and said, very matter-of-factly, “Okay. This is the way we’re supposed to go. Just keep your eyes on the road and tell me where to turn.”

Since this was a flagrant usurpation of my navigator’s role, I regarded the directions with some suspicion. “How do you know these are right?” I asked.

“Because the guy who gave them to me lives here,” she replied.

“That may be true,” I said, “but just because he lives here doesn’t mean he knows how to get to our particular hotel in Rome. Look at this map for a second. You can see right away that it’s faster to use the ring road. I’m sure your friend on the ferry meant well, but he’s obviously taking us completely out of our way.”

“David,” said my lovely wife, “everyone is freezing cold, nauseated, and exhausted. Let’s just go the way the guy said. Please.”

“Trust me,” I answered.

Well, I guess I don’t have to tell you how that worked out. Somehow I directed Devi to an exit on the absolute wrong side of Rome. By the time we figured that out, I had no idea whatsoever how to get back on the autostrada. We drove our freezing van around some of Rome’s less distinguished suburbs for more than an hour, and I have to tell you, things got a little bit tense. I was saying, “Look, I didn’t try to get us lost.” And Devi was beginning her sentences with phrases such as “If you’d only just listened …” and “I don’t understand why you always feel the need …”

These, my friends, are the times when world travelers such as ourselves must fall back on deep reserves of patience and humor, the times when a few kind words and a reassuring touch make all the difference. But we were way past that so instead, we resorted to swearing, slamming things around, and silence as cold as the van.

Devi asked for help in Italian from a newsagent, a flower vendor, a fruit-and-vegetable guy, and approximately ten pedestrians. Each one got us a bit closer and eventually we found our way back onto the lower left-hand corner of the “Rome Accommodations” map in our Frommer’s guidebook. That turned out to be a partial victory because when things go wrong, they tend to go wrong all the way, and believe it or not, the map was inaccurate. To be more specific, when the cartographers at Frommer’s couldn’t fit the small numbered box that indicated our hotel onto the map, they simply moved it to the nearest available spot. It was less than an inch on the printed page, but in real life, the discrepancy was closer to a kilometer. To confuse matters further, the mapmakers—in the interest of clean graphics, I suppose—deleted many of the less important side streets without mentioning that fact in any obvious way. Consequently, we spent the last two hours of a harrowing day crisscrossing our way in and around the Villa Borghese, turning down stradas that didn’t appear on the map and searching for an obscure hotel that was actually somewhere else.

I tried to tell Devi, somewhat timidly, that the guidebook was wrong. But by this point, I lacked all credibility. Finally, I just asked her to pull over.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I give up.”

“What do you mean, you give up?”

“I mean it’s eleven o’clock at night. Everyone’s frozen and exhausted and we’re never going to find this hotel without divine intervention. I’m going to get out of the van, hail a cab, and pay him whatever he wants to lead us to our hotel.

Devi, who tends to be overly dogged in these matters, considered that a defeatist attitude. “Wait here,” she said, “I’m going to try one more thing.”

She pulled over, jumped out of the van and ran into the lobby of a small baroque hotel. She emerged ten minutes later, clutching a detailed map of the neighborhood with our lodgings circled in red. Sure enough, we followed the map directly to our hotel. The kind English-speaking proprietor took one look at us, sized up our condition, and let us park the van right outside the front door. Devi was so enormously relieved that this day was finally over that she more or less forgave my earlier transgressions. The rain dissipated, and we carried our children, fast asleep, to their nice warm beds.

The next day, we slept late and came downstairs just in time to catch the last meager remnants of the breakfast buffet. Over coffee and toast, I announced, rather brightly, to the children that we were going to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums. I described both in glowing terms, at which point Kara said very calmly, “No, thank you. I don’t like sightseeing anymore.”

I considered this for a moment and replied, “I’m sorry, Kara, but everyone else wants to go. You’ll have to come, too.

“Look,” she said with a preteen roll of her eyes, “we saw practically every church in France. I get the idea.”

“This is different,” I told her. “The Vatican is the headquarters of the Catholic Church, and its museums contain some of the most important artwork in the world. It’ll be very interesting. I promise.”

“You said all the best artwork was in Paris.”

“I didn’t actually say all the best artwork was in Paris.”

“Yes you did.”

“No, I said a lot of important art was in Paris, and now I’m telling you that there’s more at the Vatican. Look, I’ll give you an example,” I said. Then I tried to intrigue her with the story of Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel—how Pope Julius II forced him to paint the ceiling against his will, and how he had to lie on his back for four years. Kara understood how Michelangelo felt—being forced to do things by fiat. She thought the story was passably interesting, and she grudgingly agreed to go to the Vatican in return for a gelato afterwards.

Since Devi and I vowed never to drive in Rome again, we left our van at the hotel and boarded a street car to the Piazza del Risorgimento. From there it was long hike around the Vatican walls to the museum entrance. Inside, we joined a crowd of thousands and walked for what must of been miles through a labyrinth of ornate galleries.

The Vatican Museums are like a gigantic treasure house filled with a mind-numbing array of antique globes, illuminated manuscripts, classical sculpture, medieval tapestries, Renaissance oils, and Egyptian artifacts. Every inch of every wall, floor, and ceiling are covered with marble inlays, elaborate mosaics, frescoes, and trompe l’oeils.

Kara trudged up and down the endless halls taking it all in, then she stopped and said, “This Pope must be really rich.”

“Well, it’s not really the Pope whose rich,” said Devi. “It’s the Catholic Church.”

“Why do they have so much money?” Kara asked.

“People donate things to the church,” said Devi

“Why? Do they think it’ll get them into heaven or something?”

“Not exactly. The Church has been powerful for a long time, and they acquired all these things slowly over a period of many centuries.”

Kara thought about that for a moment and said, “Isn’t the Church supposed to help the poor people?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t they sell all this stuff and give the money to the poor people for food and houses?”

“That’s a good question,” said Devi. “But believe it or not, there isn’t enough here to provide homes and food for even a small portion of the world’s poor people. Besides, Kara, I’ll tell you a story. When I was sixteen, I was an exchange student in Mexico. And I asked my mother how come the people there were so poor, and the church was so rich and beautiful. She told me that the people needed one beautiful place in their lives. Someplace they could go when they were sad and tired.”

“I think they’d rather have food and a house,” said Kara. “Then they wouldn’t be so sad and tired to begin with.”

She had a point, of course. But if one goal of the Vatican’s extravagant display of booty was to inspire rapture, it certainly worked for Lucas. After we ogled the Sistine Chapel with ten thousand other crick-necked tourists, we eventually found our way into the gargantuan stone nave of St. Peter’s Basilica. We were all walking respectfully toward a mass in progress, when Lucas noticed the wonderful acoustical properties of the hall. Few things in life are more inspirational to a two-and-a-half-year-old than a cavernous room with an echo. All of a sudden, Lucas took off at full speed yelling, “Aaaaahhhhh!” at the top of his lungs.

Alfred Hitchcock would have shot what happened next from above. From every corner of the basilica, blue-coated Vatican guards converged on little Lucas, trying to intercept him before he got to the apse of the church, where the mass was being celebrated. This took longer than you’d expect. The nave looked larger than two football fields, and Lucas was travelling under a full head of steam. A couple of puffing guards caught up with him at approximately the same time as I did—directly under Michelangelo’s 375-foot dome. Unfortunately, the guards were disinclined to chalk this rampage up to youthful exuberance. They told me very sternly, and at some length, that St. Peter’s was a sacred place of worship, and that I should take a firmer hand with my children.

Despite the obvious embarrassment, I was secretly amused by Lucas’s noisy epiphany. I recalled a day—well before Lucas was born—when Kara, Willie, and their friends were rampaging around our house like little demons. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but I happened to have Edie Turner, a well-respected anthropologist, at the house for lunch. Edie was a proper British lady of seventy or so, and as each wave of screaming children stampeded past the dining room, I grew increasingly embarrassed.

“I’m very sorry about all the noise, Edie,” I said.

“My dear David,” she replied, looking at me with soft, knowing eyes, “I believe this is what it must sound like in heaven.”

With every day that passes, Lucas is less a baby, and more a bright little person. It’s wonderful to see the world through his eyes. During our Vatican tour, Lucas saw angels everywhere—in all the paintings, frescoes, and sculptures. He called them “butterfly boys,” which is as good a name as any, and he considers them to be little fellows like himself. He also seemed to be particularly touched by Michelangelo’s Pietá. While the adults were all marveling at Michelangelo’s uncanny ability to sculpt Carrera marble into intricate folds, Lucas saw past technique to the subject. “The son is dead. And the mommy is crying,” he said over and over. “The son is dead, and the mommy is crying.”

Toward the end of our stay in Rome, I had another raucous experience with Lucas. Lucas hadn’t had a haircut since we left America, and his head had exploded into a riot of curls. I asked the proprietor of our hotel where I might find a barbershop, and he directed me to Solarium Luigi across the street from the nearby national police complex. The hotel proprietor said that Luigi was an excellent barber, but since nearly all his clients were police officers, I should make sure he didn’t cut the baby’s hair too short.

When Lucas and I got to the barbershop, we found Luigi to be a trim, immaculately groomed man smelling of pomade and talcum powder. He had a thin moustache, wore a grey tailored suit, and didn’t speak a word of English. I indicated in sign language that I wanted him to give Lucas a haircut. He gave a slight smile and brushed off a child seat he kept in the back.

After placing Lucas in the seat, Luigi fastidiously removed his suit jacket and hung it on a wooden hanger. Then he draped Lucas in a black smock, took up his long, elegant scissors and began to clip. Lucas sat reasonably still for the first few minutes, but then he started crawling out of the chair and wandering around the shop with his little black smock dragging behind him. The first two or three times this happened, Luigi simply picked Lucas up and placed him gently back in the seat. But when Lucas wouldn’t stay put, Luigi just started following him around the shop snipping here and there whenever he got the chance. As Lucas toddled randomly from the sink to the magazine rack to the umbrella stand and back again, the urbane Luigi crouched behind him styling on the run. I offered to intercede several times, but Luigi assured me with signs and gestures that he had matters under control.

Luigi never once lost his composure, and despite the difficult circumstances, he gave Lucas a very good haircut. When the last curl was trimmed, Luigi brushed Lucas’s little neck with talcum powder and gently slapped his cheeks with a cologne that couldn’t possibly compete with his ripening diapers. Then he gave Lucas a little bottle of shampoo that he treasured for the rest of the week. As we said “grazie” and “arrivederci,” Luigi put his jacket back on and bowed slightly. He actually seemed to have enjoyed his encounter with Lucas, but he was no doubt relieved that his next customer would be an officer of the carabinieri.

It’s absurd to think you can see the Eternal City in four or five days. Nevertheless, we dutifully bagged most of the requisite tourist sites, flipping coins over our shoulder into the rococo Trevi Fountain, admiring the Campodoglio, and happily paying a stiff premium to drink cappuccinos in a Via Condotti coffee shop once allegedly patronized by Shelley, Keats, and Byron.

In all of these places, I tried to give Kara and Willie some notion of the vast span of Roman history. In doing so, I discovered that young children don’t have a natural sense of historical perspective. This was apparent when we visited the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore near Rome’s central train terminal. Most of this structure dates from the fifth century, and I was trying to tell Willie just how old that was.

“This church is more than 1,500 years old,” I said. “The United States is only 220 years old, so when our country was founded, this church had already been here for more than 1,000 years. Do you understand how old that is?”

“Yes,” said Willie, earnestly trying to please. “It’s older than Grandpa Norm.”

Oh well, as we visit the progressively older cultures of Greece, India and Africa, I’m sure he’ll gain perspective. Until then, we bid you adieu from the ancient city of popes and emperors, caesars and saints, Romulus and Remus—a city even older than Grandpa Norm.