Chapter 22

The Eternal City and the Holy Father

 

The remaining coastal ride on the way to Rome was flat and relatively boring, perhaps in part because its effect was diminished by the glare of the sun rising over the Tyrrhenian Sea.  At a dry-looking seaside town, I parked Melawend on a vacant lot that was posted for development.  A tall thick bald man who had eerie piercing blue eyes, wore a thick bathrobe and carried a glass of red wine came up to me.  He had the hard affluent look like a Mafia don.  He looked appraisingly at Melawend, nodded and said something in Italian.  When he found I could not speak his language, he nodded again and looked out to sea.  A young skinny guy and an old woman joined him.  They all looked at Melawend and talked with each other in Italian and then walked away.  I left wishing I could have talked with them.

I left the sea and headed for Rome.  Just inside the ring road and about six miles from the heart of the city, I discovered Camping Roma on the Via Aurelia.  At a picnic table near the check-in office, I met Tuna, a girl from Oslo who knew people in Bergen.  It was nice to be able to relate to a foreigner.  At the check-in-office, I met Luciana Lotti, a cousin of the manager and a member of the corporation that owned the camp.  She was blond and robust and reminded me of my long-since-heard-from cousin Terri.  Her English was limited, so Tuna translated my plea.  Luciana was initially reluctant to authorize a sponsored stay without corporate approval, but as I walked away, she relented.  She seemed worried perhaps because I looked so alone and lost.

The Via Aurelia was a main artery into Rome and Camping Roma was built on a treed hill right beside it, so you heard the constant muffled sound of traffic if you camped near the road.  I set up under trees on the far side of the camp, near the washrooms.  The camp was small, clean and shady.  I went over to the outdoor sinks to wash my laundry.  A tall slim woman with short dark graying hair came to the sink to my left and began to wash some dishes.  She was from Canada.

In London, I had been rather brief in my conversation with the girl from St. Catharines, but after three months on the road, it was a pleasure to meet someone from my homeland.  Her name was Jean Fox and she was from the city of Victoria, in the province of British Columbia.  (I had no idea then that I would later make Victoria my home.)  She and her husband, a retired sheriff, also named Tom, had spent the last five months travelling all over Eastern Europe in a camper van they had bought in Amsterdam.  She told me of the poor conditions in such places as Romania and Yugoslavia.

"When I get home, I'm going to hug my washer and dryer!" she said

I was invited to their van for dinner.  Tom and Jean had been married for eight years.  He had a full head of grey hair and wore glasses and he reminded me of father of old friend.  Tom and Jean were going home next month.  The three of us sat in their cramped van and dined on pasta and vegetables.  We talked until 11:15.   I was to have a few dinners with them and would savour food I had missed: pork chops, potatoes, fresh green beans, grapes, wine and tea.  I got back late one night and they had pot of ravioli, but had saved some for me.  “Come on, eat,” Tom said.  I finished it.   And we would talk of our treks in Rome.

 

Rome was awesome but it intimidated me.  So I have to break here and remind myself why.  It was not just the noise and the crowds and the insane traffic (worse than New York’s).  Everywhere you looked there were ancient ruins, statues and remarkably preserved or restored buildings.   Rome was its own outdoor museum.   The buildings were many and mammoth in this city that sprawled over seven hills.  It all made me feel tiny and rather bewildered.

(SUGGESTION: Don’t go to Rome without having studied at least a good guidebook in some depth.  But that is also true for any destination you deem worthwhile.) 

Rome looked like a visual history of conquest and its celebration in sculpted stone – a city and a society that rose and fell and had risen again.  I became intrigued with its history.

They called Rome “The Eternal City” for good reason – it looked like it had always been here, at least since the dawn of what we call “civilization”.  Cavemen had originally inhabited Italy – civilization came in the 8^th century B.C.  Then, the history of Rome became a mix of fact and fiction, thanks to the ancient historians who rewrote it. 

Legend had it that two infant brothers – Romulus and Remus – were left to drown on the banks of the flooding Tiber River, but were found by a she-wolf that raised them on Palatine Hill. (The name Palatine, derived from Pales, the goddess of shepherds, gave us our word “palace.")  As men, the brothers returned to the spot where they had been abandoned. And there, they founded the city of Rome. The Romans still celebrated the festival of Natalis Romae, or the birth of Rome, on April 21 to commemorate the day the brothers founded the city.

(Since I first saw Steven Spielberg’s "Back to the Future", I have often wanted to have that rather unique Dolorean, put fuel into its flux capacitor and take jaunts through time and place.   Here, I would like to have driven back to the pristine hills of Rome to actually watch its history unfold – so long as I could get back to my own time.  I’m digressing, fantasizing a bit – I’ll get back to the story…)

The legends continued.  Romulus would become the first king of Rome.  His followers conquered the Sabines of the hills near Rome and raped the Sabine women.  (Strange, but I would meet a beautiful European girl in Honolulu, named Sabine, but that has absolutely no relevance here.  That entry just brought her to mind.  You'll meet her later.)  The Sabines were to become among the first Roman citizens.

It was at this time that civilized and metal-savvy Etruscans, immigrants from Asian Minor, probably from somewhere between Syria and the Hellespont (Dardanelles), moved in and transformed a cluster of mud huts into a thriving city.  This attracted Italic tribesmen from the surrounding countryside.  The Etruscans drained the swamp that would later become the Roman Forum.  They built grand palaces and roads and ruled Rome for 300 years.

The Gauls invaded Etruscan settlements to the north and at the same time, the Etruscans went to war with the Greeks.  Time was ripe for Rome’s citizens to rebel against their Etruscan masters.  They did and over the next 200 years, the Romans conquered most of the peninsula.   They got greedy and began to conquer other lands, including Sicily, Corsica, Gaul (northern Italy) and Carthage in North Africa.  They brought back a lot of slaves who displaced common workers who in turn became the angry dispossessed in the cities.  Reform was sought against wealthy senators but too little reform led to mass rioting and civil war.  Julius Caesar, the brilliant military man who vastly expanded the Roman Empire, was seen by the masses as one divinely chosen to rule Rome.  His triumph ended the civil war but we all know what happened to him on the Ides of March.

Mark Anthony teamed up with Caesar’s grand nephew Octavian to pursue Caesar’s murderers.  But Anthony left his wife (Octavian’s sister) to marry Cleopatra.  Octavian turned against Anthony and, with defeat imminent; Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide and bequeathed embellishments to the careers of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. 

(I’m getting a bit cocky here, but you can see how the drama of history becomes fodder for contemporary mass entertainment and individual careers.   The epic tale Burton and Taylor would also make one hell of a movie!) 

Meanwhile, Octavian took over for the late Julius Caesar and changed his name to Augustus, “the revered one”.  He lived simply and ruled Rome with competence and sensitivity.  Augustus Caesar claimed that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble.  For 200 years after his reforms, Rome lived in peace and prosperity and the Mediterranean basked in the Pax Romana.

But mostly egocentrics, madmen and thugs followed Augustus.  Stepson Tiberius executed people.  Caligula was mad.  Claudius, grandson of Augustus and the conqueror of Britain, was poisoned by Nero who, in seeking to build a new city to himself, burned Rome.  Nero committed suicide.  Military commanders quarreled and Vespasian Flavius was named emperor.  He led Rome through a period of peace (the Colosseum was built during his time, to the enduring glory of Rome, but at the expense of Christians and animals).  He was followed by his troubled son Dmitian who was replaced as emperor, through appointment from powerful senate, by Nerva, a highly regarded lawyer.  He was the first of the “five good emperors” that included Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius and Marcus Aurelius – educated and philosophical men who ruled with tolerance and efficiency.  They fortified the edges of the empire against barbarians who lived just outside.

The Decline came after Aurelius.  It became more difficult to defend the empire from the barbarian threats.  The Roman army was doubled in size but this caused an economic crisis.  The army chose emperors and several of them ruled less than three years and never lived in the capital.   Plague also struck Rome.  In 236 A.D., Emperor Diocletian decided the Empire could be no longer ruled by one man and so divided the Empire in two.  Constantine marched on Rome in 311 and claimed the throne.  On the road to Rome, he saw a vision of a cross and heard “By this sign win you victory.”  The empire became Christian and the first church to St. Peter was built.  Constantine moved the capitol to Constantinople (now Istanbul).  Rome, and its Empire, fell in 410 when the Germanic barbarians sacked the city.  Italy was fractured once again, not to be reunified until the 19^th century.

 

That is a bit of the background of the city I entered the next morning.  I gave Melawend a rest and took two busses into the center of Rome.  Traffic was horrendous.  Streets were narrow.  Many were one-way and others were for pedestrians only.  The grime of pollution covered buildings.

My first destination was the American Express office.  If you were alone in a far off place, it felt so good to receive mail from home.  The most pleasing thing I received was a letter from Dad, which told of good things people were saying about the articles I had written thus far for The Times-Review, and that he was behind me all the way.

My cousin Diane (in whose rec room I had spent the first night of the odyssey) had sent me two letters.  Diane was a teacher and was currently teaching a Special Education class of 12 "difficult to motivate" 10-year-old students.  She said her class was following my journey.  Several of her students had added notes to Diane’s letter: Allen told me about his family and their hobbies.  Christine, a Greek girl, wrote: "I hope you learn a hole lot of culture Tom."  Diane was disappointed to learn after the fact that I had been in Aberdare, Wales, where her grandfather, the father of the alcoholic who had married my Aunt Sammy, Diane's mother, had come from.

Lin had sent to me some photos of our time together in Bath.   Marianne in Brussels sent to me a translation of the article on my journey that had appeared in La Soir.  Family talked about family:  Mom said that the brother of Don, her husband, was killed in World War II and was buried in France.

The American Express office was just off the Plaza de Spagna where there were more people sitting than walking on the famous steps.  These were the elegant Scalinata della Trintá dei Monti – the Spanish Steps, constructed by Francesco de Sanctis in 1723 - 1725 – a wide maze of steps and landings and terraces.  They made their way up to the twin towers of the French church of the Trintá dei Monti, which was begun by Louis XII in 1502, consecrated by Pope Sixtus V in 1585 and restored after the Napoleonic occupation of Rome.

I made my way along the Via Condotti.  This was Rome's most fashionable shopping street that was frequented by artists, writers and musicians that included Gothe, Gogol, Mendelssohn, Wagner and Liszt.  I was more interested in the beautiful girls who wandered along the narrow way and smiled for my camera.   I bought a couple doughnuts and headed for the Colosseum.

There was an archeological dig going on a hill across the street from it and there was a walkway going up, but it was fenced off.  Nearby, a man who looked as old as Rome was selling slide sets, Roma I, Roma II…  He was disheveled in an old, tattered sport coat and above a grizzly beard his face was wrinkled.  He had an old black leather pouch for change.

“Only 25,000 lira for pack,” he said, holding one up.  (They sold for 10,000 at camp.)  “I sell to you for 20,000 lira.”

“No, thank you.”

“25,000 each for two and get the third free.”

“No.”

“20,000 for two and got the third one free.”

“No.” I said.  But I was truly beginning to want them. These were images of Rome taken under ideal conditions, which I would not get.

I opened and showed him that all I had 14,000 lira.

“I give you two packs for 12,000,” he said.

“No, I want three for 14,000.”

He looked insulted.  “They cost me that!”

I dug into my pockets and found 1,500 lire in change.  That was enough.  I got him down from 75,000 lira to 15,500.  He was smiling.  I was smiling and Rome was beginning to be fun.  I went into a souvenir shop later and saw them for 7,500 per pack so I had done well.  I reasoned that I got 180 slides for about $0.10 per slide.  It cost me $0.40 to take one slide with my own film.  I got 180 images for less than the price of one roll of film.   I thought that this would augment any slide shows I would give later.  The real joy was in dealing with this old relic of Rome who was just trying to make a living.

I continued on to the Colosseum.  Its true name was the Flavian Amphitheater, for Emperor Vespasian Flavius who built it.  (It became known as the Colosseum because of the colossal statue of Nero that once stood on or near the site.)  Construction began in A.D. 72.  Vespasian’s son Titus enlarged it by adding the fourth story and it was inaugurated in 80 AD with a series of splendid games.  It was largest structure left to us by Roman antiquity.  It served as model for modern sports arenas – football stadia of today have basically same form.

What it looked like today was a condemned football staduim that had already seen the wrecking ball until conservationists stepped in to save it.  Restoration in the form of new blocks was evident along the top levels.   What was left to be seen was the cleaned up and patched up damage and destruction by fire; earthquake; neglect and dilapidation under the Christian Empire (when the games were abandoned); its conversion into a fortress of the Frangipane family; the pillage of its marble, travertine and brick for the construction of palaces; and the constant thunder of modern traffic that raced around it.   On closer examination, I saw that the travertine walls and pilasters were pitted, as if eaten by stone-chewing termites.

I took self-portraits along a dark curving colonnade of crumbling square pillars and went inside.  What struck me about the cavernous interior was not its cut-away visage, but its silence, save for the muffled murmuring of tourists.  It was spooky, even in the mellow late afternoon sunlight.  The Colosseum stood 190 feet high and though it had looked round from the outside, it was oval.  It took some doing, but you could imagine the four levels of seats that held 50,000 spectators – the Imperial court and high officials on the lowest level, the aristocratic families on the second level, the populace on the third and fourth.  There had been a huge awning supported by 240 masts set in the walls along the top story.  

You could imagine the roars of the bloodthirsty crowd that sheltered under that awning.  The floor had long-since collapsed, revealing the changing rooms and training rooms for gladiators, cages for wild beasts and storerooms and the cells that once held trembling Christians.  You saw the corridors through which they walked, now softly carpeted with grass, much like a cemetery.

I was not prepared for this. Oh, the architecture of the Colosseum was grand – it was everything it was cracked up to be – but I had to remind myself that people had died here, animals too, to the excitement and amusement of its patrons.  Can you imagine?   This was one of the world’s biggest monuments to the inhumanity of man, to the tyranny of absolute power, to the bestial domination over animals.  Its crumbling stones bore mute witness to the malevolent arrogance of racism – an ancient Roman version of The Final Solution.  Yes, you could imagine the roars and cheers of the crowds, but you could also imagine the crying and the screaming and the horrific live carnage – the torment that no plaque could adequately memorialize.  So why was this thing still standing?

I stood there for a time looking at this gargantuan chipped basin.  I wondered if those who died here were given the choice (now there’s a contradiction!), would they still want this crumbling behemoth as their tombstone?  Maybe there was significance in the way it was slowly rotting away, a reminder of the fall of the Empire that built it.  I thought, yes, perhaps it was itself a fitting epitaph and a measure of the slow, still painfully slow decline of man’s inhumanity.

I was thirsty.  Inside, there was a snack bar built into a wall.  Everything was expensive.  A cup of Coke was 2,000 lira.  It cost 1,000 to use the toilet.  I asked for a cup of water.  “Here, take all you like!”  I was disappointed that it cost 3,000 lira to go up to a higher level in the Colosseum and that there was only 5 minutes until closing.  At least I had come inside for free and there was nothing to bar my exit.

Outside, I took some promo shots for Hiker's Haven by donning a HH sweatshirt and taking self-portraits.  I was approached by seven teenage Italian guys who where clowning and shoving each other around.

"Hey, you take picture of us, okay?"

So I did.

"Grazi," one said.

"Prego," I replied.

I felt Italian.

I bought three more patches for the Odyssey Jacket – Italy, Spain and France – and left the city.  On the bus back to Camping Roma, I sat next to a pretty hazel-eyed Italian girl.

"My name is Laura," she said (pronouncing it "lau – as in cow – ra").

She was curious about me, but she was what, maybe sixteen?

“Where are you staying in Rome?” she said.

She would be a woman soon, I thought.  And I wondered if on this superficial meeting, she thought I measured up against her Italian boyfriends.

I had noticed machismo in young Italian men.  On the road, drivers I would pass on the road would often zip past me ten seconds later.  They tended to stare a lot.  Other times I would get a lot of thumbs up.  I had observed small groups talking animatedly to each other.  I began to feel that there was a real fraternity among Italian men and that it was an honour if you were accepted.

“Maybe I will see you again?” Laura said as she got off the bus.

If I was many years younger…

For the rest of the ride back to Camping Roma, I looked out the window and made notes.  “There is an intimacy in the old buildings on pretty, narrow streets….”

An all-day bus ticket was 2,800 (about $2.30).  You were seldom checked or had your ticket punched.  If you were stealthful, you could get many days out of a one-day ticket.

I walked back into the relative quiet of Camping Roma and sniffed the air.  In many campgrounds, it had made me envious to smell all the good food cooking in neighboring sites.  Camping Roma was no exception.  I would sit in my dark tent and spread butter or apricot jam on a roll.  I would drink water.  For dinner tonight, I was thankful that I had a can of sweet green peas.

Appointments had been made for me for the next day.

In the morning, I rode Melawend into the city because our embassy had arranged a meeting for me at city hall.  To navigate, I simply followed busses into the city.  I started out at 7:30 for a 9:30 appointment and arrived an hour early.

My meeting was at Campidoglio – on the Capitoline Hill, the smallest of Rome’s seven hills.  It was the political and religious center of ancient Rome.  What you now saw on the dip between the two summits of the hill was a piazza, a square designed by Michaelangelo Buonarroti.  It was flanked by three palaces: the Palazzo di Senatori (to the rear, now residence of the Mayor), the Palazzo dei Conservatori (on the right) and the Palazzo Nuovo (which was a museum and city hall). The piazza was approached by a ceremonial ramp and staircase. The square was not totally enclosed since there are openings between the buildings that allowed for passage to streets leading down to the Forum.  The palaces formed a trapezoid within which Michelangelo had laid out an oval (marked by steps) and a star formation (marked by light-coloured paving).

It was to this place that victorious Roman generals came to celebrate their triumphs, making their way to the Capitol along the Sacred Way.  It was here in 1955 that the Treaty of Rome established the EEC – the European Economic Community.   This morning Michelangelo's piazza was deserted except for a spoke-wheeled cart of street sweeper and hand-made corn broom resting on it – and an out-of-place motorscooter and its nervous rider.

In a city as world-class as Rome, I was uneasy in my assumed diplomatic status.  I was met here by Franca Mazzolani, a friendly, attractive, leather-skirted girl – along the lines of actress Marsha Mason, but with bigger, dark eyes.  She was the cultural officer of our embassy.  We were escorted to the Council Chamber where distinguished-looking Mr. Carlo Capano and a towering, equally distinguished gentleman greeted me formally.  Mr. Capano was a was a cheerful man with greying hair and an overall executive look in his shiny silver suit.  I wore my jeans and the Odyssey Jacket and was glad Franca was here, rather than Miss Primrose. 

(To my relief, Franca volunteered that my style of dress was rather appropriate for the nature of my journey.)

Mr. Capano did not speak English.   I did not speak Italian.  I was utterly grateful that Franca was there to interpret.  I was also glad that she had brought a gift, a large book or record collection, as I recall, for my presentation of letters and lapel pin from Fort Erie seemed so puny to give the man who was the Ambassador of Ceremonies and Festivals for the City of Rome.   With a grand warmness, Mr. Capano presented me with a medallion that commemorated the June 5, 1944 liberation of Rome by the Allies. 

(The day after the liberation of Rome, the Allies hit the beaches of France at Normandy – D-Day.) 

I felt unworthy of even being here.   A professional photographer took photographs.   Her look shocked me – so much like that of an old friend.  She captured us in the chamber, all smiles and handshakes before the statue of Julius Caesar.  (I say the statue because it was I was told it was the only known original statue of Caesar left in existence.)   Mr. Capano and his assistant wished me well and went their way.  I thanked Franca and she took her leave.

The photographer and I went outside where she photographed Melawend and me in Michelangelo’s piazza.  She got us between the two mammoth statues that flanked the top of the ramp.  These were the statues of Emperor Constantine and his son Constantine II.  In a city of victors, I felt somewhat defeated by my ineptitude as a diplomat.   It seemed to have come off okay, but what had I really accomplished?  What real connection had I made?  And what impression had I left?

I drove Melawend over to Colosseum, got a couple photos behind it because that was where the best sunlight was at 10:30 in the morning.  A gendarme in black slacks, ivory colored shirt and cap gestured that I was not to use a tripod.

"Uno photograph?" I said.

"Uno." he said.

I took one each of slide and print.

Nearby, in the Piazza del Colosseo, I saw the Arch of Constantine – a monument made by inept artisans.  It had been erected by the Senate in his honour, as the "liberator of the city and bringer of peace”.  Though it was badly decayed, it was considered the best preserved of Roman triumphal arches.  However, the 4^th century sculptors were not up to their task, so reliefs were pilfered from earlier structures – a boar hunt and a sacrifice to Apollo, taken from a monument of the time of Hadrian, scenes from the reigns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius – so the arch dedicated to Constantine had little to do with its subject.

Prior to the meeting on Campidoglio, I had visited our embassy in Rome and called the producer at CBC who had taken a strong interest in my journey.   He said that he failed to convince the CBC to carry call-ins of my journey because they were already carrying the bubbly girls who were riding bicycles across Canada.  He suggested I try a local Toronto CBC station.  This was a big blow.

But at the embassy, Claude Charland, a most amiable and dignified man and our Ambassador to Italy, called me in.

"You are quite brave to do this."

Then he talked of his backpacking days in Europe.  It seemed my journey also served to stir in some people fond memories of their more personally adventurous days.  And I felt that that too was a good thing.

 

Even more important to me than my visit to Rome was an attempt to do something through The Vatican and, if possible, to at least see the Holy Father.   In this effort, I was helped tremendously by our staff at the embassy at the Holy See.  I would often make my way along the Via della Conciliazone, the wide thoroughfare that led directly to St. Peter’s Square.  It was constructed in 1937 to commemorate the reconciliation between Mussolini and Pope Pius XI. 

At the embassy, I was particularly happy to see Emanuela Siciliani who made calls on my behalf and was my friendly, kind-spoken confidant between my outings.  She was slim and dark and very attractive with silken skin.  She liked scuba diving.  Not that I assumed there was any interest on her part, but I never tried to become part of her personal life – I was too shy and preoccupied to pursue this.

At just over 100 acres, Vatican City was by far the world's smallest independent sovereign entity.  It had its own flag and anthem.  It locked its gates at midnight.  Though 4,000 people worked there, only 400 held Vatican City passports.  The Pope held Passport #1 – but had he ever been asked to produce it?  I once accompanied Mr. Evans of the embassy to the Vatican post office and watched as he sent out a parcel that was tied up with string.  There was no security or Customs slip; it was simply stamped and sent.

Counselor Laurent Paul Tardif got me my “Reparto Speciale” – a pass to a restricted seating area for the Pontiff’s weekly audience.

I was in awe of Pope John Paul II, the former Polish actor who had also worked in a quarry and a chemical factory, the man who was now shepherd to the global flock of 800 million Catholics.  The Papacy was the world’s only elective monarchy and the Holy Father managed an incredible global bureaucracy that included 4,000 bishops, 400,000 priests, and at least 1 million nuns.  I was not Catholic, but that did not matter.  Neither did the fact that he was staunchly conservative in a world that seemed to cry out for more flexibility and tolerance, even adaptation.  I regarded Pope John Paul not only as a man of God but as a man of peace. 

(Having just written that, and feeling that “God” could also represent the supreme deity of any religion, it seems that “peace” and “God” are, in any case, inseparable.  So why is the world still fractured in some places by religious intolerance?  God only knows.  Is there some secret to achieving world tolerance and peace that we have yet to discover?)  

I admired Pope Paul’s courage and tenacity in spreading peace throughout the world, especially because he got out there personally and did it so often.

There had to be something special about the man who became the first non-Italian pope in more than 450 years.  To me, he sat with unparalleled grace on the much-occupied Papal throne.   He had had 262 predecessors.  Some of them were interesting.  The shortest reign was by Stephen II who died just 4 days after he was elected in 752.  At 32 years, Pius IX had sat on the throne the longest.  When he rose to it in 931, John XI was the youngest at 16 years of age. Gregory IX had died the oldest in 1241 at the age of 100.  And one of them may have been a woman, according to the medieval legend of Pope Joan of 855 A.D.   (Her story, about a woman disguised as a man, rising to the top of the papacy, taken as fact, was made into a movie in 1972, Pope Joan.  It had a multi-star cast with Liv Ullman in the title role.)

At least 14 of the popes abdicated or were deposed.  Ten died violently.   Popes had been arrested, imprisoned and otherwise humiliated.  Many had never ruled from Rome at all.   Eighty had been canonized.  One, Formosus, was exhumed by his successor Stephan VII (896 - 897), was tried on charges of usurping the throne, was stripped, dismembered, and thrown into the Tiber (a Roman mob subsequently rose up and strangled Stephan).

U.S. President Richard Nixon once said: "I would have made a good Pope.”

He would likely have made a controversial one.

 

(Dear reader: I will now go into detail about the Audience, particularly for those of you who are Catholic and have not had the opportunity to attend the Pope’s weekly address at St. Peter’s.  I also do it because I, a non-Catholic, underwent what might well have been “a religious experience”.)

 

Being Pope was no easy task.   To me, just the responsibility of getting up in front of thousands of people that were assembled for his weekly audience would have sent me into hiding. 

I had my Reparto Speciale and had taken a seat in a fenced area to the immediate right of the stage that had been erected in St. Peter’s Square.  I was early and had a terrific seat close to the stage, immediately behind the dignitaries’ box.

A dark-haired mustachioed man signaled me to move to the side of this boxed in area.  I was annoyed because I was directly across from the left side of the pontiff's throne.  He was insistent, and I thought that I was perhaps in a reserved seat.  He placed me midway along the edge of this area.

"His Holiness will pass by you here," he said.  This was the Papal photographer who was assigned to take my photograph with the Pope in passing.  I would soon discover that he knew what I was in for and that this was the best place to be.

Beside me, the young musicians of the Saints Allowicious College Musical Group from Glasgow, Scotland, were warming up.   There was a rising crescendo of horns and violins.  I had no idea what they were playing but the piece reminded me of Neil Diamond’s “Prologue”, included in his Love at the Greek album – you got the feeling of impending arrival of someone revered.  I got out my cassette recorder and set it on the rail of the fence.  A man on the far side of the orchestra saw what I was doing.  He looked at me sternly and signaled "No" with his hand.  The wood frame barrier next to me was covered with fabric so I put the recorder on the frame behind the fabric and continued recording.

Cheering suddenly replaced the music.  The Pope was making his way around the crowd in the bulletproof Mercedes Popemobile. You knew that this was no ordinary man coming.  In May 1981 as he rode through a crowd-packed St. Peter's Square, the Pope was shot and severely wounded by Turkish-born terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca.  Three years later, the Pontiff visited him for 21 minutes in Rome's Rabibbia Prison, held his hand and forgave him.  Now the Holy Father was making his way to the platform.  People were clapping.  Men's voices were raised in song.

A quotation was read first in Italian, then in French and then in English – "A reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians: 'Because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus… remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation…that you may know what is the Pope to which He has called you.”

It continued and was repeated in other languages.

The Pope read something in Italian and then in French.  I did not understand a word of it but joined the huge crowd in applause.  Bells sounded and then the Pope was told of the many delegations that had come to pay him respect.  (For ease of reading, I will put the following speech in point form)

“Among those present in the audience today,” came a man’s voice over loudspeakers,

·         “participants in renewal programs in Rome, of the Dominican Sisters;

·         from England, the Acrossed Cross pilgrimage and sect and the Spez pilgrimage from London

·         from Scotland, the Ecumenical pilgrimage from the Island of Berra, in the diocese of Argyle in the Isles, as well as the Saints Allowicious College Musical Group from Glasgow (the music began – but it seemed low and distant...);

·         a group from Ireland including students and professors from a college in Cork;

·         Denmark students from a high school in Copenhagen;

·         from Sweden a Lutheran church group;

·         a symposium from Norway;

·         infantry and calvary trainee officers from Malta;

·         from the Philippines from the arch diocese of Manila;

·         from Japan a youth group from a Buddhist organization on exchange on exchange from the European Christian Youth;

·         from New Zealand, a pilgrimage of Maori (who then went into song and chants);

·         from the US, several pilgrim groups: Kalamazoo, Michigan; Sacramento California; priests and sisters from San Francisco; Our Lady of Hope sent a group from Newburgh; New York (I would have quite a night in their notorious town near the end of my journey...); Lancaster, Ohio; Philadelphia; and

·         members of the US Armed Forces and members of their families stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany (to this someone a few seats in front of me clapped and shouted "Yeah!").

(I apologize to any group(s) whose name I did not get down accurately.)

The Pope then conveyed blessings on them.  Near me, I heard a security official's walkie-talkie.  I put a 500mm lens on my camera, set my tripod between my legs as a monopod and captured images of the Holy Father: the slight grandfatherly smile, the understated Pontifical wave in blessing…

The Pope talked about a pilgrimage he had made to France regarding the works of St. Francis. 

"In a word, my visit was an inspiring pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Saints,” he said. “There is a need for labors for priests and for Saints.  Where the Saints pass, God passes together with them."

The Pope welcomed the various groups, the students from Cork; the Maoris; the groups from Sweden, Denmark, and England; and he welcomed the group from Japan in Japanese.

"May the Lord Bless all," he concluded.

"And you, Holy Father," the crowd intoned.

The orchestra concluded with the same introductory piece.  The Pope then began to make his way around.   And, yes, he was coming my way!  There was a rush and then the crush of people as they flowed like a wave over top of me, standing on chairs, leaning over, bodies pressing upon each other, hands outstretched trying to touch and to be touched by Pope John Paul.  Rosaries dangled over my head and I was hemmed in by the pressing what felt like the entire body of the Catholic Church.  I became heavily but happily aware of why I had been asked to sit here.

Then it happened.  When the Holy Father stood in front of me, all I saw around him was a brilliant glow – St. Peter's, behind him, had disappeared.  He took my right hand in his left.  He shook my hand gently.  His grip was firm but his hand was soft.  This recalled how my Grandmother Darby had held my hand just hours before she died.  As he passed, St. Peter’s became visible again.  It was a profound event.   But I rationalized it as my own awe of the moment.

For the photo official papal photorapher Arturo Mari took of Pope John Paul shaking my hand, and my tribute to this magnificent man, please see this page: http://www.melawend.com/popejohn1.htm

(Later, in at the Vatican studio of Arturo Mari, an official Papal photographer, in room of long tables filled with glossy 8 x 10’s, I was jostled by hopeful people.  I spotted three in which I was shown with the Holy Father.  Arturo had captured the moment for me.)

After the audience ended and the crowd thinned, I lingered around St. Peter’s, just soaking up the atmosphere.  It was 3:30 p.m. by the time I decided to leave.  I walked down the Via Della Conciliazone to our embassy, hoping to see Emanuela.   I was too late.  The embassy had closed at 2:00.  I sat on the steps and had begun to write a note for Mr. Tardiff, the Counselor, when he came by.

We went in and talked about pettiness and overwork.  He told me of an MP and a minister who had had an audience with the Pope.  Mr. Tardiff took them in his own car that he had taken to a car wash for the occasion.  He paid $7.00 and asked for reimbursement that was not given.   He chewed hard on an old bone: more work was being done by fewer people and that “less paperwork” actually meant more.  He talked of the dangers of driving in Rome.

"You don't bother signaling in Rome because by the time you put on your signal, you will have lost the space you were going to pull into.  You just go for it."

He was right.  I also saw drivers of motorscooters and cars ignore stoplights and simply keep going.  As a pedestrian at these intersections, you get your "Avanti" from the pedestrian signal, but cars kept going through.  For nasty traffic, I ranked the cities I visited: Rome, then Paris, then London.  Rome was on par with New York City for traffic, but New York was better because of its grid pattern – Rome had too many twists and turns, ups and downs, and narrow alleys and the drivers were more reckless (though New York City cars were simply more wrecked).

I walked the streets of Rome.  I saw the arches, the tumbled columns, and the ancient churches that had been built amid these ruins of the Roman Forum.  Once again, you saw that the foundations of one time were laid over another.

Rome might also have been called The City of Angeles.  I saw them glorified above the round edifice of the Castel Sant' Angelo, the mausoleum that Hadrian (A.D.-117 - 138) had built for himself.  In 590, Pope Gregory the Great saw an angel hovering over the mausoleum and sheathing his sword, heralding the end of the plague which was then raging in Rome – hence the figure of an angel which now crowned the monument.

I walked across the beautiful Ponte Sant’ Angelo which had been built by Hadrian in 136 A.D. to give access to his mausoleum.  Along the bridge, you saw the figures of angles that were added by the pupils of Bernini.

I walked across the ornate Victor Emmanuel II Bridge and at the base of Capitoline Hill, I dodged traffic around the behemoth white “wedding cake” of a monument at that had been built to this Sardinian king who became Italy’s first monarch in 1861 and brought the entire country into unification in 1870.  It housed yet another Tomb to the Unknown Soldier.

I took in the hustle bustle of Piazza Navona and I watched a young couple walk in quietude along the paved banks of the Tiber River.  There was truly excitement and romance and a feast for the inquisitive mind in this ancient city.

 

In Rome, I became more hopeful about all things.  In this mood, I often visited St. Peter’s.  The church was yet another example of man’s work that defied all the superlative clichés that had been heaped upon it.  It seemed truly divine and was perhaps best summed up in the words of Christ, which were inscribed in the dome: "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven."

I went up the tilted stairway to take in the view from Michaelangelo’s magnificent ribbed dome.  Please forgive cliché, but it was truly awe-inspiring.  From the backs of the Saints, the panorama of Rome spread out from the square below, which was not square at all.  This held, for me, the essence of the view: the colonnade and the square looked like a giant keyhole – architectural symbolism of entry, it you found the keys.

    

I spent a lot of time in the square.  I changed film on some steps near a motionless guard – one of the Pontifical Swiss Guards.  (At over 600 years old, the Guards formed the world’s oldest army.)  He was wearing the blue, red and yellow uniform that was allegedly designed by Michelangelo.  

I would walk around Bernini’s colonnade, poking in and out of its 88 massive tavertine pillars, taking abstract photos of them by day and night under the watchful eyes of the 140 saints who stood represented in stone on the colonnade’s roof.  I ignored the incongruous Egyptian Obelisk (yet another one) that Caligula had brought from Heliopolis in 39 A.D.   Instead, I concentrated my photographic efforts on the 26-foot-high granite fountain erected by Maderna in 1613 (there was one like it on the other side of the square that was likely the work of Bernini).

It was by this fountain, one sunny day, that I met a rotund graying Italian man who wore a wide-brimmed fedora and glasses with thick lenses.  He had returned to his homeland after a long residence in Montreal.

“In Rome, we have sunshine, much sunshine, as you can see,” he said, looking around and raising his arms pontifically with his hands palms up.   “Your Canada…" he said, shaking his head.  "It is too damn cold, too damn cold.”

That evening, I took photos of a wedding party that was coming out of an old church near Vatican.

But it was being in St. Peter’s cavernous interior that was truly humbling and filled me with hope.  I could go on at length about all the breath-taking décor: the cherubic putti, the gilt figures, the splendid high altar, and the towering bronze Baldacchino over St. Peter’s tomb looking more like the pillars of a giant’s regal bed.  The church was dedicated to Christ’s Apostle.  Popes were deemed to be his successors.  I sat in a pew and bowed my head in prayer.  I prayed for world peace, and, quite selfishly, that I might find Her, somewhere out there.  When I opened my eyes, I was looking at the upturned lens of my camera.  The glass was perfectly filled with the gold reflection of the ornate window above the altar.  I took this as a good omen.

   

St. Peter’s also housed the most beautiful object I saw in all of Italy – the Pietà.  Surely, I thought, this life-like image of the slain Christ lying in Mary’s arms could wring tears from the stoniest of souls.  It was hard to believe it had been fashioned by human hands.  But Michaelangelo fleshed it out of marble when he was only 25 years old.  It had been said that he sought, in his art, to liberate the form of the human body from a prison of marble.  This was a metaphor for the struggle of the human soul, imprisoned in an earthly body, and a condition ripe for themes of triumph and tragedy and Man’s inhumanity to Man.

Speaking of inhumanity, I was glad that, as in Paris, Hitler had failed in Rome.  When Mussolini fell to Badoglio, Hitler ordered the arrest of the whole Italian government.   When asked what he would do with the Vatican, Hitler said: "I'll go right into the Vatican.  Do you think the Vatican embarrasses me?  We'll take that over right away...the entire diplomatic corps are in there...That rabble...We'll get that bunch of swine out of there...Later we can make apologies...”

I did not visit the Sistine Chapel because I could not afford the admission.   And I did not want my memory of it marred by all the intrusive paraphernalia of the Japanese restorers who were now in the middle of what would be a 20-year restoration of Michaelangelo’s cherished ceiling.  I was also at the point when I could no longer take in so much divinity and beauty, without Her.

(In retrospect, that attitude was asinine.  I was right there!  I might never be back – I should have gone for it!)

I felt that I should leave Rome soon, knowing that I wanted to return under better personal conditions.  So I now admit that I succumbed to cliché when I decided to go to the Trevi Fountain.  It was as beautiful as you saw in books and postcards, but seeing it here, in full view, in a cramped and crowded square and tacked onto the back of the rear wall of the palace of the Dukes of Poli, it looked belittled.  It also needed a good cleaning (half of Neptune’s white face was black with grime).  I took the standard photos and I got one of Melawend in the foreground for posterity.  Neptune and his Tritons looked as all statues do: bored with tourists.  I threw my coins into the Trevi to enforce the belief (and desire) that I would indeed return to Rome someday.

I was indeed fortunate to have had Camping Roma as my home in Rome.  I got a parcel ready to be sent back to Canada – rolls of exposed fill, journal tapes, and a discarded poster that featured hearts and a busty girl who was lifting up her blouse.  I listened to the sensual murmuring that came from the tent of an Australian couple in the site next to mine.  In the early morning, I listened to cats fighting in the auto wrecking yard behind the camp.  I did my laundry in the open-air sinks and felt the same way about a washing machine as Jean Fox did (thought I did not have my own home to return to again).  I gave my Lets' Go Europe to Tom and Jean but kept the sections on Greece and Egypt.  I ate German and Italian jams on crusty bread that sounded like a wooden log when you cut it with a knife.   I bought a small brush and dustpan set in the Silos store across the street and was glad to be able to sweep up the crumbs from the floor of the tent.  I loved to listen to the breeze blowing through the trees and see the early-morning mist in the valley.  I felt lucky to have had eight sunny days in Rome.  It rained on the day I was to leave so I stayed one more day and night.  I wrote the fifth story for The Times-Review to the sometimes thunderous pattering of rain on the walls of my tent.

 

Melawend and I made our way east to where the road met the sea near Ostia, the ancient port of Rome.  There were few buildings here and fewer still as we began to ride south.  The coast was flat and low and there were some flat-roofed bars along the beaches.  I had neglected to get gas earlier and so at a Total station just south of Ostia, I sat out the Italian siesta, waiting for the station to re-open.  I used the time to catch up with my journals.

The coast further south was fairly undeveloped – mainly low scrubby dunes where you saw cars parked and people walking along the beach.  Then around Anzio, it was almost endless development.  I saw nothing spectacular, just a lot of bars, beach clubs, pizzerias, houses, shops and gas stations. 

It was at Anzio, on the 22^nd of January 1944, that thousands of Allied troops landed on the beach to begin an effort to neutralize the German/Italian armies and thereby make the coming D-Day landings less difficult.  Unfortunately, rather than advance immediately on Rome and capture the mass of the German army there, the element of surprise was lost to a choice that was made to stay on the beach and await reinforcements.  Bad move.  The German army sealed off and attacked the Allied beachhead.  The Germans finally retreated from Anzio on May 25^th and escaped to form a second line north of Rome.

In the meantime they massacred civilians at Marzabotto.  This was in retaliation of the March 23^rd Resistance bombing in the Via Rasella in Rome that killed 33 German soldiers.  The German High Command ordered the immediate execution of 10 Italians for every soldier who had been killed.  Within 24 hours, 335 men and boys were rounded up from various prisons, taken to the Adreatine Caves on the outskirts of Rome.  There, they were shot to death in groups of five, and buried.

 

I found refuge at Camping Italia, just outside Terracina.   A big puffing Bouvier and a young blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who looked English greeted me.  He got his mother who said it was okay to camp for free.  I was readily given a sponsored stay at their small facility just off Number 142.  I appeared to be the only camper so I set up on the deserted concrete patio, just 10 feet from the surf.  I had a superlative view of Mount Cicero as it dove into the sea and I could the lights of San Felice Cicero at the mountain's base.  I watched the sun set behind the mountain and the sky turn a pastel mauve under benign clouds. The surf lapped softly over the silken beach.   The air was still and mild.  There was little salt smell here.  I watched the lights of distant cars coming and going around the headland at the base of the mountain and I even missed the traffic of Rome, just a little.

I made dinner of cake-like bread, butter, strawberry jam, plain cookies and an apple.  I relaxed on a chair by the edge of the patio.  I was just over the 100-day mark of my journey.  During my reverie of Rome, I saw cats fighting and was reminded of Camping Roma.  The bear-like Bouvier scarred the hell out of the cats.  One scampered up onto a low roof.  Other than a florescent light by the toilets, it was dark here.  I felt lonely but it was peaceful and soothing to be by the sea again.  As full night came, the air grew chilly.  This only increased my desire cuddle up with Her.

The next morning near Gaeta, I had a disaster.  There was an old stone tower on a high cliff just past a tunnel.   I took some shots from the side of the road.   I backtracked to see if I could find the name of the tower but I could not.  I rode back to a place near the tunnel for another vantage point of the tower.  I rested Melawend against a guardrail that was anchored to the lip of a cliff that shot vertically downward about 80 feet to the sea.  Waves crashed unseen at the base.  Trees grew precariously from the flanks of the rock near the tower.  

I climbed over the guardrail and sat on a rounded cliff that jutted out to the right of vertical drop beside the road.  I got a wide-angle shot of the tower and its location.  As I was putting on my zoom lens for a closeup, I fumbled it.   The expensive lens plunged over the cliff, struck the rock face once and bounced out of sight, down into the crashing surf.    I grew suddenly weak.  I was trembling as I stood by Melawend.  I stood holding the lens cap, looking down into the surf.  What to do?

 

We rolled onward.  Melawend and I were riding through a flat seaside town about thirty miles beyond Gaeta when I saw a barbershop.  I had not had my hair cut by a barber since I left Canada.  I stopped in the small shop.  In Rome, I had gouged my hair in cutting it myself with a shaving razor.  Demeo Giuliano had to cut my hair quite short but made me look much more presentable.

It was at a high seaside lookout area near Naples where I rested beside Melawend and met an unusual dealer.  He was sitting by his motorcycle and was the only other person here.  He was chunky, swarthy and had thick black hair.  With wary looks side to side, he approached me.

"You wanna good deal?" he said.

"On what," I said.

He looked all around again.  He withdrew a folded plaid handkerchief from the right pocket of his baggy white pants and slowly unfolded it.  Inside there was a gold watch and two thick gold chains.

"You buy theese from me, very good price," he said.  "Look at theese – genuine $300 Omega watch.  Rich gold chains.  What you like? "

"They look very nice," I said.  “Are you a dealer?”

He looked around again and then nodded toward the Mediterranean.

"Yes.  I work on a sheep," he said.

There were two ships that appeared to be heading south.

"No thanks," I said.

"No, I make you really good deal.   Two-hundred US dollars for theese beautiful Omega watch."

"No thanks."

"You are good man.  I make you special offer.   Two hundred dollars and I include theese gold chains.

"No."

He was getting jittery, as if he was worried about police coming by or that he had to defecate.  Maybe both.  He would close the handkerchief over his loot and look around.  But the Omega watch did look nice.  So I asked to look at it closely.  His eyes lit up.

"Beautiful genuine Omega watch!" he said.

It was not genuine.  You could see this by the inferior quality of the metal beneath the plating.  Still, it at least looked impressive.  I thought it might help make me look a little more like a credible diplomat, rather than my scratched-up digital watch.

"How much?" I said.

"For you, one hundred US dollars."

"No, it's too much."

"Too much price, or too much for your money."

"Both," I said.

"How much money you got?"

I had $18 in US currency.  By this time I thought he was going to panic.

"So little," he said. "Okay, okay.  You take for $18 US dollars."