Roman Holiday – DAY 2 – Fleeting Wor(l)ds

The old man and the parrot.

I shut the door of the apartment Via Pigneto as first morning hours ring. I would like to avoid the heat, I would like to avoid the crowd. I hope to gaze at white marble fountains stripped from the touristic amazement. Already too late though, Fountain of Trevi gets packed little by little, Piazza di Spagna’s stairs click with sandals and the heavy grey sky has jailed winds.

Then, instead of running the famous white stairs, I walk along Trinita dei Monti Church and Villa Medicis, I take shelter under Borghese Gardens’ shade, sometimes moved by a new brise. I wander as I dream, my feet are dusty, away from the noise and the world. I wind throughout famous busts that I don’t know. I hear the sun piercing the leaves.

And my heart ephemerally sinks into the most common fountain. Or should I say bassin, in which I can feel soft silt when I put my hand to freshen my neck. No white marble nor statues from which turquoise waters spring. A humble bassin where an emerald flight has dropped for a minute.
A small and green parrot with an orange bec is drinking and cleaning drop by drop. I silently gaze at it, deeply moved. I have never seen such a bird out of a cage, I am so happy to know it enjoys freedom. I leave it master of its kingdom, from a distance so it can have some privacy. Voices are coming closer though, oblivious of afraid nature, indifferent of the treasure awaiting from them next to me, and the emerald flight flees as fleetingly as it came. Alone and happy, I quit the wave of both its stay and mine to the cloudy waters.

I pass the fountain with the four sea horses whose mesmerizing green catches my eyes for a little while.

But already, I can see, at the discretion of plane trees, a safe heaven calling for a sweet and ephemeral solitude, urging me for a summer tale. The fountain is huge and dry. No white marble nor statues from which turquoise waters spring. The fountain is desert and abandoned. Or not it seems, the fountain under the plane trees is actually already inhabited by somebody else’s loneliness. An old man is sitting, pensive and scowl. Maybe we should share our two exils but he looks so perfect in this decor that I am afraid to bother.

Then, I endlessly linger in the background, the same spectator as for my parrot.

What story his tired and sad face is telling me? Is he randomly here? Did he choose to be here? Is it his first time? Is it a crusade?

He looks like he is expecting someone…

My imagination decides he comes here the 18th of August of each year like a pilgrimage.

The first time was 58 years ago. The grass was as dry as today but the fountain looked newer, sparkling with water and he was not alone. A young girl was with him. His fiancée. It was the time when a chaperon was needed to walk your Belle, when you had to ask permission to the Padre to marry her before getting her own approval. But that 18th of August, 58 years ago, rules didn’t apply to them for a few hours, they had just got engaged and her mother let them go out for a walk on their own, unbeknownst to the Padre.

The two love birds had therefore walked the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti and took shelter under Borghese Gardens’ shade like me. For their first freedom, they had declined the unimaginative lovers habit to set sail on Esculape Temple’s pond, and chose this authentic and humble fountain instead.

On this bench, at the exact place where he was sitting, he had given his fiancée a kiss for the first and last time to seal their upcoming union, their blossoming love and their future promises. The first day of the rest of their life. That day, they didn’t vow in front of God or their parents, they vowed to each other.
However, fate had decided otherwise. A few days after this ideal rendezvous, the engagement had been broken without an explanation for the young man he was. He banged his lover’s door with no answer until caribinieri were sent and he renounced to that method. He sent letters that remained on paper only, did they even get to her?

Newspapers eventually gave him answers he had been begging for: a picture of his first love, all dressed in white and holding somebody else’s arm, coming out of a church where she just had said yes to a slightly older man. The lucky guy was the heir of Italian telecommunications main company and certainly had a better future to offer to the young lady and most likely better business to her Padre.

He was heartbroken and closed his love forever.

Although, the next year, August 18th, he went to the trees which had sheltered his biggest happiness. A few Romans had chosen it as a stop before museum, even a couple of lovers had made it their rendezvous and a woman who he would recognized in the dark, was sitting melancholic exactly where he had planned to land. When she glimpsed at him as well, a beautiful and sad smile covered her face.

Promises made out of God’s official eyes and without any mortal witnesses are nonetheless contracts nobody may break. A year before, they had vowed to each other and the memory of that promise irretrievably led them towards the unique audience of their unspoken vows: the unknown Fountain.

Thus, his first and unique love hadn’t forgotten about him and he had now the proof she was only forced to leave him. Freed from any anger, he sat where he could admire her at ease. They didn’t say a word and gazed at each other for two long hours before she sorrowfully left.

And that improvised rendezvous became an annual habit for which he wore his best suit. They never said a word, their sight was enough. The fountain got crumbled, they grew old, but the enamored man only cared for them both – the fountain and his lady friend – with even purer fondness.

This year, when he had arrived, he had faced for the first time a dry and dirty fountain. He saw the sign of age, or maybe another demonstration of this weird summer cursed by a misunderstood pandemic. As a matter of fact, he had broken his own semi-quarantine for this rendezvous he wouldn’t have missed for all the money in the world. Enjoying the emptiness of the place, he had took off the mandatory mask even if he was considered as a “weak” person. He was too afraid not to be recognized with his face half covered.

A rustle bothers his quiet… Would it be the one he is awaiting for? Astounded, I look at his face turning into hope.

No. It is only my friend the parrot who came to smuggle a few scratches of bread left on the bench. The old man goes back to his sad face and gets rid of the bird with anger. All his body has come back to the same scowled features that greeted me. May I have created the same disappointed hope for the encounter he is longing for?

His wait bothered by a bird clueless to mankind’s love sorrows but which would have stolen a smile from his lover, the old man remained unmoved and resigned even if he could now feel an uncomfortable hunch about this dry and dirty fountain, it was an omen.

His annual encounter wouldn’t come today. She wouldn’t come ever.

Following the emerald flight, I decide to leave the old man to thoughts and disappointed hopes I have invented for him. I go back to my carefree promenade, my feet are dusty, away from the noise and the world.

I gazed at “all” the Roman white fountains, prepared to all the emotions they will bring within my heart, thanks to big tritons, bulging muscles and close mythology. Yet, they left me unchanged. And it was the most surprising and unexpected among them which moved me. No white marble nor statues from which turquoise waters spring. The simple and ordinary poesy of life, brought up by a small green parrot with an orange bec’s free flight.