At Home, part 14

In February I got the chance to go with Mike on a business trip to Rome, and again I jumped at it. I’d been in Rome in 1966 and in 1970 and not liked it much—it had actually been a rather threatening city for a girl in those days, with lots of unemployed young Italian men following you in the street. At my age I assumed that would no longer be a problem.

We flew in on a Friday night and checked into the Hotel Fenix, in a quiet part of the city near many embassies. We found a neighborhood place for dinner and were again bowled over by the flavor of almost any cuisine that was not Spanish. Garlic and salt were good seasonings, but when that was all you had for weeks on end, a little oregano was pretty exciting.

We got up early on Saturday so we could get to the Vatican before it got crowded. You could choose your tour there by following one of several different-colored lines on the floor, and we decided to take the medium-length yellow tour. At every turn as we followed our line, signs pointed toward the Capella Sistina—the Sistine Chapel, which was the crowning glory of the Vatican, with its Michelangelo ceilings. I remembered it well from my earlier visits, I thought, and looked forward to seeing it again—especially that majestic scene in which the finger of God touches Adam to give him life.

We went through sumptuous galleries and long, elaborately decorated hallways, always seeing that sign pointing to the Sistine Chapel. And at one point we entered and passed through a crowded room, still following our yellow line. Except that once we left that room, the tour was over.

I was really confused. “What happened to the Sistine Chapel?” I asked Mike.

He gave me a puzzled look. “We were just there,” he said. “You didn’t notice?”

I started to feel hot. I had noticed a lot of people looking at the walls and ceilings, all of which were painted with various scenes. But there was just so much painting in that room, I hadn’t been able to distinguish one panel from another. And it didn’t look anything like the Sistine Chapel that I had in my memory, which had a much higher ceiling. And the entrance, I thought—we came into the room from a little door behind the altar, so it wasn’t an imposing view.

“Uh . . . I guess not,” I said to Mike, as sheepish as I had ever been in my life.

He tried to suppress his mirth, and he proved that he is a fabulous husband. “Would you like to go back and try again?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you, I would,” I said. “And maybe this time we should get the Acoustiguide tapes so we know what we’re looking at.” And that’s what we did.

After the Vatican we went on to St. Peter’s, got some lunch, and continued to the Forum. There, along a pathway overlooking some of the ruins, we passed some Gypsy girls who shouted at us and followed us—and suddenly I realized there was a hand reaching for my purse. I yanked the purse away and shouted at Mike, who was several yards ahead of me. He turned around and started back toward me, and the girls scattered. When I looked at my purse I saw it was unzipped, but nothing was missing.

“When he visited us in Madrid, Dad said you have to watch out for Gypsies all the time,” I said, shaken. “He had read something about it. It said you shouldn’t hesitate to get physical with them—sometimes that’s the only way to get them off you.”

Spanish people generally had little tolerance for Gypsies, who were regarded as lowlife thieves. There was a new movement, though, that was fighting the widespread prejudice and
discrimination that Spanish Gypsies faced. Nevertheless, I feared them and tried hard to avoid them.

“Are you okay?” Mike asked.

“Yeah, I think I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s keep going.”

We walked until about 4 p.m., when I began to fade. I got a taxi back to the hotel, but Mike kept on for another two hours—not unusual for him.