CHAPTER TEN
Marco
July 1937
Marco rode on Lungotevere Aventino under a dark sky, after Aldo had departed to see his secret girlfriend. The full moon was as round as a bicycle wheel, and lamps shone along the length of the Tiber. A fishy breeze blew off the water, and its rushing sounds soothed him.
He spotted a gelateria and headed toward it, then dismounted and went inside. A few people were in line, and the brightly lit place smelled of chilled fruit, sugar, and fresh cream. A glistening aluminum display case dominated the shop, and behind it two pretty girls scooped gelato.
Marco looked over the mounds of green pistacchio, rich brown cioccolato, and the happy yellow of ananas, or pineapple. Each had a handwritten sign that he couldn’t read, but he didn’t need to, and he could never decide which flavor. His current favorite was nocciola, hazelnut, and before that, his favorite had been fiordilatte, made from cream. Elisabetta loved cioccolato in a cone and she never changed.
“May we help you?” the shopgirls asked in unison, when Marco reached the counter.
“Yes, I can’t decide which.”
“Take your choice.” The shopgirl smiled slyly. “We’re both off at eleven.”
The other shopgirl flushed. “Teresa!”
“That’s a very generous offer.” Marco smiled, but he wasn’t tempted. He took this as a sign of maturity, or perhaps he had lost his mind due to his utter celibacy. Nevertheless he made his ice-cream choice in Elisabetta’s honor. “I’ll take two scoops of cioccolato, in a cone.”
Gelato in hand, Marco paid and left. He licked his dessert, which tasted creamy and sweet, then he hopped on his bicycle, steering with one hand. The gelato began melting, so he looked for a place to stop. He found himself in the centro storico, the oldest part of the city, near the Roman Forum on Via dell’Impero, which was being expanded to showcase the ruins, under Mussolini’s plan. The area was under excavation, avoided by most of the traffic, which meant it would be quiet, so he rode in that direction.
He reached a wooden fence that was more a suggestion than a barrier, like most in the city. He got off his bike, draped it against the fence, then climbed through an opening and looked for a place to sit down. The excavation site was a gigantic hole shaped like a square and shored on all sides by retaining walls of wooden planks. At the bottom of the hole was a floor of gray-white marble, glimmering in the moonlight.
Marco stood and ate as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He had ridden through this district many times, but it had never been excavated before, and it intrigued him. He noticed a rope strung across railroad ties serving as a staircase to the bottom, so he finished his gelato, went over, and descended. The rich smell of earth filled his nose, and the air cooled as he went deeper. The sounds of the city receded into the distance, as the walls cocooned the site in silence.
Marco neared the bottom, where the marble floor seemed to collect and reflect the moonlight, creating a spectral haze that hovered like the ghosts of the ancients. He marveled at the phenomenon, and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck when he reached the bottom, standing in the soft glow of light all around him.
He walked along the floor, amid massive sections of columns that lay on their sides, some with florets carved into the marble and others with fragments of lettering. He ran his hand along their gritty surface and scanned the broken sections. Marco couldn’t read Latin any better than Italian, but for the first time, it didn’t bother him. He wedged his finger into one of the letters to measure its depth, and the marble came up to his first knuckle.
He withdrew his hand, overcome with awe. He had always known that there was a subterranean Rome, a city underneath the city itself, having learned as much in school and encountered random artifacts all over the city. But being here tonight made it real to him in a way it had never been before. He finally understood its meaning and felt his spirits soar. His ancestors had chiseled these letters, carved these columns, and constructed this magnificence. He couldn’t read as well as his classmates, but now he knew he possessed native intelligence, as he was descended from these ancients.
He was a son of Lazio. Of Roma. And he stood tall, bathing in the moonglow, for a very long time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Aldo
July 1937
Across town, Aldo hurried down the frigid hallway of the catacomb and reached a cubiculo, a small room containing a family crypt. There, the anti-Fascists sat on the floor around a few lighted candles, bottles of Chianti, and loaves of rustic bread. The men were of all ages, shapes, and sizes, but each face wore a similarly tense expression. Each man knew he was running a lethal risk in being here, so much so that for security reasons, they didn’t reveal their true identities even to each other, but used nomi di battaglia, battle nicknames. The names were based on their appearance or demeanor, such as Bug Eyes, Chubby Cheeks, Broken Tooth, Apple Eater, and Pipe Smoker, or less obvious ones like Speaks French and the Tsar.