A Roman Return by Anthony Turi

Author:Anthony Turi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: eBookPartnership.com
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

4. Connections

While it’s good to retain a ‘beginner’s eye’ in getting to know Rome, each interaction with a local makes this area less foreign to me. I’ve been getting to know the new owner of the bar near school. His face is familiar, he also works part-time at the gym we go to. He introduces me to a hot ginseng coffee drink, taken instead of espresso. Dire Straits are often playing on the stereo: a group, he says, who are ‘very important in the history of music’. On the bar’s new menu he has included a fruit salad which is delicious with a small sachet of honey drizzled over it. In addition to his two evenings at the gym, he works long hours: rising at 4.15am, to open the bar at 5.30am, which then stays open till 9pm. It’s never overly busy, so long hours equal a steady stream of sufficient custom.

Meanwhile, at the rosticceria, a breakthrough. One evening the silent man who serves us sliced pizza smiles. Up to this point, the demeanour of this bespectacled, white-haired, moustachioed man has come to practically demarcate an ideal type of introversion. But one evening I’m having a discussion with one of his colleagues about the footballing fortunes of Roma. This colleague, a bearded, younger man, is usually found directing operations around the television when the football is on. He’s impressed that I’ve been to watch Roma play. We discuss their improvement over the course of the season.

‘They’re having a good season,’ I suggest. ‘They’re rising up the table now.’

‘Yes,’ he responds. ‘After a bad start.’

Watching this, ‘Rosticceria Man’ – as Chloe and I have affectionately named him – interjects: ‘E poi si è ripresa.’ And then they got better.

That’s all he says though. But there’s a smile, and an implicit acknowledgement. I could be imagining it, but those five words indicate understanding, acceptance. I’m no longer seen as just the foreign visitor who goes to eat there occasionally. I’ve shown the staff I know something about the fortunes of their football team; and that therefore I know something about their world.

I think of him again when Roma win their subsequent game at Fiorentina to go second in Serie A. They follow it up with a 4–1 win against Palermo to consolidate their position. My two teams, Inter and Roma, now occupy the first two places in Serie A. And with Inter having drawn their match with Napoli, the gap between them has closed further. They are due to play each other at the Stadio Olimpico next month in a game that looks like it will be well worth going to.

Roma’s rise, from fourteenth to second place in just ten games, really has been remarkable. Credit for that must go their manager, Claudio Ranieri. I can still vividly remember Ranieri ten years ago, when he was the manager of Chelsea – a Roman living in London. Now our roles have reversed, and I’m a Londoner living in his city. I watch his

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