One Summer Day in Rome by Mark Lamprell

Author:Mark Lamprell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

SIXTEEN

Santa Barbara dei Librai

I HAD TO TOUCH YOU WITH MY HANDS, I HAD TO TASTE YOU WITH MY TONGUE; ONE CAN’T LOVE AND DO NOTHING.

—Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

Having braved the crowds of the markets and consulted the great Giordano Bruno, Constance finally set herself and Lizzie on the right track, and they jostled through the throngs of shoppers on the Via dei Giubbonari, toward the Jewish Ghetto. In the cold light of the hot day, Constance began to feel foolish about the fuss she was making. She suddenly regretted dragging her sister-in-law though the heat and the crowds to make a point about she-was-no-longer-sure-what exactly.

At the first turn on their left, they came to the Largo dei Librari, a funnel-shaped courtyard, three buildings deep. At the very end of the courtyard, there it was, the little church of Santa Barbara, wedged between two large, old secular buildings. The neighboring apartment building had been extended so that it sat in the airspace right on top of the left-hand nave chapel. It looked as if the big bully building was trying to nudge the diminutive church out of the way.

“Funny-looking little thing, isn’t it?” said Constance.

Lizzie was tired, thirsty, hungry, hot, and not in the mood to find anything particularly funny. She suggested they stop for a drink and something to eat, sinking into an aluminum chair set outside the small bar at the entrance to the Largo.

As they waited in the shade for their acqua frizzante and panini, Constance prattled on about a series of name changes that the church had undergone in the thousand years of its existence.

Lizzie marveled at Constance’s capacity to recall all this minutiae, although it was becoming clear to her that she was using it to delay arriving at some large central piece of information.

“Constance, why are we here,” blurted Lizzie impatiently, “sitting outside this church?”

“Bear with me,” said her sister-in-law. “I’m almost there.”

She went on to explain that although the church was currently a place of worship, for a good part of the twentieth century, it had been deconsecrated and used for storage. Sometime in the early 1960s a stack of church pews collapsed, damaging one of the altars. “I was part of a small restoration team bought in to repair the damage,” she said, finally placing herself in the picture.

“Oh, this is what you were doing when you met Henry,” said Lizzie. “You were fixing the mosaic, I remember now.”

“It wasn’t a mosaic; it was a pietrrra durrra,” said Constance, rolling her r’s beautifully. “The altar was the most extraordinary example. The artist cuts and fits highly polished stones around each other to create an image. Ivory, mother of pearl, agate—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” interrupted Lizzie, “all very fascinating, but please get to the point before I lose the will to live.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. So,” said Constance. “There were two other members of the restoration team, a brother and sister, both born and bred here in Roma. The girl, Gina, and I were great chums until one day she took me to meet her boyfriend.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.