The River Man

The cafe was a maddening swarm of soggy coats and dripping umbrellas. Typical for Rome in October. The windows were steamed up and the distinct smell of coffee mingled with a multitude of perfumes, leather and wool induced sweat. Feeling vaguely nauseas, Daniela swirled the remnants of her now stale cappuccino and leaned heavily against the marble bar. She glanced up at the antique clock above the cash register. 4:59pm. She sighed and wondered what the hell was keeping them.

She mostly came here - to this cafe, when she had to wait for someone. It wasn't anything special - after all, it was a tourist trap, sporting overpriced, mediocre wares and islands of rickety tables and chairs (tourists generally found the Italian tradition of standing while drinking coffee at a cafe uncomfortable and would rather pay the extra couple of Euro for the luxury of sitting down). Situated slap bang in the hub of Piazza Navona, amongst a deluge of equally overpriced restaurants, Cafe Ricordi (Cafe Memories) was a proverbial goldmine.

Daniela had never felt like she fully belonged in Rome, even though she was a born and bred Roman. She had always struggled with a niggling sense of alienation, of estrangement. This is what attracted her to tourist spots - the chance to be surrounded by people from other worlds, the chance to be surrounded by the 'estanged', the 'alienated', the 'stranieri' (foreigners).

The posse of brazen taxi drivers whose animated cajoling had buzzed like white noise amidst Daniela's scattered thoughts, pushed passed her towards the cafe door. With them gone, Daniela could now see the little table in the far corner of the room. She found herself watching the people who occupied it. They were clearly foreigners, Dutch perhaps, or maybe Scandenavian. The man, she estimated, was in his early thirties. He was fair haired and fair skinned, slender, and in possession of a gentle grace that struck Daniela as beautifully ethereal. The woman, elderly, perhaps a relative, was paging through a guidebook of sorts - occasionally reading aloud from it. At one point the man smiled slightly at his companion and nodded somewhat distractedly. He was a million miles away, she mused. There was something so familiar about him but Daniela knew that she didn't know him. 'Who did he remind her of?' she lazily pondered.

The sound of her phone ringing in her jacket pocket startled her. As she retrieved it, she realised that she had been inadvertently and quite unconsciously smiling...not to mention staring. She quickly looked away and answered her phone.

'Caro di ciao, che noi siamo fuori di Fredo. Può incontrarci qui?' (Hello darling, we're outside Fredo's. Can you meet us here?), asked her husband hurriedly.

'Si, sicuro, Io sono in viaggio.' (Yeah, sure, I'm on my way) she answered, bundled up her parcels and heading towards the door.

She waited impatiently behind a young couple, who were blocking the door, their fingers intertwined and their eyes locked in a passionate embrace that summoned a faint throb of envy in Daniela’s chest. She glanced up at the clock again. 5:08pm. Voices behind her – (was it Dutch that they spoke? )– alerted the dreamy couple to the pending queue, and they scurried out into the cold, laughing and cuddling. The door swung back on its hinges behind them and Daniela struggled with the handle, her parcels slipping from her arms. The paper bag containing the books that she had so carefully selected that afternoon, split along the side seam sending its’ contents crashing to the floor.

‘Merda!’ swore Daniela, as she bent down to gather up the books at her feet. A cool hand brushed against hers and she harassably raised her glance.

The black and white tiles on which she squatted seemed to instantly give way underneath her, and she clutched at the pale wrist that appeared to be reaching for her. She stared into turquoise. A searing beam of white sunlight blinded her and she felt as if she were falling, gripping desperately at the steady, outstretched hand. She forced her eyes back open and found herself standing in the garden of an unfamiliar home, watching a small boy drawing circles with a stick in the dust. He was humming something and he appeared to be a million miles away. Again, the blinding light appeared from nowhere and Daniela squinted, waiting for it to fade. When it did, she found herself standing in the corner of a poorly lit kitchen where a pretty girl was saying something in a language she couldn’t understand, her frightened eyes, brimming with tears. Predictably, the light changed again, and the images began to speed up – they literally flashed passed her: a farmhouse, a windmill, foreign landscapes, misty ocean cliffs, a motorbike cutting through a road at dusk – the sounds increased in volume too – crickets, laughter, waves and the scream of an engine…faster and faster the images and sounds flashed – golden curls, dancing figures, laughter, a shadow behind a lit up computer screen, two bodies curled up in one another, smoke rising from a cigarette, a telephone ringing, the chink of champagne glasses, whispers, drum beats, burning logs in a fireplace, the smell of a thunderstorm, fingers trailing over naked shoulder-blades, a noisy bar, people shouting at a match on the telly, the flash of a flag, the banging of a door in the wind, ducks on a manmade pond, an office park, a sunset bleeding into the ocean…

Daniela’s head spun – her chest tightened and she gasped for air…she shut her eyes tightly, took in a deep and painful breath, opened her mouth and released, in one mighty outburst, a thousand stifled screams…screams which belonged in the past, screams which belonged in the here and now...screams which were borne from moments of childish frustration, annums of silent unhapiness, months of genuine fear, minutes of absolute terror, years of rage and shame, days of stagnancy and sameness...screams which had haunted and taunted and gnawed away at her like patient parasites.
……..
and then it was silent. Warm. Peaceful. Nightime.

She slowly opened her eyes, conscious that her hand was being held firmly by another. Moonlight streamed across the cloudless blackness. Her feet were on the edge of a cliff – a waterfall pounded into a massive river far below her. The hand holding hers tensed slightly. She turned her head towards the man standing next to her. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

‘Carpe mecum sempiterne noctem?’ (Seize the night forever with me?), he said, his voice echoing in the gorge below.

She nodded without moving at all, and together, they stepped off.....

‘Lei è sveglia! Trovi Paulo dell'acqua!’ (She’s awake! Paulo, get some water!) a husky voice bellowed. ‘She be okay, donta worry, we take care of her. You, you can go now. Donta worry, is okay.’

Daniela felt the hand that had held hers so tightly, loosen its' grip.

'Goodbye' he said, quietly, and before she could respond, he was gone.