The Passionate Palazzo: When Rome Was All the Rage

By Elizabeth Guider

In this arresting first novel about love and liberation, Italy is not just a place of popes and piazzas, but a cauldron of heady politics and equally heated passions.

At its center is Catherine Davidson, a young American who gets caught up in the excitement of an Eternal City on edge: women are taking to the streets to demand their rights, homegrown terrorists kneecapping their hapless targets, poor immigrants swelling the citys underbelly. Determined not to be a bystander to history nor to let her southern upbringing sabotage her newfound independence, Catherine nonetheless gets in over her head.

Viewed with a sympathetic yet sharp eye by a third-person narrator, Catherine wrestles with the fact that her personal behavior doesnt dovetail with her political beliefs and with the failure to live up to the expectations of others. While she revels in two love affairs, one with an open-minded Roman and the other with a refugee from Eritrea, they each expose her insecurities and jealousies.

It is an unlikely figure from Catherines past, however, who resets the course of her life: her former stepmother, a Dane who has returned to Europe after a decade in the South. Despite having ill-treated this woman throughout the marriage, Catherine finds common ground and new respect for her so much so that she makes a momentous decision.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481728195

Elizabeth Guider

Elizabeth Guider is a longtime entertainment journalist who has worked in Rome, Paris and London as well as in New York and Los Angeles. Born in the South, she holds a doctorate in Renaissance Studies from New York University. During the late 1970’s, she was based in Rome where she taught English and American literature and where much of the action of her first novel, The Passionate Palazzo, takes place.While in Europe, she worked as an entertainment reporter for the showbiz newspaper Variety, focusing on the film business, television and theater. She also traveled widely, reporting on the politics affecting media from Eastern Europe to Hong Kong as well as covering various festivals and trade shows in Cannes, Monte Carlo, Venice and Berlin. Back in the States since the early 1990’s , she specialized on the burgeoning TV industry and eventually held top editor positions at Variety and latterly at The Hollywood Reporter. Most recently she has freelanced for World Screen News as senior contributing editor.She mostly divides her time between Los Angeles and Vicksburg, MS where she grew up and which is the setting for Milk and Honey on the Other Side.

Book preview

Prologue

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The phone call from Diane was disjointed and, as usual, truncated by some corporate fire she had to put out on the studio lot. But it was not a surprise. Catherine instantly intuited the reason, knowing that her friend with the impressive title at Paramount Pictures had recently made one of her business trips to Paris and Rome. With impeccable timing, Diane had rung just as Catherine was locking up her Upper West Side apartment on the way herself to the airport.

You’re not going to let this happen, are you? Asmara, of all places, Diane began, no preliminaries necessary between the two old friends.

Before Catherine could object or point out that, actually, the decision was up to him, her friend shifted ground. Keep in mind, Catherine, with his looks and education I could get him a job here in Hollywood in no time.

I appreciate that, Diane, but —

But what? He’s so European, too sophisticated or whatever — is that it? Anyway, I know it’s the time of year you head back there. Just remember, though, flying has become a bitch.

Catherine smiled resignedly. Only Diane could sum up the antsy aftermath of 9/11 as principally an inconvenience to herself. Not that there wasn’t some justification for it. Of all her friends, the peripatetic Paramount exec had inarguably endured the most flight delays and suffered the worst testiness of other travelers both before and after the Twin Towers came down. Yet she remained undaunted in her globetrotting and unrepentant in her complaints thereof. It didn’t endear her any the less to Catherine. Whatever her failings, Diane had been constant in her affections and generous in her attentions ever since that rainy night at the opera. All those years ago, a Continent away.

Anyway, have to go. Hello to Rome again from me. And we’re on for the Met early in the year.

The last thought made Catherine wince, not because she didn’t enjoy the opera but because the very last time there she had inadvertently run into Cassian, and his latest flame — one Jennifer, if she remembered rightly. Her own date for the evening had noticed her discomfiture, quickly dismissing the new paramour. They’re all the same; they’re all named Jennifer. She didn’t counter the comment even though her companion had misconstrued her unease over the brush with her ex. In truth, she was more relieved than heart-broken after eight years of marriage when her lawyer husband upped and announced he was leaving her. Not because of a Jennifer, he had insisted; but because she herself was somewhere else emotionally. As Catherine fumbled for a defense, Cassian had added the zinger, since forever.

He’s right, Catherine. Partly anyway, Diane had said at the time. It’s not that you can’t function in the 21st century — hell, you’re more addicted to your Blackberry than I am! — but what you did back then, everything that happened over there, stamped you. Part of you never came back to the States. Things that were never quite resolved have — how shall I put it? — held you in suspended animation.

Oh, I don’t know. That sounds way too dramatic, Diane, even for my taste. Perhaps we’ve gone to too many operas together, Catherine had laughed, trying to shift her friend off topic.

Well, if living in denial is what you want, fine. I’m your friend and I have to call it as I see it.

I appreciate that you do. And I admit the obvious: There are people over there I love, so yes, when I can, I try to be with them.

And so Catherine had for the last 20-odd years, crucially every November but for the one when her father had died and sometimes in the spring as well. If she missed parties or cultural events in New York or familial gatherings Down South, so be it. Now, the week before Thanksgiving, it would be her first transatlantic flight since that bright Tuesday morning in September that had changed everything. For everybody, not just Diane. If Catherine enjoyed the experience of flying less and less, she had fortified herself for this trip, knowing it would be especially trying. Thank God for a half-bottle of pink pills a colleague at work had recently produced. My left-over insomnia prescription. Take two or nothing will happen, she had admonished.

After Diane’s phone call and a last glance at the shuttered windows and unplugged lamps, Catherine rolled the suitcase out the door of the brownstone and down 72nd Street. Little more than two months had passed but the air, even on the Upper West Side, still smelled acrid, at least when the wind picked up, at least when she thought about it.

A turbaned cabbie did his best to get her to JFK under an hour, zigzagging across lanes at break-neck speed, but whether the luck of the draw or the sight of his head-dress, cops pulled them over at one of the checkpoints, poked around the trunk, questioned both driver and passenger. It only got worse. The line at security was long, travelers variously anxious or unruly, the wait at the gate for the flight to Rome tedious. Despite her best efforts to concentrate on the day’s papers, Catherine found herself scanning fellow passengers, eyeing every able-bodied male for signs of suspicious behavior. Eventually, an email popped in to distract her: Look for us right beyond customs; we’ll be waiting from about noon Rome time. A presto, Erika.

Since her flight would be leaving at least two hours late, Catherine whipped out her Blackberry and typed back: As you might imagine, everything here at JFK is delayed so, at best, the plane lands at 1 pm. Expect me through customs around 2. Can’t wait. Love, C.

Three hours behind schedule, the 767 did take off. At 51, Catherine knew comfort made a difference on long-haul routes, especially for her still troublesome ankle. With an empty seat next to her and a strict ban on congregating in the aisles, she would be able to stretch out, and with the help of her colleague’s pills, hopefully slumber through most of the nine-hour flight. She picked at the three-course dinner, declined the wine but ordered hot milk, with a drop of coffee added. As Catherine savored the last sip out over Nova Scotia, the seat belt sign was suddenly illuminated. Shortly the captain came on to announce that the winds had strengthened and the crossing would be intermittently rough. She downed two pills and pulled the fleecy blanket up around her neck. A half hour later, and despite the plane’s lurching, Catherine fell fast asleep.

Dreaming, she found herself back in Rome.

One

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The number 64 bus was crowded though Catherine, practiced in such maneuvers, quickly swung into an empty seat and began thumbing through the newspaper. It could take as long as an hour in those days to traverse the center of Rome from the train station to the Vatican.

Her stop would come before that.

"Mi scusi," a soft yet husky voice said as the bus lurched to avoid hitting someone on the Via Nazionale, one of the city’s key arteries, and the straphanger in front of Catherine brushed against her knees and tilted precariously over the top of her paper.

"Niente," she replied distractedly, continuing to pore over the paper.

She had been in Rome for eight months and had made a point of speaking only Italian whenever she could. However much she admired those spirited heroines of Henry James’ novels, Catherine was determined to do them one better: She had not come to skim the surface of European society but to plunge headfirst into it. Learning the language was a necessary prerequisite.

By now it was a rare phrase that might trip her up. That particular October day in 1977, the expression she had stumbled over was "ineluttabile. Closing her eyes, she mouthed each of the six syllables, letting the vowels glide over her tongue and the accent fall naturally. In so doing, the meaning came to her: not to be evaded," just like its English cognate. The word sounded ever so musical to her ear.

Eventually stumped by the fuzzy logic of the columnist she was trying to make sense of, she glanced vaguely around, and then straight up at the man standing before her. He was the color of dark honey, with long slender arms, one of which clutched a passel of books, the other stretched taut to hold on to the bus pole. He was not alone, but spoke quietly and intermittently to another young man, of similar stature and coloring. Despite the incessant chattering by practically everyone on the bus, she could make out the melody of some exotic tongue, the lingo, she imagined, of some hot, desert clime. As they bumped along, Catherine peered again over the top of the paper at the young man and he at her. A barely perceptible smile crinkled his lower lip. She dropped her eyes.

That’s when all hell broke loose. The bus had come to a stop at the busy Piazza Venezia, the doors had rattled opened and two tough-looking men banged past a clutch of other passengers, making a beeline across the thoroughfare.

An old woman dressed in black, pudgy around the middle, was wailing "Mi hanno rubato — la borsa, la borsa," ever louder, arms flailing. She had had her purse snatched. Not an unusual occurrence on that bus route since it was typically full of tourists on their way to St. Peter’s. More often than not, riders had their heads buried in a map or fixed on the sights out the window.

At this point, the woman’s husband felt obliged to take up the cause, and not knowing where to direct his exasperation, eyed excitedly the two young men planted in front of Catherine. "Sono stati loro," he bellowed, his fingers punching the air accusingly. The bus driver closed the doors but didn’t budge. Such commotions had become commonplace on his route.

Color rising in his face, the woman’s husband began to curse the two men in front of Catherine, as others scoured the floor to see if the woman’s wallet or loose bills had been dropped in the kerfuffle.

The young man directly in front of Catherine held out his hands to the husband to show he had nothing in them other than the book satchel tucked under his arm. Calmly, resignedly, he and his friend turned the pockets of their jackets inside out.

It was two men who already got off. They’re gone, Catherine ventured, gesturing toward the far side of the street; several others nodded their assent.

"Va bene. Mi sbaglio." My mistake, the husband backtracked sheepishly, not fully persuaded but not knowing what else to do. Sweat was heavy in the air.

The distraught victim was still lamenting her purse-less fate, though less vehemently, as her husband called out to the driver to open the doors and let them descend. The conductor obliged, and another wave of riders piled on.

A faint flush tinted the faces of Catherine’s two acquaintances. Everyone else aboard had gone back to chattering as the bus clanked along on its way again.

"Che stupidaggine, she offered as a way to dispel the discomfort of the two. In Italy it was practically obligatory to comment on whatever incident one might be caught up in, and stupid" it was, she thought, that such suspicions more often than not fell upon foreigners.

As the young men shifted their weight to turn and get off at the next stop, Catherine did the same. It was not her designated stop, but somehow a connection had been made which, when she analyzed it later, she decided to term ineluctable.

Once on the pavement of the Piazza Argentina, Catherine found herself pressed up against the sharp edges of books as they all were swept across the median. Her two companions seemed to be headed in the direction of the Pantheon. From there she could walk the rest of the way to her destination.

That happens all the time, she hazarded, not feeling that she necessarily needed to apologize for the behavior of an entire country, but wanting them to know she didn’t share the same xenophobic reflexes.

It’s not a big deal, said the young man without the passel of books.

Then, as was often the case when someone heard her accent, You must be American.

Yes, my name is Catherine, or rather, here, most everyone says Caterina, she responded in Italian.

I’m Ahmad and this is Osman.

They walked a few more steps, Catherine to the side of the one called Osman.

Shall we have a cappuccino? she blurted out. There’s a bar down this way, near Piazza Pasquino. Better than Sant’Eustachio’s, and they put little designs on the top, she added as a way of making it more difficult for them to decline.

Without saying anything, they hesitated briefly on the sidewalk, allowing Catherine to pass in front of them and lead them down an alleyway toward the picturesque square dominated by the church, Santa Maria della Pace. The two men exchanged some comment in a slightly amused tone, but in a tongue indecipherable to their new acquaintance.

"Tre cappuccini, Catherine called out to the bartender in the bustling bar, upon which her two companions began to reach into their pockets. No, no, she remonstrated, you’ve been through enough on the bus. Allow me."

The female clerk at the cash register gave Catherine the once-over automatic among Italian women, but which lasted longer than usual, either because Catherine was an obvious foreigner or because she had come in with two even more obvious outsiders. Handsome ones at that.

Feeling the eyes of the cashier on her did not make Catherine flinch. She rather enjoyed being singled out, approvingly or not, by the locals. In this instance, there may have been a hint of disdain in the clerk’s side-long appraisal because Catherine was the one opening her pocketbook.

However, that idea barely occurred to her, since the coffee cost only 500 lire, not even a dollar, for the three of them, and the one named Osman had already slid a 50-lire tip next to the sugar bowl.

"Tre cappuccini," the barista announced as he plopped three foaming cups on the counter, and adroitly poured the steaming milk on top, twisting his wrist to form outlines of leaves on the top of theirs and a heart on the top of hers. The two men spooned heaping teaspoons of sugar into their cups and slowly stirred them. The leaves faded.

Catherine had been to this bar often of late, and the bartender apparently remembered. A few other customers, all locals, sipped their own brews or munched on pastries.

After a pause, Are you a student? they both started to ask her at the same moment.

Not exactly. I teach English at the university, but since I’m working on a thesis for back home, I guess I am, well, yes, a student, she managed disjointedly to explain. And you?

Ahmad was studying economics; Osman ran a welcome center for other emigrés. They added nothing more, seeming reluctant to be drawn out further.

Catherine had already figured out that the two must be Middle-Eastern or East African, but from what country she couldn’t have said.

Your Italian is very good, but your accent: It’s not New York, is it? Ahmad continued, in his slightly standoffish use of the language.

I’m from the South but went to school in Boston. It’s hard to place, but I suppose it’s clear to anybody that I’m American, she said, adding hastily, but yours, I can’t place at all.

We’re from Ethiopia, Ahmad proffered. Actually, we’re Eritrean, Osman interjected more forcefully.

The image of tall, thin courtiers holding an umbrella over the head of Haile Selassie popped into Catherine’s head. Life Magazine, as she remembered it. She couldn’t recall if the emperor was still alive — let alone what was thought of him, a Christian monarch in a country that largely wasn’t, and a friend of America, on a Continent that largely wasn’t. As for Eritrea, she had no notion whatsoever, though the name reminded her of Illyria, a distant Shakespearean place full of magic.

The cappuccinos having cooled, they drank them down, and one of the two men looked at his watch.

"Bene," Ahmad said, giving their companion a more sustained look as the three turned to leave the bar. Once outside, they ambled across the square and stood awkwardly on the cobblestones adjacent to Santa Maria della Pace. A couple of homeless men were lounging under the arches of its encircling alleyways. Still, it was a treat to behold the church, so theatrical with its curves and concavities. Catherine thought about mentioning the adjoining cloister designed by Bramante, but something in her companions’ demeanor dissuaded her.

Just then, a Vespa whisked round the corner, uncomfortably close. Ahmad grabbed Catherine’s arm to keep her out of its path. It felt electric.

They never learn, Catherine said, referring vaguely to Roman drivers.

No, they expect us to, Ahmad said.

Osman tensed to move on. It was up to her, Catherine quickly calculated, to say something to make possible another encounter.

Well, at least you didn’t end up arrested and having to talk your way out of the police station, she said.

Thanks to you — and for the coffee, Osman replied. She noticed his slightly buck teeth, wondering suddenly if that made him self-consciously awkward or unconsciously aggressive. He looked at her as though he dared her to make a next move. The latter trait, she concluded.

Well, if you’re ever in the neighborhood, I live on Vicolo Scanderbeg — the Albanian patriot, he lived in the piazza, that is, he did several hundred years ago. I’m at number 88. She gestured in the direction of her apartment, a ten-minute walk from where they stood.

Catherine had a penchant for the amusingly abstruse, most people she had given her address to having never heard of Scanderbeg. She hadn’t either until, quite by happenstance, she managed to lease the warped-floor but otherwise charming rooms right off the square named after the obscure revolutionary.

To her surprise, Osman had. He freed his people from the Turks. Without Scanderbeg Albanians might never have forged a national identity, he stated matter-of-factly.

She blinked at this rejoinder but couldn’t think of anything to add.

You must then feel very safe there, Ahmad eventually offered.

Indeed, I have nothing to fear, she replied, equally bemused. The encounter seemed to be over.

"Allora, ciao," Catherine added after an interval and shook each of their hands.

The memory of their dark-honey skin lingered as she made her way through narrow streets to the grander Via del Governo Vecchio and toward a structure not far from the Tiber which she had come to refer to familiarly as the Palazzo, even though the term in Italian signified any building, palatial or not.

A steady stream of Fiats, motor scooters, even a couple of horse-drawn carts, whooshed by, forcing her to teeter on one foot as they threaded the winding streets. She quickened her step. The next shift was supposed to start at 11 am, and albeit this was Italy and everything began late, the woman who preceded her would be anxious to leave. Nearing her destination, Catherine spotted the unfurled banner waving lazily in the breeze. They had hung it out the top windows several weeks ago, literally within minutes of taking possession.

"La Casa delle Donne," it read in bright red letters, and, indeed, so far only women had been allowed past the imposing entrance and adjacent cubicle from which a phalanx of feminists monitored comings and goings. The owner of the bar catty-cornered across from what had instantaneously become the centerpiece of the neighborhood saluted Catherine with a nod as she passed.

To many of those involved, the occupation of this particular palazzo was concrete proof that feminism was taking hold, and was not to be dislodged — not even by the bloated bureaucracy that oversaw public works in the Eternal City.

"Ciao, Caterina. The others are already upstairs. The meeting should start soon, said a tired-looking but tidily groomed woman who had volunteered for the short 6 am to 11 am shift. You may want to replace the generators as the lights are starting to flicker." Catherine’s shift would run until mid-afternoon.

I’ll get onto it. How many women have come in this morning? Catherine asked.

"About 20. Buona fortuna," the woman said, wishing her luck, as the occupiers did to one another in that first precarious period of the takeover.

These meetings, which Catherine enjoyed but found exhausting, took different turns depending on the day: However, most of those who showed up needed legal advice or medical help, either because they were abused or because they had become pregnant — and didn’t wish to be.

In addition, the feminists needed to have one eye cocked for the cops. From the outset, they set up an informal rotation among those who could make themselves available so that the Palazzo itself would never be vacant. Otherwise, the police would repossess the building, and they might wind up in jail for trespassing.

As Catherine made her way up the stone stairway to the second floor, a rat scampered toward a cavernous room off the first landing, which the group hadn’t yet had time to explore, let alone disinfect. Hopefully, she reasoned, all of the vermin had now been relegated to this one area.

Up until that point, on the second and third floors they had commandeered four large halls and half a dozen smaller rooms. There were several bathrooms with filthy but still functioning toilets, plumbing being an engineering marvel in whatever Roman epoch. A spacious kitchen had rudimentary sinks with elegantly designed if irredeemably tarnished copper faucets, but they had not yet gotten around to scrubbing that room down. The top floor consisted of a large ballroom, which had seen better days, and several alcoves. If need be, these latter could be revamped as sleeping quarters.

Whatever its challenges, the Palazzo was an inspired choice in a city where almost every edifice had a history — and strict regulations regarding usage. Weeks of research went in to identifying potential targets, until a meeting in September when the feminist groups agreed that the palazzo on Governo Vecchio best fit specifications for a unified headquarters. Not far from the river on one side and Piazza Navona on the other, the premises at number 39 had been built in the 1400’s as a residence for some ambitious Renaissance cardinal. After serving as a government back-office under Mussolini, it had fallen into disrepair.

A scouting party had used some feminine wiles to convince the reluctant caretaker to pull out a clutch of keys and open the long-emptied building to inspection. Even so, a small bribe was in order. The report back a week later included a number of nuisances the women would have to deal with: bats and rats, mold, dust and some words in Italian Catherine couldn’t fathom and didn’t want to look up. All this and no electricity, no hot water, no furniture.

Sounds ideal, one woman had piped up, to the general merriment of those assembled for the rundown.

When the designated day came that autumn, members of three separate feminist groups, including several foreigners, made up the advance team tapped to take over Governo Vecchio in the name of the women of Rome. Once inside, they were to race up to the fourth floor and append a huge banner out a front window. Then, with makeshift megaphones, the commandos were to throw open all the shutters, lean out and declare that the building would thenceforth be a refuge for women. What was to be the reaction of the local carabinieri, the women’s groups hadn’t dwelt on, but Catherine figured it was possible they’d all be dragged off and booked. And in her case likely deported.

Because of these unappealing but not altogether unlikely outcomes, everyone the women’s groups knew who sympathized with their cause had been alerted that on a Saturday in early October they would be performing an unspecified but very dramatic political act.

Who wouldn’t want to come along to that, they had reasoned. And indeed, Catherine’s boyfriend Michele and a few of her ex-patriot friends including Fran, who worked for the United Nations’ aid organization FAO, and Diane, who had a job in the film business, duly showed up. They were to trundle along to the area 10 minutes or so after the advance team stormed the building at 3 pm, so as not preliminarily to raise suspicions on the part of the caretaker, shopkeepers and, most importantly, the police at the nearby station house. The supporters’ role would be as witnesses in case the authorities tried anything high-handed, or rather, more high-handed than what the women themselves had in mind to do.

In the event, most everything went like clockwork. The titular heads of the three groups rang for the custodian, while the rest of the contingent, including Catherine, lingered in front of the bar across the street or browsed adjacent shop windows as nonchalantly as possible. Several minutes ticked by and then the giant door creaked open. Before the hapless caretaker could react, the twenty-odd women, some with bags weighed down with flashlights, toilet paper and bottled water, raced up the stairs to the top floor. Other women below on the street hastily formed a human chain around the sprawling edifice, inviting both friends and unsuspecting passers-by to hold the fort, as it were, until the inevitable arrival of the polizia.

I think she liked us — both of us, Ahmad observed with careful off-handedness as he and Osman wended their way through the streets behind the Via del Plebiscito toward their respective destinations. Like Catherine and most foreigners living in Italy without a car, they knew the center of Rome well, since the chief means of transport were buses, or their own two feet.

Ahmad could still visualize the young woman, especially the moment she turned to face them at the counter, removing her sunglasses to reveal startlingly aquamarine eyes.

Likeable enough, Osman replied, feigning indifference.

When alone together the two automatically spoke their native tongue, a Semitic language called Tigre which was distantly akin to Arabic, but more lilting. With other East Africans, they generally reverted to Arabic; with everyone else they spoke their barely accented Italian or their British-inflected English.

And many such foreigners had surfaced in Rome, it being an open city in the 1970s for the dispossessed of former European colonies bordering the Red Sea. Moreover, the province of Eritrea had been locked for ages in a struggle for independence against the Ethiopian regime and some of these emigrants were seeking a better, or a safer, life.

Not that Roman citizens, much less the politicians, paid any consistent attention to these strangers on their doorstep. They were left to their own devices, the women relegated to maids or nannies in middle-class Italian villas, and the men, studying or working menial jobs if they were lucky, trafficking in this or that, if they were not. There were few statistics on immigration, and no agency specifically to deal with these newcomers.

On Thursdays and Sundays, the customary days off for domestic workers, clusters of these women with their finely-chiseled features — dark-eyed and draped in white muslin — would coalesce into a billowing mass, as they floated into the coffee bars and cheap eateries near the central train station.

The sight had struck Catherine whenever she happened into that part of the city. If she entered one of their bars to have coffee or make a phone call, laughter would subside, eyes dart nervously about. Their male counterparts were more subdued, often seated at rickety tables, pouring over maps or staring vacantly into space.

Ahmad and Osman were two of the luckier arrivals, their families back in the Eritrean capital of Asmara relatively well-to-do. In fact, their respective fathers had been involved in the Ethiopian parliament, before becoming disenchanted as Selassie tightened his grip.

As children the two cousins kicked scuffed-up soccer balls around the feet of their fathers while the grown-ups jabbered away at the town’s outdoor cafes. Later on, the boys hovered with their elders around radios to listen to the voices of Arab nationalism, most mesmerizingly that of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. Occasionally the BBC could be tuned, which is why, Catherine later surmised, Ahmad pronounced his English so precisely.

We’re meeting at the Bar Fortuna around five on Sunday, Osman declared without waiting for an answer from his cousin. They had paused to separate near where the bus incident had taken place an hour or so earlier.

I have to study and do some chores for La Steiner, but I’ll be there by five, Ahmad replied.

He was headed to the Gregoriana, the university he attended, for a history lecture by one of the priests who had overseen the tiny flock of Catholics in Asmara in the 50’s, and, as a result, ministered to Ahmad’s mother Ornella. She was the daughter of an Italian colonialist who had arrived in the region in the 1890s at the height of Rome’s modern imperial ambitions. Enamored of the exotic landscape and the gentleness of the people, he married a local Asmara woman, fathered a daughter and lived out his days in the jasmine-scented city.

Given her mixed lineage and relative prosperity, Ahmad’s mother indulged a few Italian pretensions, including a passion for fine silks which would once or twice a year be purchased by her otherwise preoccupied husband from caravan traders in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Abeba. When Ahmad was a child, Ornella would on special occasions dust off an old Victrola of her father’s, and ceremoniously lower the needle onto crackly opera recordings salvaged from her deceased parents’ house.

"Non ti scordar di me—: He remembered the plaintive voice of a singer his mother told him was the tenor Beniamino Gigli. It means, ‘don’t leave this earth and forget me,’ " he recalled his mother explaining in somewhat of an embellished transliteration. After Ahmad’s father was imprisoned by the Selassie regime, she never again cranked up the machine.

Osman, who was three years older than Ahmad, had been dispatched to Cairo to complete his studies but became swept up in the revolutionary politics of the late 60’s. There were rumors he had