Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [13]
But the number of vagrants dropped sharply in the mid-199os, after a series of incidents in which some were harmed by Fascist gang fighters (brigatisti neri) who also seem to have been responsible for beating up an activist who wanted to open a reception center for immigrants, for raiding a jeweler's shop (in this case evidently aided by a spy they had planted in the police), and for setting fire to the local offices of Rifondazione comunista (the Reformist Communist Party). Nonetheless, eccentrics and vagrants still meet kindness here. A gaunt, elderly man totters from restaurant to restaurant in the evenings, warbling songs-some of them foreign-in a reedy, out-of-tune voice that sounds like something emanating from an equally elderly phonograph and accompanying himself with vague wavings of the hand that holds his musical notes; always smiling benignly, he tries to engage customers in conversation, especially if they are foreigners. On one occasion he was so overwhelmed with gratitude at getting some money from another customer and from me that he offered to start singing again, whereupon the exasperated restaurateur, politely but firmly, said that this would certainly not be necessary and hastily ushered him out of the door.
Such scenes recall the ghostly traces of communal solidarity, now almost more emaciated than the old songster. A very high proportion of those who gather in the small main square for such special occasions as the October festivities no longer live in Monti but return to relive their memories. Pushed out of the district either by Mussolini's grandiose urban hygiene and surveillance in the 19303 or during the current neoliberal rush to gentrify, they return because, as the tag goes, "in Rome, if you're far from people's eyes, you're far from their hearts." Some participate in the ritual activities associated with the annual Feast of the Madonna, to whom the parish church is dedicated; at the height of these events, several thousand elderly former residents and their families crowd around the sixteenth-century fountain dominating the square. But many come at other times as well, to sit and chat in the spring or autumn sunshine with the few remaining residents of the old population, their Romanesco cadences, languorous reminiscences, and salty jokes contrasting with the clipped, fast diction of mostly younger people walking straight across the square with determined steps and briefcases in hand.
Then there are the "cat people" (gattari and gattare), usually older men and women who feed the many stray cats that happily wander around the neighborhood. Rome has a fascination with cats; at the Largo Torre Argentina, on the far side of Piazza Venezia, an enormous cat sanctuary coexists with ancient ruins; when the state archaeologists threatened to remove the sanctuary, the outraged reaction caused them to beat a hasty retreat. A Monti newspaper vendor who regularly feeds the local cats solemnly informed me, "Better [give] to the beasts than to humans" (Mejo a'e bestie the ai cristiani), a phrase in which, by using the old-fashioned "Christians" for "human beings," he invoked their shared burden of sin, adding, "There are quite a few people who are truly disgraceful. "0
In pre-World War II times Monti was controlled by two capi none, rival bosses and clan chiefs who made it their business to see that neighbors were not cheated or robbed and that women were not molested.21 One clan stalwart described himself as "a doorman for the district"; his clan had never tolerated protection rackets