Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [92]
It didn’t matter that deep down I recognized my disenchantment with Rome for what it was: an attempt to deny that I was homesick. It was much easier to blame Rome than to deal with my longing for the comfort of routine. I yearned to have lunch with my friends at the paper; to dig in my garden and feel the damp earth between my fingers; to hear the sound of neighbors calling in their dogs late at night; to shop at the neighborhood market, where everybody knows my name; and to lie in bed, waiting for the soft thud that signals the arrival of my cat.
To counteract such feelings, I devised a plan. During my short stay in Rome—a week’s stopover, really, before working my way north to Tuscany and the Veneto—I would seek out all things familiar. Meaning: I ate at English tearooms, visited John Keats’s house at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, went to lectures given in English at a nearby school, and saw the original English-speaking version of Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. One day I even had a Big Mac and french fries at McDonald’s, something I never did at home.
As silly as it was, le plan d’Angleterre—as I came to call it—actually worked. My homesickness or anxiety or whatever it was began to dissipate and my curiosity returned. At last Rome beckoned. And I responded. So I set out to do what I always do in a strange city: walk and walk and walk. I even responded to the Romans, chatting with the clerks in bookshops and with espresso-drinkers in the stand-up coffee bars.
My flirtation with Rome, however, proved to be a brief one. It ended abruptly two days later on a busy, fashionable street near my hotel on the Via Sistina.
After spending the morning and early afternoon visiting art galleries on the Via Margutta, I decided to walk over to a coffee bar I liked: the Antico Caffè Greco. Something of an institution in Rome, the 200-year-old café was a hangout for writers and artists, as well as a rest stop for wealthy shoppers on the Via Condotti. I’d discovered the café on my first day in Rome and liked it instantly. It was a great place to sit and observe the Italian scene. Soon I was going there almost every day; sometimes for a quick espresso at the stand-up bar, sometimes to linger over a cappuccino.
Standing next to me at the bar on this particular day was a man I recognized as a café regular. He had the look of an artist about him, I thought, studying his scruffy corduroy jacket, uncombed hair, and gaunt face. But then again, for all I knew, he could be an eccentric billionaire, the Howard Hughes of Italy.
I drank my espresso and left, planning to walk directly back to my hotel. To my surprise the streets outside were pleasantly un-crowded. I looked at my watch. It was a little before three. The shops, closed down for the traditional long lunch break, would not reopen for another hour. The perfect time, I decided, to explore this fashionable district; to window-shop and read the menus posted outside restaurants and duck into the occasional bookstore or gallery still open.
It was on the Via Borgognona, near the bottom of the Spanish Steps, that I first sensed someone was following me. I began paying attention to a tall man dressed in a corduroy jacket and pants who, I noticed, stopped whenever I stopped and started walking again when I did.
Was he following me? I wondered. Or was it just my imagination? But after two blocks of being trailed in this way I was sure his presence was no accident. When he began closing the distance between us I saw it was the man I’d noticed in the café. Suddenly I was afraid. Then another man, a stocky fellow in dark pants and a checkered shirt, approached me from the opposite direction.
I knew then I had not imagined myself to be in danger; I was in danger. I’m going to be mugged, I thought, my heart pounding; or worse. I tightened my grip on my handbag, braced myself, and looked around for help—a person or an open door or even a motor scooter that I could stop. I saw nothing and no one. I cursed myself for not being more vigilant. At that moment the tall