Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [95]
I stood looking down over the streets near the hotel. Directly below on the Via Sistina a few people were venturing out: early risers, dog-walkers, people coming home from jobs that ended as day began. The street lamps were still on, but dawn was moving up quickly into the sky, turning it into a pale pink dome.
I ran back into the room and got my camera. Then, leaning out as far as I could over the veranda wall, I faced the Spanish Steps and gently squeezed the shutter release. It was my first photograph of Rome. And my last.
Whatever I wanted to remember of the city, I decided, would be there, in that single picture of Rome after the storm.
15
JANE EYRE IN SIENA
Dear Alice,
The city of Siena is famous for the Palio, a horse race dating back to 1656. It is a brutal race, the horses often crashing into stone walls as they race around the main square of the city. Mattresses are placed on the walls, but they offer very little protection. I was told that it is the only race in the world in which the horse can win without a jockey! Last year only two of the ten riders finished. How sad that the spectators think so little of the cruelty involved.
Love, Alice
The minute I stepped off the bus in Siena I heard the music: strange noises created by drums and what sounded like high-pitched wind instruments—recorders perhaps. Whatever it was, the sound was captivating. It set my imagination spinning off into the Middle Ages, evoking powerful images I’d stored up; dark, fairy-tale scenes of fierce battles and axes and terrible deaths from the plague. For me it was part of Siena’s appeal, this ability to tap into the primitive, mythic remnants of childhood fantasy that lurk beneath the adult sensibility.
Immediately, I checked my suitcase with a porter and ran toward the odd-sounding music. There, on a street lined with thirteenth-century stone buildings, men dressed in medieval costumes paraded by the shadowy arches and tall wooden gates that opened into private courtyards. In solemn rows, filling the width and length of the Via della Galluzza, they marched to the music; men both young and old, some carrying flags that floated in the air above their heads. A few marchers wore armored breastplates, calling to mind Siena’s history as a powerful fortress once capable of defeating the Florentines in battle.
As I stood watching, a wide shaft of sunlight angled its way down into the narrow street, highlighting the buildings opposite me. Suddenly I saw two parades: the real one and a parade composed of shadows marching across the sunlit stone walls. The ghostly figures reminded me of the Halloween night parade in Baltimore; of how as a child I loved the excitement of moving through the stream of goblins and witches wandering the streets on that one night. Safe behind my own mask, an anonymous observer, I was free to watch without being seen.
In the narrow streets of Siena I felt all the same things: excitement, pleasure, and the safety of anonymity. It was as though the girl who loved Halloween and the woman who had just arrived in Siena were standing together, enjoying this medieval parade.
How odd, I thought, that within minutes of arriving in this remote Tuscan hill town I—or perhaps it would be accurate to say we—should feel so utterly at home.
The next day I set out to find a bookstore I recalled from my visit to Siena with the tour group. Marta and I had discovered the shop about a half hour before we were to leave for Perugia. To our surprise, it had a phenomenal collection of hard-to-find books, many available in English. Marta and I were able to spend only a few minutes there, but I’d written down the address, along with a note to seek it out when I returned. Unfortunately the note and address were lost somewhere along the line. However, Siena was a small town and I knew that in the course of wandering