"Please
don't retouch my wrinkles. It took me so long to earn them."
~Anna Magnani
In the Piazza delIa Madonna dei Monti, in the ombra di colosseo, expats gather to
complain. Not about the piazza itself, generally agreed to be among the
prettiest in Rome. The central cafe looks out
upon a two-tiered fountain, mercifully cherub free. The thin white column of a
Ukrainian orthodox church is discreet, unexpected.
Depending on the hour, we watch American kids
drink cheap wine straight from the bottle; tanned Roman girls, chain-smoking,
dressed in the sunset silks they bought in Mumbai; hipster gays en route to
Testaccio; three boxer dogs; delighted German tourists who think themselves the
first to discover the place; very old Italians of suspicious vitality; two boys
who use the church door as a goal mouth; and a beautiful young man who has been
sleeping rough here for six months after a disagreement with his girlfriend.
The young man is much appreciated-he is the sort of local color for which we
came to Rome in the first place.
And we enjoy Sundays, when the Ukrainian church congregation
spills outside, bringing with it a close-harmony praise song. Everything else
is complaint. Italian bureaucracy is impossible, the TV unwatchable, the
government unbelievable, and the newspapers impenetrable. Expats in Rome are
somehow able to consistently maintain their sense of outraged wonder, despite
all reading The Dark Heart of Italy on
the plane here. Italian Women is a subject to stretch from morning coffee to
midday ravioli. "The land that feminism forgot!" And on cue it all
rolls out like an index: the degrading sexualization of, the nightly televisual
humiliation of, Berlusconi's condescending opinion of, perilous abortion rights
of, low wages of, minimal parliamentary presence of, invisibility within the
church of, et cetera.
Yet there exist confusing countersigns. The new mothers with
tiny babes-in-arm, welcome at any gathering. The four women chatting at the
next table, a frank, practical conversation about sexual pleasure. The handsome
lady grocer with her giant biceps and third-trimester belly, unpacking boxes of
beer from the delivery truck, separating street fights, bullying her menfolk,
lecturing the local drunks, overcharging the tourists, strategizing with the
priests, running this piazza and everyone in it. Respected, desired, feared.
Such countersigns are not unified: they do not all point in
one direction, and so ex pats find it difficult to process them-which may be
the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant sensibility. The strongest
countersign of all is Anna's face. It follows me everywhere, staring out from
restaurants, pub bathrooms, private houses. Nannarella.
Mamma Roma. La Magnani. Anna is a confusing countersign, in the land that
feminism forgot.
