«... vold Rome under the moon nun sing more…»
The voice is powerful, too powerful to fully convey the sweetness of those verses which, he cannot forget, are the same ones he had dedicated to Marella the night he had taken her to make love in the fields behind Piazza della Rovere.
Singing is a big young man in distressed jeans, a Greenpeace T-shirt and a stubbly beard that mixes with the dread similar to tow razor clams. His fingers move nimbly over the guitar strings, but the chords are hard, more suited to the music of these years. Years where everything goes on the contrary, women who look like men, men who look like women and nights exchanged for day by municipal decree. Remo really doesn't like this idea of the Notte Bianca. He is seventy-seven years old, of which fifty spent in Lungotevere della Farnesina, ground floor. He has seen the mephitic river of Roman traffic increase from year to year. He had to put in double glazing to protect himself from the smog and the constant noise of the tires thrown on the asphalt. And for this he had to give up the sirens of the Fatebenefratelli ambulances. A sound that is the only one I find comforting and the reason is always the same: Marella who was a nurse in the hospital on the Tiber Island, Marella who has been gone for a long time now, Marella who loved that song.
In the meantime, the boy has finished. The numerous patrons of the makeshift restaurant on the Tiber bank seem relieved but unwilling to pay, for such relief, the offering that he asks for as he goes around the tables. When he reaches the table beside him, Remo raises his eyes to look at him.
“Either you change your music or you change your job,” he says.
"As?"
"You understand, you understand. That's not stuff you can sing like Ligabue would sing it. Roman songs want the spinning... »
"Yes, well…"
He turns to leave, but Remo blocks him. The time-stained hand grips a color tattoo.
"Sit down and hand me the guitar."
The boy stares at him, undecided, then shrugs. The evening is so limp. In Rome orchestras and groups are performing, Lucio Dalla and the Negramaros and those sitting at the tables are there for spaghetti cacio e pepe. He sits down, accepts the glass of wine and gives the old man the guitar.
Remo caresses the instrument, adjusts some tones, rinses his mouth with cannellini then set your fingers to the chord…
«Today er Modernism for Noucentisme
they renew everything goes
and the ancient and simple customs
I know you remember that disappear
and you my Rome without nostalgia
follow modernity
be progressive
the universalist
you say okay i love thank you ja ja
old Rome under the moon
nun you sing more
you starve them
the serenades of youth…»
The boy can't believe his eyes. Suddenly the murmur of the tables stopped, leaving only the rustle of the river to accompany the voice little but 'toned by Remo Tarquini, now retired but once committed by Ricordi. When it ends, the applause starts spontaneously followed by the requests: Barcarolle Romano, Blond Puppet, House of Trastevere.
Remo deflects himself, gets up, bows to the improvised audience, returns the guitar and, having drained the last sip of wine, immerses himself in the flow of the crowd that sets off for the stairs to the Lungotevere.
"Wait!" This time it is the boy's large hand that claws at the gaunt forearm. "These are yours." And he slips eight one-euro coins into his pocket. "The guitar is mine, but the voice was yours," he explains.
Remo shakes his head and hands over the money.
"They're more convenient for you than for me."
The boy doesn't protest.
«Did you do this job too?»
The stairs have arrived and they climb them together.
"No. But I've heard a lot of songs and I've even sung them."
The wheezing makes itself felt and the boy offers him his arm to hold on to the slippery steps. Remo gladly accepts.
"Old age is an ugly beast."
"You're not that old."
Remus looks at him.
"What did you say your name was?"
"Stephen."
«Stefano, what are you carrying around with me? I could be your grandfather."
"Have us a grandfather who sings like this, we could have made a duo."
They stop. From the balustrade of the Lungotevere, the embankments and illuminated bridges are spectacular. Stefano takes the rolling papers out of his pocket and starts rolling a joint. Remo looks at him without being shocked.
“Those hoarse your voice,” he says.
«Nope, I dream of a voice like yours anyway… How is that story of spinning?»
«Old stuff, from the times of Carlo Buti, Tito Schipa, Claudio Villa but as a young man…»
Stefano lights it up.
"Never heard of it," he confesses, exhaling the sweetish smoke.
«It doesn't surprise me... Oh well, I'm going home. If he tells me right, I'll get two hours of sleep before daybreak. Thank you."
"Thanks for what?"
“Of the song.”
Stefano waves a hand away from the smoke.
"But you sang it yourself."
"Exactly, I've been carrying it inside for forty-seven years."
Remo's eyes grow distant. He leans back against the parapet and looks at the street clogged with cars waiting for the green light from the traffic light at Ponte Cestio.
That traffic light that wasn't there forty-seven years ago.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" she asks.
"A half species."
"Do you have a song?" She doesn't wait for an answer. «Old Rome it was ours. The first date. Claudio Villa sang from the juke-box and Marella and I made eye contact. Back then, he didn't kiss in front of everyone like you do. The pizzardoni fined you if they caught you.”
Stefano smiles and listens. Cannabis muffles the chaotic present of the Notte Bianca and bring the past closer. She lets herself slide to the ground and invites him to keep her company.
"And then who picks me up?" Remo asks.
"I'll handle that…"
He's reluctant. Sitting on the ground together with that bushy-haired boy, enveloped in the smoke of the joint, with the risk of being charged by Caritas and finding himself in Sant'Egidio. Then he gives in and, with a creak of joints, sits down regardless of the light-colored trousers.
"Marella was a nurse here, at the Fatebenefratelli," she says, gesturing with her thumb behind her. «I had happened there due to an accident with my bicycle, a beautiful flight on the rails of the red circular, the one for the university.»
«On the 30th» explains Stefano, but Remo does not listen.
«A stroke of lightning like few others see. After less than two months I went up to my father to ask for her hand. Santa Maria degli Angeli was full the day he said yes, and there was a sun… »
"Have you had any children?"
Usually Stefano doesn't like listening to old people, but Remo has his own way of telling things. He doesn't seek his attention, he speaks for himself, he discharges him of any responsibility. He takes another drag.
"Maybe… there wasn't time."
Plates and glasses, all in order. The pot is on the fire and the water is boiling. Look at the clock on the wall: a quarter to nine. It's time to drop the pasta. The bucatini open like a corolla and he stirs them with the fork, making sure they all drown. He uncorks the red wine and pours it into the carafe, then goes to the window. The Tiber Island is a vision among the fronds of the plane trees, the windows of the hospital are still all lit up. When they go out, it's the signal: Marella has finished her shift. She goes back to the kitchen and opens the door of the brand new refrigerator: on the top shelf the charlotte is as white as a cloud under the writing "happy Anniversary". All in order. Even the 45 rpm is ready on the turntable platter. Go over the plan: drain the pasta al dente, dress it with the matriciana sauce, the one Marella prefers, put the pasta on the plates the moment she appears on the bridge Cestius, lower the needle on the disc and, while Vecchia Roma mixes with the scent of the bucatini, stand behind the door with the bunch of pink roses that he had made for you. Rosa, because if Marella hasn't told him yet, he has understood that she is pregnant and she also knows that she will be a girl. She feels it.
The pasta is on the plates, the pecorino is ready to be grated. The arm of the turntable descends on the 45 rpm and Claudio Villa begins to sing.
«Today er Modernism for Noucentisme
they renew everything goes
and the ancient and simple customs
I know you remember that disappear...»
He watches from the window and sees that Marella is now almost at the end of Ponte Cestius.
«... er progress has made you great
but this is the city
nun is that 'n do' if he lived
so many years ago…»
He grabs the bunch of flowers and runs to get behind the door.
«… no longer go therefall in love
along the Tiber
a would steal you kiss them a thousand
the under thearboretum...»
A brake.
A scream.
A crash.
«…and you dream about them vent in the shade
of a blue sky
I know memories of a beautiful time
is nun there is' more…»
It is the cold that rises with the sun that wakes Stefano up. He opens his eyes and in the dark fragments of images fly away: spaghetti… No, maybe bucatini and a road, a singing voice Old Rome and the unmistakable noise of useless braking. He doesn't have time to wonder if it was a dream, the old man's white head has hurt his shoulder. He now he remembers. The Notte Bianca, the restaurant and that strange man who stole his guitar and the audience. If he has pain in every point of his body, who knows how he must be… Remo, yes, that's what his name is.
«Remo… Oh, Remo, wake up, I'll buy you breakfast.»
The authors
Laura Costantini e Loredana Falcone they have "crossed the buoy of the doors and that's enough for you". Romans with the pride of being one even if when they write (together, always) they go exactly where the pen takes them. Together they published: Innocent flesh (Historical Editions, 2012), Fate awaits in Apache Canyon (Las Vegas Editions 2012), God's puzzle (goWare, 2014), Ricardo and Carolina (goWare, 2015), A voice in the fog (The Ancient Wind Editions, 2016), Pagan river e Three little symphonies of desire (Historical Editions, 2016).
