Matala

One On a chilly sunny December afternoon, Darcy Arlen slipped down Via della Conciliazione, away from the Hotel Abitazione, and slid her hands into her coat pockets. Across the river, she turned south and settled into a quick, steady walk. The headiness of her solitude -- stolen while her roommate, Rhonda, was in the shower and the tour guide, Mrs. Abignale, napped -- carried her onward into the city. The group was leaving soon for another of the great ruins, the Baths of Caracalla, but Darcy was already tired of ruins and museums and history, and this was only the second city of the seven they were to visit on this month-and-a-half-long tour, a combined birthday and finally-you-graduated-from-high-school-and-only-six-months-late gift from her parents. She knew now she should have expected this. At first she stayed close to the river so as not to come too near the monuments and ruins in the center of the old city. The embankments of the Tiber curved west and then east again, bringing her close to the Circus Maximus, but once past that, she cut into the city, onto streets she'd never seen. She loved just being in this place, breathing this ancient air. For a long time she followed the wide Via Ostiense, past the monolithic Cathedral of Saint Paul, until she finally came into a part of the city that was not for tourists: the real city, office towers and high terraced apartment buildings, where real people, Italians, worked and shopped and didn't have to pretend to like speaking English. She rested on a bench in a small corner park where two young children squatted on the hard-packed dirt, pitching seeds to the pigeons clustered about them. An older woman, their grandmother she guessed, sat nearby. It felt good to sit and breathe. It felt good to be here alone. The titillation of her rebellion, her sneaking off, the tingling it brought to the soles of her feet and her fingers had of course worn away by now, but not the self-satisfaction. She knew it was really out of any proportion to the mildness of the act. It wasn't as if she'd stood up to anyone and said something, as if she'd told Mrs. Abignale, the tour director, to get stuffed because she was almost worse than Darcy's mother, and that was really saying something. It wasn't as if she'd said anything to anyone. Still, sitting there with all these Italians who weren't even looking at her, as if she were just another part of this world, a regular person, she felt, well, contented. And tired. And a little chilly now. She bought some sticky dates from a street vendor and wandered north again. Later, near the Ostia Station, she gave most of them to a filthy woman begging with her filthier child. She came upon the Vialle Marco Polo and, thinking it ran vaguely in the direction of the hotel, followed it. Now the afternoon was growing thin, the light coming from lower in the sky, and the streets had fallen into shadow. Her legs ached and her lips stuck to her teeth. She felt a sheen, a membrane of perspiration, coating all of her body. It was a long way back. She imagined having a quiet dinner somewhere, away from the group, maybe with Rhonda if she wasn't sulking too hard at Darcy's having left without her, and then settling into the deep bed and reading herself to sleep. In the morning, early, they would leave for Florence. She passed through a square with a pyramid in it, and the Vialle Marco Polo became the Via Marmorata. She pulled her coat around her and shivered, but ahead now she could see the river. It cheered her. She'd cross it, she decided, see how she felt, and maybe then find a taxi. On the bridge, which was nearly empty of pedestrians, a young man leaned over the stone parapet, looking into the water. He wore stained work boots, ripped jeans, and a Carhartt work jacket. As she passed him, he glanced at her. Her momentum carried her past even as she drew a sharp breath when the shock of incongHolden, Craig is the author of 'Matala ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780743274999 and ISBN 0743274997.