Serendipity 'alla Romana'

Serendipity ‘alla Romana’

Walking down Via Condotti, the odd feeling I had experienced all through the previous photo-shoot at the Excelsior Hotel, lingered with relentless insistence. It felt like being reminded of an appointment I should keep.

Arriving at Via Sistina, close to my apartment in Piazza de Spagne, I turned right, finding myself oddly propelled into a familiar neighborhood ‘piano bar’.

Halfway down the length of the elegantly carved Venetian Tabarrok Mahogany bar, I heard, “Ciao, Marco.”

“Ciao, Mimo,” I mumbled to the smiling bartender. “It’s been a strange day, n’ thought a cold Peroni might take the edge off.”

“Not having a good day?”

“Not a bad day, just feeling kinda’ tense.”

“Ah! E la maladia di FairAgusto.”

“What?” I mumbled, back.

“Fairagusto. De time when de August heat drives us Romani to the Amalfi coast. You’re not here a year, so you’ve not been in our Augusto.”

I had come to Rome a few months earlier to work with a friend, who believed it would save me from becoming a Hollywood Paparazzi, since I was a photographer by trade.

I happened to glance down the bar noticing a very old woman, who sat hunched forward, staring oddly into a tall, empty glass.

“Verament strano, quella,” Mimo muttered, softly.

“Strange, how?” I asked.

“She always asks for the same empty glass, then sits for hours, staring into de empty gless.”

“What’s her story? You know?”

“Sad story. She was in de movies, but booze ruined her. She now thinks God hates her, and de empty glass… guess it’s some kind of atonement for her sins.”

“Fascinating,” I mumbled.

“Strangest thing though… she sometimes she tells fortunes for late-night customers, and some say dey always come true.”

He chuckled, “My boss says her predictions always make him money, so we never charge her.”

Just then I glanced up to see to see a beautiful young woman walk in. She casually seated herself on the stool to my right.

She smiled warmly at me, then turned to Mimo, “I’m waiting for someone. Could I have a … Ginger Ale maybe?”

“At once, Signorina,” Mimo said. In seconds, he had filled the glass and placed it before her, asking, “Anything else?”

“This is fine,” she smiled.

Following a brief sip, she glanced my way, “Are you American?”

I turned, answering, “Uh… yeah. You?”

She smiled. “You just… no offense… look American.”

“I get that a lot… haven’t been here long enough to lose the… well… whatever it is that gives us Yanks away.”

“Sorry,” she said, “I don’t usually go to bars. I’m waiting for my agent and someone he’s bringing to meet me.”

“Agent? You an actress?”

She said, shyly, “Guess so. I havn’t done much– couple of small things in New York. I went back to LA, though… didn’t like New York.

“I’m from LA,” I mumbled, oddly feeling the nagging feeling from earlier.

She turned, saying, “My agent knew they were casting a big American money film in Rome. He thought I’ed be right for what the Italians were looking for– tall and Scandinavian looking. So, he got approval from the producer at Fox, and they flew me over to meet the Italians.”

She chucked self-consciously, “Hope you’ll forgive me. When I feel insecure, I’ve been told I talk too much.”

“No. I find it fascinating. I’m a photo-journalist, actually. And you are… absolutely beautiful!” Suddenly feeling stupid, “That was rude. I didn’t mean to… well… sound like I was coming on…”

“Bless you! You couldn’t have said anything more complementary. Especially after I just spent our introduction boring you to death. “I’m Margaret.” And… you?

“Uh… Mark.”

She extended a gorgeously manicured hand, smiling in a way that melted my soul. I extended my hand.

As our fingers touched, something extraordinary occurred. I suddenly felt the sum of every emotion I had never felt, and… I couldn’t even feel my fingers.

As our eyes met, the gorgeous eyes smiling deeply into mine suddenly flashed with an incredible violet light. Then… it was gone; leaving in its wake the most incredible blue green eyes I had ever imagined.

In that endless moment, we were someplace else, standing in front of a gigantic fountain, hands extended to one another as if just discovering something new and… magical.

She gently squinted as if maybe she had had the same experience, whispering, “My… goodness! I… I don’t know what just happened… do you?”

I mumbled, “I… may never know.”

Our eyes remained locked as if each searching for a fragment of comprehension of the incredible moment we had just shared.

“Ah, hah! There you are!”

Dragged in shock from the beautiful eyes, I glanced toward the doorway as two men bounded in.

The balding man in the lead, said, “Margaret, this is signore Angelo De’ Sicca.”

Smiling awkwardly, she gently withdrew her warm fingers, forcing herself to acknowledge the sudden annoyance, saying, “Hi, Antonio.”

She courteously extended the same hand I had just held, saying, “Uh… mister De’ Sicca… it’s a pleasure.”

“Mai Carrissima Signorina Margareta,” grabbing her extended hand like a frantic alcoholic grasping at the next drink, he gushed, “De pleasure is ola mine! Mei car is’a waiting just out’a side, shall we go? Our production office is very near, “Come! Come!”

In that terrible second in time, she glanced back at me– the pained look in her eyes indelibly imprinting itself on my soul.

Then they were gone. I felt as if my life had just ended. I felt suddenly cold… feeling emotions I had never dreamed of feeling. It was as if life itself had been ripped from my reality, leaving me suspended in a brutal moment of emptiness.

As I glanced at Mimo, he sighed, “Per la Madonna… are you all right?”

As I exhaled the breath I had been holding… I mumbled, “Judas Priest! Nothing like that has ever happened to me!”

“Ah… something molto strano did just heppen!”

“God! Tell me about it!”

The sudden tap on my left shoulder felt like an electric shock. Turning reflexively, I stared into the overly-mascaraed eyes of the lady from the end of the bar.

The wrinkled face smiled knowingly, saying softly, “Dear yunga man. Yoo hev a poweful desitino! Though in dis moment, you tink all is’a losted to you.”

Her wrinkled and strangely warm fingers touched my left cheek as she continued, “Noting pre-ordained is’a ever losted. Yoo weel find your love again… in de’ Piazza Navona. Not to worry!”

She winked, coquettishly, then moving like a much younger woman, was out the door.

“Dear God!” I mumbled. “What was that all about?”

“Caro mio. What was any of this about? I have been in dis bar for twenty five years… bot’ de last five minutes…?” he just shook his head.

As I sat with my head in my hands, he said, “Dat old woman… she is never wrong. If she says, Piazza Navona… dat is where some kind of magic will happen. Guaranteed!”

Still in shock, I turned and reached for the glass Margaret had touched moments before. As my fingers greedily wrapped themselves around it, they immediately glowed with a faint violet light. I suddenly felt a sudden electrical shock as the glass fell from my fingers, to be miraculous capture by Mimo’s magical bartender ability.

For weeks following the strange experience, I found myself growing increasingly obsessed, going to the Piazza Navona so often, the waiters in the street cafes all knew me as Il pazzo Americano, having learned of my obsession.

After weeks of observing my oddly obsessive behavior, Charley, my boss, confronted me. I did my best to explain what I thought had occurred. And he, having many contacts, graciously called around, at last discovering that the Italian director, whose name I recalled from the bar, had been involved in a dramatic ‘imbroglio’ with an American actress in his office a few weeks earlier.

In traditional Italian style, he had tried to take her clothes off, and in defense, she had struck him in the head with something from his desk. He was all right, yet the ensuing legal threats had forced the young lady’s agent to call in some long-owed-favors from friends at the American Embassy, and he and the actress were ‘middle-of-the-night guests’ on Alitalia. All Charley had been able to discover was that the flight was to L.A. International.

The Rome Questura di Policia would not share the lady’s name, and admonished Charley to cease further investigation. Having lived in Rome for over thirty years, he patiently advised me to wisely… drop it.

I, of course, could not and continued exploring any and every avenue of investigation with friends in LA, including the Hollywood IMDb site, which, though displaying pictures of several Margarets, her incredible face was simply not there.

Aside from innumerable trips to the Piazza Novanna, waiting for something; anything that would somehow validate the cryptic and prophetic words of the aged crone in the bar, I had begun to know with dreaded certainty, we would never meet again.

Late one evening, I heard Charley shout, “Mark. You mind working late tonight?”

“Like how late, and on what?”

“There’s a ‘shoot’ tonight, across town. Marcia’s got an interview with some Swedish actress and some models for an American flick. She’ll need some shots.”

“Nothin’ better to do after midnight– just sleep,” I answered, sarcastically. “Ok.”

“Great. Piazza Navona, eleven thirty.”

“Got it!” Only vaguely aware he had said, Piazza Navona.

Sitting at an outside table in the century old Pizzeria where I had wasted endless hours over the past months, I thought about my time in the eternal city; long lauded as the city of mystery, romance, and historical culture. Mama Roma had indeed gifted me with a wealth of experience in photo-journalism, and I had achieved the level of experience I had come for. However, the Eternal Lady had left me with a degree of unresolved bitterness.

Like the proverbial ‘old penny’ my obsession reared her painful head. I again flashed on the incredible experience of months earlier, remembering how Roma had with sadistic glee snatched from my grasp, what might have been.

I stared up at the four ancient gods staring down at me from their brilliant marble stations in the corners of the famous Bernini Fountain of Four Rivers. These four ancient gods were trusted by thousands of gullible minds to assert ineffable powers over their yet hoped for destinies.

Suddenly, feeling a renewed surge of anger, knowing that for a time I had joined this classic mélange of hopeful naïve souls. In my moment of personal ironic contempt, I couldn’t help it; I burst out laughing, not caring how ridiculous I must appear to the surprised tourists around me.

I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, “I didn’t think you drank! What’s so damned funny, Marco?”

Turning to look up at the smiling face of Marci Fontana, I said, “Oh, hell, just thought of something really ridiculous.” Then, “How long’s this thing gonna take?”

“Don’t have a clue,” she said, “I just spoke to the film’s AD, and he said the lady’s in her makeup trailer and will be ready in ‘bout a half hour.”

“So, sit,” I said.

Marcy placed her things on the table and started to sit, when, suddenly, something in my left shoulder screamed in agony. I jumped to my feet as if I had been attacked by… something.

“What the hell, Marko? Sei pazzo?”

Rubbing the burning feeling my shoulder, I mumbled in pain, “Don’t know what that was. Felt like an electric shock!”

“Well, there’s nothing on your shoulder now.”

Glancing around, as if expecting to see something, or … someone… I suddenly recalled the old lady in the bar tapping me on my shoulder. I’d never thought about it, but it had felt like an electrical shock.

In the same instant, toward the north end of the piazza and moving in my direction, I now saw a short stalky figure. Someone I had not seen for a long time.

“Mimo?”

And it looked as if he was actually heading toward where I now stood. I recalled that during our frequent late night conversations about my obsession, he had come to know of my obsessive ‘hangout’, as I had come to call it.

I was about to wave but could not help noticing that a few feet to his left, stood a tall girl with very long blond hair. It looked like she might be with him... but she turned away as if looking for someone.

I stood stark still. For a moment I felt something I never expected to ever again feel. It was as if hope had somehow found its way into my reality.

Seconds passed. I didn’t dare breathe.

Could it… could it be? My inner, disappointed lover

anguished in soul-felt apprehension.

Suddenly, I knew Mimo had seen me. He shouted, “Marco! Marco, ho trovato la Margaret!” pointing excitedly off to his left, obviously shouting something at her, since she turned, staring in shocked realization at the direction in which he now pointed.

The name exploded in my head, and it felt like everything around me had stopped. The world now moved in slow-motion. My breath caught in my throat. For a moment I couldn’t breathe.

In the same awkward moment, I felt a hand on my shoulder, “Hey Mark, you okay?” Marcy asked, “First you say something shocked you, now you just stand staring into space looking like… like you’ve seen a–

“– A ghost!” I gasped at last catching a breath which I again held as though fearing if I breathed, the entire charade would simply vanish… as she had the last time.

Mimo had the girl by the elbow now, obviously speaking, as he pointed directly at me. Bringing her hand to her mouth, it looked as if for a few seconds she wasn’t certain what to do. Then hesitantly, as if not being certain what she was seeing, she began to walk slowly toward me. After a few steps, she raised a hand tentatively, as hoping to catch my attention.

In my unreality, or whatever the hell it was, I could not move. I stood rooted to the spot, fearing that if I shouted or even waved, I might destroy the illusion and…

She suddenly stopped. Mimo was at her side now. He said something as he gently took her elbow and began to gently guide her in my direction.

Suddenly, whatever had been holding me captive, again made me aware of its presence on my shoulder. Except now, it felt like a warm hand gently caressing the spot.

As I took my first step from the odd imprisonment of the previous moments, everything around me disappeared. All that remained was the tall, blond, extraordinary illusion, who now seemed to glide magically toward me.

Mino stood still now, simply observing what he might have set in motion.

When she was a few yards away, she stopped. I did too.

We both stood suspended in a frozen moment out of time.

After what seemed an eternity, she slowly extended a hand.

I knew my legs had not moved, yet we were immediately standing arm’s distance apart. My hand, with a mind of its own, reached for hers. As our fingertips gently collided in an exquisite moment of what felt like Home… I stared into eyes in which a strange and magical violet light now flickered in radiant brilliance. As quickly as it had come, it was gone.

I was left, staring into the familiar blue green pools of wondrous perfection that had long remained as my obsession, even in dreams.

In our moment of unreality, I heard her whisper, “When… when I saw you… and you didn’t move… I thought maybe you had forgotten.”

As I hungrily enfolded her in my arms, I whispered, “I have thought of you every second of every day since you disappeared. When I saw you a moment ago, I was afraid if I moved… you would just… disappear again.

“Oh, dear, dear Mark. My Mark. I’ve thought of nothing but you since that magical moment that I know neither of us will ever understand. Actually,” she chuckled, softly… “you ruined me for anyone else in the universe.”

Staring into those incredible eyes, I had to ask, “How did you find me?”

She sighed, “After not being able to eat, sleep or even work, I finally found the courage to get a flight to Rome. I’ve been here for a week, and though I was sure Mimo would know how to find you, I couldn’t remember where his bar was. I finally stumbled on it less than an hour ago. And he told me that…” she smiled, “that some old fortune-teller said you would find your love in the Piazza Navona. He said you had been coming here for months.”

“I had almost stopped coming,” I said, softly, “but my boss sent me on a photo-shoot tonight, otherwise…”

“I would have found you,” she whispered, “even if I had to stay here for the rest of my life.”

As I drew her close, feeling like my heart would explode in unprecedented joy, I heard a sudden and amazing sound.

Staring into her unbelievably beautiful blue green eyes I suddenly understood the sound.

It was two hearts now beating … as One.

Somewhere… way off in the shadows of memory… I heard:

“Nothing dat is pre-ordained can ever be lost. Yoo weel find your love in de’ Piazza Navona. Not to worry!”

The Goddess of Serendipity will always find you… even when you no longer trust Her.