The Church of Lost Souls 21
By blighters rock
- 494 reads
When I woke up at around seven Maria was gone.
Walking through the living room I saw a scribbled note on the coffee table next to a 100,000 lira note.
‘Working till 4. Let’s meet here after that. Advance payment for you. Maria xxx’
I went into the kitchen to get some water from a bottle and drank it at the sink. Next thing was tea so I poured some water from the tap into a pan and ignited the flame at the stove.
Out of curiosity I went to the living room, drew a curtain and opened the windowed doors to see if the guy was kipping outside the block opposite. There he was, huddled among some cleverly constructed cardboard shapes.
Looking out I still couldn’t get my head around where I was. There were the Spanish Steps I’d loved so much, now empty but for a few pigeons on an early morning scout.
With the water boiled I emptied it into a cup with a teabag and waited for the brew. Looking around at all the tubes of paint I wondered if I should ask Maria if I could use some of them and get going on some art.
On the few occasions that I felt inspired since leaving school I’d found most creative solace not in art but by writing my diary, recording the highs and lows of the scene in Hastings. That bug had persisted throughout my time in Italy and I’d set down pretty much everything that had happened in my red book.
I thought of Mum’s letter and decided I’d go to the post office and get an envelope and some stamps to send it. She’d be happy to know I was safe. Maybe she could come and stay at the flat when I’d found my feet.
Thoughts turned to Sofia and I wondered if I should go back to the campsite to see if she was still there. There was also Jesus to think about, the owner having asked that I redo him if I stayed in Rome.
I heard some commotion outside and went to the window. The homeless man was being pushed about by several men who appeared to have a vested interest in his beating. I couldn’t think why they’d want to thrash him for sleeping rough but this was the culture here. They’re a very proud lot, the Romans, and rightfully so, but to kick a man when he was so close to the edge between life and death could only ever be wrong. The old man from the block watched with a walking stick as the small crowd of men became more aggressive.
There wasn’t much I could do about it up there on the third floor but I did shout down at them as they lunged in with a barrage of kicks and thumps.
When they looked up at me I noticed that the two idiots were among them.
‘Hey pezzentelle!’ they shouted.
With this distraction, the homeless guy got up and ran off as quick as he could, leaving his belongings to be kicked all over the place by the disgusted mob as they dispersed.
I closed the doors and went inside, physically shaking. Now they knew where I was.
I had to confront them so I grabbed the keys and raced down the stairs but when I got outside they were nowhere to be seen. The place was very quiet so I gathered up as much of the homeless guy’s stuff and stuck it into his bag, which was badly damaged but held weight with the dirty old clothes. Placing the bag by a set of benches I hoped the homeless guy was watching from a vantage point or that he would return and collect them shortly.
Getting some fresh bread from the baker I went back up to the flat.
With the two idiots knowing where I was I wanted to get out as quickly as possible so I elected to forego an egg sandwich and get the bus back to the campsite. After brushing my teeth and putting water to my hair and face I was off like a shot.
Scuttling to the bus depot I took a quick coffee with Maurizio at the café and then caught the bus.
When I got there the owner wanted to see me. He had plans for Jesus, he said.
Stepping inside the taverna with him I saw that Jesus had been lathered with a fresh skim of sand and cement in reparation of the cracked surface.
‘I want Diablo,’ he said, ‘no Jesus. Diablo, si?’
‘You want to replace Jesus with the devil at The Last Supper?’ I asked.
‘Si, Diablo, no Jesus. Is OK? You do for me?’
I could hardly say no. It was his place, after all. ‘Si, OK,’ I said, ‘Diablo and no Jesus. I do next week, when this is dry.’
‘Fine,’ he said.
With that settled I started walking to Sofia’s tent but I knew she wouldn’t be there and she wasn’t.
I could see an imprint of where she and Paolo had slept on the grass, and the ripped out turf caused by the pegs pulled in haste after he’d been robbed.
Making my way back to the main building in order to leave, the girl from reception waved at me through a window with a bit of paper in her hand.
‘Message for you, Mr James,’ she said as I approached the window.
I thanked her and got on my way.
One was from Sofia. She was staying, you guessed it, at Il Pezzentelle for about a week. Paolo was also in Rome, she wrote, staying with joke shop Maria.
‘Come and get me when you’re not too busy with Maria! You know where to find me. Sofia x’
The other message was from the police. ‘James. Please call police. Urgent.’ There was a number to call.
I wondered whether I should ask the owner why he’d commissioned the man to bless the oven with childrens’ bones but decided against it. I would tell the police everything I knew and they could deal with it as they saw fit.
It was great to know that Sofia and Paolo were in town but it was also a little creepy that she was staying at the pensione. It was cheap but why would she want to stay there?
Joke shop Maria had presented all sorts of problems between us and yet here was Paolo with Switzerland blown out of the water and staying in Rome with her, the gatekeeper of the cult we couldn’t shake off.
While it made no sense at all I looked forward to seeing them and maybe splashing out on a Full English and Guinness with the two Marias.
On the journey back into town I decided I wouldn’t paint Jesus as the devil. I could give the owner 10,000 lira, more than enough for that which was paid to paint him.
When I got back to the bus depot I realized I’d forgotten Mum’s letter so I returned directly to the flat, got it and went to the post office to put it on its way.
With that done I grabbed a few pizza slices and sat on my old stump of concrete next to the depot.
By this time I was acutely aware that whenever I was out and about I feared bumping into the two idiots. Ever since coming back from Naples they’d been a complete pain in the backside. Maybe they were just local hoodlums who saw themselves as guardians of that particular area. From what I’d seen earlier, those without domicile were not welcome. They’d assaulted me and Sofia and now they were trying to sweep the streets clean of homelessness.
The one thing I couldn’t understand was why they kept calling me pezzentelle. Maybe it was local slang for homeless and they’d seen me going into the joke shop in search of The Church of Lost Souls. Maybe it was really was a place ‘for the forgotten ones’, as the old woman had said. Maybe they knew something about the church that I didn’t. It would certainly please Sofia if I could find out and it may even help to put the whole thing behind me. That said I’d already been to the police twice about joke shop Maria and then there was the phone call I had to make about the bones. If indeed it was the crackpot cult behind the bones, I’d be left with the unenviable prospect of having to choose whether to go to the police to inform them.
The chances of striking up reasonable conversation with the two oafs weren’t good but I wasn’t going to start hiding now. If I was going to stay in Rome there was no way I was going to skulk about. I’d need to confront them and have it out. One way or another, the next time I saw them, I’d talk to them, and possibly get beaten up.
I felt for the notes in my pocket and lifted them out with some coins. I’d have to make the call sometime. Now was as good a time as any.
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Comments
There's nothing worse than
There's nothing worse than being in a country and not fully understanding the language.On to next part.
Jenny.
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