So first off, I'm going to pretend that this is totally timely and that Rome's birthday isn't actually celebrated April 21. M'kay? M'kay.
But this is just in time for The Goliath Beetle's birthday! She is a fantastic writer, friend, and person, and I'm so happy I know her and have her in my life. Obviously, I don't write Romano as well as you do, but I hope you like this all the same, m'dear.
Finally, human and nation names are used on a sort of interchangeable basis here because, well, they're both Italy and I can't run around calling them the same thing for 2,000 words.
Veneziano arrives early. Veneziano always arrives early: it's his day, his celebration, his heart as much as it is Romano's, and he wants to spend the entire day with him. He takes the train from Venice through the Po valley in the north (which America swears looks just like his prairie states) past the Apennines and the sprawling marble jewel of Firenze into gritty, jam-packed Roma Termini station, where Romano insists on picking him up in his shiny red Fiat. Not because Veneziano can't navigate Rome on his own—it's his soul, his home, as much as his brother's—but because the station layout frustrates him. ("But why can't you organize things nicely, like we do in Bologna?" "Shut up—chaos is the only way things make any sense.")
They drive past tarp-covered tents full of €5 shoes and hole-in-the-wall neon-sign-lit Istanbul kebab dives, Feliciano describing every moment of his railroad journey as Romano screeches past the gated doors of Santa Maria Maggiore, which shine in the morning sunlight.
"—And then this really really really beautiful lady came on the train carrying this super cute baby and I just had to pinch his big chubby cheeks and tickle all his cute little toes—and talk to the lady, of course. She was really pretty. Really really pretty. Oh, and then the train left only ten minutes late, so I almost made it here on time. And there was this cute couple sitting across from me—"
"Sisisisi." Romano whizzes past a group of tourists cowering on the piazza and rests one hand on the wheel. "Do you ever think of anything besides pretty women and cute babies?"
His brother puts a finger to his chin, thinks a moment, and shrugs.
"But they were so cute. You would have loved them."
"You didn't answer the question."
They arrive at Re di Roma just after nine in the morning. Somehow, the piazza already stirs and buzzes with the chatter of old couples sitting together on park benches, university students bumming cigarettes off each other, and mothers pushing children in strollers, all of whom Feli waves to, of course. Lovino watches them instead and lets his brother talk, with his voice and his hands—his whole body, in fact—for him. He's a little shy for the chatting thing, but he does smile, hands in the pockets of his dark jeans, when he doesn't think anyone is looking. ("Look, you're smiling. See, all these people are so wonderful—don't grumble at me, you know it's true.")
Romano may grumble, but his brother can read him well.
He does love his people. And they know it.
They stop at Pompi for tiramisu, Romano opting for original and Feli getting strawberry. (He's always loved strawberries. And he's sweet like one, though Lovi would probably never say that to his face.) They sit on the little white tables outside the shop to eat. The sunlight beating down between buildings and through nearby allies makes tiny beads of sweat form beneath the collar of Romano's red button-down. They're coming, he knows—tourist season, bringing crowds of crumpled map-sporting, gelato-scarfing Brits and Americans; and summer with its stifling hot winds blowing even in the deepest metro stations. Only the days separating today, 21 April, from the beginning of May holds both nightmares off.
His brother probably has more to worry about than he does, given Venice's enormous popularity and symbolic capital. At least the sparkling canals running through his heart can absorb some of the heat, though they draw the tourists in crowds. Double-edged swords, those clandestine channels of water flowing beneath bridges and between artificial brick platforms holding up San Marco and San Moisè and Santa Maria della Salute and all the other beautiful churches rising onion-domed on the splintered Venetian horizon.
But neither nation worries as both spoon every last drop of coffee and flake of cocoa dust into their mouths.
Today, they can forget their problems, individual, shared, and otherwise. They can forget their worries and their woes, intrinsic pangs of nationhood.
Because today is a day to celebrate.
Romano doesn't want to go to the parade at Circo Massimo. He finds it both stupid and unnecessary. But Feli begs, and he can't say no to those bright eyes of his brother's, though he certainly peppers his eventual "fine, whatever," with plenty of complaints. They hop back in the car after finishing their tiramisu (and after Veneziano has ordered an espresso at the bar—to drink with his packet of sugar, the older Italy scoffs), and Romano parks haphazardly off San Giovanni, deciding against getting his car anywhere near a packed parade. He stares up at the pure white basilica, the cathedral of his heart, with his hand shielding his eyes as they circumvent the piazza toward the Colosseum. The summer string of vendors hasn't yet taken up its three-month post in front of Santa Scala, the Holy Stairs, and Romano secretly, silently loves the quiet and calm (as quiet and calm as one of the most famous and busiest parts of Rome can get, at least) and the bright blue April sky and the puffy white clouds behind the central figure of Jesus Christ mounted on the top of San Giovanni, holding one hand up and bearing a cross with the other, and everything radiates beauty and wonder and all the other words his brother vocalizes for him. They make a good team like that. Romano feels the deep things that his brother can put into words, and Feli describes things in a kind of verbal art that Lovi can appreciate like nothing else.
They stroll along past the Basilica di San Clemente, another of Rome's nigh-thousand churches, up past the heart of Ancient Rome—the Colosseum, the Forum, the Arch of Constantine—toward the Circus Maximus. They could have taken the metro, of course, but Lovino is enjoying the sunshine too much to suggest traveling underground. (Besides, then they'd have to change lines at Termini, and he knows how much his brother abhors that station.) (And he doesn't feel like forking over the money for metro tickets. Or dealing with practicing pickpockets, even though he could out-steal them any day.)
Both nations sit on the edge of the path at the top of the park and watch the people dressed in gladiator costumes—some actually impressive and well-crafted, Romano has to admit, though not aloud—process through the sandy, gravelly ditch inside the ruin and up through the busy streets surrounding it. If Lovi closes his eyes, he can hear chariot wheels spinning and churning rocks and pebbles, hurling through the air beneath the hooves of thoroughbred horses. Even when he opens them, he can see the cavernous concrete castles stretching along the Palatine Hill straight ahead, yawning and looming like giants awakening from long naps. And in the middle of them, he can imagine the cave where his namesake—well, his grandfather's, at least—sucked milk from the she-wolf Lupa, gathering his strength and waiting to channel it into the empire he founded.
The empire whose heart still beats inside him.
Night comes sooner than either expect, but just as quickly as Romano has hoped all day long. He's enjoyed the sunshine and the daylight well enough, but the nightlights shimmering throughout his city make his heart beat even faster, almost thudding clean out of his chest. The sun sets as the brothers gobble down pasta oozing with carbonara sauce and sip dark red Aglianico wine in their favorite cafe over their usual utensils argument. ("You idiot—eating without a spoon makes you look like a redneck." "Ve, but that's too many things in my hands at once and I can't talk as well.") Then, just as the Imperial Fora begin to light up, Romano and Veneziano walk back toward the Colosseum past Piazza Venezia and the Altare della Patria (or pisciatoio nazionale, national urinal, as Lovino likes to call it), stopping in front of one of the wreathed statutes of Augustus. Feli points to the tricolore-ribboned laurel placed in front of the statue and smiles at the Latin. The language lives on in Romano's ears as he listens to his brother read aloud the inscription commemorating the day's celebration. He smiles a little, mostly glad that the dark hides his happy tears.
They pass the Forum again, stopping to lean over the metal railing and look down into the ancient soul illuminated with light blue lights. Lovi thinks about saying something but decides to save his words until they've walked past cracked stone basilicas and freeze-frame, still-life ruins, up the concealed steps leading to the top of the Capitoline Hill. There, in the middle of the hill between the twin statues of Castor and Pollux, he speaks.
"Buon compleanno, nonno."
Happy birthday, grandfather.
He doesn't shrug off the arm Feli puts around his shoulders (though he probably would any other day). In fact, he considers returning the gesture, soon deeming it too sappy even for today. Still, deep down, he enjoys the smell of cinnamon gelato his brother seems to radiate, along with the warmth of his body beside his own.
The fireworks start soon after they sit down. Purple and gold explode like supernovae in the sky, bright enough for all of Lazio—Latium—to see, Romano thinks. Big enough that, he figures, even his people on the shimmering, seashell-studded sands of Anzio—Antium—can see them playing off the surface of the sea. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but neither does the feeling of his grandfather's arms encircling them both, and today, he doesn't care to distinguish between what his heart is making up and what his brain is sensing.
The difference doesn't matter, he thinks as he leans back beside Feli, looks into the sky, and watches the blurred fireworks until the last fizzle out early in the morning.
Notes:
April 21, 753 BC is considered the traditional founding day or birthday of Rome. The Italians celebrate as I've described here, to the best of my knowledge. It's kinda funny—I was studying abroad in Rome this past semester, and it just worked out that I spent Rome's birthday in Foligno, not Rome itself. xD I was out in Albano that night, though, and I could definitely hear and see the fireworks. (Although it's quite the stretch to say you would have the same experience out in Anzio/Antium.) Plus, they leave up some of the decorations (bleachers by the Imperial Fora, laurel wreaths by the statue of Augustus en route to the Colosseum, etc.) up for a while, so I got to see those in the weeks following.
Bologna, according to my history professor, is the best-administrated city in all of Italy. I would have to agree. It beats the chaos of Roma Termini any day (I too hate Termini).
Oh, finally, natives are probably going to have to correct me on this one, but I've heard that you're supposed to eat pasta with a spoon (in addition to a fork) in the south, Sicily in particular, but without in the north. You're considered a hick if you mess this one up. I never experienced or noticed this myself, but a priest I know did. It's also entirely possible I got those flip-flopped. Can you tell I miss my lovely Italy?
One last buon compleanno to The Goliath Beetle! (: