Philip Nutman - Cities of Night

It was nine o’clock.

The entrance hall of Stazione Termini was largely deserted as Meredith entered the doors opposite the huge clock that hung above the electronic information board. It was nine twenty-seven the mute display informed him. His feet had started to hurt. It looked like coming here was a bad decision. There was no one around except a gypsy woman with a small child in her arms and a comatose wino sprawled beside the photo booth near track seven. The woman saw him and started in his direction.

As he turned to go, the woman grabbed hold of his left arm, pulling frantically at his jacket. Like other cities the world over, Rome had its underclass. New York had its legion of homeless, London a rag-tag army of alcoholics and meths drinkers, and Paris was a chain gang to its migrant workforce of Moroccans. Rome, however, was infested like a flea-ridden junk yard dog with gypsies such as this wretch clutching at his clothes, beseeching him for money in whatever dialect she spoke.

He jerked away. She continued to claw at him undeterred.

“Get off!”

She paused for a beat, then continued her litany of despair, and his temper erupted.

“Fuck off!” He pushed her away. She stumbled, nearly dropping the child.

With a screech she flew at him, pounding his back with her free arm, her tone now abusive. The child started to cry loudly. Meredith strode towards the nearest exit, but the gypsy was persistent, and the blows continued to rain down on his back.

He stopped suddenly, stepped to the right and turned, swiping her hand away, glaring at her, his eyes inflamed with rage.

“I said, get the fuck off me , you diseased cunt!”

Like a slap, his words silenced the woman for an instant; then she started to coo as she placed her arms protectively around the child, a calm expression of total hatred directed at him. The filthy brat was silenced by its mother’s soft sounds. She turned, moving away at a measured pace. He watched her go, unnerved by the sudden outburst. Then the gypsy stopped, turning to face him. He took a step back as if pushed by the force of her expression, an expression which went beyond loathing, beyond hate. But there was something else he could not read. A glimmer of fear was apparent and… revulsion? She began to babble, then spat two words at him.

“Il morto.”

Even with his limited command of Italian, he understood.

Dead man.

She spat at her feet then ran towards the nearest exit, the words hanging in the air.

Dead man.

The frozen moment was broken by a coughing fit that swept up from his gut to constrict his throat, his heart juddering in response, legs rubbery as gravity increased its pull, making him stumble to the nearest wall for support, the hundred yards elongating as his sense of space expanded, rolled, a wave of nausea hitting his system in a huge spasm. He closed his eyes to halt the roller coaster motion and took a deep breath, counting slowly to ten. He opened them, coughed and tried to focus, blinking rapidly.

Go. Get out of Rome , his instincts screamed, return to London . To familiar territory. But he would be lonely there too. Lonely. Lost. As he always had been.

No. No, he would find a kindred spirit to ease the emptiness with, someone with whom he could forget his troubles, albeit temporarily. There was one other place he could try — the porno cinema near the pensione . There he was certain he would find what he was looking for; there among the other lost souls would be a fellow spirit in search of release, fulfillment.

He forced himself to smile, smile and regain his former optimism. His consciousness pirouetted with the slapstick grace of a clown. It worked. A ray of optimistic sunlight penetrated the storm clouds of depression that approached, breaking the darkness up into jagged shards as he pulled the bottle from his bag, and his internal horizon lightened further as he took a deep pull, coughing as the scotch caught at the back of his throat. He needed to sit down. The café where the Dachau woman served was opposite, its light an island in the darkness pushing against the glass wall of the exit. He lurched away on shaky legs. He had to keep it together. One step at a time. He negotiated the revolving door and made it over the tram tracks to the café without falling flat on his face.

The bar that dominated the room was long and thin like the woman who served behind it. She stood looking down at the wood, a ghost of a time not so long past, her thinness painful to observe. The Dachau woman . What had caused her to resemble a victim of the Final Solution? She was white as a sheet, her cheeks deprived of the faintest hint of pink, her eyes the color of bruised mushrooms. If she heard him enter, she did not acknowledge his presence. Neither did the three locals huddled around a TV set in the far corner, their attention consumed by Magnum P.I.

The woman — surely she was thinner than the previous day, but no, that wasn’t possible — continued to look at the counter as Meredith ordered an espresso in his halting command of the language. As she turned to the coffee machine, he noticed the spinal defect which pushed her head forward, explaining her limited movements. She handed him a steaming cup of black liquid with a trembling hand as he slapped down his money and shuffled to the nearest seat, turning his back so he wouldn’t have to look at her funereal visage.

Meredith continued to tremble on the steps of the cinema, his stomach raw from its expulsion. The figures were closer now, and he could see it was the Dachau Woman and the fattest of the bar’s occupants. The man was absently rubbing his crotch as he escorted the emaciated woman, though as they drew nearer, Meredith realized the man was not holding her arm but caressing her ass. The thought of those two in a sweaty sexual embrace did nothing for his nausea. Yet it had been the atmosphere in the bar — or rather the invasion of the whores — which had finalized his resolve to come here. He looked up. The couple stopped by a dimly lit doorway and entered.

Doors. Opening and closing.

They seemed to punctuate every aspect of his life.

A sudden cold draught and explosion of noise from behind pulled Meredith from his thoughts as two of the whores who plied their trade outside the pensione entered the café. They cheerfully stepped to the counter, laughing and joking in a torrent of sound and broad gestures. One lifted her ample bosom to the other and broke into a loud cackle, the other echoing her movements, then joining her friend’s laughter with a deep chuckle.

Each night these women had fractured his sleep with their nonstop chatter and bargaining outside his window. He’d dubbed them The Three Weird Sisters: Miss Piggy, The Vacuum Cleaner — because her mouth, a perfect puckered circle reminded him of the line “nothing sucks like an Electrolux” from a blatantly sexual advertisement for a domestic appliance — and Mother Mary. They stood on the corner by the pensione for over twelve hours at a stretch, gossiping, joking, smoking, spitting, and scratching their fat assess.

The first night he had not been able to sleep before 3:00 AM with the noise coming from the street — initially the wailed hymns of drunks stumbling from the bar down the street, then from the endless chattering of the whores. Periodically a car had drawn up, and he’d heard doors opening, then slamming shut, each vehicle pulling away fast only to return a while later as the cycle of copulation continued throughout the night.

Miss Piggy made a masturbatory motion to the Vacuum Cleaner who laughed again, then whispered to her companion who giggled in reply, pointing at Meredith. The Vacuum Cleaner blew him a kiss then returned to her conversation. The Dachau Woman was pouring two shots of rum without request, obviously a ritual for the whores, who toasted each other, swallowed in one, threw their money down, and departed as they had arrived — loudly.