Jasper wasn't aware he had been walking and blinked as he turned a small street corner to find the Pantheon lunging out at him, squat and dark and indescribably impressive it jerked him back from his reverie. He was sure he hadn't noticed his feet moving, his mind had been filled with thoughts of Giulia, they crowded out everything else, squashing usual thoughts until he barely noticed they were there. Hunger, thirst and encroaching sunburn were reduced to grains of sand in an ocean of Red-headed, yellow-dressed, sun-kissed smiles and pale blue eyes. He reflected on how un-Italian her features were and made a mental note to ask her about it once they were better acquainted, though that note was quickly drowned at the thought of how becoming better acquainted with her was now a reality and not just a pipe dream entertained over the rim of a cold beer.
His stomach grumbled loudly enough for thoughts of hunger to momentarily make themselves bright enough for him to take notice. He frowned and looked around him. It was a shame that the restaurants in front of the Pantheon were all overpriced tourist traps, it really would have been a wonderful place to sit for lunch, but it wasn't worth spending twenty Euros on a pizza he could get for five in the restaurant under his flat. When he had first moved to Rome, before he had understood just how cheap Rome could be those restaurants were his go to spots and he'd spend hours sitting and watching the chaos in the Pantheon square. Horses and carts pushed their way through the teeming crowds of tourists and performers, Italian teenagers skulked and smoked by the central fountain and a river of visitors flowed in and out of the ancient Roman church. Pilgrims, nuns, monks and endless tourists buffed the marble entrance way yet it always stunned Jasper how quiet the enormous hall was once you got inside. The awe-inspiring exterior made you want to gasp in amazement but the even more impressive interior had a way of crushing any outward exaltations and leaving you struck down with nothing but amazement. The loudest sounds inside came from the rustling of clothes rather than the clamour of voices. That and the panicked beating of the occasional trapped pigeon. The square blocks of marble decorating the rounded interior of the dome drew the eye to the glowing Oculus which perpetually shone down on the gathered masses below, illuminating portions of the brightly decorated walls. The reds, golds and blacks of the church walls contrasted starkly with the almost naked looking dome, creating a discordant harmony synonymous of the building itself and conjuring an atmosphere that reminded Jasper far more of the Pagan Temple that it was designed to be rather than the Catholic Church it was pretending to be now.
He stood watching as long as his stomach would allow him to then moved off on his way to find somewhere to sate it. As he pushed through the crowds he kept one arm out to part the seas of people and the other subconsciously resting on his wallet as was the habit of any seasoned ex-pat in Rome. He had never been pickpocketed but everyone heard the stories gleefully swapped by bitter bar patrons about so-and-so who had had his phone wallet and underwear stolen right out from underneath him. It was mostly overblown rubbish of course but it was enough to just make you a little cautious. He made his way through quickly, pausing briefly to watch a cellist playing a gorgeous version of one of Bach's 1st cello suite, he didn't know that was what it was called but he recognised the tune and smiled to himself as he moved on. The square was too hot to be standing in that afternoon anyway, even the Italian teenagers were retreating into the shade of the Pantheon's massive portico to puff away on their vaping machines.
Round past the back of the Pantheon Jasper was nearing on where he spent most of his weeks working in his small legal office. He wasn't a lawyer himself, and truthfully he never wanted to be either but the work paid reasonably and he was content to while his days away in the air conditioned office with its high ceilings and stunning view over Piazza Venezia. Just beneath this office though was a little sandwich shop that he felt himself gravitating towards. He was about ninety percent certain that this shop was singlehandedly responsible for him having gained almost two stone in the short time he had been there. The angry Italian 'Pierluigi' who served the sandwiches made the most incredible bread there in his shop, the crust was harder than diamond and scratched the roof of your mouth to pieces but this was immediately soothed by the exquisitely doughy and aerated centre which provided an immediate salve to the crust. This coupled with his go to of Porchetta, spinach and chilli olive paste created a somewhat masochistic lunchtime meal that was second to none in his eyes. Not even the famous 'pizza tagliere' which the Italians enjoyed so much could compare in his eyes.
He managed to fight his way to the front of the teeming crowds, defying his British urge to queue politely as he wanted to be served this century, he managed to catch the man behind the counters eye. He was looking particularly furious at all the people wanting his goods that afternoon, his hooded eyes glowering out from under bushy black eyebrows but he nodded with a slightly softer expression to Jasper and quickly made up his usual sandwich and passed it to him wrapped in a paper bag with a can of ice cold ginger beer plucked from the little drinks fridge under the counter. "Paghi Lunedi" he growled roughly with a voice abused by years of cigarellos.
"Grazie Pierlu" Jasper replied but the man had already turned away to gesture wildly at a woman who was waving a ticket in his face. A stream of expletives floated after Jasper as the door slid shut behind him with a gentle tinkle of the doorbell.
Piazza Venezia was a maelstrom of taxis, buses and scooters, more so than most of the intersections around the city as the road going around the central island was exactly two and a third cars wide, though if an Italian said that they would argue it was perfectly four cars wide and therefore the entire square was constantly soaked in the sound of horns blaring, slammed on by indignant taxis who couldn't understand why noone would get over. Crossing the piazza as a pedestrian was like playing frogger, except the frog is blindfolded, terrified and literally everything is on fire. Jasper made it across without incident, heading down towards the Coliseum on Via dei Fori Imperiali, the road Mussolini had bulldozed half of the Roman forum for so that he could see the Coliseum from his palace window. There was a perfect patch of shade just off the road with a couple of benches and patchy grass which overlooked the ancient forum and Jasper took up his position there. He took the first bite of the sandwich and almost broke two of his teeth off on the hard crust. Jasper smiled, Pierluigi had made the perfect loaf.
He hadn't realised how hungry he had been until that first bite and he had quickly devoured the first half of the sandwich before he looked up to see a man shaking sunglasses at him. He smiled and shook his head through a mouthful of salted pork and spinach but the man didn't leave, instead taking the silence to imply interest and so he started to hold up different pairs of sunglasses. "Very good, you see very good for you" the man said excitedly. Jasper smiled again and tried to swallow but the crust wasn't chewed well enough and would have been like swallowing glass. He assumed the man was Bangaladeshi or Pakistani given his strong accent, but as Jasper's knowledge of that part of the world was extremely limited he wouldn't have stuck by either of those guesses. The man offered him a pair "here, they good for you, I give you excellent price. Yes, excellent price for my friend."
He finally managed to swallow the thick lump of hardened bread and grease and gasped for air as he felt it sliding down his throat. The sunglasses seller looked slightly perplexed but kept going, he really was giving a very good pitch but unfortunately it was one that Jasper had heard a thousand times on that step alone.
"Grazie signor, ma ho molte occhiale." He told the man in his laughably weak Italian. The man was completely unperturbed by how many glasses Jasper had already however and merely switched to Italian himself, but that was so heavily accented that Jasper would have struggled to understand even if he had been a native. "No signor, no grazie" Jasper smiled at him once more but then looked away, pretending to be interested suddenly in the enormous white Vittoriano behind him. The man nobly continued for a few seconds more but then when Jaspers eyes didn't come back to his wares he cut silent mid word and picked them up again, moving on to his next potential patrons as though the failed sale had never even happened. Jasper had found in his short time there that the best way to avoid anyone coming up to you on the street in Rome, and there were plenty of them, was to pretend that you didn't see them. Breaking eye contact seemed to confuse people in Italy, to the people like the sunglasses man it showed disinterest but to an Italian it was just bizarre. Italians, he had found, along with other Mediterranean European citizens valued eye contact much more than those in Northern Europe. It showed interest in a way that was genuine and polite and breaking eye contact with someone who was talking to you was rude as it showed that you were bored of what they had to say. To Italians this was particularly perplexing as every Italian genuinely believes that what they are saying is the most interesting thing in the world. Jasper had often mused that this is why so many of the Italians, particularly those in the south, considered northern Europeans rude and somewhat hostile; because they didn't maintain eye contact as much they were clearly uninterested in them, and being uninterested in an Italian is a complete impossibility.
He happily munched his way through what was left of his sandwich, marvelling at just how covered in flour and grease his fingers were getting and lubricating his throat with the ginger beer. He watched as the busses bounced their way down the street in front him, their horribly soft suspension giving the impression of small boats in a storm as they struggled with the roads not repaired since the romans had built them. The little Vespas fizzed by here too but the road was less busy than most around the area as the Coliseum was closed off to public travel save buses and taxis. Savouring the last mouthful of his sandwich, a particularly heavily laden number 61 bus pulled up opposite him and he smiled as an entire Japanese tour group got out, the bus chassis visibly rising several inches as they belched forward like clowns from a mini. The tour group snaked away as the bus roared off, the few local Italians remaining looking shell-shocked through the window. It rounded the corner and disappeared beneath the glowing white arches of the ancient auditorium. The entire road really was a marvel of brazen arrogance, not only had Mussolini destroyed and/or covered up more than 80% of the various Roman Forums, but to have done it apparently so that he could see the Coliseum from his office was so contemptable it was almost funny. Jasper scoffed as he looked back at the old palace where 'Il Duce' had had his balcony and pushed himself up off the step.
Clapping his hands together he tried to remove the worst of the flour and then absently brushed them against his light cotton trousers, which had little effect other than to leave a couple of greasy hand prints on his thighs. He swore quietly then shrugged and wandered off. He had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with the next few hours of his Saturday, as usually he spent them sitting in Giulia's bar reading and with that off the cards he was at a total loss. Besides his mind was still fogged with thoughts of red hair and a high-pitched laugh. As so often happens though, just as you need a distraction, one willingly comes along. He felt the familiar feeling of his mobile vibrating in his pocket. As was his, admittedly rather strange, habit he pretended to not have felt the notification for a few minutes as he walked back across the roundabout of Piazza Venezia and over to where the surprisingly inconspicuous tram stop was hiding behind a screen of plane trees.
Reaching the tram stop and not seeing any of the lumbering monsters that ran out into the residential zones to the south he plucked his phone from his pocket. He wasn't sure why he always left text messages unread for a few minutes after receiving them. He suspected it was from an ingrained desire not to appear too needy or keen, though in truth it was just quite irritating for friends who needed any sort of urgent response.
J, what you up to? Me and El are in Zara are you nel centro?
Then two minutes later
Oi dickhead look at your phone.
It was from one of his local friends. Emily and Ele were two English teachers he had met about six months into his time in the country. They were a little older than him, but they both had an exuberance that Jasper in his youth struggled to keep up with. Loud and frighteningly good fun to be around they had all become fast friends. He smiled at the phone.
Hi Em, sono in P. Venezia.
He checked his watch, it was only two thirty, plenty of time for a catch up.
I'll come meet you guys there
He glanced up as the familiar clunking rattling and screaming sound of a tram approached the platform. He turned away from the ugly green monster that would have taken him away back towards his house and headed towards the main highstreet of the historical centre.
