When in Rome

ALSO BY LIAM CALLANANThe Cloud AtlasAll SaintsListen and Other StoriesParis by the Book An imprint of Penguin Random House LLCpenguinrandomhouse.comCopyright © 2023 by Liam CallananPenguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.DUTTON and the D colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATAhas been applied for.ISBN 9780593184073 (hardcover)ISBN 9780593184097 (ebook)Cover design by Kaitlin KallCover images; sky by Nico De Pasquale Photography via Getty images; Rome street by Mike Cerreiro via Trunk ArchiveBOOK DESIGN BY LORIE PAGNOZZI, ADAPTED FOR EBOOK BY MOLLY JESZKEThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.pid_prh_6.0_142813756_c0_r0 CONTENTSCoverAlso by Liam CallananTitle PageCopyrightDedicationEpigraphPrologoPart Ii. Old Campusii. Il Convento di Santa Gertrudisiii. Fontana dell’Acqua Paolaiv. Piazza Cavourv. Villa Pamphilivi. The Rare Book and Manuscript Libraryvii. Via MarguttaPart IIi. In Flightii. La Fontana delle Tartarugheiii. Pignetoiv. Testacciov. TerminiPart IIIi. In Caso di Emergenzaii. Salvator Mundiiii. La Cappella di Beata Vergine Maria di Loreto a Fiumicinoiv. The Eternal CityRingraziamentiAbout the Author_142813756_ TO MOM AND DAD You walk close to your dreams.—ELEANOR CLARK, ROME AND A VILLA (1950) PROLOGOSeptember 2019TODAY IS DIFFERENT FOR SO many reasons, but chiefly this: the city has decided, as she has, that Rome is precisely where she is supposed to be.Claire will try to communicate this to Monica. Best of friends for thirty-four years, business partners for thirty; they’re telepathic, or should be, but these past weeks since Claire left the States for the second time, it’s been messy, and it’s taken Claire a while to sort things out.But now they are. They weren’t last month. Not even last week. But today, Claire’s changed. Inside. Outside. Thanks to Rome. She has its key in her pocket. After this past summer, it’s her city now.Except this one part—this one corner bar, the counter where you stand to sip the espresso you painstakingly ordered (not knowing that simply asking for a caffè would get you the same thing), at this bar, the narrow counter feels like the province of men. She’s never seen a woman standing there, not dressed as she is. But today, Claire stands, orders, waits, and studies the wall behind, where shelves bear not syrups but spirits.Paolo, the barista, starts to smile at her as he always does, like they were lovers once but parted on good terms. Today, though, he catches himself.“Signorina,” he says. “You look different!” She smiles. “You look good!” He smiles.They have tried, and try, different things. Signora, which feels too old. Suora, which isn’t quite right but still causes her to swoon slightly, because the word, short as it is, has sweep, and whenever he said it, she felt like he’d just dipped her to the floor.So, Signorina—but it’s too jangly and bright and diminutive. And also too young; it’s impossible for him to say it to her without a smile. Some weeks ago, she’d finally offered him her name, which he accepted and then never used. Too intimate, apparently. But for her to use his felt totally natural.“Paolo,” she says. She would like Monica to meet Paolo. She would like Monica to meet everyone she’s met in Rome. Maybe then Monica would understand. Claire tries explaining this to Paolo, but it’s no use, and she retreats, condenses. I would like you to meet an old friend of mine, she wants to say, but, like always, her limited fluency truncates this into something more emphatic. “Meet my old friend.”Paolo peers around her, as though the friend is there.No, no: she waves her hands to erase what she’s said. Too late.“How many grandchildren does your friend have?” Paolo replies, and smiles again.The smile discounts the jab, but still, she’s surprised: Google told her earlier that vecchia amica means—“Very old friend, yes,” Paolo says in English.“No, like ‘good friend.’ Not old. Fifty-two.”Paolo says the next part with his eyes—Fifty-two is plenty old—and then shrugs, says he would like to meet her. Now his real work begins. He taps the coffee scoop clean. Back in the States, the signature sound of the coffee bar is not the hiss of the espresso machine but the hammering of the scoop to clear it of old grounds. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Hammering, hammering, as though the baristas were building a house or recycling steel.When it was the other way around, when it was Claire correcting Paolo’s English and not him her Italian, the word in question was fluffy. That’s how he’d described another customer’s voice once.“Her voice, this is very fluffy.”“No, Paolo, fluffy means ‘soft’ and ‘light.’ Airy. Gentle.”“So I am right?” Paolo had said or meant. In English, what he’d said was, So I am precise? And Claire had laughed because absolutely nothing in her life then, least of all Rome, was precise. Everything, from the final cab fare to the number of tomatoes or cherries—or, really, precisely what would finally wind up in her market bag—to her confidence that, at age fifty-two, she’d finally, fully decided how to spend every day of the rest of her life, was approximate.Paolo’s smile is active now, lit from within. He has told her his age—forty-five—and she does not believe him. He looks to be her daughter’s age. Dorothy is twenty-nine. Paolo is maybe thirty. Thirty-five. But when he smiles like this, he is no longer thirty-five, nor even forty-five. He is the right age.“What do you call your grandmother?” he jokes. “When does she arrive?” He slides the saucer and tiny cup to her, and after that, a small, elegant caddy of sugar packets,