Sam and Emma pose for a shot on the ancient Appian Way, just a few miles outside the center of Rome.
Along the trail are all kinds of goodies: old estates, 2,000 year old monuments, and just plain beautiful country. We walked for a bout 3-4 miles, stopping along the way to take picture after picture. We had intended to visit to famous Christian Catacombs along the trail, but when we stopped for lunch near the beginning of our excursion, we listened to the advice a local who told us to go a different direction. She said the road was more scenic if we went the way opposite of the Catacombs; we followed her advice, and were mostly pleased--thought I am regretting not seeing the Catacombs. Oh well, I now have another reason to come back to Rome.
You can rent bikes to make this trip, but such a thing didn't work with Abby; the bike rental place does not purposely carry child seats on their bikes, as the road isn't really conducive to that kind of bicycling--too dangerous for kids, they say: if you hit a rock in the right spot, you might catapult your kid across the road. Thus, we walked.
The way is lined with ruin upon ruin.
My girls!
Waiting for the bus in the remote area along the Appian Way. What makes you think Jeffrey is tired? And note Daphne, voted the class clown in the 7th grade, who is often making a face.
Yes, I married WAY above me.
One of the many estates and villas along the way.
Weeds and flowers kept Abby entertained along the way. At one point, she came up with a new word, after smelling a particularly fragrant flower. She said, "Mommy, this is smellifull," apparently trying to express that something smelled very good, combing beautiful with smell.
Emma and Sam, outside a charming Villa. Hope the owner didn't mind that we were trapsing around in his front yard.
If I lived in Rome, and I could afford one of these estates along the Appian, this area might be the perfect place to live; you feel like you're in the country but you're just four miles from all of the wonders of Rome.
A Strange and Tragic Twist to the Day:
We left the Appian Way via bus, and eventually found ourselves at Termini Station: a huge, centralized Bus-Metro-Train station just a mile or so from the Colosseum. We we arrived at the station, Lisa and I needed to use the restroom, but as fate would have it, the restroom that we passed as we got off the metro was being cleaned, so we went up to ground level, and looked for one there. We left the five kids out in front of the station while we went to look the nearest restroom. As we headed back into the station, we noticed a McDonald's just across the street. We knew there would be free, public restrooms there, so we headed that way.
When I arrived, I waited in a line inside the bathroom for an open stall. While I was still waiting in line, I heard Lisa's voice outside in the hallway, "Jeff, are you in there?"
"Yes, still here," I replied, noticing that she seemed a little nervous, but I figured that was because she was worried about the kids waiting in front of the station. A few minutes later a stall finally opened up. In Europe public restrooms are often differently designed than they are in the states: instead of metal partitions (like cubicals) with 12 inches of space beneath the door, and then open-air above the partitions like you see in the states, each "stall" in many European public bathrooms are separate "rooms" about the size of a broom closet with a regular door that completely seals off the space to the outside world.
So, I step into my "room," close the door, and then immediately I hear again from Lisa, who seems irritated and agitated, "Jeff, where are you?"
"I'm in the bathroom," I say, wondering why she is asking that question. I am now a little annoyed, as I sense that she is irritated. I think to myself: It's not like I'm sitting in here reading a book (something I've been known to do at home to optimize every minute of my day--can't stand wasting time on the toilet). As soon as I'm done, I come out of the restroom to find Lisa visibly shaken and angry. I immediately get defensive (some day I'll learn), "Honey, I had to wait forever in a line--I wasn't just sitting in the bathroom."
She doesn't respond, but instead walks briskly out of McDonald's toward the station, as if she cannot wait to leave Mcdonald's. She is first across the street, and then she waits on the sidewalk for me. As I step onto the sidewalk, I can tell something is definitely wrong, and suddenly I wonder if my defensiveness was warranted.
"I think I just witnessed someone getting raped," she blurts out.
What? Now my head is spinning, as I try to process what she just said. How can that be? What do yo mean? Where? Mcdonald's??
She then recounted the story. When she entered the women's bathroom, both "rooms" were occupied. A minute later two additional woman entered the bathroom, and stood behind Lisa. Suddenly the three of them hear what sounds like a tussle going on inside one of the stalls. All three women waiting in line look at each other with strange looks--at first, they're just curious, and then they become slightly concerned, although no one does anything yet.
From the stall, Lisa hears a woman's faint words in Italian, "Aiutare." All three women stand there, and it is Lisa, who doesn't understand a word of Italian, other than "parla Inglese" and "toilette," hears what sounds like the Spanish word "Ayudar," which means "Help." Lisa waits for a moment to process, expecting that one of the two ladies next to hear speaks Italian, and waiting for someone else to act.
The other two women--one of whom was an Italian--remains silent. Finally, Lisa blurts out, "I don't speak Italian but I just heard 'help.' That woman needs help. Someone go get somebody to help. The Italian girl runs to a female cashier, who briskly comes to the bathroom. The tussle behind the door continues. Each of the individual bathroom doors has a lock, which can be unlocked. Unfortunately, the cashier doesn't possess the keys. She runs to get a manager. As she leaves, the bathroom door slams open, and out bursts a man, who, without making contact with Lisa or the two other women standing behind her, walks briskly and pointedly past them, pushing Lisa out of the way with his shoulder. He doesn't run, but instead just appears to be in a hurry. He is out of the restaurant before the manager with the keys returns to bathroom.
Lisa is dazed: Is this really happening? What did just happen? Did I really see this? What else do I do?
Finally, the manager arrives with the keys, but he comes to an open door. The cashier enters the room/stall in question, and there's a woman, who, buttoning her shirt, is visibly shaken but wants nothing to do with the cashier or anyone in the bathroom.
"Please, don't touch me. Dont't help me. I'm fine," she seems to say, and then she briskly walks past Lisa, and goes to her friends in the restaurant.
More confusion. What was this?
Lisa and the manager walk quickly out to the sidewalk to find the man. They see nothing. He has disappeared into a sea of hundreds milling about the station. The woman who yelled "Aiutare" wants nothing to do with any of them, and won't say anything further.
Still dazed and starting to feel the darkness and depravity of what just happened, she comes comes to the men's bathroom for the first time to get me. My response was virtually non-response: "I'm in here." A few minutes later she calls again, as the darkness seeps into her soul, she calls again. I am annoyed.
The reality is that we don't know what happened. The man who had locked himself with a woman inside a woman's bathroom stall had disappeared in broad daylight. The woman who moments earlier had cried for help didn't want to talk. The strangeness and surreal-ness of it all sent Lisa spinning and asking questions that she still continues to ask:
Why didn't I try to stop the man?
Why did he have that smug, confident look on his face when burst from the bathroom?
Why was so he so brazen to commit such a crime in such a crowded location in broad daylight?
What should I have done differently?
Did I let that woman down?
Interestingly, the question that she is not asking, but that haunts me is: what if we had arrived two minutes earlier? After all, Lisa was next in line. Could my wife have been raped at McDonald's while I stood on the other side of the wall?
Chilling. Frightening. Dark. Disgust. Lack of hope for this world. Anger.
That's what I feel when I consider that possibility.
That said, I am grateful that Lisa more than likely made a difference. I don't know for sure if her yelling outside the stall door stopped the man from proceeding, but I suspect it did. Though she continues to question how well she responded, I believes she was a blessing to that woman.
I will pray for the woman. But honestly, I have a hard time praying for that man (unless it's okay to pray from someone's castration). However, I know I should, and someday I'll be Christlike enough to do so.
I wish I could say that such a thing was limited to Rome, and that this is something one might only experience while travelling. But it's not. As our brash young man showed: this can happen anywhere at any place at any time. As a father of four beautiful girls, this is a very, very sobering thought. I must warn them, and teach them to be vigilant and careful. That said, where is the fine line between careful and paranoid; between choosing to see light and being willing to recognize darkness? That line is a fuzzy and gray at the moment.
Yet something gives me the confidence that line will become clearer, and that the world, while it continues to rot in evil, also continues to bloom with a greater degrees of goodness. In many ways the world has never been this kind and this good (if anything, our experience with the ancients this past week has taught me how far humanity has come since Roman emperors and senators walked the marble-laden steps of the Forum). Life has become more fair; there is more opportunity; nations and peoples have a much harder time today raping and pillaging than they did when togas were the fad.
And while it is true that there will continue to be moments when the fine line between carefulness and paranoia will blur, I believe in a world where little girls can be aware of the massive dangers of this world, yet hopeful and energized about the future. Good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment