Don't Fall In Love With Marcus Aurelius. Eva Lubinger

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      “Oh Agatha, look, we are just leaving the city,” Emily called. “The breath of the Roman Campagna is wafting me along, the fragrant air of the southern meadows.” She leaned her head back and breathed in deeply and reverently, while she kept her shortsighted eyes fixed on the cypresses, which were much more numerous here, and in fact almost seemed to be the guardians of the gate to the Campagna.

      “I am so happy that we managed to overcome our ailments,” Agatha suggested, “what a beautiful day! Happiness is still the best cure for the body’s infirmities. My spine has got much better and hardly hurts at all anymore, and you have lasted exceptionally well, Emily!” Both were so happy and grateful and so wrapped up in the unfolding magic of that ancient rural landscape, that Emily unawares had shifted across to the left-hand lane and was comfortably driving along it, as if she was in Merrie England. And Agatha of course hadn’t noticed either. All the time there were vehicles coming towards them on the same side of the road, and only when Emily shot in between two onrushing cars and the drivers were throwing their arms in the air and pointing with their fingers at the side of their heads with anger in their eyes, did Agatha furrow her brow and draw Emily’s attention to the unsettling traffic conditions:

      “Look, Emily, why are we suddenly driving towards all these oncoming cars?”

      “It’s their undisciplined driving style,” said Emily calmly and unshaken continued to drive: “Think of the zebra crossing at the Colosseum, where all those crazy people were charging across, even though there were pedestrians there.”

      Agatha was getting anxious: “That was a bit close, Emily! I don’t know why you are driving in between the cars, but in the long run this is going to get pretty exhausting. And why are all these people pointing at their heads? Let me see if you have got your hat on the wrong way round.” She leaned forward and inspected Emily gravely, who was driving on with the obstinacy of a breakwater against the flow of traffic:

      “No, my dear, your hat is just right. I really don’t understand these uncouth people.” She leaned back and was quiet again.

      As a consequence of Emily’s shortsightedness, it had become an increasing occurence at home, especially when she was in a hurry, that she would put her hat, which was decorated with flowers and bows, on the wrong way round. This tended to lend her a somewhat bizarre and eccentric appearance, and it would provoke laughter among those disrespectful people, who knew nothing of her glorious past as the head of a large girls’ boarding school.

      The next car that came towards Emily and Agatha whizzed so close and so quickly past their open car-window, that the pink ribbons on Agatha’s light green spring hat began to flutter in the passing wind. The driver thundered right by them, which he wasn’t expecting, and with one hand he wrenched the steering wheel around, so that he just managed to get through the narrow gap, while with the other he tore at his hair in a melodramatic style.

      At the same time another car hissed past on Emily's left side, and the driver shouted something loud and menacing. The sound of his voice woke Enzo….He glanced out the window and could see what was wrong. He immediately upped Il Santo Antonio’s cut of his profit share, and, so as to give the meritorious saint a clear chance to continue his blessed work, he called out to the two ladies; first of all to stop and then to move across as quickly as possible into the right-hand lane when there was a gap in the traffic.

      Shame-faced, Emily complied. However in her head she placed most of the blame for the debacle upon this nonsensical continental traffic order, when in the end it was far more sensible to drive on the left-hand side, not the right.

      In the mean time they had reached the Porta Appia. Enzo’s heart did stop one more time, when Emily just about managed to slip in front of a lorry that was thundering past. My God, how could he have been so insane as to throw his lot in with these lunatics! They surely didn’t have enough money to make all this worthwhile. Not even a diamond ring was worth the loss of his young life.

      When Emily was bang in the middle of a junction and so close to the restorative peace of the Via Appia’s street of tombs, the engine then cut out and wouldn’t start again, despite futile attempts, and Enzo was just about ready to raise St Anthony’s percentage again. But then the battered engine leapt back to life and Enzo let things be. Even with saints one shouldn’t set a disadvantageous precedent.

      They were at the Via Appia. The Hertz hire car limped slow and exhausted across the ancient cobble stones. Enzo felt slightly more light-hearted and sat back in his seat with a sense of excitement. It would be unlikely that even Emily could bring about an accident out here in the open spaces and with no other road users in the vicinity. And as for the return trip to the City and the Trevi Fountain – well in that case Il Santo would just have to put in some work again…after all he’d have to do something for all the money he’d be getting!

      The peace and the sheer extent of the green-gold poppy sprinkled Campagna Romana, in which bird-song mingled with the bleating of grazing sheep, infolded Emily and Agatha like a bell-jar formed only of light. They both fell silent and felt indistinctly yet with a deep knowing in their hearts that here was something of their reward for their journey, of the hidden joy for the sake of which they had set out and which had been lying in wait for them; and they now knew that in spite of everything it had not been foolish and absurd of them to go in search of the beauty of this world, with their vulnerable, frail bodies, humiliated by their many weaknesses. Emily broke the silence at last, and she cleared her throat to master her emotion: “Over there, Agatha, do you see-the tomb of Cecilia Metella.”

      Agatha turned her gaze obediently towards the impressive round building, whose double-tailed battlements shone before the deep blue sky.

      “Cecilia Metella was the consort of Crassus, who reigned as part of the First Triumvirate with Caesar and Pompey. She was the daughter of the general Metellus, who conquered Crete, and who himself was part of the pre-eminent Roman lineage.” Emily had taught history before she became school head, and she knew her subject.

      Feeling bored, Enzo shut his eyes. Having barely escaped death, what was this fool babbling on about now? Fortunately he only understood half of what she was saying. It was unbelievable what some people crammed into their brains! Enzo suppressed a yawn. Then his glance fell upon the necklace again. He could only do the job while they were out of the car. He had to persuade the two of them to stop somewhere. He had to make one of the countless monuments appetizing to them - but which one? Enzo looked disdainfully out the car, finding the quiet tombs, gleaming in the sunlight, all dreary and boring. What a mad idea to come here at all! The two crazy English women may as well have suggested a picnic in the catacombs or in the Central Cemetery.

      Yet Agatha came to Enzo’s aid. “Look, Emily”, she said in an attentive voice, “isn’t that magical! Please, please stop, we have got to see that close-up!”

      Emily pulled decisively on the handbrake and turned her shortsighted view towards the side of the ancient road: There, between the green-black trunks of the cypress trees, which hemmed the street of graves like watchmen in the midday silence, arose a simple memorial, carrying four stone busts in relief on each side. Their faces bore an impressive vitality, as if the stone itself was breathing from a thousand years away. They gazed in the accumulated silence into the distance, and they listened to the song of the Campagna, which was around them in the birdsong, in the cries of the cicadas and in the soundless growth of the grasses and flowers.

      Agatha and Emily went silently over to the four faces. With great effort Emily climbed up the high stone dais, which separated them from the busts, went on to stand so close to them, peering through her thick lenses, looking like she could have given them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

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