Evening at Bar San Callisto
by Jennifer Levy

There is no place on earth like Trastevere. Nestled just off the beaten track of traditional Roman tourism, she is the faded dream of rusticity that all visitors to Rome crave. A weathered gem of sun-washed palazzi and narrow, cobblestone streets, Trastevere moves with a gentle cadence that refuses to keep pace with the breakneck speed adopted by the rest of Rome. As you shift down, strolling through her close, winding alleyways, you'll draw nearer to her heart than the photography-obsessed gapers shooting through on a bus ever will. Ambling right past the toney cafes (or barsā as they're called here), you may even have the great blessing of shuffling through the doors of Bar San Callisto, drawn by the aroma of the best cappuccino in the quarter. If you stay long enough, you will share a little piece of Trastevere that is quickly disappearing. There is no flashy brass here, no ostentatious display. This place is about the neighbourhood and its people. If you want fancy, you can find that two steps away in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. Here you will find Trastevereās artistic community, activist students, taxi drivers and housewives, zoccoletti clattering stridently on the cobblestones as they yell their drink orders flip-flapping through the front door. Come on a rainy day and youāll leave with sawdust stuck to the bottom of your shoes, because Marcello and his sons still use it to absorb the water tracked in off the street. Come more than twice (and you will) and you'll be greeted with a smile of recognition.

The early evening at Bar San Callisto, as the shadows lengthen and the last of the sun slants down into the piazza, is a moment to lounge, watch and listen. Each day that moment comes and it's always laden with beauty, but there's one moment, more laden still than the others, that stands out. I had come back to my beloved Rome with my husband, who had never had the pleasure of her embrace. On this particular evening, we sat in this early evening moment, both witnesses and participants. In the small salon off the entrance, a crowd of local women, some still wearing aprons, chattered conspiratorially over espresso. Young people sipped beer and discussed the irredeemable nature of Italian democracy. In the midst of the warm conversational buzz rising into the patch of sky far above our heads, a voice cried out, "Emidio! Emidio c'e!" Looking up, I expected to see some swaggering specimen of Roman manhood approaching, greeting his admirers. But there stood Emidio.

Emidio, it happened, was a man of indeterminate, but undoubtedly advanced age. He sported three pairs of spectacles, one layered on top of the other. I discovered later that no one really knew why. It may be that he simply desired that the question be asked. He wore a large hat to shield the delicacy of his Nordic skin, not made for the Roman sun. Emidio had come from Germany in the 1960s and never left. He had come to make his art and stayed to wrestle his muse. He became stranded, in the end, ravaged by a life of muse-wrestling, accompanied by lavish lashings of the inexpensive local wine. Everyone at the San Callisto seemed to know him. Many greeted him. Some rolled their eyes. He settled noisily in, struggling to find a comfortable way to sit in the woven plastic chair that had been pulled out for him. Immediately, he engaged the person seated next to him in animated conversation. His Italian was well-developed, but heavily accented. It was not long before his eyes, peering out from behind their three sets of lenses, fixed on us, the strangers. He wanted to know where we were from and what language we spoke. He was delighted to hear that we were Canadian and before we knew it, his life was unfolding before us. Tales of Canadian friends and lovers, of good times had in Italy and elsewhere were happily recounted, as we smiled and listened, politely. A woman at a nearby table sought me out with a quizzical gaze, raising an eyebrow.

Emidio, awash in nostalgia for a past he appeared to long for, next pulled out a portfolio of papers. At first we thought weād be treated to a peek into his artistic life and then, ever so gently and reverently, he laid a large piece of heavy paper out on the table. Looking up at us were dozens of faces, bound together in holiday snapshots taken in the 1960s and 70s. One of those faces was Emidioās; a much younger man wearing only one pair of spectacles. Children with sunburned faces, bathing beauties in catās eye sunglasses and Emidio smiled in the sun of another lifetime. Dozens of snapshots were glued to the paper. Some were black and white and faded to sepia. Others were damaged by dampness and time, but they still bore the lost smile of a loved one left behind. As Emidio pointed to each face and told its story, a glimmer of understanding flickered within me. I had an idea why he wore all those pairs of glasses. Set adrift on a distant shore, he wanted reality to be as blurry as possible.

We didn't see Emidio again until the night before we left. We'd been waiting for an old friend that had never arrived at Bar San Callisto. Through the lengthening shadows of Piazza San Callisto lumbered Emidio, as the blue patch of sky over our heads turned to indigo. A displaced flower child, born too late and far from home, high on something (maybe just the soft air of the Roman evening) cried out "Emidio!" Fifty faces in the Bar San Callisto turned to him, looking up from their chess, their newspapers, books and earnest discussions. Emidio smiled and waved. The Bar San Callisto was a blur to him, but within its softly defined contours, his name was known.