Roger was lounging in the lobby as I
checked into the Hotel Sandy, a cheap hostel just down the street from Rome’s
Termini Station. It was nearly
suppertime, and he was yawning and stretching, as if he’d just woken up. I asked him if he knew where to find a good
pizza, and in a high-pitched New Zealand accent, he said he knew just the place
if he could come with me.
We were unlikely dining companions:
me, an earnest theology student, making my rounds of the shrines and ancient
ruins; Roger, an accomplished carouser, wandering from club to club until the
break of dawn. He woke up just in time
for supper. But somehow, it worked. For five days, every evening we’d meet again
in the lobby and head out for pasta, and share what we’d been discovering in
the Eternal City.
The fourth night, Roger announced he
would be leaving soon, and wanted some advice on what he really needed to
see. His pious Catholic grandmother had
suggested Rome, it seems, hoping it might nudge him a bit in the right
direction, and he didn’t want to turn up in her parlor entirely
empty-handed.
He needed to see the Sistine Chapel,
I insisted.
