Scenes From an Italian Restaurant III
By Harriet Gilbert Savage
On small goodbyes and big farewells
From where I sit, I can observe the whole spectacle. A great grey structure rises before me, on which are stencilled the ominously large letters of ‘ROMA TERMINI’. The muddle of overhead wires spins messy cobwebs against the dense, milky clouds – the kind that make you doubt if blue skies really do exist beyond their opaque frontier. A cloak of shimmering rain veils the scene, lacquering the tired platform and drenching the dreary trains. My coffee shop overlooks the platforms, separated from the hoi polloi by an elegant glass divide. It holds that kind of out-of-town authority, with branded crockery boasting an intimidating self-assurance and that intangible lighting that scatters a flattering glow. And the scene is perfectly comfortable, but it’s uncomfortably perfect: it feels uninterested, unfamiliar, unwelcoming.
Figures drift in and out, staying just long enough to absorb the shock of caffeine offered by an efficient espresso, never long enough to be considered anything more than passers-by. They are nameless, faceless. This train station is what Marc Augé identifies as a ‘non-place’. A place of transience, a place in which we do not live, in which the individual remains anonymous and lonely. And yet, there’s an old man sitting next to me, stooped over a notebook as if defending great secrets of sorcery: his eyes linger dizzyingly close to the paper, his ink-stained thumbs leaf through pages drenched in some form of mystic code. While he admittedly exudes a perplexing aura, he is an indubitable anomaly to Augé’s musings – this train station isn’t, for him, a waiting room, a place of transience. Rather it’s his writing desk, his workshop, his home.
And I begin to think that Mr Augé is in fact mistaken. Because in the goodbyes unfolding all around me, I witness the opposite of loneliness. Two men descend from a train; as they bustle through the exit gates, they toss snippets of animated conversation to one another, accompanied by an exaggerated facial expression and a smattering of laughter. They move across the arrivals hall, one heads towards the way out, the other makes for the escalator leading to the metro, and as they depart from one another they offer a kind smile, an instinctive wave. It’s one of those light-hearted goodbyes, concluding a short-lived companionship enduring just the length of the train ride. More likely than not they shall never see each other again, but for those few short hours in which their paths crossed, they provided one another with company for which they are both grateful. And then, the steely grey clouds of the outside seem to infiltrate the station’s walls as a couple begrudgingly edge closer to the platform. They stop just shy of the gates and wordlessly turn to one another, their eyes conveying all that their mouths are not able to. Her hand nestles into his curls, his chin rests upon her crown and for a few moments they futilely attempt to slow time. They finally concede, disentangling themselves to the echo of the final boarding call. It’s a heavy-hearted goodbye; she leaves, he stays – alone, but not lonely – falling into the familiar sense of melancholy that lingers in her absence.
This week, I too found myself bidding a farewell. It was not quite 7am, and we were enchanted by a delirious daze, having scaled the Gianicolo at twilight in order to welcome the final dawn before our number became one fewer. We were all so hypnotised by the triumphant sunrise that we forgot that the arrival of the sun’s rays also signalled the approach of our friend’s ever-nearing departure. Our frenzied flock, inconsistent with the composed throng of morning commuters, scrambled onto the platform with just enough time to offer a flurry of farewells before he scurried through the gate. It was bittersweet, incomplete. And it was one of those goodbyes that occupies the funny in-between. One of those goodbyes that was overtly light-hearted: a brief hug, a ciao (somewhat ironic because, despite spending the best part of half a year together in Italy, we had not once exchanged a conversation in Italian), a bon voyage (even more ironic because, despite him being French, my knowledge of the language is hopelessly limited to primary school lessons taught in a comically thick northern accent). But it was a goodbye that was covertly heavy-hearted. Even though our friendship will endure, it shall never again be one shared between outsiders, offering one another solidarity and solace as we navigate the frustrations, confusions, and challenges of being thrown together in a city we don’t know, in a language we don’t understand, in a country that is not our own. Though our friendship will endure, it shall never be the same as the one experienced here, in this moment.