BLACKATLAS.COM - ROME

The Eternal City has a split personality, one that can work to your advantage when traveling there if you are adventurous and willing to stay up late. On a summer day Rome is a city of lines, if you want to tour the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Pantheon or any of the many magnificent architectural marvels of Rome, patience is more than a virtue, it is essential. Even to find a sliver of shade near the Spanish Steps on a week day in August takes time.

It’s worth the wait of course to see the Sistine Chapel or have a brief encounter with the Pope. To come to Rome and not see any of these places during the day would be a crime.

However there is another way to see Rome and that is by doing what so many of the locals do – seek shelter by day and hang out all night. When the summer sun recedes and the air cools, the romantic glow of tinted lights bathes the city in amber light. My guide to this Rome was not someone I found through the hotel, but several African-American expatriates who long ago left American to build lives elsewhere.

I’ve known Pam and Wendy Lewis since the ‘80s when I dated Pam in New York. Before I meet her in 1987 she’d already lived for a time in Rome and, in recent years, she’d been teaching English in Dubai, so she had traveling in her soul, Wendy, who was just a shy college student when I met her years ago, is now a vivacious women who’s lived in Italy fourteen years, working as a singer with bands and as a solo artist. Both these women had come a long way from their hometown of Gary, Indiana.

It was the Lewis sisters who showed me Rome at night. On my first night in Rome we met around 10pm for dinner, which was typical for a Southern European meal. Instead of eating in central Rome, they took me out to an area whose name translates loosely to “crazy head,” one of the city’s seven zones. From the exterior Angelina a Testaccio’s didn’t look very promising. A tall, concrete wall with a small doorway, though there were signs of life above the wall. We walked up a rustic staircase that seemed more suited to a country house than a big city restaurant and then arrived at a terrace where there were folks dining and a large, white walled open kitchen only slightly covered by a canopy.

Wendy, who now speaks Italian with more ease than English, negotiated with the staff for a good seat. She’d sung at Angelina’s just two weeks before and knew there was a great roof deck. After some animated conversation we were guided up some winding metal stairs to a roof garden where boisterous groups of Roman’s were laughing and chowing down.

We sat under a full moon at a long table with house music percolating on high quality speakers. I felt like I was now really in Rome, eating with real Italians (not tourists) at a spot they clearly enjoyed. And with good reason. The meal was amazing. The antipasto was focaccia and had a light, crisp crust like fresh lavosh, not the thick, dense Boccaccio in northern Italy with thinly sliced ham. The house wine was sharp and fruity. As my entrée I had a Danish streak, prepared tender, pink and soft to the taste. I had spinach prepared with butter and grated cheese. Our dessert was tiramisu served in a clear jam jar, which preserved its flavor, especially the coffee taste at the bottom of the jar.

As we dined Wendy shared details of her life in Rome. She first came to Italy while attending Spelman College, spending her junior year with an Italian family in Florence where she studied the language. She cites that complete immersion in Italian culture as what made her bi-lingual and envious of their lifestyle. “Americans live to work, while Italians put a much greater emphasis on family, food and vacation.”

She’d moved back to Gary and then lived for a time in New York attending the prestigious Julliard School of Music, but was missing Italy when she received a phone call from some Italian musician friends seeking a native English speaker for a band. “I came back 2000 and have been here ever sense. They love American music – blues, soul, jazz. All the genres. They want to hear it from a real deal American. They are lots of Italians who do the soul thing, but the Italians like it authentic.”

As an African-American woman with a sweet, passionate voice Wendy has sung in a variety of idioms in Italy. She’s sung with funk bands, on dance singles and in jazz and gospel shows. She sang on a big Euro house music hit called “Waves of Love” and has performed on stages with touring American stars such as Al Jaureau and Gloria Gaynor.

Wendy came to live in Rome before the 9/11 attack, so was able to get a work visa and ultimately dual citizenship in a more relaxed environment than today. Her sister Pam, who is planning on relocating from Dubai, says it much more difficult these days, even for an American, to get a work visa in most European Union countries.

I asked Wendy whether, after all this time in Rome, whether she missed America. “I miss macaroni & cheese,” she said laughing. “I do miss the American mentality. Americans are very innovative and smart. But Italy is such a gorgeous place. Its kind of like living in a big open air museum.” She is a great fan of Florence, which she feels is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

The down side of being black in Italy is that, despite her grasp of the language and time spend there “I can still feel like an outsider. Everyday it can feel like I’m on an interview. People asking where I’m from and do I like Italy. So they automatically see me as different.”  That said Wendy is still very happy in Rome, which she uses as a base operations, while traveling all around Europe performing.

A house record that Wendy liked came on over the Angelina speakers and she started singing along. So did everyone at our table. A nearby table of Italians heard her and started clapping along and, for a moment, we were one big, well fed Italian party.

It was well after midnight when we left Angelina’s and, at the suggestion of the Lewis sisters, began visiting Roman landmarks. The Circus Maximus, where the chariot races immortalized in ‘Ben Hur’ were held, is as long as five football fields and is currently a late night hang out for young people to drink and smoke.

If the length of the Circus Maximus was impressive, the Vatican at night was a wonder. Lit up with white and gold lights, the Vatican at night has regal calm that can get lost in the jostling daytime crowds. We swung by a few other beautifully illuminated landmarks that evening, including the Forum and the Coliseum, but the most mystical was the Pantheon.

Aside from two young couples and a fellow sleeping one off, we were the only people there. As imposing as the Pantheon is by day this building was majestic up close. I stood next to the Pantheon’s massive columns and was knocked out, as you are often in Rome, by its design brilliance. Moreover, because of the hour, it felt like it was my personal playpen.

The heat of Rome in August beat down on me the next day, as I joined the throngs at the Spanish Steps and then later walked through the Colosseum. During the days of the gladiators the Colosseum held 65,000 folks and, to this day, is still the gold standard by which all sports stadiums are still held too. Some of its wood floors have been re-built to give us a sense of how the myriad trap doors were used to unleash lions, tigers and rival fighters on unsuspecting gladiators.

After a late afternoon nap and a shower, I hooked up with the Lewis sisters again, who took me to dinner at Pierluigi’s, a classy al fresco restaurant in a courtyard bordered by high windowed residences. As we sat down to dinner a little boy kicked a soccer ball just across the way and laughed with his father. At night Rome, somewhat like Paris, is bathed in a yellowy glow, though the light in Rome is more shadowy and feels more mysterious because of its many narrow streets, streets Roman drivers pass rapidly through without a moments hesitation.

Lorenzo Lisa, Pierluigi’s very dapper young owner, took an immediate liking to the Lewis sisters (fulfilling that Italian stereotype) and was very attention to our table all night. We had another amazing meal starting with calamari and croquettes.  The freshness of the food, as well as the preparation was overwhelming. Also the service was worth noting. The Italians take presenting food very seriously. Never does your server interrupt your conversation, reach over your food while your talking or, in any way, impose himself on your dining experience. Yet they are very present and ready to take your order. A far superior service experience than you’ll have even in some of New York’s finest restaurants.

The highlight of this evening, however, was not the food, but the arrival of 80 year old Harold Bradley, a brother who has lived on and off in Rome for thirty years. Though he played right guard in the National Football League for the Browns and Eagles, Harold had always yearned to be an artist. In the late ‘50s he saw the Italian neo-realistic masterpiece ‘Open City’ and decided to visit Europe.

“Even when I was in the NFL my life always evolved around art,” he recalls. So the Chicago native first traveled to Paris in 1956 and then Rome. He settled in Italy in 1959 to study art history, using the GI Bill to pay for his schooling. He married a German woman, had three kids and made a life for himself.

The Rome Harold arrived in was still in recovery from World War II, so there was still a lot of damaged buildings and the economy was shaky. But for someone who wanted to paint and study art “what place on the planet could be better,” he recalled with a smile. In the bohemian Trastavere section of Rome (kinda like the city’s Greenwich Village) Harold helped found the Folk Studio, a gallery/performance space where artists of all kinds performed.

It was the era of sword & sandal epics, movies built around the history and legends of the Roman Empire, and Harold found himself acting in some twenty odd movies. In the notorious ‘Cleopatra’, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Harold played four roles – a slave, a king, a gladiator and a soldier. “If you watch it on DVD you can see me in a number of scenes. There weren’t many black actors to go around in Rome then.”

Aside from black GIs who hadn’t returned to American after the war, there were few blacks in Rome in the ‘60s. But he felt very comfortable and folks were friendly. On a return trip to the U.S. in 1968 Harold was recruited by the Governor of Illinois to work on the state’s arts council. Moreover the civil rights struggle pulled him in and Harold worked in media, including a stint on camera with public television and a CBS affiliate. From 1968 to 87 he lived in the U.S. but a trip with his wife took back to Rome and he found he couldn’t leave.

Harold’s had another artistic life this time in Rome, working primarily as a singer. Though he was well known in Rome for singing jazz and for doing tributes to Paul Robeson, much of his time now is spent singing spirituals and gospel music. “Italians love gospel music,” he says. “They know Mahalia Jackson and other famous singers, but have heard very little of it live. So I’ve worked to fill that space.” If you come to Rome check the schedule at local spots the Cotton Club or the Music Inn, where’s he’s performed a lot in the last year.

Harold has worked often with Wendy over the last few years and its cute seeing them together, two expats from the American Midwest speaking to each other in Italian, so far from their original home.

After Harold headed home, I joined a posse of folks at Lorenzo Lisa’s other business – a wine bar called _________, which is located in Campo Di Fiori (aka Field of Flowers.) Back in the day it was literally a field filled with flowers. Now it is a large concrete square filled with cafes. At 2:30am Campo Di Fiori is full of vino, chatter and music. Though in most places this would be the dead of night, in this spot in Rome it was buzzing like lunchtime.

Chasing the dawn with the Lewis sisters and hundreds of Romans (who seemed in no hurry to head home), seemed a fitting way to end my too brief visit to Rome, a place historic by day and delicious at night.

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