The Dark River

Wearing the suit coat and a black fedora, Simon Lumbroso escorted her through the ghetto. The sun had disappeared behind the red tile roofs, but quite a few people were sitting on kitchen chairs out in the street and gossiping while children kicked at a ball. Everyone appeared to know Lumbroso, who greeted his neighbors by touching two fingers to the wide brim of his hat.

“Forty years ago I used to offer tours of this area to foreigners. That was how I met your father. One afternoon, he was the only person who showed up outside the synagogue. Your father was a gentile, of course, but he knew a great deal about Jewish history. He asked intelligent questions, and we had a pleasant time debating various theories. I told him that I had enjoyed practicing my German and that he didn’t need to pay me anything.”

“That meant my father had an obligation.”

Lumbroso smiled. “Yes, that’s how a Harlequin would see it. But I didn’t realize any of that. At the time, a group of wealthy young men here in Rome had formed a fascist group, and they would come down to the ghetto late at night to beat up Jews. They caught me down by the Tiber-just a few hundred yards from here. It was five against one. And then, suddenly, your father appeared.”

“He destroyed them…”

“Yes. But it was the way he did it that startled me. He showed no anger while fighting-just this cold, focused aggression and a complete lack of fear. He beat all five men unconscious and would have tossed them into the river to drown if I hadn’t pulled him away.”

“Now that sounds like my father.”

“From then on, we began to see each other to explore the city and eat dinner together. Gradually, Dietrich told me about his life. Although your father came from a Harlequin family, he never saw that as his destiny. As I recall, he studied history at the Free University of Berlin; then he decided to become a painter and moved to Rome. Some young men experiment with drugs or sexuality. For your father, having a friend was just as forbidden. He never had a friend-even when he was a teenager at the Oberschule.”

They circled the synagogue on Lungotevere and took the Ponte Fabricio footbridge to the small island in the middle of the Tiber. Lumbroso paused in the middle of the bridge, and Maya gazed down at the muddy green water that flowed through Rome.

“When I was growing up, my father told me that friends made you weak.”

“Friendship is as necessary as food and water. It took some time, but eventually we became close friends with no secrets between us. I wasn’t surprised to learn about the existence of Travelers. There’s a mystical branch of Judaism based on the Kabbalah that describes these kinds of revelations. As for the Tabula-you just have to read the newspaper to realize that they exist.”

“I can’t believe that my father didn’t want to be a Harlequin.”

“And what’s so surprising? That he was human-like the rest of us? I thought he had broken free of his family and that he was going to stay in Rome and paint. Then a Harlequin from Spain showed up and asked for help. And Dietrich gave in. When your father returned to Italy eight months later, he had taken his Harlequin name. Everything was changed-his normal life was over-but a love for Rome remained in his heart. We saw each other occasionally and he would send me letters twice a year. Sometimes the letters included a photograph of you. I watched you grow up and become a young lady.”

“He trained me to become a Harlequin,” Maya said. “Do you know what that means?”

Lumbroso touched Maya lightly on the shoulder. “Only you can forgive your father. All I can say is that he did love you.”

Each lost in their own thoughts, they crossed the bridge and entered the Trastevere neighborhood on the other side of the river. The three-and four-story houses lined narrow streets-some no wider than alleyways. The houses were painted with faded pastel colors, and dark ivy crept up the walls.

Lumbroso led her down one street that ended at a cobblestone square called Piazza Mercanti. It was empty except for a dozen hungry seagulls fighting over the contents of a spilled trash can. The birds screeched at one another like a group of Romans arguing about football.

“Only tourists and invalids eat at such an early hour,” Lumbroso said. “But it’s a good time for a private conversation.” They entered a trattoria that was empty of customers. A waiter with an imposing mustache escorted them to a back table, and Lumbroso ordered a bottle of pinot grigio and a first course of deep-fried cod fillets.

Maya took a sip of wine, but didn’t touch the food. Lumbroso’s view of her father was different from anything she had ever imagined. Did Thorn really care about her? Was it possible that he had never wanted to become a Harlequin? The implications of these questions were so disturbing that she pushed them from her mind and focused on the reason she had traveled to Rome.