Burning The Map. Laura Caldwell

his arms, and miraculously slides them upward. He stands, holding the bars up about four feet.

      “This way.” He gestures with his head toward the opening he’s created.

      I do as he says, and duck under the bars. Francesco kicks the blanket and the two bags in after me, then scoots inside with one graceful movement. The bars make a violent clang as he lets them fall.

      I jump. “Will we be able to get out?”

      “Of course.” He gathers the bags, hands me the sack with the wine and takes my elbow. “It is okay.”

      I glance around. We’re in some sort of anteroom, a dank place with a trodden dirt floor. Across the way, a long, dark hallway stretches into the building. I look back at Francesco, ready to ask him exactly where we’re going to have this picnic, but he leans in and kisses me. Not on the lips or even on my cheek, but on my forehead. The gesture is simple, tender. I close my eyes and breathe in his scent from the crook of his neck, a woodsy, chocolatey smell.

      He takes my hand, leading me down the hallway in silence.

      The hall opens up, and as we keep walking, the sky seems to open above us. I realize we’re at the edge of a round pit, the very center of the Colosseum. Francesco stops, drops my hand and spreads the blanket on the ground. He kneels on it and starts to lift things out of the sacks—wine, bread, a tomato, a chunk of hard white cheese and two squat glasses—the kind that Americans use to rinse their mouths after brushing and Italians use for wine. He uncorks the bottle and pours a dark maroon wine into the glasses. Out of his pocket, he withdraws a small knife and cuts off neat triangles of cheese, using one of the brown paper bags as a plate.

      He sets the knife down and raises both of the half-full glasses, holding one of them out to me. “Salute,” he says, the customary Italian toast. “To tonight.”

      I sink to my knees and, taking the glass, I touch it to his, making a pleasant clink. I take a sip and feel the wine warming my insides, loosening me again. He offers a piece of cheese, and I take it because although I’m not hungry, I want something else to do with my hands.

      “How did you know how to get in here?” I ask.

      Francesco shrugs. He keeps cutting the cheese and tomato, breaking off chunks of bread, offering them to me.

      I rest one hand behind me on the blanket, sipping the warm, spicy wine. The only light in the place is from the stars and the streetlights peeking through the stone arches. As I look around, it strikes me that thousands of people have died here. Thousands more have enjoyed themselves, watching the festivities, reveling in the prime of their lives. And they’re all long gone.

      I suppose that this is the prime of my own life, although until tonight it hasn’t felt like the prime of anything. The days and months have raced by me like a high-speed train, making everything vague and fuzzy.

      Until tonight.

      Francesco moves behind me. I can sense him coming closer, and I lose the air in my lungs.

      He spreads his legs around me, sheltering me, and I feel the gentle weight of his breath as he speaks into my ear. “Lean back.”

      I allow my rigid back to decline like a beach chair a few degrees, but I land in an awkward position, my head against his chest, my legs too far forward. He touches my hips, urging me back until I fold into him, nearly cheek to cheek now, with the back of my head resting on his shoulder. He keeps his hands on my hips. I feel my blood pulsing there.

      Francesco’s earlier reluctance to tell me how he knows the way in here makes me suspect that this scene is from a well-worn bag of tricks, and I wonder what’s next. I remind myself that this is probably where he takes all the foreign girls he picks up, but my warning does no good. I’m still enthralled with this place, with his breath in my ear.

      We sit like that awhile, Francesco doing nothing except supporting my body. My lungs start working again. I relax, but I’m intensely conscious of his arms around me, his chin grazing my ear.

      Then he tightens his arms and I think, here it is, the come-on from Francesco I’ve been expecting since last night. His breath grows even heavier in my ear. I can’t decide whether to run or return the gesture, lost somewhere in the purgatory between sheer panic and complete acceptance.

      I don’t consciously decide to do anything, but then I’m turning my head toward Francesco’s so my ear pushes against his mouth. I hear him whisper Italian phrases I can’t understand.

      I feel my own breath catching in my throat, and then I feel a kind of melting. My uptight, button-up, worry-about-everything persona that I’ve been wearing like a cloak dissolves, and for a moment, I feel like someone I barely recall, someone I desperately want back.

      Francesco nuzzles my cheek, my ears, my neck. My awareness has grown so acute now that I imagine I can feel my lashes resting on the soft skin under my eyes. My mouth opens in an O. I arch back into his hips, his mouth. I haven’t felt like this in so, so, so long. When was the last time? I hazily search my memory in that small cabinet of my mind where this feeling was filed away years ago. Did I ever feel this way with John? John is like a comfortable old flannel shirt that you love to put on in the winter. But this—this is a black silk shawl, clinging to my bare shoulders.

      I hear a moan escape my lips, and it startles me. Some force flows out of me, turning my body over, pushing Francesco’s shoulders until he lies flat on the ground. Our tongues and lips clash, soft groans from both of us, low gasps of Italian words from him, hands searching. Our bodies roll on the thin blanket that covers the hard ground.

      I lose my sense of time, and it’s bliss. Sharp and clear, as if everything in my life has stopped and focused on this instant.

      After what may have been twenty minutes, or two hours, our faces separate, our eyes lock.

      “Thank you,” I say, because even if this was part of Francesco’s frequently utilized seduction repertoire, he’s given me a momentary peace, a sliver of life.

      “Bella, bella,” Francesco says, holding my eyes. “You are beautiful, but you do not know.” He laughs. “And you make me tired.”

      He falls back on the blanket. I lean over him, turning my head and placing my temple on his chest where his shirt has become unbuttoned. The tawny, tanned skin of his stomach rises and falls, trying to catch up.

      I fall asleep with his shirt clenched in my fist.