Reportage Week Three

While walking around the aqueduct a few days ago, Jo, Joanci and I stopped to take a sip at the fountain by the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. Up the hill, a man in a blue jacket speaks into a walkie talkie and steps behind a barricade. Two girls, about my sister's age run up to the man in aviator sunglasses and giggle as he signs a booklet about the size of a slice of Italian bread Diamond bought from Tigre. He takes them off to the side of a brick building and one of the girls stands still long enough to take a picture. They bid him "Grazie" and prance down the steps to the church. We creep around the barricade, hoping that the police won't stop and start rapid firing in Italian. Down, just in front of the fresco of Mary and Jesus with the Evangelists is a group of Italian stars with lights and microphones and cameras, fixing hair and holding prop briefcases. Jo slowly starts to walk down the steps, pretending to blend with the Italians but her white blonde hair sticks out among the dark. The man and woman on the Palazzo steps push each other, acting out a scene that I'm too far up to hear.