Gardens.” The tremor in her voice was audible only to Serena, and the driver shrugged and thrust the car into the traffic. And as she sat in the backseat staring out at the city that had drawn her like a magnet, Serena felt suddenly like a child again, her hair loose and flowing softly in the breeze coming in the windows, her eyes wide. She knew from familiar landmarks that they were approaching the Porta Pinciana. She could see the Via Vittorio Véneto stretched out ahead, and just before them suddenly the dark expanse of the gardens, lit here and there along the walkways, the flower beds visible even in the growing dark. She realized suddenly also how strange the driver must have thought her. The Borghese Gardens at nine o'clock at night? But where else was she to go now? She already knew the answer, but tried not to think of it as she counted out the fare to the driver, tossed her hair off her shoulders, and picked up her suitcase and got out. She stood there for a long moment, as though waiting for someone, and then, as if seeing everything around her for the first time, she took a deep breath and began to walk. Not hurriedly this time as though she had somewhere to go, and someone to meet her, but slowly, aimlessly, as if all she cared about was imbibing the essence of Rome.
She found herself walking along one of the grassy paths for strollers along the edge of the park, watching bicyclists hurrying along, or women walking dogs, and here and there children playing. It was late for them to be out, but it was summer and a balmy evening, the war was over, and there was no school the next day. Serena noticed for the first time that there was a kind of holiday atmosphere everywhere, people were smiling, young girls were laughing, and everywhere, as they were all over Europe, the young GI's were walking in groups, or with their girl friends, chatting, laughing, and trying to make friends with passing young women, waving candy bars and silk stockings and cigarettes, half laughing at themselves and half serious, and almost always getting a laughing response or an invitation. Even the refusals were kind ones, except Serena's. When two GI's approached her, her face turned to stone and her eyes were angry as she answered in Italian and told them to leave her alone.
“Leave her alone, Mike. You heard the lady.”
“Yeah, but did you see her?” The shorter of the two whistled as Serena rapidly made her way toward the Via Véneto and got lost in the crowd. But the attempts to pick her up were all harmless. She was a pretty girl, and the soldiers were lonely, and this was Rome.
“Cigarettes, signorina?” Another cluster of uniforms waved a pack almost in her face. They were everywhere, and this time she only shook her head. She didn't want to see them all over the city. She didn't want to see any uniforms. She wanted it to be as it had been before the war. But it wasn't. That much she could see now. There were scars. There were differences. There were still remnants of signs in German, and now American ones posted over them. They were occupied once again.
It made her sad as she remembered back to when she had been a child … when she had come to the Borghese Gardens to play. It was a rare treat to do that with her mother. Usually they went everywhere by car. But now and then there had been wondrous adventures, just she and her mother—the beauty with the tinkling laughter, the big hats, the huge laughing eyes. Serena suddenly dropped her face into her hands in the darkness. She didn't want to remember anymore. She didn't want to remember what had happened, how it had happened, what was no more. But it was as though whatever she did now that she had come back here there was no way to run from the memories anymore. The ghosts that had haunted her for seven years now didn't have to go far to find her. She had come home to find them.
Without thinking, she wandered in the direction of the Fontana di Trevi, and stood there mesmerized by it, as she had been as a little girl. She sat quietly for a few minutes, hunched against a wall, watching, and feeling refreshed by the