13. Catacombs
Catacombs. The very word, Catacomb, fills the imagination with candle caring ghosts chanting Gregorian services to headless Christian martyrs. Afraid, but eager to "see it all," we waited for the 118 bus to take us past the Coliseum down Appia Way, (called the Queen of Roads) to the famous Catacombe di S. Calisto. The bus arrived looking like a Mexican hand-me-down. There were no seats, hand holds or springs. We spread our legs and held on to each other as we bounced along the famed Roman Appia Antica, stilled paved with the original sunken boulders.
When the bus made one of its quick jerky halts our eyeballs continued yo-yoing in their sockets, that, along with the burning yellow haze made from mixing September heat with bus farts made us miss the sign for our stop. We tumbled out at the next stop, settled our knees, looked around to read, "San Sebastiano Catacomb".
"Next English tour leaving in three minutes," sang out the friar who was exchanging tickets for lira.
R and I are teammates who've sported many harrowing games together, we trusted each other, and without even a glance were able to execute our favorite split-offensive move. I rammed my way into the line, blocking a path for R., who paused to recover the tickets from the friar and together we held our position until the tour guide took control. And "control" must be his middle name, for although he was a little mole of a man he thumped the butt of his oversized flashlight in the palm of his hand like he had an acute case of Napoleon complex. His eyes, bulging dark marbles, from being permanently dilated, were set almost directly over his rodent ears.
"You will listen quietly and stick together," he bellowed in a squeaky but authoritative voice. "San Sebastiano catacomb is located in a spot where the road dips into a hollow, known to the Romans as Catacombs, the Greek word for "Near the hollow". The term is now applied to all the underground cemeteries."
I thought to myself as he was admonishing the crowd again, that many of the churches we visited through out Europe have arched rooms dug into the cellars housing the remains of bishops, martyrs and mayors but these here today are known as -The Catacombs-, burrowing like an ant colony, four levels deep.
Using the flash light, the guide brought us down a sloping stone stairway. Now our pupils enlarged. R. clocked his jacket around my shoulders to shield me from the chilling wet walls and possible phantom arms as he stood alert, ready to carry me back through the tunnels and into the warm sunlight if necessary. But while the guide shined his light on empty rectangular niches in the walls, the sensitive hairs on the back of my neck laid flat.
" The Christians", he droned on, "adapted the Hebrew tradition of burying their dead rather than cremation. They soon required more space and were given permission to use the hilly slopes out side the city walls. After Constantine granted full privileges to the Christians, the remains of interred martyrs were moved to the Roman churches inside the city. The catacombs fell into disuse and were forgotten. We are still cleaning out and categorizing the seven miles of this underground graveyard."
He lead us to an alcove with an alter.
"Pilgrims held services here..."
I stood on one foot, then the other, restless, not because of ghost arms, but because there weren't any.
"Where's all the dead bodies?" I heard my self ask. "And before we descend another level, how about some scaffolding. What's holding these tunnels up, any way?"
The tour guide, unaccustomed to spontaneous interrogation, turned and probed the crowd with the beam of his light, looking for the offender. I shrank, hiding amongst the innocent. He cleared his throat and began.
" The dirt in this area is soft, easy to dig until it hits the air. Then a chemical reaction takes place turning the soft dirt into stone. So no supportive structure is needed. Now, as for the bodies... he paused, turned again to survey the huddled tourists, before he took a small jack knife out of his pocket and scraped the side of the tunnel's wall. "Most of the dearly departed have been removed but a few remain."
He flashed his light into the tiny hole he had dug showing the gray wrappings of a dead body.
"They don't smell, they don't decompose."
He leaned his face lovingly against a rectangular marble plate that hung against the wall. He began stroking the marble as he continued, "Just feel how this beautiful marble stays cool when it's ninety degrees upstairs. The even cold temperature down here acts like a deep freeze, that, plus the lime they used preserves the bodies like they died only yesterday."
Needless to say, I stuck close to the group and kept my mouth glued shut the rest of the tour.
"The sun, the wonderful warm sun," was all I could say ascending an opposite stairway after the tour. "Let's get something to eat," was all R. could say as he looked around for the snack shop. "Closed until 2pm."
"Dang European siestas. Every things shut down for two hours, probably even the busses. The map shows this path leads back to di S. Calisto, the first catacomb, the one that we missed. It's only a couple miles."
"I don't care how long it is," I said, still clinging to his arm, "Let's beat feet outa here."
The path lead us through dilapidated farms where bird songs and goats replaced farting busses. I finally unwrapped from around R. letting the sun soothe my stiffened muscles. Arms and legs unfurled, we were soon skipping around whistling replies to the sparrows and throwing green olives at each other. And on the horizon we could see the pillar like pines that are so familiar to the Italian landscape. The hot, dry air, the adobe farm shacks shaded by olive trees, felt familiar...like Mexico.
Before we knew it, we arrived at the most famous of the Famous Catacombs and were pushed along with the other tourists down the stone stairway. After the lectures from our first beady eyed tour guide I felt well versed on catacombs and became distracted by a rotund German who stood beside me munching a crusty roll with ham and cheese spilling around its edges. Between each chomp he slurped beer from a paper cup leaving his stringy mustache white with foam. About every third slurp he would curl his upper lip and with a swirl of his frog like tongue, he gathered the drippy ends of his mustache into his mouth and sucked them clean. I kept close to him, understanding now how Fido feels.
"If only he would notice me and offer me a morsel. Maybe he'll put his arm down and I can snatch a bite without him noticing. Or I could trip him, grab the bread and run."
As he took his last swallow, the tour was over and we emerged back into the sun light.
"Well, what did you think of this catacomb?" asked R.
"Um, er,ah," I stammered. "I, I aaa, I think San Sebastiano had less tourists and was much more informative."