Trattoria

Martin Bennett
ISSUE 2006-1
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Trattoria 1 The Hungarian waitress is the only one who understands even a little English as two Japanese newly-weds put on a lesson in etiquette so deeply elaborate it might be ritual, a free table-show that has the locals laying down their forks, just short of applause: tenderness squared, how in turn she serves him, he serves her, now improvises a spaghetti sandwich, now pours twin-glasses of cut-price wine three-wheelered in weekly from Frascati: ‘Brindisi!’/ toasts all round: a Peruvian and then this British divorcee grin ruefully from our separate corners. 2 All at once the air abrim with vowels as back in the kitchen a cook launches into ‘Le donne son mobili’ accompanied by clattering plates. Noses ultra-Roman in their dimensions - friendliness of the Syrian to my right balanced on a knife-edge, across his face scars that might make a gladiator proud. The regular in the corner winks and sighs. Beneath a hotly-spiced cloud now enter a heap of kidneys from heaven - every seven minutes or so the next train for Lazio parallel to the window and trailing whistles, thunder, oblongs of light.