(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Gyldendal, who is my publisher, rents several apartments in the Italian city of Terracina, both for its staff and for its writers; for a cheap money we get to rent great, large apartments. Terracina is a coastal town (it has a beach – five kilometers of sandy beach named after Church, the sorcerer in Odyssey) located in southern Italy, between Rome and Naples; The town is divided in two as it has an ancient city up on a hill, where Gyldendal rents its apartments, and a fishing and seaside town below, by the sea.
The center – if it is the right name – in the old town is a place at a cathedral (therefore we call the square the square, but the correct name is Piazza del Municipio); and this church, which is really a cathedral, is a Renaissance church built over an ancient temple (here the Catholics were pragmatic).
The marble slabs on the square are 2000 years old, right through the old town the Roman road Via Appia connected Rome with southern Italy, and I imagine that Paul has strolled here and Goethe, and maybe Blessed Ibsen – here is a big stone scene where the youths play football and have their school graduation, where of course they put up a drama of just that Odyssey, as the Italians know how to preserve their ancient heritage, although this drama was originally written by a Greek, by Homer.
High above the courtyard and the old town, on a rocky nut, lies the Jupiter Temple; an ancient Roman ruin, which the old town is otherwise full of – there are pillars everywhere, fenced with small signs; antique, it says, but the Catholic heritage is here, too; down the narrow street to our last apartment, named after his wife who brought Italy to a realm: Anita Garibaldi's street, which is very narrow, and there they drive cars – over cobblestones that are completely black; how old they can be – fast, and one can wonder how smart it is, surrounded as they are by Roman ruins. As we walk down this street, we come to a small waterpost with a clock, a cafe and one of the first apartments Gyldendal rented, and a few meters down, towards the Roman gate, stands a really strange church: the church for those who come to the purgatory .
So the purgatory. The stairs up are full of weeds and through the centuries crooked steps; on the facade are four semi-columns, three oval windows, stained-glass windows. In the middle a rectangular window, also with a decorated frame, worn brick facade – and at the very top, in a very Baroque tympanon, the knuckle-man stands in the middle figure with a scythe, and the tip of the scythe ends in an hourglass, thus a memento mori (below the scythe stands it in Latin: Today I cross you – "Today me, tomorrow you"). Somewhere I've read, by extension Dante's Divine comedy, that purgatory was invented in the 1200th century as the poor ended up in inferno and the rich in paradise, so where were they in between after death? Craftsmen, sub-officers, farmers, the middle class of the city? Well, just for the purgatory, or the purgatory
There are four roads down to the seaside resort – for me, the other town in Terracina is a seaside resort, as we used to rent privately (at stiff prices) in the summer when the Gyldendal apartments are reserved for the staff, since we had schoolchildren and were on the beach, and there was a crowd of tourists from Rome. Four roads and all roads are winding. We usually take the stairwell, past the old town's best pizza restaurant, past the Republican wall, and on the left a large palace (which has been the pope's summer residence) and down all the marble stairs full of dirty geckos, burnt and abandoned shrubs and scrub on the outside, before the actual stairwell.
I imagine Paul has strolled here, and Goethe, and maybe Blessed Ibsen.
And finally down – the intense heat feels like a pressure against the body – we come straight out onto the bus station and the raft of plane trees, to the left is the narrow and muddy river, dry palms, and we walk down one of the side streets towards a canal before turning to the right, past the Banca di Roma and down the main street Viale della Vittoria; many shops, rows of tall pine trees with alarmed sirens, and they rattle much more than ordinary, early, autumn-active Norwegian grasshoppers.
At the end of the main street, there is always headwind, a dingy highway, very busy, as we drove, and then the fantastic promenade that goes high, along the entire beach with thick, rounded railings at the top (which was previously painted blue to be a parallel to the sea), with planted palm trees, benches and stairs down to the beach; most are private, full of cheerful umbrellas, and sun loungers, not to mention small cafes; a few municipalities that were unfortunately (at least before) worn down with miserable toilets.
Then down one of the stairs to bathe and pay for a chair (and bed for those who want it) and an umbrella for sitting and reading in the shade. It smelled strongly from the sea, and the sound was powerful with its meditative waves, which always make me listen and dream; the sand was fiery, and as always, the fine sand from someone who packed up and shook big bath towels, and after getting into reading mode or starting (for those who wanted to) sunbathe or swim, came the leptosome, degenerate, downcast sellers from Africa, India and Bangladesh, who sell sunglasses, bath towels, bath toys, hats, rings; neck, wrist and leg straps; yes, all that is from scratch, but also exquisite clothing, and always hectic haggling.
And after them came the little Thai ladies who shouted for massage, then the ice-seller who blew in a whistle and who was always Italian, and after him the man with coconuts in a water bucket, roaring, hoarse, he too native, brown-barked by a lot of sun, but then I was thirsty and felt more like a beer than a fresh dip, which is usually the water in the Mediterranean cold and salty, so I marked the book of donkeys I read – it has already got a fine, thin strip of sand between two sides – and traveled got me up to buy a beer and asked if the others wanted something. If it was a child, then it was ice, it was my wife, it was dry white wine.
This time we had my daughter, her husband and their two children; then there was ice cream on children and grandchildren; beer for me and white wine for wife; my daughter got up from the sunbed and took her little family out for a swim; they ran in flocks, as the sand was warm, and stopped at the water's edge as if to feel how cold it was; I turned my back and glanced up at the Jupiter Temple – another magnificent imprint of antiquity – in wonder at my daughter who wanted to run up there. Over the balustrade there are many low-flying tower sailors, in Oslo they are a handful, here they were many and flew at a violent speed; they must have good eyesight, or the ability to shift focus for a fraction of a second, without hitting walls, cars, open windows, it is said that they can sleep in the air, even mingle in the air.
Like the Italian families pulled home for lunch, we did the same; not up to the Gyldendal apartment, but to a pizza bar in town right behind us. We have been there so many times that the headmaster greets me – it is an eatery that does not close during siesta (every time we arrive in Terracina everything is closed in the old town, so we have to bring packed lunch) – and at the pizza bar, which is not so much bully but a good and stylish resturant with lots of good italian food, they still have a problem, namely gluten free pizza (but they fix it at other restaurants in town); It is my daughter and her husband who are allergic to gluten.
After the food (which often ends up with my daughter and her husband choosing steak) we walked home via the stairwell, up the slick marble stairs – constantly with solar heat, frightened fireflies – and the back streets of the publishing house, and some of the bumps were so narrow that we had to walk in the process of walking. Also in the back alleys of the old town there were small signs of antiquity; a pillar that seemed to be thrown against a fine sandy hill, and the rest of another, framed by some colorful plastic tape. There are no graffiti here, just some plastic bins with garbage and of all things sorted garbage from food, plastic, glass, paper to be picked up the next morning by the municipal cleaning industry.
Two elderly women, on their way, where then, not to the church, prematurely, dressed in black mourning – some once said that several of the elders in this old town had never been to the beach, never down in the younger town; never seen the sea ever, it could be possible – up here, year in and year out. To the left, someone had forgotten to close the cabinet door of a gas cabinet built into the house facade; I could see gas hoses and pipe clamps, and vis-a-vis a door, there was a cat, striped, thin and with ears moving, individually, like chameleon eyes; it yawned high, sharp teeth, surely been up all night; flush with mice, what about rats, rather mice than rats; look there, said my wife, and a cod gecko laughed away, in full, it was as long as an adult finger, dotted; it is said that they have glue under the paws, what is called paws in them, if not fingers and toes?
The next day we took the bus to the neighboring town of Sperlonga, also with a long coast, and as in Terracina an old town. Strong onshore wind – we sat in a cafe (called Ulysses) overlooking the sea – napping in the tablecloths; Sperlonga is known for having the house of Tiberius, the emperor after Augustus. To the left of where we sat I could see something reminiscent of a tower; sand-colored stone, pennant, more castle than tower, perhaps a fortress to fight pirates, as it is said that Sperlonga was exposed before.
We walked up to the tower, a steep hill with cobblestones, on one side a rough, unworked rock wall, on the other a rise of stones. Wide marble top, more seat than handrails, who would sit there, terrified of falling into the water, and the wave as seen from the side; long, curved swaths of fresh speed made me think of Munch, white foam wreaths over green colored water, below completely black water, perhaps due to seaweed, far away Terracina, where the sea was dark blue, a scary abode, if nothing covered to; To the right is the dark beach, wet with sea water, up on land several hotels, on the horizon misty mountain peaks. And over those pointed mountain peaks: thick, expansive clouds that, for all I know, are on their way to becoming gray rain clouds.
Healthy is a writer, with a number of fiction books and essays behind him.
