'Street of Purification', by Claude Chabot

It is the hour when the sun fades and the sky is an enlightenment of the hues between blue and black. The ruined columns below us stretch out against this sky like the shattered spine of an ancient animal, a ghostly magnificence. Silhouetted in the last light, a flock of tiny birds pass. Beside us a cluster of men and women dressed in black talk and laugh softly. They smoke, the amber glow of their cigarettes moving about their heads as they gesture.
The heat of the day has broken. Night draws in as if carried on the breeze that barely ruffles Jeanne’s hair. Sunlight, having passed from the day, seems to have taken the cadres of tourists and their squadrons of glass buses with it.
We, too, are tourists, but looking for a different kind of monument, a different souvenir. In truth, we do not know for what we are searching. Tonight the promise of a good meal and a late stroll and perhaps a drink in a favorite bar near the Palazzo Farnese seems enough. How calm and soothed I feel! I look at Jean-Paul. He leans over the wall and watches the top of the Palatine Hill. Jeanne is looking at me, and I suppose, the stupid look of a reverie that has come upon my face. Yet she doesn’t laugh, she smiles and lights a cigarette she has withdrawn from her cloak. She offers me one, and lights it as well. I haven’t smoked in years, and the wicked pleasure of it I partake of knowingly and completely. Jeanne smokes unfiltered black Turkish tobacco wrapped in plain white paper. The smoke is slightly harsh and barely sweet, and I take it deep into my lungs and my brain. 
It is only now for some reason that I noticed why I have been so moved by our moments here. The deserted Forum is enveloped in a hush quite separate from the rushing and clattering of automobiles in modern Rome just a few feet away. Here in our little tableaux is repose. Jean-Paul joins us, and he smokes as well, and we all return to the view before the sun disappears entirely. Oh yes, I have forgotten to add that we have all just met this day at our hotel, and this is our little joke; my new friends are Jean-Paul and Jeanne. My name is Paul: Jean-Paul and Jeanne and Paul.
We turn to embrace the clatter and promise of this Roman evening; the alleys, cafes – the beautiful and interesting Romans whom we watch and who watch us.
After the late dinner where we have all happily eaten too well, we take a late stroll and then a cognac in a grand old hotel on a street whose name I failed to note. Our heels click against the stones of the empty street. It is quiet in this quarter. Occasionally, we pass a stray cat or a couple as taken by the evening as we are.
We walk arm in arm speaking in English or in the scraps of French that I recall from the university. How delightedly they laugh over my attempts at their language and their own attempts at mine! Jean-Paul’s eyes laugh, bright with this evening’s pleasure. We are twined together now, my arm around Jeanne, hers around mine, his around hers. Turning a corner, I brush against Jean-Paul’s arm as we walk and we stop talking, stop laughing. We must present an unusual sight paused as we are under the light of a rare streetlamp, all of us dressed in black or blue, Jean-Paul’s silk shirt open at the neck. I look at him. His breath rises and falls in his chest. His person is as elegant as his clothes. Really, they are both beautiful, intelligent people. Their hair is exactly the same color. They could easily be brother and sister if I did not know better.
Jeanne watches curiously, her black eyes looking from one of us to the other. We are still locked in one another’s arms. The night is still and hushed, and impulsively I lean forward and softly kiss one, then the other on the lips. We are joined in a circle now; my shadow casts on them a chiaroscuro like the Caravaggio we have seen that afternoon. Each kiss has been different; Jeanne is sweet from her dessert, and her breath is the pleasant spiciness of tobacco. A wraith of jasmine scent clings to her hair.
Jean-Paul tastes too of tobacco and smells of clean, scrubbed flesh, and the friction of stubble brushes mine. My heart is beating rapidly; they are the yin-yang lovers of my dreams.
It is when we have turned to walk again that I see above the street light the name of the ancient thoroughfare on which we stand; Via della Purificazione, Street of the Purification.
Quietly we pace the steps back to our rooms. The last patrons of Orsini’s (with its obscene bowls of whipped cream and tubs of ices) move off in groups. Waiters pile chairs around the piazza at the Pantheon. The relic of an empire broods fatly on the square, keeping its secrets.
Nothing has been said, nothing whispered, when we return to our hotel. We part, and later, after we have bathed for the night, I am asked back. They are both in dark blue dressing gowns. Jean-Paul wears a silk scarf tied loosely around his neck. Their bed is turned down, and they offer me a glass of Cointreau, chilled (I can only guess where they have found the ice). I accept and drink the cloudy liqueur, and thanking them, excuse myself, explaining that I would like to read before sleeping. I will be awake for a while.
It is only a few minutes later when Jeanne softly knocks and enters. I have not been reading, but waiting. She drops down softly on my bed and kisses me, drawing her robe off. Only this is not what I have expected, and I stop her and we talk. Kneeling beside me she smiles. She is beautiful and I tell her so. We speak for a time. Sadly, for I don’t want her to go, she draws her robe on and returns to her room. It is only a few minutes later that Jean-Paul enters and repeats his wife’s actions exactly. But I embrace him. We do not talk at all; words are unnecessary. When it is over, we lie in one another’s arms, and I know that the friendship has been lost.
At breakfast we are shy of one another; talking is difficult. They say they have plans for the day, and we intend to meet for dinner. But by dinner they have left the hotel.
In my room I am overwhelmed with sadness and longing as if torn from friends I’d known for years, not merely a day.
At the window the sun is setting. The bells are tolling the hour, and in my agitation I watch and hear the ancient city—the city of redemption. Last night I stood in the light on the Street of the Purification and almost found what I’d come to look for among the foreign crowds.

Claude Chabot has published 23 short stories and 13 reprints. He explores the conflicts and changes his characters experience while traveling, along with ghost stories and mysteries, humor and satire, as well as myriad other themes. He has written one novel and is at work on two others.

Photography by Fineas Anton (Edited by Claude Chabot)