Lost in transit

This place here

Near the riverbank four weathered stone columns stand at the corners of a stone rectangle. This town was an old Roman settlement, the columns could easily be Roman and ancient, or they could be newer copies, a century or two old.

It is a balmy summer evening. On a stone bench at the center of the four columns sits a teenaged girl playing a Celtic harp to a small audience of passersby who have stopped to listen. Now and then one drops a coin into the hat in front of her and leaves, or someone walking past pauses to listen. The sun is setting huge and orange behind the forest across the nearly placid river.

A thin young man with a long goatee and a large sunburst tattoo on his elbow sits on the steps near the girl, closes his eyes and listens, a blissful look on his face. A child drops a coin into the hat, and then her little brother demands a coin from their mother so he also can.

The sun is down but it stays light and warm. The city fathers have been good about spraying for mosquitos this year so there are few of those pests swarming about. The audience thins until it is just two blissful men a generation apart, the young one with the tattoo and myself.

It was one of those moments so perfect that briefly your history doesn't matter, what your name is or how you got here. He sits, I stand. The woods darken as the orange glow fades to purple, then black. The girl plays until she can no longer see the notes, then she plays from memory. She plays until she can no longer see the strings.

My daughter.

The Danube here was once the Limes, the northern border of the Roman Empire if I understood the explanation. Even now, the people north of the river remain a little different in their dialects or drinking habits. Not exactly barbaric, but different.

Since this town is an old Roman settlement, Roman artifacts are common. In fact, they are a real problem to the local construction industry. If you uncover anything of archeological interest you're required to report it to the authorities, after which your project is delayed for six months while archeologists go over everything with their dental picks and brushes, digging and cataloguing. Needless to say, a lot of potshards go unreported when builders are on a tight schedule.

The river is regulated now and its banks here are a parklike landscape lined with attractions, fountains and statues, stages and museums and cafes. When I first came here, 27 years ago, it was still just raw riverbank here. Even then it was nice, though. I thought then, These Europeans know how to live. I didn't dream, at the age of 17, that I'd be living like that one day.

The evening is warm, this summer's been a hot one. While my daughter packs her harp I have to take a wicked piss so I duck into a restroom beneath a centuries-old convent. It's not a convent anymore, housing instead the town library and rooms used for concerts or receptions, although the attached church is still in business. The first time I ever got drunk or kissed a girl (same night) wasn't far from here.

Back outside, in the parking lot, a frame holding a license plate onto a Subaru bears the name of a local car dealer. My kid went to a harp festival in Scotland with his daughter this year.

Slowly the layers build up.

Posted by Mig at August 19, 2003 06:47 AM