Nevica

Driving in the big grey car with the butter-soft leather seats and the whole vehicle smalls of truffles. The Contessa holds them in a glass jar full of risotto: A succulent dish that will be served up later with only the truffle scent hinting at the current pleasure those kernels enjoy.

Now, we carry the prize to uncle Giglio in Rome.  He will use the truffles in his famous linguine for one night only. Customers and friends in the know will line up at his trattoria doors promptly at 8:30pm.  We will be there.  I sit in the back seat, nose against the chilly window watching the snow fly, drooling at the idea of the coming meal. Soon the snow will turn to rain as we approach the Tiber valley and the Eternal City. Good thing, I think, for Roma has no plows.

But the snow does not stop by the time we reach the city.  The cobbled streets of Rome have lost their etching. Road-noise is absent. The Ferrari tires glide, no, slip along the icy via. The Count swears under his breath as great glazed domes into view.

Marble statues wear coats of white mink. The umbrella pines on the Pincian hill stand like bas-relief on a slab of ancient glacier.

Effervescent Rome is dampened, the bustling city muffled under a white dome more grand than any other in sight.

The Contessa puts a hand to her mouth as we pass the Pantheon. She whispers as though her words are a secret, “Fermiamo qui.”

The Count pulls over and we quit the car, walking on the silent cushion of snow toward the most beautiful building in Rome. The Contessa pulls me into her fur coat and we enter the vacant Pantheon. There in the center is a miracle: A column of flakes descends from the oculus as a alabaster pillar and I wonder if this is the way the marble columns of Rome were created.  At it’s base the marble floor is blanketed in a perfect round of white, pedestal to the heavenly pillar.

All things a dog sees are miraculous.  This is the way of a dog. Every day is new and all things possible.

Even “nevica” in Rome and ancient pillars made from snow.

Chow.