From Fiumicino to Termini

The road from Fiumicino to Rome, in a bus full of noisy tourists, gave me the time I needed to put my thoughts in order and make a plan. Looking out the window at unfamiliar landscapes, it was clear to me that every meter travelled was bringing me closer to a completely uncertain future. I tried to imagine the next steps, although I felt lost in a city entirely unknown to me. The kind lady sitting beside me on the plane had suggested that I take the bus to Stazione Termini, Rome's railway station. From there, my first stop had to be the Information Office in the station, to find out how to reach the refugee camp at Latina as quickly as possible. The information she had given me seemed like a thin thread of hope, a clear direction in the chaos in which I found myself.

Latina, the closed gate

The camp at Latina had been established during the Cold War, after the Hungarian Revolution. It was the largest refugee center which, for decades, had served as the exit gate for those who had fled Eastern Europe, a place where hopes were reborn before moving toward new worlds: the United States, Canada or Australia. For more than thirty years, the center had received around 80,000 people who had fled Eastern European countries and had stayed for several months in that “abnormal village”, a kind of ghetto inside the town of Latina, before leaving for the dreamed-of destination. A human river of women, children and men who had arrived in Italy with nothing, after risky journeys full of danger, their eyes full of fatigue, but also of hope. I too hoped that, once I arrived there, I would have a chance to begin a new life. That thought was the only thread to which I was clinging.

As the bus approached Rome, I felt that every kilometer was bringing me closer to a future I could not yet even imagine. When I reached Stazione Termini, I hurried to the Information Office only to learn news that left me breathless: for geopolitical reasons related to détente between East and West, the camp at Latina had recently been closed to new refugees, and the process of emigration had become much more complicated for them. Candidates for emigration now had to find their own way in Rome, waiting for the interview that would be scheduled only several months later. My plan, already fragile, was beginning to unravel; the thread I had been holding onto had snapped. This sudden change shook my confidence in a better future, and optimism quickly turned into silent panic.

The Di Rienzo boarding house

Completely disoriented, with the help of the Information Office, I found the cheapest possible place, at the one-star Di Rienzo boarding house on Via Principe Amedeo, close to the station, where, for only 25,000 lire a night, I had a tiny room that was worth exactly what I paid for it. It was on the top floor of a massive four-story Umbertine building. Hidden in a corner of a dark corridor, my room was a tiny cage, with plywood walls and a low, narrow door that creaked miserably every time I slipped through it. The bed, too small for me, and the sink with its lukewarm, undrinkable water constantly reminded me of the precariousness of my situation. The only window looked onto an inner courtyard, from which rose the heavy smell of food from the restaurant on the ground floor. Despite the heat coming from the overheated roof, which stunned me both day and night, I preferred to keep the window closed, especially when I was hungry, which in practice was all the time.

From that first Roman period I have also kept a small card from the boarding house. Seen today, it is no longer merely an address printed on a piece of paper, but one of the first material traces of the precariousness into which I was entering. The name of the boarding house, the telephone number, the proximity to Termini and the address in Via Principe Amedeo fixed on paper what, for me at the time, was a day-to-day solution for survival.

I had less than 200,000 Italian lire in my pocket and no concrete prospect of emigration in the near future. I felt cornered by despair, and the thought of returning home seemed the only solution. I immediately went to the TAROM agency on Via Bissolati to change the date of my return ticket, but they refused, because the ticket had a fixed date, one month away. I felt trapped.

I thus realized that I had to remain in Rome, register with the U.S. Consulate for emigration, and arm myself with patience. But how was I to survive with only 98 dollars in my pocket, money that would cover only three nights at the boarding house?

Caritas

Also at the Information Office I had learned about Caritas Italiana, an organization of the Italian Catholic Church that promotes charity in society, offering help to refugees and to those in need: food, clothing, medical and legal assistance, and even a roof over one's head in extreme cases. Founded in 1971, its purpose was to encourage, coordinate and support initiatives inspired by Christian values. I ran to have a photograph taken for the Caritas card, so that I could benefit from these services. What I needed first of all was food.

The Caritas card remained for me a small passport of survival. On one of its pages there is the photograph taken in haste, beside my typed name and reference number; on the other pages, month after month, the stamps accumulated, extending my access to the organization’s services. It was not an identity document in the legal sense, but in my first months in Rome it functioned as a minimal confirmation that I existed there and that I had the right at least to a hot meal.

The stamps say more dryly than I could how long the provisional state was extended: the card was issued on 31 August 1989, and the monthly stamps continued until the end of December 1990, that is, to the threshold of 1991. What on the first day had seemed to me merely an emergency solution gradually became a routine of waiting.

I learned of two Caritas canteens in Rome. One was on Colle Oppio, in Via delle Sette Sale, fairly close to the station, and therefore to my boarding house, where I could have lunch. The other was in Via Dandolo, very far from where I lived, where I could have dinner. Trying to benefit from both canteens in a single day, I realized that walking to Via Dandolo and back took more than an hour, without the necessary buses, which would have cost me money I did not have; and when I got home, acute hunger returned. So I contented myself with lunch at Caritas, and in the evening I managed with a sandwich.

Anca

Food was no longer the main problem now, but rather my situation as a refugee unrecognized by the Italian authorities, which seemed to me to have no way out. I should have applied for political asylum in Italy, and the Italian authorities would have granted me some help, but I wanted to go to the United States, and for that I had to wait several months. Given all these shortcomings, I had to find a way to secure my livelihood. I asked the owner of the boarding house for help, a kind man who allowed me to stay there as long as I needed and to pay when I had the money. Besides, a room like mine was not coveted by tourists. After talking with him, the only solution left to me was to ask for help from my aunt Anca in New York, the one who had urged me year after year to take this mad step. So I called her collect. When she learned that I had arrived in Italy, she was overwhelmed with emotion and assured me that she would send me the money I needed to survive until emigration.

“Stay calm, rest. Enjoy Rome, because when you get to New York, you will have to work hard,” she told me in a warm but firm voice.

Three days later, I received 500 dollars at the American Express Bank in Piazza di Spagna. The first thing I did was to pay my debts to the owner of the boarding house.

The application at the U.S. Consulate

In parallel, after gathering all the necessary documents, I went to the Emigrant Center, administered by the U.S. Consulate, and submitted my application for emigration. I learned from the desk and from other Romanians in my situation that the interview might be scheduled only five months later. I was forced to put down roots in this foreign city, and although I did not know how long I would remain there, Rome was the milestone between my past and an uncertain future. The city, with all its bustle and beauty, had become the stage on which I awaited my future, with hope, but also with fear that I might never succeed in reaching the place where I truly wished to be.

Pages spun off from this chapter

In its initial form, this chapter continued with many episodes from the same Roman period. As the text grew, however, they became too extensive to remain all in a single page. I have therefore separated them into individual pages, preserving them as parts of the same memorial stage.

• The first attempts to organize a new life
  HIAS, Joint, Anca's help, the meeting with Alessandro Panella and the Burberry trench coat — the first attempts to turn the temporary stay in Rome into a possible path forward.
• Giovanni M. and the residence permit
  A former police commissioner, hesitant Italian, the urgent question of legal residence and the first discussion about a possible information-technology company.
• Rome in Waiting
  Walks through Rome in the first months of emigration: Santa Maria Maggiore, the Orange Garden, San Giovanni in Laterano, the lady with the little dog and the image of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on the city's walls.
• Sirio's House
  The move from the Di Rienzo boarding house to a more stable home, the portrait of Sirio and the daily rhythm of an emigrant’s life in Rome.
• Academic adventures in Italy
  La Sapienza, a humiliating “Fuori, fuori!”, the meeting with Corrado Böhm, the recognition of the degree and the failed attempt to re-enter the Italian academic world.
• The First Job in Italy
  EUR Microcomputer, Carlo, the EUR district, Rebibbia, Turbo Pascal, dBase III and the first concrete return to professional activity.
• Datamat: The Phone Call That Never Came
  A promising meeting with one of the major companies in Italian information technology and an expectation that remained unanswered.

Conclusion

Here the central core of the purgatory comes to an end: arrival, the loss of the initial plan, the discovery of precariousness, the first dependence on help from others, and the submission of the application for American emigration. From this point on, Rome is no longer only the place of the initial shock, but becomes a space of successive attempts: people, institutions, streets, monuments, telephone calls, promises, courses, jobs and failures.

The purgatory had not ended. But it had begun to transform itself. It was no longer only hunger, a sordid room and silent panic; it was gradually becoming the work of adaptation. In that provisional shelter called Rome, I still had America before me, but without wanting to, I had begun to gather the materials of an Italian life.

Next: The first attempts to organize a new life.

Back: “Leaving the Country” · Back to “Emigration” · Back to “Memoirs” · Top