The Feast of Us Others

Trastevere is a boisterous, reeking, junglelike quarter that lies across a turbulent stretch of the Tiber river quite apart from most of Rome. The Trasteverini think the separation is fine. They like their dizzy labyrinth of alleyways, the Queen of Heaven jail and the little shop where the baker's daughter and the artist Raphael lived and lusted 400 years ago. They also delight in the dark, heavy-bosomed beauty of their women, the deftly handled stiletto and heroic quantities of dry, amber Frascati.

Trastevere has been the tenderloin of Rome ever since the Romans first settled across the Tiber. It achieved its earliest fame by supplying Rome's toughest gladiators and most durable prostitutes. Since then it has energetically produced a steady stream of hoodlums, revolutionaries, first-class soccer teams and the most colorful nicknames on the Italian peninsula (Trasteverini know each other by such names as the Mosquito, the Tub and the Big Balloon). "We don't quite know how we got to be different from everyone else," said the Mosquito last week as he polished up the wine glasses at his bar in the Via della Lungaretta. "I guess it's just a tradition sent down from our ancestors."

Enter the Communists. Once a year, Trasteverini hold a Procession of the Madonna del Carmine; they have added to it an additional celebration called the Festa de Nojantri (The Feast of Us Others). Together the two occasions are good for at least two weeks of sports, drinking, feasting, beauty and wine-tippling contests, and a lively spate of knife fights.

The Feast of Us Others had been managed by the Trasteverini themselves until 1917, when the Fascist Dopolavoro (workers' recreation society) tried to turn it into an organized political celebration. "One year," recalls Housewife Felicetta Gaudenzi, "they brought a Negro all the way from Abyssinia to stand at the entrance to the bridge. You paid so much, and you punched him. Then, unless you paid extra, he punched you back."

Last fortnight, as Trastevere prepared for the first Feast of Us Others in a decade, the district's alert Communists saw a chance to step in & take over where the Fascists had left off. But the Communists underestimated the alertness of the opposition. While they were debating ways & means to raise money for the affair, the right wing E.N.A.L. (National Organization for Workers' Welfare) blandly announced that it would sponsor the show this year, promptly received a generous donation from the anti-Communist Il Giornale d'ltalia.

A Prize for the Big Balloon. The frustrated Communists howled. "They are pulling a fast one," shrieked a party newspaper Il Paesa. "The Feast of Us Others is being changed to the Feast of Them There . . . Them There are the people who argue only with 1,000 lira bills . . . people who would change into toothpaste advertising even the pictures of Raphael . . ." The Communists' final blow came when they discovered that the opposition had cornered all police permits for the feast. The police took the position that if the Communists and the anti-Communists both hold processions for the Madonna del Carmine, blood would probably flow in the streets. As gracefully as they could, the Communists beat a retreat, agreed to join E.N.A.L. and the Giornale d'ltalia as co-sponsors of a unified celebration.

Last week, under a huge canopy of festive lights paid for by the Giornale, Trasteverini thronged happily to the feast. The sponsors had discarded an original plan to crown as "Miss Vino" the Trastevere girl who could drink the most wine, thought it would be even more imprudent to hold a regular beauty contest. "The first," explained a committeeman, "would not be dignified in these times; the second would be too dangerous, because there are too many girls in Trastevere who are the most beautiful."

But scores of other contests came off in style. The Big Balloon, an undersized young hawker in the piazza of San Cosimato, won 20,000 lira (about $35) for his exceptional fruit stand, which boasted 15 varieties of fruit and a trimming of laurel and myrtle leaves. Grazie Ceci, who is 90 years old and who shares three rooms in Bologna alley with 22 relatives and acquaintances, won a 1,000 lira prize as the oldest grandmother, announced she would spend a good part of it on wine.

The Poppy & the Cricket. The fiesta committee scored its most resounding triumph with the return of the Bersaglieri, the proudest troops of Italy. The Bersaglieri wear plumes of cock feathers in their caps, run instead of march, and in Trastevere, which always had its own regiment, have been a tradition for almost 100 years. Since World War II, however, Trastevere's regiment had been quartered in Milan. With the opening of this year's feast, the first units of the old Trastevere Bersagliere regiment came home, ran heroically through the twisting streets blowing bugles while exuberant Trasteverini welcomed them with flowers, Frascati and frenzied cheers.

The Trasteverini could remember few finer fiestas. Only the Communists still grumbled dourly that they could have done it better. At Romolo's wineshop, a Communist stronghold, the potbellied Cricket argued sharply with the Poppy, a Red. The Poppy had just remarked snidely: "Someone is getting fat from the festa this year." "Had you your way," said the Cricket, "the walls would have been plastered with newspapers, the Madonna would have been ashamed to show herself in your presence, and the Bersaglieri would have stayed where they were."

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