The Melancholy Korean

It was still early when we arrived, perhaps just past noon, too early to check in. We decided to leave our bags at the hotel, the aptly named Grand Hotel Duchi d'Aosta. I guess Melancholy's concerns about money were short-lived, or perhaps just trumped by his desire "not to have to worry about it." I never learned what "it" was.

"It's so typical, isn't it?"

We were standing outside the hotel.

"This piazza is horrid, Harry. It's so typical of the Italians."

"I don't know, Melancholy. I rather like it."

He wiped a teardrop of sweat that had formed on his neck using a purple handkerchief. The color was a boyish touch on someone so serious, and Melancholy refused to go anywhere without at least three of them, all brightly colored and never ironed, stuffed into the pockets of his pants and jacket. This one was gingham check. That's an odd word. Gingham.

"Come on, Harry. I'll bet you like that horrid monument to Victor Emmanuel in Rome, too."

I do like it. Well, did like it. I'm not ashamed to admit I have terrible taste. I do. It's only by absorbing everything Melancholy tells me that I have been saved from even more embarrassing errors.

But while I was young and foolish in those days, and knew very little, I did know the most important lesson: under no circumstance was I supposed to answer Melancholy's question. I had to keep silent. He had that tone in his voice I've learned to recognize as a warning to stop speaking, like a driver who instinctively taps the brakes when he sees a red light. I hear the tone and immediately go silent. If I agreed with him, he might leave the subject alone, but one misspoken judgment, and I would never hear the end of it.

"Christ, Harry. Altare della Patria. Can you think of anything more pompous? Altar of the Fatherland? Are you fucking kidding me?"

It was coming now. The big blow-up.

"These Northern Italians want so badly to be taken seriously. It's undignified how desperate they are for respectability. We get it. You're not all lazy mafiosi. But what do they do?"

Another rhetorical question.

"They all pretend to be German."

I took a step away from him. His hands started making strong, jerky movements.

"I'll bet this fucking piazza was designed by a German."

We both looked out over the marble buildings in the piazza. Each one looked like a palace. Very imposing.

"Albert Speer could have designed this. I mean, it's right up a Nazi's alley. Just like that eyesore in the middle of Rome."

"Don't you think..."

"A fucking brilliant momument to pretension, hypocrisy, pomposity, and hideous taste."