Immortals of the Caffe Greco by Arturo Vivante

ARTURO VIVANTE, formerly A PROFESSOR OF CREATIVE WRITING AT BENNINGTON COLLEGE, IS THE AUTHOR OF NUMEROUS SHORT STORIES AND NOVELS.

Published: July 13, 1986 in The New York Times.

IMMORTALS OF THE CAFFE GRECO

The summer before last was so hot in Rome I spent a good deal of it in the coolness of the Caffe Greco, sipping iced tea, reading, writing letters, using it as a sort of study. It's a charming old place, right on the Via Condotti, a block from the Piazza di Spagna and Keats's house, and even nearer to the building where Leopardi stayed in the 1820's. Elizabeth Browning also lived in the neighborhood, on Via Mario de' Fiori, and Shelley a five-minute walk away, on the Corso.

Yes, I felt very well there, close to my favorite poets. Time glided by. And the suave old waiters in tails - as unobtrusive as the portraits hanging on the walls - showed no signs of impatience with my continued presence. A few I recognized from when I used to go there as a student, 40 years ago. I remembered only one of them as being at all talkative, but he wasn't there anymore. A short, wispy man with straight white hair and bright little eyes, he was fond of pointing out a portrait of Buffalo Bill to the customers, saying that he had served him here, telling of how Buffalo Bill had met with the vaccari -the Roman cowboys - out in the campagna, entered a riding contest with them, and - his eyes more and more gleeful as he reached the punch line - lost.

Almost every day of that hot summer, a well-known poet in his 70's, whom I had met at a dinner party in a villa a few weeks earlier - I remember the way he suddenly strode in, half way through the meal, saying, ''I'm very hungry'' - would appear. Thin, pale, with a wild and weathered look, his hair yellow-white, in a light silk shirt and linen slacks, he cut a striking figure. He would walk from one room to the other and peer at whoever was sitting at the tables as if he were looking for someone he could never find. I would acknowledge his presence with a buongiorno or buonasera each time his icy eyes rested on mine, but, each time, he ignored me.

''Next time he comes I'm not going to say anything,'' I vowed, but when he arrived and peered at me I was unable to keep my resolve. And then one day, he came in, saw me, and beaming walked straight over to me. ''I'm going to America,'' he said, in Italian of course.

So he had known who I was all along. At the dinner party I remembered telling him that I taught literature in a college in New England. He spoke of some translations he had done of Robert Lowell, and when I told him that I'd admired them, he scrutinized me. Apparently satisfied that I was not just trying to please him, he said, bitterly, ''You are one of the few.'' Now he stood in front of my table. ''To America,'' I said. ''Oh, good!'' ''Harvard,'' he said. ''I am not surprised,'' I said. That pleased him. He sat down. ''In September,'' he said. ''I'll be there four weeks.'' ''In the town of Robert Lowell,'' I said. ''Yes, I hope to see him.'' ''Oh but . . . he died.'' ''No, no,'' he said, very sure of himself, ''he's living.'' ''Oh, but -- , ''

''Of course he's living,'' he said. ''Robert Lowell, eh,'' and he shrugged his shoulders as if to dismiss anything I might have to say to the contrary.

''Oh, yes, he's alive,'' a man, evidently another man of letters - the place was frequented by them - said from a table near us. They greeted each other. Was the new man just taking his side, or did he really think that Robert Lowell was still alive? And at the same time a doubt came to my mind: could I possibly be wrong? But no, unfortunately Robert Lowell was dead. I had heard him read in Cambridge months before his death. He had surely died. I had read and heard about it. And yet this poet here and this other man . . . I felt like one of those characters in movies whom people try to persuade he's mad.

''Yes, of course he's alive,'' the poet said with irritation and looked at me as at some ignorant student.

I didn't insist further. After all, he could have meant it figuratively: that Robert Lowell lived because of and through what he had written. And when he had said that he planned to see him or pay him a visit, he might have had in mind his grave. Besides, he left my table and went to sit next to the letterato.

Going by the U.S.I.A. library on Via Veneto a few days later, I looked up in an almanac the name of Robert Lowell. Indeed he had died. I made a mental note of the date.

I was back at the Caffe Greco the next day, reading, when the poet entered and was as cordial as he had been when he had come over to my table. Again he spoke to me about the trip. ''What book have you there?'' he said. ''I bought it at the Lion bookshop this morning. 'Old Mortality' by Katherine Anne Porter.''

''Katherine Anne Porter,'' he said. ''There's no one I am more fond of. Oh, I know her very well. Our Miranda. She is a lively lady. Bellissima. Simpaticissima.''

I looked at him with astonishment. Did he think she was alive too? She had died in 1976. I knew the date without looking it up, because, as they say in colleges, ''I taught her.''

''I met her in Paris,'' he said. ''I called her Miranda because of that charming character in the very book you are reading, which is herself, of course. Talk about liberated women - she is the prototype, the independent woman par excellence. A prima donna, too, and something of a dragon. But what a delightful dragon!''

This time I had no intention or urge or even temptation of saying that the person he was speaking of was dead. I was no spoilsport. To have said it would have made me feel like a vulture, some bird interested only in the dead. I told him instead something I knew firsthand about her. ''She was giving a reading at a Midwestern university I taught at, a very important reading, with lots of people, a huge audience, a multitude, a thousand or more, in a great big auditorium. Well, half way through the reading - after about 30 minutes - the dean, who had introduced her, fell asleep. Visibly, audibly asleep. Slowly she turned toward him, stared at him a moment and closed her manuscript. 'That'll be all,' she said.''

''Fantastic,'' the poet said. ''Memorable. Whatever they paid, they got their money's worth that day. Not just another reading. Something to talk and tell about for years to come, as you just did. Oh yes, she's a no-nonsense woman, as they say in English. A dragon and a darling. I must remind her and congratulate her.''

''I like this place,'' I said, changing the subject. ''Not just the locale, but the location too. So near all these poets - Leopardi, Elizabeth Browning, Keats.''

''Keats,'' he picked up. ''Last night, I was walking down the Spanish Steps and the moon was shining on his room. A ray of light gleamed through the window pane. The moon seeking Endymion, you understand?'' I nodded. ''The moon finding Endymion at his address - 26 Piazza di Spagna - bathing him with light, with her own light, with herself, there, while he slept. There was love in that room last night. The full moon shone. A soft and balmy night, a night of love.''

He looked at me while I nodded. A moment later, again without saying goodbye, he rose and left. After a while, a waiter came by. ''I think I'd like a double whisky,'' I said.

The waiter, whom I'd never seen perturbed, raised his eyebrows the tiniest fraction of an inch. ''No tea,'' he said. ''No tea,'' I repeated after him. I drank the whisky, and ordered another, and drank that. I stared at the picture of Buffalo Bill who was staring at me. Soon, the image split in two, and one - or both -began to move.

''Hi, Bill,'' I said, ''how are you, old sport? Don't let what happened today out in the campagna get you down - those vaccari are just a bunch of kids.''