“Share the oil?” She giggled.

“Ah, but that is not the Church’s teaching,” said Jason, assuming a stern look. “The Church frowns on foolishness and punishes transgression. Only heretics would forgive and share.”

“That’s me,” she exclaimed. “I shared my stuff with you!”

They got up and went off toward the American movie house, Pasquino, where they saw a notice for a place to rent and called it. No one answered.

Then, as they crossed into Piazza Trilussa, she had a moment of super exhilaration and elation as she felt a joint bombardment of lights, sound, sights that left her standing there motionless. Jason came back and pulled her along.

“Let’s call some more people,” she said. “Let’s call old Father Wadhams at St. Gregory’s and tell him we’re ready to be confirmed.”

“Let’s call Mr. Friedberg and go over to his place.”

“Let’s sit down and have a drink.”

“My heart’s thumping full-blast, Jason—what does that mean?”

“You’re alive, I guess.” They both started laughing and she leaned against him, gasping.

“Makes me itchy, I’d like to be rubbed up against something.”

“Try me,” he said.

She felt hilarious, good, springy. They sat in the light of Piazza San Giovanni di Malfa and looked up at a fresco in a cornice. In a window, a girl was moving back and forth, putting on clothes. It was possible to look into the room and see the rafters. Tina suddenly thought how good it would be to be in bed.

“You suppose she’s in her bedroom?” said Tina.

“I suppose.”

“How great.”

“What’s so great about being in a bedroom?” he asked, still straight, and she burst out laughing.

“Jason is a wise virgin,” she started to chant.

“Did you know Kant died a virgin?” he asked. “And that’s not all. Once, while teaching basic English to an Italian girl I said the word ‘cunt.’ ‘Kant?’ she repeated, ‘like the philosopher?’”

“Oh, Jason,” Tina gasped, leaning against him and laughing uncontrollably.

At the next piazza, with the lights whirling all around, she pointed to a store and cried, “Look!” The storefront read Droghe e Pane.

“Droghe e Pane. Drugs and Bread—isn’t that great!”

“The motto of our day.”

They crossed Ponte Sisto and were suddenly, unaccountably overwhelmed in a mass of suitcase-carrying tourists that left them weak with laughter. “Hooliganism!” she cried. When two soldiers passed them, she suddenly turned to Jason and said, “Do I look switched on? Will they pick me up and throw me in the clink?”

“You look great—all you need is a suitcase and you’d look like a tourist or a hooligan.”

They laughed all the way up Via dei Pettinari. They rang the bell of the two women French teachers from St. Gregory’s, but there was no answer.