“Look. There it is. Right ahead of us.”

She is jumping up and down as she stares at what looks to me to be yet another random old building. The heavy heat of summer is already stifling, and I can feel the sweat running down my back as I take another draught from my water bottle.

“See. The green balcony that hangs out from the first floor?” She points way out over the people, traffic and general bustle of the vast piazza.

I peer over and make out a yellow-brick block, far away in the distance. The balcony sticks out incongruously and—as far as I can make out—uniquely, right around the angle of the building.

“Ah. OK. I see it now. What’s so special about it?”

“It’s not what’s so much special about ‘it’, but more about who.” She leaves this lingering in the air, and she is gone, me scurrying behind, trying to keep up.

We are off in fear of our lives again, across the huge, hectic space which seems to have traffic rules dating back to a much earlier era. Rules that befit chariots rather than locals on their Lambrettas, tour guides on their Segways and Roman taxi drivers, about whom it is best to say as little as possible. And not to mention menacing tourist buses from all over the continent.

She grabs my hand, and we don’t speak at all as she heaves me through the maelstrom of metal to a better vantage point right in the centre of the piazza, a walkway across a huge grassy circle, set in the middle of the traffic. Right across the street from what appears to be the uninteresting building we saw from afar, distinguished by that green balcony.

“That’s where she lived—and died. Looking out of that balcony, watching that world go by.”

“But who, Andrea? Who are you talking about?”

I look into my battered guidebook for help. I get the best success by finding my approximate location, turning the map the right way round (not difficult this time, with the bright white marble of the Altare della Patria behind me) and then identifying what I am looking at from there.

“It looks like, er, Palazzo Misciatelli,” I struggle to pronounce. “What’s so interesting about that?”

“Read a little further. Find the old name. The name when she lived there.”

I scan down the page until finally, I see something that I recognise.

“Do you mean the Palazzo D’aste Rinuccini Bonaparte.” My Italian capability is being fully tested now. The name sinks in. “Is this where Napoleon lived?”

“No. Not him.” She corrects.

“Her.”

~|~|~

“Madame? Madame Mère.  Your lunch is here.”

Heavy eyelids flicker open, and she gazes blankly, still in the semi-conscious state which the very old awaken from.

“The children. Where are the children?” Her agitation grows as she looks around her, seeking those from bygone days.

“No. Madame, they are not here. I can fetch your brother?”

The familiar routine causes her to peer over to where her frugal lunch awaits. Nowadays, she can see little, so she fumbles her way towards it as the maid steadies the tray. Cheese and bread as usual. She breaks off a piece of bread and softens it by rolling it around her toothless mouth before swallowing with a sip of water.

“What happens in the piazza, my dear?”

The maid peers out through the heavy green shutter.

“A normal day Madame. Another normal day out there.”

“Tell me something interesting that you see,” the old lady asks.

“I see two young people looking up at us. Looking right at us, up here.”

“Young people. Young people. What do they want?”

She takes more cheese and bread, slowly easing it down.

“I was young once,” she considers further.

“Many more young people will look up at this place after I am gone. Many will think of me through my son. But how will they remember me?

“I married when I was thirteen, you know. I carried Napoleon inside me to the battlefield. It seemed to give him that burning drive, in the years to come.”

The maid has heard this before, and she knows to let her charge talk. And that she need not answer the questions that come.

She listens. And this is enough.

~|~|~

“His mother lived there, right to her death. She spent her time on the balcony, looking out on the piazza. When her eyesight failed, she got her maid to look out and describe what was going on.”

“How weird is that? I thought she lived in France.”

“Well, she did for a while, but she came from Corsica, which was Italian at that time and then was forced to France as Napoleon fell out with the partisans. She became wealthy through him and his connections. She invested well and then when it all crumbled, she came here. Watching the world go by from that balcony, until she died.”

“I wonder what that was like?” I say.

“She had thirteen children, so I guess it felt quite peaceful after that lot,” Andrea smiles. “Though only eight survived infancy.” The thought of such a loss shows in her face, as if she is contemplating the effect of such traumas.

“It must have been so very different after the excitement of her early years.”

~|~|~

“We had such gay times back then. All the children and the parties and balls. They courted me all across Europe, you know.”

The maid begins to tidy the dishes on the tray.

“Can I get you anything else, Madame?”

“And then things changed with Napoleon, and we ended up here. Thanks to the Pope, of course.”

She waves the maid away, and the girl disappears.

She thinks about the young people looking up at the balcony. She wonders what their lives will be like in the future. A future she will have no part in, for she knows her time is short.

“I was never young here, though,” she whispers to herself, as she drifts off into her dreams once more.

Back home in Ajaccio. With her darling Carlo, running with the patriots against the French and then what happened afterwards, when France became her benefactor and gave her all the wealth she might ever need.

~|~|~

“I wouldn’t have liked it back then,” I say too loudly. “Too hot. Bad food. Worse bathrooms.”

But Andrea isn’t listening to me. I can see that glazed look she carries when she is so far away in her thoughts.

“They took her remains back to Corsica years after she died. Back home for her at last.”

“Venchi Cioccolato e Gelato.” I am reading it from my book.

She looks at me as though I’m an alien.

“Ice-cream. It’s right up there.” I point along a very straight, narrow street.”

It isn’t a question. In Italy, it’s always time for ice-cream.

We walk beneath the balcony, up the Via del Corso.

“Best shopping in Rome.” I keep reading.

“A most remarkable woman.” Andrea muses as she looks above her, at the green metalwork.

And we walk on together, in tune with our respective tourist needs.