‘Promise,’ he said.
Roberto looked at him, but did not understand. This didn’t seem to have anything to do with what he had been talking about.
‘Promise me that even if it takes ten years you’ll do it.’
Roberto stood up. He no longer felt sad. He felt older. He turned to Mattia, and raised his right hand, putting the other on his heart like he’d seen them do on television. And then he said, ‘I swear.’
The bottle-top game was over. They decided to go and explore the artesian well. They had some trouble finding it. It had been covered in a half-hearted sort of way, perhaps because of the business with that child. They hadn’t been back there, but the thought that someone could undo what they had built seemed in that moment an act of violence, akin to what was taking Roberto away. They began digging up dirt with their hands, leaning over the edge of what now appeared to them, without the help of their imaginations, little more than a barely visible hole, like so many others.
‘What time are they coming tomorrow?’
‘They told me I need to be ready early.’
‘How early?’
‘Around dawn.’
Mattia threw a handful of dark wet earth off to one side.
‘It’s not fair.’
At that point Roberto found himself thinking about his mother’s illness and was surprised to realise that his early departure was not anyone’s fault.
‘It’s not fair, having to be split up like this, before it’s time.’ Mattia tried to go on. He was struggling to express what he was feeling.
‘We only get three weeks a year. Only three weeks and now they’re taking that away, as though it makes no difference. And now I have to stay behind on my own and be my father’s slave whenever he wants me to, and guard over my brother, who does everything he can to torture me, to show me that he’s the favourite in the family. Because that’s the truth, he’s the only one my mother and father really love. And it’s not fair—you should be able to choose your relatives, since you have to keep them your whole life. Or at least choose your brother. I didn’t want my brother, not if I’d known he was going to be like this. I’d have liked a brother like you. Then I wouldn’t say anything, I wouldn’t complain. Instead I get stuck with Dino.’ Mattia said all this in one breath. Roberto continued digging up mud in silence, not looking at him, but he was struck by those words. That was the longest speech he’d ever heard from Mattia, and it was freighted with a secret rage from deep in his belly, a resentment towards everybody, towards the whole world.
‘One more day together is not enough for me. We still have a heap of things to do.’
‘What do you want to do? We only have a few hours.’
‘Then we have to do something huge. Something to remember. Forever.’
They looked at each other. They both knew what.
‘Let’s go up to Black Peak to look for those tourists’ bodies.’
Roberto nodded and then looked away.
‘Right, it’s decided.’
Roberto’s face darkened. He was silent.
‘What’s up?’
‘My father doesn’t want me to. He said if we go up there on our own he’ll never bring me here again.’
‘So you run away and come anyway. I’ll help you.’
Roberto thought about this a moment, then nodded his agreement. Yes, and forever.
‘I’ll organise it all. I have everything we need at home. Give me the morning to get ready. We’ll set out straight after lunch so my mother and grandmother don’t notice anything. You’ll see, no one will know about this but us. And by the time they find out it’ll be too late to stop us.’
Roberto looked at him and had a new light in his eyes, the light of hope. He smiled. Mattia smiled back.
‘No one will ever know.’
We set out after lunch.
The one of us who will be leaving soon goes to say goodbye to Rosa. He says the only thing he has left to do is buy some postcards. That way she’ll think he’s going to San Valentino. She is relaxed. We’re pleased because we know she suspects nothing.
We meet up at the other one’s house. He has prepared everything we need. We have rope, pegs, climbing shoes, torches. We look at everything and all we can think of is the ascent.
We don’t care about the return.
We repeat that we just have to get up there and that’s it. The rest doesn’t matter. All that matters is the ascent.
One of us says: afterwards doesn’t exist, it’s not a problem. The partisans who went up into the mountains weren’t thinking about the trip back down.
The other one says: it’s only baby-children who always do what they’re told. Non-children decide when to obey, and they know how to disobey.
This is the last day of our life as children.
While one of us finishes getting ready, the other waits for him in the living room.
When he returns he says: my brother.
We’re so quiet and for so long, that we can feel the rage inside and outside of our bodies.
The phone rings for a long time. Nobody answers. Then it stops. Finally one of us says: anything that’s not important to us doesn’t exist and that’s it. And can be ignored.
We repeat together: what’s not important to us does not exist. And can be ignored.
We decide to write everything in the Notebook. So we will always remember our trip.
We put on our backpacks. They don’t weigh a thing. We’re strong now. And angry.
We go down to the end of the meadow, where the track begins. No one has seen us, no one has noticed us.
One of us says: it all begins here. And ends here.
The other says: it all ends here. And it all begins.
We start the climb.
PART TWO
BIRD TRAP, 2015
All the voices from without, condemning and rejecting their life! And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?
PHILIP ROTH, American Pastoral
1
When he sat up, the red velvet wallpaper, with its delicate ochre floral decoration, filled his vision for a moment with an infinitely repeated arabesque.
As he sat on the edge of the bed, composed, Roberto found himself looking around at the walls and the objects in the room.
It had remained identical. It was astonishing that nothing had had the power to corrupt it in more than thirty years, when all sorts of things had happened to him in that time, giving shape to his life the way a piece of jewellery, an implement, a chain is formed from an ingot.
Things easily last longer than us, he thought. The inanimate: an effortless ten-nil win over the living.
For his brief stay at Villa Beltrami he had purposely avoided his childhood bedroom and chosen the most anonymous one in the house, one that belonged in a museum. He felt comfortable in that anonymity, even though all through the house the memory of that fabulous and terrible land known as childhood lay menacingly in wait, with its baggage of regrets and resentments.
As he looked around him he found himself thinking of a room in the mountains, a faraway night, when life still seemed to run beside him without touching him. His grandmother lying in the corner of the hotel room while he stared at the ceiling and excitedly imagined the next day, which back then was always full of promise and of dangers he was dying to face, as though a new life would be beginning the next morning. And he found himself admitting that, despite his work and his material comforts, despite the love of his partner, Elena, despite the inheritance that would mean a final farewell to his father and his roots, nothing filled him with trepidation the way it had back then. It was as though everything that had marked and defined his life was irretrievably crystallised in the past, in a past that no present or future event seemed capable of renewing.
He got up and left the room.
He had arrived at Villa Beltrami late in the evening. Now a perfect silence dominated the deserted house. He w
as already on his way downstairs to the main floor when he realised that he had not turned on the lights. The outside lamps provided just enough illumination. His body’s own memory was guiding him, as though the route to the kitchen, or the living room, or his mother’s bedroom was impressed in his muscles, in his connective tissue, in his bones, just waiting to be reawoken and to take possession of him. He marvelled at this and felt annoyed at the realisation. For so many years he had made newness an inflexible goal, a commitment animated by a martial discipline that demanded uncompromising forgetting, and now he was discovering that, like a virus, his memory of things was in no way eradicated, and had instead found refuge within his body, beyond his control.
He walked through the two drawing rooms and crossed the large hall that the front door opened into, the little waiting room, the central staircase, the corridor off to the left. He took that corridor and finally found himself in the first room off to one side, which had been the forbidden room.
His father’s study.
Left open. This never happened when he was a boy. It was the only room of the house to which nobody had free access, not even the maids. Not even his mother.
Being able to enter so easily was sad. He peered in from outside, standing in a patch of light.
His mind went back to that one time he had entered the room alone. It had been that very summer, the one just before the holiday in the mountains. Convinced that his father was out, he had been unable to resist. He had stepped in slowly, silently, checking over his shoulder, but then a little way in had seen him. His father was by the window, motionless, was looking out, but a moment later he realised Roberto was there. He still remembered so well feeling like a thief caught in the act. But Carlo had approached him with that sure smile, had grasped the hair on the top of his head and, pulling gently as he always did, whispered to him, ‘Did you come in to have a look at the desk you’ll have when you’re grown up?’
As soon as the recollection had run its course, Roberto closed the door and continued up the stairs. He was already thinking about the next morning. Another image came to mind, a vague one that he was unable to place: a white cross drawn with soap on a little black box. When was that from? He no longer knew.
Roberto forced himself to push back that same image as the mini excavator ran back and forth over the turned soil alongside the hole and those assembled looked on in consternation.
The first circle of intimates had only shuffled back to avoid being muddied, while the second circle, mostly employees of the publishing house, quickly scattered and broke off into pairs, perhaps to wonder aloud what might happen now. Some people huddled out of sight under the narrow shade of their umbrellas, crying silently. Roberto stayed where he was until the excavator had finished clearing the stretch of earth where Carlo would rest forever.
Two men from the funeral home began hammering in a marker just outside the white chalk rectangle drawn to delimit the grave. On it was written: two, two, six. They looked around for permission and, receiving no response from anyone, placed the wreath as though they’d rehearsed it against the marker so that it was almost vertical and it was possible to read the words, free of emphasis or hesitation: Your son.
‘Come, Roberto.’
Ciprini, the family lawyer, had taken him gently by the arm—an affectionate and intimate gesture—to lead him away between two rows of gravestones. He was around his father’s age and treated Roberto with familiarity, although they had not seen each other since Roberto was thirteen years old.
Under the umbrellas and the incessant rain, the few remaining attendees said goodbye to him with their eyes as they left. That was why they had waited until then: an uncertain tribute and a silent request for some kind of commitment from him. They had all seen that he had not cried. That Roberto, after a long hesitation, had declined the invitation to express his final farewell to his father.
And perhaps they were wondering what that quiet, distinguished man was thinking, a man who for more than thirty years had remained far away, apparently indifferent to the deaths of relatives, even of Lia, and to the destiny of the publishing house that had been a source of pride for his family and for the city.
A black box with a white cross, that was the answer.
As he walked away with Ciprini, someone softly said: it was no accident. Roberto turned to seek out the person. Carefully, but without success, he studied the faces of the people as they walked away, all mingling together, but to him indistinct. And it was only then that he spotted the woman following a few steps behind them. Around thirty, her skin the same white as new paper, she seemed to look around her through a wall of ice. And yet not long before those eyes had been welling up.
The woman approached only after Ciprini, having reached the central pathway of the cemetery, nodded to her.
‘Ada Smirnov. She was Carlo’s personal assistant up until today.’
The woman put out her hand first, and shook Roberto’s energetically.
‘Did you have a good journey?’
‘Very good.’
‘From Zurich, right?’
‘Right.’
‘A one-hour flight?’
‘Not even.’
They got through the questions and answers quickly and, in the silence that remained, they all seemed to combine to form another question, the only important one, the one regarding Roberto’s voluntary exile from his father’s home. Just an hour’s flight away.
‘For a number of years now Ada has also been in charge of your father’s villa. She will ensure that you have a comfortable stay.’
Roberto nodded.
‘It won’t be for long. I can only stay a few days. Has the date already been set for the reading of the will?’
The lawyer smiled and looked embarrassed, glancing quickly at Ada.
‘I’m sorry, Roberto, but the procedure for executing the will is going to be slower than expected.’
‘Why’s that? I’m the only heir.’
‘It’s a holographic will. Your father wrote it by hand and gave it to Vanni. Perhaps you’re already aware—he’s the notary…’
‘Yes, I know. But what’s the problem? We read the will and then we proceed.’
‘Vanni has had to go away suddenly, for reasons of a strictly personal nature. That’s what he told me. He will return next Thursday.’
It took Roberto a few seconds to absorb the news.
It was Saturday.
‘I have to stick around for a week just to read the will? Can’t somebody else read it?’
‘That’s not how it works.’
‘Then it works badly.’
After a pause, Ciprini coughed to clear his throat and said, obligingly: ‘You can return to Zurich and wait to be summoned by the notary. I can call you as soon as he’s back.’
Roberto muttered something to himself, but did not want to reply. He looked away while Ada, who had been listening in silence, kept her eyes to the ground, waiting.
‘But there are a lot of things that need to be done here at the villa before it becomes officially yours. You might find Ada can be useful to you.’
The sound of a mobile phone suddenly burst in, a firework breaking through the silence.
‘Hi. Hold on a minute.’
He stepped away from Ada and Ciprini and kept walking until he was sure he was out of earshot.
‘Hi. Where are you?’
‘Outside the cemetery. It’s just finished.’
‘How did it go?
‘It was an enormous success.’
Elena was silent, mortified.
‘A lot of people came. All of Como, I’d say,’ he added, to make up for it. She waited the right amount of time before continuing.
‘I wanted to know how you’re doing. That’s all I’m interested in.’
Roberto began walking back towards Villa Beltrami. From there it was not far to the path that ran around the lake’s edge.
‘I’m sorry. I’m just a bit on edge. I don’t lik
e being here. But I’m fine.’
‘Good.’
Silence.
‘What time is it there? You’re in Boston, right?’
‘It’s the first morning coffee break. Tomorrow I’m back in New York, but I’ve still got a few more days over here.’
‘Me too. The process is longer than expected. I have to stay at least until next Thursday, if everything goes right.’
‘Think of it as a holiday. I wouldn’t be around at home anyway.’
‘That’s right.’
Roberto had reached the waterfront. He leaned against the railing, staring at the minute ripples of the rain on the quiet, bare skin of the lake.
‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was thinking of coming to see you as soon as I’m done here.’
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘Roberto, why are you punishing me? I couldn’t get to the funeral.’
‘I’m the one who asked you not to come. You never even met him.’
‘You didn’t want me to.’
‘No, I didn’t. But that doesn’t change anything.’
‘I’d be coming to be near you. That’s all.’
Roberto smiled, softened by the warmth that Elena managed to make him feel, despite his limits, his inadequacies. He became suddenly serious.
‘I know, and I miss you. But I don’t want to give too much weight to this return to Italy. I wouldn’t even have come if I could have avoided it.’
‘Roberto…’
‘Do you want me to lie to you?’
Elena tried to say something, but he went on.
‘That’s the truth and it has to be accepted. I hadn’t seen him for almost thirty years. As soon as I’m done with the will I’ll be leaving. So go back home to Zurich, and I’ll see you there.’
2
In the villa’s winter garden Madame Staechelin was, as in other years, preparing to bloom.
Despite everything the rose garden, planted with the Madame Grégoire Staechelin variety, continued to survive. He felt relieved. At the far end, before the last strip of trees and the retaining wall, the rose bushes filled the entire width of the back garden. The damp, cool air in that part of the garden had always appealed to him.
The Mountain Page 14