The Garden of Monsters

by Lorenza Pieri

  Andrea had accepted Saverio’s proposal immediately and had hired him on a temporary contract. “Six months,” he’d said. “You can sub for me this summer when I’m at Formentera, then we’ll see. The gym is doing well, but I can’t give you anything more definite. If you bring me new customers and promote the place, you’ll see that we’ll find a way to round things out.”

  His way of rounding things out proved to be an anabolic steroid trafficking scheme much larger than Saverio had suspected. He’d seen stuff circulate, Andrea had even given him some, but he hadn’t known that this particular gym was a kind of distribution center for all of central Italy. It was Saverio’s duty to go to Livorno and get supplies from a wholesaler. He wasn’t supposed to bargain about prices or quantities. He always knew in advance how much Nandrolone or Deca Durabolin he was supposed to pick up, and how much to pay for it. In general, Andrea gave him the money, pre-counted, in an envelope. Saverio had imagined he would keep track of the girls in the gym, filling out forms with their workouts for legs, abs, and glutes; had pictured himself becoming a trainer and spending the rest of his days smearing walnut balm on sweaty backsides. But he found himself unable to go to the gym more than once a week and on Sunday, because the rest of the time he was always being asked to transport boxes of hormones in the trunk of his supermini.

  Andrea had reassured him by saying it was legitimate work, but Saverio wasn’t that dumb, he knew he was taking a risk, and he wanted to be paid well for taking it. He started earning money. After a few months, the director of the warehouse in Livorno asked him do another commission that had nothing to do with Andrea’s gym circuit. There were amphetamines, methamphetamines, and barbiturates. He was told how and where to deliver them: to Grosseto; to a bar in the city center; to Pisa; to a lady’s house in Talamone; he was paid in advance, his payments arrived punctually. In the course of a few months he’d paid back the money he owed Tamara twice over, he’d given her a small used Rolex, he’d had the car repaired (which helped him drive faster to make his deliveries), and he’d also announced to his family that he was finally going to live on his own. He found a tiny apartment with a mansard roof not far from the gym, which was convenient both for getting onto the Aurelia, and for going home to the country to see his family, especially Miriam, to whom he brought his laundry, which she returned to him impeccably ironed in a bag, always along with some food—jars of wild boar ragù and packages of pasta, Tupperware containers of roast meat and potatoes that just needed reheating. Saverio protested, told her not to give him anything, that he needed to eat healthily, that what he really needed was fresh eggs for his diet of egg whites and grilled chicken, and that it suited him to eat out.

  “It’s ragù that ruined Annamaria, look how fat she is, Mà,” he told her.

  Miriam shushed him, offended. She felt guilty about her daughter, who had not turned out to be beautiful, and whom she wasn’t able to keep thin, either.

  Sauro was happy with Saverio’s transformation. He didn’t understand precisely what he’d done to get so much disposable income, but he trusted him. In those days, the old ways were changing quickly, and there were streams of easy money to be made. Sauro thought the fitness craze must fall into this category; in his mind, the gym’s earnings were entirely legal—he thought his son wasn’t dependent on Andrea but was a partner. He even started talking to him again. “Bravo, you can see that once you took my advice you landed on your feet, now nobody will bust your balls anymore,” he said, slurring his words, with a cigar in his mouth, thumping him on his mighty shoulder. “Economic independence is the most important thing, and I’m happy you’ve found something you like doing, even if all those muscles, I have to tell you, look really disgusting, not to mention the women who go to the gym; all they’re lacking is moustaches and beards. I don’t see how you can go for them.”

  In his rare, sporadic bursts of lucidity, his grandfather Settimio said to him: “Listen, why don’t you and all your giant friends come and shift the hay bales? You’ll build muscles that way, you’ll shift the bales and the boss will pay you. He’ll pay you to exhaust yourself, whereas now you’re the one who pays. You all seem to me like morons these days. You pay to lift weights? Fucking Maremma. He went off laughing about it, with one solitary tooth in his mouth because his dentures bothered him, wearing his brown pants with the belt buckled to the last hole, into which he’d tucked his dingy wool undershirt. He kept laughing at his joke, cloaked in his own anachronism, inside the alcoholic fog that always made him remember how much better things used to be, when they were worse.

  On one of the last nights that Saverio slept in his old bedroom before moving to the mansard-roofed apartment, he heard his parents arguing heatedly. It was very rare for the two of them to be at home at night after dinner. Saverio heard Miriam raising her voice: “We do everything, everything the way they want, and I don’t think we’ve ever let them down—how long has it been since we took a day off? How long has it been since you and I went out somewhere for dinner? And maybe that’s the problem at this point, it’s clear that you don’t give a shit about going out to dinner with me, you’d rather have me make dinner for you and your girlfriends. And that would be fine by me, if this could be considered your job. But the way things are going, it seems like your pal Sanfilippi treats us like his own personal chefs! This is the third time that he’s invited twenty people to dinner and nobody paid! Twenty complete meals, with fish as the main course, three times over, do the math: that’s three million lira; and three payments to Manuela. Manuela at least has to be paid, you know?”

  His father’s voice was less easy to make out, he heard only “part of the investment . . . anyway we’re not short on money . . . an important factor . . . anyway, it’s doing a lot to spread the name of the restaurant, the people always come back, we’re lucky that Sanfilippi brings in all those prominent people.”

  Then an angry retort before a sharp slam of the bathroom door: “I don’t give a damn about your important factors, I want us to earn well, otherwise you can stop counting on me. I’m not here to act like a servant, and it’s time you woke up. You’re called the king, but you act like a fool!”

  Saverio had wanted to go over and hug his mother. He’d never heard her sound so clear-headed; he wanted to say to his father, “See? See? I’m not the only one who gets it. You’re wasting time and money. I, on the other hand, don’t do anything for free for anybody, and I don’t have bosses, I will never let anyone exploit me. I didn’t let you, my own father, do it when I was a minor, so you can be sure I’m not about to let anyone else do it now. They say you’re the king of the village, but that makes me laugh, because in your head, you’re a servant, Babbo.” He turned over and lay flat on his bed, his arms outstretched, and felt a satisfied peace steal over him that instantly sent him to sleep.

  Annamaria was in bed too, but she couldn’t sleep. Her room was too far from her parents to hear them arguing, but she’d been disturbed by her grandfather’s heavy snoring—he was separated from her by a drywall partition, a consequence of the time when Saverio had no longer wanted to share a bedroom with her. She’d ended up with a kind of closet carved out of her grandfather’s room.

  She thought about Giovanna’s stories. She’d gone there again secretly that afternoon. There was only one more week before Niki would be back. Annamaria had made her tell her everything from the beginning, when she’d met her, how she’d become her personal assistant. Giovanna didn’t hide the joy that her younger cousin’s interest gave her. She was used to being criticized and putting up with insinuations of every kind about her work; her mother accepted it only because the countess had got the job for her, her father didn’t want her to talk about it, she just had to do her job and bring home her pay without getting any crazy ideas, while the rest of the family warned her to watch out and to behave herself, and gossiped behind her back about all the absurd things people said about the Garden.

  Anna
maria understood that the absurd things were magical things, much more interesting and exotic than the boring things that happened in the unchanging life of the countryside, sometimes sad, sometimes mean-spirited. She thought about her maternal grandmother, whom Giovanna had visited more than she had, because she was a more proper granddaughter, whereas she only retained a vague memory of visits that were all the same, days spent looking at photos of dead people trapped under glass.

  With her cousin she sat in the shade of an olive tree, drank sparkling water and smoked a cigarette, which could be done in Niki’s absence. That afternoon Giovanna had told her how everything had started. When she was seventeen, she’d gone one summer to work for the countess. It seemed like an immense privilege to her, compared to harvesting tomatoes, which is what her parents had made her do the previous summer, when she’d said she wanted to quit school. That had been vile work, spending the whole day in the sun and dust. She would return home at sundown, her body exhausted, her skin itchy and sunburnt, her back aching. The acrid smell of rotten tomatoes that emanated from the earth as soon as the sun got high made her feel like vomiting, she gathered San Marzano tomatoes with a handkerchief in front of her face and a fisherman’s cap; to keep from losing her mind, she carried a portable radio with her, which she put in the breast pocket of her work overalls, she set it on Radio Castello, where her friend Tiberio worked, she listened between four and five, when Tiberio did the dedications hour, and always played a song for her, “Bollicine,” by Vasco Rossi. Sometimes the radio didn’t get good reception in the fields, and the batteries often died, but even when it was turned off, it was company.

  Harvesting tomatoes wasn’t a job for a girl, but her parents had insisted all the same, because Giovanna didn’t want to go to school anymore, and she needed to understand that the alternative would not be better. Her pay arrived every night after the crates were counted. She got paid the same as Rachid, the Moroccan who only spoke French, she never figured out where he slept at night, maybe in an abandoned car, or in the shelter of a hunter’s cabin in the woods. Giovanna shoved the money she got into her pockets without looking at it—it seemed dirty to her because every lira stood for a drop of sweat, and she didn’t say that metaphorically. Her father would come by to pick her up, and she’d ask him if they could go to the beach so she could take a dip before they went home. Most of the time he said no, that Mamma was waiting and dinner was ready. When, however, he said yes, she’d run out of the car and fling herself into the water, the beach already partly empty. She’d float on her back; it was the only enjoyable moment in the day. She felt the coolness enter her head, carrying off the stench that hung in her nostrils, the weight of her body. She would have fallen asleep in the water if her father hadn’t been in the car waiting for her for the pre-arranged ten minutes, after which time he would start honking the horn.

  Her parents’ lesson worked: Giovanna decided not to quit school. But the next June, she was held back in math, and her mother told her she would have to work to pay for tutoring. When she thought of the tomatoes, she felt like dying. But Adriana told her the countess was looking for a housemaid for the summer and that she could start at once. Even though she didn’t know how to do housework, it seemed like incredible luck to her not to have to go back to the fields. Giovanna told Annamaria that the countess had always been really warm and friendly to her. She pardoned every mistake, she taught her everything, and when Giovanna made some blunder, she found a way to let her know about it without yelling at her. Rather than offend Giovanna, she would take responsibility for the mistake herself, “I didn’t teach you well enough how to put away the glasses, I’ll have to show you better.” “I’m going to give you a nice wicker basket, and when you’ve finished you can take it home; in the meantime, you can use it to gather up whatever’s left in the garden.”

  Giovanna was grateful to her almost to the point of worship; she talked about that job as if it were the luckiest thing in her life. She told Annamaria, “At home nobody had ever treated me that kindly, and I suspect at your place it’s the same.” Annamaria nodded, and every so often she’d ask, “Then what?” And Giovanna told her how she’d learned to clean and to keep the house in order, to serve at table, to polish the silver with Sidol, to set the table correctly, and to address strangers. The next summer the countess called again, but this time to entrust a more difficult task her. To cook and look after a lady, a Franco-American artist who would be staying in the area for a long time. She was a friend of the princess, Marella, and had been introduced to the princess’s brothers, who had immediately fallen in love with her project, a garden of gigantic sculptures, and had given her a hillside where she could create it. She was a fascinating and persuasive woman, especially with men. But when she arrived, Giovanna had had a difficult time. Niki was extremely thin and was in an acute phase of her arthritis that made it hard for her to walk. Giovanna had to cook for her, and she wasn’t able to; she had to act as her nurse, and she’d never done that before. The countess helped her this time, too. A Swiss luminary ordered Niki to gain weight. Little by little, Giovanna found herself charged with a task that brought great responsibility and satisfaction: to fatten up the artist, return her to form by cooking delicacies for her made with ingredients of the highest quality, of which there was no shortage in the countryside; she would go get cheeses from Porcu, cured meats from Torracchio, vegetables from the countess’s garden, fish from Porto Santo Stefano. She cooked for Niki and nourished her as if she were a baby girl who had to grow, feeding her because her hands hurt too much to hold a fork; and day by day she saw her improve, always becoming more capricious, which Giovanna indulged with good grace. The artist would eat nothing that wasn’t aesthetically beautiful; wouldn’t touch a minestrone that had fewer than five different colors in it. Giovanna spoiled her, decorating the dishes with flowers gathered at the last minute, took her on walks by the sea, and tried to make her laugh.

  “Then what?”

  “Then she recovered and started working like a maniac.”

  “Then what?”

  “It was truly a stroke of luck that I was there when she arrived. It was a stroke of luck that the countess was there. The nobility seem to feel at ease in so many different situations. We’re afraid of going anywhere for fear of feeling lost, but they’re afraid of staying in one place. They know languages, they don’t seem to be attached to any one home, to any roots. It’s like the world is full of castles just waiting for them, and every castle is their own. And basically, that’s how it is. But in this case, with the whole world at her disposal, all the time she could want, all the people, the entire universe, she came to live here. Nothing in our lives could have led us to predict this encounter. But it happened. My work is contained within hers. And you can’t imagine how much I’ve learned. Looking into her eyes is like seeing yourself reflected in those infinite mirrors, you don’t know who you are anymore, yet, at the same time, you understand very well; being at her side, it’s like you understand more. I learned to be patient, I didn’t use to be at all, but she’s given me that, like a gift. I understood that accepting her whims and her odd ideas, complying with her wishes, was helping me. When she calls me ‘Giovanna, my angel,’ I know that I’m an angel for real. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well. It’s like she gave me the shape she wanted me to have, and I found myself embodying it perfectly, like one of her Nanas, those fat statues. And it works with other people, too, like that guy Rico, he was a cat. Niki manages to reveal people’s true nature to them, to draw out the best that’s inside them; she must have learned it from Jean, who did the same thing with her, or maybe it’s one of her own gifts. Please don’t think I’m crazy.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy, it’s wonderful what you’re saying, even if I didn’t understand all of it. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll find someone who can show me who I am.”

  “You definitely will find that person. All you have to do is to be pati
ent, and to keep your eyes out for all the mirrors that reflect you well.”

  11. STRENGTH

  Energy. Courage. Creative Initiative.

  The Wild Boar Festival was celebrated in the village on the first weekend of September. For years it had just been a gastronomical event, with long tables covered in waxed white canvas tablecloths, under neon lights strung up beneath a marquee above the old skating rink. The silverware, plates, and glasses were all made of plastic. The countrywomen did the cooking: for the first course, acquacotta stew or polenta with wild boar ragù; for the second course, wild boar cacciatore, grilled steak, or mazzafegati liver sausages, served with fried potatoes or tomato salad as side dishes; homemade dessert of only two kinds; and local wine in bulk. There were endless lines for tickets, and masses of people filled the tables. It was never clear why so many people wanted to go there, considering that if you went to the best restaurants in the area you generally could eat better and pay not much more for the same meal. But the festival offered more than the simple celebration of food. There was music, a fair, an unforced feeling of community. The scent of caramel floated amid the hawkers’ stalls, which were illuminated at night, and were where everyone always spent too much money on bags of candy that didn’t taste as good as they smelled; the rancid pralines would be thrown to the pigeons the next day, fake baby bottles filled with colored sprinkles that nobody would be brave enough to open. There was a jewelry stand, and a stall that sold knockoff designer handbags; the illusion of shopping in a place where there weren’t any stores.