While the Shark is Sleeping

by Milena Agus

  28

  The strange and wretched Beethoven and other greats

  So out comes my brother with the same sorry-for-being-in-the-world air that Mamma always had, even though his beautiful shirt and jacket – which Doctor Salevsky lent him – fit perfectly. The doctor came over to our place to give them to him, since he didn’t have anything appropriate for a concert. We thanked him profusely and he said that it was a pleasure to hear from us every so often and to know how things were going and to think how happy Mamma would have been on this day. As he stood at the front door saying goodbye he told us that his brother had been a pianist, and they’d crushed his hands because he fought the regime back in Argentina.

  While he’s being introduced, my brother wanders about and the space seems not to belong to him. Nonna and I hold our rosaries tightly and pray under our breath. Zia says that if it doesn’t work out, my brother could become a surgeon, what with those splendid hands.

  Or as the judge always says – when he comes by from time to time to pick up Zia, who holds no grudge against him and is now friends with him – he could study law, since he has a strong sense of justice. He could give music a kick up the arse.

  But when my brother plays, the strange and wretched Beethoven and other greats have the better of everyone and everything. Because that music contains the fragile, tragic, joyous and divine intensity of life. All his schoolmates are there, and his female admirers and what’s left of the Sevilla Mendoza family, and the applause is never-ending.

  29

  And now that the shark is sleeping?

  Papà hadn’t really been clear and he wasn’t around to ask. As usual. We wondered what this new genesis really was and what it actually meant to start over from where Mamma died, what it meant to look around for the power of God to be revealed to us.

  The shark was gnashing its teeth and was never going to leave an opening between one tooth and another for us to get out. I dreamt that we would escape one starry night, all four of us, and that we would swim into the calm, warm womb of the sea. We would stick together and even Nonna would make it through. We would reach the beach in Mamma’s postcard and perhaps we’d start over from there. Something would spring to mind. But none of them wanted to come along.

  So one hazy spring afternoon, similar to the one when Mamma had died, I took my Vespa and decided to go there on my own. I was a bit scared of the cliffs along the road to Villasimius, but the sea was so calm and beautiful and light that it blended in with the clouds.

  That’s how God was with us people: tranquil and serene and infinitely distant. We always had to get out of the shit by ourselves. Whereas I would have liked some instructions. Papà said that to escape from the shark’s belly you have to wait until it’s sleeping, but how can you tell if it’s sleeping? And how can you tell what the real shit is?

  Then it occurred to me that nothing in my life was or ever had been shit. Damn it, actually, everything was beautiful. In Mamma’s life too, except that she had never understood that. And neither had Zia. Or Nonna. Nor even my brother, or my father.

  It had been a beautiful holiday at the zoo with the vet and it certainly hadn’t been a mistake to sit at his table and gorge myself with no class, since I was so hungry. It had been beautiful to let myself be carried off into another world by him and to get to hear the bad guys’ side of things. It had been beautiful for Zia to play the wife and mother and to learn to swim and to grow geraniums and carnations on the balcony. It was beautiful for my brother to have Beethoven and the other greats and all those girls that hadn’t arrived yet but would come. It had been beautiful for Mamma to have those tangos and for Papà to have Mamma and for her to have him and for Nonna to have us all. It’s just that we didn’t understand it. Everything was beautiful because I loved them. I wouldn’t want to meet anyone but them in my life. And I finally realised that God’s not stupid at all and he knows perfectly well what he’s doing. And nor is it true that there’s no way of getting to beautiful places and that we’re unable to enjoy them. Instead of taking the road with the cliffs I went the other way, towards Chia, where there are long dunes of soft sand. I parked the Vespa next to a hut and walked along one of the perfumed paths. Myrtle. Juniper. Rosemary. Even the poor thistle flowers showed off the colour of the lilac, as they found an opening under the stones.

  So, an insignificant dot in the universe, I prepared to enjoy that gift from God in the true sense of the word. When I reached the dunes I sat down, took off my shoes, and looked at the descent of white sand that, like a slide, would carry me sweetly into the water, the blue, clear, infinite water. Not only was God not stupid, he was brilliant.

  And I realised that was the moment to escape, because I was happy not about what was happening, but about the simple fact that I existed, and I could tell that this was the right idea and that the shark was now sleeping. That was when I saw an opening between its teeth, I slipped through and let myself slide down on the sand and be carried away by the delicate current of the sea and I knew that I would make it and that I would become wise and full of years like Job.

  30

  The world truly is beautiful

  With his instructions, the strap and a bit of manure I’ve turned from the ugly duckling I was into a swan. There’s no more talk of killing myself, even living like this is beautiful. When we cross the threshold of the house, all creaking and rickety, he takes me in his arms and carries me up the stairs. I manage to cook spaghetti with it fanned out nicely in the pot so that it doesn’t stick, and I wander through the rooms of my palace, and he bathes me in the tub after the torture, and I bring him coffee holding the saucer in my mouth and walking on all fours, wearing a corset and a chain around my ankle. We never talk because getting to know each other and sharing our stories is not part of the game. If I want to talk I go to Papà’s garage and between one engine and the next he’s always ready to sit down and listen to me and smoke his cigarettes at me. I love the walk to his garage, I love his feet poking out the other side of the table, I love the fact that he now works twice as much as before because he brought María Asunción back from South America, for his son I think, since she spends all her time in adoration of my brother at the piano.

  And we all find her delightful and think that the boy truly has found America. Nonna screws up her nose and says she’s too dark though, too indio, not like those glorious South American women you see on TV, and she says that we’re all into strange things and now all of a sudden ‘you can’t even take a piss or a shit’ without María Asunción. But she cooks ravioli and meatballs for the girl and whenever she wants anything Nonna’s at her command.

  Zia’s packing her suitcase because Doctor Salevsky has invited her to Argentina, as a friend. They’ll go to Cape Horn and to Iguazu Falls and all his relatives will be there at the airport to welcome them, affectionate as only South Americans can be.

  The only thing is I reckon Zia’s fallen in love with Papà, but they’re light years apart. I’ll never forget the time my father went to look for something in her room – which used to be Mamma’s little studio – and found a whole pile of books on the desk. And I don’t know why, but instead of pretending it was nothing, he took them and then he came to dinner dressed up as an exorcist, threw them on the table and started reading out their titles in a solemn tone:

  ‘How to Conquer a Man Through his Stomach; It’s Easy to Become a Queen of Sex; How to Handle Arguments with the Man You Love; How to Be a Second Wife; You Can Be a Geisha Without Ever Setting Foot in Japan; What All Men Find Irresistible in a Woman . . .’

  Then he grabbed Zia by her mass of curls and holding her tight like that he made her read out the titles with him.

  ‘You read them too, creature possessed by the devil! These are your sacred texts, your Bible which offends the complexity of Creation!’

  We laughed until we cried and Zia was angry but you could tell that from time to time she couldn’t help laughing herself. In the end she took all Satan’s works
, put them in a rubbish bag and went downstairs to throw them in the dumpster.

  And it’s clear that Zia now prefers our kitchen to Cape Horn, sailing boats and all the rest, but that’s life.

  31

  The storm

  Then one day we overdo it. He wants me to feel ridiculous, he says we’re all ridiculous. That’s why I have to go around naked with a scrubbing brush attached from behind and I have to clean the floor like that, but with each tile the handle goes further in, causing excruciating pain.

  I start to feel sharp pains in my stomach. Terrible nausea. A pool of blood forms on the floor. I want to go to my real home, to my family, but how can I in this state. That’s why I give him Mauro De Cortes’s mobile number and address. I feel sure he’s returned. It’s a scientific fact that he’s always there for me.

  ‘You can just drop me outside the front door of the building and leave.’

  ‘Fuck that. I’m taking you to hospital.’

  He picks me up in his arms and like that other time he places me delicately on the seat of the car as though I was made of crystal. He tears off with a squeal of the tyres leaving behind our world with the door open, the bed unmade and all the traces of his secret love.

  ‘You can just drop me at the front door,’ I keep begging. ‘Why do you want to get yourself into trouble?’

  ‘Be quiet. Even on the point of death you can’t shut up.’

  I don’t remember a whole lot more, apart from him cursing the stupidity of God, and yelling at the piece-of-shit doctors in the Emergency Room for not throwing everyone else out to make space for me, and also taking one doctor by the scruff of the neck and threatening to kill him so the doctor calls the police and he has to give his particulars and all that.

  Then nothing. I’m stretched out in a clean, perfumed hospital bed and Mauro’s there holding my hand tightly and stroking my head without tiring and fixing my hair constantly as if I were about to go to a party.

  ‘So, the Sardo-Masochist has struck again. Don’t laugh, you silly little girl, it’s bad for you.’

  ‘Did you see each other?’

  ‘Who? I didn’t see anyone. A dickhead criminal phoned me and told me where to come to collect you.’

  ‘So that was you yelling.’

  ‘Afterwards I apologised. We have to inform your family, little one. The official version is peritonitis.’

  32

  María Asunción

  Here in hospital there’s plenty of time for everything. It would be nice to write a little about María Asunción.

  For the first time in his life my brother asked my father for something: to extend the girl’s summer stay. Actually, her time was up already, because the association Papà belongs to had only managed to get one month. It’s gone quickly.

  María Asunción is twelve, maybe thirteen. My father met her at the market where she lived with other kids, eating when she could, sleeping in fruit crates and selling whatever she could find in the rubbish. He didn’t follow her – she was the one that followed him, timid and shy as she is. When Papà wandered around the market with the other volunteers, he’d always come across her along the way. So he’d ask her about her life and she’d say playful things, I’m sure she was irresistible. But it’s not like my father got too familiar with her, at the start he thought she was trying to make a bit of money by offering herself to him, as the girls down there often do. But no. María Asunción would put her hand in Papà’s and want to walk a little way with him, joking around. One day my father discovered that María Asunción is an artist, because she turned up with a jar full of little stones and sand with which she made a marvellous sound, as she sang like a siren. That day my father simply couldn’t joke around and he burst into tears and told her how his son is a pianist and plays all day long and thinks of nothing but music and how much he’d like her to meet him.

  So they went looking for María Asunción’s mother, who lived with her second husband, from whom the child had fled after an attempted rape. A failed attempt – she was lucky and had only ever made love with kids like herself and never with adults, plus she had her music and her singing.

  Nonna immediately wanted her to live with her and sleep on the soft mattresses of her daughters’ beds and taste her most delicious foods.

  I think María Asunción is the reincarnated daughter of Atahualpa: utterly regal. She won’t touch so much as a trinket in Mamma and Zia’s room without being invited to do so over and over and she won’t eat until she’s sure everyone’s had their fair share and we’ve convinced her that if she doesn’t eat those things, we’ll be throwing them out. Then her face lights up.

  ‘Muchas gracias!’ says our indio princess with her long straight hair, fine fingers and skinny legs.

  When she comes over to our place she spends her time in adoration of my brother playing the piano and my father has convinced her to make one of her musical instruments. So one day, early in the morning, we went to Poetto beach so that she could find little stones and sand to put into jars and the sea was as calm as in a bathtub. Not too much wind. Not too hot. Not too many people. She was afraid, so to show her there was nothing to be scared of we all dived in, even Nonna. And all you could hear was our breathing with every two or three light strokes and the sound of the last wave on the shore. My brother turned around and convinced María Asunción to climb on his back and she trusted him and joined with ours her breath, her light strokes, and her princess’s feet among the shoals of silvery fish. I was sure she was finding the opening between the teeth of her own shark now that it was sleeping, and that my father would contrive a way to keep her here with us.

  Getting to know María Asunción I’m more and more convinced that the whole world suffers the same hunger. Every night, before we go to bed, we have to phone and reassure the little girl that we’re alive.

  ‘Buenas noches, María Asunción!’

  ‘Buenas noches!’

  ‘Buenas noches!’

  Nonna says only after that will María Asunción go to sleep. And in the morning it’s the same ceremony again to let her know that we’ve woken up safe and sound.

  ‘Buenos días, María Asunción!’

  ‘Buenos días!’

  ‘Buenos días!’

  Then one day my brother comes back from the conservatorium and happily informs us that he’s won a scholarship and he’ll be going to Paris to finish his studies.

  Who’s going to tell María Asunción tonight?

  33

  Who will put the shark to sleep?

  Nonna says she doesn’t need much to be happy: if Mamma and Nonno hadn’t died, if Papà hadn’t left, if Zia got a boyfriend, if my brother phoned from Paris more often and told us about things, if I were cured . . . If God were willing.

  Mauro De Cortes has ended it with the latest girlfriend. He often runs into Zia here at the hospital. One day she was carrying some heavy bags with everything I needed and he ran up to take them from her. After he’d left, Zia couldn’t stop repeating, ‘Did you see how he took the bags?’

  When my father arrived, she just couldn’t stop herself telling him too and Papà replied, ‘And you said he wasn’t in love with you. Fuck that! This business with the bags is clear evidence.’

  Zia went quiet and you could tell she felt silly, but I could also tell that Papà is jealous.

  And yet Mauro De Cortes isn’t a bad person. Or an unfaithful cheat who deserves a kick up the arse, as Zia puts it. Of course nor is he as delightful as Nonna maintains. But I consider it a privilege to have known him.

  When he comes to visit me he tells me about the sea and about sailing. I think Mauro didn’t want Zia because she doesn’t know how to sail and sailing means that you have to study the situation carefully: wind, currents, distances, depths, lighthouses. And then you have to act accordingly. Mauro says that for a sailor to have a bit of fun you need at least five knots and at five knots Zia’s vomiting is something special. I know because she and Mamma used to stuff
themselves with Dramamine even just to get the ferry from Calasetta to Carloforte and Nonno would say, ‘And you’re supposed to be the daughters of a sailor?’

  But then why did Mauro dump all those ladies who didn’t vomit? One time I asked him and he replied that I really am a character. Who said it was him that dumped them?

  They dumped him, you bet. Sick of his silences, the long interminable days without seeing anything but sea, his inability to give compliments, his obsessions. But for him, the pleasure of the sea remained unsullied. The concreteness of the actions you take. You study the winds and put up the right sail. You catch fish and eat them.

  Because the joy of sailing is sailing!

  If it hadn’t been for Mauro and the hospital, I wouldn’t have learnt all sorts of things about Mamma, about when she was a girl. He’s known Mamma and Zia forever because he lived in the building opposite, in the Basilica di Bonaria neighbourhood. Mamma never went to parties except when she was dragged along by friends or else practically forced by Nonna. She’d sit there frightened as a rabbit, and if anyone asked her she’d say she didn’t know how to dance. She’d hide in the bathroom for almost the whole party. She had beautiful straight blonde hair tied back in a plait and eyes as sweet as chocolate but she never hit it off with boys. Even walking a short way with her was a huge undertaking because you could tell she felt anxious and didn’t know what to say. The atmosphere got heavier and heavier and it became more and more embarrassing. As a boy he thought she must be a bit sick. I mustn’t be offended – it was because of the way she walked, all curved over, zigzagging, inside those floral bags and those shabby old-fashioned shoes.

  My father always invited her everywhere and she’d wait until he’d finished dancing with the other girls. Then he’d go up to her so they could go home together and he’d take her plait and shake it like a tail, saying, ‘Woof! Woof! Arf!’ Any other girl would have called him a dickhead but not her. She’d laugh like she never laughed with anybody else. Because Papà was her exact opposite: swarms of girls after him. He was a guitarist, a brilliant self-taught musician, he had it all. He’d do anything to get people to laugh, even getting himself into trouble. He talked to the stones and the stones talked to him. He wanted to save the world – as a revolutionary, as a priest, who knew – and it was as though he was starting with that strange creature that was my mother. And in the end he succeeded, because for almost a quarter of a century he was able to save her from the storm.