We Are Family

by Fabio Bartolomei

  “It’s the system that’s in crisis, not us! If the system is in crisis, then all we need to do is live outside of the system. And after all, who is the firstborn here?” I ask.

  “I am.”

  “In the dynastic line of the principality, only the male offspring count . . . anyway, we’ll stay here, we’ll proclaim ourselves an independent principality, and we’ll cut all ties with society and with the economic downturn.”

  We don’t have a single day to waste. We can’t remain linked to a country governed by people who see nothing scandalous about the fact that forty-four members of the Italian parliament went around wearing the aprons of the P2 Masonic Lodge, black hoods over their heads, candles in hand, and then censor a television news investigation of prostitution. You can’t halt History in its tracks. My plan to save the world needs to pivot to the live, operative phase, the time is ripe. Vittoria has become sufficiently grown-up and weak that I can bend her to my will, Mamma and Papà will find themselves face-to-face with a fait accompli. I can just see them returning home, their eyes filled with pride, Papà putting a hand on my shoulder and telling me: “You’re a genius, Al,” or perhaps: “You’re a real man, Al,” or even: “You’re the pride of the human race, Al.”

  Young normally endowed woman, stop grinding your teeth and rela-a-a-ax . . . accept into the folds of your brain this stream of superior thou-ou-ou-ght . . . it’s your brother who’s spea-ea-eaking to you . . . the principality of Santamaria is a reality . . . put up no resista-a-ance . . . we are the chosen family . . . we are the healthy cell that will bring welfare and prosperity to the rest of the pla-a-a-anet . . . the history has been written: joy and abundance will reign from today for a thousand millennia . . . on the count of three let my will be done . . . one . . . two . . . thre-e-e-e.

  53.

  If we’re not careful, the ants are going to ruin everything. The deal was total anarchy until twenty-four hours before our folks get back, then we’ll scrub the place till it’s spic and span. But that was when we thought Mamma and Papà were going to be away for ten days or so. Without really discussing it, we tacitly decided to stick to the same understanding all the same. The result is that my clothes have moved house and now live outside of the wardrobe, in a heap next to the bed, while Vittoria’s clothes have moved to the chair and are now slowly taking possession of the living room couch, a little at a time, starting with the armrests. The bathroom is a spectacular array of underpants, bras, various spray cans, and toy soldiers. The dust has glazed over floors and furniture. The kitchen is our masterpiece, nothing remains clean, the cabinets are all empty, we only wash what we need from day to day, wafting out of the garbage can are mists and vapors of alimentary bog and methane. The one thing missing was ants. They walk, undisturbed, unhurried, in a long procession that underscores the burgeoning chaos. Because of them we find ourselves at the point of no return, with no alternative but to do major household spring cleaning. Vittoria is going to see them and declare, enough is enough, we can’t go on living like this! So the thing to do is get rid of them. Grandma used to take a newspaper, crumple it up, set fire to one end of it and pass the flame over the whole line of ants. She’d use it as a flaming whisk broom, and with slow movements of the wrists she’d sweep the insects away, incinerating them, disinfecting, freeing burnt confetti into the air that descended to earth as if in slow motion. If a person wanted to be less bloodthirsty, they could just work upstream along the procession of ants, identify the entrance to the anthill, and set out a nice morsel of food nearby. It is intelligence that ennobles mankind, not brute force, even if the latter is always much more fun, and now that I think about it, there’s also a nice newspaper winking at me from the table.

  When Vittoria comes home from her meeting with my teachers, the kitchen is spic and span, that is, still a mess but without ants. Now that Agnese and Mario Elvis are away, she is the one who receives my teachers’ compliments for my academic performance. We’ve decided to say nothing to anyone about our parents’ extra-large honeymoon, and only in the case they should ask, to say only that they’re on a business trip. If you ask me, there’s no real need to lie, but I love the idea of sharing a lie with Vittoria, it reminds me of when we played Secret Society and when we spoke in pig latin at the dinner table.

  “What did they tell you?” I ask her.

  “The usual, you’re a great student . . . but you need to tell me when you’re not going to school. Your teacher Professoressa Sardi told me that you skipped your Ancient Greek test and I had to make up a story.”

  I was wrong, Vittoria hates telling lies without adequate prior preparation. When she tries to improvise, it’s immediately obvious that she’s lying. First of all, she repeats the question that she was asked, and she must have said something along the lines of: “Why didn’t Al come to class for the test? Ah of course, he didn’t come in for the test because he was very sick. What was he sick with? Scuvry or a carbuncle, the doctors still aren’t sure.”

  “I went on strike,” I explain to her. “Those sneaky classmates of mine have started buying just one essay and passing it around . . . stingy jerks!”

  “You’re never going to make friends like that.”

  “I wouldn’t make friends anyway. I don’t say ‘fuck’ and ‘I mean’ every three words.”

  “Al, come here.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just happy today, come here . . . ”

  “Hmmm, you’re really happy . . . super-happy . . . overjoyed . . . ”

  There was a time when an indicator Vittoria was super-happy was any hug lasting longer than five seconds. But ever since Mamma and Papà left on their honeymoon, she seems like a different person. She’s full of thoughtful gestures, she cuddles with me, she almost never gets mad. I think she must be growing up, having passed the age of competitiveness, I guess she’s resigned herself to my superiority and realized that a brother who’s a genius isn’t a threat, he’s a resource to be treasured dearly.

  “I found a job,” she says.

  “A job? Mamma doesn’t want you to.”

  “Let’s just say it’s a secret . . . ”

  “What are you going to do about the university?”

  “It’s a part-time job, I’ll go the university in the morning and work in the afternoons.”

  “And what kind of job would it be?”

  “Secretary.”

  “But you don’t know how to type.”

  “They were looking for a person who knows how to speak English well and is available to travel.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re not available to travel!”

  “I inquired into it, Al. The destination is Milan and most of the time I’ll go up and come back on the same day.”

  “Then I want a job, too.”

  “You’re still in high school.”

  “So what, I have my afternoons free, too, I can study at night and on weekends!”

  “Al, you can work when you start attending the university, like me. For now, be a good boy and keep the secret.”

  Of course, I’ll keep the secret. With the money I’m setting aside plus Vittoria’s salary, we won’t have any problems paying the mortgage, and what’s more, we’ll be able to start construction soon. The principality will be finished in a blink of the eye, when Mamma and Papà come back, and we’ll welcome them with a nice hot bath in a tub the size of a swimming pool.

  54.

  The Italian Defense Minister has minimized reports that Sicily was about to become an American atomic arsenal. He said: obviously, the very idea, but who did they take him for? The missiles will be deployed in a “deserted wasteland.” Today three hundred thousand people took to the streets, declaring loudly exactly what they think of a cabinet minister, paid a lavish salary, who looks at an old military map of the Royal Army, sees that the location selected for stockpiling the missiles is ca
lled “Contrada Deserto,” and accepts the proposed deployment without trying to find out whether, by any chance, over the past century, a thriving agricultural economy hasn’t sprung up in that supposed wasteland. The idea of installing a hundred and ten cruise missiles among the greenhouses and wheat fields earned that cabinet minister a generous ration of specially dedicated choruses, rich with specific suggestions. My research was encouraging: in order to prevent that miscarriage of justice young people and old, priests and Leninists, from the south and the north of the country, all mobilized. There is fertile soil in which good ideas can take root, a foundation upon which to establish the new world order. I swore it before each of those faces, smooth-shaven or mustachioed, wearing Ray-Bans or eyeglasses repaired with scotch tape, in hoodies or Sicilian flat caps: the principality is going to put an end to these follies.

  The fact that our house attracts so many people flatters me, I realize that a happy island, independent and free of prying parents, is an irresistible attraction. Still, a few nights every so often, I wish I could come home and find only Vittoria. But instead, this time, it’s out of the question, there’s a scooter parked near the phone booth.

  “Vittoria, I’m home!”

  “S-s-sh! Be quiet, Al, we have a guest,” she whispers to me.

  “I saw. Who is it?”

  “It’s Adele, a friend of Tiziana, she’s going to be staying with us for a few days.”

  “Free of charge?”

  “Certainly, Al! Try not to make any noise and one more thing . . . she has a black eye. Don’t ask questions.”

  “How did she get it?”

  “It was her boyfriend.”

  “Were they playing?”

  “No, Al, her boyfriend is an asshole, he beat her. Now you have to swear on the constitution of our principality that you won’t stare at her and you won’t ask her any questions.”

  “Yes, yes, I swear.”

  “Al . . . ”

  “I said that I swear!”

  When Adele woke up, it was super-easy to keep from looking at her face. She walked into the living room wearing a skimpy T-shirt and translucent white panties deserving of the utmost attention. When she saw me, before vanishing behind the curtain, she yanked her T-shirt down to cover her thighs, and in so doing uncovering her breasts. Even my sister couldn’t have done any better. Once you know what all that stuff is good for, it’s hard to think of anything else and to accept the idea that you can’t put your hands on it, even if you ask pretty please.

  “What are you doing, you don’t stare at people like that!” Vittoria scolds me.

  “She came out in just her panties!”

  “S-s-sh!”

  Adele reemerges from behind the curtain a few minutes later, dressed in a turtleneck sweater and a pair of jeans. I can’t look at her face, I can’t look at her tits, I can’t look at her crotch, I don’t know where to look at her now, so I just get embarrassed.

  “Pleasure to meet you, I’m Adele,” she says from a distance.

  “Hi, I’m Al.”

  “Will you stop touching your popo?” Vittoria whispers to me.

  “I wasn’t touching it.”

  “You seem like a sex maniac . . . ”

  Adele comes over, extends her hand, and as I shake it I see that it’s covered with scratches.

  “What did you do to your hand?”

  My eyes land on her face.

  “Wow, that must have hurt!”

  Thanks to my captivating smile, I manage to obtain forgiveness for my gaffe and get a smile out of Adele. After a few minutes spent chatting on the sofa, I start to get the hollow feeling in my stomach, the hot flushes to my face, and the unmistakable feeling that I’ve found the love of my life that appears every time a good-looking woman even looks at me. I care for you dearly. I love you. You’re beautiful, even with that shiner. I have a crush on you. Considering that women use on average three times as much toilet paper as us men, I’ve decided to write the chosen declaration of my emotions, the last one, on the sixth square on the toilet paper roll. Unfortunately, it hadn’t occurred to me that the first person to use the bathroom might be my sister, and I was forced to swear to her that I wouldn’t try any more stunts of the sort.

  We stayed inside all day long, partly because of the rain, but also partly because Adele found out that her boyfriend was looking everywhere for her, and she was afraid that sooner or later he might even come around here. When the two of them went to sleep, to reassure them I decided to stand guard in front of the window. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to jot down a few lines of the constitution, but outside a thundershower started. The house is full of noises. It sounds like a whole platoon of Adele’s exes are trying to break in. The important thing is that Adele and Vittoria are able to sleep undisturbed, after all, I’m here to watch over them.

  “Al, what are you doing here?” Vittoria asks me.

  “What do you mean, what am I doing here . . . I’m protecting you.”

  “Go sleep in your own bed!”

  The crazy boyfriend never showed up. That’s the great thing about our house: you can’t find it even if you’re desperately searching for it. He must have done what anyone else would do, he must have gone to the last few apartment houses, checked the nameplates on the intercoms, then he might have gone a few hundred yards further down the road, seen the disastrous state of it, the countryside, and the intermittent light poles, and then turned back. It’s impossible to get here without specific directions from us. This brings a brilliant idea to mind of how to contribute to our bottom line. I immediately tell Vittoria all about it.

  “Yes, Al, that’s exactly what we do need,” she replies as she pours a cup of coffee for Adele, “but before we can rent out a room here, we’re going to have to be able to build the partition walls. No one is going to want to have to sleep in a great big room divided by curtains.”

  “That will take months . . . ”

  “How much do people charge for rooms? What do you think? Like, ten thousand lire a night?” she asks me.

  “No, much more, twice or three times that, at least!”

  “What are you talking about, we’re at the far end of nowhere . . . there’s no public transportation, you can’t even get a taxi to bring you here.”

  “Exactly, that’s what you pay extra for. I’m not interested in having a permanent guest here in the principality, we need to focus on people who need to get away for a week or two, somewhere that no one can find them. Desperate individuals like Adele here.”

  There’s a sharp report and then the table surges, overturning the mugs of cappuccino. A kick meant for my shins missed its target entirely. Adele laughs, while I gaze without a shred of compassion at that tremendous dumbass sister of mine.

  “He’s right . . . ” says Adele, “the fact that this place is so peaceful is worth solid gold. I know people who’d be willing to pay more than thirty thousand lire even if there are no walls. Plus, if you decided to rent it by the hour, forget about it.”

  “You can rent rooms by the hour? What do people do with a room for a few hours?” I ask.

  “Oh my God, Al, you’re fantastic . . . never change,” Adele says to me.

  “There’s no danger of that, tests and exams have confirmed it. I’ll always be the same as I was when I was seven, a genius,” I smile at Vittoria who first stares at me, openmouthed, and then gets up from the table with her head hanging low. I hurry to finish breakfast because we’re already running late, there’s a flag raising to tend to and an anthem to sing.

  “The oleander has moved . . . ” Vittoria says, standing motionless in front of the open door.

  “Would you pass me the cookies?” I ask Adele.

  “What is the oleander bush doing in front of the door?” she replies.

  I follow her glance and in fact the oleander sh
ouldn’t be where it is, it should be a few yards to the right, next to the phone booth. I get up and, with Adele following me, I go over to Vittoria.

  “What the devil! Everything has moved here, even the street and the light pole . . . ” she says.

  It seems absurd to me, but no matter how many times I try changing my vantage point, from the door, from the living room window, and from the bathroom window, the view appears to have changed perceptibly. Adele goes out onto the street and looks around. Then she waves for us to join her.

  “Come away from there! It’s the house that’s moved!”

  PART THREE

  55.

  The year 1986 has just begun but already everyone seems very determined. Gaddafi threatens to unleash “an interminable war” against the Americans, the Iranians are ready to launch yet another final attack against the Iraqis, Halley’s comet shows no scruples about swinging dangerously close to Earth, President Cossiga is absolutely resolute, he wants to “put an end to all squandering of national resources which are the resources of every citizen.” From his tone of voice, I’d have to guess that this might finally be the time they do something about it. The principality of Santamaria intends to rise to the same level and it continues to go its own way, even if we still haven’t figured out which way that is. Adele, who studies geology, comes back every month to monitor the house’s movements along with a friend of hers, a researcher at the university. After the initial survey done five years ago, the situation immediately appeared clear: the house has no foundation, it was built on a thick cement slab that was originally poised atop a tuff-stone ridge that must have suddenly broken off, perhaps because of the rain. Now the principality is on land that the geological maps of the area describe as former swampland, not suitable for construction. The movements aren’t especially worrisome, it’s only a few inches a day, a little more when it rains and the soil becomes unstable. It’s impossible right now to say whether it will ever stop. The terrain is slightly sloping, there’s a small basin a few yards further on and, if you ask me, worst case, that’s where the house’s journey will come to an end. It’s hard to say because the principality seems to prefer moving toward the interior, but doesn’t object to lateral movements, and even to retracing its steps. According to Adele and her friend, the only thing to do was to trace on a topographic map all the variations and check the structure’s soundness from time to time, taking note of even the most insignificant cracks. That is what we did and for the moment not a single crack has been seen, therefore no immediate dangers are to be expected—partly because, among other things, the house is low and the cement slab on which it is built is very solid. From the sketch they showed us, it looks like the base of a Subbuteo tabletop soccer figure.