We Are Family

by Fabio Bartolomei

  This idea that the principality is built on a cement raft that floats at the whims of the old swamp worries Vittoria greatly. I’m not especially concerned, it’ll stop sooner or later, and after all, the distance we’ve traveled is a good thing, now when we open our window we no longer look out onto the street, but onto a lovely garden instead. The only technical problem that we’ve had to solve is how to maintain the hookup to the light pole, which from time to time would come loose. And so, the last time it happened, I called Raul and together we installed a nice long electric cable to accommodate future movements without breaking loose. There’s always lots of things to do in an independent principality. Aside from the garden, now the Santamaria family also has a genuine bathroom, with a bathtub. It’s a beautiful tub, easily seats two, the largest tub that could be installed in the space available, sacrificing all secondary accessories. In other words, just the thing for naval battles and the landings on Omaha Beach. Even though the decision to install the bathtub contributes to the physical and mental development of children, as well as to their happiness, and is therefore in compliance with the parameters of the Regulatory Criterion, Vittoria didn’t seem capable of enjoying the surprise right away. When she got back from her umpteenth business trip, when presented with this magnificent bathtub, the first words to come out of her mouth were: “What happened to the bidet?” while the last were: “Don’t be stingy with the bubble bath, I want at least a foot and a half of bubbles!” For years I planned to inaugurate it with a nice big cannonball dive. During the assembly I realize that the tub was big, but not big enough to contain the exuberance of a nineteen-year-old who is six feet tall and 165 pounds, and I remembered how Mamma always used to tell me to think twice before doing things. And in fact first I thought: “This can’t possibly work,” as I was getting a running start in the living room, and then, “What I’m doing is plain stupid,” while I was flying through the air with my knees pulled up to my chest. I plummeted down into the center of the tub, kicking up a wave that knocked the mirror off the wall over the sink and then proceeded to dump me on the floor, legs high in the air.

  The UN behaves exactly like the electric company, we never received a reply to our request for recognition. In any case the throne couldn’t be left vacant, so two years ago we self-annointed ourselves as the reigning prince and princess ad interim. According to the provisions of our constitution, before taking office we were required to perform six months of volunteer service in a psychiatric institution, though we considered that requirement abundantly fulfilled because we’ve been taking care of that idiot Raimondo for years now, and six months in a hospital—I took care of that for both of us by secretly performing the invaluable service of guide at the Umberto I Polyclinic. After memorizing the location of all the various wards, the doctors’ clinics, and the list of patients, I kept thousands of people from having to wander down hallways and through wards in search of some sign or map, while there were patients in hospital beds who urgently needed their care. For the past two years we’ve had our own coin, the Elvis. The coinage proved necessary in order to meet the costs attendant upon the strong migratory flow from outside the principality. An independent principality, isolated from the rest of the world, without old people getting in the way, with a constitution that is enlightened and, most important of all, actually observed, is an irresistible attraction to anyone in search of peace and quiet. At first we took in guests free of charge, then we decided to accept a voluntary donation, and in the end we became a bed-and-breakfast proper. We care nothing about inflation and the fluctuations of the Italian lira, because the Elvis has one-to-one exchange parity with the dollar. The use of bed, bathroom, bathtub, television set, and refrigerator is charged according to a price list that is updated on a daily basis. In the past few years, we have housed, among others, two former colleagues of Raul’s, the principal of a vocational-technical school in Tor Bella Monaca who had been threatened by the relatives of a student who had been flunked, a draft dodger, a general practitioner working on the rolls of state socialized medicine who had been accused of having a significant number of dead people on his patient list, a female Somali refugee with her son, free of charge as specified by the constitution of the principality, and a Serie B soccer player under investigation for his involvement in an illicit betting ring, at triple the regular rate, as per Article 53, Clause D: “Solidarity taxation applied to citizens blessed by unseemly good fortune.” To these we should add the friends of either gender who just wanted to spend a few days away from their families, husbands, or girlfriends. In short, the principality is growing, the average population has hovered around 4.2 people. For the past few weeks we have had as our guest a certain Dario, a friend of Raul’s former colleagues. Dario is an ideal guest because he’s never here, and when he does come, he just stays holed up in his room, attached to the microphone of his CB radio.

  In spite of the fact that we’re earning good money, we still don’t have walls because our skimpy savings are periodically bled dry by the installments on the mortage and other unexpected outlays. The last one was yet another gift from the Italian republic: the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano, where we had deposited all of our money. We were expecting interest on our savings, but instead we had to hire a lawyer. The only good thing about what happened is that now Vittoria is convinced of the need to liberate ourselves of this last constraint. Now we keep our money safe and sound, in the suppository box.

  Every so often, I still overdose on sad information, but I haven’t been back to see the calm lady doctor since Mamma and Papà went away. The last time I really felt bad was six months ago, though the TV and the press had nothing to do with it, the blame lies on whoever it is that issued a permit to build an apartment house in the countryside in front of the house. The construction site isn’t that close, as the crow flies it’s probably at least three quarters of a mile, but the view is irremediably ruined. It used to be that if we were in the garden or if we looked out the windows, all we could see were meadows and grazing sheep. It was a hard blow, all the work we’d done to beautify the principality, then from one day to the next the cement trucks of the Italian republic roll up and everything’s ruined. I talked to Vittoria, we sketched together for a while, we took a nice hot bath with plenty of back massages, and I was good as new again, without having to lay out a cent.

  In my human flesh diary I wrote: “Perestroika and Glasnost are original ideas by Al Santamaria, written in black and white on the draft constitution I sent to the UN. Sue Gorbachev for plagiarism,” “Urgently need to have full sexual relations with a girl,” “Outlaw the use in Italian of the words look, VIP, in, and yuppie,” “Urgently need to have full sexual relations with a girl, check out availability of Vittoria’s girlfriends,” “Socialists close to fifteen percent, Christian Democrats recovering. Get ID card that will allow me to leave the country,” “Urgently need to have full sexual relations with a girl. Stop discarding the girls who believe that “Jailhouse Rock” is by Mötley Crüe.”

  56.

  The bathtub has become our favorite place to read. While we enjoy the warmth of the bathwater, Vittoria reads the letter from Mamma and Papà, maybe the best one in the past two years, a dozen or so pages crowded with good news. For the past few years, they’ve even been moving from one country to another outside of Italy, they just arrived in Brussels because Papà has found a job as a singer. Apparently, in the Italian expat community, Elvis’s songs are going great guns, as are Mamma’s chocolate ciambelloni. For the moment, they’ve taken a room in a small hotel, then maybe they’ll look for an apartment on the outskirts of town.

  “‘Be good, Al, listen to your sister and don’t make her worry . . . ’”

  “Do they have to write the same thing every time? It seems as if I’m doing who knows what!” I say.

  “Al, they’re the worries that all parents have. Just listen to them . . . ”

  “Did they send the letter before leaving?
Let me see the postmark.”

  Vittoria hands me the envelope.

  “No, it’s a Belgian postmark. They’d already moved,” I say.

  “What is it, Al?”

  “They just keep getting further and further away . . . I don’t want to spend another Christmas all alone.”

  “I know, it’s hard.”

  “We ought to go see them, I don’t even remember what they look like.”

  “Yes, maybe we should. Certainly, it’s a pity that . . . ”

  “What is?”

  “Well, what’s done is done. We have the bathtub, all that’s left to finish the house is the walls, and can you imagine what a nice surprise it would be to be able to tell Mamma and Papà that they can come home because the house is finished?”

  It’s the usual thing about surprises. I know, a surprise is only a surprise if you do everything right, if you don’t say anything until the end, but Christmases at the Santamaria home were wonderful. Not just because of the presents, those come anyway, Mamma and Papà are very good about it, they always know what I want, even though I don’t write it because I don’t want to make them spend money. What I miss about Christmas is the atmosphere, the preparations for the big dinner, waiting for midnight and the arrival of Father Elvis Christmas.

  “I know, I know. We’ve been saying it for years, but we’re just too slow! Even if we spend a little money on the trip, what is that really going to change? After all, at this point, what’s a month more or less,” I protest.

  “Well, it’s our decision, Mamma and Papà never said we couldn’t come and see them. We just decided to try to save every penny we could so the family could get back together as soon as possible, but if we change our minds . . . ”

  “I’m sick of this. No parent would ever go on a five-year honeymoon!”

  “It’s not a honeymoon anymore, they’re working. And Tiziana’s father has only come home for Christmas and summer holidays for the past fifteen years, so how bad is this? All we need to do is make one last effort . . . ”

  “I’m tired of it, all the same!”

  “Then let’s write it in the letter. But you go. I prefer to save the money. That way, if Papà’s job goes well, then they can send us some money and we can finish the construction earlier.”

  “All right, I’ll write it.”

  But of course I’m not going to write it. It’s just a whim. Sometimes I wish that the aliens would bring back the whiny, incompetent little sister they abducted years ago, this mature, rational duplicate is so determined that she scares me sometimes. On my heart and on my brain I’ve written all the things that she told me on the subject: “Mamma and Papà were with us for eighteen years, there wouldn’t be anything wrong if they decided to spend the next eighteen years on their own”; “Just think about how hard it has to be for them. They’re far from home and from the two people for whom they sacrificed everything. We can’t be the ones who give up”; “Their children’s good comes before anything else as far as they’re concerned. If they decided that this was best, then our only duty is to trust them.” I’ve written down dozens, all of them true, all pitiless. If we went to see them, then they’d feel obliged to come home every once in a while because it’s obvious that they miss us, you can read it in the letters, and that would be a disaster: everything would take so much longer. So I understand, I’ll just go on writing that I miss them, like always, and that we’re happy and soon we’ll see them again. In the meantime, I enjoy the lukewarm water and the foot massage that Vittoria has started to give me. I’m not a child anymore, soon I’ll have a job that will make us rich, Mamma and Papà will come home in a first-class berth, to their principality full of walls. What a wonderful massage, the steam on my face, the bath bubbles popping by my ear, the tickling on my ankles, the bath sponge sliding up and down on the sole of my foot . . .

  “Al . . . ”

  “Huh?”

  “Why is the water getting hotter?”

  “How would I know . . . ”

  57.

  Every time I think I’m going to get all sorts of things done, but then when Vittoria leaves for Milan I spend all my time in the house pacing back and forth and growing increasingly venomous at the sight of that reinforced concrete skeleton that’s rising over the countryside. I don’t feel like going to the university campus, I don’t feel like playing, I don’t even feel like eating. Grown-ups who are all intent on living alone just baffle me. What do they do all day? I’d go crazy. If at least Dario were here, but instead he came back last night and was already gone at sunrise. A genius like me should have other dreams. I dream of bricks and doors, while I should be thinking about graduating from university, of being courted by Harvard. I still have plenty of time to amaze the world, Pasteur spent twenty years on developing his vaccine, so I need to say calm, I’ll find a way to finish the principality. But it’s taken months to amass a loyal clientele, even though my business as an exam-and-paper vendor is now thriving at the university, just as it did at high school. The lessons are all pretty boring, I only go so I can take notes and resell them at a premium to others who have better things to do. On the other hand, it takes almost no effort to pass the exams. I don’t work too hard to understand, I prefer just to memorize. At every session I expect a professor to ask me: “Would you be able to express the concept in your own words, or do you only know how to parrot what you read?” but instead they ask me: “Let’s talk about the political inclinations of the sans-culottes,” and I think to myself: book with pale yellow cover, title: The Sans-Culottes: The Popular Movement and Revolutionary Government, 1793-1794, chapter title “The Political Inclinations of the Parisian Sans-Culottes.” Then they specify: “What can you tell us about their ideas concerning popular sovereignty?” and I remember that on the paragraph that discusses popular sovereignty, there’s a tiny stain of chocolate, it’s page ninety-five, the exact words are: “Popular sovereignty is ‘an indefeasible right, an inalienable right, a right that cannot be delegated’; on November 3, 1792 (12 Brumaire, year 1), the Cité section concluded that ‘every man who assumes to have sovereignty will be regarded as a tyrant, usurper of public liberty and worthy of death . . . ’” Inside my backpack, along with my books and my sandwich, I bring with me ten or so tanks. There’s a small lawn in front of the school of law with low, very dense hedges, ideal for my Battle of the Ardennes. Unfortunately, it’s always crawling with students who seem to camp out there, so I’ve never dared to pull out my tanks. As it is, my popularity is hanging by a thread and I don’t want things to end the way they did in high school: caught out the first year, the object of fun for the next four. As soon as I can, I join the little groups playing soccer or tossing Frisbees, but more than games they seem like sessions for the rehabilitation of the motor skills of the elderly. One time I dared to leap in the air to snag the disk, followed by a paratrooper’s roll on the grass, and they all looked at me as if I were an alien.

  I’m a shameless hit with the girls. My secret notes are slaying them. The older the students, the better it works. We’re on the order of 70 percent useful results. I’m sweet, I’m a doll, if only all the boys were like me, so they tell me and then it’s all hugs, kisses on the cheek, tousled hair. I ought to wear a Play-Doh T-shirt so I can take home casts of all the tits that press up against me throughout the day. But, actually, intercourse seems to be out of the question, I only get the girls who already have boyfriends or just went through a nasty breakup. Ever since Rock Hudson died, moreover, girls are more cautious, and I go everywhere with a condom in my wallet because I want to be ready for even the slimmest of chances. For the more difficult cases, I also have an authentic newspaper clipping that invites the populace to remain calm: “Remember, AIDS is a disease that afflicts only homosexuals and drug addicts.”

  I take one exam after another, rapid-fire, and I get A-pluses even from the professors who are notorious sticklers and yet, in
spite of my extremely high academic performance, I just don’t seem to be able to find the shred of a job here at the university. I was hoping to get hired at the library, I tried to amaze the director by reeling off the titles and authors of the two hundred and six volumes contained in the “Modern and Contemporary History” section, but it wasn’t enough, the vacant position was given to a professor’s grandson. I’m not really all that surprised, because governments may change but the Italian republic always remains the usual place, the country of class opportunity. Every rich citizen has an equal opportunity to become even more so. That’s the meaning of the Italian Dream.

  While waiting for the people’s revolution that in short order, perhaps even before the end of the soccer championship, will sweep away the established government, I put my genius to work at a pub for students. I like the job, spending my evenings surrounded by tables and mugs of beer makes me feel like a normal twenty-year-old.

  “Here you go, three light medium beers, a red ale, a double malt beer, a Negroni, two glasses of gin fizz, and three glasses of Morellino red,” I say.