I briefly explain that Dario was a dangerous criminal, and that I sent him to prison, me—the hero of the story. I don’t expect an equestrian statue but at least a bit of recognition, yes, that I’d like.
“Oh, then, that night . . . it wasn’t actually the neighborhood festival!” Vittoria deduces. “You’re crazy! We need to call the police, right away!”
“No, Vittoria, the best thing is for us to disappear for a couple of days. Dario is a wanted man, he can’t stay around here to hunt us down,” I tell her.
“And then what do we do? Just live with the nightmare that he might come back any day, any minute?”
“Vitto’, whatever you do, we need to leave now,” says Raul.
Maybe just for a day or two, or maybe in an hour we’ll change our minds and call the police, in any case having to abandon the principality in haste and fury is a hard blow. At the door, Raul stops us.
“Get back inside, someone’s pulling up.”
“Come on, let’s play the curfew game!” I say, pushing Vittoria and Roberta inside.
“We’re supposed to do what?”
“Let’s turn off all the lights.”
“Is it him?” Vittoria asks.
“I don’t know, the street is far away and you can’t see a thing with all these trees in the middle.”
The car zips past quickly on the road. A short while later it reappears, in reverse, slowly, and then disappears from my field of view.
“What’s he doing?” asks Raul.
“Al, I’m afraid,” Roberta tells me.
Her terrified gaze makes me change my mind. Taking advantage of the darkness, I try to get to the phone booth, but the car appears again, this time creeping along at walking speed. It comes to a halt far from the cone of light under the streetlamp. The car door opens and out comes the shaft of a flashlight beam, followed by a dark figure, slightly hunched over, with a loose-limbed gait. Now I recognize him: it’s Dario, sure enough. The end of my uncertainty also puts an end to any aspirations to take heroic initiative. In fact, I can’t even seem to take the initiative of an ordinary man. I don’t move a muscle, otherwise it would be clear just how badly that muscle is trembling. I observe the criminal as he scopes out his surroundings, walks down the street, flashes the beam of light over the field, here and there, increasingly impatiently, as if he were lashing it. He seems bewildered. The fact that we are concealed by the darkness and are completely outside the range of his flashlight beam is cold comfort. I envy Raul for the fact that he’s still able to think. He goes over to open the bathroom window in case we need to make a sudden escape. I try a defective imitation of him, I wave Roberta and Vittoria away from the window with a panicky wave of my arm, then I try to say something too, but in my anxiety, my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, an anomalous surge of blood chokes my throat. I don’t feel safe, the darkness weighs upon me, I want Mamma and Papà. Dario takes a few steps onto the field, the wind-tossed tree branches conceal him fitfully from view, each time he reappears, he’s closer. We just barely manage to stifle a scream when the strong wind slams the window that was just opened. The noise attracts his attention, he tries to identify the source of it, he aims the flashlight in our direction without illuminating us. When he starts to run across the field I take a step backward, involuntarily prompting Vittoria and Roberta to run, so that they immediately scamper away to Raul, leaving me all alone. I don’t go any further than that one backward step, I’m afraid that if I move even a little that could help him to find us. I want Mamma and Papà more than I ever have in my life. A slight leakage of bodily fluids warms my thigh. I hear the whispered cries of my companions in misfortune, their urgent invitation to come join them arrives already old, like a memory of something I ought to have done once, only now it’s too late. Outside the murderer runs back and forth, shouting things that the wind transforms into the barking of a dog. His change in direction is so sudden that it doesn’t offer me even the slightest relief. Why is he running toward the hill now? Is this a tactic? Is he trying to attack us from behind? He seems to have gone mad, he stops, he takes a few more steps in our direction and then he starts running again, but in the opposite direction now, back toward his car. Someone grabs me by the arm, and a small new leakage of fluid slides down my leg.
“Would you stop trying to be a hero?” Vittoria snaps at me angrily.
The hero with the soaking pants thanks the downpours of January 5th, March 18th, August 22nd, and September 14th of 1987, and blesses the summer of 1988 which was one of the rainiest on record in the postwar period. While Dario was in prison, the principality traveled extensively, he keeps looking for it next to the road, he’s furious, every so often he turns his flashlight toward the interior, but far from the target. He even begins to suspect that it might be hidden behind the trees.
75.
I think I may have overdone it with the celebrations for the liberation of the principality. I swear that I won’t eat french fries for a year. I’ll never eat them again as long as I live. My stomach feels like a garbage bag. I’d like to take it, tie a knot in the top, and toss it in the dumpster. I’d like to throw out my tongue too, it’s greasy, having it in my mouth makes me nauseous. Before going to work I need something cool, a healthy breakfast, but there’s nothing in the fridge that can help me get rid of this nasty taste, only empty bags and cans. Maybe this would do it? It’s certainly cool.
“Cheers!” I say to Raimondo’s photo as I latch onto the whipped cream spray can.
I wish we could have celebrated the event with him, but I’ll have to settle for this picture that he sent me a few days ago from a heavy metal festival in Pordenone. After breaking up with the punk chick, now he’s seeing the bassist for a hard rock band, a pretty girl, her head shaved clean and tattooed from head to foot. He hasn’t changed a bit, he’s dressed the same; the only concession to his new musical creed is that he wears a few oversized skull rings. I take another gulp of whipped cream, thinking of the day he returns to Rome and the phrase: “Mamma, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend.”
“Al, what’s wrong? Are you not well?” Vittoria asks me.
No, genius, I’m fine. The fact that a geyser of acid is corroding my throat and bits of french fries are plugging up my nostrils certainly shouldn’t make you think I’m not well.
“Into the bucket, Al. Into the bucket!”
So where’s the bucket? My eyes are swampy from the effort, I fumble for it blindly while Vittoria shoves me, and from my stomach I feel another surge of undigested food come welling up.
“Here, Al. In here!”
The only thing she cares about is that the projectile hits the intended target! I can’t even breathe, between one surge and the next I barely have time to ingest an uneasy mouthful of air before my stomach spits it back out, mixed with gastric juices and spew.
“Here, put your head right here, good boy.”
“I’m done . . . I think I’m done . . . ” I tell her.
“Do you feel better now?”
“Why do you stink like that?”
“Al, you’ve inundated the the kitchen with vomit, I’m not the one who stinks!”
“I feel disgusting.”
“Now you tell me what kind of crap you ate and I swear that that junk will never be seen in this house again!”
“Why, nothing, really . . . just fruit, vegetables . . . ”
I had every justification to call in sick, and this is my reward for my devotion to my work. If they were to tell me: instead of being here right now, you can choose to sit through the entire congress of the Italian Liberal Party, I’d take them up on it.
“Santamaria, you really have disappointed me . . . would you tell me where you go every morning?”
Even if they asked to go make a fool of myself on TV on The Dating Game, I swear I’d accept.
“What’s wrong, cat got you
r tongue? Santamaria, just for starters, tell me where you were yesterday. Why didn’t you come in?”
“I was sick, Dottor Masci. I had a cold.”
“Two days for a cold? The health inspector came to your house, did you know that?”
I’m done for. So long job, so long walls. He must have seen me playing volleyball with Roberta. Or worse, while I was using one of Vittoria’s bras as a catapult to launch water bombs. Masci picks up a file and reads it.
“Domicile not found . . . Can I ask where you live, Santamaria?”
“Via del Fossone 125, it’s written on all my documents.” I show him my ID card. He compares it with the address on his file.
“Well, let’s just say that, thanks to this not particularly tenacious inspector, you got away with it, but now you tell me why you’re never here before ten in the morning.”
“No, no, Dottor Masci, it’s just that my grandma hasn’t been well, and one time the bus broke down . . . ”
“Santamaria, don’t dream up excuses, I wasn’t born yesterday, you know!”
“These aren’t excuses, and anyway nobody’s in the office before ten!”
“A-a-ah, so the truth comes out, at last! Santamaria, if you punch in after eight thirty just one more time, and I mean even 8:31 A.M., you’re fired, is that clear?”
Good heavens, now that everything is finally going along swimmingly, the Italian republic threatens to cut off my financing. No more outings to the amusement park, the walls of my home are at stake, this is no joke!
“One last thing. I’ve noticed the way you deliver the mail. I’d like to request that you do no more than push the cart in the accepted fashion and lay the mail on the desks, instead of throwing it from the hallway.”
“But why? I’ve sped up delivery by forty percent and I’m able to ensure two more rounds of deliveries every day, the office workers are all contented . . . plus I’m having fun!”
“From now on, you’ll deliver the mail the way I told you, even if it’s not as much fun!”
That’s exactly what’s wrong with the public administration and the government offices of the Italian republic: there’s no room for innovation, no one has fun while they work, the office workers all have a stirring of emotion on payday, and then starting the next day the grim blanket of sadness descends again. I’d just say to hell with it, I’d like to keep shooting along at top speed on my mail cart, but today the old man really has nothing better to do than traipse along after me. Now we’re coming to one of the best rooms, the office of the accountant Ganapini, who’s bought a baseball glove so he can catch the mail I throw him.
“Well, Santamaria? What is this feeble behavior?” he asks me.
“Dottor Masci’s orders.”
“Just tell that old jerk to go fu . . . ”
“What, has Santamaria arrived?” shouts Leopoldi. “I’ll bet breakfast at the café that you can’t drive a proper racing curve without fishtailing!”
And from his desk he tosses a glass of water onto the floor. Masci nods, pays his regards to the employees as he passes by their offices, mentally taking note of all the acts of insubordination. I need to hasten to earn what I’ll need for the principality because by this point the truth is unmistakable, it may be possible to save the world, but not the ministries of Italy.
“You need to sign here,” I tell Roberta.
“On the dotted line, right?”
Even though the UN won’t deign to answer us, I’ve decided to send a registered letter to the International Olympic Committee to enroll the principality of Santamaria in the next Olympics. They’re going to be in Barcelona and it’s an opportunity I don’t want to miss, for the moment we can’t afford to travel to America or Asia. Since we haven’t been recognized by the international community, I decide to make the request more authoritative by adding a petition. One hundred percent of the inhabitants of the principality are in favor of both independence and participation in the next Olympic Games.
“Do you ever think about the future?” Roberta asks me.
“Certainly, how could I be prince if I didn’t have a clear vision of the future?”
“Al, I’m talking about the two of us.”
“I understood . . . well, we’ll get married, we’ll go on our honeymoon, and then we’ll have children.”
“And after that?”
“And after that we’ll live happily, is there some problem?”
“We’ll live happily where?”
“What do you mean, where? Here, in the principality.”
“With your sister . . . ”
“And my folks, certainly.”
No, wait a second, here there’s something that doesn’t add up. After all, when people grow up, they leave home, they go and live in another house. I don’t know, I just can’t seem to imagine this part of my life. When I’m all grown up, certainly, I’ll leave home, but I’m only twenty-two now, I haven’t even taken my degree, so there’s no hurry.
“That is, when I’m grown up, I’ll have a house all to myself,” I correct myself.
Roberta looks at me, she encourages me to go on.
“I feel strange. Why are you asking me all these questions?”
“It’s nothing Al, don’t worry.”
Maybe this is how all geniuses feel. Capable of grasping the greatest mysteries of the universe and then fragile when confronted with simple questions about their own future. There’s nothing wrong, I’m very focused on the principality, that’s why I can’t seem to imagine myself anywhere else, without Vittoria, without Mamma and Papà. No, that’s not it, I still feel strange, I try to go on, past my plans to complete construction, and I run up against a black wall. Where is the future?—and I don’t mean mankind’s, I mean my own. I’ll do all the things that other adults do, why can’t I seem to focus on them? I’m starting to feel dizzy, what I’m living isn’t a life, it’s a dream, and it’s not even my dream, it’s Mamma and Papà’s dream of having a home all their own. And yet nothing outside of here seems to have any meaning. I’m feeling restless, I waver uncertainly as I try to peer beyond, toward the day when I take care not to get grass stains on my pants when I play.
“A postcard arrived from Carlo!” Vittoria shouts, and I take advantage of the opportunity to get out of that room.
“Al, are you all right? You’re staggering . . . ” she says to me.
“I must just have stood up too fast,” I reply. “Where is the postcard from?”
“London.”
“What does it say?”
“‘Commodore Olympics World Challenge. Sixth place! Signed: Carlo and Gianni.’”
76.
Mamma’s calculator must be about fifteen years old. In its day, it was a very advanced model, with scientific functions, one of the first ones with a red LED display. One particular feature of this calculator, though, is that has never once given good news to the two generations of Santamarias who have lovingly encouraged, begged, and even supplicated it. Now that I’m adding up the end-of-month accounts, with my salary for the first time, the bastard has broken just when things were getting good, as I was pressing the “=” button. I happily recalculate the numbers in my mind.
“Here, this is to pay the mortgage, this is to build the walls, this is to pay for first-class tickets for Mamma and Papà . . . and in our coffers we still have three hundred twenty-six thousand lire!” I shout at the damned thing.
“Al, we’d decided to shore up the principality first . . . ” Vittoria tells me.
“No, Vittoria, we decided that once we put the walls up, we send money to Mamma and Papà so they can buy their tickets. I doubt that the principality is likely to collapse after years of shifting from place to place without so much as a hairline crack.”
“We’d also said we were going to buy them a new bed, with all the people that have slept on it .
. . ”
“But how would they even know! Unless, as you usually do, you added something to the letters without telling me about it, they don’t have even the slightest idea that anyone’s been staying in the promised home!”
Vittoria and Roberta exchange a glance. It’s one of those exchanges of glances that annoy me because it means that for days or months now they’ve been scheming and making decisions without checking with me and now, with this imperceptible bob of the head, they’ve finally agreed that they’re going to condescend to bring me in on it, whatever it is.
“First of all, there’s a piece of good news, Al . . . ” Vittoria tells me.
“Did you make lasagna?”
“No.”
“The ciambellone!”
“No, Al, this has nothing to do with food . . . ”
“Then why do you keep touching your stomach?”
I make a note of this moment. I immediately write it all down in my human flesh diary because I don’t want to forget anything. Even though these two women are embracing me and getting all sticky and sentimental, I take note that my first thought is that my sister has had sex. The fact was obvious but in spite of everything, that’s the first thing that occurred to me. Only afterward did I realize that soon I’ll have a nephew with whom I’ll be able to play endlessly with toy soldiers, no, make that, I’ll have a niece with whom I’ll be able to play endlessly with toy soldiers and who will listen avidly to the story of the founding of the principality, the adventures of Prince Al. I also think of Ciccio, the various Clays, and the grilled cat, and shivers run up my spine. As soon as Mamma and Papà come back, we’re going to have to review the project of the principality, we’re going to need an extra room, because in Vittoria’s room she’ll be sleeping with . . .
“Wait, who’s the father?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Who is it?”
“I don’t know, Al.”
“Did it happen while you were asleep?”
We Are Family Page 27