Escape

by Anna Fienberg

  What do you mean, use?

  I'm sorry, what is your father's name?

  Guido Leopardi.

  She closed her eyes. Mum, are you sitting down at your desk? Make sure you are sitting down for this next bit. I'll never forget it as long as I live. It was terrible, like a natural disaster, but thrilling too, like being saved from it. I won't forget these five words, or the way that she said them.

  Clara, I am your grandmother.

  Mum? I'll ring you tomorrow night. Be home please. 7 pm your time

  I read Clara's email seven times. Then one more, to make it even. I get up and go to pour a glass of merlot. I pick at the label, wet from a spill. Bits of white and purple writing tear off under my nail. I leave the soggy bits there. It's three o'clock in the afternoon. I look at the wine still sloshing in the glass. It settles, dark as blood. Clara has discovered her own blood, over there, in Italy. A woman with white hair and black eyes and an apartment in Florence half a world away, a woman she met only three months ago, who gave birth to her father. I read the email again. I'm waiting for the words to become heavy, grow into their meaning. They are grains of sand, all alike, scattered on my eyelids. I need them to separate, gain enough weight to make a splash as they fall into my mind.

  What does this mean? Even a different name. Gianni. Not Guido. Gianni Leone. Mrs Rachel Leone. Leone would have been so much easier to say. So much more room for mistakes with Leopardi. A clunky name, too many syllables, expectations. I'm still waiting to feel something. It must be the numbness of shock. My whole body has turned concave inside, like a huge mouth of horror, flexing back from the knowledge. Clara went to Italy to find out more about her father. She's discovered she knew nothing about him at all. How would that feel?

  I think of Guido snorkelling at Port Douglas. Typing up his poems at Silvia's desk. Pacing the hallway with his stiff , right-leaning hair. Why did he change his name? Why did he leave himself behind? It's like listening to familiar music suddenly set in a different key. There is everything to question, no accepting of one note after another.

  Guido should be here for this conversation with Clara. He will have to be here. I have never felt more separate from him. My only connection is that he is my daughter's father. And he needs to be here for her. In my mind he is so far away. With every second he is retreating, smaller than a pinprick, prick that he is, a speck of dust, finished, over, a piece of grit in the eye. Tears will wash him out, there, he's gone.

  I get up quickly to hunt for my address book. There's Guido, under 'H' for husband. I hardly feel the sting, it's remote, gone like Guido. I find Silvia's phone number. Guido was reluctant to give it to me. I know he wanted to believe that once he left , I wouldn't be in the world any more. I didn't want to see it then. It was just part of his usual mystery, his reverence for privacy. Now I wonder if he isn't more like Piaget's infant who believes that when his ball has disappeared under the sofa, it no longer exists. It's less painful that way, means you can move on to other things more quickly. Get over it.

  I sit down at the desk with the address book. My head is clear as an hourglass. The sand is trickling through one grain at a time. I can see the shape and weight and texture of each one, it is almost too much, too much to deal with, and everything inside the glass is too clear, like when you have a cold and you blow your nose and suddenly your nostrils feel like crystal, and air cuts the little membranes with a knife.

  I dial the number. 'Guido?'

  Silence. An intake of breath.

  'Hello, Guido?

  A sigh. 'Yes?'

  'You're back from holiday?'

  'Obviously.'

  'Oh, well, yes, it's just that I've had some rather . . . look, I've had news from Clara and I felt you ought to know. That we ought to discuss it before . . . Actually it's something I'd very much like to talk to you about. Although, well, I'm not sure now if I do, I just don't know what to think . . . Guido, are you still there?'

  'Yes.'

  'You're not saying anything.'

  'I'm listening to you . . . talk, if that is what you are doing.'

  'You sound hostile.'

  'And you do not sound rational. Also, I don like you telephoning me at this place, I've told you.'

  'Well, what else can I do? Clara keeps emailing you and you don't answer. Are you just going to cut her out of your life the way you've cut off your mother and your brother?'

  Silence. Not even the sound of breathing.

  'I don know what you are talking about. You really 'ave gone crazy, Rachel, and you are very wounding. Is difficult to believe you could talk to me this way. You are so invasive and just because you are lonely you wan to break my balls. You have always been unstable. I cannot carry you any further, Rachel, you must understand this. I am sorry for you, but I cannot fix things for you any more. I have learnt a lot in these last weeks. You should meditate, I keep telling you, learn to detach.'

  'Guido, listen to me. Clara has met your mother. Sophia. She is living in Florence, she is a friend of Lucia, the woman who employed your daughter. Your mother has not been well. Her son, your brother, is James Heartacher. Guido? Are you still there?'

  'James Heartacher is not my brother. He is a mistake my mother made.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I do not wish to talk about it now.'

  I am trembling. His voice cuts like steel. I lean my forehead against the kitchen wall. Hard and cool and concrete. The slide starting at the back of my head gathers into a wave, bringing debris with it, broken-up sticks of words: uncle grandmother skin sit down mum, piazza della signoria, ring at seven . . .

  'Seven. Clara is going to ring at seven tonight.'

  Nothing.

  'Guido?'

  'Why?'

  'Why what?'

  'Why is Clara ringing?'

  'Guido, have you heard anything I've said? Do you understand what is happening?'

  'I've done nothing wrong!' His tone is trapped, fearful, like a little boy caught out.

  'Guido, have you been reading your emails? From Clara?'

  'I've been away, I did not bring with me all these machines. I needed a break, this island, Heron Island, at night there are just the stars and the palm trees. little turtles hatching on the sand. You must not disturb their long path to the sea or they are disorientated, and will never arrive. Like many things in life. There is the need to stay concentrated. There are these things that matter. I found some peace, Rachel, I do not need this stress. There is so much to do, you haven't heard my news, we have been given funding, Rachel – they liked our treatment, they have given us money to turn into a script.'

  'Us?

  'Yes, me and Silvia. She contributes—'

  'But have you looked at your emails since you've returned?'

  'Yes, yes, but we just got back . . . Clara is well, no? Okay? No major dramas. As Silvia says, leave that for the screen.'

  'Guido, you can't have heard what I said. Or you can't digest . . .'

  'What?'

  'Before, what I said about—'

  'You are not making sense today. I will try to forget what you said.'

  I press my forehead harder into the wall. A cool numb spot the shape of an egg forms between my eyes. The wave inside my head tilts and backs up against the wall, like the sea against sandbags. Stand with your two feet apart, I tell myself. There, can you feel your centre of gravity? You don't have to be unbalanced all your life.

  'Look, Guido, we need to talk about Clara and her . . . your family history. I don't think the phone is a good way to do this. Why don't you come over this afternoon or we can meet at a cafe and we can . . . can you hear me?'

  'No, I am too busy.'

  'But Clara is ringing at seven. She will want to speak to you about this. She's expecting to speak to you. Here, at seven.'

  A sigh. 'I must go now, there is a meeting.'

  'Fuck, it's the least you can do, you lying shit! You have to! You . . . can't live your whole life denying the tru
th—'

  'Oh, Rachel, what is truth? Life is all an illusion, no? Just like the stage—'

  I bang the phone down. I lift it up and bang it again and again and the kitchen is ringing with fury. Then I stop. If I break my phone, I won't be able to talk to Clara tonight. And that is the most important thing, surely.

  At ten past seven Clara rings. I have to tell her that Guido is not here. I say it straight out. I don't make excuses, tell the truth. Clara says she will ring back in twenty minutes, in case he is just running late.

  He doesn't come. Of course.

  'It's okay,' says Clara finally. 'Dad needs time. Maybe I need time, too. He's had twenty-one years of living this lie. I've had just three days of discovering it . . . Mum, Sophia has told me everything. Do you want to talk to her? It's incredible, like this big weight has slid off me. I've always felt, like, a bit removed from Dad. Wondered if we're really made of the same stuff . And now, Sophia seems like a way through. Do you want to speak to her?'

  'Yes, no, oh Clara, not yet. Mostly I want to talk to you. I think I'm too angry with Dad right now – and I don't want to be angry with his mother.'

  'Yeah, she's had a pretty rotten life, sounds like to me. But that sounds so blah – how can you sum up anyone's life? She has such energy – when she's not sick! – and such interest in life, people. She's not a miseryguts. But she says Dad will say all this is her fault.'

  'It's always the mother's fault. So Clara, can we talk about this? Are you okay? It's not too painful? I don't know where to start. But how does James Heartacher come into it? I feel like I met him practically as soon as I met Guido.'

  'James is the baby Sophia had out of wedlock, as she calls it. She said her husband—'

  'Carlo?'

  'Yeah, he was a cold man. Was only interested in his political career, you know the kind, didn't have friends, just contacts, people who could help him get ahead. Well, Sophia was probably lonely, and she fell for someone else, heavily. It turned out the man wasn't interested in a commitment, it was all too messy for him and also, Sophia thinks now, he was probably threatened by Carlo or his henchmen, so he broke it off when he found out she was pregnant. But this is the part that really gets me Mum, and to think I am related to such a heartless—'

  'God, Carlo's not alive too?'

  'No. He died only a few years ago.'

  'In a car accident?'

  'Yes, strangely enough – just thirty years or so later than Dad said . . . well, so Sophia begged him for a divorce – you know how long that takes in Italy—'

  'What, was this recently?'

  'No, Mum, listen. It was back then, when she had to tell Carlo she was pregnant. She said she would rather have been penniless than to live under his cold judgemental eye, always reproving her, punishing her . . . But he wouldn't let her go. Not because he loved her, of course, but because divorce would look so bad on his politician's CV. He tried to force her to have an abortion—'

  'And she wouldn't?'

  'No. She said she loved the baby by then, it was already three and a half months, and she'd loved its father. She couldn't do it. He said he'd kill her if she left . Then he seemed to change his mind and said let's start over and I've neglected you and all this crap and if you go away to have the child, some luxury place in the mountains, and adopt it out, we'll make sure the parents are top class, blah blah, then maybe we can start over again. And Gianni needs you, you know that.'

  'Gianni?'

  'Dad.'

  'Oh yes, I forgot. Just can't digest it.'

  'I know, me neither. It's all I've been doing, no sleeping, nothing, just sitting here trying to see it all. And I've had the benefit of hearing it first hand. Must be harder to grasp for you.'

  'So, did Sophia accept the idea? Did she believe Carlo was sincere?'

  'I think so. But it was her son – Gianni – that she was thinking of. Carlo would never let her take Gianni if she left him, Gianni was his possession, he wouldn't have her steal anything of his.'

  'How old was – Gianni?'

  'Six.'

  'That's the age he was when he said his mother died.'

  'All I can think of is that must be how he felt. Because when his mother came back, she was a different person. That's what Sophia said. She'd sit in her bedroom and hear him calling and she just couldn't get up. It was like she had lead in her legs. Some part of her registered the call and then the crying and she could see him in her mind, lying on the floor of his bedroom among all his lego and stuff , alone, but she just couldn't get up. Sophia says that looking back now, she realises she was depressed. She wanted to die. She was deep inside herself and just couldn't come out for anyone, not even her little boy. Every time she looked at him she thought of the baby she gave away.'

  'I can't imagine that pain.'

  'No. You should have seen her face when she told me that. She said she tried to contact James, sent him birthday and Christmas cards, but he never replied. When she handed him over, the parents had said they would tell him where and who his mother was, but they never did. Not until he was old enough, sixteen, I think, and he hunted her down. He tried to contact Dad too, but Sophia says Dad wouldn't have anything to do with him.'

  'And he's been trying ever since. How sad, I always felt there was something more there, had to be something more than just a casual meeting on a summer holiday.'

  'Mm.'

  We're silent for a while, thinking. 'I'm glad you got that phone card, Clara. I wish you'd done that before.'

  'Yeah, and I've still got two hundred and eleven minutes left . But it's been good writing these emails. And you don't get so distracted by other people's reactions.'

  I snort. 'Your overbearing mother's reactions, you mean.'

  'Yeah.' She laughs. But I know that laugh. There are tears in it, somewhere at the back of her throat.

  'God, I wish I was there to give you a motherly hug.'

  'Me too. But I'm okay. Just kind of shocked. But okay. It's amazing to have these weird longings confirmed somehow.'

  'I know what you mean. And Guido, why did he choose Australia, what was that about? The Red Brigade – it can't be true!'

  'Well, apparently Dad was mad about some girl, and she was a militant kind of communist – heavily political. She was a member of the brigade and she was implicated in the placing of a bomb on a train. Guido was at her apartment when the police came. She'd used his typewriter and get this, his father's stationery with letterhead and all, for her correspondence with the top brass of the brigade. Dad had no alibi about the night of the train and the bomb, and so he was arrested along with her. When his father came to the lockup, he presented Guido with the choice of going away and taking on a new identity, or doing time. Sophia says that Guido jumped at the first option – or that's what she imagined. Guido hadn't spoken to her directly for about five years before then. She said she felt as if he'd just taken a pair of scissors and cut her out of his life. Apparently he did that to a photo she found in his room. His aunt Clara and Sophia and Guido were standing in front of the Duomo here in Florence and he cut his mother off the end, leaving just himself and Clara. She never saw the photo again, she supposes he took it to Australia.'

  'So Clara, at least, was real?'

  'Yeah. Dad did leave home at sixteen – he was uncontrollable, Carlo said, so he was sent away to a boarding school. He wouldn't stay there either, though, so Clara was asked to look after him. Sophia was really doubtful about it but it seemed there was no other option.'

  'And what was Clara like? Your father described her so vividly when we first met, I felt like I knew her.'

  'She was quite strange, according to Sophia. Hummed to herself continually, even in company, performed lots of magic rituals, wore this sort of beatific smile. But Dad idolised her. Sophia got choked up when she talked about it. She thinks Dad responded so well to her because she let him do whatever he liked, always smiled at him no matter what, and there was probably so little warmth in his life, he confused
love with benign neglect.'

  I take a moment to breathe. 'That's so sad.'

  'Mm.'

  'But what I don't get is why he would choose this country – so far away from everything he knew? A different language, culture, a twenty-four-hour flight. Did his father suggest it?'

  'No, it was Guido's choice. He said he wanted to get as far away as he could from the bastardi che lo hanno messo al mondo.

  'What does that mean?'

  'Oh, Mum, it's awful. The bastards that bore him.'

  We're quiet again. The words ring between us.

  'He must have been so angry.'

  'Yeah, I guess.'

  'And hurt.'

  'Mum, aren't you angry any more?

  I hesitate.

  'Mum?'

  I'm looking for the anger. But I'm thinking about Clara, and how she needed to go away, about myself at her age and how I should have. Everyone needs a journey to take their own measure, Maurizio once said. 'No, Clara, not at the moment. I certainly have been angry but I don't know, maybe I'm a bit like you – it's as if something has been confirmed that I've always suspected and I just feel grateful right now to know that I'm not insane, that I wasn't imagining it.'

  'But your whole marriage—'

  'Yes, I'm angry about that, it's true. What makes me most angry is that he never loved me. That part makes me feel as if I've been hit by a car. A hit and run.'

  'But, Mum, you don't know that!'

  'Yes I do, he wrote it. My fault, I went sneaking in his drawer after he left . Eavesdroppers never hear good about themselves, do they? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you that. I haven't told anyone. But why did he choose me then?'

  'Because you got pregnant with me, that's why! You probably wouldn't have—'

  'Don't you ever think that! I wanted you before I even knew you were there! And I adored your father. I was so happy when I knew for sure I was pregnant. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. To your father, too. So see, there was a purpose to it all.'

  'It's strange, I'm mad as hell at him, but I've always felt he loved me. As much as he could. Even now, when he doesn't write back.'