No, Papa!

by David Elvar

  Somewhere along the line, a tissue was thrust into my hand. Somewhere along the line, it grew damp from mopping up tears that I didn’t feel falling. And my coffee got cold. Only when I finished speaking was I suddenly aware of all this.

  I looked up, let slip an embarrassed smile. ‘Sorry. I got a bit carried away.’

  ‘Don’t let it trouble you,’ he said. ‘You spoke a lot more than your father but got carried away a lot less. He had some things to say about your mother, some things in excess of what I would have expected of a man in his position.’

  ‘Yeah, well, like you said, he gets carried away, sometimes…most times, in fact…pretty much always, come to think of it. He’s got this strange idea that the world has to mould itself around him and his needs, and when it doesn’t happen—as it never does—he goes absolutely ape. I don’t like him very much.’

  ‘That is a little harsh, don’t you think? He is your father, after all.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say. It had felt good, though, getting it off my chest like this to another human being. Since arriving, it seemed no one had been interested in what I had to say, what I might feel about things. I was there to play a role in some twisted family drama, a part that had been written for me and I wasn’t allowed to deviate a single word from the script. For the first time since we landed, I felt like me again.

  ‘So what will you do?’

  I looked up at him. The question had come out of the blue, so much so that I wasn’t ready for it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t want to stay here, that’s for sure. If only I could talk to mum, that’d be a help.’

  ‘So phone her.’

  ‘Oh, you think? She called yesterday and you know what my father did? He told her I didn’t want to talk to her, even said I didn’t want to know her any more. He lied to her, he barefaced lied to her! She’s probably at home right now wondering if it’s true and thinking she’s never going to see me again and there’s nothing I can do to let her know otherwise.’

  ‘Then write to her. E-mail her. Surely there is something you can do.’

  I shook my head. ‘My father keeps me on a close rein. I’m not allowed computer time and I’m not allowed out on my own so I can’t post a letter and anyway, I need to tell her what she needs to know now!’

  ‘Hmm.’

  He sat back in his chair again. He was looking at me, eyeing me steadily like he was trying to come to some decision. I could pretty much guess what he was thinking: that maybe he didn’t want me in his school, after all, that I was carrying too much baggage that might rub off on the other students. In a way, I was even hoping that, because then my father would have to drag me around every other school in the district in order to find one that would take me, and that wouldn’t be easy. This guy, if he didn’t want me, would make certain everyone knew about it and why.

  ‘I need some information,’ he said suddenly, said as he shoved a pen and paper across the desk to me. ‘First, I need your full name and address.’

  ‘Just that?’ I asked, picking up the pen. ‘Just my name and address?’

  ‘And your father’s full name and place of work.’

  ‘But you know that already,’ I grinned. ‘He had to get away to give a lecture there, remember?’

  ‘Ah, yes. How silly of me to forget.’

  I grinned some more, liking this guy all over again, and started setting words down on paper.

  ‘Okay,’ I said as I finished. ‘Done.’

  ‘And now your mother’s name and address.’

  I looked up at him, did a double take. ‘Mum’s name and address! But…why?’

  ‘A mere formality,’ he said airily. ‘In case of accident, illness and so on. We have to be able to inform all interested parties.’

  ‘Ri-i-ight!’ I said, understanding. ‘So you’ll want her phone number as well.’

  ‘If you please, yes.’

  I set more words down, felt strangely good as a familiar name and address appeared on the paper before me. I finished, looked up.

  ‘Is that it?’ I asked.

  ‘It is. And now, I’m afraid, it is time for your test.’

  ‘Lead me to it.’

  ‘Well, since you are so eager, you can go and see my secretary by yourself and ask her to give you the standard test sheet for your age. After it’s been marked—a matter of about fifteen minutes—she will take you to your assigned class. Any questions?’

  I couldn’t think of any and said so.

  ‘Good! Then we may consider this interview over.’ He got up, reached out a hand. ‘It was good to meet you, Elisa. If ever you have any questions, problems and so on, you know where I am.’

  I got up and took the hand, gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘Thanks. I guess I’ll see you around.’

  ‘I think it highly likely. No go, get this test out of the way.’

  I turned to leave, but as I got to the door, he spoke again.

  ‘Elisa.’

  I stopped, turned to him again.

  ‘Don’t give up hope.’

  I nodded and pulled the door open. But as I closed it behind me, I was wondering. Don’t give up hope? I really did like this guy.

  ELEVEN

  It was as we reached the front door that it happened. I’d been expecting it but it still took me by surprise. My father stayed me with his hand, swung me round, eyed me as sternly as he could without seeming to be looking up at me. Thick heels on shoes help in situations like this.

  ‘You will behave yourself,’ he commanded. ‘I do not want to see a repetition of last time. Understood?’

  ‘Why should I behave myself?’ I asked. ‘What’s in it for me? A one-way ticket back to England?’

  He stepped closer, hissed through his teeth. ‘You will do as you are told. As your beloved nonna said to you the last time we were here, you are fourteen years old, you have nothing of consequence to say and you will remain silent.’

  ‘Jesus—Look, if you wanted something that just sat there and only responded when prodded, why didn’t you bring one of your lab specimens?’

  ‘That is enough!’

  ‘An amoeba, maybe?’

  ‘I said that is enough!’ He stamped his foot by way of emphasis, and I was once again seeing him as the child he’s always been, always will be. ‘You will do as I have said. You will not disgrace me again.’

  ‘So I’m allowed to disgrace myself again, then. Thanks for clarifying that.’

  ‘I am warning you, Elisa. Do not push me in this. We are going in now. Remember what I said.’

  He rang the bell, his gaze still fixed on me. A voice rose from inside, footsteps treading towards us on the cold stone floor. The door clicked and swung back to reveal beloved nonno. He ignored me completely, just threw his arms as far around my father as he could reach and engulfed him in a bear hug.

  ‘Figliolone mio! Che piacere vederti!’

  ‘It is good to see you again,’ my father responded dutifully, though there seemed to be a certain tension in his voice. I thought I could guess why.

  ‘Come in! Come in!’

  Beloved nonno stepped aside to usher us past. Or rather, my father. I just followed, my existence still not acknowledged. We passed on into the living-room, and immediately, I could see there were rather more people there than the time before. More of the family had been summoned, that was for sure, the old saying about there being safety in numbers clearly being put to the test.

  Beloved nonna emerged from its midst, the bodies parting as though making way for royalty.

  ‘Vittorio!’ she beamed. ‘How good that you could come.’

  ‘Always for you, mama,’ he replied, kissing her on her presented cheek. Another duty ticked off the list.

  Only then did she turn to me, only then did I have substance in that house, but it was only to look me up and down with disdain.

  ‘She is wearing different clothes,’ she said at length a
nd not to me.

  ‘Our new governess,’ my father explained. ‘She went shopping and bought something in line with my wishes, something more appropriate for occasions such as this.’

  More appropriate? I’m a denim girl and what I was wearing sure as hell wasn’t denim. It was a trouser suit, blue, of the style that came and went when my father was still struggling to reach his teens. We got it at a good price. It wasn’t hard to figure out why.

  Beloved nonna nodded approval. ‘It is more decent than what she was wearing when last she was here. Does she like it?’

  I went to answer for myself, was predictably cut off short by my father. ‘She does. As you see, she wears it for you on this visit.’

  ‘What?’ —I jumped into the opening, wedged it wider before they could slam it shut again— ‘I hate it and you know it!’

  ‘Lisseta, please—’

  ‘Don’t you remember what I said when you showed it to me?’

  ‘Lisseta—’

  ‘Something out of the ark that would look better on a scarecrow—remember?’

  ‘Silence!’ —Beloved nonna, wrestling control back before it could slip any further from her grasp— ‘Whether you like it or not is not important! You will wear what you are given and be grateful for it!’

  ‘We have only your best interests at heart, Lisseta,’ my father added. ‘Please understand this.’

  ‘Yes, pappinetto,’ I said dryly. ‘Whatever you say, pappinetto.’

  Beloved nonna rapped her stick on the stone floor, signalling that a pronouncement was about to be made.

  ‘Now we eat. Vittorio, take my arm, please. You, girl!’ she added. ‘Follow us in!’

  So I followed. As the family fell in behind me, I could feel their eyes on me. They’d been warned what to expect, that was for certain. Strange to say, I didn’t feel much like disappointing them.

  The meal followed the same form as last time, like a looped film that was playing the same scene over and over again. Everybody talked, nobody listened. And I wasn’t included. No prizes for guessing why. Quite apart from the fact that I was but-fourteen-years-old-and-had-nothing-of-consequence-to-say, it was increasingly obvious that beloved nonna had done a thorough hatchet job on me before we arrived. By the time we walked though the door, everyone there had been given the low-down on me. I was rude. Belligerent. Offensive. I used language that this house, this most Christian house, hadn’t heard in a long while, if at all if the revered family history was anything to go by. No, I was marked. And they weren’t going to sully themselves and their precious sense of self-worth by associating with me.

  But I could handle it. I mean, when the choice is between solitude and a bunch of half-assed clowns doing a set piece performance, which would you choose? I just stuck it out. Ate a little of this, a mouthful of that. Didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t get spoken to. Just gazed round at them all and tried to slot them into place in the family hierarchy. The aunts and uncles from the last gig were there and studiously ignoring me. Hardly surprising. They’d seen me in action already, didn’t need to be told what to expect. Some others I couldn’t place, certainly hadn’t seen them before, didn’t even know they existed. Yeah, beloved nonna had really pulled out the big guns for this one, the forces arrayed before me a blunt warning of what to expect if I so much as even thought of stepping out of line. It was then that I saw her. As my gaze wandered down to the far end of the table, I saw her.

  She was older than me, yeah, but that wasn’t what made me notice her. You see, she wasn’t speaking. No, I mean really wasn’t speaking, wasn’t talking at everyone else while everyone else was talking back at her about something completely different. She was just sitting there, quietly eating, seemingly oblivious to everyone and everything around her.

  I think I must have been staring at her for some time because…well, you know that feeling you get when you think you’re being watched, she must have got it then because she suddenly looked up, looked directly at me. I felt my face flash red, looked away. But when I plucked up the courage to glance her way again, she was still looking at me. This time, I didn’t look away. This time, I held her gaze. And she smiled.

  I smiled back. Faintly. Uncertainly. Like I didn’t know what this was all about. Then I looked away again, feeling the embarrassment creeping up on me a second time. When next I looked, she was helping herself to more pasta, the smile no longer there, the encounter apparently forgotten.

  But I hadn’t forgotten it. I looked down at my plate, going over it all once again. It was weird. Someone had smiled at me, so what! But there was more to it this time. It was like reading something in her eyes, something she was trying to tell me but couldn’t, not here, not among all these people, and I dared to allow myself the fantasy that I knew what it was. It could be summed up in four simple words, their meaning conveyed in that single act of friendship in a sea of enemies. Four simple words.

  I’m on your side.

  I didn’t look at her again for the rest of the meal. If this was just my hope playing tricks on me, I wanted to enjoy it for a while.

  TWELVE

  Lunch ended, everyone rose as beloved nonna heaved her bony butt out of her chair, and everyone murmured appreciation of the excellent meal. More ritual, more of the done thing.

  Like before, no one seemed interested in talking to me, in even acknowledging that I existed. No, they just drifted off in groups into the living-room, talking noisily at each other as always, and I was left sitting at the table. Alone. Ignored. I think it was planned that way, a lesson they felt they needed to teach any member of the family that dared to back-answer beloved nonna.

  I let go a little sigh and got up. I wasn’t going to follow them: they didn’t want me, I didn’t want them. So I just wandered to the other side of the dining-room, through the glass-filled doors left open to give some relief from the heat, and stepped into the garden. There I stopped. It was comparatively quiet: beloved nonna and beloved nonno had a place that was set a few streets back from any main road so there was little traffic noise to intrude, and the thickness of the walls pretty much blocked out the noise of the animated conversation inside, so yeah, it was quieter than I was used to. And I was glad of that.

  I stopped on the rough patch of cobblestones that passed for a patio and took a long look at the garden. It wasn’t much different from ours, with the same parched grass and withered flowers that looked eternally in need of a drink, but there was no bush, no Trumpet Tree. I remembered being brought here as a child every weekend, my father playing the dutiful son and reporting his week’s dealings and doings, mum tagging reluctantly along—reluctant not because she didn’t like the place but because she knew beloved nonna hated her. Not Italian, you see, and she couldn’t have her firstborn son marrying anything less than good Italian stock. But he had, and that was almost as big a crime in her eyes as using a knife to cut spaghetti.

  I stood there for a moment, just looking out and remembering, when I got the feeling that maybe I wasn’t alone. You’ve had it, too—right? It’s just a feeling but it’s there all right, some leftover from our caveman days when knowing what was around the next corner might mean the difference between life and meeting something big with sharp teeth. I turned. Slowly. Wanting to know yet also not. And she was there.

  I should have been expecting her but I wasn’t. She was leaning against the wall, cigarette glowing dully in one hand, the other crossed lazily across her chest. There was the same black hair, the same dark eyes that had held mine across the table for long moments. She was wearing a pale blue dress that ended a little above the knee. Looking at her then, more closely, I saw she was maybe in her mid-thirties but had the air of one who’d seen more than she maybe should have at her age. She seemed…wise. And I liked her. I didn’t know why but I just…you know…liked her.

  ‘Hi,’ I said tentatively.

  She nodded once by way of greeting, didn’t speak.

  I gestured a glance at her cigarette. ‘Those t
hings won’t do you any good, you know.’

  At that, she did speak, her voice pleasantly deep and melodious. ‘So what, you’re my doctor already?’

  I blushed, went to apologise, but she cut me off short by dropping the glowing stub onto the cobbles and grinding it into oblivion with her shoe.

  ‘Satisfied now?’ she said, and I could see from the smile that she wasn’t angry or even offended.

  ‘Sorry,’ I blustered, ‘it’s just that I’ve heard what can happen when—’

  ‘Forget it.’ She looked me up and down, but not in the way beloved nonna had with all its disapproval and contempt. No, she seemed to like what she was seeing. ‘So you’re the new black sheep of the family.’

  ‘New?’ I repeated. The black sheep part I could get.

  She laughed, held out a hand. ‘I see they have not told you about me. I am Eliana, your father’s sister.’

  ‘His sister! So that makes you my—’

  ‘—your aunt, yes.’

  I took the hand, squeezed it. ‘And you’re…you know…like me in this family? Something of a black sheep?’

  ‘Well, let us look at it this way. No one is talking to you right now—right? Do you see anyone falling over themselves to engage me in conversation?’

  On impulse, I glanced round, snapped back when I realised the stupidity of what I was doing. ‘My father has never mentioned you. You’re his sister…my aunt…and yet he’s never mentioned you.’

  ‘Why should he? Contact with me was hardly likely to happen, given my track record with invitations to family events. He could have kept me hidden from you for years.’

  I nodded understanding, knowing all too well that yes, my father would indeed keep a firm padlock on any skeleton that might be rattling around in the family cupboard. ‘So why were you invited?’ I asked next. ‘I mean, you said—’