The First True Lie

by Marina Mander

  Translation copyright © 2013 by Stephen Twilley

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Hogarth, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  HOGARTH is a trademark of the Random House Group Limited, and the H colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  Originally published in Italy as La prima vera bugia by et al. edizioni, Milan, in 2011.Copyright © 2011 by et al. S.r.l. Copyright © 2011 by Marina Mander.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mander, Marina, 1963-

  [Prima vera bugia. English]

  The first true lie : a novel / Marina Mander.

  pages cm

  Translation of: La prima vera bugia. 1a ed. Milano : Et al., 2011.

  1. Boys—Fiction. 2. Mothers and sons—Fiction. 3. Mothers—Death—

  Fiction. 4. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 5. Identity

  (Psychology)—Fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

  PQ4873.A4734P7513 2014

  853'.914—dc23

  2013027740

  ISBN 9780770436858

  eBook ISBN: 9780770436865

  Book design by Elina D. Nudelman

  Cover design by Elena Giavaldi

  Cover photographs: Donald Iain Smith/Flickr/Getty

  ep_v4.0

  TO GREYSTOKE

  AND HIS BROTHERS

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Some Days

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author

  Some Days

  Some days I wonder: What does it mean to be a half orphan?

  You can’t know, because you’re a grown-up.

  You’ve got parents who already seem like grandparents, a house where you’re free to go into all the rooms, a car to get away in…There are so many things you can forget.

  Mama’s always saying “I remember,” but I’m not so sure about that because sometimes it seems she really doesn’t remember anything about what it’s like to be my age. This happens a lot with adults.

  The worst are the ones who take your toys and then don’t even know how to play. They want to win, but they can’t handle losing, and as soon as you start to have fun, they suddenly remember they’ve got an appointment, or they’ve parked the car badly, or else it’s their kid.

  “Sorry, love, but I really must be off now.”

  The worst are the ones who ignore you and shut themselves up in the bedroom with Mama.

  “We’re going to go in there for a bit to chat.”

  They say they have to talk, but I know perfectly well they’re having sex. They turn the lock so, so slowly and hardly talk at all and every once in a while Mama yelps and then goes Shhhh.

  Mama thinks I never notice anything because her room is at the end of the hall, but I’ve realized that if I want to protect myself I can’t get distracted. I activate my periaudio, which is like a periscope but for the ears, and I try to pick out details. A periaudio isn’t really an instrument at all. It’s sort of a special attitude that makes it feel natural to notice more. They say that for a child I’m extremely sensitive—whether or not they mean it as a compliment, I don’t know. They say it with a smile, but there’s something sad behind that nice smile that makes me think they haven’t understood much of anything. I train myself to be sensitive and my antennae tune in on their own.

  I’ve learned that details say more than things do. If you pay attention to details, you can convince adults that everything’s fine. If none of your details are wrong, they believe you.

  Some examples of details that are wrong: messy hair, mucky notebooks, dog-eared books, scratches, black fingernails, dirty words.

  Adults are obsessed with dirty words. Usually the words adults consider dirty aren’t the ones I do.

  “Stop swearing.”

  “They’re not dirty words, it’s just that things are like that!”

  Take assface: If someone has a face that looks like an ass, with a big, ugly crack sandwiched between cheeks like a baby’s butt, it’s not my fault.

  I also get some satisfaction from fucking shit, even more than from the other fucking swears that adults like: fucking hell, fuckwit, fuck off, and so on. Fucking shit really means fuck and shit together; it’s like saying “yuck” times two, like with the dog poops you find on the pavement. The ones our neighbor’s dog does are huge. You’re amazed and disgusted at the same time, just like with a fucking shit.

  Saying piss is for babies. Saying stronzetta, on the other hand, which actually means “little turd,” is like sneezing, when your nose tickles and tickles. Stronzetta is more like Antonella, just to give you some idea. Antonella is beautiful, with long straight blond hair and dimples when she smiles—but she never smiles at you, like you’re a fucking shit. My grandma always used to pinch my cheeks to give me dimples.

  “Come over here and let me give you some dimples like Cary Grant.”

  “Leave me alone. I don’t want dimples. Dimples are for babies,” I shout, running around the table, tripping over chair legs, and hiding behind the wax apple in the fruit bowl, which has different levels like a wedding cake. “You’ll never catch me, you old witch!”

  “Don’t talk to your grandma like that, you’re nothing but a little brat.”

  “Witchy witchy witch, what a fucking bitch.”

  “Who taught you to speak like that?”

  There are certain words adults don’t like, and by now I’ve learned not to say them when they’re around.

  Adults like to use words like in-laws, power steering, expenses, colleague, mortgage, sciatica, and nostalgia, and especially words that end in gy, like psychology, energy, strategy, and allergy.

  Mama suffers from all the gys put together.

  She says that psychology’s no use to her, that no matter how much she sleeps she has no energy, that she has nostalgia for a time when a man was a man but all the same you need a strategy to find him or else to make more money, that with the pollen every year her allergies just explode, and that the vaccines aren’t worth a damn.

  As for me, I’m vaccinated against all this.

  Mama complains constantly, and sometimes it’s sad. But what’s strange is that when she’s truly sad, she stops complaining. She just drifts around the apartment, superslow and without saying a word, like a pouty angel. The other day I got a quick look at her as I walked down the hall. Her bedroom door wasn’t closed all the way. She was sitting on her bed and sniffling and her eyes were red and puffy, and not because of allergies, I think. It’s not pretty seeing your mama cry because you don’t know how to help her, and also because you’d like to be the only one to cry at home whenever you feel like it. You’re not all that big yet, so even if it’s not exactly fun, you can still cry once in a while; you’re allowed to, because your friends still do it. I’m jealous of my classmates, who can whine all day if they feel like it. I can’t, because when Mama’s so sad I can’t be sadder than she is. We’d end up sinking. And we don’t have a dad to save us, a fireman like one of those who after the terrorist attacks takes you in his arms and carries you far away from danger, a dad like the dads in commercials. We’re always in a little bit of danger.

  Mama says that Dad disappeared into the void. When she says it, s
he looks up over my shoulders, as if the void were still there behind me, as if she is seeing a ghost. Naturally, I turn around, but I don’t see anything, just a painting of a choppy sea hanging over the sofa whose armrests are all scratched up, a yucky painting full of yucky weather with a scribbly signature in the bottom corner.

  “It’s impressionist,” Mama explains.

  I’ve never understood if Dad died for real or if he only died for us in the moment I came into the world. For all I know, he could be having a good time on a motorcycle with some new mama, but I don’t want to ask. It doesn’t seem right to butt in. I make do with the official version. It’s not as if it makes such a big difference, seeing as how he’s not around. Usually I try to change the subject, like when Mama asks me about school and my homework and I concentrate on my index finger and find a little strip of skin to bite off or else find a little white spot on the nail, called a sweetheart, which is a sign, the doctor says, of a lack of calcium. And as a matter of fact Mama doesn’t like me to drink lots of milk.

  So let’s say I’ve been an orphan fatherwise more or less since the beginning. Orphan is the only word I hate and that adults hate too. With orphan we’re all in agreement.

  Orphan in my case is like a coat with only one sleeve.

  Kids use the word orphan like it’s a dirty word.

  Adults, on the other hand, when they say orphan they say it under their breath, like when they talk about diseases or disasters that happen to other people. There are lots of parents who decide to split up, lots of kids who see one of their parents only once in a while; but being an orphan, that’s really a nasty business, like you’re missing something and everyone sees only the part that’s not there. You’re not what you are—you’re what you’re missing. Like when someone has a glass eye. You look into the eye that doesn’t see, not into the healthy one that’s looking at you with all it’s got. Anyway, being a half orphan makes you strange; and there are things you can’t do without a father.

  After Mama gave me my first bicycle, she took me to the parking lot to teach me how to ride. I pedaled my first three circles, trying not to hit car bumpers or the bollards that looked like big panettones, forcing myself to keep my balance even though I was so excited. On the third circle the front tire went flat, going pssss, the sound of a butterfly fart, and Mama said, “Ugh, who knows how to fix a flat tire?”

  And then I said, with the bike lying on the ground and my tail between my legs, “It doesn’t matter, let’s go home.”

  You get used to it, though. I’m used to it now.

  Of course, when Mama acts like that, when it seems like she doesn’t have a clue how it feels to have to walk home with your new bicycle, I would do anything to get her out of her “oh well” bubble, but she goes back in as soon as she can. She goes around with her nose in the air, as if she’s not interested in anything. Or as if up there, on top of the houses, on top of everything, above the flat roofs and beneath the stomachache sky, where seagulls never fly, there’s an answer, the solution we need, a flat-tire repairman, a Band-Aid store closed for the holiday. I feel like strangling her sometimes, I swear, but that’s just an expression. I would never, ever want to become a complete orphan because then things get messed up for real. If you’re a complete orphan, they take you and throw you in a home, they put a hand on your shoulder and walk you off to your cell. If you don’t have a father, well, okay, but if you don’t have either one, neither a mama nor a dad, I mean, they think it could be contagious, so they put you in a hospital where everyone’s like you, even if they know perfectly well you can’t get better. They shut you up in a kind of hospital and you have to follow orders. You don’t have your own home anymore, or your own room. All you’ve got is one fucking shit of an illness. That’s also why I pay attention to details.

  I remember seeing a movie when I was little about children like that—lots and lots of children crammed into a building with metal camp beds with rusty bedsprings like the ones in a prison or a mental hospital. People who are alone for whatever reason—it doesn’t matter if they’re old or young—they always end up in that kind of place because no one knows where to put people who are alone, and so they cram them all together hoping they’ll keep one another company.

  I have to admit, every once in a while Mama does try to give me a new dad. But things never go right.

  “One dad down, next one up.”

  She says it like she’s saying she’s sorry. She shrugs her shoulders and sighs, then she pulls her neck back into her sweater, into the shell she carries around, and then she smiles with her eyes all bright and watery and hugs me in a way you can see is a big effort for her, as if lifting her arms is like lifting weights and hugging me shifts a bit of that weight onto me. Mama acts like this joke is funny, but I know it’s not her fault if it doesn’t make us laugh.

  Then she usually says, “What do you say we go to bed? Tomorrow I have to get up early.”

  The last dad, for example, was nice enough, but I didn’t like him because he had a scratchy beard and smelled like train seats. He seemed dirty. Actually, more than dirty, he seemed poor, and a poor dad’s no good for us. If we really have to take one in, he at least has to be normal and not embarrass us. I’m sick of being different.

  At school they give us lots of speeches about how we have to accept all kinds of different people: immigrant kids, handicapped kids, down-and-out kids, the ones who don’t eat prosciutto or won’t eat their meat rare or only eat vegetables, the kids who don’t eat at all, and the ones who stuff themselves every chance they get, who’ve got rolls of fat on their ankles and have trouble sitting cross-legged, like my friend Chubby Broccolo from Brindisi. I’m all for it. But the fact is, I wouldn’t want a strange dad. On TV there are never dads with black hairs stuck in their face like nails, dads whose job it is to wash windshields at traffic lights, dads who even in the summer wear a windbreaker that’s dirty around the collar—so why should we have to take one home with us? Mama agreed that I was right about that, even if she’s sad so much of the time. Mama is too pretty for someone like that. If he kisses her too much, her face gets itchy.

  “It’s not a question of rich or poor, good-looking or ugly. Feelings are more complicated.”

  Basically, though, I know we think about it in the same way. The last few times they shut themselves up in her room to talk, she wasn’t yelping anymore.

  “How about if instead of a dad we get a dog?”

  “I’m too tired for a dog.”

  “But Mama, can’t you see how great it’d be, a fucking big dog who takes fucking big poops?”

  I said it like that because I was mad, but weirdly she didn’t yell at me. Instead she actually smiled a little and raised her right eyebrow as if she were getting an idea.

  “If you want, for your birthday, you can get a cat.”

  So now we have Blue, who’s like a cartoon cat.

  We called him Blue because of his breed and also because Mama loves the blues. Ah, the blues!

  “Listen. The blues are like the sound of the sea; close your eyes and they’ll rock you to sleep.”

  Blue won’t ever be a dog, but he’s a great cat—he even likes Muddy Waters.

  “Do you know why they called him that?” Mama asked me.

  “Who?”

  “Muddy Waters.”

  “Dunno.”

  “Because when he was a kid he used to play in the mud by the river and always came home covered in it.”

  “Lucky him.”

  Since we live on the eighth floor and don’t have rivers or trees or other kinds of nature around us, Blue sharpens his claws on the yellow sofa. Every once in a while feathers come out of the cushions, and he thinks they’re little birds. If I throw Blue crumpled-up balls of paper, he fetches them like a dog. He runs after them and ends up sliding across the floor, which makes him mad. Then he pretends nothing happened. He puts the ball on my shoe, which is funny. It’s too bad I can’t take him outside—as soon as I put the
leash on him, he’s out cold. The vet says it’s narcolepsy, like the people who suddenly fall asleep because something happens to their brain, but it’s nothing serious.

  The vet is a nice guy. He’s gentle, his eyes are big behind his glasses, and he has a little tuft of white hair in the middle of his black bangs, like a badger. He loves animals. The sleeves on his shirts are too short and you can see long hairs coming out of them, hair that’s fine and soft like a wolf pup’s.

  “Mama, what do you think of the vet?”

  “What do you mean, what do I think of the vet? Enough with your nonsense. Do I have to change the cat’s doctor along with my gynecologist?”

  I have to stop myself from going on or else Mama gets annoyed. When we leave the office, which smells like fur and disinfectant, all three of us feel white and shiny, all healthy and beautiful. The last time we were there, a woman with a black-and-yellow fur coat like a leopard’s skin gave us really dirty looks. Her dog was dying. She glared at me for taking A Kitten’s Life from the wobbly metal magazine tree filled with brochures about taking care of your puppy. It’s not my fault I’ve got a fantastic kitten instead of a dog that’s dying, sorry, Leopard-Coat Lady. I’m so sorry for you and especially for your dog and for the leopards you wear. Blue in his little carrier cage sticks his startled face between the bars; he’s curious but also scared by the taillights and the noises of the road, hoping to be set free soon, if not in a meadow, then at least at home. You shouldn’t complain about your kitten’s life, Blue. After all, there are plenty who have it worse.

  “But the vet is really talented, right?”

  Okay, okay, let’s leave it or Mama will get grumpy.

  When Mama gets too grumpy, wrinkles show up on her forehead, like the lines waves leave when they come and go on the sand all day. But when her bad mood is over it’s fantastic. We play together, wrestling like men do and getting into tickle fights, or else we do tongue twisters, and I always win. With me the woodchuck chucks as much wood as it can, Peter Piper’s peppers are perfectly pickled, and all the animals get on just fine, woodchucks, chickens, cows, iguanas, and she who sells seashells. I’m here, have no fear, no need to worry about anything. Mama and I laugh like crazy until it’s late. The next day I hope it rains, or snows, or else a tsunami comes, as long as I don’t have to get up.