“I do not have a camera,” Antonio Vieri said. Steve made a scoffing noise at this. But it was the truth. Antonio Vieri didn’t have a camera. Was it so strange that he didn’t have a camera? “After all, if I’d had a camera, I wouldn’t have had to draw the crude caricatures.”
“This is unbelievable,” Steve said to his wife, who was staring at him, gape-mouthed, as though he was an entirely different Steve. It was like the moment when the youngest-brother gangster becomes the patriarch, and all the other gangsters stare at him, gape-mouthed, as though he were an entirely different younger brother. “This is unbelievable,” he said to Brad. “We’re really supposed to believe that his wife left him—”
“It’s true,” Antonio Vieri said. “The famous American author is right outside in the piazza, drinking wine in the café.”
“He is?” Brad said, and looked with surprise in the direction of the window, as if realizing for the first time that the apartment had one. He walked to the window and looked out. “Hey, there is someone out there.”
“Oh, come on,” Steve said, walking over to the window to see for himself.
“I know,” Antonio Vieri said. “Out of all the outdoor cafés in all the piazzas in all of Florence, the famous American author has to drink red wine in this one, and he’s been out there every day since my wife left me for him.”
“You’re trying to tell me that that guy is Mario Puzo,” Steve began, but Antonio Vieri shrieked, “You are not allowed to refer to him by that name in this apartment!” and then ran into his bedroom; he could hear Brad say to Steve and his wife, “In the Pity Palace you may call him ‘the famous American author’ or you may call him nothing at all. I forgot to mention that.” And then Antonio Vieri slammed the bedroom door behind him and dove into his bed, the bed he’d not slept in since his wife had left him, his head jammed under his pillow. After a few minutes, he could hear the door creak open, could hear footsteps coming closer, could feel someone’s hand on his shoulder.
“Did they go away?” Antonio Vieri asked, his head still under the pillow.
“Yup,” Brad said.
“Did they go away forever?”
“Probably,” Brad said. “But there are going to be others. You were a big hit, bud. Steve and his wife said they were going to tell everyone. You should have seen them. They were two totally different animals by the time you were done with them. She even kissed his mole on their way out.” Antonio Vieri groaned, and Brad said, “I know, it was grim,” and Antonio Vieri groaned again, and Brad said, “Are you OK?”
“No,” Antonio Vieri said, because he wasn’t: because the more he’d talked about his wife, his friends, the insalata mista, the famous American author and his best-selling novels, everything, the less real they’d seemed. Earlier, he’d wanted to crawl into his wife’s ear so that she wouldn’t hear anything except how much he loved her, how sorry he was; now he wanted her to crawl into his mouth until there was no room in there for anything else, no room even for words, so that he wouldn’t be able to say anything else about her, about them, about anything. Because Antonio Vieri knew now that the more you talked about something, the less real it seemed. This was why he talked the way he talked; this was why the Italian gangsters in New York talked the way they talked, too, using only their expressions. They knew what Antonio Vieri knew: that in order to keep the things that mattered real, you had to say only a few things, and the few things you said had to be the same every time you said them.
“What can I do?” Brad asked him.
“Tell everyone to go away forever.”
“I’ve never had anything work out for me before now,” Brad said, and just then, there was a knock on the door. Antonio Vieri could hear it through his pillow. “I was the first person ever who couldn’t even keep the dry cleaning dry enough. I can’t tell them to go away.”
“Fine,” Antonio Vieri said, sighing. “I will tell them that my wife ate insalata mista like an angel and that she left me for the famous American author, and that is all.”
AND THAT WAS all Antonio Vieri told them, the Americans who filled his apartment day after day. Because the only people who entered the Pity Palace were Americans. Antonio Vieri was sure this was meaningful, although he couldn’t say, with any certainty, what it might mean. Perhaps it meant that only Americans felt better about themselves by seeing the misery of others. Perhaps it meant that only Americans needed to feel better about themselves. Or perhaps it meant that only American read flyers handed to them in piazzas by strange old coots. In any case, they filled his apartment, decked out in their fanny packs, standing over his bed, waiting for him to say something.
“I am Antonio Vieri. My wife left me for the famous American author who wrote those best-selling novels about Italian gangsters in New York,” he told them. “I miss her so much. I even miss the way she ate her insalata mista. She ate her insalata mista so delicately, one leaf at a time. She ate her insalata mista like an angel. Now go away.”
“For how long?” they asked.
“Forever,” Antonio Vieri said.
“OK, folks,” Brad said, ushering them out of the bedroom. “I’d be happy to answer any of your questions . . .” And then Antonio Vieri stuck his head under the pillow and could hear no more.
This went on for days, or maybe months. Years? Antonio Vieri had no idea. Every day was like the one before. Every day, he awoke to find people staring at him, his caricatures, his books, his filthy apartment; every day, he said what he would say, and then told his visitors to go away forever, which they did, to the next room, where Brad answered their questions. And Antonio Vieri knew what their questions were, too, knew they wanted to know what Steve had wanted to know—namely, was Antonio Vieri serious? Can’t he talk about anything except this insalata mista? Can someone really miss the way someone else eats salad? Does he really believe that his wife left him for the famous American author? Does he really believe he might get her back by reading the famous American author’s best-selling novels? That guy, way across the piazza: Does he really believe that guy is the famous American author? Does he really believe that he even had a wife in the first place? And what’s the deal with these caricatures, anyway? And why does being here, in this place, make me feel so good about myself? Is there a sadder man in all of Florence? Is there a sadder man anywhere? Antonio Vieri knew they were asking Brad these questions. He asked them of himself, and each time he asked himself, Is she real? Did I just make her up so I wouldn’t be alone? he felt so sad, so lonely, the way he’d felt when he knew his wife was real, when he knew she’d left him for the famous American author. Could you feel this sad, this lonely, about someone who wasn’t real, someone who was just in your head? You couldn’t, could you?
“She is a real person,” Antonio Vieri said to Brad one day. Brad was sitting on the edge of Antonio Vieri’s bed, divvying up the money—one euro for Antonio Vieri, one euro for Brad, etc. There was so much money that it didn’t seem as though Brad would ever be able to divvy it all up in one sitting. But the money, and the ability to make it, didn’t seem to make Brad happy anymore; as he counted the money, he looked washed-out, weary, resigned. Antonio Vieri said, “I could not feel this sad, this lonely, about someone who wasn’t real. You believe that she is a real person, don’t you?”
“I’d like to,” Brad said. “But every day these people ask their questions and I can’t answer them. Today, someone asked me what your wife’s name was. I couldn’t tell them. I told them you referred to her only as ‘my wife.’”
“That’s true,” Antonio Vieri said.
“I felt like an idiot,” Brad said. “Does your wife even have a name?”
“She does,” Antonio Vieri said. “It is Connie.”
“Dude,” Brad said. “Come on. That’s the name of the sister in the best-selling novels.”
“I know,” Antonio Vieri said. “My wife and I laughed over that coincidence many a time before she left me for the famous American author.”
&nb
sp; Brad shook his head; he took his half of the euros and pushed them across the bed toward Antonio Vieri. “It’s not worth it anymore,” Brad said. “You make me too sad.”
“Are you saying she’s not a real person?” Antonio Vieri said. “Are you saying I made her up? Did I make up this?” And here Antonio Vieri picked up a fistful of cash and threw it at Brad. Brad stood up and started walking away; Antonio Vieri picked up a flyer, announcing the opening of the Pity Palace, and asked, “Did I make this up, too? Did I make up the old coots who gave it to you? Did I make up the best-selling novels? Did I make up the man sitting at the far edge of the piazza? Did I make up these?” Antonio Vieri asked, and pointed to the tears pouring down his cheeks, his chin: because his wife had left him, and he had sent his friends away, and now Brad was going away, too—whether Antonio Vieri told him to go away, or asked him to stay, Antonio Vieri knew that Brad was going—and once that happened, he would be all alone, again, and maybe forever. “Did I make up you?” Antonio Vieri asked him.
“You make me too sad,” Brad said. “It doesn’t matter to me anymore.” And then he left the room; Antonio Vieri could hear footsteps, could hear the apartment door creak open, slam shut, and then nothing.
Antonio Vieri wondered if maybe Brad was right. After all, if losing your wife made you feel the same as suspecting your wife wasn’t real, and had never been a real person for you to lose, then what did it matter? What did it matter if a person was real, or if you just made them up, if either way you felt lonely once they were gone? Was loneliness the only real thing in this world? If it was, then what did it matter if there was a Brad or if there wasn’t a Brad? Was Brad himself real outside of Antonio Vieri’s loneliness? Was anyone? Was there anyone who could tell you what was real or not in this world? And if so, where, oh where, if you were Antonio Vieri, could you find this person, these people? How could you make them find you?
There was a knock on the apartment door. Antonio Vieri put the pillow over his head and waited for the knocking to stop, waited for whoever was knocking to realize that the Pity Palace was closed, and to go away. After a few minutes, the knocking seemed to stop. Antonio Vieri removed the pillow again and looked up, and there, at the foot of his bed, was a group of men.
The group seemed to be divided into two factions. One faction had salt-and-pepper beards and wore corduroy jackets; the other faction had slicked-back hair and wore gold necklaces and black leather jackets. The men in corduroy each held a copy of one of the famous American author’s best-selling novels—except unlike Antonio Vieri’s beat-up paperbacks, their books were hardcover and preserved in slick plastic sleeves. The men in black leather didn’t have books; instead, they stood with their feet far apart, cracking their knuckles. Antonio Vieri suddenly felt very nervous, as though these men were a government licensing agency and Antonio Vieri didn’t have the proper government license.
“Who are you?” Antonio Vieri asked.
“We’re from the Mario Puzo Society,” said one of the men in corduroy.
This made Antonio Vieri sit up in bed, made him forget that, in the Pity Palace, one was supposed to call him “the famous American author” or nothing at all. “He has his own society?”
“He does,” said another one of the men in corduroy. You could see the grooves in his beard from where he’d stroked it thoughtfully. “We are it.”
“What does his society do?” Antonio Vieri asked. “Do you read the books and then talk about them, how much you love them? Do you say the expressions to each other?”
“We hold meetings, mostly,” said another man in corduroy. The men in black leather hadn’t spoken; like Steve with his mole and his Donna, they seemed content to let their knuckles and their corduroyed colleagues speak for them. “We were holding our annual meeting in Palermo, and then we heard there was someone in Florence claiming that his wife had left him for Mario Puzo.”
At that, the men in black leather drew themselves up to their full height, as though to ward off a threat. “Who are they?” Antonio Vieri whispered, nodding in the direction of the knuckle crackers.
The men in corduroy didn’t answer; instead, they squinted skeptically at Antonio Vieri. “Are you even Italian?” one of them asked, and then, to the other men in corduroy, “Is this guy even Italian?”
The other men in corduroy shook their heads in dismay. “Doesn’t look Italian at all.” “Never seen anyone look less like a goombah in my life.” “Is it possible that he’s Swiss?” “Does anyone know what a Swiss looks like?”
“Of course I’m Italian,” Antonio Vieri said. He was out of bed now, on his feet for the first time in he didn’t know how long. He felt weak, too. When was the last time he’d stood? When was the last time he’d eaten? He remembered Brad offering him some of the healthy candy bars and Antonio Vieri, full of self-pity, refusing to eat them. “How do you know so much about what an Italian looks like?”
“That’s why we keep these guys around,” the first man in corduroy said, hooking his thumb at the men in black leather. “To remind us. But that is not the point. The point is that we heard that an Antonio Vieri of Florence was walking around, saying that Mario Puzo had stolen his wife. And one of the duties of the Mario Puzo Society is to defend his legacy.”
“What is his legacy?”
“Whatever we say it is,” the first man in corduroy said.
“Well, it’s true,” Antonio Vieri said. “My wife left me for your famous American author.”
“It is not true,” the first man in corduroy said.
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s dead,” the first man in corduroy said. “He died seven years, four months, and twenty-eight days ago.”
“If he’s so dead,” Antonio Vieri said, “then why is he sitting at the outdoor café in the piazza, drinking red wine?” He could hear the whine in his voice, the desperation, and although he had every right to feel desperate, he had no right to whine. After all, this was what Antonio Vieri had asked for: he’d asked for someone who knew what was real to find him, and he had gotten what he’d asked for. Except he didn’t want it anymore: he did not want to know.
“What café?” The men in corduroy suddenly looked nervous: they tugged at their jackets, furiously stroked their beards, then combed their hair with their fingers. The men in leather, seeing their colleagues’ nervousness, doubled their knuckle-cracking in an attempt, Antonio Vieri guessed, to become even more Italian. Antonio Vieri swore that their skin turned swarthier, their hair greasier, their gold necklaces thicker, the Italian horns on the necklaces more hornlike. “What piazza?”
“The one right outside,” Antonio Vieri said, and pointed at the window.
With that, the men in corduroy rushed to the window. Antonio Vieri couldn’t see them—the men in black leather placed themselves between their fellow society members and Antonio Vieri—but he could hear them, all talking at once: “Jesus, is that him?” “It can’t be him; he never once drank red wine. You know that.” “Plus, he’s dead.” “Well, it looks like him.” “It doesn’t.” “It does.” “It’s like a caricature of him.” “It could be anyone. Or no one.” “Or him.” “If only he weren’t on the far edge of the piazza.” “Get your binoculars, man.” “Who is that he’s sitting with?” “I think it’s a woman.” I know it’s a woman. I don’t need any effing binoculars to tell me it’s a woman.” “Wait a minute. Is that the woman in this guy’s caricatures.” “Impossible to tell, they’re so crudely drawn.” “It might be her.” “Might, might, might.” “She’s eating salad in the pictures. But she’s not eating salad down there.” “What is that? Is she eating a pancake or something?” “She’s not eating a pancake. Where do you get a pancake in Florence?” “All I know is that whatever she’s eating, they’re round, and there is a big stack of them.” “You can tell that from up here?” “Jesus, why don’t we just go down there and see if it’s him.” “You go down there; I’m staying here, in this guy’s apartment, with his books and h
is olive.” “Well, someone sure as hell better go.” “Why don’t we send our Italian brothers in black leather?” But the men in black leather weren’t going anywhere: by this point they’d closed their eyes, as though trying to wish themselves into another apartment, with another group of men, who were wearing another sort of jacket, who were looking out the window at another sort of author, who wrote another sort of novel. “I’ve got an idea,” one of the men in corduroy said. “Why don’t we just wait for someone to come up here and tell us if it’s really him or not?” “Wait, what was that sound?” another one asked. “Was that a knock on the door?”
It wasn’t a knock on the door: it was the sound of Antonio Vieri closing the apartment door behind him. He had trouble handling the stairs: he was four stories up, after all, and hadn’t walked or eaten in who knows how long. But that was all right, because at the bottom of the stairs, at the far edge of the piazza, there was a woman eating something—pancakes maybe, whatever those were, and she had a big stack of them—and whoever it was—wife, or not wife; real or not real—maybe she would share them. Maybe once they were done eating, she would leave the famous American author for him, and maybe, if she wasn’t his wife, she would let him call her his wife, and maybe if she wasn’t real, she would let him call her real, and maybe she would take him away to another sort of apartment, in another sort of city, where maybe Antonio Vieri would say more than just a few things, or maybe he would say the same few things but would say them differently every time he said them, or maybe he would learn from his mistakes and let his wife talk for a change and then mimic her expressions, and maybe he would let his wife eat whatever sort of food she wanted and read whatever sort of novel by whatever sort of author and be content to know however many things about her that she wanted him to know, and maybe there would never be a reason for someone to knock on their door and so never a reason for them to answer it, and maybe Antonio Vieri wouldn’t ever need to feel sorry for himself again, and maybe this time it would work out for him and his wife and they would be happy, truly and finally happy, to have found each other again, just when they needed each other the most, just like in a book.
Price of the Haircut : Stories (9781616208240) Page 18