He accepts the challenge happily. I take Italy and he arranges the green-and-gold players of Brazil on the green felt cloth.
After a few midfield flicks of the forefinger, I’m already ahead 2 to 0. Once again, the good Giannandrea has shown that he’s a careful player and an excellent technician, but I am a prize racehorse when it comes to Subbuteo, forgive the vanity, but a world-class contender. I win without any such exaggeration—5 to 2. As we’re shaking hands to seal the results, Massimiliano comes home.
“You’re not trying to take my job, I hope!” he says to Giannandrea with a smile, then adds: “So who won?”
“He did,” the depressive replies. “I don’t understand why he never played this game professionally.”
We don’t have time to finish commenting on the match before a new client shows up, a good-looking female executive in her early forties with the word stress practically stamped on her forehead. When she sees three men sitting around a Subbuteo board, she’s taken aback.
“Sorry, I just came in to find out something more about the interesting name of this shop. What do you sell?”
“Chitchat, signora. Just like it says. Would you like some tea? Or an herbal tea?”
She’s stumped, but she seems unable to leave.
“Yes, thanks.”
We get right to work. I rinse the mugs, Giannandrea fills the electric kettle and turns it on, while Massimiliano welcomes the woman in and entertains her affably as only he knows how to do.
If I had a longer life expectancy, I’d try to start a chain of Chitchat shops. And maybe I’d save the world.
As the new arrival confides to Massimiliano that she’s just lost an important contract, I smile and inquire, like a perfect English butler: “Madam, milk or lemon in your tea?”
“Milk,” she replies, already relieved. “No sugar, thanks.”
I shoot a glance at Massimiliano and Giannandrea: we’re a perfect team.
−36
I’ve changed the settings on my cell phone so I have a different ringtone for everyone who calls. For Umberto I chose the soaring trumpet fanfares of the Indiana Jones theme song. It’s his favorite movie.
“Are you coming to Fregene tonight? Everyone’s going!”
“Everyone who?”
“All three musketeers!”
I’m already apprehensive: I can just envision the booby trap. A mosquito-ridden discotheque on the beach, with drinks both obligatory and expensive, or wait, even worse, some Roman comedian doing a show with recycled material stapled together into a routine.
“What are we going to do there?”
“We’re going to watch the sun set over the water!”
He tells me that it’s a bit of a craze, a vaguely New Age trend, to go and bid the sun farewell.
I let him talk me into it, and at eight that evening, I park by the boardwalk and join Corrado and Umberto at the entrance to the free beach. There are at least a thousand people lining the water, and instead of a warm westerly breeze, an unseasonably chilly north wind is blowing.
“What time does it start?” already starts to be heard from the audience. I hear ragged bursts of applause, and a few people start to spread blankets on the sand. Others have picnic tablecloths, tents, and guitars. It’s a little bit of Woodstock on the Roman coast. Dylan songs I remember from my days camping as a Scout ring through the air, and one daring soul even tries a Joan Baez number.
We three musketeers have taken a spot to the side, sitting on a beach towel. We’ve taken off our shoes and Umberto even has a bandanna on his head. I don’t know whether to succumb to the nostalgia or just feel like an idiot surrounded by idiots.
At a certain point a religious silence descends.
The star player has begun his show. It’s a fiery orange one, and it leaves us breathless.
When the sun has left the stage (the finale, though a bit predictable, was still very effective), I find that I’m crying. Even Corrado sniffles a little bit and then, taking advantage of the darkness, huddles in the shadows with a depressed shampooist from Maccarese.
As everyone straggles away from the beach, just like at the movies when they’re running the end credits, Umberto stays behind to stare at the sea. The two of us stay silent. On certain nights when I swing by and pick him up, and we go to the movies or to the theater, we can go back home practically without having exchanged a word. Only great friendships and great love affairs are comfortable with silence.
The silence is broken by Umberto.
“We’re going on a trip.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’re going on a trip.”
“Who is?”
“You, me, and Corrado. I’ll shut the clinic down for a week, Corrado will get someone to take one of his flights for him. And we’ll go on a trip. Like in the old days.”
“But I can’t . . .”
“Why not? The kids have ten more days of school, and so does Paola. What’s so important about wandering around Rome by yourself every morning? Is that how you want to spend your last days on earth?”
The question is straightforward and the answer is obvious: no.
“A whole week, just the three of us traveling around Europe,” he continues. “We’ll have fun and it’ll improve your mood.”
“And where would we go?”
His confident reply astonishes me: “We’ll get a Eurail pass again. A discount version.”
I stand there starting at him, openmouthed.
A Eurail pass.
It’s a compound word that immediately conjures up memories of the penetrating smell of train tracks, steaming in the hot summer sun with freckled young Scandinavian girls, and calls home from train station phone booths. It’s practically another way of saying “eighteen years old.”
“At age forty we’re going to go take the train with a Eurail pass?”
“Tell me one reason why we shouldn’t.”
“I have cancer.”
“That’s just one more reason to do it. Tell me another.”
“I need to coach the team for the playoffs.”
“You’d only miss one game.”
I start to suspect that this evening’s booby trap really is about to snap shut. Corrado returns from his bushy alcove. He’s already done with his shampooist.
“Well, are we leaving?” he asks, with the tone of someone who knows more than he’s letting on.
Obviously, this trip wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, but an organized plan devised by these two lunatics.
“He said yes,” Umberto replies.
“I didn’t say yes. We were just going over the pros and the cons.”
“There are lots of pros, there are no cons. So we’re leaving on Sunday,” Corrado concludes.
“No, guys, I’m not coming.”
They try and try to talk me into it, for a good ten minutes. But it’s no good. This idea of a journey appeals to me in one way, but frightens me in another. I’m not at all well, and every so often the pain becomes too intense. I don’t think that my detested oncologist would be in favor of it. Or my wife, for that matter.
* * *
I head home alone. Fifty-five miles per hour.
I call Massimiliano to talk a little, hoping to avoid driving into a bridge abutment.
He picks up after the first ring, cheerful as always.
“Ciao, Lucio! How are you?”
“Are you with a customer?”
“No.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
He has no objections. By the time I reach the Chitchat shop it’s practically midnight. Rome is starting to empty out. No matter how bad the economy gets, the average Italian won’t give up the luxury of fleeing the sticky heat of the city in summer, even if all he can do is travel to his in-laws’ country hous
e.
* * *
I tell Massimiliano about the suggested trip.
“Seems like a pretty good idea to me,” is what he has to say.
“They suggested it out of pity.”
“I don’t think so. They suggested it because it’s something they wanted to do. And it’ll be good for them too. They’re your friends, and even if they’re not letting you know how hard it is, your disease is something they’re dealing with too.”
I’d never considered over the past few days how my sickness might have affected the people I love. Perhaps a significant portion of Paola’s bad mood is a product of how hard it is to process her impending widowhood.
Paola’s going to be a widow. What a horrible sentence.
I have one that’s even worse.
Lorenzo and Eva are going to be orphans.
In all these months, I’ve only considered this sad situation from my own point of view, the one that features my inglorious death; but there’s another side to the coin, a side that features the tears and sorrow of those I’ll be leaving behind. She said it best of course, my Paola. Those who leave can’t decide what’s best for those who are left behind. Yet their sorrow eats at me now. The closer my time comes, the more I feel their pain. And yet, it gives me great satisfaction to know that I did what I had to do in order to leave. I told Umberto it was okay. Okay to want my wife. Okay to share her bed. Okay to be father to my kids.
It hurt then. It really, really hurts now. But it was the right decision. Paola shouldn’t be alone. I can’t bear the thought of her crying after I’m gone.
And among those who will cry longest and hardest, of course, are my longtime companions, Athos and Aramis, even though one of them will be the luckiest bugger in the world after I’m gone.
* * *
“In any case,” Massimiliano goes on, “I’ve never told you this, but as far as I’m concerned, this countdown you’re doing is actually the smartest thing you’ve ever done. Marcello Marchesi used to say: ‘The important thing is to make sure that when death comes, it finds us still alive.’”
I wasn’t familiar with this phrase. But it’s wonderful. Perhaps the finest axiom of all time. Something that even Oscar Wilde would have envied.
“The important thing is to make sure that when death comes, it finds us still alive.”
I look hard at Massimiliano as he prepares a pot of lemon balm herbal tea. His presence seems to have a mystical healing effect on me—he’s a magical hybrid of an Indian shaman and an old wise man. I’m sorry I didn’t meet him earlier. Imagine how many mistakes he could have helped me avoid.
A yawn from Massimiliano reminds me it’s time to let him get some sleep. This time I put down thirty euros. He’s earned them all.
I’ve made my decision.
On Sunday we leave.
I just have to explain it to Paola.
It won’t be easy.
−35
When I don’t know how to tell Paola something, my natural adviser is the man who helped create her, and who knows her intricate and complex instruction manual by heart: Oscar.
“I don’t get exactly what you’re supposed to be doing on this trip.”
“Oh, nothing. Don’t imagine some sort of tourist’s delight of erotic clubs and soft drugs.”
“That’s too bad, because I was thinking of coming along too,” he says with a wink as he slides a pan of cat’s tongue cookies into the oven. Outside the pastry shop the night is silent.
“It’s just an excursion, a group of friends, a way of remembering the old days. A week’s vacation. My last.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that. By the way, where are you on your countdown?”
“Thirty-five,” I reply: I love how he tackles complicated topics.
“Ah, thirty-five, perfect. In fact there’s a codicil in the civil code: ‘Anyone with thirty-five days left to live can always do just as he pleases.’”
The Sinhalese, Saman, summons Oscar back to work. They have to finish making pastries for the Monday morning opening. I stick around for a few more minutes, just long enough to eat a doughnut left over from yesterday’s breakfast.
I call Paola and let her know I’m going to pick up the kids at school. I haven’t been able to tell whether or not they’ve sensed the friction separating their parents and whether they’ve noticed that I’m sick. We’ve done everything we can to be cheerful and sunny when we’re with them, but children have a sixth sense, just like animals. I wonder at what age they lose this form of extrasensory perception. For a fleeting moment, I wonder whether Paola was right about telling them. Should they hear it from their dad? Is that the best thing to do? But another voice, louder than the rest, shouts, “No!” That put the issue to rest. For the moment.
The fact remains that whether they’re aware of it or not, they’re acting as if nothing’s wrong: they tell me all about their day at school, and they lunge headfirst at the pastries “Made in Grandpa” that I’ve brought home. Two hours later, in the living room, I broach the thorny issue with Paola. When I utter the word “Eurail” she gazes at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
“Are you seriously thinking of getting another Eurail pass?”
“Yes. But a discount version. A mini-Eurail.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Excellent beginning.
“You’re thinking of going away now?” she asks.
I know what she’s saying. I’ve thought of it myself. Taking time away from her, from the kids, in these last few days seems like a selfish thing to do. She doesn’t say it, but it’s there in the expression on her face. I stay silent.
“But it strikes me as brilliant, I have to say,” she finally says, with an amused smile. “A few days with your friends can only do you good.”
I look at her, openmouthed. Once again, Paola has astonished me. I thought I was going to have to argue, and instead I have her blessing.
“Whose idea was it?”
“Umberto’s.”
She nods as if to say, “Of course.”
“But please be careful not to overtire yourself. And get back in time for the kids’ last day of school. We need to attend the party for the beginning of summer holiday. All the parents are going. And Lorenzo’s starring in the school play.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
I look her in the eye and can’t keep from adding: “I love you.”
“I know,” she replies. And turns to go.
I let myself flop back onto the sofa.
So we’re going. Corrado, Umberto, and I have been talking about taking a trip together for years.
It’s now or never.
−34
I still have the old packing list I used over and over in my Boy Scout days to make sure I forgot nothing. The indispensable equipment for a vacation.
2 T-shirts
1 extra pair of pants
1 K-Way jacket
Contact lenses
2 pairs underpants
2 pairs socks
Running shoes
Sandals
Autan spray mosquito repellent
1 notebook + 1 pen
1 liquid-gas camp stove
1 spare gas canister
1 pasta pot
1 package of crackers
2 plates + 1 cup
1 spoon + 1 fork + 1 knife
1 tube toothpaste + 1 toothbrush
1 Polaroid camera + packets of film
1 box of condoms
I smile as I note a number of remarkable gaps in my planning, such as the absence of deodorant or proper shirts. I add to the list and I spend two wonderful hours choosing what to bring, including my old and still working Polaroid camera. I realize that packing for a trip might be even more excitin
g than the trip itself.
* * *
I sense a presence behind me.
It’s Paola, watching as I select socks.
“What time are you leaving tomorrow?” she asks.
“Corrado’s coming by to pick me up at six in the evening.”
“Good. I hope you all have a good time.”
I can’t tell if there’s a hint of venom or if the blessing she’s just given me is genuine.
“I hope so too, my love.”
She doesn’t reply. She barely smiles at me and slips into the kitchen. She hasn’t called me her love in months.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to enjoy myself on this trip. But I’m going to have to do my best. I’m turning into one of those little old men who never talk about anything but their aches and pains, an unpleasant person, tiresome to be around.
−33
Umberto still has the backpack from our first trip, military surplus, beat up and none too comfortable, with a pair of straps that cut into his shoulders. Corrado and I, in contrast, have bought two ultramodern camping packs. We’ve decided we don’t give a damn about total fidelity in our replica of the first trip.
Twenty years ago too, our train pulled out of Termini, Rome’s glorious central station. Umberto, perfect Boy Scout that he is, got there early and even brought a bag with food for the first part of the trip. Corrado, who hates trains, tried repeatedly until the last minute to persuade us to take a free plane ticket on his airlines, but Umberto was having none of it: “We went by train then and we’ll go by train now,” he brusquely dismisses the suggestion. First stop, then and now, Munich, the obligatory destination of any Eurail pass worthy of the name. Second-class couchettes so we could feel like the youthful globetrotters we once were. We have a four-person compartment designated—probably with a twist of irony—a “C4 Comfort.” The comfort in question consists of a plastic-wrapped drinking glass, an antiseptic hand wipe, a paper toilet seat cover, and—hear ye, hear ye—individually wrapped disposable slippers. While waiting for the train to pull out, we silently pray there’ll be no fourth passenger. No such luck: here he is. The world’s worst possible specimen of couchette mate: a nonstop talker.
100 Days of Happiness Page 19