100 Days of Happiness

by Fausto Brizzi

  Then I give him a bear hug, for the very last time.

  −29

  The best part of any trip is returning home. You open the door and you catch a whiff of that specific, unique scent, a mix of furniture, books, and the people you love, a fragrance unlike any other. The smell of home. There, I just thought of another one-hit wonder: Patrick Süskind, the author of Perfume, one of the finest novels ever written. I wish he were here right now to suggest the best words to use in proposing to my wife that we take a family trip together.

  “You’ve just taken the shortest Eurail trip in the history of mankind,” is what Paola welcomes me home with when she finds me there after coming back from work.

  “My fault. I just didn’t feel like it anymore.”

  “I told you that in your condition going on a trip was a stupid idea.”

  “No no, on the contrary, it did me good—I got a few good days of distraction.”

  “So?”

  “So I want to take another trip.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “A trip together, the four of us. You, me, Lorenzo, and Eva. We could leave right after school ends. A vacation—no, better, an adventure.”

  “I don’t feel like taking a vacation. Much less an adventure, I assure you,” Paola cuts short the discussion.

  “This isn’t just any ordinary vacation.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, but I really don’t feel like it. You go ahead and take a trip with the kids if you want to. Go to the beach for a week, or wherever you want.”

  “I was thinking of something more, you know, on the road.”

  “In fact, it’s a classic for someone with cancer to go on the road. Listen, why don’t you start taking care of yourself and stop doing things that are dangerous or pointless, or both.”

  “It’s not pointless. I want to spend my last days on earth with my kids. And with you.”

  “That’s what you’re doing now.”

  “But here I never see you, and you know that perfectly well. I need to be with them.”

  “I’ve already said I have no objection to your leaving for a week. Or two weeks if you want. I’m happy right here. I’m not in the right mood—I’d only ruin the trip.”

  Paola, Paola, Paola. Why are you so unyielding? Massimiliano’s right—the cancer has traumatized you more than it has me.

  I wait for Süskind to suggest telepathically a series of intelligent supplementary arguments, but perhaps the German author is on vacation, enjoying the no doubt lavish royalties from his novel. I give up. I pull the bike out of the garage and I go for a ride.

  I do a longer ride than usual, I push all the way up the coast and I take the Via Aurelia. I pedal and pedal and pedal. I pace myself like a touring cyclist. For once, I enjoy the view. I breathe in the scent of the pines, the salt air, and the exhaust from the cars that shoot past me like guided missiles. I take in the sunset from a lookout, and far below I can make out a few diehard surfers riding waves that are too lazy to carry them.

  As I reach mile thirty-six, my energy begins to flag and I stop at a little beachfront restaurant. A wooden stilthouse built out over the sand that seats thiry diners at most. Working in the kitchen are a pair of old ladies, the young waiter’s aunt and grandmother. The view is breathtaking. The moon is gazing vainly at its reflection in the surface of the sea. I sit at a corner table and order a mixed grilled seafood and a plate of fried anchovies. At the other tables are young couples and a very noisy Roman family. I feel very much alone. Now that I think about it, this is the first time that I’ve gone out to eat without company. Chi non mangia in compagnia, o è un ladro o è una spia, as the Italians say. Anyone who eats alone is either a thief or a spy. I’ve always thought that going to a restaurant alone is the saddest thing in the world. I can now confirm that.

  −28

  “Well, so are you leaving or not?” asks Giannandrea. It’s just like the thing with the music, the more depressed a person is, the more he tends to hang out with other depressives.

  We’re sitting in the Chitchat shop and Massimiliano is cooking lunch for us, a vegetable couscous that deserves a place in the Michelin guide.

  “I don’t want to go without Paola.”

  “You’ll see, she’ll change her mind,” says Massimiliano as he chops zucchini.

  “I’m afraid she won’t.”

  “Where would you want to go?” Giannandrea asks me.

  I realize I haven’t considered this properly. “The only thing I know is that I don’t want to do a tour of the peninsula, some sort of Giro d’Italia.”

  “Would you bike?” Massimiliano’s curiosity is piqued.

  “Yesterday I did a hundred kilometers or so on my bike and I’m practically dead today. And I was going slow, fifteen miles per hour, tops twenty, a snail on two wheels. I thought we’d go by car—there are so many places I still want to show Lorenzo and Eva, and many I want to see for the first time with them and their mother.”

  “It strikes me as a very nice plan,” our chef comments as he tosses the vegetables onto the heat to sauté. “In ten minutes, the couscous will be ready. Can you hold out, or would you like a quick bruschetta?”

  A rhetorical question. Obviously, a quick bruschetta.

  “But most of all,” I continue, “there are lots of things I want to tell my children and my wife. My greatest desire is for them to remember an unexpected father, funny, full of life, full of ideas.”

  “Where do you get all this lust for life?” Giannandrea asks, observing me with admiration in his eyes.

  “When you’re about to die, it’ll come to you too.”

  “I tried to commit suicide three times.”

  Massimiliano had already told me this. But I want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.

  “Well, you don’t seem to have been very thorough about it,” I reply ironically.

  “The first time was just a case of bad luck. I connected a vacuum cleaner hose to the exhaust pipe on my car, I stuck it in the car window, and I got in. I fell asleep almost immediately, but a minute later the car ran out of gas. The fuel gauge was broken and I didn’t know it.”

  “What about the second time?”

  “The second time I wound up in the hospital because I’d swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.”

  “Did they pump your stomach?”

  “There was no need—they weren’t very strong. I slept for two days and when I woke up I felt better than before.”

  “And the third time?”

  “I’m not going to tell you about the third time because I feel too stupid.”

  I smile at him.

  “Come on, by now I’m curious.”

  “Okay, I drove my car over a cliff. But the guardrail was stronger than I expected, the air bag deployed, and I was left sitting there inside the car like an idiot. And to make things worse, I broke an arm. That was three months ago.”

  “Is there going to be a fourth time?”

  “No, there won’t be. And the credit for that goes in part to Massimiliano.”

  The manager of our favorite shop smiles.

  “The credit for that goes above all to my couscous. Five more minutes, guys.”

  Massimiliano sits down across from me.

  “Do you mind if I suggest a tactic for your travel plans?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Get everything ready to go, as if you were just going to leave with the kids. In fact, go ahead and tell them about the trip. You’ll see, Paola will change her mind. She won’t let you leave without her.”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “But it’s as if I did, by now. Do you want to bet she’ll come?”

  “A dinner?”

  “You’ve got it!”

  We shake hands and Giannandrea breaks ou
r grip to seal the agreement.

  When I try to pay for the hours spent in the shop, Massimiliano refuses to take my money and smiles.

  “You’re not a customer anymore. You’re a friend.”

  Giannandrea pipes up: “The same goes for me.”

  I have two new friends who hopped on the bus of my life near the end of the trip. I smile at them both as I put the money back into my wallet.

  −27

  Lorenzo and Eva stare at me, wide-eyed.

  “An adventure?” blurts out my firstborn.

  “Exactly. Three weeks driving all over Italy, in search of mysterious and unknown places. Sound good?”

  The answer is an enthusiastic yes from Lorenzo. Just what I expected. But Eva has some questions.

  “Can I bring Shepherd?”

  “No, we’ll leave Shepherd with Signora Giovanna, who has to come here anyway to water the plants and feed the cats and the hamster.”

  “Can’t I even bring Alice?”

  “She’d be miserable in the car. Hamsters don’t like to travel.”

  “No fair! Then let’s at least have one day when I’m the queen of you all.”

  The “queen of you all” day is a reward for something major, a good grade at school or a period of good behavior at home. Invented by Paola when they were little, it’s a day of total dominion over both parents, when the little queen or king can set the order of the day, choose the food, and demand anything within reasonable economic limits.

  “You’ve got a deal,” I reply to the little blackmailer. “We’ll leave Saturday night, as soon as school is over.”

  “Saturday is the school play and the end-of-year party,” Lorenzo reminds me.

  “Ah, right. In that case, we’ll leave Sunday.”

  An hour later Paola comes home, unsuspecting, having spent the afternoon preparing the final report cards with the other teachers.

  The children welcome her gleefully and she immediately figures out she’s fallen into a trap. They’re assuming she’ll come too. She takes me aside, into the kitchen.

  “What is all this?”

  “You said that I could take the kids on a trip, no? That’s what I’m doing. We’re leaving Sunday. For three weeks.”

  “Three weeks? Have you lost your mind?”

  “You’re under no obligation to come with us.”

  “And, in fact, I’m not coming.”

  “Too bad, I’m planning to end the trip in Switzerland. I’m not coming back here.”

  It occurs to me as I say it. I’m not coming back here. It immediately seems like the natural decision. The last journey. With the people I love.

  The phrase is too violent to keep from doing damage. Paola shouts in a whisper to keep the children from hearing. Among the words she uses most are “irresponsible,” “insane,” and “trap.”

  She’s right, I have been irresponsible, but I want to make up for it, I probably am insane, but that’s not a defect, and there’s no question, this journey is certainly a trap. A trap of love into which I hope Paoletta will fall. My chief objective of these hundred days, written in the Dino Zoff notebook, still owns pride of place:

  Get Paola to forgive me.

  “I’m not coming back here,” I insist. “Don’t make me take this trip alone. We’re a family.”

  “We were a family. But then you destroyed it.”

  “I made a huge mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “I know that. Like marrying you, for instance.”

  Don’t listen to her, these are the things people say in a fight, I know she doesn’t really believe it.

  Paola struggles for another ten minutes like a hooked tuna, then she gives up.

  “What should I pack for, the beach or the mountains?”

  “Everything, amore mio. Everything.”

  I’ve never been happier about losing a bet.

  I turn on my computer and I start doing some research and making reservations.

  −26

  The most fun you can have when leaving on a trip is packing your suitcase, as I’ve told you before. But when it’s your last trip, packing a suitcase turns heartbreaking. Most of my belongings won’t be coming with me.

  I wander around the apartment and I scrutinize the bookshelves in particular. They’re full of books I’ve never read and movies I’ve never watched. I feel like asking them all to forgive me, authors and directors, who worked so hard to provide me with hours of entertainment, and I, after leading them on by purchasing their products, have just left them to gather dust on a shelf. Perhaps they’d have remained there forever. Or else they might have had their fifteen minutes of fame during a vacation. In any case, I bid them all a fond farewell today. I bring only one novel with me, I’ve already put it in my suitcase, after changing my mind numerous times. The final competition was between Pinocchio and Treasure Island, and the second book won. One of these days I’ll tell you why. I go on exploring the bookshelves and I gently caress my Diabolik collection. Only now does it occur to me that the most complicated thing won’t be saying good-bye to my Diabolik collection, but to all the protagonists of my life.

  I don’t know if I’ll have the strength.

  −25

  I’m looking out at the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. The time has come. I’ve summoned them all poolside an hour before the usual practice time. With them is my faithful assistant coach. I tried to jot down a couple of lines of rough text for the last speech I’ll ever make to them, and after a minute I find myself forced to improvise. I know that I’m an important figure to them, and I want to leave them with a few fundamental messages. I get straight to the point.

  “Guys, I have a liver tumor. It’s very serious—it’s metastasized to the lungs. I don’t have long to live. And, unfortunately, this is the last time we’ll see each other.”

  They aren’t expecting it. They exchange glances, trying to figure out if this is a joke of some kind. But my tone of voice makes it clear that it’s not. Not at all.

  “A few months ago I decided to deal with my tumor with a smile. I haven’t always succeeded, but I’m trying to be happy every day that I have left to live. I’m still in decent shape and I’ve done my best to beat the disease. But it hid inside me, and by the time I’d ferreted it out, it was too late to have any hope of defeating it. You know, at your age, I had plenty of dreams. I have to confess to you that I didn’t achieve a single one of them, but I never gave up hope. Always remember that the only riches we possess are the dreams we have as children. They are the fuel of our lives, the only force that pushes us to keep on going even when things have gone all wrong. To crown the dreams of the child that lives inside you should be your chief goal in life. Don’t ever forget that you’ll become adults in appearance only, but that little man still lives on inside you. Dedicate yourself fully to your work, whether that work is water polo or anything else. You should try to be the best you can be in every walk of life, even if you’re selling fruit in a farmers’ market. Everyone should say: “What excellent fruit that guy sells.” Life will present you with plenty of challenges, many of them much more important than a water polo championship playoff, and you shouldn’t ever retreat in the face of those challenges. Just work, work, work, even at the risk of making mistakes. And if and when you do make mistakes, and you do hurt someone, ask for forgiveness. Asking forgiveness and admitting you’ve made a mistake is the hardest thing of all. But if someone else does you good, remember it always. Showing gratitude is every bit as complicated. When you happen to win something, don’t mock your opponents and don’t boast.”

  Everyone looks around in amusement: winning is a word they’re not familiar with.

  “As you know, I have two children, and knowing that I won’t be able to watch them grow up is the thing that hurts me most. In a few days, I’m going to leave on a trip with them and with my w
ife. I won’t be coming back. And I won’t be able to watch the playoff games. But I’ll be with you in my heart, and Giacomo will tell me everything you do. He’ll be here and you can rely on him for anything you need. He’s ready to coach you next year; he has the skills and the temperament to do it.”

  My assistant coach didn’t expect this investiture and he’s clearly overcome with emotion.

  “I ask you only one thing: however the game turns out, fight all the way to the end. And if you can do it, win these three matches for me. It would be the best farewell gift. One day in the distant future, when you have children of your own, I hope that you’ll remember your old coach and you’ll take them to the pool and teach them to care about this wonderful sport we love. You’ve been the best team a coach could ever hope for. Even when we were losing. I’m so sorry.”

  I go to pieces. I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t cry, but I break that promise. I hug them all, one after the other, last of all Soap-on-a-Rope and Martino.

  “I want you to listen to me, boys, make me proud of you.”

  Then it’s Giacomo’s turn.

  “Have a good trip, Coach, wherever it is you’re going,” he whispers to me during the hug. “I won’t forget you.”

  −24

  Oscar is alone in the pastry shop, surrounded by crunchy-good smells, when I come in late at night.

  “Ciao . . .”

  He turns around.

  “Ciao, Lucio . . .”

  “What are you doing here all alone? Did you fire your apprentice?”

  “No, tonight’s his night off. Usually Martina comes in to give me a hand, but tonight she’s with her daughter. She’s a fantastic woman, you know?”

  I watch him fill beignets with cream, and note thirty years of experience guiding his hands.

  “Feel like helping me out?”