100 Days of Happiness

by Fausto Brizzi

  “But I don’t know how to . . .”

  “So learn!” he says, cutting me off. The hours that follow flash by in clouds of flour and cream. I have a great time.

  At dawn we fry up twenty or so doughnuts. We pull them out of the grease and wait for them to cool a little before dipping them in the sugar.

  We sit in silence for a minute. Then Oscar asks a question that sums up all the others.

  “Well?”

  That one word is worth a thousand conversations. I say nothing. There’s no need. Two minutes later, we’re enjoying two doughnuts. This is the first time that he’s eaten a doughnut with me. I’m biting back tears as I realize it will probably be the last.

  −23

  I’ve arranged a special dinner just for the three musketeers. For the last time before Porthos leaves the group forever.

  Umberto and Corrado. Two names that to me mean millions of things.

  When they show up outside the agreed-upon restaurant, ready for an evening of sad conversation and deep emotions, my friends find a surprise. I’m waiting for them out front, but the place is closed. I welcome them with a single unequivocal word: “Prank.”

  It’s not what they were expecting, but they enthusiastically welcome the invitation. I load them into my car and I barrel at top speed toward the Baths of Caracalla. Tonight they’re performing yet another production of the immortal opera Tosca. I’ve purchased tickets for three separate seats. We enjoy the beginning with perfect behavior, and then, in the middle of the first act, while Cavaradossi gargles away in a spartan stage set meant to represent the Basilica di Sant’Andrea della Valle, Corrado stands up in the third row and shouts loudly: “Are you trying to tell us this is a tenor?” All around him pandemonium breaks loose.

  “Hush! For shame! Sit down!”

  Sabotaging theatrical performances is one of the stock items of our foolish repertory. Corrado keeps it up.

  “This ridiculous charade is an insult to Puccini’s art! Forgive them, Giacomo!”

  Meanwhile, onstage poor Cavaradossi is trying to ignore us and he goes on gargling. That’s when I spring into action.

  “Shame on you, be seated, or else I’ll show you!”

  “You’ll show me what? Is that a threat?”

  I lunge at him, leaping over a row of seats. When we’re making fools of ourselves, sickness and aches mean nothing. I’m on him with a feline agility that is long forgotten.

  “Yes, it’s a threat. Cut it out immediately.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  At this point, Cavaradossi, too, freezes, and the orchestra stops playing. Right now, we’re the stars of the show. Mission accomplished.

  This is the right moment to let the first slap fly. We land our blows skillfully, careful not to hurt each other, shoving and yanking, but the effect is stupendous. Everyone rushes to pull us apart, but we go on shouting. It’s total chaos.

  “Oaf!”

  “The only oaf here is you! I’ll report you to the police—do you understand?”

  The word “report” is the signal for Umberto to make his entrance, as he pushes his way through the crowd surrounding us. He quickly flashes a pass from his tennis club.

  “Police, please make way. Let’s all calm down here!”

  “Excellent,” I say. “I’d like to file a complaint against this gentleman for assault and battery.”

  “No, I’m the one with a complaint to file, and I have one thousand witnesses,” Corrado retorts. The second part of the prank requires a general debate over who slapped whom first. Then Corrado gets aggressive, shoves the cop, and is arrested. Usually our exit takes place with Corrado in handcuffs and me following to file a complaint. It’s just that this time our clear performance enjoys an unexpected plot twist that actually should have been expected sooner or later: there’s a real cop in the audience. And he can’t wait to lend a hand. In thirty seconds he reveals us for the fakers we are, handcuffs all three of us, and the evening has a giddy denouement at the police station. It was bound to happen eventually. They take our fingerprints and ask a thousand questions. They don’t know exactly what to charge us with, and actually they have a tremendous time going over the details of what happened. The only one who is theoretically in serious trouble is Umberto, who tried to pass himself off as an actual officer of the law. After a couple of hours, an elderly police chief who clearly wishes he was already retired decides to sweep it all under the rug and let us go. Irony of fate: our most reckless and spectacular prank is also our last.

  We don’t talk about anything in particular until the time comes to say good-bye. The final hug, all three of us together, is worth more than a thousand words.

  All for one. And the one is me.

  −22

  Peter Pan strides to center stage and shouts: “Captain Hook! Where are you?”

  All around him, in a clearing in Neverland, stand the Lost Boys, Tinker Bell, Wendy with her little brothers.

  Suddenly the treacherous captain appears, along with the inseparable Mr. Smee and a couple of pirates.

  “Here I am!” he thunders. “And now you’re done for. I’m going to feed every last one of you to Tick Tock the crocodile.”

  “I don’t think you will!” retorts the fearless Peter.

  There ensues a balletic scene of combat in which all the participants cross swords in time to the music. This is the culminating scene of Lorenzo’s school play. My little actor is hidden behind Captain Hook’s wicked mustachio—and I’m not just saying this because I’m his father—but he’s been stealing the stage from Peter Pan for the past hour, perhaps because the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up is being played by a child far too obnoxious to play the hero of Neverland. Sitting next to me are Eva and Paola. We laugh and applaud alongside a hundred or so other parents and kids.

  The play ends to thunderous applause. Just for the record, Captain Hook got twice the applause Peter Pan did. I take Eva’s hand, link arms with Paola, and we wait for our little Laurence Olivier outside the stage door. While we wait, I notice that someone has broken the side window of our car and has stolen the GPS I carelessly left in plain view. By now, I’m a slave to the computerized voice that tells me to “turn right” and “make a U-turn.” Abandoned by my portable Virgil, I’m a stranger in my own city. I’ve forgotten routes and one-way streets. I don’t even remember how to leaf through the pages of the city map, TuttoCittà. I decide that I’m not going to buy a new GPS for the trip. I’ll use folding paper road maps. I said adventure and adventure is what I meant. When Lorenzo shows up, he’s greeted by mothers and teachers as the conquering hero. I’m reassured only when he promises me that he has no intention of becoming an actor.

  * * *

  That afternoon I have the window of my glorious station wagon replaced, then I have the car washed and I fill up the tank.

  As I lay the last few items of luggage by the front door, I experience a moment of fear. The fear that comes when you’ve reached the point of no return. The end of the uphill climb on the roller coaster. I Google it. Point of no return: final, irreversible stage of a process or a journey.

  I have just twenty-two days left, and I’m at the point of no return.

  −21

  Raise your hand if you recognize the name of Edmond Haraucourt.

  If you don’t know the name, then let me tell you that he was a French writer and that the first line of his most famous poem is something most of us take for a proverb: “To leave is to die a little.”

  That line has never been so true as it is for me now. The rest of the poem is pretty wonderful too. This is more or less how it runs in English:

  To leave is to die a little;

  It is to die to what one loves;

  One leaves behind a little of oneself

  At any hour, any place.

  It’s a fine and final pain

  Li
ke the last line of a poem.

  We leave as if in jest

  Before the ultimate journey

  And, in all of our farewells, we sow

  A portion of our soul.

  Today we depart. As planned, we’ve left our German shepherd Shepherd with Signora Giovanna. Shepherd watches me load the luggage in the back of the car with a somber expression, as if he understands I won’t be coming home. After all, I was his favorite slave.

  The kids are beside themselves with excitement; as far as they know, this is just the beginning of a wonderful and unexpected vacation.

  “Can you at least tell us where exactly we’re going?” Eva asks.

  “The various stops are secret,” I reply. “Think of it as a treasure hunt.”

  The kids get comfortable in the back while Paola gathers up the last kibble and stuffs it into the station wagon’s baggage compartment, already packed full.

  We’re ready for departure. It’s five in the afternoon; we wait for the sun to slide a little way closer to the horizon to avoid the worst of the muggy June heat. I start the car, and it hacks asthmatically. Then, at last, we start off. The apartment building where we live dwindles in the rearview mirror, the last image I have of the life I once led. In a movie I can’t remember the name of, the protagonist says that life is nothing but a collection of last times. Too true.

  The last time you talk to your father.

  The last time you see the Colosseum.

  The last time you eat a fig just picked from the tree.

  The last time you take a swim in the sea.

  The last time you kiss the woman you love.

  The list can go on forever, and every one of us has already experienced thousands of last times without even realizing it. Most of the time, in fact, you never even imagine that what you’re experiencing is the last time. In fact, that’s the best thing about it. Not knowing. If, instead, as in my case, you know perfectly well that these are the last times, then suddenly the rules change completely. Everything takes on a new and different weight and importance. Even drinking an ordinary chinotto takes on a quality of poetic melancholy.

  As we drive out of Rome, I leave behind me an astonishing number of last times. So many that I finally just give up cataloging them. After so many days spent regretting the past and dreaming of a future that will no longer come, it’s time to think of today.

  I have the Dino Zoff notebook that I’ve filled with a thousand notes for this journey with me. I’ve made a list of things that I want to teach Lorenzo and Eva. And I have a woman to win back in the next twenty days. I don’t have even a minute to waste.

  I take the on-ramp and follow the highway south. I’m as excited as a little kid heading off on vacation for the first time without his parents.

  I slip in a CD of television theme songs and my under-ten passengers cut loose in song. Paola stares out at the panorama, but she still isn’t relaxed. I press down on the accelerator and ignore a sharper than usual stab of pain in my belly.

  −20

  I’m sure that the hotel on the highway past Salerno, which deserved half a star at most, was built near a world mosquito convention of some kind. We spent the evening hemmed in by the diabolical insects, first in the trattoria and later in the room. We took a double with two trundle beds and after ten minutes it was already an encampment, partly because of the luggage and largely because of the war on the mosquitoes, which, as everyone knows, is waged by hurling various large blunt objects.

  Our destination is Craco, a very special place in the region of Lucania. A ghost town.

  * * *

  There’s only one thing that Lorenzo and Eva have in common: their fear of ghosts. They can bravely withstand zombies, ogres, witches, and vampires, but they go to pieces at the thought of ghosts. Every dark room, every curtain flapping in the wind, every door that suddenly slams, is, as far as they’re concerned, an unmistakable sign of a malevolent spirit returned to earth to harm us.

  I’ve brought them to this village, uninhabited since the sixties, to help them get over this fear. The tiny place seems forgotten by time. We walk out into the deserted main street. It’s very hot and there’s not a shred of shadow anywhere. Paola’s wearing a flower-print dress and I wish I could wrap my arms around her, but she’s walking a few steps behind us. It strikes me that this is a highly symbolic attitude. Why is she trying not to be part of our group? I am grateful for her presence, though. I wouldn’t have it any other way. As we walk, I start telling the legend of the little town’s history.

  “It was founded by Greek colonists in the eighth century BC and was inhabited continuously until the middle of the last century. After the last inhabitants left, it remained abandoned for a few years. Nothing but mosquitoes, wind, and the occasional dog barking in the distance.”

  “Why did you say for a few years? Did they come back to live here afterward?” Lorenzo was paying close attention.

  “In a certain sense, yes, they did. Many noticed that the village had been abandoned, and so they moved here and took up residence.”

  “Many who?” is Eva’s eminently legitimate doubt.

  “Many ghosts.”

  My two heirs freeze.

  “You mean this village is full of ghosts?” Lorenzo asks in astonishment.

  “All the ghosts in Italy, to be exact.”

  “Are you crazy?” Eva exclaims.

  Behind me, I can sense Paola smiling quietly.

  “Let me point out first of all that ghosts never appear in broad daylight, and that it’s eleven thirty in the morning. Then let me explain that because they’ve all come to live here, we can stop worrying about them in the rest of Italy.”

  “By all of them, you mean all of them?” asks my little daughter.

  “All of them. They took advantage of the fact that the village was deserted, so they could have some time on their own.”

  “But what do they do here if they don’t have anyone to scare?” Lorenzo wonders aloud.

  “Look, ghosts don’t enjoy frightening people. In fact,” breaks in Paola, backing me up, “what ghosts like best is being left alone to mind their own business and basically do nothing. They’ve already done more than enough things and now they just want to get some rest.”

  We pull onto the little village’s main piazza. The two kids look around cautiously.

  “Are you sure that there are no ghosts in broad daylight?” Lorenzo asks.

  “Positive.”

  For an hour or so, we wander through the abandoned lanes of the village. After a while, they start talking cheerfully about ghosts, wondering how many can fit into an ordinary home and whether they have a regular appointment for their appearances, the way that vampires do at sunset. When we leave the town and walk downhill to the parking area where we left our car, they even wave good-bye to the ghosts, who by now have been “normalized.”

  “Ciao, see you next time!”

  “Miao!”

  I hope that they leave all their fears behind in the lanes of this village. We stop for a bite to eat in a lovely trattoria right across the road from the ghost town. The children order their favorite—carbonara. I try to convince them that carbonara should be eaten only in Rome, where the chefs know to use proper guanciale and not just bacon cubes. I suggest an eggplant parmigiana, which is more typical in the south of Italy. Lorenzo seems to think about his choice.

  “Do they still put real eggs in the carbonara outside of Rome?” Eva looks at me with her arms crossed.

  “That is one ingredient that can’t be missing, no matter where they make it.”

  “That’s what I want, then.” And Eva closes her menu, a satisfied expression on her face. Paola orders the same as me—eggplant meatballs to start with, osso buco to follow, torta della nonna for dessert. She says the osso buco isn’t half as good as hers. I have to agree. As I sip t
he after-dinner drink, Ammazzacaffè, I see hundreds of faded figures crowding the street out of the little ghost village, waving at me from a distance like passengers on an ocean liner about to depart. Eva says, “Papà, you’re dreaming!” I blink and they’re gone. I must have overeaten.

  −19

  The Salento region of Apulia. Sun. Beach umbrellas and lounge chairs for rent. Sand castles. Laughter. Salt spray. Sautéed clams and mussels.

  That’s how I’d imagined our second day.

  Instead, thanks to my ability to read road maps, we’re lost somewhere in the Apulian hinterland where I was searching for a convent that sells herb-flavored cheeses that I can still taste fifteen years after the last time I visited. Result: we neither eat dairy products nor do we go to the beach. Instead, our car gets stuck on a rutted dirt road and then gives up the ghost with a dull and definitive clunk.

  * * *

  “The transmission’s broken,” says the mechanic who’s come to our aid.

  “Can you fix it?” I ask hopefully.

  “Certainly.”

  “Ah, that’s good news.”

  “I’ll have to order the parts from the manufacturer. In no more than fifteen days, it’ll be good as new.”

  “Fifteen days? But we’re traveling. We can’t wait fifteen days.”

  “What can I tell you? Rent a real car. This one, no offense, is a rolling wreck.”

  It’s heartbreaking to hear someone call my faithful automobile a rolling wreck. But he’s right.

  I have someone take me to Taranto, I rent a more high-tech station wagon, and I come back to pick up my family members in the middle of nowhere. We find a lovely little hotel with a view, and I send the kids to bed early. I have great plans for the next day.

  “Like what?” Paola asks me.

  “I want to rent a dinghy and go fishing.”

  “I can’t spend the day in a dinghy. I’ll get seasick after ten minutes.”