by John Domini
The detective turned to the mother. His voice dropped to a murmur. You Americans must understand that an incident of this kind can be most difficult…
Babytalk, that’s what they gave her. Meanwhile around Jay and Paul, everyone else appeared to be the babies, hanging on their every word. The father and middle child might’ve been a pair of CEO’s, lording it over the damaged downtown, making promises of a thousand new jobs. When somebody carted in espresso, croissants, and lemonade, the mother got last dibs as the trays went around. A twenty-something with the clinic, an intern of some kind, ran a pretty finger along Jay’s jaw-line. Meanwhile the wife couldn’t get five minutes. More than once the mother had to un-stack a couple of plastic chairs for her and the girls, and settle in along a wall, uncomfortably aware of what the morning’s banging around had done to her looks. Since she’d left off nursing the twins she’d made it a point to watch her appearance in public. She’d taken care to know what her hair was doing, and how her makeup was surviving.
Yet now, with all these men in her way…
Signora, asked one of the younger doctors, you are certain you saw something from, ah, inside? Inside the head? Signora, ah, the blood on your dress…
This time Chris was the boy who gave her some relief: “Look, you know what we thought? We thought Pop was dead!”
The fifteen-year-old wheeled around in a squat. He’d been down between Dora’s and Syl’s chairs, reciting some toe-rhyme.
“Dead!” Chris repeated, shoving his glasses back up his nose. “Morto!”
Barbara blinked at the word, a one-two slap in her son’s crash-course Italian. In another moment she’d heaved herself out of her chair and past the doctor. She headed for her husband, tugging at the armpit of her dress. Not that her clothing mattered; rather, she had to make room for the lightning underneath.
Jay understood that this was serious as soon as he saw her coming. It would’ve been twenty years for them this September, plus all the hugging and kissing beforehand, around Carroll Gardens or on the J train. DiPio picked up on her urgency as well, another case of the least she could expect, considering how often the medico had used the word “sympathy.” He must’ve told them five times that “extra sympathy” had been the essential ingredient in what he termed “the healing episode.” The mother wasn’t entirely positive there’d been any actual healing—she recalled that seizures could follow a head-blow, and that these could end unexpectedly. But she was glad when the doctor proved his notion of sympathy extended to longtime wives. DiPio at once found a room for Barb and Jay, a nook typical of this ramshackle ospedale, practically tucked behind a secret panel. The mother kept her eyes on the old doctor until he shut the door.
“Permesso…?”
They hadn’t had long before DiPio returned. He came in with his crucifix in his beard, a miniature silver pick, and announced that Paul had started to cry.
“You will understand.” He lowered his crucifix. “The healing episode is common associate with trauma.”
Then the doctor spotted Jay, slumped over the table and massaging his face. You would’ve thought that he’d taken another hit. He went on groaning a single slow word.
“Why?”
Plenty of time for that, Jay. Plenty of time for the background behind the news flash. Or so Barbara stood thinking, falling into a more civilized meditation, as if she had to compensate for the growling and clawing she’d just let off its chain. The nasty business had her hurting too. Her blush burned up into ears and her breathing had gone tetchy. But the doctor didn’t notice, bending instead to reexamine the Jaybird. The mother was left looking down at two bald spots, two scuffed ovals that looked a lot like the dirty-yellow tufa stone outside. And the stone wouldn’t talk, she realized, or not about today’s pounding. This new co-site-leader for the United Nations quake relief wouldn’t tell anyone else what his wife had just told him. Jay’s groaning had ended as soon as the doctor touched him.
The old medico wouldn’t ask any difficult questions, either. With a scrubbed hand DiPio waved Paul into the hidden room. The boy at least had a moment for his mother, her mouth still ajar and her heat still visible. But Papa sat closer to the door, and he and Paul sank into a wordless hug.
The doctor went for the clutter around his neck. “Your husband, your son,” he gushed at Barbara, “they have done something wonderful.”
The Jaybird lifted his head. “You ask me,” he said, “my whole family is wonderful.”
The mother reminded herself that, to her and Jay, the tears of their eleven-year-old were in no way supernatural. She and Jay knew what they’d put Mr. Paul through, lately; this wasn’t the first time he’d seen his parents upset. Besides, once Barbara and the others shuffled back out into the clinic corridor, it turned out she’d been right to speak up when she did. Her harsh words clanged around her head like a mugger’s iron—but she’d been right to seize the moment. Out in the hallway she had to deal with NATO and the UN.
Both had sent a man, and each man wore a jacket and tie, severe for this weather. Talk about the opposite of an Italian romance.
Of course Barbara had seen the paperwork for Jay’s appointment. The family could never have made this move without the presence of the Sixth Fleet and a half-dozen relief agencies headquartered at East Forty-forth and FDR Drive. Nonetheless, for most of her life NATO and the UN had existed only as acronyms stretching across a map, newsprint black on newsprint gray. She would never have imagined that they could appear as full-color guys in uncomfortable clothes, down at the same level as stackable plastic chairs. The UN representative at least looked something like what you would expect, unsmiling and some degree of Arabian, in banker’s clothing. But the one who said he worked with NATO, he was an eyeful. This man had allowed himself a canary-colored jacket, Palm Beach, and he wore his blonde hair Botticelli-long. He wore it in an exaggerated flip, swept back from a fraying hairline that put him on the far side of thirty-five. Also this officer did most of the talking, if you could call it talking.
It’s the understanding of our organizations that these American citizen volunteers have no compelling medical reason for staying on in this establishment…it’s our belief that on their way home they could use a protected ride…it’s our understanding that these citizen volunteers also have need of certain documents in our possession…
Barb had the thought that she’d gone from a closet full of whacking truths to a public square full of pillow-soft lies. Yet she couldn’t be angry with these newcomers either. Queer as the NATO man came across, with that line of talk, he and the other allowed Barbara and her family to escape. They were even spared the usual release forms. The Palm Beach Botticelli took care of those, explaining that he and the other official would make the trip to the family’s apartment with them, and along the way “address any pressing concerns.”
The “protected ride” waited out front. It took up the entire medieval via, a cop at either end waving away traffic: a Humvee transport big enough to scare away even the rankest amateur of a scippatoro. Plus inside sat a soldier in Treaty Organization blues. Nordic, young, muscled enough to stretch the sleeves of his uniform, the GI held a small machine gun.
The weapon smelled of oil and was shaped like an H. H, Barb thought, for What the Hell?
But the police had no objections. DiPio too went along with the NATO request, though his wrinkled features showed a certain distaste, button-mouthed. The doctor lingered with the family in the cramped space between his doorway and the vehicle’s, one last time touching a finger to Paul’s chest.
“To heal is always good,” he said. “One time, ten times, is always good.”
Ten times? What the hell?
The family had been set up in an apartment on one of the hills overlooking the Bayfront. Now as the van began its climb out of the old city Barbara tried to focus on the practical. Child care was the first concern, now as ever; she needed someone reliable in place before she headed back to New York to draw up the papers. B
ut the seat facing her, next to the gun, had been taken by the flamboyant NATO man. Not only was he intent on making conversation, but he used an entirely different voice than he had back in the clinic.
“Mn, che casino.” A Southern tourist’s voice, Dixie Italian. “No rest for the wandering Ulysses.”
Was this public relations? Making nice for the injured homeboys?
“Ulysses,” NATO repeated. “Except in this case, he’s got the wife with him.”
Barb shook her head. She tried to recall whether, from this end of the Atlantic, the airlines needed fourteen or twenty-one day notice.
“Mn. Doubt y’all’ve even had time to get over the jet lag.”
Jay sighed stagily. “Murphy’s Law.”
NATO studied the husband as if waiting for more. Finally: “Tomorrow you’ve got to call the bank, one.”
“The bank. Hey.” Another extravagant exhale. “I don’t think their switchboard has a number for this.”
The official laughed again, thumb-stroking one bright lapel. But Jay never cracked a smile. Barb would’ve imagined that this kind of talk would feel familiar to him. The guy across the Humvee’s aisle was a kind of executive, an Organization man. He might wear a nightclub hairdo or slip in a bit of Homer, but that didn’t take the conversation out of shoptalk. Jay however wasn’t looking at their host. Barb’s husband kept his handsome head turned her way.
“No number for this,” he said.
Her interior blade started cutting in a fresh direction.
“Mn,” Dixie was saying. “Anyhow the worst is over, grazia a dio. And we’ve brought something that’s going to help.”
The UN rep nodded just visibly, adjusting the briefcase on his lap. The NATO man introduced himself. Kahlberg—Silky Kahlberg.
“Silky?” Barbara asked.
The Arab gave a snort. Kahlberg however kept smiling, his hand extended. His coloring was almost as Viking-pale as that of the soldier beside him, and the man’s grip suggested he’d spent some time with a gun in his hands himself. His sleek blonde mop (okay, silky) must’ve been one of the privileges of rank: Kahlberg announced that he was a major. “Actually a Lieutenant-Major. Though I doubt y’all know the difference.”
The man lost something off his smile. But he went on to declare, more or less cheerfully, that his job was “PR plain and simple. Public liaison, capisce? Events, communications, Jay here knows what I’m talking about.”
He did? Barbara’s Jaybird had worked in sales, not advertising. Kahlberg went on to explain that, since the quake, he’d also handled Public Affairs for the international relief efforts. “Working two jobs, see what I’m saying? The Organization and the UN, they’ve both got a piece of me.”
“And you’ve got a piece of both payrolls,” Jay said.
Kahlberg gave a shrug. “Jay, sounds to me like you don’t understand. You don’t know what we’re up to, here. In Naples, anymore, it’s not about worlds to conquer.”
“I don’t want worlds to conquer. All I want’s right here in this van. My family.”
“Touché, big shooter. Touché, but Jay—anymore, that’s all we want too. The Organization and the UN, these days we’re all about happy families, families like yours. That’s quality of life, democracy on the march. That’s the Pax Americana.”
“Wait a second.” This was Chris, who liked history. “Pax…?”
“Mn.” The liaison officer tucked his hair behind one ear. “Got a bright kid here, Jay. Bright kid, he’s thinking the Roman thing, Pax Romana. He’s thinking, ‘strength and honor.’” The man was good at Gladiator, too.
“Actually,” Chris said, “the expression they used was a bit different.”
“That’s good, son. That’s a bright boy. But the question is, what do we do about that? I mean, since it’s our Pax, these days. What do we do with it?’”
Chris scratched an eyebrow.
“It’s all on us now.” Kahlberg went on. “Washington is the new Rome. That’s the law of history, right?”
Barbara had to jump in. “Lieutenant, Major, whatever. Listen, the march of history, the triumph of NATO, that’s not why this family came here.”
“Mn, triumph? Ma’am, you don’t understand. In this van, we’re all on the….”
“No, listen.” It’d been too long a day. “I’m saying, Silky, you have no idea about this family. The sacrifices we made.”
“I hear you, ma’am. I hear your pain.”
Much too long a day. “Oh, give me a break.”
“Barbara,” Jay said.
“Jay, this bastard thinks we’re playing some kind of ballgame.”
“Settle down, Mrs. Lulucita.” The officer used the Italian pronunciation. “Way I see it, this isn’t about me. Isn’t about this bastard at all. I can see that, what’s bothering you, it’s got nothing to do with me and everything to do with those old boys who just about took your husband’s head off”
Barbara checked out the window. The shadows were unpredictable behind the tinted glass. And when had it gotten so late? Inside, Paul might’ve been napping in his seat, his head in his chest. Strange shadows played across the riot of his hair.
Kahlberg seemed to be saying the Organization had a heart of gold. “We’re looking towards the next thousand years, you know what I’m saying? If history tells us we’ve got to be Rome, then it’s on us to do Rome one better.”
She couldn’t just sit there stewing. “Lieutenant—”
“Silky, please.”
“Silky, try this. Try looking out the window.”
The van cruised along a wide and efficient city beltway, a road utterly unlike the medieval alleys where Jay had been hit.
“I’m saying,” Barbara went on, “this is Rome too. I’m saying, let’s get real, with the law of history. Naples is Rome too. Five minutes in the Internet Cafe, here, and I could have a ticket back to New York.”
“Brava, signora.”
“Even the earthquake—that didn’t really hurt the people in town, so much. The people Jay’s going to be working with, they’re something else, they’re mostly refugees. The newcomers around here.”
The officer went on nodding.
“And they came here to make money, most of these people.”
“Brava, signora. Complimenti.”
What was that, a pat on the head? She didn’t like hearing him use her title all the time either, not after “Jay” this and “Jay” that.
Chris had been trying for a while to get a word in. “Listen, if you’re going to compare us to Rome, then like, what Pop’s doing is more like, it’s the aqueducts. Pop’s helping to…”
JJ gave a laugh, scornful, and while Chris made some comeback Barbara turned again to the window. What had she been trying to accomplish, anyway? What did she have to prove? The van had climbed high enough that outside the reinforced glass, the color of a bruise, she could see the scabby and kiss-shaped downtown.
“That’s pretty good, son,” the PR man was saying. “Pretty good, actually, Chris. So, you’re such a smart boy, tell me something. You ever read Vico?”
The teenager fingered his glasses, but Jay waved him silent.
“Anybody in this van ever read Giambattista Vico?”
“Silky,” the father said. “The way I heard it, you had something for us. Documents, you said. Hey, that’s what you told the cops.”
“Yeah, the cops,” John Junior said, “hey. When it comes to what happened to Pop, it sounds like you NATO guys’re no more help than the police.”
“Mn, son, you’re barking up the wrong tree. The Organization, it’s got no jurisdiction when it comes to a couple of junkies like the ones that laid out your Pop.”
“Junkies?” John Junior pumped up his height advantage. “The cops only said they were amateurs.”
Jay was frowning, troubled by the recollection. Barb looked to Kahlberg’s partner, but the rep from the UN wore a fixed, cold smile.
“Junkies, amateurs, you can call those old boys what
ever you want,” the liaison was saying. “But I’ll tell you what, they’ll be tough to find. People like that, they kind of fall through the cracks.”
“So you are as bad as the cops. You’ve got nothing for us.”
The only person Barbara hadn’t checked recently was Paul. She needed time with the boy soon. Time for his “eruption of need,” and for her “core assurances,” as they put it back at the Samaritan Center, at the Holy Name. But now the Lieutenant Major was spouting a jargon of his own, talking about “Earthquake I.D.”
“The Organization arranged one for each family member.” The man had also selected from another of his voices. “One for each, in keeping with the purpose of the document, and we worked hand in hand with the appropriate authorities, both local and international, in the kind of cooperation that has long distinguished our relationship.”
The UN rep was thumbing the combination locks of his briefcase.
“In this way,” Kalhlberg went on, “we ensured that this paper carries the full weight of law. For American citizens it possesses the value and function of a passport.”
Chris remained the one who got the most out of this. Nodding, the boy shoved his glasses up his nose.
“You had an electromagnetic pulse,” Chris said. “Yeah. I saw that.”
The fifteen-year-old had his leg jigging. “An electromagnetic pulse,” he repeated. “That happens sometimes with earthquakes. Computers crash big-time so, like, people lose their hard drives.”
The NATO officer broke into a grin that constituted yet another change in tone.
“Plus you must’ve lost other records. In ordinary ways, ordinary for an earthquake. You had churches collapsing, and in Southern Italy, oh boy. Around here, when a church collapses, that’s maybe a whole town just, like, gone…”
“Wow, Mr. Science,” John Junior said. “I could listen to you all night.”
“Oh, excuse me, Room Temperature. Room Temperature I.Q. Excuse me, I forgot to like, connect the dots. See, with the pulse and the rest, that meant there were, like, all these people who’d lost essential documents.…”