Earthquake I.D.

by John Domini

  DIPIO (off-screen): The body remembers. Come si dice, the limb like a ghost?

  PAUL: Romy, Romy understands. She was a-always flying. And we, we’ve a-always got that, I’m saying, we’ve all got that ex, ex, extra rustle a-and flowing.

  (Blinks at BARBARA, at camera, lowers head. BARBARA touches boy’s shoulder. Inaudible murmur.)

  PAUL: We’ve all got them, ah, always, really. Alter, alter, like feathers and wings, a-alternative body parts. You know? Alter, alter… they’re flowing a-and it’s all this life, a-always. (head comes up, eyes enlarged) It’s never gar, garbage. Never you, useless. It’s always w-whispering and a-alive and coming on, like a, a thousand words a-at once. If you tried you, you could feel it. You could a-all feel it.

  (to BARBARA) You said, you said there’ve been o-others, p-people like me. (waves arm) There been lots of others, y-you said. Which means, which means, we l-live with the crowds, all, all the time. Why, why don’t you feel it?

  DIPIO: (sound of scratching)

  “A masterpiece,” Whitman announced. “81/2.”

  How much had he left for the older boys? Fifteen minutes? She almost dropped the DVD Whitman handed her, then let the scan-disk stick slip through her fingers.

  The filmmaker picked it up, then spoke her name with maximum musicality. “Honey,” he asked, “what about streaming the video?” The young man tossed his hair. “You wouldn’t be able to drop the footage if we posted it directly to your sons’ site.”

  His hair was lovely, the curls classic, the DNA out of Africa. Barb had to wonder again about the late Lieutenant-Major, whether he’d gone for men. And so what if he had? Silky’s Secrets—if that were a book, it would’ve been a doorstop. Plus when it came to this particular secret, around his Organization, the rule was don’t ask, don’t tell. On top of that, if there’d ever been a man who preferred life in the closet, it was Officer Kahlberg. He would’ve savored every irony in playing it straight.

  The mother turned the scan-disk between her fingers. Chris and JJ had their secrets too, tucked away in their “project.”

  “Those boys of yours,” Whitman went on, “haven’t they got something set up for visitors? A guestbook or a blog or something?”

  If they had a guestbook, they were hiding something under it. When Aurora had asked what the boys wanted for a present, recently—she always made a big, romantic deal about summer solstice—Chris and JJ had requested a standing screen to set up around their desk. They’d wanted to make sure they weren’t surprised by anyone who neglected to knock. Aurora had come through with a typically extravagant gewgaw, a triptych of young love, set against a background of a fire-breathing Vesuvius and adorable broken temple columns. The girls showed a lot of petticoat, the men wore buckled shoes, and the old playgirl, in choosing such a screen, gave the boys a nudge and a wink. She let them know she was all for love amid the ruins.

  Not that JJ and Chris, in accepting the garish piece, had revealed that they got the message. They’d offered nothing beyond the usual teenage grumbles of thanks. Whatever they were up to, it mattered more than returning their grandmother’s secret OK. Just as, Barb would bet, their documentary mattered more than finding Romy and John Junior a room with a bed. So far as she could tell, the gypsy and her oldest were still drawing the line at a kiss and a cuddle. That’s what the mother concluded from a close study of her boy, from the tightness in his long legs and the sparkle in his one-liners. The evidence might be circumstantial, but many a parent had built a winning case on far less. Barbara would bet that her two goodhearted young Americans had a nobler purpose than helping one of them get laid. More than likely they had a notion that they could clear the girl of Silky’s murder, in some public forum…

  She shifted to face Whitman, their knees knocking.

  “It’s all on the web.” Barbara ignored his shuffling beneath the table. “They’ve got everything right there on the web.”

  When the skinny auteur narrowed his eyes, his thick-lashed eyes, he looked more like King David than ever. He looked so haughty and aware that for a moment Barb thought he knew what she wanted. Of course he didn’t know, he was only swayed by the reverberant waves of her intensity, but no sooner had Barbara put it into words—they should crack into her sons’ materials—than Whitman agreed. She didn’t have to come up with an excuse.

  “Oh, honey.” He gave a lippy grin. “This is going to be sweet.”

  She’d offered an extra fifty, when she’d asked, but Barbara got the impression that her companion would’ve done this for nothing. The way Whitman faced the screen, grinning and flexing his striped chest, you’d think he got a kick out of poking through the heteros’ dirty laundry. Or did he merely enjoy the challenge? In any case he was whiz enough to at once isolate that part of the boys’ site labeled “Under Construction.” As Whitman had done with his own film, Chris and JJ had made five minutes of footage available as a sampler. Also they’d set up additional “rushes” in a file for which they’d given the rest of the family the password. A dummy file—look Ma no secrets.

  But what was under “Under Construction?” Seeking a way in, the mother gave the campy wonk birth-dates and middle names. He pecked in variations, the digits in European order instead of American, the words abbreviated or syllables reversed. After the first five or six suggestions Barbara detected a throb in the same intangible space where a meaningful Communion usually touched her. Of all the unlikely…but didn’t she know the sensation when she felt it? Hadn’t she just realized that Paul had the same perplexing talent? She wondered if those thoughts about her middle child, about the here-and-gone fragility of the whole Naples experience, had brought this on. Or it might’ve been this bitty production room, this kitchen-sink Warner Brothers; the set-up wasn’t much different from a confession booth. Barbara frowned and stayed on-task, sharing her maiden name with the stranger beside her. She told him her wedding anniversary. When those didn’t work she drew a breath.

  “Try divorce,” she said. “Or Naples divorce.”

  After variations in Italian and English, handled without once meeting Whitman’s eyes, she added ‘Angry Mama.” Next, “Crazy Mama.”

  She could see that the boho was glancing at her, his long hair shifting in the corner of her eye. Still he never hesitated to sling a new set of letters and digits across the screen. They worked like skipping stones, setting off the ripple of windows popping open. The central box always read the same, Invalid, and Barbara came to think that some of her excitement was entirely ordinary. What mother doesn’t get a little thrill out of checking her kids’ pockets? As each potential password came to mind, however, she kept sensing that deeper release. What would you call this, if not confession in code? She rose and paced, wheeling between the worktable and the air conditioner, and Whitman had to ask that she speak more slowly. His English couldn’t keep up.

  When they hit on the password, she was facing the air conditioner, and for a while she stayed there, letting the freon tickle her neck. The Open Sesame to the boys’ private footage had nothing to do with her. The choice must’ve been John Junior’s.

  “My ro,” Whitman said, drawing out the pronunciation as the unedited files appeared on the screen. “From Romy.”

  Children grow, they grow away. How many reminders did she need?

  “Looks like there aren’t too many files.” When the young man pointed at the screen, his silver snake-ring turned blue. “One two, three four five.”

  Not many yet, Barb thought. Not when the children were only starting out. She returned to her chair, still savoring traces of exhilaration. Maybe she should consider today another trial methodology. Onscreen she saw four files whose labels included either “Npls” or “hstry,” and one more, with the simple name “INNOCENT.”

  “Innocent,” Barbara said.

  Whitman set up the link to the video player. The window on the software opened, and at its bottom a set of concentric circles shrank and grew, shrank and grew, a visual cue for establish
ing the connection—or perhaps the blinking and thickly outlined eye of the gypsy girl, one of those Mongol-goddess eyes, never so fierce and burning as when they suddenly took over the player’s window. Romy had got a tan, some impossible tan that lent her skin a lush hint of violet. Her gypsy trimmings worked as well, the earrings full of shadows and the scarf electric with tinsel. She was made for this, precisely the sort of dark and voluptuous fairy the technology needed to open its box of secrets, and John Junior stuck with the talking-head arrangement for the first few minutes. He and his girl had found some privacy in a grove of trees off a highland roadway. From time to time you could hear the whine of a motorino, and see that Romy delivered this appeal from well above city and Bay. The faraway water behind her glimmered a chromium blue that picked up the hints in her face. The trees were umbrella pine and the gray shreds in one corner of the sky must’ve come from the volcano.

  The gypsy began: “I am innocent of Silky Kahlberg’s murder. Like, it was almost the other way around.”

  John Junior interrupted, in a voice the mother couldn’t make out, more restrained than she was used to from him. Romy shifted places in a blink, reappearing framed between tree trunks. Her hair had been tied back too.

  “I did not shoot Lieutenant-Major L-Loius Kahlberg,” she repeated. “I am innocent, and for sure, it could’ve been the other way around. Could’ve been him still running around and me…”

  The gypsy lowered her head, trailing a fingernail down her glittering scarf.

  “I knew that he was dealing in fake ID’s,” she went on finally. “In counterfeits, officer Kahlberg. Also he knew that I knew. For sure, we both knew the signs, like—”

  JJ interrupted again, and Romy reappeared in better posture. With this third take she got across that, at the Museo Nazionale, the liaison officer had planned to kill her.

  “I warn the Lieutenant-Major that I will expose him. On the streets there are ways.” Her smile was bitter, the shape of the noise of another passing bike. “The normies never know, the signs we use. Like the SMS, the message on the telefonino. Only better, because Kahlberg, he got it right away, and he knew he had to get rid of me.”

  Her stare gathered force. “The man played me, at the Museo. He played me.”

  Girl, thought Barbara, join the club.

  “Officer Kahlberg,” Romy was saying, “he set it up, he will get rid of me and like, he will look like a hero same time.” Her chin lifted, her confidence growing. “The way the man played it, he will be on top both ways. On top out on the streets, so nobody could take him down, and on top in old Babylon too, in NATO.”

  So far as the “play” was concerned, the Lieutenant Major’s plan to get this girl out of his silky hair, Barbara had heard all she needed. The museum visit had always struck her as a dubious trip. And when she’d asked for time alone with the kids, that afternoon, the liaison and his Umberto had run through their bebop repertoire, all those significant looks. What they’d needed was the opportunity to get the gypsy alone. The mother’s request had given them the chance to improvise.

  “He was looking forward to it,” said the girl onscreen. “That gun of his, he couldn’t wait to use that.”

  Barb was nodding, getting it. She even believed she understood why the liaison had thrown in the tall tale about Romy getting violent: she went right upside his head.

  “I knew the man, for sure. But I never expected trouble at the museum.”

  Neither the gypsy nor anyone else had cracked Umberto’s head, before the Lieutenant Major went down. But Silky must’ve had it in mind to smack his flunky a good one. Umberto would need a wound to match the story told by his boss. Being boss mattered a lot to the Lieutenant Major, Barbara could see that now. So the liaison must’ve intended first to put a bullet or two in JJ’s girlfriend—or five or ten. Then to top off his afternoon, and to make a point for his colleagues in the Camorra, he’d have given Umberto a pistol-whipping. The NATO man might also have thrown in a bit of groping, a bit of grinding, letting the so-called museum guide know what an American officer kept beneath his Palm Beach whites. He would’ve enjoyed that.

  The charade became transparent to Barbara, like a Christmas crèche in which the terra cotta melted away to reveal frames of barbed wire. Meanwhile the fruitiness of Whitman’s shampoo grew stronger, and the girl onscreen, recalling that morning at the Nazionale, looked ever more frightened. The lone stabilizing influence was John Junior, running his set like a pro. Like an adult, leaving the choice of time and place to Romy (the gypsy knew the good hiding places), but meantime taking charge of the larger project. The password, the purpose of the interview—that must’ve been all JJ. And every time you heard Barb’s oldest, through the speakers mounted on the walls, you heard genuine caring, but also restraint. A good deal less histrionic than his mother, lately. JJ’s sweet sanity might in fact make as much of a difference for the former cripple, over time, as his younger brother’s healing hands. Before the picture onscreen jumped again, Romy had broken into a more open smile.

  Then JJ went to a whole-body shot, and you could see that the girl had toned down her look. Her jeans fit more loosely, and she toyed with what looked like a childish prop, a thin, smooth length of wood. Was it a sawed-off broomstick? Where had she found that?

  She flipped the stick from hand to hand, her tone of voice playful. “I have to show you this. Pinocchio.”

  The boy’s off-screen murmur remained unsexy.

  “No, get this,” the girl said. “Like, the real Pinocchio.”

  She slipped the abbreviated pole between her legs. Like that the mood changed, the girl’s pose appeared obscene, and Romy threw in an orgasmic gasp or two besides. She held the stick so the end just poked from her crotch.

  “Pinocchio says,” Romy said, “I got no diseases.”

  The wood grew longer, emerging from the vee of her jeans.

  “Pinocchio says I love you, always I love you. Since Christ was a carpenter!” The gypsy worked still more of the stick’s length out before her.

  “And always I will love you!” Now she needed both hands in front, to hold its full length. “I will be a good father!”

  The soundtrack turned to laughter, and the stick fell from Romy’s hands while she wobbled down into a crouch. Or was that the camera wobbling, in JJ’s hands? So much for any sexy mood. Whitman too chuckled over his keyboard, hitting Pause. The filmmaker, the way he laughed, sounded thoughtful; he sounded as though he wanted to work the bit into his next feature. And Barbara remained quiet, though she was grinning, not wanting to make her editor self-conscious. A joke like that could only make her wonder again about this girl and John Junior, how much had gone on between them. When Whitman restarted the video, the mother was glad to see Romy jump-cut back to seriousness. The gypsy was in close-up once more, and frowning.

  ROMY: I used to believe in the power of the street, the greatest power. No one can beat (nodding, in rhythm) the power of the street, (starts to smile, stops) I used to believe this, it was history. What does Chris always say about history?

  OFFSCREEN: History moves to the left.

  ROMY: To the left, yes, like, which means to the street. You know? I used to scrabble around living for no money and, at the same time, I live for this. I believe that, in history, maybe next year or maybe the year after, I will have the power. I believe, old Babylon and the cops, and the suits, they will fall, (shakes index finger) I believe will come a better day, and the suits will sell their blood for money. For sure. We take the sticks from the police and… (throws a punch; hair comes loose from ponytail).

  We will make them stand and smile while we run our disgusting hands all over—

  (inaudible word, o.s.; jump-cut, ROMY with hair off her face)

  Revolution from the streets, this I live for. I am, I was, a soldier, a revolution woman. I am never scared of the officer Kahlberg. (lowers head; touches scarf) But I think, better I been scared. I knew the man, another dealer. But better I knew more.


  (chin comes up; small smile)

  Paul, your brother, he shows me first, a different power in the streets. Paul breaks through the like, the stones surrounding me. He shows me, I never understand. Never understood. For sure, I never even dreamed about it, a life like—like your brother shows me. He has the revolution in his hands, the better life in the streets, for all the punks and thieves, the revolution and the life. All the soldiers, we’re in his hand.

  (Looks away) I been in the life ever since I left the camps, since Lapusului, and your little brother like, one touch and in that touch…(faces camera) it’s all my life, and it’s new forever, it will never drop into the dark again, never again beneath the stones. Your Paul picks me up, he has me in his fingers, all my life, and all the other soldiers too. It’s another power, in the streets. It’s so strong, your brother, in his fingers, it picks up the rich neighborhoods too. He even picks up Babylon.

  (nodding in rhythm) Old Baby-Ion, your po-wer’s gone, (smiles) He picks up the cops too, all the cops, no matter what their uniform.

  (frowns, starts to speak, frowns again. CUT to three-quarter profile.)

  Lieutenant-Major Kahlberg, I knew him, but—better if I knew more. He moves between NATO and the street, very smooth. Better if I understand, if I understood, he has, he had people. Kahlberg had like, some of the same people I did. At the Nazionale, the Museum, if your brother isn’t there…(touches scarf) your Paul saved my life again. I am so sure. Paul is, he was there, he was at the museum back door, and because of him these two strangers jump up off the street. Your brother is the revolution, the noise forever in the streets. He calls two soldiers up off the street. There is the old story, you know, the old fairytale, the stones turned to soldiers.

  (CUT to waist-up shot) I was saved by two men with—like in masks. Over their mouths, over their faces, half their faces (waves hands before her), a bandanna? Give me a break, my J-Bud, how can I, how did I see their faces? Like, I was paying attention? The clothes, okay. The clothes, the same as on the punks all over the world. I mean like, jeans. Shirts, t-shirts, maybe a blue shirt, or maybe a blue bandanna. One man is maybe a little, he has something tight and sexy in the clothes, you know? A little gay, kind of, one of these men, maybe. Femme, maybe. J-Bud, I thought I was going to die!