Emma looked the other way.
“I don’t know. I don’t have your address.”
“Just wait a minute, please,” he said.
David dropped his flippers and ran inside the taverna. He came back a few seconds later. He’d scribbled his address on a piece of the paper tablecloth and had put only his name on it: David Gallagher, 49 South Hill Gardens, London. So was that it? Because of what happened he now was the one who’d been able to claim her? She had obviously miscalculated the consequences and she had lost Jack without her knowing.
Luca appeared, with a heavy bag strapped across his shoulder, sweaty and agitated.
“Em, what are you doing still here? We are ready to go, get moving!”
Emma was relieved she had an excuse to leave David there. His hungry look repulsed her. Crumpling the note in her hand, she moved away and followed Luca to the car.
They never went back. Only Luca did, many years later while traveling with a girlfriend he intended to marry. He had made a point to detour to show her the village of his childhood. He sent Emma a postcard in flashy colors painted over a black-and-white photo. He had drawn an arrow pointing at an ugly five-story building: “This is where Iorgo’s used to be. Nothing looks the same. Don’t bother!!” Emma showed the postcard to her father. He put on his reading glasses and scanned the picture for a good thirty seconds, as if he were trying to single out someone he knew among the tiny figures crowding the beach in neat rows of umbrellas and sun chairs. The father had aged, put on weight, remarried. He handed the postcard back to Emma and made a face.
“He’s so right. Never go back. It’s always a disappointment.”
In all those years the father had never found the right moment to discuss the accident with his children. At first because they were too young to be burdened with such an unforgiving truth, and once they were old enough he gathered that none of them wished to discuss it anymore. He assumed that by then they’d had enough time to process and digest their own version of the story and there was no need to dig any deeper. It wasn’t true of course, but the children felt protective of him now; they’d become the ones who wanted to shield him from that memory, so they refrained from asking. In the course of time they worked secretly, collecting evidence that they exchanged and pieced together. Reconstructing the picture, finding the missing pieces, became part of the bond that held Emma and her siblings together. Each one of them brought something back to the puzzle—fragments, traces that they managed in time to extract from their aunts, their mother’s closest friends, from letters and photos they found. Yes, Eleonora suffered from depression; yes, she was seeing a psychiatrist; yes, she was taking medication. No, it hadn’t been anybody’s fault. And no, it had not been an accident.
Although the information they’d collected was more than they needed to know, it didn’t solve or settle anything, or help to soothe them.
In her early twenties, Emma fell in love with a young American biologist she’d met on a train to Florence. They had corresponded for a few months and then she had followed him to Boston. He lived in a dusty north-facing apartment in what she mistook for a nice neighborhood. She had momentarily dropped out of university in order to follow him—she was studying architecture, but without passion—and she got a job in a vegetarian restaurant to make some cash and get out of the house while he was at work. She thought she’d eventually get her working papers once the biologist married her and she’d be able to get a proper job. It was just a matter of time and patience. In the meantime she made delicious vegetable casseroles for dinner, which they ate while sprawled on the carpet in front of the fire. She admired the ease Americans had with their bodies, how they used objects and moved around the furniture with a freedom Europeans never had. How they took their work to bed, ate take-out food in the car, how they put their bare feet on the table, walked inside a bank in their shorts, used their cars as a cluttered closet where they could toss in just about anything. In Europe people had meals only if sitting at a table, only worked at their desks, hardly ever sat on the floor, never walked around the house in their bathrobes and socks. She wrote enthusiastic letters to her family and friends, describing her new life. She felt she had finally become the person she had always wanted to be. Someone who thought, dreamed and made love in a different language, who had acquired different habits and conformed to different rules of behavior.
By then her English was fluent and flawless, and she hardly had a trace of an accent. She made sure to pick up every mannerism and colloquial expression that might polish her new identity. Whenever someone asked her where and when she’d learned to speak such good English, she said something about a summer in Greece and an English boy named Jack she’d had a crush on. This tale, from which David had been conveniently omitted, had become the standard answer to the question and everyone always agreed with her answer: falling in love was surely the only way to learn a language properly. The fiction of Jack as her first love grew more and more solid. But it was impossible to completely erase David from her biography. He had the unshakable position of the boy to whom she’d lost her virginity.
Her happiness with the biologist didn’t last. Within a year Emma fell out of love (she later admitted that she had been more in love with the idea of becoming an American than in love with him) and she moved to New York. Initially she had little hope of sustaining herself, but soon enough everything fell into place. Friends of friends offered her a place to stay; she got a part-time job with an architectural firm, moved into her own place and obtained a work visa. Three years later, on the day she received her green card, she got drunk on Champagne at eleven in the morning and declared to her friends, “It was my destiny. I always knew I belonged somewhere else.”
A few months later, Emma flew to Rome to visit her family, where she lectured Luca and Monica on the benefits one had living in America. It was the usual litany about efficiency, good service, being able to return a clothing item even if already worn, getting your phone service up and running in a matter of minutes, being able to FedEx anything for a pittance, etc., etc. They resented being spoken to as if they were still living in the Middle Ages (they’d been subjected to her pro-America rhetoric before and were in tacit agreement that Emma’s obsession to become an American was, to put it bluntly, pathetic).
Shortly after her arrival in Rome, Emma sat on a bench in the Piazza Navona eating a gelato while waiting to meet an old friend for a movie. It was a beautiful evening, warm and clear, and the large oblong square was busy with tourists taking pictures of the Fountain of the Four Rivers, while swifts flitted overhead. She was early and had a little time to contemplate the scene. She observed a crowd of Korean women in floppy hats, dark shades and with short legs entering the church of Saint Agnes in an orderly line; a mime with a face plastered in white set up his portable speaker, getting ready for his act; and children riding their bicycles in circles, oblivious to their mothers’ calls. Emma felt buoyant, something of a tourist herself, able to look at every detail with a fresh eye.
The mime’s sound track boomed from the speakers. It was, predictably, a frenzied piano score from a silent film. He was dressed in a business suit and his gig was about having to lift a very heavy suitcase. His efforts seemed titanic. The suitcase wouldn’t move. He signaled a child to step out of the circle of onlookers and gestured for him to lift the suitcase for him, which the child did, effortlessly. People cheered and laughed. Emma smiled at the naïveté of the performance, and slid back into her musings. She saw that now that she lived in another country she had been able to develop a completely different affection for Rome. She no longer felt responsible for any of the things that had humiliated her in the past. The graffiti on the walls, the garbage on the streets, the potholes, the hideous traffic, the cheap tourist menus, the cheeky café waiters: none of it concerned her anymore, it was pure folklore.
Suddenly Emma felt a shift of energy around her and realized the circle of onlookers were now looking at her. The mime seemed t
o have zeroed in on her as his next assistant. She shook her head a couple of times and mouthed “no, no” but he ignored her and leaped forward, stretching his hand out. She spoke under her breath.
“No. No, please. Someone else, please. I can’t.”
But he already had her by the wrist and was pulling her in. The audience signaled their approval with applause. It was too late, he was already pointing at the suitcase. Obediently Emma lifted it: it was empty and weightless. The mime feigned bewilderment; he scratched his head like a clown and gestured for her to carry it over to his left. She did. More head scratching, more laughter from the audience, then he pointed to his far right. Emma complied, wanting to be done with it as fast as possible. He stood next to her and tried to lift the suitcase in vain. It really did look as if the suitcase weighed a ton. People clapped and cheered. Before she could take her exit, the mime grabbed Emma’s arm and whispered in English.
“Wait. I think I know you.”
“What?”
“Are you Emma?”
Emma stared at the white mask, the eyes penciled in black. A panda face.
“I’m Jack. Don’t you remember? Jack from Kastraki beach.”
He asked her to wait for him to finish his gig but she told him she had only fifteen minutes, she was supposed to be somewhere.
“Fifteen minutes. I need to wash my face. I can’t talk to you with this stuff on.”
“Yes. Sure. Fine. I’ll wait for you over there.” She pointed to one of the cafés bordering the square.
She kept an eye on him from where she sat. She watched him close his act in a hurry, gather his things and store them behind a potted plant. He washed his face with a sponge, at one of the water fountains.
When he sat at the table she recognized him. It was Jack all right, but a deflated version of younger Jack, his skin no longer so taut, some creases in his forehead. Still handsome, brown-eyed Jack, though, with a full head of hair. In his haste to meet her he’d left some smears of white makeup on his face. He stared at her, bewildered.
“I just knew it was you the minute I touched you. Your eyes. I never forgot them.”
They each ordered a glass of red. He told her he had been studying with a famous French mime in the south of France, that he lived in Marseilles and he did street shows—that’s what he called them—to make some cash when traveling. To justify this rather vague description of his life he said the previous year he’d performed at Avignon’s theater festival with a Belgian company Emma had never heard of; she pretended to be impressed.
She told him she lived in Manhattan and worked for an architecture studio. No, she wasn’t married and no, she didn’t have children. Yes, she lived by herself, in a small one-bedroom apartment downtown.
He seemed relieved and smiled. He had bad teeth now, she observed. They were jumbled and yellowing, the teeth of a person who hasn’t been taking care of them. Yet he didn’t seem self-conscious about his smile.
“Do you still have your house in Greece?” she asked.
“Oh no. Mummy sold it years ago. She and Dad divorced. The money from the sale was part of the settlement.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. They’d been fighting like cats and dogs for years; we actually couldn’t wait for them to divorce.”
Emma took a small sip of wine. It was the kind of cheap Chianti they served in those tourist traps. The conversation seemed to be heading nowhere. She thought of something to say to relaunch it.
“How is David doing?”
“David died. Six years ago,” Jack said.
Emma felt something in her chest, a sinking feeling.
“What happened?”
“Drugs, I’m afraid.” He made a face and tilted his head sideways.
Emma closed her eyes for a second.
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. Emma thought she should grab his hand across the table. But Jack gulped his wine and looked away, above her head.
“Well, David always had problems. Dyslexia, depression, then drugs.”
He paused, then tried a smile, to lighten up the mood.
“They all start with a d, like his name. I wonder what that means. Doom and disgrace, maybe?”
Emma didn’t know how to answer; she was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. It all sounded so hopeless.
“You know, he was an adopted child, and maybe that was part of the problem,” Jack continued. “He never felt he fit anywhere. At least that’s what Mum thinks.”
There was a silence. Jack seemed to be thinking about something, while he contemplated the froth of the Bernini fountain across from them. Emma was desperately trying to come up with the right thing to say. He turned to her.
“He had a huge crush on you, you know?”
She said nothing.
“He used to talk about you quite often. Every summer he’d say, ‘I wonder if Emma is coming back.’ He didn’t know how to find you. I guess you hadn’t exchanged addresses.”
“No. In fact. We didn’t.”
Jack looked at Emma intensely, then smiled.
“And here I am, running into you by chance in Rome. He would have been so chuffed to know that I’d found you.”
Emma smiled and nodded. Then she managed to squeeze in a quick look at her watch.
“I’m so sorry Jack, but I’m afraid I have to …”
“Sure. How long are you here for? I’d love to see you again, so we can catch up.”
“Of course, I’d love to.”
They made an appointment for the next evening at the same café.
“Afterward we could go for a pizza. If you have time, I mean,” Jack suggested.
“Yes, why not? I know a good place around the corner.”
She grabbed the outrageously expensive check and left some change on the table. Jack protested.
“No, please. Let me take care of it.”
“Don’t even try, this is my turf.”
They hugged awkwardly. He smelled of sweat and wine. He held her an extra second, just as she was about to pull away.
“God, I am so happy I found you, Emma,” he said, close to her face. “You have become such a beautiful woman.”
Emma held her breath, fearing it might be possible that he would kiss her. They lingered for a few seconds in that dangerous proximity, then he let her go.
She turned around once more to wave goodbye from a secure distance. Jack was still sitting at the table. He lifted his wineglass in a toast, leaning back in his chair, his legs wide open, like a satisfied man enjoying his place in the world.
She walked away fast. She had already made up her mind not to show up the next night.
Many years later she told the story of this chance encounter to the man she had married. He didn’t understand what she was trying to convey. He was a furniture designer, a person with a strong practical sense—who found Emma’s penchant for introspection both charming and alien. What was the point of the story? People did run into each other. It happened all the time.
“A mime,” she said. “He was a mime.”
They were driving a rented SUV through the Arizona desert. She had a map on her lap and was in charge of directions.
“Yes, I got that,” he said. “But what made you feel so bad? Didn’t you say you had been in love with him? Or was it the brother? I’m not sure I understand.”
“No, not in love exactly. Although …”
She didn’t know how to explain why the story had stayed with her all those years and why it still pained her. It had to do with many things at once; the passing of time marring Jack’s once beautiful teeth; David’s expression when she swam off the island, the look of defeat and resignation of a child used to being left behind. And the expression on Jack’s face as he toasted to their reunion, when it was she who had turned her back to him in Piazza Navona.
“I guess what I mean is … in some
ways I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for those two. I wouldn’t even speak English. I doubt I would have married you,” she said.
She looked out the window at the vast expanse of the desert dotted by cacti under the cobalt blue sky, at the long trail of clouds hanging over the horizon, as if in a scene from an old western.
“They were my inspiration,” she said, and realized she was almost on the verge of tears.
“That can’t possibly be it,” her husband was saying.
“Why not?”
“We should’ve taken the left at the gas station fifty miles back. I knew it.”
He flapped his hand impatiently and pulled the car over.
“Just hand me that map, Emma.”
Chanel
It was early September, the air still balmy, the perfect weather for a Venetian escapade. Caterina and Pascal were sitting in a café across a canal divining their future, in a quiet campo off the beaten track, away from the tourists and the film crowd who had invaded the city for the festival. They sipped their frothy iced cappuccinos, basking in the sun, their eyes fixed on its refractions dotting the greenish canal with specks of glitter. They felt that for once things were beginning to look promising for both of them.
Pascal had just fallen in love with a man in Paris and was going to move there in the fall. His intention was to get a job in a restaurant at first, give himself a little time to learn French well enough so he could find an agent and start acting in French films. This was of course an utterly delusional plan, but Pascal suffered from a very particular kind of blindness: he never took into consideration potential obstacles that might be looming ahead of his designs. It wasn’t clear whether he simply ignored them or had a special technique for dodging them; the fact remained he did find success with most of the crazy schemes he pursued. Whereas Caterina—due to a more pragmatic approach to life or perhaps to a lack of self-confidence—didn’t trust her resources enough and spent much of her time worrying about futile things. Recently she had been worrying quite a lot about Pascal moving out of the apartment they’d shared for almost three years. Not only because she was going to miss him terribly and she’d have to replace him with another roommate (although nobody could replace Pascal), but because she feared that, along with Pascal, the scent of his positive take on life was going to fly out the window and follow him to France, abandoning her.
The Other Language Page 5