4.
The day turned sweltry. I left the living room and the study to Vanda and I went off to organize Sandro’s and Anna’s rooms. I assigned myself the task so that I could look calmly for the pictures. My wife never called out to me, she never made a sound, and after a while I went on to sift through the bedroom, the bathroom. When I convinced myself that the photos were nowhere and that therefore I had to anticipate the worst, I returned to the living room. I found my wife seated on the threshold of the open balcony, looking out. For all that time she’d done nothing. The room was exactly as I’d left it.
—You’re not feeling well?—I asked.
—I’m perfectly fine.
—Is something wrong?
—Everything.
I said, in the kindest way I’m capable of:
—We’ll get Labes back, you’ll see.
She turned to look at me.
—Why did you decide to let me know, now, the reason you wanted to name him that?
—I never hid it from you. He’s the beast of the house and so I called him Labes, what’s wrong with that?
—You’re a liar. You were always a liar, and in old age you keep telling lies.
—I don’t understand you.
—You understand perfectly well: There’s the Latin dictionary, on the floor.
I didn’t reply. Vanda, when she wants to vent, always proceeds with tiny insignificant facts. I went into the corner that she had indicated to me with a feeble gesture. On the floor, among other books in good condition, was the Latin dictionary, open to the page where the name I’d given our cat sixteen years ago appeared. A coincidence. At first I thought that Vanda herself gave little weight to the matter. She had spoken to me without the usual irony, with a voice that was simply a means to fetter words, as if indifferent to their significance. The dictionary—she said quietly—turning to look beyond the railing of the balcony—was open to the letter L, and the word labes was underlined in pen, as well as its definitions, one by one. Fall, landslide, collapse, ruin. One of your jokes. I called the cat lovingly and you amused yourself hearing how the name, unbeknownst to me, resounded through the house in all its negativity: disaster, misfortune, filth, infamy, shame. Shame, you made me say. You were always like that. You act kind and meanwhile you vent your nasty feelings in deviant ways. I don’t know when I realized you were like this. Early on, in any case, decades ago, maybe even before we got married. But I tied myself to you all the same. I was young, I felt attracted, I didn’t know what a random thing attraction is. For years I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t unhappy. I realized late that others intrigued me, neither more nor less than you did. I looked around, disoriented. At every opportunity—I said to myself—I could have a lover: It’s like the rain, a drop collides randomly with another drop and forms a rivulet. All you had to do was insist on that initial curiosity, and the curiosity would become attraction, the attraction would grow and lead to sex, sex would call for repetition, repetition would establish a habit, a need. But I thought I was supposed to love only you, forever, and so I looked the other way, I kept my eyes on the children, their tantrums. How foolish. If I ever loved you—and today I’m no longer sure: Love is just a container we shove everything into—it didn’t last long. You were certainly nothing special for me, nothing intense. You simply allowed me to consider myself a grown woman: Living together, sex, kids. When you left me I suffered, most of all, for that part of me I had uselessly sacrificed to you. And when I welcomed you home, I only did it to restore to myself what you’d taken. But I soon realized that, in the tangle of emotions and desires and sex and feelings, it was hard to establish what you needed to give back to me, which is why I did everything I could to send you back to Lidia. I never believed that you’d repented, that you’d realized you wanted me and no one else. I thought every day about how much you had deceived me. You felt absolutely nothing for me, not even that feeling of closeness, of sympathy, that prevents one human being from sitting by idly while another suffers to death. You’d shown me in every possible way that you loved Lidia as you’d never loved me. I knew by then that if a man loves another woman he never returns to his wife for love. And so I told myself: Let’s see how long he can stand it before he runs back to her. But the more I tormented you the more you caved. Labes, yes, you’re right. Years, decades have gone by playing this game and we’ve made a habit of it: living in disaster, reveling in disgrace, this was our glue. Why? Maybe for the kids. But this morning I’m not so sure about it anymore, I feel indifferent to them, too. Now that I’m nearly eighty years old I can say that I like almost nothing about my life. I don’t like you, I don’t like them, I don’t like myself. Which is why, maybe, when you went away, I was so distraught. I felt stupid, I wasn’t able to get out before you did. And I wanted with all my might for you to come back only to be able to say to you: Now I’m the one who’s leaving. But look, I’m still here. As soon as you make an effort to say something clearly, you realize that it’s only clear because you’ve simplified it.
This was the speech, more or less; I’ve summarized it in my own words. For the first time since we’d reconciled she strove to be explicit without growing in the least bit emotional. Now and again I interrupted her with half-sentences of tepid objection, but she didn’t hear me, or she didn’t want to. She forged ahead as if she were talking only to herself, and at a certain point I sealed myself off as well. I had only one question in mind: Why did she decide to talk to me in such blunt terms? Didn’t she realize that many of these words can have severe consequences for our old age? I told myself: Don’t get alarmed, she’s not like you, she’s never been afraid the way you’ve been ever since you were a little boy. And this is why she knows how to pile it on. Rather, growing increasingly indifferent over the years, she’ll keep delighting in piling it on, she’ll keep repeating this cruel conversation. So don’t say anything. They’ve destroyed her house, she’s tired, the toil she’s facing depresses her. In this moment a little nudge is enough to leave everything the way it is and walk out; so, if you really need to say something, suggest calling someone who can give her a hand with this work. Convince her that it won’t cost much, remind her that her bones are fragile and that she shouldn’t exhaust herself; in other words, look the other way, pretend it’s nothing, protect the days, the months that remain.
5.
I don’t know how long my wife talked to me: a minute, two, five. What’s certain is that at one point, given that I didn’t react, she looked at her watch and got up.
—I’m going to buy a few things, she said. Keep an ear out for the telephone and the intercom.
I replied, solicitous:
—Go ahead, don’t worry. If the thieves turn up I’ll deal with it, we’ll get Labes back.
She didn’t reply. But when she reappeared with the shopping cart, ready to go out, she said quietly:
—The cat’s gone.
I think she wanted to say that she’d lost every hope of getting him back. While she crossed the living room, the foyer, and opened the front door, she explained to me that I needed to pay attention to the phone and the buzzer not because the thieves might call, but because two weeks had gone by and the company that rented us the electric stimulator was going to send someone to pick it up that day.
—Don’t let them rob you of any more money—she said, and she closed the door behind her.
But if she didn’t believe in the idea of a ransom anymore, I, who knew about the disappearance of the Polaroids, realized that I believed in it even more. Not just that. I asked myself: Who will show up to pick up the stimulator, a random messenger, or that girl with the lively eyes again? I soon had no doubt that she would be the one to reappear. Time passed, my wife returned, she started cooking something. I pretended to be calm but I was extremely agitated, I got a headache. I already pictured the girl in the doorway. She would be the one to tell me: We have Labes, we have the pictures,
this is the price to pay. I would ask: Or else? Or else, the girl would reply—rather she replied, replied, replied—or else we kill the cat and we deliver the pictures to the person who should have them. While eating a bit of stracchino, my heart, in my chest, felt enormous.
After lunch Vanda, perhaps purified after her outburst, was again her usual self. Methodically, without ever stopping, she reorganized the kitchen, the bedroom, Anna’s room, Sandro’s, and she also drafted a long detailed list of what needed to be fixed. She was on the phone with a carpenter she trusted, discussing the price, when I heard the intercom. I went to reply. A woman’s voice told me she was there to pick up the stimulator. Was it the same girl from two weeks ago? Hard to tell, she hadn’t said much. I let her in, running to a window that faced the street, and looked out. It was her. She held the door open with one hand, but she hadn’t made up her mind whether or not to enter. She was talking to a man I saw from behind, partially covered by the branches of the magnolia tree. My breathing grew labored, it always happens when I get upset. From where I stood I couldn’t be sure that it was the crook with the fake leather jackets, and yet my blood thickened, dulling my senses; I both hoped and dreaded that it was him. What were they talking about? What was their scheme? Would the girl have come up, the man waiting below? No, it looked as if they’d decided, they would come up together. Every story is a dead end, you always arrive at a moment like this. So what to do, go back, start again? Even though you’re old enough to know that every story, sooner or later, slams up against the last word? I distinctly felt the same fear that gripped me when my father finally decided to join us at dinner. We were already sitting at the table, we’d been there for some time. I heard his lazy footsteps in the hallway. What mood was he in, good, bad? What would he say, what would he do? My wife—who had just stopped talking on the phone, but who must not have heard the buzzer—yelled at me from the bedroom:
—Can you please come here for a second? Can you help me move the wardrobe?
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER ONE
1.
Our mother left us a few feet from the café. How old was I? Nine? Sandro had turned thirteen a few months earlier, I remember because Mom and I had made him a cake and he’d said, in front of the burning candles, that if he blew them all out in one breath he wanted a wish to come true. What is it? our mother had asked him. To meet Dad, he’d replied. And so, because of him, here we are in front of the café. I’m scared. I don’t know anything about my father. I loved him once but I haven’t loved him for a long time. The thought of meeting him gives me a stomachache. I don’t want to tell him I have to go to the bathroom, I’m ashamed. Which is why I’m so angry at my brother, who always lays down the law, and also at my mother, who always does what he wants in the end.
2.
That’s it, I don’t remember anything else. But to be honest I don’t care, it’s just an excuse to call Sandro. I pick up the phone, his cell rings on, then the voicemail kicks in. I wait two minutes and call back. After five tries he answers meanly, saying: What do you want? I ask him without preamble: Do you remember when we met Dad in that café in Piazza Carlo III? I put on my little girl voice, affected whines and giggles, as if nothing’s happened, as if I didn’t try everything to take Aunt Gianna’s money from him, as if I hadn’t yelled that if he really didn’t want to give me even a penny he was dead to me, dead and buried, that I never wanted to see him again.
He says nothing. Meanwhile he’s thinking: Forty-five years under your belt, and you’re carrying on as if you were fifteen. I hear everything he’s thinking. I hear the periods and the commas, and I know that he hates me. But it doesn’t matter. I rattle on about Mom and Dad, about our childhood, about meeting our father years ago, about a hole in my memory that I suddenly wanted to fill. He tries to interrupt, but with me it’s impossible, I don’t let anyone get a word in. Without warning I say:
—Let’s get together.
—I’m busy.
—Please.
—No.
—Tonight?
—You know you’re busy tonight.
—Doing what?
—It’s your turn to feed the cat.
—I’m not going. I haven’t gone once.
—Are you kidding?
—Nope.
—You promised Mom.
—I promised, but I can’t handle being in that house on my own.
We go on for a while with these sorts of sentences, arguing back and forth, until he realizes I’m serious, that our parents’ week at the sea is almost over and that I’ve skipped all my turns. So—he says—that’s why I found the house always stinking of piss, the water bowl half empty, the food dish without a scrap and Labes freaking out. He gets angry, he hisses that I’m selfish, cold, irresponsible. But I don’t get upset. I follow up with fakeness, laughter, terrors true and false, self-deprecating irony. Slowly he calms down. Fine, he says with the older-brother tone he uses when he wants to flatten me. Go off to Crete with the last guy you picked up: I’ll deal with Labes tonight, too, just stop being such a pain in the ass.
Silence. I change now, I always know the right moment to alter my voice, to sound pathetic, just like Mom. I say quietly: I only mentioned Crete and the new boyfriend to not worry our parents; actually, I’m not going on vacation this year, I’m broke, and I’m sick of everything.
There, I’m well aware of the kind of guy he is, now he’s got his back up against the wall. He says, OK, let’s go see Labes together.
3.
We meet under the doorway to our parents’ building. I hate the area around Piazza Mazzini, the stink of smog and the river reaches as far as this street. Labes is mewing as if he’s about to explode, we can hear it from the stairs. We go up. Gross, I say, as I enter, running to open the balconies and windows. Then I start talking to the cat. I tell him how disgusting he is, and this calms him, he runs up to rub himself against my ankles. But as soon as he hears Sandro fixing his food, he leaves me and scampers over quickly to my brother. I stay in the living room. This house makes me sad. I lived here from the age of sixteen to thirty-four. It’s as if our parents, along with all their crap, had moved the worst of all the houses we’ve lived in into this place.
Sandro reappears, I hear Labes crunching his food in the kitchen. My brother’s nervous, he’s performed his little task, he wants to leave as quickly as possible. But I sit down on the couch and start up again about our childhood: our father who abandons us, our mother who flips out, our meeting with Dad. Sandro’s still standing up, making clear to me that he’s in a hurry. He mutters vague sentences, he feels obliged to be the affectionate child. He overflows with gratitude, he gets annoyed at me for circling around that episode in a sarcastic way.
—Bullshit, he exclaims, it was Dad who asked to meet, I have nothing to do with it. Plus it wasn’t a café and it wasn’t Piazza Carlo III. Mom took us to Piazza Dante and Dad was there waiting for us, under the monument.
—I remember a café and Piazza Carlo III. Dad once said it was a café.
—Either you trust me or there’s no point in talking. He took us to a restaurant in Piazza Dante.
—And what happened?
—Nothing, he talked the whole time.
—What did he say?
—The gist was that he worked in television, that he met famous actors and singers, that he was right to leave Mom.
I burst out laughing.
—It’s true. I think he was right, too.
—You say that now but back then you didn’t sleep at night and you threw up everything you ate. You’re the one who made life complicated for me and Mom, more than Dad.
—You’re a liar, I never cared about him.
He shakes his head. He’s swallowed the bait, he decides to have a seat.
—Do you at least remember when you told him about the laces?
Laces? My
brother’s like that. He likes to take a random detail and elaborate on it. Thanks to his way with small talk, women adore him. First he amuses them, and then he turns everything into melodrama. In my opinion he should have followed in Dad’s footsteps instead of studying geology—worked in TV, maybe been a host, talked onscreen to ladies, young girls. I look at him, pretending to be curious about the story he’s about to tell me. He’s handsome, he behaves like a gentleman, he satiates you with his courtesy. And he’s so thin, lucky him, with a face as slim as a teenager’s. He’s almost fifty but still passes for thirty. He looks after three wives. Wives, yes, even though he only got married once. And he has four kids, something of a record these days: two with the first wife, the legal one, and one with each of the others. In addition he has girlfriends of every age that he sees regularly and to whom he willingly lends not only a sensitive ear but a little sex if they need it. He’s a smooth operator, that’s the point. He has no money, he squandered Aunt Gianna’s inheritance distributing funds to women and offspring. He loses every job he finds and yet he gets by without the hardships of survival that I face. Why? Because the mothers of his kids are all well off, and even when they move on to other men they still consider him a kind boyfriend, a great father, so they remain a steady resource. You’d need to see him with the kids, they love him so much. Of course, now and again, he gets into trouble. Even for him it’s hard to maintain such a complicated web of affection, and so vicious wars flare up, among his women, to be exclusively his. But up until now he’s managed, and I know why. My brother is a fake. Fake even with himself. The reason he can spread his attention and consolation so effectively among so many women—often with moralistic advice that, coming from his mouth, sounds truly hypocritical—is that he knows perfectly how to mime every positive feeling without ever feeling a single one.
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