The Breaking of a Wave

by Fabio Genovesi

  Rambo might not go so far as to spit on customers, but he comes close. That’s just how he is. He blows his top easily. He foams with rage when people come in at sunup looking for the paper before it’s arrived, or in the evening when he’s sold out, or ask for a copy of Corriere della Sera—not today’s but yesterday’s—or La Repubblica without the insert, or the insert without La Repubblica. In the end Rambo goes berserk, and if some out-of-towner asks if he happens to stock Yachting, he starts yelling at him to pay his taxes and sends him running for the door. Once, when a notary from Florence purchased Beautiful Homes and asked for a ten-cent discount, Rambo responded that the guy’s wife was giving discounts in the alley out back.

  Since then, his parents man the register full time, his dad in the morning and his mom in the afternoon. After a lifetime of working, they’d bought the newsstand thinking they’d no longer have to worry about their son. Now they work even harder than before. And all they ask of Rambo is to steer clear of the shop, a job he’d excelled at until today, when he dropped by on his way to the shooting range and froze upon spotting those two old bastards with the King of Porcini.

  “Let’s crash this thing and stir shit up,” he says.

  “I can’t, I’m on duty,” says Marino, his blue uniform big as a bathrobe.

  “Me neither. I have homework to grade.”

  “Not now. Tonight, at the meeting, in front of everyone! We’ll show up and tell people what really went down.”

  “Who’s going to believe us? We have no proof,” Marino snivels.

  “Actually, I got off a shot of the mushroom,” says Sandro. It’s true, he’d taken a photo to send to Luca. “It’s hard to make out but you can see it.”

  “Attaboy, Sandro, that’s the mother of all proof! We’ll take that to Seravezza and rip them a new one. Come on, let’s go get it blown-up poster-size and—”

  “But I’m on duty.”

  “And I’ve got homework to grade.”

  “You guys are a couple of limp turds,” says Rambo, slamming the paper on the ground. Just then an old lady exits the newsstand, loses her balance, and almost falls over. Rambo rushes to her aid, catches her, and holds her steady.

  “Oh dear, thank you, son. My knee gave out.”

  “No worries, ma’am, it happens.”

  “It does when you’re my age. Getting old is awful, boys. Enjoy yourselves while you’re young and carefree. Happiness dwindles.”

  “We’ll try, lady.”

  “Then again, did you see those two men from Seravezza? We might be old but we’re a lot tougher than the next generation.”

  The lady says so and then nods approvingly at her own remark, seeing as the three boys don’t. She takes a few more tentative steps, grabs hold of a tricycle with a basket in back, and struggles to straddle it.

  She pushes it to the curb and stops to check for cars, even though it’s the off-season and she could cross the road with her eyes closed. Hell, if she wanted to, she could lay a blanket in the middle of the road and eat lunch there. But just when she’s finally made up her mind to blast off, a jeep comes tearing down the coastal road, honks, starts to brake, swerves into the other lane, and just brushes past her, then continues on its way, delivering a few fuck-yous with its horn.

  The lady doesn’t even notice. She looks down, checks to see if her tires have enough air in them, then leisurely rides away.

  Rambo picks Il Tirreno off the ground and smooths it out with his hand. “Pity.”

  BROTHER OCTOPUS AND SISTER FLY

  The tires of the Graziella are flat. As usual. They’ve got holes and need replacing, but her husband says they’re old is all, they may lose a little air but as long as he pumps them up every morning, they’ll do.

  Maybe so. But now they’re flat, and Ines pedals with difficulty, late for 5 o’clock mass and taking the long way round to boot. She usually passes by the little square with the grocer’s and the mobile center, but not when she’s on her way to church. Because the mobile center used to be a bakery, and if she passes by there, she’ll start thinking about the summer of 1952 when she was twenty-two and her husband was still her boyfriend and had gone to work in Emilia for a roofing company so that he could come back with money to burn and they could get married.

  While she waited for him back home, she gave her mother a hand with her needlework, and every day that summer—every single day, without fail—right after lunch Ines would go to the bakery, knock gently on the shutters, and the baker’s assistant would lead her to the back of the shop where they’d make love.

  His name was Luigi. A rail-thin kid from Liguria, he didn’t talk much, but she was crazy about him nonetheless. The day they met she had shown up late to buy a loaf of bread and it was just the two of them in the bakery. He handed her the bread and dropped the change on the counter, and as Ines collected her coins Luigi snatched up her hand and told her, “Come back at two, I’ll make you feel good.” Just like that. Ines still remembers every word, the serious look on his face, the way his lips curled slightly on one side when he’d stopped talking. She remembers the way she answered him too, abruptly and out of breath and implausibly: “All right. Till then.”

  It went on like that all summer, every day at two, even on Sundays. Then Luigi went back to Liguria, her boyfriend returned from Emilia and by October became her husband, and for the next sixty years of Ines’s life nothing that intense had ever happened again, perhaps nothing at all had happened to her. To this day, when she passes by the square on her bike, those blistering, sweaty post-lunch trysts come back to her and she can feel his hands on her, how they held her tight, how they let her slip away. She doesn’t mind thinking about it. Some days she passes by there on purpose. Some days she pedals really slowly just to linger a moment longer.

  But not on her way to mass. No sir, not then. Even if her tires are flat, even if she’s running late, Ines takes the long route by way of the avenue, arrives at the church, locks her bike to a tree, and goes in.

  She hopes that the cool dark will help her forget the heat of those hands, that the smell of wax and old wood will carry away the smell of wet flour, sweat, and all those things that may be wrong yet feel so miraculous.

  “Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?”

  Father Ermete had been so happy. No one had come to church and he could skip the 5 o’clock mass and return to the sacristy. Then we heard these soft taps that turned out to be the footsteps of a lady who’d just walked in. The Father looked up to the heavens, consulted with the Lord, then with me. “Put your cap on, Luna, we’re getting started.”

  I nodded so hard I felt dizzy a minute, since I was as happy as he was sad to see that lady arrive. For the last year I’d asked him why girls can’t serve mass, and for a while his only answer was, “Because.” Then he figured out that that was no kind of answer for me, so Father Ermete told me that girls can’t serve because the Gospel says so. Only that turned out to be untrue. Luca and I divvied up the Gospel and read the whole thing. Well, we might have skipped a few parts that clearly had nothing to do with it, like the end, when they put Jesus on the cross. It was pretty unlikely that between getting whipped and being stabbed in the chest Jesus would stop and say, “Oh, I almost forgot, make sure girls don’t serve mass, would you?” Anyway, Jesus never said such a thing, not on the cross, not ever.

  “You sure about that?” said Father Ermete.

  “Yep.”

  “Weird. Maybe it’s in the Old Testament.”

  So we started reading that too, and meanwhile every Sunday the altar was swarmed by altar boys fighting over who got to serve mass, since the one who’d served the most masses by Christmas would win a “beautiful prize.” Then the other day Father Ermete let slip that the prize is a statue of the Virgin covered in seashells. The next mass, he found himself alone. Ditto the one after that and the one after that and so on till today, when I ran
into him in the square on my way to the beach and he told me, “Luna, I’m still convinced girls can’t serve mass, and Jesus would agree, but if you come serve at five o’clock today, we’ll both turn a blind eye.”

  And I’m so happy I’m shaking. True, it’s not an important mass, but it’s a start. And seeing as it’s just me, I get to handle everything: the chalice, the communion plate, the bell, the tray, the cruet for water, the cruet for wine. Even collecting alms, although clearly there won’t be many today, since I might not see very well from a distance and the church may be dark, but all the pews and the seats on the sides and in back look empty to me. There’s just this lady, a black streak with a bit of white on top, and I want to tell her thanks, I want to ask her her name and tell her it’s beautiful even if it’s ugly, because she’s the reason I get to serve mass.

  Mom should be on her way as well. I called her first thing and she said she was leaving the shop and coming to see me. But maybe there are too many customers and she can’t get away. Maybe she forgot. I don’t know. All that matters now is that this lady showed up. Otherwise the church would be empty and Father Ermete would have run off to the rectory to watch his documentaries.

  They’re his real passion. He talks about them all the time. Because even if the documentaries tell the story of the lives of millions of plants and animals, in his opinion they all say the same thing: God exists. Beavers chop down trees and build perfect dams, therefore God exists. Migratory birds have compasses in their heads that guide them from one continent to another, therefore God exists. Whales talk to each other by singing this song that’s so loud you can hear it from one side of the ocean to the other. Therefore God exists.

  In fact, as at every other mass, Father Ermete begins with the normal prayers and psalms and then five minutes later launches into his fixation.

  “Everyone here admires buildings, admires skyscrapers,” he says, even though he’s talking to just one person. “Paintings and sculptures you find extraordinary, though they are very simple creations. But when you walk down the street you take no notice of the heavenly perfection to be found in . . . in a leaf, for example. When in fact you should know that nature herself is the most awe-inspiring building, the most remarkable painting. Not for nothing did Saint Francis love nature. You know, I’ll let you in on a little secret: had television existed in his day, you can be sure Saint Francis would have loved documentaries. Did you know that fireflies use light to make other fireflies fall in love with them? And bees? Shucks, bees are at least ten or twenty miracles put together. Last night I was watching a documentary on flies—our dear brethren—flies! Say you’re standing around admiring a sculpture and while you’re distracted, you crush some fly that’s bothering you. What you don’t realize is that no sculpture in the world can hold a candle to the miracle that is the fly. Not to mention dragonflies. Not to mention . . . ”

  And he goes on this way, no readings, nothing that the missal says you should say. But pretty soon we’ll get to the most important part, where I have to go to the sacristy all by myself and fetch the chalices and the host, and I really hope by the time I get back Mom will have arrived.

  Maybe she’s just finishing combing a customer’s hair or running a few errands for Miss Gemma. There’s still time. Father Ermete has moved on from flies and is now talking about octopi, and when he starts talking octopi it means there’s at least a half hour to go.

  “Did you know that octopi can open cans? Did you know octopi change color a hundred times faster than chameleons? Did you know octopi latch onto fishing nets and pretend to be dead, and when a fish swims by—bam!—they pounce.”

  Therefore God exists.

  WHEN IN FACT

  1:59 P.M.: Hey pretty mamma, how are you? How’s my sister? It’s colder this morning but the waves are perfect. Could you pick up today’s paper for me? Don’t work too hard, don’t get angry, and tell Luna she’s a dork. (Then tell her I’m just kidding.) Don’t forget the paper. L.

  Five minutes. Had Luca’s text arrived just five minutes earlier, you could have bought the paper on your lunch break. Instead you had a ham sandwich, drank a coffee, smoked a cigarette, had another coffee, and your phone didn’t go off until after Miss Minetti walked in for her dye job and began enumerating for you how much she hates her sister-in-law.

  You had just enough time to tell her you had to go pee, then ran to the bathroom, took your notebook out of your purse, and copied out Luca’s message.

  It’s become a habit since he left. Every time he sends you a text from France you copy it out in this notebook along with the date and time. Maybe you’re doing it for him. Read all together, they form a kind of diary, and he may not appreciate it now, but in a few years he’ll be glad to reread the things he wrote on his first trip with friends.

  And if he doesn’t, then you can keep these messages for yourself. You’ve read them so many times you know them by heart. Some are really amazing and others a bit more practical, like this one about the paper, which is really peculiar. Luca never reads the paper nor shows any interest in the news on TV. Every so often, when the closing music kicks in after the weather report, he asks you, “Anything happen anywhere?” You shake your head and he goes back to doing the mysterious things he does in his room. So if today he’s asking for the paper that means you have to find a copy.

  Easier said than done. On your lunch break maybe, but at 5 o’clock the newsstand next door has sold out. During the summer they’re flooded with copies. They even carry regional papers from the mid-north for out-of-towners keen on keeping abreast of what’s happening back home. Then in the winter the distributors stop delivering papers altogether. They figure no one’s left in Forte dei Marmi, and even if some savages have stayed behind and are living in the pine groves or under bridges, there’s no way those animals can read.

  The newsstand downtown, the biggest around, might have something left. And so, even if Luna’s serving mass for the first time and you’re already running late, you take a slight detour and stop there. Besides, you’ve never been able to say no to Luca. What are the chances you’re going to start on his birthday?

  Today he comes of age. Your son is turning eighteen and, as with any mother, that fact has a strange effect on you. Only you have the opposite reaction. Most mothers are taken aback to see their son become a man. In their minds, he’ll always be a kid. What surprises you is that Luca’s only now officially an adult. Luca was born an adult. He was eighteen when he was five. And now that he’s turned eighteen he could be your father. Easy.

  But what’s there to say, Luca is turning eighteen and not being able to hug him on his birthday feels strange. So what if he’ll be back tomorrow? It’s not the same. And although you’re happy he’s happy and having lots of fun, when he gets back, there’ll be no escaping. He got his week with friends, now he has to spend the next one with you and Luna, and tell you all about it, every little thing, from morning to night, until he’s talked so much he loses his voice.

  In the meantime, you have to hurry. The mass has started and you want to see your daughter up at the altar, and she wants to see you down in the pews.

  You’ve almost made it, and the nice thing about this place in the off-season is that you won’t waste a minute looking for a parking spot or waiting behind anybody else to buy the paper. But now you’re stopped by a traffic light, which couldn’t care less about what’s going on around it. It doesn’t care if the intersection is dead silent, if no one’s driven past in a week. It stays red for a certain number of minutes and you have to sit there. Humanity has razed mountains, mastered the skies, conquered the moon—why should you submit to a red light? You don’t know, but you can’t cross, you shouldn’t. Those fucking cameras are there, watching, spying on you. Only by some miracle do you manage to make it to the end of the month with all the regular bills and expenses. You can’t afford another ticket. To calm yourself down, you take out the notebook w
ith Luca’s messages and reread a favorite.

  9:19 P.M.: Hey pretty mamma, today it was sunny. No wind, no waves. Instead of surfing I swam. There’s this huge wood shack on the beach covered with palm branches. You’d love it. And it’s perfect for Luna to sit in the shade. All three of us could hang out there morning to night. Maybe one day, if we have the money, we can come here together. I think we c—

  Drrring! Drrring!

  You’re interrupted by a weak, rickety noise from another planet. Someone in front of you is ringing a bicycle bell. You only realize what’s going on when a voice shrieks, “Lane! Lane!”

  A tricycle is heading toward you, trying to squeeze between your car and the curb even though there’s no room. Ines, a friend of your mother’s, and like your mother, a total bitch. She could easily pass on the other side of the street but instead keeps pedaling in the wrong direction, driving a wedge between you and the curb. You swing around, flip her the finger, park the car halfway on the curb, and run for the newsstand.

  You pass three guys arguing, one dressed like a traffic cop. Great, all you need now is a ticket. “Don’t look at my car,” you shout, “it’s parked illegally but I’ll be out of here in no time. Don’t pull any fast ones or I’ll be pissed!”