The Breaking of a Wave

by Fabio Genovesi

  The lady at the newsstand greets you, smiles, waits for you to tell her what you want, and it dawns on you that you don’t know; Luca didn’t tell you which paper to get him. But it doesn’t matter because everything’s sold out except a copy of the Gazzetta di Parma that had been delivered in the off-season by mistake.

  You buy it. Flashing a smile, you thank the traffic cop, who hasn’t budged. And only now do you see him. Only now do you realize that one of the guys is Mr. Mancini from the parent-teacher conference, the English teacher Luca likes so much.

  Come to think of it, you don’t dislike him either, and now he looks even better, in jeans and a faded shirt, with that air of someone who doesn’t have a thing on this planet to do. You smile, and he smiles back and waves, flapping his hand as if rather than nearby you were standing on a ship that was pulling away from a port at night, headed out into the dark sea forever.

  You look at him. What could you see in a guy like this? He’s neither handsome nor charming, and if he happens to be interesting he’s pretty good at hiding it behind that bewildered, baffled air of his. But the answer’s simple: you like him because you’re a fool. In fact, you’re better off giving men a wide berth, Serena. A party of one may be bad, but a party of two can be twice as bad. A lot of women fill their days with men just because they’re unsatisfied with their lives. But no one can enrich her life by adding just anything; you have to add something good. Take your mother for instance. She would dress everything in olive oil, and olive oil makes you want to puke. She used to boil carrots and drown them in oil. You’d get pissed and she’d say, “What are carrots supposed to taste like if I don’t add oil?” And you would try to explain to her that boiled carrots might not taste like much, but there’s no point in trying to improve them by dousing them with something that makes you retch. Yet you’d stop yourself midsentence, seeing as your mother wasn’t listening. She kept spreading her disgusting oil on top, trying to make those bland carrots taste like something, the way women waste their lives on imbeciles.

  But you resist. You have to resist. Who cares if you like this Mr. Mancini? Everyone in his rightful place, everyone cool.

  Still, you smile as you pass him to exit the newsstand. He replies, steps closer, extends his hand, withdraws it, doesn’t know what to do with either hand, and finally sticks both in his pockets.

  “Good evening,” he says. “What’s with the Gazzetta di Parma?”

  You hold the paper up and look at it. It’s not for you, you say.

  “Is your husband from Emilia?”

  “No, why?”

  “No reason. I have some friends in Parma and was just curious—”

  “You were curious to know whether one of your friends was my husband?”

  “No, no, I—”

  “Well, I don’t have a husband from Parma, or anywhere, if that’s what you wanted to know.”

  He raises his hand and shakes his head as if to say no, but then you smile, and his lips curl into something resembling a smile. Or palsy. He stares at the ground then looks back up at you, and the confusion wavering in those brown, average eyes of his stirs something inside you—confirmation that you, Serena, have to give men a really wide berth. Because you couldn’t care less about stable men who always have a handle on the situation. And men who always know what’s best and risk simplifying your life you find sad. But this guy here, this bewildered klutz standing in front of you, holding his arms as if they’d just been presented to him and he were searching for a place to set them down, this guy whose life is so clearly screwed up that it could easily rub off on yours, well, just what pressing reason could you have for liking him, and liking him so much?

  Maybe because, like him, you’re an idiot. Actually, strike “maybe.” Look at you, instead of jumping in your car and running off to church where your daughter’s waiting for you, you’re still here. Luckily, where your brain fails, your phone rushes in. It’s Gemma calling. Maybe you have to go back to the shop, maybe some nag has come in, the kind of customer who insists only you can dye her hair.

  “Excuse me a minute,” you say, as if the call had interrupted a conversation. “Hello?”

  “Serena, where are you?”

  “I’m on my way to church to see Luna. Why? Do you need something?”

  “No, no, just come home as soon as you can . . . I’ll be waiting outside your house.”

  “My house? Why? What happened?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all.” Her voice sounds weird, strained. “Just get here as soon as you can.”

  “Did you and Vincenzo have another fight?” Last month, her husband had taken up video poker again, and Gemma slept at yours. “What’s that moron done now?”

  “No, no, nothing.”

  “Then what are you doing at my place?”

  “ . . . ”

  “Gemma?”

  “All right, O.K., Vincenzo and I had a little fight.”

  “Ha, I knew it! Don’t worry, the gate’s unlocked and the keys are under the vase next to the kitchen entrance. Let yourself in, I’ll be there soon.”

  You hang up the phone and drop the paper. The teacher dives to pick it up. You thank him and look at him and there’s no need to say anything. Clearly you have to run. It’s so clear even he gets it.

  “Well, see you soon, I hope,” he says.

  “I hope so too.” You say it because you mean it, because it’s true. You say it because you’re a total fool.

  But now’s not the time to dwell on that. Now there’s a mess to clean up, and you’re excellent at cleaning up messes when they’re not yours. A minute ago you may have been clueless about the teacher, but with Gemma you’ve already drawn up a deft plan. You’ll run home, put the kettle on, and console her. You could do this for a living. All your friends seek you out when this stuff happens to them. They’re the reason you keep tea in the house. As far as you and the kids are concerned, tea is bitter black water.

  All around you the streets zigzag and unravel, utterly empty, while you drive fast in the direction of the church and Luna. You leave the car in the square, where you shouldn’t, but who cares. You enter. The church is empty. Maybe mass has ended already. Motherfucker.

  Wait, no, the priest is still talking. Only the worshippers are missing, except for the blue head of an old woman in front. And there’s Luna, partially obscured by the priest, standing next to him at the altar. You think to wave, but maybe that’s against the rules. Besides, she’s so far away she’d never see you.

  Her hair is pulled back, her skin whiter than usual underneath her black cap, but she does great: all earnest, answering the priest’s prayers, kneeling exactly at the right time—she’s a professional altar boy. And now you regret having missed the start of mass. As the priest winds down the Lamb of God prayer and starts talking about real lambs, about how intelligent sheep are, about a documentary on the miracle of wool, you stop listening and concentrate on your daughter.

  And in that darkness, trembling faintly with electric candlelight, in that mushroomlike warmth, amid the smell of old wood, something very strange happens. Suddenly your thoughts fade, your worries abate. Out of nowhere, you feel just fine.

  Sure, Gemma may have problems, but they’re her problems, and the mass will end shortly and you’ll go hug Luna tightly. Gemma can tell you everything when you get home, but not now. Now you take a breath and lean back. You make yourself comfortable on this stiff uncomfortable pew and let the muffled sounds of mass echo off the walls and inside you, as if nothing else existed, as if the world outside were a film everyone was talking about, and maybe one night you’d go see it, but not now. Not now.

  “At what point did you see me? At what point did you get there?”

  “I told you, at the beginning. I mean, not right at the beginning, but close,” you say, speeding home.

  “But why did you sit in the back? Yo
u could have sat up front.”

  “I didn’t want you getting all excited. I didn’t want you to flip out.”

  “I didn’t flip out.”

  “I know you didn’t. You did great. Actually, we should celebrate. I’m just sorry Gemma is waiting for us and needs consoling. Are you going to help me? Shall we console her together?”

  “I’m not sure I’m any good at consoling people.”

  “You’re my daughter, of course you’re good at it. It’s a curse, Luna. Remember that.”

  “Why a curse? Isn’t it a good thing?”

  “Yeah, sure, fantastic. Except everyone wants you to help them with their problems and no one ever pays a thought to yours, not even you.”

  “Ah, so I’ll try not to console too many people.”

  “Smart girl, give it a shot.”

  For a while you stop talking. And the feeling that came over you in church, that flush of well-being, still lingers inside you as you drive down the sunny streets lined with pine trees.

  “Why’s Lady Gemma sad?”

  “She had a fight with her husband.”

  “Again? Why are they together if they fight all the time?”

  “Beats me.”

  “What are they fighting about this time?”

  You don’t answer. You don’t know. You don’t care much either. Besides, you’ll be home shortly and Gemma will tell you everything. And even if tonight she’s sad, you have to celebrate all the same, because Luna deserves it. You do too, a little. And Luca will be back tomorrow, and the day after that you’ll all celebrate together. You don’t know what time he’s getting back. Nor does he, probably. And yet you want to know, right now. Crazy as it sounds, you want to know the exact hour and minute.

  Instead you start to sense something else, something strange inside you that has bypassed your head. It passes your throat, your heart, the invisible holes in your skin, and by some mysterious route enters your bloodstream. Your breathing becomes labored, you sweat, Luna asks you something but you can’t hear her. All you can sense is this thing gripping your insides and spreading, crowding everything out, even the air that struggles to get in, and shortening your breath. It constricts your throat, extinguishes your voice.

  You turn onto the narrow cul-de-sac no one but you lives on. But now there are three cars parked out front. Make that four. Too many. And people outside, a carabinieri jeep, an ambulance. And Gemma, who sees you and starts walking over . . .

  You stop driving. You take your foot off the gas, let go of the clutch, and place both hands on the steering wheel. The car trudges along for a minute, hiccupping forward, and then stalls and sputters out. And here come Miss Gemma and another lady from the neighborhood alongside the carabinieri.

  “What’s going on, Mom? Are they really taking you to jail?”

  Luna’s voice trembles as she asks, trembles, and then she cries.

  You, on the other hand, smile. Actually you laugh. And you nod, yes. Yes, that’s it! They’re taking you to jail for kicking someone at school. Two people, actually, and one of them a little boy. Of course! They’re taking you to jail. That’s why they’re looking for you. That’s fair, yes, totally fair.

  By now the people are surrounding the car. You roll up the windows, lock the doors. Luna looks both ways. You don’t know how well she can see outside, if she can see the faces mouthing for her to open up, to get out of the car, the dark shapes of the carabinieri saying, “Make room! Make room!” All you know is that your daughter is crying. A moment ago she was standing next to the priest at mass, and you were watching her, happily, and now she’s crying, and nothing about this is fair, and you shake your head and you shout, “Go away! Go away! Shut up and go away! Go away! Nothing happened! Nothing happened!”

  When in fact.

  PART 2

  Maybe it’s the music of the sea

  that stirs your heart while you stand by.

  All ships return and you don’t want to.

  What bitter tears are shed, are shed by you.

  —NICOLA NISA SALERNO

  HAD YOU BEEN ASKED BEFORE WHAT PAIN WAS

  Had you been asked before what pain was, you would have said some vicious beast that swoops down and slashes you, bites you, tears you limb from limb. And that would have been bullshit.

  Because that’s not pain, Serena. At most that’s a monster in a scary movie. But what could you have known about it. You’ve seen plenty of movies, but as for real pain, you’ve never felt that before.

  It saturates your life. Wait, no, you don’t have a life, pain is your life, and now you know it doesn’t swoop down on you like some beast. Pain’s in no hurry. It advances so slowly that for a while you look around, confused, and wonder, “Well, where is it?” And it keeps creeping closer and closer until it pounces, and by the time it reaches you it’s beyond escaping. Monsters in movies climb through a window or pop out from under the bed or behind a gravestone, and you have a shot at escaping, you slip into the woods and run as far as you can, then turn to see if it’s behind you. You trip and fall, get back up, start running again, limp off to who knows where, and you run and scream because it keeps getting closer and closer, until that last horrible scream when it’s got you and in a minute it’s all over.

  Real pain doesn’t emerge from a particular place. It engulfs you, like the sea at high tide, deep and dark and full of towering waves coming at you from all directions. The current carries you, a little here, a little there, then a bigger wave comes crashing on top of you and pulls you underwater, and you can’t breathe and you don’t know where you are anymore, or up from down, or what these soft, slithery things are, fastening onto your wrists and legs and dragging you under. So you surrender, sinking down endlessly, and everything spins faster and slower at the same time. In your ears you hear your heart beating slowly and you stop breathing, and just as you’re about to drown, the wave settles and you find yourself with your head above water, breathing, still here, wherever here may be. You look around for something to hold onto but there’s no point, the bulge of another dark wave is mounting, blacking out everything, and soon you’ll be dragged under again as the sea tightens its embrace, constricting your throat, crushing your chest, driving you downward.

  The same sea took Luca away, the very same dark waters made your son disappear, waters so vast his friends hardly realized what had happened. Only later did they notice his blue-and-red board and paddle over. The leash strapped to his ankle was attached to the board yet Luca was still underwater. The doctors found nothing, no bruises, no injuries, no drugs or alcohol in his system. They declared it a natural death. A seventeen-year-old boy (eighteen that day), tall, strong, in perfect shape—how the hell could they call his death natural?

  He’d never had any issues, never once been sick. When you or Luna came down with a cold—and during winter Luna has a permanent cold—Luca would ask what we meant by a stuffy nose, what it was like to blow your nose and feel mucus drain from your body, because he’d never, not once, had a cold. Then how can you imagine Luca playing in the sea with his friends and all of a sudden, poof, he’s extinguished, and they find him hooked to his surfboard but still underwater, his green eyes open, staring up at the sky above. How can you call that natural. It’s as if, as if . . . you grope for something comparable, something as crazy or terrifying, but come up short. All you feel is the sea mounting once more, dragging you down, deeper and deeper.

  You try to rise but once again the blankets are too heavy this morning; they pin you to the bed and you lie there staring at the ceiling. You don’t know what time it is, but the light cutting through the slats would suggest it’s at least eleven. You prefer the rain, listening to the patter of water on the roof; it makes it easier to stay in bed, listening, waiting for tomorrow. You sit up, slide your legs out from under the blanket, and feel for the floor with your feet, but it seems like an impossible height to cli
mb down from, so you turn your head and lie back down again. Maybe your low blood pressure is to blame, all those liquids and pills you take to calm down or perk up—you don’t know which and it hardly matters.

  Just lie back down, close your eyes, and wait for the light to fade from the curtains, for the arrival of another night, your favorite part of the day, since no one is shocked you’re in bed. Except it’s morning now and according to the rest of the world you should be on your feet.

  But what the hell do you care what the rest of the world thinks? I mean, it matters a little bit, a little, a bright white bit called Luna, and if she weren’t here you could easily . . . you could even up and . . . who knows, you don’t know that, you know nothing. Besides, Luna is here, so it makes no sense to think about what you would do were she not.

  All that makes sense is for you to get up, get dressed, go shopping, greet everyone on the street and not give a damn about the pained looks they give you while they inquire how you are, buy something to eat, and return home to prepare lunch for Luna before she goes back to school.

  Yes, school is back in session today. You hadn’t realized. Luna woke up early and brought you breakfast in bed and your medicine. You asked her what she was doing awake and dressed so early, and she answered that she was going to school, and the whole thing seemed ridiculous to you. How can Luca be dead and school start again? How can the bus pick up the kids, one by one, and how can they board the bus, the nerds up front and the troublemakers in back, and laugh and poke fun and throw things at one another, if Luca is dead? Are the teachers really there opening their roll books and taking attendance and beginning a new school year if Luca is dead?

  No, it’s not possible.

  In fact that is exactly what keeps the pain at bay at first, the fact that it is simply not possible.

  That afternoon in March, the last day your world existed, you returned home with Luna, everyone gathered together, and Gemma told you what happened to Luca, that one moment he was in the water with his friends and the next they didn’t see him anymore, only his board floating and . . . and then you covered your face with your hands, you stayed that way a minute, and then you removed them, looked at everyone staring mutely at you and broke into laughter.