Yet his students must not know that. He has been giving guitar lessons since his college days; every kid in the area gets his start in Maestro Sandro’s room. That’s what he tells them to call him: maestro. He knows it’s pathetic and, technically speaking, untrue, but it keeps the kids in check. As do his stories about playing gigs in London back in the day, when in fact he’s never been to London because he’s scared of flying. You heard it here, an English teacher who’s never been to London and a maestro who can’t play music. But bullshitting is a requirement, because if the kids raise their heads, if they dare to look the facts in the face—even for a minute—they’ll see immediately how third-rate their maestro is. Because this kid here, who started taking lessons last month and has played the same pentatonic scale nonstop, must not imagine for a second that after over a quarter century Sandro would have a hard time playing it this smoothly and accurately.
But it’s out of his hands, it’s only a matter of time. Sooner or later the terrible moment comes when the boy lifts his head and looks at him the same way this kid just looked at him, sucking back his saliva, saying, “Sorry, Maestro, I tried to do some things on my own at home. I know you told me not to, but there was a how-to on the Internet for the ‘Master of Puppets’ solo. I tried following along but I’m not sure I’ve got it right. Can I play it for you a second?”
Sandro doesn’t even say yes. He doesn’t do anything except lean back against the wall behind the bed and brace himself. Happens every time. If it’s not Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” than it’s Ozzy Osbourne’s “Miracle Man” or “Rust in Peace” by Megadeth or another of the thousand killer anthems Sandro has tried to play for years and ultimately filed under “Things That Are Humanly Impossible.”
But as this kid demonstrates, they’re far from impossible. Two months he’s been playing with a third-rate teacher yet he attacks the solo, his fingers fly across the strings and, aside from a little drool, the whole thing comes out perfect and fast, just like the original. When he’s finished, Sandro will say good job and then go on to explain that it’s not his style, he isn’t the maestro for him, and he’ll hand him the number of a guy named Manuel who teaches in Viareggio. For every student Sandro sends on, Manuel buys Sandro a beer.
He’s done it a thousand times; one more shouldn’t be so tough. But this time he starts to think of Luca and it is tough. Luca didn’t know him well enough or long enough to see him the way this kid has seen him. Or maybe he did. Maybe just before he fell, before he sank to the bottom, before he closed his eyes forever under the weight of the ocean, Luca thought of him, saw his reflection in that dark water, and understood who Sandro Mancini really was, what mettle he was made of, how sad his life was. From a thousand miles away he, too, for a moment, had given Sandro that same look, his eyes filled with salt water, foam, and disappointment.
GHOST HOUSE
It’s really hot out today. It was the first day of school and everyone was wearing short sleeves, apart from me since I have to protect my arms from the sun, and apart from Zot, who has on a fur-lined hat and a wool jacket buttoned to the collar.
I mean really, he comes from Russia, you’d think heat here would kill him. But maybe the place he comes from is an unusual place and nothing like Russia. In fact, Mom once asked him where he was from. He said he was Russian and she smiled. Then he told her he came from Chernobyl and she covered her nose and mouth, gave him this really scared look, and began backing up, dragging her daughter away by the arm. Maybe Chernobyl is a weird place, and Zot is even weirder. Not to say other people count for normal. Nowadays nothing’s normal. For the past six months not one normal thing has happened. What normal looks like I can hardly remember.
Regardless, we walk home together because for us the bus is dangerous. Not on the way to school. Everyone is tired then and leaves us in peace. But on the return trip we’re better off on foot. We walk slowly toward my house, since Zot wants to see Mom. This summer he came over and said, “Good morning, Miss,” and she smiled but only with her mouth. She didn’t look up at him or even warn him that if he calls her “Miss” again she’ll crack his skull open. Yet he still wants to come back.
“She’s the same as when you saw her last.”
“Fine by me, Luna.”
“She might not even say hi.”
“Not a problem, I’ll say hi to her. It pleases me to see her, and in my opinion, it pleases her too.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Oh, yes, yes, definitely! Were you not happy to see me this morning?”
He asks and I don’t answer. As a matter of fact I was, but I can’t manage to say I’m happy anymore. I don’t even know whether it’s right to be happy. I keep my mouth shut and walk straight ahead. That’s just how things are now. Over these last crappy months I’ve been totally clueless. Everything happens at random and I don’t get why. I just watch it happen.
Six months is a lot of months. That’s twenty-four weeks, almost two hundred days during which people around the world have woken up and gone to work or around town or wherever they feel like, and then returned home and eaten dinner and watched TV and fallen asleep only to do it all over again the next morning. Airplanes have taken off, ships floated in all sorts of weird places, spring come and gone, school ended. Somehow I even advanced to the next grade. Then summer came and now that’s nearly over too. In fact, school has started up again. A lot has happened in the last six months.
But not for Mom and me.
Nothing happens to us anymore, nothing exists any longer, not even the days. We eat when we remember to and sleep when sleep comes over us, without saying, “I’m going to bed.” One minute we’re awake, the next we’re not. In bed I hear the sound of the sea growing mad, like it’s calling me, asking, “Luna, why don’t you visit me anymore? Don’t you want my gifts anymore?” No, I don’t. I don’t want any more sticks or dirty broken stuff that serves no purpose. Instead of giving me all that junk the sea could have saved my brother.
But the sea isn’t the only place I’ve stopped going. I don’t go anywhere anymore. In six months I’ve left the backyard a total of three times, for checkups at the hospital. Miss Gemma takes me, and after the checkups she always asks if I want to get ice cream or poke my head into a store, but all I want is to go back home to Mom and lie down next to her in the dark and stare into empty space.
Except this morning I went out. School reopened and like all the other kids I went. Not that I had a choice. I just woke up and went, even though I don’t have the books and have become unused to people passing by and talking really loudly, to all this light, this really glaring light, light everywhere. Except here, I think, as Zot turns left onto a dark narrow street that I never take. And don’t want to take now.
“Not that way. This way, Zot. Come on.”
“Why?”
“We’ll get there quicker.”
“But I have to stop at home for a second to tell my grandfather I’m going over to your place. Then we can go.”
“Fine, whatever, but let’s not take this street.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s that house,” I say. And I think of that house at the end of the street, sort of surrounded by a forest. They call it Ghost House. The name alone makes my voice tremble. But Zot doesn’t listen. Without turning back, he heads down the dark street, and I follow pretty far behind him. You can already see those tall, dark trees down there splayed with branches that hide the house.
One time Grandpa told me about this night during World War II when he saw five people hanged there, swinging from a pine tree. I asked if they had killed themselves or if someone else had done it, and Grandpa said that the Germans did it, that during the war you fought to survive every day—there was no time to kill yourself.
Another time this lady whose hair my mother cut told me that one night, around dinnertime, she was walking by the place
when she heard a noise. She turned toward the woods and saw an old woman with a shovel burying something, or someone, there in the middle of the woods.
Story or no story, the sight of Ghost House is enough to freak anyone out. The neighboring houses are all new, huge, cream-colored. Their owners only come for August but the houses look tidy all the same: the grass is neatly cut and the yards have zero trees in them or at most a few palm trees, since palm trees don’t make a mess. Ghost House, on the other hand, disappears behind a forest of thick, crooked trees that look like they’re about to fall over. Probably the only reason they’re standing is because they lean against one another, intertwined and tangled up, and underneath there are brambles and thorns and it’s always dark, even now, at lunchtime, and I’d rather run past it and not stop till I’ve reached home.
Zot doesn’t run. On the contrary, he actually stops in front of it. He walks up to the rusty gate and peers in. After a minute he opens it and I swear he enters and begins to make his way through the haunted woods.
“Zot, what are you doing? Are you crazy? Get out of there! Run!”
“I told you. I have to tell my grandfather I’m going to your place!”
I just look at him, stunned. It’s not possible. Of all places, Zot lives here at Ghost House! I stop in the middle of the street. I can’t believe it.
“Come on, Luna,” he shouts, halfway there. I shake my head briskly and hang back by the gate, above which hangs a sign written in large letters on a piece of wood, as clear as can be:
BUZZER BROKEN. DON’T RING. GO AWAY.
“Come on, Luna, are you scared?”
“No. But I’ll just wait back here.”
“All right, but if you’re scared, I should point out that the gate is the most dangerous spot. That’s where the rifle is aimed,” he says, disappearing into the overgrowth.
I look around. I can hardly see a thing but I hear a lot of weird noises and a sharp crack that could either be Zot stepping on a branch or a rifle being cocked. So I grab hold of the bars of the gate, breathe deep and take the plunge. I can’t believe it. Here I am, in the woods of Ghost House, branches crisscrossing around me, and I put my hands out to feel my way forward.
“Zot! Are there dangerous animals here?”
“No,” he says in the dark. “Just snakes and spiders.”
I swear that’s what he says—snakes and spiders. I get stuck and try pushing aside the branches using just two fingers. I’m really scared. Like I was when I entered this place, and like this morning when I left home and freaked out about the road, school, whether or not the teachers would ask to see the homework we did over break, when I didn’t even take a break, never mind do the homework for break. And now I’m scared to return home and find Mom still lying in the dark, or in the bathroom crying softly on the toilet, and when I get there and greet her, she startles, as if I were a robber.
The same thing happened this morning when I picked up my backpack and told her I was going to school. She didn’t answer, yet I know it was the most ridiculous thing in the world to her. Luca’s dead. Why go to school? Why leave the house? So you can be frightened by snakes and spiders?
Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I’m stupid or cruel, since I continue to disobey her, and some things scare me and other things I still like. I keep shaking as I push the branches with my fingers, as a cobweb lands in my face. And past the trees I actually leap in the air when this phlegmy cry comes out of nowhere. “Hands up, bastards! Hands up! Prepare to meet your maker!”
“Hold it, Grandfather. It’s me!” says Zot, even if his arms are up too.
“Ah. And who’s the old lady?”
“She’s not an old lady. She’s in my class.”
“What’s with the white hair?”
“She was born that way, Grandfather. Her name is Luna. I told her to come.”
“That was a mistake.”
“Sorry, Grandfather.”
“I’m not your grandfather. And sorry cuts no muster!”
Zot nods, then turns to me. “Don’t be fooled by his uncouth words, Luna. Grandfather is actually an exquisite person.”
Could be, but I keep my hands up anyhow, stock-still save for my heart beating in my throat. From inside come the sounds of wood and iron, some swear words about the Virgin Mary, and the click, clack, and click of the door opening, just a bit, then the phlegmy voice again, saying, “Get in. Quick.”
Zot runs inside but no way am I going in there. I hang back, unsure what to do, until someone grabs me and tosses me inside. Inside Ghost House.
What a stink of old rugs, old clothes left for years in drawers, of wet dog and rainfall from two or three winters ago. I take my dark glasses off and see a table with two plates on top, possibly broken, a fridge with the door missing, and in the corner, at the window, Zot’s grandfather stealing another glance outside.
He has on plastic slippers, pajama bottoms, and a tank top so baggy and beat-up he might as well be shirtless. On his head is a blue beret with something written on it I can’t read. Oh right, and a rifle in his hand.
He shuts the window and looks at us. Strike that. Just at me, with a face covered in deep scarlike wrinkles and a puckered mouth, like he’d just bitten into a lemon.
“Where do you come from, white stuff? You radioactive too?”
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, you from Chernobyl too?”
“No sir, I’m from here. But I’m albino. It has to do with genetics, which means—”
“I know what it means. One time there was this albino pheasant up in the mountains above Sillano. Totally white, even its beak. All winter we tried to nab her, but she was white as snow. Now you see her, now you don’t. Normal pheasants we picked off gradually, but the albino pheasant got through winter unscathed.” He rests his rifle against the wall and turns toward me. I nod and smile a little at how beautiful this story about the white pheasant is.
“How many years ago was that, sir? Is it still up in the mountains?”
“What’s that?”
“The white pheasant. Is it still where you said it was?”
“Please. Once winter was over, the snow melted, and the white pheasant shone in the woods like a lightbulb. We found her in a field. She tried to fly away but we shot her. The second shot took her head off, and she caught six total, one after another. She was so mangled we couldn’t eat her. Practically never hit the ground. She exploded in the air, rest her soul.”
I stop nodding and try to smile a little more but can’t.
“So, are you two boyfriend-girlfriend?” Zot’s grandfather asks, standing with his back against the wall and the rifle set on the floor like a cane.
“No!” I blurt. “We go to school together!”
“Well, whatever, listen carefully all the same. I’m going to teach you something important. People say that shacking up together is a scam, that it’s only good at the beginning, that the first two or three months are rosy but then it turns into a living hell. But that’s a lie. Don’t believe them . . . Not even the early days are rosy. Shacking up together is pain, period, from day one to the end of days. Got it?”
“Yes,” I say, “but we just go to school together.”
“Got it or not?”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“Good, that takes care of that. And knock it off with this grandfather nonsense. I’m not your grandfather. I’m Ferruccio. My friends call me Ferro, so you can call me Ferruccio. See, this gets back to my original point. I was just fine here on my own. I minded my own business and no one was around to hassle me. Then one day my dimwit daughter shows up and carries on about how she just has to have a kid from the Chernobyl Project. Chernobyl? No goddamn way, I told her. No goddamn way am I letting a Russian into my house. And a radioactive one at that! And she says to me, ‘No, Daddy, this kid is really sweet a
nd well behaved. I swear I’ll take care of him all by myself.’ Idiot thought he was a puppy. Understand? Eventually they really did ship this kid here. Only by then she’d forgotten all about him and left for Spain to go work in a bar with a friend twice as dumb. And who gets pinned with the radioactive kid?” asks Mr. Ferro. “This fool here gets pinned with him, this fool here.” He twists his arm around as if to indicate he’d done it all by himself.
“I am very sorry, Grandfather. But I am not radioactive.”
“That’s what you say. And even if you’re not, the fact is you’re still a pain in the ass. And Russian. Christ, I have to stand guard 24/7 to keep them out, and they send a spy into my house. You people really are the devil. All those years you fed us that load of crap about the Soviet Union. I believed in it. We all believed in it, Maremma Cane. That you were thriving and happy and everyone—worker and doctor alike—was equal. That you didn’t care about money, that money was driving us all bonkers because we were stoned on capitalism. We held demonstrations. We held gatherings for the Party. And what did we get? Shit all, that’s what. A limp turd is what we got. Meanwhile you were waiting for the right moment, and as soon as we came to a bad—and I mean bad—end, you guys showed up and all of a sudden you were made of money, with your gold shoes and helicopters. You took away the country. Shitheads that we are, we sold it to you. But not me. With me it won’t be pretty. You won’t get my land, you hear me? None of it!”
The Breaking of a Wave Page 13