The Breaking of a Wave

by Fabio Genovesi

  “Can I give you a hand?” he says, his voice not too high, his tone convincing, the trace of a smile across his lips. In other words, nothing is wanting. Except for a reply from Serena, who doesn’t even look his way.

  “They stock the most ridiculous stuff at the Autogrill, don’t they?”

  “ . . . ”

  “I mean, what the hell would somebody traveling on the highway want with a whole leg of prosciutto, for example? Or a huge wedge of Parmesan? Or a satellite dish or a baton—Do you think anybody buys this stuff?”

  Serena doesn’t answer but for a second she looks at him with her mesmerizing eyes and lifts the corners of her lips into something that, if you wanted to think positively, you might take for a smile. And we have to shoot for maximum positivity, on par with his friend Marino that time he came the closest he ever would to being with a girl, i.e., the night he ran into one he liked at a club and to everyone’s surprise worked up the courage to go and talk to her. Hi, he said, and immediately she asked him if he was alone. When he told her he’d come with friends, she said, “Good, then you have someone to go back to.” And he did go back to them yet came back happy. He told them what happened and they asked him what the hell he had to be happy about and he said, “It’s sweet, she was worried I was by myself.”

  Well, there you go, in order for Sandro to take Serena’s wince for a smile, he has to arrive at that level of positivity, a positivity that will lead you to a life of happiness in a brightly lit, rose-colored world. Sure, over the years, the slings and arrows of real life poke holes in that world till you find yourself sticking your mother in the freezer, but that’s another story Sandro needn’t think about right now. Right now Sandro must persevere. Step by step, Sandrino, step by step . . .

  “If you’re looking for batteries, they’re at the register,” he says. “But don’t bother, the tape player’s mine and I’ll buy them. If you’re hungry there’s pizza over there. If you’re thirsty drinks are in the fridge down there. Or—”

  “Listen, catechist, thanks but I don’t need anything. The one thing I needed was for you to tell the kids no, but it’s too late for that now.”

  Sandro looks at her. He’d like to say something but the lines he’d rehearsed had to do with other retail items at the Autogrill and perhaps no longer bear much relevance.

  “Do you even know why they want to go to Pontremoli? Did they tell you about that piece of wood they found with some bracelets stuck on?”

  “Yeah. I mean, actually, not really.”

  “Well, see, I was forced to say yes; Luna’s my daughter. What choice did I have? But you? I had hoped that you would have said no, that it was absurd, that you had to work. I mean forty years old and taking a trip on a Wednesday on the spur of the moment no problem—don’t you have a job? Commitments? What the fuck do you do in this life?”

  “I—I mean, I don’t—” Sandro chews crumbs of words until there are no crumbs left to chew. He just shakes his head and nods and makes a strange movement with his neck, like those bobblehead dogs his dad used to line up on his dashboard. But he can stop worrying about which way his head’s moving because Serena has stopped looking at him. Actually he’d be better off backing up a bit—three, four steps—and disappearing. Maybe go buy batteries; that way they can return to the car and play the tapes he stayed up all night recording. Three ninety-minute tapes with a wisely chosen mix of songs that would penetrate Serena’s ears and flood her heart and make her understand that love cannot be stopped, that if it comes knocking you cannot tell it to take a hike as if it were some Sunday morning Jehovah’s Witness.

  Right, just like that, that is all Sandro need do now: leave Serena, trust in the power of music, and wait, and wait . . . Only before leaving he looks at her one last second as she takes a rubber band from her wrist and carelessly ties her hair back in a sloppy ponytail. And something happens, something he doesn’t even have a say in. What happens is, as she cinches her hair into a sloppy ponytail, Sandro’s mouth opens and speaks of its own accord. It says: “Quit it, Serena, quit it.”

  Like that. And she whips around, her eyes wide. She can’t believe her ears and neither can Sandro. Yet he goes on: “Treat me badly, tell me I’m a fool and that I don’t do dick in life, punch me again or kick me or whatever you feel will make you feel good. But quit tying your hair that way. And quit dressing like crap. The baggy clothes and that military gear and those combat boots—have you seen yourself? When was the last time you looked in the mirror? There’s a mirror right there, look at yourself, do you know what you look like, Serena?”

  Serena keeps staring at him, not moving, aside from shaking her head once to signal that, no, she doesn’t know.

  “Christ, you’re beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, or at least what I’ve seen of the world, and I may not have traveled much but so what, I’ve never seen a knockout like you anywhere. Other women make themselves up, try to look nice, put some thought into their hair and clothes, while you do nothing and you still come out looking beautiful. Actually, you know what really pisses me off? Now you’re more beautiful than before. Every time I see you, you’re more beautiful, for fuck’s sake, and you don’t deserve to be, Serena, you don’t deserve it. But that’s how it is and there’s nothing you can do about it. So at least do me a favor: stop tying your hair like you don’t care and stop dressing this way. Quit wasting your time denigrating yourself and trying to make yourself look ugly. It won’t work. It only makes you look ridiculous and pathetic. And totally beautiful.”

  Sandro said it. Incredible as it is, he said all of it. It flew out of his mouth word by word, one word after another, so powerfully that for a moment the words hang suspended in the air between him and Serena. And he wishes they would vanish, the way he used to wish his dad’s gigantic undies would vanish when he was a little boy and his buddies would come over to play, and his mom would leave those undies hanging up in front of the house, wide as tablecloths, and Sandro would see them and die of shame. The same goes for the words that have just escaped his mouth and hang there, silently staring back at them, embarrassing Sandro to death.

  Luckily Zot and Luna return, running and shouting, to shake the air out and fill it with other words.

  “Mom, Mom, we need a few more euros.”

  Serena doesn’t answer right away. She looks at Luna for a moment, then manages to say: “More? How much does that guide cost?”

  “No, we got the guide, but we have to get antivenom.”

  “What the heck do we need antivenom for?”

  “Ha,” says Zot, pointing his index finger in the air, “those are the famous last words that are running through your head when the poison stops your heart.”

  “Listen, kids, we’re going to a museum. Even if it is in the middle of the woods, I’m pretty sure there are no snakes creeping around inside the museum. Okay? Besides, if a snake were to bite you, all we’d need to do is keep calm and call a doctor. No one’s at risk of dying from a snakebite.”

  “Not us,” says Zot, “but . . . ”

  “But?”

  “Nothing. I feel apprehensive about . . . ” Zot nods toward Luna a few times.

  “Apprehensive about what? I don’t follow.”

  “Well, you see, Luna is frail. I’m not sure she could withstand poison the way we—”

  “Fuck you, Zot!” says Luna, and what with her mouth, her wispy voice that always labors to emerge, that “fuck you” seems completely out of place, like a starfish on Mont Blanc. “I am not frail. Besides, look who’s talking. You have to put a sweater on to go to the bathroom.”

  “That’s because bathrooms are often quite damp! Is that my fault? Mr. Sandro, Ms. Serena, please explain to Luna that at a certain age rheumatism sets in and you can no longer joke around about the damp.”

  Serena looks at him, starts to say something, then shuts her mouth, shakes her h
ead, sighs.

  Once again Sandro feels that now is his shot. He searches inside himself for a confident, firm voice befitting a man who can fix the situation, then explains to the kids that they won’t find antivenom at the Autogrill. Only pharmacies carry it.

  “Is that true? Are there pharmacies in Pontremoli?”

  “Yes. I mean, there must be a pharmacy.”

  “Very well then, we can procure some at our destination,” says Zot. “Happy, Luna? You don’t have to feel anxious about it anymore.”

  “But I wasn’t anxious,” Luna shoots back. Then out of the blue she says it’s late and heads for the exit. Zot follows her and puts a hand on her arm to guide her, but she wiggles away and shoos him like a fly.

  Sandro watches them for a moment and fails to see that Serena is backing away from the shelves and walking off too. He only hears her as she brushes past him: “Nice work. Now we’re stopping at the pharmacy too.”

  But there’s no spite in her voice. Less than before anyway. Or maybe Sandro would just like to think so, to feel better as they leave the Autogrill and get back in the jeep, where Ferro has already returned and is grousing about how everything in the bathroom is automatic, how the tap only runs when it feels like it and the toilet flushes by itself the minute you move and almost gives you a heart attack. Also, the skanks have stopped leaving their phone numbers on the wall. As a matter of fact, there are no more walls; now there are these smooth dark wood panels only the homos write on, and Ferro is revolted because once upon a time they weren’t there, or at least they didn’t mention they were homos. All they said was that they were seeking a man and there was the number to call. And maybe afterward if you called them they’d try to convince you otherwise, but at least while reading the messages you could picture a hot piece of ass. Men used to be allowed to dream. Now they come right out and say it: “Gay seeks company,” “Boy seeks dick for hot night.” What kind of world are we living in? What kind of nasty world are we living in? Then he places a sheet of paper on the dashboard on which he’d jotted down the numbers of a couple trannies.

  “Put the music back on, would you? I need a little soul,” he says while the jeep lurches back onto the highway. Silence rather than music, fills the car. Ferro turns around, and everyone’s eyes search everyone else’s eyes, but no one speaks. No one remembered to buy batteries.

  On cue, the old man looses a barrage of insults at God and the Virgin and several saints, some of who may not even exist, coupling them with various disease-carrying animals that slither in the mud.

  Serena doesn’t even attempt to tell him to shut up, and the kids sit there with their eyes wide open, absorbing these new and terrifying blasphemies. Sandro is the only one, after a certain point, to say enough. (If anyone should be scandalized, Sandro should. He’s the catechist after all.) He asks Ferro to stop and points his finger at something above them, at the roof of the jeep, beyond which there’s also heaven.

  “What the hell do you want? I’m blowing off steam.”

  “I’m asking you to blow off steam in some other fashion besides blaspheming.”

  “Why? So God doesn’t get offended? Do you really think there’s a guy up there with a white beard who minds if I tell him to get fucked? Do you really believe there’s someone like that up there?”

  Sandro doesn’t answer right away. For a while he only hears the noise of the tires on the road and feels everyone’s eyes on him. “I mean, look, I believe there’s something superior out there.”

  “Big whoop,” says Ferro. “Superior to you? Imagine that.”

  THREE CHEERS FOR CAMPING

  Attention, all passengers, we have an important announcement to make,” says Mr. Sandro when we pull up to the tollbooth. He pays with the change in the ashtray even though Mom’s back here waving a five-euro bill, then we take off again and there are signs and behind the signs there’s a huge curve and behind that there’s a river and old houses made of stone. And in this strange voice like he’s talking on the radio, Sandro says: “Ladies and gentlemen, the important announcement is that we have arrived in the lovely city of . . . Pontremoli!”

  And that’s when Zot and I look at each other and raise our arms and shout, “Yaaay!”

  I turn to Mom, put my hand on her leg, and squeeze. And she squeezes me back, hard, the whole enchilada of me. Meanwhile Ferro says, “What are you all so happy about? It took us half a day to reach the world’s butthole.”

  To be fair, we were supposed to be here after lunch and instead we’re passing by the town’s streets and houses and the sun is disappearing behind it all, since it’s almost six o’clock. But that isn’t our fault. After the Autogrill we got back on the highway and within five minutes there were all these cars stopped in front of us, so we stopped too and sat there for three hours.

  Sandro switched off the engine, Ferro cursed, Mom kept quiet but I could feel her getting antsy and she had her hands on her legs and was wiping them up and down like she was drying them off though they weren’t the least bit wet. Zot on the other hand asked Sandro if we could use this time to go over the ten commandments, the seven cardinal sins, the three theological virtues, and other questions the bishop might ask us before confirmation. And when no one answered him he launched into the commandments himself, saying them straight through and all stuck together so that it seemed like there weren’t ten of them but just one long and impossible to obey commandment: “IamtheLordthyGodthoushalthavenootherGodsbeforemethushallnottakethenameoftheLordthyGodinvain . . . ”

  At that point Ferro grabbed the door handle and said the name of the Lord a dozen times, almost always in vain, then got out of the car and went to talk with a man leaning against a truck in front of us. And after a little, while Zot was listing off the sins and virtues, one by one we got out of the car too, then got back in, then got out once more, and finally ran back to the jeep because the cars were starting to move again. Slowly, we moved too.

  We were hungry and thirsty and I had to go pee, but I forgot about everything when we passed the point where that never-ending line had begun. The metal thing that splits the highway in two was all cracked, there was even a hole, and the truck driver from before had explained to Ferro that a car going the other direction had knocked into something, flown into our lane, and hit another car head-on. There were still millions of pieces of glass and broken junk on the side of the road, and the police were on the pavement with men dressed in orange and big, strange, dark stripes. We passed the scene slowly and Zot said, “Saint Christopher, Protector of Motorists, is anybody injured?” And Ferro said probably not. More likely they were all dead.

  Then the road opened up and we began driving fast, and Ferro said, “Oh, finally. Three hours wasted in line. If we hadn’t stopped at the Autogrill, we’d have missed the accident and been in Pontremoli ages ago.”

  So then Mom told him that he was the one who wanted to stop at the Autogrill, and he replied, “Yeah, but all we had to do was get batteries and go, and instead you wandered around looking at other junk and even forgot the batteries. Had we left earlier, the accident would have been at our backs and we’d already be in Pontremoli.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “or else that car in the other lane would have flown into us.”

  Well, that’s what I thought anyway, and I think I may have been right, since for a while no one spoke. I stuck my hand in my jeans pocket and touched the bone Luca gave me. I thanked it and ran my finger along it, and even if that accident was totally awful and I feel really bad about it, touching the bone always makes me smile.

  And my smile’s grown now that we’re leaving the jeep in a wide square piazza and all getting out to finally see the famous Pontremoli. And it could be that the piazza is big and all I see around me is a gray blur but it looks emptier than Forte dei Marmi in winter. No matter, I didn’t come here to make friends. All I want is to see the statues of the people of Luna and pretty soon
I will. I want to climb the street where the sign says at the top is the Castle of Piagnaro with the museum inside. I want to enter and I want those ancient statues to explain why Luca made us come here, and I want their answer to be something beautiful that helps us understand many other things that are so beautiful that everything becomes clear, even the darkest stuff that has happened, and Mom and I hug each other hard and cry a little, just for a minute though cause then we laugh and we’re happy and she goes back to work and Tuesdays we eat pizza by the sea and I get confirmed. I finish middle school and grow boobs and I wear dresses where you can sort of see the boobs, and afterward people might look at me on account of them instead of on account of my white hair and transparent eyes, and they stop being faraway and actually want to get close to me and we talk and play and it’s like what it should be like when you feel good.

  There. That’s what I want.

  Instead of what really happens, which is us stopping in front of the castle door. The door is closed and there’s a piece of washed-out paper on it. Sandro reads it for me and says that the museum isn’t even there. It’s under construction. So they moved it to the village, to the town hall downtown.

  Where exactly downtown we don’t know, not even where approximately, and there’s no one around to ask. We go back to the piazza where we find a man reading the obituary notices. He doesn’t know where the statues are but he knows where the town hall is; it’s in another smaller piazza and to get there we pass under what for me is only a dark roof but turns out to be a row of arches, cause while we’re passing under them Zot says these arches are beautiful. And after them there’s the town hall building and there is a big door with a woman leaning up against it. We ask her about the statues and she tells us they are there but she doesn’t know where because it’s not her job. So we go into a café next door that doesn’t have a sign which we would never have noticed without Ferro, who knew there was one cause he says that next to every town hall there’s always a café, otherwise the municipality’s employees wouldn’t know where to go all day.