‘Yes, that’s what happened,’ I admit at last.
The man is becoming impatient; who knows how many times he’s witnessed similar scenes. You can read in his face that he’s worked out the truth and is only making his mind up how involved he should get.
‘I’m expecting a baby!’ Emma says suddenly.
The doctor looks at her belly and then, turning to the nurse beside him, he says abruptly, ‘Fine, then let’s just take an ultrasound of her abdomen and bind up that arm.’
The nurse accompanies Emma outside. I’m about to go back to the waiting room, when the man in the white coat holds me back.
‘You know how many women I’ve seen in that state or worse? And you know almost all of them have fallen off their bikes, off a chair, a swing or a scooter?’
I lower my head. I can’t hold his gaze.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I ask at last.
‘Nothing. But if you can, persuade the lady to speak out!’
‘I’ve done what I can. But why didn’t you ask the girl these questions?’
‘She would never have told me the truth.’
‘That’s not true. It’s just what you want to think,’ I reply, before leaving and going back to my seat.
Out of the corner of my eye I notice the doctor staring at me and shaking his head disapprovingly. Don’t take me for a doddery old fool. We’re not that different, you and me. In one way and another, we’ve decided not to intervene and to mind our own business.Just hope that one day we won’t have to share the remorse as well.
Emma comes out half an hour later with her arm bandaged. She comes towards me and looks at me with tears in her eyes. She waits for me to speak.
‘Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them anything.’
Her lips smile, before she puts her good arm around my shoulders.
I struggle to return the hug. But I really can’t manage a smile.
Chapter Seventeen
I’d Like to Be an Orc
There are days when you want to hide the terrible truth from yourself; the years you carry around with you are obvious and as heavy as boulders. On the bus a spotty boy with headphones in his ears felt obliged to sit up as soon as I boarded, as if he were an army private and I were his sergeant major. I stared at him with hatred in my eyes, but he said, ‘I insist.’ At that point I was obliged to sit down, to avoid the disapproving looks of the other passengers. Yes, I know, I should have thanked him for his friendly gesture, but instead I sat down and turned my wrinkled face to the window. In fact, it was my mistake: I shouldn’t have taken the bus, a concentration of people trying to outdo one another in making people feel sorry for them. I would happily break my femur to keep from prompting a similar feeling in other people.
And it didn’t stop there. Afterwards it got even worse, if that’s possible. I was sitting on a bench outside the school, waiting for my grandson, Federico. This time, yet again, I couldn’t find a plausible excuse to get out of it. I was minding my own business when I noticed that a group of three little boys were looking at me and laughing. I looked away – after all, they were just children – and looked instead at the waiting mummies, probably a better spectacle. But those three scoundrels wouldn’t stop making fun of me. That’s right, you little rogues, you just amuse yourselves, I thought. Just you wait till life swaps the roles and you find yourselves waiting on a bench to pick up a snotty little brat. Then I looked down and noticed that my flies were undone, which is as funny as it gets when you’re eight. I remedied the situation discreetly and turned to my three detractors with a welcoming grimace on my face, beckoning them to join me. The little things were terrified, but the biggest one came over to me.
‘Hi,’ I said cordially.
He answered without looking up.
‘Do you know who I am?’
The young whippersnapper’s hands clutched the straps of his rucksack. He looked at me and shook his head.
‘I’m a policeman,’ I told him, still with a smile on my face and with a persuasive voice.
His eyes opened wide.
‘You know it’s not nice to make fun of a policeman? It’s something you really shouldn’t do – your mother should have taught you that!’
He stared at the ground. When I want to, I can instil a certain fear in people.
‘So what should I do now? Take you down to the station?’
At that point the little boy started crying and a lady looked over to see what was happening. Perhaps I’d overdone it, so I got up and tried to make amends.
‘No, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Policemen are nice people. Come and let me buy you an ice cream.’
But he ran off to his friends, who, after a swift confabulation, took to their heels. Luckily no one noticed what had happened.
But the best thing was yet to come. I picked up my grandson and we walked towards his mother’s office. But, as we know, an old man and a little boy can’t walk for very long without needing to go for a pee. So we went into a big shop and asked for directions to the toilet. Every time I have to use a public convenience I thank God for that burden I have between my legs. If I were a woman I would wet myself rather than stand in a queue. Anyway, I helped Federico and then asked him to wait for me outside; if he had seen me sitting down to urinate, in fact, many of his certainties would have shattered in a trice.
The problem was that when I came out he wasn’t there. I thought he might have gone to the exit, but I was wrong. I went back in and asked the ladies in the queue. No one had seen a little boy. I went into a cold sweat. The truth, as I’ve said before, is that I can’t look after a grandchild; at my age people ought to be looking after me rather than the other way round. I searched the whole shop before I finally spotted him, stroking a Labrador puppy.
I went over and, still in a daze, yelled, ‘Federico, what the hell are you doing? I told you not to move!’
He tried for a moment not to cry, his little mouth trembling with the effort to hold himself back, but at last he burst into tears, mortified.
The owner of the dog looked at me threateningly and said, ‘What sort of manners are those?’
‘You can shut up,’ I replied. ‘Didn’t you notice that the child was on his own? Didn’t it occur to you that perhaps somebody might be looking for him?’
She took a step back and said, ‘How dare you?’
‘Oh, I dare. Believe me, I dare,’ I shot back. ‘And just be grateful that I’m in a good mood today!’
I grabbed Federico by the hood of his sweatshirt and dragged him outside. For about ten minutes we didn’t say a word, the boy busy holding in his tears, me chewing on my remorse. I know how to entertain a prostitute, how to pretend I’m an army general, how to silence a man who’s abusing a woman; I know how to shift an old man out of his armchair and welcome into my home someone in need of refuge. But I don’t know how to be a thoughtful grandpa. I’m not capable of giving love to those who have a right to it.
I was thinking these thoughts as I walked in silence. I’m still thinking them, sitting on the sofa in my daughter’s office, with Federico sleeping beside me and Sveva lodging a legal appeal. I watch her and it’s as if I don’t recognize her. I don’t understand who caused her the rancour that she hides behind. She’s a brusque character, all sharp edges and tetchiness. I would never deign to look at a woman like that; I like broad curves, the kind to be approached in a low gear. Sharp bends weary me – they force you to shift up a gear or two. My daughter is like an alpine pass, a sequence of switchback turns.
‘Right, I’m off,’ I say, to distract her attention from the threats that she is probably vomiting out on to the keyboard.
‘Wait, I’ve nearly finished. Shall we have lunch together?’
From bad to worse. ‘OK.’
She is starting to intimidate me again, and I watch her carefully. I wonder how it’s possible to spend your whole day making your fellow man pay for the misdeeds of someone else. But perhaps it’s better for me – better fo
r Sveva to give vent to her shortcomings in a courtroom rather than holding me to account.
I turn and look at my grandson. In the end I apologized, and bought him an orc, a little monster about four inches tall, to which I am grateful for stealing the show away from me. Federico actually devoted himself to his new friend and soon forgot he had a grumpy grandpa. I don’t think I ever apologized to Sveva and Dante – perhaps not even to my wife. I always thought that apologies had more to do with reinforcing the rightness of the recipient than with putting events in the past. But when you’re old things slip by in front of your nose and you can’t afford to waste precious time on abstruse conjectures. That’s why, these days, I apologize and move on.
‘OK, I’ve finished. Let’s go,’ Sveva says suddenly and offers me her arm. Strangely, she’s smiling.
I get up, careful not to wake Federico. I would love not to succumb to flattery and to stick my hands in my pockets, but she would take offence. Try telling her that, to an old man who’s doing everything in his power not to feel old, leaning on his daughter makes him feel even older. At any rate the torment doesn’t last very long, just enough to travel the length of the corridor, at the end of which Sveva guides me into the conference room.
I look around, puzzled, and ask, ‘Weren’t we going out for lunch?’
‘Of course,’ she replies with the same smile she had two minutes ago. ‘We’re having lunch in here.’
‘Here?’
‘Here,’ she answers brusquely.
At that moment two female flunkeys come in clutching sheets of A4 and arrange them on the glass top of the table, making them look like napkins. I watch the horrific scene play out until Sveva invites me to sit down. A few seconds later the longed-for food arrives: tuna salad and sweetcorn and a slice of wholemeal bread.
The girls say goodbye and leave us to eat. The only people left in the office are Sveva, me and Federico, who is sleeping calmly in the other room with the orc for company. Lucky him, I would add – better a revolting monster than Sveva cranked up to the max. I think the mistake I made has been to visit my daughter only in her place of work, she might be more human and sympathetic elsewhere.
‘So,’ she says, ‘what have you got to tell me?’
But I’m not even listening. In almost eighty years I’ve never eaten off a sheet of A4.
‘Why do you eat like this?’ I ask.
‘How?’ she says, surprised.
‘In this barbarous way!’
‘What’s barbarous about a bit of salad?’
‘Not the salad, using a sheet of paper as a napkin in a conference room!’
‘You’re getting stuffy in your old age,’ she murmurs and brings the food to her mouth.
I’d like to slap her right now – her know-all airs are really making me furious.
‘Sveva, you’ve got to stop throwing your life away! Stop thinking only about work, take a trip, throw away the horrible suits you have in your wardrobe, dress a bit younger and save your relationship with your husband!’
There, I’ve said it.
She stares at me with her fork suspended in mid-air, the oil from the salad dripping on to the plate. She’s furious, I can tell from her eyes. When she gets angry her pupils look like a scratch in the iris, like cats’ eyes. And like cats, when they’re attacked, out come their claws.
‘How dare you talk about my life, my work and my marriage? Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?’
Her shrill voice makes the glass under our elbows tremble. I’ve ruined lunch with my own bare hands. I could have smiled slyly, made some stupid comment and disappeared, got back to my life, to my sofa, to Marino, Rossana and the other useless things with which I try to fill the void. Instead I went on the attack, and now I have to lower my helmet and advance into the battlefield.
‘Who am I?’ I say. ‘Until I receive proof to the contrary, I’m still your father!’
‘Oh no, my dear man, that’s too easy. You should have thought very hard before presenting yourself as the model parent dispensing advice!’
When you know you’re wrong, there are two possible paths you can take: you can beat a hasty retreat or you can attack. At least I’ll let off steam.
‘What have I ever deprived you of ? Come on, tell me? Your brother might well be able to say something of the kind, but you certainly can’t. And yet he doesn’t say a word – the one doing the complaining is always you!’
She tries to calm down again. She regains her composure, picks up the napkin and wipes her mouth.
‘Do you really think you were a good father?’ she asks.
‘No, I haven’t been a good father. I’ve made loads of mistakes, but, you see, I think you’re making plenty with Federico. You’re always in that damned office. Even if I made lots of mistakes, I always tried to be there for you!’
Her fury seems to subside somewhat, although I notice that her hands are shaking when she pours herself a glass of water.
‘Dad, you did a lot of stupid things, but I don’t want to rake over the past forty years. I’d just like you at least to be coherent, as you have always been. If there was one good quality that I acknowledged until a few years ago, it was that. You’ve never advised us which route to go down, you’ve never helped us to choose, you’ve never explained how life works, but at least you’ve never asked for anything in return either. You were honest: you didn’t give and you didn’t demand.’ She lowers her head.
She’s right about that: I’ve never thought that my children owed me anything. Caterina did. Mothers often maintain that love which is given must be returned in some way. A kind of blackmail, if you like.
‘Recently, though, you’ve changed. You judge our lives, you pronounce sentences, you give opinions and advice.’
It’s old age that makes you think you know how the world works, just because you’ve had the good fortune to be on the planet longer than other people. That’s what I should reply, and instead I say something completely different: ‘It’s because when I was younger I didn’t notice you were unhappy. And I assure you that it was much better that way.’
‘But who told you we’re unhappy? What’s this new fixation all about?’
I study her eyes: her pupils are round again. And that’s better – it means that she’s retracted her claws.
‘Are you happy, Sveva?’ I ask. ‘Can you tell me with absolute conviction that you’re contented with your life?’
She looks at her plate. ‘Why? Is there anyone who can claim as much? Are you happy?’
‘Yes, I’m as happy as an old man can be when he’s decided to go on stealing from life for as long as he can get away with it.’
‘Maybe that’s easier at your age.’
Sure, it’s true. It’s only when you know you have no alternative that you set off down that track. Come what may.
‘I saw you the other evening,’ I whisper.
I know I’m making the umpteenth mistake of my life, but I’m being guided by instinct. It’s always been that way – in difficult situations it nudges me out of my seat and sits down in my place. I let it get on with it, because it’s much more comfortable to enjoy the scene from behind.
‘Where?’
‘With that man, when you were coming out of your office.’
Her face turns red, then she picks up her glass and gulps down the water. She’s thinking about what she should say in reply.
‘So, what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that you’d told me you were at home.’
She stares at me and says nothing. But I can see on her face that she wants to say something, she’s desperate to shut me up, and instead she’s forced to live with the sense of failure of someone who doesn’t know what objection to raise. It’s her job that’s made her like that; I’ve never taught her to find reasons for everything, not least because I know that often there are no reasons and it’s best to stay silent.
‘It isn’t so much because of the lie you told me.
It’s that I didn’t think you could do it with an old man like that. If you’d come out of the front door with a smiling young man, I’d have headed off in the other direction, although I might have tailed you just in case. But not him. I need to know what you see in that old antique.’
At last a tear penetrates her armour. I’m sorry, my darling, but to win a battle you have to be a villain. And, as you know, I’m an expert at that.
‘What do you want from me? Why do you go on ruining my life? Again and again and again!’ she cries. Then she gets up, hurls her glass against the wall and leaves the room.
Left on my own, I look around. I don’t like conference rooms: ascetic, perfect, frozen. Like meetings generally. I know I’ve gone too far. Perhaps I should go out there and apologize. Perhaps I should hug her. When did I last do that? I’d like to go back to the precise moment when I stopped putting my arms around her, the last time it happened. I’d like to tell that idiotic adult that Sveva will grow up and he will be old and filled with remorse.
Luckily, after a while, she reappears in the room and sits down. She looks calm, yet her smeary face betrays the fact that she has been weeping in solitude, perhaps in a bathroom as ascetic as the room where, right now, a father and a daughter have decided to talk to each other for the first time.
‘You want to know what I see in that old antique, is that it?’
I nod. My mouth is dry.
‘Well, daddy dearest, in that old ornament – which, just so that we understand each other, has a name and is called Enrico – I find everything I’ve always been looking for. What you and Diego have never been able to give me!’
There it is, I knew it. I’ve brought it on myself: I’ve given her too easy an out. I decide not to reply. The road to beatification is fraught with difficulties.
‘In that man I have found affection, passion, understanding, refuge, strength, security. Since he’s been in my life I have felt stronger and capable of facing up to everything and everyone. And I know that if I fall he will be the one who picks me up.’
The Temptation to Be Happy Page 11