The Temptation to Be Happy

by Lorenzo Marone

  Caterina was really beautiful, and always cheerful. And yet with the passing years her smile fades from the photographs, replaced first by a severe expression, then a sad one of infinite resignation. Caterina would have aged badly, I believe. If adulthood had stolen her smile, old age would have taken even the light from her eyes. Where I’m concerned, however, I feel that the inexorable passing of time hasn’t managed to leave any marks. It’s because I have a thick hide, while my wife was soft and welcoming, a little like Marino’s armchair, which preserves his outline. Caterina took life’s knocks and let them mould her.

  I bring my trembling hand to my face in an attempt to explore a faded photograph from many years ago for something I didn’t find back then: whether she was happy with her secret life, as stupid and in love as only a little girl can be. If she thought that he was better than me. But the photograph can’t teach me all those things, so I drop it on the floor and look around. Long blonde hair spills from a box; I take it in my hand and pull out a Barbie, Sveva’s favourite doll. It’s still here in my box room, not hers. As they get old, the toys that children loved are loved in turn by their parents. I find nothing of Dante, however, perhaps because I don’t know what his favourite toys were. I don’t know anything about my son, beyond the fact that he likes men. He has never told me anything.

  ‘What a great actress you were,’ I find my lips saying. ‘If you weren’t happy with me, you just had to say!’

  But I didn’t listen.

  ‘I know, but you should have pressed the point, taken me by the arm, hit me, thrown your soup bowl on the ground! You should have grabbed my attention!’

  No one answers. But perhaps, if objects could talk, they would accuse me of dishonesty.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you ever whack me one?’ I yell at the room. ‘Why didn’t you scratch me? Why didn’t you scream your head off at me? Why?’

  Tears run down my face and slip into my wide-open mouth, but the taste of salt on my tongue doesn’t make the moment any less bitter.

  ‘It isn’t right,’ I continue. ‘You didn’t even give me the satisfaction of screaming my rage into your face! You should have told me. Even if it was right at the end, you should have told me!’

  No, she didn’t owe me anything. I never revealed anything to her.

  ‘You could have stood up to me, and yet you learned to avoid me,’ I whisper. ‘And you taught our children to do the same…’

  The phone rings again.

  I wipe my nose and go to answer it.

  It’s Dante. I don’t want to talk, but I try to make it sound as if I haven’t been crying.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Dad, what’s happened to you?’

  ‘What’s happened to me?’

  ‘I’ve been calling you for two hours. I thought you might have fallen ill.’

  My son has a slight tendency to overdramatize things.

  ‘What are you talking about? I was just tidying the box room.’

  ‘If you want to go on living on your own, you’ve got to bring the phone with you or you’re going to give us a stroke.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I don’t think Sveva gets worked up about that kind of problem.’

  ‘Why are you saying that?’

  His voice is penetrating – so much so that I’m forced to hold the receiver away from my ear. Even on the phone he sounds to me like one of those hairdressers who would rather be sitting in the customer’s seat.

  ‘Nothing. We had a bit of a tiff.’

  ‘Another one? Will you two stop squabbling once and for all? You’re always fighting, and you’re always together.’

  ‘Yes, but this time our squabble left a few more marks than usual.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Anyway, I called you to invite you to dinner on Saturday. I want to introduce you to someone very special to me. I might even tell Sveva, so that you two can make peace and stop acting like children.’

  ‘An important person?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t ask any questions. I’ll explain everything tomorrow.’

  Damn, Dante has decided to come out. Maybe he wants to introduce me to his partner? I don’t know whether to hope it’s the painter or someone else. Anyway, I’ve always hoped he would summon the strength to tell me the truth and, now that he’s about to do it, I realize I’m not ready.

  ‘Have you got a cold?’ he asks.

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Your voice sounds strange.’

  ‘It must be interference on the line…’

  ‘Fine. See you on Saturday.’

  I put the phone down and go back to the box room, pick up the photographs from the floor and put them back in the box. Then I pick up the Barbie, just as there’s a knock at the door. For two days I haven’t seen so much as a bluebottle, and all of a sudden it seems as if everyone’s just remembered I exist.

  I go to the door and find Emma there, smiling and waving a plastic bag under my nose.

  ‘Hi, Cesare,’ she begins. ‘I’ve just picked up a spit-roast chicken with potatoes and a bottle of wine. Can I come in?’

  If it was just her and not the wine as well, I might have come up with some excuse – it isn’t the best possible evening to support someone with more problems than me. But I realize I’m hungry, and the smell of the chicken inclines me to show hospitality to my neighbour.

  I stand aside and let her in. She doesn’t need to be asked twice and hurries into the corridor, leaving a pleasant smell of food behind her. And that’s what I’m following when I emerge into the kitchen and find Emma unwrapping the chicken.

  ‘It’s like a morgue in here!’ she says without looking at me. ‘Why don’t you turn the light on?’

  She seems to be in a good mood. Last time I was the one who tried to cheer her up; this time it might be the other way around.

  No sooner have I accomplished the task assigned to me than Emma asks me another question: ‘What are you doing with a Barbie?’

  It’s only then that I glance at my hand and realize I’m still holding the doll.

  ‘It was my daughter’s favourite,’ I reply, and put the toy on the dresser beside me.

  ‘And you’ve kept it! What a lovely gesture!’

  I should tell the truth: that it was Caterina who kept the Barbie. I’m not the kind of person to treat objects with affection – I’ve got enough trouble with human beings. But I don’t say a word, partly because now that I can I want to seem like an affectionate father, and partly because, in fact, while I’m admiring the little platinum-blonde beanpole I seem almost to be feeling a bit of affection for her.

  ‘What have you been doing? Have you been crying?’ Emma says, interrupting my thoughts.

  You can’t hide anything from this blessed girl; in some respects she’s worse than Sveva. She should be a lawyer; I could put in a word with my daughter.

  ‘Nonsense. I’ve got a cold, that’s all!’

  She stares at me for a moment and then her face breaks into an infectious smile, so that I’m forced to turn round and get two glasses from the cupboard so I don’t give myself away.

  ‘I still haven’t thanked you for the tablecloth,’ I say. ‘What a kind thought.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ she says. ‘I should be thanking you.’

  I turn round and meet her serious gaze.

  ‘I know it wasn’t easy for you in the hospital the other day, but thank you for respecting my decision.’

  It’s strange to hear someone thanking me – I’m not much used to it. If people tell you over and over again that you’re a good-for-nothing, in the end you convince yourself that you can’t be anything but a good-for-nothing.

  ‘Your cheekbone isn’t swollen!’ I say with satisfaction.

  ‘Yes, luckily.’ She winks.

  ‘And how’s your arm?’

  ‘Better,’ she says, and lifts her elbow to show me the bandages. ‘I can move it now.’

  Today Emma looks even more beautiful than usual, perhaps because she’s wear
ing a cheerful expression that’s new to me. Very few people have the gift of displaying joy, despair, rage, suffering, pleasure or enjoyment on their faces; with the rest of them you just have to make do with the mask that’s visible to us. Perhaps Emma has decided to trust this lonely, crabby, old man and show him that pinch of joy that still shines in her eyes every now and again.

  So I smile contentedly, and lay the table while she carves the chicken. The kitchen is filled with the smell of potatoes and meat, and I suddenly realize that over the past forty-eight hours I haven’t consumed a thing apart from a little packet of cheese, an orange, a pack of crackers and a bottle of wine. Not quite enough for my dilapidated organism.

  ‘He’s not there?’ I ask suddenly.

  She becomes serious. ‘No, luckily.’

  I try to do my best: I carefully finish laying the table and pass her the plates.

  When we’re sitting down we’re like a father and daughter having a normal dinner, rather than two disconnected souls trying to face a raging tide as best they can.

  I don’t know why, but I talk to her about Caterina.

  ‘My wife had a lover.’

  She looks up from her plate.

  ‘I only found out recently. My daughter told me,’ I add.

  ‘Had you never noticed?’

  ‘No. Or maybe I did and I pretended not to see.’

  I don’t know what has happened between us, for what obscure reason I feel like relating my private affairs to a woman I barely know. Just as I don’t understand why she enjoys spending time with me.

  ‘On the surface you struck me as a more contented man,’ she observes.

  Certainly, the interesting things about a person are all on the outside; inside all you find are guts, blood and regret. Nothing very attractive.

  ‘I am content. Or at least I try my best to be so every day.’

  She smiles. ‘Good for you. To me you seem to be doing the exact opposite.’

  I’m busy stripping the flesh from a chicken wing when Beelzebub makes his entrance, slipping through his usual half-open window.

  ‘Oh, look who’s here. It’s the moocher!’ I exclaim as soon as I see his nose appearing through the kitchen door.

  He’d disappeared for two days, intent on some trail or other that he needed to pursue, and now that there’s a chicken to chew on he shows up again. Emma holds out a piece; he stretches his neck to grab it and swallows it down in a second. After which he rubs himself vigorously against the legs of his new heart-throb. He doesn’t come anywhere near me – he knows he’s at fault and he doesn’t want to try and take advantage of the situation.

  ‘I’ve decided to run away,’ Emma says at last.

  ‘Then it’s true: you’re not actually doing everything in your power to be unhappy! And where will you go?’

  ‘Away from here, perhaps somewhere up north, to stay with an old friend. A long way from here, anyway.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘By the time he finds out, I’ll be miles away.’

  I drain a glass of wine in one gulp. I think life must be a woman: when it needs to point out a mistake you’ve made, it doesn’t beat around the bush. The fact that my wife lied to me for so long and that Sveva still bears a grudge against me now seem as nothing compared to Emma’s insurmountable problem. You have to learn quickly how to observe other people’s lives to keep from vomiting unfairly on your own.

  If there wasn’t a child in the picture, everything would be much simpler. But as things stand, he isn’t going to accept a separation.

  I decide to say what I think: ‘If you really want to break free from him, you should seriously consider the possibility of an abortion.’

  She stares at me and I hold her gaze. I’m sorry, Emma. The old scoundrel in front of you has decided not just to smile enigmatically and turn away.

  ‘If his child is involved, he’ll never leave you in peace,’ I add.

  She lowers her head. I brace myself for a scolding, or for Emma to get up and leave, but she does nothing of the sort. She picks up Beelzebub by the collar and puts him on her lap.

  ‘You’re right,’ she says, stroking his neck. ‘That would be the right thing to do.’

  ‘No, not right. I’d call it common sense. You’ll only really be able to get away from him by giving up the baby.’

  Beelzebub starts purring and grabs my attention. For some time now, I’ve found myself envying the most ridiculous creatures, like toy monsters and cats – anything at all that has absolutely no responsibility.

  ‘I know. But I’m not about to destroy the only good thing in my life!’

  ‘You’re right, but I still had to say it.’

  Try and sift through other people’s lives – flick through their unacted desires, their regrets, their shortcomings, their mistakes. There’s one thing you’ll never find: children.

  ‘I’d like to meet your family,’ she says.

  She can jump from one subject to another in a flash.

  ‘They don’t come here,’ I reply straight away.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, this was their mother’s house – too many memories.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I know what to do with memories – you just need to lock them away in the box room.’

  Emma laughs, and her beauty blows me away once again as I wonder why she has chosen to spend her time in an old man’s bare kitchen rather than out there in the world. But I know it’s because sadly there are those who think they own other people.

  ‘You’re too beautiful to spend the rest of your life with a character like that,’ I say suddenly.

  She turns serious and blushes before answering, ‘He thinks I’m part of his property. And he’s so sure of it that he’s persuaded me of it too.’

  I shake my head. ‘No one belongs to anyone, Emma.’

  ‘Yes, I know that now.’

  Beelzebub slips furtively away and goes into the sitting room. Perhaps he’ll go back to his cat lady now that he’s had what he wanted.

  Emma gets up and says, ‘I’ve got to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  She picks up her bag and opens the clasp. ‘But you’ve got to promise me that you won’t think I’m insane. I know it’s illogical, but when I saw them I just had to have them.’ And she takes out two baby-sized romper suits, one pink, the other blue. She shows them to me smugly with a smile on her lips.

  I can’t help smiling too and I’m about to reply, but she holds up a hand.

  ‘No, please don’t say anything. Can you keep them for me? I wouldn’t know where to hide them. You can give them to me when the time is right.’

  If Marino were here with me, he would launch off on an endless whine about how I’m getting too heavily involved, that at the end of the day there’s nothing I can do for her and that my behaviour is also getting a little risky. But I’ve never listened to Marino in my life, so why would I start now?

  I nod and take the baby clothes. I need to make a swift calculation, but I don’t think I’ve touched anything like this in almost half a century. When Federico needed to be changed or put to sleep with a lullaby, it was always time for me to disappear.

  ‘OK, I’ll keep them for you,’ I say, and lay the little romper suits on the back of the chair next to me.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, pleased, and holds out her hand, expecting me to take it.

  But I stay where I am, wavering like a man standing on the shore before diving into the water. Dear Emma, if I found it easy to respond to an affectionate gesture, I wouldn’t find myself with a daughter who hates me and a son who’s scared of me. Most of all, I wouldn’t have discovered that my wife had another life. But that’s all too hard to explain.

  Luckily her stubbornness outweighs my weakness. She takes a step towards me and hugs me. If I had just returned her gesture, she would have left me with a simple handshake, but now I get to embrace this blessed girl who, of all the places she cou
ld have found to live, chose the flat right next to mine. They must teach people to hug as children – it all gets fearfully complicated later on.

  When we draw apart, Emma seems pleased, but I find that I am drenched in sweat.

  Seriously, at my age, should I really add another individual to the wretched list of people I’m interested in? I’ve always tried to keep the list under control, so that it didn’t grow beyond all measure. The more people you love, the less pain you avoid. That’s another reason I’ve never had a dog: I’m sure it would immediately leap to the top position.

  ‘I should really be getting back,’ she says.

  I watch after her as she walks down the corridor.

  After she’s gone, silence keeps me company again and the flat seems even emptier than it did before.

  I pick up the rompers from the chair and walk towards the still-open box room.

  ‘If you look after all these memories, you can also look after the dream of a girl who has no room for dreams!’ I say to myself, and put the clothes in an old box.

  Then I shut the door and go to phone Rossana.

  Chapter Twenty

  A Little Bell Ringing beside Your Ear

  There has never been one single way of confronting things. I, for example, decided to turn up at my son’s house with Rossana. Dante gives me a surprise, so I’ll give him one. She said she was available, and it couldn’t have been otherwise: the other day I revealed to her that there was a good chance of her son getting his job back. In fact, I can’t claim too much of the credit: I went to see Sveva and explained the problem to her as if nothing had happened between us. She went along with it and listened to me as she would have listened to an ordinary client, then concluded with these exact words: ‘Don’t you worry. That criminal will cough up the very last cent!’

  In short, I used Rossana as an excuse to get close to my daughter again. I needed something to let me turn up at her house without being forced to go over the things we talked about all over again. I was right: Sveva got so excited about it all that she even forgot to ask me anything more about Rossana. In any case, she’ll find out this evening.