The Past is a Foreign Country

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  In any case, it was the biggest win of the whole evening and word soon spread among those who were still at the party that there was serious money being won at our table. So a group of onlookers gathered, far enough away from the table not to crowd the players, but close enough to follow the game. As far as Francesco and I were concerned, the game was over. We’d already played for the biggest pots, and the winnings were already in my pocket.

  But we had an audience, and Francesco was a magician. So he decided we’d give the audience a thrill, free of charge. It was out of the question for me to win again. I’d already had two full houses, a flush and a four and won millions, and if I’d been lucky again that would really have aroused suspicion. Francesco had lost a lot, for appearances’ sake, so once in a while he could allow himself the luxury of dealing himself the best cards. For the last hand, our audience had the privilege of witnessing both a full house of aces (me) and four sevens (Francesco).

  It was pure spectacle, a masterpiece of suspense, which the audience watched with bated breath. By the end, Francesco’s eyes were shining. Not because of the win, which was fake, but because of the show. For once, he was playing the magician. He was enjoying himself like a child.

  After a grand finale like that, I really didn’t understand how I could possibly have had that panic attack. It seemed to me like something that had happened a long time ago, instead of earlier that evening. Or that hadn’t happened at all.

  We settled our accounts and got up from the table. The one who had lost the most was our host, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He wasn’t someone who needed to worry about money.

  It was very late, but there were still people wandering around the house and the garden. Francesco had disappeared, as tended to happen in these situations.

  I’d started to feel hungry and was wondering if there was any food left.

  ‘Are you only lucky at cards?’ The voice was deep, almost masculine, with a hint of affectation, as if she was making an effort to conceal her original accent. I turned.

  Short chestnut hair. Tanned skin. Not pretty, but with large, unsettling grey-green eyes. Taller than me. Quite a bit taller than me. About thirty-five, I thought as I looked at her, trying to think of a reply. I was later to learn that she was forty.

  ‘Do you mean you won all that money because you’re good? There’s only one way to win like that.’ She paused. ‘You cheated.’

  I felt physically paralyzed. I really couldn’t move a muscle, or say a word, or even get her face in focus.

  She had found us out and was either going to expose us or blackmail us. That was the thought that shot across my mind like a flaming arrow. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks.

  ‘Hey, I was joking.’

  The tone was one of amusement, though I still couldn’t tell if she really had been joking.

  Then she said, ‘Maria,’ and held out her hand. I shook it. She had a strong grip. On her tanned wrist she was wearing a bracelet of white gold with a very large blue stone. I’ve never understood anything about jewellery – and at that moment I didn’t understand much about anything at all – but it did occur to me that all our winnings of the evening wouldn’t have been enough to buy that bracelet.

  ‘Giorgio,’ I replied, as my brain started to work again and Maria’s face came back into focus.

  ‘So, are you good, Giorgio? Do you like taking risks?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I replied, feeling a tremor of excitement. What was I supposed to say? Was it a question that allowed for different answers?

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘What kind of risks…do you like?’

  ‘Not gambling. That’s artificial.’

  You’re talking crap. You try losing twenty or thirty million, or winning it, and then we’ll talk about artificial.

  I didn’t say that, I only thought it. What I actually said was that she was probably right, but that I was curious to know exactly what she meant. Meanwhile I was taking a closer look at her. She had a lot of little lines at the corners of her eyes, rather fewer at the corners of her mouth, a very animated face, high cheekbones, and a white, feral smile.

  There was something about her that reminded me of Francesco. Something in the way she moved or talked, something in her rhythm. I don’t know exactly what it was, but whatever it was came and went as we talked. Maybe it was the way she had of looking you straight in the eyes, and then immediately looking away. It was something that attracted and repelled simultaneously.

  She didn’t tell me what her idea of non-artificial risk was. She made a few rather vague remarks – the way Francesco did whenever I asked him to explain something he’d said or done – and then looked at me with an expression that seemed to say, ‘Of course, we’ve understood each other, haven’t we?’

  Of course.

  Still talking, we moved into the garden and got something to drink.

  Maria looked like someone who spent a lot of time at the gym. She told me she was married and had a fifteen-year-old daughter. I said I found that hard to believe, and she smiled because I’d said exactly what was expected of me.

  Her husband was a luxury car dealer and had a number of showrooms throughout the region. He was often away on business. She looked me straight in the eyes as she said this. Her gaze was so direct, I was forced to look away and drink some of my wine.

  We were sitting in the garden when Francesco joined us. He stopped in front of us, and for a moment there was a curious exchange of glances between him and Maria. So curious that it didn’t even occur to me to introduce them.

  Francesco turned to me. ‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you for a quarter of an hour. Shall we go? It’s nearly four.’

  ‘Two minutes and I’m coming,’ I replied.

  He said he’d wait for me by the car, nodded goodbye to Maria, and walked away.

  I turned back to her, feeling embarrassed. I wanted to ask her if we could see each other again, but I didn’t have time and didn’t know what to do. I mean, I didn’t know how to go about things with a married woman. But she wasn’t uncomfortable and knew exactly how to go about things.

  She took a notepad from one of the gaming tables, the kind used to tot up losses and wins. She wrote down a phone number, tore off the sheet, gave it to me and told me to call her. I could call any time between nine in the morning and one at night.

  I left the house without saying goodbye to anyone, joined Francesco in the car park, and we left. I drove at a hundred and ninety kilometres an hour. He put the seat back and reclined with his eyes half closed, smiling that mocking smile of his from time to time. We didn’t say a word the whole way home.

  As I was undressing to go to bed – it was already morning outside – I noticed the bruise that was forming on the inside of my left leg, where Francesco had grabbed me to cure me of my fear.

  11

  THE NEXT MORNING – a Sunday – I woke up late, of course. Through the half-open door of my bedroom came the smell of food and home.

  I was hungry, and I thought I’d get up and go straight to the table. I’d always liked having lunch just after getting up: something that usually only happened on New Year’s Day and a few other special occasions.

  There was no rush, no stress. I didn’t have to decide what to do as soon as I got up. Especially as it was a Sunday morning.

  It was a nice feeling.

  Then, while I was still in bed, I felt a strange unease creeping over me. A sense of guilt mixed with an awareness of imminent disaster.

  I was going to be found out. I’d get up and go to the table, my parents would look at me and see my wickedness written clearly on my face and at last they’d understand.

  I was filled with sadness and nostalgia. I’d have liked to feel that old pleasure I used to feel with my family, but now I realised it was lost forever.

  I had this sudden, intense hope that my parents weren’t at home. Because if they saw me this morning, they would find me out. I didn’t know
why, or why specifically this Sunday morning, but I was sure it would happen.

  I got up, washed, dressed quickly and went into the dining room with that feeling just below the surface, like a tingling under the skin, a slight but annoying fever.

  The table was already laid. The TV screen was filled with painful, unreal images.

  It was the fourth of June 1989. The previous day, Li Peng’s army had massacred the students in Tiananmen Square. More or less at the same time, it occurred to me, as I was winning millions cheating at poker and flirting with a predatory forty-year-old woman.

  I can still remember that long news broadcast, almost all of it about what had happened in Beijing, and then the image dissolves and I see my father tormenting the last mouthful of roast beef with his fork.

  He was moving it from one side of his plate to the other without picking it up. He would take a sip of his red wine and then resume moving that small piece of meat between what remained of his mashed potato. My mother’s famous mashed potato, I thought incongruously.

  I was waiting. My mother was waiting, too. I knew it even though I couldn’t see her face. I felt her anguish as if it was a physical entity.

  At last my father spoke. ‘Are you having problems with your studies?’

  ‘Why?’ I tried to look and sound surprised. It was a lousy piece of acting.

  ‘You haven’t taken any exams since last year.’

  My father spoke softly, separating his words. And when I looked at him, I saw lines on his face, signs of a pain I didn’t want to see. I looked away.

  ‘Do you want to tell us what’s going on?’ he continued.

  It was painful for him to say these words. He’d never imagined he’d ever have to say anything like that to me. I’d never been any trouble, especially where my studies were concerned. It was my sister who’d caused them a lot of problems and that was more than enough. What was going on?

  It struck me at that moment that they must have talked often and at length about what was happening to me. They must have wondered if it was a good idea to talk to me about it or if it would only make things worse.

  I reacted the way all third-rate people do when they’re caught doing something wrong. I reacted the way someone who knows he’s wrong and doesn’t have the courage to admit it reacts. By attacking.

  It was a cowardly thing to do, because they were weaker than me and as helpless as only parents can be.

  What did they want of me? I wasn’t even twenty-three yet and had almost finished university. The only reason they were attacking me was because I’d slowed down a bit. Was it forbidden to go through a bit of a crisis, fuck it? Was it forbidden? I screamed.

  I ended up saying some very nasty things and then got up from the table. They stayed where they were, unable to speak.

  ‘I’m going out,’ I said, and left.

  I was angry with them because they were right. Angry with myself, too.

  Angry and alone.

  At nine-thirty the following morning, Monday, I phoned Maria.

  12

  SHE HADN’T SOUNDED at all surprised. She’d reacted as if she’d been expecting me to phone that very morning. She said she was busy today but we could see each other the following morning.

  You can come over tomorrow morning, she’d said. To her house. Naturally, to be on the safe side, I had to phone first. All right. Tomorrow then. Tomorrow. Bye.

  Bye.

  I sat there for a long time with the receiver in my hand. Amazed by the total absence of hints and innuendo in that call. Wondering where I was going.

  Well, to start with, I was going to her house, tomorrow.

  After phoning, to be on the safe side.

  She hadn’t said, Come over, we’ll have a chat, a drink. For appearances’ sake, at least. All she’d said was, Come tomorrow morning.

  I felt empty, and at the same time excited in a facile, mindless way.

  The consequence of this strange mental chemistry was a kind of slow motion short circuit. I was thinking without really thinking. A slow series of images started unfolding in my head, uncontrollably. My mother. My father. Both looking older than they really were. I pushed the images away with difficulty, and my sister appeared, out of focus. I couldn’t see her very well.

  What I mean is: I couldn’t remember my sister’s face. But it made me sad and I pushed her image away too. That wasn’t so hard, but in pushing her out I let Francesco in. He, too, was out of focus. Then a flash of something from the past. Memories of junior high school, the first day of vacation at the end of the fourth grade. Why that one in particular? Why was I remembering that? A boy in floods of tears at a party, when I was a child. Why was he crying? I felt sorry for him, but I couldn’t do anything to help him. Two older children laughed at him and I didn’t say anything. I simply felt really humiliated and turned away.

  Then other images, even further back in time. So far back, I couldn’t distinguish them one from another. And all of them slow.

  Everything was very slow, almost unbearably slow.

  Something was falling apart inside me, and finally I got to the point where I couldn’t stand it.

  I went into my room and put on a Dire Straits cassette. Mark Knopfler’s guitar drove away the silence and all the things crowding into my head. I took out the cards and started to practise. The music finished and I carried on practising, as if nothing else mattered. I didn’t stop until I heard my mother’s key in the door, about two o’clock.

  My hands hurt, but my brain was clear and calm now.

  Like a frozen lake.

  After eating I went to sleep. A good method of escape. The perfect natural anaesthetic. When I woke up it was nearly six and, as I couldn’t bear staying at home after the argument with my parents the day before, I went straight out.

  It wasn’t warm for June, and after wandering a little aimlessly, I ended up in my usual bookshop.

  None of the regulars were there. In fact, no one was there when I went in.

  As I started moving around between the counters and the shelves, I realised that even books no longer interested me.

  I’d gone into the bookshop the way people go to a particular café or greasy spoon. Out of habit, because I didn’t know where else to go or who to go to. The only person I ever saw these days was Francesco. And he decided when we met.

  I picked up a few books at random and leafed through them, but it was a purely physical gesture. A gesture of boredom and emptiness.

  My interest was aroused for a moment in the Games and Hobbies section, coming across something called The Big Book of Magic Tricks. I’d never heard of the publisher, I’d never seen the book before, and I’ve never seen it since. I leafed through it until I got to the chapter on card tricks, but when I realised it only described a few simple tricks for family parties, I put it back on the shelf, disappointed.

  I was about to glance at the Complete Guide to Juggling when I heard someone calling me loudly – too loudly – by my surname.

  ‘Cipriani!’

  I turned to my left and saw this chubby guy coming towards me – from the section containing manuals for public exams, I noticed – and as he approached, with a big smile all over his face, I recognised him.

  Mastropasqua. A classmate of mine from junior high school.

  Unequivocally, unanimously recognised as the stupidest person in the class. Not the bottom of the class, though, because he had the obstinacy of a mule, and by studying eight hours a day he’d always managed to get just enough points in all subjects.

  The two of us had never been friends. In three years we’d exchanged maybe thirty words. Mostly while playing football in the street after leaving school on Saturday.

  I hadn’t seen him since we’d taken the written exams for third grade.

  He came up to me and put his arms round me.

  ‘Cipriani,’ he said again, affectionately. As if to say, I’ve found you at last, my old friend.

  After holding me for several sec
onds – I was afraid someone I knew might come into the bookshop and see us – Mastropasqua finally let go of me.

  ‘I’m pleased to see you, Cipriani.’

  I heard my voice answering him. ‘Me too, Mastropasqua. How are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine. Still watching my back.’

  Still watching my back. It was an expression we boys had used in junior high school. Mastropasqua hadn’t updated his vocabulary much.

  ‘How about you, are you still watching your back?’

  All our slang phrases of those years came back to me. A slang I’d abandoned and immediately forgotten when I moved up to senior high school. Mastropasqua clearly hadn’t. He must have cultivated it, the way some people cultivate dead languages, because of their wealth of meaning and power of evocation.

  ‘Yes. Still watching my back.’ It was my voice, but as if it was someone else’s.

  ‘Well, well, Cipriani. I’m so pleased to see you. What are you doing these days?’

  I’m cheating at cards, I’ve stopped studying, I’m planning to fuck a forty-year-old woman, and I’m breaking my parents’ hearts. That about sums it up.

  ‘I’ve almost finished law. How about you?’

  ‘Damn it! You’ve almost finished law! Well, it was obvious you were going to be a lawyer. Anyone could see that from the way you used to do in tests.’

  I was about to tell him I didn’t have the slightest desire to be a lawyer. But I stopped myself. It wasn’t as if I had any clear idea what I was going to do.

  ‘I started studying to be a vet,’ he went on. ‘But it was too hard. So now I’m going in for public exams.’

  He showed me the book he’d taken off the shelf. Entrance Examinations for the Police Force. That was the title.

  ‘If I can work for the State, who gives a damn about university? I won’t need to watch my back ever again.’

  I nodded in agreement. It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t remember his first name. Carlo? No, that was Abbinante. Another genius.