Three Light-Years: A Novel

by Canobbio, Andrea

  They sat in silence, staring at the bottom of their wineglasses. Antonio asked him if he was watching a game.

  Viberti said no, there were no good matches on, and besides, he’d rented a film.

  “I’ll stay and watch part of it.”

  “I’m not sure you’ll like it.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “A woman in a coma.”

  “Great.”

  They often watched soccer together on television. Or they watched separately, calling each other to banter about the results, or after a goal, or even after a goal that had been narrowly missed. They watched with married friends when big games were on, and took in the Tuesday or Wednesday cup matches with Antonio’s sons. They watched soccer on other evenings as well, recorded matches, minor teams from the German Bundesliga or the English Premier League or the Spanish Liga.

  Viberti restarted the DVD. After a while, Antonio asked if there really wasn’t a game. Viberti said he wanted to see the film, Mercuri had recommended it to him and it would be courteous on his part to call him and tell him what he thought of it.

  “Can’t you lie to him?”

  They began laughing at the characters’ expressions.

  Marco, a journalist, was in love with a female bullfighter, Lydia.

  “So you’re separated,” said Lydia.

  “I’m single,” Marco corrected her.

  Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to see that particular film that night.

  Lydia was gored by a bull and ended up in the hospital, in a coma.

  “In your opinion,” Viberti said, “did I become a doctor so I could cure my father?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Because I felt guilty for not having saved him, as if I were responsible for his death.”

  “Oh,” Antonio said. “Well, even if you did kill him, we’re past the statute of limitations by now.”

  He added that he was beginning to like the film.

  Viberti, on the other hand, was bored. He didn’t understand what Mercuri had seen in it. Caetano Veloso crooned “Cucurrucucú Paloma” accompanied by guitar, cello, and double bass. Marco started weeping, though actually, he wept only a single tear and anyway it looked fake. Viberti pictured Mercuri crying as he watched the actor cry.

  “I wept when something moved me because I couldn’t share it with her,” Marco said.

  At the hospital Marco met Benigno, a nurse in love with another young woman in a coma (Alicia, a ballet student).

  “Alicia and I get along better than a lot of couples,” Benigno said.

  “You talk to plants, but you don’t marry them,” Marco pointed out.

  Antonio laughed. “This film is pretty interesting.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I’m dead serious.”

  He said that at a certain age men preferred women that way, in a coma.

  Viberti felt uneasy. True, maybe it was a good film, but he wasn’t in the right mood. His discomfort grew when Benigno ended up in prison, accused of having raped Alicia, and, later, committed suicide. And when Marco realized that Alicia had come out of the coma giving birth to Benigno’s (stillborn) child, when Marco saw her, recovered, at the dance school across the street, Viberti felt the same emotion he’d experienced sitting under Mercuri’s pergola. He leaped up, ran into the kitchen, and went out on the balcony through the open French door.

  When he didn’t come back, Antonio followed him, embarrassed, lingering a few feet away in the kitchen. He asked him what was going on. What was wrong? Did he feel sick?

  Viberti couldn’t calm down, he couldn’t answer. He didn’t understand why Cecilia didn’t want to be with him. It seemed unbearably unfair.

  It lasted a few minutes. Antonio turned halfway around, as if to leave, and stood there staring at the refrigerator. They’d known each other for thirty years, but they’d never found themselves in this kind of situation.

  Viberti got the idea of using his mother as an excuse. He said it was terrible to think that a person could vanish like that, into thin air.

  Antonio nodded, pretending to believe it.

  But that’s what a true friend was, Viberti thought later. A true friend pretends there’s nothing wrong and believes the first excuse that pops into your head.

  * * *

  After Giulia left the apartment and moved to the third floor, Viberti hadn’t replaced the furniture she’d taken with her. They had divided it up as equitably as possible, joking about it: “You get the couch, I get the armchairs.” He hadn’t even shifted the remaining pieces to disguise the gaps that had been created. The furniture Giulia had chosen or drawn by lot had left behind a paler mark on the walls after its brief stay in that house. Roaming through the apartment, absently entering a room, Viberti sometimes thought he saw those pieces again. A phantom chest of drawers. The skeleton of a wardrobe. The suggestion of a painting.

  On many evenings, during the months of June and July, Viberti convinced himself that what had happened in the doctors’ lounge and later in the Passat had been a mistake, as Cecilia said, and though he didn’t speak to her about the matter again, he let her know (or rather he thought he let her know) that he’d accepted the verdict, however harsh and final.

  He never went straight home, and would sometimes linger in his mother’s kitchen until ten or so. Lying, he’d tell her he’d already eaten, and he’d listen to Marta’s memories as they went further and further back in time, ever more complicated and far-fetched, forgetting he was hungry until he crossed the threshold of his own apartment, where he would open the refrigerator in a rush, eat something cold, and go straight to bed. Some evenings, though, he found himself alone, and after supper he would sit out on the balcony in an old wicker chair, watching the courtyards for hours. Evenings when it had rained, evenings when it couldn’t make up its mind to rain, oppressive evenings, the sky stainless steel, heat you could cut with a knife, a fresh breeze like an unexpected gift, the light impervious.

  On the balcony he often recalled an incident that had occurred during a period when Marta was sad. He used to think it had happened after his father’s death, but recently he’d become certain he’d been mistaken. The day after the incident he’d had a fever, he remembered this, too, quite clearly.

  She’d locked him out on the balcony by accident, when he went out to get a bottle of mineral water. And she hadn’t heard him calling her. Maybe because she’d gone to bed. And stayed in bed all afternoon. She didn’t realize she’d locked him out until eleven o’clock that night, when she turned on the light in the kitchen to make herself some herbal tea. He’d been outside on the balcony in just a T-shirt for seven hours, in the middle of winter. He smiled, remembering it. And they’d always laughed about it with each other. But what was so funny? He might have been twelve or thirteen. Out in the cold like a survivor from The Red Tent. He’d come down with bronchitis and Mercuri had hurried over to treat him.

  Marta! How could he be angry with Marta? Hold a grudge against his mother over such a stupid thing? In fact he didn’t hold it against her. He’d even created an alibi for her: his father’s death. But in reality (he recalled) it had happened before, not after. And then another time she’d left him locked out of the house all afternoon. He kept ringing the doorbell, but Marta was in bed and didn’t hear it.

  And yet, and yet … Two episodes of shirking her motherly responsibilities in eighteen years (if you considered the age of majority as the cutoff). Two incidents of probable blackout due to depression in eighteen years. He didn’t recall any others. But perhaps there had been some and he hadn’t noticed them or hadn’t wanted to notice. Those two he’d had no choice but to notice, Marta had forced him to be more alert. Maybe because usually he paid no attention? Maybe so that he would report the episodes to someone else? His father? Mercuri? Too complex, too convoluted, his mother wasn’t that convoluted, no one was that convoluted.

  In any case, he didn’t hold it against his mother, and his mother had n
ever been seriously depressed. No matter what Giulia thought.

  Still, he remembered that afternoon and that frigid evening spent out on the balcony. He hadn’t dared break the windowpane, maybe he should have. Huddled against the French door to steal a little warmth, watching the lighted windows of the houses across the way. People moving about in a yellowish, sixty- or seventy-five-watt glow, getting ready to go to bed in that luminous space. Lowering the shutters, as though shutting their eyes and not seeing him. Acts of hostility toward him. If only he’d at least seen a woman undressing.

  * * *

  One evening, toward the end of July, my father moves his armchair outside, prepared to let his gaze wander along the perimeters formed by the dividing walls between the courtyards. Imagining him in that position has a strange effect on me, given that later on I saw him many times, as an old man, observe the same courtyards with a serene expression on his face. I have to erase that serenity and replace it with anxiety and dejection.

  The block where Viberti, Marta, and Giulia’s apartment house is located is a group of buildings, four or five stories high, almost completely surrounded by walls on all sides, like a fortress. The balconies and windows are draped with rainbow flags against the war in Iraq. Only on the left does a low building break the line of the interior facades: at one time it was an old factory that made pudding molds, now it’s a supermarket. The center of the quadrangle is occupied by a garage, now converted into a gym, and a small storehouse with a red-tile roof, nearly falling apart, where generations of cats have lived. The remaining space is divided among the courtyards. The smallest even has a little garden with a very tall pine tree; the others are paved with concrete tiles.

  My father knows them well, those tiles. Rough but slippery, awful on the knees and elbows. As a child he spent his afternoons spinning around the yard on his bicycle, leaning in at every curve like a motorcyclist and covering himself with scabs from the inevitable falls. As a boy, when the weather was nice, he liked to study in that wicker chair, watching the cats’ antics, the factory workers carrying the aluminum molds, the cars driving up the garage ramp, for hours as he reviewed his lessons. Rather than being a distraction, the courtyards’ panorama had become a mnemonic device: he would associate each courtyard with the paragraphs of a certain chapter or the assumptions of a theorem or the phases of a historical event. Now, each time he returns to the balcony, his eyes feel compelled to follow a specific order. Only after he’s done so can he let his gaze and his thoughts wander.

  At one point he thinks he sees a shadow slip between two chimneys on the roof of the supermarket. The more closely he looks, the more he thinks he knows who it is. It’s Giulia’s husband. What is he doing on that roof? It’s not something that intrigues him or arouses his curiosity. He’s never been jealous of Giulia’s husband. He’s never been as fond of Giulia’s son as he’s been of Cecilia’s son, for example. Then, too, as a general rule, he’s always preferred to know as little as possible about other people’s business. As a general rule, it’s always best to know as little as possible about other people’s business. Not that it’s difficult to keep the things you accidentally come to know to yourself and pretend you know nothing. But even if you pretend not to know, you do know, and your life is invaded by the lives of others. You see someone slapping his son as you’re walking along the street. Then, each time you see him, you think about how many times he’s probably slapped his son in the meantime. Giulia’s husband walks unhurriedly to the storehouse, climbs over the tile roof, disappears on the other side. As if it were no big deal, as if he did it every day. He can even do it twice a day, as far as I’m concerned, Viberti thinks.

  Can anyone see him on the balcony? Someone from the windows across the way? Someone who, like him, has lived in the same house for forty years and noticed his inconsequential move upstairs, who has realized that the boy on the second floor who was once locked out on the balcony has become the solitary adult on the fifth.

  He’s angry, he feels let down. He’s only forty-three years old, but he feels Cecilia was his last chance to be happy with a woman, and, besides that, his last chance to have a child. He feels his loneliness will have to be filled by friends and other people’s families and by his work. He feels he’s always known this, that he’s always imagined he’d grow old alone and self-sufficient. He feels he will never make love with Cecilia.

  The phone rings, it’s her. She tells him she was at a pizzeria with some colleagues a few nights ago, the children are away at summer camp, and she felt bad about never wanting to go out with him and she’d like to make up for it and invite him to a restaurant on the river. “All right,” Viberti says.

  * * *

  At a restaurant for the first time, sitting across from each other at a candlelit table. There’s a gentle sound of flowing water, creating silvery eddies along the riverbank. There are mosquitoes that bite only the feet, like fetishists. There is the clink of silverware against plates, the buzz of conversation. It’s very hot, but Cecilia is in a good mood and Viberti can’t keep up with her stories. She teases him because he’s eating normally: “I think I’ve only seen you with boiled zucchini, potatoes, and spinach.” She calls him Dr. Anorexic and Mr. Bulimic. “That’s not exactly true,” Viberti says defensively, flushing. He’d like to explain his nutritional approach to her, but she’s already moved on to something else.

  Two nights ago she’d gone out with some colleagues and they’d ended up in a horrible pizzeria near the hospital. Not to celebrate the start of vacation, since, as the chief surgeon pointed out with a wistful expression, “The days when everyone took vacation at the same time are over.” When he was young, the city emptied out in August, there were no sick people anymore and legendary soccer tournaments were organized at the hospital. “Good times,” a nurse whispered in Cecilia’s ear, “when we were in short pants.” Cecilia does a perfect imitation of both the pompous head doctor and the Neapolitan nurse and Viberti laughs.

  But it’s true, only a third of them will start vacation the following Monday, cities don’t empty out anymore. So how come they all went out for pizza, then? To say goodbye to a nurse who is leaving: she’s taking a year’s leave of absence to go work in a village in Mali. At the end the young woman made a short speech with tears in her eyes, and despite the lousy pizza, the subzero air-conditioning, and the unrelenting neon lights, everyone was glad they’d gone to send her off. The chief surgeon hugged her and made a silly joke, loudly, so everyone could hear. The doctors and nurses, exhausted, laughed in unison with a strange sense of liberation.

  Viberti, too, keeps laughing; Cecilia’s high spirits are contagious. Under the trees, along the river, the heat is almost bearable. But after dinner, when they get to the street, the asphalt is scorching and steamy.

  “If this keeps up, all my little old folks will die of dehydration,” Viberti says. He’s thinking about the death of letting her leave by herself, the death that is life without her.

  He thinks Cecilia is about to say good night and he’s prepared for a disappointing kiss on the cheek. He offers to take her to her car.

  “I didn’t come by car,” Cecilia tells him.

  “You seem angry,” Viberti says, “is it my fault?”

  “It’s always your fault.” She shakes her head with a sad smile.

  They get into the Passat without another word, Viberti crosses the bridge and turns left onto the broad, tree-lined drive that runs along the river. He drives in silence, he doesn’t exceed thirty miles an hour, Cecilia has her seat belt on and has leaned her head back, closing her eyes. Five traffic lights, red, green, red; at the second-to-last intersection Viberti slows down, hoping the light will turn yellow; at the last he actually stops at a green light. The giant trees form a dark curtain that hides the river and the sweltering city beyond it. Cecilia hasn’t opened her eyes, but when they reach the piazza surrounding the large circular church she takes Viberti’s hand, resting on the gearshift, and asks him to go back. “B
ack where,” he asks, “to the restaurant?”

  She asks him to drive back along the riverfront the way they’ve come. They cover the same route back and forth twice, as if they’ve decided to spend the night driving, in the air-conditioned car.

  After the third lap, Cecilia opens her eyes, turns to Viberti, and looks at him.

  Viberti doesn’t ask her to go with him to his apartment, he knows she wouldn’t agree. He drives in silence along the broad avenue that runs along the river, until he finds a dark, secluded spot.

  READMITTED TO HUMAN SOCIETY

  Memory is unfair. The person remembering is now older. She was no longer able to feel what she had once felt for Luca. She remembered clearly the sensation of something that was fading and then the sensation of no longer feeling anything, and later still the anger and regret; she’d lost him forever. She remembered how she’d felt, having loved him in a hazy former time, and realizing that she didn’t love him anymore, not at all, at that moment, an instant before, discovering that she hadn’t loved him for who knows how long. She’d begun to stop loving him without being aware of it, maybe because it wasn’t possible to know it before being ready to admit it and by that time it was too late. And besides, the person remembering is now older and more disillusioned and forgetful than the young, deluded, determined protagonist of her memories. That’s why memory is unfair.