Three Light-Years: A Novel

by Canobbio, Andrea

  Silvia laughed. “Some trust you have.”

  “You’re not understanding me.” He reddened. “I can’t explain it.” He slumped down a little more, hanging his head between his shoulders. He looked at his hands in silence. After an hour he left.

  * * *

  He came back the next day. And again Silvia offered him a cup of tea and again he said no thanks. Silvia smiled, began boiling water, poured it into the teapot, shut the lid. She crossed the room, turned on the stereo, turned the volume down low. She really couldn’t imagine what Luca wanted to tell her, she’d come up with any number of hypotheses, but the most credible still seemed to be trouble in the marriage. She couldn’t guess which of the two was the cause; it seemed so unlikely that either of them would have a lover, people as sensible and levelheaded as they were. Just the idea of it made her laugh, the way two people kissing make children laugh. Seeing Luca among the objects of her daily life reassured her. Nothing serious or irreparable could have happened.

  “Yesterday, when I said … I meant to say…” He stopped, rubbed his forehead with one hand. “I was sure that what I wanted to say would have upset you and that you would tell the people you’re closest to. It’s normal, it’s natural, everyone does it, to try to understand. I can’t do it right now, I just can’t.”

  Silvia poured the tea into the cups, set the tray on the table in front of the couch, picked up her cup; the other cup stayed where it was, steaming, gradually cooling, no longer steaming. “Okay,” Silvia said, sitting down. “Who was I supposed to tell whatever it is you want to tell me?”

  “I don’t know. Your mother?”

  “My mother?” Her eyes widened. “I barely talk to my mother. How could you think I’d go and tell her anything about you? And why?”

  “I wanted someone to know who would tell Cecilia that she was wrong, that she’d done a terrible thing.”

  “You wanted our mother to tell her?”

  “You, your mother, I don’t know. I’m just trying to understand why I thought I should tell you. I feel so ashamed. I don’t want to tell anyone. I don’t want anyone to know about it. I wish it had never happened.”

  “I’m not following you, I’m sorry.”

  Luca pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. He seemed to be searching for a number or a message; he sighed, put it back in his pocket. He shook his head a little, muttered something.

  What if after having been the most normal guy in the world, he, too, had become one of those oddballs, what if he had become one of those people who sit on park benches, talking to themselves?

  “Maybe you should tell me what it is Cecilia did, otherwise I don’t get it.”

  “It’s not easy. I’ve never felt the way I’ve felt the last couple of months, this has never happened to me. This person isn’t me, this anger isn’t me. I think about it all day, I think about it all night, I never would have imagined having certain thoughts. Do you understand?”

  “Not really.”

  “I wanted someone to tell her that she shouldn’t have done what she did, I wanted a parent to yell at her. I wanted to share the anger with someone.”

  “Well, I, in any case, can’t go and say anything to anyone, and I can’t reprimand Cecilia for what she did if I do understand, I think, what she did. So, if sharing it with me isn’t enough, better not to tell me anything.”

  This time it wasn’t the old trick to affectionately extort confessions. It was a new trick, in which you said exactly what you thought. In part because by this time it was clear that Cecilia had been the one to betray him, and Silvia wasn’t sure she wanted to know the details of the story.

  “You don’t understand, you can’t,” said Luca.

  He got up. He stood there a moment. He said goodbye, and then he was gone.

  Cecilia had fallen in love with another man while her father was dying. Silvia placed her empty cup on the tray, beside the one that was still full.

  * * *

  Luca came back after a few days, very upset. “I would have been better off if I’d never met her, hadn’t married her, hadn’t had the two children we have. Can you imagine? Me thinking such a thing? The best moments of the past ten years, the most precious things I have, destroyed forever. Michela’s first day of school, remember how big she was already? We were more nervous than she was as she was getting ready the night before, and that morning I took her picture before we left the house; she was proud, excited. Every so often I look at the photo again and I laugh to myself, happy, you know? And the evening, at dinner, when Mattia began speaking, his first complex sentences with all the words in the right place, and Ceci and I looked at each other and almost started crying: he hadn’t gotten a single word wrong. He chatted about cars, he already knew all the models of all the manufacturers, and we pretended not to notice, not to interrupt him, to prolong the moment, but Michela couldn’t help herself, she shouted: ‘Mattia, you’re talking perfectly!’ We all burst out laughing. And once at the beach when he defended his sister from two older kids who threw sand at her, and Michela was beaming, and he wanted to continue fighting, furious at us for dragging him away. And that time, in the mountains, when some young people passed us, we were on the shore of a pond, and Michela, behind us, followed them all the way to the other side, she was three or four years old, and when I went to bring her back they were laughing like crazy, saying what a cute little girl she was, she wanted to know which ones were boyfriend and girlfriend, she’d only known them five minutes, and she was saying, ‘Don’t you like her? Why don’t you kiss each other?’ in that tiny voice of hers, remember?”

  “Oh, I remember, I remember.” Silvia nodded. She nodded. And nodded. What else could she do? She could only nod. Until Luca went away, forgetting even to say goodbye this time.

  The man she’d glimpsed a few days ago wanted to talk, he needed help, he was seeking advice. This one didn’t need someone to talk with, he needed an audience, he just had to recite his monologue, he already knew all the answers. Besides, wasn’t this whole scene a little too much, if it was just an affair?

  * * *

  Then finally, on his fourth visit, Luca blurted out what he wanted to say, with no second thoughts.

  He showed up carrying an umbrella, even though it wasn’t raining and wasn’t threatening to rain. He sank onto the couch. He sat up straight. His voice went up two octaves, took on a ragged, high-pitched timbre, and ended in a sob through clenched teeth: “We were expecting a baby, Cecilia aborted it, she said she couldn’t keep it.”

  Silvia held up her hands to stop him. “Wait, I don’t understand! She was expecting a baby? She lost it?”

  “She went and had an abortion, she went alone, without telling me.”

  “She had a miscarriage…”

  “NO! NO!” he shouted. “WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME? SHE HAD AN ABORTION! SHE DIDN’T WANT IT!”

  “She said she couldn’t keep it…”

  “She meant she didn’t want it.”

  “She told you: I can’t keep it. That’s all she said.”

  “She told me she didn’t want another child, that Mattia was still having problems, that she didn’t have the strength to start all over again. That’s what she said. I wanted us to talk about it, I asked her to wait. No use. Ten days later, she’d done it.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  The disclosure was so unexpected, the shock so great. Silvia shook her head. When had it happened? A day when they’d seen each other? A day before, a day after? Without telling anyone. She’d made an appointment. By phone? At the hospital? She’d gone by herself. When? What was the weather like? Was it sunny or raining? What had she been doing at that moment? Where were the children? In the morning she’d taken them to school. In the afternoon she’d gone to pick them up. She was calm; she was frightened. Did her mother know? She didn’t know. But how could she not have noticed anything? How could her sister have been able to hide it all so well?

  She didn’t want to hurt Luca, but
she wasn’t sure she wanted to console him. She had a knot in the pit of her stomach, her old friendly knot, and at the same time she felt lighter, relieved, maybe only of uncertainty. Above all, she was sure she didn’t share Luca’s anger. She would have been willing to share his grief or pain or sorrow, but anger? Actually, it seemed unthinkable to her that in the face of such an act he would feel only anger, or mainly anger, that he didn’t have anything to say about Cecilia.

  “Is Cecilia all right?”

  “Cecilia is just fine, she doesn’t realize what she’s done; you’d think she’d gone to the dentist.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded.

  Silvia started stammering. “It doesn’t seem possible that she … if she made that decision … I’m not against it … I’m not opposed in general, but … it’s a big decision, the way you tell it, it seems like she made a snap decision, just like that … without giving it any thought … it’s not like her, I can’t believe it … I don’t like you saying that … that thing about the dentist … I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit!”

  She was a little short of breath. But she knew why she felt relieved. Cecilia was no longer the perfect woman, she was no longer infallible, and it was only right that her mother know it. In the end, she did share a little of Luca’s anger, though for different reasons: Cecilia never told her anything, she didn’t expose herself, she didn’t reveal her weaknesses, she wasn’t a true friend, and that’s why she had no girlfriends—girlfriends bare all to one another. To go and do a thing like that alone. She felt relieved, but it was a fragile relief; her anxiety was stronger. She put a hand to her throat to gauge her heart rate, she tried to think rationally.

  “Maybe none of us realized how much Cecilia suffered over the death of our father, for not having been able to save him. I, too, sometimes felt angry with her, because she always seemed so cold when she spoke about Papa’s condition, about his prospects—when she told me and Mama what could still be done, as if she were talking about a to-do list, without ever saying there was nothing more that could be done. But those are defense mechanisms, you know? If she did—if she felt the need to do that thing, she must have had her reasons, she certainly has reasons that you have to find out. I understand you’re upset, but angry, no, you can’t give in to it, you have to be there for her. And don’t ever say that thing about the dentist again.”

  “It’s definitely not the worst thing I said.” He told her that for a month they’d gone to the park to fight, so the children wouldn’t hear them. In a clearing among the trees he told Cecilia she was an animal, a murderer, that she made him want to puke, she was a monster, a hideous thing. He told her she didn’t deserve to be the mother of his children. He told her he would have rather she died giving birth.

  He relayed all this as if it had nothing to do with him, the dry umbrella still beside him. It was pointless for her to say anything. And in any case, she couldn’t take any more, she was too upset. She bent forward and rested her forehead on her knees, her arms limp at her sides. Her heart was pounding in her ears. And to think she’d actually planned to ask him for money. Her heart slowed, swelled with each beat, filled her entire rib cage, became tough and fibrous. Again Silvia imagined her sister, alone—before, during, and after—alone from now on, alone with herself, as she’d never wanted, or been able, to be.

  * * *

  She thought of confessing to Cecilia that she knew everything. In her head she tried out several things she might say to approach her. She never got beyond the introductory phase, in which she struggled at length to justify Luca’s choice, as if her brother-in-law’s decision to tell her everything incriminated her as well, as if she, with her weakness and frailties, had forced him to break the vow of silence.

  But each time she found herself in Cecilia’s presence, even before she started to speak, she was certain that she would not raise the subject that day. There were more urgent things, things that were more interesting, less difficult. She had to wait for the right occasion. And not cause additional, unnecessary friction between Luca and Cecilia. She kept telling herself that if she didn’t talk to her about it, it was out of a sense of responsibility, not because she didn’t have the courage.

  Still, she felt a little less like a black sheep; her sister had become more human and fallible in her eyes—a tragic figure, a Medea. And she realized that she loved her dearly, she realized that she cared about her and the children the way you care about a real family. Except superstitiously, to ward off the possibility, she never gave serious thought to the idea that Cecilia and Luca might break up; they were fated to be together.

  * * *

  The day Silvia discovers she’s pregnant, Stefania stays over at her house. They talk for an hour in front of the muted TV set. Every now and then they get up to look for information on the Internet. They search for whatever essential facts they need concerning the timing and methods for terminating a pregnancy. They open and close pro-life and pro-choice sites after just a few seconds. They go to bed early; both of them sleep very badly.

  The next day is much better. Stefania goes to the office. Silvia phones the editor for whom she’s revising the book on Hindu mythology. The editor lets her persuade him to give her two more weeks with surprisingly little argument. Most likely he’d lied to her about the schedule. No matter, the news fills her with joy and gives her an unjustified confidence in the future. Everything will work out.

  So the following night, the feast day of the city’s patron saint, she goes out with Carla to watch the fireworks. In the middle of the bridge across the river she confesses the truth. Carla wants to know all the details. She wants to know who he is. She wants to know if it’s out of the question for them to continue seeing each other. Then she tells her she has to talk to Cecilia about it. In any case. Whatever she decides.

  “Have you decided?”

  She shakes her head: “I can’t think straight.”

  “Do you want to keep it?” It doesn’t even seem like a question; Carla manages to say it in a perfectly neutral tone so that the words don’t express opinions, judgments, prejudices, or fears.

  “I can’t think right now. But I don’t think I have any choice given my situation.”

  “Talk to your sister. Promise me?”

  “Why do you all want me to talk to my sister?”

  “Because she can help you, she can make it less painful.”

  She looks at Carla, not comprehending.

  “You know in whose hands you could end up? You hear stories about women treated like criminals.”

  “But I haven’t decided anything yet…”

  “Of course. But, in any case, you should decide.”

  Talking to Cecilia becomes a way to buy time and reach the inevitable decision. As though Cecilia, as a doctor, possesses enough natural cynicism to state flatly that there is no other choice.

  “I’ll wait another two or three days. I want to be able to think about it.”

  On Friday morning she does the third test, just to use it, since she bought it. It turns pink, then blue, then blue.

  She decides to go to the shore with Stefania. Staying in the city, she’d spend two days at home going around and around the same subject. At the shore she spends two days at the beach going around and around the same subject. Stefania again urges her to talk to Cecilia. No matter what she decides. “All right, I’ll go see her on Tuesday,” she says, to stall for one more day.

  She works very efficiently all day Monday. In the evening she imagines possible ways to broach the subject with Cecilia, possible ways the conversation might develop. She talks about it at length on the phone with Francesca, who not being face-to-face with her is perhaps more sincere. She tells her that raising a child alone seems like madness, “even though you’re not alone, we’re here, you know,” but she’s referring to the other two, since she isn’t actually there.

  The next day she gets to the ER, goes inside. But when she sees Cecilia at the
end of the hall she turns on her heels and flees. Outside it’s a normal late-June morning in the city. It’s already hot, the sky is overcast, there’s not a breath of air. A short walk restores her courage and enables her to return to the ER. But the more she thinks about it, the more difficult talking to Cecilia about an unwanted pregnancy seems. If Cecilia hides her feelings, she won’t be able to bear seeing her impassive face. If she crumbles, she won’t be able to bear seeing her emotional face. And she isn’t even sure she wants advice from her.

  She walks for ten minutes, headed back home. She’s no longer upset, she no longer feels pregnant. She feels drained, as if it were already over. She’s tired, so she gets on a bus, lets her thoughts drift, lets her gaze wander over the city. Despite the grimy, rattling window, the world has never seemed so vivid, its contours so clear and sharp.

  If she stayed on that seat for a whole week maybe the jiggling would make her lose the baby. Maybe she’ll lose it anyway. She skips her stop, she doesn’t feel like getting off, going home, to do what? She continues riding to the last stop, then retraces her route.

  She passes the pedestrian zone where Rumi’s club is. Rumi has red hair like Enrico Fermi, but unfortunately he’s not Enrico Fermi. Enrico Fermi introduced her to so much music! If she were to go to him now, if she confessed everything, maybe he’d take her back. He’d put on “Sweet Song” by Blur and they’d dance in each other’s arms in his studio apartment. But the truth is she doesn’t want to get off that bus.

  * * *

  The year her father died, following Luca’s confession, she’d continued her raids even after her mother left for the shore with the grandchildren and the house wasn’t being restocked with fresh food. One day, pacing back and forth in the dark corridor, she began smiling and talking—acting as if she were welcoming a guest to the house and inviting him to sit in the living room, and she pictured herself as the mistress of that house, a person with a real job and a real love life, and in any case something to talk about. The game didn’t last long, but she liked it so much that she went back the following day. She imagined discussing with an architect how she wanted to renovate the apartment, she imagined the architect falling in love with the house and with her. (Many years later, she would want her son to become an architect, and her son would disappoint her, would end up reconstructing different architectures.)