When the Night

by Cristina Comencini

  “We’ll go swimming at the beach. You’ll love it! I’ll buy you an inflatable raft and we’ll row around with Daddy.”

  When I say the word “Daddy” he stops and stares. He misses Mario. When Mario calls, he listens and then turns away. He hands me the phone. He doesn’t want to talk.

  I talk to him while he plays in the bath, to calm him but also because I think he’s old enough now to understand what I’m saying.

  ON THE ISLAND there’s a beach where the sand is so hot you could fry an egg on it. Three black rocks rise out of the water, which is as calm as a lake. I used to go swimming there with my sisters until late in the afternoon. The red, liquid sun would sink into the sea, and then we would scream and yell and dive into the golden ribbons of dying light. The water was like hot ink, and my mother would call out to us, towels in hand.

  “Marina, come here! You’re the last one, as usual.”

  “I’LL NEVER MAKE you get out of the water unless you want to. You love the water, so you’ll be a good swimmer. But I can’t give you a bath tonight, because of your cold. No, don’t climb up there, it’s dangerous! You’ll fall.”

  “Mamma, no!”

  “Stop that! You can’t go there, there are bottles and you’ll hurt yourself. Don’t cry, come on, let’s play a game. Let’s play with blocks. We’ll build a tower and then you can knock it down. I can see you’re not interested … Why do you have to climb up on that? Look, there’s nothing there for you, just two wine bottles, a bottle of oil, the salt and pepper shakers, the sugar bowl, the coffee jar.

  It’s good wine. I don’t scrimp on wine. I don’t smoke, I don’t go out, but I like to have a drink in the evenings. Yesterday I drank almost a whole bottle. I mustn’t tell Mario, or he’ll think I have a problem, on top of everything else. Wine helps me relax, it warms me up inside, and I don’t feel so lonely and tired.

  “Get down from there! Good boy. Play with your toy cars.”

  Vroom vroom. He calms down for a bit. That way I can think for a few minutes. A minute is already something, sixty seconds, a long time. I have to use my minutes well, but then it’s so difficult to pull myself out of my thoughts. Sit down, Marina, take advantage of this moment, you can clean up later.

  My mind wanders. How wonderful it is to think! When you’re young you don’t realize it. On Sunday mornings you can stay in bed and daydream as long as you please. In class, you listen, dream, sleep. How lucky you were, but of course you didn’t enjoy it to the fullest. One should never miss an occasion to think! Ever since the baby was born, you’ve become aware of how precious time is. At cafés and in the street, people walk, smoke, and converse, carefree and unaware, with no sense of haste. They have all the time in the world. They don’t realize how lucky they are. I push the baby stroller; once I too was like them.

  In the fall I’ll go back to work, part-time. I’ll leave him with my mother in the mornings. I’ll have to take him to her because she doesn’t go out early in the morning. Before eight o’clock; it will be cold. How long before he gets sick? When he does, I won’t be able to go to work. If I hire someone, she’ll have to come every morning and it will be too expensive.

  Mario doesn’t understand.

  “Why don’t you ask for leave until he can go to day care? After all, your salary isn’t very large.”

  I’ll never be able to get an important position now, but at least they pay you to think, what a privilege! If I can’t go to work for part of the day, I’ll go crazy. I know that other women don’t feel this way; they suffer when they have to leave their child to go to work. My sister quit her job to be a full-time mother. She said: “It was hell. At home all I could think about was the office, and at the office all I could think about was home. This is the life I want.”

  But now she’s always tense and bosses everyone around. Maybe the same will happen to me and I’ll end up wanting to stay home, but now all I can dream about is the office.

  In the corner of sky I can make out from my office I can see seagulls and swallows in the spring. I have my own computer, my pens, my paper. There’s a balance sheet to read, a report to write. Hours of quiet work ahead of me. At one we go for lunch at the café and tell each other stories about our lives. And we laugh, how we laugh …

  “WHERE ARE YOU? No, don’t go there! Why do you want to climb up there? Look, here’s your truck! You didn’t know it was there, did you? It was hidden under the table. There, there, that’s a good boy.”

  I wonder why boys are drawn to cars, from the very beginning. Now’s he’s in the truck, driving around like a madman down a road full of twists and turns. He’s bold, fearless, and then boom, he crashes into the wall and the truck rolls over, but he’s not afraid. He gets right up and keeps going, driving around like a madman … I love to watch him play.

  MY SISTER AND I used to play with dolls, but she was better at it than I was. I didn’t enjoy dressing them up, preparing their food, cleaning the house. She would send me off to do the food shopping. The flowers were vegetables, ivy leaves were steaks, wisteria was grapes, little sticks were knives and forks, bark became plates. She would say, “You’re the husband. You go out and gather food for us.”

  I wasn’t happy with that; I wanted a husband too, but there was no arguing with her, she was older and she got to decide.

  “You’re too distracted to be a good wife.”

  So I played the husband, knowing that one day I would get to play the wife. But she was right; my head is in the clouds, I’ve always been that way.

  The teacher used to say to my mother, “Marina is a dreamer.”

  I’m not sure it was a compliment. Sometimes it seemed like a good thing. I would meet a boy and he would stare at me and ask, “What are you thinking about?”

  “Lots of things,” I would say.

  And he would be intrigued because he wanted to know, in detail.

  But it made my father angry.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  He wanted me to pay attention when he tried to explain math problems. I would get distracted and nervous. I lost count of how long he had been talking, and I wondered whether he had asked me a question. What did he want to know? I needed time to think, and I didn’t realize that time had passed and he was beginning to lose patience.

  Where is it that my thoughts go? The world stands still, and I wander around, observing people, playing tricks on them. It’s fun, and time passes quickly, but then it turns out your time is up.

  “You forgot to buy potatoes,” my sister would say. She never forgot.

  I HEAR A loud thud—what happened?

  The wine bottles are on the floor, and there’s oil everywhere … The baby is crying, surrounded by broken glass. My God, he’s hurt! Is that blood or wine? What have you done? Don’t cry! Oil and wine are spreading across the floor and blending together. The kitchen is full of liquid, like a sinking boat; the liquid spreads toward the living room. It smells like a tavern. I’ll have to mop it up, but when, how? Where do I put him? I can’t put him to bed, he’ll climb out.

  I pick him up and slip on the oil. We sit on the floor amid the broken glass, like two shipwrecked souls. His head is bleeding and so is my leg. He’s crying now. He won’t stop.

  “Mamma, go away!”

  I can’t handle it, he’s right. I wasn’t born for this; it’s been wrong from the beginning. Rage! Rivers of incandescent rage. I can’t hold them back any longer. I’m full of hate. Mario, my mother, my father, my sisters … They can all go to hell! I want to die here with him, on this floor stinking of oil and wine. I’d like to close my eyes here with him.

  Come darkness, cold, silence. Save us both from this disaster. Come and take me, I’ve been waiting for you. Make this crying animal be silent, he’s killing me. I scream.

  “Basta! Be quiet! Quiet! Stop it!”

  That’s it. Good. He’s not crying anymore. It’s finished. Finally some quiet.

  WHAT ARE THOSE two doing up there? The baby is cr
ying and she’s screaming. Objects falling on the floor, banging. What has she broken? I’ll make her pay for it. They should take babies away from their mothers the moment they’re born, just as my father said.

  It’s none of my business how people raise their children. The earlier they grow up and leave home, the better. I became a mountain guide so I could leave home. I’d rather not be indoors any more than necessary. I sleep three hours, get up, and walk out into the night.

  With Luna and the kids it wasn’t possible. I allowed myself to get trapped in a prison. But it was she who complained, “You’ve locked me up in a prison.” And I would respond, “Do you realize what I did for you? I locked myself up in a house. And now you want to go out, eat in restaurants, go to the city? No, that’s too easy. We’ll stay here, together in our trap, with our beautiful children.”

  It’s too quiet now. I can’t hear anything at all. Maybe they’ve gone to bed. But it’s only six, it’s too early. After her idiotic scream, a dead silence. No child quiets down that quickly. Something must have happened. I’ll go and listen. I’ll go upstairs quietly, and if I hear them I’ll turn back.

  On the stairs, silence. I can’t hear either of them. Something must have happened. I ring the doorbell. It’s my house, I’m responsible.

  No answer. I try again. Silence.

  “Do you hear me?! Answer the door!”

  Silence.

  “Open up!”

  I yell and bang on the door.

  Silence. I look down and see liquid seeping under the door. I lean down and smell it. Wine.

  A broken bottle. What happened? I have to knock down the door. I run to get the ice axe next to the fireplace and back up the stairs. I aim it at the lock and try to break it. Neither she nor the baby make any sound, as if they can’t hear me. Something serious must have happened. Maybe they’re dead. I strike the lock again, three or four times.

  The wood splinters but doesn’t break. It’s a solid door. A carpenter used to live here; he must have reinforced it. I’ll try again, harder. It can’t be harder than rock. Finally, a hole, now I just have to make it bigger. Big enough for my hand. I unlock the door from the inside and open it.

  The light is on and the floor is wet. The room with the fireplace is empty. In the kitchen, the baby is on the floor with his eyes closed, lying amid broken glass and liquid. Blood? I pick him up, he’s breathing. There is blood on his head. Where is she? I move slowly, careful not to slip with the baby in my arms. There she is behind a door, curled up on the floor like a pile of rags.

  “What happened?”

  Her eyes are empty.

  “Can you hear me? Wake up!”

  I should slap her, but my hands are full. I kick her.

  “Get up!”

  Now she’s trembling, like Luna. She does as I say.

  “Did he fall?”

  She doesn’t answer. I hand her the child.

  “Hold his head, talk to him. Try to wake him.”

  She takes him in her arms without looking. She says nothing, awaiting orders.

  “Let’s go.”

  6

  DARKNESS. TREES, A bridge, twists and turns, a dark stream. Who is driving? Where am I? The baby is sleeping. Where are we going? He fell and hit his head. I hold him close. My God, why doesn’t he wake up?

  The landlord is driving. We are in his car. Where is he taking us? How did he get in? I hear his hard voice, whispering.

  “Did he fall asleep again?”

  He stares at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Yes.”

  “Talk to him, wake him up. What’s his name?”

  “Marco.”

  Why does she have that haunted look? What is she afraid of?

  “We’re almost there. He shouldn’t fall back asleep. Wake him, talk to him!”

  “My darling, wake up! Come on, sit up.”

  “Don’t move him!”

  “Don’t sleep, my love, open your eyes, look at Mamma.”

  She’s crying now, the fool.

  “Keep going, speak louder.”

  “Everything is all right, my love. Wake up, I beg you! Now we’ll see the doctor and he’ll make everything all right. Open your eyes, look at Mamma! I’m here, near you, I won’t leave you!”

  What have I done? Mario mustn’t know.

  “Don’t console him, let him cry. It’s better if he cries. And you, stop crying! You’re not a child!”

  Bastard.

  “Did he hit his head?”

  Don’t tell him anything, Marina. Be careful. I mutter, “He climbed up onto the table and slipped, taking the bottles with him.”

  “Where did he hit his head?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Where were you?”

  The fool, why does she look down? “I said, don’t move him! Let him cry, it’s good for him. Caress him, but without moving him. Where were you?”

  “In the bathroom. I only left him for an instant.”

  Why did I say that? I should have said I was there but didn’t make it in time to stop him.

  She’s lying. Why was she sitting behind the door instead of with the child, holding him in her arms?

  “You could have put him in his crib.”

  “He climbs out of it. He was playing nicely with his cars, so I thought I’d have enough time to go to the bathroom.”

  “Why were you behind the door instead of with him?”

  Bastard. I won’t answer.

  “Stop crying, we’re here. Take him in, and I’ll park.”

  A driveway, patches of light on a lawn, flowers, empty benches. Emergency room entrance. Two nurses come out to meet us.

  I must repeat the same thing to everyone: he climbed up on the table and slipped, bringing down the bottles with him. He hit his head hard.

  The nurses open the door.

  “What happened?”

  “He climbed on the kitchen table and slipped, taking the bottles down with him. He hit his head hard.”

  “We’ll take him in for observation.”

  “Can I come? He’ll get scared if he doesn’t see me.”

  “No, we’ll call you.”

  He begins to scream. They take him from me. I want to die.

  I FOLLOW THEM until they disappear behind a glass door. The waiting room is empty except for a mother with her newborn. It’s clean, with pictures of happy children on the walls.

  I sit down to keep from crumpling to the floor. The mother stares at me. I look away, but I know she will ask me.

  “Did he fall?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiles. “With my firstborn, I was always at the emergency room. Boys never stop moving.”

  What have I done? I feel like I’m about to start screaming. Stop, Marina. No one knows what happened. They’ll be able to fix him. He’ll be scared without me. I should have gone with him, held him. What harm would it have done? Maybe he won’t want me to hold him anymore.

  Mamma, go away!

  I cry, and everything grows cloudy: the waiting room, the empty chairs, the pictures of happy children.

  “Don’t cry. Children are strong.”

  What does she know? What does anyone know about me? No one knows. The bastard suspects something. Where did he go? I have to get rid of him. If he comes back I’ll thank him and tell him to go home. I can manage on my own. The only thing that matters is that the baby is OK and no one knows. Mario. My mother. Otherwise, they’ll take him away. And if they take him, I’ll kill myself. There he is.

  “Where is the boy?”

  “They took him inside.”

  I get up, so he gets the message.

  “Thank you for everything. I’m going to stay here with him, but you should go home.”

  Now she plays the grande dame, but she won’t get rid of me that easily.

  “Let’s see how he’s doing first. The police will want to talk to me.”

  My legs are shaking. I’d better sit.

  This man hates me. He
wants me dead. I must be stronger, and more clever. Marina, get a hold of yourself, think things through, stop crying. Act like an adult. You must protect your baby and get rid of this bastard.

  I smile at him. My eyes are still moist; maybe he’ll feel sorry for me.

  “I’m sorry about how I behaved before. I was confused. I saw him lying on the floor, bloody, with his eyes closed, and I was terribly afraid, so I hid behind the door like a child.”

  The woman with the newborn interrupts.

  “It happens. When my son used to fall I would cover my face so as not to see him. I couldn’t help it. My husband always went.”

  I smile at her, then at him, without a word.

  Nothing to say?

  IT’S POSSIBLE. SHE hid behind the door because she’s a fool, like they all are. Like Luna, when Clara fell off the bike and broke her arm. She was frozen, terrified, and clutched her face with her hands. I yelled at her to help me, and then she started to follow instructions like an automaton, just like this one. But why is she so afraid of me, and why does she want to get rid of me? There is blood on her leg.

  I GET UP and go to the door. Why hasn’t he come out yet? Let me see him, please. God, let him be all right. I sit down again.

  How could I? What part of me did this? It’s like the other time, with Mario. I let him fall off the bed. No, he fell all by himself. It happened to my mother with one of us. Maybe this time, too, it’s not my fault. He climbed up on the table, he fell, he hit his head, and I thought it was my fault. In any case it’s still my fault because I was distracted.

  The dark cloud, the crying that won’t stop, it all makes your head spin. I did it, I banged him against the table, I hurt my baby. It’s not possible. I love him more than anything in the world. Ever since he was born, I’ve never left him in anyone else’s care. I’m sleep-deprived, it’s true, but I don’t complain. I miss my freedom, but he’ll grow up and I’ll be able to go out, work, go to the movies. What am I thinking? He’s in there, alone, and this is what I think about! What are they doing to him? Why doesn’t my baby come out of there?