The Garden of Monsters

by Lorenza Pieri

  Saverio told his father to go to hell and kicked a metal barrel, which overturned clangorously, spilling soapy water onto the stable’s cement floor.

  “Look at that, now what if someone slips and gets hurt! Imbecile!”

  Saverio took a handful of straw and threw it onto the slick. Then he left, intending to never see his father, the horses, or this place, again. At the exit of the Saddlery, his grandfather watched him and called out one of his adages: “Where are you going in such a hurry, Savè? Still hunting for death, like the old snake?” Saverio went straight to the house. He went up the steps two by two, pulled his duffel out from under the bed, and put his clean pants in it, the clothes that had been dried and not yet ironed, his flip-flops, his swimsuits, until there was no more room. Certain that he was alone, he turned the stereo on at top volume. Annamaria burst out of her room.

  “You idiot, turn it doooooowwn.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you were in the house, what are you doing here? You’re not at the restaurant?”

  “No, I have a headache. And you know what? If you’re not going there, I’m not going to go there either.”

  “And what do you know about me?”

  “Gossip travels fast.”

  “So, do you want to go work together somewhere else? Mamma and Babbo would be happy.”

  “I want to be on vacation. I don’t want to work anymore, it’s not fair. School is starting soon and I’m tired.”

  “Good for you, you said it. In the meantime I’ll move to Tamara’s, and next week I’ll rent the mansard apartment or something near Chiarone. They won’t see me at home anymore. What liberation, Annamarì.”

  He picked up his bag, but Annamaria stopped him.

  “Listen, if you’re looking for a job in a beautiful and unusual place, I know where to take you. But you have to trust me, and you have to be reliable.”

  “I trust you, and I’m up for anything. At the moment, I’d be fine with picking tomatoes.”

  “Drop that bag and come with me.”

  When Annamaria took the keys of the Vespa, Tiburzi came up leaping with a stick in his mouth. He seemed excited to see the two of them together, almost confused. He kept sticking his muzzle between the legs of both the siblings, unsure of which one to focus his joy on. Saverio threw the stick far away for him, and the two of them took advantage of his run to get on the motorbike and drive off. The dog was already coming back with his stick and, stubborn and disappointed, followed the Vespa until his little heart and his short mutt’s legs couldn’t keep up. Annamaria was kind enough to give him a wave, something in between a goodbye and a suggestion to turn around. She would have liked to wait for him, to scratch his belly and tell him, “Look, we’ll be right back,” but for a while she’d been trying to stop being so accommodating to others all the time, and the effort required to quit indulging other people’s expectations was minimal compared with waving off a devoted pet.

  The morning was muggy, and a whitish and monotonous sky was the backdrop to the gray road, which was flanked on one side by dark-green woods, glistening with humidity, and on the other by dusty fields of stubble; in the distance, the olive trees stood in their regular rows, beyond which rose the sea’s horizon.

  There was a grace in this space and in these colors that Saverio and Annamaria were not fully aware of. It had always belonged to their gaze, it was as if, over the years, the landscape had imparted to them a substance that they had in their blood, a melancholy beauty they did not know they possessed, but which they could recognize as a kind of family trait. They kept silent; despite the anger of the last hours they felt a strange inner peace. They knew they had nothing to prove, which was the most reassuring feeling they could have felt. But maybe there was also something else, in that short trip together through their land, from home to the Tarot Garden. There was the expectation of something new for both of them.

  They had skipped lunch, but they weren’t hungry. They passed by the fields, made sharp turns, surrounded by the arid vegetation of summer, arrived at the village with its tower and its crows where they’d lived when they were little. They knew they were running away from home, and that this time they would succeed, even if they were only a couple miles away from everything they wanted to leave behind. They were still unsure whether they were going away from something or towards something.

  They passed the cemetery where the bandit Tiburzi was buried, half outside and half in; the tree that Saverio had crashed into to avoid running over a prominent man and his dog; the old ironworks; the bar with the curtain of colored plastic strips and the old men outside it playing with greasy cards, Decimo at the door; the field with the grazing sheep; and again, olive trees and sea, all the way to the fork in the road on the right, the unpaved square, the green gate. After they had parked, they lingered for a moment by the Vespa, their helmets in hand. The sky was white, it hurt the eyes.

  “You know the artist, right?” Saverio had said.

  “Yes. And this will seem strange to you, but I think she may be the person I know best in the world, I know so many things about her life. And above all, she knows me.”

  “Better than I do? Impossible.”

  “In a way that you would dream to. In a magical and profound way. She sees the future, and the potential in people. She brings out the best in everyone, and if she can, she uses it.”

  “Oh my god, she’ll never hire me. If she sees my soul, she’ll understand that there’s nothing good in there.”

  “The important thing is that you want to work—the only thing she can’t stand is slackers. And besides, she won’t care at all about looking inside you, she’ll look at what’s outside. You’re young and handsome. And she has a weakness for young men who are handsome and strong.”

  “Anyway, Giovanna will introduce me, right?”

  “I’ll introduce you.”

  Saverio suddenly seemed to have lost all his bluster. Annamaria saw again for a moment the same frightened eyes that he’d had when they’d fallen off the horse, the eyes of someone who didn’t know what to do but went ahead and did something all the same. A look that, nonetheless, was entirely his own, full of mistakes, and of courage. Her brother’s look.

  Saverio had stopped in front of the locked gate. Annamaria knew where to open it without making a sound. “Let’s go,” she told him.

  To pass through the gate was to cross the threshold to another world. That day everything was intensely colorful and stupefying. The statues looked bigger, shining. The Dragon at the entrance, like the ones that guarded castles in fables, had been entirely covered in tiles of green mirrored glass, and there were other colors on the broad, shining wings that made you want to sit down and stay motionless, to look, protected by the big white teeth of that enchanted creature. The Emperor was enormous too, sparkling all over with sky-blue mirrors, with an open mouth from which descended a tongue of enameled steps. The swimming pool where the tongue rested had no water in it, but was ornamented with a sculpture of black metallic wheels, which she understood came from Jean’s hand. She also saw a cement path that hadn’t been there before. There was writing inscribed in the cement, about the meaning of life and the game of tarot. “If life is a game of cards, we are born without knowing the rules. All the same, we must each play our own hand.”

  “Read, Saverio!”

  Then Annamaria guided him to the Tree of Life, which, in place of branches, had the heads of fat snakes. The trunk was hollow and covered in mirrors; inside was a two-dimensional statue, like a blue and yellow metal skeleton, with a flame of blond hair, falling from an upside-down head.

  “This is the Hanged Man,” she told him.

  “I see,” Saverio said. “So, these monsters must be figures from tarot cards.”

  “Yes, but they’ve also been completely reinterpreted. Some of them are enormous and others are small—they don’t all have the same i
mportance. It depends on how she sees them.”

  Annamaria had fixed upon the trunk of the Tree of Life, half of it colored in tiles in primary colors, half in white majolica tiles with blue drawings on them. There was also an inlay of fifty small square tiles, the only ones with right angles in the whole Garden. It was a long love letter, titled, “MY LOVE.” Each square tile held a drawing and writing in round, childish characters. Annamaria tried to translate the captions from English.

  “Where shall we make love?” asked the first tile. “On top of the sun, in a field of flowers?”

  “Where shall we make love?” repeated the second tile, with other little drawings. “In a bathtub? Under the stars? In the jungle with lions and crocodiles?”

  “What do you like the most about me?” asked the next tile.

  “My lips? My breasts? My silly nose? Do you like my hips?” said the writing above a drawing of two turned-out thighs colored with pastel horizontal stripes, with a red heart at the junction.

  “Do you like my brain?” asked a little tile with the head of a woman on it that had snakes coming out of it, and wheels, like the ones in Tinguely’s sculptures.

  “A flower for you.”

  “You are my star.”

  A white tile with no design recited a silent affirmation. “A child with you.”

  “Walking on the beach together.”

  “Dyed my hair and bought false eyelashes.”

  “Do you like my new outfit?”

  “I fell asleep under a beautiful tree.”

  “I dreamt about the monster again.”

  “Tea with you.”

  “Your hand.”

  “Remember your 300$ phone call?”

  FLOWERS

  LOVE LETTERS My love, you are my love, my crocodile, my sunflower, my violet, my idiot, a big kiss from your rosebud who loves you, a little? Yes. A lot? Yes. Forever? Yes.

  You are my star.

  Here I am.

  I would like to give you EVERYTHING. My mouth, My heart, My money, My breasts, My imagination, My time, My terrific cooking (a drawing of purple mushrooms, duck). My everything.

  Every morning you brought me breakfast in bed.

  Our house.

  The trips we took (Africa. A camel.)

  The dress you bought me for my birthday.

  CLOUDSCLOUDS

  TEAR

  Timetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetime timetimetimetimetimetimetimetime

  Grey tile

  (An enormous question mark.)

  Grey tile.

  TEARS

  What shall I do now that you’ve left me?

  Will I cry a million tears.

  Will I die? (Coffin.)

  Will I take to drink?

  Take a trip?

  Will I consult the stars and a crystal ball on how to win you back?

  Will we stay friends?

  Will I fall in love again?

  Our love was a beautiful flower. It grew and grew, the sun helped it grow.

  The rain helped it grow (watering can).

  Winter came and the petals started to fall

  And then the flower died.

  I took the petals and put them in a box (box).

  And I locked the box in my heart (box of eternal love).

  THE END

  “You see, Savè, what true love is like? Niki has something different from anyone else we know. She’s like a crazy, brilliant child, with the power of a thousand women put together. And that man with the mustache and the thick eyebrows is the one who left her, but he has built the Garden with her. The ceramic love letter is for him, and Niki has a box with petals of their love locked in her heart.”

  Saverio looked at her strangely. Annamaria would have said that his eyes were shining. They walked toward the Sphinx. In front of the door Annamaria pressed her brother’s hand for a moment and looked at him sternly. “I advise you to do as I do. Don’t touch anything.”

  “What, you think I’m seven years old?”

  “I meant that more broadly. You must not break anything here, I’ve built something precious and delicate with this person.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  She smiled at him.

  Annamaria knocked softly on the door and, without waiting for a response, asked, “May I come in?” Niki was at the table with the ceramicist. Giovanna was sorting through documents. Niki had a hand-knotted red scarf in her hair and was wearing a long tunic with pink flowers that went all the way to her calves, tied at the waist with an electric blue sash. The reflection multiplied in the room, radiating her figure, which was small, but magnificent in every other respect. She was working on the model of a kinetic sculpture. She raised her eyes toward the newcomers and said, “It seems like lately I only work to decorate the tombs of people I loved. After the cat sculpture for Rico, damned AIDS, and now . . .” She interrupted herself as she realized too late that she was thinking out loud, and invited the guests to come in.

  It seemed as if she was having trouble breathing—between one sentence and the next she would inhale, filling her chest.

  Saverio had never before felt such awe in front of a woman. For the first time, he was faced with a creature whose intentions he did not understand, and whom he struggled to see as related to his own species. Should he introduce himself? Should he wait until she did it? Or get Annamaria to do it?

  Giovanna got it out of the way. “This is Saverio, Anna­maria’s brother.”

  He held out his hand, she didn’t. “Excuse me, it’s because of my arthritis, some people don’t know and they grip too hard, and you seem like one of those, and I have atrocious pain.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you here?’

  Annamaria interrupted. “He’s looking for work. Can he work with you at the Garden? He’s strong and skilled.”

  “Can he speak, or do the two of you do that for him?”

  Niki looked restless, she wasn’t smiling. She asked everyone to leave, she wanted to speak to him alone. Annamaria asked if something was wrong. Giovanna told her that it had been a sad period for her, and said that, on top of that, she’d started taking cortisone again, and that made her anxious, but that she wasn’t really having an issue with anyone in particular.

  Saverio hadn’t expected a private interview. He was terrified but had only said the truth. That he wanted to work there, that he needed to work there, that he would have done anything at all to do that.

  “Have you ever been a builder?”

  “No, but I’ll learn. I lived in the countryside. I learned manual labor when I was little.”

  “Do you know how to make ceramics? Have you ever worked with clay?”

  “In middle school I worked with Das. You know, that modeling clay that hardens. I made a trivet for Mother’s Day. Once I made a pipe, to smoke. With a hole, and the decorations and everything. It came out perfect.”

  She smiled. “Good. That seems like something already to me. Do you smoke?”

  “Only once in a while.”

  “I’ll tell you right now that it’s forbidden to smoke here. Or outside. I have pulmonary insufficiency, and I can’t tolerate smoke.”

  “No problem. Drinking is allowed, I hope.”

  “Water, tea, or coffee. Come here to me to get that. Have you had problems with your father?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Annamaria told me you didn’t get along very well.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, but it doesn’t matter. Or does it?”

  “The problems that you have are more important than your abilities. And it’s by confronting them that a person understands what he truly knows how to do.”

  “I know how to attract them, problem
s. But now I’m also learning how to get out of them. I need to do something different, and above all, with different people than I was obliged to associate with before.”

  “You’re right. You’re young and strong. There’s a lot to do here for someone like you. The salary isn’t very high, but I’ve always found a way to make sure that everyone gets fairly paid. Finding money for all of you is another one of my talents, and it’s not easy. The work here is back-breaking and requires patience and dedication. Don’t expect it to be a fairy garden. Everything you see here looks like it’s the fruit of magic, but it’s made with muscles and sweat and hours and hours of baking ceramic tiles, cutting them, and gluing them together. With welding, reinforced concrete, whitewash. I’m getting older, my arthritis and my lungs are slowing me down too much, but I want to see this place completed. The workmen are fundamental, without them I could never have done it. Do you know how to weld?”

  “No, but I’ll learn. It might be easier for Annamaria. Did you know that welding was her passion when she was little?”

  “I didn’t know, but your sister can do everything. She just needs to free herself a little from fear. You must never tell her what to do anymore, all right?”

  “I’m still her brother, but all right.”

  “If you want to be here you’ve got to promise me. Are you as nice as she is? Do you know how to make people laugh?”

  “No, Annamaria has a gift I don’t have. I’m the good-looking one, she’s the one who’s intelligent and nice. At home they divided the assets and gave the best ones to her.”

  “Fine, at any rate, you’re here for the construction site. They will teach you. They’ve all learned how to weld and how to make cement. But now there’s greater need for knowing how to cut the ceramic tiles and glue them. To keep the workshop clean. And that isn’t hard, it’s just tiring.”

  “When can I start?”