We Are Family
Page 29
“Papà? Did you hear what I said to you?”
“Certainly, you said ‘Papà,’” I reply to Maria.
“And before that?”
“Uhmmmm . . . you said . . . ”
“Urghhh, I asked you: “Who is this man . . . Papà?””
With a special ad personam amendment, Maria has ensured the goodnight fairy tale without giving up the independence of her bedroom. She pulled the string for 1989. This is one of her favorites—the game is to tell the story again, each time as though it were the first. Roberta, too, pretends not to know a thing and curls up under the album cover, waiting for the story.
“This man is Dario, a ferocious criminal that Prince Al, Princess Vittoria, and Duchess Roberta arranged to have arrested through a cunning stratagem. In 1989, thanks to a daring escape and the reductions in corrections personnel, Dario regained his freedom. The first thing he decided to do was come back to the principality to make them pay dearly for his arrest. It was a dark and stormy night, the lightning flashed through the clouds, illuminating the criminal’s black car, the pistol he clutched in his fist, his bloodcurdling smirk! It looked like the prince, the princess, and the duchess were done for. The criminal was driving rapidly down the road that he’d driven in the dreams he’d dreamt every single day and every single night in his cell . . . his vengeance would be tremendous. He drove past the last few apartment houses, the stretch of countryside, and . . . the principality was no longer there!”
“And then what happened?” Maria asks.
“Dario was beside himself with rage, he searched the length of the street not once but twice, he got out of the car and ventured out into the fields, using a flashlight to find his way, and he found . . . nothing! The principality had vanished into thin air.”
“And then?” asks Roberta.
“Furious at having been unable to take his savage revenge, he started shouting at the top of his lungs: ‘Where are you, you bastards?’ and shooting his pistol into the air! Bang bang bang! ‘Bastards!’ Bang bang!”
“And then?” asks Maria.
“And then, their interest attracted by the shouting and the shooting, the Carabinieri arrived. The ferocious Dario was arrested once again, on charges of escaping from prison, grand theft auto, resisting arrest and assaulting a law enforcement officer, possession of firearms, disturbing the peace . . . and everyone in the principality lived happily ever after.”
“He didn’t manage to find the principality . . . ” says Maria, “just like those gentlemen who said you were tax evaders, or the journalists who were looking for that missing singer . . . ”
“I’ll tell you the story about the financial police and the female English rock star the next time. Now it’s time to go to sleep.”
“No, the last one, tell me the last one! That one about the principality in the pond and Mamma getting into the dinghy!”
I’m no longer the little boy who wanted to save the world. Many years ago, Vittoria told me that no one can save it alone, because it’s a wonderful thing to save the world and everyone should do it together. Right then and there I thought: “Then where’s the surprise?” I was still just a kid, I thought I could give six billion people a nice surprise. It took me a while to get used to the idea, but Vittoria’s point of view is important to me, I always believe her, as a joke I tell her that she deserves the utmost consideration because she’s the only person who’s been able to outflank the greatest genius of the contemporary era.
We don’t know how to lose, me and Vittoria, that’s our secret, we force life into overtime, and into overtime on the overtime if necessary. We rewrite the rules in the middle of the game. The world I thought needed saving was our world, a challenge well beyond human abilities that still today demands all I can do. Roberta is starting to feel old, last time I got a smile out of her was by offering her money in exchange for a peek at her tits, but it’s not going to work much longer; Maria has normal ankles and times change, her secret admirer might not get off with a paper heart and a note. And so when she was born I gathered my best ideas and sent them to the UN, in 194 copies, one for each delegate, telling them to put them to the service of mankind and could they please take care of it because I was just too busy. Two delegates wrote back, the delegate from Zimbabwe and the one from Samoa, with effusive thanks and compliments, especially for the idea of ethical neocolonialism, from Zimbabwe, and for the Regulatory Criterion, from Samoa. Mario Elvis was always right, the revolution will start from the bottom, from the world’s south.
No one will write my biography, History will ignore me, but I’m a big boy now, even if I don’t turn my back on my origins as a little child, I’ve learned the importance of what comes afterward. In fact, I’ve decided to repair the projector because, later, it will help to refresh my memory, to build important tiles in the mosaic of Maria’s memory. I also purchased a Super 8 movie camera so I can go on celebrating Santamaria’s Day with a steady supply of new footage to view, and so, when we go to the beach or for a picnic to the park, we’ll be able to compare them with the old movies and see that everything that’s changed around us lacks the power to change us. But in the meantime, now, immediately, in the present I enjoy the inheritance of Agnese and Mario Elvis carved onto Maria’s face, the inheritance of the principality that emanates from Vittoria’s serenity, Roberta’s, and my own. We are family. We are all that I have.
The laws of physics still can’t explain the power of my brain cells, capable of establishing contact with yours even through a closed door . . . relax, Maria-a-a, go on sleeping, this is your father speaking to you-ou-ou . . . you are going to be the heir to the former principality of Santamaria and all its immaterial possessio-o-o-ons . . . respect its laws and those of the republic written by the founding fathers, which you should never confuse with those scrawled by politicians found guilty of fraudulent bankruptcy, extortion, bribery, misappropriation of public funds, stock manipulation, corruption, association with the Mafia, and false accounti-i-i-ing . . . respe-e-ect the-e-em . . . and then tomorrow open this blessed doo-oo-oor . . . ah, one more thing: trust me on this, don’t be in a hurry to grow u-u-u-up. On the count of three you’ll receive this information and you’ll be happy-y-y-y.
One . . .
two . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fabio Bartolomei was born and lives in Rome. He’s a writer, a screenwriter, and a teacher of creative writing. His debut novel was Alfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles (Europa, 2012) and with We Are Family, his second novel, he won the Elle Magazine Readers’ Grand Prize.