Giovanna's Navel

by Ernest Van der Kwast

  Giovanna tried to find out where Ezio lived, and whether he was married or still a bachelor. Whether or not he had children. But nobody could give her any answers. Rumour had it that Ezio’s parents blamed Giovanna for their son’s departure, so she was afraid to contact the Ortolani family.

  Then the longing came.

  The longing that grows steadily when it isn’t satisfied, and grows stronger when the questions remain; the longing that finally sprang up from the deep well of the past.

  At some point in the Sixties — the bikini had arrived on Europe’s beaches, and Ursula Andress had emerged out of the Caribbean Sea in a white version and become immortal — Ezio’s mother fell ill. She developed a pain in her breast, which then spread to the rest of her body. It was terminal.

  Giovanna saw the placard with the death announcement on the wall beside the bakery. The funeral would be in three days’ time.

  She’d go with her face veiled so nobody would recognise her. She didn’t want to ruin the ceremony.

  It was well-attended, as all funerals are in the south. There were relatives and neighbours, familiar faces all around. Giovanna spotted Ezio’s brother beside the grave. He still had thick dark hair, and a relatively unlined face. Only his back was a little bent. Alberto Ortolani worked in the harbour, where he sat outside on a bucket every morning, cleaning freshly caught sea urchins. He was never seen without a cigarette dangling from his lips.

  Following his brother’s departure, at the end of the last summer of his youth, Alberto had gone to work in his uncle’s fishmonger’s. It was a small shop, and at first he was less of a help than a hindrance, if truth be told. But that’s the order of things: you help your family, smoke cigarettes, and eventually take over the business. And this, too, was part of it: Alberto Ortolani got married and had three children, all sons. At the funeral they were standing behind him, next to his wife, a woman who’d never been outside Apulia and had never known the longing to get away. There was only one kind of soil: the kind on which you grew up, on which you had children, and in which you were buried.

  Ezio had to be a few years older than his brother. Giovanna tried to picture him in his forties, a middle-aged man with crow’s-feet, but with the same bright eyes he had on San Cataldo beach.

  Years passed; many, many years. Giovanna’s dark hair lost its lustre, her wrinkles deepened. Every now and then she’d meet a man, but those encounters brought little joy. She never floated these days. It seemed as if every kiss was pointless and every man made her feel more alone. Giovanna’s mother had given up hope. She’d resigned herself to the fact that one of her daughters would never be married. But even though she had nothing to complain about with fourteen grandchildren, she still screamed for joy when one afternoon in November a letter for her daughter arrived. She recognised the name on the back of the envelope: Ezio Ortolani.

  Giovanna thought her mother was talking gibberish — she was old and prone to muddling things up. Occasionally, she’d address the doctor by her husband’s name. Her memory made connections that either didn’t exist, or existed only in her wildest dreams.

  It was a letter overflowing with emotion. Ezio had finally written to Giovanna, because he’d lost the fight not to write. He’d been fighting for forty years. This letter is as old as the years that have passed, he wrote. I still feel the same — the same anger and the same yearning, the same hope and the same despair. The bottom of my memory is littered with letters, with questions, with lonely mutterings, and with big words. And then she read the big words that had survived nearly half a century of turmoil: Write me everything, or write me nothing at all. Say you love me.

  Ezio and Giovanna wouldn’t have survived another forty years of silence. But Giovanna’s letters also floundered, one after the other. She wrote back right away, a long letter about the life she’d lived without him, but the big words were missing. She’d never told any man she loved him. In fact, she didn’t even know if she could love someone. Sure, she felt lonely. Sure, she’d begun to long for Ezio. And sure, she wanted to see him. But was that enough? Giovanna was afraid she’d end up hurting Ezio even more. So maybe it’s better if I remain alone, she ended her letter. But then again, maybe not. As well as long, the letter was confused. Luckily, it ended up in the bin. Love is complicated enough in and of itself.

  Giovanna’s mother died a few months later. On her deathbed she advised her daughter: ‘Marry on a summer’s day and you’ll never feel old.’ Her sisters all thought their mother had well and truly lost her mind. And maybe she had, or maybe, in a moment of clarity, she remembered Ezio’s name and thought back to the summer when she and her daughters had laughed at the diffident young man who’d courted Giovanna.

  Giovanna wrote a second letter. She covered both sides of a piece of paper, but this time the sentences were shorter and her words clearer. She folded the sheet in two and put it in an envelope. She wrote Ezio’s name and address on the front in her round handwriting, stuck a stamp on, and left the letter on the sideboard, ready for posting.

  The following morning, Giovanna strolled to the letterbox and lifted the letter to the slot, but then realised that it didn’t contain the big words. She withdrew her hand and slipped the letter into her coat pocket. Back home, the envelope was put on the kitchen counter, only to be moved to the top of the fridge soon afterwards. But here, too, it was in the way and so it ended up in the fireplace, where the flames feasted on the clear words and short sentences.

  In the years that followed, Giovanna didn’t write any letters, because she simply couldn’t get ‘everything’ said. She couldn’t even say the big words in her head. It felt as if they were and would always be abstract to her. Some women remain alone, and are perhaps destined to remain alone. No candles are lit on their graves, no tears are ever shed for them. Perhaps Giovanna Berlucchi was one of these women.

  She didn’t marry on a summer’s day. She didn’t marry at all. Giovanna grew old. Her hair turned a dirty yellow, her face became heavily lined. She sold her parents’ house and moved into a smaller place in the old town centre, not far from the Chiesa di Santa Chiara. In the morning, the aroma of freshly baked bread wafted up to her living room.

  While unpacking the boxes, she came across Ezio’s letter. Giovanna spent an entire day re-reading his words, and an entire night thinking of the past. Some memories sent a stab of pain through her lower abdomen. That night, she gently lifted her gown and looked at her belly — the belly that didn’t have room for love or a child. That’s when she finally saw what she’d been feeling all these years: a scar that wouldn’t heal, that would never heal. Giovanna placed her old hands on her stomach and caressed her navel.

  She whispered his name as if she were talking in her sleep.

  Another year passed before Giovanna wrote the letter she would eventually mail. There’s not much to say about that year, except this: the days were all alike, whether or not it rained, flowers opened up, butterflies dried their wings, or waves shimmered in the setting sun.

  She capitulated, wrote down the big words, and sent the letter to Ezio. It disappeared in a hessian mail bag that was lifted onto a truck. Three hours later, the letter arrived in Bari, where it passed through unknown hands before disappearing once more in a dark bag. The journey continued by goods train with a destination of Verona. Here the letter swam in a gigantic school, through various basins, and ended up in a white plastic tray. On day one, the tray stayed where it was; on day two, it was transported; on day three, the letter arrived in the right place, where it was handled by the postman sorting the mail for the Rencio district. First thing that morning, he’d urged his wife to call him as soon as her contractions started. ‘I’ll come over at once,’ he’d said.

  The letter very nearly never arrived. The postman had pushed the white envelope through Ezio’s letterbox and let go the moment his phone rang.

  The letter fell

  and fell
>
  and fell

  and the postman’s wife announced the most beautiful day in his life.

  The train arrived on Platform 4. Ezio lifted his suitcase out of the luggage rack and left the compartment in which he’d spent fourteen hours. The train was an hour late; the driver had smoked a cigarette at practically every station.

  Giovanna stood halfway down the platform, next to the stairs leading up to the concourse. She was convinced she’d recognise Ezio, even from a distance, but she didn’t want to take any chances. She’d been wondering how to greet him, what to say to him. But what do you say when you meet again after sixty years? What words can span such a huge distance? Those very same questions had been on Ezio’s mind during the latter part of his journey, but he had no answers. He had that same indefinable feeling as all those years ago, when he’d run over to Giovanna with big strides and red cheeks — with great speed, but without words.

  When Giovanna spotted two lights in the distance, her eyes filled with tears. The tracks had begun to hum, a humming that grew louder and louder, as if the sea was about to engulf the land. Giovanna held on to a bannister, her white hair bobbing in the air stream of the approaching train.

  She spotted him immediately, the boy who was now an elderly man. Ezio cautiously disembarked from the train. Another passenger offered to help, but he declined. If he took it easy, he’d be fine.

  That’s when he saw her. The barefoot enchantress aged eighty. He saw her white hair and the wrinkles in her face. And he also saw the beauty that was nowhere to be seen.

  Giovanna stood still, the way she’d stood still on the day of his departure. Both felt a twinge in their hearts. But the pain was short-lived. Ezio walked over to Giovanna, retracing his steps from sixty-two years ago. She looked at him, and let her tears run freely. Ezio wanted to run. He desperately wanted to put his suitcase down on the platform and run to her with strong knees.

  The closer Ezio came, the better he saw her, yet Giovanna’s outline never fully sharpened. This was the image he’d always been unable to picture. Everything had faded: her youth, her dewy skin, her voluptuous figure. But Ezio knew the years had wreaked just as much havoc on him; his eyes were no longer bright, and the two of them would never again cover the distance to San Cataldo in an hour and fifteen minutes.

  He dropped his suitcase — the suitcase that contained no more than a shirt, a pair of trousers, underpants, and some socks. During the long journey he’d asked himself what would follow their reunion, what would happen next.

  But by the time Ezio finally wrapped his arms around Giovanna, and she put her head in his neck, and they stood there like two entangled statues, the question had all but faded from his mind. It felt as if nothing would follow, as if this was the final station, the end.

  No words came. There was only silence. Dead silence. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred years.

  Four More Stories

  The Ticket Inspector

  This was to be his last spring. It was the warmest within living memory. Heinrich Kienzl could think of no finer one, and he had more than seventy years to fall back on. He remembered spring as a child: white blossoms and a stroll with his parents. He’d flown between them like an angel, tiny and light and happy.

  It was early April and thirty degrees Celsius. Swallows whooshed through the air. Heinrich Kienzl had taken the cable car up to San Genesio to escape the heat. The mountain station was a thousand metres above sea level. During the ride he’d gazed at the meadows down below. The grass was green all over, with large clumps of dandelions scattered about. Other colours would follow later: the purple of clover, the blue of gentian, the white of milfoil.

  For forty years, Heinrich Kienzl had hovered over the meadows of San Genesio. He’d been a cable-car conductor. Inspecting tickets and operating the controls in the cabin had been an undemanding job. He’d spent most of the time looking out of the window, where he saw the chestnuts grow, the land being tilled by the farmers, deer fleeing back into the forest first thing in the morning, the last butterflies of the year.

  The staff at San Genesio Cableway didn’t know him. They were young, in their early thirties. The conductor who’d inspected his ticket was sitting on a stool, reading a graphic novel. The stool was new, but otherwise nothing had changed inside the cabin: the same controls, the same black phone hooked up to the mountain station. And the maximum number of passengers remained unchanged, too — twenty plus one, the conductor.

  Heinrich Kienzl had joined the cable-car company as a twenty-year-old lad and had left it as a slow old man. His first and final working days bookended a life up in the air. It hadn’t been a great adventure, nothing like that dream little boys have of wanting to touch the clouds. He’d been only a few metres above the ground, just a little higher than he’d once flown in between his parents.

  Nine minutes: that’s how long it took the cable car to glide from the valley terminal in Bozen to the mountain station in San Genesio. Bridging a height of 741 metres, the cable was nearly two-and-a-half kilometres long, and suspended from seven reinforced concrete pillars. In his final year as a conductor, he’d tried to calculate how much of his life he’d spent gliding. But every night, smack-bang in the middle of a multiplication, Heinrich Kienzl would fall asleep.

  Nobody had spent more hours in the cable car; nobody had seen more.

  He’d seen Johanna Egger grow up. On Wednesday 19 August 1964, her mother wheeled a pram into the cable-car cabin, seven days after little Johanna’s birth. She was his youngest-ever passenger, her downy face filled with wonder. During the descent, when the change in pressure made the baby cry, she was lifted from the pram by her mother and breastfed. By the time they reached the valley terminal, she’d fallen asleep.

  In what seemed like the slowest of slow-motion, he saw Johanna grow into a girl who skipped through life, curious about everything. Some days she smelled of soap, on others as sweet as French toast. Then she grew tall and thin and withdrawn: a young woman hiding in baggy clothes. The shame she felt towards her body was all too apparent to him. But once that shame had been conquered, he saw a beauty coming out of her shell. Summer brought with it the soft skin of her arms, tanned legs, and feet in sandals. The sun worshipped her for twenty-five years: in the fields of flowers, on the shores of small mountain lakes, on a horse galloping across the sandy paths of Salten. Finally, Heinrich Kienzl saw the lines around her eyes, very fine ones, a mere hint of things to come. He wouldn’t get to see the rest of the engraving.

  Heinrich Kienzl didn’t have children of his own. He’d never married. At the end of her life, his mother had asked him if he preferred men. He’d shaken his head. A wife — it just never happened.

  It was one of those things: there were farmers without wives, too. They had land, they had livestock, but they had nobody beside them in bed. Perhaps they’d been hopelessly in love once upon a time. But let’s hope not. Some farmers lived with their mother or an aunt, and she would do the washing, the cooking, and the sowing of spinach in the garden.

  The butcher of San Genesio had never married, either.

  Heinrich looked at the trees with their tender leaves, foliage so green it was almost luminous. He felt a real lust for life, just as in the old days, when his hair was still dark. He was grateful. Of course there was melancholy, too, and some hours were slow as treacle. He put it down to loneliness, the darkness in winter: memories he couldn’t ward off, crossroads at which he’d found himself. The life that might have been if only … But he wasn’t sad. No, Heinrich Kienzl wasn’t unhappy. At night he watched the stars for hours on end.

  The mountain station was just outside the village centre. Heinrich was the last of the string of people who’d taken the cable car up. Trailing behind, he noticed that the cows hadn’t been let out yet. The grass had to grow some more. The new hay barns, built by the timber merchants at the foot of the village, were gigantic. The farmers wou
ld be fertilising the land just before the rains came. But when would they come, the rains? The Dolomites in the distance shared the sky with the sun.

  In San Genesio it was warm, too, but unlike in the valley, there was a breeze. Heinrich made his way to the inn and sat down outside. The landlady recognised him at once. Frieda. She knew everything about everybody in the village.

  ‘Long time no see,’ she said.

  That was true. The last time Heinrich had taken the cable car up had been in autumn. The first snow had followed two weeks later: ninety centimetres overnight.

  He asked how things were going and whether the first guests had arrived yet. Frieda nodded curtly. She didn’t like to talk about herself or the inn. She preferred to talk about others.

  ‘White wine?’ she asked.

  No reply was needed. She knew what he liked to drink.

  Heinrich looked at the gently rolling meadow in front of him. At the top stood a house where a couple lived. It was the most beautiful house in the village, or perhaps even the entire region. It stood with its back to San Genesio. In the morning the sun rose out front, above the mountains, and in summer the evening sun illuminated the rear of the house until late. There was a bench. The place tickled Heinrich’s imagination, but it also left him with a tinge of sadness. There had been a crossroads long ago, and he’d taken the wrong path; an opportunity, and he’d missed it.

  He drank his wine slowly. He had time, an awful lot of time. The mornings felt the longest. He began his day on a chair in the front room. From behind the large window, he watched everything that moved: the many men in their cars, mothers with children, housewives on their way to the butcher’s, farmers on their spluttering tractors. Later, the street gradually emptied to finally come to a complete standstill around noon.