“Leave her alone,” Vanessa whispers in her cousin’s ear, “she’s tired.” Vanessa has kept an eye on Manuela all evening, and her listless expression puts her on edge—and that’s made her eat too much, stuffing herself to ease her anxiety, and now her stomach burns, as if she’s swallowed a sea urchin, spines and all. She has missed her sister, tremendously. She doesn’t know how to tell her, though, and she also doesn’t know if the closeness that once existed between them can ever be rekindled, or if it’s gone forever, or if it even still means anything to Manuela. The girl with the shaved hair at the head of the table, huddled in a chair too big for her, looks first at them and then around the room, as if she were lost, as if she were a complete stranger who ended up here by chance on Christmas Eve.
Vanessa uses her nails to rip off the silver wrapping on a bottle of Asti Spumante, shakes it, and pops the cork. The louder the bang, the better the luck it brings. It simply doesn’t occur to her. Manuela starts to her feet and goes white as a sheet. Blinded by a flash of light, deafened by a piercing roar, her heart starts pounding like crazy, her forehead is covered in sweat, her legs tremble and give way. She staggers forward, flailing her arms to keep from falling, and a crystal vase goes flying. It crashes to the floor and shatters, flinging water, leaves, and flowers all over her jeans and shirt. A nice vase, one she’d never seen before, the only thing new in a room otherwise exactly the same as when she’d left it, all those years ago. Exactly the same, but aged somehow. She manages to sit down.
“Idiot,” her mother hisses in Vanessa’s ear. “The doctor told you, no explosions, no sudden noises, Manuela’s brain is sensitive.” This is what Cinzia says, but in truth she really doesn’t know what’s wrong with her daughter. She only knows that in practical terms they have to avoid reminding her about what happened. Every time Cinzia went to the hospital to see her, Manuela told her it was too soon, she didn’t want to talk about it. But more than six months have gone by since she was repatriated, and not only does Manuela not want to talk about it, but she still loses it when someone pops a bottle of spumante.
“Hey, honey, everything’s okay,” Vanessa whispers, her hand on her shoulder. “Hey? Are you there? It was just a fucking cork, I’m sorry.” She gathers up the shards of crystal from the floor and deposits them carelessly on the soaking wet tablecloth. It’s too bad about the vase. It was really pretty and probably cost a lot. Could it be a sign? Youssef had given it to her mother last Christmas. Last Christmas, Manuela was in Afghanistan, and Vanessa’s boyfriend had come to wish Cinzia a merry Christmas. Not knowing what to give a woman he had never even seen and whose hostility he sensed, he had bought that Swarovski vase because sparkling crystal makes a good impression. Vanessa is sorry Manuela won’t get to meet Youssef. Manuela’s a better judge of character than she is, she’s good at sizing people up, sees deep inside them, as if X-raying their hearts, and Vanessa wants to know what she’d make of him. If he seems right for her, if their relationship will last, because last Christmas she was convinced it would—if not, she never would have introduced him to her mother—but by New Year’s they were already fighting over every little thing, and now she’s not so sure that Youssef is the love of her life. If one even exists, and if there’s only one. But Youssef won’t be back from Morocco until February, and Manuela will already be gone by then.
“Maybe we’d better get going,” Uncle Vincenzo murmurs, glancing sympathetically at his sister. Cinzia mumbles something about the fact that Manuela hasn’t fully recovered yet, it takes time, the trauma was severe, these things leave deep scars, it’s not just the broken bones … but she doesn’t insist they stay. The Christmas spirit has evaporated. Embarrassed, the cousins and their wives get up, say goodbye to Grandma Leda, but avoid looking at Manuela or drawing attention to themselves, as if they were ashamed of their cumbersome bodies, of their shoes squeaking on the waxed floor. Except for the television, forgotten but still on in the background, a forbidding silence has fallen over the living room, as if someone had died. The flat ring of a phone makes everyone jump. It’s music from Psycho, the shower scene, and it gets louder with every ring. Very disturbing. Vanessa fishes her cell out from under the cushions on the couch, glances at the display, and decides not to answer. “Is it Youssef?” Alessia teases. “No, sweetie,” Vanessa says, surprised. “It’s not Youssef.”
“Thanks for everything, terrific dinner, I always said you should open a restaurant, Merry Christmas,” Aunt Pia whispers to her sister-in-law, while Pietro’s wife gets her purse, their daughter, Carlotta, puts on her coat, and little Jonathan stares at the strange girl, white as a ghost, who is panting, mouth and eyes open wide. A rose hangs by a thorn from the sleeve of her blouse, which is soaking wet and completely transparent. Cousin Manuela isn’t wearing a bra. She doesn’t need one, she’s flat as a board, but her nipples are like small buds. His father has to drag him away. One after the other the Colellas leave, apologetically repeating “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas,” without turning around, as if they weren’t supposed to see or know, as if they had spied on some forbidden truth.
“Feel better now, hon?” Vanessa whispers, and Manuela nods. The explosion no longer rings in her ears. Even the nauseating smell of burnt flesh is fading. Her heartbeat is slowing, the tingling in her legs is fading. She gives her sister a painful smile, which, instead of reassuring her, pierces her heart. What the fuck did they do to you?! she would like to scream. She plucks the rose from her sister’s sleeve, but she can’t muster a single word. When her sister enlisted, Vanessa was pregnant. She gave birth the day Manuela was sworn in. Her mother had to choose. She couldn’t be in the barracks and the hospital at the same time. Obviously she chose the hospital. Manuela took it hard. Two hundred and fifty female soldiers of the third echelon were sworn in on the parade grounds of the Ascoli Piceno barracks. The army chief of staff was there, along with generals, dignitaries, and family members, eyes wet with tears. Manuela was the only one without any relatives; she had given her classmates the tickets reserved for her family. Not even her grandfather came, because no one could take him. Parkinson’s had already destroyed Vittorio Paris, he was all skin and bones, as frail as a dried spider; he weighed all of ninety pounds, and could no longer drive or even take a bus. But it wasn’t Vanessa’s fault that Alessia was born by cesarian, scheduled well in advance; the doctors don’t postpone a C-section just because your sister is swearing allegiance to the flag. To Vanessa, not being there for Manuela that day had seemed like an unforgivable betrayal. She really should have been there. She’d been the first to learn that her sister had enlisted, and, unlike Manuela’s mother, or friends, or other relatives, to Vanessa it seemed like the right decision—even if at the time there weren’t many female soldiers and everyone said it was unnatural, because a woman’s biological destiny is to give life instead of death. But Manuela would reply that human beings have freed themselves from the fierce, obtuse tyranny of nature. People aren’t zebras or kangaroos, dominated by instinct, or train cars limited to specific tracks. “We don’t have just one path before us—we’re free.” Vanessa had helped her fill out her application, and had gone with her to the recruiting office. When Manuela disappeared into the barracks, Vanessa bawled like a fool.
Months later, Vanessa had watched the video of the swearing-in ceremony, which Angelica Scianna’s parents had taken. All the women looked perfect in their uniforms, with their lip gloss and clear nail polish, the only makeup that regulations allowed. But Manuela, wearing neither lip gloss nor nail polish, her black ponytail tucked under her cap, her expression serious, made the most believable soldier. In the video the women shouted in unison: I SWEAR! and then intoned “Fratelli d’Italia” at the top of their lungs. It gave Vanessa goose bumps to hear the national anthem sung by all those female voices.
* * *
At a quarter past midnight, Alessia is asleep on the foldaway bed set up in her mother’s room, Cinzia is loading the dishwasher, and Vanessa, cell phone press
ed to her ear, is leaning out the bathroom window, because the Bellavista blocks the signal in the Parises’ apartment. She’s whispering. Manuela is still awake and Vanessa doesn’t want to be overheard talking to some guy she met for ten minutes and who’s already calling her on Christmas Eve. Manuela is pretty strict. She says a soldier is like a priest: you can’t just be religious in church. And so she behaves as if she were in uniform even when she’s not. Manuela’s romantic life—at least as far as Vanessa knows—is almost humiliatingly monogamous. She only ever brought home one guy, Giovanni Bocca, and even though Vanessa found him uninteresting and untrustworthy, she’d resigned herself to the fact that Manuela was going to marry him. Manuela had already asked her to be her maid of honor. They had talked with the parish priest at Our Lady of the Rosary Church, and had even asked if they could be exempted from premarital counseling. But then, last year, before she left for Afghanistan, she broke up with him. Without telling anyone why.
The young journalist with the blond goatee is named Lapo. He sounds happy, even euphoric. Maybe he’s been drinking, or he’s popped a pill, or maybe he’s playacting, trying to seem cool. He asks if she’s busy the day after tomorrow. He’s dying to see her again. “I can’t,” Vanessa hesitates, “I have to spend time with my sister, I don’t want to blow her off, she’s not doing so well, and besides, she moved up north a long time ago and doesn’t know anyone around here anymore.” “What if I bring a friend?” Lapo asks.
When all the lights in the house are out and she knows she won’t be surprised by anyone anymore, Manuela goes out onto the balcony and lights a cigarette. The balcony runs along the living room, makes a right angle, and comes to a dead end outside the kitchen. It’s empty except for Alessia’s little bike and a drying rack gnawed by rust. Her mother doesn’t care about flowers, and Vanessa is too scattered to remember to water them. The geraniums are dying in their plastic vases, the basil is a shriveled black stump, and the jasmine has lost all its leaves. The nicotine makes her head spin. She smoked the first cigarette of her life just a few months ago, in the courtyard of the military hospital. Twenty-seven years without wanting so much as a puff, not even in school, not even in the barracks, not even at the base, where all the soldiers smoked, and now she can’t live without it. What an idiot. She leans on the railing and gazes at the Bellavista Hotel. The light is out in the room on the third floor, the curtains are closed. But someone is on the balcony, in the dark. Smoking. All she can see is the glow of a cigarette—otherwise, she wouldn’t even have noticed the shadowy figure in the dark, leaning against the railing, just like she is. It’s a man.
The mistral blows the vague scent of aromatic tobacco her way. Manuela taps ashes into the pot and wonders what he’s doing there, all alone in an empty hotel, on Christmas Eve. Maybe he, too, suffers from insomnia, and is afraid of going to bed. Afraid that images, smells, sounds, and voices he’d like to forget will reemerge from the darkness. Sounds most of all. That sound. At least that’s how it is for her. The worst moment of the day is the last, when the light fades and she rests her head on her pillow. She feels fragile in the dark, defenseless against the nightmares—even against the memories. She hasn’t been able to get to sleep naturally for the last six months. She puts off going to bed until the artificial drowsiness starts to fog her mind. But now, even with the drops, she remains stubbornly alert. So even after she puts out her cigarette in the damp potting soil and slips the butt into her pocket to avoid leaving any trace, she stays leaning against the railing, watching the man across the way; he’s wearing dark clothes, with a lighter color scarf around his neck. He scans the street below—not a single car goes by. From where he stands he can see the Paris family’s flag, which flaps against the balcony with every gust of wind. In the silence of Christmas Eve, all you can hear is the rustle of the flag and the sea, which hurls itself against the sand monotonously, maliciously, angrily. But as soon as he realizes that Manuela is looking at him, he starts, tosses his cigarette into the street, moves the curtain aside, and disappears into his room. He doesn’t turn on the light.
2
LIVE
On Christmas morning, Manuela goes down to the beach. The doctor recommended walking every day. Cinzia wants to go with her—they haven’t said two words to each other since she came home, and she suspects her daughter is avoiding her. But why? Cinzia only wants to protect her, to help her get well. She’s convinced that’s why the doctor sent her home, to her, that it’s her job to cure her. Manuela says bluntly that she would prefer she didn’t. That she wants to take advantage … “Advantage of what?” her mother asks, astounded. “Of the solitude,” Manuela replies, buttoning her jacket. “I can barely remember what it’s like now.” She closes the door behind her and clambers down the stairs. A soldier’s life is lived in the plural. She had zero privacy in the almost six months she was in Afghanistan. Even her underwear was in full view, swaying on the clothesline. They all had less space, and communal life was even more intense than it had been in the barracks. And yet there was something exhilarating about that brutal cohabitation. To get up at the same time, wash your face in the same clogged sink, endure the same hardships, use the same words, the same jargon, fear the same things, share the same experiences, the same daily routine, and store up the same memories is an exercise both in patience and personal growth. You become a cell in a living organism that can’t survive without you but that also transcends you. It’s reassuring somehow. But now, expelled from the cocoon of a collective existence she doesn’t know if she’ll ever return to, she feels alone in this city that once was hers but is no longer, alone with her crutches and her shadow.
In winter the beach becomes a carpet of garbage regurgitated by the waves. Old, useless stuff that roams the sea for years, tossed to and fro for thousands of miles, and then, by some whim of the currents, finally washes up on this strip of coast. Plastic bottles, polystyrene boxes, beer caps, Q-tips, diapers even. It would be a waste of energy to pick them up. Sooner or later a stormy sea will take them back again. Objects never die. She walks slowly, avoiding a flip-flop, a dried palm frond, a buoy coated in greenish fuzz. It’s a short walk from the Bellavista Hotel to the Tahiti restaurant, a wooden structure with a thatched roof—dark beams, the walls covered with photos of Tahitian gardenias and dugout canoes—which the owners think looks Polynesian, or at least says “Polynesia” to the Romans who come here for fried fish on Sunday and will never make it all the way to Tahiti. When, to catch her breath, she sits on the cement wall that separates one beach club from the next and turns around to assess how far she’s come, she sees her footprints, clearly visible in the sand: the tank tracks of her army boot, the smooth sole of her orthopedic shoe, and two lines of what look like crab holes. She feels like hurling her crutches into the sea.
Ladispoli’s beach had always seemed beautiful to her. Not that she had anything to compare it to. She’d always spent her vacations here, because here we have the sea for free, her mother would say, it’s pointless going and throwing money away somewhere else. She would tell the Alpini who had grown up in the fog and the cold of sad northern Italian cities that Ladispoli’s black, ferrous sand, created when pyroclastic material erupted from the Sabatini volcanoes, is renowned for its therapeutic properties. All you have to do is hold a magnet close to it and the magnetite will separate from the green pyroxene. In the summer sun the sand turns red hot and is not only a cure for the bones, but also for the spirit: it teaches you to walk on burning coals. She’d gotten used to it, like the fakirs, which is why the burning desert sand that annoyed the other soldiers didn’t bother her at all. They would complain about finding it everywhere—in their teeth as they ate, in their hair, noses, eyes, even in their anuses—but the grit of sand on her teeth and skin reminded her of the happiest days of her childhood, and gave her the feeling that the world was all one, the distance between places and continents almost an optical illusion, and that her current life was a logical continuation of the one she’d li
ved before. That the military Manuela was the same little girl who would play in the noonday sun, ignoring her grandmother shouting from the window that she should at least put on a hat.
Her first walk was short, but the beach goes on for miles and miles—there’s a wooden footbridge now, so you can get across the canal—skirting bays born after enormous cement blocks were dumped in the water to combat beach erosion. Artificial indentations, yet gentle and comforting nevertheless, for as far as the eye can see, until salt vapors obscure the coast, enveloping it in a silvery haze. But the cement blocks didn’t do much: the waves continue to eat away at the sand, and winter after winter they consume the beach so that now it’s just a thin strip. When she was little, on Sundays when the sea was calm, she would toddle along the shore for hours behind her grandfather, from dawn until the sun was at its peak. Vittorio Paris would go clamming, raking little telline out of the sand. People from Minturno who settled here in the 1950s to seek their fortune on the shores of northern Lazio had taught him how. But the telline were decimated by pollution and overfishing, and he found fewer and fewer of them, until in the end he gave up.
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