* * *
When she tries calling Mattia, a little after eight, there’s no answer. She lets it ring for almost two minutes. Maybe he’s still running on the beach, and he can’t hear it over the sound of the waves. Or maybe he’s in the shower. She tries again at nine, but at that point the voice mail picks up. “Hi, it’s me,” she says, a bit uncertain, “where did you go? Good thing you were going to sit by your phone waiting to hear how things are going here … When the cat’s away the mice will play, right? And to think that I’m all alone here, in a hospital room … It’s freezing cold, dead silent, I’m the only one on the whole floor. Anyway, I wanted to say that we’ve spent so much time together that it feels strange not having you here. Okay, call me if you get this message, I’ll leave my phone on, have a good night.” When she turns out the light two hours later, the display on her cell still emits an azure glow, like a little altar. But no calls.
That night, in her room on the second floor of the military hospital in Turin, she dreams of Mattia for the first time. He’s sitting on her bed, naked, in a completely empty space. It’s not room 302 of the Bellavista, or the mattress at Passo Oscuro, or any other place they’ve been together. The walls are gray and there’s only one window, high up, a dull light coming through it. Mattia is looking in her direction, but he doesn’t seem to be expecting her. “Mattia?” she calls. “Sorry I’m late, I got held up.” He stares without seeing her, as if she were talking to someone else. She calls him again but he doesn’t answer. She starts to run, but the room seems to expand, it becomes a hallway with no way out, and the bed on which Mattia is sitting retreats into the distance, so that no matter how far she runs—light-footed, pushing with both legs, like before June 8, a feeling that fills her with an irrepressible joy—she can’t seem to reach him. And then the gray walls disappear, she’s on the beach in Ladispoli, the raging sea is pounding the shore, the tower is crumbling and she tries to hold it up with her shoulder. She hears a roar, and bricks and bones come crashing down all together.
* * *
At ten the doctor summons her. She’s eager to know her test results and at the same time she never wants to know. There are moments that break a life in two, and this could be one of them. Her file is on his desk. The medical evaluation board has expressed a provisory opinion. Three noes, two maybes, and one yes. “No what?” Manuela asks. “Three of the specialists think there is no possibility that you will fully recover, either at the physical or psychological level. They’ve suggested another year of leave—the maximum allowable by law—after which you’ll be declared permanently unfit for service. Two of them, thanks to your youth and force of character, think you have recovered surprisingly well, and they have suggested you be discharged, placed in the reserves, that is, as provided for by law, and assigned to office duties in the barracks of a nonoperational regiment.” “Is this a joke?” she asks. The blood drains from her face. In the reserves at twenty-eight? It’s worse than death. “One thinks you need to continue your rehab and psychotherapy, because you might be able to recover, medicine’s not an exact science, and you’re very young, so, if no complications arise, he thinks you could be reassigned to your regiment, on regular duty, maintaining your rank and duties.”
One. One in six thinks she can still be Sergeant Paris. God bless him! Who is it? The orthopedist? The neurologist? The colonel? “In short,” the doctor concludes, “they didn’t reach a consensus and are taking more time. They have judged you temporarily unfit for military service, and granted you leave for another six months.”
“But I can’t stay in limbo for another six months!” she blurts out. Lost time. Wasted time. So much can be done in six months. Six months is a tour of duty. An eternity. “Hey, Paris, calm down,” the lieutenant says. “Look, it turned out pretty well. Six months ago you were in pieces. A wreck. Your head was a mess. No one would have bet a cent on you. They’ve given you another chance. Take it easy. Look after your leg, look after your mind. Take a vacation. Go to the beach, enjoy life. Do whatever you want. You’re scheduled to meet with the medical evaluation board again on July 12, here. If you’re really better, you’ll be reassigned to your regiment. Rest assured, they won’t let you go so easily.”
“So I can go home?” she asks. The lieutenant hands her her stamped leave. Home, she’d said. Home is the Belluno barracks. But for the first time in years, she meant Ladispoli when she said home. The waterfront, the black sand, the tower, Mattia. She stuffs her toothbrush and pajamas into her bag. At the elevator she runs into Nurse Scilito. “Farewell, Sergeant Stan,” he says. “Why farewell?” she laughs. “Because you won’t be back,” he says. “They always do this. They extend your convalescence hoping that you’ll be the one to ask to be discharged. You’re a woman, you’re young. They’re counting on the fact that you will decide to focus on your family, that you’ll get pregnant, that you’ll make yourself unfit on your own.” “What a strange way to see things, a conspiracy theory,” Manuela says, unperturbed by the nurse’s insinuations. She feels optimistic. Positive. “I accept their verdict. I’m taking six months’ vacation. I’ll be back in July. You can count on it. See you.”
She turns on her cell in the taxi. Three messages. At 12:45 a call from an unknown number. At 1:00 and 1:05 Vanessa called. It must not have been urgent, because then she gave up. Mattia’s cell is off. She sends him a text to let him know she’s on her way to the airport, she’ll catch the first flight home. The snow is melting. There are dirty piles along the street and on the roofs of the industrial warehouses. Why not? she says to herself as Turin slips past the window, already swallowed up by a gray fog—neighborhoods with signs in Arabic, halal butchers, kebabs rotating on spits, twelve-story buildings, straight streets, crowded tram stops, and bearded men and veiled women, whose presence alienates her. A six-month vacation. She’s never taken a real vacation in her life. Never gone on a trip. Never been to Paris. Or London or Berlin or anywhere else. Just one town in Kosovo. And Afghanistan. The most inconvenient and dangerous country in the world. Six months all to myself. To get to know Mattia, the man with no shadow. To live, finally. There’s a line at the ticket counter. Unhappy passengers eager to file who knows what kind of complaint make her lose time. The first seat she can get is on the 6:45 p.m. flight. When she places her cell in the tray at security, she sees that she still hasn’t gotten any messages. Mattia’s phone is still off.
The red light goes on, a beeper sounds, something’s not right. A policewoman comes up to her and rudely orders her to raise her hands. She obeys. The policewoman pats her down with professional immodesty, her gloves going from her armpits to her ankles and buttocks, but doesn’t find anything unusual. She orders Manuela to turn around and go through the metal detector again. But the red light goes on again, again the alarm sounds. Manuela turns out her pockets—empty—and she’s not wearing a watch or earrings or a pendant. Then she gets it. “I have four titanium plates in my leg and I don’t know how many screws,” she says. “Maybe that’s what’s setting off the alarm.” The policewoman can’t take her word for it, she has to see her medical records, her X-rays. “They’re at the military hospital,” Manuela says, “I can’t take them with me.” The policewoman doesn’t know what to do. The people in line behind her are growing impatient. Some are in danger of missing their flights. So—even though she’s standing under neon lights with hundreds of annoyed, intolerant eyes glaring at her—Manuela pulls up her pant leg, rolls down her sock, and shows the policewoman her scar. The woman looks away and gestures for her to go through.
Manuela whiles away the hours watching the departures board. Compared with the one in Dubai, the Turin airport, recently renovated for the Olympics, is small, provincial, modest. But reading the list of flight destinations makes her happy. Istanbul. Katowice. Barcelona. Casablanca. The world is at once big and close at hand. She daydreams about going somewhere with Mattia. About traveling for two or three months, getting to know Europe. She’d like to go to Spain, to Vil
nius, to the Baltic Sea. The Spanish and Lithuanians were under the Italians at Regional Command West, they’d come through Sollum on the way to their bases, they all got along well. She’d talked about Beethoven in English with a female sergeant who had the strange and beautiful name of Fuensanta. She was Catalan and played the violin. What is Mattia really like? Does he know how to adapt, can he handle the unexpected, the inconveniences, the differences? A trip is like a particle accelerator. A chemical detector. There’s nothing like travel for getting to know someone. But they understand each other, it will work out. They’ve hardly said anything to each other, but life is stronger than words and it bursts forth everywhere. They’ve said even more than they needed to. In some way they’ve chosen each other. She feels oddly free.
* * *
She gets to the arrivals terminal at Fiumicino at 8:12 p.m. A bunch of guys are crowded near the sliding doors, leaning against the barriers, waving signs for passengers on her flight. A pharmaceutical company is waiting for Mr. Takeshita. A travel agency for Mr. and Mrs. Robertson. A Rome hotel shuttle for Mr. Di Donato. Then there’s a father waiting for his son, and a kid with a ponytail waiting for his girlfriend, who, as soon as she sees him, all but flies to meet him, leaping into his arms. Young love is a feast for the eyes. But she doesn’t see Mattia anywhere. Maybe he’s late. Now that the holidays are over, there’s traffic in Fiumicino at this hour, with all the commuters heading out of Rome. But he still hasn’t sent her a message and his cell is still off.
She waits patiently, trustingly, without letting herself be assailed by anxiety. She sits on a stool at the bar near the bookstore, orders an orange juice, then a sandwich, then a coffee. She doesn’t take her eyes off the glass doors that lead to the street for even a second, as if Mattia’s massive frame might appear out of the darkness at any moment. Disheveled, smiling, maybe with a new pair of glasses. He was really upset about losing those glasses at the Real Ladis soccer field. When she asked him why he wore sunglasses even on a rainy day and in the evening, he said that he suffered from photophobia, that light really bothered him. She hadn’t believed him. But she didn’t press the issue, because she didn’t want to force him to lie. She thinks again, this time with a chill, about the camel spider. Can you really lose your shadow? And if you do, how can you find it again, your shadow—or your soul? There’s nothing in the legend about that, it’s gone for good.
The glass doors open constantly. Gypsy cabdrivers, chauffeurs, passengers with suitcases who have taken the wrong exit or are desperately looking for the escalators to the train tunnel, friends, relatives, suspicious characters, maybe even thieves: the whole world seems to be at the Fiumicino arrivals terminal. Everyone but Mattia. She tries calling him at the hotel. And she chastizes herself for not having thought of it earlier. No one answers. The phone at the Bellavista just rings and rings. At 9:50 Manuela pays for her orange juice and coffee, gets in a cab, and has the driver take her home. The signs at the Bellavista are dark, the door locked. The hotel is closed.
Her mother is working the night shift at the roadside diner and Vanessa is spending the night somewhere. Alessia is at Uncle Vincenzo’s. Grandma Leda can’t tell her what happened, she didn’t notice anything. Manuela stays out on the balcony until midnight, anxious, staring stubbornly at the lowered shutters of the room across the way. In the end, she puts out her cigarette in the potting soil, dilutes her sleeping drops in water, and resigns herself to going to bed. Mattia isn’t there.
* * *
Vanessa wakes her up at noon, shaking her by the shoulder. She slept for twelve hours. A deep sleep, without nightmares but also without dreams. “I made you some coffee, honey,” she says and—without giving her time to ask any questions—disappears into the kitchen. Manuela takes her time. She has the feeling she needs to delay her encounter with her sister. Something bad has happened. And she’s afraid she doesn’t have the strength to face it. She wallows under the shower, puts on her sweats, and when she finally sits down at the kitchen table, her coffee is like cold dishwater. “They took him away, hon,” Vanessa says. “I don’t know exactly when it happened, I wasn’t here. Yesterday I realized that the Bellavista was closed.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” Manuela asks. All of her serenity of these past days has disappeared. She snaps a cracker in two. She has to keep herself from screaming. “Listen, I don’t know what happened,” Vanessa says as she loads the cups and glasses from her mother’s and grandmother’s breakfast into the dishwasher. “The police were here, they asked me questions, they wanted to know who he spent time with, where he went. I told the truth, that I know him, that we even went out with Mamma and Alessia, that he spent time with our family, that you had been seeing a lot of him these past few weeks, I didn’t say that you two were an item, but I think they already knew.”
“But who? Why?” Manuela blurts out. “I don’t know, they were really rude, they probably want to question you, too.” “Where is he, Vanè? Where is he?” Manuela practically shouts. Vanessa collapses into her chair. “I don’t know where he is. Yesterday, it must have been around one o’clock, because Alessia was on her way home from school and I was here making her lunch, he called. He said your cell was off so he was calling me.” “I was talking to the doctor, fuck!” Manuela exclaims. “He had to tell me what the medical evaluation board decided. I never turn off my phone, but I had to then, out of respect, it was important.… So that call from an unknown number at 12:45 was him.”
“He was calling from a phone booth,” Vanessa said. “He was really nervous. He was in a rush, super-abrupt. He said he couldn’t tell me where he was and that I had to say two things to you. The first is that you have to talk to Gianni, the waiter at the Bellavista. He has something for you.”
“And the second?” Manuela asks. Vanessa bites her nails. The blue speckled nail polish from New Year’s is chipping off. She avoids Manuela’s gaze. “I don’t know how to say this, honey, it’s really hard.” Hard? thinks Manuela. “It can’t be harder than what I’ve been through.” “But it is. He said not to look for him.”
* * *
Gianni Tribolato lives in the middle of the artichoke fields, on an out-of-the way farm on reclaimed land, patrolled by a dozen snarling dogs that surround Vanessa’s Yaris, pissing on the tires and rubbing their teeth on the body. Without his white uniform and bow tie, in gardener’s gloves and rubber boots, the Bellavista waiter looks like what he probably would have been had he not attended hotel school: a hearty farmworker. With a surprisingly small voice unsuited for his rough, stocky frame, he silences the dogs and guides Vanessa and Manuela to the house, apologizing for the mess. He’s a good waiter, but a lousy housekeeper. Then again, no one ever comes here.
Empty bottles everywhere, flasks of wine, and ashtrays full of cigarette butts, bags of fertilizer, spades, rakes, pruning shears, and two fat cats splayed on the only couch in the living room. There’s also an old man in a wheelchair, apparently not devoid of his senses, who wags his head and opens his mouth when he sees the Paris sisters come in. “My father,” Gianni says. “He had a stroke, unfortunately, and lost the ability to speak.” So this is why Gianni was so chatty at the hotel; at home he went for hours without hearing a human voice. He doesn’t have a wife, his animals are his family. So this is why he bonded right away with Mr. Rubino. Loners understand each other.
He doesn’t really know how to explain what happened. The hotel usually closes in the winter, because in January, once the holidays are over, it’s really dead. But this year the company informed them that they would stay open. The owner was pretty pleased with the arrangement because high season had been abysmal—the recession meant a sixty percent drop in reservations this year—and with this unexpected change at least operational costs would be covered. But then on Thursday evening, it must have been around eight, the police showed up. He saw them arrive because he was in the kitchen, whiling away the time till dinner with Adel, the Egyptian cook. Not that they had “police” written on their foreheads
. Plainclothes policemen, completely normal-looking, no uniforms or squad car. But they flashed their cards at the concierge. Two of them stayed in the lobby while one went up to room 302. Ten minutes later Mr. Rubino came down with his suitcase and computer bag. He said he wanted to talk with Gianni, but they said there was no time. Mr. Rubino started shouting, he was completely beside himself. This surprised Gianni because Mattia was always so polite, a real gentleman. He’d been working at the restaurant for thirty years, he had a lot of experience, and Mr. Rubino was a rare sort of guest. It was clear that he was upper class, but he knew how to act with everyone, and he even enjoyed talking with Gianni, a simple soul, a waiter. Gianni knew his conversational skills were limited, so he told him anecdotes about Ladispoli and his cats. Mr. Rubino really loved cats. The concierge called him and Gianni came out of the kitchen and Mr. Rubino said he wanted to have a word with him alone so they stepped into the restaurant. It was closed—there weren’t any customers—they talked in there, among the tables in the gloom.
Mr. Rubino said he had to go away. He thanked him for having taken such good care of him and then he gave him a big tip. Unfortunately he didn’t have time to say goodbye to his friends who lived across the way, Miss Vanessa Paris and her daughter, Alessia, and he was very sorry. He begged him to say goodbye to the little girl and to tell her that the Cat had to go on one of his voyages for the Marquis of Carabas, but that he would help her find her teeth soon. She had to touch her gums with her finger every evening, and every time she felt the bump grow a bit, she should think of the Cat, because the Cat was thinking of her. “That’s exactly what he said,” Gianni swears on his father’s head. It was an odd conversation, but Mr. Rubino was really shaken up. Then he begged Gianni to keep something that belonged to Sergeant Paris. And not to tell anyone—not a soul—that he had given it to him. And to give it to her as soon as he saw her. He had to give it directly to her, not to anyone else, ever. The “something” is an iPhone box. Manuela shakes it, but there’s no phone inside.
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