Things That Happened Before the Earthquake

by Chiara Barzini

  “I love treasures.”

  “Do you want to work for me? You transformed the old store and I know you could do great things with this one.”

  “Like a real job?” I asked.

  Henry looked away, his big eyes already apologizing for having been too bold. I put my hand on his knee, not wanting him to retreat.

  “Sounds amazing.”

  “A real job,” he continued, encouraged. “After school. You can start saving up for your creative writing at USC. You better apply, by the way, or you’ll end up a loser like me.”

  “You’re not a loser,” I said. “And of course I’ll apply. My English teacher said she’ll help me.”

  I let myself fall on his bed. I nuzzled into his pillow and took a deep breath. “Your sheets don’t smell like stale pot anymore.”

  “There’s a Laundromat in the building.”

  He lay down next to me. I turned my back to him, pulled my knees up to my belly, and wedged my butt against the nook of his bowed legs. I passed his hands over my side, and pulled him toward me.

  “Are you spooning me?” he asked.

  “No, technically I’m making you spoon me.”

  We stayed silent, listening to my parents in the other room talking about the romantic holiday they were going to go on and how much they needed it after the Hotel Alexandria fiasco and Max disappearing into thin air. They said the same things over and over, like soldiers back from a war, tormented by recurring dreams.

  “And we came home and everything was gone. Just gone. And he was nowhere to be found.”

  Miramax did not take If These Walls Could Talk. Johnny Depp and his agent didn’t approve the elevator-scene cameo, saying he’d never signed a formal agreement. The Hustons kept coming over for lunch, but they were more interested in my mother’s cuisine than anything else. Not even Vanessa Peters managed to pull strings. It was as if the film had been doomed the second Max left. When the final cut was finally ready, my father sold it to an Italian television channel. In America PBS came forward asking for raw footage for a documentary they were putting together on haunted buildings in America. That’s what it had come down to: disembodied clips, raw footage, Italian television. It wasn’t the Hollywood ideal my parents had dreamed of when they flew in.

  I looked at Henry’s partly missing ear and placed my index finger over the slight protuberance. The helix and upper parts were joined together in a shapeless lump of flesh and cartilage.

  “What does it feel like when I touch it?” I asked.

  Henry shrugged his shoulders. “Not much,” he smiled. “Except it’s nice to feel your hand.”

  “I’m happy you cut your hair.”

  “A missing ear is more punk rock than long hair.” He giggled.

  “I agree. It’s probably better not to hear half the shit people say anyway.”

  —

  On our way home my parents were quiet. Timoteo gazed out the window, listening to his portable CD player.

  “So how about a big yard sale at the end of the month?” my mother finally said.

  “What more do we have to buy?” I asked.

  I gave my brother a nudge to take his headphones off.

  “No, how about having one? We’re thinking of moving back to Rome after this summer,” my father announced, glancing quickly toward Serena before speaking.

  “We didn’t want to say it at dinner. We wanted to tell you alone, first.”

  They spoke fast like they needed to get things off their chest at once. Some part of me kept saying no, another said yes or I understand, but mostly I didn’t understand and I looked at them like I didn’t understand so they’d know they would have to speak slower.

  “A couple of producers in Italy saw the film and liked it. They want to meet with Dad and talk about doing some work together. Possibly a TV series in Rome. It’s good news.”

  “Really?” Timoteo asked, excited.

  “If it works out it’s a big deal. We need the money,” Ettore explained. “We’ll be able to deal with the house and the mortgage.”

  “But we need to be there and we can’t be here,” Serena said.

  “Can’t you go and meet with these producers, and then come back?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t work that way.” My mother sighed. “You need to live where the work is. People need to see your face.” She sounded like a responsible person who now knew how things worked or didn’t work. “We’re tired,” she admitted and just saying that made her cheeks droop and her eyes water. “We’re out of money and this thing with Max took a lot out of us.”

  Even though there was a new prospect on the horizon, they did seem tired, both of them. A bit crooked, like they’d had enough. It was the end of a dream or the end of an idea of a dream—it was hard to tell at that point.

  “It’s not time for fun and games anymore,” Ettore concluded. “It might be a big opportunity. And if it is, I have to take it. These Americans, they’re so uptight. I’m much better off in Europe with producers who understand my artistic sensibility.”

  “But what about school? And the USC application and the letter they sent me and all those SAT tests I took? I have one year of high school left,” I said.

  “Your brother is graduating junior high, so he’ll start high school fresh in Rome. You can pick whatever school you like to finish your studies. Afterward you can go to any university in Italy and it’s free.” Serena was full of solutions.

  “What about your romantic vacation at the end of the month? I thought you were going because things were better. And what will you do with grandma’s ashes? Smuggle them back?”

  “We are still going on our romantic vacation. We’ve anticipated the trip. Grandma will be coming back to Rome with us. We’ll find a way.”

  “So you won’t come to my junior-high graduation?” my brother asked, disappointed.

  “Your sister will come. You know, honey,” my mother turned around to face him, “nobody in Italy cares when you graduate junior high. It’s a ridiculous American thing. It’s not like it’s some big achievement.”

  My brother looked down. They’d been rehearsing the ceremony at school and having cap-and-gown fittings. Everyone in his class took it seriously. I squeezed his hand.

  “I’ll be there,” I reassured him. Then I sat back and didn’t say another word.

  When we got home, Serena put her arms around me in the driveway. “What do you think?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I hadn’t felt much of anything except sadness since the last time I saw Deva.

  “What will you do?”

  “I’m thinking cooking lessons. Maybe I can get some American clients. They seem to like it.”

  Ettore came closer to us, dragging Timoteo along with him to create a graceless group hug.

  “How about it, guys? I think we’ve had enough of summer all year long, don’t you?” He laughed, but there were tears in his eyes and I didn’t understand how he could laugh if he was also crying.

  My brother hugged him back. He was so terrified by the idea of going to my metal-detector school, being called “the Italian Tomato” again by everyone. He would have done anything to avoid it.

  I looked away.

  “You know, guys, school in Rome gets out at lunchtime. You’ll finally have your afternoons back and just think about it: We can go places where it actually snows on Christmas.”

  “And we won’t feel like thieves when we go through customs at the airport.” My mother smiled.

  “No more cops on beaches if we feel like getting naked, no more private health care!” Ettore was giving himself courage, but I walked away from their posturing and retreated inside the house to my bedroom and shut the door, fumbling for my rubber suit, hating the fact that I’d thrown it out.

  I turned my TV on. Why not, I thought as I got under the sheets without removing clothes or shoes. Why not take myself out of this mess. After the earthquake, darkness had expanded until it covered everything with a feeling of indi
stinct gloom. Even the showerhead, as I sat under the needling water staring at the black, spiky leg hair I’d stopped shaving, looked like a grayish amoeba to me. Everything had gone downhill and I stopped sleeping. The good nights were the ones when I wallowed in the backyard crying because tears brought surprise or at least texture to my feelings. USC had accepted me as a student. Henry had invited me to work at the store. But were those reasons to stay somewhere? I was only seventeen. What would I do? Where would I live and was it worth it? Rome would be manageable, like a small town to me now—a place where cars and trees were smaller, where people cared for each other’s babies and fed each other’s relatives. A quaint town, the Eternal City.

  I skimmed through a copy of the latest issue of Corriere della Sera that lay on the floor by my bed. My parents had started buying Italian newspapers at the international newsstand again. I should have known something was up. Italy was in the hands of a new leader. He came from television and was stepping into politics, promising a brighter tomorrow filled with job opportunities and modernity. He’d won the elections in March. Everyone loved him. Nineteen ninety-four had been a promising year even though some said he was a crook. He owned four national television stations, three publishing houses, innumerable magazines, newspapers, film-production companies, video-rental chains, and sports teams. At least there would be job openings, everyone said—and if he was so good with business, who knew how much better he would be with politics. He had composed a hymn for his new political party: “Forza Italia!”—“Go Italy!” Maybe he would bring good news to my family when we moved back. His face was tanned and his teeth shone. It was enough to trust him. He was five foot five and his name was Silvio Berlusconi.

  As I flipped through articles about the stout smiling man, dozens of highway patrol cars and Los Angeles police vehicles appeared on the KCAL news. They rolled in perfect formation down the 405 freeway—the same freeway that roared in our ears every day—trailing behind an unhurried white SUV. It was a slow-speed chase, I gathered from the news. The man inside the white car was O. J. Simpson—a football player and actor I hadn’t known much about until a few days earlier when he’d been charged with the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman. She had been stabbed in the head and neck. If he was convicted Simpson faced the death penalty. That morning his lawyers had convinced the LAPD to allow him to turn himself in. One thousand reporters waited for him at the police station, but he never showed up.

  He reappeared hours later on TV inside a white Bronco. A friend drove the car leisurely while O.J. held a gun to his own head. The freeway was packed with onlookers waving from overpasses and ramps, cheering their favorite NFL star as if he were a marathon runner making his way home. Some people pulled over and got out of their cars to salute him from the roadside and I too wanted to cheer for him for some reason. It was his wax-museum face and that gun at his head and something about him that said he was done. It made you want to protect him, make sure he’d get home all right, that he wouldn’t pull that trigger. I was spying on him like the rest of the nation. The only way to give him privacy was to turn the TV off.

  I switched the channel and a sea of freckles hit me. I recognized the song. I knew the face: “And when I say I’m looking, don’t mean I wanna find what I’m looking for / When I say I’m searching, don’t mean I want to search at all.”

  There was Deva. In the final cut of her father’s music video. She leaned against a wooden fence looking up at her dad with adoring eyes. His face looked starched without the beard. His plump nose in contrast with her immaculate youth. “Don’t mean I want to search at all.”

  Father and daughter clasped hands and walked down the dirt path, their voices reverberating in my ear like a drawn-out off-key note. My heart began to race. I wanted to pause the video and look at each image frame by frame, but I couldn’t and I realized I should force myself to not even try. The way out of the pain, I saw, was to walk through it or drive through it perhaps, like O.J. was doing. If I could sit all the way through the video just once, putting my eardrums under siege, I could return to a time when those voices did not exist. Before being uttered, those notes had been nothing—and if I stayed there and let the music take its course, they might become irrelevant again. I remained still in bed, listening as the song stretched out infinitely, expanding backward in time. Then even the echoes dwindled. I stayed put until all sounds were dismantled and I could not hear Deva’s voice in my ears anymore. Until she was a muted beauty next to a muted old man.

  27

  “We’re leaving in one month, everybody! Last chance for authentic Italian food in LA County!” my mother screamed from the front yard. It was the end of July and everything we owned was out on the front lawn. My mother baked pizza pies and offered pasta alla Norma with salted ricotta to passersby. Her food stand was in the driveway and that was all she cared about, that our neighbors would remember the Italian family by the taste of the food she cooked.

  My parents were proud of their choice to return now. Apart from the new job prospect, moving back had turned into a political act. America was inhumane, they said. Nobody in their right mind could live permanently in Los Angeles. It was a doomed city, destined for maniacs and workaholics. How much easier things would be once we all went back, they kept saying. The quality of life, food, even water would be better. There were people on the other side of this mess, people who actually wanted us back, who would help us. We would not return to an indifferent city.

  Neighbors and visitors trickled in after my brother and I hung large signs on Sepulveda Boulevard: “Yard Sale! Moving back to Europe. Furniture, appliances, and free home-cooked Italian food by Serena.” Probably the one astute marketing strategy my parents had conjured since they’d moved. Ettore played Pink Floyd from the crackling speakers that were set up on his oak desk. It was going on sale for fifty dollars.

  “If you can see it, you can buy it.”

  Ettore had coined the phrase to lure people in. It was amazing how this car-salesman persona had emerged—at last. How confident he was, pitching Jerry Garcia records and talking about Woodstock with a hippie from Santa Cruz. Now that it was too late, now that we were leaving, he felt like he could try on everything he’d snubbed when he first arrived. He exuded confidence and a permanent smile. English words slipped out of his mouth like audacious rattlesnakes: “Thank you, ma’am.” “You take care now.” “How’s it goin’?” “You bet.” “Dude!”

  Creedence arrived at the edge of the driveway with a twenty-dollar bill in his hands. My brother had prepared a box full of his favorite things for him. He’d planned on giving it to him since the day we found out we were headed back to Italy, but he priced them first, just so his friend would see how generous he was in giving them away—a quintessential Italian ploy. He teetered at the edge of the driveway pretending to bargain. Behind his charade I recognized a seal of love and appreciation for having been close to Creedence, for growing up on the same burning streets, bruising knees and falling on Rollerblades—the ominous rumble of the freeway in their ears all those months. The late afternoons coming home dirty from play, smeared with sticky syrup from fast-food sodas, still panting with the last rays of sun on their faces, had meant something to my brother. But Creedence—the odd Mormon Virgil who had introduced him to that neighborhood’s microcosm—didn’t get sentimental.

  “I heard they are renting the house to a family with three brothers. I’ll buy the whole box from you in case we need extra hockey gear,” he said, handing over his twenty dollars.

  My brother gave him the stuff and lifted his hand dismissively.

  “You can just have it. I don’t need dollars in Italy. Buy me a burger the next time I come to LA.”

  I imagined how many times he’d rehearsed that mature line, announcing that the next time they saw each other they’d have their own money to spend, but also implying that there would be a next time. Creedence gave my brother an awkward young-male hug, drawing a safe spac
e between arms and chests. Two fourteen-year-old kids eluding the emotions of friendship.

  “Hey, come to Rome sometime.”

  “Sure thing,” Creedence said.

  He rolled down the block toward his house with the box lodged between his elbow and right hip. My brother stood at the edge of the driveway, looking at him go. He squirmed at the practicality of their rite of passage: my toys, your arms. Next.

  He ran back to my mother after his friend left and hugged her. She opened up to him, protectively. She had seen what I saw. My brother would be happy to go back to a place where friends were for life and moving to different continents meant breaking hearts. Here, a box of toys was enough to turn a page. People came and went, sports gear was tossed, unpaired knee pads filled boxes, cycles of friendship terminated uneventfully.

  I set up my area in a corner of the front yard, beneath the oak tree, diagonally opposite my parents’ sale. I dragged a mirrored cherrywood dresser from my bedroom. It looked ruined now that the sun shone on it, so I grabbed my varnishing kit to revive it. I loved painting over wood, giving it layers of life. That’s how Henry and I resurrected the furniture we sold at the new store on Melrose. We picked up busted antiques from Pasadena, sanded the ugly paint off, then repainted and varnished them. We transformed bookshelves, mirrors, and dressers. I brought out two small coffee tables I had stored in the garage and the antique two-tier paper cutter. I arranged the furniture on the cusp of the street. I opened a mahogany folding library ladder and placed the Vietnamese curtains and silk tops from the downtown tailor on each step.

  I draped mannequins I borrowed from Henry’s store in lace and furs, then filled an antique walnut cradle with a collection of multicolored velour shorts from the seventies with matching kneesocks. I arranged a reupholstered fur ottoman and a bentwood rocking chair inside a small yurt I’d purchased at a senior-citizens arts-and-crafts sale.