I want to call Papa but my phone is back on the table at his flat. Slowly I boil up to a rage because this waiting game is back again. It feels like getting sick, getting worse by the minute.
I stump my way up and down the beach. Papa’s gone well over an hour now. Nothing looks beautiful any more. The sea is grey and there’s rubbish everywhere. I let my feet sink down into the mushy sand. Palermo is nothing without Papa.
After an hour and a half, I can’t stand it any more and head towards the street. I get furiouser and furiouser as I ask directions to get to Papa’s street.
As I turn into the Via Sant’ Agostino I miss a breath. I spot Papa straightaway. He’s at the front door arguing with a woman. What’s he doing standing there, with someone else, instead of coming back to the beach?! I just don’t get it any more.
“Papa!” I roar and run towards him. Papa and the woman turn around. The woman looks furious. She’s ranting and raving at Papa and when I get as far as them she goes off. Papa looks as if he can’t cope any more.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU COME BACK TO THE BEACH?? I WAITED ALL THIS TIME FOR YOU?” I’m really roaring at him now.
“Something turned up, you can see for yourself. I’ve got problems, problems, problems…” And he looks at the woman disappearing down the street.
“SOMETHING ALWAYS TURNS UP ON YOU!! GETS IN THE WAY!! I’M WAITING ON THE BEACH ALL THIS TIME AND YOU’RE UP HERE WITH SOMEONE ELSE!!” I roar. “YOU SHOULDN’T BE HANGING AROUND WITH SOMEONE ELSE!! WHO WAS THAT ANYHOW??!”
“Doesn’t matter, just another pressure cooker, capito! I lifted the lid and basta!” Papa gives his moped a kick. He really needs to let off steam. “Carlo, Dio mio, this world is a crazy place!”
“Because you make everyone mad at you!” I tell him.
“I!! I make everyone mad? ME! I can say what I like. It’s the same all over – roaring at me! Now even you’re roaring at me!”
“BECAUSE YOU’RE ALWAYS PROMISING THINGS AND THEN EVERYTHING TURNS OUT DIFFERENT!”
“What do I promise? You want to go to the beach, we go to the beach. You want to go to the casino, we go to the casino! Come on! Let’s go!” he says, plonking himself on to the moped. “Let’s have a nice day. Today and tomorrow, I’ll sort it with Mama. Then you only have to go back the day after tomorrow…”
“I’M NOT GOING BACK,” I roar, “NOT UNLESS YOU COME TOO!”
“Carlo, we’re both a bit mixed up, right? Why should I come back to Bochum with you?”
“When you really want something, you will do anything for it. We’ll take your stuff up out of the cellar! You can just move into my room with me.”
“You’re driving me crazy, Carlo. You imagine that it’s all so easy, but it’s complicated. I’ll come and visit you, that’s a promise.”
“THAT DOESN’T MEAN A THING! “ The words just shoot out of me. “I’VE BEEN WAITING FIVE MONTHS ALREADY!! FIVE MONTHS, TWO WEEKS AND EIGHT DAYS!!” I roar. “I’M NEVER WAITING AGAIN!!”
Papa rubs his eyes with his hands and runs them through his beard and over his mouth. But not a sound comes out of him. Then he gets off the moped, looks up at the sky and back at me, for a long, long time. He doesn’t look like the sun and beach any more. I’ve never seen Papa look so mixed up. He fiddles with the chain on his neck and runs his other hand through his hair.
“Carlo, Dio mio…” he says at last and sits down on the kerb. I plonk myself beside him.
I give him a sideways look. He’s completely still except for one hand twiddling the chain through his fingers. He’s thinking hard; there are deep wrinkles on his forehead. We let the mopeds stink their way past us and he says nothing, for the longest time.
“Carlo…” he begins after a long, long time. “You’re my son. You just turn the world upside down. You’re just like me.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, ever so slowly. “I don’t know anything any more. But we’ve got to change something… make some changes, alright?”
“Yes, alright,” I say.
“I just don’t know how.”
“You have to come back with me anyway!”
“We’ll see…” says Papa.
“Nope! That’s what we’re going to do.”
I stretch my hand out. This has got to be a deal, a proper one, like a deal between two gangster bosses.
Papa fiddles with his chain a bit more. “Maybe you’re right, Carlo… you’re right…” He says after a long pause. “I understand you. We’ll have to give it a try… yes… I’ll come with you, okay. We have to try.”
At last he lets the chain go and shakes my hand, really hard. I look him straight in the eye and feel that he really does mean it.
We spend the rest of the day lying on the beach, or in the sea doing dead man’s float. The sun burns hot on our bellies and I float next to Papa on the water surface. I’ve never felt so light.
I’m sitting at my table in the pizzeria with Pietro. I’ve been back in Bochum for six months. When I brought Papa home with me Mama nearly knocked me over with hugs and kisses. It was as if I had been away forever. She wasn’t angry any more, just happy that I got back safe and sound. I had to spend a whole week in bed, with a fever from the night in the lifeboat and sunburn all over from the beach.
I often go off with Papa. He’s back in business, in Palermo or somewhere else, but he always comes back. We’ve been to nearly all the home games in the stadium and even to the water park, all three of us together, with Mama. We screamed and laughed in this photo too, just like the one hanging over the table in Palermo.
The rest didn’t quite come true. Papa is living with one of his thousand friends and his stuff is still down in the cellar. Mama and Papa don’t get on well enough to live together, not yet anyway. That’s something I still need to sort out, somehow.
I had another look at my map of Italy to see where we could go on holidays. We could all have a holiday together, that’s my next plan. There’s always plenty to laugh at on holidays. Then things would get better between Mama and Papa, I’m sure of it.
Pietro brings me my Pizza al Carlo. It’s got everything you can think of on it. The pack of cards is on the table already. I look over at the bar. Pietro has put the bottle of sea water on the mirror shelf behind the bar. It’s right in the middle, with plenty of space all around it. And there’s a lamp hanging from the ceiling, lighting it up, like a real trophy.
“Carlo, you have to tell me again, what happened with the ticket and the dog?” he asks as he sits down opposite me.
He wants to hear it, over and over again, from start to finish. He leans back and gets his napkin ready. He wipes his bald head with it, when the story gets too exciting.
“From the start, Carlo, Avanti, Avanti!” he says and I start again…
Copyright
The translation of this work was supported by a grant given by the Goethe-Institut London.
Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited
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First Published in German as Keiner Hält Don Carlo Auf by Oliver Scherz © 2015 by Thienemann in Thienemann-Esslinger Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart
First published by Dedalus in 2020
Translation copyright © Deidre McMahon 2020
The right of Oliver Scherz to be identified as the author & Deidre McMahon as the translator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays, Elcograf S.p.
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Nobody Can Stop Don Carlo Page 6
