the torturer for holding me hostage in this shop, for treating me like a slave instead of a son.
That doesn’t mean I do it easily, of course. The guilt of it hangs over me for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening as I sit on the sofa in our apartment listening to Nicola Nicolini getting ready on the other side of the wall, the darkness collecting in the spaces between the shutters, the footsteps of the crazy divorcée who lives above us clacking back and forth across the floor, back and forth, back and forth, enough to make you go crazy yourself.
My phone lights up.
ME AND BOCCA ARE LEAVING IN HALF AN HOUR.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
YOU’RE KIDDING, RIGHT? THE AUSTRALIANS. LE ROCCE. I’VE BEEN TELLING YOU ALL WEEK.
I DON’T FEEL LIKE IT.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO FEEL LIKE IT. JUST COME.
YOU JUST WANT ME TO TRANSLATE.
OKAY, WE JUST WANT YOU TO TRANSLATE. COME ON. FORZA. DAI. DON’T BE A FINOCCHIO.
I never should have taught Fede how to put that fottuto word anticipation on his phone. I should have left him to sweat for every letter like the ten-year-olds and the old people.
I open the shuttered doors to the balcony and listen to the clinking of dishes as the tourists finish their Saturday-night dinners up and down the passeggiata. The waves are weak tonight, slapping halfheartedly against the pylons all the way down the molo. I stare at the sign on the lamppost between the bagni and the Mangona brothers’ huts. Silvio put it up the week after they pulled Mamma’s body from the water, as if that would have protected her. As if she would have obeyed a fottuto sign.
VIETATO TUFFARSI—
PERICOLO: TUBAZIONI AFFIORANTI DAL FONDALE.
And in English, for the tourists:
DIVING FORBIDDEN—
DANGER: PIPELINE EMERGING FROM THE SEABED.
The morning Mamma disappeared was one of the coldest and rainiest of any June I remember. She came into my room before dawn, a dark shadow perched on Luca’s bed, cupping one of his cleats in her hand. When she stood up, she seemed taller in the darkness, and the thick material of her wet suit pinched her body into an alien shape, her middle spread, her limbs scrawny since the last time she wore it. I don’t remember what either of us said. I only remember her standing there in the dark, pulling the piece of fishing net off her wrist, and leaving it on the dresser. I only remember her hands ruffling my hair and pulling the blanket over me, the rain pinging against the roof outside my window.
When I woke up the second time, it was already light out, and the rain had stopped. I took my time getting up. It was a Sunday, and when I went downstairs, Mamma and Papà were both gone. I remember thinking maybe they had gone for a walk or to Mass or to get a coffee. But I should have known. Her first swim in months and she took it in the rain.
My phone lights up again.
COME ON, ETTO. DAI.
You have to believe me, the last thing I want to do on a Saturday night is go to a disco and watch a thousand kids on Campari and hormones rubbing up against each other to the “Macarena” or “La Vida Loca” or whatever cazzate the posers are listening to these days. And I have zero desire to stand around and watch as Fede and Bocca bludgeon some Australian girls into submission with their stupid lines and their bad English, dragging them to the back door of the Hotel Paradiso by their thong straps. But I think about Papà coming home, and having to sit in the empty apartment all night with him, staring at the television, my omission squatting on me like a goblin or an imp.
“Okay, okay. Cazzo, Fede. I’m coming, I’m coming.”
I put on my Chuck Taylors and tie Luca’s favorite hoodie around my waist. As soon as I step out the front door, I get sucked into the current of tourists on the passeggiata, the faces of my neighbors surfacing like shining fish.
“Hey, Etto!” Pietro and Bernardo call out to me as they pass. They are carrying their tackle boxes and poles out to the molo for a bit of
That doesn’t mean I do it easily, of course. The guilt of it hangs over me for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening as I sit on the sofa in our apartment listening to Nicola Nicolini getting ready on the other side of the wall, the darkness collecting in the spaces between the shutters, the footsteps of the crazy divorcée who lives above us clacking back and forth across the floor, back and forth, back and forth, enough to make you go crazy yourself.
My phone lights up.
ME AND BOCCA ARE LEAVING IN HALF AN HOUR.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
YOU’RE KIDDING, RIGHT? THE AUSTRALIANS. LE ROCCE. I’VE BEEN TELLING YOU ALL WEEK.
I DON’T FEEL LIKE IT.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO FEEL LIKE IT. JUST COME.
YOU JUST WANT ME TO TRANSLATE.
OKAY, WE JUST WANT YOU TO TRANSLATE. COME ON. FORZA. DAI. DON’T BE A FINOCCHIO.
I never should have taught Fede how to put that fottuto word anticipation on his phone. I should have left him to sweat for every letter like the ten-year-olds and the old people.
I open the shuttered doors to the balcony and listen to the clinking of dishes as the tourists finish their Saturday-night dinners up and down the passeggiata. The waves are weak tonight, slapping halfheartedly against the pylons all the way down the molo. I stare at the sign on the lamppost between the bagni and the Mangona brothers’ huts. Silvio put it up the week after they pulled Mamma’s body from the water, as if that would have protected her. As if she would have obeyed a fottuto sign.
VIETATO TUFFARSI—
PERICOLO: TUBAZIONI AFFIORANTI DAL FONDALE.
And in English, for the tourists:
DIVING FORBIDDEN—
DANGER: PIPELINE EMERGING FROM THE SEABED.
The morning Mamma disappeared was one of the coldest and rainiest of any June I remember. She came into my room before dawn, a dark shadow perched on Luca’s bed, cupping one of his cleats in her hand. When she stood up, she seemed taller in the darkness, and the thick material of her wet suit pinched her body into an alien shape, her middle spread, her limbs scrawny since the last time she wore it. I don’t remember what either of us said. I only remember her standing there in the dark, pulling the piece of fishing net off her wrist, and leaving it on the dresser. I only remember her hands ruffling my hair and pulling the blanket over me, the rain pinging against the roof outside my window.
When I woke up the second time, it was already light out, and the rain had stopped. I took my time getting up. It was a Sunday, and when I went downstairs, Mamma and Papà were both gone. I remember thinking maybe they had gone for a walk or to Mass or to get a coffee. But I should have known. Her first swim in months and she took it in the rain.
My phone lights up again.
COME ON, ETTO. DAI.
You have to believe me, the last thing I want to do on a Saturday night is go to a disco and watch a thousand kids on Campari and hormones rubbing up against each other to the “Macarena” or “La Vida Loca” or whatever cazzate the posers are listening to these days. And I have zero desire to stand around and watch as Fede and Bocca bludgeon some Australian girls into submission with their stupid lines and their bad English, dragging them to the back door of the Hotel Paradiso by their thong straps. But I think about Papà coming home, and having to sit in the empty apartment all night with him, staring at the television, my omission squatting on me like a goblin or an imp.
“Okay, okay. Cazzo, Fede. I’m coming, I’m coming.”
I put on my Chuck Taylors and tie Luca’s favorite hoodie around my waist. As soon as I step out the front door, I get sucked into the current of tourists on the passeggiata, the faces of my neighbors surfacing like shining fish.
“Hey, Etto!” Pietro and Bernardo call out to me as they pass. They are carrying their tackle boxes and poles out to the molo for a bit of
Similar Books
