had my vet, or the ballerina. I reckon no one pushed it, not them, not us. Maybe some object had fallen on it and the bomb had exploded, or maybe it was God who had organised things badly and now there was nothing left, just the belly of this shark, all full of junk.
Nothing left. It got to the point where my brother realised one day that his trousers were torn and full of holes, his belt had no buckle, and his watch had no batteries and always showed the same time, so he went out to see what he could find. Even the Upim store in via Manno, where he’d always shopped, was gone. He came home empty-handed and began to cry, for the first time since he was a child. He cried and said he wanted his mother and father. And maybe a mysterious God felt compassion, because a letter arrived from Papà, the first since he’d left.
27
Like Jonah and Job
He gave us his address, he told us he was in South America trying to help the poor wretches, as he’d always planned to do, except that Mamma had been such a poor wretch herself that she’d kept him here. He talked about the
cafetaleros
, the coffee growers, who had nothing. Nothing. He told us that for one reason or another he hadn’t been able to free himself from his trade as a mechanic, for one reason or another he often found himself referring to the Bible and all in all there hadn’t been any great changes in his life.
I wrote back to him at once: full of emotion and hope. I imagined him sitting at a table, his legs stretched out with his feet poking out the other side and an ashtray filling up with cigarette butts, as he read about the vet, about the girls that wouldn’t pay any attention to my brother, about Zia who had bought us a house and had been a good mother even though no one had made her do it, and about Mauro De Cortes, about the judge, about the atomic bomb and about the refuge that seemed like the belly of a shark.
He replied at once asking me to read his letter aloud, maybe after dinner, as long as we were all together, including Nonna. He related the story of Job, who was a rich and fortunate man, but also good and upright and wise. But Satan said to God that it was easy for Job to have all those qualities because he was so fortunate. So God allowed Satan to take it all away from him. And Job couldn’t understand why and he didn’t know what he’d done wrong. Three friends went to visit him, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, and they sincerely wanted to help him and to look for the reasons behind his unhappiness, just as Nonna did with us. But there was no truly plausible reason and these guys kept coming up with all sorts of bullshit, just like Nonna does, and Job kept on being unable to understand it all. And he continues not understanding the reason for his own unhappiness even when the Lord reveals himself to him in all of Creation, but at that point Job no longer cares because for him it’s enough just to know that God exists. Then the story ends well and Job gets everything back again and dies wise and full of years.
So his advice was this: to leave the shark’s belly, maybe while it was sleeping. To try and swim to the places in Mamma’s postcards and see whether the atomic war had left anything alive on the earth, whether you could still see the divine wisdom of Creation with which God reveals himself to Job. And to be reborn from there, from where Mamma died.
A new Genesis. A Promised Land. Then my brother would become a great musician with a whole crowd of girls around him. But maybe with their trousers pulled up, at least until the right moment, and he shouldn’t be choosing those prickteasers who never put out. Zia would get married, it didn’t matter whether it was to the judge, or to Doctor Salevsky. Or to Mauro De Cortes on his return from his latest trip undertaken without saying goodbye to us, because he sure was – as Nonna always put it – a delightful man, shit he was delightful! Or to someone no one expected, after all it didn’t
Nothing left. It got to the point where my brother realised one day that his trousers were torn and full of holes, his belt had no buckle, and his watch had no batteries and always showed the same time, so he went out to see what he could find. Even the Upim store in via Manno, where he’d always shopped, was gone. He came home empty-handed and began to cry, for the first time since he was a child. He cried and said he wanted his mother and father. And maybe a mysterious God felt compassion, because a letter arrived from Papà, the first since he’d left.
27
Like Jonah and Job
He gave us his address, he told us he was in South America trying to help the poor wretches, as he’d always planned to do, except that Mamma had been such a poor wretch herself that she’d kept him here. He talked about the
cafetaleros
, the coffee growers, who had nothing. Nothing. He told us that for one reason or another he hadn’t been able to free himself from his trade as a mechanic, for one reason or another he often found himself referring to the Bible and all in all there hadn’t been any great changes in his life.
I wrote back to him at once: full of emotion and hope. I imagined him sitting at a table, his legs stretched out with his feet poking out the other side and an ashtray filling up with cigarette butts, as he read about the vet, about the girls that wouldn’t pay any attention to my brother, about Zia who had bought us a house and had been a good mother even though no one had made her do it, and about Mauro De Cortes, about the judge, about the atomic bomb and about the refuge that seemed like the belly of a shark.
He replied at once asking me to read his letter aloud, maybe after dinner, as long as we were all together, including Nonna. He related the story of Job, who was a rich and fortunate man, but also good and upright and wise. But Satan said to God that it was easy for Job to have all those qualities because he was so fortunate. So God allowed Satan to take it all away from him. And Job couldn’t understand why and he didn’t know what he’d done wrong. Three friends went to visit him, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, and they sincerely wanted to help him and to look for the reasons behind his unhappiness, just as Nonna did with us. But there was no truly plausible reason and these guys kept coming up with all sorts of bullshit, just like Nonna does, and Job kept on being unable to understand it all. And he continues not understanding the reason for his own unhappiness even when the Lord reveals himself to him in all of Creation, but at that point Job no longer cares because for him it’s enough just to know that God exists. Then the story ends well and Job gets everything back again and dies wise and full of years.
So his advice was this: to leave the shark’s belly, maybe while it was sleeping. To try and swim to the places in Mamma’s postcards and see whether the atomic war had left anything alive on the earth, whether you could still see the divine wisdom of Creation with which God reveals himself to Job. And to be reborn from there, from where Mamma died.
A new Genesis. A Promised Land. Then my brother would become a great musician with a whole crowd of girls around him. But maybe with their trousers pulled up, at least until the right moment, and he shouldn’t be choosing those prickteasers who never put out. Zia would get married, it didn’t matter whether it was to the judge, or to Doctor Salevsky. Or to Mauro De Cortes on his return from his latest trip undertaken without saying goodbye to us, because he sure was – as Nonna always put it – a delightful man, shit he was delightful! Or to someone no one expected, after all it didn’t
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