Limbo (33 page)

Manuela has the feeling he's trying to tell her something, but she can't figure out what it is. And she misses her chance to ask. “Anyway, war returned,” she continues, “and hit us head-on. During World War II the Americans targeted Civitavecchia, they bombed it and destroyed everything. But it was the Germans who hit the tower in 1943. With artillery, from the hills in Cerveteri. It was too high, they said; Allied reconnaissance could use it as a reference point. It was just a monument to the past. The upper floors were destroyed. But it held. It leans toward the water now, it looks like it's about to fall. The sea has eroded its every defense, the waves lap at it all winter long, and people do nothing to protect it, they just let it die. Every year the stumps move farther apart, the cracks get bigger, the windows where cannons once stood are tilting. But it resists. It's my favorite place around here. I was supposed to come here with my friends, to celebrate the end of our tour of duty.” “But you didn't?” Mattia asks, thinking it was the hospital and her surgeries that prevented her.

“My friends are dead,” Manuela says. “It was the last thing we talked about. Then we left to go to that village, and a little while later, the bomb exploded.” Mattia shudders. He knows he should tell her he's there for her, that he's sorry about her friends, and for her. But it wouldn't be the truth, because right now he's here with her, and if it weren't for that bomb he never would have met her, and he doesn't want to be anywhere else. The chipped bricks of the tower, corroded by the salt, have taken on a rosy color, and the travertine that reinforces their sides is as white as the foam on the waves. The tower seems made of the same inconstant material as the sea. He doesn't say anything, but he rests his chin on her shoulder, a comforting gesture. If Manuela wants solace, she can count on him. “It was silly, it started as a joke,” Manuela says, her lips curled in a strange smile.

She thought she'd forgotten them, and yet here, at the foot of the tower, their words—crisp, isolated—reemerge one by one, as if from beneath an ocean of silence. “Mulan, what's the first thing you'll do when you get home?” Diego had asked her. “I'll go to the tower,” she heard herself say. “I'll go to the tower and swim in the sea.” “I was supposed to come here with my epigones,” she explains to Mattia, doodling distractedly in the sand with her crutch. “I told them that the first thing I'd do, once I got back to Italy, was come here and swim, in a skimpy bikini, because I'd had enough of camouflage. I didn't miss anything about Italy over there, not the food or my family or the trees; but I missed the sun on my skin, the pleasure of baring my legs, of uncovering my back. I'm sure it seems strange to you, but I missed tank tops, bathing suits, feeling the wind in my hair. My company officers met often with the village chiefs in Farah, almost every day during those last weeks, the meetings were called
shure
, and the mayors, mullahs, and most important figures would go, they'd drink tea and agree on operations, take note of the people's needs. Some reciprocal trust was created. But I could never accompany them, even though I was a platoon leader and was the one who carried out the officers' requests. I had to send my deputy. Even during joint operations I couldn't talk with my Afghani equivalent, the ANA platoon leader: the lance sergeant had to do it. And if because of some unforeseen event in a village, I had to explain something to a man, he wouldn't look at me. I didn't exist, I was like a lamppost, nothing, he'd look at the interpreter, or the soldier standing next to me. I know he did it because he didn't want to offend me, it's his culture, and they taught us to respect that. I knew that all the difficulties we had encountered on the ground derived from the fact that initially there had been a serious flaw in communication, that we foreigners had behaved as if we were a superior, civilizing force, fueling the local people's resentment. If you go to someone's house and they take off their shoes at the doorstep, you take yours off, too, simple as that. So I covered my hair with a scarf, to make them understand that I respected their culture, which forced them to ignore me. But I won't hide the fact that it was really hard to show respect for an old man who confines his women to his house, who pens them in like sheep or goats, and decides whom to marry his daughters off to in exchange for a hundred sheep, or swaps them for money to end a feud, kills his wives with childbearing, and treats them like dogs. I felt humiliated, it was as if all I had earned, as a woman and a soldier, meant nothing. I'm a woman and a commander. And I represent my country. This is possible in my country. It took us two thousand years to get here, it may seem like a travesty to some, but to me it's a victory, and that's why I'm standing here telling you where to put those fucking weapons you're giving us in exchange for seeds for your fields. But naturally I kept quiet. I could never look a man in the face when I spoke; I kept my eyes on the ground, staring at my boots. It was hard. I couldn't take it anymore.

“My friends couldn't take it anymore either, but for different reasons. For them it was not having sex. It was all they talked about those last two months. They exchanged advice on contraception, positions, some things I can't even repeat, even though by that point I'd become as foul-mouthed as a trucker. Anyway, at a certain point, I don't know why, my epigones promised to come visit me in Ladispoli and to bring me a thong as thin as dental floss. We were just screwing around, but we swore we'd come here together, all three of us. And we'd go swimming at midnight, with a full moon, as naked as the day we were born, and we started shouting like idiots, hooray for Italy, hooray for Italy.”

It was that last morning, as they were getting in the Lince, heading to Qal'a-i-Shakhrak—and without knowing it, heading to the instant that would separate them. They were moving toward death; she toward this lacerated and fragmented present. And yet on this first day of the year, among the fragile yet intact dunes, at the foot of the tower, with a happy, elusive, yet dear and thoughtful man at her side, this present doesn't lack something; it has almost everything.

Mattia says thank you, and Manuela, astounded, asks him why in the world he should thank her. For telling me these things, for bringing me here, he would like to say, but at the same time he realizes he needs to be quiet. She is trusting him with a secret that may be a burden or a promise or a request for a commitment, and he has already pushed himself beyond every limit and he can't and doesn't want to accept it. “Too bad it's not August so we can't go skinny-dipping,” he says lightly, “besides, it's not allowed, I think, we'd get arrested. Can you tell me why you call them epigones? What does it mean?” “No,” Manuela says, “it was just between us, it doesn't make sense anymore.”

*   *   *

They stay and watch the waves crash against the breakwater and dissolve against the foot of the tower in a gush of foam. Salt splashes and spray bead their faces and hair. The water has become a dark mirror that reflects the clouds, the ruins of the tower, and their bodies. The kite surfer has managed to untangle his lines and hook the straps to his harness, and now he bounces along on his board, dragged by the sail, racing toward open water like red tumbleweed on the barren land of the sea. Mattia envies his speed, his flight, that unbridled freedom. The whole time they've been on the water's edge, as the shadow of the tower slowly envelops them, Manuela has been moving her crutch in the sand, sketching lines, poles, circles, dots. It's only when they walk toward the reserve entrance and Mattia turns to say goodbye to the tower one last time does he realize what she has written on the shore. Three names, engraved in the black sand, already threatened by the undertow.
NAIL—SPANIARD—MULAN.

*   *   *

The phone in room 302 rings three times before Manuela decides to answer it. Mattia is in the bathroom shaving with the radio on and doesn't hear it. “Yes,” she says slowly, shamefully, as if she were violating a secret of his. But it's not for Mattia. The concierge informs her that someone is asking for her at the reception desk. “Honey,” Vanessa shrieks, “I'm in a jam, you have to do me a favor, please, I'm begging you, I can't explain, just say yes.” She's struggling to seem normal. But her voice comes out all strange—she's drooling, as if she had a handful of pebbles in her mouth, and she's having trouble stringing together three words. “Vanè!” Manuela exclaims. “Where the hell have you been? Mamma was in a panic, she called me five times to ask if I'd heard from you, I didn't know what to say.” “I know you're with him and I'm being a pain in the ass, you don't know how sorry I am, but you have to watch Alessia till I get back. It won't be too long, I swear, besides, Grandma gets back at eight and you can bring her home.”

“I can't babysit for you right now,” Manuela protests. “She's right here, hon,” Vanessa insists, as if, faced with such evidence, her sister would have to give in. “Mamma has to work, I left her with Grandma, but she went to the Kingdom Hall and left her alone, can you imagine, I found her whimpering in the kitchen, poor kid, seven years old, she was scared to death, what a heartless old woman.” “Vanessa, how can I? What am I supposed to say to him?” Manuela whispers. She's uneasy, though, because she feels indebted to her sister. Without her stolen keys, she would never have gotten that night with Mattia at her grandfather's cottage. A night that already seems far away, but that nevertheless radiates an enchanted, almost unreal, and perhaps unrepeatable perfection.

“She'll be good, isn't that right, pumpkin, you won't make auntie angry?” “Vanessa,” Manuela murmurs, “what have you done? You're being so weird!” “Who are you talking to?” Mattia asks, sticking his head through the door, his face half white with shaving cream. His eyes are filled with an exaggerated anxiety, which Manuela recognizes right away because she has learned to read the same look in her own. Fear. Total, uncontrollable fear. But what could Mattia be afraid of? That she would butt into his life? “It's my sister,” she reassures him. “Something's wrong, I'm going downstairs a minute.” “Okay, but come right back,” Mattia urges her. Today has been too perfect to ruin it dealing with her family—the less contact with them, the better for everyone. Manuela kisses him on his wet lips, removes a drop of blood from a nick on his cheek, and puts on her jacket. It's only once she's in the elevator that she realizes she has forgotten her crutches.

Alessia is sitting on an armchair in the lobby, her little Hello Kitty suitcase in her lap. Vanessa looks as if she's been run over by a train. Her pupils are dilated, her hair's a mess, her hands are shaking. “Thank you, hon,” she says, hinting at a smile, “you're an angel, tell your friend I'm sorry, he can ask whatever he wants in return. Keep the keys to Grandpa's house, you two use it, besides, I won't be going there anymore, it's all over with Youssef.” “Did you take some shit, Vanè?” Manuela asks with alarm. Alessia, her eyes sealed shut from crying, dangles her feet in the air. The chair is too big for her. Manuela kisses her hair. It's sticky, and spotted with colorful blobs of Play-Doh. The girl claws her mother's wrist with both hands, as if to keep her from leaving. “I'll only be a little while, pumpkin,” Vanessa promises, not very convincingly, aware she's lying—and then, turning to Manuela, she adds, as if it were nothing important, “Can you lend me some money? I need to get gas. My ATM card is blocked, but the bank will be open tomorrow and I can pay you back.” “Gas?” Manuela exclaims, astonished. “Where do you have to go? You just got back!” And then, in a whisper, “Alessia expected you for lunch, Mamma says she was upset you didn't come back, she made you a cake.” “Don't lecture me, fuck!” Vanessa bursts out. “Can you lend me some money or not?” “Of course I can,” Manuela says, “but if you don't tell me what you need it for, I'm not giving you a cent.”

“I don't think I can tell you, Manù,” Vanessa mumbles, chewing on her nails. They're painted blue, with silver speckles. Manuela looks radiant, it's clear she had a nice night with her Bellavista lover, lucky her. It's only fair, the wheel turns. Manuela takes a wad of cash out of her purse, and Vanessa tries to grab it. But Manuela closes her purse. “There's no way I'm letting you drive,” she says, “I don't know how you made it back here without getting into an accident.” “I wasn't driving, my car's still there, in the parking lot, I have to go get it. Give me everything you have,” she begs, her blue fingers reaching for her sister's purse. “It's a holiday, it'll be at least a hundred and twenty for the taxi.” Manuela brightens. “Let's ask Mattia. It'll only take him a minute to come down. We can take you to get your car, that way you don't have to leave Alessia.” Hearing her name, the girl suddenly lifts her head. Her eyes light up with a flash of hope. Vanessa nibbles her nails. The concierge of the Bellavista is pretending to check the reservations on the computer, but he doesn't miss a word as he sizes Vanessa up: shapely thighs, a run in her stockings, a dress that's too short, a neckline that's too low, her artificial tits irresistibly firm and round, almost shocking. Vanessa buttons her leather jacket, staring at him contemptuously. “Listen, hon,” she whispers, “it's not true, my car's in the piazza, but I need the money, I need gas, seriously.” “You're not making sense, Vanessa,” Manuela objects, “where do you have to go?” “It's personal, please, don't ask.” “I will so ask!” Manuela almost shouts. “You call me in the middle of the night, talking nonsense, then you disappear, and now you show up like this, I don't want to know what you took, but you're really pissing me off, you swore you were done with that shit, you may be reckless, but I'm not, and I'm not letting you drive.” “Give me the money, hon,” Vanessa whispers. “I can't find my ATM card, I lost it, my wallet, too, I mean I think it was stolen, I have to go to Rome, I'm in trouble, seriously.”