Eva Sleeps (37 page)

But the thread of her thoughts got tangled up and snapped on something Vito said: “Except that there's a problem.”

She felt cold inside. Something tight. And the certainty: here we go, now he's going to tell me about the lie, he's going to tell me the problem and the dishonor. She instinctively tightened her mouth and also the other orifices, those low down, like you do when you don't want trouble and pain to enter your life and especially that of your adored son. But she also knew that when you keep the doors of your body firmly shut, it means that troubles and pain are already inside.

And yet.

“She has a . . . she's much taller than me,” Vito had said.

She had felt relief warm her whole being like a good broth on a winter's night. But since she was his mother, she saw it: a thing, a little thing that remained without a name or a surname, deep in her son's eyes. But she wasn't an idiot, and since Vito wasn't telling her, she also knew this: whatever this little thing he wasn't mentioning was, it wouldn't be up to her to fight it. It was her son, alone, who would see to eliminating it.

“So what?” she therefore said. “Your father wasn't much taller than me. Take her a piece of ‘nduja to try.”

 

Eva and Ulli spent their afternoons after school on top of the Himalayas, on Nanga Parbat, to be precise. They had named their refuge at the top of the hayloft, the wooden balcony where the architrave meets the oblique beams of the roof, in honor of Reinhold Messner, the climber who tackled the twenty-six thousand feet with nothing but the power of his lungs, without tanks of oxygen. They would also climb their Nanga Parbat without artificial help and especially without Sigi: Ulli's little brother was forbidden from accessing the peak. The only time he tried to join them they named him the Yeti, but Sigi didn't like being abominable so he never came back.

Eva had stopped ignoring her cousin during Gerda's visits. Now she gave him permission to join her, her mother, and Vito. Sergeant Anania had extended his affection not only to Gerda and Eva but also to all those they loved: Maria, Sepp, Wastl. And naturally, Ulli. To Eva, her mother's presence had always been a synonym of scarcity: to see her arrive was already to fear losing her. Whereas Vito had brought along abundance: he had enough warmth for everybody.

Eva particularly liked hearing them talk about her, just like a couple of parents. Once, when they thought she was asleep, they'd even almost argued.

Gerda was saying that after middle school she'd be sending Eva to catering college: with all the new hotels being built she'd never starve. And especially, she wouldn't start working as she had, not knowing how to do anything except get her fingers corroded by caustic soda, or break her back over dirty pots. No, Eva would arrive at her first job with a diploma, a qualification, and skills. Perhaps she wouldn't start as head cook but at least as assistant cook.

“No! Eva must go to high school!” Vito had rebelled. “And then afterwards perhaps even university. She's too clever not to study.”

Gerda had flown off the handle. University?! The children of ladies and gentlemen go to university, people who have money in the bank and saints in heaven. Whereas she only had two hands and was proud of them, and if he thought being a cook was a job for . . .

She'd stopped abruptly. In bed with her eyes shut, Eva had heard the silence, then the liquid sound of the lips searching each other, and Vito's gentle voice whispering, “you are to me . . . ” and finally some indistinct murmuring. And even if she couldn't see her mother's face, she could imagine it, she'd seen it when Vito told her sentences that started with “you.” She would become so beautiful that even Eva almost didn't recognize her.

 

One day, at school, the teacher came to stand next to Eva's desk. Instead of listening to the lesson she was drawing.

“And who's this?” she asked, pointing at the paper.

It was the picture of a man with dark hair and eyes, wearing a cap with a peak and black pants with a red stripe. He was holding, like a bunch of roses, a huge green and purple artichoke.

“
Mein Tata
,” Eva said. My daddy.

 

His leave was over.

Vito looked out of the window but saw only himself: the night train had just left Reggio and outside, on the side of the sea, there was only darkness.

He'd promised Gerda before leaving: I'll tell my mother about you two. Gerda's face had stiffened as though in pain, it was actually joy. She had never been introduced to a future mother-in-law.

Next time I go on leave, I'll tell her about Eva.

He'd show his mother Eva's exercise books, how good she was at school. I can't wait to meet her, his mother would say. And also: I'll buy her lots of presents, I'll teach her our songs.

Without honor, contemptible, false. That's how Vito felt.

He was in a carriage that went as far as Germany, it was the train of the
Fremdarbeiter
, the immigrants who were going back after a holiday in their villages. They were occupying entire compartments with their caciocavallo cheese, tomatoes in oil, demijohns of wine. They were talking to Vito about homesickness, about how hard it is to live far from your land. “It's like a part of you is missing,” they were saying. They always envied him when they saw him getting off on this side of the Brenner. They didn't know that, yes, it was still Italy, but just in name.

The train started and the long ride back along Italy began. At one end, the place Gerda called home; at the other, the one he called home.

 

Vito had been back a long time when he opened the door of the kitchen range and saw the ‘nduja. It had been there for several days. It was a present for Gerda from his mother, she'd given it to his fiancée. But she hadn't been able to eat it. It was too spicy, too strong, too different than the flavors she was familiar with. And when Vito had left, she'd thrown it into the furnace of the wood stove. Now half of it was covered in ashes. It was gray, it stank.

Gerda went and clung to him. “I just couldn't eat it.”

“Never mind.”

But then he went to the window, the one overlooking the glaciers, and his lip quivered. He'd never felt so much sadness, and even he couldn't tell why. His eyes grew red.

Gerda was looking at him, scared. Why would anyone cry for a sausage? He straightened up, put an arm around her waist.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “I'm a little tired.”

He held her close, shut his eyes, searched for her skin. He only wanted one thing at that moment: to be blind, deaf, without a future.

 

Weeks passed, then months. Nothing had changed between Vito and Gerda.

They continued to visit Eva together, she lived with Sepp and Maria, went to school the rest of the time, and spent every free moment with her Ulli. Gerda worked in the kitchen, Vito at the barracks. They made love every time they had the opportunity. On the other hand, they didn't go dancing anymore: they'd realized that neither of them really enjoyed it.

Leni had built next to her parents' maso a new construction with three small apartments for tourists. She hadn't found it easy to obtain all the authorizations, but she had finally managed it. Her children caused her no problems at school, her elderly parents enjoyed reasonable health, she didn't consider herself an unhappy woman.

Wastl had moved to Munich, where he was teaching music and playing the clarinet in a jazz band. Ruthi had joined him, tried to show him that she was indispensable to him, hadn't convinced him, had come back home and, soon afterwards, had married the eldest son of a maso on the opposite side of the valley. Now, not even eighteen, she was expecting her first child.

Paul Staggl had finally become the grandfather of a grandson. His daughter-in-law had turned out to be an excellent mother; she was raising her children with a firm hand, even the three that followed. So as to spend as little time as possible with her or them, Hannes spent his days in his father's office. This had considerably increased his knowledge of cable cars, ski pistes, and of that new technological frontier: artificial snow. He still had his cream convertible Mercedes 190, but he almost always kept it in the garage. He went to the office on foot.

Hermann's house was demolished with the rest of Shanghai, and residential buildings were erected in its place, according to a new town planning scheme. At the age of sixty-four, Hermann became the youngest resident of the
Altersheim
, the home for the town elderly. The staff didn't find him to be a difficult guest. When he wasn't eating or sleeping, he spent his time modeling figurines with the soft part of the bread; some of them were even displayed in the Nativity scene that was set up in the entrance hall at Christmas. He never had any visitors in the retirement home.

 

When the winter season at Frau Mayer's hotel ended, Vito said to Gerda, “I'm taking you to Venice.”

Eva would have run after the pigeons in St Mark's Square for hours but there were so many other things to see. Especially the streets made of water, gondolas like black fish, houses that looked made of lace and not bricks, and people. The city seemed like a single, permanent open air concert: tourists had long hair, either very short or very long skirts, almond-shaped or blue eyes, milky, amber or leather-colored skin.

There wasn't such a variety of people where she was born. In comparison, the tourists that filled her town during high season all seemed related to one another. Whereas here, there were Americans, Asians, Scandinavians, and even the odd African. Their skin was such a wonderful color. Why did they call them “black,” anyway, when they should have called them “brown”? And how did Japanese women manage to see through those eyes as narrow as slits? Eva would squeeze her eyes to try to find out and discovered, in fact, that you couldn't see anything above or below but only to the side. And yet, and that was what was so strange, they didn't move their heads to look up; but then perhaps the Japanese weren't interested in the sky. While a passerby was taking a photo of her, Gerda and Vito together, she saw a woman wearing a tablecloth and a man in pajamas.

“Indians,” Vito explained, but Eva was still astounded: she'd always imagined Indians with feathers on their heads, plaits and moccasins. This variety wasn't just fascinating to watch, but also a kind of calling: if the whole world came to visit Venice it meant that Eva, too, some day, would be able to visit the world.

Vito and Gerda walked with her in the middle, went up and down bridges, and along calli; when these were too narrow, they'd walk in line and take larger strides until once again there was room to be close to one another. They were staying in a little pensione behind San Stae. The owner had two purple rings under his eyes because of years of sleep interrupted by nocturnal patrons to whom he had to go and open the door. When they'd arrived at reception he'd said “Signora” and “your husband” to Gerda, and “your little girl” to Vito. Then he'd read the surnames on the documents and had grasped the situation. For the two days of their stay he managed to avoid addressing Gerda directly (at that point, “Signorina” would have been offensive), or specifying whose daughter Eva was. It certainly wasn't the first time this had happened: too many couples without wedding bands on the fingers had been there, and then, over the past few years, he'd seen all sorts of things, so he certainly wasn't shocked. Gerda, however, lit up a cigarette as the hotel owner was handing them the key, and Vito handed Eva the bronze bell on the counter, and said, “Look.” But she knew: when her mother stared like that into space, taking puffs of smoke with indifference, it was never a good thing.

 

Apart from this brief moment of unease, Gerda was happy. She was in Venice! With Vito! And Eva! She felt as though she was living a song, a photo love story, a movie. In the movies, lovers in Venice kiss in a gondola and Vito had rented one. Leaning back on the red velvet couch, Gerda half closed her eyes.

“Will you take me to the Amalfi Coast on our honeymoon?”

Vito stroked her hair and held her tight, and Gerda didn't understand that it was so he wouldn't look her in the eyes. But then he said to her, “I would like to marry you.”

“Would like” is similar to “want” but not the same, so she straightened up to look at him. That's when Vito confessed: he'd told his mother about Gerda. Not about Eva.

Sitting on the foldaway seat at the prow, Eva did not turn around.

Vito spoke softly, so he wouldn't be heard. “I'll tell her on my next leave. It's a promise.”

Eva continued to stare at the oar with which the gondolier was slicing through the putrid water.

Vito kissed Gerda's face. She let him.

Eva looked at the little arched bridge going overhead and thought: if it breaks and falls on me I'll go underwater, swim, swim without breathing and get to the shore.

A
fter Vibo Valentia, the view of the vast golden arch of the Calabrian coast line is interspersed with noisy darkness: one tunnel after another. It looks like a film projected so slowly that you can see the black strips between the frames. Then the sea disappears, we're inland, and between one tunnel and another round hills and monumental olive groves appear. We're now passing under the Aspromonte: a tunnel that never seems to end, as dark as despair.

 

Ulli's coffin was about to be lowered into its hole when an old man with hands deformed by decades of pulling the bell rope came forward. “I'd like to say something,” he said.

It was Lukas, the sacristan. In church he hadn't gone up to the lectern next to the altar, like Sigi and the others, to carefully and vocally ignore the reason for Ulli's death. I hadn't done it either, or gotten up to take communion. I hadn't taken it since the day when, after Vito had gone, the parish priest had welcomed my mother back into the flock, but more as a broken lamb then a lost one. Lukas had been the sacristan of the little church facing the glaciers for almost forty years but nobody was accustomed to hearing his voice. At first it trembled, then he gathered his courage.