The Sun and Other Stars (8 page)

“Ciao, Etto. Glad you could make it. How’d that band saw blade work out?”

“Fine, fine.”

I try to remember how it used to be with Casella, when it was just the two of us hanging out, talking about life or the girls we liked. We’d laugh about the comic books we used to make, which became our joint obsession for at least six or seven years. I would do the drawing, and Casella would do the writing and the lettering. We were young and stupid, so most of them were rip-offs of something else. There was one called
SuperBunny
, about a rabbit that was impervious to everything but carrots. Then
Crabman
, the mild-mannered teenager who turned into a crab and swung from the tops of buildings with his crab hands, and of course
Cin-Cin
, the flame-haired reporter who traveled the world with a dog and a drink in his hands, toasting the death of tyrants and stereotyping the natives. Jacopo’s mother would let us use the copier at the Hotel Paradiso, and we’d walk the whole length of the beach, right behind the Algerians and their fake purses, selling copies for a thousand lire apiece.

“I mean, they’re just so ugly . . .” Fede continues, still going on about Medusa.

“The Spanish say there is no ugly,” Claudia says, “only strange beauty.”

“Then no one in Spain has ever seen a chest that looks like a pair of wet pantyhose hanging on the line. She should need a license for that, or at least special dispensation from Father Marco. Those things have got to be worth a couple of Hail Marys at least.”

“Fede, does Father Marco even know who you are?” Claudia asks.

“Sure. I go to confession every couple of weeks.”

“
You do
?” This gets the same stunned look from everyone at the table.

“But, Fede, you don’t even go to Mass.”

Fede shrugs. “Hey, you can’t let that stuff build up.”

“Let me get this straight. You—Fede—go to
confession
?” Claudia demands.

“Why is that so surprising?”

Claudia rolls her eyes at him. “Well, I hope you confess your beach attire sins. If that poor old woman is condemned for going topless, I have a long list of men who should wear out their knees begging for forgiveness.”

“Who?”

“Number one—Mimmo and Franco and those tiny suits. Number two—you and your scorpion. Oh, look, not as long a list as I thought.”

Fede smirks. He crosses his arms, and his muscles pop to the surface. “Did you hear that, Casella? Your girlfriend’s looking at my scorpion.”

“You know, I’ve had enough of you for one night, Fede. Come on, Casella, let’s go inside and talk to my sister.” Claudia stands up, and Casella follows.

“Good plan, Casella,” Fede says. “Maybe if you trail behind her long enough, she’ll accidentally drop some sex your way.”

“Shut up, Fede.” Claudia throws a coaster at him, hitting him on the shoulder.

But Fede doesn’t stop. “You see? I just got closer than you ever will.”

“You’re a stronzo, Fede,” Claudia says, and she marches off.

Bocca and Fede laugh, and Sima looks up from her phone.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh.”

N
ow, I think, is as good a time as any to tell you the tragic history of eligible women in the region.

In the beginning, right after God created the Azzurri, God created the temptation for the Azzurri and all the rest of us. Not apples. Women. And not just functional women like the English and Germans have, but decorative ones, mermaids and Nereids, gifts from the sea, muses for poetry, painting, and a lot of late-night, under-the-covers pulling of the saw. For a while beauty begat beauty, and generations of eligible women flooded through the Roman aqueducts and Etruscan irrigation ditches into even the smallest seaside towns like San Benedetto. But in the normal course of evolution, the women were forced to adopt survival mechanisms to protect them from their predators, id est, the men.

And so by the mid–twentieth century, most of the remaining women had grown cat’s-eye glasses to distort their eyes, sprouted dark hairs on their lips, and developed an affinity for granny pants, which pleased their pious mothers and protective fathers but no one else. The herds of young, eligible women thinned, and the entire coast started to swell with nonne. And as the men in the region sat around the bars, desperately trying to think of a way to seed the clouds, one man appeared, a hero and a savior, though disguised as an enemy foreigner.

That man’s name was Martin Malaspina. As in, Martin Malaspina the Italian-American Hollywood director. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Anyway, he fell in love with one of the few remaining genetic aberrations who had survived the cat’s-eye-glasses and granny-pants mutation, and as he fell, he hit his head and mistook the concussion for an idea—the absurd idea that San Benedetto was a worthy setting for a Hollywood movie. And in the brittle newspaper clipping tacked to the wall of nearly every restaurant and bar in the region, Martin Malaspina is standing in front of Signor Cato’s fishing boat, a prophet in sunglasses, pronouncing San Benedetto the last spot on earth that is simple and pure, where his ancestors’ bones sanctify the ground, the light is brought down from on high by angels, and those Italian fishermen, well, they really know how to, you know,
live.

So just like that, Martin Malaspina waved his magic wand—and rumor is, it was a big wand—and brought money and fame to San Benedetto. For a few short, blissful years, everyone in the world knew this town, and every woman wanted to come here—Roman society girls, Hollywood starlets, Parisian models swanning down the pedestrian zones in their scarves and sunglasses. Even
Playboy
Bunnies, who came to shoot an entire issue on the beach.
Playboy
Bunnies! Can you imagine?

Of course, this was heaven on earth for the men of San Benedetto, who were suddenly getting attention from unfathomably beautiful and exotic women. No one worried about money anymore. They let the fishing industry sink, chopped the long stretch of public beach into private bagni, crammed the pedestrian zones with crap shops, crapatorie, and Krapkaufhausen, and began dropping hotels into construction craters.

And then? Bam! After six or seven summers, it was over as quickly as it had begun.

Because just as it had started with one man, it ended with one man. The same man. Martin Malaspina, who had an affair with his guru’s daughter, and up and left the newly minted Signora Malaspina in the lonely villa on top of the hill, only surfacing some months later in India to announce his next film. And somewhere there is a stretch of teahouses with clippings of him standing on the banks of the Ganges, enthusiastically declaring that Calcutta is the last place on earth that is simple and pure, where the ground is sanctified by the spirits of his reincarnated ancestors, the light is brought down from on high by devas, and those Indians and their cardboard slums, well, they really know how to, you know,
live.

With the glamour taken away from San Benedetto, the foreign women evacuated with such speed that it left a powerful vacuum, sucking the middle-aged Milanesi families out of the concrete and pulling busloads of old German Herrs and Fraus from all the way across the Alps. And where did these crowds of eligible women foreigners, these dense crosshatches of XX chromosomes, go? Some followed Swami Malaspina to the banks of the Ganges, but the others wandered up and down the boot like restless ghosts, looking for the myth of Italy. First to Rome because of some other movie, then Florence. The American ones eventually migrated farther down the coast, where locals in Portofino, the Cinque Terre, and Positano, like all good prostitutes, made them feel like they were the first ones ever to plant a flag in their land. And the divorced ones began to hole up in broken-down villas in Chianti-shire, loudly declaring their independence and still quietly hoping for some young, shirtless stallion to appear at the half door with a box of Barilla. There was a flash of hope again when the iron curtain creaked open, but the flood of blond girls rushed right past San Benedetto to Monaco and Monte Carlo, where the men let them throw money around and gave them something to prove. You’d be surprised how many beautiful women are masochists like that, only living to prove themselves to other people. Cazzo, how many people. Really.

And what happened to the domestic ones? While everyone else’s attention was diverted, a few strains had quietly survived. Not only survived but become stronger and even more beautiful, like a tree that has been pruned to within an inch of its life or a superbug surviving generation after generation of antibiotics. They’d grown up with Italian men, were wise to our pathetic tactics, and knew we weren’t anything special. So they came to be at a premium, settling into a strict rotation through the Serie A clubhouses, of which George Clooney’s villa on Lake Como seems to have become an honorary member.

Anyway, I blame the decades-long shortage for this sudden weakness inside me, for this strange feeling that Kryptonite can come in the form of a bright green warm-up jacket, and a head full of dark curls can be like blood in the water, my mind circling the poor girl until I can almost hear the
Jaws
music starting up in the background. Nuh-NUH. Nuh-NUH. Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh.

*   *   *

The Milanesi arrive on Friday, and all afternoon, there’s a slow stream of cars and buses clogging up Via Londra, each one releasing the stink of Autogrill sandwiches and fake-pine air fresheners as they pull to the side, dropping off wives and children who whine to have their first look at the sea while their Vatis or papàs unload the luggage and park the car. By Saturday morning, they’re already making themselves at home, the adults staggering under the weight of sand buckets, snacks, and SPF 70 for the delicate skin of their precious Pasquales and Adrianas.

I stand outside on the balcony on Saturday morning, smoking my first cigarette of the day. The sun is shining, and the waves are sparkling. Franco’s dog is lying in the shade of the entrance hut at Bagni Liguria, and I can hear Fede, Franco, and the others joking around on the beach as they set up the chaises and umbrellas. The Mangona brothers are already doing a brisk business in their huts, which sit across from each other like the ceremonial gates to the molo. They sell the exact same stock of candy and Coca-Cola for the exact same price, and they put all the profits into a joint bank account that pays for all the custom bicycles they could ever want. But from May through September they keep up a fierce competition and separate tallies, and the loser has to keep his hut open for the seven dead winter months, blowing on his hands in front of a space heater while the winner sits comfortably at home or at the bar. Because of this, after each transaction, they exchange a flurry of vaffanculos of both victory and defeat. I watch them for a while, middle fingers and fists and palms flashing in the morning sunshine, twisting birds, figs, and umbrellas high into the air until they look like they could take flight.

“Ciao, Etto,” Franco calls up from the passeggiata. “You on strike today?”

“I wish.”

I go downstairs to the shop and flip on the fluorescents. The vitello and the side of beef have already migrated from the back walk-in to the front walk-in, broken down into commas, parentheses, and question marks of flesh. Papà prefers to do all the real butchering alone during the break, finishing the smaller jobs between the trickle of customers from four thirty to six. Every morning when I walk in, it feels like the meat fairy has visited the night before.

I set up the banco and put on an apron. The first hour is slow, so I take the time to string up two young roosters in a face-off, wings fastened back with toothpicks as if they are about to draw imaginary pistols. I cut and tape together white paper boots, white holsters and belts, even cowboy hats where their heads should be. Regina Salveggio’s kids press their grubby faces to the glass to get a better look as I wrap up their prosciutto and chicken breasts.

“Could you cut the chicken into strips, Etto? The kids won’t eat it if the chicken looks too much like chicken.”

Next is Signora Sapia, led around now by the daughter-in-law she used to gossip about.

Then Signora Argenti, who asks me every day what’s fresh.

“Everything is fresh, of course.”

“That is what your father always says.”

“That’s because it’s true.”

Signora Costanza, the smallest and oldest of the nonne, is the last customer of the day. I have to stand on the points of my toes to see her over the banco, and she grins up at me like a little kid.

“What can I get for you, signora?”

“Well, Etto, I was thinking about making a nice roasted chicken today . . .”

“Chicken, coming right up.”

“. . . but then I thought, well, what am I going to do with an entire chicken? It’ll take me a week to eat with my appetite, and besides, all that skin is deadly for my cholesterol.” And Signora Costanza launches into some story about her dead husband, her daughter in England, her cholesterol, and how Signor Cato told her about this strange fishing net or spiderweb or something who can answer all of her questions instantly—have I heard of it?

I white-knuckle the top of the banco and look past the poof of her hair. I don’t know what it is about her dentures, but she whistles when she talks, the air passing through her as easily as through the bare branches of a tree. Some of the Milanesi fathers wander by the front window, stooping over their BlackBerries and shuffling blindly down the passeggiata, the weight of the banking world placed squarely on their shoulders. They say Milan is just like any small town, fathers and grandfathers bequeathing their professions to their sons, along with the cell numbers of their psychiatrists and chiropractors. Maybe in a hundred years, their lineages will develop their own genetic adaptations, their fingers shrinking to fit the tiny keyboards, their pupils square instead of round to make the computer screens easier to read.

“Etto?” Signora Costanza is looking up at me, wide-eyed. “Is everything okay?”

“Sorry, signora. A chicken breast it is, then. I’ll take the skin off for you.”

“I said I’ve decided on the rabbit.”

“Half or quarter?”

“Quarter . . . are you sure you’re okay, dear?”

“Yes, yes, signora. Just meditating on the meat. Part of the business. Fore or hind?”

“Hind.”

“Very well, signora.” I pull the rabbit out of the case and take it to the block in back. I turn it on its side and pinch the furry feet together. WHACK goes the tail. I press down on its spine, spreading it on the board like the bad guys when they get arrested in the American cop shows. WHACK, WHACK go the back feet. Lucky for you, were they, bunny? I bung them into the garbage box and press down on the bunny’s back until the small bones give way and make a satisfying crack. WHACK. And again the other way. WHACK, WHACK. I can see Signora Costanza flinching through the bead curtain. I rip a sheet of paper off the roll and wrap up one of the tiny quarters. I put the other three on a tray and slide it into the case.

“You know, Etto, you’re always welcome to come over for lunch sometime, you and your papà. You only have to let me know so I can prepare enough. I don’t make as much as I used to now that it’s only me. . . .” I try to imagine the three of us hunched in Signora Costanza’s tiny kitchen, Papà’s head hovering over his plate as he shovels it in, Signora Costanza and me having the same nonconversation we have every morning.

“That’s very kind, signora, but I usually only have a sandwich in the afternoon.”

“Well, perhaps in the evening, then.”

“I would, signora, but then Martina would be insulted.”

“Well, if you ever change your mind . . .”

I give her my best fake smile. Not a chance, signora. Not a chance. I hand the package over the banco, and she has to stand on her toes. She takes forever to count out the money, and I stand behind the register with the drawer open, the impatience nibbling away at me.

“You know, I can open a conto for you anytime, signora. You could pay once a month.”

“No, no,” she says, “I don’t believe in this credit thing. What you buy, you pay for at once. That is what my father taught me. That is what I’ve always done.” She finds the last coins in the bottom of her bag. “There you are. Tell your papà hello, Etto. He’s such a good man.”