We’re going through Sapri station. In the compartment next door the following conversation is taking place:
1st Indian man: “Sabri?”
2nd Indian man: “Sapi.”
3rd Indian man (stressing the R): “SapRi.”
1st Indian man (stressing the I): “Saprì?”
3rd Indian man (stressing the A): “Sàpri.”
Indian woman: “Sapri.”
All (satisfied): “Sapri.”
The wife of the ex-policeman opposite me still has all her things in her arms: the jacket, the handbag, the shopping bag, the tickets. She’s holding on to them tight without letting go, resting her head on them, slumbering. When she opens her eyes, her husband says to her, and none too soon either, “Let go of this stuff.”
She looks surprised as though it’s an option worth considering even though it’s odd. She reminds me of those women at the long tables during the Grillfest41, who spend all their time pouring beer, serving Würstel, slicing bread, wiping children’s noses; they never rest, never sit down, never stop even for a minute to have something to eat and enjoy the company. Not because it’s always necessary, not because they’re irreplaceable, but simply because remaining even one second without making themselves useful isn’t something they consider possible.
Finally, the lady lets go of all the stuff she’s holding, the husband puts it on the racks, and I too feel relieved.
* * *
We keep gliding in and out of tunnels. In the short hiatus between two tunnels, a clear stream meanders through a field starred with blossoming almond trees. No human being, only a black bull. It’s an image of almost subliminal brevity but of absolute presence: a large, dark, powerful animal, amid the white petals bursting around.
When we go back into the dark tunnel, my retina retains the imprint of the bull-shaped luminescent spot: its negative.
When Ulli took Costa to meet his family, Sigi said: don’t come in to soil our mother’s house with your shit if you want to take it up the ass then do it in the public toilets, you’re disgusting and your friend even more than you you’re two Schwuchtl42 two Warme Brüder43 two schwule Sauen44.
He couldn’t have found filthier words. He must have been mulling them over in his mouth for months, years, like poison, to then spit them out all at once.
Leni said: what’s the problem? It’s an illness you can treat it the parish priest said there’s a doctor in Val Sarentina who knows how to do it if you want I’ll give the address to your friend as well I’m sure he’ll want to go nobody wants to remain sick and unhappy if there’s a medicine for it.
Sigi said: people like you should have their heads stuck down the toilet, and he took Costa, who was much smaller than him, dragged him to the latrine and did it.
Ulli said: let go of him, and Sigi let go of him but first he flushed the toilet.
Costa said: leave me alone, and didn’t let Ulli put his arms around him, or help him get up, pushed his fist against the ground and stood up by himself without looking him in the eye, his hair dirty with urine.
Leni said: I don’t know why you’re always arguing like this and why we can’t just all be together in peace.
* * *
Ulli had been with Costa for almost two years. The first time I met him, I thought: Ulli has now found his true brother.
Sigi wasn’t just a Nazi in his thinking but also in his coloring, which was like mine: blue eyes, yellow hair, pink skin. Costa, on the other hand, had soft brown eyes, like Ulli and his mother, and the same amber skin. A Mediterranean coloring bequeathed to our valleys by some passing Roman legionary, a Hispanic mercenary on the payroll of emperors, a Levantine merchant on his way to the capitals of the North. Ulli and Costa looked like each other, as often happens in well matched couples, seeing them next to each other you could easily imagine them together for a whole lifetime.
Ulli had wanted to introduce him to his mother for months. In Innsbruck, where they lived together seven months of the year, they didn’t have to hide. But things were different during the winter season, when Ulli had to beat the ski pistes and live in our town. Costa had come a couple of times but found it suffocating. Too clean, too perfect the geraniums in the windows, too few the avowed homosexuals—actually, to be precise, not one. Ulli hadn’t insisted but found it painful. Costa wanted to move to Berlin, which Ulli liked, he’d been there; but he couldn’t imagine living so far away from his mountains. Leni had stopped asking him about girls years earlier, but this silent agreement wasn’t enough for Ulli anymore.
For a long time he’d had a dream: to come out to her and introduce Costa to her. He’d explain to Leni that this was the love of his life and she would not only accept it but would even be happy about it. What mother doesn’t wish for her children to love and be loved?
However, I thought it was a bad idea to take Costa all the way up there, to that maso. I knew Leni, and especially Sigi. I should have told Ulli. But there was a problem. I was so ashamed of the jealousy I felt for his happiness that I acted like envious people always do when they have a fair criticism: they keep quiet because they’re afraid of being seen through. So I listened to Ulli without saying anything, without sharing my reservations.
So it was Costa who told him what I should have told him. Costa, the man with whom he wanted to share his life, who made him realize why he had been born, but he did so while also telling him to go away, while walking out of his life forever: “You shouldn’t have taken me there.”
Ulli repeated that to himself while lying on my sofa, seeking refuge in my home.
“I should never have taken him home.”
I had to lean over him to make out his words. I’d covered him with an eiderdown but he wouldn’t stop shaking.
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
Sometimes we know our words are useless even as they’re coming out of our mouths.
Sometimes not. I found out exactly ten days later.
I cannot get this out of my mind: when I stopped talking to Ulli openly, I too began to kill him.
At Belvedere Marittimo there’s an enormous papier mâché mozzarella hanging from a rope in front of a food shop. It’s like the teddy bear hanged by the American girl. Now it’s the woman in the compartment next door speaking loudly on the cellphone in Hindi, with rounded Rs, and Ds soft as chapati. These Indians must be spending a fortune on the cellphone. Actually, they probably have one of those subscriptions where it costs less to talk to New Delhi than to Rome.
“Hallo, hallo!” she shouts at increasing speed, then bursts out laughing. As a rule, only cheerful sounds come out of their compartment: the child’s gurgling, happy voices, contented snoring. Suddenly, the woman starts speaking in perfect Italian: “Where are you? We’ll be there in an hour.”
She laughs again then hangs up. Then the cell phone rings again. This time, it’s mine. I take it out of my bag and look at the screen while it keeps ringing: CARLO. He must have found a way to absent himself for a minute from Easter lunch with his relatives. I let it ring. I can feel the eyes of the lady from Messina boring into me with curiosity, obviously wondering why I don’t answer. And I think she may be guessing correctly: a man. The ringing finally stops and I put the cellphone back in my bag.
At Cetraro, the railroad passes near an intersection and you can read the blue signs on the highway. The one that indicates the direction from which we come tells us that Salerno is two hundred and twenty kilometers away. Others point to locations inland, with names that evoke defended rocks, people in flight, incursions from sea plunderers: Castrovillari, Spezzano Albanese, Saracena.
The arrow that points South, however, is a promise:
REGGIO CALABRIA 254