—Hello?
—Hey there, brother.
—Oh, hi, Carlo.
—How’s it going?
—Fine. And you?
—A little tired but fine.
—Where are you?
—In Rome, the equatorial metropolis.
—Of course, but tonight you’re going to be on the MTV Awards. I read the interview in La Repubblica.
—What interview?
—What do you mean, what interview? The interview in today’s Repubblica. The one where you call yourself the outsider on the inside.
—I didn’t do any interview.
—Perfect. So they made it up.
—Unless…In La Repubblica, you said?
—Yes.
—Not in Corriere della Sera?
—In La Repubblica.
—You’re sure?
—Sure I’m sure…
—It’s only because a lot of people confuse Repubblica with Corriere.
—What are you talking about? I never confuse them.
—But I do. I think that I spoke over the telephone with a reporter from Corriere, not Repubblica. And I didn’t realize it was an interview.
—So in other words you haven’t seen it.
—No, I haven’t read the papers.
—Excuse me, don’t you have a press office that gives you clippings every day?
—I do, but today is Saturday and there’s no one at the office.
—Of course. You’re right.
—Never mind. Tell me how Claudia is doing. I called her on her cell phone, but it’s off.
—She’s fine. She’s here on the beach with me.
—On the beach?
—Yes. We’re in Roccamare.
—Really? Since when?
—We came last night.
—Alone?
—Marta was also supposed to come with her children, but at the last minute she couldn’t make it.
—And so it’s just the two of you.
—And Dylan.
—Ah. What’s it like?
—Beautiful. It’s like July. We’re on the beach, and there’s a ton of people. You can go swimming, the water’s warm, and—
—No, I mean what’s it like for you being there? It’s the first time you’ve been back, isn’t it? After the…
—Everything’s fine.
—Claudia, too?
—Yes. She’s here playing by the water with a friend of hers.
—Yes, but at home? How did she take it?
—Calmly. As if nothing had happened.
—You’ve got to be kidding. In the house where her mother…
—I don’t know how, Carlo, but that’s the way it is.
—Are you sure? Don’t you think it’s a little soon to be there alone?
—I told you: Marta was supposed to come, too, but then at the last minute she couldn’t make it.
—I get it, but you were hardly obliged to—
—Yes, sweetheart! I saw! Good girls!
—…
—Sorry, I was speaking to Claudia. They’re making Dylan jump through a hoop. Look at that! Good girls!…You should see Dylan jumping: he’s excited because he never gets to go to the beach in the summer: dogs are not allowed. They are not supposed to be allowed now, either, but since it’s October there’s some kind of suspension of the rules, and everyone has brought their dogs…
—…
—We had to do it sooner or later anyway.
—Do what?
—Come here. To see how it would affect us, both of us. Better to do it when it’s eighty-six degrees out and you can be on the beach and go for a swim as if it were summer.
—Yes, but not alone.
—Relax: if I get the sense something’s off, I’ll get in the car and leave.
—But you might not sense it while she does.
—What are you trying to say, that I’m an idiot?
—Come on, Pietro, what can I say? I don’t like the thought of the two of you being there alone, that’s all. I’ve got half a mind to come join you.
—Great. And the MTV Awards?
—Who cares about the MTV Awards?
—You have to present the prize for best alternative musician.
—And instead I’m going to come there, go figure.
—A prize that according to the interview you’d really like to give to Björk, but you’re sure it’s going to go to Franz Ferdinand instead. By the way, who the hell is Franz Ferdinand?
—It’s a group. The Franz Ferdinand.
—Ah. And how can you be so sure they’re going to win? Are the MTV Awards fixed?
—Pietro, I’m serious. I don’t like the fact that you’re there by yourselves in that house.
—I believe you. But you can’t come anyway. You’re inside the system now.
—At three o’clock I’ve got an appointment, but as soon as I’m done I’ll get the car and come.
—They’re coming to get you. You have entered the Matrix.
—I’ll be there by seven.
—At seven you have to go play the outsider on the inside.
—Come off it! We can go eat fish at Anna’s.
—And those guys will come to get you at Anna’s. They have SWAT teams, helicopters, spy satellites. And Anna’s is closed.
—Or else…Of course. Why don’t the two of you come here? It’ll only take you two hours. You’d make it in time for the concert at the Colosseum.
—Carlo, you have no idea how nice it is here.
—Come on, try to make it! I can have as many tickets as I want. For the award ceremony and for the party. Think of how happy Claudia would be. Britney Spears is going to be there.
—Precisely. The less she sees of her, the better.
—Enough already! Do you remember who you liked at her age?
—Me? I liked Pino Daniele.
—Besides him. I said when you were her age. You don’t remember, do you?
—ABBA?
—No, worse! You liked ABBA when we were already living on Via Giotto, so you were at least twelve. I mean when you were nine.
—Let me remind you that Claudia is ten and a half.
—Okay, when you were ten and a half. You don’t remember who you liked?
—I didn’t like anyone when I was ten and a half. I played Lego and left it at that.
—You don’t remember the Rotary Club party, when Pippo Baudo called you to the stage and had you do that quiz?
—I don’t know what you’re talking about.
—And naturally you won. You won a book, The Adventures of the Red Corsair. You don’t remember what you told Pippo Baudo when he asked you who your favorite singer was?
—I refuse to believe that I was ever interviewed by Pippo Baudo.
—There’s a photograph of it, buddy: I have it in my album of family pictures. You standing there with the book in your hand, and in front of your mouth the microphone held with a professional flair by Pippo Baudo. You don’t remember your answer?
—I must have repressed it.
—“Ricchi e Poveri,” that’s what you answered.
—Go figure. I must have said it just to throw him off track.
—When you were Claudia’s age your favorite singers were Ricchi e Poveri. Come clean.
—What about you, then? In your bedroom you had a poster of Gabriella Ferri.
—I used to beat off to Gabriella Ferri, which is another thing entirely.
—You beat off?
—I beat off, I beat off! I can’t tell you how horny she made me with that throaty voice of hers. I would put “Rosamunda” on the record player, look at the poster, and beat off. It was awesome.
—You’re the only guy in the world who ever beat off to Gabriella Ferri, do you know that?
—Says you. Cucca did, too, for example.
—Some pair, you and Cucca.
—She was our ideal woman. Energetic.
—She died not long ago, didn’t she?
—Yes, she killed herself. And it really upset me. I had just seen her on television again, after so many years—on the Pippo Baudo show, of all places: immense, high as a kite, beyond good and evil. Beautiful. It made me feel like getting to know her, I swear. To call her up and say, “Ms. Ferri, when Cucca and I were little we used to beat off thinking of you.”
—Some consolation.
—Better than nothing. I won’t say that it would have changed anything, but—
—All right already. I’m coming! Dylan…over here! Sorry, Carlo, Claudia wants to go in the water again and I have to put Dylan back on the leash, otherwise he’ll follow her. Come here, boy. Come. No, no, no: not in the water. Come. Stay, be a good boy. Like that. Good dog.
—…
—…
—Pietro, are you there?
—Yes.
—I’m serious, why don’t you come?
—Because we’re here now, Carlo.
—Exactly. You’re close. Drive down. It’s better.
—We really can’t. We’ve got Dylan. Where are we supposed to put him? Plus Claudia already has plans with her friends here. It’s Halloween, and they’re going out trick-or-treating.
—Let her decide. Pass her the phone.
—She’s in the water.
—I’ll call back in a little while.
—Come on, stop insisting. Everything’s fine, believe me.
—No, Pietro, that house is not fine…
—Listen, sooner or later we had to deal with it. No—
—And Halloween is not fine, either, if I may say so. You go down there to spend the weekend on the feast of the dead?
—Halloween is not the feast of the dead.
—It’s the feast of the dead, witches, and ghosts.
—It’s Samhain, the ancient Celtic New Year. The feast is an exorcism to defeat winter and famine, which the Irish immigrants in America mixed up with the legend of the jack-o’-lantern and the masked games that people play.
—There you go, Mr. Know-it-all. If you want to talk about Halloween nowadays, you have to have a degree in anthropology.
—The reason I know is because it’s written in today’s paper, right next to your interview. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because that’s not how we should see this.
—See what?
—The fact that Claudia and I are going to stay here tonight to celebrate Halloween.
—So how should I see it?
—As something that happened and that’s that. It’s a critical transition, I know, and we didn’t plan to be alone, but that’s how it went. The fact that it’s October 31 is sheer coincidence. That’s how it went. You also have to trust the way of the world every now and then. Or don’t you? Yes, sweetheart, I’m coming! Listen, Claudia’s waiting for me in the water, she wants to dive off my shoulders. With the somersaults she’s learned she’s amazing everyone…
—I saw her this summer. Be careful she doesn’t bump her head on the bottom! I know people who because of a dive ended up—
—What’s gotten into you? You’ve got an album of family pictures, are afraid of ghosts, and are predicting accidents: you sound like Aunt Jenny.
—I don’t know, Pietro. I don’t like the thought of you two there alone, and I told you. In fact I was actually going to propose that we sell the house, go figure…
—Let’s see. Let’s see how Claudia reacts.
—We can buy another one somewhere else. In Sardinia. In Liguria. In Greece. An even nicer house.
—Of course we can, but let’s not do anything hasty. We’re all tied to this house. It would be better if we could save it. There’s always time to sell it later.
—Well, in any event don’t worry about it. As far as I’m concerned you could sell it tomorrow.
—Thanks. We’ll have to figure out what the best thing to do is. Hey, I’ve got to go. Claudia’s waiting for me.
—Give her a big kiss from me.
—Of course.
—And tell her to turn on her cell phone. I sent her something.
—All right, I’ll tell her. What is it?
—It’s a secret between me and her.
—Ah. Okay then. Talk to you tomorrow.
—Yes. Tomorrow.
—And stop worrying. Everything’s under control.
—All right. Have fun.
—You, too. And say hi to Björk for me.
—Bye, Pietro.
—Bye. Here I am, Claudia, I’m coming!