Things weren’t turning out as planned. In the morning I had whiled away the hours in front of the computer without managing to write so much as two sentences with any conviction. Elena, my teenage daughter, came into my studio when I had already given up.
‘What are you doing?’
I had to admit it, there was nothing else to say: ‘Thinking.’
Elena received the MC1R gene from both sides of the family, which means she’s a redhead. Not many people know that redheads have some other unusual characteristics, apart from their hair colour, freckles and pale skin. They’re more sensitive to changes in temperature and they need more anaesthesia than other people. It’s also unusual for them to have blue eyes. So unusual that the ones like Elena who do are believed to bring good luck in Nordic cultures. Perhaps that’s why she’s always thought of herself as special. Unlike me, she never gives up. Her self-confidence is enviable and I’d even say she’s stubborn, though she’s also childish and would never intentionally cause offence. She gets angry, of course, but she doesn’t get irony.
‘I ate. I’m going out.’
Two bullets, two sentences delivered so quickly that it would have been awkward to ask her for a kiss or where she was headed. When she was little she’d ask me how my writing was going, and her eyes shone with pride when she talked about my work. Now, when I catch her looking at me, it feels like none of my secrets escape her scrutiny.
Elena’s mother used to say we shouldn’t count on her nymph-like invincibility, that her sharp awareness of her extraordinariness was the source of her strength but also her main weakness, and that people like her don’t handle crises well. I try not to forget that.
Two or three hours later I was chatting with our neighbour, the one I sometimes accompany on walks with his dog, about everything and nothing.
The position of an outsider in a small town is permanent, and, as we slowly learned, the phases are similar for everyone: the period of arrival, during which we got to know the place, the period when we tried to become accepted, and the period of disillusionment. And disgruntled outsiders generally attract disgruntled locals, who feed their discontent, which would have been the case with Claudio if it weren’t for the fact that my disillusionment was more internal than external, and his painstaking deconstructions of each admirable feature of our surroundings went in one ear and out the other due to my deep malaise. I wasn’t truly living life there, but then I didn’t really know where else I would.
We were walking home. It was the summer that Islamic State began decapitating hostages in the desert, but Claudio and I were both at an age when everything that happens seems to be a mundane repetition of the vicissitudes of life and the shock hardly registered on us. Claudio had been living with his brother’s wife and son for a few months. A situation I imagined was difficult, one he didn’t talk about and that I didn’t broach. Ever since I had started to join him on his walks we met up after supper and, depending on our mood, we’d either walk up the mountain or take the path to the lighthouse. That day we opted for the former, which was long, so we left a few hours earlier than usual: it was the feast of St Samuel, the town’s patron saint, and it would have been rude to arrive late at the festivities, which, this year, included a culinary competition and a play put on by some of the students from Elena’s school, in addition to the usual musical performance.
‘A lot of people will have an eye out for your daughter tonight.’
Claudio didn’t seem to like Elena very much. Outside his home, forbidden territory I couldn’t even begin to hypothesise about, he gave the impression of a self-made man: naturally intolerant when it came to juvenile behaviour that might seem weak or excessive.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Right now she and three other kids are the talk of the town.’
Although no one had put it quite that way, he wasn’t the first to bring it up. Elena had developed a crush on a boy who wasn’t a good match for her, besides which he was in love with her best friend, who, after a brief courtship, had dumped him for someone else. If the story had been like one of the screenplays I used to write for television, it would have had only two possible outcomes, depending on whether it was a drama or a comedy. Fortunately, life’s not that simple. The only thing that was worrying me was Elena’s stubbornness, which made her vulnerable, and I suppose that’s what Claudio was trying to warn me about.
‘Do you know something I should know?’
‘Not yet.’
The festival was taking place in the field next to the chapel. They had a stage and two drinks stands with wooden tables where they were serving cold meats and cheese. Maria, the pharmacist, glanced at me from one of them. Two years earlier, shortly after I arrived, we had slept together a few times and now she was the only person in town who had something against me. Her husband looked at me, too, and smiled inscrutably. I wondered what I would have done in his shoes. I had plenty of experience when it came to adultery, but so far as I knew, only from one perspective. Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others’. It would make more sense to reverse the two as far as I’m concerned.
‘How thoughtful, you’ve dressed for the occasion,’ Claudio, who was wearing the same windbreaker and muddy jeans he’d worn on our walk, exclaimed.
‘You know I’m not at liberty to do whatever I want like you. I’m watched much more carefully.’
I had changed my trousers and my shoes, and donned the light wool jacket that Elena’s mother called my summer uniform. We bought it together, back when we first met, on a trip to London, and I had worn it thousands of times with her. When she died I moved it to the back of my closet. It’s strange how the same objects we avoid when we’re grieving because of the painful memories they bring back become stimuli for our memories once grieving has ended.
‘Have you seen Elena?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Claudio said. ‘But I’m under orders to find my nephew for his mother, and it’s no bother to include her in my search. You want me to tell her anything if I do?’
‘Just let me know if you see her.’
‘At your command.’
He immediately turned away, with a flourish, and disappeared into the crowd that was gathering in response to the mayor’s announcement from the stage. As he walked away I pondered the barriers we erect to preserve our privacy. I had friends I hadn’t seen for years, and with whom it would be difficult to recover our former intimacy, but who nevertheless were permanent fixtures in my life, more so than recent friends like Claudio, who would never be more than passing acquaintances. And the same could possibly be said about lots of other things. We often cling to our past selves, not allowing new things a fair chance. Which goals replace outdated ones? What ideals do we keep when we discard old ones? When you look at it this way, the passage of time is terrifying, because, as we gradually let go of our baggage, we grow further and further from ourselves. A terrible lesson for our children, who ought to know their parents at the height of their powers, not in defeat. Children ought to be able to believe that illusions aren’t fleeting, that we can be counted on no matter what, even when our enthusiasm for life begins to flag.
After his welcome speech, the mayor called the judges of the culinary competition to the stage and blindfolded them to prepare for the competition. The competitors followed. One of them was the pharmacist, who tripped on the last step and nearly dropped her dish. Why did I choose her and not someone else? Apart from the fact that she seemed unlikely to turn me down, there was no apparent reason. What a selfish game seduction is; once consummated, attraction dies, leaving in its wake a dearth of morality and feeble intentions to make amends. I was going to get a drink when I saw Elena passing right by me. I hurried over, just managing to grab her shoulder.
‘What?’ she asked. She sounded annoyed, she kept glancing around. She furrowed her brow and for a moment her orange eyebrows moved closer together.
‘Don’t you want to spend some time with me?’
When she was little I was constantly afraid of dying prematurely and leaving her behind. It never occurred to me that I might be the one left alone to care for her.
‘Not now, Dad. They’re waiting for me.’
Elena shrugged my hand off her shoulder and took a step back as if to make her point. She had been wearing makeup and nail polish for a while now. What did mothers do with their daughters? Did they have the nerve to tell them not to use too much? Did they advise them not to chase boys? Did they forbid it if the boy in question was interested in someone else?
‘All right. But don’t forget about me.’
Before I knew what was happening she leaned in and kissed me.
‘Don’t be silly. Of course I won’t forget you.’
I had tried to give her a knowing wink and the results exceeded my expectations. Then she slipped away, as if this show of affection was her final penance for regaining her freedom, and all I could see was her back receding from me. Her gait was like her mother’s, loose and energetic. I would have given almost anything for her to get what she wanted. If it really was this boy, then that was fine. My only child didn’t deserve to suffer unnecessarily. A few months earlier, on the second anniversary of her mother’s death, I had asked Elena if she missed her. The answer she gave was both reassuring and disturbing.
‘Mum’s not dead,’ she said. ‘She’s inside me.’
Ever since she was little Elena had often witnessed arguments between her mother and me that she never should have seen. With careless disregard, we involved her in each crisis. She had seen me storm out of the house and not return for days, she had heard her mother accusing me of infidelities and many other things – with or without reason – to wound me in return. The consequences were disturbing. When she was five years old she used to give us a daily medical report on an imaginary friend who suffered for months on end. When she was eight she put us into a state of apprehension when we found her parakeet’s cage open and empty, with no explanation. Later, things got better. Our separation, which seemed inevitable, never happened. Love prevented it, but though that love was greater than the obstacles her mother and I had created, it was impossible to express as strongly as we had expressed our doubts about it. For those who don’t experience love’s ups and downs, time substantiates love, but we didn’t have enough. You could say it’s a miracle that Elena didn’t harbour any resentment. We had exposed her to too many things beyond her ken. Had she understood? The truth was elusive, a confusion of mixed signals.
Meanwhile, Elena had gone over to the edge of the field where the festivities were taking place, her red head fading into the shadows of a group of kids who were waiting for the concert to start; the competition judges were deliberating and I had sidled up to one of the bars.
‘It’s great to see you two together. You look like you get on well.’
It was Claudio’s sister-in-law talking to me. I had ordered a beer without recognising her, because her hair was pulled back in a hairnet. Our interactions, as my slip proved, had been scarce. Until her husband died she had lived with him and their son in her hometown, and we hadn’t seen much of each other ever since she had come to live with Claudio for obscure financial reasons.
‘Thanks.’
‘Has Claudio told you that I’d like you to talk to Amleto?’
Amleto was the name of her son. Apparently she and her husband had spent their honeymoon in Rome and returned with this unlikely gift for their future offspring.
‘Yes,’ I lied.
‘He spends all his money on books. He’s very sensitive. I think getting to know a real writer would be good for him.’
There the accusation was again: writer. Not a day passed without someone uttering the word. A reminder, pronounced with the best of intentions, which should have flattered me.
‘Tell him to come over to my place.’
I didn’t protest. Since I was going through a dry spell I was well aware that almost everything I was proud of, except for Elena, I owed to writing. The excuses I made to try to justify my meagre output simply didn’t work anymore, I had tried them all. And on top of that I felt like I had acted selfishly in my attempt to find a solution. I mean our departure from the city, which I had undertaken thinking more of myself than of Elena.
‘I’ll tell him, though he probably won’t have the nerve. It would be better if you and your daughter came over to our place. I don’t understand why she and Amleto haven’t made friends with each other.’
My daughter doesn’t like orphans. My daughter is in the forest now, chasing a farm-boy who’s not interested in her. My daughter is an extraordinary, obstinate girl who prefers to extinguish one grief with another, and I should take her far away from here and provide her with something better than I’m providing her with now. I thought all this exactly as I have written it, but I didn’t say it. Instead, I suggested a date for us to come to their house and then I picked up my beer and, once I was certain that the pharmacist had been eliminated and that the competition was down to two finalists, I walked away, feigning interest in what was happening on stage. Just as I was walking away I ran into Claudio, who was coming from the opposite direction.
‘Elena’s down by the spring,’ he said. ‘It’s teenage mayhem over there. You can’t move without bumping into a couple. But don’t worry about her. She’s part of a threesome.’
‘Are you village folk always so funny?’
‘I’m serious,’ he replied. ‘It looks to me like there’s been an unexpected change in affinities that favours her interests. The main Don Juan seems to be vacillating between the two young ladies and the other guy’s the desperate one now. But don’t get too excited.’
Claudio smiled and I responded by taking a sip of my beer. Though I was grateful for the information, part of me felt sheepish and depressed. Despite the fact that I relied on true stories for my writing, I had avoided the subject of other people’s personal affairs ever since my marriage had nearly broken up thanks to wagging tongues. Fear of gossip had also influenced my decision to break off my brief affair with the pharmacist: I certainly didn’t want Elena to find out. I suppose it made no difference. Claudio wasn’t dangerous that way, but his glibness bothered me, especially in contrast to his silence about his own affairs.
‘I got lucky with Elena, but I still haven’t found my nephew,’ Claudio added. ‘I’m going to tell his mother, I’ll be right back.’
‘I was just with her. I didn’t know she was working the drinks stand.’
‘Oh, yeah, right,’ he stammered. ‘You know, she’s doing what she can to become accepted in town.’
This time Claudio didn’t wait for my response, a sign that he had said too much for his own liking. He walked away in a hurry and I continued on my way to the raised area in front of the stage. They had just announced the ecstatic winner of the competition and the mayor had the mike again, he was telling people to be patient. He reminded them that before the concert, there was going to be a short theatre piece put on by some of the kids in town.
‘Boring!’ someone next to me shouted.
‘Yeah, boring!’ other voices echoed.
Despite the apparent lack of enthusiasm, many people who had finished eating began to politely leave the wooden tables and take up positions in front of the makeshift stage, where the mayor had moved out of the way of two kids busy preparing a rudimentary set: a sofa suite, a lamp… Other kids were coming over from the remote area where Elena had gone, joining the audience in small groups. A swarm of moths had gathered around one of the streetlamps, colliding with the bulb. Claudio was still at the drinks stand his sister-in-law was tending. There was an air of expectation, curiosity even, which was creating an excited buzz. Nevertheless, most people in the audience didn’t seem to notice when the novice stagehands left the stage and, after a brief pause, the first scene commenced: a young man playing the part of a child lay on the carpet, playing with an aeroplane, while a couple his age, perhaps his parents, cuddled on the sofa nearby.
‘Tell me you love me, tell me it’s not over.’
‘What should we do? We’ve got to make a decision.’
‘Shit! What’s Amleto doing up there?’ Claudio asked. He had sidled up to me without my realising it, and he offered me a beer and paper plate of cured ham.
I had caught a glimpse of Elena’s red hair moving through the audience and for a few seconds I was preoccupied trying to figure out whether she was going to stay for the play or leave again, so I hadn’t noticed that Claudio’s nephew had taken the stage and was waiting in the corner. The way he held himself left no doubt that he was part of the play.
‘You didn’t know?’ I asked, while I stooped over to put my beer bottle on the ground.
Claudio hesitated to reply.
‘His mother has noticed he’s been out more than usual lately.’
‘He probably wanted to surprise you,’ I said, stating the obvious, not the most appropriate thing to say, just the first thing that came to mind. Through a gap in the crowd I saw Elena had found a place to watch with her friends, three or four rows in front of me, and she was standing next to the boy she liked.
The sound of awkward footsteps boomed through the loudspeaker.
‘Hurry! You have to leave.’
The couple on the sofa had jumped up and run to the side of the stage, where the woman pretended to lift a sash window through which the man escaped just before another actor pretended to open a door and burst into the room. What had seemed like a peaceful family scene had become a crude depiction of adultery. To complete the cliché, the woman ran over to greet the new arrival, who yielded to her contentedly, unaware of what he had interrupted.
‘Sit down, put your feet up. I’ll make dinner for you.’
‘And the boy?’ Claudio asked sarcastically, engrossed in the play. ‘Everyone has forgotten the boy.’
It wasn’t a trivial observation. The mother paid exaggerated attention to the man who was apparently her husband, looking periodically at the window through which her lover had escaped, while the boy continued playing with the toy plane, wrapped up in his own world; it was difficult to tell whether his absorption was part of the staging or if the actor had forgotten his lines. It became clear it was the former when Amleto’s character took a step closer to centre stage without speaking. At that point the actor who was playing the boy stood up, abandoning his childish pose, while the actor who was playing the father lay down on the floor like a corpse while the wife/mother pretended to cry, a shawl wrapped around her to symbolise the passage of time.
No one was watching the play apart from us and a few other people, including Elena. There were probably some busybodies in the crowd who would make it their business to remind people in town about the play later, but at that moment it seemed like no one was paying attention. There were groups of teens eating sunflower seeds and groups of adults talking, as well as singletons who were wandering around, pausing with one group and then another. I told Claudio that the kid looked like he had grown, but he didn’t reply; his sarcasm had failed him, he was lost for words. I guessed it wouldn’t be long before the lover reappeared, and I was right, of course. The corpse had gotten up and walked away, and only the mother and son remained onstage. The way he returned to the stage dramatised a leap into the future: he opened the door with his key, repeating the dead husband’s movements. Claudio didn’t say a word, the world had gone quiet, even Elena wasn’t talking. She didn’t look around for me and her movements, as observed from a distance, didn’t reveal any uneasiness. And then, the moment we had all been waiting for: Amleto’s soliloquy. He walked slowly to the centre of the stage, grabbed a chair, and sat down facing the audience leaning against the chair back.
‘Mother, I remember everything. About you and me. You should never have made me your accomplice. Was it really necessary? I’d still know what I know now, but I’d have different memories. How do you think he felt? Were all those years of secrecy – when I saw and heard everything – really for me? What I’m about to say isn’t rehearsed. No one has taken advantage of us, we haven’t been misused. I’ve had milk and cereal for breakfast every morning and there was someone waiting at the school gates for me every afternoon. I realised I was growing a moustache two winters ago. I’ve shaved ever since, with scissors at first, and with a razor for a while now. The thing is, I can’t remember the day Dad laughed when he saw me with the scissors without remembering that same day I was keeping him busy while you were saying your goodbyes in the sunroom. The next morning you could still see the footprints in the rose bed. But no matter: someone raked the earth a few days later. Very few things stay the same. What matters to us today won’t matter to us tomorrow. I have an idea of how I’ll remember him thirty years from now. Distantly. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to obliterate memory. That is your crime.’
Amleto stressed the last sentence and fell silent. It was a rhetorical silence. He was immobile, but his wide eyes spoke volumes. The mayor had returned to the podium and was waiting for him to finish. Curious, I looked at Claudio, who was standing on tiptoe, like he was trying to get a better view of the drinks stand. He looked right past me, it was impossible to tell whether he was avoiding my gaze or whether he was oblivious. Elena’s romance was progressing. The other couple had slipped away and left her alone with the boy. What matters to us today won’t necessarily matter to us tomorrow. Tomorrow brings worries that supersede yesterday’s. I wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but it made more sense to believe this theory, though imperfect, than to risk losing what’s good about the present.
Someone in the audience shouted, ‘Start the music!’ and other voices chimed in. Amleto had gotten out of the chair as slowly as he had taken the stage. Standing there, with his hands in his pockets, he launched into the end of his soliloquy.
‘Mother, I don’t have much experience. I don’t know what can be done about wrongs once they’ve been committed, I suppose sometimes the only solution is to wrap them all in a bundle and throw them in the river. You’ve done the opposite. You’ve built a monument, and you’ve kept yourself afloat by hanging on to it, diminishing the space between us without realising that there’s no room left for mystery or joy. In doing so, you’ve kept alive what you wanted to erase, on top of which you’ve been unfair to the one you love. You thought that, just by sharing a bed, you were sharing everything. Mother, we’re running out of time. Stop putting pressure on me, and set all three of us free. Don’t make me save myself, don’t force me to assuage your guilt with mine.’
Amleto glanced enigmatically at the audience, turned around, and stepped off the platform.
‘I couldn’t hear. What did he say?’ Claudio asked me.
The mayor was calling for applause for the actors.
‘She shouldn’t force him to assuage her guilt with his.’
‘Whose?’
I thought about saying ‘his mother’s’ but without thinking I gave into impulse. Amleto was back onstage, holding hands with the rest of the cast. Elena was clapping, clapping and whistling. I wanted to see her face, to read her expression. When all was said and done, perhaps it was possible to live they way she wanted to, light-heartedly.
‘Your sister-in-law’s,’ I murmured.
Although Claudio was immediately taken aback by my boldness, his expression was one of surprise, not offence. He paused, as if he were deciding what to say in reply, but he changed the subject.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked. ‘Are you staying for the concert?’
‘A while,’ I replied. ‘You?’
‘I don’t know. I think I’ll go home.’
Elena wasn’t clapping anymore and her friend took advantage of the moment to steal a kiss from her. They laughed. Then Elena took his hand and they began to leave. Claudio had given me a second chance, and I didn’t pass it up.
‘Don’t you think you should go to her?’ I asked, lifting my chin in the direction of the drinks stand his sister-in-law was tending. The musicians were busy tuning their instruments, Elena and the boy were walking against the flow of people responding to the first strains of the music. In less than a minute they’d pass right by us, if they didn’t change their path. What you do in one minute, what you decide and what you say, can last forever. To behave as if we have this time at our disposal only to be judged is perhaps the best service we can afford the people who surround us, and ourselves.
‘You’re right,’ Claudio replied, unexpectedly.
I moved my tongue in my mouth, I puffed out my cheeks, I stretched the muscles of my face, I smiled. Elena had seen me, and instead of hurrying away, she was walking towards me, unembarrassed to be holding hands. To watch a child grow up is to witness life in motion. Stepping away from life to write about it is the curious paradox that writers experience. You have to open the windows and let life in. Not just because the spectacle is well worth it: without changing water and sap and air and blood into ink it’s difficult to create something truly worthwhile.
‘Though I’m tempted to go find my nephew first,’ Claudio added with a touch of irony. ‘Calling himself Amleto and having the nerve to put on such an absurdity – he deserves a real talking to.’
‘I liked it,’ Elena, who had finally reached us, said emphatically.
The orchestra was ready, the singer was making the obligatory opening remarks while the musicians quietly played the first tune of the night; a sudden whiff of humidity, like that of a storm, blew in on the wind from the mountain.
‘It’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s because of his name,’ Claudio responded, without managing to explain any further.
Despite the obvious joy she felt in the company of her friend, Elena looked at Claudio with irritation, he was tongue-tied and I wanted to help him out.
‘Amleto is the Italian name for the most famous prince of Denmark.’
Elena’s eyes, two blue lanterns in a forest of flame, paused for a few seconds to digest this information. Behind her, latecomers of all ages were running to the bars to get drinks.
‘Who was also foolish enough to put on a play for his mother and his uncle, of course.’
If Claudio felt the unintentional blow in also, he didn’t show it. After pronouncing these words I kissed Elena, grabbed the paper plate with the ham, which was practically untouched, as was the bottle of beer that Claudio was holding – he had been frozen in that pose since he had arrived – and I leaned over to pick up mine.
‘All right, everybody, go about your business,’ I said when I stood up. Since no one moved, I smiled animatedly by way of a goodbye and walked off in search of the rubbish bin. The stars were hidden by thick cloud cover but it didn’t seem like it was going to rain. For the second time that night I had the sense that Elena’s mother wasn’t very far away and I felt at peace.