Chapter 16
I extend my hand toward the nightstand to read the time on my new watch. It’s half past nine, I have slept my usual six hours. Laying on the bed, arms crossed under my nape, I look at the ceiling and think again about the long night that just passed and the last five days, that seem almost unreal now. A week ago, at the same time, I was in my study, revising a degree thesis, worried about all the job I was going to skip in this period of absence, about the inopportunity of not being there right when the conditions of Jule had become desperate.
Teresa is next to me, laying on her left side, dressed in a white silk nightgown. It gently lays on her harmonious body, accentuating its curves. It confers her a light, ethereal appearance. I linger, looking at her. I would like to hug her to give her the greatest of all the thanks that I owe her. But I don't want to interrupt her blessed sleep.
I don't know how she can always anticipate my needs, but it has been working like that for a long time. I lived in a cage, she opened the door and waited until I was ready to come out. For some time, living under lock and key was more reassuring than being free. But not anymore. I found my world again. I discovered that it kept existing with a new breath and new yearnings. No prisoners, neither subjugation, nor struggle between slavery and freedom. Once it had a chance, Sicily knew how to exploit it, thanks to the industriousness of all that people who believed in it. And today people live well in Sicily, without dreaming distant heavens.
Here different people have met and started to cohabit dignifiedly, in the mutual respect. And it has been clear to everyone that absoluteness doesn't exist in the world, that everything can go well if it is fine to everyone. That different cultures cohabit when nobody believes to be the judge of others and everyone simply starts to consider themselves part of a whole. That borders are not necessarily insurmountable barriers, but points where differences touch.
Who chose to emigrate surrendered to fear, so not to have to face their own difficulty in changing. Some did that out of selfishness, because they preferred their own dreams to the wisdom that would have suggested to stay. I am one of those. Even though I spent my life building myself reasonable justifications.
A ristretto and a warm croissant eaten in bed pleasantly introduce the Sunday quiet.
Teresa bears a happy and nostalgic expression at the same time. She remembers the evening, telling our children all the anecdotes they haven’t heard, in an avalanche of comments about the strangeness of Serenella, the terrible history of Giorgio, the human poverty of Giulia and Maria, the unbelievable story of Salvatore.
«I will never forget this moment. Of the many cities in which I grew up, this one lingered in my heart, because of the people I had the fortune to meet. And after so many years I have felt welcomed by the same warm embrace of the first time. I am really happy today, and you?»
I never asked myself this question in my life, yet it is the second time that it is asked to me in the last few days. Questions fit women way of living, because they question everything and they think they have to do that with men too. They can’t resist the temptation to put a question mark at the end of every thought, sometimes looking for impossible answers. We, on the other hand, just live.
I tell her that I feel relaxed as I hadn’t been in a long time, and that I am thankful that she brought me here. I feel that I have recovered something that goes well beyond the mere rest after too much work.
«How did you know how much I needed to come back to Torre?» I ask her, pulling out from my suitcase a pair of jeans I didn't even know I owned.
Teresa reads my perplexed look and reminds me that we purchased them together a few months ago. Yet another lapse of memory, minor as it is.
«In my opinion, you always needed to. I waited for you to realize on your own, but since it took you too long, I decided to push you a little. That's all.»
She raises, laying her back against the headboard of the bed, her legs huddled up, hugged by her naked arms. She smiles with the expression of who is proud of having done the right thing, of having found an answer to yet another question.
«We go to Torre again this morning?» I ask her while she admires me in my unusually casual attire.
She doesn't let me say it twice and she flies in the bathroom to get ready, fair butterfly in her white silk mantle.
«These days are flying by in a hurry, don't you think?» my wife asks me while I am driving along Via Palermo.
On the sidewalk, an orderly coming and going of passer-bys. Most of the shops respect Sunday closing, others stay open, taking advantage of the tourist season. The rolling shutter of the haberdashery is raised; beyond the glass wall there is Gaetana, busy.
«In two days we’ll go back to Paris», Teresa sighs with melancholy.
«Yes.»
I join her sigh, in the sad realization that the present is already calling us back unmercifully. It’s time to retrace our steps.
«I was thinking...» she starts quietly, as if she was reflecting about it now, but I know well that she has already planned all that follows «... that, if you want, we could cancel the trip to Messina and stay around here. It’s so nice, we could relax, visit again the city with tranquillity, meet our friends once more... what do you think about it?»
«What about the booking for Taormina? And we would have to change the return tickets, because then we would no longer take the plane from Catania, and we don't even know if the suite is available for the next days.»
I don't know why I am putting all these obstacles to my desire of simply saying yes. But obviously she does.
«Come on, what is the problem? We just stay. We don't know when we will have another chance.»
Another question mark on her face, as if to ask whether she can hope that there will be one.
«I think that we will be back before my seconds fifty years.»
We laugh, but I read some bitterness on Teresa’s face. I know that she is afraid that, once back in Paris, I will disappear again in the corridors of my hospital. I put my right arm around her shoulders, I pull her close to me. She send me a questioning look, she wants to know the reason of this unusual rush. I tell her that I got a great desire to live, to breathe, to travel. That I feel like staying, but also like going back home, to take back some of that familiar everyday life I lost. I feel like seeing her in the kitchen, busy preparing supper, hearing the complaints of our children, their quarrels, the laughter that reach the door of the study where, generally, they stop. I will let them in this time, I will let them break down the door.
«I hope it’s not too late», I tell her.
«Everyone has his time», she comments.
«We will be back here soon, or we will go somewhere else, anywhere you want.»
«Don’t make promises you are not sure you can keep. We are here now, then we’ll see.»
We hold each other’s hand, teenagers that a long time ago already walked this same asphalt, dreaming the life to come, here or elsewhere. Now that we have part of that life behind, we walk slower, with more confident but heavier steps, deprived of that freshness that is the wake of every action of young people. We dreamt, and many of our dreams have come true, yet there is no soundtrack to accompany them. Instead of notes, the dry thuds of shutting doors, of altered voices, of nervous gastritis. Reality knows no soundtrack.
We reach Piazza Vittoria. The cafes are already crowded with tourists sipping coffees. We sit at the only table available of the same cafe where I have been with Marco. Even today Marco and Giuliana didn’t want to renounce to the sea, so we left them on the beach. After the evening at the disco, they desire neither walks nor excursions, but only to doze under the sun.
We order two cappuccinos. The waiter recognizes me and greets me. She’s a young girl, less than twenty years old. She has deep black eyes, a dark complexion, slender legs and arms coming out from a black and blue suit that stresses her skinniness. She asks us if we are enjoying the visit to Torre. My wife precedes me in answering, sayi
ng that she is very happy. I nod.
«You chose a very good period to come around here», she tells us when she comes back with our second breakfast.
«I know», I answer, «we are not exactly tourists. I grew up here, right in the house in front».
I point it out to her. The girl follows the direction of my finger and locates the house. A smile widens on her face.
«A pharmacist lived there, a long time ago.»
«My father. But you are too young to have known him.»
«In fact I don't know him», she replies, «I heard of him, though. I live in that house with my family. My parents are the owners of this cafe. My father is Egyptian and my mother Tunisian. She came to live here with her family when her father invested in the reconstruction. A lot of the houses of this country have been restructured and resold by my grandfather. This one, however, he liked particularly, so he kept it to give it to my mother as a wedding gift. There she is.»
She points at the terrace of our house. I see the woman I have already seen before, her raven-black hair loose on her shoulders. She is sipping something. She drinks and dominates the square from up there, like my mother used to do once.
«Many of the elderly people in Torre tell her that she looks a lot like the old owner... your mother, therefore», the girl says.
«It’s true», Teresa says with surprise, «for an instant I had the feeling to see Antonella».
She looks at me, incredulous.
«Yes», I just answer, without adding anything else.
Yasmina says that the house hasn’t changed much in the inside. The disposition of the rooms has been left unchanged, but the furnishing and the finishing touch are of clear Arabic inspiration.
«I can ask my mother to let you make a tour, if you want. She is a helpful woman and she will understand your desire.»
I think that her proposal is kind, but I decline the offer, with some bland excuse. When Yasmina walks away, Teresa scrutinizes me. She wants explanations, she won't let this slowly sink inside of me.
«You really wouldn’t like to see it?»
«I am not sure that it would be a good idea. It is the only thing of which I would like to keep the memory intact. I prefer to keep dreaming of it like it was then, with Mom in the kitchen and Dad in the living room, our furniture, our voices in the air. Nothing else.»
We sip the hot cappuccinos. We solitary pursue our thoughts. Teresa’s phone rings, the only soundtrack of an era deprived of melody. Giuliana wants to know where we are. My wife gives her indications to reach us. She tells her that I am favourable to stay in Palermo for two more days. From the way she talks, I have the feeling that they already talked about that. I imagine the complicity with which they organized everything, me none the wiser of their projects. But it’s fine this way. And then I want to walk in Palermo with Marco, to let him launch his attacks. I don't want to hide from him, I am ready to take his blows.
The church bells announce the end of the mass. A crowd methodically pours in the square. Handshakes, hugs, pats on the shoulders, Sunday chatters, now like thirty years ago, like it will still be thirty years from now and even more. People changed, but not habits, and looking better I even recognize in the face of mature men my playmates of the past.
The owner of the cafe isn’t leaning out my old terrace anymore. She went down to join the party of the country Sunday. Her cafe will get crowded, her daughter and her husband aren’t enough to manage so much confusion. As a good wife, she is prepared to help her husband in his job, just like, before her, in those same places, a woman who looked a lot like her did.