"Darling, you don’t understand..."
"Sincerity, a requirement for a stable relationship that points to eternity."
("Sincerità", Arisa)
"Trulli trulli who makes the toys", "One swallow does not make a summer", "The pitcher goes so often that it leaves a hand". I must do something, keep the brain in shape, or I’ll go crazy. Now I’m listing all proverbs and sayings that come to my mind, at least I won’t go stupid by dint of twisting and turning around my memories. My grandmother knew a lot of this bullshit, she kept repeating them since I was a little girl. She knew all of them. Shit. And she pulled them out in context, when you least expected them. "Thirty days hath November through April, June and September", "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight".
My grandmother was the first person I saw dead. I was about twelve or so. She lay motionless on the bed, alone. She seemed to be asleep. They had put a black suit on her, the good one for the big events, and a necklace of pearls around her neck. Pearls bring tears, she always told me, they must not be gifted. Don’t accept them from a man or you’ll lose him. Fuck Granny, I'll never have the age at which someone, a husband, a lover, a boyfriend, makes you such an important gift! But I don’t think that the wrecks of my generation will ever make such gifts. At most a... oh, well, I don’t know. I'll never know. Sure, you left with the pearls and left us in tears. You were elegant on the goodbye bed. You wore kid shoes I'd never seen before. At home you always wore comfortable slippers, because of the bunionette that had grown on your feet, both of them, right on the inside. You said it gave you so much trouble, but you refused surgery. You said there was a risk of paralysis. Mom laughed.
"You're a coward!"
Do you remember, Grandma? Mom was always so strong and determined. The teacher with the red pen. She put everyone in line, even you. I loved you, Grandma. Really. Seeing you there, motionless. That day. I felt like choking, I was almost afraid you could wake up and talk to me. Maybe not, maybe I wanted you to wake up and talk. What do I know? You went too soon.
God, how frightening. The longest day of my life. Everyone was crying at home and no one cared about me. I snuck into your room and I watched you for a long time. The bed seemed taller than it was before. I felt like a dwarf. I stayed afar, watching you. Your white hair – that seemed to be fake – still, your eyes closed as if you were asleep. It even seemed to me that you were smiling blissfully, but also that your skin was swollen, that it was about to explode. I approached you and touched your hand. Your face was like stone and I was afraid. I tried to kiss you. You were cold as marble. Oh God. That cold comes back to me now. Are we all like that when the light is out? Do we become in an instant just like a stone with no before or after? A stone that rolled so long, then stopped. I wonder whether when I die I will also frighten in the same way those who will look at me? Will I become a sort of absurd wax mask, without breath, without heat? I'll be like that, I know. Maybe somehow I already am. I'm frozen, motionless, like you were that day. I will become marble. Have even Eleonora and Debby become like that too? What have I done to bring to life all this death?
She was beautiful, my grandmother. Beautiful and good. She was the best of the family, and when I visited her, in secret, she always gave me some candy or a chocolate.
"Life is so bitter, darling."
And she said that "darling" with strength, as if it were a compliment, like a caress. Sara called me darling too, where she had caught that nickname I don’t know, but the fact that she used it gave me some strength. I trusted her. That’s why I told her. I was sure that she wouldn’t betray me. Neither me nor Debby. She was the only one who knew our secret.
"I'll kill her one day."
"Who do you want to kill? The redhead?"
We were lying on the ground in front of the school, in the little square, with that October sun that turns Rome into an earthly paradise. Her so long, me so small. I had my head resting on her legs. The Leaguer had just passed by, swaying with that "only I have it" expression, and had slipped into the doorway of Marco Polo high. It’s not like she could afford to be a minute late, the swot, and then she was never friendly with anyone but Lavinia. She came and went by her shop with broad smiles, as if they had who knows what in common.
"I hate her."
"Never mind. Look, one like that in the class is a fortune for us. Finally Mrs. Boschi found someone to question and she no longer cares about us. For her there is only the Leaguer now."
Sara had a philosophy of her own to live, it was not a hot-blooded like me. She always thought before speaking, and always seemed careful to control herself. Now that I think about it, she wasn’t only a "spindle-shanks", she was tough, granite, sturdy. I too am strong, but different. I have to explode not to feel bad. She keeps it in.
"I can’t stand her. She gives me a pain in the neck."
"Why do you give a damn at all? Look what a beautiful day. On Sunday we might go to the beach. Never mind the redhead, darling. Do you know how many fucking problems she has too?"
"Money comes out of her ears..."
"So what? It's not her fault."
"It's beautiful and a swot too..."
"Yes, but she’s quite alone too. No one cares about her except Luca, but she doesn’t even see him. What could she do with someone like Morocco?"
It was then that I decided to tell her. The fact that she could feel sorry for the Leaguer horrified me. Debby had not yet arrived and I absolutely needed to share my hatred with someone, to confront, to hear the effect of the greatest idea of my life.
"I have a clear plan. I’m going to kill her. So I rid the school from her presence."
Sara laughed, as if I had said something completely insane and impossible. Fun. Shit. She though my stroke of genius was fun.
"Okay, okay. And how are you doing that? You want to put a bomb under her desk or push her under the first passing car? Maybe choke her while Mrs. Boschi is reading us the latest chapter of The Betrothed? A nice coup de theâtre in the classroom would be nice."
"No... I will be less original. I’ll cut her to pieces or maybe shoot her. What if I shoot her?"
"If you really want... but where would you get a gun? It’s not like they sell them at the supermarket."
"I already have it. I already prepared everything. Debby and I could..."
"Listen, darling, you are very funny but I think you just watch too many movies, really too many... come on, you’ll tell me another time. Now let’s go to the classroom, it's late and I haven’t studied a fuck. Today if I get caught they kill me."
Giving me a blow on the shoulder, she pushed me gently away. Oblivious. A passing car threw at full volume a catchy song, an old song I had completely forgotten that spoke about "Sincerity". Sara burst into singing along with ease, as if nothing had happened, as if she had not understood the tragedy that I had announced. I stood up and watched her collecting her backpack from the ground and adjusting her shirt. I felt a growing anger. How could she not believe me? Why wouldn’t she listen to my confidence? Had I made a mistake in choosing her as a friend? For a long moment I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs about the guns, the massacre, the pact I had made with Debby. But I stood silent. "Don’t count your chicken before they are hatched", the popular wisdom says. Or at least I think so. We went up to the classroom in silence, she sheltered in the back row, I went to my desk. We didn’t happen to talk again. But I'm sure, I am really sure, that when I really started to shoot that day, my words rang in Sara’s ears. She must have understood that – granny knew it well - "Joking and kidding, Pulcinella said the truth", my dear darling.