Limbo (35 page)

Vanessa reappears quickly. Too quickly. “Nada,” she whispers, “conscientious objectors here, too. What time is it?” “Twenty to eight,” Mattia says. “Don't hate me, but they suggested I try at Terzo Miglio,” Vanessa says to him. “Why should I hate you?” Mattia says with surprise as he deactivates the alarm. The headlights blink. “It's kind of a weird way to spend the first day of the year, but we're having fun, right?” Alessia nods. “Do you know he's the Cat of the Marquis of Carabas?” she confides to her mother in a whisper. “But no one knows, he travels incognito because he has to deliver a message.” “What message?” Vanessa asks distractedly. She can't help but think that while they travel in comfort in Mattia's Audi, or rather Avis of Fiumicino's Audi, the sperm of the strangers she met at the old Gas Works are traveling in comfort in her vagina, from whence the lavender douche may not have evicted them. She doesn't even remember who or how many they were. Two for sure, because after the one with the mermaid there was another, in a green bomber jacket, who was practically dancing even inside of her, crooning
fuoco nel fuoco
—fire in the fire—and was so high he didn't even realize he'd come. And there could have been a third, maybe, because she remembers a different rhythm, as painful as flesh tearing, and she can hear her own voice saying ouch, go slow, you're hurting me, but her voice doesn't sound worried in the least, in fact it's cheerful, exhilarated almost. Then she danced some more, and took something—or maybe that was earlier—the fact is, she must have fainted, or fallen asleep, anyway time passed because the next thing she remembered, it was already morning. She was vomiting in a Porta-Potty, the light drilling into her brain. There was no one around now, on the floor only clumps of toilet paper, empty cans, and bottles. A strange, muffled yet deafening silence; her ears were buzzing as if a crazed bumblebee were whirling around inside. A security guard asked her if something was wrong and she said no, and he said, well, you're either peeing blood or you need a tampon, and she looked between her legs and burst out laughing because in that instant the situation seemed comical to her, and she kept on laughing hysterically as she wandered about the huge, empty parking lot searching for her car, and she laughed as she drove, unable to stop the convulsive tremors that shook her like an electric current sizzling in her veins. She nearly crashed getting onto the highway, and in fact she did manage to swipe the guardrail with the side of her Yaris, leaving a headlight on the asphalt. So then she parked in the turnout of a gas station and slept until she felt sober enough to get on the road again. She didn't want Manuela to suspect any of this. She would have hated her. And her little sister's opinion mattered to her, more than anything. I just wanted to have fun. I was too trusting. I'm not wary enough of people.

They stopped giving it out at the Terzo Miglio when the new medical director arrived. They try all the hospitals in the area, and when Vanessa gets back in the car after the sixth one, she curls up in a corner, leans her head against the window, and starts to cry—not for herself or for the pill they won't give her or for the terrifying prospect of being pregnant after such a night, but for Youssef. Because she ruined everything, and now it seems that she has lost the only certainty and the only fixed point in her life: him. She sniffles softly, but Alessia is dozing serenely and doesn't notice.

*   *   *

Rome is just starting to rouse itself from its holiday torpor; there are just a few cars on the street and the occasional bus, empty of passengers. On the asphalt a mire of broken glass, champagne corks, unexploded firecracker, rocket, and paper bomb cartridges. Mattia doesn't know the city well and is having trouble getting his bearings: he diligently obeys the GPS, slowing at times to look at a cupola, an obelisk, an equestrian statue. They cross the city from north to south, and then back again. They sweep past aqueducts, palaces, churches, fountains, restaurants, bars, arches, metro stations, temples, long straight streets lined with hundreds, thousands of shops, shutters lowered. He would like to live in Rome. No one notices you here. Everyone is anonymous, everyone is free.

They cross a bridge in reinforced concrete and then, in the opposite direction, a monumental Fascist-looking bridge in marble, on which a graffiti writer has sprayed a sentimental slogan in black. As he waits for the light to turn green, Mattia has time to make it out:
HE WHO SOWS SEEDS IN THE WIND WILL MAKE THE SKY BLOSSOM
. He reads it aloud, as if reciting it to Manuela. But she says it's not true. To make a seed bloom, you have to water it, care for it, you have to bend your back and hoe the soil, things don't take root without effort. Vanessa knows her sister is wrong. It's an idealistic vision of nature, and of human existence. A fertilized egg doesn't need anyone's effort to take root. It simply blooms. She wouldn't dream of saying so, though. She just prays it doesn't happen.

The hospital she remembered being behind Piazza del Popolo—they sewed up her knee in the ER after she fell during a school trip when she was a girl—no longer exists. It's been shut down. When she asks for the pill in the other hospital in the historic center, behind Saint Peter's, they look at her as if she were a murderer. Each time, Vanessa comes back more and more quickly; after a while it only takes a few minutes. And each time she gets back in the car, she slams the door with less force. “Don't get the wrong impression,” Manuela says between hospitals, “she's not promiscuous, she's just too impulsive.” “I think very highly of your sister,” Mattia replies. “She's full of joy.”

They even ask at the all-night pharmacy behind the train station, but the pharmacist doesn't understand what Vanessa is talking about—or he pretends not to. Mattia pulls over to the right, in front of some potbellied planters, awaiting instructions. It's nine in the evening. Dark porticoes ring the piazza. Cars circle a fountain: jets of water rise high and then fall, titillating the nipples of naked bronze nymphs. It seems to Mattia an unusually erotic monument in a Catholic city like Rome, and he would like to know the name of the artist who dared conceive of and then place it right there, in plain sight, on a hill dominating the entire historic center. His car headlights illuminate the bare, concave brick façade of a building swallowed by the gloom. Embedded between imposing ruins, it seems ancient. Roman, surely. Baths, maybe. Without saying a word, Manuela opens the car door and gets out.

“Where's she going?” Mattia asks. “How do I know,” Vanessa says. “I'm sorry I dragged her into this, she's different, she'd never fuck up, she's pure, I don't know if I'm making sense. She's either in or out, she doesn't do things behind your back, she doesn't know what betrayal is.” Mattia has already gone after her. The door to the church is open. Someone is playing the organ in the back. Mass is over, a small group of faithful, numb from the cold interior, emerge into the even colder January air. Mattia enters and finds himself in a circular vestibule that feels like the entrance to a museum. Dark paintings hang on the walls: Christ crucified and Christ risen, with a gardener's hat and a spade in his hand, and some tombs. Painters, the inscriptions say, but their names—Salvator Rosa, Carlo Maratta—don't mean anything to him. He walks under the big arch that leads to the nave. In a niche above him looms a giant sculpture; he wears the habit and the inconsolable sadness of a monk. To the right and left, like guardians, marble angels hold stoups for holy water. They're looking in opposite directions: one at those who enter, the other at those who exit. The welcoming angel looks in his direction, but doesn't see him. His eyes seem to open inwardly, contemplating a secret happiness. His wings are long and curved, like the volute of a harp. He is very beautiful.

Mattia is astounded by the immensity of the space. A few candle stubs still burn under the altars, but the light is on only in the presbytery, where it illuminates a keyboard. A bald priest in a white chasuble tries out the score, singing in a powerful baritone. Mattia can only make out the invocation, which is being repeated continuously: Ave Maria. He has lost sight of Manuela. But her footsteps echo in the silence, in time to the music. She drags her bad leg, and the sound of that limping wounds him.

The church is solemn, and its massive dimensions give rise to a vague anxiety. They banish warmth and erase all intimacy. Everything is theater. Minuscule human figures drift in the gloom among the colossal granite columns that support the vault, like crickets in the grass. One arm of the nave is taken up by the monument to Armando Diaz, Marshal of Italy, Duke of Victory. Mattia joins Manuela at the foot of the apse. Her hands rest on the balustrade that prevents access to the presbytery; she is staring at the small painting on the main altar. Much older than those on the other altars, more naïve, friendlier. Mattia thinks it looks Venetian. Manuela mumbles softly. “And you, Mother of God, purer than snow,” he can make out. “You who know every last breath and every sacrifice of your Alpini…” “Come on, we have to go,” he urges, without realizing he's interrupting her, “your sister needs help, we shouldn't waste time.” “This is where my funeral was supposed to be,” Manuela says.

“I'm sorry,” Mattia says, “I didn't know.” “It was here. This basilica is called Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, Saint Mary of the Angels and Martyrs. They always hold them here, I don't know why. Maybe because it's so big. I've seen lots of them on TV. They put the coffin on a red carpet, dress cap on top. At the end, the trumpet calls for silence, and they recite the prayer. The Alpino prayer closes with: bless and smile upon our battalions and our troops, amen. Then the priest blesses the remains with holy water and swings the incense, which means that it's all over. For us, this is the saddest place on earth. This place means death. Our Elysian Fields. I won't meet them on a journey to the otherworld; I could meet them in my dreams, only I don't know how to dream. Do you remember the
Odyssey
? When Odysseus meets the shade of Achilles in the Elysian Fields and tries to console him, telling him he's a great hero, the most powerful warrior that ever lived, that he was a god in life and is now the king of the dead so there's no need to grieve over his death? And Achilles replies, I'd rather be the lowest servant of a peasant on earth than the king of this dead world.”

Mattia shudders. It's freezing in the church, and their shadows are like ghosts on the dark floor. “I don't believe in another life,” Manuela says. “This is the only life we have, it's this certainty that makes the time we have worthwhile. We can't waste it. We know we have to die. Giving one's death is like giving one's life. But if your death doesn't contribute to life, then your life is truly lost. I can't stand it. I wasn't here, I couldn't come, I was in the hospital. I couldn't even say goodbye to them.” She breaks off suddenly and turns away. She catches a glimpse of the Virgin's red dress in the painting. That and a symphony of angels. So many angels. She dries her tears on her jacket sleeve. This is the first time she has been able to cry.

Mattia leaves her to her belated funeral. Manuela always uses the plural. We, we, we. He, on the other hand, knows only the first person singular now. They can never speak the same language. He reascends the nave, stepping on a line that cuts diagonally across the floor, inscribed with the constellations of the zodiac. It's a meridian line. It used to mark the passing of time for Rome. He wonders if it also marks the end of time, which is ritually celebrated here. Whenever he saw the ceremonies, the uniforms and flags, the false sorrow of the powerful and the infinite sorrow of the soldiers' relatives, he would change the channel. The farewell angel greets him with the same contemplative look as his companion. But this one isn't baroque, it's a modern imitation. Art pays homage to those who enter, but not to those who leave; here the dead count more than the living. This church is the cemetery of all of Italy's good intentions.

He slowly makes his way to the car. He is extraneous to Manuela's most authentic life, as she is to his. Yet he would have wept over her friends with her, and over her entire past. The lowest servant of a peasant on earth … The surprising wisdom of Achilles. He never would have imagined that Sergeant Paris loved Homer. Prejudices.

Vanessa, looking glum, taps on the window. “Where do you want us to go?” he asks. “Home,” Vanessa orders. Mattia says she shouldn't give up, they can keep looking, there are at least three hospitals they haven't tried yet. And if that doesn't work, he will take her to Campania or Tuscany, things are different there. Vanessa realizes that this stranger is worried about her, and wants to help her. Even though he's old and probably married, he is kind, and he seems to really care for Manuela. “No,” Vanessa says, “enough. I don't want to be told no again, or to be asked why I'm asking. I'm a human being, I have my dignity, it's clear this was how it was supposed to go, it must be a sign, I'm converting, I don't know if I told you.” She breaks off and bites her lip. Manuela wouldn't want her to tell Mattia her theories about the name of God and the Jehovah's Witnesses, it's better if she keeps quiet. “Converting to what?” Mattia asks. “I don't know, and anyway, I may have changed my mind already, I'm really fickle. And I'm about to faint with hunger,” she says, changing the subject. “I haven't eaten for twenty-four hours.” So when Manuela gets back in the car he resets the GPS for Ladispoli and at ten he stops the car in front of the Paris home.

*   *   *

“Come on up,” Vanessa invites Mattia. “I'll fix something; I'm a lousy cook, but I don't want you eating crackers from the minibar all alone in your hotel room.” Mattia objects; it doesn't seem right, he doesn't want to invade their home. But Vanessa insists: the restaurant at the Bellavista is already closed, it's her fault that he and Manuela couldn't go out to dinner together. Manuela expects Mattia to hesitate, or invent an excuse. He's always so elusive. Instead he smiles and accepts. He gracefully guides the car into the hotel garage, picks up Alessia, who is still sleeping, in his arms, and makes his way up the stairs after the Paris sisters.