100 Days of Happiness (20 page)

T
he main thing that a
moriturus
definitely shouldn't do is go out with someone who's chronically depressed. But here I am, in a grim little pizzeria with Giannandrea. By now, I like the guy, and I could hardly have turned down a dinner invitation from him. He wants to tell me the details of his unfortunate love story. I know that his wife ran away with a guy who runs a gas station in Udine, but now I find out that that's only the official version. What really happened would have thrown anyone into a state of depression.

“Marta and I worked together in a fine tailoring and alterations shop, a business I inherited from my father. We had two kids about to turn eighteen, steady hours, a normal, if somewhat unremarkable life. We had four employees. We certainly weren't rich but we weren't badly off. One day by chance I read some of Marta's e-mails and happened to discover an old chat session with her cousin in which she mentioned in passing the fact that neither of our kids is actually mine, and that they belong to two different fathers.”

I don't know what to say to him. I let him talk.

“So I ask her about it and she confesses almost immediately, as if it came as a relief. The father of my older daughter is that Judas Iscariot of a younger brother of mine. In other words, it was actually my niece I had brought up as my daughter. The younger boy, on the other hand, is the son of an Austrian assistant tailor who worked with us for a season.”

“Did you have a DNA test done?”

“Immediately. They're not my children.”

“So what did you do?”

“I tried to murder her,” he replies with seraphic tranquillity.

“You're not saying you beat her up?”

“No no, I took a knife and stabbed her. Just a scratch, to the belly, I almost missed her completely. She didn't report me to the police.”

An awkward silence ensues.

“But it's been a long time. We shut down the alterations shop and three months ago the divorce became final.”

“And are you doing better now?”

“No.”

“No, it didn't seem like it.”

“Every night, I dream of murdering my brother and declaring war on Austria.”

“Try to stop thinking about it.” It's banal, but I can't think of anything else to say.

Giannandrea says nothing. It's like someone switched him off. He stares into the middle distance. For the first time, I sense how deeply miserable he is, and at the same time, how dangerous.

Our dinner ends with sporadic comments on the mediocre margherita pizza we're eating and the uselessness of mosquitoes in the ecosystem.

I offer to walk Giannandrea home. “Where do you live?”

“In a bed-and-breakfast around the corner.”

What he optimistically calls a bed-and-breakfast is a fleabag behind the train station with the bathroom in the hallway. I understand that the reason he lives there isn't a matter of money, because he immediately found work in Rome in a fashion house, but because he loves to wallow in his depression or, actually, feed it. I make a resolution to call him more often. He's in a worse place than I am.

W
hen Oscar invites us over to dinner, it's always a party for the four of us. His first courses are a delight to savor, his main dishes, usually seafood, are prizewinners, and his desserts, obviously, are professional-level tours de force. But since he's become a widower, unfortunately, it hasn't been a frequent occurrence and this is the first time he's had us over since he got “reengaged.” In fact, it's Miss Marple who opens the door and lets us in. She continues to wear oversized flower-print dresses that would be unsightly even as summertime tablecloths.

“Oscar's in the kitchen. He's putting the salt-crusted sea bass into the oven.”

She shows us into the dining room and we sit down around the table. When my father-in-law is creating food, he never wants to be bothered; he's like an actor in his dressing room, only ready to appear before his audience when the curtain goes up. The only sign of him is his voice booming from the kitchen.

“Do you want some chili peppers on the pasta?”

A chorus of universal approval roars back. Grandpa has even accustomed the children to strong flavors.

“Dig into the appetizers while you wait!”

We dive ravenously into a spectacular tray of mozzarella, surrounded by a magical eggplant caponata, a recipe that Oscar alone possesses. While Paola chats with Martina about how Italian schools have declined over the past decades, I look around. The living room
has changed. The furniture has been rearranged into a more rational design. And it's tidier too. There are even two flowerpots on the windowsill. I wouldn't need Agatha Christie's Miss Marple to deduce that Martina is living here now. My investigation is interrupted by the arrival of the primo, the pasta dish: a baked pasta casserole
alla pugliese,
that is, with meat
ragù
and prosciutto. I've given up the health diet. I don't have much time left now.

“Ladies and gentleman, behold the specialty of the house!”

Oscar is wearing a full-length apron that emphasizes his rotundity. Ever since he got a girlfriend, his language has become more refined and courteous. That just makes me laugh, because I know his coarse and concealed Romanness all too well. As he's serving the pasta he makes an announcement.

“Family, I wanted to announce to you that a few days ago, Martina moved in with me and gave up her lease on her apartment in Prati.”

Shouts of glee and a round of applause, partly for the pasta and partly for the good news. Martina is deeply moved at this official coronation, but she still manages to joke about it.

“I told him that he's still on probation. You've got to keep men on their toes.”

“That's the way, Grandma,” says Eva. Her spontaneous use of the term “Grandma” embarrasses everyone for a fleeting instant. Then Miss Marple finds a brilliant solution.

“Oh, why don't you just call me Martina. Like two old friends.”

The suggestion strikes Eva as reasonable.

“If you say so, Martina. Do you know how to cook?”

“Yes, but Oscar's a better cook than me.”

“I can confirm that, without any false modesty,” Oscar declares. “But she has many other gifts.”

“Like what?” asks Lorenzo, as always indiscreetly curious.

“For instance, she's the world's best hide-and-seek player.”

“Really?” Eva's face lights up.

“I took gold at the hide-and-seek Olympics,” Martina points out.

“There's no such thing as the hide-and-seek Olympics,” Lorenzo retorts.

“Oh yes, there is,” Oscar brings him up short. “The hide-and-seek Olympics were first held in 1904, and the first gold medal was awarded to an Englishman named James Ascott.”

I listen to him without interrupting as he invents tall tales just to amuse my little ones, backed up by Miss Marple, who proves to be an excellent accomplice. I love my father-in-law. There are so many things about him that I'll miss.

His arrogant Roman way of acting as if he knows more about everything than you ever could.

His gigantic shadow looming up on the walls of the pastry shop.

The way he slaps me on the back, so that I always stagger a little.

His overamplified voice.

The way he philosophizes with his customers.

His secret passion for Britney Spears.

The way he pats every dog he meets in the street.

His size thirteen shoes.

The way he looks at me without speaking and I know he's already understood everything.

When he recycles a Christmas present without remembering that you gave him that same thing a couple of years ago.

His ability to fall asleep anywhere.

And, of course, his doughnuts.

I really will miss him.

C
orrado has an amusing habit that, at least until today, always struck me as funny: for their birthdays, he gives his friends a framed, dummied-up front page of
Il Messaggero,
with a fake obituary of the birthday boy or girl and a commemorative article. His affectionate and hilarious obituaries are devoted to office clerks, mailmen, newsstand owners, pizza chefs, pharmacists, cleaning women, and bus drivers. He's done one for me as well.

 * * * 

A few years ago, when he gave it to me for my birthday, I laughed all night. Today, of course, it doesn't make me laugh a bit.

The headline reads:

Farewell to Lucio Battistini, a Lifetime Devoted to Sports

(By our special correspondent Corrado Di Pasquale)

Sometime in the past few hours, heaven's water polo team recruited a new coach: Lucio Battistini. After the dismissal midway through the season of Jesus Christ, found culpable in the cheating scandal over his team's habit of walking on water, the new coach, Battistini, may perhaps succeed in turning around this badly limping
paradisiacal team. In his luminous career as a player, we all recall the ninety-eight consecutive days spent on the bench (a national record) and the four goals inflicted upon him in just three minutes during his last appearance in the highest series. In the years that followed, Battistini left professional competition and continued with his successful career as a personal trainer, successfully helping Signora Dora Loriani of Rome to lose 7 kilos and Commendator Casalotti to lose 4.5 kilos. These spectacular achievements justifiably led to his appointment as the coach of the newly established water polo team at Machiavelli High School. During the first season, the coach was promptly crowned a success, and on the last day of school, the Roman team was able to celebrate its ranking—second from last—with a gala evening of music at the Circus Maximus.

We'll miss his cheerful smile, his perennially burned pot roasts, his reckless incompetence at driving motorcycles, his overabundant waistline, his enigmatic sense of humor. This morning at the funeral no fewer than twenty-three people gathered around his lovely widow, Paola, already hotly contested by her numerous suitors, and his two children. During the funeral service, the priest got his name wrong three times, once calling him Luca, another time Luciano, and finally, to the astonishment of one and all, Ferdinando. After the sermon, the water polo team burst into a spontaneous round of applause, excited at the prospect of being entrusted to a real coach. For this and for a thousand other reasons, today, in the world, we're all just a little relieved. Farewell, Ferdinando. Excuse me, Lucio.

Corrado is implacable; he manages to outline the lives of others in such a lucid and cynical manner that it proves irresistibly comic for the readers, and never overwhelmingly tragic for the subject. I've read and reread my obit. Unfortunately, my friend has once again hit a bull's-eye. He may be sarcastic but he's not lying.

Maybe I need to get busy and try to improve my impending, and all too real; obituary. In fact, strike the “maybe.”

The student was seen rummaging through the supplies in the biology laboratory, where he had already taken possession of a liter of glycerine, a flask of concentrated nitric acid, and two flasks of sulfuric acid that are kept in a special locked cabinet, which the student broke into.

B
eneath that text was the official, unappealable verdict: two days' suspension from school.

I can't say I'm surprised. Sooner or later, I was sure, Lorenzo would be suspended. In elementary school that's a rare thing, but I knew he'd manage to pull it off. His teacher called me immediately on my cell phone and I rushed straight over to the school—one of the advantages of being a
moriturus
with nothing to do. I'm sitting across the desk from her in the classroom, while the defendant waits for us in the hallway.

“Your son has committed a very grave infraction, Signor Battistini. He stole a number of objects that belong to the school.”

“‘Very grave infraction' seems to me to be overstating the case. Haven't you ever stolen a book from a library or candy from the supermarket?”

“No,” she retorts sternly.

“From the list of stolen goods I'd have to guess that he had one of his usual experiments in mind.”

“That's exactly what I'm afraid of: his usual experiments. Last year the classrooms were overrun with insect larvae thanks to him.”

“He was just experimenting with reproduction in a damp environment, in this specific case with the pond in the school garden.”

“And that strikes you as normal? What did he want to do this time? Burn down the school?”

“Excuse me for a moment. I have to reply to a message from work.”

I pull out my iPhone. I lied. I Google: glycerine plus nitric acid plus sulfuric acid. Nitroglycerine. Those are the basic components of that dangerous compound. The little chemist I sired was trying to make nitroglycerine and I have no doubt that he would have succeeded. He wouldn't have burned down the school. He would have blown it up.

I downplay the seriousness of the situation in my conversation with his teacher. Clearly, she didn't do the same research I just did. I promise her I'll punish my young heir with exemplary severity.

When I walk out into the hallway, I find him sitting on a bench, eyes downcast and ears drooping like a truant who knows he's in big trouble. He silently trails after me to the car. While I drive, I try to discuss the topic.

“What were you trying to blow up?”

He's astonished that I've ferreted out his true intentions. Clearly, he underestimates me.

“I didn't want to destroy anything, I just wanted to make some fireworks for the end-of-year show.”

“Don't you think these fireworks might have been a little too, shall we say, . . . powerful?”

“I wasn't going to put in much nitroglycerine.”

I make him promise that he will never, ever try any further experiments with explosives, incendiary devices, or anything dangerous.

Then I consider the issue of the two-day suspension. The only thing that really scares him is his mother's reaction. I decide to tell Paola myself.

Paola shouted so loud she could be heard all the way out to the Rome beltway.

“Nitroglycerine? Your son was making nitroglycerine at recess?”

When she says “your son,” that means she's well and truly pissed off.

I explain to her that the compound is very difficult to make without the appropriate equipment, and I minimize the whole incident as nothing more than a childish prank that, happily, had no bad consequences. And as a result? The one who gets the dressing-down is me. I am described as, in order of denunciation, a bad example, an irresponsible father, an underminer of education and good manners, and someone trying to poison her own children against her. When people lose their tempers, they say things they don't really mean. I hope. I try to be a cat and this time I get the result I hoped for: Paola tries to keep going but her rage sputters and dies out. A few minutes later we file away the day with a smile. We label it “the day our son tried to manufacture nitroglycerine.”

But I am aware of something a lot more sinister. I might have lost him, earlier than my hundred days allowed. The thought makes me want to howl.