100 Days of Happiness (25 page)

P
eter Pan strides to center stage and shouts: “Captain Hook! Where are you?”

All around him, in a clearing in Neverland, stand the Lost Boys, Tinker Bell, Wendy with her little brothers.

Suddenly the treacherous captain appears, along with the inseparable Mr. Smee and a couple of pirates.

“Here I am!” he thunders. “And now you're done for. I'm going to feed every last one of you to Tick Tock the crocodile.”

“I don't think you will!” retorts the fearless Peter.

There ensues a balletic scene of combat in which all the participants cross swords in time to the music. This is the culminating scene of Lorenzo's school play. My little actor is hidden behind Captain Hook's wicked mustachio—and I'm not just saying this because I'm his father—but he's been stealing the stage from Peter Pan for the past hour, perhaps because the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up is being played by a child far too obnoxious to play the hero of Neverland. Sitting next to me are Eva and Paola. We laugh and applaud alongside a hundred or so other parents and kids.

The play ends to thunderous applause. Just for the record, Captain Hook got twice the applause Peter Pan did. I take Eva's hand, link arms with Paola, and we wait for our little Laurence Olivier outside the stage door. While we wait, I notice that someone has broken the side window of our car and has stolen the GPS I carelessly left in plain view. By now, I'm a slave to the computerized voice that tells me to
“turn right” and “make a U-turn.” Abandoned by my portable Virgil, I'm a stranger in my own city. I've forgotten routes and one-way streets. I don't even remember how to leaf through the pages of the city map, TuttoCittà. I decide that I'm not going to buy a new GPS for the trip. I'll use folding paper road maps. I said adventure and adventure is what I meant. When Lorenzo shows up, he's greeted by mothers and teachers as the conquering hero. I'm reassured only when he promises me that he has no intention of becoming an actor.

 * * * 

That afternoon I have the window of my glorious station wagon replaced, then I have the car washed and I fill up the tank.

As I lay the last few items of luggage by the front door, I experience a moment of fear. The fear that comes when you've reached the point of no return. The end of the uphill climb on the roller coaster. I Google it. Point of no return: final, irreversible stage of a process or a journey.

I have just twenty-two days left, and I'm at the point of no return.

R
aise your hand if you recognize the name of Edmond Haraucourt.

If you don't know the name, then let me tell you that he was a French writer and that the first line of his most famous poem is something most of us take for a proverb: “To leave is to die a little.”

That line has never been so true as it is for me now. The rest of the poem is pretty wonderful too. This is more or less how it runs in English:

To leave is to die a little;

It is to die to what one loves;

One leaves behind a little of oneself

At any hour, any place.

It's a fine and final pain

Like the last line of a poem.

We leave as if in jest

Before the ultimate journey

And, in all of our farewells, we sow

A portion of our soul.

Today we depart. As planned, we've left our German shepherd Shepherd with Signora Giovanna. Shepherd watches me load the luggage in the back of the car with a somber expression, as if he understands I won't be coming home. After all, I was his favorite slave.

The kids are beside themselves with excitement; as far as they
know, this is just the beginning of a wonderful and unexpected vacation.

“Can you at least tell us where exactly we're going?” Eva asks.

“The various stops are secret,” I reply. “Think of it as a treasure hunt.”

The kids get comfortable in the back while Paola gathers up the last kibble and stuffs it into the station wagon's baggage compartment, already packed full.

We're ready for departure. It's five in the afternoon; we wait for the sun to slide a little way closer to the horizon to avoid the worst of the muggy June heat. I start the car, and it hacks asthmatically. Then, at last, we start off. The apartment building where we live dwindles in the rearview mirror, the last image I have of the life I once led. In a movie I can't remember the name of, the protagonist says that life is nothing but a collection of last times. Too true.

The last time you talk to your father.

The last time you see the Colosseum.

The last time you eat a fig just picked from the tree.

The last time you take a swim in the sea.

The last time you kiss the woman you love.

The list can go on forever, and every one of us has already experienced thousands of last times without even realizing it. Most of the time, in fact, you never even imagine that what you're experiencing is the last time. In fact, that's the best thing about it. Not knowing. If, instead, as in my case, you know perfectly well that these are the last times, then suddenly the rules change completely. Everything takes on a new and different weight and importance. Even drinking an ordinary
chinotto
takes on a quality of poetic melancholy.

As we drive out of Rome, I leave behind me an astonishing number of last times. So many that I finally just give up cataloging them. After so many days spent regretting the past and dreaming of a future that will no longer come, it's time to think of today.

I have the Dino Zoff notebook that I've filled with a thousand notes for this journey with me. I've made a list of things that I want to teach Lorenzo and Eva. And I have a woman to win back in the next twenty days. I don't have even a minute to waste.

I take the on-ramp and follow the highway south. I'm as excited as a little kid heading off on vacation for the first time without his parents.

I slip in a CD of television theme songs and my under-ten passengers cut loose in song. Paola stares out at the panorama, but she still isn't relaxed. I press down on the accelerator and ignore a sharper than usual stab of pain in my belly.

I
'm sure that the hotel on the highway past Salerno, which deserved half a star at most, was built near a world mosquito convention of some kind. We spent the evening hemmed in by the diabolical insects, first in the trattoria and later in the room. We took a double with two trundle beds and after ten minutes it was already an encampment, partly because of the luggage and largely because of the war on the mosquitoes, which, as everyone knows, is waged by hurling various large blunt objects.

Our destination is Craco, a very special place in the region of Lucania. A ghost town.

 * * * 

There's only one thing that Lorenzo and Eva have in common: their fear of ghosts. They can bravely withstand zombies, ogres, witches, and vampires, but they go to pieces at the thought of ghosts. Every dark room, every curtain flapping in the wind, every door that suddenly slams, is, as far as they're concerned, an unmistakable sign of a malevolent spirit returned to earth to harm us.

I've brought them to this village, uninhabited since the sixties, to help them get over this fear. The tiny place seems forgotten by time. We walk out into the deserted main street. It's very hot and there's not a shred of shadow anywhere. Paola's wearing a flower-print dress and I wish I could wrap my arms around her, but she's walking a few steps behind us. It strikes me that this is a highly symbolic attitude.
Why is she trying not to be part of our group? I am grateful for her presence, though. I wouldn't have it any other way. As we walk, I start telling the legend of the little town's history.

“It was founded by Greek colonists in the eighth century
BC
and was inhabited continuously until the middle of the last century. After the last inhabitants left, it remained abandoned for a few years. Nothing but mosquitoes, wind, and the occasional dog barking in the distance.”

“Why did you say for a few years? Did they come back to live here afterward?” Lorenzo was paying close attention.

“In a certain sense, yes, they did. Many noticed that the village had been abandoned, and so they moved here and took up residence.”

“Many who?” is Eva's eminently legitimate doubt.

“Many ghosts.”

My two heirs freeze.

“You mean this village is full of ghosts?” Lorenzo asks in astonishment.

“All the ghosts in Italy, to be exact.”

“Are you crazy?” Eva exclaims.

Behind me, I can sense Paola smiling quietly.

“Let me point out first of all that ghosts never appear in broad daylight, and that it's eleven thirty in the morning. Then let me explain that because they've all come to live here, we can stop worrying about them in the rest of Italy.”

“By all of them, you mean
all
of them?” asks my little daughter.

“
All
of them. They took advantage of the fact that the village was deserted, so they could have some time on their own.”

“But what do they do here if they don't have anyone to scare?” Lorenzo wonders aloud.

“Look, ghosts don't enjoy frightening people. In fact,” breaks in Paola, backing me up, “what ghosts like best is being left alone to mind their own business and basically do nothing. They've already
done more than enough things and now they just want to get some rest.”

We pull onto the little village's main piazza. The two kids look around cautiously.

“Are you sure that there are no ghosts in broad daylight?” Lorenzo asks.

“Positive.”

For an hour or so, we wander through the abandoned lanes of the village. After a while, they start talking cheerfully about ghosts, wondering how many can fit into an ordinary home and whether they have a regular appointment for their appearances, the way that vampires do at sunset. When we leave the town and walk downhill to the parking area where we left our car, they even wave good-bye to the ghosts, who by now have been “normalized.”

“Ciao, see you next time!”

“Miao!”

I hope that they leave all their fears behind in the lanes of this village. We stop for a bite to eat in a lovely trattoria right across the road from the ghost town. The children order their favorite—carbonara. I try to convince them that carbonara should be eaten only in Rome, where the chefs know to use proper
guanciale
and not just bacon cubes. I suggest an eggplant parmigiana, which is more typical in the south of Italy. Lorenzo seems to think about his choice.

“Do they still put real eggs in the carbonara outside of Rome?” Eva looks at me with her arms crossed.

“That is one ingredient that can't be missing, no matter where they make it.”

“That's what I want, then.” And Eva closes her menu, a satisfied expression on her face. Paola orders the same as me—eggplant meatballs to start with, osso buco to follow,
torta della nonna
for dessert. She says the osso buco isn't half as good as hers. I have to agree. As I
sip the after-dinner drink, Ammazzacaffè, I see hundreds of faded figures crowding the street out of the little ghost village, waving at me from a distance like passengers on an ocean liner about to depart. Eva says, “Papà, you're dreaming!” I blink and they're gone. I must have overeaten.

T
he Salento region of Apulia. Sun. Beach umbrellas and lounge chairs for rent. Sand castles. Laughter. Salt spray. Sautéed clams and mussels.

That's how I'd imagined our second day.

Instead, thanks to my ability to read road maps, we're lost somewhere in the Apulian hinterland where I was searching for a convent that sells herb-flavored cheeses that I can still taste fifteen years after the last time I visited. Result: we neither eat dairy products nor do we go to the beach. Instead, our car gets stuck on a rutted dirt road and then gives up the ghost with a dull and definitive clunk.

 * * * 

“The transmission's broken,” says the mechanic who's come to our aid.

“Can you fix it?” I ask hopefully.

“Certainly.”

“Ah, that's good news.”

“I'll have to order the parts from the manufacturer. In no more than fifteen days, it'll be good as new.”

“Fifteen days? But we're traveling. We can't wait fifteen days.”

“What can I tell you? Rent a real car. This one, no offense, is a rolling wreck.”

It's heartbreaking to hear someone call my faithful automobile a rolling wreck. But he's right.

I have someone take me to Taranto, I rent a more high-tech station wagon, and I come back to pick up my family members in the middle of nowhere. We find a lovely little hotel with a view, and I send the kids to bed early. I have great plans for the next day.

“Like what?” Paola asks me.

“I want to rent a dinghy and go fishing.”

“I can't spend the day in a dinghy. I'll get seasick after ten minutes.”

I don't push. I know that she means it—it's not an excuse.

“If you prefer, we can skip it.”

“No, don't worry. This is your journey. I'll wait for you here. I'm happy to read a book on the beach. I haven't done that in forever.”

“This is your journey” isn't a particularly well-chosen phrase. How I wish that it could soon be changed into “This is our journey.” I fall asleep and dream that I'm on Captain Ahab's boat, helping him to capture the white whale.

T
he thing my grandpa Michele loved best was fishing. Every August he'd lock up the concierge's booth and we'd go to the beach. Many mornings he'd wake me up before dawn and take me out onto the waters off the exotic Lido di Ostia in his wooden motorboat to fish for tattlers, which are romantic fish that choose to come into shore with the rising and setting sun. Sometimes we'd even catch a small tuna or a
palamita,
which Grandma Alfonsina would cook for dinner. Grandpa was a veritable ace when it came to lure fishing and I didn't do too bad myself.

I rent all the equipment a budding fisherman might need, two rods complete with all kinds of bait, a bottle of SPF 50, and a dinghy with a ten-horsepower outboard motor. Paola comes to wave us off from the pier. I think that having a day to herself will do her good. What with school, her children, and a sick, cheating husband, it's been an intense period for her too.

“Mamma, don't have too big a lunch because we're going to have a huge platter of grilled fish for dinner,” Lorenzo boldly declares.

I back him up.

“We're going to bring back so much fish we'll be able to sell some to the hotel restaurant.”

I'm pretty confident—I've never come back empty-handed from a day of fishing.

The Ionian Sea is flat as a mirror. We head out about a mile and
cast our lines. The children are excited. They listen to what I have to say and pepper me with questions.

“What should we do if we catch a shark?”

“With a lure this size there's no chance of that. It's too small. Sharks are practically blind. They wouldn't see it.”

“What if we catch a killer whale?”

“They're very rare in the Mediterranean. I wouldn't worry about it. This stretch of water is full of tuna.”

“If we catch a dolphin, I'm throwing it back,” Eva concludes.

 * * * 

Two hours later, the only bites we've gotten are from a stunned red mullet passing through. We don't give up, we double the bait, and we move to a new area. We pass by a buoy marking a scuba diver and we stay at a safe distance. When I see him surface, over near his support vessel, I shout, “Are there a lot of fish around here?”

“
Mamma mia,
yes, the water is teeming with fish. There are enormous schools of tuna down under. It's spectacular.”

I'm reassured. We won't be coming home empty-handed tonight—it's just a matter of being patient, which is any fisherman's chief virtue.

My little helpers redouble their efforts. We're a well-oiled team. The hours fly by and the sun drops toward the horizon.

So the results of our fishing trip?

We had a lot of fun, and we caught the red mullet mentioned above, three sad little octopuses, and a plastic bottle. We've also lost one rod, which slipped through Lorenzo's fingers. In other words, a complete disaster.

“And now how are we going to tell Mamma?” Lorenzo asks.

“Don't worry. There's an incredible place where we're certain to find some fish. It's a magical place.”

“Where is it?” Eva asks. “What's it called?”

“It's in town, and it's called Fresh Fish Sold Here.”

“But that's cheating!” blurts my judgmental daughter.

“Exactly,” I reply without hesitation.

Lorenzo is thrilled at the idea of tricking Mamma, but Eva has her doubts: she still has a well-developed sense of justice. Perhaps too well developed.

We buy an assortment of fish and two giant cuttlefish. An overflowing basket of seafood that we present triumphantly to Paola, at the very tail end of the afternoon. We proudly show her the results of our day's fishing, and she stares in astonishment.

“That's just incredible. Look at all these fish!”

“Papà is a great fisherman!” Lorenzo exclaims.

“And the water off the coast is just teeming with fish,” Eva adds.

“Did Papà catch all of them?” Paola asks.

“No, the biggest fish is the one I caught and that cuttlefish is the one Lorenzo caught.” Eva lies with an exceptional precision and nonchalance. A couple of certified liars. I'm proud of them both. Especially of my daughter, who's learned how to fish and how to tell lies. Not a bad result, all things considered.

We carry our loot into the hotel kitchen, and the children, overjoyed and triumphant, linger behind to play on the hotel beach. I'm left alone with Paola, and she trips me up with a single phrase.

“I didn't know that pike lived in salt water.”

“What pike?”

“That one big fish you caught is a pike—you can tell from the duckbill snout.”

“Ah, that's a pike?”

“Yes. And pike are freshwater fish.”

“It must have gotten lost; . . . sometimes pike get disoriented. Everyone knows that,” I say, climbing onto a very slippery slope.

“Eh, of course they do . . .”

Deep in Paola's gaze I glimpse a smile. Or at least the shadow of a smile.

“How much did you pay for them?”

I give up.

“Not much. The shop was about to close. It was my idea. The kids had nothing to do with it.”

Now she's definitely smiling at me, as if I were an urchin caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

“That wasn't a pike. Where on earth would they find a pike around here?”

She'd laid a trap for me and I fell straight into it. Without waiting for me to answer, she catches up with the kids on the beach, slips out of her beach wrap, and waves them into the water for one last sunset swim.

Today I don't have the energy to keep up with them. The day out fishing really wore me out. I stretch out on a lounge chair and watch my little aquatic family as they chase each other around in the shallows, splashing and squealing. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else on earth.