Limbo (59 page)

*   *   *

She never stops waiting for Mattia's call, and time, rather than shattering her hope, strengthens it. She attributes the long wait not to his decision to break up with her, but to his wanting to be sure he can settle into a new life before coming back. It seems logical to her, and right, and she doesn't blame him. She is sorry she followed orders and burned his letters. Nothing is left of him now. She can't even remember his voice. And in April she realizes that waiting is a psychological state she's just not suited for. To desire something too much is to lose it; it's precisely that desire that makes you lose it. She still prefers action. And if Mattia doesn't come back to her, then it's up to her to go find him.

On the Internet she gets information on all the ophthalmology conferences in the last ten years, picks out those that were held in seaside cities, records the names of all the participants, and starts looking up the Italians one by one. The search engines provide her with all kinds of information about the ophthalmologists—in addition to their scientific curriculum vitae, there are often photos, Facebook pages (she's amazed to discover that even the fifty-year-olds have them), sometimes even a phone number. In the end, she winnows the list of possibilities down to one name: a man who nearly five years earlier had presented a paper on advances in cataract microsurgery at an international conference. He had left quite a few traces on the Internet, which now float—crystallized in an eternal present—on the most disparate websites. Scientific articles that turn out to be illegibly abstruse. Photos of a party of climbers roped together on the Polish Glacier Traverse Route on Aconcagua. A signature on a petition to close a northern city's historic center to cars, and another to release a woman unjustly condemned to death. A photo of a marvelous Persian cat, held in his arms as he wins third prize at a cat show. The horrifying video on YouTube of a phacoemulsification: the aspiration of cataract fragments through a cannula inserted in the crystalline lens; the incision, and then the implantation of the artificial lens, rolled up like a plastic veil, with a microinjector.

At that point Manuela abandons her search. To piece together the clues to Mattia's past that he sowed in his letters, to follow his tracks and reconfigure the components of his life, will not give her back the man she loves, but rather an ophthalmologist who specialized in experimental cataract treatments he himself no longer identifies with and whom he himself considers dead. She discovers that that man means nothing to her—in fact, she hates him. It's the other man—Mattia Rubino—she's waiting for.

*   *   *

At Easter she goes on vacation to Santorini with Vanessa and Alessia. She reserved two rooms in a small hotel in Imerovigli, facing the crater's abyss. The sheer cliffs are so arid, not a single blade of grass grows on them. The severity and violence of that landscape, devastated by an ancient yet somehow indelible explosion, has something of Afghanistan about it. But the village has become the picture of Greekness for the world's rich, a Cycladic Capri, an Aegean Portofino. Despite the cool weather, tourists from Japan, South Africa, and New Zealand roam about in sandals and tank tops among the jewelry shops and designer boutiques that open onto the labyrinth of whitewashed streets. The houses have all been turned into luxury hotels and dream villas. She convinces herself that she has identified Mattia's house, on the highest rise in the village, in the shadow of the church. Two floors, the lower one with a panoramic terrace that gives onto the pool of the five-star hotel below. The house is being renovated. Two listless, blond workmen are whitewashing the walls and spreading a gray cement resin on the terrace floor. They speak only Albanian and can't answer her questions.

Manuela confesses to Vanessa that she's a bit disappointed. She had hoped to find him here. Hoped that he had lied to her when he said he'd sold the villa. He really loved this place, and she imagined he had been too happy here to give it up. Vanessa says she thinks it's precisely the opposite. We never go back to the places where we've been happy, it's too painful. We're more likely to go back to where we've lost everything than to where we had something. Manuela thinks her sister may be right, because she would more willingly go back to Qal'a-i-Shakhrak than to Lake Bracciano. She sits on a low wall and watches the wisp of smoke rising from the nearby islet of Thirasia. The volcano is sleeping but still alive. “You have to try and see it in a positive light,” Vanessa says. “Appreciate the good you've had, and forget the rest. That's what I always do, and trust me, it works. If he didn't love you, he would already have called you, Manuela. He won't call you because he loves you.” “He'll call me,” Manuela says. “We have to be together, we mirror each other. I'm his shadow.”

When she gets home, she uploads the photos of Imerovigli to Facebook. If Mattia visits her profile, he will know that she's gone on a pilgrimage to his past, that she has seen what he has seen and loved what he has loved. She's up to 762 friends. But Mattia Rubino is not one of them. She finds a post from Angelica Scianna, who is back from Afghanistan, an invitation to come visit her. And one Sunday in May she goes. Angelica is as blond and slim as ever. She doesn't wear the pendant with the broken heart anymore either. So much time has passed. She still has it, though, Angelica tells her, she keeps it in the breast pocket of her uniform, but only when she flies. Talismans never grow old. She gets permission from her commander to take Manuela up with her during a helicopter training exercise. She tries to scare her with tactical maneuvers and sudden nosedives, hurling them toward the earth like a bullet, brushing mountaintops, cable car wires, and power lines strung between pylons—but Manuela enjoys it, like it's a roller-coaster ride. But she no longer thinks that Angelica is living the life that should have been hers, the life that the psychiatrist at the Modena Academy stole from her so many years ago. She's not envious of Angelica's life, because she finally loves her own. She discovers that she can simply—truly—be Angelica's friend.

They walk on the deserted runway as the sun sinks into the Mediterranean and the light fades over the military airport. A fighter-bomber rolls docilely toward the hangar. Angelica's hair blows across her lips. She realizes that Manuela can't match her stride, so slows her pace. “What do you think you'll do?” she asks. “Are you going to stay in the army?” “I don't know,” Manuela answers honestly. “I'm thinking it over.” Angelica scrutinizes her, almost frightened by what Manuela might say. But Manuela keeps quiet and stares at the helicopter shimmering in the twilight. An object of almost artistic beauty. The light gun with rotating barrels is in place, but the rocket containers under the propellers and the props for the TOW antitank missiles are empty. “I've changed,” she adds after a bit. “I'm not the same person I was before, and I'll never be the same again. But I don't feel disabled. I haven't lost a leg, I've gained one, but I don't know if they'll be able to understand that.”

In June she goes back to Belluno to clear out her studio apartment. Her lease is up and she doesn't want to renew it, not knowing if she'll ever be back on active duty at the Tenth Alpini Regiment barracks. The place had been furnished by the owners, so there's almost nothing of hers other than her grandfather's military regalia, a few boxes of photographs, and her clothes. When she takes them out of the closet, they smell of mothballs.

That afternoon she goes to Mel, to see Lorenzo's mother. “I've been waiting for you, dear,” Mrs. Zandonà says familiarly, as if they already knew each other. She's a delicate woman with copper-colored hair and diaphanous skin, shriveled by grief. But hers is not a life of regrets. She teaches music to children at the public elementary school, and their colorful, surreal drawings brighten the walls of her little living room. She was the one who gave Lorenzo his first guitar. Unfortunately, she hadn't understood his music, hadn't been able to encourage him or to keep him from doubting himself. Not that it would necessarily have changed anything.

Manuela tells her everything she remembers about Lorenzo's life at Bala Bayak—Ahmad Zahir, the Afghani musician he listened to, his nickname, Nail, which she had given him, the cordon and search for Mullah Wallid, his songs, even the smell of the opium poppies and the jokes about the word
epigone
: though they didn't know the word's real meaning, when they were over there they had decided that
epigone
meant “friend”—forever. She tells her she will never forgive herself for what happened, and that she has often thought about dying, because a commander who doesn't know how to protect her men doesn't deserve to live. But knowing how to bear misfortune is a sign of wisdom, and accepting it is a skill. Living means bearing responsibility. She doesn't tell her that the last word her son spoke was
mamma
, even though that's what she would like to hear, and it might even be true. Manuela was unconscious in the helicopter while Lorenzo was dying. But she doesn't feel like inventing an exemplary death for him. Mrs. Zandonà doesn't cry, the time for tears has passed.

She goes with her to the cemetery, to see Lorenzo's tombstone, there among the Alpini heroes of the Great War. His mother asks if she thinks there's any meaning in her son's death, if it did any good. Manuela says that everything has a meaning but that's not to say it did any good, individuals don't make history, certainly not an Alpino corporal, not even the brigade general, or a minister, or the president of a country. History is something beyond the intentions and aspirations of individuals; it's more like the tide. You can be part of it, but you can't stop or guide it. Lorenzo became a minuscule grain of sand in the history of that distant country, a history that for a short time was intertwined with Italy's. And maybe the meaning lies precisely in that strange tangency of parallel worlds destined to meet only in infinity—that the life of a guitar player from Mel was joined forever to those stones, sand, and mines, to the stars of that sky, because we are all one.

Lorenzo's mother invites her to visit her again, her son admired her infinitely, respected her as his commander, and considered her a friend—she will always be welcome here at Mel. Manuela promises she'll be back, and takes off on her Honda. It's been twelve months, and she feels up to riding her motorcycle again.

*   *   *

On July 12 she goes back to Turin for her meeting with the medical evaluation board. It's hot and the city has emptied out for school vacation. Nurse Scilito greets her warmly. He seems truly surprised to see her again. “So you're still holding on?” he asks her. “I began this journey a long time ago,” Manuela says. “I'm not one to turn back. I told you I'm always moving forward.”

She descends to the dismal radiology department and undergoes all the same tests again. X-rays, orthopedic and neurological controls, CAT scan, MRI. She does not give the psychiatrist her homework. Assessing these past months, she honestly reports three or four intrusion phenomena (every time she sees blood); several flashbacks in moments of weak consciousness—at the movies, for example, or right before she falls asleep, or when she is writing; nightmares almost every night; mild insomnia; and olfactory hallucinations—sometimes she can still smell blood and burnt flesh. But she has kept her anxiety and aggression under control, and the incident on the soccer field has remained an isolated event. The madman demanded money for his three teeth and for not pressing charges, quite a bit of money, which she gave him, while the other guy, the father of the Torvaianica goalie, initially filed charges, but later withdrew them. She didn't know if he'd been pressured to do so, but she hoped not. In any case, there had been no further repercussions. Her sentimental and emotional life are full and satisfying. In short, she's gotten used to living with PTSD.

The psychiatrist tells her not to kid herself: six months earlier, the only favorable opinion regarding her return to active service had been his. Manuela is surprised, and thanks him for giving her that chance. “You were the one who had to give yourself a chance, Sergeant Paris,” the psychiatrist says, “you just needed time to realize it.” Then he stands up, shakes her hand, and wishes her good luck.

She sits on her bed, laptop on her knees, waiting for the medical evaluation board to summon her. She's surprisingly serene. Her room is on the second floor, adjacent to the one she stayed in for so many months. She can see the same magnolia tree through the window, but from a different perspective. It seems bigger and taller, and its leaves resound with chirping. Scilito knocks to let her know that her meeting with the board has been set for ten tomorrow. Manuela goes down to the communal living room to watch TV. An army engineers officer sits in an armchair watching the news. A lieutenant, about thirty years old. His head is bandaged and his arm is in a sling. The ribbon on his uniform tells her it happened in Afghanistan. He must have been repatriated recently. “Bala Bayak?” Manuela asks. “Bala Murghab,” he says.

“Did you see any action in country?” she asks. “A hundred TICs, twelve of them IDF, seven IEDs identified and neutralized, two IEDs activated, four vehicles hit, two casualties, three lightly injured, ten insurgents captured,” the lieutenant says. “We had eighty TICs,” Manuela says. “Not bad,” he concludes. “Do you ever ask yourself if we're losing the war while telling ourselves we've already won it?” Manuela wonders. The officer switches off the TV and turns to look at her. “What are you trying to say?” he asks. “I don't think I understood, I'm deaf in my right ear. I lost my eardrum in an explosion, and I'm trying to get my hearing back in my left ear.”

“It's not your ears that aren't working, Lieutenant,” Manuela replies, “it's my head. I want more than anything in the world to go back there, back to that school. To see it with my own eyes. To know that it exists, that we were the ones who built it, and that girls are learning to read and write there. But at the same time I wish that Fatimeh's son had built it. I don't know if I can explain.” “I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well,” the officer says, mortified. “It's like liquid cement is dripping into my ears, and I have severe tinnitus. I can pick up the vibrations of your words, but they're all broken up, I can't piece them together.”