100 Days of Happiness by Fausto Brizzi Page A

worry about later.
    Then come the other questions.
    Among those, the one that matters most to me is: how?
    How will I die?
    Will I know what’s happening?
    Will I suffer?
    Will it be agonizing?
    It is only in that instant that it dawns on me that the word
agony
is even more unpleasant than the much-maligned word
death
.
    I don’t know why this whole nightmare is happening to me, but I do know that I need to know how long I have.
    I make another appointment to see the oncologist, for whom by now I feel a childish hatred, as if he’d popped the beach ball I was playing with in the waves. At the same time I decide not to wait to know how long. I can no longer keep this to myself. I must talk with Paola.
    â€œMeet me near the school,” I tell her, keeping my voice casual, cool. “I have something to tell you.”
    She parks her car. She has not seen me yet. I watch her as she picks up her bag, presses the automatic lock. She is wearing a light blue dress, which brings out the blond highlights in her hair, the green flecks in her eyes. I see, as if for the first time, her long determined stride as she begin walking toward me. I go to her. She is vivid and beautiful, and I feel a sharp pang of pain. How will I tell her? What words will best express it? In the end, I decide to keep it very simple, no gilding of the lily required. We stand by her Renault Twingo, which is parked by a broken streetlight. It flickers intermittently as I find the courage to speak the words.
    â€œI have liver cancer,” I say, “and it’s metastasized to my lungs.”
    At first she narrows her eyes and just looks at me. I don’t know how to interpret her look. It’s as if she thinks I’m joking, or trying to get her to forgive me sooner than she’s ready to. She stares at me as I steadily gaze back at her. I’m no actor, she knows that. If anyone has that gift in our family, it’s her. Finally, she lets out a long sigh. She has decided to believe me. “That fortune-teller you took me to all those years ago, remember? She didn’t really know her stuff, did she, when she promised us a long and happy married life?”
    I grimace. How the past has a way of coming back to haunt you when you’re least expecting it.
    â€œWhen did you find out?”
    I tell her what I know in short, terse sentences. “Ten days ago. I’ve done every possible exam and analysis. Unfortunately, there is no margin for error.”
    The warrior woman I married decides to take an active role in my affairs. She decides to bury the hatchet then and there and go with me to see the oncologist. Even though it’s quite clear that her gesture is neither an attempt at rekindling our love nor an act of forgiveness, I feel wildly optimistic. I wonder whether it’s pity, or horror, or some other such ultimately negative emotion that’s inspiring her actions. She has a look of sympathy on her face, which is confirmed when sheasks me to come back home to sleep. I hesitate. This isn’t the way I wanted to be welcomed back to the family. Paola guesses what I’m thinking and makes it clear that she definitely hasn’t forgotten what happened. “Don’t start getting any ideas,” she says. Love, as I thought, is a long way away. With those few words, she lets me know that the only reason she’s letting me come back home is that I’m sick. There’s no forgiveness either, for the moment. A truce of sorts is the best way to look at it, where I am home but not reinstated. I must earn back her love. Once I have that, forgiveness will come.
    I vow to learn, to understand. She will need to be healthy for us all now, especially for our children.
    Paola holds my hand while the obnoxious oncologist leaves no room for optimism. He studies my CAT scan and the results of my blood test and decrees: “Signor Battistini, your neoplasm is one of the most aggressive types and,