calls of seagulls chasing one another. It’s like suddenly being in another world, but all this happens by chance, because you don’t really know where you are, you’re just lost again. It’s a happy silence, though, not like the one now.
I’m listening to the silence when suddenly my periaudio picks up a signal: a shuffle of footsteps behind the door. Waves of blood crash in my head, whipping up a storm. I listen some more: There’s someone moving around. I hear a creak like when Mama gets out of bed and scrapes her feet on the ground in search of her slippers, which is like the flapping of a moth caught inside a lampshade.
It can’t be true. I hope so much that it is true. I hope with all my might that it’s Mama, Mama who’s finally decided to get up and return to us. Like the people who remember their entire past life a moment before they die, in a second I see the rest of my life to come, now that we’re about to go back to living. Like when I heard a friendly, cracking voice booming from the apartment next door and hoped it wasn’t our neighbor but someone much nearer, the nearest kind of neighbor, one who sings in the shower or while shaving, sings love songs or opera for Mama but also for me.
I listen again.
The noises become clearer. I make out two voices, voices of people I don’t know. The neighbor who loved opera moved away two years ago.
I pray to Mama for it to be true, but it’s not true.
The noises aren’t coming from Mama’s room. There’s someone muttering behind the front door.
I don’t even have time to think before I hear someone ringing the doorbell.
Once, twice.
Who could it be at this hour? How did they get into the building? How’d they find me out? I’ve been silent as a mouse the whole time.
I hold my breath as I put my eye to the peephole, as slowly as I can, like a burglar in reverse, one who’s afraid of being discovered living in his own apartment.
I see two decrepit old women, all bundled up against the cold. Blue starts to meow.
“We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses. Is anyone home?”
“No, it’s just a cat. Let’s go.”
3
T oday Antonella has a ponytail.
And a hair clip shaped like a ladybug. If a ladybug lands on you, it’s a sign of good luck. I’d like to be older, to be able to go to the movies with her alone, to sit in the back row and give her a kiss. Usually when I think of something impossible, it distracts me, and then everything goes back to normal: peace, amen.
But today’s different.
It’s like with a toothache. If it goes away for five minutes it seems like you never had it at all. But then the pain yanks you back, and it seems like all you have is teeth, like you’re just one giant tooth and you can’t think of anything else. You become your tooth; nothing else is important to you. You’d like to have dentures and put them in a glass on the bedside table like Grandpa did. The dentures smile all on their own and you don’t have to think about it anymore. You don’t even have to try.
It’s like the rain, the kind of rain that gives you no hope it’ll ever stop.
The trees have disappeared in some kind of fuzzy mist. They’re plane trees, the kind that drivers smash into.
Chubby Broccolo is looking out the window too.
Chubby is great, but never ask him for a bite of his sandwich.
Chubby’s real name is Francesco, but only the grown-ups call him Francesco, when they have to tell him off.
Mama says that obese children will have millions of problems when they grow up. I’m not obese, but I have millions of problems right now.
I think I’m fairly good-looking, because everyone says so.
“You’re the spitting image of your mother.”
Davide asks me if I’ll go to the movies with him that afternoon.
“It’s Elisabetta’s birthday, so we’re all going to the movies.”
“I’d like to. I’ll call you after lunch.”
“Will your mother let you?”
“I think I can convince her.”
“I’ll tell my mother to call
I’m listening to the silence when suddenly my periaudio picks up a signal: a shuffle of footsteps behind the door. Waves of blood crash in my head, whipping up a storm. I listen some more: There’s someone moving around. I hear a creak like when Mama gets out of bed and scrapes her feet on the ground in search of her slippers, which is like the flapping of a moth caught inside a lampshade.
It can’t be true. I hope so much that it is true. I hope with all my might that it’s Mama, Mama who’s finally decided to get up and return to us. Like the people who remember their entire past life a moment before they die, in a second I see the rest of my life to come, now that we’re about to go back to living. Like when I heard a friendly, cracking voice booming from the apartment next door and hoped it wasn’t our neighbor but someone much nearer, the nearest kind of neighbor, one who sings in the shower or while shaving, sings love songs or opera for Mama but also for me.
I listen again.
The noises become clearer. I make out two voices, voices of people I don’t know. The neighbor who loved opera moved away two years ago.
I pray to Mama for it to be true, but it’s not true.
The noises aren’t coming from Mama’s room. There’s someone muttering behind the front door.
I don’t even have time to think before I hear someone ringing the doorbell.
Once, twice.
Who could it be at this hour? How did they get into the building? How’d they find me out? I’ve been silent as a mouse the whole time.
I hold my breath as I put my eye to the peephole, as slowly as I can, like a burglar in reverse, one who’s afraid of being discovered living in his own apartment.
I see two decrepit old women, all bundled up against the cold. Blue starts to meow.
“We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses. Is anyone home?”
“No, it’s just a cat. Let’s go.”
3
T oday Antonella has a ponytail.
And a hair clip shaped like a ladybug. If a ladybug lands on you, it’s a sign of good luck. I’d like to be older, to be able to go to the movies with her alone, to sit in the back row and give her a kiss. Usually when I think of something impossible, it distracts me, and then everything goes back to normal: peace, amen.
But today’s different.
It’s like with a toothache. If it goes away for five minutes it seems like you never had it at all. But then the pain yanks you back, and it seems like all you have is teeth, like you’re just one giant tooth and you can’t think of anything else. You become your tooth; nothing else is important to you. You’d like to have dentures and put them in a glass on the bedside table like Grandpa did. The dentures smile all on their own and you don’t have to think about it anymore. You don’t even have to try.
It’s like the rain, the kind of rain that gives you no hope it’ll ever stop.
The trees have disappeared in some kind of fuzzy mist. They’re plane trees, the kind that drivers smash into.
Chubby Broccolo is looking out the window too.
Chubby is great, but never ask him for a bite of his sandwich.
Chubby’s real name is Francesco, but only the grown-ups call him Francesco, when they have to tell him off.
Mama says that obese children will have millions of problems when they grow up. I’m not obese, but I have millions of problems right now.
I think I’m fairly good-looking, because everyone says so.
“You’re the spitting image of your mother.”
Davide asks me if I’ll go to the movies with him that afternoon.
“It’s Elisabetta’s birthday, so we’re all going to the movies.”
“I’d like to. I’ll call you after lunch.”
“Will your mother let you?”
“I think I can convince her.”
“I’ll tell my mother to call
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