The Other Language (40 page)

After the art show the corporate lawyer—his name was Matt—took her to dinner at an expensive Italian restaurant and after the first glass of wine they switched to English. They both relaxed and became their true selves now that they didn’t have to speak like five-year-olds in simplified Italian. Back in full control of the language, he made witty remarks about the artist and the people at the opening. He wasn’t wearing a suit like the ones she always saw him in, but jeans and an untucked checked flannel shirt. They both ordered linguine with shrimp and asparagus, and he said it was a relief to eat with someone who wasn’t just going to have a salad with dressing on the side, and that he liked the way Italian women seemed to worry less about eating, drinking and smoking than their American counterparts. She took the cue and they both went outside for a cigarette after dessert. She told him she was writing a book called
The Italian System
. He momentarily switched back to Italian and asked, “
Cosa parla il libro?
” She corrected him: “
Di cosa parla il libro?” Of
what does the book talk about? They both agreed that it was funny the way, in Italian, a book “talked” about itself. Matt walked her home and as he said goodbye he told her his firm had done legal work for a publishing company some time ago and he could talk to some people about her idea if she wished.

Matt the lawyer never came back to her with news from the publishing company. Actually, after their date at the art show, he disappeared and there were no more lunches at the coffee shop. She didn’t care. She didn’t even bother to spend any time worrying about what might have gone wrong, whether he had found her dull or, worse, delusional. She had more important things to think about now than flirting with a corporate lawyer. These days on the train to work she listened to audiobooks. She liked the isolation that shielded her from the rest of the commuters. She avidly listened to the writers’ prose with a different, more intimate attention, no longer merely as a reader, more like someone intent on stealing technique. She singled out adjectives and phrases and rushed to scribble them down in her notebook; random words ended up in her net like tiny prey that she meant to free at home, once in front of the computer. She was busy, she had a mission to complete.

Did you know that in Italian there is no word for wilderness? The only possible way to translate it is
“natura,”
even though nature can be peaceful, tamed, a pastoral dream. From time immemorial—due to its shape and history—very little of the territory of Italy has remained unpopulated, uncultivated, undomesticated. During Augustus’s reign, Rome already had a population of one million people, the whole country was a maze of paved roads that connected north to south, east to west, that went over mountains and rivers. Everyone was connected; ours has always been an unthreatening, user-friendly landscape. A small country, as lovely in its details as a miniature. We had no tundra, no black forest, no savanna, no desert, no endless plains or prairies to cross or wade through. We had palaces, libraries, theaters, spas, aqueducts, silks and jewels, people bought food at the market during the same era that—in most parts of the planet—men still had to go hunting in the woods with bows and arrows to get their dinner
.

How has this lack of wilderness affected us? It has given us an innate friendliness, an open heart, and maybe a lesser talent for extreme adventures. The Italian System is a mix of civilized demeanor, and domesticity, coupled with the spontaneity deriving from our connection to the natural (we are not the hunters of the world, we are the happy foragers!) with its secret ingredient: lightness. Yes, we are a deeply superficial people. And by deeply I mean that our lightness has complexity and layers
. La leggerezza,
as we call it, is the necessary quality to execute the flawless dive, the effortless pirouette. The nature of anything truly enchanting has to be as light as a whiff of air
.

During the summer holidays she flew to Rome to visit her mother. As soon as she got off the plane the first thing that greeted her on the A91 were gigantic billboards of naked women advertising all kinds of things that didn’t require nudity—a luxury handbag, a hardware store, a double-dark-chocolate ice cream. From the taxi, once in the city, she noticed cracks in the asphalt, where wild grass had sprouted and bloomed, potholes and cigarette butts strewn on the pavement. At the traffic lights she spotted several men in shorts and baseball hats, riding their mopeds. Some were middle-aged and wore slackened tank tops, which showed drooping shoulders and flabby underarms. Most of the women on the streets had a flat, opaque, orangey tan, the kind that can be acquired only in a salon. Their slutty tops and boa constrictor jeans had nothing of the elegance and formality she had conjured up in her notes. The taxi driver kept the radio full blast on a local station where a rowdy and drunken group of males were having an argument about a football match. The sulking driver pretended not to hear when she asked if he could please lower the volume because she needed to use her cell phone. He swore without restraint for two
solid minutes when a driver swerved unexpectedly in front of him. He overcharged her.

When her mother heard she was on her way home from the airport she was caught by surprise.

“You are here already? Oh my God, I’m still in my nightgown!” she said.

“It’s almost noon, Mamma! How come you’re not ready yet? I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

“I know, I know, but it’s Sunday, and I’ve been taking things slowly on a Sunday.”

She heard her mother rummaging somewhere, the sound of drawers opening and closing.

“
Santo Cielo!
” her mother said, in a frantic tone. “I have only frozen peas in the fridge. I totally forgot to shop for food last night. I could put together a pea omelette for lunch, though. Would you be happy with that?”

Lately her mother had become forgetful, and the smallest change of plan confused her.

“A pea omelette? I never heard of it,” she said. “I think we should go out to eat and celebrate instead. I have so much to tell you.”

The corner restaurant had changed owners and now was serving only fixed-price meals for tourists. Since they were sitting outside in the sun her mother had insisted on wearing a straw hat and a strange pair of polyester workout pants with a stripe down the legs, an article of clothing she’d never seen her mother in before. The waiter, after taking a look at the old lady’s outfit, had addressed them in English.

“We are Italian! We are from around the corner!” she said, glaring at him with reproach.

She had a soggy plate of microwaved lasagne but decided to contain her resentment. When they were finished eating she raised her glass of Pinot Grigio.

“Mamma, we need to make a toast. I have something very important to tell you.”

Her mother raised her Diet Coke. Apparently she was no longer drinking any wine.

“Did you find somebody, over there?” her mother asked, hopeful.

“No. It’s much better than that. I’ve got a publisher. A big one.”

“A publisher?”

“Yes, for the book I told you about, the one that I’ve been writing all year? They love the idea. They’ve given me a pretty nice advance.”

Her mother’s eyes lost their focus for a moment. Then she came back and smiled.

“That’s wonderful,
tesoro
. I am so happy for you.”

They touched glasses and each took a small sip.

“It’s like a manual. How to become an Italian sort of thing. My editor says it has a lot of commercial potential. She loves the title.”

Her mother seemed lost in thought again. She said, “I feel like having something sweet. How about you?”

She nodded distractedly. “The book is called
The Italian System
, Mamma. What do you think?”

“
The Italian System
?” the mother asked while engrossed in the dessert menu. She closed it and stared at her with the blank expression she wore when she wasn’t really listening.

“Yes.
Il Sistema Italiano
. Don’t you think it would work?”

“Do we have a system? I never knew we had one, actually.”

Before she could say anything her mother raised her hand toward the waiter.

“The ginger-basil-walnut ice cream sounds very tempting.”

It didn’t matter that everything looked different. Maybe it had always been this way, a sort of uglier version of what she had recalled. But this is exactly what matters, she thought: it’s the imprint that makes us who we are, no matter the land we’re born to, or on what soil we walk.

“I’ll have the same,” she said.

Quantum Theory

I

Most probably Sonia’s phone was lying somewhere in the gully amid the debris and the shards of glass; therefore she hadn’t been able to contact anybody yet. Being incommunicado had actually been an advantage, allowing her a stretch of time, which she badly needed in order to adjust to the new scenario. Ever since the previous afternoon, when the stranger had appeared in her rearview mirror on the side of the road, an unexpected stillness had descended upon her, as though every familiar aspect of her life had suddenly come to a halt. This unusual pause, despite the equatorial heat, had a likeness to snow falling and padded footfalls. All that had seemed so pressing till then—the background buzz of her anxiety, the phone calls and e-mails that needed to be attended to, plus the heat, the headache, the mild sense of frustration that had been following her around like a sniffing dog for days—had dissipated, leaving only a vast, immaculate expanse in front of her. It was as though suddenly a curtain had lifted on an endless space that unrolled into the future. A promise.

They had been feeling quite jittery because of the proximity of their bodies in the front seat. As the car lurched and bounced on
the rocky track, their hips, thighs and shoulders had kept making contact. She remembered how one moment there was music—something good, though she couldn’t remember the name of the band—and the next came a deafening bang. It was like a sudden explosion, which, hours later, still rang in her ears. What followed was a suspension that seemed to stretch forever, during which Sonia had time to realize that the car’s wheels were no longer on the ground, that they were actually falling off the parapet of the bridge, and that those seconds might be the last of her life. There was no room for fear, since the surprise that she should be dying like that, and moreover that she would be dying in the company of a stranger, was so overwhelming. Possibly because of all the vodka she had drunk, the only thought that had flashed through her mind during the car’s slow-motioned flight was that their lives must have always been entangled and were clearly meant to end together. The thought seemed beautiful and somehow pure. Then, as they tumbled down the ravine and rolled over, she heard branches snapping and breaking. What followed was an eerie silence, except for the crickets that went on undisturbed through the clear night. The headlights illuminated a thick cloud of reddish dust that gently fluttered above, and slowly descended, giving the scene the aspect of a science fiction film, in which an alien spaceship lands in a clearing of a forest. The engine stopped, the headlights died, everything went quiet. The sequence of events had its own rhythm and beauty. The music, the bang, the silence, then just the crickets.