The Sun and Other Stars (33 page)

The rest of the men are already at work, twenty or thirty of them packing everything that can be salvaged into the kitchen and the computer alcove, which still have a roof. A few men with brooms try to push the water back to the sea where it belongs, and Fede is supervising a group of lifeguards on the beach below as they shovel sand into trash bags and shuttle them up the stairs on chaises, like patients on ambulance stretchers. Around the perimeter where Martina’s wall used to be, there’s a pathetic little pile of black trash bags belching out sand.

“Etto!” Papà catches me by the arm and shouts through the rain. “You’re here! Go back to the shop and get some vacuum-pack bags.”

“What?”

“Vacuum-pack bags! The trash bags are breaking!”

It’s only as I turn to leave that I notice Martina, sitting in a chair in the corner, the same expression as Yuri’s on her face, her world eliminated in one stroke.

I run back to the shop. The water in the vico is now up to my shin, and I fight through it. I go around to the back alley, and when I open the door, there’s only a small puddle inside. My shoes squeak against the linoleum, and I circle around as the three portraits and the jersey watch calmly from the wall. I pull the pillowcase off the television and stuff it full of the biggest vacuum-pack bags we have. In an instant, I’m back outside, wading with the current down the vico.

The wind has calmed down, and the rain is falling in straight lines now, like beads strung from the clouds. The sea is a blackish-green, heavy as oil, the rain pocking its surface. Casella’s Uno is creeping along the passeggiata ahead, the brake lights blinking as he navigates the streams of water. Finally, they hold steady, and I run to catch up.

“Thanks.” I get in and slam the door, arranging my legs among the rolls of plastic and tape.

“You’ve seen Martina’s?”

“I can’t believe it.”

We drive down the passeggiata, steering around the debris, the wiper blades thumping softly. The day Mamma disappeared, Silvio and Papà stayed out on the molo with the coast guard guys. The sea was full of every sailboat, fishing boat, rowboat, and catamaran from Imperia to Savona, but Silvio wouldn’t let me help or even go out onto the molo. He did let Casella park the Uno on the passeggiata, and we sat inside, the seats cranked back, people tapping on the windows to offer us food. We spent all day and all night like this, napping and waking in a terrible twilight, time suspended, circling overhead. At around five in the morning, Silvio tapped on the window of the Uno and told us the search was over.

Casella pulls the parking brake, and half a dozen people reach for the door handles. They’ve sent out for more floodlights, and there are five ladders set up on the tiled floor, reaching into the empty sky. The rain turns to mist, and Papà somehow convinces Martina to go home and get some sleep. I join Fede’s crew, filling vacuum bags with sand and piling them against the flooded vico. Five of the young guys are up on the ladders, supervised by three times as many old guys shouting from the ground. It’s three in the morning by the time they manage to staple the plastic sheets over the opening and duct tape them together from the inside. The water in the vico has subsided, and the clouds have moved off as if they were never there, opening into a clear, starry night. I’m too revved up to go to sleep, and I remember I don’t have a bed anyway, so I end up lying on the deserted molo with Fede, Bocca, and Aristone, our damp socks and shoes peeled off and scattered.

“Cazzo, Fede, you really took charge back there.”

“Boh.”

“It’s so strange to think about,” Aristone says, “but someday we’re going to be the ones running this town.”

“So you’re coming back here after university?”

“I don’t know. What’s a language specialist going to do here?”

“You see? Better drop out now before you educate yourself right out of the region.”

“If the liceo opens back up, you could take Charon’s job.”

We all laugh.

“I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” Aristone says. “When I’m in Genoa, I want to be here. When I’m here, I want to be there.”

We’re all silent for a while, thinking this over.

“Hey, what was Signor Cavalcanti’s problem tonight?” Fede asks.

“You saw that?”

“It was hard not to.”

“He wanted to know if Guido’s gay.”

“What?”

“You know, with Nicola Nicolini.”

“Nicola Nicolini? I thought they hung out because of the deejay thing.”

“Maybe at first.”

“So you knew all along?”

“We share a wall with Nicola Nicolini,” I say.

“Guido, huh? What a shame.”

“That he’s gay?”

“That he’s in love with Nicola Nicolini. If only he’d told us, we could’ve found someone cooler for him.”

We all laugh.

Bocca boosts himself up off the ground. “Well, girls, I’m going to bed. I’m dead tired.”

“Me too,” Fede says. “You going home, Etto?”

“I don’t know. There’s no place to sleep.”

“Why?”

“The Ukrainians are there.”

“All of them?”

“Turns out Tatiana was sleeping with Vanni.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. Yuri told her she has until noon tomorrow to move out of the villa. In the meantime, they’re staying with us.”

“Do you want to come home to Mamma-Fede’s?” he asks. “Sleep on the sofa?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah.”

I watch as the three of them separate and disappear into the darkness. I lie out on the molo for a while longer, looking up at the terraces. I imagine the small villages just beyond the ridge, the meadows and foothills, the Alps and the rest of Europe. Beyond, beyond, beyond. I think about what Aristone said, about always wanting to be somewhere else, and I wonder if I could do it, if I could ever manage to leave this place for good.

*   *   *

The alarm chirps as I walk in the door, and I hear Papà’s voice come to an abrupt stop.

“Etto? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

They’re sitting in our living room, Yuri slumped in the chair, Papà on the sofa, a couple of glasses between them. They don’t look like a calcio star and a fan anymore—just two men, sitting and talking in the dark.

“Why don’t you go in my room and lie down?” Papà says.

I never go in Papà’s room anymore. It looks like a hotel, the bedspread stretched tight, nothing but the absolute essentials set out. Two lamps. An alarm clock. The dish where he sets his watch every night. As soon as I close the door, the conversation in the living room resumes. I sit down on the edge of the bed and take off my jeans. I stretch across to set my phone on the nightstand, and it’s then I see a framed photo of the four of us. I thought Papà had gotten rid of everything that had anything to do with Mamma, but there it is.

I pick it up and slip under the covers. Most of our family photos were after Luca’s matches, Luca flushed and smiling, me on the other side, sulking about being dragged to this stadium or that. But this one is of all of us on the beach. It must be right after the season because there are no chaises or umbrellas, but the sun is still strong. Late September, maybe? I have on the Dodgers shirt Mamma brought back from America the year we turned fifteen, so it must have been one of the last photos before Luca went off to the academy. In the picture, we are all squinting into the sun, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders. Just like a real family.

I
wake up in the morning clutching the photo to my chest like a defibrillator. I hear voices in the living room. One voice, actually. Yuri’s.

“I don’t care where I transfer,” he’s shouting into the phone in English. “Yes, I
know
transfer window is closing. Someone somewhere must want Ukrainian striker! You convince them . . . I don’t care! Let it be Pescara! Let it be Bari! Let it be Catania! I tell you, I don’t
care
! Only no Genoa!”

Shit. Bari? Catania? And each time he opens his mouth, it’s the name of a place even farther away.

“Everton, then! Greek leagues! Portugal! I don’t care!”

I put on my jeans and go out into the living room. There’s no sign of Papà or Zhuki. Little Yuri and Principessa are wide awake and watching a soundless Bloomberg Business while Yuri’s pacing between the coffee table and the television. He stops and runs his hand through his hair as he listens to the guy on the other end of the phone. He looks in my direction, and I raise my hand in a half wave, but there’s no flicker of recognition. His eyes are like burned-out bulbs. I don’t think he’s slept all night.

“I tell you. I. Don’t. Care. Where,” Yuri shouts into his phone. He sinks into the chair and leans his head back. He folds one arm over his eyes and sighs. “Sorry, sorry. Yes, Alfie. Yes. Yes, of course. You always take care of me. You think you can talk to him? All right, I will call this afternoon. I know. Okay. We talk then. You are good man, Alfie. You are good man. Good-bye.” He snaps the phone shut and mutters something in Ukrainian, then folds himself forward, his hands cradling his forehead. Little Yuri and Principessa are watching sullenly as two men in suits argue about the stock market in Tokyo, the graphs full of slashes.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

Yuri doesn’t say anything. Or move. I sit down on the arm of the sofa.

“Yuri?”

He mumbles something unintelligible, maybe even in Ukrainian, I don’t know.

“What did you say?”

He picks his head up. “I say, maybe I should have never left village.” And he lets his head sink down again.

I pick up the remote, put the sound on low, and switch it to the Disney Channel. The alarm downstairs chirps, and Papà appears at the top of the stairs. I expect him to look as tired as Yuri. Instead, he seems invigorated, his face ruddy, his eyes bright from the sea air.

“Have you been down to the shop?” he asks.

“Not yet.”

“We’re lucky. Only a little bit of water, and the power never went out. We only have to figure out what to do with all that food from the festa.”

“Maybe bring some up to Nonna’s today?”

“Ach. Nonno would never allow that. Especially if there are guests.”

“Guests?”

“Where else would they go?”

“What about the semifinals and finals?”

“Postponed. The field is soaked anyway. . . . Come on, Yuri. Hup, hup. I told Silvio you and I would go around and check on the old people and make sure they’re okay. No power outages or anything. Hopefully you won’t give them a heart attack when you show up at their door.”

“What about Nonna?” I ask.

“Nonno is taking her to church this morning. . . . Come on, Yuri.” He claps his hands together with the inexhaustible energy that used to annoy us when we were kids. “Let’s go. Better to be busy when these things happen. Trust me.”

Yuri rouses himself from the chair. “I will wake Zhuki.”

“Let Zhuki sleep. Etto can watch the kids.”

“I can?”

“You can.”

Papà and Yuri leave, and I make myself a coffee and stand out on the balcony, listening to
The Lion King
songs cycling through in the background. Outside, the streets look like biblical times, sand covering the passeggiata, dead fish and palm fronds lying everywhere. The tourists are stepping around the destruction in a daze, snapping pictures. I can see the crowd gathering around Martina’s even from here.

I go back in and sit down on the sofa, and Little Yuri and Principessa arrange themselves next to me.
The Lion King
is about halfway through, and Principessa starts to shift around, pressing her hands into my thigh as she rearranges herself.

“When are we going home?” Little Yuri asks.

“Probably this afternoon.”

“Is that your bedroom we were sleeping in?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you have two beds?”

“I had a brother.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s not here anymore.”

“Where did he go?”

“He died.”

“And then where did he go?”

“Where everybody goes. Heaven.” But I can already tell, I’m not selling this kid on it.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Of course I know. He’s in heaven.”

“How do you know?”

“Okay, I don’t know, all right? But it makes me feel better, and it’s a lot easier to explain to you than the alternatives.”

“So he could be anywhere, then. He could be under this sofa. He could be out in space. He could be in Ukraine.”

“When did you get so chatty?”

“What’s ‘chatty’?”

“Let’s just watch television, okay?”

Zhuki eventually comes down, and as we get the kids ready to go up to Nonna and Nonno’s, I pretend that we are a young family off to visit the grandparents. When we arrive, Yuri and Papà are already there, and Ihor and Mykola soon return from the villa to report that Tatiana and Vanni left an hour ago in Vanni’s Maserati. Nonna has made a tableful of food, and as we pass it around, Papà plays koo-koo with Principessa behind his napkin as if we get together with the Ukrainians every Sunday.

When I was a kid, I remember thinking that the universe was composed of families like ours, perfect bubbles floating around in space, and inside your family’s bubble, you developed your private jokes and your family stories. You were lucky if it lasted, but once your bubble popped, it was gone. Never once did it cross my mind that you could become a part of someone else’s bubble, or that two half bubbles could match up to make a whole. A complete whole. Since I woke up this morning, I’ve felt the presence of Mamma and Luca, not in the empty chairs or the absences, but in our togetherness. As we listen to Nonno recap the history of water trumpets in the region, or as we talk about the World Cup next year, or watch Little Yuri and Principessa run around the yard, Mamma and Luca are here as sure as we all are.

How do I know, you ask?

I don’t.

The afternoon stretches, and we drink our digestivos in the yard under the lemon tree. The air is hot and humid, but the branches shade us from the sun, and the leaves help generate a light breeze.

“What kind of tree is this anyway?” Zhuki asks.

“Lemon.”

“Why are there no lemons?”

“Ach,” Nonno says. “It is the fault of the man who owned this villa before us. He never cleaned or trimmed his land, only left it dirty year after year.”

Yuri has been near-catatonic for the entire afternoon, the conversation ricocheting around him. But now he leans back in his chair, squinting and frowning at the branches as if this is the very first tree in the world, the one that led to his demise.

“I’ve tried everything,” Nonno continues, “but once a tree is barren for so long, there is nothing you can do. It simply forgets how to grow.” And Nonno starts listing all the measures he has taken to try to bring life back to the tree.

I’ve heard it a million times before, but I listen politely, and it’s only out of the corner of my eye that I see Yuri reach his arm up in slow motion, like a Sky Sport replay, up, up into the mess of branches, unfurling his fingers into the shiny leaves.

“What are those?” Yuri says.

“Where?” Nonno stands up and examines the tree, and sure enough, there’s a small cluster of pale-purple buds. And do you know how when you see something once, you get the pattern in your eye and you start to see it all over? That’s exactly what happens, and soon, all of us are out of our chairs, examining every branch of the tree.

“Right there.”

“And there.”

“Over here.”

“Here’s one.”

Nonno is as excited as I’ve seen him for any match. “Maradona! Maradona! Lemons! Lemons!”

Zhuki beams, lifting our Principessa up to see, our Little Yuri holding on to her pocket as he gazes up and waits his turn.

Pescara is not so far.

Bari is not so far.

Everton, even, is not so far.