When the Night (3 page)

Mario prepared the formula in the kitchen. He took a few days off work. He wanted to help me, like my mother. I could hear them whisper, so I left the baby in the crib and crept closer.

“Better prepare a bottle. She doesn’t have any milk, like me. I knew it right off the bat, as soon as I saw the shape of her breasts. I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want her to be disappointed. But then I thought—well, she’s a brunette, and brunettes have more milk. That was my hope. But there’s no use insisting.”

My elder sister has fair hair, but she had milk, so much that she kept it in the fridge and took it to the hospital to feed the premature babies. How can you explain that,
Mamma
, since you know everything?

I wanted to go into the kitchen and tell them: “Take the baby and give him the bottle. Tomorrow I’ll start taking the pills to make the milk go away, the milk that never came. That way my breasts will return to their normal size.”

I could hear Mario’s voice. “Let her try a little longer. It’s important, don’t you think? For her to bond with the baby.”

What bond? To me the baby was still inside of me. We were both in a far-off place, unreachable. They didn’t know anything.

Mario spoke to me calmly; he was afraid of postpartum depression. They gave me anesthesia, and I didn’t feel any pain. My aunt said that childbirth doesn’t count that way; she suffered for twenty-five hours straight and then they had to extract the baby with forceps.
That’s
labor. I listened to them and came to the conclusion that since I had not gone through a real labor, it must not be postpartum depression that made me cry every day.

I’ll never be able to manage, I thought over and over. The certainty of this made me cry. I couldn’t tell my mother or Mario. They were too invested in me. It would have been particularly hard on Mario. My mother had my sisters to worry about, luckily; they all had children with no difficulty at all. It was like drinking water to them.

Mario had only one brother, married to a woman who could do anything. It was important to him that I do things right; for a man, it’s like knowing he picked the right woman.

I tried to talk to one of my sisters, who’s only one year older than me.

“I’ll never manage.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s simple with newborns. They sleep, then you feed them, change them, and take them out for a stroll. Just wait till he’s two and can’t hold still for a minute!”

I HAVEN’T SLEPT in two years, since he was born and I worried he would never wake up. Now he sits up in his crib at four in the morning and never stops moving. My sister was right.

Mountain villages are depressing at night; the windows are small, there’s no light, and no one is out. But the apartment is comfortable and well furnished. In a few days there will be a town fair, maybe I can wear a dress and take the baby down to the piazza. He’ll run around and touch everything, but at least we’ll have some company for once.

Mario will come at the end of the month and we’ll go to the beach, on the island where I’ve been going since I was a child. What is a month? Thirty days, thirty nights. I’ll survive. I didn’t breast-feed, but I’ve taken good care of him for two years. He’s a beautiful boy, everyone says so, just a little bit on the thin side and high-strung.

THE PEDIATRICIAN INTIMIDATES me. He’s a good doctor—my sisters chose him after much consideration—and he will be good for me as well. He advocates for the child, defends his interests. He doesn’t trust me; I’m neurotic, and I don’t do the best for his patient. My heart beats hard every time we go for a checkup. I can’t answer all his questions, and
the baby cries and doesn’t want to be touched. As usual, he hasn’t grown enough. The doctor asks me if I’m calm, what I feed him, and how often I take him outside. I’d like to punch him, knock off his glasses, and bite his hand, but I answer sweetly, “He’s a bit anxious in the evenings, and he has trouble sleeping. He wakes up often during the night and then at six in the morning.”

The doctor speaks without looking at me. I’m the last person on earth, a lost cause. “It’s all connected to the bond with the mother during pregnancy and the first few months, during breast-feeding.”

That word “bond” again. Don’t they have another word?

I can no longer think about myself without him. I want to protect him from the world, but sometimes I’m ashamed of both of us. He barely speaks. He says
Mamma
,
Papà
, and he has trouble pronouncing words. Only I can understand him, that’s why I can’t leave him with anyone. And when he starts to cry, there’s no stopping him. Mario is afraid of his crying, especially when he’s driving.

I try to control my mind. I can’t let myself focus on his crying; it’s like music played out of key, boring into your brain. Sometimes it stops suddenly, but don’t be fooled: he’s just drawing breath so he can cry some more. I talk to him.

“Don’t cry, my darling. Come on, don’t cry. Stop crying. Why are you crying? Everything is all right.”

He climbs up on me and yells into my ear, squeezing my neck. My heart beats wildly. He takes a breath and continues. What is the cause of this terrible sadness? What have I done wrong?

“Stop that, stop that. Everybody’s watching, can’t you see?”

I’d like to cover his mouth, but then he would cry even more. I have to focus and not let myself be drawn in by his wails. I have to think about something else, squeeze my fists, caress him, console him, until he stops. Silence. I put him down, I breathe, it’s over.

NOW I KNOW what to do. I just have to avoid making him cry, be organized, plan ahead, distract him, cook his food and talk to him, play with him, read to him, tell him stories and be patient. Mario sounds calm on the phone. He knows I’ve learned how to manage, and that I no longer fall apart as I did at the beginning. In October I’ll start working half-time, and the baby will go to day care.

I’d like to sleep for ten hours straight, as I used to on the island.

In our bunk beds, my sisters and I would tell each other about our evenings. Parties, boys, dances. I was the best dancer and I fell in love the most. We laughed, and the sound of the sea floated in through the window. The same sea that brought in the shells we kept in a glass bottle. If you opened it, you could smell the stench of death. The crabs in their spiral shells, too scared to come out, were trapped inside.

My sisters are there now, with my mother and their children. My baby doesn’t like the sea, it makes him anxious. Why is he so different? The doctor said, “Take him to the mountains for a month.”

I have to go to bed, otherwise tomorrow at dawn it will be terrible. I’ll open the window just a crack, so we don’t end up
like those crabs. It’s so quiet here in the valley, and the lights are already out in all the other houses. But the light downstairs is still on. The landlord lives there. He’s a mountain guide; I wonder how old he is? Forty, maybe younger, but his face is already covered in deep wrinkles. He lives alone but there are two kids’ bikes in the entryway. He goes out early in the morning. He speaks with a German accent, like everyone in the town.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

He spits out the words, without even a glance at the boy, and shuts the door with a bang. From the window, I can see him return in the evening.

This evening I could smell steak and potatoes being cooked downstairs. His light is on. I wonder what he does at night? I don’t hear a television, or any other sound. I should ask the girl at the bakery in town.

Good night, mountains, my hour of freedom has ended.

M
ANFRED’S FATHER GUSTAV used to run the lodge up at the mountain pass. Now Albert, the eldest, runs the lodge. They’re all crazy.”

“Shhhh, speak softly, or else the baby will wake up and I’ll have to go.”

The girl at the bakery peers at the stroller.

“Can he breathe with that sheet over his face?”

“He can’t sleep with the light in his eyes. Why do you say they’re crazy?”

The girl wipes the gleaming counter energetically.

“The three boys grew up at the lodge without their mother. In the winter, they drove down to school in a snowcat. Their father would drop them off at the base of the gondola and in the evening he came back to pick them up. He never wanted to settle down with another woman and he never remarried.”

“Did his wife die?”

“She ran off to America with a tourist who came to do some mountain climbing. The American stayed for a week; at night he used to play cards with Gustav.”

“Goodness …”

“No one knows what happened. There are lots of stories. Some people think that the American was rich, but my mother says that the lodge was a good business and his wife never wanted for anything. He gave property to each of his sons. Other people say that she was going crazy up there with him and took advantage of the first opportunity to get out. And some people say that Gustav caught them together and they were forced to run away. Everyone has a theory, but no one really knows.”

“She left her three children behind?”

“Yes. She never saw them again, and in America she started a new family.”

I move the sheet a little bit, so he can breathe more easily.

“What was she like?”

“I can’t remember. My mother says she was beautiful, tall, with dark hair. She did everything. Gustav hid all the pictures of her. There were pictures on the walls at the lodge, with her three boys. Everyone was shocked that she left them behind. Manfred wasn’t even ten years old. They all went to school together. He was a sweet boy. He didn’t say much, like now. I felt sorry for him. The three brothers were always together; they never made friends, and after school they went back up to the lodge.”

“He never married?”

“Who, Manfred? The funny thing is, the same happened to him!”

“His wife left him for someone else?”

“No one knows, but she left. She took the kids with her. People say the Sane boys drive away their wives. Bianca is the only one who’s still here. Stefan, the brother who runs the ski rental shop, isn’t married, but he has broken up with so many women that no one in the area will go out with him, even though he’s handsome and good in bed.” She laughs and asks, “Do you want a
krapfen
for your little boy?”

“Yes, thank you. If you wrap it up for me I can give it to him for his afternoon snack.”

She takes it from the case and goes on: “Luna, Manfred’s wife, left out of the blue. Something happened between them, and she ended up at the hospital. The police questioned Manfred.”

“He hit her?”

“Who knows? Manfred is crazy. He would only buy one pair of shoes for the kids—one for the winter and one for the summer. No television, and everyone in bed by nine. Who can live like that?”

“He’s a loner.”

“A loner? Once he came in here and I asked him, ‘How are you, Manfred?’ And he answered, ‘I’m in heaven. No wife, no kids.’ That’s what those Sane boys are like.”

I pay for the
krapfen
. Best to leave before he wakes up.

“Could you please hold the door so I can get through with the stroller?”

ANOTHER HALF HOUR of walking, trying hard not to jolt the stroller, and then he’ll eat without fussing.

What a strange story! The tall, dark-haired mother had probably been unhappy with her husband for a long time. Maybe she was afraid of him or she didn’t like him anymore, but she didn’t have the courage to leave him. She faked it for years; children fill your days, and then they grow up. What do you do when you don’t get along with your husband anymore?

This hill is tiring, and so long! Here we are, we made it. The landlord’s car isn’t there. I’ll leave the boy in his stroller in the entryway so he can sleep. No one ever comes up here anyway. That way I’ll have time to cook his lunch. I can see from the window if he wakes up, and after all, he’s strapped in. I can always run down and get him. I’ll cover his face, so the light doesn’t bother him.

I’ve already cooked the vegetable broth, with a little pasta and chicken. He doesn’t like it, he spits it up, but the pediatrician insists that it’s good for him.

“He has to get used to eating everything, and to chewing. No more mush, he’s too old for that.”

I’d like to see him feed my baby.

I open the curtain and look out. The sheet over the stroller is perfectly still. If he sleeps long enough for me to prepare the pasta, then I can change him and I don’t have to do two or three things at once, and he won’t cry because I’m not holding him. While the broth warms up I’ll pee; I can never go when he’s around. Just one more peek out of the window.

Still sleeping. He’ll be in a good mood when it’s time to eat.

What a beautiful day! People in town say that it will rain again in a few days. Let’s hope not. What will we do if it rains? We’ll be stuck inside.

Think of that poor woman up at the lodge! The winters must have been especially hard. All alone, with three small children. Why do women put themselves in these situations? Then the American came. Maybe he liked to listen to jazz; better than alpine music. She imagined herself standing on a beach with him at sunset, with a cocktail in her hand, like a movie star. Dancing, making love, day after day. Who can blame her?