Excerpt: The Distances

Seventeen

The nights grow cold but the days remain warm, reluctant as the last leaves in the turning trees to abandon summer.  Seasons are the land's way of travel.  Wandering moods of sunshine and overcast, restless breezes smelling of rain, storms that carry over the horizon leaves from another town, spiraling them in the piazzas.  
     One day it's snowing, the next it's warm enough to go shirtless in the yard.  The bouyant air colored with the odors of Fall, rich as compost, silvery as the steaming backs of livestock in their stalls, sweet as smoke from the burn piles curdling the sky.
Then a storm passes through and rinses everything cool again.  Golden poplars above the muddy fields, vivid grass along the roads.  Rosehip petals floating in a swollen ditch.  Under turning skies the land strides forward, impetuous, half naked or in a new gown, urging us to do the same, to move while there's still time, to travel, discard, color, abandon, to put one foot in front of the other before winter seizes the roads.


I follow the frozen edge of the field as far as it will go before crossing to the copse.  The chilly night has furred the trees white with tiny crystals on their branches.  I reach the trees and lean on one, my breath puffing the air.  The animals are fed, I've had my coffee, there's nothing to do for half an hour before Sarah and Greta are up.  I wait, watching as sunlight threads through the morning fog, draws it back, sparkles across the exposed countryside.  
The trees center me.  My hand on a trunk, I feel how they reach down into the earth and branch up into the present.  They offer a calm hub at the center of the spinning continent.  A perch from which to watch the cars riding small and quiet on the highway for Mestre or Trieste, the trains darting for Portoguaro, Milano, Paris, Berlin, beneath a sky lashed with jet exhaust.  Here I'm free of all that, the squandered kind of travel, the dismal commutes, the webworks of schedule and deadline, career and expectation.  Here I'm content, with the feeling of reading an old book, not needing to go or do anything else but turn these pages, study the leaf shapes, watch for migrating birds.  A romantic feeling that the past is still with us, held sturdily in the rings of trees that remember the open country, how it went on and on and will again.
I push through branches and wander into the copse.  There's one big tree, a linden, that I never forget.  At its base I peal back frozen leaves and dig down only a few inches before I knock the top of a metal box.  Brushing it clean, prying open the corroded hinges, I find everything is still inside.  Four thick stacks of lire wrapped tightly in plastic bags.  Bread bags from the Eighties, white crumbs in their folds.  I almost laugh to see them.  But I don't laugh.  I touch the brittle surface, needing only to know the money is there, waiting for when I'll need it most.  


The sun pitches light across the black rows of fields glinting with frost.  With that light I hurry back to the house.  In our room, I strip down and wash at the corner sink, scrubbing with a clothe under my arms, washing my neck and face.  Sarah moves around me to get to the toilet.  I didn't hear her come in last night.  She smells of wine and cigarette smoke from her shift waiting tables; she smells like someone else.
"What time is your appointment?" she asks.
"Ten.  But I'm meeting Jimmy first."
"Your ambassador."
"My consiglieri.  We're both ambassadors to you."  I pinch her: "So be on your best behavior."
I put on clean pants and a sport coat of Stefano's that comes short on my wrists, then go to the kitchen.  Clara is stirring polenta on the stove.  I take a pear from the basket, and remind her that I'm using the car.
"Buona fortuna," she says, accepting a kiss on her cheek.
When I return to our room, Greta is jumping on the bed.  Singing and bouncing, left unattended, she's kicked the pillows to the floor, one of them pressed dangerously close to the radiator valve.
"Where's mommy?"
She points to the door.
"Vieni," I lift her to my hip.  "C'e polenta for breakfast."
"Yummy, polenta!"
I leave her happy and hungry with Clara, then look for Sarah on my way to the car.  Coming around the house, I see her standing outside of Fabrizio's door.  A winter coat draped over her shoulders, she's explaining something to him as he blinks sleepily.  He reaches for the open coat, perhaps to kindly button it closed, perhaps to calm her expressive hand.  I can't be sure what I see from across the drive.  He leans toward her as she speaks, his lips nearly touch her ear.  Then nothing more.  They hold still as a deer that's heard a twig snap.
I open the car door, they look my way.  I watch for any over-correction, any sign.
"Good luck," Sarah calls in a high, encouraging voice.
"Non ti basta mai," shouts Fabrizio.


The old Peugeot wobbles past the last farmhouse and onto the banked highway for San Dona.  At an opening in traffic I punch it, the engine bogs, and cars back up behind me.  But after half a kilometer we're moving at pace, past a roadside cafe, a mall of various shops, a mercato biologico and a clothing store.  Mist rises off the fields, farmhouses gleam like seashells in the skimming light. His hand moves inside her coat, feels the curve of her hip beneath the satin nightgown.  Above hidden canals tendrils of fog spin upward in the sun.  Have I put her through so much?  Does she deserve this, or have I brought it on myself?  A feather of affection to balance the scales.
I crank up the heater and open the window to the chilly air.  The sky is a metallic blue, chipped by cirrus clouds to the north.  When the cold finally comes, like a pruning knife cutting away the faded colors of the country, we must be ready for it.  We must bundle tight to us what is most precious.  We must go into winter like stepping from a hot bath, with enough heat in our hearts that we crave the cold.  We must want our breath to catch in our chest.


In San Dona I find Jimmy at the Cafe d'Or, sitting alone with a newspaper and a cup of coffee in front of him.  He looks untroubled, freshly-shaved, cavalier.  I don't know if unusual his condition should worry or relieve me.  He snaps the newspaper against the table, beckons me to sit down.
"Have coffee," he says.  "There's time.”
"We should get going."
"They working you too hard at Casa Vignotto?  Don't worry, it'll go through."
I sit down.  The waitress brings me an espresso.  Jimmy slaps the rolled newspaper against his palm.  "Your boy Bush is fucking everything."
"Tell me about it."
"He's matta.  He's a philanderer."
"A philanderer?"
“Yes, a philanderer.  A man who ruins things for enjoyment.  Here, we separate god from pleasure.  We find they don' mix so well.  But in America, god ruins the fun for everybody."
He sips his coffee, pausing for my retort.  I check the time on his phone.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing.  I'm just anxious to go."
"Then we go."
From the piazza we walk to Via Ferriera, where we come to the Affiliato di San Dona d' Piave, a minimalist building of white marble, a Fascist monument to speed and potency, though I doubt we'll get anything of the sort.  We take the stairs to the second level, go into a waiting room, and introduce ourselves to the official sitting behind glass.  He looks over my documentation.  He's a thin man with a mole on his cheek and a delicate severity to his movements.  He bends back the pages of my Italian passport, glances up at me.  After some consideration, he steps to a file cabinet and returns with a form which he slides under the glass arch.
"Fill it completely," he says.
We sit at one of the oak benches along the hall and do the paperwork.  A dozen other men, dark-skinned, north Africans, stand about or sit crouched over their cell phones.  A young pair chatter and chuckle in Swahili as though nobody else is around, their free, unabashed voices echoing through the stark hall, making light of a lightless vault.
When I return the finished forms to the receptionist, he tells me to sit down again.
"But we have an appointment at ten."
"Si."
"It's almost eleven."
"You must wait as everyone else."
I look back at the others, at Jimmy vigilant for any misstep.
"Why aren't they being seen?"
"Sit down."
"Why are we all waiting and not being seen?"
Jimmy hurries over.  He stoops and speaks through the perforated glass in a formal Italian I can’t possibly follow.  Finally the official raises his chin, nods ascension, and says nothing more.
"We go to lunch," Jimmy announces loudly.  “The kind official will hold our place.”
We walk back to the piazza.  The air is warm enough to take a table outside.  The waitress brings us Compari spritzes.  The piazza and its narrow side streets are busy with people hurrying home or into the cafes for lunch, cutting through the cool sunshine.  Men who had worn sweaters to work now drape them from their necks as capes.
"Two days ago it snowed, and now this."
"Yeah."
"Don't worry," says Jimmy.  "The bastard must squeeze the balls, to feel he is doing his job.  It's like opera.  If you don' cry a little, it was no good."
The waitress brings small dishes of antepasta.  We order another round of spritzes and a bottle of Barbera for the main course.
"Medicine for the balls," says Jimmy, lifting his sparkling drink.
"You know this guy Fabrizio, staying at Clara’s?"
"The architect?  What about him?"
"I think there's something between him and Sarah."
"It's not possible.  This is what's troubling you?  Fabri with the woman's lips?"
"He flirts with her.  I think they were about to kiss this morning."
"Think?"
"I'm not sure what I saw."
"And so what?"
"So what if he kissed my wife?”
"Surely he flirts with her.  He’s Italian, and she's a beautiful woman in Italia."
"I don't like it."
"At least you have a woman to be crazy about.  So it makes her happy to flirt, what the hell?  If she hides the flirting, then you can worry."
The waitress brings bowls of minestrone, then opens the Barbera.  She's tall and light-haired, attractive: as she corks the wine Jimmy watches her with the pleasure of anticipating something fine. Next she brings out plates of bisteka, thin cuts of beef browned in olive oil and rosemary.  We eat quietly.  Jimmy pours more wine and concentrates on his steak, turning each cut in the golden oil.
"We had bisteka that night, waiting for Claudio."
"Bisteka?"  Jimmy shakes his head.  "No.  It was pastasciuto.  I remember it getting cold in the bowl."
"I couldn't eat anything."
"You and Clara arrived late.  You should have been hungry," he smiles suggestively.  "But we were too worried to eat.  Then we fell asleep on the couch."
"Is that what you told the police?"
"It was true enough then, so it's true enough now."
I push up my lips dubiously.
"You prefer the rest of the story?  What does it matter now, Miki?  Or is there something else?"
"You know what I did."
"I know what you told Clara and me."
"I went back to the house.  My nonni were asleep.  I cleared out everything the police might look for."
"And brought it back to us."
"Right.  For us to divide up like thieves."
"We were protecting him."
"When we could've been looking for him."
"We did what he told us to do.  Though I have to say, it seemed a little small to me."
"It's what I found."
"Certo," he nods, not from conviction, but from a certain acceptance made long ago with himself. We've had nearly twenty years to make peace with any inconsistencies in our story.  Losing that peace wouldn't help anyone.
"Thanks to you," he taps his fork to his plate, "because of your bravery, there was nothing else to find."
"Bravery?"
"Imagine your poor nonni.  Losing Claudio, and then the fucking police turning the house upside down.  You did good, Miki, you saved them from even more pain.  You kept things simple.  You allowed them to believe their son wasn't so guilty after all.  And not-so-guilty, over time, becomes innocent in the heart of a parent."
"And in the heart of the not-so-guilty?"
"Simple helps him too."
"Simple as Claudio lying in a field for days."
"Miki, basta."
"We should've been looking for him."
"To find him shot three times?  We didn't even know where."
"We knew enough to look."
"We knew enough to keep our heads down, like he told us."
"I knew where they met."
"Come on, Miki."
"The same field every time.  Claudio figured it was good luck."
"He never told me where.  Why would he tell you?"
"He didn't.  But I knew.  Clara took me there once."
"Clara?  And how did she know?"
"It's where they went to . . . be alone.  The field north of the winemakers, where the old woman found his necklace."
"You still have it?"
"Yes."
He nods, considering the matter.
"And why did Clara take you there?  Also to be alone?"
"You want to keep things simple?"
He laughs, he puts down his fork and leans forward on the table.
"It is simple.  It's why the necklace came back to you.  What, you think I didn't know you were fucking Clara.  I could see.  It didn't bother me then, and it doesn't now.  We were all a bit guilty and a bit innocent, Miki.  He didn't treat her the best, let's say.  He didn't give her all she deserved.  And if Claudio were here now, I'm sure he'd be happy to know you loved each other."
"We didn't love each other."
"No?  Why not?  We were young, it was natural to be in love with everything.  Even the pretty girlfriend of your uncle, who you admired.  Even the fantasy of getting rich and moving to America.  Even of becoming a star like Marlin Brando in the movies.  That's the luxury of getting older, Miki.  You can forgive yourself the silly ideas of your youth."
"You wanted to be an actor?"
"Funny, no?  So instead I moved to Amsterdam to put on a show for tourists."
He shakes his head, then empties the wine bottle into our glasses.
"You're not laughing, Miki.  Our talk goes up, it's time to laugh, but then you go down again."
"Why did you come over to Clara's the other night?"
"What?  To say hello, of course."
"You cut out before saying hello."
"Che te ne frega, Miki?  I thought we were having a nice lunch."
His eyes close, smothering a spark of anger.  He isn't a violent man.  Cynical at worst, he inclines toward a humorous view of life.  Life that should give him no more trouble than it's given weight to his dreams.
"Certo," he grins.  "You're back and it's fresh for you.  But why dig this up, Miki?  We have our families now, our lives.  It's in the earth now.  And I think if you stay in Ceggia, it's better you leave it alone.  Drink more wine, make another bimba with your beautiful wife, enjoy the life.  Because if you stay like this, who will you hurt?  Your nonni?  Clara?  Yourself?"
"I won't hurt myself."
"No?  You're too strong for that?  Strong like your nonno?  Like Claudio?"  
He sips his wine.  Tired of our talk, he watches the piazza.  The streets have grown quiet, the stores have drawn down their metal grates.  Even the white paving stones look sleepy in the wintry sun.  A bell tower tolls two o'clock.
"We ate pastasciuto that night," he says.  "The best I ever made.  Then we waited together, and prayed for his return."


At the Affilitato everything went smoothly, nearly without a hitch.  We waited half an hour before a man in a navy blue suit lead us to his office, shook our hands and congratulated me on bringing my family back to Italia.  My mother was Italian and I was Italian and my daughter who carried the Vicenzo name was Italian and Italia would always welcome home her children.  As for my wife, there was another form required.  It would arrive in the mail and after obtaining a stamp of registration from our Commune we were to return it to the Affilitato in person, both to confirm our photographs in their file, and for the opportunity for him to meet my dear wife and daughter.  I was not to neglect this last directive.  He was proud of us, as if we were his own, and he apologized for the required verification of our marriage certificate, a mere formality, he was sure, as everything would certainly go through.