My wife has decided to get together with her father. In fact, to be more
precise, she has decided to meet him, considering that the last time she
saw him was 25 years ago. A likeable fellow, right? He married a much
younger woman, had a daughter, took them to a foreign country and then,
what do you know? he's gone. Perhaps his last words were "I'm going out to
buy some cigars" (because he is not a common sort of man). I told her that
I'd go with her gladly, we'd enjoy the trip, we'd see a new city and meet
her father. After all, what did she have to worry about: she had a job, she
had everything she needed. She would only be facing an embarrassing
encounter with people she didn't know, and in any case we had the
advantage, didn't we? With the result that now I find myself here, in a
room of about 20 square meters with a dozen or so adults and twice as many
children ranging from a sleeping infant to the gloomiest of teenagers. And
all this thanks to a simple web link on line, she says. She clicked onto
the city where her father was presumably living, she searched for the site
of the local council, she typed in his name and it all came up: telephone,
address, even a map of the town and the best way to get there. And I can't
even pick up her traffic fines without a proxy statement.
It's unbelievably noisy, they all talk at once, they're all relatives she
probably never even knew existed. I can scarcely manage to tell the two
languages apart: one is a collection of nasal sounds, where the words sound
like one incredibly long drawl; the other is completely guttural, it sounds
like two or three consonants repeated in infinite varieties. I try the
tactic of using gestures - after all, people say that we Italians can
communicate with everyone. But this doesn't seem to be the case here, since
the only result is that they all fall about laughing. I'm sure I must look
like a half-wit and they're all thinking I am one. She's not doing so well
either: sitting stiff-backed on the edge of the sofa, with her legs crossed
and the leg bearing the weight moving convulsively, without giving a
moment's respite to the person next to her, that is to me. She's even put
on her glasses, something she almost never does. Meanwhile her voice and
her smile are fixed, calm, modulated to a single frequency. I'd like to
give her a hug. She'd like that too, I know. Every once in a while a
glimmer of capitulation passes over her eyes, a plea for pity, but then
they are ready to do battle anew. Because she told me that she's declared
war against everything. Against her past, her present, perhaps even the
future. A war against her skin, her lips, her hips, against her accent,
against everything she can neither hate nor love. A war that has brought
her face to face with the person who left her in a world that was not her
own, to fight by herself. My wife is a fanatic. I told her it was all a
load of crap. That a person is the way he is. Full stop. My head is full of
our repeated discussions, I'm only vaguely aware that a dozen pairs of eyes
are directed at me. An infinity of black points surrounded by white re-
immersed in black are staring at me expectantly. Now I'm the one that has a
beseeching look, then a phrase and everyone breaks out laughing. Even the
children are shaking with laughter.
Seeing all those gaping mouths, I can do nothing except pretend to be part
of it all, I smile, almost as if to excuse myself, but why? Meanwhile my
chest feels heavy and I'm having trouble breathing, I'm hot even though
it's snowing outside. I'm sweating and when I sweat I get nervous, or maybe
I sweat because I'm nervous. Whatever - I'm sweating and I'm nervous. I try
to understand what they said, but she pretends there's no problem and
translates something else instead. The air is heavy and all these bodies
close up give off a sour smell, made even worse by the fact that the heat
is turned on. I need to get outside, breath a bit of fresh air, but she's
busy chatting with someone. Now she's leaning on the arm of the sofa,
totally focused on the person she's talking to, and her leg has stopped
dancing. She's laughing, gesticulating, she's taken off her glasses. I wish
I could get away, be someplace else, someplace normal.
Now I'm in a disco. It's just a bit bigger than the room I was in before
but the situation is the same. I'm still the only white person. I'd thought
that places where only blacks went existed only in films. Who knows what
they're thinking, seeing me here. She's dancing with the others. She
gestures to me to come onto the dance-floor, but then she gives up. I twist
and turn in the armchair. I don't know how I should behave. Then I remember
her sitting on my grandmother's sofa, back in my hometown, her back stiff,
her leg moving incessantly up and down, the glasses she never took off for
three days and her calm smile. She twisted and turned. With all my
relatives around her. Who knows how much of the local dialect she couldn't
make out. The only black among whites, always. With all the eyes of the
town on her, being judged by everyone for what she looked like, at the
mercy of questions that didn't really expect any answer.
Maybe I'm seeing her for the first time: with her skin, her lips, her hips.
I hear her accent, I hear the din of her battles, I see her past, her
present. I imagine the future. She comes over to me. She says that tomorrow
it will all be over. We'll all go back where we belong.