Andrea Canobbio - Three Light-Years

The idea bloomed in the car like an overpowering perfume (the aftershave or cologne patients doused themselves with before coming to the ER). Too big a car, like the bed she’d left an hour and a half ago without getting back to sleep, a double bed of a car. All the cars moving in a row from one traffic light to another were extensions of beds. People at the wheel or sitting on a bus or waiting to cross the street, their eyes sleepy or worried or absorbed, but she especially noticed the eyes that were irritable, grumpy, like those of children dragged out of bed.

If she had the morning shift she left before the children, who were then taken to school by the housekeeper or their grandmother. It was better for her to go and pick them up, later on; picking them up was the hardest part. The main hitch after school was Michela with her numerous social engagements: there was always a friend to invite or another friend’s invitation already accepted, arrangements made with complete disregard for the needs of others.

But before picking the kids up at school, at lunch she would see the shy internist. Who was in love with her. That’s what she called him to herself, the shy internist, while in public she called him Viberti. At the hospital everyone spoke in familiar terms, but doctors were addressed by their last names, nurses by their first. For patients first and last names were reversed: Santi Luciano, Rocca Vincenza. Hierarchies. Every now and then, in her own mind, she called him “my sweetheart.” She wasn’t one hundred percent sure he was in love with her. He was shy so he hid it. There was an eighty percent chance he was, or was ready to fall in love at the first sign of encouragement from her. Encouragement that she intentionally didn’t offer, nor did he ask for any. He was content to see her at lunch, and that was hard to understand. A man of forty.

In the early days, when Mattia was hospitalized, the internist couldn’t hide his joy at seeing her. Joy, excitement, whatever it was, he was awkward and content. He was extremely happy to see her and didn’t hide it; either he couldn’t hide it or he didn’t want to. About a month, more or less, after their first meeting, something happened, he’d become more cautious. Someone had told him that Luca had come back home. That same someone might have told him that they’d separated again, this time for good. But he hadn’t pressured her recently, on the contrary. Should he have? What did she expect from him?

If she expected him to court her more insistently, she should maybe think again, she was likely to be disappointed. Let’s suppose that’s what she expected. And let’s suppose he was merely a decent man, concerned about the child and consequently about the mother, a childless man who had never been interested in children, but who now kept asking about Mattia as if deep down he’d adopted him. Or maybe he was so partial to the table behind the column that he didn’t want to give it up at any cost and that’s why he continued to show up for lunch with her. Just maybe.

There was an eighty percent chance he was in love with her, but a twenty percent chance that he was fond of the child or the table in the café, whereas she needed to feel desired. In that case it was possible that she needed to be courted and needed to lay herself open to the mute adoration of someone, anyone, like a statue of the Madonna. And it was possible that the realization that Luca no longer desired her (she realized it, somewhat surprised, each time he came to pick up or drop off the children) wasn’t at all as liberating as she told herself it was.

The trees along the avenues were sprouting tender little green leaves that didn’t yet hide the skeleton of the branches, young trees all skin and bones. She liked the shy internist. Yes, he was a nice man. Nose and mouth were nothing special. But the eyes fooled her. They seemed sad, the sad eyes of a dejected dog. Then all of a sudden they stared at her and they were arresting, full of passion. Serious, committed passion; not a game. A sad dog who could look at you intensely. Making promises that maybe he couldn’t keep. Completely different from Luca, or completely different from how Luca was with her. Luca was convinced he had a situation under control, even when he didn’t. The internist was so insecure that she often felt like hugging him or patting him encouragingly on the shoulder. So let’s suppose she needed to be loved by a man who was insecure. For how long would the insecure man continue to love her in silence, content with her Virgin Mary — like apparitions in the dim café?

She found a parking space. She headed for the ER. An insecure man, in love with her, wouldn’t impose conditions on his love. Was that what she was thinking? For example: if she were to tell him the entire story, just as it had happened, he wouldn’t think badly of her. Was that what she wanted? Fortunately as soon as she entered the hospital she wouldn’t be able to keep thinking; six hours of respite lay before her like a vacation.

* * *

The beach seemed bigger, but it was the same as always: white and gray pebbles and darker gravel along the shoreline, a handful of black, shiny rocks on one side and in the center the rusty iron frame of a small pier whose blue wooden planks were still missing. The summer crowd hadn’t arrived yet, and there were no rows of umbrellas and lounge chairs to regulate the distribution of families and groups of friends; Mattia had noticed it immediately. It was a long holiday weekend: April 25, Liberation Day, gorgeous weather, the water extremely cold though some were already trying to swim. After months spent cooped up in stuffy rooms with artificial lighting, the brightness and fresh air were overwhelming, all that sky seemed to crush you.

Sitting a few yards from shore, Cecilia and her mother were exchanging remarks in a slow-motion dialogue, while the children had run off down the beach to play. After a moment Mattia had come back excited and out of breath and said, “There are no umbrellas, there are no chairs.” They started laughing. “No, there aren’t.” An excellent opportunity to steer the conversation onto less problematic terrain, to talk about the child without talking about his problems. They hadn’t been to the shore at this time of year in three years and he couldn’t remember the beach being deserted. “How sweet, he thought it stayed the same all year.” “He’s intelligent, that boy, he notices things, and he knows his multiplication tables so well, Michela couldn’t recite them that well.” It didn’t take a great deal of intelligence to notice that there were no umbrellas, but the conversation seemed to have set out on the right track.

However, regardless of the starting point, the stations along the way always led in the same direction: Mattia’s intelligence, Michela’s likability, Michela’s temperament, Michela’s similarity to Aunt Silvia, Silvia’s being alone, Silvia’s work problems, Silvia’s problems in general, Silvia will never marry. A coworker of Silvia’s had called the house a couple of times; Silvia got angry because he was a pain in the neck. Then, one day when they were on the bus with the children, her mother had noticed a young man looking at Silvia. That’s just what we need, she thought, someone “normal.”

Cecilia laughed. “Since when do you notice men who look at her? Did you do that with me, too?”

When she felt like she was being made fun of, her mother didn’t return her smile. “You always had very discreet admirers, I didn’t notice them.”

“Tell me, did you notice boys watching us even when we were little girls?”

She didn’t smile. “You always played with respectable children.”

That is, as long as they’d been under her jurisdiction. Cecilia laughed but didn’t feel like pushing it. She wanted to feel good, and to feel good she had to make her mother feel good. “Do you also notice when men look at you?”