Andrea Canobbio - The Natural Disorder of Things

“I knew you would notice it,” Rossi said. “It’s not easy to overlook it.”

He explained that this was one of Alfredo’s many prophetic visions. Thirty years ago, Renal had thought that our country could no longer hope for peace. It would be best to divide it up, but it had to be done on a profound level; secession wasn’t enough. We would have to give up our sovereignty and have other countries teach us good government, because we weren’t able to develop it by ourselves. Thus the North was to be annexed by Switzerland, creating five or six more Swiss cantons, which would be a good deal for the Helvetic Confederation too. Central Italy would be given back to the pope to deal with. And the South could choose to form a federation with the Arab states of Tunisia and Libya, or go back to the Bourbons to make a Mediterranean monarchy, maybe a tax haven, like a gigantic Principality of Monaco. It wouldn’t be a downsizing or layoff: actually, everybody stood to gain a lot. The North in particular, if it accepted management by the Swiss, would finally learn the secrets of good public administration. And later generations would only benefit from this new culture, acquired — as it were — for free.

“It sounds like a crazy idea,” Rossi said. “But, after all, something like it is happening right now. We’re giving up our sovereignty to Europe, to America — we’re the ward of other governments.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know about politics,” I said.

“Yes, I know,” he said unexpectedly. “Actually, there was a different reason why I asked you to come up here with me.”

He gestured to a little red sofa, and I sat down.

“I’m very worried about my wife,” he said.

I nodded without showing any curiosity, as if we were talking about a natural event (I’m very worried about the hail) or a topic in the news (I’m very worried about juvenile delinquency).

“As you can imagine, in my condition I can’t keep an eye on her.” He smiled sadly. “I don’t know where she goes, who she goes with; I’m afraid she gets herself into trouble.” A square of sunlight was sliding up his lifeless legs; he smoothed the wrinkles in his thin blanket as if he wanted to brush away the light. “Look, I know perfectly well she has every right to have a life of her own, she’s not obliged to spend her days with an invalid, but that’s not what worries me.” There was no telephone in the room, no computer, no fax machine or radio. Only papers and books, and old photos hanging on the wall. “I don’t know who she spends time with, and in my position I can’t even have a private investigator tail her; you understand, yes?”

I nodded again. The door we had come in through was still half open.

We sat in silence. Rossi looked at his hands lying inert in his lap.

“I have to get back to my men,” I said after a bit. “Today I took too long a lunch break.” I stood up. “I envy you, working in such a peaceful study.”

This time he was the one who nodded.

BY NOW I WAS SPENDING MY EVENINGS AND WHOLE STRETCHES OF THE NIGHT AT MYtable developing new ideas for the garden of the villa and sketching them out; what little Rossi had said that evening, almost a month earlier, had taken root inside me and grown and matured and produced a twilit — or nighttime — vision of shapes picked out of the gloom by a light sweeping across them, then quickly swallowed by darkness; the idea was a closed garden, with no eyes looking outward, soft and fluid, changeable, restless; a garden that was as warm and sweet as a dream but not suffocating, with a dream’s deafening silence; and so I had to forget the park, and the house, and that wasn’t easy. Especially in the mornings, as I shaped the entrance to the garden with Witold and Jan, I couldn’t tear my mind away from the topography of the house, where I had figured out which room was Elisabetta’s; I imagined her waking up when we had already been at work for two hours, I imagined her in the shower, then in her bathrobe, then dressing (I imagined the shape of her bra clasp and her swift, automatic gesture as she hooked it shut, her spine arching). If I heard the distant sound of her Ka driving off, I would calm down somewhat and go back to concentrating on the seven aluminum channels that were to reflect the lamb’s ear foliage, and that would serve as the membranes, the gills for penetrating the garden.

At the beginning of May, I got two phone calls from my brother. The first time Carlo asked for more details about the location of “the Renal estate”; he wanted to know the people’s exact names, and he made me repeat them twice, and he said, “Are you sure?” about every piece of information I gave him; without actually doubting my words, he gave me the impression that something didn’t quite add up. I was disconcerted by his call because I had absolutely no recollection of having talked to him about any of it. I knew I had meant to ask him, but I didn’t remember when I had done so. So I couldn’t even say what I’d asked him; in the course of some other conversation, I’d probably asked whether he knew someone named Alfredo Renal. But the name had stuck in his mind, and piqued his curiosity — which in itself made me happy: I had managed to distract him.

A week later he called me again and reported what he had found out.

“So: these Renals you know are the ones that run the Renal Foundation, right?”

“Right.”

“So why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

“Because you didn’t ask.”

“So Alfredo Renal is the famous Alfredo Renal—”

“I didn’t know who he was.”

“You don’t know anyone. But tell me now: did you ever see him?”

“No, he’s dead.”

“Exactly. Couldn’t you have told me that?”

“It didn’t occur to me. Why is he famous?”

“Because he was a professional philanthropist.” He sighed. “Have you seen his picture?”

“Yes.”

I wait for a comment that doesn’t come.

“And the money?” I ask.

“The money?”

“Why was he so rich?”

“Patents, chemical stuff. Flavorings and scents.”

He stops. Then, after a moment, he starts again. “Did you know that philanthropy isn’t the only thing they do?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you do an Internet search for ‘Renal Foundation,’ you get dozens of associations, conferences, and periodicals that thank the foundation for its sponsorships and donations …”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Wrong? There’s nothing wrong with it. But if you look more closely, you can see what their politics are.”

Silence.

“Did you expect them to be bankrolling the global revolution?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m not the one working with these people. These people make me sick .”

“Don’t get angry.”

“For you it’s a job, but to me it’s pure shit .”

“Well, at least it’s ‘pure.’”

“Because now the pope himself is getting involved …”

“Pardon me?”

“The pope has given his blessing to Andreotti.”

“What does that have to do with the Renals?”

“Completely coincidentally, he blessed Andreotti two days after a magistrate requested life in prison for the guy.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Let’s say an investigative journalist was bothering Andreotti—”

“No, wait, we were talking about the Renals—”

“If you don’t understand this story, you can’t understand the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?”

“You ought to read the papers every now and then. Do you know there’s a war going on?”

“Yeah, I know, but what does Andreotti have to do with the Renals?”