Andrea Canobbio - The Natural Disorder of Things

When I first went into the store, Martino was helping a young customer, a boy of about eight or nine who was transfixed by the movement of the stationer’s hands. The old accountant seemed to be expecting me, because all he did was raise his bushy white brows and murmur, “Be with you in a moment.” And the moment was lying there on the counter between us, beneath the trembling fingers trying to count out ten sheets from a ream of drawing paper and sell them to the boy. The task was to make time implode, to divide it into infinity, to make it collapse in on itself, because halting time would also halt the progress of his illness. “Ciao, Martino,” I said, the way I had as a kid — I’d never shifted into formality with him, never stopped using the familiar tu —and he smiled.

He took me on a tour of the shop, shelf by shelf: the stationery — pens and notebooks and manila folders and drawing paper — and the toys — stuffed animals and toy cars and board games and children’s books. It was the logical next step from his old office: here the tools of his trade finally revealed their playful side, showing that I had guessed right when I was a child: they did actually belong to the same category of merchandise.

Then he went behind the counter again, with his small, dragging steps, and gestured for me to follow him. He opened a drawer beneath the cash register. There was an automatic pistol inside. He didn’t pick it up, but he pointed to it and explained, “I’m ready for anything that might happen; and it’s all legal, see?” He showed me his gun permit. I wondered how they could give a permit to someone whose hands trembled so badly.

At that point I began to talk to him about Conti; I had read that he was in trouble, that there was an investigation, and talk of usury. I just assumed that he knew and remembered; and indeed he did know and he did remember. He looked at me fearfully, and shook his head without speaking.

“Do you remember this man Conti? Did you ever meet him?”

He had never seen him; he knew that my father had asked around for money and then filed away some documents about the money he got, but Martino had never had the courage to speak his mind.

“What do you mean, ‘the courage’?”

“I was afraid of your father, you know?”

My picture of Martino the accountant — serious and self-sufficient, master of his office and independent of the factory owner — crumbled to bits. And I got a clearer picture of my father, so strong and proud in his silence, so much so that he struck fear into his workmen and other employees. (But not his wife? But not his children?)

Martino hadn’t had the courage to tell my father that there was nothing to be done, that it would be better to sell right away, without getting into debt with those people. He was just an accountant, but he had heard plenty of stories of entrepreneurs ruined by loan sharks, stories that in those days were merely whispered in the café and the piazza, as if they were sex scandals.

Then Martino’s face lit up with a sweet, disarming, childish smile. “But why dwell on these ugly memories? Come, I’ll show you something.”

He took me into the back and rolled a tall library ladder along the shelves, then told me to climb up and pull down an expanding file: “The one at the end isn’t for sale; I keep newspaper clippings in there.” The ladder creaked under my weight.

We laid the file on a table, and out popped a complete press kit on Claudio Fratta, garden designer — interviews, articles, portrait photos. “My niece brings them to me — you know, the one who works at the magazine.” I nodded, even though I remembered nothing about her.

I said, “Do you remember when I used to come around and bother you in your office?”

He went on leafing through the clippings and looking at the photos of my gardens, his teary eyes hidden beneath the little canopy of his eyebrows.

Maybe it was that visit to Martino that got me started following Conti. I didn’t even know why I was doing it. I didn’t achieve anything by it — I just followed him and spied on him from a distance, as he went about what were probably the most innocent of activities. In the morning he left his house and went to the bar for a cappuccino. He went to the office. He drove around in his car. He made short trips to the towns within a twenty-mile radius. In the evening he sometimes went out with a woman. They didn’t live together. He did one funny thing that made me smile: he never turned away the gypsies or Romanian panhandlers who approached him at stoplights, and he always bought something from the Moroccan vendors.

I don’t think I learned anything about him by following him, and I wasn’t even able to figure out for certain whether he was indeed the same Conti. I wanted to follow him. I didn’t get any particular pleasure from it; I didn’t feel I was holding his life in my hands. I didn’t have any plan or idea — not even vague prospects — and I wasn’t daydreaming about what might happen. But when it happened, when I saw him die, I realized that I had wished for it and that wishing could still work: all you had to do was be ready for it.

Carlo came at nine, and I offered him the couscous I’d prepared, but he didn’t want any; he merely said, “Let’s not waste time.”

I said there wasn’t any hurry, I had to talk to him about Fabio first.

He sighed. “Claudio, if you’ve decided to go crazy too, then it’s all over. Don’t you realize that you’re the only solid element in my life? You can’t get delirious on me.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Don’t worry, this isn’t delirium. There are just some things you need to know about before I tell you some other things.”

He gave in and dropped into his armchair. He opened his hands and gestured for me to begin.

I asked him if he remembered exactly how Fabio had died.

He closed his eyes for five seconds and then opened them up again. “Yes, I remember.”

I told him we could have saved him.

He stared at me for so long that I had to look down. “It’s nobody’s fault,” he said. “There are some kids who live through it and others who don’t. It’s not your fault.”

I told him he didn’t understand. Fabio had OD’d that night, but we could have saved him; all we had to do was take him to the hospital.

“Listen,” he responded. “I’m sorry we never talked about it. I thought a million times about asking you how you felt, asking you whether you still thought about him. But there’s no point going over it again now. It wasn’t your fault. If you’d known he was in danger, you would have done everything possible. Just as you always did.”

Again I said that he didn’t understand. Papa and I had waited up all night for Fabio to die.

Carlo leaps from the armchair. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!” he rages. “Don’t give me that bullshit — would you please not give me that bullshit? It wasn’t your fault! He was a junkie, get it?” He’s shouting at me.

“Okay, okay,” I mutter. I reach out to get him to sit back down. “Okay. I wanted you to know.”

“There’s nothing to know,” he says, sitting back down.

We’re silent for a while.

“Do you want to eat something?”

He buries his face in his hands. “God, Claudio, I beg you — tell me why you made me come. Don’t drive me crazy.”

I tell him that I found the two loan sharks who bankrupted our father.

He springs up again. “I knew it, I knew it,” he repeats, pacing up and down. “I knew that had something to do with it.” He shakes his head. He waves his arms around. I’ve made him angry.

He stops short. “Give me something strong.”

I pull two mini bottles of Schweppes from the fridge and get the blue gin bottle. Carlo isn’t used to drinking. He asks how much gin he should put in. I pour in more than he will be able to handle. He takes a big gulp, as if it’s just mineral water. After a few more trips up and down the living room, he sits in his chair again.