— Right. Exactly, the idiot says, relieved. The return of hope must have reactivated his blood circulation, since he seems to have regained some color. So I quickly move to throw him back off guard.
— Unfortunately, however, it’s turned out badly for you, I add, you know why?
— No, why?
— Because I hear voices.
— What?
— Naturally, I’m a schizophrenic.
— Excuse me, what does that mean?
— You don’t know what a schizophrenic is?
— No.
— Ignorant too, besides being a jerk.
He wipes his dripping forehead with his hand. When he puts his palm back on the steering wheel, it leaves greasy marks.
— Well, let’s simply say that I have a sick mind.
— Oh, holy Virgin, the imbecile says, as hope once more abandons him.
— So, I continue, if the voices I hear give me an order, I have to obey, you see how it works?
He thinks it over a bit, the poor devil.
— And you... can’t you talk to them, to these voices?
— Talk to the voices? That’s a good one.
— Why? Can’t you try?
— No, of course you can’t talk to the voices.
— I see a lot of people in the streets talking to themselves.
— Those people are not schizophrenics. And even if I could, what am I supposed to say to the voices?
— What you told me before about how it isn’t worth it to shoot me. I mean, there’s no reason to shoot morons.
— In other words, you want me to put in a good word for you.
— Right.
I consider this. And I think that I can indeed pretend to give him a shred of hope.
— So you think that if I tell them, I can convince them?
— Yes! Yes! Definitely! In fact, I’m sure you can!
— Could be. Maybe you’re right. Wait, I’ll give it a try.
I wrinkle my forehead, squeeze the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger, forcing myself to appear as absorbed as possible. Out of the corner of my eye I see the imbecile watching me in the little mirror, full of expectation. I let the operation go on until I see the sign for the exit Campo Nomadi, a local gypsy camp.
What fucking luck, I think.
I come out of my trance. I open my eyes.
— I’m really very sorry, Marcè, I tell him with a heavy voice, but your request was turned down.
— What do you mean, turned down? Why was it turned down?
— I don’t know why. It’s a surprise that they even answered me. That’s never happened before. In a certain sense I’m grateful to you, I didn’t know I could do it.
He turns around. He looks at me, desperate. We’re about to swerve again.
— Do you mind watching the road, dickhead? I scold him, even raising my voice a little, I must admit.
— Sorry.
— Don’t worry about it. Drive, go on.
— Please, officer, don’t hurt me, I got a family.
I put a hand on his shoulder.
— No way, Marcè. I have to shoot you in the ear, they tell me.
He instinctively covers the part in question with his right hand, and begins crying like a baby.
— Hey, look, I can shoot you in the ear even through your hand, you know. It doesn’t change much.
But I don’t know if he even hears me, he’s so disconsolate.
— Take this exit, go on, I tell him, indicating the gypsy camp, I’ll shoot you there.
He obeys, with a kind of resignation to the awful day he’s having.
I tell him to drive to a particularly squalid area with some really ugly trailers.
— Get out, go ahead.
He complies. He is still crying, though less than before.
From their ratholes on wheels, a couple of gypsies are watching us like hyenas hoping for prey.
I get out too. I make him walk two or three yards from the car, then I tell him to turn around. Though it is a rotten thing to do, I let a few seconds go by.
I take his place behind the wheel. I close the car door.
The sound makes him turn around.
— Hey, Marcè, I say loudly, do you have your wallet?
He pats his back pockets.
— Y-yeah, he answers automatically.
— Did you hear that? I shout in the direction of the gypsies, who have just stepped out of their shitty vans. — He has his wallet on him, this guy!
Marcello looks at me in shock. He probably hasn’t understood a damn thing, demented as he is from everything that’s happening to him.
I start the car.
I pass alongside him.
He looks at me, incapable of any reaction.
— And now they’re your problem, I say, tossing my head back toward the gypsies who are beginning to approach.
Then I drive off.
In the rearview mirror, I see the hyenas starting to circle.
The two have already become four.
Roman Holidays
by Enrico Franceschini
Translated by Ann Goldstein
Villa Borghese
Settled at a table in a café, I check my watch: It’s still early for our appointment, but I’m already anticipating her arrival. I like to stretch out the tension, up until the moment I see her, suddenly, in the crowd, head high, with that unmistakable gait, which distinguishes her, and, I would say, elevates her above all others. Today, however, I know in advance how I’m going to spend the time that separates me from the first glance, the first furtive kiss, the first thrilling moment of the day we’ll spend together. I’ve brought a notebook with me, here to the café, a small book with a black binding, held shut by an elastic band: a handsome object with uncut pages, whose first lines I am filling with an old pen. Now I’ve taken a break, ordered a beer, lit a cigarette. What could be better, on a warm spring afternoon, than to sit in a café in the heart of Rome, have a sip of cold beer, take a drag on a cigarette, and prepare to write about the woman you love, knowing that in a couple of hours you’ll see her?
My name is Jack Galiardo, I’m fifty years old, I’m an American citizen of Italian ancestry: My grandparents emigrated to New York in the early part of the twentieth century — they came from the countryside right around here. I’m a lawyer, a criminal defense lawyer, and I have a professional bias toward writing: When I accept a new case, after studying the details I need to slowly construct the line of reasoning that I’ll use to defend my client, and the only way to do so effectively is to take notes, otherwise I can’t think. Cogito, ergo sum. Paraphrasing Descartes, I could say: I write, therefore I think. It’s valid here, too, at the café table, although the case I have to think about now is my own.
Two years ago, I was sitting on a plane next to a woman, an Italian. I was going to Rome to meet a witness who might be useful in a trial. She was returning to Italy from a short working trip to the United States. The flights from America to Europe generally arrive at dawn, so the majority of the passengers try to sleep; but that night the two of us weren’t tired and we got to know each other. I had recently begun to study Italian, drawn by a sudden curiosity about the land of my forebears, which had never much interested me as a boy; so the conversation unfolded mainly in her language. After a couple of drinks and the initial chitchat, I revealed something about myself: that I had been married and divorced twice, had two children already in college, two houses, one in New York and one in Florida, two cars. “Two of everything,” she commented, laughing. Then she told me that she was a journalist, that she was married, and that her husband was also a lawyer, in Rome; unlike me, he was not a criminal lawyer but, rather, worked in commercial law. They had three children, two boys and a girl, the last still small. Giulia — that was the name of my traveling companion — must have been forty, but she looked at least ten years younger. I soon discovered that she loved to talk: She did almost all the talking, jumping from one subject to another, telling endless anecdotes, little stories, situations — quite entertaining, I think. I can’t be sure, because after a while I had trouble following her, given my limited knowledge of Italian. But the sound of what she said, the tone of her voice, the rippling laughs with which she punctuated her speech fascinated me. I would have liked her never to stop.