At our daytime events in Barolo, in Em’s onstage interview and in mine, we were asked if The Lesbians’ Children was autobiographical. “It’s a mixed bag,” Em said.
“The autobiography part isn’t what matters,” I began, before I got bogged down in all the amalgams. The fictional lesbian couple was based on an amalgam of my mom and Molly, but also of Em and Nora. The first-person narrator, the gay daughter, was what Em meant by a mixed bag. The gay daughter was definitely an amalgam of Em and Nora. “I suppose I’m the model for the straight younger brother—his tendency to be the last to get what’s going on sounds like me,” I told the interviewers. This usually got a laugh, at least from Em; even the Nora look-alikes were warming up to me, but not the older women with the nooses. Those women would never like me.
Our next-to-last morning at the Albergo, Em and I distinctly heard a hee-haw from Matthew’s bedroom; he had the room next to ours. Our next-to-last night in Barolo, we were invited to a party at the palace of the marchese of Barolo—the handsome twenty-three-year-old was the heir to the Barolo winery. We liked him.
“The marchese looks gorgeous but doomed,” Em told me.
“Are you thinking of someone else?” I asked her.
“A young JFK Jr.—before the plane crash, kiddo,” Em said.
From the terrace of the palace, we overlooked the town of Barolo—we could see the throng that had gathered at the biggest outdoor stage, and could hear the music from the rock band on the loudspeakers. Matthew was singing along with Thirty Seconds to Mars—the Leto brothers’ band was the one onstage. There was an older Italian woman who was coming on to Matthew, but he just kept singing.
“Those guys aren’t Pink Floyd,” the older Italian woman was saying about the band.
“No, they aren’t,” Matthew said. That was when the waiter with the tray—a huge tray with many bowls of olives—collided with one of the palm trees on the terrace.
It could have been “The Kill” or “This Is War”—I don’t remember which of their songs Thirty Seconds to Mars was playing—when the partygoers started stepping on the olives. When you step on olives with pits, they feel like live beetles. Matthew said later he was sure he was singing along with “A Beautiful Lie” when the older Italian woman started screaming about the beetles. We were walking on beetles, she wanted everyone to know—in English, and in Italian.
Em said later she was saved by the olives underfoot. In truth, the irrational dread of walking on beetles was what rescued Em from a conversation that had gotten her all riled up. Giuseppe, a pushy journalist, was pursuing the same question he’d asked us at our onstage interviews; he hadn’t liked our earlier answers. The politics in our novels could be considered anti-American, Giuseppe had told us. Why wouldn’t we admit we were “political refugees from the U.S.”—wasn’t that why we were living in Canada? Em had reminded Giuseppe that we’d moved to Toronto before Donald Trump was a Republican candidate; we’d begun the immigration process when Obama was president, and we loved Obama.
“It was a personal decision, to go back to where I was born—politics was only part of my decision,” Em had already told Giuseppe. “And he only thinks about politics after everything has happened,” Em had said, pointing at me.
“I would go anywhere she went—I would move to Italy if she moved here,” I’d told Giuseppe, pointing to Em.
“Republicans were bad and getting worse before Trump was their guy—Republicans will be bad after him,” Em pointed out to Giuseppe, but Giuseppe ignored what he didn’t want to hear. Our being dual citizens didn’t interest him. Em told Giuseppe that she and I intended to keep voting in future U.S. elections; we just liked living in Toronto, she said, but Giuseppe wouldn’t listen. Giuseppe wanted to make our story all about the pussy-grabber.
Pantomime originated in Roman mime, Em had told me; this was why she’d first come to Italy, to the Disastri Festival. On the terrace, while Thirty Seconds to Mars was playing, I heard Em saying to Giuseppe: “You are too focused on Trump—you should be more aware of his enablers.” Em put the blame where the blame belonged—on chinless Mitch McConnell and dickless Lindsey Graham, and the craven Senate Republicans—as I’d heard her do a hundred times.
“Marcus Aurelius was the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher—you’re familiar with the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, aren’t you?” Em was asking Giuseppe. I knew this was going where it always went—it didn’t matter to Em that Marcus Aurelius had died in AD 180. Giuseppe said nothing. He didn’t know anything about Marcus Aurelius.
“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it,” Marcus Aurelius had written, but this would be lost on Giuseppe.
“Chinless Mitch and dickless Lindsey will still have their jobs after Trump is gone,” Em was telling Giuseppe.
“Where is Trump going?” I heard Giuseppe ask. I knew where Em hoped Trump would end up; she had a Shakespearean ending in mind.
“Al Capone went to jail for tax evasion,” Em was saying to Giuseppe. “Trump is just another criminal—he’s going to end up in jail, where he’ll be killed by his fellow inmates,” Em told Giuseppe, who was writing this down. It sounded like what would happen in a novel—or what should happen, I was thinking. “Trump is just another tyrant, more despotic than presidential—think of Shakespeare’s wicked kings,” Em was saying. “Macbeth was born to feel sorry for himself—all he does is whine. ‘Life’s but a walking shadow,’ and more self-pitying shit,” Em was saying, but Giuseppe had stopped writing this down. “Losers never stop whining—‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’—all Trump will end up doing is whining,” Em went on. Giuseppe was confused about Macbeth; he might have thought Macbeth was like McConnell, one of the craven Republicans.
I was waiting for Richard III—I knew Richard, the murderous coward, would be coming. Em was working herself up to him. “And there’s fucking Richard—‘Now is the winter of our discontent,’ the scumbag begins, but he ends up sniveling,” Em told Giuseppe, who looked lost. Giuseppe was wondering if fucking Richard was like dickless Lindsey, one of the Senate Republicans. “The chickenshit ends up crying—‘A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’ Fucking Richard is begging,” Em was crying. That was when the older Italian woman started screaming about the beetles. Em had more to say as we were leaving the terrace, but only Matthew and I could hear her over the shrieking. Giuseppe was stomping on the olives.
In the car, on our way back to the Albergo, Em kept talking; she was saying something about a plague. Matthew and I were wondering what plague she meant, but Em only meant that Trump would be a bad plague president—even worse than Ronald Reagan—if there ever was another plague.