He sat there, with the coins in hand, staring at the phone booth, there’s a world of difference between saying and doing, and doing was saying: listen, I’m back, I’m here at the hospital, no, I’m totally fine, well, not totally, the fact is these three years have heaped up one on top of the other as though they were all just one day, actually just one night, I know I’m not making myself clear, I’ll try to be clearer, think of plastic bottles, the ones for mineral water, the bottle makes sense as long as it’s full of water, but when you’ve drunk it you can scrunch it up and throw it out, that’s what happened to me, my time has scrunched up, and my vertebrae too, if I can put it that way, I know I’m jumping around but I can’t express myself any better, be patient. And while he was thinking of what he’d come up with, he noticed a nurse in white pushing a wheelchair coming out of the low pavilion not far from the coffee bar, its glass door opened from the inside. And on the door closing behind them was a yellow sign with three blades, like a fan. The nurse was moving forward slowly because the path from the pavilion to the coffee shop rose slightly, and in the wheelchair was a boy, or at least from a distance it seemed a boy because he had no hair, but gradually as they approached he realized it was a girl. The features of the face, even though it was a childish face, weren’t male, because the difference is already clear at ten or twelve, which seemed roughly the age of that boy, which is to say, that girl, and also the voice was already female, since at that age the vocal cords are well differentiated, and she talked with the old nurse pushing the wheelchair, although from there he couldn’t make out what they were saying, he caught only the sound of the voices. He’d stood up with the coins in his hand aimed at the phone, rather he’d almost stood, he half stood, just like the day before getting out of bed, when the same razor blade cut into his back again, slicing all the way down to below his navel. He stood very still, like that figure of Pontormo he liked so much, whose face is a landscape of pain almost as though he were bearing the cross instead of the one destined for such a task. The two female voices were still too feeble to be deciphered, but they were cheerful, this he got from the tone, they seemed to be twittering back and forth, like two little sparrows telling each other something, he shut his eyes and the twittering became a squeak and he thought instead of mice chattering together in their cage, those white mice that scientists experiment on, they were two guinea pigs for the science of so-called life, the most agonizing science of all, one of them was being subjected to it prematurely, the other, the old one, had endured the experiments and gone on. They fell silent, perhaps because the woman pushing the wheelchair was getting tired and the girl didn’t want to wear her out, but as soon as they reached the top of the path the girl began talking again, and must have been responding to something the nurse had said, from her tone of voice it was clear she was affirming something, a solemn affirmation that nobody could prove wrong. Her voice was joyful, full of life, as when life, through the voice, is willful and affirms itself. The girl repeated what she’d said just as they were passing him, and while she spoke a broad smile lit up her face: but this is the most beautiful thing in the world! But this is the most beautiful thing in the world!
The path continued down toward a clinic in the middle of the grounds. They’d stopped talking, but he could hear the noise of the wheelchair rolling over the gravel. He wanted to turn around but was unable to. The most beautiful thing in the world. That’s what the girl had said, this bald girl, being hauled in a wheelchair by a nurse. She knew what the most beautiful thing in the world was. He, however, did not. How was it possible at his age, with all he’d seen and experienced, that he still didn’t know what the most beautiful thing in the world was?
Clouds
— You stay here in the shade all day, said the young girl, don’t you like going in the water?
The man gave a vague nod that could have meant yes or no, but said nothing.
— Can I use tu with you? asked the girl.
— If I’m not mistaken, you just did, the man said, and smiled.
— In my class we also use tu with adults, said the girl, some teachers allow it, but my parents won’t let me, they say it’s impolite, and lei, sir, what do you think?
— I think they’re right, responded the man, but you can use tu with me, I won’t tell anybody.
— Don’t you like going in the water? she asked. I think it’s special.
— Special? the man repeated.
— My teacher told us we can’t use awesome for everything, that sometimes we might say special, I was about to say awesome, for me going in the water at this beach is special.
— Ah, said the man, I agree, it seems awesome to me too, even special.
— Sunbathing’s awesome too, the young girl went on, in the first few days I had to use the SPF forty cream, then I went to twenty, and now I can use the golden bronzing cream, the one that makes your skin sparkle like it has little gold specks all over it, see? But, sir, why are you so white? You came here a week ago and you’re always under the beach umbrella, don’t you like the sun at all?
— I think it’s awesome, said the man, I swear, to me sunbathing is awesome.
— Are you afraid of getting sunburned, sir? asked the young girl.
— And what do you think? answered the man.
— I think you’re afraid of burning, sir, though if a person doesn’t start out slowly, he’ll never get tan.
— That’s true, the man confirmed, it seems logical to me, though do you think it’s mandatory to get tan?
The girl mulled this over.
— Not entirely mandatory, nothing is mandatory except for mandatory things, but if someone comes to the beach, doesn’t go in the water, and doesn’t get tan, then why is he coming to the beach?
— You know what? said the man, you’re a logical girl, you have a gift for logic, and that’s awesome, to me the world today has lost its logic, it’s a real pleasure to meet a logical girl, may I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance? What’s your name?
— My name is Isabella, though my close friends call me Isabèl, but with the accent on the e, not like the Italians who say Ìsabel, with the accent on the i.
— Why’s that, you’re not Italian? asked the man.
— Of course I’m Italian, she objected, totally Italian, but I care about the name my friends give me, because on television they always say Mànuel or Sebàstian, I am totally Italian like you and maybe even more than you, sir, but I like languages, and I also know the Mameli anthem by heart, this year the president of the republic came to visit our school and talked with us about the importance of the Mameli anthem, which is our Italian identity, it took so long to unify our country, for instance that political guy who wants to abolish the Mameli anthem, I don’t like him.