— I totally agree, said the man, the Nazis were truly horrible people, but they too had an ideal and went to war to impose it, from our point of view it was a perverted ideal, though for them it wasn’t, they had great faith in that ideal, you have to be careful with ideals, isn’t that true, Isabèl?
— I need to think about it, answered the girl, maybe I’ll do it at lunch, it’s twelve thirty, before long they’ll serve lunch, you’re not coming?
— Maybe not, said the man, today I don’t have much of an appetite.
— Excuse me for repeating this, but in my opinion you take too much medicine, you’re doing the same as all the Italians who take too many pills.
— So are you Italian or not? the man repeated.
— You already asked me that and I already answered, replied Isabella, irritated, I’m totally Italian, maybe even more than you, anyway if you don’t come to lunch you’ll be missing out, today there’s a buffet lunch at the hotel and after that Croatian stuff they’ve been giving us, they’re finally going to serve fettuccine all’arrabbiata, actually on the menu it says fetucine all’arrabbiata, anyway it should be ours, sometimes when you’re abroad you have to forgive spelling mistakes, but sorry, why do you take so many pills, you aren’t a deviant like those guys who go to discotheques, are you?
The man didn’t answer.
— Come on, tell me, insisted Isabella, I won’t tell anybody.
— I’ll be sincere, said the man, I’m not a discotheque deviant, a doctor prescribed them to me, they are legal pills, they just make me less hungry, is all.
— They make you throw up too, said Isabella, I realized that, yesterday you came for lunch and at a certain point you got up and ran to the bathroom and when you came back you were white as a corpse, I bet you went to throw up.
— You’re right on target, said the man, I really did go and throw up, that’s the pills.
— So why take them? Don’t take them, she concluded.
— That would be logical, the thing is, on the one hand they’re good for me, but on the other they’re bad, maybe pills are a bit like ideals, it depends who you force to swallow them, I don’t push them on anyone else, I’m not hurting anybody.
The girl kept making squiggles in the sand.
— I don’t understand, she said, sometimes it’s hard to understand you adults.
— We adults are stupid, said the man, we’re often stupid, however, sometimes you wind up having to take pills regardless of whether you’re Italian or not, but you, Isabèl, since you say you’re totally Italian, will you tell me where you were born? Look, it’s not fundamental, I for instance was born in a country that’s no longer on any maps since they call it something else now, but I’m Italian, to the point where I am, or rather I was, a captain in the Italian army, and to be a captain in the Italian army you can’t be a foreigner, does that seem logical to you?
Isabel nodded.
— And where were you born? she asked.
— In a district that was just invented now, have you heard of Walt Disney?
Isabella’s eyes shone.
— When I was little, I saw all the Disney movies.
— Right, it’s a place like that, a wonder-world, all made of crystal, a crystal that’s actually ordinary glass, from a realistic point of view it’s in northern Italy, in the same way Tuscany is in central Italy and Sicily is in southern Italy, but at this point geography has become secondary and so has history, better not to talk about culture, what counts today is the fable, but since adults aren’t just stupid, they’re complicated, I don’t want to complicate things any more, let’s get to the point, the question I first asked you, where were you born?
— In a little town in Peru, said Isabella, but I became Italian really soon, as soon as my parents adopted me, that’s why I feel Italian like you.
— Isabèl, said the man, to be perfectly honest, I did realize you weren’t Aryan like me — anyway I’m white as a corpse, you said so yourself — whereas you’re a little bit darker, you’re not pure Aryan.
— Which means?
— It’s a nonexistent race, answered the man, some fake scientists invented it, but you know, if the people with these kinds of ideals had won the war, you wouldn’t be here now, or rather, maybe you wouldn’t be at all.
— Why? asked Isabella.
— Because non-Aryan people wouldn’t have had the right to exist, dear Isabèl, and people with skin that’s a little dark, like yours, which actually has a very beautiful color, especially now with the bronzing cream, would’ve been …
— Would’ve been what? she asked.
— Never mind, said the man, it’s a complicated matter and on a day like this it’s not worth complicating our life, why don’t you take a good swim before lunch?
— I can maybe take one later, answered Isabella, right now I don’t feel like it, but then, sorry, when I saw you last week, always here reading under the beach umbrella, I thought you were someone who could explain things I didn’t understand, I thought I would have an interesting conversation with you like it’s hard to have with grown-ups, but now it’s even worse, we’ve been talking for half an hour, and to be perfectly honest you seem a little out of it, all the nonexistent countries and people destroying houses and you making war that was really peace, in my view there’s a lot of confusion in your head, and I don’t get what your so-called profession was, either.
— It involved watching those who destroyed each other’s houses, responded the man, this was the war mission for peacekeeping, and it was happening right here.
— On this beach? asked Isabella, excuse me, but that doesn’t seem possible, no offense.
The man didn’t answer. Isabella stood up, she had her hands on her hips and was looking at the sea, she was thin and her slender figure was outlined against the strong noon light.
— In my view you say these things because you don’t eat, she said in a slightly altered voice, not eating makes you say strange things, you’re not thinking straight, excuse me for saying this but we have a first-class hotel here, it’s super expensive because I’ve seen the prices, you can’t say these things just off the top of your head, you don’t eat, don’t sunbathe, don’t go into the water, I think you have some problems, perhaps you need to get some food in you or drink a good fruit shake, would you like me to get you one?
— If you’d really like to be kind, I’d rather have a Coke, said the man, it quenches my thirst.
— I want to be kind, declared Isabella, but you’re the one who isn’t kind, first you have to explain to me why you came right here for vacation if there was a war and houses were destroyed and you stood here watching, can that be true?
— That’s how it was, it’s just that nobody wanted to know it, and even now, you know, people don’t like to know that there was a war where they spend their vacation, because if they think about it, their vacation gets ruined, you follow the logic?
— So why’d you come here too? It’s a logical question, if you don’t mind my asking.
— Let’s say it’s for the rest of the warrior, said the man, even if the warrior wasn’t fighting, in the end he was a warrior, and he must find rest where the war once was, that’s classic.
Isabella seemed to be mulling this over. She was kneeling in the sand, half in the sun, half in the shade, she was wearing a bikini on her slender, childish body, but the top wasn’t necessary, her thin shoulders began shaking as though she were weeping, but she wasn’t, she seemed cold, she kept her hands buried deep in the sand and her head was bent over her knees.
— Don’t worry, she murmured, when I get like this everyone worries, but it’s only a little developmental crisis, the thing is, I have developmental problems, that’s what the psychologist said, I don’t know if you understand.