What’s the time, one already, like you Northerners say? I told you to come at thirteen hundred hours but not to wake me, I was having such a good sleep and then you woke me, you’re nice, but you follow orders to the letter, if you see I’m sleeping, please don’t wake me, I slept two hours, one hundred and twenty minutes, I could have slept two hundred minutes, think about it, two hundred minutes less …
It was August, like I told you, a lot of things in Tristano’s life happened in August, a hazy, sultry day, haze over the hills and haze on the mountain and haze over the plains, too; and even inside them, a great haze like cotton that blankets everything, is deadening. Tristano waits for her to speak, if she’s come all the way here, she wants something, he stares at this woman he loved so passionately, her eyes sunken now in their sockets, darkly ringed, almost purple, like a mask, her headscarf doesn’t completely hide the hair growing back at her temples, she’s ten years younger than he is but looks twenty years older; still, he thinks, it feels like just yesterday that they were up in the mountains, and he showed her the yellow dog buried in sand just yesterday, and their trip to Spain, and he asks himself again, why, why Spain? Because of my work in Spain, she’d say, my friends in Spain … There’s a darkness in her eyes, like fear, Tristano understands this, he knows them well, those eyes; in spite of everything, she’s assumed a relaxed position on the couch, legs crossed. They’re both quiet. A boy’s voice is coming from the back of the house, he’s speaking to Frau, who knows if Frau wanted a child. All you did was spill your sperm on my belly, I wanted your child, but you spilled your sperm on my belly, you always did that … Marilyn talks this way, they’re her expressions, she’s always talked like this, Tristano recalls, she didn’t value the weight of her words in Italian, sometimes she talked like a sailor, other times, like a Protestant pastor. He’s almost twelve, Marilyn is saying, he looks like you, did you see how much he looks like you? Not really, Tristano says, but if you say so … I picked him because he looked like you, Marilyn breathes, you’re like two drops of water you’re so alike, there were a lot of children, but I saw him right away … A long silence now, hard to break. Marilyn lights a cigarillo, coughs, sorry if I start to cry, she says. But she’s not about to cry, maybe she’s only thinking aloud. From down the hall comes a tune in German. Frau rarely sings, only on special occasions. Rosamunda, Tristano says, please try to be clear, what are you trying to say?… you picked him, there were a lot of children … Marilyn fidgets with the cigarillo between her lips, then she puts it out in her tea cup. Well, she says, there were so many wretches in wretched Spain, the orphanages were full … some still are … I adopted him, I felt so bad for him … it’s true, he doesn’t look like you at all, but that’s not important, it’s like he was your son, I always thought of him as the son you refused to give me, and now I’m entrusting him to you, please take him, I can’t raise him. Maybe she’s waiting for Tristano to ask her why, but he stays quiet. Then she says, I don’t have much more time. She shifts her headscarf slightly for him to see. I tried what I could, she says, but the results were negative, the doctor was clear, there’s nothing left to try. She’s clawing her own palm but doesn’t realize. On his birth certificate he’s Ignacio, she adds, but I call him Clark, he’s always been Clark to me. She pulls an elegant suede wallet from her purse. Here are his documents, she says and sets them on the table. Marilyn, Tristano says, I only come back periodically, I think you know that, normally just in the summer, just to keep up the vineyard and olive trees a little, Agostino can’t do it all on his own, and then there’s Frau, this is her house, too, by now, she’s got nowhere else to go; the rest of the year, I live in Kritsa. Is that near Athens? Marilyn asks. It’s a village on Crete, Tristano says. Did you see how he hugged you, she says, he loves you, I’ve always talked about you, he knows all about us, I told him you were his real father. You’re crazy, Tristano says. You’re crazy, Rosamunda, there’s something wrong with you — always has been. He’s speaking softly, almost to himself. Marilyn doesn’t answer, she’s rummaging in her purse, keeps looking, then empties it onto the couch, and finally retrieves an old square photo not much larger than a postage stamp, a young man with a wisp of hair on his forehead, wearing a military jacket, a submachine gun over his shoulder, there’s a mountain farmhouse in the background, a dark patch of woods. She holds it out to Tristano. He was conceived the day I took this picture of you, she murmurs. That photo’s almost twenty years old, he says, you’re not well, Rosamunda, please, stop talking, you don’t need to say anything more. Where I come from, Marilyn says, ignoring him, there’s an old Navajo belief that when you keep thinking about a man, sooner or later, his spirit will give you a child. Frau is at the door: Ignacio wants to see the bay horse, we’re going to the stable, we’ll be back shortly, if the signora would like more tea I’ll bring in the kettle. Marilyn’s putting her things back in her purse. You could be with him in the summer, she says quickly, three months a year isn’t so little, you’d be a good father to him, and you don’t have children, maybe you’re sterile, I’m giving you the chance to have a son who’s almost yours, is practically yours — no,
is yours — please, Tristano, raise him, I have no one left in America, my family’s all dead. And what about the rest of the year? Tristano says, excuse me, Rosamunda, but who’s going to look after him here in this house? She gets to her feet, staggers, knocks against the end table, tea splashes from her still-full cup. This Frau, she says … Agostino … I don’t know them, but they must be good people, and during the winter he’ll have school — you could find a good boarding school. Where are you going? Tristano asks. Back to Spain, she says, but the best train for Irun leaves tomorrow morning — the station’s far, and I don’t want to drive at night — I’ll find some little hotel on the coast. She tightens her scarf under her chin, hesitates, then puts her finger to her lips, sending a kiss or telling him to be quiet, he can’t be sure. Is your uncle waiting for you? he asks. We’re thick as thieves now, she says, sometimes life’s like that, even if you don’t want it to be, I never understood why you called him my uncle — he’s your age. Because he’s the American uncle, Tristano answers — the classic Uncle Sam, with stars and stripes on his top hat and his pointing finger, commanding I want you — has he got something to do with Ignacio? I’m Ignacio’s mother, Marilyn says, he wasn’t involved in the adoption, but Ignacio loves him and really considers him his uncle … If Ignacio wants to visit him, you shouldn’t stop him, but keep an eye on him: his uncle’s in a dangerous business — so was I. She heads for the door, and Tristano follows. I’ll go with you, Rosamunda, it’s a long way, and I don’t want you driving through all those hills by yourself … and so it goes … Tristano didn’t know that on this day, on this short trip with Marilyn, they’d find a dying dog that they’d name Vanda like the yellow dog they saw years before in a museum. But this you already know, writer, because I told you the day it popped into my head, I can’t remember when that was … How strange, you’re ahead of Tristano’s life, let’s stop here now, for today.