The Fourth Circle

Camogli, August 1906 ‘Mario…’ He remained with his step suspended, just like a crane, between the third and the fourth floors, dripping sea water on the green flagstone of the staircase. It would have to happen sometime. He straightened his body, turned and climbed down the few steps with a knowing smile on his face. ‘Carina…’ The beautiful brunette leaned her body lazily against the wooden frame of the door, smiling a lethal smile. ‘It’s been ages since we last saw you in Camogli. Is that the way to treat people? You forgot us all since you turned Roman. Mario glanced quickly right and left and then he sneaked another even more furtive kiss on Carina’s cheek. ‘I promise to make amends’ He turned to leave. Carina hanged from his neck. ‘Tonight! My husband’s away on business’. ‘Tonight…’ he said, in his effort to free his neck from her hands. Carina grabbed his head in her fingers and kissed him passionately on the mouth. He reciprocated to calm things down but also because he liked it. Carina kissed wonderfully. ‘Tonight!’ said the woman again and stared at him with her big, flaming, honey-colored eyes. Mario nodded, still dazed from Carina’s kiss and fragrance. A noise in the apartment above sent him jumping up the rest of the stairs. That was no time for unfortunate encounters… He searched for the key he had left under the straw doormat, since it would be practically impossible to carry a key in his bathing suit for the while he would swim in the frothy waters of the bay that carried the human fear-appeasing name of ‘Paradise’. Renata, his mother could open the door for him. Or his godmother, Felicia. Or both of them, as they used to race to the door together, if that hadn’t been the sacred hour of morning soirees. The central entrance would hardly be kept shut for long in this building. Renata’s sociability in summertime hit red. Her countless friends could very well fill the passenger services of every train at Termini Station for a day. No matter if half of Liguria knew when he had his first tooth of put on a diaper for the last time. He hoped that his pillory would stop there. The girls would still take their time. The relationship between the two women would easily drive psychologists, parapsychologists, metaphysicians and himself most of all, nuts. Felicia had entered the Rossi residence as a housemaid, got the better of Renata – and for this reason opinions differ, since no one ever took anything away from Renata if she had not agreed to concede to it in the first place – and she had remained as the fourth member of the family. ‘If you put even their pictures facing one another, they’ll get into a fight’, was the favorite motto of the late Stefano Rossi. If his father hadn’t been an atheist, he would surely have secured a place in the pantheon of saints and martyrs of every dogma. The situation was party salvaged since Felicia did not like photographs. In the bathroom he took off his bathing suit, washed off the salt and in his room, he put on the pants of the uniform of the local polo team that more often than not made the headlines because of his performance. He also felt like a coffee, provided he would find a way through Felicia’s off-limits sacrosanct. Every time, he would feel awed before the sparkling benches and the dazzling brightness of the pots and pans that were proudly arranged on the lacquered shelves. The alibi of a student away from home was practically inexhaustible, but the small-scale chaos in his apartment in Rome and the burned spaghetti on the plates still pilling up in the sink, would be a cause of death for Felicia. For the moment everyone was happy, since her outings were restricted to her hometown Camogli, and never without Renata. In the kitchen, he was swept away by the aroma of the baked zucchini pie. One of the good things to be back home. He just devoured two pieces while preparing something reminiscent of coffee, gazing at the view through the window. The hilltops were lost in the black clouds that were bringing rain. This August was no fun. He took his cup to the sitting room and started pacing up and down the room. The same need presented itself in every return of his, to make the place his own again by making it succumb to him tenderly. On the Venetian sideboard with the Burano lacework were his photos arranged. Baby in a sailor’s suit complete with cap, first birthday, second, at his first Carnival in Venice – he cried his heart out to be able to get rid of the tomato suit made to measure by Renata- the first day at school, the first poem, his first in High school, distinctions, travels abroad. Oh, yes, his first at university. That last one sowed great division in the Rossi family. His choice to pursue studies at the department of geology of the School of Natural Sciences, Department of Geology at Sapienza University brought Renata to the brink of a nervous breakdown. She wanted him to become a famous economist. But he didn’t. An alliance with his father tipped the odds of the battle. But Renata would not give up. She would sneak into his life through every crack, mess it up, retreating to regroup following each interception, only to return harsher and undaunted. The last thing to blame her for, if he didn’t have his way, would be the unhappy end of his affair with Lucia. Following a weekend at his paternal home in Genova, Lucia suffered a mutation. In a single night, she denied all her radical ideas about free cohabitation, moved without asking him to his attic in Rome, changed the decoration to fit her taste and filled the place with magazines about the perfect marriage. The next person to move in just a night was himself. He left the renovated attic to Lucia and rented himself an apartment with a view to the Tiber. Strangely enough, Renata never asked him about Lucia again… He sat on his heels before the extinguished fireplace and fished into the basket with the newspapers. Newspapers and political analyses were always part of the Rossi house. They were all Genova newspapers, from last summer. How did they find their way to Camogli? Felicia must have brought them over. Her fixation not to throw anything that could still be proven useful, according to her opinion, that is, constituted yet another cause for a fight of Homeric proportions with Renata. He fished out a yellowed newspaper dated July 1905. Worn-out titles. Intense memories. A year… He was ecstatic. Enzo and he would participate in the student research group of the university. Educational trip to the Palmarola desert island. Wild coastlines, sky and sea. An open prehistorical lab of great scientific interest. Enzo organized the group. They set up camp, the mess, the lab. They slept outdoors, they ate whatever they could fish if out of provisions and collected rock samples. The caique would come once a week. It would bring them the essential provisions and the news from the outside world. The news reached them at the end of July. It caused quite a stir. An assassination attempt against the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire at the time he was leaving Hamit Camii, following the traditional namaz of Friday 21 July. The responsibility for the attack was assumed by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Victims of the bomb explosion planted in the car numbered tens of dead and wounded. At the title pages, the world would find out that Abdul Hamit had never approached that spot. The same informed about a death that had shattered him. ‘Leader of the Jewish Community in Salonik Abraham Bocher Dead’. He was twelve years old when he saw him for the last time. It was the end of summer of 1898. They were spending their summer vacations at Camogli. It was one of the few times that his father left Genova to come and find them. During the night. He wouldn’t let Renata out of his sight. The same day he collapsed in that room. He was trying to read the truth in the eyes of the grown-ups. And he was trembling. He was trembling for her life. They stayed over the whole September. He started lessons at the local school. One noon, they had a visit. He was not certain whether the man had suggested it or whether he had followed him. They found themselves walking next to the sea. They sat on the rock under the medieval castle and watched for a long time the flight of the gulls in the twilight. He felt that he should not break that silence. The silence of the muted dirge. The man started talking first. Like a fairytale, he told him the history of his ancestors whose roots were lost many thousands of years in the past. The night found them under a starry sky. He showed him the visible constellations and named them. ‘The first map the humans read to walk the earth was that of the sky’. The man was quiet again. And the child could only guess the tears in his eyes… ‘Got a telegram’, Enzo came over to their tent. He found him smoking on his mattress. He avoided his eyes. His own blue eyes were tearful, too. His father was not well. They left on the same caique for Naples and from then, on the first train out for Genova. Doctors gave no hope. Stefano Rossi had been concealing his illness. He only held out because he was expecting him. He got there in time. He held his hand tight to tell him that his son was there, next to him. He went to his funeral with dry eyes, wrathful about himself that he hadn’t suspected a thing. That he had missed the chance to fight to keep him alive. He left for Rome the same day. He didn’t want to return to a house that was crying his absence out loud. Enzo brought him back. ‘Someone needs you’. It was the first time he felt responsible for someone else. Perhaps that was the day he came of age. That was three months following his funeral and he still had to muster all his courage to enter the room his father was writing his books. As a child, he would let him play near him, and later, to go through his manuscripts. He would proudly listen to and respond to the harsh questions of the young adolescent. His seat was empty. Stefano Rossi was proudly smiling next to his son in that black-and-white photo in the silver frame. His pen, pipe, the crystal glass from the last drink to loosen up. Renata had touched nothing… As if goaded by an unknown force, he open the first drawer. It was a letter for him there, when he felt the end coming. Words becoming fainter at the points were the pain became unbearable. ‘My boy…I wanted to tell you a lot but can only come up with this…you…I’m grateful to life because it gave me you…life is but a journey, travel through it passionately and you’ll find your destination…don’t be sad-I wouldn’t want that…don’t be afraid, your father’s love protects you…’ He cried. After so many months, he cried. He missed him. His physical presence. The way he believed in him. The manner he supported him. He could almost feel the tender caress of his look on him. Even now… Renata Rossi was observing her son without him being aware. She had a handsome son. She could never have enough of looking at him. Tall, well-built, dark-haired. A spitting image of him. Except the eyes. Mario’s eyes were ebony black, framed with thick eyelashes. Many times she had felt awkward before that look that welled with tenderness when he smiled. As if he could read her inner thoughts. He would let no one enter the spot that was really causing him pain. But she could guess. Mario defined life at the limits of the absolute. And if life was not coming up to par, he would fool around with it, and let it fool around with him. She was afraid about Mario… ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ She was gently pulled out of her train of thought by his voice. ‘Oh, no reason’. Renata smiled. She busied herself with gathering up the old newspapers in a pile. ‘I just wonder what on earth that woman is cleaning all the time. We’re up to here in garbage. Mario dropped the newspaper on the pile. ‘You didn’t have a good time, or is it my idea?’ he asked. ‘In the noisy babel around the ravishing widow of the second, you just don’t let you get a word in edgeways’. That was a real problem for Renata but it seemed that he had acquired one himself, too. ‘I just wonder’, said Renata, ‘why is she inviting the whole neighborhood over…Carina says that she must have serious reasons. Perhaps the rumors about the midnight visitations she has might reach the ears of the relatives of the dearly departed. Her husband’s property, which, between you and me, is substantial, is being contested by his two married daughters. Petty affairs. A beautiful woman spending her summer vacations by herself, can easily become the subject of malicious gossip. Don’t you agree?’ Mario nodded behind his cup. ‘And where is the young lady?’ she asked after Felicia. ‘She’s strengthening relations with the very young tenant of the fourth. She invited herself over at young Mrs Renzi’s, of the well-known cured products wholesaler. I believe she will soon be crowned queen of the sardines. Renzi is nearing eighty. Personally, I wouldn’t be after any throne, even if it didn’t smell of fish. But this doesn’t seem to be bothering Mrs Renzi. And why would it, anyway? She is killing time at the Italian Riviera, among other places. You should remember her…The blonde that greeted us at the entrance. Mario shook his head behind his cup. ‘What’s for lunch?’ he asked curtly. ‘Good thing you mentioned it. That woman is capable of letting us go hungry. Fish with walnut sauce. Your favorite. ‘I simply adore you’. Renata lifted all the pile of papers and deigned to enter the kitchen. Mario sighed with relief. He stood before the wide open window. The multistoried buildings of the village, a multicolored brushstroke against a grey background. An inspiration traced back to the old fishermen. It was the edge of the thread that would ensure their return. He, on the other hand, was fascinated by travel. Safe havens could wait. Besides, they weren’t going anywhere…