The Silence of the Wave Page 2

  “Don’t worry, it’s a small car. When I tell you, release the clutch and put your foot down on the accelerator.”

  Then, without waiting for a reply, he started to push, and the car began laboriously to move.

  “Release the clutch and accelerate,” he cried from behind when the car had gathered speed.

  The engine shuddered and the car jerked forward, coming to life with a raucous roar, went about a hundred feet, and then stopped, but with the engine still on. Roberto caught up with it, and the woman looked out of the window.

  “You see?” he said, slightly out of breath. “You did it after all.”

  “Thank you, you’ve been very kind.” Then, as if she had forgotten an important detail, she stuck out her right hand and held it out to him. As they shook hands, he realized where he knew her from.

  “Are you an actress?”

  “Yes … I mean …”

  “You did that commercial … the one for condoms … You were the pharmacist. You made me laugh a lot. You were … funny.” He broke off, surprised at what he was saying. “I’m sorry, maybe I said something stupid.”

  “Don’t apologize. I liked being funny, I liked making people laugh. It’s been ages since anyone reminded me of that.”

  They looked at each other for a few moments longer, unable to find anything else to say, while the engine coughed.

  “Well, good-bye then,” Roberto said finally.

  “Good-bye, and thanks again.”

  “Take the car to a garage.”

  “I will.”

  Roberto watched the car move away until it turned the corner and disappeared. Then he hurried to the doctor’s office.

  * * *

  “Sorry I’m a bit late.”

  “You’re out of breath.”

  Roberto gave a half-smile. “I just ran up the stairs, but before that I helped a woman to start her car. The battery was gone, so I had to push it.”

  The doctor did not ask for any further explanation. “How was your weekend?”

  “Not too bad. Actually, better than usual. I even went to a movie.”

  “That’s good. If my memory serves me well, you’ve never mentioned going to a movie since our sessions started.”

  “You’re right. I hadn’t been. In fact, I don’t even remember the last time I went. It must be ages.”

  “What did you see?”

  “A French film, set in a prison. A Prophet. Do you know it? Have you seen it?”

  “No, but I don’t go to the movies much either. Did you like the film?”

  “I don’t know. Some parts were realistic, showing the way things work in a prison. Others were completely absurd, though maybe I’m too influenced by the work I used to do. But it was nice to go to a movie. I mean, I’d forgotten what it was like, and I liked it a lot.”

  “Did you go to the movie with somebody, or by yourself?”

  “No, no. By myself.”

  “I’m very interested in the dream you mentioned last time.”

  “The one about surfing?”

  “Yes, do you want to tell me about it?”

  “The dream or the surfing?”

  “Whichever you like.”

  “You remember I told you I was born and brought up in California?”

  “Of course I remember. Your mother was Italian and married an American. Your father was a policeman.”

  “Yes, my father was a detective. We lived near the ocean, in a little town called San Juan Capistrano, between Los Angeles and San Diego.”

  “I imagine surfing’s quite a normal activity for someone born and brought up in a place like that.”

  Was it a normal activity? Roberto couldn’t remember—or didn’t know—if it was so normal. For a long time, on the occasions when he went into the sea, he was the youngest in the group. A child, between the adults and the waves.

  “I don’t know, really. I was very attracted by the waves, from the time I was very small. I started at the age of eight, with my father. I went surfing with him and his friends. There weren’t any other children.”

  “I remember seeing a film once, where a surfer goes right inside the tunnel created by the wave as it closes. Could you do something like that?”

  “It’s called a tube. Yes, I could do that.”

  They both fell silent. Now that the conversation had taken this unexpected turn, Roberto was trying to put his ideas in order and the doctor had that friendly but slightly enigmatic expression he sometimes had. An expectant expression. The silence lasted a couple of minutes, then Roberto resumed speaking.

  “I really liked surfing. Even though I can’t remember how it felt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s hard to explain, but I can’t remember what I felt. I know I liked it—I liked it a lot—but I can’t remember. I know, but I can’t remember.”

  The doctor nodded. Roberto would have liked to know what he was thinking. He would have liked the doctor to provide him with explanations—sometimes he had even tried to ask him—but, especially in cases like this, the doctor didn’t explain anything at all. Or rather, he didn’t even speak. He just nodded. Or else looked him in the eyes. Or slid forward on his chair. But he didn’t speak.

  “When was the last time you went surfing?”

  He couldn’t remember. He tried to figure out when it had been, that last time he had surfed, but he couldn’t, and that made him panic. As if there were a danger that everything might fall apart. As if the border between memories, dreams, reality, imagination, and nightmares had suddenly broken down, and the yardstick for distinguishing one from the other had become intangible and pointless.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is something wrong, Roberto?”

  Roberto moved his hand over his forehead as if wiping away the sweat.

  “I had the feeling I was losing control.”

  “You mean when I asked you when you’d last gone surfing?”

  “Not when you asked me. When I realized I couldn’t remember.”

  “Would you rather we changed the subject?”

  Roberto hesitated. “No, no. It’s fine now.”

  “Good. Even though you can’t remember the last time you went surfing, can we say it happened when you were still living in California?”

  “Of course. I haven’t surfed since we left California.”

  “How many years ago is that?”

  “Oh, more than thirty years. I was sixteen when my mother and I left.”

  The doctor took a long Tuscan cigar from a drawer. From the same drawer he also took a penknife, cut the cigar in two, placed one half on the desk, and started playing with the other. This all lasted two or three minutes.

  “All right. That’ll be enough for today.”

  Roberto would have liked to add something. But the end of the session was always a moment he found hard to grasp. So after a few bewildered moments, he stood up and left.

  Giacomo

  I didn’t dream for several nights, although that’s probably not strictly true: I read in a science magazine that there’s never a night when we sleep and don’t dream. Apparently we dream every night, except that for various reasons, sometimes we remember and sometimes we don’t.

  So maybe it’s more correct to say I don’t remember what I dreamed for several nights, even though at least one night I couldn’t have had very pleasant dreams, because I woke up with a feeling of sadness that took me a while to get over.

  Last night, though, I went back to the park. Even when I was just about to fall asleep, I realized something was going to happen, and soon afterward I found myself back on the same avenue as the other time, in the middle of the park.

  Scott was sitting on the lawn, waiting for me. He was wagging his tail energetically as I approached, sweeping the grass with it. As I stroked him, I realized he smelled of shampoo and that he had a collar. I hadn’t noticed it the first time, or maybe he hadn’t been wearing it then. Anyway, the fact that Scott had a
collar made me happy. It gave me the feeling he was really mine, not just a friendly dog I’d met by chance.

  You’re here at last, chief. I’ve been waiting for you.

  “What do we do now, Scott?”

  Let’s go for a walk.

  And without waiting for my reply he set off.

  On this second visit, I managed to concentrate more on what was around me.

  As I’ve already said, the avenue ran between lawns of high grass, across which the wind made big, silent waves as it passed. In some places on the lawn there were little hills, with quite steep slopes, like embankments on the sides of roads or railway lines. In the distance I could see a forest, which looked a bit scary, but only because it was far away. Every now and again we passed other boys and girls, many of them on foot, but some on bicycles.

  After a while I saw a lake, with water so clear it looked like a swimming pool.

  “Can people swim in that lake, Scott?”

  That’s what it’s there for, chief.

  I was about to ask him if we could swim right away when I noticed a girl coming toward us. I recognized her, and the sight took my breath away. It was Ginevra.

  Ginevra is a classmate of mine. She’s the prettiest girl in the class; she has blue eyes, blonde hair, and lovely dimples in her cheeks when she laughs. She’s already had boyfriends, all much older than us, who come and pick her up from school on their mopeds.

  I’m almost always distracted in class. I read books or comics—holding them under the desk—I draw, I write stories and thoughts in my diary, and quite often I look at Ginevra.

  “Hi, Giacomo, you finally got here,” she said, hugging me and giving me a kiss.

  If Ginevra ever says anything to me in real life, I turn red and stammer and seem even more awkward and embarrassed than usual. So you can imagine how I’d be if she hugged me or actually gave me a kiss. In the dream I pulled it off a bit better than that, even though I was still excited.

  “Is this your dog?”

  “Yes, his name’s Scott.”

  “He’s lovely. It’s one of the first times you’ve been around here, isn’t it?”

  “You … you mean here, in this park?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “It’s the second time.”

  “I’m glad you’re here. We never have time to talk at school. See you soon, OK?” She gave me another kiss—this one was closer to my lips and made me turn really red—and walked away.

  “Scott, I have to ask you an important question.”

  Go on, chief.

  “How can I make sure I come back here the next few nights?”

  Scott stopped and looked at me, but I don’t know if he answered my question, because just then I found myself in my bed with Mom shaking me and saying it was time to get up and get ready for school.

  3

  On Thursday, Roberto arrived almost half an hour early. He didn’t realize until he was at the front door, and rather than wait outside—or, worse still, in the doctor’s waiting room—he decided to go for a walk. Strolling slowly around the covered market in the Piazza Alessandria, a stone’s throw from the doctor’s office, he noticed an old drinking fountain with a thin but regular jet of water spurting from it.

  In itself it was no great discovery, but at that moment it seemed like a revelation. Noticing that fountain, after passing it by for months, made him strangely cheerful. He washed his hands, stooped to drink a sip of water, and then resumed walking. The area was full of shops, workshops, bars, and restaurants. He stopped outside a small pet shop and stood there looking at a few parrots, a fish tank, and some Siamese kittens.

  As he walked back to the doctor’s office, he vowed to explore a bit more of the neighborhood in the next few weeks. He sat in the waiting room for about ten minutes. Then the doctor said good-bye to someone, and the door leading to the exit opened and closed again. The exit was different from the entrance. When possible, that’s how it works in psychiatrists’ offices: you go in on one side and come out on the other; that way the patients don’t meet. Waiting to see a psychiatrist isn’t like waiting to see an orthopedist, for example. No one has any problem admitting he has something wrong with his ankle or his knee. Nobody has any problem meeting an acquaintance in a dentist’s or an ENT’s waiting room. On the contrary, they have a chat and time passes more quickly.

  But practically everyone has a problem admitting there’s something wrong with his head. If there’s something wrong with your head, you might be mad, and you have no desire to meet someone you know in your psychiatrist’s waiting room, or when you leave after the visit—or rather, the session.

  Hi, how are you? I’m a manic depressive with suicidal tendencies, what about you? I’m sorry, why are you looking at me like that? Oh, yes, I’m also your financial adviser and you’re not all that happy to find out your financial affairs are being handled by a manic depressive with suicidal tendencies.

  The doctor opened the door from his office to the waiting room, came out, and stopped, surprised to see Roberto. “Here already?”

  “Yes, I got here a few minutes early.”

  “It’s the first time that’s happened since you’ve been coming here.”

  The tone was neutral and it wasn’t clear if the doctor was asking him a question or simply making an observation.

  “I see you’re in a good mood today. I’m pleased.”

  How does he know that? I was just sitting here, I only said a few words when I stood up, and I didn’t even smile.

  “Sit down. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  The few minutes passed slowly. On the wall of the doctor’s office, the wall Roberto always had his back to during the sessions, was a framed poster: a black-and-white photograph of Louis Armstrong laughing, with his trumpet in his hand, his arm hanging down by his side. The caption at the bottom said: If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know. Roberto wondered if the poster was new, or if it had always been there since he started coming.

  “Is there a reason you got here early today?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Or rather, maybe there is a reason but I don’t know what it is. I suppose there’s a reason for everything.”

  “Not necessarily. Some things are pure chance.”

  He said this with a smile. Roberto thought it seemed almost a knowing smile, as if there were something else which there was no need to add because both of them already knew it.

  “How are you today?”

  “Fine.” The sound of the word, as he uttered it, struck him as unusual, as if it had a new meaning.

  “Well, better, anyway. For the last few nights I’ve been sleeping at least six hours, maybe even longer, and in the last two days I’ve smoked only five cigarettes in all. I’m still walking a lot and … Oh, I forgot to tell you before: I’ve started exercising again.”

  “That sounds like excellent news. What kind of exercise?”

  “Nothing special. A few push-ups, a few weights.”

  Then, without knowing why, he asked the doctor if he played any sports.

  “Karate, ever since I was at university. I started because of this fellow who broke my nose in a stupid argument after my car bumped into his. I wanted to learn how to use my fists.”

  Roberto was surprised at this unexpected confidence.

  “And did you learn?”

  “To use my fists?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never gotten into any fights with anyone. I imagine you can use yours.”

  He shrugged. Sometimes he’d used his fists, and sometimes, as a boy, he’d been at the receiving end of other people’s. As a carabiniere, he had been involved in some fairly lively arrests, and sometimes at the station it had been necessary to calm down a suspect who was a bit too boisterous. Sometimes, too, it had been necessary to persuade someone to spill the beans without wasting a lot of time. He could clearly remember the face of a young man they had caught with some bags of heroin. He said h
e didn’t know the name of the person who had given them to him and so he received a few slaps. Maybe a few too many. After a while he started sobbing. I didn’t do anything wrong, he kept repeating. Roberto remembered the young man’s face as he wept, and he felt a sudden, violent spasm of shame, as if for some unspeakably cowardly act.

  “Before we continue, I wanted to tell you something.”

  “Yes?” Roberto said.

  “You’re getting better, we both know that. In a while we’ll be able to start reducing the dosage of your medication. But don’t do anything on your own. That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “Actually I’d been thinking about that. Reducing the doses, I mean. Couldn’t we—?”

  “In a while. And you shouldn’t worry about becoming addicted to the medication. There’s no danger of that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re afraid of becoming addicted, and that’s the best kind of prevention there is.”

  He explained that the people who really ran the risk of becoming addicted to something—anything—were those who were convinced they could control the situation and stop whenever they wanted, whether it was drinking, smoking, taking drugs, or gambling.

  Roberto thought suddenly about cocaine, the fine texture of it, the white or pink color, the slightly medicinal smell. He remembered it as if there were a heap of it right there in front of him, on the doctor’s desk. The memory was like a slap.

  He did his best to dismiss it. He nodded: he wouldn’t change the doses.

  “Now do you feel like telling me what happened after they took you on at the … what’s the name of the department you were telling me about?”

  “The criminal investigations unit.”

  “And what are its functions?”

  “Much the same as the flying squad in the State Police. In other words, detective work. In a big city like Milan, it’s divided into sections. Robbery, homicide, organized crime, corruption. And narcotics.”

  “And what section were you assigned to?”

  “I did a few years in robbery and then they moved me to narcotics.”

  “Why was that?”

  “There was more work and they needed more staff.”