Part I is here | Part II is here
As I splashed my face with cold water and looked in the mirror, I thought that I should call someone, perhaps, and tell them all about what I’d gotten myself into. Someone who’d sit me down, let me talk, listen, and ask questions. I would then try to find answers that didn’t exist; I would shamelessly make them up and pretend all was clear and rational and that I was in full control of the situation. Except the main thing that would transpire from my answers -- the only one, really -- would be my desire of being stopped. But no, I didn’t call anyone.
And driving, I had always enjoyed. Not driving per se, but solo driving to far destinations. On highways and state roads, where music is heard, thoughts are developed, and stops made. That I hadn't driven to and into Switzerland for years could be inferred from the absence of those stickers with the last two digits of the year that they attach to your windshield when you pay the highway tolls at the border. The vignette, they call it there; each year’s a different color. You pay once, and can raid the Swiss highways up and down for the whole year. I’ve always found this cool. Some time ago, I had an entire collection of vignettes on my windshield -- a sign that I often drove to Switzerland, but also that the car wasn't new.
On my way up north, as I grappled with questions about what had happened to me, my whereabouts, my destination, and the reasons for my trip, I felt like a character in a Patrick Modiano novel. In one of those beautiful stories of his where things seem to make no sense, until they slowly and subtly do. And even when they start to make sense, you’re always left with a feeling of suspension, where time is slower, voices and sounds are muffled as if enveloped in gauze, and scenes are framed as if pictured with one of those camera filters that smudge the edges to create a soft glow. Yet, in all of Modiano’s novels, things never do make sense completely. But you keep going, enjoy the ride, immerse yourself in those dreamy images, and forget about having an objective at all. Sometimes, the why is not important. And so I let myself be transported through the events minute by minute, for the mere sake of it. What was happening between me and these events was similar to the process of developing analog photographs that become visible bit by bit under the darkroom’s red light. Fate was showing me images that revealed themselves slowly.
Margherita’s instructions were clear: once arrived at the small village of Waldkirch, leave the car and take the funicular to the top of the adjacent mountain; there, hike down a path into the forest, heading northeast, until you find a red sign on the trunk of a large tree, and wait there. What was unclear was everything else. Wait there for what? For her? And how the heck would she know that I’m there? She left the letter for me two days prior and wouldn’t even know whether I found it, let alone read it. And assuming all of this happened, how would she know that I decided to take the plunge and go to her refuge in the middle of nothing? I might as well have decided to forget it and be done with her. But there I was, into a forest with a long, unpronounceable German name, standing next to the large tree with the red sign, and slowly turning into Murakami’s Kafka. Except Kafka, if I remember correctly, was fifteen and tireless and never fell asleep with his head resting against the trunk of a tree, like I did.
I’m so glad you came, she said. Her eyes were fixed on mine; mine were still struggling to get her face in focus. I was lying on a couch in a small living room, a square wooden table with two chairs at its center, a basic, open kitchen at its side. There was a spiral staircase leading upstairs in a corner, and the afternoon light was pouring in from two identical windows on the far wall. She was wearing a white, oversized turtleneck sweater, a pair of black rimmed glasses, and black sweatpants. Her hair was gathered in a ponytail. Who took me here? Did you? were my first words. It’s not important, she said, and handed me a cup of hot tea. My head was overstuffed with questions. Hold them, she said, as if reading my mind.
When I was little, my family lived a comfortable life, she started off, with no prompt or question from me. “My dad was a self-made businessman, and his company did great. He worked very hard; he was highly respected. He and my mom educated us -- my brothers and me -- by example, they never sat us down and lectured on how to conduct life. We were fortunate to have two parents whose every action was inspired by the highest values of honesty, integrity, and generosity. And it was all out in plain sight for us to see. My dad found himself a rich man, at some point, but always used the money to do good. As a true altruist, he’d always put himself at the bottom of the list of those who he wanted to see happy. We weren’t spoiled children; we were raised with the belief that anything was possible, but it had to be earned through study, hard work, and respect. Yes, whenever anything was needed, we never settled for anything less than the best, and we’d go traveling around the world and stay in wonderful luxury hotels, whenever Dad had a rare break from work, and live in beautiful houses. But our parents worked hard to inculcate in us the principle that the most important things in life couldn’t be bought.
“My dad purchased what became our family house when I had just graduated from college. It had been built in the fourteen hundreds, and over the course of the centuries belonged to different families. Until the last one couldn’t afford it anymore and let it go to ruins, before it was offered to my dad who, albeit cognizant of the gigantic amount of work and money needed to restore it to its ancient splendor, bought it and made it his lifetime project. His aim was to create a center of gravity for our family for as many subsequent generations as possible. So he devoted the rest of his life to it, with love, energy, and passion. It was beautiful, and my brothers and I, who had to build our lives and interests away from there, really made it the place to return to. A place of peace and tranquility, where the wind blows gently.
“But times got rough and, due to a series of poor choices as well as difficult market conditions, my dad’s company had to file for bankruptcy. To protect us and our lives, he then embarked on a number of ill-conceived investments that promised quick and fat returns, promoted by questionable individuals whose sole objective, as it became clear, was to suck as much money as possible from him. At the same time, lawsuits related to his old company started to flood in, turning him into a nervous, stressed-out wreck. Until he passed away, five years ago, leaving us with a demanding family house to maintain, several lawsuits to manage, and very little money.
“Out of desperation, with almost no money left, we decided to sell the family house. We knew that my dad would never have done it, that he would have found a way to keep it even in the face of financial hardship, but we had no choice. So we put it on the market at a certain price, but the rumor that we were forced sellers spread pretty fast, and no offers were presented. Time was running out and the only way to monetize our sole remaining source of value was to reduce the price until we found a buyer. In the end, an offer was made. An offer so outrageously low it would have made my father turn in his grave. But beggars can't be choosers, as they say. So we were bound to accept it, and get it over with.
“The night before we had to inform the buyer that we’d accept their offer, a night as sleepless as many others in that terrible period, I went for a walk. It must have been three or four, and I was weeping. Our house was on the hills, in the countryside, and the roads around it were normally deserted at that time of night. My sniffing was the only audible sound. Suddenly, I heard the feeble voice of an old woman behind me, asking for something to eat. I turned around and saw her: she was small, had a scarf around her head, and walked with a cane. Please miss, please give me something, anything, I am poor and hungry, she begged. I stopped and reached into my pockets to find a coin. There’s always someone who’s worse off than you, I thought. As I put a few coins in her hands, she closed her fingers around mine and looked up to me. Thank you, she said, what’s troubling you, miss? I was about to leave and continue my weeping walk, as I had too much on my mind. But she continued: please accept something, as a sign of my gratitude; this will help you. And she gave me a little white stone that, as it touched the palm of my hand, started glowing with an intense, pulsating light. When I looked up, she was gone.”
[To be continued]
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Loving the exploration of the serial format Silvio.
The suspense you’ve created is delicious. You description of fate so visceral - unfolding the way a picture emerges from a darkroom negative. That scene took me back to the time when I developed photos in my university darkroom. Can’t wait for the next installment! Grazie