Unsent Letters #18

Your big pink house

Photo by Augusto Lopes on Unsplash, rendered black & white by me

Dear G.,

The last time we met was many years ago. Too many, for two who used to be inseparable. So, when I unexpectedly ran into you the other day, I thought I’d seen a phantasm. You told me that you and your mom had moved into an apartment in a small three-story condo on the seafront, after you decided to sell your family house a couple of decades back. Your dad had passed, your sister had married, given birth, and settled down somewhere else, and your brother had moved to a city up north, where he found a job he was qualified for. It was your mom and you, in the end, and that house was too big and expensive. Such a common destiny when certain dads pass: families fall apart, and big houses that were once their gravitational point become forgotten, deteriorating places inhabited by ghosts and memories. 

And you, you never settled down with anybody. The eternal bachelor, going from girlfriend to girlfriend. When I asked whether you had married and had kids, I already knew the answer. But I had to ask, after so long. Who knows, maybe life changed for you as well. Gabriela couldn’t be better, you answered to my ‘how’s your mom’ question. As long as she can take her long walks on the beach in the winter, she’s happy. You didn’t call them Dad and Mom, your folks. I always liked that.

So, the big pink house where I spent so much time in my teens is gone. It was a little sad to hear, but that’s life, I guess. What immediately brought back a smile to my face, though, was remembering when we’d gather there in the afternoon, you, Andrea, and I, flip through the phone directory, and call random numbers. Telephones were only fixed, and the numbers we called were other houses or offices or any other place where a telephone was connected to a wall. That’s all there was back then. Doing prank calls was our favorite pastime. Stupid, innocent prank calls. Remember them? We’d show up at your place right after lunch, lock ourselves in your dad’s study, and sit around the big mahogany desk on which a gray rotary phone lay like a prima donna, no papers, pens, or other items around it. You’d fetch the phone book, and we’d start skimming for names that had some kind of interesting sound to them, I forget based on which criteria. Every now and then your dad would crack the door open and have a peek, laughing. I loved your dad; he was big and funny, and spoke with an adorable accent.

Your big pink house -- I remember it so clearly. It was on an uphill street, in a suburban residential neighborhood. From the street, only the gate was visible. Past it, a steep descent began, with a hairpin turn before reaching a large porch, under which was the main entrance and, to the side, the service entrance that led directly to the kitchen. This is where I’d get in, after leaving my white Vespa under the porch. I’d walk past the kitchen and into the annexed dining room, where you were still finishing up your lunch with your dad, mom, and brother; your sister always so mysteriously absent. Despite the intrusion -- something my folks would have never allowed, at our place -- everybody always greeted me with a smile. Your dad would often ask me to please say hi to mine, from him. I will, thank you, I’d respond. It seemed so very normal that someone would burst into your dining room while everyone was still sitting down for lunch, albeit, I have to admit that your folks have always treated me as a member of their own family, not merely a friend of their son’s. Thinking back, I appreciate this much more now, so many years later, than I did then. But isn’t this true with pretty much every fact of life? It’s hard to fully comprehend and appreciate what’s happening to you while it’s happening. 

My entire life has been centered around trying not to create inconveniences, trying not to disturb. Too much so, I realize now. Standing there, in your dining room, even for just a few seconds while your dad said those words to me was so embarrassing that I tried to speed past it as quickly as possible, to get to the study and sit at the desk, waiting for you. 

Then, eventually, Andrea arrived and joined us. He was the brazen one; I myself could never get to say weird things on the phone to a stranger; you were a mix of us two. But Andrea, he was impertinent. He’d call one of those random numbers and, depending on whether he heard a female or male voice on the other end, he’d either say something like “Hi, would you be on the phone with me forever?” (obviously trying to solicit a laugh), or “Is your daughter in?”. The two of us, listening in silence, our ears pressed against the receiver that Andrea slightly detached from his, would turn bright red with suppressed laughter. And when he was lucky enough to get some sort of interesting reply, like “Sure, let me put her on the phone for you”, the real show started. And I have to say, besides the hysterical laughs, we even made a few friends along the way. Like those two girls from so far away, I forget where exactly, who jumped on a train and traveled many hours to come meet us in person. Nice, funny, and surprisingly good looking (I don’t know how, but Andrea could tell from the voice), they stayed in touch with us for years, until they vanished into the misty adult life. They all vanish, at some point. A few reappear, but most continue to be missing. An immutable law of existence.

As if pulled by a magnetic attraction, yesterday I felt I had to go check on your old big pink house. I hadn’t driven on that street in decades. Once there, I left the car at the bottom and continued walking uphill. The silence was the same as forty years ago. I forgot to ask who you sold the house to. I guess it’s none of my business, but I wanted to know whether whoever bought it lived there now. From the other side of the street, I saw the gate wide open, as if a car just went down the descent. Strangely, it stayed open, no sign of anyone or anything that might have passed through. As I crossed the street and got closer, the silence felt heavier and heavier. Until I felt wrapped in a surreal stillness, in a frozen world where the birds didn’t chirp and the trees didn’t sway. Suddenly, the distant sound of a phone ringing broke the deafening silence. I can hear okay, was the first thing I thought, relieved. 

I stood at the open gate, trying to assess where the ring came from. It looked like nobody lived in your old house. Not a momentary absence, though. It felt as if the house had been uninhabited for long. And yet, the distant, regular, incessant phone ring came from inside. It was the anachronistic ring of a rotary phone. And it went on; it didn’t stop. Still standing at the gate, I checked the label underneath the buzzer. No name. It was the old brass buzzer that had always been there, back when your family name was on the label, only rusty now. Running alongside the descent was a line of shallow steps built for those who left the car on the street and had to walk down. As I timidly went down the stairs, and the ring became increasingly louder, I turned my gaze at the porch down below. My white Vespa was there. My white, 50 Special Vespa that Dad bought me in nineteen seventy-nine, and that I hadn’t seen since the mid eighties. And my heart skipped a beat.

I was petrified, but something told me to continue down the stairs. The ring was loud now, no longer a sound in the distance. It was close. With an unconscious reflex, I pushed the door of the service entrance, and it opened. I was in your kitchen. Your white, immaculate kitchen, still as I saw it my last time there, a million years prior. Since it was now obvious that the rotary phone ring came from your dad’s study, I walked toward it, past the dining room. You can believe this or not, but seated at the dining table were your dad, your mom, and your brother. I instinctively saluted them, my hands trembling, palms sweating. They looked like when I saw them the last time I came to your house: your dad wearing a white shirt, your mom a beige blouse. They were having lunch, peacefully, and didn’t see or hear me. I entered the study, and saw you seated behind the mahogany desk. You had your gaze fixed on me, and were smiling. The phone, beside you, kept ringing. So happy that you came, you said. I was waiting for you. I can’t pick up the phone; only you can.

And I did. I picked up the phone. The ring finally stopped, its echo still lingering over us. What I heard was real; I did hear it. But then again it wasn’t, perhaps. Who knows. Andrea’s voice, and yours, and mine, and that of the many strangers that we randomly called during those afternoons of so many years ago distinctively unrolled in my ear. They were our voices from back then, and they were replaying all the conversations that we had, one stitched after the other in an infinite patchwork. I sat down, receiver on ear, in front of you, and kept listening to what seemed like an audio-only movie of all those prank calls. You never broke eye contact with me, never stopped smiling. 

When I woke up this morning, writing this letter was the first thing that came to mind. Then I paused and thought that I wanted to tell you all this in person, and hear your reaction in real time. But I didn’t know how to get a hold of you. You didn’t leave me your contact details when we bumped into each other a few days back. So I went looking for the small three-story condo on the seafront you told me about. I remembered you mentioning a restaurant on the ground floor, to help me visualize its location. Ristorante il Pirata, you said it was called. And sure enough, the restaurant was located on the ground floor of a small three-story condo on the seafront. Absent a concierge, I checked the names on the buzzers. Nothing even resembling your family name. So I stepped into the restaurant to ask them.

We’ve been here for forty years, the guy said, but never heard of that name. The flats above belong to only two families. I know them both well and they, too, have lived here for forty years.

---

"Unsent Letters" is a series released every other week. These are imaginary letters to fictitious or real individuals who may or may not have influenced my life, not always mirroring actual events.

If you liked what you read, I’d be truly grateful if you shared it.

And if you’re not yet a subscriber and just stumbled upon this page because someone shared it or by divine intervention, and you liked it, please do subscribe to receive my writing every week in your inbox.