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Overview
Eva, a forty-year-old public relations professional living in Northern Italy, receives an unexpected message from Southern Italy. Vito, a man she briefly knew as a child as a friend of her mother’s, is very ill and would like to see her one last time. He is a retired police officer who was stationed in the north during the late sixties, a period rife with tension, protest, and violence surrounding disputed land near the border with Austria. These troubles, however, did not stop a hapless young policeman from falling in love with the “wrong” woman, a girl named Gerda from Austrian Tyrol, an inventive and accomplished cook, a northerner, the sister of a terrorist—and Eva’s mother.
Vito’s affair with Gerda was a passionate one, but what was the nature of their love? And if he loved her so passionately, why did he return to Calabria? What scars did those years leave on Vito, and on Gerda? It’s time for Eva to find out, in this sweeping literary page-turner about family, forgiveness, and conflict, a bestseller in Italy now translated in English.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781609453237 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Europa Editions, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 10/08/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Sales rank: | 476,331 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
1919
If anyone had asked Hermann, Gerda's father, if he had ever known love (no one ever did, least of all his wife Johanna), the image of his mother standing at the entrance of the barn, handing him the bucket of lukewarm milk from the first milking, would have flashed before him. He'd sink his face into the sweet liquid and raise it again, a creamy mustache on his upper lip, before setting off on the hour-long walk to school. Only after covering a certain distance would he wipe his lip with his wrist. When Sepp Schwingshackl joined him from his maso to walk with him. Or, when along came Paul Staggl, who was the poorest boy in the whole school — his father's maso was not only uphill but north-facing, so never got any sun in the winter. Or, if he'd tried thinking about it (something he never did in all his life, except for just one time, and then died immediately afterwards), he would have remembered his mother's hand, cool but also as rough as old wood, cupped over his childish cheek in a gesture of total acceptance. By the time Gerda was born, though, Hermann had long ago lost love. Perhaps he'd lost it on the way, like the hay in his dream.
The first time, he was a boy, but then the dream recurred throughout the rest of his life. His mother was spreading a large white sheet on the field, filling it with freshly scythed hay. Then she closed it by bringing together and tying the four corners, and put it on his shoulders, so he would carry it to the barn. It was a huge load but he didn't care. His mother had given it to him, so the weight was all right. He would walk up from the scythed field, swaying, like a monster flower. His mother watched him with her blue, almond-shaped eyes — the same eyes as Hermann, then his daughter Gerda, and also her daughter, Eva. Stern, gentle eyes like in some portraits of Gothic saints. However, another Hermann — ageless and invisible — realized with alarm that the corners of the large cloth weren't tied properly and that he was shedding hay behind him on the ground. A few stalks would fly out at first, then entire handfuls. The Hermann who saw and knew everything couldn't alert the Hermann who was the character in the dream, so when the latter reached the barn, his bundle would be empty.
The first night he dreamed this, the peace treaty was being signed in Saint-Germain, with which the victorious powers of the Great War — France, especially — wishing to punish the dying Austrian empire, assigned South Tyrol to Italy. Italy was very surprised. There had always been talk of liberating Trento and Trieste, but never Bolzano — let alone Bozen. It was perfectly logical. South Tyroleans were German people, perfectly at ease in the Austro-Hungarian empire, and didn't need anyone to liberate them. Even so, after a war that had certainly not been won on the battlefield, Italy ended up with that stretch of the Alps as their unexpected booty.
That same night, his parents died three hours apart, swept away by the Spanish flu. The following morning, Hermann found himself orphaned, just like his land, South Tyrol, deprived of its Vaterland, Austria.
After their parents' death, Hans, the eldest brother, inherited the old maso. The property consisted of a house with a Stube blackened by smoke, a barn full of wood beetles, a field so steep that in order to cut the hay you had to put your weight on one leg at a time, land so poor and vertical that it kept having to be carried back up on your shoulders in a wicker basket after every rainy season had sent a large part of it sliding down to the lowest point of the field. And Hans was the lucky one.
The three elder sisters got married in a rush, just so they could sleep under a roof they could call their own. Hermann, the youngest, had to go and be a Knecht, a servant, in the wealthier masos, the ones with level slopes you could scythe with your weight on both legs. The ones where the land stayed in its place even after a heavy downpour, and didn't slide down into the valley. He was eleven years old.
Every night, until he was twenty, never having been away from his mother for more than half a day, he wet the bed from fear and loneliness. In winter, in the drafty loft where the masters made Knechte like him sleep, Hermann would wake up enveloped in his own frozen urine, as in a shroud. When he got up from the straw mattress, the thin tegument would shatter with a light crackle.
It was the sound of loneliness, of shame, of loss, of homesickness.
Kilometer 0
Jet lag is worse when you travel East. That's what everybody says. When you go against the sun, they say it then retaliates by depriving you of sleep. As if I had sleep to waste.
Carlo is coming to pick me up at Munich Airport, but I can't tell my mother, because I know she doesn't like him. She's never liked him. Maybe it's because when I first introduced him, he didn't try to butter her up, not even a little. He was just polite. Still, we must remember that he's an engineer, so his job is to take things literally. Otherwise, the bridges and viaducts he builds wouldn't stay up. He probably thinks I'd take his chivalry toward my mother as a slight. How little he knows about me. About me and, especially, about her.
I introduced him ten years ago. We'd gone to visit her for All Souls weekend and she'd had us at Ruthi's — my patin's — farm. She'd installed herself in the fir-lined Stube, looking like something in a tourist office brochure. She was wearing a lace blouse under the boiled wool jacket with the buttons made of bone. Only thing more Tyrolean than that would have to be a Dirndl. Maybe she was keen on being seen by Carlo in that setting that was ever so rustic and picturesque, like a staging of her own identity — even though, to tell the truth, she's never been a peasant.
Carlo talked to her, enquired after her health, and held the door open for her when we went out. However, he never stared into her eyes and laughed, never told her that now he could see who I got my beauty from, and, what's worse, did not agree to play a hand of Watten. And that was something my mother has really not forgiven him. Carlo justified himself by saying he didn't know the rules of that particular card game. The rules! He really hadn't understood a thing.
That's why I don't take him to visit her anymore. She doesn't like Carlo, but not because he's married or because he has three children I've never met. And not even because, in the eleven years we've been together, he's never mentioned the possibility of divorcing his wife.
These aren't the things that matter to my mother.
I come out through the glass door of International Arrivals. A fifty-something man is pushing my luggage cart: Jack Radcliffe, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, a farming machinery manufacturer on temporary transfer to Munich for a trade fair. Tall, salt and pepper hair, impeccable navy-blue suit. As for me, even after a nine-hour flight, I'm dressed and made up as if for the New York art previews, which is indeed where I'm coming from. Pistachio green Donna Karan jersey ensemble, pendant earrings, pumps. We make quite a handsome couple. Shame about the American's slightly beady eyes and that purplish nose (he enjoyed the inflight bar service). When Carlo sees him next to me, he rolls his beautiful dark eyes, as though asking the sky to witness the stamina needed to keep up with a woman like me.
The American, on the other hand, takes a while to work out that someone has come to pick me up, or maybe I forgot to inform him. In any case, he stops smiling. It's as though he's watching the fantasies he's entertained about me melt away in the presence of another man, like ice in a glass of whisky you've been holding too long. His eyes become even more translucent — tearful almost — as he gradually realizes that this handsome, Latin-looking man is there for me. Without any surprise or embarrassment, Carlo shakes his hand, thanks him for helping me with my baggage, then sweeps me away with those broad shoulders of his I still like so much.
As I walk away, my arm around him, I turn to look back, flash him an encouraging smile, wiggle my fingers and twitter, "See you later, Jack!" That's enough to confuse athe baggage cart and, as a matter of fact, Jack Radcliffe, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, remains in the Arrivals Hall, devastated by incomprehension even more than disappointment.
"Poor thing ..." Carlo says, kissing my hair. Not a reproach but an observation.
"Why? He was a nice gentleman"
"'Eva's nice gentlemen,'" he sighs. "A category of the spirit."
"He let me rest on his shoulder during the entire flight."
"And what did he do for nine hours with your lovely weight upon him?"
"He picked up the blanket when it slid off me, drank spirits, and told me about his unhappy marriage."
"Actually, the exact category is 'the nice gentlemen who tell Eva about their unhappy marriages.'"
He squeezes my shoulders, all lovely and male, the doubt never even crossing his mind that he might belong to this despicable category. I must say it's true that he doesn't belong to it at all. After all, Carlo never mentions his marriage, so I have no way of judging whether it's a happy or unhappy one. Not that I care, actually.
He's pushed the cart to his car and loaded the baggage. A baby blue three-piece set I just bought in New York: trolley suitcase, holdall and beauty case — and with such handy compartments too. My mother would like it. In fact, I'm thinking it's a color that suits her rather than me and that I'll probably take them to her when I go there for Easter lunch, the day after tomorrow. I remain on the sidewalk with the computer case over my shoulder — I never let anyone take that from me. I like it when a man does muscular, physical work for me. Like lifting and arranging suitcases in the trunk. I assume a calm, patient air and enjoy the moment, looking away from Carlo so he doesn't think I'm rushing him. There's a man coming toward me on the sidewalk, heading to the taxi rank. A little younger than I, in a steel-gray, freshly pressed, woolen pinstripe suit, with an overnight bag that suggests he's flying on business. German, but not Bavarian, rather a Northerner: from Hamburg, perhaps, or Hanover. When I catch his eye, his pupils dilate and he assumes that expression men have when I look them in the eye — that unmistakable blend of rapacity and yearning. Desire makes them bold but also vulnerable and I become the keeper of a secret: chances are, their mother has never seen that look in their eyes — at least I hope not.
Carlo slams the trunk shut and sits down behind the wheel. I open the passenger door and, as I sit down, crossing my legs, I look up at the man who may be from Hamburg or Hanover, and who is now walking past me. I don't smile at him but barely squeeze my eyelids, the way thirteen-year-old fashion models do when they want to make their expression more intense. Then I slam the door, and Carlo starts the car.
I'm not beautiful. Nice-looking, but nothing special. There are so many other tall blond women.
I'm not even young anymore. There are many girls around young enough to be my daughters, with fresher bodies, smoother faces, and a more desirable innocence. And yet men still look at me. I inherited my mother's features but in an approximate version. Her Russian aristocratic cheekbones have been passed on to me with a more rustic cut. Her lips have an elegant design to them, while mine have something of the maso, of fresh, still warm milk, of butter. Like her, I have slim legs, a full bust, and North-European height, but when it comes to bearing, we're poles apart. Gerda Huber spent her life sweating over cookers and chopping boards while I wear Armani and organize society events. And yet between the two of us, she's the one who looks more like a queen.
It's a three-hour drive and two borders from Munich airport to my home. When I was a girl, I found this double frontier behind our land very exciting. It made me feel close to a big wide world, to other places, to the unknown. It was back in the days when Schengen was just a small town in Luxembourg no one had ever heard of; when European customs houses were indicated by real red and white grade crossings, and humorless men in uniform who looked like they could deny you access and even arrest you. And then there was the Brenner Pass, which certainly made quite an impression as a border: dark, oppressive, with its cavernous railroad station like something out of a spy movie. The thrill of those days is gone. Now, when you go through the narrow doorway that leads from Northern Europe to Italy, they don't even check your car tax disc.
Well, almost. After Sterzing/Vipiteno, just before Franzensfeste/Fortezza, Carlo stops at the Autobahnraststätte/Autogrill and we have a belegtes Brötchen/panini. Then we leave the Autobahn/autostrada and pay the toll at the Mautstelle/casello. All this while driving his Volvo which, thankfully, is Swedish so doesn't have to be translated into German or Italian. Welcome to Südtirol/Alto Adige, the land of bilingualism.
We pass various exits before getting off the highway and entering a wide valley full of light, that is welcoming even now after the first thaw has made the sunlit slopes muddy and patches of brown are already discoloring the mountain pastures still covered in snow. All around, the slopes are thick with larches, fir trees, birches, and dense forests that don't, however, threaten human activity on the valley floor. On the contrary, their impenetrable nature almost seems to frame the civilization of work — the masi with large lawns, bridges over the still-torrential river, and churches with their bulb-shaped bell towers. It's in this valley that I was born.
Carlo takes me home. We make love the way we usually do, with the usual gestures. It's the advantage of eleven years of secrecy: sex follows established, reassuring patterns, like in a marriage, but doesn't end up being taken for granted, or become a duty. This blend of habit and precariousness suits me. Afterwards, the two vertical lines between Carlo's eyebrows always relax a little, letting in less shade. I first noticed it eleven years ago, in this very bed, and it has been happening ever since. So this, I tell myself, is my power over him. I'm the one who smooths his forehead, I'm his personal anti-wrinkle cream. It's a comforting thought because the older he gets, the more he'll need it.
We remain in each other's arms between the linen sheets. White ones. I can't bear to have my sleep — scarce enough as it is — surrounded by colors. Carlo turns on his side and wraps me from behind. He smells my hair.
"You travel too much, you," he says.
I smile. When he talks like that, I know he means it. The phone rings. Carlo holds me tight. Don't go, his arms are saying. I don't go, and the Telecom answerphone kicks in. "This is the answering service for zero, four, seven ... "
An excited, adolescent voice with a strong Roman accent, says, "Listen, it's coming now ..."
The answerphone continues, unperturbed, in German now, "Hier spricht der Anrufbeantworter der Nummer Null Vier Sieben Vier ..."
"What's that — German?" a second voice says. A slightly clucking voice that hesitates between high and low tones. Fourteen — fifteen years old at most. Perhaps younger.
"Hey, how long does it go on for?"
"... Hinterlassen Sie bitte eine Nachricht nach dem Signal."
At this point the two boys are guffawing and the first one has started screaming into the receiver, "Krauts! Krauts!"
"Actùn, cartoffen, capùt ...!"
The other one has joined in but is laughing so hard he can't carry on. My back remains glued to Carlo's stomach, his arms around my chest. We stay there, listening without moving.
"Go back to Germany!" the first one screams, then hangs up.
"Again!" I say. "Don't they ever get fed up?"
There's a scene in all the TV soaps my mother watches every day after lunch. The married man knots his tie while standing at the foot of his mistress's bed, gives her a kiss on the forehead, then leaves, while she remains lying on an unmade bed, staring sadly at the door that has closed behind him. Often, she'll hug her knees and put her chin on them, always modestly covered by the sheet. In eleven years, it's never been like that with Carlo. Before he says goodbye, even if he's in a rush, he always takes the time to move from the bed to the sofa, or the kitchen, or balcony, in other words somewhere that isn't the place of pleasure, to allow me also to get dressed or at least put on a robe. Then we have a coffee, a chat, a laugh. I feel that's quite a lot.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Eva Sleeps"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Francesca Melandri.
Excerpted by permission of Europa Editions.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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