“And while you two were busy philosophizing, I won,” exults Vanni. “I told you: Fuckers win with swords.”
“In your dreams. You can barely take it out to piss!” Okay, Luciano is a genuine romantic.
“Ask your sister if that’s true or not.” Vanni shuffles the cards, proud of his victory, and deals them out. “Cups, the drinkers. That’s you, Max! On the table.”
“Go ahead and laugh,” he says. “Alcohol may not have the answers, but at least it makes you forget the questions.”
While the three men continue to make fun of each other, my eye falls on a couple sitting next to us: They must be around my age, they’re wearing wedding rings, and she’s caressing her belly.
But what caught my attention was her thick, curly hair: I remember there only being one redhead in Belvedere.
“Margherita?” I ask without wanting to seem intrusive.
She turns. “Yes?”
Then the man must be Lapo, the famous climber. There was nothing he couldn’t climb as a kid: trees, gutters, tractor tires, hay bales ...
“Lapo, Maggie!” I greet them with more conviction, leaving the card table. “I’m Michael. Michael D’Arcy.”
Their previously suspicious faces brighten. “Oh my goodness! What are you doing here?”
For the first time, I sigh with relief in seeing that my arrival was not the subject of gossip for everyone. “I’m here with Charles to evaluate the estate.”
“Ah, did he inherit it in the end?” asks Maggie.
“Yes, well ... I don’t think they’re talking about anything else in the village.”
“We came back from Massa yesterday. We were at the seaside for one last peaceful holiday. Sara will be born at the beginning of September.”
“Congratulations, guys ... Elisa told me you got married.”
“Yeah.” Lapo nods with an ear-to-ear smile. “Just think that I went to study in Madrid, and she went to do a master’s degree in dance in Toledo. We met in Barcelona and had an instant spark. Sometimes there’s no need to go and look for destiny in God’s house when you have it just a stone’s throw away.”
“I’m very happy for you,” I say. I really am, because the two of them are the picture of joy.
“What about you? Married? Kids?”
“Free on all fronts,” I reply. I usually recite this line with lively and vibrant satisfaction, as if I were a heroic survivor of a catastrophe, but it makes me feel incredibly lonely at the moment. No women, I systematically reject them all; no children, and no prospect of having them. “But never say never,” I find myself adding.
“Maybe we should organize a dinner while you and Carletto are here, with Elisa and Giada, like old times!”
“I would very much like that.” I really would like that.
We say goodbye, and I go back to the game. “Sorry, two old friends of mine.”
“Maybe the only two who actually came back to Belvedere,” comments Max. “And over the years, I have seen a lot of people leave. I win again,” he says, closing the game.
“Have you always lived here?” I ask him.
“Yeah. I took over my father’s workshop,” he replies dryly.
“And you never got married?” This piques my curiosity, because according to the standards of the village, he would have been quite the catch.
“He missed the kind of train that only comes once in a lifetime, and he’s still standing on the tracks, crying,” Vanni interjects.
“There was a woman I would have taken to the altar with my eyes closed. I proposed to her, she said yes, but she wanted to go live in Florence. She’d studied languages and had a good job there as a guide. That year my dad had a lung problem, and so he had to decide whether to pass the workshop on to me or close it. He knew Laura wanted to move and urged me to go with her, but I knew that it would kill him to close up shop, so in the end I chose to stay.”
“And Laura married someone else,” concludes Luciano.
