“I actually agree with you in a way,” I said. “In fact, if you want to know the truth, the dead person isn’t even from Italy. We’re bringing him in ash form. I have him right here.”
She looked at the Tupperware bowl and inched slightly closer to the window.
“This is just part of him,” I said. “But, as I was saying, if you look at the situation in one way, the whole thing is kind of a giant waste. He’s a pile of dust. He doesn’t care where he is. And he never even went to Sicily while he was alive. Why would he want to come here now when he can’t actually experience it?”
The woman’s face was locked in a tight-lipped grimace.
“And believe me, this is not the way I wanted to see Italy. I thought I’d be going to Venice with a sexy Philosophy major to drink Bellinis and make out on a gondola. I didn’t think I’d be coming here to plan something for a dead person. This was not the way I had it drawn up, I’ll tell you that much.”
The woman was miraculously still making eye contact with me. She was, however, holding tight to her armrest.
“But then, I’m also thinking: maybe this is the right way to see it. Because, maybe the one good thing about the dead, if there is anything good about them—which there totally might not be—is that they remind us that it’s actually going to happen. Any old time.”
I motioned toward the small window to my right.
“And meanwhile, there’s all this stuff. Crazy, sublime stuff. And we’re blind to it all the time. Or, at least, I am. I don’t know about you—I won’t speak for you—but I don’t notice anything. I’ve been walking around like a goddamn zombie for months. I don’t even hear the birds. I don’t hear them! They make such beautiful little chirps, and I don’t care. I don’t care about their chirps. I don’t care if they find mates. But I really want to try to care. I want to try to pay attention to the sublime, amazing stuff. Do you get what I’m saying?”
I took a breath and brought my seat back up to its original position. A passenger from the row in front made eye contact with me through the crack between seats but quickly looked away. I closed my eyes. The woman next to me was quiet. After a moment I leaned over to her and said, “Thanks for the gum.”
Then I looked down the row at Daniel. I wondered if he’d heard any of the conversation, but it was probably toonoisy to hear much. I only saw a sliver of his face through the seats. He was leaning against the window like a child. I wondered suddenly if he had a bad association with air travel because of his dad’s work. I hadn’t asked him anything about himself in days.
Suddenly, I had a profound urge to have him sitting next to me. Just sitting there, talking about everything in his soft, deliberate voice. Also, I liked holding hands during landings, and he had humored me on the other two flights. I had reached for him and he was there. He didn’t even look at me in those moments. He just grasped my hand and closed his eyes. And, both times, it had eased the anxiety.
But the woman next to me probably wasn’t going to change seats. Especially now. I’d be lucky if she hadn’t reported me to a flight attendant. So, for the moment, I just sat there looking at the side of his face, rows away, wondering if he was the last person on earth who didn’t think I was completely out of my mind.
33
Now seems like a good time to admit that I’ve never really been out of the country. I was in Canada once when I was a kid, but Canada doesn’t really count. It’s Minnesota with Mounties. The only reason I had a passport at all was because my mom was always threatening to take me away on spiritual journeys to lands unknown. Anyway, this is all just to say that I was not really prepared for the city of Palermo when we arrived.
It was midday when we got there, and the traffic was a total cluster: one huge game of chicken between hundreds of Fiats and motos, all carrying an improbable number of humans. In the cab to this intersection called the Quattro Canti, I looked out my window and saw an entire family riding on a single scooter. Seriously: four people. One scooter.
The toddler was first, just kind of perched on his father’s lap. Dad was next, one hand on the throttle, lit cigarettedangling from his lip. Behind him was the mother, holding on to her husband like she was giving him the Heimlich. And behind her, barely on the seat at all was a sullen teenage boy. All of them were tan. None of them wore helmets. And just when I was about to point this sight out to Daniel, the family took off at an inhuman speed, balancing like acrobats.
Daniel was passed out anyway. He didn’t do well on planes, he told me, and I’m pretty sure he downed half a package of Dramamine before we left. While he slept with his mouth open, I tried to soak up the street life on the ride to the hotel. The sun-whitened Baroque churches and smoking shop owners, the flocks of kids my age with plumed haircuts typing frantically on their phones. I only caught glimpses as the taxi pinballed its way through the city.
Finally, we arrived at the Centrale Palace Hotel, which was way too nice for us. We stumbled into the frescoed lobby and stood beneath a dazzling antique chandelier. Daniel had booked the hotel and the place was completely bonkers, a former eighteenth-century aristocratic residence remodeled into a hotel for travelers. In other words: the kind of place I never stayed, and probably would never stay again.
“How the hell can you afford this place?” I asked.
“I paint houses in the summer,” he said.
He looked up at the chandelier.
“This room was like... ten houses.”
Daniel walked to the desk and rang the bell.
A clerk strolled across the marble floor dressed in a powder-white linen suit. His neck and face were covered in expertly groomed stubble.
“Benvenuti a Sicilia!”he said. “You are on your honeymoon, yes? You said this in your reservation. But,regazzi, you are so young!”
I was still staring at his suit. Fortunately, Daniel came to life beside me.
“Yes,” he said. “Si.We’re on our honeymoon. We’re young, but we’re super Christian.Bambino Gesú!We love that guy! So that’s why we’re so young and everything. We saved ourselves for the Lord. Sexually.”
I think Daniel was still high on Dramamine. The clerk just smiled, his blue eyes sparkling in the light of the chandelier.
“Bene,”he said.“Bambino Gesú. Bene.”
