The Water-Breather. Ben Faccini

       8

      Each spring, we drive to Italy and stay two weeks with our Italian grandparents. That’s the way it’s always been: two long weeks of heat and open space. Soon after we’ve crossed the border into Italy, Pado gets out of the car and stands on the verge taking in the air.

      ‘It’s the same air as over the border in France,’ Ama sighs impatiently.

      Pado turns to us and in a singing voice smiles: ‘Siamo arrivati! Welcome to Italy, Benvenuti in Italia!’ He gets back in the car and announces that he’s in a better mood.

      ‘Maybe we should move here just for that,’ Ama laughs.

      Ama never enjoys staying at our grandparents’ and, on the way there, she says to Pado: ‘I still don’t understand why we have to stay a whole two weeks. It’s far too long and it’s just another journey, as if we haven’t got enough on our plates as it is!’

      ‘My mother loves seeing us, and I can catch up on my reading,’ Pado explains. Ama says that’s not enough of an explanation for her. ‘Well your mother certainly doesn’t love seeing me,’ she adds, ‘I can tell you that much!’

      ‘Ma dai, nonsense, it’s all in your head!’

      ‘I tell you she doesn’t like me,’ Ama insists. ‘She never has. She thinks I’ve taken you away from her or something. Anyway, the sooner we leave again the better.’

      ‘That’s positive! Really what the children need.’

      ‘Don’t tell me what the children need Gaspare!’ Ama stops Pado with a glare.

      From the border to our grandparents’ is a stretched-out journey of narrow motorways and cypress-tree bends. If the driving gets too much and the windows rattle with Ama’s stifled complaints, we head off into villages and towns in search of churches with cold stone floors. We stand in the aisles soaking up the cool air. Pado tells us the tales of the local families and the names of the popes. We stop and run our hands along carved tombs or strain to see fading frescoes tucked away behind altars. With a torch darting over the church walls, Pado uncovers the lives of saints and describes biblical stories. He sits us down to recite and memorise the cities of Renaissance Italy. Giulio gets stuck somewhere down south. I stall on the name of Ferrara. ‘Come on ragazzi,’ Pado says, ‘you can do better than that.’ We try again and reach the end of the list without any mistakes. ‘Nothing worse than a lazy mind!’ Pado reminds us as he leads us off into the crypts. The names of Giotto, Benozzo Gozzoli and Masaccio mingle with those of Jesus and the apostles.

      Ama slips off and lights a candle.

      ‘What’s that for?’ Giulio asks.

      ‘It’s for Grand Maurice,’ Ama answers, grabbing our hands. We form a circle. We watch the flame flutter and struggle against the draughts. Ama stares down at the polished floor. She suddenly looks the way she did two summers ago when Machance called up from France to tell us that Grand Maurice had gone missing whilst out fishing by the lake. For a couple of days Machance kept us informed and then gave up. For a week no one dared think anything and we all sat silently waiting for news until a French policeman rang to say that a drowned man had been found. Ama put down the phone and left the room with Pado following her. Hours later when Pado came back in, he sat us down and made us understand that we wouldn’t see Grand Maurice again. We wanted to find Ama, we wanted to check it was true, it couldn’t be true, but Pado said Ama wouldn’t be coming down. I waited outside her bedroom all afternoon and listened to the walls crumbling with Ama’s cries. I tried the door several times, it was locked and, every time I called out, Ama couldn’t hear me because my voice had gone. No one made any food that evening and Ama didn’t join us. We took the biscuits from the larder and ate them dry. Pado sat with a book on his lap, reading and re-reading the first page. Each day after that Ama shrunk a little into herself. Pado tried to comfort her and then us and then no one could comfort anyone any more. Ama never made it to the funeral in France. She could barely leave her room. Then Machance came over and the loss we felt threaded itself through all of us.