Post #4 (Italy Shuffle)

Ever since I was a child, the concept of 'grand’ fascinated me. No matter what it was. Enormous buildings looming from somewhere above, so high I wondered how those monstrosities could even exist. Vast waters that spread wide and reached deep, leaving me eager to know what it was and afraid of what was inside. And, to be sure, all kinds of heavy machines and vehicles.

Like airplanes. Especially airplanes. Perhaps that is why I hold a degree in the design and construction of aeronautical structures and systems (crazy, but it is true). But that is a tale for another post.

Anyway, one summer, my mother took me to the local airport to watch the planes taking off and landing from the half-rounded waiting lounge. No walls—only glass all around. The summer heat on that day was severe. I remember sweating so hard in that sauna that my armpits were two lakes with streams running down them. There were only two of us there—no one else in his right mind would stay under the direct sunlight in that human greenhouse.

At some point, a massive guy appeared before us. Utterly out of nowhere. He was bald, and his black sunglasses were of the type the party boys used when raving in basements in the early 00s. Impossible to spot even a hint of the pupils behind the lenses. He said nothing, only stood before us.

It was my mother who talked. And she told me to follow the guy so he could take me outside and show me the airplanes from up close. Maybe even get some useless trinket from a pilot. I did as she told me. She was my mother, after all.

Afterward, I saw neither her nor any familiar faces for nearly two months.

Years later, I found out what a noisy and unbearable child I was back then. Especially during the summer vacations, when there was no school to dominate my mind. If so, my parents were prone to sending me off somewhere far away, like the grandma’s village or summer camp. But that time, they outdid themselves and sent me to a homestay in Italy. Not any Italy, but on the remote island of Sardinia, in a small town called Alghero.

The next thing I recall is that upon arrival in Italy, that sunglasses guy abandoned me to the mercy of two elderly women in the Fiat car right at the airport in Italy. I have never seen him again.

The short one with dyed-in bright red hair was Rosa. The tall one with wrinkled hands was Lia. They lived on the outskirts of Alghero in a cozy chateau. Where they made their own wine. The red one.

Rosa was a household woman. She cooked for me. Pasta and lasagna mostly, sometimes pizza. She also took care of the house, cleaned the yard, did laundry. Household stuff.

Lia, though, was a much different type of woman. The one I was unfamiliar with at such a young age. She handled all of the male jobs. All of them, as far as I can tell now. She drove the car, tended to the wine yards, prepared the barrels to store wine. Abyss, Lia was so masculine that she perhaps even loaded those red grapes into the wine press all by herself. I did not see her actually doing so—it was too early for harvest. But the machine was there, though. In the wine cellar.

And, as any self-respecting Italian living in a province, Rosa and Lia were devoted Catholics. Every Sunday, early in the morning, three of us packed into that Fiat car, and Lia drove us to Alghero. There, we attended a church service at some modern Catholic cathedral made of concrete. I loved that place. Nice and clean. Smelled of sanctity. All the good stuff.

Besides ‘pronto’ and ‘prego’, I did not understand a thing in Italian and had no idea what the pastor was preaching about during his sermons. Still, there was one part I did understand. It was when all of the parishioners fell on their knees and chanted ‘amen’ in a somewhat peaceful manner. They did so quite a couple of times throughout the service with such devotion and dedication that even MJ could envy them. Infected by their vigor, I emulated them. Just shouted 'amen' at the top of my lungs, if truth be told. And yet, I had a sensation spreading all over me that I was doing something important. Transcending further and further into a god-touched state with each successful scream.

But sometimes I was not in the mood for divine revelations and spent some of the services in the cathedral’s backyard. There was a basketball court out there. I grabbed the ball from that Fiat car and threw it against the cathedral's wall. The basket was too tall, the ball was too heavy.

Usually Rosa and Lia stayed after the service and talked to the pastor and their friends who lived in the town. That was how I met Gabriel—one of their friends’ children.

Gabriel was older than me. Short crewcut, tanned face. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. If so, he knew much more of the pretty things life had to offer. He did not know English that well, though, so we communicated in a hellish fusion of English and Italian, seasoned with plenty of hand-gesturing. 

Our friendship started from the bottom—we played some ball in the backyard of that concrete cathedral. When we got closer, Gabriel taught me to dip pizza crusts into the ketchup for it to become edible. Not something that Italians would do, but it was his definition of religion. Much to Rosa’s dissatisfaction.

Last, but not least, Gabriel introduced me to cards. Not to the card games—I already knew those in plenty. He showed me those other things you could do with them. If you obeyed some of the rules.

And knew the right words to say.

One sunny day, Gabriel took two of his friends from Alghero, hit the bus, and visited me at the chateau. I cannot recall their names—only that one of them was plump, while the other was younger even than me.

It was the middle of siesta, and Rosa and Lia had a nap—like all self-respecting Italian people of their age did. However, the four of us had not even the slightest desire to rest. Instead, we stayed in my room above the wine cellar. There, grinning like a madman, Gabriel produced a pack of old, trite cards and intended to show us a magic trick. ‘The Three Jacks,’ he called it. Gabriel searched the deck and produced those three cards, omitting the Jack of Hearts. He said it was too soon, too dangerous to use him. His voice was trembling.

At that time, I had no idea what he meant by that. But I was excited beyond description, eager to know what he was about to show us.

Gabriel explained our next step. The rules were simple—lock yourself inside a room, close all of the windows, close the curtains too. No light, no sound, no interference from the outside world. Easy enough. We did so not only in my room but also throughout the whole chateau.

When everything was prepared, we sat in a circle in the middle of my bed. With no unnecessary movements made, Gabriel threw three cards in the center of the bed. One after another. Until all three of them were lying, looking upwards. The room was dim, the air was heavy with summer heat and mystery. The hair on the back of my head stood up.

Gabriel then said something in Italian. I had no idea what it was. But I convinced myself that it was something like...

SHOW YOURSELF

We waited. All of a sudden, a hard knock emerged from behind the curtains. As if something had crashed into the window but failed to break it. “A bird,” I told myself. A coincidence. Nothing to be worried about. And yet, I immediately lost any interest in that magic trick of his.

Gabriel repeated the procedure. On the second time, it was a cat wailing as cats do when they are dissatisfied with something. And they are easily dissatisfied with anything. My disinterest changed into a sense of unease. Some strange thoughts started to creep into me.

On the third time, some dull sound of working machinery came from the underground. The floor under our feet shifted, if only slightly. Or it was my head spinning from the anxiety that, by that time, embraced me in its dark hands. I cannot tell for sure.

And then Gabriel said it was time. To dismiss one of the jacks and add the Jack of Hearts. For the fourth and last time. But he also said that it meant that something might happen to the living thing inside the house.

That something ought to happen. That someone might even get hurt.

It was too late to back off. If so, I held my breath, watching through the twilight of the room as the Jack of Hearts fell on top of the other two cards. It did not take long. A loud noise came from outside the room. The loudest, most dismantling sound I have ever heard in my life. It was short, yet it lingered in the air for a long while. Like two heavy steps of some otherworldly entity that had emerged to rip some ignorant children. 

That was more than we could handle. All four of us lost it. We rushed outside.

And there, in the middle of the hall, Lia was sprawled on the floor. As if she were cold dead. Our screams woke up Rosa. Looking in disbelief at the body lying on the ground, she called the ambulance.

The doctor insisted that Lia was alright. Nothing serious. She had just lost her step in the dark hall and fallen, hitting her forehead on the wooden flooring.

But I was in a haze, feeling responsible for the occurrence. 

When the doctor and Gabriel with his friends were gone, Rosa wanted to know why, for Christ's sake, we had closed all of the curtains in the house. She asked me questions—many questions. And yet, she was stressed and spoke to me in that well-familiar merge of Italian and English. I just mumbled something inaudible, pretending I did not understand.

I returned to my parents from Italy a different child. For sure, they did spot some change in my character. We did not talk about that, though. Never.

And never again did I doubt the presence of the divine power that is watching over all of us. Jesus Christ observing from Heaven along with the Father. The Jack of Hearts watching us from much darker places. Some other force—impossible for our fragile minds to comprehend. Who knows what else that might be?

I do not know, to be honest. Maybe all of it. Maybe some parts. Maybe none at all. What I do know, though, is that whatever that is, you do not fuck with that.

Because it might fuck you back.

I do know just that much.