The Sun and Other Stars by Brigid Pasulka

Author:Brigid Pasulka
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

I sleep in the aula, and it’s still early when I get to the shop. Not even Franco and Mimmo are out yet, only Pete the Comb Man standing next to the beach cleaner, doing his tai chi. When he’s finished, he’ll start up the engine and ride up and down the beaches like a Riviera farmer, plowing wide, clean furrows in the sand, perfect for sowing the next generation of German and Milanesi pedants, irrigated by their own sweat. I know he sees me, but I try not to meet his eye. They say he prays for everyone who meets his eye.

I start setting up the case with the lights off, and I’m about halfway done when I hear the clank of the back door lock and see his stocky silhouette against the light of the alley, his hair sticking out like a porcupine, its defenses always up. He props the door open to let the air in.

“Ciao, Papà,” I say. As if nothing ever happened.

He flips the fluorescents on and comes up front. “Etto?” He looks surprised. He doesn’t kill the fatted calf for me, but he doesn’t tell me to get out, either.

“Ciao,” he says, and that simple word stamps and seals the truce.

He puts on his jacket and washes his hands like any other day. He sharpens his scimitar, pulls the hacksaw off the wall, and goes into the walk-in to start a rough carve of the vitello. He’s done it so many times, he can do it while it’s still hanging. I finish setting up the case and start scrubbing down everything in the shop, polishing the glass until it’s invisible, and oiling the stainless steel until it’s shiny enough to deflect a laser. We work in silence, the only sounds from the spray of the disinfectant and the muffled rasping of Papà’s scimitar against cold flesh. This is my apology, my reassurance to him that maybe we are not going to win any father-son awards, but at least I won’t come down one morning and announce that I’m going to play video games on the other side of the world.

It’s already quarter to eight when I look up and see Little Yuri and Yuri in matching sunglasses and baseball caps, waiting patiently outside the door. I turn the lock and open it a crack.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper.

“I told you, I come fix everything with your papà.”

“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea anymore. Things seem okay now.”

He tips his sunglasses, and his pupils pierce right through me. “Trust me. You will see.”

It sounds like such a simple thing, doesn’t it? Trust me. Fidati di me. Three words as wide as the ocean, and the title of a not-bad song by Laura Pausini. And what Yuri Fil’s eyes are urging me to do right now. Trust me.

“Papà? Could you come here a minute?”

He says something, but the walls of the walk-in muffle his voice.

“Papà?”

He taps at the door with his foot, and it eases open a crack.

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