The Smile Of The Moon

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The Smile Of The Moon
Klaus Zambiasi

Klaus Zambiasi

Table of contents

1  Title (#udabd9204-4d40-52c5-98b7-78298072d4cf)

2  Index (#u9dbd3333-e047-5b98-842c-3b31a4c65d96)

3  Dedication (#u372fd06a-052a-5848-bc0a-1dff561d3251)

4  The news (#uedff3ff7-5f24-58f3-b927-0c3deed9c99a)

5  Our small house (#u0512c414-796a-514a-97d1-ee27174cfcb2)

6  Surprise visit (#ub4574ebc-fa48-5d63-8795-e8e1193e59c4)

7  What you don’t expect… (#u55130466-a5ed-5be7-b697-258aabf05b9c)

8  Portobello (#u5b5d8ba0-fba3-5844-a72f-02dab1a19502)

9  Smells like home (#litres_trial_promo)

10  The longest night (#litres_trial_promo)

11  The force of habit (#litres_trial_promo)

12  The Campsite (#litres_trial_promo)

13  Cavalleria rusticana (#litres_trial_promo)

14  Sunday morning… (#litres_trial_promo)

15  Weekend in the province (#litres_trial_promo)

16  Magical Nights (#litres_trial_promo)

17  The Nineties (#litres_trial_promo)

Title

The smile of the moon

based on a true story

Klaus Zambiasi

translated from “Il sorriso della luna”

by

Giacomo Lilliù

www.traduzionelibri.it

Index

Dedication (#u372fd06a-052a-5848-bc0a-1dff561d3251)

The news (#uedff3ff7-5f24-58f3-b927-0c3deed9c99a)

Our small house (#u0512c414-796a-514a-97d1-ee27174cfcb2)

Surprise visit (#ub4574ebc-fa48-5d63-8795-e8e1193e59c4)

What you don’t expect… (#u9dbd3333-e047-5b98-842c-3b31a4c65d96)

Portobello (#u5b5d8ba0-fba3-5844-a72f-02dab1a19502)

Smells like home (#litres_trial_promo)

The longest night (#litres_trial_promo)

The force of habit (#litres_trial_promo)

The Campsite (#litres_trial_promo)

Cavalleria rusticana (#litres_trial_promo)

Sunday morning… (#litres_trial_promo)

Weekend in the province (#litres_trial_promo)

Magical Nights (#litres_trial_promo)

The Nineties (#litres_trial_promo)

Dedication

Your idea, your idea

Don’t give up, defend your idea!

Do you remember when you used to give birth to a song

And when hope had your eyes?

You’ll win, if you want to

But don’t let your years fool you!

Now there’s a reason why the sky is blue

Stop love, don’t let it go away…

‘La tua idea’ (1) – Renato Zero

I invoke the stars, eyes fixed up above

But everything has ran away, in the river of us

My desire is your image

The sweet countryside that once bloomed

Sitting in the middle of the night, I wish I could implore you

I trace your name on the earth, in your glow

We’ll love each other forever, even after we’re gone…

Sitting in the middle of the night, and the nature here

To remind me about love, adolescent upon me

We’ll love each other forever, even after we’re gone

Your body is thought, even after we’re gone…

Dedicated to my grandmother

1 TN (Translator’s note): ‘Your Idea’. The original Italian lyrics are as follow: ’La tua idea, la tua idea / Non mollare, ma difendi la tua idea! / Ricordi quando ti nasceva una canzone / E quando la speranza aveva gli occhi tuoi? / Vincerai, se lo vuoi / Ma non farti fregare gli anni tuoi! / Il blu del cielo forse adesso ha una ragione / Ferma l’amore, non lasciarlo andar via...’

The news

It’s 8.03 pm on an April evening in 1970.The black and white TV atop the fridge in the town’s bar is broadcasting the national news on the first channel.

Paul McCartney, in the middle of an endless array of microphones, has just announced during a press conference that the Beatles are officially splitting up, shocking millions of fans across the world and throwing them into a turmoil.

It’s the first story of every national and international news, the scenes alternating between teenagers, young girls and ladies of any age, all desperate for the end of their idols’ band.

The bar is dominated by cigarette smoke, with a couple of classical still lives hanging on the wall.

There’s an old man, white-bearded and pipe in hand, looking like a sailor, and seeing him here, in a small town in the middle of the Dolomites, feels somewhat odd. He’s celebrating the latest victory of Gigi Riva’s Cagliari, about to win its first ever football championship. The ‘loyal regulars’ are playing cards and drinking red at their usual tables.

An abstract and unexpected sensation sweeps through the air, some family men go back to their homes.

The 8 o’clock news is also reporting about the American space shuttle Apollo 13, which has just taken off from the space station in Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to the moon. While orbiting in space, during the attempted moon landing, some technical problems hinder its arrival. The event is broadcasted across the world, keeping the viewers waiting with baited breath. Apparently, the three astronauts on board won’t be able to come back.

They risk an awful end on live TV, unless they manage to repair their malfunctions and return in time, landing safe and sound on the Pacific Ocean.

There must have been some strange and particularly hostile conjunction of stars these days in the April skies.

That’s probably what Mr Remo also thought when they told him what happened at his house.

He was there at the bar playing cards as usual; in theory, come dinner time, a good husband should be home with his family.

But we all know how these things go, one more game, let’s play another, the rematch, the final… and so on, time flies. He fit in that context, at least until the news, the shocking news, reached him.

He doesn’t even have the strength or the courage to go back home – Remo can neither know nor imagine what’s waiting for him there.

A dear friend of his offers to put him up for that night, and the following too, should he need to. Remo gladly accepts: after all, friends are often an essential anchor one can cling onto for a little comfort at painful times like these.

Not far from there there’s a great bustle, some commotion, it’s hard to understand what’s happening, blue and red lights in the night. A white cloak blends into the crowd, almost like a spectator, staying and watching the scene and not knowing whether to vanish or to give up to their own conscience.

An elderly mother, incredulous and desperate, is trying to take care of her own young daughter, while a life is ending.

Four years and ninety days later…

Our small house

Tears are shooting stars, fallen from a most hidden universe also known as our soul.

We seldom cry with joy, more often with sadness, in any case always emanating a strong emotion from ourselves.

Sometimes I’d do two opposite things at the same time, crying and feeling like laughing, unable to stop the tears even if I wanted to, the need to cry getting stronger and stronger. I wanted to explain to my childhood friends that nothing had happened, but in-between sobs I still felt like laughing.

I’m Joe, the youngest of the family, and I’m just four years old. Sitting on the balcony of the house, I’m keenly observing the stars in the August sky, dressed in intensely luminous cobalt blue.

Here in the mountains, three thousand feet in the air, this kind of landscape is charming, the stars are so bright I could almost grab them with my hands. The full moon’s shine softly kissing the Sciliar(2), a light but constant breeze blowing under my nose, scented by mown field grass dried by the scorching sun of the day. A magical trail tasting like freedom and wilderness. I believe this scent has both a relaxing and regenerating effect, in my case even therapeutic.

Up on the left, the belfry rises with its big onion dome, the symbol of our town, its lights inviting me in the distance, the country fair music diffusing in the darkness, mixing itself with the crickets’ and the cicadas’ call in the fields below.

I love the crickets’ chirp-chirp in the fields during summer evenings and especially nights, it makes me feel serene and peaceful. It’s almost like an open-air concert, like nature telling us it lives in harmony, and so do we within it.

It’s an indefinite sense of freedom and adventure that makes me wish I could sleep in the fields under the stars. But I’m afraid I’ll still have to wait for this wish of mine to come true…

I hear mamma Barbara’s feet coming, anticipated by the creaking of the dry, worn-out balcony wood…

‘Come inside, it’s time to go to sleep.’

‘All right, five more minutes, let’s watch the moon and the

stars together.’

‘Come sit on my knees’

and we tightly hug, my cheek onto her soft cheek.