Mario doesn't have an easy pen. Not even in words is a champion, to be honest. This story he told me one evening, after a guard at COP, the platform operations center, the realm of naval engineers.
In the officers' square of a powerful warship, people watch movies, eat meals, and sometimes normal relationships are strengthened. Some friendships become so strong that they last forever. "Cinzia was beautiful, she was ... she is very beautiful ..." she said to me, while I was fumbling to insert the videotape of "Fuga per la vittoria" in the VCR. We were just the two of us. The service sailor, with the excuse of going to pick up the traditional midnight pizza, had been eclipsed for at least half an hour. I thought maybe he was addressing me.
"Do you pray?" I replied with such a formal attitude that I was ashamed afterwards.
"Commissioner - he went on - we all carry our lives with us, in our luggage, always too small, always so essential. At each departure, as soon as you open the bag to reconstruct a new mosaic of undershirts, underwear, ties, uniforms, it is as if the skin of Eolo was opened. But Ulysses and his crew suffered only once. For us, every mission is a journey in the company of ourselves, of our past and our future is always uncertain, always tied to events, also because mum Marina is particularly silent and a little stepmother ". I don't know why, but not I would have made him a profound man. I was aboard a few months, suddenly, called to replace immediately an officer so powerfully protected as fragile and incapable and I had been fully involved by the need to bring the level of efficiency of my Department in equal compared to the others. I hadn't really had the time to deepen friendships or evaluate colleagues, beyond what may be epidermal impressions: the one there must be a great lick, this has an innate sympathy, that other never laughs. I think Mario started his talk with me just because we were both Ligurians. Winning innate confidentiality is easier if one of yours is in front of you. It's a bit like confiding in the family.
"You know, this is my first" gray ship "- I replied - I did two and a half years on the Vespucci, but it was all another environment. But you know that well. Let's say that if you take your memories on warships, Vespucci gives you the opportunity to fill your bag, at least talking about women, but not only. "
"Yes - he answered - the Vespucci brings joy to the ports and receives love. But the Navy, wherever you are, will offer you opportunities to experience emotions, intense or weak, to remember or forget ... I met Cinzia in a short period on the ground. You know, I'm only twelve years old, but I already have 10 of boarding. On the ground I saw only the academy and the arsenal. In the latter I have spent about 8 months. I was injured aboard the Order, a banality, an inattention, but I had to bring the plaster for a while and then rehabilitate myself. Rather than being at home, after removing the plaster, I asked the doctor to make me fit, with destination on the ground. In Genoa, without having anything to do, I felt really useless. "
"I understand. And Cinzia? - urged him, as if I were a curious elf - Is it a memory of Genoa, of the arsenal or of some journey? "
"Cinzia I met her in the arsenal. I could not be used to follow the work on the ships, because of the leg, and then the director assigned me to a warehouse. He had a good idea ... He gave me the task, having seen that I had attended, before the military service, a course of programming, to record the spare parts that were in that warehouse, trying to reconstruct a situation a bit 'rough. Let's say that inside that warehouse, which kept materials of great value, the desire to work was very rarefied. "
"Yes, but Cinzia?"
"Belin, Commissioner, you are curious, eh!" I felt I was alive. My touchiness was making me think of a nice tranchant phrase like "sorry, I'm going to check what's going on with the pizza", when the Ligurian, who knows his like, added ...
"And you are right, I was taking it long! Wait, while we're waiting for the pizza, we'll have a beer drop. "He went behind the counter, opened the fridge and pulled out two small bottles. Meanwhile I had slipped out of the corner where the video player had been bolted. I went over and began to pour the beer into the glass - the usual one, the one supplied for the water, unfit to receive the foam and turn the smell into aroma - while he opened a packet of chips with the grace of whoever is more accustomed to handling large metal pipes rather than compasses and nautical squares.
"Cinzia was one of the employees in charge of accounting for the warehouse. She had been drafted a dozen years before and had been employed in that office ever since. Every day he had to deal with the various stakeholders of the ships, who went to the warehouse to reclaim spare parts, to replace the worn ones on board. In principle, the great work was that of research - he stopped - I'm sorry, I was getting lost in the details! "
"But no, I did, I'm interested. After all, the more I know, the better it is for my work. Let's say that, like you said before, it's like helping me fill the sack. "He smiled at me. We had reached a certain harmony. Our merit, or the calm sea across. The beer, in fact, had just been sipped, with a silent cin cin, raising the glass, between a chip and the other.
Cynthia lent himself, by duty and altruism, to help in research. Although we were already in the 1995, all the work was handled with large paper records. Only those who had spent a lifetime in that warehouse could extricate themselves in the lists of materials, transcribed with great approximation. Often, after being able to identify the sector in which the materials could be crammed, the consignee was left in the huge, cold and damp warehouse to rummage on the shelves, to look for the missing piece. More often, however, and more sadly, he returned on board the defeated. The director of the arsenal wanted to computerize all the warehouses, and took advantage of my presence, as an additional resource, to assign the task of recording the materials, creating an updated database that would allow us to verify the usefulness of stocks (there were ships disarmed for years!), faster and more efficient searches. In short, a more correct and managerial management. He used to tell me, when I was going to report, that the spare parts were nothing but money in other form and that that money was the labor of the Italians, to whom we owed respect, as well as having to make the bill. "
"He does not wrinkle," I added, "and I suppose this Cinzia harpooned you in the course of work."
"No, look, harpooning is not the exact term. There has never been any kind of physical contact between me and her. I'm not telling you a story about sex. It is a story of agreements, of looks ...
"Explain better".
"I used to work in the management offices upstairs. For those in the management offices, those working in the warehouse were the ones below. Conversely, those above were us for them. A replica of the Italian attitude to make a parish. So I had few opportunities to meet her; when I came down, it was to take the information necessary to develop the program I was supposed to create. She, however, came up or down the toilet (but it was an obvious excuse, because there was one downstairs), or to deliver the documents that the manager would have to sign. Every time it was a flash of glances, that if they could talk, they would have said too much, maybe everything. In some cases, mine would have been forbidden to minors and maybe even yours! "He smiled. I think that at that moment he was no longer on board but would see himself again on his desk, scanning the corridor, hearing light steps approaching.
One day some of those downstairs had the idea of organizing a lunch in one of the beautiful towns that surround La Spezia. They warned me only in the afternoon of the previous day. Mr. Barabino - they told me - we organized a group lunch for tomorrow. Would we like to have you with us, if you like it too? But of course I'm glad, I replied, in the certainty that Cinzia would have been there. I didn't ask. It would have been unseemly that this professionally detached officer was blatantly interested in that beautiful girl. On the other hand, if there had been or not, I had been invited, I had nothing else to do, and whatever happened, it would have been fine. "" Then? - I also interjected because from his eyes I sensed that more than remembering, he was reliving those moments. It seemed right to bring him back to this world - how did it go? "
"You're in a hurry, eh? Look, from that moment I was seized by a strange excitement. Although I didn't know if it would come or not, I tried to imagine it. With my head I fantasized about having her close, of being nice, despite the fact that most of those below didn't like me, since my efficiency highlighted their inability to work and, perhaps, from my relationships to the director he could have had some shuffling of cards in the employees' deck. Probably in that I had to look for the reason for that invitation. Anyway, I kept thinking about her, how she would dress, where she would sit, since I, with good chances, would have been placed in the middle of the table. If she had kept herself glued to me, even discreetly, to sit close to her, it would have been a good sign. I imagined a certain audacity on my part, that I am a timid absolutely landslide, to lightly place her hand on her knee, under the table. I thought that if he took me back, I would come up with the incredible but still valid excuse of a napkin fallen under the table. Morning came and I asked for confirmation of the rendezvous. At the half we met in front of the exit and made a small caravan, up to Cadimare. We took an aperitif in the bar of the same restaurant. I had not yet seen it, caught up in the talk with the Marescialloni. There were those who tried to induce me to tolerance, some who would give me information (which I did not have), some who suggested all the necessary details so that I could do their work the best - he smiled, glad to have succeeded in inserting a nice joke - until her blond hair attracted me like a magnet with iron filings. It was a crash! He had a black suit, I don't know how to say it technically - here is the officer of the naval genius who prevailed over the tender young man! - I think it was made of satin and tulle, in short, a beautiful dress, which emphasized its forms, rightly rich but not overflowing. What a difference compared to everyday clothes! I liked to think that that dress was for me. "
"And then? Where did she sit? "I know I was interrupting the thread of a story, like when, in the projection of super 8 movies that Dad projected us as children, the film block formed" the bubble ", as we called it, a micro-combustion of the film, ignited by the powerful light of the projector.
"They sat me in the center, with many ceremonies, as planned. She was going to look for a secluded spot, when some of the old sailors I had at the table did not begin to pimp: Cinzia, come here, near Signor Barabino. Young people must be with young people. Perhaps it had been studied, maybe not, the fact is that while she was shielding herself and I was making the face of the indifferent (but I don't think I was very credible, after having turned red like a san marzano tomato) everyone sat down, leaving her standing with the only place to my left free. He had to put a good face on me while I wasn't in the skin. She too, however, became quite reddish. Good sign, I thought. Am I boring you? ”He was saying to me. Although he described a private and, perhaps, banal fact in his ordinariness, he had managed to capture my interest. I thought that, in the end, nothing happens by chance and that in life things happen which can only be explained many years later.
"Are you kidding? Go ahead, you'll be well aware that I'm curious! "
During lunch I tried to avoid talking about work. Somehow, while talking to others about my interests, my experiences, I tried to make myself better known to her. I had prepared jokes, trying hard, in the day before I remembered them. I also phoned friends to tell me some of them. To remember the prettiest I had found some key words, which I had tied together like a nursery rhyme, as was done at school, The Baptist dog opens the track that summed up a joke about two dogs competing for a bone, another, a little 'scollacciata, on a butler a little too attentive to the needs of the hostess and the latest on the misadventures of a skier. I'm not able to do the splendid, I'm a damn Ligurian of few words, but it seemed to me that I made my figure. Between an appetizer and a glass the conversation became more and more fluid, cheerful. Certainly I was not able to make the dead hand, as I had promised myself, and all I could do was make her look at herself, self-censored, because I didn't really want to share my feeling with that cheerful mass. But I felt like it. I was more than certain! Evening fell between a chat and the other. It was the last days of winter, although spring had already begun to scream his joy. Around five in the afternoon, sipping the ammazzacaffè, we prepared to go back to Spezia. He stopped, and seemed really annoyed. I went under: "And the next day?"
"The manager called me. There was a need for a steam engine expert like me on the Audace. He ordered me to report immediately on board because my predecessor had obtained the resignation from the Court, with immediate effect, that the Navy had refused him and therefore he would have gone immediately. I replied Commands! I went into the office to take those four things that we are fond of and that we always carry with us, greeted those upstairs and begged them to greet those below. At nine I was on the Audace. Two days later we left for an exercise. I was very tempted to write them, but I'm not very good with the pen. I would have ended up ruining that beautiful harmony that had been created. I liked her, I was sure of it! On the way back I would have gone back to say goodbye, this time more calmly, and I would have asked for her phone number, I would have invited her out. "
"IS…? I did, with a great desire to feel the happy ending, as in all good stories. "
"I went through the warehouse. From those below, this time, because I wasn't in the skin, after two long months. She wasn't there. They told me, without much regard, that she had taken a few days to be with her boyfriend. A fresh story. The sack of the sailor is always heavier. So many things come in. Few come out. Six years have passed since then. I'm still a bachelor. I don't know. But it was beautiful. She must still be so beautiful. She stood up. The beer was long gone. He set his glass on the bar. The bottle flew into the bin. Before leaving, he turned around and ...
"Thank you, Commissioner. Telling does not erase the memories, but to share them with a friend, they become less heavy. "
Mario and Cinzia are names of fantasy. This story no.
