The American by Ata Zargarof

The clap of sandals as I lick my fingers, chocolate gelato leaking onto my wrists. Should I Google heatstroke symptoms? A young woman lies topless on the rocks below, her stomach chalky with dried salt. I take a swig of lager, the bitter foam spilling onto my beard.

***

Chewing fried calamari as the sun mounts Manarola. The path is steep and winding. I wipe grease onto my shorts, wipe the sweat from my forehead. Why did I leave my inhaler in the flat? I pass a crushed beetle, its life splashed across the stones. The way the iridescent wings are splayed dislodges a memory. It’s not until I’m in a restaurant packed with Americans that the vision re-materializes. Years ago, on Gabriola, a young man tried to leap from a cliff into the sea. He slipped. I wasn’t there to see it happen, I didn’t hear the screams when he splattered like an egg, but I remember the mess he made. Cinque Terre has too many steps, my knees throb as I swallow negroni. My own kind stinks, I wrinkle my nose and ask for another. They sound like they’re from Florida. I feel myself crouch into the chair, ashamed of their loudness, as if the Ohioan in me can be obscured by silence. What was he thinking the moment his foot lost purchase on the slick rock? Dumbass was probably trying to impress some girl. I let that bitter thought sweeten the Campari on my tongue. Someone at a nearby table says the legal age of consent is 14 here. I turn in my chair. It’s a man in his sixties, sitting with two other men. Their wrists flash with quartz watch-faces; white shirts turn the skin around their necks the color of clay. Three pale golden beers shine in their hands.

***

Orange buoys bobbing up and down in the green-blue water. Salt stings my eyes. The sun is high and strong. Seagulls circle the oiled, glistening bodies on the beach like vultures. I spit out a mouthful of seawater. Nearby, a young woman steps into the water with her friend. They wear their hair in cornrows in a way that reminds me of a rapper my son listens to. One of them pierces me with her icy blue eyes. She glances over often, giggling. My throat tightens.

***

One night, I stumble home drunk and stand close to the full-length mirror in my flat, gingerly touching my face. There are white hairs in my beard. My cheeks sag; a rotund, alien belly protrudes from my gut. Towards the end, Sandra gave up asking me to join her at the gym. I can still see her bald head, the wires growing out of her like veins. Has it really been three years? Thank God I managed to cry at the funeral.

Skin peels off my back in long white sheets. I lie in bed, the pain so terrible I feel like laughing. Instead I make a gurgling sound in my throat as tears spew from my eyes. In the adjoining room I hear a bed creaking, the occasional smack, a woman’s moans. I feel an old familiar stirring, like a fish trawled from a great depth—the line taut, close to snapping.

***

Blue dark curdling; a belt of amber stretched over the sea. The air is thick and warm. I’m walking down the street when I notice two figures standing under a streetlamp. Their silhouettes are frail, thin. They’re hunched over their phones, blue light sticking to their faces. As I approach, I recognize them. Their hair is different now, falling down to just below their ears. The one with the icy blue eyes meets my gaze.

***

The younger of the two girls—the one with the blue eyes—is named Bianca. When she graduates, she wants to study Spanish. She wears a slim-fitting turquoise dress. Her nails are painted bright pink. The menu lists “smocked swordfish” with “cappers.” The waiter brings us lupini beans in brine and slices of peach. We eat with toothpicks. I wonder how we appear. A father and his daughter? Who am I kidding? When it arrives—lasagnette with razor clams and asparagus cream—Bianca prods her meal with a fork several times before each bite. I order a bottle of wine for the table—a Pinot Grigio made here in Cinque Terre. Graciously, they don’t ask for her I.D.

***

Voices speaking in a foreign tongue rouse me from sleep. Did I leave the window open? I stagger over to the balcony and stick my head out like a dog in a car. Down by the pier, two Italian men are smoking cigarettes. Rags of cloud cling to the moon like a ripped grey dress. The sea is choppy and dark. My gaze travels over to the bed. A mass of black hair on the pillow, a single pale thigh exposed by the duvet.

I stand at the toilet, peeing loudly. The first time I saw Marcella naked, I was rolling a cigarette in the backyard when I noticed movement in the corner of my eye. She was changing out of her swimsuit. I watched her through the bathroom window, taking in her slender hips and boyish legs. When she turned and caught me, I expected indignation, wrath. Instead, her gaze fell from mine, as if ashamed.

The sound of the faucet spitting water is a gash in the silence. The way Marcella asked, eyes large and lancing: “Who is more beautiful, my sister or me?” When Sandra died I told her I couldn’t anymore. Something about her memory. Marcella sneered, her arms folded over the table. “You had no problem dishonoring her while she was alive.” A basket of olives and two glasses of white wine untouched between us. I said: “We shouldn’t waste this,” and lifted mine to my lips.

The nights are longer now since Sandra died. Despite what I might’ve said to her face, I liked listening to her yap—the way she ended every day by listing the litany of my transgressions. It was endearing—a homely routine. I smile as I switch off the lights and clamber back into bed, peeling off the sheets to find her body warm and waiting.

***

I sit watching the sun slip behind the mountain’s hairy back, a glass of cognac thawing in my hand. The ice cracks with a pop. In the distance, the trail of a plane. You can hear the waves thundering against the cliffs. The sea is angry. It tosses the swimmers around like ragdolls. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching Poseidon make a plaything of these foreigners. I grin from ear to ear.

My phone buzzes in my hand. It’s a message from my son—a TikTok link. Below, a stack of messages from Bianca peppered with question marks and heart emojis. I switch off my phone and place it face-down on the table.

The restaurant looks out from one of the cliffs. Outside, a cluster of young men stand examining the water, contemplating the height of the jump. So many bodies cluttering the rocks below. I think of the gratuitousness of life, the way it churns out forms with no remorse—blindly, like a factory worker assembling pill bottles. Nature’s indifference to death rests on its confidence in life—its blind belief that there will always be something new to substitute the old that dies.

The waitress retrieves the empty glass from my hand and sets down another. Outside, several screams slash through the air. Blood-red streaks twist across the sky like veins.

Ata Zargarof

Image by Pexels from Pixabay– wild waves crashing onto a beach.