Chlorine

Lidia and Alberto decided to have lunch in the garden that Sunday.

They had moved recently. A new residential area just outside the city: four three-story buildings, all the same, the last still to be finished. The apartments on the ground floor opened onto a private garden, as the estate agent had been overly keen to highlight. Not much more than a flower bed, Alberto had kept saying, plus the people upstairs could look out and mind our business. But Lidia liked that flower bed, and one evening, while putting the girls to bed, she promised them that if they convinced their father to choose that house, they could have an inflatable paddling pool for the summer. The girls persisted, and in the end, he gave in.

The day after the move, Alberto had gone for a walk around the estate. The majority of the gardens were tidy and well looked after: freshly cut grass, flowers and shrubs planted here and there. In some there were children’s toys: a tricycle, a little plastic slide, a swing. Others were more unkempt; the grass was straw-like and rose up to ankle height. But almost all of them had a barbecue.

That evening, after the girls went to bed, Alberto told Lidia he wanted to buy a barbecue. Lidia was amazed; Alberto wasn’t usually into that kind of thing. He was lazy, hardly knew how to boil an egg, and hated spending too much time outdoors, especially in the summer. She smiled, amused, and asked him where he’d got that idea from.

“Meh, how should I know?” he said. “There doesn’t have to be a reason for everything.”

The TV was on a channel that broadcast news twenty-four hours a day. Alberto frowned and turned back to face the screen. Lidia got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen, and, with a glass in her hand, looked out through the sliding doors.

“We could try it next weekend. A barbecue.”

“Why not?” mumbled Alberto.

“We could also buy one of those inflatable pools. For the girls, I mean. They’d love it. It’s already so hot.”

Alberto frowned again. “We’ll see,” he said, his eyes glued to the screen.

The following day in the garden center, Lidia brought the subject up again.

“No chance,” Alberto said. “The garden’s small enough already, a pool is the last thing we need.” He lowered the cover of the barbecue he was standing in front of, a little too loudly.

“The girls need to learn to entertain themselves,” he added, looking her in the eye. “The sooner they learn that, the better.”

They left the shop with the barbecue, a bag of coal, and a parasol, and put them on the back seat. Lidia felt like she could smell the coal through the bag. It made her nauseous. She wound the window down—first halfway, then almost the whole way—and stayed like that, breathing in the air that rushed over her face, until they were home.

▴▴▴

That Sunday was very hot. Alberto was impatient, and had been hanging around the barbecue all morning, waiting for the right time to light it. The girls were playing on the lawn. Ilaria, who would turn nine in a couple of months, had been playing volleyball since she started elementary school, and was trying to teach her little sister how to receive the ball. Lidia had never understood where she got her passion for that sport. She had hated volleyball since back when she was forced to play it in PE. For her, physical activity had always meant swimming. She had tried to sign both her daughters up for swimming lessons, but it was impossible to make them keep going. For them, water was just something to play in.

“Put your arms together like I am,” Ilaria repeated. “Don’t let go like that. Stiff. Then put your hands like this. This is called the bump.”

Alice was three years younger, and was still going through the phase where, once she had understood how something worked or tried it for a while, she would get bored and move on to something else. Shortly afterward she had run into the house and started begging her mother for the inflatable pool again, something she’d been doing more and more frequently in recent days. Lidia was in the kitchen, concentrating on preparing the vegetables for the nibbles, and the heat was making her feel like she could hardly breathe. When Alice added, in a whiny voice, “But you promised,” she jerked around and shouted at her to cut it out, else they’d never get the pool. The little girl was so scared she didn’t say another word and ran to her room. Lidia went back to preparing the starter. She hoped more than once that Alice would take up the issue again. At least then she’d have a valid excuse.

When the barbecue was ready, Alice was still in her room. Lidia went to call her and found her sitting on the bed.

“Sorry I raised my voice,” she said. “Are you still angry?”

Alice looked at her for a moment, her lips pouty. She looked down again and shook her head.

“If you’re a good girl, we’ll go to the pool tomorrow,” Lidia said. “The big outdoor one. Okay?”

Alice looked up again, and stared at her without saying a word. Lidia forced herself to smile. She wanted to add something, but nothing came to mind. Finally Alice got up and moved toward her. “You’ll see, we’ll convince Dad,” Lidia whispered.

▴▴▴

After eating, the girls got down from the table and went back to playing. The barbecue hadn’t gone very well: the meat was too dry, and some bits were undercooked. But Alberto pretended it was okay, and Lidia went along with it. They had coffee and sat there for a while, watching the girls. Then he went back inside, turned on the television, and sat down on the sofa. She cleared the table and went into the kitchen to tidy up.

The girls’ voices floated in from the garden. Lidia picked up the washing-up liquid and poured a few drops into the sink, which was slowly filling up with hot water. She observed the foam as it formed. The heat and the food had made her sluggish; she felt her eyelids grow heavy and her vision cloudy. She could’ve fallen asleep right there if she just let her eyelids close. She shook her head and turned off the tap.

She didn’t notice at first; then, when the television went quiet for a moment, she heard a different voice. It was the voice of a man coming from next door. Lidia went toward the French doors that opened onto the front garden, a little strip of land that separated their house from the street. Ilaria was sitting on the grass; Alice, however, was standing next to the box hedge that marked the edge of the property. In front of Alice, on the other side of the hedge, there was a man. He had his hands in his pockets and his neck extended slightly toward her. Lidia couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it must have captured her daughter’s attention because she looked spellbound, immobile, as if she had known him forever.

But Lidia was sure she hadn’t seen him around before. He was a paunchy man, in his fifties. His hair was thin and uncombed, as if he’d just gotten out of bed. He was wearing a faded blue T-shirt that had a picture of a beaver wearing a safety helmet on its head and beneath it read: danger is not my middle name, with the words danger and middle name written in bold font and the not underlined. Lidia noticed that his mouth moved in a strange way when he spoke. Every so often it would suddenly open wide, remain like that for a couple of seconds, and then his jaw would twist in an unnatural way, moving from side to side, back and forth, as if he was chewing a mouthful of extremely stringy food. It looked like certain words were too big for his mouth and so his teeth had to break them into smaller pieces before they could come out.

Only once she was right in front of him did she realize her concern was unnecessary. The man’s expression was the same one she’d seen on Alice’s face earlier when she’d raised her voice. It was the face of a child who’s being told off but doesn’t understand why.

She’d left the house in a hurry, forgetting the washing-up sponge was still in her hand.

▴▴▴

The garden was for the apartment building next door. It was only a few meters bigger than Lidia and Alberto’s, but so full of objects that it looked more like a playground. There was a plastic slide, a swing, a tent, and a little trampoline, as well as two tricycles and an excessive number of toys strewn all over the ground. And then there was the pool. A blue and yellow plastic ring, bigger than Lidia had expected, right in the center of the garden. In it, three children, all boys, were splashing around and pushing each other under the water, making such a noise that Lidia wondered how she hadn’t noticed before.

The owner of the house was called Anna, and she was a little older than Lidia, or at least she looked it. She was chubby and had short hair dyed plum red. She’d seen her come running from the lane a while before, her gaze flitting around as if she was looking for something. When she noticed the man next to the hedge, she hurried over to him waving her hands in Lidia’s direction.

“He’s my brother Giorgio,” she explained, short of breath. “We have other guests and we lost sight of him for a moment. He just slithers away like a snake sometimes!”

She grabbed his hand and glowered at him, which he, bending over to look at his toes, missed. “We’re not used to having him with us, you see,” she added. “I hope he hasn’t bothered you.”

“Don’t worry,” Lidia said in a raspy voice while trying to hide the soapy sponge behind one leg.

“Can I invite you over for a drink, as an apology?” the woman proposed. She added that they had recently bought an inflatable paddling pool. “My son and nephews have been in there all morning.”

▴▴▴

Alice stood admiring the pool for a few seconds, her eyes open wide, before turning to her mother and asking in a high-pitched voice: “Can I?” It must have looked so big to her, Lidia thought. She smiled and helped her take off her T-shirt and shorts, and the girl ran toward the water.

“The youngest one is mine,” said Anna, moving closer to Lidia. “Tommaso. He’s four. The other two are my sister’s children.”

Alberto sat down at the table under the porch, still half-set for lunch, with Anna’s husband, her older sister, and the sister’s husband. They were drinking beer that was kept cold in a cool box under the table. Ilaria, who’d decided she was too old to play with the other children, was also sitting with them. Giorgio sat on the other side of the porch playing with a ping-pong ball. He was passing it between his hands, watching it as if he wished he were inside it. Every so often he would take a break. He’d turn toward Alberto and the others, trying to understand what they were talking about, he’d look at Lidia standing beside the pool, he’d watch the children for a few moments, and then return to his ball.

“Where were you living before?” Anna asked.

“In the city,” said Lidia. “A stone’s throw from the center. I’d always lived there. And Alberto too. This is our first time moving out.”

The pool looked like a cauldron, now. Alice was jumping around, sending splashes everywhere, while the three boys, who looked as though they hadn’t even noticed her, continued to submerge themselves and come back up, pushing each other.

“And how’s it going?” Anna asked in a whisper. Lidia turned and looked at her. Anna smiled, and for a moment Lidia felt as if she’d known her for a long time. The way her mouth moved slightly on one side when she smiled, her eyes, big and friendly but with a tinge of sadness in places, even her voice, which made her think of the sound of footsteps on gravel; everything reminded her of somebody she’d known in the past. Somebody she’d been attached to some time between childhood and adolescence, but whose name she couldn’t quite remember.

“It’s okay,” she told her. “It’s hard to say at the beginning.”

“I know,” said Anna. “I’ve moved so many times in my life that it doesn’t bother me at all anymore. But I remember how it was the first few times.”

Lidia nodded, and her gaze shifted back to the pool.

“When I was ten,” said Anna, “my father got this idea into his head to train me up to be a scuba diver. He’d take me to the public swimming pool every day.” Her voice remained soft, so soft that Lidia couldn’t catch every word. “At the start, to make it more fun, he’d drop things to the bottom—goggles, some little toys he brought from home—covering the entire lane of the twenty-five-meter pool. I’d take a big gulp of air and plunge down to pick them up. I would swim at a few centimeters from the bottom, as fast as I could, and not come up until I’d collected all of them. I loved it. I would imagine an underwater world, full of treasures, that only I was able to find.”

She looked directly ahead as she spoke. The melancholic tinge in her face became more evident.

“When he decided I was ready,” she continued, “he took me to the sea. I was so excited I didn’t sleep the night before. But I could only get to three meters. The sea wasn’t like the pool. The water was freezing, and as I went down it got darker and darker, and I felt my ears pop from the pressure. I wasn’t ready for that.”

Lidia watched her, immobile. “I don’t know why I told you that,” Anna laughed.

Only then did she realize that Giorgio was behind them. He was looking at them, not saying a word, with an air of fear about him. Anna put her hand on his shoulder, pulling him toward them. Lidia forced herself to smile at him. He still had the ping-pong ball in his hand; he held it tightly in his fist, as if he was scared someone might take it from him.

“He’s staying with us for a few days,” Anna explained. “He’s usually with my parents, but they’re at the coast at the moment. Right, scaredy-cat?”

Giorgio turned toward Anna and nodded, then looked at the pool again.

“He loves the water, but he’s too frightened to get in,” said Anna. “It must be a family thing.”

“It’s the opposite for me,” said Lidia. She clasped her arms over her stomach, holding her elbows in her hands. “I’ve been swimming since I was little. It’s almost automatic, now. I miss it if I don’t go, but when I’m there I realize that I’m not experiencing the same sensation I used to. I do my lengths and that’s it, without thinking about it too much. Sometimes even the smell of the chlorine irritates me. I used to like it.”

Anna smiled. “I’ve always liked that smell too. It smells clean. Even if it makes my nose itch sometimes.”

Lidia nodded, looking her in the eye. At that moment Anna’s husband called her from the veranda. He had a deep and powerful voice, a baritone; he managed to make himself heard without shouting. He said that someone on the telephone wanted her. Anna excused herself and hurried over to the house.

Lidia and Giorgio were left alone. She observed him: his curved back, his protruding abdomen, his small hands. He had his legs slightly open, as if he needed to prop himself up on the earth, else he’d lose his balance and fall over.

“How about you?” asked Lidia, to break the ice. “Do you like the smell of chlorine?”

Giorgio continued to observe the pool, his head cocked slightly to one side. “Chlorine makes my skin hurt,” he said suddenly. “But not yours. Yours is immune.”

Lidia felt a chill run through her. She turned her gaze to watch the children. Alice plunged down, appearing and disappearing behind the colored plastic rim. She felt as though the children’s voices were becoming more distant, muffled. As if the silence had just been turned up.

“They’re so pretty, aren’t they?” he said. “They see only what they want to see. Or what you want to make them see. And as long as they’re happy with it, they don’t ask questions.”

Lidia’s gaze was fixed on Alice. She was laughing, while her head bobbed up and down. Look at me, she thought. Look at me.

“It’s like that for me too, you know.” He spoke slowly, trying to make his words come out as best he could. “They tell me that it’s lucky. Really lucky, if you like what you see.”

Slowly, he moved closer to her. He studied her for a moment, then reached out his hand, opened hers, and put the ball into it.

“You can keep it, if you don’t tell anyone,” he said.

▴▴▴

Lidia woke up all of a sudden. The light from the streetlamps seeped in through the windows: it must have still been the middle of the night. She lay for a while with her eyes open. The room was hot, but she was sure that wasn’t what woke her. She had the feeling she’d heard a sound, thunder, perhaps. Now, though, she couldn’t hear anything other than Alberto’s breath. She got up and walked over to the window. The sky was clear, an expanse of stars, not a trace of cloud. She stayed at the window, peeping through the curtains. The empty garden at night gave her a calm feeling. She thought again of that afternoon, of Anna’s garden and the pool, blue and yellow, and wondered how it would look at night, illuminated by the streetlamps, the water dark and still.

She didn’t often get up during the night. When she did, it was because she needed to go to the toilet or because of a sudden thirst; she would stagger through the house with her eyes open just enough not to trip, like a sleepwalker, and when she got back to bed she would fall asleep again immediately. That night, however, she felt awake and energized. If it wasn’t for the others still sleeping, for fear of disturbing them with the noise, her day could have begun then.

She realized for the first time how little she knew that house. She’d never observed it in the dark, and still couldn’t quite recognize everything. It was a strange and amusing feeling, and it made her smile. She closed the door of her and Alberto’s room and pulled the girls’ door to, then crossed the hallway slowly, brushing the wall with one hand, and went into the living room. The light from outside was brighter there, and she could recognize the new furniture, smelling of wood and varnish. In a drawer of the bookcase, inside the sewing box, she had hidden the ping-pong ball.

“What’s that?” Alberto had asked, as they walked back to the house.

Lidia had told him what Giorgio said and how he’d placed it in her hand. But she immediately regretted not keeping it to herself.

“Let’s get a pool too,” Alberto said. “The girls had fun.”

She smiled and hugged him. Then Alice, who had been walking behind them and kept turning back to look at Anna’s garden, caught up, her lips in a pout and her brow furrowed. She had looked at her, just before Giorgio gave her the ball. She had pleaded with her in her mind, and she had turned and smiled.

She sat down at the table. She felt like she could control everything from there. She felt like, if she really concentrated, she could make time move forward, fast. Soon the sun would come up, the alarm clock in the bedroom would go off, and Alberto would get up. They would have breakfast together, or just he would, and she would sit opposite him, because perhaps she wouldn’t be hungry. Then they’d wake the girls and it would be their turn to have breakfast. They’d put on their costumes and go in the pool. She’d stay at the edge, watching them as they played in the water. She’d breathe the smell of the chlorine deep into her lungs—I am immune, I am immune, she’d repeat. But she was sure that a part of her would stay here, at the table, in the semi-darkness of the night, with the muffled sounds of sleep coming from the rooms next door.

▴▴▴

Giorgio often got up during the night. Most of the time it was because of his dreams. Some were really strange, and frightened him. That night, when he woke suddenly, he didn’t understand where he was. It was unusual for him to sleep in a different bed; it had been years, probably, and that feeling unsettled him more than the dream itself. Then, slowly, his eyes got used to the dark, and he began to remember. He decided to go for a walk around the house, out into the garden, perhaps, because he knew his heart wouldn’t settle down easily if he stayed in that room, with all the darkness and silence. The living room was illuminated by the light from the streetlamps, and that made him feel safe. He opened the sliding doors and went out into the garden.

He thought the pool was strange, at night. Almost scary. Seen like this, the water looked like oil. It was black, and opaque, and dense. He thought maybe that was why Alice wasn’t moving. Why she was there, on the surface of the water, not swimming. Maybe because she couldn’t. She was glued, like a fly in honey.

He moved toward the colored plastic ring and dipped a finger in the water. It was a warm, pleasant sensation. He immersed his whole hand and shook it back and forth, in and out, until he was certain it would move however he wanted it to. The splashes struck little Alice, but she seemed not to realize. Her face was under the water, as if looking for something that had sunk to the bottom, and her wet hair was pasted to her head. Only the tips floated like little snakes. She was wearing a pink nightie, which billowed with her hair. Giorgio reached out his hand, took her arm, and pulled it toward him. The pool filled with little waves, and Alice’s skirt inflated. When the girl reached the edge and her body stopped, Giorgio tried to say something. All that came out was a wheezing sound, and it frightened him. Suddenly he became aware of the silence out there; he couldn’t even hear the song of the cicadas, or the sound of cars from the street. It must have been very late; day would return soon. Giorgio lifted his head and looked at the building opposite. He thought of the people who were sleeping, behind the closed shutters, and tried to imagine what it’d be like to look at the pool from above, from a window on the top floor. The blue circle of the water, illuminated by the light of a streetlamp and, right in the center, a small figure bobbing up and down, to the rhythm of the silence.