Fiction / Rachele Salvini

 

:: Unremarkable ::

My first remark­able moment in Lon­don involved wit­ness­ing a cat beat­ing the shit out of a fox right in front of my new flat. I knew Gior­gio would like the sto­ry, but I didn’t call him. I didn’t even take a pic­ture for him. 

I didn’t live in the out­skirts of the city—I rent­ed a tiny room in an alley in Strat­ford, just a few steps away from the tube sta­tion, the Strat­ford Shop­ping Cen­tre, and the West Ham Sta­di­um. Not exact­ly a place where I expect­ed to see such an inter­est­ing dis­play of wildlife. But I came from a town on the west coast of Italy, and I didn’t know shit. I was one of the many Ital­ians leav­ing good weath­er, espres­so, and lasagna behind to try to find some luck in London. 

Gior­gio was still in Italy. We hadn’t actu­al­ly decid­ed if we were break­ing up or not; it was more of an open-end­ed exper­i­ment. He didn’t want to come to Lon­don with me, and we didn’t like the idea of being long-dis­tance indef­i­nite­ly, but nei­ther of us had the guts to break up. 

We had met in col­lege, years before. We had fall­en in love though we didn’t want to. 

*

Gior­gio and I were hap­py togeth­er, him study­ing cin­e­ma, me study­ing lit­er­a­ture. We talked about art and music, and we laughed all the time. We went to Frankie’s, our favorite dive bar in town, which was open only from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. We drank gin and ton­ics and kissed in front of every­one and danced like every­one was watch­ing us because of how radi­ant­ly in love we were. Then, by day, we would go to the sea­side; by night, when we didn’t go out, we hid in his grand­par­ents’ garage, watched movies, made love, and smoked dope. We had bought a small bed from a thrift store for ten euros. We just want­ed to hide. We didn’t care about bed bugs. 

For three years, all that had been enough. Then, after grad­u­a­tion, our lives had to start. We weren’t spe­cial: peo­ple moved to oth­er places all the time and faced the deci­sion of what to do with their rela­tion­ships. Ital­ians were mov­ing all around Europe, espe­cial­ly grad­u­ates with human­i­ties degrees, some­what deeply under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed even in a coun­try that had built its fame on art. Gior­gio spent his days lying on the couch, watch­ing TV and send­ing resumes around, but no one would call. I want­ed to work in pub­lish­ing. Lon­don seemed the right place to be, but he wasn’t ready to come. 

“We’ll see,” Gior­gio said, and kissed me good-bye. 

*

Wit­ness­ing the cat beat­ing up the fox seemed a remark­able moment—more than when I saw Mil­len­ni­um Bridge for the first time—because it made me real­ize how much I didn’t know about Lon­don. The cat growled and bare­ly moved, its ears back. When­ev­er the fox made any move­ment, either to dab or leave, the cat would stalk for­ward and sink its claws in the scrawny fur of the fox. I stood there, just look­ing at them. They seemed uncon­cerned by my pres­ence. I didn’t know fox­es would let humans so close. I didn’t know cats could beat the shit out of foxes. 

At some point I even won­dered if I was just hal­lu­ci­nat­ing. It seemed like­ly, on the day I had start­ed my job as a barista at Caf­fè Nero, a cof­fee shop chain. After my first shift, I had gone to get gro­ceries, try­ing not to fall into the easy trap of buy­ing Ital­ian pre-cooked meals that remind­ed me of home from the pic­ture on the wrap­ping but would remind me that I actu­al­ly wasn’t home as soon as I’d try a spoonful. 

As I watched the cat and the fox in silence, I thought of a remark­able moment in Italy—Giorgio and I were walk­ing on the sea­side. I was wear­ing a blouse, but a crisp breeze came sud­den­ly from the ocean and made my hands crawl up my sleeves. Gior­gio was telling me about Lon­don, giv­ing me all his rea­sons for not com­ing with me. He was sure that Brex­it was going to hap­pen, and the smug British ass­holes would kick us all out. Lon­don, he said—as if he knew—was turn­ing into a Euro­pean copy of New York City, the geo­graph­i­cal embod­i­ment of cap­i­tal­ism. He went on and on, keep­ing his eyes on the ocean; the wind didn’t seem to both­er him at all. His hands dan­gled slight­ly at every step he took. I told him I just real­ly want­ed to work in pub­lish­ing. I told him that I wasn’t sure Brex­it was going to hap­pen, and I didn’t know what it would entail either. I didn’t know how Gior­gio could be so sure about a whole country’s atti­tude toward econ­o­my pacts, immi­gra­tion reg­u­la­tions, and so on. I also didn’t know why Brits would want to kick oth­er fel­low Euro­peans out. I didn’t know why any­one would want to kick any­one out. 

But Gior­gio went on, telling me that he’d rather stay home with peo­ple he loved and save mon­ey in order to move to a bet­ter place in the future, and even­tu­al­ly have a bet­ter life. “You don’t have to hate your life to have a career,” he said. I imme­di­ate­ly knew that I would remem­ber that line as remark­able. “Maybe,” I replied, shiv­er­ing. An unre­mark­able answer. 

*

When I saw the cat and the fox, I had bare­ly slept in days, haunt­ed by the thoughts of leav­ing home, my moth­er, and, of course, Giorgio—only to find a lousy job as a barista at Caf­fé Nero in Pic­cadil­ly Circus. 

Maybe Gior­gio was right. That morn­ing I had served an end­less amount of watered-down cof­fees to British yup­pies who filled their mouths with Ital­ian words—ven­ti, grande, mac­chi­a­to, espres­so, cap­puc­ci­no—but couldn’t pro­nounce any of them. They com­plained about my cof­fee: too bit­ter. I smiled back and made their cof­fee again in less than two min­utes, under the gelid eyes of a spot­ty British assis­tant man­ag­er. I bit my inner cheeks, my gaze buried in the grates of the huge cof­fee machine, try­ing to hold on to the mem­o­ry of wak­ing up to the smell of my mother’s espres­so. She pre­pared it in ten min­utes, with a sim­ple cof­fee mak­er. No fan­cy machines: she just placed a tiny met­al per­co­la­tor on the old-ass stove. She had taught me how to switch on the gas and use a match to start the ring of blue fire. Extreme­ly dan­ger­ous, yet total­ly worth it. It was our secret; I felt like the prim­i­tive man dis­cov­er­ing fire. 

I real­ly thought about tex­ting Gior­gio to tell him about my first shift or the cat beat­ing up the fox. Even­tu­al­ly, the fox ran away. I dragged my gro­ceries upstairs, pant­i­ng and try­ing to ignore the smell of piss on the stairs and the bones of fried chick­en wings aban­doned on the steps. 

*

Gior­gio called me the morn­ing of June 23, 2016. I had been in Lon­don for a month, and Brex­it debates were all over the news. Peo­ple couldn’t stop won­der­ing if Britain was actu­al­ly going to leave the EU. The ques­tion was, in a way, per­son­al. I won­der what those British yup­pies who com­plained about my bit­ter cof­fee thought. They would glad­ly trav­el to Italy in the sum­mer and drink our espres­sos, sit in our bars in front of the sea­side, sigh with sat­is­fac­tion and say how great our weath­er was, how cheap every­thing was. Then they’d go back home and vote against or for leav­ing us behind. 

Still, for some rea­son, I didn’t feel like Brex­it was per­son­al at all. I kept mak­ing cof­fees, and mak­ing them again if they came back, “too bit­ter.” I learned Eng­lish, sent out my resume, and hoped for some­thing bet­ter to come. Gior­gio kept say­ing that he was “look­ing around.” I wasn’t sure what he meant. 

Then, that morn­ing in June, he called. I was sleep­ing, but he sound­ed excit­ed. It was the first time he called me before I was up. I usu­al­ly got up ear­ly in the morn­ing to go to work and cov­er the 6 a.m. shift at the cof­fee shop. “Hey. What’s up?” I asked, my voice raspy. 

“I’m at Frankie’s with the guys,” he said, the accent from our home­town sound­ing estranged to me. I could hear the chaos in the background—the music, and the hys­ter­i­cal laugh­ter of Frankie’s drunk­en crowd. They weren’t done danc­ing, even though the sun was prob­a­bly up. “Guess what,” Gior­gio went on. 

I threw my legs out from under the duvet. It was cold. Out of the win­dow, London’s sky was white, as every morn­ing. “What?”  

“Brex­it fuck­ing hap­pened,” Gior­gio cried, enthralled. “I told you so!” 

I was sur­prised. I had felt so bom­bard­ed with head­lines, ques­tions and unso­licit­ed opin­ions for a whole month that I had for­got­ten when the ref­er­en­dum was actu­al­ly going to hap­pen. The days were all the same. 

Gior­gio laughed. I didn’t under­stand the fun part of it. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of Brex­it was one of the rea­sons why he had decid­ed not to come to Lon­don in the first place. 

“They vot­ed Leave?” I asked. I glanced out of the win­dow again. I could see only the neon lights of the Strat­ford Shop­ping Cen­tre pierc­ing the fog in the distance. 

“Yeah! Crazy, right?” he went on. “But I knew it. Remem­ber? I pre­dict­ed this shit.” I heard some­one yell in the back­ground but couldn’t work out what they said. 

“We were mak­ing bets last night,” Gior­gio went on. His voice was shak­ing with enthu­si­asm, but maybe he was just drunk. “The man­ag­er at Frankie’s orga­nized a Brex­it-themed drink­ing game, and I won five shots of tequi­la. It was so fun. Hope­ful­ly you’ll be back here the night of the Amer­i­can elec­tion. If Don­ald Trump wins, I swear the world will fuck­ing col­lapse.” I heard him take a drag from his cig­a­rette. “You have to be here. We’ll have so much fun, like the old times. Oh—wait—someone just brought pizza.” 

I heard some muf­fled sounds in the phone, and I pic­tured him stag­ger­ing drunk­en­ly to go get his slice of pizza. 

I pulled my phone from my ear and looked at the time. My alarm would go off soon. 

“I don’t think I’ll be there for the Amer­i­can elec­tion,” I said. 

“What?” Gior­gio asked, his mouth full of pizza. 

I saw my face in the reflec­tion of the win­dow. I looked like shit even before start­ing the day, my skin blotchy, my hair a bit greasy. I tried to imag­ine my mother’s espres­so, the blue ring of fire on the stove, the smell of burnt match­es, and then the scent of cof­fee creep­ing up the stairs. 

Instead, for some rea­son, I thought that this was anoth­er remark­able moment, like the time the ocean wind made my hands crawl up my sleeves, like when I saw the cat beat­ing the shit out of the fox in front of my flat. 

“Why are you so hap­py?” I asked. 

There was a silence. 

“What do you mean?” Gior­gio asked after a while. He wasn’t chew­ing his piz­za anymore. 

I looked at my feet on the cold tiled floor of my room. The wrap­ping of some pre-cooked ravi­o­li stood out from my trash can. I felt a pang of dis­gust, like I was going to be sick, but didn’t talk. I wasn’t sure I knew what I want­ed to say. 

“What do you mean?” Gior­gio asked again. 

My phone alarm went off, pierc­ing my ear. I dis­abled it. I still didn’t have an answer for Gior­gio. Why are you so hap­py, I repeat­ed in my head. 

“Why am I so hap­py about Brex­it?” he asked. 

Anoth­er pang of dis­gust. “Maybe,” I said. 

An unre­mark­able answer. I hung up. I got up and walked to the kitchen to shove a cup of instant cof­fee in the microwave.

 

 

 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

I wrote this sto­ry as a response to my expe­ri­ence liv­ing in Lon­don dur­ing the Brex­it cam­paign. At the time I was also involved in a painful long-dis­tance rela­tion­ship, like the nar­ra­tor of this sto­ry. While this is fic­tion, many scenes are drawn from my per­son­al expe­ri­ence: I remem­ber see­ing a cat beat­ing the shit out of a dog in front of my dirty-ass apart­ment in Strat­ford; I also remem­bered all the times my ex called from Italy when he was hav­ing fun with his friends, while I was lone­ly and mis­er­able, work­ing hard to get some­where. Most­ly, I want­ed my sto­ry to be about young Euro­pean immi­grants head­ing to the Unit­ed King­dom; I want­ed to write about the hopes and dreams of the ones who look for luck some­where far from home and have to nego­ti­ate their depar­ture with their ties with their home. While my expe­ri­ence was not as trau­mat­ic as the one of refugees, it did affect me great­ly. The polit­i­cal back­ground of this sto­ry is obvi­ous­ly the Brex­it cam­paign, which I regard as one of the first steps toward the storm of crazi­ness that the past few years have been. 

 

Rachele Salvi­ni is an Ital­ian woman based in the U.S., where she’s doing a PhD in Eng­lish and Cre­ative Writ­ing at Okla­homa State Uni­ver­si­ty. She spent most of her life in Italy, and she writes in both Eng­lish and Ital­ian. Her work in Eng­lish has been pub­lished or is forth­com­ing in Prime Num­ber Mag­a­zine, Nec­es­sary Fic­tion, Taka­he Mag­a­zine, Sage­brush Review, BULL, and oth­ers. She’s also a trans­la­tor, and her trans­la­tion work has appeared or is forth­com­ing in sev­er­al lit­er­ary jour­nals, includ­ing Lunch Tick­et.