In principium

It is like speaking of the bud and thinking of the flower, describing sickness and hoping for healing, talking about life and forgetting death. This is what this occurrence is like; with some unclear beginnings and without an ending. And it is not the fault of Horace when he refers to Aristotle’s opinion on Homer’s Iliad with the famous expression that the action begins in medias res, in the middle of things. We forget that this is about an oral, not written, construct. The rhapsode, the bard, cannot stand in front of the public for a long time trying to figure out how to begin what he wants to sing about; he jumps right into the middle of the events and starts to narrate from there, whereas the writer is not obligated to do so, although he has often done it, and successfully.

Neither are you obligated, so you may start narrating the written event by starting even at a moment where you knew nothing about it.

“What is it with you, why do you want to pick up the car today at all costs?” your wife asked after patiently listening to your phone conversation in the morning of that February Sunday.

You did not know what to say in reply. At night, during the last few minutes of Saturday, you had made the payment of insurance for the new car directly from your smartphone and, even before drinking your glass of milk for breakfast, you communicated with the car dealer and asked him for a favor: to get the car you ordered ready for pickup today instead of during the week. Strangely enough, he said yes, maybe because of the pleading nuance in your voice. He must have thought that you were facing a big hurdle, but you were only acting as if hypnotized by an inexplicable inner urge. It happens.

“Yet another Sunday wasted for us! Do as you please!” she gave up as you got dressed to go out.

And you were not even into cars; she would be the one to drive it, since you used public transport. The old car had a clutch defect and you didn’t want to spend money on repairs. You traded it in at the dealership in exchange for a small discount on the new car. But you would have to drive a hundred kilometers from Bergamo to Como.However, this turned out not to be the biggest issue. That was found out by the dealer when you got there. The car insurance had not been activated. It was paid by credit card, not by bank order. You’d have no excuse if you were stopped by the police.

“Leave it, pick it up later”, the dealer came to your assistance.

“I can give you a car to use these days. For free! Keep it until you get confirmation from the insurance company.”

“No, no. Doesn’t it say there that insurance becomes valid within twelve hours? I will be on my way back when I get the confirmation.”

The other shrugged to show his surprise but also to communicate that he has no responsibility in this.

The car is a full-optional 1.6 diesel Mitsubishi SUV, probably very easy to drive and this is what it would turn out to be later, but on the way back it caused you a lot of trouble with the things you had no idea how to use, especially with its navigator. You had to go through each and every town in the province of Como until at last you turned off the navigator and managed to get on the highway.

However, you really liked the car. You wanted to call your wife, send her a picture, but the initial enthusiasm was soon replaced by the routine, the effort to find your way back and above all the anxiety of waiting for the email from the insurance company.

And you hadn’t even wasted her Sunday. You had left home at eight and had returned at ten. You could go out for a drive on the new car. You parked it and sent her a picture, you in front of the car, smiling. She saw it and did not reply. You sent a text.

“Let’s get out! I’m waiting for you here!”

She read the message and again did not reply. She called you.

“Come on up. We have visitors.”

This is all she said and hung up. She gave you no time to ask questions.

You went upstairs. Your brother was waiting for you at home. A person. He lived in your neighborhood, but you thought he was in Germany, where he worked. He had come back. Good. He did not greet you, in fact, and you started to worry. His eyes were glued on a videocall on his phone. Your sister was on the other side, speaking. Your wife was making coffee. You went and took the bottle of raki. You filled up two glasses and put them on the table.

“Mom is sick!” your brother told you and gave you the phone on which he was talking to your sister. She lived there too, some buildings down the road. “How do you not know! She has been for days!” he continued. “This is why I came back from Germany. I’m going there, but I thought I’d talk to you first!”

“Wait right there, wait! How would we know? She has not complained. We talk to her everyday too,” you replied and looked at your wife, who nodded.

“She’s lying to us, brother. She’s in serious condition, dad said. She pulls herself together when she talks to us, and then she falls on her bed, languishing.”

You told him to sit and pushed the glass of raki towards him. He did not drink it.

“I would leave immediately, but I need a car. The plane only leaves on Tuesday, but this cannot wait, – he continued.

You thought of the car you just bought, but did not say anything, because you thought of the insurance issue.

You pulled his phone towards you. Your sister was still on the line.

“Did you talk to mom?” you asked her.

“I did, but she says she is fine. I’m fit as a butcher’s dog, she says, you know. But I think she is really unwell this time. She has sunken eyes and she speaks lying down. She’s usually sitting on the couch when she speaks.”
“What do we do?” you ask her.

“We get the tickets for Tuesday. And then we wait and see. If she gets better, we don’t use them. We can’t take days off of work so easily.

“No, no, you’re out of your minds! I’m not listening to you. I’m leaving! I’ll find a car, I’ll borrow one from a friend, and I’ll leave. I’ll wait for you there.”

He got up and left. Then he came back, picked up his phone, greeted your sister and hung up before putting it into his pocket.

“See you,” he said, and you then heard the noise of the elevator going down.

You did not move. You did not like the coffee and you started taking small sips of the raki. Then you pushed the glass away too, because you heard a little beep coming from your phone. You opened the text quickly. The car insurance had become active. Good. It hadn’t been thirteen hours since the payment yet.

“Get dressed.”

Your wife turned her head and looked at you in surprise.

“Are you crazy? Call your dad first, ask them how they are!”

“Okay, but let’s go out; I can’t stay here. We have our phones with us in any case.”

A few minutes later you were in your car. She would be driving. She had a quick look at the dashboard and started driving effortlessly. She set up the navigator, found the button that operated the glass roof and her eyes reflected the ample light that came in from the outside. A few minutes later you found yourself by Lake Iseo, thirty kilometers from Bergamo, at a part where the water is almost at road level and it feels as if the car is floating over the lake.

This could be a good beginning for this story.

Exactly, because the “I” of daily experience has no memory in people, it does not narrate events and is not taken into consideration when making decisions. In such moments, you get out of the range of your experience, you operate under the power of a different “I”. This is the one that comes up with stories about the past and makes projects about the future. This “I”, the narrator one, takes shortcuts, does not reveal everything; he constructs the subject matter using the key moments and becoming influenced by the result. And here, in this story, we still don’t have a result, a clear ending. We only have several beginnings.

During the course of an illness, for example, the narrator “I” of the sick person makes a calculation of the sickly moments and at the end, if this sum is considerable, it declares that the situation is really serious. Whereas, in cases where the period of ill health has been long, the narrator “I” calculates the average between the worst moment, the peak, when the situation was rather serious, with the most recent stage, where there is probably some improvement, thus declaring without a doubt that he is well and forgetting everything else.

But in the case of this story, the active “I” is not only your narrator “I”; you are also a person who is trying to write. The story of the disease should be narrated by your mother. So that’s why you cannot do it.

So, this not just your literary story, which you can spin in any way you want. It is not just those two anxious weeks, there, close to your mother, accompanied by the sound – similar to that of waves – coming from the two oxygen tanks by her bed, as she told you: “This is so strange, I have never heard the sea be so close!”

The second beginning would present itself on the last minutes of the same Sunday. It was still February 7, 2021, when your brother knocked on your door again and told you that he had not been able to find a car. You were about to give him yours. The documents were now in order, but in the meanwhile you had also seriously started thinking about yourself, how would you manage?

You got another videocall from your sister. Disturbing. She was bawling her eyes out and could not utter a single word. You did not dare to ask her, just held your breath, waiting.

“She’s… at deee… death’s door!”

You looked at your brother, his suitcase packed and at his feet, then you went into your bedroom to pack your clothes… Your wife followed you to give you a hand, for she could tell you had lost it. She took care of your clothes, while you packed your toothbrush, the shaving foam, a cream, and zipped the bag. You reached for the suitcase, reached inside it for many minutes looking for a thick sweatshirt, until you found it. That’s exactly the one you wanted. Your sister’s voice reached sharper and clearer from the other room. Your brother had turned up the volume.

“A doctor just visited her. Her face has turned blue from thrombosis; she’s not reacting anymore.”

“Is that what he said?” your brother asked.

“You’d be lucky if you found her alive tomorrow. Dad is also in serious condition, but not as bad. The doctor also gave them a rapid test, to check if they have the virus. There’s no reason for us to wait. Be on your way. I’m leaving home now.”

At the last moment you packed a big coat that suddenly filled the suitcase. In the meantime, your brother’s wife was at the door and she and your wife had started crying. You got down to the parking lot. You took out the key to open the car doors from a distance, but you then remembered that there was no need for that. The car door would open without you touching anything, as long as the key was in your pocket. It was raining. The automatic windshield wipers started moving as soon as they made contact with the water. You couldn’t get your act together. You let your brother get behind the wheel until you reached your sister’s home, now carefully observing his actions. It was a thousand and five hundred kilometers. You would have to take turns driving.

Your sister was waiting for you in the rain, without an umbrella, her suitcase at her feet. She looked so small. She reminded you of your dad’s mother.

“They have Covid!” she burst out as soon as she saw you and started crying again. You put your hand on her shoulder, took her suitcase and led her to your car.

This news was alarming for you too, but it did not make you change your decision. You would go. You agreed with your brother that you would drive during the first part of your journey. You looked at the dashboard clock: it was 23:57.

You took the A4 highway leading to Venice. The light rain was soon replaced by a dense fog, but the car lights were automatic, and the fog lights worked well. You were surprised to see how very few cars there were. Your sister remembered and said that Italy was under lockdown. No cars should be moving after 22:00, except for those with an authorization. So, what about you? You became very anxious and started looking around to spot the flashing lights of a police car. This torture was supposed to last for four hours, until you reached the Slovenian border. But even afterwards you weren’t sure if you would be able to go through.

Tired from traveling all the way from Germany, your brother fell asleep soon, while your sister remained awake.

“She has decided a long time ago that she wants to be buried in Laç” she said when you least expected it. “That’s where her parents are. They left the village when they were very young. Dad is also going with her.”
“Dad?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I hope to God they both make it, but we need to prepare for the worst.”

You suddenly saw headlights flashing on your sideview mirrors. A vehicle was approaching very fast. They would make you go back. You would have to leave on Tuesday.

Luckily, it was not the police, but an ambulance whose siren was only heard when it came near you.

Together with nearby buildings, the fog was also covering noises. Heavy as it was, it seemed to have entered the rooms of your memory. You couldn’t remember anything. You could only spot the broken lines on the asphalt, as they went under the car’s belly.

You stopped for the first time at four in the morning, right at the port of entry to make the payment. Your brother woke up. You started on the Slovenia – Rijeka direction, a provincial road that you knew quite well. You stopped at the first gas station. Your brother got behind the wheel.

Your sister tried texting to one of your cousins in Laç, Lola. She was your mother’s niece, her brother’s daughter, who was also the one who found the doctor.

“Don’t they have a family doctor?” you intervene. “What are the procedures like, there?”

“They did not want one. They were terrified, because a woman had died in their building, and they had picked her up on the ambulance. The family doctor would follow the protocol. They don’t want to go to the hospital!”
“Can a home be converted into a hospital?”

“Enough with this. Let’s see what Lola can say. Maybe she’ll reply!” your sister said.

An hour later, you reached the first customs port of entry. They checked your documents and let you through. In the end, the police officer added:

“You know you are in transit. You must leave Croatia within 12 hours.”

You started off.

“Within seven p.m. that is. We can make it. Unless the car breaks down.” you murmured.

“There’s a way even if the car breaks down. We can take a taxi to the border,” your brother said.

“We won’t need to deal with customs for a while. There are eight of them, for what I know, until we get to Shkodra. We will first go across almost all of Croatia, about five hundred kilometers of highway and two hundred kilometers of normal roads. We leave Croatia behind, go through customs and into Bosnia, customs, some kilometers and leave Bosnia behind, customs, we enter Croatia again, customs, we cross about a hundred kilometers, we exit Croatia for good, customs, we enter Montenegro, customs, about two hundred kilometers more, we exit Montenegro, customs, we enter Albania, last customs.”

“Stop it, you’re making us feel tired already,” your brother said. “And also, you didn’t count them well, it’s nine customs.”

Lola replied at about seven. You had stopped at a gas station for the second time. Your brother had lit a cigarette.

The situation was grave. Mom needed oxygen. They could not take her to the hospital. She had asked that to dad as a last wish, and he fanatically obeyed to everything she said. They were looking to secure oxygen from some private entities renting them out. But the virus had spread everywhere, and it was in very high demand. They were waiting for someone to no longer need it…

Since exiting Croatia, on your way through Montenegro and then through Albania, you went into complete telephone blackout. You had planned to make a stop in Laç, where you would meet Lola and talk to her, but this would be time-consuming. They said that Laç had been severely damaged during the last earthquake and exiting the town would take a full hour.

You took the wheel. Your brother bought a phone SIM card on the street. Your sister grabbed his phone and talked to Lola. The oxygen had not arrived. Then your brother got the phone and started speaking to someone about the land in Laç cemetery. Some private owners had taken over and were selling grave plots. Your parents were not the only people who had left it in their will to get buried here.

Your brother put the call on loudspeaker, so that you could hear his conversation with another acquaintance from Laç. He turned out to be the man for the job, he secured the plot and stated the price at several thousands of euros.

“Do you need just one, or two?” he added at the end. Your brother hesitated. He looked at you.

“What do I tell him?” he said in a low voice.

“Let’s not talk about it for now,” your sister intervened.

Every year, it became harder for them to go up the stairs to the fifth-floor apartment in a seven-story apartment building. They would come here in Durrës for the summer and spend winters and Christmas and New Year in Bergamo and return here in the spring, when the weather was warm. Last year, they experienced with you the first scary wave of Covid. They looked out of the windows and saw what the rest of the world saw on their TV screens: the trucks carrying dead bodies going beneath your windows to cremate them elsewhere in Italy, because the crematoriums of Bergamo could no longer keep up. They did not wait for flights to start, partly because mom has anxiety issues and cannot fly on a plane, but they took the first bus and went through the same road you were going now. They were very careful with masks, gloves, their walks by the sea, so everyone there was surprised how come they caught the virus. This is what the shop assistant told them at a small shop at their building, where they used to buy things. Your mother often bought chocolates to give to a child next door. This was a hypothesis.

Before going upstairs, you left the car at a private parking lot near the building, like you always did when you came to Durrës. The emotions of the anticipated meeting with your parents were mixed with a realist thought. They had the virus. What were you supposed to do? A three-story hotel stood over the private parking lot where you left your car. It would be a good idea to first go to the reception and book a room for the duration of your stay. Your parents lived in the building across from it.

Your brother went in and talked to the receptionist. A beach hotel in winter. There were plenty of rooms available.

Now all that was left for you to do was walk up the stairs of the building. Dad opened the door. He was unrecognizable, thin, skin-and-bones, his eyes cloudy. You did not hug. A fist bump and strong emotions inside you. You crossed the long corridor leading to mom’s room one after the other, first your sister, then your brother, and then you. She was laying on her left side. The skin on her face a bluish hue, her right hand cold as ice. She was not aware of who entered the room.

A feeling of powerlessness took over you. Without making noise, you followed the others into the living room.

“What are we waiting for, why don’t we call the ambulance to give her oxygen!”

“In the hospital? God forbid!” dad said.

You couldn’t sit still. You went out into the corridor. Your brother followed you, phone in hand. He felt the same way. He was dialing the number, when you heard a knock on the door.

Your sister opened it. There was a dark-skinned boy there. He appeared to be a member of the Roma community. He was holding two white tanks in his hands and had a bag around his neck.

“I am the oxygen guy,” he said. “Where is the sick lady?”

You and your brother took the heavy tanks from his hands and made way to let him in. Once in the room, he put his bag on a chair, and pulled out of it some one-liter bottles with a label writing distilled water. He also took a transparent mouthpiece, one of those that are placed over a sick person’s mouth and nose for oxygen, as well as some more pipes.

“She’s not good at all! I don’t know if her body is going to accept the oxygen!” he said. He started going up and down the room. “Is there a socket here?” he asked as he looked for it.

You pushed the closet a little and the young man put in the plug, turned on the machine and the two bottles of distilled water started to make bubbles. You helped mom move. She had gained a lot of weight recently, she weighed more than a hundred kilos. She seemed lifeless.

In the beginning, the young man fixed the pipes that took the oxygen to the nose, and then the mouthpiece. Neither the oxygen, nor the noise made mom open her eyes.

“Not very likely for her to take up the oxygen,” the young man repeated, and you froze.

“Oh, she’s gone!” dad said and made his way towards his room, wiping his eyes.

“Let’s give her a little massaging,” the young man said and took her icy hand and let it fall after he had raised the oxygen level to the maximum. Her hand fell on the covers. He took her hand again and put the oximeter on her finger. It was showing nothing, just broken lines.

“We should try it on the other hand,” he said. The two of you turned her around and the oxygen technician managed to put the small gadget resembling a clothes pin on her index finger. A few seconds later, number 72 appeared on the screen.

“It needs to be over 90,” he said. “Let’s wait and see if it goes up. She is still alive.”

The value dropped to 71. Nobody said anything. The technician kept looking at the oximeter.

“We’ll wait. If she’s not taking it in, it makes no sense for me to leave the tanks here. I can take them someplace else.”

You and your brother looked at each other. He quickly went to the corridor and dialed 127, the number of national emergency services. You were all ears, but you couldn’t get yourself to leave the room. Apparently, the line was busy.

The oxygen was not going down, but it was also not going up: 71.

“Emergency! Yes, we have a case here… in critical condition!” your brother’s voice was heard, as he ran towards your father.

“Where are we, dad? What’s the name of this place?

“Tell them we are at the Arab’s building.”

“Yes, we are at the Arab’s building,” your brother repeated over the phone.

You rushed towards your father angrily:

“Why don’t you give them the address on the electricity bill, dad? How can the ambulance know where ‘The Arab’s Building’ is?”

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. They’d get confused if I gave them the official address.”

“They will come right away,” your brother said, and you went downstairs to help the ambulance find the place, but also to appease your curiosity as to what this “Arab’s building” was. It was a piercing cold outside, brought by the strong wind coming from the sea. You were afraid to go any further, in case you got lost. The buildings all appeared the same in their variety. Although quite different, there was something about them that made them similar.

The ambulance sirens were heard. Your heart went out of your chest. You waved to attract their attention and a few minutes later they stopped at your feet.

“We only have a nurse with us. We can administer first aid, some anticoagulants, but it would be hard for us for the transportation,” a big-bellied man said. “Then, bro, they take’em to Tirana, you never see’em agin. Think it through!” he changed his tone, speaking in dialect.

He was not a doctor; he was the driver. In the meantime, the nurse went out and you went upstairs with her.

Upstairs the oxygen had settled at 72. The nurse was alarmed when she saw it. She quickly gave your mother a shot and then pulled out an IV bag.

“I need a broomstick,” she said.

You ran to the bathroom and found the broom. She took some adhesive tape and tied the broomstick to the elliptical trainer that mom used to lose weight. She had a hard time finding her vein, and the pricking made her squeeze her eyes a little.

A shiver ran down your spine. “She’s reacting!” Mom’s body was finally accepting the IV. The fluid dripped from a small plastic bag hanging on the broomstick, and everyone’s eyes were fixated on it. When she finished, you saw the nurse off, and asked her how much it cost.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just something for the IV. Whatever your heart feels like giving.”

You handed her a fifty euro note and thanked her.

Your sister rushed towards you:

“The oxygen is going up. 78!”

It was still too low, barely minimum to support life, but it was enough to keep your hopes alive. The dark young man, the oxygen technician, caught you by surprise when he said:
“Who will get here to sign that contract?”

He saw you shrug, and he added: “The oxygen contract. 330 euro for two weeks. You usually use it during the first week, the second week is just for safety reasons. Whoever makes it, makes it!”

You paid and let him go. A little earlier he had explained to your brother how the gadgets worked. He also gave you a phone number just in case.

Lola had arrived a while ago, but she was then out with her other aunt, your mom’s younger sister who lived in a building further down the road. They came back with a big bag of medicine. Your aunt was the one who had been taking care of your parents over the past few days. You wanted to hug her and shake hands, but she raised her hand to keep you away.

“I have Covid too!” she said. “They just sent me the results.”

So, there were three of them. Lola must have been immune, because she had been sick earlier, together with her parents.

Your aunt sat in a corner of the sofa, and Lola and the three of you gathered around the dining table in the open plan living room. You asked your father not to leave his room.

As soon as you sat down, Lola asked if the oxygen had arrived; it was her who had contacted and asked the dark-skinned young man to get there, as she had done with the doctor the night before.

“I will stay here, Lola said. They can’t be left alone. There is a folding bed in aunt’s room. I can sleep there. I can’t catch the virus again. Did you get rooms in a hotel?”

“Yes,” you said. “But we also have auntie now.”

“Ah, the aunt? She will stay here, in the living room. These couches are not comfortable to sleep on, but we have no other solution.”

Your aunt looked uncomfortable for a moment, and then she got up.

“I’m leaving. I can take care of myself. I’d rather go back to my place. There is heating there too. I need to quarantine, officially. Orders of the family doctor. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll text you if I need anything, Lola.”
Your sister got up in the meantime and asked her how much the medicine had cost.

“Ah, yes. These are for both of them, and the two house calls by the doctor. But there will be more coming. You should know, this is just the first stage. Six hundred eighty thousand,” your aunt said and headed for the door.

“Hang on,” your sister said and handed a five-hundred euro note to her. “Take this, and then we can check what more we owe you. Try to remember if you paid for anything else.”

You went back and sat around the table again, with Lola at the center. You were about to say your goodnights and head for the hotel next to your parents’ building, when your father showed up at the door.

“Come, she wants to go to the toilet,” he said, and the four of you sprang up to your feet.

Your brother put the oximeter on her finger. After the IV solution the nurse gave her, the numbers had gone up to 84-86, which was still very low, as Lola confirmed.

To her, it looked like you were still just silhouettes. She could not recognize you. You and your brother grabbed her by her arms, after disconnecting the oxygen. Your sister led the way. Lola went to get the toilet ready.
“Quick!” you said. “The oxygen levels will drop. Why does she need to go to the toilet at all costs?”

“She’d die before letting us put pullups on her.” Lola said. Mom seemed to understand something, and she confirmed it with a nod.

All she did was pee, as she had for many days.

“Today is nine days that we haven’t eaten anything. We’ve only been drinking water.” your dad said. “I ate bread and yogurt for breakfast today, and also two oranges for lunch.”

You brought her back to her room. You measured her oxygen: 72! You quickly put the pipes back in place. It started to go up until 82. It was still too low, but at least her body was taking in the oxygen.

You went back to the living room and sat around the table.

“You need to eat something too. There are no shops and restaurants open after eight p.m. There is a lockdown in place here too.”

“Where is your hotel?”

“It’s very close by. Right downstairs,” your brother said.

You all went silent. The door was ajar. You could hear the noise of the oxygen coming from your mom’s room, that of the pot filling with water, the slosh of the spaghetti in it in a few minutes, the noise of plates being put on the table with the knives and forks. Lola also took out a bottle of Sheshi i Zi Albanian wine. She put the glasses on the table.

“We’re lot leaving.” your sister said. “Lola can’t lift mom all by herself, and dad has no strength left in him.”

She had put in words what you had also been thinking about for a while.

There had been another knock on the door after you had finished eating and were quietly sipping the wine, but nobody had heard it. You had also found a bottle of raki somewhere; there was always raki in your home. It came to you directly from your village, Shëmbërdhenj, located in Tomorrica of Skrapar. You put it in the center of the table and poured a tiny kadaje for everyone. These are small glasses used for toasting; they have very little raki in them, but it is of prime quality. You tasted it. Yes, that was it. As always. Tasty, it moves through your throat before you know it, and in a couple of seconds you feel it spreading through your veins.
“I will take one, too,” your sister said. “It is the only way for us to keep warm. The radiators would make the air dry.”

You heard the knock on the door. You got up. The others thought you were going to the toilet, or to check on mom’s oxygen.

You opened the door and saw a young woman in her thirties. She was wearing a blue ribbon around her head, to keep her thick hair away from her eyes. She was tall and was wearing a familiar uniform.
“Maybe I have the wrong address,” she said, blushing. “They told me to get here.”

“Well, get in so we can talk,” you said. She nodded and two toggles tied at her neck moved. Her right eyebrow twitched with a nervous tick.

“I am the nurse,” she said. “Where are the patients?”

She greeted you with her elbow. “My name is Eni.”

You led her in. The other three left the room when the nurse had placed the IV apparatus in your dad’s arm, with the bag hanging from another broomstick. She then went to your mom’s room.

“She’s in serious condition,” she said in a low voice. “I can tell from her face, because I see people like her every day. I work at the triage unit. But at least she’s taking the oxygen in; 88. It is low, but I’ve seen worse.”
You saw that the room was full, and you took some steps back, so that you could get your oxygen from somewhere else. Your brother remained, worried and asking her questions. Her answers said that she could not give any guarantees.

The nurse’s ritual would repeat twice daily, in the morning and in the evening, before and after her hospital shift. Whenever she came, although he hated needles, dad would joke and tell her: “Come, I’m waiting for you in my bed.” Mom was constantly suffering and didn’t even try to hide it.

Yes. She started speaking. This was on the third day after your arrival.

“Oh, a curse on me! The three of you had to leave your jobs aside and come,” she said to one of us during our night shifts. Then she added, in despair: “I will not see the kids again.”

You had also thought that you would stay for three days, seventy-two hours, so that you would not need to quarantine for two weeks upon your return to Italy. But your mother moaned a lot and talked a little, and there was no visible improvement. Moreover, two weeks later, when you were about to leave, she would say that she did not remember you being there. To her, you had not been there during those two weeks.

It happened on the seventh day. A familiar smell reached your nostrils at daybreak. You got up and looked into your mom’s room. Your brother, who had been on night duty, had shortly fallen asleep on the folding bed. You saw your mom somewhat sneakily pulling the covers over herself and you put the oximeter on her finger: 89. She told you that she had used the toilet. She had gone there by herself, but she had not managed to flush. You went to see the toilet and could not believe your eyes. You told everyone to get up, one by one: dad, your sister, Lola, while your brother was awakened by your noise. You couldn’t get yourself to flush the toilet. For the first time, the yellowish color of that bowel movement reminded you of a flower, and its stink, of a flower’s scent. This was your biggest reason to celebrate in seven days.

Two weeks went by. You went your separate ways after taking a picture with your mother sitting on her bed and the rest of you standing behind her in the background. A hand, that of your sister, helped her sit up straight. She was feeling a little better.

You went back to Italy and quarantined in your homes.

There is a third beginning to this story.

Your wife and daughter went there. Your mother reacted well when she saw them and at first, they brought you encouraging news. But the night was long. Apparently, she couldn’t handle her emotions at seeing your wife and daughter. A few moments later, she suffered an ictus or an ischemic attack. Her face went awry, she couldn’t speak, the right side of her body was paralyzed. The ambulance came and administered first aid on her. Within a few hours, in the morning, she started speaking and getting the feeling back in her right hand, but it took two days for her condition to stabilize to a certain extent. She could no longer go to the toilet by herself, she dragged her right foot. Your wife, your father, and Lola, who was visiting from Laç again, helped her go there.

Your wife had to go back. She spent her seventy-two hours. Your daughter did not, she decided to stay with her grandmother. She became the new occupant of the folding bed. The grandmother had started to speak and for the first time would tell her granddaughter not fairytales, but stories of her life, for seven days straight. She only said “I’m fine” when people asked her how she was doing, as if she had forgotten everything.
Another beginning happened three weeks after that. She went down the stairs of her building all by herself. A taxi was waiting for her. Her sister, your aunt, would take her to a private clinic for some blood tests. The taxi left her several hundred meters away from the clinic. She was exhausted but managed to walk to the clinic. When she went out, she asked the taxi to pick her up at the very entrance. She did not have the energy to reach the restaurant where the sisters had planned to celebrate this moment together.

“Let’s go home,” she had said. “We did enough for one day.”

Bergamo, 21 March 2021