Milan The “I” Is Reborn in an Encounter. In which the Beginning Happens Again In the 1970s, Lotta Continua, the protests, the ideology. Then, the end of illusions, a marriage, children, work, illness. And, one evening, during a town festival, that name and those faces. It is the beginning of a new world and a new way of loving each other by Paola Bergamini It is the last Sunday of September. From her car window, Valeria sees the sun on the horizon extinguishing behind the rows of trees. Then, one after the other, fields, a pond, trees whose tallest branches intertwine as if in a green dome, then more fields. “You wouldn’t know we’re only a few miles from Milan,” she thinks to herself. In the 1970s, during the years of full austerity measures, she and her boyfriend used to travel this road by bike. She remembers the protests, the marches, the struggle for a better world, the ideals, marriage, the birth of their first child, the divorce…”Vale, we’re here,” the voice of her friend Luca startles her. “Let’s park and go to the Santoro Trattoria to eat… But, good grief, look at all those people! And all these festival lights. Look, there’s a procession with the Madonna under her baldachin.” “The Madonna of Gudo!!” Valeria can’t believe her eyes. She had always thought that the church was deconsecrated. On a sign they read: “Big festival. Food stands, open-air dancing, lottery.” “Come on, Luca, let’s go. It’ll be like going to a Unity Festival[annual Communist Party summer event throughout the country]. Promise me, though, if this is ‘priest stuff,’ we’ll eat a sandwich and go. No discussions, no provocations….” “Don’t worry.” “I know you. You’ve got provocation in your DNA!” They sit down with a plate of salamella (lean horseshoe-shaped salami) and French fries at a table that’s already partly occupied. The possible commune After a few minutes, they hear, “Have you seen Fr Giussani on video…?” Marco whirls around. “Excuse me, did you say Fr Giussani?” “Yes, do you know him?” “He was my religion teacher in high school!” “No kidding! Tell us about it. Excuse me, I’m Marco, this is Norma.” “I’m Luca, this is Valeria…” They start to talk. Vale remembers that, in her day, those of Lotta Continua considered CL people their born enemies. She remembers very clearly the poster with the photo of Formigoni (CL member, politician in the Lombardy Region) and the slogan “Formigoni is poisoning you, too. Tell him to stop.” A whole series of ideological prejudices. And now, they’re here talking together. About everything. And she is really enjoying their company. “Marco, you and your wife…” “Norma isn’t my wife.” “Oh, okay, your partner, where do you live?” “She isn’t my partner. We live here in Gudo together with twenty other people.” Valeria is astonished, and wants to know more. Marco and Norma tell about the experience of the Memores Domini, born over twenty years ago. In 2002, visibly normal adults who live together! How is it possible? She had tried to do this, as part of the famous communes, which shipwrecked miserably on the problems of everyday life. Valeria remembers the quarrels… more about who had to do the dishes than about the use of money. And these people are together, happy. The serenity with which they speak… What ideal keeps them united? Everything to share The hours fly. By now, almost no one is left at the festival. They say goodbye, exchanging cell phone numbers. On the way home, Valeria thinks that everything will die there. She thinks of her husband Max, who is waiting for her at home. She’ll tell him all about it. There’s nothing they haven’t shared. When they met, he was a criminal lawyer with years of hard contestation behind him, battles for leftist ideals, but he wanted to dump everything and sail around the world. And instead, they got together, married, and Beniamino was born. With her, Max began to work again, setting up a law firm. The affective tension that had drawn them together had never weakened. To the contrary, even on that cursed night in 1998 when Max had an epileptic crisis. A few hours after the rush to the hospital, a doctor told them he had a brain tumor, and had 20 days, maybe a month, to live. He began treatment, and a long stay in the hospital. The tumor wasn’t eliminated, but Max was still alive. Life could resume more or less normally. But instead… instead when he went back to his law firm, the secretary and his colleagues had gone. The emptiness. The phone didn’t ring. They kept the doors closed so as not to see the desolation. Valeria’s eyes fill with tears as she observes the starry night of the Lombardy countryside. They moved ahead. “Yes, tomorrow I’ll tell him about Norma and Marco,” sharing every corner of life that remained, as they had always done. The phone call “ Mamma, it’s for you. Some Marco from Gudo.” Impossible! “How’s it going? Why don’t we get together for a pizza?” They remembered. “Okay, where? In Bocconi? Let’s meet in front of the Franceschi monument… You don’t know who Franceschi is? Okay, at the traffic light, then.” She hangs up and thinks, “What the heck am I doing? I have nothing in common with these people. They don’t even know who Franceschi is!” She tells her husband, “Max, those people from Gudo called. They want to see us for a pizza. Can you come?” “Sorry, I can’t. Go with Luca; after all, you two met them together. Then tell me about it. Go on, Vale, don’t have doubts.” At the appointment, Marco and Norma have brought two friends, one a tall fellow with a sulky face, dressed in black. Valeria thinks, “This guy’s a heavy-duty priest. What have I gotten myself into?” But the ‘heavy-duty priest,’ who is not a priest but a man named Giorgio, is taciturn. Then, all of a sudden, he turns to Luca, “They told me about your friend in Belgrade with the severely handicapped daughter, and the possibility of treating her in Turin. What’s happening with the situation?” “Nothing, it’s at a standstill. The neuropsychiatrist who could treat her is available. The problem is, they can’t find a structure where she and her mother can live. We’ve been involved in this for a year now.” Giorgio doesn’t say a word, but he gets on the cell phone. A few minutes later, he says, “Everything’s set up. There’s a family in Turin that would be happy to host them.” Valeria is dumbfounded. Heavy-duty priest indeed! Why did he do it? He has known us for five minutes and he trusts us. This availability… The dinners, phone calls, and get togethers continue. Like a seed left by accident that begins to grow, so their friendship flowers and roots itself in the life of Valeria, who hides nothing of who she is, her past, her ideas. In reciprocal respect, there’s the possibility of saying everything. But it’s not just this; there’s something more. Vale knows what it is: life is involved, and not that of the big philosophical discourses, or of her old Party comrades, the “reactivists,” as she defined them. No, it was about what made life worth living. School of Community and New Year’s dinner It’s a November evening, and the church hall in Dergano, a neighborhood in northeast Milan, is slowly filling up. There are lots of young people, some obviously arriving directly from work. Valeria is sitting in the front row. Giorgio has invited her to School of Community. Before beginning, he hands her a book. She reads the title, The Religious Sense, by Luigi Giussani. Silence. Giorgio reads a few pages and asks, “Questions?” Silence. He continues reading, then asks again, “Questions?” Someone says, “Excuse me, I wanted to tell about my experience today. I’m a sales representative, and today I wrapped up a good deal. There, I think this is a sign of the presence of God.” Valeria shudders in her chair. Giorgio concludes with announcements, then goes to her. “So, what did you think?” “What’s God got to do with business? He did his job well as a salesman. Do you have the reserve question? While I was reading those lines, I had a thousand questions. This School of Community is an empty box; it’s like doing a little homework exercise. It’d be better to go play boccette if you want to kill some time. No, no, I’m all shaken up. I have to understand.” And Valeria does not give up on School of Community; she stays with it also because Max, to whom she tells everything, tells her to go ahead, not to pull back. “But when are you coming?” “Vale, I’ll come.” The encounter happens on New Year’s Eve. The friends in the Gudo house invite them to celebrate New Year’s. Max and Valeria show up around 10:00 pm, expecting to sit down to a big dinner. Surprise. There isn’t a big dinner; they’ve already eaten, just like on any other evening. After a moment of embarrassment and explanations, Max and Valeria sit down at the table, with twenty other people. There’s talk and laughter. Another seed has been sown. Max sees what transpires in Valeria’s words, a friendship charged with something profound, which makes you say, “I’m in.” Just be there “ Max, they called from Gudo. They want to know if we can go to dinner Sunday. Should we go?” “Certainly, yes.” “Max, you’ve never blocked me in this adventure, then you decided to come…” “Vale, listen. In the beginning, I didn’t understand, I just trusted you. It’s always been like that for us. You don’t jump into something unless it’s worthwhile, unless it’s extremely interesting. I’m comfortable with these people, I feel at ease even though there are things that, on the rational level, I’m not able to understand. They’re people who live in this world but, at times, I think that their choice is an elitist one. It’s like there’s a contradiction…” “I don’t know, Max. They’re normal people with their problems, and yet they have a different serenity, not like New Age meditation. It almost scares me to say it: they have a big motivation. No, the exact word is ‘faith.’ You see it when they talk about Jesus; He becomes a flesh and blood person. You know how much religion is something far away for me, at best the stuff of holy cards. But for them, not only did Jesus exist, but He continues to be there, He’s a real presence, daily. I envy them this.” On Sunday evening, Giorgio asks Max if he wants a job in a law firm. The practice where Max had worked was by then definitively closed, and Max works with a friend. Because of this gratuitous and discrete friendship, he accepts. The Retreat and the wedding Dinners, discussions, two days at the Meeting (for Friendship Among Peoples). A friendship becomes rooted in Valeria’s heart and also in Max’s. Vale wants to understand and see. In 2002, she goes to the Young Workers’ Spiritual Exercises. Fr Fabio talks about Abraham. When she returns, as always, she tells her husband about it: “I was struck with the fact that the Lord calls him by name. If somebody calls you by name you can’t pretend that you didn’t hear, that he’s calling someone else. He’s after you.” And after a moment, laughing: “Oh, everybody was hunched over writing. I don’t understand; if you write, you can’t follow. I prefer to listen, so the important things stay with me.” “Vale, it’s not like we’re all alike!” Fr Fabio had wanted to meet him. They meet a couple of times–important for understanding, for going to the heart of the matter. Then, one evening, Vale says, “Max, I have something important to tell you.” It’s a lovely spring evening and they’re home alone. “I’m listening.” “Why don’t we get married again? In the Church. In the situation we’re in, apparently without hope, let’s renew our promise, whether it be for an hour, a day, or more–but before God. You know well, after fourteen years in a boarding school with nuns, I had decided that God didn’t exist, that all that business was baloney. But now it’s different. Every day, you and I know it, is a gift. Well, now it’s time to go back home, to the Father. We’ve been presumptuous, we took the liberty of not believing, but all this only leads to desperation. I think what I want is the gift of faith, to stay forever with you, whatever happens. Let’s renew our promises before God, asking him to look on us, even if we’ve never done it. What do you think?” “I think it’s the right thing, the only thing to do.” On September 29th, in the small church of Gudo, they celebrate the wedding. Their Memores friends stand as witnesses. Then they have a big party in the Memores house. At the end, Marco approaches Max, “Well, have we made up for the New Year’s dinner?” Max laughs, remembering that first meeting. “Yeah, big time!” A discrete presence January 2004. Max comes home saying he doesn’t feel well. After five minutes, the convulsions start. When they arrive in the Fatebenefratelli Hospital, he’s in a coma. Valeria is with the children in the waiting room. All they can do is wait. She calls Gudo, and in a few words tells what has happened. After five minutes, a doctor approaches her, “Are you Valeria? Hi, I’m Celso, a friend of Marco’s. He told me about your husband. Don’t worry, I’ll go see what the situation is.” So, for the fifteen days that Max is in the Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Celso is always present, whether it’s his shift or not. At 8, 12 and 6 he waits for Valeria, to update her on his condition, a discrete presence that accompanies her in her pain as well. Then, Max is transferred to Besta, to Intensive Care. Max’s condition does not improve; instead, due to a series of complications, it worsens, while the friends from Gudo are always there, taking turns. Valeria watches them while they go into Max’s room, speak to him, caress him. Here is the gift of faith. Every instant, every gesture is full of a love that makes everything new. Even pain. The others, their old friends, don’t even have the courage to enter. One morning at 6:00 am, the phone rings in Gudo. “It’s Vale. Max died a few minutes ago.” Vincenzo arrives quickly, and as soon as he sees her he exclaims, “God be praised. Eternal rest…” Out of instinct, Valeria would like to smash his face in. How does he do it? He’s not crazy, they’re not crazy, by now she knows them, they’re normal people who suffer, who get angry like everyone else. The gift of faith isn’t something you grasp onto for survival, but to conquer life, because it has conquered death. A visit to Pampuri In the distance, the bell tower of Trivolzio rises against the blue sky. Marco breaks the silence, “Vale, how are you?” “During these months, I hit the bottom of desperation. Returning home every day with that absence that was a presence, it was terrible. I was desperate. You know. Now it’s better. That’s why I asked you to accompany me to Pampuri. I have something to request.” In the church, Valeria approaches Saint Riccardo Pampuri’s tomb. “Make me understand the meaning of life, make me see it. Give me the courage to live it, this life. Help me think that Max is there with you. Otherwise, nothing makes sense.” Outside, in the churchyard, Marco is waiting for her. “Do you want to stay with us for dinner? Giorgio will be there this evening.” “I’m in.”