Page 60 of Three Times You

Ele picks up an ashtray and slams it down twice on the glass top of the coffee table sitting in front of the sofa. “The session is adjourned!”

Gin leans forward and tries to stop her. “Look out! The session may be adjourned, but you’re still going to shatter my coffee table!”

***

“Ciao, Mamma.”

“Ciao.”

Babi and Raffaella exchange kisses at the door before moving into the living room to join Daniela and her father.

“Ciao, big sister, how punctual! Didn’t you run into traffic? Corso Francia was jammed solid,” Daniela says.

“I went the other way. I took Ponte Milvio,” Babi says.

“No two ways about it, you’re clever…”

“Care for a tea?” Raffaella smiles at her daughters.

“Gladly!”

Soon they’re all sitting on sofas in the living room. Babi is greedily munching on one of the cookies that she brought to share.

“Fabulous, really delicious.” Claudio takes all the credit.

“I found them. They’re English,” Babi says.

Raffaella issues her verdict. “Too much butter. They’re bad for you. And after all…”

Claudio looks disconsolately at his two daughters. “I’ve been getting things wrong all my life.”

Daniela picks up her teacup. “Not so, you got one thing right. You married her.”

Babi is tempted to add, “And if you hadn’t, who else would have taken her with that personality?” Instead, she limits herself to smiling and adding a simple “Right!”

Raffaella smiles wanly. Then she finishes her tea, sets down her cup, wipes her lips, and looks at her two daughters. “Well, we’ve called you here today because we have a serious problem.”

Babi and Daniela stop smiling. If their mother is coming out with phrases of thatsort, it must mean that things have truly hit rock bottom. It could be a problem with someone’s health, maybe Papà is really sick, Babi theorizes. In fact, he does seem particularly tired. Or maybe someone’s threatened them, but for what possible reason?

Babi can do nothing at this point but listen. But Raffaella doesn’t seem to know how to begin. She hems and haws, trying to find the right words. She appears embarrassed and perhaps even ashamed.

Claudio tries to reduce the tension in the room. “Don’t you worry now. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s just that we’ve lost all our money…”Then, as if trying to make the news easier to digest, he tries to joke about it. “We’ve become paupers.”

Babi and Daniela are speechless. On the one hand, Babi is relieved because she’d imagined much worse, but on the other hand, this news seems unthinkable.

Babi is the first to speak up. “How did it happen?”

Claudio tries to clarify. “We made some risky investments.”

“Youdid.” Raffaella displays anger and contempt.

Claudio nods. “It’s true, it was my fault, but only because a friend of mine had assured me that a pharmaceuticals company was going to start operations in France and, immediately afterward, in America. He himself invested more than twenty million euros.”

“And how much did you invest?”

“Seven million euros.”

Babi is surprised. She hadn’t imagined it would be such a large sum. How could her parents even have so much money to lose?

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