Der Himmel über Berlin
We were at BYU's International Cinema yesterday, watching "Wings of Desire," or translated literally from the German title, "The Heavens Over Berlin." "City of Angels" was based upon it, although characteristically, the depth was minimized and the sex maximized in the Hollywood film.
The original German film is a beautiful, thoughtful meditation on mortality and the Fall. Damiel the angel has watched humanity unfold for thousands of years, and finally wants to personally step into the world he knows so intimately from above. After his fall and the revelation it brings, his final words in the film are: "I know now what no angel knows."
Our journey to Italy is in some ways similar. It feels almost as if we are looking down from an immense distance, watching ourselves falling into Italy. There is the excitement, the anticipation of seeing the world suddenly in color, of discovering a whole new way of living and looking at the world through new eyes, speaking a new language, rediscovering roots and realizing that everything we are experiencing as new is really only reemerging from some deep genetic memory.
At the same time, it is like watching the ground rush up to you just before you pull the string on the parachute. It's all happening so fast. Yet somehow, everything is connecting like indispensable links on a long-foreseen chain binding us to Piedmont - the land, the people, and some invisible mission that draws us back.
We were in Logan last week. We were intending to go to Moab, some eight hours away. But around the Utah border, we suddenly felt that we should go to Logan instead. It's a little town up in a high valley in Utah, similar enough to the Waldensian Valleys of Italy that it drew the 19th century immigrants, and most of them and their descendents never left. Tony has aunts and uncles and cousins of every description and degree in that little town. Some of them also have this hapless passion for geneology. Richard Boudrero, whom I think is Tony's second cousin once removed, came over for dinner to Aunt Heidi's where we were staying. He brought a slide show of his trip to Italy two summers ago. He went to Lagnasco, where Domenico was born, to Melle, the cradle of the Bodrero family, and to San Germano Chisone, Henriette's hometown, and the place where the first branch of the Church was organized in Italy. He met the only Bodreros still in Lagnasco. In fact, the connection with family was so compelling to him that he cancelled his trip to the Italian Riviera and just stayed inland with the relatives.
His son was leaving on a mission for Mendoza, Argentina that week. We went to the farewell and saw a lot of Boudreros. It was a little strange to be the unknown collateral relatives who are moving to Italy next week--a bizzare, almost artificial notoriety. But at the same time, it seemed an appropriate place from which to depart.
So here we are. Our flight leaves for Italy on Wednesday. Nearly everything is finished, beyond a few obvious essentials like getting a hotel and car in Turin, forwarding our mail to the virtual address we've chosen, and picking up our last documents from the Lieutenant Governor's office. Oh, and deciding how to occupy two small children through eighteen straight hours of airplanes and airports.
Will it really be so different? Is Italy truly so compelling? What will we learn there that "no angel knows"?
I should confess here that I've started another blog. It was an innocent endeavor originally, but it's somehow suddenly taken over our life . . . And now we have just bought one-way tickets to Italy. We leave March 26.
How DID this happen? We're not quite sure ourselves. Or, as Joseph Smith put it, "I don’t blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself." We've been telling our friends and family for a couple of years now that we're planning to move to Italy. Whether anyone actually believed us, I'm not too sure. I often had the impression of being humored in a childish fantasy when I mentioned it to people. We decided, as noted in my Casteluzzo blog, that the coming October would be the time. But we didn't want to tell people. It was too far away. I did start telling them that our move to Italy was imminent. It's very easy to make that sound like a joke, though. October was the very earliest we thought it could work. It was a good time for the business. Our housing contract was up in October. It seemed logical. But it was evidently not soon enough. We already surmise that if we had been on track, we would have moved to Italy at the end of 2006, and not to Vancouver. So by that calculation, we're at least a year late.
In any event, last Monday Tony woke at 3:30 in the morning to the familiar sound of thumping from above. Our upstairs neighbors had always been a little eccentric - the main audible manifestation being what appeared as a curious penchant for moving furniture all night most nights. However, this particular early morning, Tony felt a distinct impression that something was very wrong (this after a similar incident, in which I had awoken early in the morning with the distinct impression that we should invite the man upstairs to listen to the missionaries in our house on a certain date and time about a week later as they presented a message on "how we can feel the love of God more fully in our lives." He agreed, but canceled at the last moment, looking as if he were haunted). Accordingly, Tony went upstairs and knocked on the door, quietly at first, and then more loudly. Finally, after knocking on and off for a half hour, he rang the doorbell. Mr. Underhill (not his real name) opened the door immediately. Tony said he needed to come in and talk, but Mr. Underhill refused. After trying a few more times, he came back downstairs.
We talked about it over breakfast, and he decided to go back up. In the meantime, we had discovered that Mr. Underhill was a former Marine drill sergeant with a serious physio-psychological disorder causing extreme instability. Tony said that if he banged three times on the floor, I should call 911. He gained admittance this time, and after an anxious hour for me, descended, very much disturbed. Mr. Underhill was abusing his mother at least emotionally, and Tony was almost sure, physically as well. He admitted that most of the thumps were her "falling" a lot. She had a lot of bruises. Even more upsetting, Mr. Underhill brought up the possibility of his mother dying in nearly every sentence. It would be a blessing, he declared, admitting also to making repeated offers to help her legally commit suicide. "She will die in this apartment within the year," he further declared. During the conversation, he was angry and attempted to intimidate Tony, at one point throwing his half-finished bottle of soda on the floor (I heard the crash, and waited nervously for two more). Finally, he ushered Tony to the door.
Tony came home, and we determined to call the police. Then we left our apartment with our children, feeling unsafe under Mr. Underhill, especially after the confrontation. While the police were upstairs interviewing Mr. Underhill, we packed up some stuff and got in our car. We didn't know where we'd go, but we had decided by this point that there was no way we were going to live under this person any more, especially after having put ourselves in the awkward position of calling the police on him (the police determined he was not an immediate threat to anyone, and left it to the elderly abuse division to follow up).
So, driving around that day and the next (after being put up for the night by some kind friends), we considered our options. The apartment complex was understanding, and offered to waive the lease-break fee. We could stay put (not an option, actually. We didn't feel safe). We could move to another apartment complex in the area. Finally, Tony and I confessed to each other what had been our first thought upon realizing we would have to move: move to Italy! In a crazy way, it actually made sense. Here was our chance to move to Italy within the month.
So here we are in a hotel in San Diego, making Amish Baked Oatmeal (our favorite breakfast) in the toaster oven. And in just under four weeks, we'll be touching down in Turin.
