The voice is rough, but courteous. Absence of frills and firmness are the traits that most remind her of her daughter, as far as one can guess from a phone call on a day like this. Costanza Marongiu is the mother of Michela Murgia. Today she will not be able to attend her funeral in Rome: “My legs are what they are”. There will be the other son, Cristiano, with his wife Ida.
Ma’am, who warned you?
«Claudia, a friend of Michela: she called me in the night. And then this morning the television. It was a shock.’
Did he expect it?
«Michela had been ill for a year and a half, but I can’t expect it, because she hid the truth from me until the day before. She told me: I’m getting better. And I believed it. Then a week ago she stopped answering my phone and I realized she was sick. Yesterday (Thursday 10, ed) it was she who called Cristiano and told him that she was leaving and that she just wanted her to tell me to stay calm and not to cry. I didn’t cry, but this is even worse, because I feel a lump in my heart that is killing me».
Did you follow her on social media?
“Yes, on Instagram”.
A lot has been spent on the queer family in recent weeks.
«It was Michela’s will and it suited me too, I can’t say or add anything. I respected her choices, all of them. In fact, the queer family was her dream, she always wanted many people around, she wanted many friends and what more could you ask for? ».
He never hid an abusive father. To «Vanity Fair» she told of the night of December 26, 1990, when she took her with her brother to her sister Annetta, a second mother for Michela.
‘It was necessary. Michela then didn’t want to go home with us anymore. She went back to it when I separated from her father. He passed away five years ago: he was unstable, it was very difficult to establish a relationship; today good, tomorrow a beast».
Did your daughter’s extraordinary success surprise you?
«It didn’t surprise me even a bit, Michela looked like me too. She was a force of nature. Whichever path she took, I knew she would succeed. She achieved all the goals she set her mind to: she was strong, courageous, punctually critical even with herself. If she was wrong she admitted it, she was important».
Choose an image.
«Right now she is presenting a book in Cagliari and five minutes later she embraces me and her brother: it happened last year, around September. It’s the last time I saw her. I can’t walk anymore, I was waiting for her to come again. But she followed her dreams of hers: she wanted the Orient Express and she got it, she wanted to go to America and she got it. In some ways I had become secondary: she was in a hurry to do the things she had never been able to do before».
Are you sorry?
‘No, that was right. Children are born with wings and then fly away, no mother has the right to stop them».
Did you know Lorenzo Terenzi, the man she married in July “in articulo mortis”?
‘No, I don’t know him, we haven’t spoken yet. We’ll talk, by now there’s plenty of time».
What effect did Aldo Cazzullo’s interview in the Corriere have on you when you admitted that you had months left?
‘My legs were shaking, even though I already knew about the disease. But I’m a mom. Before the mother of the writer and famous woman, I am the mother of my daughter. She always warned me about interviews. For Vanity Fair she sent me a preview of the photos.
A memory of her as a child?
‘Very lively, very intelligent. At school she was first in the class and she complained when she missed a beat: if she wasn’t 8 and became 7, she was already worried. I’ve never had to tell her: open the book, start studying. It was all very easy, from that point of view, and very pleasant to follow her progress».
What is she most proud of?
«Of all his books, because in each one there is his thought, his choice of life. And somehow he also spoke about me. I told her: don’t get in the way, I’m shy. And she: mum, don’t you understand?, if I have to write about my life you are part of it».
He dedicated ‘Accabadora’ to her: ‘To my mother. Both of them.’ So also to Aunt Annetta.
“Yes. But I preferred essays to novels. The most beautiful for me is Viaggio in Sardegna, because I have read many books on Sardinia, even written by important people who travel the world. But she managed to delve into every aspect. And then I liked Ave Mary a lot, also because she pissed off the bishops, so she’s fine».
Until recently he managed a seaside restaurant. What was Michela’s favorite dish?
‘Spaghetti with clams from Mistras’.
If I may ask, what did you talk about last time?
‘It was a week ago. She told me she was fine, that she was serene. And that she preferred to move to her house, die at home and not in the hospital. And why are you telling me this?, I asked. And she: mum you know, it can happen at any time. Well, for me Michela hasn’t gone away: she’s still here».