Born Twice (Vintage International)

Table of Contents

GIUSEPPE PONTIGGIA

Born Twice

Born in Como in 1934, novelist and essayist Giuseppe Pontiggia was editor of Verri and coeditor of L’Almanacco dello Specchio. He was the bestselling and award-winning author of numerous novels and a collection of essays.
Born Twice
was awarded a Strega Prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award, in 2001, and is his first major work to appear in English. Giuseppe Pontiggia died in 2003.

For the disabled
who struggle not to be normal
but to be themselves

Escalators

The escalators leading to the third floor rise steeply between a set of descending ones, the steps above us disappear into the overhead lights, and a dense crowd circulates slowly below on the receding walkways.

“Do you like it?” I lean forward and ask, my face close to his ear.

“Yes,” he replies, without looking back.

Gripping the rubber handrail with his left hand, he lets his body lean back into my arms, which he can feel are open behind him. I shift my weight forward to support his. When we reach the top, where the metal steps recede into a dark fissure, he loses his balance and stumbles forward.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you!” I say, reaching out for him.

He doesn’t fall. He positions himself on the carpet just beyond the landing, his legs and feet stiff with tension. He takes a few steps. I look around and wipe my brow with my hand. A woman is staring at us coldly. She’s standing next to a yellow beach umbrella that has been planted in a square of sand meant to simulate a beach scene. I stare back at her. I’m tired of people staring. But then she gasps, her hand goes to her mouth, and I hear a heavy thud. It’s Paolo. He’s fallen on his side. He rolled over onto his back, the way they taught him to do at school, but too late. His face is twisted in pain, the palms of his hands flat on the floor.

“Are you hurt?” I whisper, crouching down beside him.

He shakes his head. I position his feet against mine and pull him up. A small crowd of curious and alarmed onlookers has formed. They retreat to let us by.

“Everything’s fine,” I say.

I help him along for a few steps.

“Do you feel better now?”

“Yes.”

I point out a nearby stand covered with palm fronds. It’s surrounded by small tropical plants and set against a blue cardboard backdrop.

“Do you feel like getting something to drink?”

“Yes.”

We sit down on benches at a rustic wooden table. A giant plastic shark next to us displays an array of fishing gear in its jaws. I look at its sharp, crooked teeth. I’m exhausted and unhappy.

“Do you want a Coke?” I ask.

“Yes.”

I hold his glass for him while he drinks from it. Then we get up to leave.

“Go slowly now. Pay attention,” I say gently.

I watch him walk off, reeling like a drunken sailor. No, like a spastic.

Suddenly he turns and says in that labored way of his, “If you’re embarrassed you don’t have to walk next to me. I’ll be all right.”

Coming into the World

I’m at school when he’s about to be born. I’ve already started teaching my class. The ordinarily grumpy custodian comes into the room with a wide smile on her face. She walks over to the lectern and whispers in my ear.

“Professore, your wife is at the hospital. Her mother called. She asked me to tell you. She said there’s no hurry.”

I look at the class calmly.

“Her water broke,” she adds.

I nod dispassionately. What does that mean? How does water break? Maybe it’s the placenta. I visualize torn membranes and dripping fluids.

“You can cancel class if you want,” she suggests.

“No, I’ll keep going.”

What an idiot. You want to show everyone, yourself above all, just how strong you are. How courageous when faced with danger. Only you’re not the one who’s in danger. I didn’t think about that then. How calm we are when faced with dangers that are not our own.

Above all, show no emotion. Millennia of male-dominated education encapsulated in a millisecond. I look at the class. They must have guessed by now. A girl in the front row overheard a few words the custodian said and turned to tell a friend. I smile. Everything’s under control.

“Let’s go on with the lesson,” I say.

“Breech birth,” the doctor says in the hospital corridor, without looking at me. Fat, beady-eyed, and out of breath, he looks like a large trapped mouse.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he’s breech.” He looks up to make sure I don’t understand.

“What complications are there, exactly?”

“It’s hard to say. The greatest danger is anoxia.”

“You mean the baby won’t be able to breathe?”

“Something like that,” he concedes, annoyed. “His heartbeat is regular; there’s no need to intervene yet.”

“What do you mean by intervene?”

“Cesarean section. But your gynecologist doesn’t want to. He’s against them.”

Against them? I can see his face in front of me, larger than life— his thinning white hair, an air of fatigue and ruin about him.

“We’d like to avoid a cesarean. Doctors perform them these days at the drop of a hat.”

I listened with an intent expression on my face, but all the while I was thinking not about Franca but of the woman I had met again after so many years, the woman I would be seeing in only a few hours, even as I asked, “Is the baby in any danger?”

“Naturally,” he replied. “How did Leopardi put it? ‘A man comes struggling into the world; / His birth is in the shadow of death.’ But let’s wait on the cesarean. Trust me.”

He looked at me compassionately, with that mask of wisdom that some people acquire when they age but which is actually the final, definitive, and eternal stamp of stupidity. I had expressed my doubts about him, once, to my wife. We were on the escalators at the time.

“Are you sure he’s a good gynecologist?” I had asked.

“He’s the best,” she had replied.

He’s coming toward me with small hurried steps, rocking from side to side like a penguin.

“Don’t worry,” he says, which is the best way to make someone do precisely that. “You’ve got to be patient.”

“But why isn’t he born yet?”

“He’s a big baby,” he says with a sigh. “He doesn’t want to come into the world.” Then, with a wink and a smile, he adds, “Maybe he has a point.”

I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake the hell out of him, but I can’t bring myself to be hostile to the one person I suddenly perceive as my most feared enemy.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Dr. Merini!” my mother-in-law exclaims, rushing up to greet him, taking both his hands in hers. “Everything will be all right, won’t it, Doctor?”

“But of course, Signora! It’s just more complicated than usual. Let’s give nature a chance.”

“Just what I needed to hear!” she says, clasping his hands in hers. She’s elegant, melodramatic, and arrogant. Always on the verge of a breakdown. Always seeking out anxieties to flaunt and fears to have quelled. “So long as nothing happens to my little girl!”

“Or to the baby,” my own mother adds coldly, joining the group. She has been following the conversation from her post by the window, glancing over occasionally to remind us of her presence. Her face has assumed the stony gaze that used to frighten me as a child. “Let’s not forget he’s the one being born.”