Born Twice (Vintage International) (9 page)

“No, because he’s weak,” I said. “He gains strength from his flexibility.”

“Enough of your talk!” he’d replied. “I just don’t follow you.”

Paolo offered him the most extreme opportunity to reexamine his beliefs, but that was the last thing he wanted to do. Dominated by hierarchical ideas on nature and society, he was forced to contend with his grandson’s condition, which posed insoluble problems to his understanding of the meaning of life. Contrary to what one would generally believe, diversity makes us feel diverse and we do not easily forgive that. My father-in-law died believing his grandson was diverse in appearance only. That was his most tenacious hope; the fear of being proved otherwise rendered him fanatical. Jung wrote that fanaticism is an overcompensated doubt, but my father-in-law never even managed to begin compensating for his.

He once told me that as a young man he and his friends would wait in the cinema for homosexual men to give themselves away so they could ambush them and teach them a lesson or two. It struck me that he had used the word
lesson.
It certainly had taught a lot to the person being attacked but nothing at all to the aggressor. Fifty years later, the lesson continues to elude him.

I wait for him to return from his outing with Paolo.

The green car enters the courtyard of the building with its lights on. It’s only late afternoon, but he turns on his lights at the same time the municipality turns on the streetlights. It’s one of the many rituals he celebrates with maniacal observation and of which he is especially proud, as if it were some kind of merit. Another one he’s proud of is his perfect attendance at a club to which he belongs. “I’ve never been absent,” he once told me proudly. “Never!” He reminded me of an admiral who, after saving his crew and passengers, had fearlessly gone down with his ship, the only difference being that my father-in-law lived to tell the story.

He opens his door slowly and walks around the rear of the car to open Paolo’s door. In the meantime I’ve gotten Paolo’s go-cart out of the garage and wheeled it over. He unfastens Paolo’s seat belt, picks him up, and lowers him into the go-cart with graceful ease. I know that this maneuver, done with delicate precision, fills him with the silent joy of an artisan in front of work well done.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you a favor,” I begin, as Paolo pedals off in zigzags across the courtyard.

“Tell me,” he replies.

“I know it runs counter to your moral and ethical code.”

“Get to the point,” he says.

“The principal of the school that Paolo will attend is disabled.”

“Him too!” He throws his hands up in the air.

“Yes, and he’d like to publish a book of his poems with an imprint of your caliber.”

He’s sensitive to this wrong word, but it puts him in a good mood, alluding to a power he doesn’t have.

“How do I fit in?” he asks.

I know he wants to hear the favor that is being asked of him in clear and precise terms. It’s a practice I used to associate with men of a certain age, until I understood that these men of a certain age have accumulated a certain amount of experience over the years and they’re not wrong to expect it. They’re tired of doing favors for people who make it seem as though they themselves are actually doing the favor.

“He’d like you to talk to an important editor about his work. He thinks you can do anything.”

“It’s not true, but I can do it this time,” he says. “I did quite an important favor for one recently. Give me the manuscript.”

He nods slyly and says no more.

I am dumbfounded.

“I suppose you want to read it first before giving it to him,” I add, already responding to this situation for which I was unprepared.

“Why on earth would I do that? Give it to me now, and I’ll talk to him about it later this week. Did you like it?”

“Yes,” I say, taken aback. “It’s not bad.”

“Only ‘not bad’?” he says, smiling. “I was hoping for better.”

“Actually, for me, not bad means pretty good.”

“What’s ‘pretty good’?” he rebuts. “Give it to me and say no more!” He points to the car. “Would you mind backing it out while I go and say goodbye to Paolo?”

“Not at all,” I reply, opening the door and climbing in.

Everything feels easy, light, simple. I look up. In the square of sky between the buildings, I can see the first stars.

I back up quickly. My father-in-law shrinks at the far end of the courtyard. For some reason, I have always imagined him in breeches. But he’s never worn them.

Miss Bauer

Her name is Elisa Bauer. She’s from Bolzano and she’s thirty-two years old. She has never had a disabled child in her class and seems, when we meet her, visibly concerned about the prospect of having one. She wanted to meet us; we live about three hundred yards away from the school.

Her blond hair is gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck. She moves with ease and elegance and is as attractive as she is reserved, more athletic than sensual. She’s pretty but her focus is uneven. She can seem cold, typical of women who are afraid of showing their emotions.

While we take turns telling her about our child, she keeps her eyes downcast. We’ve become experts at describing him in the most charming terms. We smile cheerfully. But it’s the wrong strategy. I fear she’s starting to think that our child is a monster. She asked what he suffered from and the answer— dystonic spastic quadriparesis—left her stunned.

I close my eyes for a moment while Franca clarifies some of Paolo’s difficulties. We always make the mistake of trying to minimize them, even with doctors. Especially with doctors. We try not to tire him out before his appointments. We tell him to be that which we lack most: calm. We get upset each time he makes a mistake and then he makes more mistakes than usual, as if wanting to justify our panic. I’m afraid we’re a monstrous couple, overwrought with fear and united only in the absurd hope of overcoming it. If anything, we should present him in the worst light possible, so as to avoid a comfortable diagnosis and obtain a more plausible one.

When the doctors become aware of our circumlocutions, they react with poorly concealed impatience. We go to great lengths to try to show them that our child is more normal than they might believe. The truth is never quite so elusive and distressing as in those moments.

The mute resistance of Miss Bauer is suffocating me. So without turning to look at Franca, who sits on my right, even though I can imagine what her reaction will be, I speak up.

“You have a difficult task ahead of you. We know how hard it can be. You will have to devote yourself to it entirely. At times you might even regret having wanted him in your class.”

I don’t really believe what I’m saying, but when she looks up at me her gaze is calm.

“Now don’t exaggerate,” Franca says. I squeeze her arm until it hurts and we stare at each other with reciprocal rage.

“That sounds like a constructive approach. That’s what I wanted to hear,” Miss Bauer says, without noticing a thing. She looks down again.

Franca rubs her arm. I know what waits for me later. So does she. We both know. Maybe that’s what marriage is all about.

“I’d rather be prepared for the worst, not for the best,” Miss Bauer adds.

“How right you are!” I exclaim, as if discovering this as a newly minted truth.

Miss Bauer looks up; her eyes are misty with emotion. “That’s the way I am. So far it’s been a strong point in my work. Don’t you think it’s a good thing?”

“Definitely!” I say, with the prodigal enthusiasm that we have when it doesn’t cost anything. It’s what differentiates visitors to an artist’s studio from buyers.

Bit by bit, as she speaks, she loses her charm. She’s reasonable, focused, and enthusiastic. I’m relieved for Paolo but a little concerned for her. It’s as if, in a game of chess, the player with the advantage were suddenly to surrender. I wonder whether she’d be upset by this comparison. She’d probably be more upset with me.

“Look at Paolo’s photographs,” Franca says, getting up from the sofa and taking down one of the frames in the hallway in which she’s collected some of his most successful pictures. She’s incorrigible, and yet she obtains what she wants, even if she does go further than I would. In any case, I’ve noticed that the legitimacy of the goal, however difficult, makes one ethically cynical.

Miss Bauer is looking at me with a knowing smile, as if she knows she can count on me to help her resist kindness. Franca talks about Paolo. She makes him out to be a communicative and easygoing person. By the end Miss Bauer is laughing at the story of how, when someone asks Paolo on the intercom, “Is that you?” he replies from the lobby, “No!”

“He takes advantage of the linguistic tools available to him,” I comment. “Like in
arte povera.
”

She shows her appreciation for the linguistic reference with a professional nod. Franca feels momentarily excluded but then picks up again.

“Don’t mind him! He only pays attention to language,” she says with a laugh. “So much is communicated without words.”

Miss Bauer smiles. I smile too. It will take me at least twenty years to figure out that Franca is right.

Our conversation gets interrupted. Franca has gone to make sure that Paolo’s room is tidy before showing it.

Miss Bauer takes a sip of orange soda from her yellow glass. The whole apartment is brightly colored. The physiotherapist recommended strong colors for Paolo’s room but gradually Franca has extended the color scheme to the whole apartment. Sofas, armchairs, dining chairs, closets, blocks, balls, and toys— all are brightly colored. Together they form what looks like the background for a cartoon. I’ve noticed this unreal and festive quality in the homes of other families with similar problems (though no two cases are alike, both within and outside of the norm). Space is given over to childhood with a freedom that childhood itself doesn’t know, so used to making do with whatever bits of the serious adult world it can obtain. It’s a sad reversal: order makes itself felt in artificial disorder; the pleasure of games vanishes with the awareness of their function.

“Would you like to see Paolo’s room?” Franca says from the doorway.

Miss Bauer places her drink on the glass table. “Your wife is absolutely wonderful,” she says with a smile, getting to her feet.

“I know.” I nod. “But it shouldn’t have happened to her.”

“Why her in particular?” she asks. “It shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

“She’s been wounded in the place where she is the weakest.”

“Or perhaps the strongest,” Miss Bauer comments.

I can hear them talking. It’s too bad she came to visit while Paolo isn’t here, but when she called Paolo had already left with my father-in-law for a drive. But maybe it’s better this way: Miss Bauer is taking careful inventory of his difficulties. She’s convinced that only by distributing them evenly across time will she be able to overcome them.

I’m beginning to feel more certain that she’ll be the right teacher for him: She actually seems only reluctantly enthusiastic, a trait she must have learned the hard way, but at the same time she’s a stranger to discouragement, which is a no-less-frightening adversary.

Once I never would have used the adjective “right.” It seems to neutralize all efforts of the common aspiration to perfection. Now, instead, I’ve adopted the protective language of the majority, much in the same way that surrendering to the use of medical jargon in the hospital allows you to join the anonymous ranks of the sick and, in turn, affirms your dependence on an authority figure for assistance. Even handicaps are defined by words that placate an immediate anxiety, that of knowing what it is. The next phase is discovering that the definition doesn’t really define it. Still, a step has been taken in the right direction.

It’s getting dark. I stand at the living room window and look out at the rooftops and skyscrapers and the brightly lit streets. The same landscape that on other occasions fills me with disquiet now gives me a sense of intimacy. Another obstacle has been overcome.

Miss Bauer comes out of Paolo’s room. She looks radiant; her cheeks are bright from conversation.

“I have to run,” she says.

Maybe I’m too attentive to words, like Franca says, but
run
is a verb that bothers me right now, even if she is right to want to escape that crowded room, its joyless toys, optimistic despair, and anguished hopes.

“I’m glad you came to see us.”

“It was my duty,” she says, suddenly growing serious.

She’s worried that we’ll exchange it for a favor. It occurs to me that many people make their duties pass as favors. Real schools are made of exceptions, and they’re as rare as apologetic teachers.

“I’ll accompany you,” I say.

We ride down in the brightly lit elevator. She stands in the corner.

“How long have you been teaching here?” I ask.

“Six years.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, except for the principal, at first.”

She stops herself. She’s already said too much.

“Meaning?”

“He was a little insistent.”

She offers no more.