On Earth as It Is in Heaven (25 page)

Would you believe that he's about to . . .

But no. He belly flopped. A fat and violent belly flop. A disturbing and dolorous sound rang out into that June day in Palermo. Gerruso had forgotten about curving his body in midair. He landed wide open, hands arms belly legs and face. He hovered, floating, on the surface of the water for a few brief instants and then sank slowly out of sight, like a leaf on a lake. As soon as he bobbed back to the surface, we saw blood streaming from his nose.

“I dived beautifully, right?”

I swam in silence over to where he was. Draping his arm around my neck, I ferried him back to shore.

“Did you see that, Nina? I learned to dive headfirst, Davidù is an excellent teacher, he's a poet from head to toe.”

We stretched him out flat on his back.

The front of his body was fiery red, as if he'd been scorched.

“Why don't you rest here for a second, that's right.”

Eliana was speaking into Nina's ear. I'd placed my bet on Gerruso. I deserved defeat based on that fact alone. The Dumas launched one last, painful whiplash with her angry eyes, turned her back, and prepared to dive.

And I saw something I never would have believed possible.

As she performed the same movement that I had tried to teach Gerruso, she offset the alignment of her feet. It was an imperceptible shift, but her right foot was just a little farther back than her left. She put her weight on the tips of her toes, and then she pushed off. Her legs described the same arc as a butterfly.

A movement of the legs that was unpredictable, impeccable, lethal.

More powerful than mine.

The Buttana Imperiale's footwork.

“What are you thinking?” Nina asked.

“Her feet are magnificent.”

“How's my cousin?”

“He took a tremendous belly flop, but he'll recover, eventually, the pain goes and ungoes, let's just let him get a little rest.”

“Come with me.”

“Who?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Over there.”

We sat down on the rocks, our feet dangling in the water.

“I'm happy we spent this day at the beach together.”

“You are? Really?”

“I was happy when my cousin called me the other day.”

“Oh!”

“Let's do this: since the invitation to go to the beach came from you in the first place, because I know that it came from you in the first place, now you can ask me for anything you want and I'll give it to you.”

Embarrassment burst across my face in a blush so intense that I was forced to lower my eyes. I watched her foot paddling at the surface of the water.

“Well?”

I clutched feverishly at that image.

“I-want-a-lace-from-your-shoe.”

“Then let it be a lace.”

She walked away, leaving me all alone on the wave-tossed rocks of Cape Gallo, in a motionless undertow. I was a
nèglia
, incapable even of shipwreck. Shame roasted my flesh. I was dying. Leave me here, forget about me. Waves, swallow me up, cast me against the rocks, let's be done with it. I didn't die, but that was only because Nina came back and sat down beside me.

“Here.”

“Who? What?”

“The shoelace, isn't this what you said you wanted?”

She dived into the sea and from the water she tied her shoelace around my left ankle, carefully, patiently.

“There, that ought to stay tied.”

“I'll always be able to wear something of yours,” I murmured, without thinking.

“Exactly,” she concurred, sitting back down next to me.

I chewed on the inside of my lip. I'd worn sandals to the beach that day. If she asked me for a shoelace in return, I was screwed. Oh, why does life have to be so hard?

“Well, then, what will you give me?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Me, give you?”

“Yes.”

“I'm wearing sandals, Nina, damn, I feel like a fool, me with no laces to offer.”

“I want my gift.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Kiss me. On the lips. Now.”

And before I knew it, I was in her mouth.

It was a long, passionate kiss, a kiss straight out of the movies.

From where he was standing on the rocks, Gerruso cheered.

“What a beautiful kiss, you're a real poet!”

The surface of the sea was smooth, the Dumas was far away, I switched off my mind and luxuriated in the sound of the water rising up over the rocks, breaking into spray, surging into the seaweed, and then washing away, in an endless return.

“What are you thinking, Davidù?”

It's surprising how insistently women ask men what they're thinking. The answer, most of the time, is simple, as elementary as the very nature of men: nothing. Often, we're just looking at a patch on the wall. Sometimes, our minds are absorbed by a spectacular electric guitar solo. There's never any logical process of thought. Even more astonishing is the fact that men feel obliged to provide an answer somehow bespeaking depth and insight, in order to accentuate our mysterious allure.

I wanted to give a fine, concrete answer, but instead I asked a question.

“So does this mean we're dating?”

Either I'd lost my mind or else this was how genius manifests itself: unfiltered, uncalculating.

“What do you think?”

Again with this unhealthy obsession about what I think? Nina, I'm a man, we do a lot less—and when I say a lot less I really mean
a lot less
—thinking than you women seem to believe. Men, do you have a picture of them? We spend hours and hours watching men in shorts chasing a ball, boasting relentlessly to our friends, doing push-ups on our fists. Men, Nina. What kind of thinking do you really expect to uncover beneath these activities? Already it verges on the miraculous that we're able to walk and whistle at the same time without tripping and falling every three steps.

Nina raised the stakes.

“Tell me one good reason why we should be dating.”

I already had my hands full trying not to die right then and there, so once again I answered without thinking.

“I have a cactus that won't blossom for another thirteen years, it would be nice to watch that flower bloom together.”

She didn't use words.

She replied in the best way possible.

Another open-mouthed kiss, wet and intense, a kiss involving both our tongues, eyes shut, shivers running down our backs. When we broke away, our foreheads were still close together.

“That's nice—‘Poet'—I like it.”

“Cut it out.”

“I'm telling the truth, I like it. Don't boxers have fighting names?”

“Yes.”

“Your father?”

“The Paladin.”

“Nice.”

“Right.”

“I like ‘The Poet.'”

“You mean that?”

“Yes. From now on, to me you're ‘The Poet,' I've made up my mind. It suits you; it's perfect.”

“But Gerruso's the one who said it!”

“So what?”

“No, nothing, okay.”

I looked out over the sea. I reflected on recent events in my life: I had a shoelace tied around my ankle, a nickname to flaunt in the ring, and a girlfriend with whom I could ride the bus back to Palermo. If she had chosen to ask me just then what I was thinking about, I would have had a formidable answer. But Nina, womanly in every thing and in every way, didn't ask again.

What happened beforehand, my mother had told me many times. As if she were trying to let me know, subconsciously, that she was calm now, that she could talk about it, “Davidù, you see my eyes? They're no longer filled with tears, light of my life.”

That day, she'd woken up early, as usual. She'd gone to work, at the hospital. In the ward where she worked, it had been an untroubled day. On her way home, she'd bought some mullet fillets at the Ballarò market. She was planning to cook the fish for dinner, according to one of Grandpa's recipes: first a marinade of orange marmalade, then a breading with bread crumbs, almonds, and pistachios, then just a few minutes in the oven. It was a warm September. She was wearing a white T-shirt that was becoming a little tight around the belly. She was starting to show. She got home about five. In the dining room, a magazine caught her eye. There was an article about chess. It told the story of one of the generals in Napoleon's army, a first-class strategist. Before every battle, he followed a remarkable ritual: he would take on the winner of a chess tournament that was scrupulously kept open to the army's entire rank and file. The champion was welcomed to the general's quarters as a guest and the two men would play. It sometimes happened that the challenger was so skillful a player that he was able to force the general to come up with new plans of attack. Still, the general was unbeatable. The article focused on one peculiar wrinkle: a number of moves before checkmate, informing his opponent that the game was over, the supreme officer would seize his opponent's king. In response to the challenger's understandable objections, he would describe the moves he'd make and the inevitable countermoves, culiminating in the final outcome. After that, with a single impetuous move, the general would overturn the chessboard, knocking it to the floor. When asked the reason, the general responded: “To leave my adversaries no trace of the paths that allowed me to defeat them.”

My mother wasn't crazy about chess, but there was something about that story that made an impression on her. She laid down the magazine and picked up her knitting needles and ball of wool. She started knitting and purling. She felt thirsty, went into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, and walked back into the dining room to drink it. Sitting was beginning to calm her down. It was just as she set the glass on the table that the front door swung open and Umbertino appeared.

September 9, 1973, at four in the afternoon: it was still a beautiful day out.

In the gym, Umbertino was explaining a combination to the boxers: forward left cross, leap backward, right cross. He performed that double punch masterfully: speed, precision, and timing that left everyone open-mouthed. He had a renewed energy in his body. This was the one time that he believed the gym had a shot at the national title—deep down, he felt sure of it.

Shortly after four in the afternoon, Franco burst into the gym, his face contorted, his cap gripped in his hand.

Umbertino immediately understood that a tremendous truth was about to be revealed. He hurried over to him and propped him up by the shoulders.

Franco started sobbing.

“The Paladin's dead.”

Umbertino hugged him to his chest.

“Get out of here,” he shouted at the boxers.

They all left.

As soon as they were alone, Umbertino pushed Franco away from him and wrecked everything in sight, bare-handed.

His voice was pitch black.

It came out of somewhere not of this world, this life.

“What happened?”

Franco was unable to speak. He lifted his hands and they were both covered with deep bite marks. He mimed the act of accelerating.

Motorcycle.

The Paladin had been killed in a motorcycle accident.

“Where?”

Franco couldn't seem to emit a single sound.

“Franco, look me in the eyes. Where.”

Franco lifted his head and glimpsed that gaze straight out of hell.

“Tunnel,” he managed to yelp.

The tunnel.

The highway.

“Franco.”

His voice was a snarl.

“Does Zina know?”

Umbertino's hands were ripped and torn from sharp fragments of wood, glass, cement. There was blood everywhere.

Franco shook his head, pointing to himself with his right hand.

He was the only one who knew. No one else.

Umbertino walked into the locker room and came back with a pack of cigarettes. He lit two and handed one to Franco.

“Smoke.”

It wasn't an invitation.

He took a long drag on his cigarette and surveyed the wall that he'd destroyed with his bare fists.

He was going to have to deliver the news himself.

He went out the door without a word, running as hard as he could.

When she saw him outside the door, Provvidenza took fright. He was dripping with blood and sweat.

“Umberto, what happened?”

“Where's Rosario?”

“
Che succirìu?
”

She repeated the question in dialect.

“
What happened?
”

Grandpa appeared from the garden. He still had a hoe in his hand. Umbertino put his hand on Provvidenza's shoulder, but he looked my grandfather straight in the eye.

“The Paladin was killed in a motorcycle accident.”

My grandmother started darting her gaze around, from the eyes of one man to the eyes of the other, but the two men formed a closed circuit; in fact, only Umbertino even noticed that the hoe had dropped from Rosario's hands—all of a sudden all strength had fled his body. Provvidenza started wandering aimlessly around the room, sensing the looming catastrophe that was about to rain down on her. She made one last attempt at rational thought.