Persecution (9781609458744) (42 page)

It was listening to this type of discourse that Leo had formed his convictions. It was through contact with a personality like Loredana Soffici, who was at the same time compassionate and intransigent, lucid and visionary, that Leo had understood the indispensability of communicating the diagnosis to the patient. And it was in the name of a spirit no less honest and fair-minded that he was now, on the flight to London, trying to explain to his second son why hypocrisy is as harmful as the cancer.

Then something strange happened. Just as the plane was starting its approach to Heathrow airport, just as the loud-speaker voice of the hostess politely ordered the passengers to return to their seats, put the tray tables and seatbacks in the upright position, and buckle their seat belts. Just then Semi, with an agitation that struck Leo profoundly, because it so little fit the character of that usually so transparent child, had asked his father, “So if I had something, if suddenly something happened to me, you would tell me? Right, Papa, you'd tell me?”

Confronted by the anguish communicated by the tone, even more than by his son's words, Leo was at a loss, undecided whether to answer sincerely or shift the whole conversation to a less demanding register. In the end, he took refuge again in the spinach example, saying,

“I swear that you have nothing between your teeth.”

But this wasn't enough for Semi. Semi wouldn't let go. Semi continued, frightened, “Promise me, Papa, will you promise me?”

“What?” Leo asked, exasperated, and regretful that he had let himself get out of hand, initiating his son into some of the cruel secrets of his profession.

“That you'll tell me. That if something happens to me you'll tell me. Promise me, Papa, promise me?”

Leo, irritated by Semi's insistence, unable to look at him—his gaze turned to the looming London suburbs—had promised.

 

And it's of that promise, that agitation, that Leo is thinking now as he looks at Semi, no less agitated than that other time, helping his older brother, whose ankle he has just broken. Leo wonders if the boy, now fourteen, still asks so many questions. He hopes not. He hopes he doesn't do it anymore. He hopes with all his heart not to have become in the eyes of his son the most important question. The most insidious and disturbing. The one that will never have an answer.

Leo can barely breathe. It's what happens to our body when it is invaded by pity and guilt simultaneously.

 

On a Wednesday afternoon in early December of 1984, the three freezing-cold Pontecorvo males went through the revolving door of the Brownstone Hotel, welcomed at the entrance with a bow from a strange fellow in a green velvet uniform with tassels and gilded frogs, a comical cylinder on his head.

A small plaque at the entrance (black background, gold lettering) informed the guest that that old limestone building, in Belgravia, had been transformed into a hotel by Lord Byron's butler in the mid-nineteenth century. Leo had stayed there for the first time with his father, some thirty years earlier, and since then had devoutly chosen it as his London refuge. He loved the small, quiet lobby, the smell of toast and roasting coffee, the way the thick mauve carpet, the dark-brown wainscoting, the shining brass knobs, and the crackling fire in the rose marble hearth muffled the noise of the traffic.

Leo was glad to have his sons see him in a place like this, at the peak of his worldly capacities. If there was one thing that gave him pleasure it was to be admired by them. And in that old hotel he could show off in front of the intimidated kids all his worldly savoir-faire. Which consisted, for example, of being recognized by the comical bellboy who had greeted them in the lobby. And of the servile “Welcome, Mr. Pontecorvo!” addressed to him by the receptionist, a thin man with mustard-colored hair and cheeks reddened by a network of nearly bursting capillaries.

Then it was Leo's turn, his English all but impeccable, to rattle off the two or three sentences he had prepared for effect, to remind the receptionist, in an almost irritated tone, that Mr. Pontecorvo would like a piping-hot American coffee at six-thirty in the morning, a muffin, the
Corriere della Sera
, and the
Times
. And then, maintaining that inflection of annoyance in his voice, he asked his sons (and who knows why he did it in English) what they wanted for breakfast.

So far, it's all fun. But Leo had barely put the key in the door of the minisuite on the fourth floor when, overwhelmed by anxiety at having the children there without Rachel's assistance, he felt suddenly inadequate. Like a virgin husband on his wedding night.

Quite a few years had passed since Filippo was the principal problem of the Pontecorvo parents. That was the period when Leo had been closest to his sons, especially to Filippo but, by osmosis, also to his brother. Once Filippo was no longer an emergency, their relationship definitely changed. Became increasingly formal. Leo, besides, was at that stage of life when successful men sacrifice the family on the altar of their profession. His days were a paroxysm of engagements: hospital, office, university, conferences, articles in dailies and specialized journals . . . Little time remained for his children. Who in the meantime had found nothing better than to change themselves radically from year to year, exhibiting a Dadaist tenacity.

And now there they were, suddenly entering, without knocking and unknown to their father, adolescence. And was he realizing it only now, in a London hotel room? Who were these two human beings? What did he know about them? Beyond some biographical data and some completely external qualities, what did he know of these boys with whom he shared a last name, some dead relatives, and a genetic heritage? Filippo was an angelic thirteen-year-old with a small weight problem, he was drugged by comic books and animated cartoons, he wasn't a great athlete but a center with magnificent ball handling, he had low grades in school. Semi was eleven. He was exuberant, had a lot of friends, was precociously hedonistic. He was a whiz in school. Life for him was light, as his slender body was light.

This was what Leo knew of his sons; there were a lot of people who must know much more about them. And now here they were, two aliens to rediscover all at once.

Also on the physical plane things had changed. Leo had been a very physical father, especially with Filippo. When he was an infant Leo had loved holding him. He liked to tease him, touch his cheeks, caress his smooth, shapely little legs, stick his cold nose in the warm sweet-smelling hollow between neck and cheek. He liked to wake him, when he came home in the middle of the night from the hospital, where he had been called for an emergency, and amuse himself with that beautiful, warm, slightly reserved infant. But over time, naturally, that physical promiscuity had vanished. Leo was not a father who was kissed or who, in turn, kissed. Not that he didn't at times feel the desire to hug one of his sons. He had, however, intuited that they, as a matter of manly modesty, didn't enjoy it. So he avoided it.

The impression he had now, upon entering the minisuite of the Brownstone Hotel, was that his sons were disgustingly different from his natural expectations. There was something prickly in them that Leo, attached to the mental image of a fragrant infant softness, was noticing for the first time. Semi's voice was low and grating, like the voices of all boys at that stage of development. On Filippo's chin and jaws a wooly down had sprouted. Both their bodies released the brackish odor of organisms in full hormonal revolt.

 

So Leo, to keep nervousness at bay, took refuge in hyperactivity. He began to unpack the suitcases, ordering his sons to do the same with an almost despotic attitude. He showed them didactically how to restore a crease to one's trousers after taking them out of the suitcase (door of the bathroom closed, rush of hot water, steam, trousers hung on a hanger). Then, to waste time, he ordered a fattening snack from room service.

Finally, in order not to share with them even the wait for the food, he took off his clothes and filled the tub, after pouring in a thick emerald-colored bath gel, supplied by the hotel. And immersed himself up to the neck. But not even that relaxing soak relieved him from the agonizing thought of having to take care of them. In order not to hear what they were doing on the other side of the wall, Leo had let the hot water run and he stuck his head under it. There he could enjoy the heavy muffled sound of a waterfall, which still couldn't dislodge the mental image of his sons on the other side of the wall, timidly, silently, waiting for him.

But now, coming out of the bath, heated by aromatic vapors and wrapped in a terrycloth bathrobe with the gold hotel crest on the pocket, he saw them sitting on the bed in their underwear, quarreling over the remote. Leo said to himself with relief that maybe the change in his sons might have some positive aspects: for example, making them more autonomous than he had imagined. They didn't need him to live or to entertain themselves.

Finally the bell sounded.

A svelte Korean woman dressed like a nineteenth-century housekeeper, in apron and cap, pushed a cart into the room. With a theatrical gesture she raised the pewter cover under which shone, like doubloons in a treasure chest, half a dozen bulging club sandwiches drowning in a sea of French fries and lettuce. The tiny Oriental woman opened the bottles of Coca-Cola. Finally she brought the man in the bathrobe a leather case containing the receipt, which he signed with a distracted scribble.

A postprandial languor, combined with the stupor produced by the hot bath, definitely finished Leo off. He had barely put his head on the pillow when he felt weak. But still he couldn't let go as he would have liked. That sense of agitation persisted.

“Papa, can we order some cake?”

The voice of Samuel.

Why not, Leo thought. Get what you like.

“Papa, can we order some cake?” Samuel repeated. Leo opened his eyes. He smiled. And made a gesture of assent.

In the end, he thought, finally relaxed, Rachel's absence also has its advantages: without that tight-fisted woman I can teach these kids how to live.

“You can do what you like,” he heard himself say, like Willy Wonka, welcoming the children into his very exclusive factory of sweets. The factory of sweets that Leo had available was London: a cold, iridescent, and ironic London, full of wares and every sort of delight: a city at its best that knew what it meant to celebrate Christmas. In that way everything changed. Rachel's absence turned from a disaster into a blessing. Here's what we'll do, Leo thought, we'll do what we feel like. What joy! What fun!

He began to fantasize about the four magnificent days that awaited them. Days when Leo would be able to relive with his sons what he had enjoyed with his wife years before: the joy of initiating those amateurs into the pleasures of the consumer culture.

But yet again Leo had been a far too optimistic prophet. And the strange fact is that what kept that long weekend from being memorable was the lovely and disturbing spectacle of the passionate bond that inextricably linked his sons. Leo had a taste of it that first night. After Filippo had called room service to order the cake, Leo heard Semi asking if he would keep his promise.

“What promise?”

“You said you would take us to see a musical.”

“I told you,” Leo replied, increasingly satisfied, “that we can do what we want.”

So he sent Filippo to the concierge to reserve tickets to
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
for that night. And then he took some papers out of his briefcase and sat down in a big red leather armchair.

Leo was sitting there in his white bathrobe in the red armchair, making some changes with a pencil to the next day's speech, when Semi asked him, “What's happened to Filippo?” in a voice that attempted to conceal an unconcealable anguish. At first Leo attributed his distress to worry that there were no tickets. And he had reassured him: “Don't worry,
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
is there every night. If it's sold out tonight we have plenty of time. I promise that we'll find tickets somehow, even if I have to ask Alfred.” But then out of the corner of his eye he observed that his words had in no way soothed Samuel, who had started walking from one end of the room to the other, like a father-to-be in the waiting room, tormented as he awaits the birth of his first child. Until Semi, taking courage, asked his father again what had happened to Filippo.

“I said I don't know! There must have been a line. He might have gone to the bar to get something to drink. He might have met a friend, the woman of his life . . . He might have gone for a walk.”

“And not tell us?”

“Why should he? Your brother is almost grown up.”

“Mamma always wants us to tell her.”

Then Leo remembered a conversation he'd had some time earlier with Rachel, which he hadn't attached much importance to. She had said she was anxious about Semi's excessive apprehensiveness: “He's always worried, especially about his brother. Filippo just goes out for a moment and he gets anxious. He starts thinking of the most terrible things. The other evening he even woke him up in the middle of the night because he thought he was dead.”

Was this the weak point of his happier child? The invisible crack in the nobler, more polished vase in his collection? Apprehension, the fear that things that had started off so well could end badly, the far from glorious anticipation of the most devastating tragic event . . .

While Leo remembered that conversation he'd had with Rachel, Filippo came in with his usual lazy walk. And Semi threw himself at him, bombarding him with questions, like a jealous wife who has waited all night for her husband's return.

“Why did it take you all that time?”

“So? What the fuck, faggot?”

Although Samuel seemed upset, you could sense in him also a maddening contentedness. It wasn't as if his brother were the sole survivor of an airplane crash. When Filippo got on the bed, Semi curled up next to him with the catlike action of a geisha. The mini suite had two king-size beds. Leo had gone to lie down on one (papers and pencil in hand), the other was for the boys.