On Earth as It Is in Heaven (37 page)

“I don't like it when you talk about my family.”

“You say that because you don't have an
r
in your name, even your father had one.”

“I don't like this subject, quit talking about it.”

A swing was hanging from Sergio, with a wooden seat and iron chains. Gerruso spent whole afternoons standing on it, though without swinging, because his mother didn't want him to.

“She said it would make me sweat and that sweating is bad for you.”

He looked out on the world from a new height. He'd learned every crack and every graffito on the wall across the way by heart. His favorite: “Men: without a skirt and a wig, what kind of women are you?” His mother would lean out the window and call him for dinner. That was his moment of greatest happiness. As he got down, his feet were bound to make the swing move. It lasted only a second, but it was a kind of enchantment: the world turned into an amusement park ride, and the swing became the vehicle of wonder, but none of it would have been possible without Sergio the mulberry tree.

“I like the mulberry tree, it's where my swing hangs and it has dark, soft fruit on its branches that get your fingers and your T-shirt filthy, which mothers scold you for but the stain is there to stay, evidence of the happiness you experienced.”

Sergio was struck by a bolt of lightning. The branch with the swing caught fire. The leaves became butterflies of fire in the night. The firemen came, with hoses and sirens. He helped to put out the fire by pouring water from the balcony.

“I used the glass I keep my toothbrush in, it's deep and yellow.”

The next morning, the mulberry tree looked like an old man who had just been released from the hospital after a lengthy illness. No replacement swing was hung up. The mulberry tree was still there, under his window.

“Poet, I've washed all the forks, where should I put them?”

“Leave them by the sink.”

I was searching for shards that had eluded the broom; it's the kind of thing that happens whenever anything shatters, glass shards ready to surface in the future, bringing the anguish of the past into the present.

“My mother never leaves forks by the sink.”

“Then dry them and put them where you keep the other forks.”

The way the shards were scattered, they told the story of a vertical plunge, they diagrammed the fall of what might as well have been a single body of crockery. The dishes must have fallen from Signora Gerruso's hands in a single instant. Her strength must have fled her all at once.

“Poet.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“What does it feel like when you fall to the ground? Does it hurt?”

“You were there.”

“I was afraid that you were dead.”

“The moment you hit the mat isn't really the moment you collapse, that's just the end. The fall, Gerruso, the real one, begins earlier, at the top.”

I found a broken piece of plate under the leg of a chair. I threw it into the bag with the rest of the shards.

“This party is boring me, boxer, I'm going home, what are you going to do?”

“Are you here on your scooter?”

“Yes.”

“You can't drive, you're drunk.”

“No, you're drunk.”

“I'm not drunk.”

“Ah, of course not—the picture of propriety.”

“I have a fight in just—”

“I don't care.”

“Why don't you ask someone to come pick you up?”

“My folks are away, there's no one home.”

“So?”

“So, why don't you take me home?”

The dining room seemed to be spic and span. I'd picked up all the food, swept the floor, cleaned with a wet rag, and carefully picked over every corner of the room in search of mutinous shards. I asked for and received permission from Gerruso to make a phone call, yes, I know it's late, thanks, why don't you just worry about washing the dishes.

“Uncle?”

“I was wondering when you were going to make up your mind to call.”

“No, it's just that here—”

“Calm down, your mother told me all about it. You did the right thing. But now see if you can't get at least six hours of sleep, all right? Davidù, buck up, tomorrow we're going to knock all of Italy to its knees. The worst is over.”

We went into Gerruso's bedroom.

I asked him to give me a blanket, and I put him to bed.

“Now lie there, calm and quiet, and let's get some sleep.”

I lay down on the sofa and turned off the light.

Not even a drop of sleep.

“You have a nice home, blondie; it's big.”

“My family has impeccable taste in interior decoration, come on, let me show you my bedroom.”

“Well, actually, I . . .”

“I said come on.”

Her cello-playing hand intertwined with my punch-throwing hand.

Our chests brushed against each other.

“It's been a while since the last time: two years,” she said with a smile.

A lock of blond hair lodged on her upper lip.

“Right.”

I brushed it away with my forefinger.

She took my finger and gripped it in her hand.

“So . . . where were we?”

Gerruso had fallen into a rocklike sleep. He was snoring without an exact, cadenced rhythm. Just a rattling gasp every once in a while. A nervous sleep. He kicked. He moaned.

I mentally reviewed the plans of attack I'd agreed on with Maestro Franco for the final bout, the precise way to dodge a left cross and attack, the exit feint to the right, the double punch with a hook. Not even a hint of sleep.

My fall had begun long before I dropped my guard, before the second round began, before I climbed into the ring to fight Mauro Genovese. My feet had buckled the day before when, in the phone booth downstairs from my house, the coin slipped into the slot, the number was dialed, and the voice that I hoped wouldn't answer, did.

“Yes?”

“Nina.”

“It's been forever since you last called me.”

“I have something to tell you.”

But it was in the ring that things went wrong.

He jerked awake, startled by his own snoring.

“Did you call me?”

“No.”

“Is the sofa comfortable? Should I sleep on it?”

“No, don't worry.”

“Do you want to get in the bed with me?”

“Gerruso, have you lost your mind?”

“How come you aren't asleep? Tomorrow's your title fight.”

“You're snoring like a pig.”

“Really? I snore?”

“Yes, and loud.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Just one, then we get some sleep.”

“Does it hurt when you fall down?”

“Right then and there, no, it doesn't hurt. You're too confused to feel the pain, you've just taken a punch to the head, everything is foggy. Afterward, though, it all comes to you.”

“It always comes to you?”

“Yes.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely sure?”

“Gerruso, we said just one question.”

“Do you think I got the fall wrong?”

“Every time you fall it's an error of equilibrium.”

“And how do you get back on your feet?”

“With your legs. It's not just a matter of will, it has something to do with the character of your body.”

“I saw you when you fell: you were all twisted, you were flying to one side, like when you dive, your arms were straight out in front of you, it reminded me of being at the beach together. Did you know that you were about to dive into the canvas?”

After the bout, Maestro Franco left me alone in the locker room with my uncle. He understood that this wasn't about boxing: this was a family affair, this was something personal. The sweet science had nothing to do with this. Umbertino held my head in his left hand. He was turning it this way and that and observing my eyes. He snapped his fingers three times, far from my line of sight. It was a trick he'd learned from
Il Negro
. He was checking the reflexes of my pupils.

“Your head's fine. You've got a good hard head, just like mine. But now I want you to explain to me why.”

Umbertino knew.

I'd been knocked to the mat because I'd intentionally let my opponent hit me.

Tongue on tongue, the taste of her lips, the hand that unbuttons, caresses, squeezes, finding ourselves naked, stretched out on the bed together.

“You want to do it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a virgin, boxer?”

“No.”

And I found myself inside a woman, for the first time in my life. The penetration took place in silence, slowly, with restrained gestures. At first, my curiosity was greater than any pleasure I might have felt or given. What if I don't like it? What if she doesn't like it? What if the string on my cock breaks?

My survival instinct put a halt to the multiplying questions. I adopted Umbertino's advice, excellent for every occasion life presents you with: “When in doubt, throw a punch.”

I entrusted myself to the rhythm that my hips chose to establish. My thrusts simultaneously increased in depth and self-awareness. The first uncontrollable moans made themselves heard. Sweat glistened, lubricating the motion of body over body. Hands became more eager and willing to clutch and grasp. Teeth sank into flesh, tongues explored.

It was sweet, hot, and wet.

While I was coming for the first time, naked, panting, inside the blonde, her taste in my mouth, I thought of Nina.

The ceiling above us was white, the bedroom door was closed. Her bedroom was as big as my whole house.

“Was this the first time for you, too, boxer?”

“I told you it wasn't. Wait a minute, what do you mean ‘for you, too'?”

“I don't know if I should believe you: if you ask me, you were a virgin just like me.”

“What is ‘just like me' supposed to mean?”

“It means that I, at Eva's party, was still a virgin.”

“You? What?”

“Look, I even bled a little, to tell the truth, I expected more. Remind me to put the sheets in the washer.”

I hadn't noticed a thing.

“What are you doing, boxer?”

“Sorry, I've got to get home.”

“Is your mommy worried about you?”

When I bent over to give her a kiss, the Dumas rolled over on her side.

“None of that lovey-dovey stuff.”

I went home at a run, taking it easy: small, measured pumping strides.

Out on the street: police, soldiers, and roadblocks.

My uncle sucked on his cigarette in silence. I was expecting him to curse all the saints, to dismiss me as immature, to accuse me of having failed to respect the work that he and Franco had put in. I was waiting for the moment when he compared me with my father, in a merciless critique to which I would inevitably succumb in mortification. Instead, his words headed in an entirely different direction.

“So now you've finally fucked a girl. That's all good and blessed news. But that's not the point: What do you really want, Davidù? Nina? The blonde? To be alone and whine about how much you're suffering?”

“I don't know, Uncle. Maybe it's because the two of them are good friends, but I'm confused, I only know that I felt like I was dying and little by little I found myself no longer caring, that's all I know.”

“Son, it doesn't matter what you do or don't know, it only matters what you want. You can't claim property rights on other human beings. If you're with a girl, then you have a pact. If you're not with her, then everyone's free to do what they want. Wounds of the flesh: needle and thread and the bleeding is over. Wounds of the soul, on the other hand, are fountains of blood. You just have to figure out what you really want.”

“What if I can't figure it out? What do I do then?”

“The same thing you did today. Get to your feet and throw some punches. It's only once you accept the idea that you've fallen down that you can get back on your feet. When you hit the ground, you're always starting over again from the lowest point. Still, Davidù, a piece of advice, with my hand on my heart: if you really want to hold on to Nina, never—and I mean never, understood?—say a word about having been with her best friend.”

A volcanic blush exploded across my face. My uncle leaped to his feet. His calves hurled the chair backward, and it clattered against the wall ten feet behind him.

“Have you lost your mind? You told her? When?”

“Yesterday, I called her from the phone booth.”

“Fuck, you're no nephew of mine! And we're supposed to have the same blood flowing in our veins? Haven't I taught you a thing? If you're not capable of holding in the weight of something you've done, then you might as well hole up in your bedroom, lock yourself in, and throw the keys off the balcony. You told her? Why on earth would you tell her?”

Hit head-on by a higher intuition, he froze to the spot. A second later, he was bent over me, speaking in a low voice, his gaze level.

“So that's the way things are, you let him hit you because you felt guilty, not because of the fucking, but because you told her and that made her feel so bad.”

He picked up the chair from the floor.

“You wanted to hurt yourself, destroy yourself.”

He set it down on all four legs.

“But you got back up.”

He sat down, laying his hands flat on his knees.

“And you won.”

He resumed staring at me.

“After you got back up, you fought differently.”

His voice was dark.

“Like my father?”

Eyes unmoving.

“No, like me.”

He stood up and came over to me with the chair.

“The way your father boxed was happy, filled with freedom. The way you boxed today, there was none of that. And you know that already. You need to stop hating yourself, Davidù. It's easy to feel sorry for yourself. A sense of guilt is just one more excuse for tears of self-pity. What do you want to become? A crybaby who's always complaining or a man who stands up straight? Remember this always, there are only two words that mean anything in love:
hurt me
.”