“He . . . elp me.”
It didn't matter that the dust made it hard to see.
“He . . . elp . . . me.”
My grandfather's fingers recognized him immediately.
Melluso.
The voice was faint.
From the head down, the body was completely crushed.
Melluso couldn't move.
Rosario pulled his hand back.
“He . . . el . . . me.”
The syllables were breaking up, more and more. Something was pressing down on Melluso with growing intensity, or perhaps it was just that his body was breaking.
“H . . . he . . . l . . .”
Rosario didn't reach out his arm, he didn't turn around, he didn't say a thing.
“He . . . he . . . lp.”
He stood there.
After a few minutes, some of the dust in the tunnel cleared away.
Melluso's pupils dilated.
He'd recognized him.
“M . . . mu-u-ute . . . ma . . . n . . . h . . . h . . . he-elp me . . .”
He coughed.
He had no more saliva.
His eyes were full of dirt.
His face was covered with blood and bruises.
“He . . . el . . . elp.”
He was breathing through his mouth, between moans and coughing fits, but the moaning, the breathing, and the coughing were all fading in intensity.
Rosario looked at him.
The only thing disrupting his total paralysis was the blinking of his eyelashes.
“He . . . he . . .”
A tear welled up in Melluso's eye, but it lacked the strength to fall.
His lips started to tremble.
Once more, he tried to beg for help, but he was no longer able even to make a sound.
He tried once more and once again his mouth failed.
Only then did Rosario move.
Melluso's eyes widened still further.
He'd started to move away.
Melluso tried to cry out, but his pupils remained mute.
A rain of dust fell where shortly before the dying daylight was filtering through.
My grandfather had emerged from the hole.
The sun had almost set.
All around, people went on digging while others did their best to comfort the wounded.
Rosario went over to Nicola.
He found him still sleeping.
He lay down by his side, his head resting on Nicola's shoulder.
He closed his eyes, the darkness came, and he collapsed into it.
Gerruso, wracked by a continuous tremor, couldn't tear his eyes away from the ring.
Umbertino had folded his arms across his chest.
Grandpa had laid his hands on his legs.
No one was saying a word.
It was in the ring that the battle was raging.
Ceresa resumed his charge and, tumbling over me like an avalanche, crushed me into the corner once again.
There was no other way out now.
“You want to know if the blonde and I . . .”
An army of fists.
One right behind the other.
Pounding me with furious might.
“Yes.”
What had I expected, when I dialed that number?
Nina had always been a person of fierce pride.
Nina was afraid of nothing.
She was ready to endure the last plunge of the sword, head held high.
“What do you want to know?”
I belted myself to Ceresa, wrapping both my gloves around his neck, pulling him toward me.
I had to cling to him.
If he got a shot at my head, it would all be over.
“Did you fuck?”
The fists pounded into my ribs.
They hit me twenty times.
I wish I could have been there, in front of her, could have stripped away the safety of distance.
Let her slap me, spit on me, scratch my face.
Anything would have been better than that silence, as heavy as cowardice.
“No.”
Is this what losing is?
“Swear to me.”
This inability to act in the face of the inevitable?
“There was nothing but a kiss.”
I could no longer breathe.
My eyes filled with tears.
My legs were about to give out.
For Gerruso it was like reliving the beatdown at the fair.
He stood up and started to scream, raising his hands to his head.
Grandpa reached over to reassure him, but it was pointless.
Umbertino had sunk into his seat.
“Swear to me you didn't fuck her.”
Why had I called her?
Why had I told her?
What need was there for all this every time?
“I swear it.”
My arms shoved him away.
My back was in flames, but I'd started breathing again.
Ceresa hurtled back onto me.
He never gave up.
I pushed him away with my elbows, he came back, then I moved him aside with both gloves.
When the wind is cutting sharp, never step directly into the brunt of it.
Bentu Maìstu
kept coming back to me, I kept pushing him away.
Again and again. For the entire length of that round.
When the bell signaled the end of the second round, I was shattered but still standing.
A slap of the fin and I veered back to my corner.
Umbertino no longer had anything to prove.
In five rounds, he'd knocked his opponent to the canvas twice, without ever overreaching.
Now the important thing was to avoid falling at all costs.
No one would ever deck him: ever.
By the ninth round, his face had been through the stations of the cross: split lip, lacerated eyebrow, blood everywhere. His opponent might have been slower than him, but he was still a very nimble boxer. Every single time, my uncle had to repress his instinct to jump out of the way.
He'd spent the whole morning sprawled out on his bed, fully dressed. There was a mosquito on the ceiling. It takes an absurd force of will to risk your life every time you set out to suck some blood, he mused. The mosquito alternated statuesque immobility with off-kilter zigzags. Its last flight concluded right on the back of his hand. He could have killed the insect whenever he chose, smashing it with a slap or capturing it in his fist. He was faster than it could ever hope to be. Still, he let it drink his blood, respectful of the mosquito's defiance of danger. Then he killed it, clutching it in his closed fist. There was no work in Palermo and money was in short supply. He'd never wind up like that mosquito. He reached into his pocket and extracted the bookie's receipt. If it paid out, he'd clean up on that bet. It called for him to lose on points. He'd bet all his savings against himself. He laid the receipt on the nightstand, lit a cigarette, clasped his hands behind his head, and looked at the ceiling, planning his future.
Maestro Franco talked while Carlo massaged my calves.
“How do you feel?”
“He didn't break me, Maestro, he couldn't do it.”
“Tell me the saying from the Gospels that your uncle always quotes, right now, hurry.”
“He who strikes first does the most damage.”
“You're a tough one, kid. Your head is still working. Do you still have a pair of legs on you?”
“I think so.”
“Aim for the head, kid, he's not moving the way he was.”
“No?”
“No.”
The guys in the third row were making fun of Gerruso.
“What's the matter? Aren't you shouting âPoet' anymore? Teach us about life, kid. âPoet,' sure, why not?”
Gerruso couldn't take it anymore. He lunged at the bigger of the two but my grandfather snatched him back by the belt, catching him in midair.
“What the fuck do you want?” snarled the guy in the third row.
“I'll murder you when and how I please,” the guy continued.
“Son of a bitch,” he concluded.
Gerruso stood there, openmouthed. Suddenly, the tension in his body slackened, like an old bedsheet. He'd given up resisting it. He'd finally crashed face-first to the floor. Gerruso had just realized that he was orphaned, that he'd lost his mother, that she was gone for all time. He tamely emerged from my grandfather's embrace and sank into his seat. Without covering his face, he began to weep silently, arms folded across his chest, his shoulders racked with sobs.
My grandfather halted Umbertino's lunge with a light touch to his shoulder, then he stared at the guy who'd talked out of turn.
“Apologize, immediately.”
The guy was able to withstand that look for only a few seconds.
His friend didn't know what to do and, when in doubt, he did nothing.
Umbertino's fingers slowly, menacingly crushed the back of his seat.
The guy slipped both hands into his pockets.
“I'm sorry, kid.”
He sat down, eyes in his lap.
Still, Gerruso had been unable to hear those words of apology.
The only thing he was aware of was his own despair.
Bending over him, my grandfather did his best to console him.
Umbertino had returned his gaze to the ring after one last, fearsome glare at the third row.
Carlo and Maestro Franco positioned themselves outside the ropes.
The sound of the bell marked the beginning of the last three minutes of the finals.
“Poet, how do you write a poem?”
“One word after the other.”
“And what do you need to write one?”
“A pen and a blank sheet of paper.”
“Afterward, will you write a poem for me, too? If my mother were still alive, tonight she's being happy if you'll win because it'd meant that I, too, was being happy.”
“You got all your tenses wrong, Gerruso.”
“That doesn't matter, happiness is something that goes beyond time and tenses. That's why now I'm a little happy because before long, maybe, we'll have our victory.”
“Our victory?”
“Sure, I invented your nickname. Can I ask you one last thing and then I'm done?”
“Out with it.”
“Win this for me tonight, too: I need it.”
Ceresa had returned to center ring.
My feet let him go.
They were rediscovering the rhythm they had lost.
I let down my guard.
I had to see everything.
The Sardinian took a half step forward and my right hook, already hurtling, made itself felt on his cheekbone.
There was no blood.
There was no expression of pain.
Ceresa had absorbed the punch without blinking.
It didn't matter.
It didn't matter anymore.
If he stayed on his feet, that just meant I could inflict more damage.
It was Gerruso who passed her phone call to me. His mother had just died but still he'd thought to remind her that tomorrow I had my title bout, what's more, here in PalermoâNina, that's something that happens, like, never.
“How is he?”
“It's been a tremendous blow for him, he's confused, he's talking crazy.”
“We'll be there right away.”
“No, no, Nina, my uncle's on his way, we'll take him to my house, my mother says it would be better for him not to sleep here, at least for tonight.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Like someone who's going to fight for the national title tomorrow.”
“Is that a state of mind?”
“Yes.”
“Good to know.”
“Will you come watch me?”
The seed of my anguish had been planted.
“You really don't want me to be there.”
“What?”
“You need me not to be there if you want to fight your best fight. With Pullara, you only stepped in when he was trying to stab me, with Raul not until he had hauled off and tried to slap me. That's the way you are. You need to be pushed to the limit. And anyway, seeing that I'm speaking sincerely, I couldn't come in any case: I'd feel like dying if I had to watch you trade punches.”
“Really?”
“Thank you for taking good care of my cousin. Try not to ruin your face tomorrow.”
I hung up.
In my head, I was already in the ring, fighting.
“Is she coming to the finals?”
“No.”
“Too bad. Can I come?”
“Let's hear what my mother has to say.”
“Jesus, now you have a mother who tells you what to do, but I don't. Will you tell me what to do now?”
“Hold on. My uncle is coming to pick us up.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“What does if feel like when you're in the ring?”
I looked at my hands.
Tomorrow they'd be wrapped in bandages.
“I try not to get hit.”
The fingernails would be bleeding again.
The bandages would do nothing to protect them from bruises and scrapes.
“What about when you attack?”
My hands weren't suited to caressing a smooth back, I didn't have the right kind of fingers to intertwine in fine hair.
I'd been using them to punch since I was nine years old.
“A sense of peace.”
Too bad I had to shut them up in a boxing glove.
“Not me. When I attend one of your fights I feel terrible, I argue with everyone else.”
“You provoke those people.”
“It's their fault they're rooting for the wrong side.”
“Gerruso, why on earth did you ever become so attached to me?”
“It was something you needed, Davidù.”
I pounded a one-two hook combination into Ceresa's side, shoving all the way, until I could feel my knuckles making contact with the ribs.
For the first time, he showed that he'd felt the blow.
It didn't knock him down, but he wasn't rebounding the way he had before.
There was confusion in his eyes.
I let fly with a cross.
Gerruso.
Come on.
Stop crying.
I landed a punch square to his eyebrow.
Lift up your head and watch this round, it'll be worth it.
Offsetting my feet, I performed the footwork of the Buttana Imperiale.
I hit him full in the forehead.
All power to you, blondie.