100 Days of Happiness (19 page)

I
've drawn up the list of gifts for the future birthdays of my two cubs. It took me a whole night to get it right. At breakfast, at our café, I make sure that everything's clear to Umberto. I wrote the lists out by hand, in a clearly emotional script.

“I split up the gifts by year,” I explain.

He picks up the sheet of paper and reads aloud.

Lorenzo

10. A complete professional tool kit.

11. My acoustic guitar. Get new strings.

12. A workbench to be set up in the garage.

13. A mountain bike.

14. Three get-out-of-jail-free cards, guaranteeing
NO
SCOLDING
for a bad grade. Must be used in a single school year.

15. Three get-out-of-jail-free cards, guaranteeing
JUSTIFIED ABSENCE
for days he doesn't feel like going to school, so he won't have to pretend he has a fever the way I did. Valid until the end of high school.

16. A weekend at home without Paola and Eva, with permission to invite friends over. He'll appreciate it. Buy him a pack of condoms.

17. My Diabolik collection. Authorize him to sell it on eBay if he chooses. But first get him to read at least one. He might like it.

18. A used compact car, in good shape. Better if the body is already dinged up—that way he won't suffer the way I did the first time I scraped Grandpa's car against the garage door.

Note: Make sure Paola doesn't buy him a moped when he's fourteen. And talk her into accepting the “unconventional” gifts.

Umberto is astonished.

“I wish I'd gotten presents like this from my father,” he admits.

“What did he usually give you?”

“A fifty-thousand-lire bill.”

His father, who died a couple of years ago after a long, drawn-out illness, was a man as incapable of affection as, say, Adolf Hitler. After I'd been coming into his home on a regular basis for ten years, he still didn't know my name. As far as he was concerned, I was “whosis, the doorman's son.”

My friend shakes off the painful memory of his father and reads the second list of gifts:

Eva

7. A large terra-cotta vase with an evergreen shrub to plant and cultivate in the little garden behind her grandfather's house.

8. A gelato machine. And all the organic fruit she wants.

9. A weekend at the Zoomarine water park, to swim with dolphins.

10. A small vertical garden to install on the balcony.

11. Her choice of any rescue dog to be adopted from the kennel. If Shepherd is already dead, go get the dog immediately after his death. And then come up with something new for this slot.

12. A couple of feminine outfits. Gradually try to get her to stop wearing those factory-worker overalls.

13. Take her to the Chitchat shop if it still exists. Ten prepaid conversations with Massimiliano. She'll need it. Thirteen is a complicated age. Explain it to Paola.

14. A novel commissioned from Roberto in which the female protagonist is called Eva and is a militant environmentalist working for Greenpeace. No one has a personalized novel.

15. Three get-out-of-jail-free cards, guaranteeing
JUSTIFIED
ABSENCE
for days that she'll be out demonstrating. I know she'll do it. Valid until the end of high school.

16. For her too, a weekend at home with her girlfriends, also without her mother and brother to get underfoot. Remember to buy condoms for all the guests.

17. A coupon for an all-inclusive weekend, camping with whoever her boyfriend happens to be at the time.

18. A used smart car. Women, who are smarter than men in everything, mysteriously, don't seem to know how to parallel park.

 * * * 

He stops reading and looks up at me.

“I've never seen such a . . . a strange list of gifts.”

“One last thing,” I add. “When they're thirteen or fourteen years old . . . would you talk to them both about sex, and all that?”

“Me?”

“Better you than Corrado, no?”

“That's for sure. But I don't know if—”

“Also, talk Paola into sending them to the U.S. for study abroad, to improve their English.”

“All right. I'll try. But you know it's no easy matter to change her mind about things.”

“She'll listen to you. I'll wire money to your account for what all this will cost you. I've already purchased a couple of these gifts because they never go bad, for instance the tool kit, and I'll put an asterisk by it in the list. You'll have to get the others when the time comes, like the plant or the bike. If you have to spend more—”

“If I have to spend more, don't worry about it,” he says, interrupting me.

Then I say, “And there is one other thing.”

He looks up from the list. “You're determined to keep me really busy after you're gone, right?”

“Yes,” I say. “Busy in the best way.”

“Spill it,” he says.

“I want you to step into my shoes.”

He's not sure he's heard me right. “Of course I'll be there for the kids, and Paola will always have me in her life—”

I cut him short. “Marry her, Umberto. That's what I'm asking. Be a husband to her. You're already so close, she respects you and has such deep affection for you.”

The expression on Umberto's face is something I've never seen before: proud, kind, caring—love, I suppose. Of the best kind. I realize with some astonishment that he is truly in love with her. In deep, as they say. He is relieved I've brought it up. Perhaps it's something that would have happened anyway, their coupling, but it means a lot to him to know I am in accord, that I give him my wholehearted approval. He nods silently. “
Grazie,
dear friend,” he says finally.

I've run out of words to thank him. I'm about to hug him when he adds with a laugh: “What about Christmas?”

He brings a smile to my face.

“Santa Claus can take care of Christmas, right? What, do I have to do everything around here?”

At last I can hug him. Some great sage said you need only two or three of these in life—such friends. Sometimes I think I could settle for one. If Umberto were that one.

T
oday the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight is playing to qualify for the playoffs. If we win with at least a five-goal advantage against the second-place team, the Flaminia Warriors, then we qualify in tenth place. The last place that gets us in.

As I mentioned previously, only Giacomo, my taciturn assistant coach, is aware of my health problems. When I told him about it, he said nothing. But he grabbed me and gave me a five-minute hug. It meant a lot to me.

I've decided not to tell the team anything yet. I don't want anything to distract them. This is the first time, in our brief history, that we've had a shot at qualifying to step up to the next series.

The match is an away game, in a horrible pool on the Via Flaminia, the locker room walls covered with blistered, peeling plaster, and the tiles untended for at least a quarter century. Seated in the bleachers are the parents of our opponents, fifty or so men and women with angry expressions on their faces. We've brought six fans with us, including Corrado, who dislikes water polo and is here only because we're going out for a beer together afterward.

In the locker room I do my best to motivate the team adequately. In particular, I devote myself to the psychological recovery of our cross-eyed center defender, Martino, who screwed up two penalty shots during the last match. It's hard to mess up a penalty shot in water polo, it takes real determination and a bit of bad luck to pull it off. All you really have to do is pound the ball hard into the water and
your goal is practically guaranteed. The goalie never has the reaction time to block a shot from five yards away. All the same, last Tuesday Martino sent one crashing into the crossbar and another straight into the audience. We finished even, 8 to 8, and if we'd won, we wouldn't be forced today to run up this necessary and highly unlikely string of goals.

A whistle starts the game.

The parents of the opposing team cheer deafeningly, accompanying themselves on whistles and horns. It sounds like the World Cup finals at Maracanã Stadium.

In the first quarter, we slump almost immediately, trailing by three goals. Eight minutes in which we never make a single goal attempt worth mentioning. We'll never win at this rate.

In the second quarter, we rack up 2 points to their 1 with a good offensive push. Now we're down 2 to 4.

I attack the team, heaping insults upon them. It's an old trick that almost always works.

In the third quarter, the Warriors are a little tired and distracted. We take advantage of that. Martino scores a triple and I can see the joy in the crossed eyes of my favorite striker. We score four goals and allow none in this quarter. So we're ahead, 6 to 5.

I ask the guys to make one last effort. The whole season is on the line in these next eight minutes. We need to score a goal every two minutes. In water polo that's possible.

As I've told you, I don't believe in God, I don't believe in miracles, and I don't believe we're going to make it.

But I stand corrected. After seven minutes of play, we lead, 4 to 0. At the end of the game, the total score stands in our favor, 10 to 5. A perfect result to qualify. Just thirty seconds from the end comes the dramatic twist. One of the Warriors' strikers launches a surprise counterattack. One of my players, and I'm not going to name names because that would only make him feel worse, grabs him from behind
in an attempt to block him when he's within legitimate reach of the net. A very serious foul. Our player's out of the game, and the other team has an unquestioned penalty shot.

Moving up to the penalty spot is Ivan Gualazzi, a sniper who can score from any position. In the whole league, he's the third highest goal scorer. An aquatic fury.

Facing him, the bewildered eyes of Soap-on-a-Rope grow bigger. The game and our qualification for the finals both rest in his slippery hands.

His father cheers him on from the bleachers, using his real name: “Go, Alessio!”

Soap-on-a-Rope takes his position on the goal line and waits for the firing squad.

I turn away. I don't want to see this. My assistant films it all, as usual. His videos are useful for studying our mistakes and preparing for upcoming games. But if Soap-on-a-Rope fails to block this shot, there won't be any upcoming games. In fact, it occurs to me only now, this could very well be the end of my less than brilliant career as a coach.

I turn back. I decide to challenge fate and watch the most important penalty shot of my life.

Gualazzi has the ball in one hand. He's left-handed and bad tempered.

Soap-on-a-Rope kicks his feet, doing his best to stay high in the water in front of his goal.

Soap-on-a-Rope's father is standing, silent. He shoots his son a glance.

The fans of the opposing team are as silent. They know that for us this goal spells defeat.

The referee is about to whistle.

I've said it before: in water polo it's almost impossible to miss a penalty shot.

Gualazzi fires off a textbook shot: he aims straight down into the water, a cross-shot aimed with accuracy worthy of William Tell straight at the corner of the upright and the crossbar. No room for improvement, an impeccable penalty shot.

But little does the infallible striker suspect that the valiant Alessio, nicknamed Soap-on-a-Rope, has chosen that exact penalty shot to execute the finest blocking of his entire career. Like a hawk, he dives to his left and intercepts the ball just as it's about to sail into the net. An almost superhuman leap out of the water, as if a mysterious spring had just launched him into the air at precisely the right moment. The ball bounces in the opposite direction and the referee whistles an end to hostilities. We've won, 10 to 5. Soap-on-a-Rope has an overjoyed hysterical fit, swimming up and down the pool, shouting incomprehensible phrases. Everyone hugs him, cheering his name. His father in the bleachers makes rude gestures at the opposing fans, coming close to being lynched. Even Corrado, who doesn't even know the rules, screams: “Soap-on-a-Rope! Soap-on-a-Rope!”

We've qualified.

I still can't believe it.

I go a little crazy and jump into the pool fully dressed. Thereby submerging my cell phone and my wallet. Whatever.

We qualified.

My assistant coach films the whole unseemly spectacle from poolside. We celebrate in the water until one of the pool attendants comes to tell us that in just five minutes swim classes will be starting, and they still have to break down the nets.

We go on singing obscene choruses in the locker room.

I'm a happy man.

Happy as I was when I discovered I hadn't flunked out of sophomore year in high school. It's the same sensation. I can still remember it clearly. Pure happiness, practically solid to the touch, uncontaminated by any rational thought.

 * * * 

I return home and tell the news to Paola and the kids, who were too busy with the last few weeks of school to attend the game. They fail to grasp the historic significance of our qualification. My wife looks at me as if I were an idiot rejoicing over a goal scored in the courtyard downstairs. All she manages to get out is a lukewarm, murmured: “Eh,
bravi
.”

The adrenaline keeps me awake until two in the morning.

It's just forty-six days till the day I die, but today I'm immensely happy.

I
've taken the whole team to celebrate our qualifying to a seafood restaurant in Fregene. I love seafood, whether cooked or raw, and my pop star naturopath may hate me for that. Still, one thing I can't stand is the barbaric custom of having you personally choose the lobster that is to be boiled alive. I refuse to take part in the slaughter and I order a spaghetti with tomatoes and basil. My players, however, take turns clustering around the big lobster tank, sentencing them to death one after the other, forgetful of their shared passion for aquatics.

 * * * 

These days, I feel like a bit of a lobster myself. But with much less dignity. I leave the restaurant where the kids are singing in chorus as if they were in a bar and I head out to the beach. It's dark. There's no one around. I can cry in peace.