CRAVING U (The Rook Café) (35 page)

The entrance through the walls around
Marostica arrived providentially, keeping the situation from getting out of
hand.

The medieval walls – a stone curtain
around the city which still today bear traces of the ancient patrol paths – are
almost a mile long, climbing the Pausolino Hill until they connect with the
Upper Castle on the crest of the hill, and the Lower Castle, with its ramparts
and castle keep, the site of the famous chess match.

They arrived at the center of Marostica,
within the walls, where they parked the car and continued on foot to the old
town and the Castle Square, paved like a chessboard.  They walked under long
archways around the perimeter as the sun went down and the moon rose in the
clouds.

“You want some ice cream?”  Marika hooked
her arm in his.  “My treat.”  She wanted to make up for the long ride from
Brendola, but he was hearing nothing of it.

“You kidding?”  He led her to an elegant
café – the Circle of Gluttony – where he offered her an array of homemade ice
cream and decadent pastries.  “Put that money away,” he warned her.

“Thanks,” she sighed, both for her double
vanilla cone and for his being exactly the way he was.

“No big deal.”  Federico sat down on the
steps outside underneath the loggia.  After all, they lived in a democracy, and
he was free to spend his well-earned money from concerts however he wanted.  “You’re
my guest.”

“When you come to Orgiano, then, you’ll be
mine.”  Marika gave him a quick, platonic kiss on his cheek as she arranged
herself next to him.

“Ah, stop talking nonsense, and tell me
what’s been going on with you!”  He turned toward her, trying to snuff out his
desire to take her into his arms passionately.  “You don’t have to be a genius
to see that something’s wrong.”

“It isn’t a nice story,” she said, buying
time.

“Impossible!”  He looked her in the eyes
and leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees.  “Anything that has to
do with you is wonderful.”

An uncertain smile made its way to her
face, despite her unease in talking about this subject, but it disappeared
rapidly when her phone vibrated, announcing the arrival of a text:

“Take a dirty picture!  Just send the dirty
picture to me)(Snap!:-9”

She angrily pushed the delete button,
wiping out any record of that inopportune plagiarism of the lyrics of T. Cruz
featuring Ke$ha.  “You won’t say that after I’ve finished telling you about
sexgate.”

“About
what
?” he said,
incredulously.

“I’ll give you the short version.”  She
breathed in anxiously.  “Two teachers at school happened upon some
photos
...,”
she laid emphasis on the word so as to make it clear what kind of photos she
was talking about, “... of some girls who they later discovered don’t even go
to our school, but which our students were sharing back and forth, and a whole
debacle exploded as a result.”

“So?” 
He didn’t see the link
. 
Federico looked at her, confused.  “What’s that have to do with you?”

“It all has to do with Matteo’s
girlfriend,” she said, her eyes shooting darts.  “She’s been spreading rumors
about me, about him, and....”  Her eyes began to get red and puffy from her
anger and shame.

The memory of Matteo hugging her at the
going-away party still burned the very bones of Federico’s body, but he would
never do anything to punish her for that.

“And so, anyway, ever since then, everyone’s
treating me like a slut at school.  It’s crazy!”  She couldn’t help but dwell
on the paradox.  “They play stupid tricks on me, call me day and night, send me
disgusting texts...,” transforming her life into a B-grade porn flick with no
pause even for commercials.  “They’re such shits, I hate them!”

“
Fuckers
!”  He shook his head,
suffocated by sympathy for her pains.  “I’m so sorry.”  He gently stroked her
shoulders to comfort her.

“I just hope all this mess ends soon.” 
Marika let herself be coddled.  “‘Cause I can’t take it any more.”  Her eyes
grew damp.  “I swear, I can’t take it any more!”

“How can I help you?”  He wanted to get
even closer to Marika in order to comfort her in his arms, when a suave female
voice interrupted them.

“Hi Fede!”  Eve stood above them, shining
in the night, illuminated by reflections in her long, wavy, jet-black hair.

“Hey.”  Federico seemed confused to find
her standing in front of them until... “Oh, yeah, sorry about that!”... he remembered
that he had asked the band to meet him there.  He jumped up to introduce the
members of
S in S
.  “This is Eve,” he began.  She looked like she had
come straight out of the pages of Miss Emo Gothic in Beat Magazine, with her
porcelain skin and black eyeshadow.  “That’s Niccolò,” he said, slapping five
with a blond guy with clever, green eyes to his right.  “And that’s Denis,” he
finished, pointing toward the awkward-looking guy who was half-hiding behind
the others.  He turned toward the group and his voice changed its timbre:  “She’s
Marika.”

“Finally!”  The first to offer his hand
was Niccolò.  “He’s worn us out talking about you.  You can’t imagine how
stressful it is!”

Marika blushed, not knowing what to say or
do.  She had tried so hard to believe that no one ever thought about her.

“Don’t listen to him,” Eve said, hugging
her gently.  “We couldn’t wait to meet you.”

“Thanks,” she stuttered.  “I’ve wanted to
meet you all too.”  She took the initiative and shook hands with Denis, who was
perhaps even more shy than she was in these circumstances.  “You guys are
amazing.  I heard the demo you recorded, it’s out of this world!”

At the word “demo”, they all turned and
looked at their friend, the spy, who smiled guiltily.

“Did I say something wrong?”  Marika
looked at Federico too, afraid that she had made another gaffe.

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Eve reassured
her, taking her arm.  “You’re family now.”

Marika felt pleasantly lost when she heard
those words, and she let herself be led up the path that cut through the
Pausolino Hill.

From the Lower Castle to the one on top of
the hill, the paved pathway was short but steep, winding between blooming
cherry trees in fields of dandelions, olive groves, southern-facing meadows,
and rising foothills on the horizon.  “We’re almost there.”  Eve stayed near
her, courteous and talkative.  “Usually we rehearse in the attic above Denis’
father’s house,” she said, which was where they kept all of their electric
equipment: amps, bass, keyboard, microphones.  “But it takes us a while to get
it all set up.”

It took all of twenty minutes at a good
clip through 500 years of history to reach a flat panoramic space above the
town from which the view was spectacular.  Sitting on the terracotta benches,
one could almost hear the sounds of armored men, the blaring of trumpets, the
flashing of swords, or imagine the noble outlines of the lords of Marca,
accompanied by their entourage of pages, ladies, gentlemen, knights, and
townspeople.

They pulled a classical guitar and a
couple of acoustic guitars from a car that they had parked there earlier.  “You
don’t mind if we play a bit, do you?” muttered Niccolò, a pick between his
teeth, as he started to strum the strings.

“Absolutely not.”  She watched in
fascination as they tuned their instruments.  “You kidding?”

While the others finished tuning, Federico
came over to her.  “Everything OK?  If you don’t feel like staying here, there’s
no problem.  I’ll take you somewhere else.”

Marika shook her head, lost in his face,
made more beautiful by the moonlight.  He picked idly at the strings...

...the chords to
the famous Simon and Garfunkel song from the 1960s filled the air, along with a
voice that made the air vibrate with the essence of folk-rock and the scent of
vinyl records.

Over the following weeks, Marika spent a
lot of time with Federico and his group of friends, ignoring her own crew, her
studies, and her sports.  She fought furiously with Carlotta, who kept accusing
her, “
you’ve totally dumped me
,” even though in truth she was spending
her own days in amorous harmony with Dario.  Every day brought another argument
with her mother, and her various coaches had passed from warnings to threats
about being cut from the end-of-the-year recitals if she didn’t shape up.

All of this while Matteo was getting his
feet wet in Milan and its
joie de vivre
, getting to know his teammates
from the youth squad, and even starting to meet some of the Serie A players
from
San Carlo
, who were at the
Visconti
for their pre-game
retreat.

As planned, he attended classes every
morning at a vocational high school that offered a degree in “Grape Growing and
Wine Making,” and in the evenings he forced himself to study so as to not screw
up his chances of graduating from high school on time.  All this on top of the
total commitment and 100 percent effort that he was making on the practice
field and in the gym so as to earn one of those coveted spots on the team once
the try-outs were over.

The training sessions were intense, and
included physical evaluations, practice with and without a ball, game strategy
and routes to memorize, workouts in the gym, and medical exams which included
blood tests, urine samples, lung capacity exams, EKG stress tests,
psychological interviews, forms to fill out, and questions to answer.

Soccer is a game that requires both
aerobic and anaerobic strength, a sport in which endurance, acceleration,
strength, and flexibility are the main physical attributes that need to be
developed.  Practice was based on constant changes in rhythm and intensity in
running, broken up by push-offs, direction changes, leaps, reps, sprints, and
stopping short.  The goal was to improve the ability of each player and the
group as a whole, as well as to acquire basic techniques that could be applied
tactically both on offense and on defense.

Every player trying out was provided with
duffel bags, uniforms, cleats from the team’s sponsor, shin guards, thermal
undershirts, thick socks, and all the other necessary items for practice.

“Our job is to make sure you have learned
the tactics inside and out, and that your endurance and reaction times reach
their maximum possible levels.”  Olderico, the coordinator, was in charge of
fundamentals.  “We will improve your sense of orientation, the quickness with
which you react to situations, your touch and control of the ball, the time it
takes you to pass and to kick.  When we’re attacking, you will have to be good
at protecting and moving the ball around, learn how to break free from your
man, how to pass, and how to shoot on target.  When we’re on defense, you have
to know where to place yourself on the field, to cover empty spaces, defend
your man, cut off passes, and defend the ball.”  He watched them run and kick,
taking notes about their qualities and about where they could improve.

Practice is never an end unto itself; it
is always focused on an upcoming match.  And so, one week into their try-outs,
they were divided into three teams, interspersed with current players on the
youth squad, for a series of seven-on-a-side matches, five minutes each, to be
played on a half-sized field.

Each player was given a colored,
sleeveless bib to be worn over their official
San Carlo
jerseys: white,
unnumbered, with a blue mandarin collar and deep blue patterns on the sleeves
and down the sides.

The players and their positions on the
field were changed around at the orders of Beretta.  On the first day of actual
play, Matteo switched back and forth between the right wing and his usual
playmaker position.  Pão was on his side, while Ninho, the much-vaunted forward
from
Salvação
played against them.  Ninho was a good-looking guy with
amber skin and ripped muscles.  He had just arrived on an international flight
that morning, so Matteo approached him before the beginning of the match to
introduce himself.

“Ciao!”  He stuck out his hand while Pão
looked on, amused.  “I’m....”

“Olá,” he interrupted him, in Portuguese. 
“Eu sou Leandro Ribeiro Gama de Moraes, apelido
Meninho.
Eu sou do Brasil, Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro.” 
His nickname, Meninho, came from the term
meninos de rua
, the street
kids of Rocinha, a slum in Rio de Janeiro, one of the many poor neighborhoods
of that great city where bands of malnourished and exploited children risk
death daily from police squadrons acting in the name of public order or by
gangs looking to move in on new territory. 
“Tenho
vivido aqui por alguns anos, quando eu era pouco mais do que uma criança.” 
Ninho had spent three years in Italy during middle school when his
mother followed her third husband to Italy, but after yet another divorce, he
found himself back in Brazil, where he was spotted by talent scouts who signed
him to the Brasileirão as a center
forward.