On Earth as It Is in Heaven (32 page)

“I just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“Of all the places in the world, you had to come here?”

“Yes.”

“Of all days, the day I'm having my fight?”

“Coincidence.”

“Of course, how could I forget, I told you, outside the movie house.”

“Life is full of odd coincidences.”

“Where's Nina?”

“I don't know, I'm not her mother. Did you lose?”

“Do you give a damn either way?”

“Less than zero. I don't go to see these brute animal spectacles.”

“Ah, true, you play the cello.”

“Who told you that?”

“Nina.”

“And you remembered it.”

“I remember everything that Nina tells me.”

“Remembering's not the same as understanding.”

“Where is she?”

“Forget about her, she doesn't want you, she's seeing someone else.”

“That's crap.”

Just then, Gerruso appeared.

“Your bag is heavy, it took me a while, here you go. Ciao, Eliana.”

“You see that I came? Now I have to go, ciao. And ciao to you, too, boxer.”

She stood up on the pedals, pushed down with her feet, arching her back as she turned over the scooter's engine, and she angled away with a roar.

“Gerruso, did you invite her?”

“Sure, but I never thought she'd actually come.”

“What made you do it?”

“Nina called me.”

“Nina calls you?”

“Well, not me, she calls my mother.”

“And why on earth would she call your mother?”

“I don't know, to say hello to her and put my aunt on the line, that kind of thing, girl stuff.”

“Well, so?”

“I told her about the match, and did she want to come see you fight? Eliana was at her house and she put her on the line and I said hi and I invited her to come, too, if she wanted, that's all.”

“Gerruso, we hate the Dumas.”

“. . .”

“Gerruso.”

“. . .”

“Fuck, I can't believe it: you like the blonde.”

“No.”

“Gerruso, look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.”

“I'm not in love with her.”

“Gerruso.”

“Maybe just a little.”

“You're a complete Judas.”

“I know, sorry.”

“Sorry, my ass. I'm never speaking to you again.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“No.”

He asked me anyway. The following Saturday the Buttana Imperiale was going to hold her recital at the conservatory. Would I go with him? I told him yes, without the slightest hesitation. Nina was sure to be there.

The boxing gloves had fallen to the locker-room floor. I hadn't picked them up. The exhaustion that follows a fight had swept over me all at once.

“Will you get them for me?”

“Only if you answer me.”

“Enough, I'm tired of questions about angels, they don't exist.”

“If you won't answer my question, I won't pick up the gloves.”

“Gerruso, are you blackmailing me?”

“Yes. Now, who's stronger, men or angels?”

“Men. You can snap a human being in two, but not an angel.”

“So that means the angel is stronger, doesn't it?”

“Strength is something that can be broken but doesn't break.”

I had my eyes closed. I was listening to the expansion of my ribs, the way they stretched and then contracted. I was feeling no pain.

“Who teaches you these things?”

“My grandma. And boxing.”

“Then can I learn to box, too?”

“No.”

“The only reason I'd do it is to learn these thoughts.”

“You'd take too many punches to the head, you wouldn't be able to think a thing after a while, you're slow.”

“Too bad, if I were an angel the punches wouldn't have connected with me at all. Fists hurt, let me tell you. So do slaps. And kicks. But what hurts most is spitting. And you know something about that.”

Fabio Rizzo.

The fight that had just ended.

“Until the spit, the match looked like a merry-go-round. You kept whirling around.”

“We weren't whirling, he was chasing after me.”

“Were you running away?”

“No.”

“Still, the minute he spat in your face, you really lost your temper.”

“No, I didn't. I was totally calm.”

“Calm? But you practically beat him to a pulp! You were in a frenzy!”

When boxers face off, there's usually one who's more proactive and goes on the attack, while the other tries to avoid the confrontation, at least at first. Most of the time, all that's going on is you're seeing which of the two is the better fighter. The more aggressive boxer wants to lead the fight, and is determined to charge into the fray from the outset. Unless something fucked-up is going on, he's likely to be the last man left standing. It may happen, though it's rare, that the boxer who's keeping his distance is simply dragging out the clash. He's toying with the other one, like a cat with a mouse. He knows he can snap his adversary when and as he pleases. All he needs to do is drop his mask and attack. It's just a matter of time. Sooner or later, the shark fish always reveals his basic nature.

Nina didn't come to the recital at the conservatory.

“Gerruso, it was a terrible idea to come, let's get out of here.”

The musicians made their entrance. The Dumas was wearing a floor-length black velvet dress. Her blond hair hung loose, draped over her shoulders. She took her seat, exchanged glances with the other musicians, and they began to play.

The fingers of her left hand pressed down on the strings with graceful energy—unthinkable distances were surveyed and conquered. The wrist of her right hand paced the movement of the bow while her feet, solidly planted, pushed down through the tips of her toes.

Her eyes were closed.

Once the recital was over, she handed her instrument to her mother. She shook hands with a small army of people, dispensing smiles freely.

“Gerruso, let's go.”

“Aren't we going to say hello to her?”

“No.”

Gerruso started waving his hands, leaping from foot to foot, his shirt half tucked, half untucked, hanging out of his pants. The Dumas waved to us to wait for her, but it took her twelve minutes to join us.

“I didn't think I'd see you here.”

“I just came with Gerruso,
'un fare màle pensate
—don't get the wrong idea.”

“Oh, a poet speaking in dialect, I can feel shivers running up and down my spine.”

“Hold on to that, it's the one sign that you may actually be a human being.”

“Did you enjoy the concert?”

“You want the truth?”

“Of course.”

“Yes.”

“Good, we're even.”

“We're even how?”

The blonde came over to me.

All ten of her cello-playing fingertips were splayed upon my chest. Her head was next to mine. Her mouth was pressed against my ear. There was no hesitation in her voice.

“I like you, boxer.”

Mouth, hair, and fingers all pulled away.

Walking backward, she flashed me a quick smile.

“I told you, we're one to one.”

She turned on her heel and walked away.

Gerruso laid the hand with the stump-finger on my right shoulder.

“Poet, will you help me to make her my girlfriend?”

As soon as he bought the space that would become his boxing gym, the cellar of a newly erected building near the juvenile detention center, Umbertino walked every inch of Palermo in search of students. He talked to anyone who would listen, flatly indifferent as to whether they possessed the physical prerequisites for success in the world of boxing. Umbertino needed money, and so he had to recruit students. The real estate purchase, as expected, had cleaned him out. A month after inaugurating the space, he still hadn't managed to recruit a single student. He had no income, no way of surviving the coming month. He needed to get the word out. He went from one construction site to another, he combed the bars on Via Libertà, he went to the stadium, out to Mondello, to the Ballarò, Capo, Scàro, and Vuccirìa markets, and even down to the port, until he finally understood that the problem wasn't one of explaining the benefits of going to the gym. What was essential was getting the word out that a boxing gym even existed in Palermo. Establishing its existence in the imagination of the populace. Then, of course, the first lesson would be free, let them understand that he could help them to sculpt their body to a state of such flawless perfection that women would be lining up to lick the sweat off their chests. He needed hubbub and clamor. After his defeat at the finals, he swore to himself he'd never fight again in an official bout of any kind. Now he started fighting in clandestine bouts, eager to show with his own body just what a person could become, with the proper training. But the successful tip of his strategic wedge was his use of the two most effective channels for getting the word out to men and swaying them in his favor: priests and whores.

“Listen to me, Father, and listen good, let's not waste each other's time. For every individual who comes to my boxing gym from your parish, I'll make sure that you receive, every Sunday, from that person, an offering that will make you want to come here and kiss my hands, Father. And so, every time you say Mass, in the homily I want you to counsel the faithful to come to my gym. You can come up with your own reason why: you're good with words after all, you're a priest. Why should they come to the gym? What? How can you even ask? To form an awe-inspiring army of the faithful, with all these Communists out there it's just getting worse every day. I'm a proper Christian myself, you can count on that. I know all the religion there is, from A to Z. There's Jesus, Son of Joseph and Mary. His word is the Gospel truth. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, ten things just like that, Moses-style. Then, there's the miracles: the loaves and the fishes, the lepers, and then that spectacular one, the water into wine. But the raging multitude choose Barabbas and Baby Jesus dies on the cross, you'd think that was Amen, but no: three days later He's up again, risen and on fire, He walks on water, doves fly, and roosters crow.”

“There were a bunch of eager men, Davidù, piling in here, every last one of them saying: I'm here in the name of Rosa ‘La Ciùri Ciùri,' Carmelina also known as ‘Bedda Matri' sent me, I heard about you from Piera ‘La Spagnola.' This was how it worked: when a young man went to see a whore, first my girlfriends went to work on him, caressing him and complimenting him, ‘Oh you're so handsome and oh you're so strong,' then they'd start to plant the first seeds of doubt, ‘Certainly, of course, if you were to take up boxing,' then they'd let their voices trail away, they'd drop the subject, they'd screw for a while, then they'd pick up where they'd left off, ‘No, it's just that one of my clients is a boxer and, well, I guess I can tell you, you're a friend: he fucks me so well sometimes I don't even make him pay; I like you so much, if you want I'll tell you where the boxing gym is, it belongs to a guy I know, mention my name and he'll give you a discount.'”

“So did you give them a discount?”

“Don't be ridiculous. If someone came in mentioning the name of some woman I knew, I'd make sure they paid quite a bit more and I'd give my girlfriends a commission.”

“A percentage.”

“Business is business.”

“Did you always pay them?”

“In the early days, I did. After a certain point, they refused to take the money. Poor Gina was beaten to death by a lawyer, a filthy pig who thought he was untouchable.”

“And they called you. So what happened to the lawyer?”

“What do I know, he moved to another city, he left town, he went to the mainland, the continent, far from Palermo.”

“Far away.”

“Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.”

“Uncle, what about a payoff? Did the Mafia ever demand a payoff?”

“Davidù, do you know what keeps the Mafia going?
'U scànto
, sheer fear, the fact that four thugs can just come by and kick your teeth down your throat and no one will come to your aid.”

“So nobody ever came to shake you down?”

“Even if they'd come in here with a team of fifteen, they would have taken such a beating that they wouldn't even have had the breath to yell ‘enough.' That's something the mafiosi know all too well. People who make a living with fear are the first to know when it's time for them to be afraid.”

The adrenaline of victory had begun to subside. None of my bones was causing me any pain. I had no bruises on my chest. All that lingered from the fight I'd just experienced was the taste of the mouthguard on my tongue, the scrapes and bruises on my knuckles, and the blood on my fingernails.

No delicate vibrato-inducing, piano-playing fingers on my neck.

The water in the shower was steaming hot. I insistently scrubbed my face. I could still feel the spit on my cheeks and forehead. The second round had come to an end. I'd walked over to Fabio Rizzo to greet him, touch gloves, and go back to my corner. He dropped his mouthguard into his right glove and spat in my face. The saliva sprayed over me before I had a chance to raise my guard, to retreat into a protective crouch. My arms hung at my sides. The referee led him away, giving him a formal warning. Umbertino was invoking a string of saints. Carlo dried off my face while the Maestro commanded me to remain calm. Gerruso spat in Fabio Rizzo's direction but, seething with rage, he failed to coordinate mouth and saliva properly and the spit dribbled down his chest. Grandpa sat there, seraphic, arms folded over his chest, legs crossed, his eyes on the boxing ring.

A gang of five good-for-nothings had started picking on my father after school.