On Earth as It Is in Heaven (35 page)

Adolescence passed: studying schoolbooks, training at the gym, dating one girl or another in a city that was becoming ever more filthy and violent.

Antonio Provenzani from Lecce, aka “
Fritto Misto
” (Mixed Fish Fry) for his great skill at shifting styles in a single bout. TKO in the second round.

Marco Dambrosio from Formia, “
Il Polpo
” (The Octopus): he'd glue himself to his opponent, only to slither away suddenly. A win on points, 7 to 0.

Mimmo Alba from Genoa, a boxer who could take punishment, as mangy as he was rocky. He didn't get in a lot of punches, but when he did, they hurt. He was nicknamed “
Beneficenza
,” like a charity ball. I won on points, 5 to 1.

Michelle, an English girl, seventeen, on a school field trip, encountered on my morning run as she was returning to the hotel after a night out carousing with her female classmates. Serious French-kissing and heavy petting, that same evening. No sex, we were both virgins. I called her “Mabbèl.”

Duccio Tessori from Lucca, called “
Il Ladro
” (The Thief) for the speed with which he could dismantle his opponent's defense. Victorious on points, three rounds to zip.

Luisa, the cousin of a girl someone else introduced me to at some birthday party or other. Sixteen years old, a curly head of hair, a piercing voice, wet wet kisses. I nicknamed her “
Mulinello
” (Whirlpool).

Mizio Dal Collo, from Popiglio, a section of Piteglio, in the province of Pistoia. “
Lo Spaccaossa
” (The Bone-Breaker). Won on points, 15 to 6.

Damiano Palano from Mantua, also known as “
Tradimento
” (Betrayal). KO in the second round.

Alessandro Coscia, a left-hander from Pozzolo Formigaro in the province of Alessandria, “
La Locomotiva Piemontese
” (The Piedmont Locomotive). Victorious on points, 7 to 4.

Letizia, eighteen years of pure insolence, rechristened “
La Flautista
” (The Flutist). And her girlfriend Teresa, “
Occhio Bello
” (Bright Eyes), going on eighteen, and going on real sex.

Mauro Genovese from Trapani, the boxer without a nickname. I won on points, two rounds to one.

Massimiliano Biffi from Rho, “
Il Bauscia
.” His nickname indicated that he was an arrogant Milanese. KO in the first round.

I never lost.

I was just one fight away from the national title, just one fight away, when, after fifty years, the bombs came back to Palermo.

The city had once again been plunged into war.

Maestro Franco gave us the news in the gym.

“They planted a bomb on the highway. The Mafia, a terrorist attack, a lot of innocent people were killed.”

Umbertino was indignant: “And now, just because the Mafia has decided to run roughshod over everything, I'm supposed to interrupt my training sessions?”

Still, something really had been broken. Before war belonged in survivors' stories, in memories handed down on Sunday afternoons after lunch. The damage that could still be seen in the center of the city reminded us that, yes, there had been a war, it had been destructive, but then it had ended. The explosion of a bomb, on the other hand, brought war back to the present day. It was a point of no return, completely different from mere gunshots. It was no longer possible to pretend nothing was happening. Everyday life was overturned, as was the city itself, subject to martial law.

The first result of that increasingly tense atmosphere was an even more defensive crouch. Changing the route you followed because of a sudden hunch, mistrusting unfamiliar faces, feeling a stab of anxiety at the sight of a car you'd never seen before parked outside your apartment building. Police sirens wailed everywhere, at all hours of the day and night. No one had the heart to say it, but everyone expected new attacks. It took only a month and a half for that unspoken prophecy to be borne out. Another bomb exploded, and yet the people of Palermo did not flee. The one sure thing in that war was this: to survive unharmed was in and of itself something praiseworthy.

Gerruso called me the night the first bomb went off.

“Are we going to run away?”

“We're not running.”

“By ‘we' do you mean yourself and your family?”

“Not just us.”

“Am I included in that ‘we'?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus, Poet, I almost feel like saying thank you to those bombs if you consider me part of ‘us.'”

“Don't get carried away, Gerruso.”

“So we're not running away.”

“No.”

After all, where were we supposed to go? We had school to finish and a title bout to fight, a hot meal on the table at the end of the day, and a face I hoped to see again, someday. There was a whole lifetime ahead of me, between one bomb and another.

My mother's sorrow knew no bounds.

“This isn't the world I wanted to bring you up in.”

Maestro Franco wanted to know the exact route I was taking for my morning run. He studied it meticulously.

“It looks safe, I don't think any prosecutors live anywhere nearby.”

Umbertino and Rosario reacted as they'd been taught to growing up. They maintained their routines, continuing straight down their usual paths. Grandpa limited himself to saying that he'd been wondering for a long time now when this would happen.

“For how long?”

“For at least ten years now.”

Umbertino confirmed his analysis: “Only the blind or the liars would have told you it was going to end any other way. Palermo has always been a powder keg, fucking miserable shithole of a city.”

Their eyes, after growing up with death, were sharper, more practiced at reading the tea leaves of disaster.

Gerruso confessed to me that a thought had been tormenting him.

“Poet, let's just hope that a bomb doesn't go off right near you, if you died that way, damn, the finals would really prove to be bad luck for your family. But maybe nothing'll happen and you'll just lose the championship bout anyway, go figure.”

I tried calling Nina.

I went downstairs, out into the street, I didn't want my mother to overhear that phone call.

That phone booth was a small space.

Standing there, with the receiver in one hand, the coin inserted in the slot, the line ringing free, my head resting against the pay phone. It smelled of metal.

I would ask Nina how she was, whether the Mafia's attack, the one that had resulted in the death of the judge and his police escort, had made her cry the way it had my female classmates. Whether she'd take a different route to school now, and whether her parents would let her go out at night: my mother let me, in part because my uncle insisted that, especially in a situation like this, you had to go on living. Changing your habits meant bowing to the Mafia's power and he wouldn't bow down even before Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer of them all.

Then I'd tell her that I wasn't upset, because boxing helps you to keep a steady keel: you see, Nina, boxing is more than just throwing and taking punches, the sweet science is a discipline that demands respect and sacrifice, in fact—would you ever believe it, Nina?—the boxer who wins is never the one with the strongest arms, it's the one who's fastest, in body and mind, because he possesses a richer vocabulary of movement.

Then I'd astonish her with the news that, yes, Nina, I have just one bout to go, one more victory and the title that had always eluded my family's grasp would finally be ours, isn't that wonderful?

Last of all, I had to address our last conversation, the phone call I'd made from that same phone booth a few weeks earlier just before the fight with Mauro Genovese, the boxer without a nickname. I'd reiterate that in my opinion making a full confession had been the right thing to do, maybe I'd picked the wrong time to do it, but it was ethically correct, Nina, you have to rid yourself of dead weight if you want to unleash your strength in battle, useless ballast only slows you down, far better the implacable hardness of honesty.

It would be yet another of the countless lies I'd tell her, with love and squalor.

I held tight to the receiver for a good fifteen minutes.

It rang and rang.

Nina didn't answer.

When the phone rang, it was dark out. It wasn't a normal sound. It was a worried ring. Objects, if you listen to them carefully, will tell you what's about to happen. They reek of emotion.

I leaped out of bed. The next day, I was scheduled to fight the championship bout for the national title. My body was poised for combat. I ran down the hall, grabbed the receiver, listened without answering, ended the call by pressing two fingers down on the little white knobs on the cradle.

My mother was up, too. She watched me from her bedroom door, tying her dressing gown sash at the waist.

My left hand was still gripping the receiver.

“Mamma, something's happened.”

My grandpa told me that the day that all hell broke loose in Africa, there were no particular foreshadowings. He'd always described that day in precise detail. When something unforgettable happens and you come out of it alive, you think back methodically to the moments preceding it, as if they constituted a map on which you could read a premonition of the impending disaster.

“There was no sign of what was coming.”

My grandfather had peeled the potatoes and put the pot on the stove. Melluso was nowhere to be seen. The animals, especially the guard dogs, were untroubled, there were no cases of insubordination from the prisoners, no particular abuses had been committed by the guards; in the kitchen everything was in its place.

Rosario turned off the flame, poured out the coffee, and handed a demitasse to Nicola Randazzo.

“Let's enjoy this fine cup of espresso,” he said, breaking his habitual silence.

And then all hell broke loose.

“Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Mamma, don't worry about me.”

“Are you ready for the fight tomorrow? Are you nervous?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'll stay here, you go check the hospital.”

“Give me a kiss.”

After kissing both my cheeks, my mother took my hands and kissed the back of each of them.

“You'll see, everything will turn out okay, now you go try to get some rest, my love.”

She blew me one last kiss and I got out of the car.

The street was deserted. No one ever went out at night anymore in Palermo.

The front door stood ajar, the light was on. Scattered across the floor were broken plates, shattered glasses, silverware, dollops of food sprayed in all directions, and, off to one side, a small bloodstain.

Nothing had been touched.

“Gerruso, tell me what happened.”

He was stroking the wall with his stump-finger.

They'd just finished dinner:
brociolone
with meat sauce and peas.

His mother had stood up to clear away the dishes.

She had stacked the plates and was heading into the kitchen when she fell to the floor, without warning.

She'd never come to.

The ambulance had arrived, his father had gone to the hospital, and he'd stayed behind at home.

“I didn't know who else to call, I'm sorry.”

“Don't you have any relatives?”

“The only phone number I could think of was yours.”

“Don't you know that tomorrow is the championship fight?”

“I'd forgotten.”

“Well, the damage is done.”

“Sorry.”

“Amen.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“It's fine, don't mention it again.”

“She collapsed like a . . . like a . . .”

“Gerruso, don't think about it, my mother's gone to the hospital, everything's going to turn out okay, she knows all the doctors.”

“First she was . . . and then she . . .”

“Come on, cut it out.”

“She was standing there and then . . .”