On Earth as It Is in Heaven (40 page)

“Then what happened?”

The words weighed heavy in my mouth, they were sharp-edged, my tongue trembled and the cuts were continuous, one after another. I thought that saying the words would lighten my burden.

The beep didn't mark the end of my credit, but the beginning of the battle. I inserted another coin and the mayhem continued.

“We kissed.”

Her reply was an absence of words that turned into weeping.

His guard up, his eyes calm, Renzo Ceresa waited.

Shouts of “Kill him!” poured down on us from the four corners of the auditorium.

As I bobbed and weaved my way around the ring, keeping my distance from
Bentu Maìstu
, I could feel each instant flow by.

As soon as they touched the ground, my feet sent me somewhere else.

I tried out a couple of punches, Ceresa came back with a left cross.

They were feints, neither of us was fighting for real.

“I'm sorry, Nina.”

We were savoring the last few moments that come before the slaughter, when the hands are still firmly gripping the harpoon and the fish is swimming free in the water.

Both my gloves were held low.

They were pinwheeling in circles in front of my stomach.

I was holding no defensive position.

“Were you already at her house?”

Ceresa let go with a sudden, rapid right cross.

The glove came hurtling toward my face.

It was red, like a mouth.

“Yes, Nina.”

I dodged it, pulling my neck back at the last moment.

“Were her parents home?”

The Sardinian's right uppercut had already been released.

It crashed into my abdominals.

The northwest wind was suddenly gusting.

“No.”

I lunged at Ceresa and wrapped my arms around him to stop him from attacking.

“Were you alone?”

The referee came over and separated us.

“Yes.”

The preliminary phase of feeling each other out was over.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Ceresa resumed his charge.

I avoided his right fist by leaping backward, and the instant I touched down, I let loose with my left.

Once the harpoon has penetrated the flesh, the struggle has become inexorable.

“I miss you, Nina.”

Umbertino hadn't felt his body so present since the brawl in Piazza delle Sette Fate. He could sense every scrap of flesh, like when he was making love with Giovannella. It was just three days to his finals match. He could sense life flowing in his fists.

He walked out into the street after spending a few minutes in
Il Negro
's bedroom. He had no illusions of any kind. His maestro wouldn't be coming back. At the finals, he'd have no one in his corner.

Outside, the sky was leaden gray but it showed no intention of raining. The sky just made sure the sun couldn't get through, nothing more: no cleansing rain fell on Palermo. It was the early fifties and the city still stank the way it had during the war; Palermo was filthy and there was no work. One power was emerging, gaining strength: the Mafia. The territory was under its control, and loyalty was spreading. The air was torn now and again by a scream or a shout. A theft, a brawl, a stabbing, a settling of accounts. There was a growing demand for violence.

In the ruins of the Magione, Umbertino watched a priest distribute rye bread to a line of starving citizens. A father holding his son by the hand came up and received his ration. The man and boy left the line with the bread. The son held out his hand for his share of the bread, but the father gave him nothing. The father ate all the bread himself, in two bites. The son dropped his hand without objection.

There was no time to waste.

It was time to act, to look to the future, to make a decision.

He headed for Vicolo Marotta, to see a whore he knew.

Fucking did nothing to tame his black thoughts.

It was still quite a few hours to the finals. Gerruso was baffled, confused. He oscillated between moments of disillusionment and blinding bursts of enthusiasm. He refused to listen to suggestions that he get some rest; still his eyelids were drooping all by themselves.

“Gerruso, your pupils are singing a song of sleep.”

“I don't hear a thing.”

“It's just a figure of speech. Your eyes look wrecked, try to get some shut-eye.”

“But you have your weigh-in any minute.”

“If you're asleep, I'll wake you up.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me a story? That'd help me get to sleep.”

“Gerruso, I understand that your mother just died, but now you're starting to take advantage.”

“Come on.”

I told him a story that my grandmother taught me.

A king had to decide which of his two sons should be the heir to the throne: his successor would defend lands and populace. He decreed that his two sons, in turn, would go down into the courtyard, where they would find a tiger awaiting them. The survivor would be next in line for the throne. The elder son was given to anger, and feared by one and all because of his great strength. The younger son was meek and mild, widely beloved for his kindness. He was the first to go down into the courtyard. The tiger lay down and curled up at his feet. Then it was the older son's turn. A single glare from him was enough to make the tiger quake in terror. The older son's power, the father said, is enormous. All the tiger had to do was take one look at him, and it understood it was done for. But it was the younger son's power that left the father breathless. The tiger was willing to die for him. And so it was that the younger son inherited the kingdom.

“What happened to the older brother?”

“That's the end of the story.”

“Too bad, I liked the older brother best.”

“Because the best way to rule is with force?”

“No, just the opposite, I like someone who has the strength to disappear from a story.”

“Grandma maintains that it's a work of art to get into a story. To get out of it is a masterpiece.”

His eyes had finally closed, his hands lay motionless on his belly, crossed as if in prayer. His stump-finger created a void in the pattern of fingernails.

“The people who get lost in stories, Poet, they're the ones I like, and when they come back by surprise, when you least expect them, for me, that's a real celebration. It would have been nice if Nina and Eliana could be here with us, right? I don't love her though, or maybe just a little: I really like her a lot. Too bad they had a fight.”

Gerruso knew that they were no longer friends. Nina had told him herself, the night before, when I'd passed her to him on the phone: “Mamma collapsed, Nina, the way a dam collapses. Yes, he's here with me, Papà is still in the hospital. Not so good, Nina, my thoughts are bothering me. Listen, will you tell your friend Eliana that my mamma is dead? You had a fight? Too bad, no, it's just that maybe she could have come to the funeral.”

The depth of the circles under his eyes told, better than words could ever do, of the anguish that tormented him.

“Poet, Nina loved you once but now she never wants to see you again, and now she doesn't even have her girlfriend anymore, can't the three of you make up?”

“It's not that simple.”

When does a fight begin?

“When I was a little kid, there was a little girl, Barbarella, just beautiful, she had pouty lips and a head full of curls. I said to her: ‘Barbarella, I love you.' She asked me: ‘Just like grown-ups?' And I said: ‘No, I
really
love you.' There. That's how it ought to be.”

“Gerruso, come on, get some sleep.”

“It's too bad that Nina and Eliana argued. Poet, do you know what it was about?”

Is there a transitional moment, a shift that can be seen as a beginning? “No.”

“If you did know, you would tell me?”

Something that marks the beginning of a new chapter?

“Yes.”

“It's a good thing you're here.”

His head slumped forward and he started to snore.

Two minutes later, they called me for my weigh-in and I left without waking him up.

Bentu Maìstu
was punched square in the face by my left glove.

The audience reacted dramatically.

With a right hook, I creamed his face again.

Maestro Franco, just outside the ropes of the ring, was crushing Carlo's arm with one hand.

Renzo Ceresa had taken both punches without so much as blinking.

His legs were solid, his eyes level, his arms front and center.

We hopped, face to face, feinting and weaving with each step, in a race to see who was faster at dodging attacks that were never launched.

Gerruso commented on my weaves and feints and Grandpa nodded. Even Umbertino had abandoned his posture of immobility. He was echoing movements with his whole body, the punch that he'd have thrown, the feint he would have pulled, a leap forward, a weave to the left. Syllables of movement that failed to become words. A smile lit up his face when we both executed the same attack: the hook that forced Ceresa to raise his guard, even as a sharp cross-hook combination had already been unleashed. My hand completed the movement for Umbertino, smashing into the Sardinian's chin.

Umbertino spread all ten fingers wide in a sign of jubilation.

Ceresa had doubled over.

In my training, a month before the bout, there was a change in the “dishing out punishment” exercise. The point had become to turn every punch into a double punch. A right hook followed by a right hook, a left cross followed by another left cross. Throw the same punch twice, every time.

There was also a change in the four minutes of “taking punishment.”

Umbertino had asked Carlo to climb into the ring.

“What's the matter, Uncle, are you tired already?”

“Pipe down, dummy. Carletto, put on your gloves.”

“What are you doing, throwing in the towel?”

“You don't understand a thing.”

He'd just doubled the number of punches thrown in this exercise, too.

“Go for his sides, Carletto. My nephew's face is all for me.”

A myriad of punches rained down on me from all directions.

I was bobbing and weaving to keep from collapsing.

I was in a state of peace.

Every now and then, my sense of guilt vanished.

I unleashed eight left-handed crosses on Ceresa, one after the other, in a double punch that expanded exponentially.

Umbertino echoed my movements from where he was sitting and grinned.

Five out of the eight punches hit their mark.

Ceresa took the punches and remained on his feet.

His legs never stumbled.

I landed one to his temple.

Bentu Maìstu
remained perfectly solid on his feet.

The smile faded from my uncle's lips.

There was still a whole minute left before the end of the round.

Umbertino went to the appointment in his good suit. He'd even dabbed himself with a few drops of cologne. He showed up early. When the owner of the cellar space arrived, he apologized to Umbertino for making him wait and offered to treat him to a coffee at the nearby bar.

“I'm not here to drink, here, take your money, now hand over the keys.”

When he got home, he laid the keys on the kitchen table, took off his suit, and looked at his bedroom with the awareness that comes to you when you're about to leave a place. Now he had a gym to build.

He tucked the newspaper clippings, the plaques, and the trophies into a cardboard box.

He walked into
Il Negro
's bedroom.

It was exactly the way his maestro had left it.

He hadn't touched a thing.

“Oh, hey, I did it, I bought the space. Now I'm going to start a fine boxing gym of my own. I'm going to live there.”

He closed the bedroom door behind him, put on a tracksuit, picked up the box, walked downstairs, and tossed his past onto the rubble of Vuccirìa.

He bought everything he'd need to clean and set about preparing the cellar space. After washing the floor, he turned to whitewashing the walls. He built wooden benches with an assortment of boards. He hung a heavy bag from the ceiling. He planted four iron bars in the ground and covered them with blankets, stretching ropes from one pole to another. Once he'd constructed his ring, he didn't have the heart to step into it. He swore an oath that he'd never fight in an official bout again as long as he lived. He'd made his decision before the title fight. Now all he needed to do was follow that oath to its logical conclusion.

Gerruso split his attention between the match and his ongoing duel with the row of seats behind him.

“What's the matter, having trouble getting a good view?”

“Sit down, little boy.”

“I'll sit down if and when I please: you're sitting behind me, that's your problem.”

“Sit down and calm down, your boxer has nowhere to go.”

My opponent looked fit and well rested.

Gerruso couldn't get over it.

“What kind of locals are you, if you're rooting for the other guy?”

“Locals who're betting on the winner.”

“Locals who are going to take it up the ass.”

“Kid, you're going too far!”

“You have no right to tell me I'm going too far, you mean less than nothing to me, you're even sitting behind me, so shut your mouth and show me the proper respect.”

The other guy leaped to his feet, but his friend sitting next to him held him back.

“Can't you see he's a dickhead idiot? Let's just watch the Sardinian, he's making a comeback.”

Gerruso parroted the phrase, mocking him, managing to make an enemy of him as well.

“Kid, you need to cut it out.”

“What are you going to do if I don't, sell your house so you can afford a seat in the row ahead of me?”

Ceresa regained possession of the center of the ring and began his attack. I leaped to the right to avoid an uppercut but he was remarkably fast, a whirlwind, and his hook slammed into my chest, shoving me half a yard backward.