On Earth as It Is in Heaven (9 page)

They set sail from the port of Trapani in mid-September 1942. There were 208 Sicilians. Nearly all the draftees were virtually illiterate, young men more accustomed to building roads than pushing pencils. They were scheduled to come home thirteen months later. They would actually return in the fall of 1945, after the war was over. The ship that brought them back to Sicily sailed from Alexandria, Egypt, and docked in the harbor of Palermo, where the surviving Sicilians debarked.

Two men walked down the gangplank.

One was a peasant.

The other was my grandfather Rosario.

La Nèglia
.

The place my family chose to go to the beach was Cape Gallo, the promontory that protects Palermo to the north. A small sandy beach surrounded on all sides by rocky cliffs, excellent for diving and perfect for catching sea urchins. When my mamma was a girl, she collected pretty stones here to take home; my grandfather spent days at a time staring out at the horizon; my grandmother came here to study; and my father trained by running as far as the lighthouse and then all the way back home. All of them had a relationship with the sea that was predicated on silent, complicit contemplation. Not Umbertino. He was first and foremost tactile, and the instant he saw salt water, he dived into it, without stopping to think. Strip down and swim, to the brink of exhaustion, no matter what month it was, no matter the weather.

“Come on, a nice swim never hurt anyone.”

“Uncle, it's April.”

“Jump in, scaredy-cat. Or should I throw you in myself?”

He rushed into the water with infectious enthusiasm. It was like watching a little kid. He dived and swam excellently well.

“Oh, hey, Davidù, the peace that the sea brings to my soul, not even the finest ass of the finest woman on earth, I swear.”

He taught me to swim.

“Swimming is a skill you need, we live on an island, if you want to get away, how you gonna do it? You gonna walk on the water like Whosis?”

And to dive headfirst.

“A manly man has to know how to dive headfirst. If you're a fabulous diver, women feel like covering you in nice warm pajamas of drool.”

His instructions were straightforward.

“Watch me closely, my ass is clamped tight, it's like solid steel, that's the one thing you need to think about when you're diving, your body will take care of the rest.”

His mountain of muscles described a harmonious curving trajectory in flight. He sliced into the water without splash or spray. During the lessons, he watched me, both from high atop the rocks and from below, at the water's surface, correcting the motion with which I spread my arms, the elastic tension released into my gluteal muscles, the positioning of my hands.

“Keep your fingers nice and straight and your wrists tight and solid; your hand is what tells the water to move aside.”

One dive after another, Umbertino was doing his best to impart the technique that he considered the finest on earth: his own. Once I learned it, we began diving together, synchronized. Simultaneous liftoff, identical curve of the arms, spines straight, hurtling like needles into the flesh of the sea. Then we would swim. And that was when our dance truly became impressive. We swam identically. My uncle taught me the swimming style that he believed to be better than any other on the planet: his own. The windmilling arms, the open dorsals to slice through the waves at an angle, the rhythm of the mouth as it opened, took in air, expelled breath, the regular beat of the kicking legs, the foot entering on the diagonal, the position of the fingers. He was shaping my body to his tempo, his rhythms, imparting to the son of his favorite pupil his own syntax of motion.

A lady, seeing us swim together in a race that would inevitably end in my defeat, mistook us for father and son.

“Signora, has anyone told you that your husband and your son swim identically? You can certainly tell that they're father and son.”

It was eleven in the morning, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but my mother's face darkened all the same.

The lady was thunderstruck.

“Saint Rosalia protect us, what on earth did I say wrong?”

My grandmother weighed in and summer sunshine reigned again.

“They really are exactly alike, signora. In fact, you know what they resemble? Two fine gobs of spit.”

The lady burst out laughing, my mother shook off her gloom, the topic was forgotten, and the women were the best of friends for the rest of the day.

“It's no accident that my first name is Provvidenza, Davidù. My jokes are always providential. Your grandfather was sitting on his usual bench looking out to sea, your mother was chattering away about what good report cards you brought home, you and your uncle were swimming, and I went back to my crossword puzzles because when it comes to puzzles, I don't ever want you to forget this, I am phenomenally good.”

When Umbertino and I emerged from the water, our bodies told in detail how different our histories really were. Umbertino couldn't seem to hold still for an instant, as if, when he was far away from the one place that give him peace, he sensed all the more intensely the dark current that ran through his blood, and so he hopped from one spot on the wave-lapped sand to another, pretending he'd lost his beach towel, and once he'd spotted an appetizing woman, he'd stretch out beside her.

“Please forgive me, signorina, but would you be so kind as to lend me your towel? I'm all alone, penniless, and dripping wet.”

In the face of such bold shamelessness, women invariably broke out laughing after a moment's surprise, and gave him a towel to dry off. At this point, the pickup was half done, and we could forget about seeing Umbertino again until it was time to go home.

In contrast, the minute I emerged from the water, I stopped and stood there, drops of water running down my ribs, my eyes contemplating the sea before me, my body motionless in the hot sun. I became my grandfather Rosario.

When he told me about the bout that preceded the fight for the national championship, Umbertino was lucid and pitiless.

“I didn't feel a thing, Davidù. Not a thing.”

In a city that wasn't his, surrounded by people with different, incomprehensible accents, without
Il Negro
in his corner, with all the bookies taking long odds against him, Umbertino held it all in, pressed it down. He didn't say a word to anyone. He didn't let a thing cross his face. He didn't issue a single statement.

“It was like being at the aquarium: water and silence. It was magnificent.”

During the weigh-in, he noticed that he'd shed five pounds, 260 against his opponent's 289.

The bout ended with a knockout in the first round.

The day before the bout, Umbertino had had trouble relaxing. He talked to the concierge at his pensione.

“Where is the red-light district in this town?”

The whores were so ugly that he informed one overly pushy pimp: “They ought to be paying me for the sex.”

He agreed to accept the pimp's apology after crushing three fingers on his right hand and instructing him to the effect that knives are dangerous playthings, especially when you have someone like him on the wrong end of the hilt. He cadged a pack of cigarettes and smoked half. He thought about
Il Negro
, about the plans they'd hatched together, the betting odds. He felt a surge of anger and accepted it, the way you accept the rain when you have no umbrella. He went back to the gym where he was scheduled to fight the next day, asked who was taking bets, and bet every penny of his savings on himself. The sun was shining brightly out in the street, but without the sea stretching out the sunlight meant nothing. When darkness fell, he went back to his pensione. He slept like a baby.

The match started at four in the afternoon. Umbertino was received with universal indifference while his opponent was greeted with applause and shouts of encouragement. He was a boxer from Milan, twenty-eight years old. He had a record of forty-one victorious fights, he was the odds-on favorite, and he was the current reigning champion of Italy. What was about to happen in the ring was beyond what anyone present could imagine. It was thirty seconds of sheer terror. The instant the referee released the boxing gloves, Umbertino hurled himself against his opponent with every ounce of his strength, forcing him into the corner. That morning, as he looked at himself in the mirror, he had sworn a solemn oath: no marks on his face. He had a goal. He was determined to achieve it. He possessed everything he would need: an icy calm. Not the calm of a surgeon about to operate; a surgeon can always fail. He was the scalpel. The same detachment, the same indifference. The boxer from Milan was hit full-force by a tsunami. A punch to the spleen and the wind was knocked out of him, a hook to the temple and his balance was lost, an uppercut to the stomach to force his body to fight to stay on its feet. And then over again from the beginning, same sequence, spleen temple stomach. After just seven seconds and twelve hits, the Milanese was vomiting gastric juices and blood. Umbertino increased the pace of his punches. Fifteen seconds later, the reigning champion passed out. Umbertino landed an uppercut to the chin, knocking him backward over the ropes and onto the floor outside the ring. The reporters used new metaphors to describe what they'd just seen and admired. One compared my uncle to a cannibal, another to a lion, while yet another dubbed him Umberto Furioso, all of them doing their best to explain the absolute novelty of a boxer who was at once so unrestrained and so fast. Their articles hailed the pioneer of a surprising new form of boxing. An unprecedented mix of speed, power, and agility. One journalist went so far as to employ the adjective
unreal
. Someone else wrote that they had gazed admiringly on a young god. Yet another wondered whether right then and right there a new chapter was not being written in the history of boxing, and not just in Italy. On one point, all the reporters agreed: my uncle was now a boxer without rival in the whole country.

Franco the Maestro did his best to explain Umbertino's impenetrable approach to boxing. The comparison he made was to the sea: “rain or shine, wind or fine weather, the sea don't give a damn, because the sea is never what's on the surface, the sea is what lies below, what you never get a glimpse of. Young man, your uncle was the most powerful fighter I'd ever seen in my life, until the Paladin bounded onto the stage. How can you hammer the sea with fists? It's bigger, way too big, way too strong. There's water down below with more water underneath it. The sea is sufficient unto itself.”

On the day of the championship match, my uncle was the odds-on favorite. His opponent was a trivial flyspeck in comparison. Moreover, the bout was going to be held right in Palermo. Umbertino had sweated blood to get a shot at this fight. The national championship. The goal was within reach.

Negro
, why did you leave? If only you'd come back.

But there wasn't going to be any unannounced return, no big surprise. Ships ply the sea and deposit their passengers elsewhere, in other ports, other lands, other languages.
Il Negro
was a dead letter. It was time to turn the page. To continue down the path he had chosen for himself. Looking at himself in the mirror, he swore no oath. He emerged from the locker room and climbed into the ring. A chill descended over the room.

Umbertino chose his words carefully. Even in the endless match against his own memory, my uncle took positions and carried on the fight. We were alone the time he told me about the championship fight. He eliminated the possibility of intrusions, annoyances, other human beings. It was me, him, and his demons. He spoke with perfect stoicism. To remember still caused him enormous pain. Not everyone has a chance to fight for the national heavyweight title. And lose.

What really happened. Understand. Review. Regain mental clarity. And so, one stroke after another, swim and remember.

The movement became increasingly self-aware, the body was moving away from the shore, the tensions clashed in Umbertino's bloodied face.