The Sun and Other Stars (19 page)

“Now,” Yuri says. “
Now
you are ready. Now you got nothing to lose, nothing to fear. Say it: Enough of the catenaccio! Attack! Attack! Attack!”

I look around at the others, but no one else seems to think this is crazy.

“Enough of the catenaccio. Attack, attack, attack.”

“Louder!”

“Enough of the catenaccio! Attack! Attack! Attack!”

“Louder!”

He makes me repeat it twice more. I look across the hill, but no lights go on in the houses around us. Up here, you are not your brother’s keeper. Whatever your brother does is none of your fottuto business.

We fan out across the field. Zhuki kicks off from the center spot, and as I’m chasing after her, I feel stronger than before, actual muscles working beneath the surface, the swamp monster that was trying to share the air in my lungs last week now shrunk to a manageable size. I don’t score any goals, but I can tell I’m making Team Fil work a little harder, their breath and their steps quickening around me. We play almost until midnight, when Principessa is asleep behind Luca’s headstone and Little Yuri is so tired, he starts laughing hysterically and falling down every time he touches the ball.

“You are coming tomorrow, yes?” Yuri asks.

Every night I check Zhuki’s face to be sure. “Yes. Tomorrow.”

“Good.” Yuri slaps me on the back. “Good work tonight. You are improving. Stronger.”

“Yes,” Zhuki says, “not bad for a butcher’s son. Not bad at all.”

I
know now what it means to lead a double life. To chase after a shouldn’t, with a should dragging like an anchor from your neck. Prince Charles, President Clinton, Prime Minister Berlusconi, I never liked any of you. Really. But I understand you now. Sometimes you just can’t stay away.

So I save an entire column in the ledger of my conscience before I even commit the individual infractions. Not that a prayer exists that can give me absolution anyway. Me secretly playing calcio with Yuri Fil is worse than if Mamma and Silvio had had an affair, worse than if Luca had gone to play for Juventus. It’s so far beyond the actuarial tables of penance and forgiveness, I know that if I don’t want it to squat in my head for the rest of my life, if I don’t want to drag it around behind me or live in the shadow of its bulk, I must somehow incorporate it. Pretend the lie is simply a part of me. So I pull at it, twist it with logic, thin it with rationalizations, shrink it by comparing it to all the other messed-up things people do these days, and keep working at it until it seems minuscule, a nanofabric that can be knit right into my skin, the lumpiness and itchiness unnoticeable to everyone but me.

After Martina’s every night, I go up to the aula. I don’t have the nerve yet to fill in the first panel with paint, so I start on the second. This time, I use a giant sheet of paper from the roll and measure out a meticulous grid of squares to match the smaller grid I’ve drawn on the poster. After that, it’s a simple matter of multiplication and diligent copying. When I’m finished with the drawing, I tack the paper onto the ceiling and poke along the lines with a pushpin, then rub charcoal into the holes until it creates a perfect dotted outline.

I look up at the results. It’s probably the hardest panel of the nine. The most complicated.
The Deluge.
Forty days and forty nights cooped up with your family in an ark. No wonder Noah got trashed on vat wine when it was all over. These days they would make a reality show out of it, each person driven slowly insane by their loved ones and jumping overboard. I darken the lines on the island and the bank before starting in on the people. There are maybe a hundred figures in the picture, some of the true deficienti cowering under a sheet, trying not to get wet, the rest realizing the threat and panicking to save themselves, scrambling up rocks and trees and the side of the ark, holding bundles of belongings above their heads, a few even trying to tread water or pile into a rowboat. Every man for himself. Every man doomed.

At ten o’clock I go outside and wait for the Ukrainians. I sit on the fifth-year bench, looking down onto the town. The bench used to sit at the entrance of the liceo, but my first year, the fifth-year boys clustered around it and dragged the whole thing ten meters, concrete base and all, right to where the terrace drops off. I remember they were so fottuto pleased with themselves. On breaks, seven or eight of them would squeeze onto the bench and look down on San Benedetto like Romulus looking down on the city of Rome, victors over their brothers, masters of all, the world laid out submissively at their feet. What a joke. Now when I see those same fifth-years on the street, they’re just like the rest of us, living at home and working for our papàs or our papàs’ friends.

I watch the lights and the people in the town, small as crumbs, filling in the meticulous rows of restaurant tables along the passeggiata, a few crawling along the empty beach. I imagine a giant tsunami coiling up on the horizon and roiling over all of it, like the one in Indonesia last Christmas, wiping out the entire population and scrubbing the town clean. The water would build and climb steadily up the hill, terrace by terrace, and Charon’s aula would be released from its foundation, floating up on the waters to the level of Signora Malaspina’s villa. I would be trapped in the aula for days, forced to eat splinters of wood and plaster chips to survive. Eventually, the water would recede, and somehow Zhuki and I would be the only survivors, stumbling out of our respective arks into the embrace of a rainbow, vowing immediately to start the civilization over from scratch. None of the cazzate of modern society. Just the two of us. Purely for the good of the world.

Over the past week, I’ve found out that the Ukrainians are not a punctual people, but tonight they’re so late, I worry they won’t come at all. They told me they have a friend from Genoa staying for a few days. Maybe he does not play calcio. Finally at ten-thirty, I see the bright, white beacon of a cell phone sweeping through the brush. This time the voices are in Italian. Ah yes, the friend from Genoa.

And can you even guess who the “friend from Genoa” is?

Vanni Fucci.

Vanni Fottuto Fucci. The other star striker who plays for Genoa, who represented the Azzurri in the last World Cup, and no doubt will again for the next one in Germany. Vanni Fottuto Fucci, Armani underwear model,
Playgirl
centerfold, and the man who has the panties of all the women on the continent hooked to his eyelid, so when he blinks a half second too long, four hundred million thongs, bikinis, and even granny pants simultaneously drop to the floor. Vanni Fottuto Fucci, the bastard who for an hour and a half of emotional injury time makes me look like a stumbling idiot in front of Zhuki and, with his crossovers and his foot stalls and his fancy drag-backs, even manages to tangle the feet of the great Yuri Fil.

Oh, he has all the moves—the flaunted familiarity with her family, the shameless use of Little Yuri as a prop of his tenderness, and the pathological urge to take his shirt off. When he pulls it up over his head and reveals a set of tortoiseshell abs, it feels like a bandage being ripped off my skin. They say he has a painting of himself as a centaur hanging above his bed for all his conquests to see. Could it be any worse? Vanni Fucci staying in Signora Malaspina’s villa, steps away from Zhuki’s bedroom door.

I search her eyes for any sign of attraction. But she doesn’t dwell on Vanni Fucci any longer than necessary in order to read his next move, and her eyes stay straight ahead in such perfect concentration that it would make both Marcello Lippi and the Dalai Lama proud. You can tell, she’s in this one to win. Still, three minutes into the first half, Vanni Fucci manages to get behind her and score.

“Goooooooooooooooool!” he shouts, making double figs with his fingers and running around the field, laughing in her direction as if it’s one of their inside jokes. “Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!”

Like I’ve said, I’m no expert on women, but it seems like a poor way to win her over.

And sure enough, I hear her mutter something in Ukrainian, which I convince myself means “stronzo among stronzos,” and it gives me a small pinhole of hope. If she can see the stronzos, maybe she can see the good guys, too.

At halftime, Vanni Fucci replays his best moves for us, and Little Yuri starts doing his limp-limbed dance in the middle of the field that he does every night at this time because he’s six and should be in bed by now.

“How long are you staying in San Benedetto?” I ask Vanni Fucci.

“I’m going back to Genoa with them on Tuesday.”

Suddenly the world stops spinning, and the stars swirl and fall from the sky in a burning rain around me. “Tuesday?”

“Yuri must go for the process,” Zhuki says. “With the sporting judges.”

Yuri hangs his head in shame.

“Only for a few days,” Zhuki adds. “And then we’ll be back.”

“Don’t worry, Yuri,” Vanni Fucci says, laughing and hitting him on the arm, “if it doesn’t work out, you can always retire to the glue factory in America.”

Yuri looks up and shrugs. “I think America is not so bad place for calcio player. Not so much competition, and nobody on the street know who you are. Do you know Ronaldinho went to America last year, walked around for two weeks, and nobody recognizes this is famous man? Whole world know his face, his hair. Europe. South America. Asia. Africa. Australia. But not America. Can you imagine? Ronaldinho! Walking on streets in Los Angeles. No bodyguard, nothing.”

“Sounds like hell to me,” Vanni Fucci says.

“To me? Like heaven. I would go to America tomorrow. No problem. I have aunt in Chicago. She love Chicago. But Tatiana, she say she can no leave Europe. She think they are animals in America, eating with their hands and wearing cheap cloth-es.”

Yuri backpedals into the center of the field, blowing the whistle for the second half to begin. Thank you, Tatiana. I take back every bad thought I’ve ever had about you.

For the entire second half, I chug up and down the field like a referee. We are winning, mostly because Vanni Fucci won’t pass anyone else the ball. And then, in the last few minutes, he decides to chip the ball to me. I’m not expecting it, and I trip. I go down hard, nothing graceful about it, just tangled feet and whump! I look up at the sky full of stars, my whole body aching as Vanni Fucci swoops in and scores the goal.

“All okay?” Yuri reaches a hand down to me and pulls me vertical.

“I’m alive.”

We watch Vanni Fucci take his victory lap, thrusting figs into the air.

“You know,” Yuri says. “I know my sister very well. And Zhuki, she does not interest with Vanni. I tell you, since we are children, she never like strongest, most handsome man in room. When she was little girl in village, she always take care of three-leg puppy, two-head chicken, cow that give no milk . . .”

“Thanks. I get the idea.”

“Good.”

F
ede has let me know with an infinite number of SMS-es that he thinks I’ve been blowing him off, so after the match on Sunday night, I track them down at the Truck Show. The Truck Show is a small, cheap amusement park at the back of town with a giant picture of a truck at the entrance. It’s also Bocca’s part-time job. I try not to come here often because the clientele is mostly thirteen-year-old boys ramming into each other in bumper cars for hours on end or head butting the punching bag to see if they can get the lights to go halfway up. I guess it’s a good place to go if you want to see why the Roman Empire fell.

“Well, if it isn’t Etto.”

Bocca throws the basketball straight at my chest, and I catch it without flinching.

“When did you get reflexes?”

I throw it back at Bocca and sit down on the bench under Michael Jordan’s luminous foot, part of a giant light box. If you’re sitting at the exact right spot on the passeggiata, you can see it from pretty far away, his scissoring legs suspended in midair, the illuminated orange ball an extension of his arm. Bocca is supposed to be taking tickets for the basketball game. Instead, he and Fede are in the middle of a never-ending shoot-out.

“So why aren’t you down at Camilla’s tonight, Fede?”

“Eh. I need a break from watching Claudia and Casella make fish eyes at each other.”

Bocca sinks a free throw. “Look at that! Look at that!” he shouts. “Seven!!”

“That’s
six,
” Fede says.

“What are you talking about? I’ve got seven, you’ve got six.”

“Bullshit.”

“Where’d you learn how to count?”

“From your auntie.”

“Deficiente.”

“Cretino.”

“Finocchio.”

“Vaffan’.”

Bocca finishes up his round. His last shot bounces off the backboard and into his hands. He tosses the ball to Fede.

“Thirteen–twelve. What’re we going up to?”

“First one to a hundred. Winner plays Etto.” They both laugh.

A crowd of thirteen-year-old boys has been forming a safe distance away, their arms crossed with their fists pressed behind their biceps. Some of them have cigarettes dangling at their sides, and they pinch them and inhale thinly to make it look like they’re smoking gangia and not tobacco. But you can tell they’re getting impatient, creeping closer and shifting their weight.

Fede’s turn. He shoots another ten, and half of them go in.

“Come on, you’re hogging the game,” one boy finally says, and it emboldens the others.

“Yeah, Bocca, you’re supposed to be working here, not playing.”

Fede throws the ball back to Bocca, and Bocca shrugs. “I’m testing the equipment. Safety check. And after that is my lunch break.” His first shot bounces off the rim.

“It’s not lunchtime. It’s after midnight.”

“You should be home in bed, then.”

“Come on, let us shoot. If you don’t, we’re going to tell your boss on you.”

“Well, we’re going to tell your mammas you’re smoking,” Fede says.

“Then I’m going to say your mamma left the cigarettes on the nightstand after we . . .” The other boys laugh.

“Come here,” Bocca says to the leader. He hesitates, so Bocca uses the magic open sesame of thirteen-year-old boys everywhere. “What’s the matter, you scared?”

The boy can’t back down. He takes a few cautious steps in Bocca’s direction, glancing back at his friends. Bocca waits until he’s only an arm’s length away. He pulls the rims of his eyes down with his fingers until you can see only red, and he forces his voice up from the back of his throat.

“I’m gonna eat your soul,” he says.

The kid jumps back. “Freak.”

Bocca and Fede double over laughing.

“Loser,” the kid continues once he’s a safe distance away. “Grown men hanging out at the Truck Show. Probably don’t have any girlfriends.”

“Yeah,” his friends chime in. “Losers.”

“Come on, let’s go clobber the punching bag.”

“Yeah.”

Fede and Bocca are still laughing hysterically. They try to slap fives, but miss because they’re laughing too hard.

“I’m gonna eat your soul . . . good one, Bocca, eh, Etto?”

“Eh.”

Fede stops laughing. He tosses the ball to Bocca and sits down on the bench next to me.

“Okay, Etto, why the serious face?”

“I’m not allowed to have a serious face?”

“Not unless you tell us why.”

“I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“Nothing.” I can hear the Sicilian Bull Ride bellowing from the other side of the park. Ride it for ten seconds as it bucks and shoots fire from its nostrils, and you can win a stuffed bear. Fede stands up, walks over to the line, and eyeballs his next shot. It rolls around the rim and goes in. Bocca retrieves the ball and throws it back to Fede.

“Have either of you ever thought about living somewhere else?”

They both turn to look at me. Fede shrugs. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere else.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. Nothing in particular. I’ve just been thinking lately that it might be nice to have the abstract possibility to leave.”

“You can leave whenever you want.”

“I mean, without the guilt trips or the gossip or becoming my nonno’s next cautionary tale. . . .”

“I don’t know what the cazzo that word means, Etto.
Abstract.
” Fede sinks another shot and laughs. “Yes, of course, an abstract life would be easier. Abstract people. Abstract choices. But what’s so bad about your real life, Etto? What’s so bad?” Fede takes the rest of his shots, and all but one go in.

“Lucky,” Bocca snaps, and he snatches the ball away.

The shoot-out comes down to the last shot. Bocca makes a clean swish, his hands suspended in the air.

“Eat it!” he says.

“Double or nothing,” Fede says.

“You’re on.”

I sit through the next round, watching them, and I feel a little like Nonna must feel, like I’ve got my face pressed to the glass looking in on everybody else.