White Like Milk, Red Like Blood
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WHITE LIKE MILK,
RED LIKE BLOOD
Alessandro D’Avenia
Translated by
Franco Betti and Marjorana Karathanasis
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
To my parents,
Who taught me to look to
the sky with my feet on
the ground.
To my students,
who teach me every day
how to be reborn.
“The son of a king was eating at the table. While cutting the ricotta, he cut his finger and a drop of blood fell on the ricotta. He said to his mother, ‘Mamma, I would like a woman who is as white as milk, and as red as blood.’
‘Oh, my son, who is white is not red and who is red is not white. But seek and see if you can find her.’”
“The Love of Three Pomegranates”
by Italo Calvino, Italian Fairytales
1
Everything is a color. Every emotion is a color. Silence is white. White is a color I can’t stand; it doesn’t have borders. To tell a white lie, to be a white elephant, to raise a white flag, to leave a page white, to have a white strand of hair … when white isn’t even a color. It is nothing, like silence: a nonentity, lacking words and music. To be silent is to be white. I cannot be in silence or alone—they’re the same thing. I get a pain in my gut. I’ve never understood it. It compels me to get on my scooter, which is now in bad shape, without brakes (when will I have it repaired?), and wander around aimlessly, gazing into the eyes of young girls who I happen to see so that I know I’m not alone. If one of them looks back at me, I exist.
Why am I like this anyway? I lose control. I am unable to be alone. I need … I don’t know what. What madness! To compensate, I have an iPod. Oh yeah! Because when you go out and you know that the day awaiting you has the flavor of dusty asphalt at school and a tunnel of boredom swamped by homework, parents, and a dog afterward, again and again until death do us part, only the right soundtrack can save you. You jam two earbuds in your ears and enter into a different dimension. You enter into the right color, the right emotion. If I need to fall in love: soft rock. If I need to recharge: heavy metal. If I need to get pumped up: rap with a crude array of profanity. That way, I’m not alone: white. There is someone to keep me company and give color to my day.
Not that I get bored. I have a thousand projects, ten thousand desires, a million dreams to realize, a billion things to initiate. But I can never start on them, because nobody is interested. And then I say to myself: Leo, why the fuck do you care? Let it go; enjoy what you have.
Life only comes around once, and when it becomes white, my computer is the best way to color it. I can always find someone to chat with (my screen name is ThePirate, like Johnny Depp.) I know how to listen to the others. It makes me feel good. Or maybe I take my brakeless scooter out and wander around aimlessly. If I don’t have anywhere to go, I stop by Niko’s and we play a couple of songs, he on bass and I on electric guitar. One day we’ll become famous, we’ll have our own band, we’ll call it The Cutthroats. Niko tells me that I should sing because I have a beautiful voice, but I’m embarrassed. With the guitar, the fingers sing, and fingers never blush. Nobody boos a guitarist, but a singer …
If Niko is busy, I meet up with some others at the bus stop. The stop is right in front of the school, where every kid in love has declared it to the whole world. You always find someone there, and at times, some girls. At times, even Beatrice, and I go there for her.
It’s strange: in the morning nobody wants to be in school, in the afternoon you find everybody there. The difference is that there are no vampires then, which is to say, no professors—the bloodsuckers that go back home and lock themselves in their sarcophagi, waiting for their next victims. Even though, contrary to the nature of vampires, the professors go out in the light of day.
But if Beatrice is in front of the school, it is another thing completely. Green eyes that, when opened wide, take up her whole face. Red hair that, when she lets it down, falls all over you. A few well-chosen words. If she were a film, you would have to invent a new genre. If she were perfume: sand early in the morning, when the beach is alone with the sea. What color? Beatrice is red. As love is red. A tempest. A hurricane that sweeps you away. An earthquake that shatters your body to pieces. That’s the way she makes me feel every time I see her. She doesn’t know it yet, but one of these days I will tell her.
Yes, one of these days I will tell her that she is the one for me and I am the one for her. And this way, there is no way out; when she realizes this, everything will be perfect, like in the movies. I only have to find the right moment and the right hairstyle. Because I think it comes down to a hair problem. Only if Beatrice would ask me to would I cut it. But then what if I lose my strength like that guy in history? No, the Pirate cannot cut his hair. A lion without a mane is not a lion. My name isn’t Leo for nothing.
2
Once, I saw a documentary about lions. A male with an enormous mane came out from the forest, and a warm voice was saying: “The king of the jungle has his crown.” Such is my hair: free and majestic.
How comfortable it is to wear it like they do. How comfortable it is to never need to comb it and imagine that it grows out freely, as if all my thoughts were sprouting out from my head, every now and then, exploding and dispersing. I make a gift of my thoughts to others, like the bubbles of a f
reshly opened Coca-Cola, fizzing in exaltation! With my hair, I say a host of things. This is so very true!
Everybody defines me only by my hair. That is, the others at school do, those in the crew, the other Pirates: Sponge, Rod, Curly. Dad gave up long ago. Mom thinks only of criticizing my hair. Grandma, when she sees me, almost dies of a heart attack (but at least she is ninety)!
But why is it so hard to understand my hair? First they tell you, “You have to be authentic and express yourself and be true to yourself!” Then, when you are trying to show your true self, they tell you, “You don’t have any identity of your own. You look and act like everyone else.”
What kind of reasoning is this? Who can make any sense of it! Either you are yourself, or you are like all the others. It makes no sense.
They’re never happy with anything. The truth is, they are envious, especially all the bald ones. If I were to become bald, I’d kill myself.
However, if Beatrice doesn’t like my long hair, I will have to get it trimmed, but I’m going to have to think about it first. It could even be taken as a sign of strength. “Beatrice, either you love me like I am, with this hair, or nothing can come of us, because if we cannot agree on this small point, how can we ever be together? Everyone must be his own person and accept others as they are. That’s what they say on TV all the time. Otherwise, what kind of love is it? Come on, Beatrice, why don’t you understand? Besides, everything about you is fine with me, which gives you the upper hand.”
Girls are always in control. How come they always have the upper hand? If you are beautiful, everybody is at your feet. You choose what you want. You do what you want. You wear what you want … it doesn’t matter, since everyone admires you anyway. So lucky!
With me, on the other hand, there are days when I won’t even step out of the house. I feel so ugly that I would like to stay barricaded in my bedroom, without looking into a mirror. I am white! A white face. Without color. What torture! Instead, there are some days when I am red, too. Where can you find a young man like me? I slip on a form-fitting shirt, and I slide into a pair of skintight jeans, and I am a god. Zac Efron would only be my assistant. I strut around the streets, on my own. To the first girl I encounter I say, “Hey, beautiful, let’s go out tonight, because I want to offer you this unbelievable opportunity! It’s in your best interest, because when you’re at my side, everybody will look at you and say, ‘How the fuck was she able to grab some hunk like that?!’ Your girlfriends will die of envy.”
What a god I am! What a full life I have! I don’t stop for a minute. If it weren’t for school, I would be more rested, more handsome, more famous.
3
My school bears the name of a character from Mickey Mouse: Horace. The plaster on the walls is going to pieces, the classrooms are crumbling, the blackboards appear more gray than black, and the frayed geographic maps are laced with faded continents and nations long since gone. … The walls have two colors—white and brown—like the comic coloring books of Cucciolone ice cream sandwiches, but without the sweetness. The only sweet sound is that of the bell at the end of the day. When the bell strikes, it seems to be shouting, “You’ve wasted another morning within these bicolored walls. Get out of here!”
School is rarely useful. When I am assailed by uncomfortable feelings and drowned in white thoughts, I ask myself where I am going, what I am doing, if I will do anything worthwhile. Luckily, school is full of people stuck in the same situation that I am. We talk about everything, forgetting about those thoughts that in the end lead us nowhere—white thoughts, which we need to eliminate.
In a McDonald’s that smells of Big Macs, I am devouring hot french fries, while Niko is slurping an extra large coke through his straw.
“You shouldn’t think about whiteness.”
Niko always tells me this. Niko is always right. It’s not by chance that he is my best friend. He is the Will Turner to my Jack Sparrow. We save each other’s life at least once a month, because that is what friends are for. I choose my friends. This is the beauty of friends. You choose them and that is why you get along, because you have chosen them just exactly as you would have them be. But you don’t choose your schoolmates, who come into your life by chance and, in reality, can be ball-breakers.
In school, Niko is in the B group (I am in D), and he plays on the same soccer team: the Pirates. Two phenomenal players! But in class, you run into one who is always nervous: Electra. What kind of a name is that anyway? With a name like that, she is already off to a bad start.
Some people condemn their children with their choice of names. My name is Leo and it suits me fine. I am lucky: it makes you think of a handsome, strong person appearing out of a forest like a lion king with his mane. He roars. Or at least, in my case, he tries. … Unfortunately, everyone has his destiny written in his name. Take Electra: what kind of a name is that? It is like an electric current, which shakes you up just by the very name. That’s why she is always nervous.
Then we have the professional ball-breaker: Giacomo, nicknamed Stinker. Another name that means shit! Because he is like the poet, Giacomo Leopardi, a hunchback, without friends and yet, a poet. Nobody speaks to Giacomo. He stinks. And nobody has the courage to tell him. Since I fell in love with Beatrice, I take a shower every day, and shave once a month. Anyhow, it’s his own business, after all, if he does not wash. At least his mother could tell him to wash up. She obviously doesn’t. But what can I do about it? I certainly can’t save the world. That’s why we have Spiderman.
Niko’s burp brings me back to earth and, between laughs, I tell him, “You are right. I shouldn’t think about whiteness … ”
Niko gives me a slap of approval on the shoulder. “Tomorrow I want you beefed up. We have to humiliate those assholes!”
I lighten up immensely. What would school be without the soccer tournament?
My philosophy of life is summed up in these luminous words of Bart Simpson, my only master and guide: “I don’t know why I did it, I don’t know why I had fun doing it, and I don’t know why I’ll do it again.” For example. Today, the professor of History and Philosophy is sick. There you have it! A substitute will come. It will be the usual loser.
“You mustn’t use that word!”
Mom’s menacing words thunder in my head, and yet, I use it. You’ve got to use what’s needed at the moment! The substitute is by definition an absolute, cosmic loser.
Firstly, because she substitutes another professor who in her own right is already a loser, and therefore the substitute is a loser squared.
Secondly, since she works as a substitute. What kind of life is it to sub for someone who is sick? That is, not only are you cursed, but you bring that curse to others. Loser, to the third power.
We were waiting to ambush the substitute—who is as ugly as sin, with her neat, violet-colored dress—ready to assail her with spitballs launched from emptied Bics with murderous precision.
Instead, a young man comes in. Jacket and shirt. Precise. Eyes too black for my taste. Black-rimmed glasses on a nose way too long. A briefcase full of books. Way too often, he repeats that he loves his subject. Just what we needed! Someone who believes in what he does. That’s the worst! I don’t remember his name. He told us, but I was talking to Silvia.
Silvia is someone you can talk to about everything. I really like her a lot, and I often hug her. I do it because she is happy, and I am, too. However, she is not my type. I mean, she is a cool person; you can speak about everything with her and she knows how to listen and how to give you advice. But she lacks that something extra: that magic touch, that enchantment. Beatrice’s got it. Plus she doesn’t have Beatrice’s red hair. With just a look, Beatrice can make you dream. Beatrice is red. Silvia is blue, like all true friends. Instead, the substitute is only a little black spot in an irremediably white day.
Shit, shit, double shit!
4
He has black hair. Black eyes. Black jacket. In short, he looks like Darth Vader in Star War
s. The only thing he is lacking is the toxic breath with which to kill students and colleagues. He can’t figure out what to do, because nobody gave him any lesson plans, and Prof Argentieri’s cell is off. Argentieri has a cell phone and she doesn’t even know how to use it. Her kids gave it to her. It even takes photos. She doesn’t have a clue. She finds it useful only for communication with her husband. Yes, because Argentieri’s husband is ill. He has a tumor, poor guy! So many people get tumors. If you get it in the liver, there is nothing you can do about it. You’ve really got to be cursed. And her husband has been struck right in the liver.
Argentieri has never spoken to us about this. Nicolosi, the PE teacher, is the one who told us. Argentieri’s husband goes in for chemotherapy at the hospital of Nicolosi’s husband. Wow! What rotten luck Argentieri has! She is boring, nitpicks to death, and is obsessed with that guy who talks about the fact that nobody can bathe twice in the same river, something that seems so obvious to me. … However, I feel pity for her when she checks her cell to see if her husband is trying to reach her.
Nonetheless, the sub tries to give us a lesson, but, like all subs, he can’t manage it, because, of course, nobody lets him. Actually, this is the right moment to raise hell and to have a good laugh at his expense. At a certain moment, I raise my hand and ask him, with a straight face, “Why did you decide to become a teacher … ” adding, under my breath, “ … a loser?”
Everybody laughs. He doesn’t bat an eyelash, “It’s my grandfather’s fault.”
Now, this guy is really way out there.
“When I was ten, my grandfather told me a story from A Thousand and One Nights.”
Silence.
“But now let’s speak of the Carolingian Renaissance.”
The whole classroom looks at me. I am the one that started this, and I must finish it. They are right. I’m their hero.
“Prof, excuse me, but the story from A Thousand and … you mean that one?”
Someone laughs. Silence. A silence from a Western film. His eyes on mine.
“I thought you didn’t care about learning how one becomes a loser … ”