White Like Milk, Red Like Blood

by Alessandro D'Avenia

  Enter The Dreamer. I can’t believe it. A professor who goes to pay a visit to a student in the hospital! A substitute, actually. I feel like a king who touches the sky with his finger, or something like that. The Dreamer sits next to the bed and tells me about school. The oral exams, homework, and something about the ongoing curriculum. By now, we are near the end of the term; Christmas vacation is fast approaching. Silvery decorations have appeared on the blackboard, and Blackbeard, the janitor with a beard so long and thick that you could hang Christmas ornaments there along with strings of tiny lights, has prepared his scrawny little tree. I can imagine it all, and I’m sorry I’m not there, during one of those rare moments when school becomes so much fun.

  The Dreamer tells me that he, too, when he was my age, broke his arm playing soccer. He shows me the scar that remained after surgery. Luckily, I didn’t need an operation and I wasn’t conscious when the bone was put back into place. While sleeping, you avoid lots of pain. The problem is when you wake up.

  Anyway, The Dreamer is really amusing, because he tells stories just like anyone would. That is, he is normal. He has a life just like mine. He even tells me a joke, which isn’t so funny, but I pretend it is so he isn’t disappointed. He asks me how my dream is coming along, and I bring him up-to-date. I tell him that everything has gone to pieces with the accident, and besides, I don’t know if I wish to continue, because every time I work on it, something bad happens: first with Beatrice, now with me. The Dreamer smiles and tells me this is part of having true dreams.

  “True dreams are built with obstacles. Otherwise, they aren’t transformed into projects but remain dreams. The difference between a dream and a project is exactly this: the beatings, like in my grandfather’s story. Dreams are not already made, they reveal themselves little by little, possibly in a different way than that in which we have dreamed them. … ”

  The Dreamer tells me that I’m lucky to be in bed with a broken back! I don’t believe him, and I tell him so.

  “I had no doubt.”

  We laugh. However, he explains to me that if I am in this bed it is because I was doing something special; I was realizing my dream by carrying the letter. And, if a dream has so many obstacles, it means it’s the right one. His eyes have lit up. When I say goodbye, I get confused and call him Dreamer. He laughs and adds that he knows I call him by this name. He leaves and I bite my lip, because with The Dreamer, everything’s cool, even nicknames. Who said that to gain authority you have to be uncool?

  The prof’s visit has put me in a good mood: I feel like getting out of here, like dining with Mom and Dad, like taking Terminator to pee, like playing music with Niko, like studying with Silvia, like kissing Beatrice … But in the end, in the real end, The Dreamer pisses me off somewhat, because … it makes me angry to admit it … I want to be like a loser substitute of History and Philosophy.

  39

  Mom found the letter. It’s dirty with blood and asphalt. It was in the pocket of my jeans. I threw the jeans away. They were torn. But before throwing them away, she went through the pockets. Two euros. A rubber band. A card with Bart Simpson on it. Erasers. A letter. My blood is on that letter, coagulated and dried. And it frames the name of Beatrice. This is the second time I’ve given blood for her. And this makes me happy, just like the first time. I read over the letter. It’s a good letter, even if some of the words can’t be read, sullied as they are with blood. I must find a way to give it to her. If only I could get up from this bed by myself!

  40

  Gandalf also comes to visit me. I wasn’t expecting it. He has twenty thousand classes, at least eight million students, his parish, and he must have accumulated about one hundred years of going around every day with that transparent body of his that is so similar to that of the Holy Spirit that he believes in so much … and yet, he comes to see me. Not that it bothers me—on the contrary, it shocks me. I wasn’t expecting it. He asks me what happened. I tell him everything, even about the letter. I feel at ease. I don’t tell him about Beatrice, I stay general. He tells me I am one of God’s favorite sons. I tell him I don’t want to hear any talk about God, because if He existed, He wouldn’t let Beatrice get sick.

  “If He is omnipotent and omniscient, why did He do this to me? Why does He want to make me and others like me suffer when we haven’t done anything wrong? Talk about a favorite son. I really don’t understand God. What kind of God are you, if you let evil exist?”

  Gandalf tells me that I am right. What does he mean, I am right? I provoke him and he says I am right? Wow! Priests should at least defend their positions. Gandalf insists that even Jesus, who was the son of God, felt abandoned by his father and screamed this out at the moment of his death.

  “If God treated His own son this way, He would treat all his favorite sons the same way.”

  What kind of reasoning is that? However, I had no ground to stand on, because, even so, says Gandalf, this is how it is written in the Gospels: “If someone wanted to invent a strong God, he could easily do it, he wouldn’t imagine a weakling and, moreover, one that would make him feel abandoned by his father at his moment of death.”

  Gandalf sees blood on the letter that I keep near me on the nightstand. He tells me that it brings the crucifix to mind: a letter written to mankind, signed with the blood of God, who, with that blood, saves us all. I stop Gandalf, otherwise he’ll start preaching for ten thousand hours, and it doesn’t seem the right moment for that. Anyway, he gave me a hard time but, also, I like his idea of the blood. Like I did with Beatrice. Maybe it is the only true thing in the whole discussion about Christ: love is giving blood. Love is blood red.

  “Leo, there is no convincing answer as to why we suffer. However, since the time Christ died on the cross for us, some sense has been made. There is a meaning. … ”

  I embrace him with affection, as well as I can. He has already gone when I realize he has left his crucifix resting on the letter for Beatrice. Inscribed on the back of that piece of wood in the form of a T is this: “Giving one’s life for one’s friends, there is no greater love than this.” Not a bad phrase. I want to remember it. I put the crucifix back in the envelope; when I return to school I must give it back to Gandalf. Besides, I am ashamed to be seen with a crucifix: it brings bad luck.

  41

  I am tired of being stuck in bed. So tired I could die. The days never end. My position is uncomfortable, my arm in the cast itches so much I would like to pull it out. The minutes never end. The only way to fill them up is not to think. The TV is on all the time, and this is the best distraction. Because if I concentrate on my body, I feel pain, and if I concentrate on my thoughts, I feel even more pain. Why has pain decided to become my best friend?

  As The Dreamer says, it’s necessary so we can make our dreams come true, for that reason I accept it, even though I would gladly do without it. There is probably an easier way to achieve things … without so much effort, maybe … I get tired just watching TV. I don’t know why, given that I am immobilized in bed. But it’s a fact. Watching TV tires me. It’s all the same: a total anesthetic. On TV, half the stories are about people’s secrets, the other half deal with what they do when their secrets have been revealed. I have one secret, but I don’t go and talk about it on TV.

  My secret is Beatrice.

  42

  Silvia came to visit me. She brought me a book. It’s a book of short stories.

  “It’s a good pastime.”

  Silvia is like the undertow of the sea; even if you don’t hear it, it’s always there. If you listen to it, it lulls you to sleep. If I loved her, I would marry her immediately, but love is not the crashing of the waves, love is a tempest. I ask her about Beatrice. She tells me that she has been readmitted, for the second cycle of chemotherapy.

  “She is here, in your hospital.”

  I can’t believe it. I am sleeping under the same roof as Beatrice, and I didn’t know it. This sends me into hyperkinetic ecstasy. I don’t talk too much about i
t with Silvia, because it is such a beautiful thought that I want to enjoy it by myself. Later on, I want to go back to this thought, and I must do one thing. Actually, I’ll do it right away.

  “Why don’t you take my letter to her?” I ask Silvia.

  She tells me this is not the right moment and lowers her eyes, almost sad. Beatrice sleeps a lot during chemo, which is very tiring for her. Beatrice vomits often. Silvia doesn’t have the courage to go there and give her somebody else’s letter. Maybe it’s not the right time. I think Silvia is right.

  We talk about school. Erika-with-a-k is now going out with Luca. They seem to be inseparable. The strange thing is that Erika-with-a-k, who is usually a good student, came to class unprepared, twice. The day before, each time, she had been with Luca. Luca’s never studied much and takes Erika-with-a-k around town for whole afternoons. They waste a bunch of time and kiss each other. Erika-with-a-k says she’s discovered that studying, after all, is not important. Now that she has love, she’s put everything else in a different perspective. Because there is nothing that makes someone feel as good as love. Erika-with-a-k is right, I agree with her. I tell Silvia that to have happiness is to have a heart full of love. Silvia agrees; however, she says, she finds it strange for someone to change her personality when she falls in love. If Erika has always studied, why quit now that she’s in love? She seems to have become an ordinary person. Erica-without-a-k; it’s like she isn’t being herself.

  Why does Silvia always bring up these subtleties on issues that seem so clear to me? She even makes me doubt my untouchable conviction about falling in love. I ask her if she’s ever been in love. Silvia indicates that she has and stares at the fingertips of one of her hands.

  “With who?”

  “It’s a secret. Maybe one day I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Okay, Silvia, I respect your privacy, but know that you can always trust me, with any secret.”

  Silvia smiles with uncertainty, and then she tells me about Nicolosi. Nicolosi is the prof of physical education. A woman in her fifties that must have been beautiful in her day but no longer is. She does everything she can to look young, but she looks ridiculous. However, nobody dares tell her this to her face. She is not like Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is the Biology prof. Even if she is fifty, she is still beautiful, but fifty-year-old beautiful. Nicolosi, instead, dresses like a twenty-year-old, so she looks ridiculous. Anyway, Silvia told me that Nicolosi came to school with a miniskirt that drove the guys crazy.

  “No! And I missed it. … ”

  Silvia stops in her tracks.

  “You’re a pig!”

  “No, a lion. … ”

  As a matter of fact, the guys took pictures of her on their cell phones.

  “And you, don’t you like to be looked at?”

  Silvia has a moment of hesitation.

  “Yes … very much … but I don’t want to force people to gawk at me, and a woman knows how to do just that. Others prefer to wait for a person who’s there for them alone, someone who wants to discover them slowly, like someone does with a dream. … ”

  This is something else I have to ponder. Dreams are like stars; you see them shine only when the artificial lights are turned off, yet they have been there all along. It was you who didn’t see them, because of the strong distraction of the other lights. Silvia makes me reflect. She does it on purpose. And I fall asleep almost immediately. I’m not made to reflect at length. I fall asleep with the regret of what I am missing at school. Even if, before collapsing into darkness, the idea crosses my mind that I am not losing anything really important in life …

  It’s official: school is useless. If I become the minister of education, the first thing that I am going to do is close the schools.

  43

  When I wake up, I remember that Beatrice is in the same hospital, and I suck on this thought like a Mentos. This makes me forget the pain, the boredom, and television. When the most beautiful person you know is near you, everything, even ugly things, transforms. Before, nothing made any sense. Then, it all takes on life. I must come up with a plan. I want to see her at least. I am able to get out of bed now. I carry my arm in a sling and my neck is stiff thanks to the collar, but immobility is no longer necessary. The X-rays are good.

  Finally, I decide. I get out of bed. I’m not exactly a miracle of beauty, I can’t even take off my pajamas. That’s okay. In the hospital, you get used to seeing people in pajamas. In fact, it’s unbelievable how fast you can get used to being in pajamas in front of someone you don’t know. That’s the way it is in a hospital. Maybe it’s because we are all ridiculous in the same way when facing pain and suffering. All so much the same that pajamas are the right uniform to cancel out the differences. Besides, I have a very elegant pair of pajamas that belong to Dad. Mom brought them to me because they’re bigger and fit better over the cast. Also, they smell of Dad, which makes me feel at home.

  So elegantly attired, I venture down the corridors of the women’s wing. I don’t have the courage to ask the nurses directly where Beatrice is, so I wander around as if I were going for a walk. I stick my face in the rooms of the oncology department. Silvia told me that’s what they call the section dealing with cancer. I don’t really know why, but the onco must be something from Greek that has something to do with tumors, because the ology part of the word is always joined to another Greek term. I must look it up in the Rocci Dictionary when I go back home. Rocci is manna for the ophthalmologist! I don’t miss it at all. I peer into the rooms. Just like in my ward, the majority of patients are old people. Old. I feel like a sort of mascot. The elephant is seventy-five. … The hospital is a gallery of old people with white hair. The young people, if they’re in the hospital, are there because they are unfortunate; the old ones are in the hospital because they are old.

  But if you see a head with sparse red hair resting on a white pillow, like a rose lying on snow or the sun in the Milky Way, that is Beatrice sleeping. Yes, it’s Beatrice sleeping. … I enter. Her roommate is an old lady so full of wrinkles that it seems they have been sculpted. She smiles like a crumbled up piece of aluminum foil.

  “She is very tired.”

  I smile back. I approach, like a mummy, toward Beatrice’s bed. I am afraid. Because one tube is over her, and another tube goes directly into her wrist. It enters into the veins, and the needle that wounds Beatrice’s skin lets me get a glance at her red blood. My blood also runs in those veins. My super red blood cells are devouring those white ones of hers, making them red, too. I feel the pain of Beatrice overwhelming me, and I wish it were mine, and she were well. I have to stay in the hospital anyway.

  Beatrice is sleeping. She is different from what I remember. She is defenseless. She is pale, a strange blue color encircles her eyes, and I know it isn’t makeup. She continues sleeping. Her arms, resting at her sides, are covered by light blue pajamas. Her hands are delicate and thin. I had never seen her from so close up. She seems like a fairy. She is alone. She is sleeping. I stay there, contemplating her for at least half an hour. And she sleeps. We don’t say anything, but it’s not necessary. I stare at her face intensely to remember every trait. She has a little dimple on the right cheek that makes her look as if she were smiling even when she is sleeping. She doesn’t make any noise. You can’t hear her breathing. She is silent. Luminous as always, like a star in the night. Then, a nurse comes in to check things, and she asks me to leave. I stand up in a rather awkward way in my ceremonious pajamas.

  “Do you know her, Mr. Elegant?” the nurse asks me. She is as fat as Simmenthal, potted meat all compressed into gelatin, all bouncy because of the joke she has just made. I remain silent a second and then answer with a broad smile, “Yes, she is my girlfriend. In order to be near her, I had to break an arm. … ”

  The chubby nurse holds back something more than a smile, which I don’t know how to define. … Before leaving, I give Beatrice a caress. I don’t wake her, but upon her awakening, I want her to find my caress th
ere on her cheek.

  Get better, Beatrice. I have a dream. And I must take you along with me.

  44

  I didn’t leave the letter for Beatrice, I forgot all about it, all because of the gelatinous nurse who distracted me. However, maybe the timing wasn’t right. I open the letter to reread it. It’s as if I were reading it to her out loud. Gandalf’s cross falls to the floor. It was in the envelope. It got stuck in the most difficult spot to get to, like only useful things know how to do. I have to almost detach my healthy arm to get it back. I hold it tightly in my hand. Furious, I look at it. He, too, is sleeping. He, too, has the appearance of Beatrice while sleeping. And I understand that even he understands what Beatrice is experiencing, because he looks like he has gone through it, too.

  Why do good people, supposing that you exist, have to suffer? Of course, you don’t answer. I don’t know if you exist. But, if you do and if you make miracles, make one for me: make Beatrice get better. If you do, I will begin to believe in you. Agreed?

  45

  I have spent the whole day sitting in bed. With the microscope of my memory, I keep going over the sleeping face of Beatrice. I have snuggled to the dimple on her right cheek and I stayed there for hours, like a newborn in the cradle, or, like when I was a child and would color in those unbearable black-and-white albums. The world could be seen better that way; it seemed I could hear the silence without being afraid of it and touch the darkness. It was as if my benumbed senses could now stretch out after a long sleep. In this manner, the hours slipped away without me realizing it. Not like the TV. Because I’m not tired now; I could start all over again.