“One afternoon Bern found a wounded hare next to the woodshed and we took it to the treehouse. It peered at us with glassy eyes that were bright and anguished. A yearning came over all of us. ‘Let’s kill it!’ Bern said.
“‘We’ll be damned,’ Nicola replied.
“‘No. Not if it’s a sacrifice to the Lord. Tommi, hold it up.’
“I grabbed the hare by the ears. I could feel the rapid pulsing of its heart in my fingers, or maybe it was my own pulse. Bern opened a pair of scissors and passed a blade across the animal’s neck. But he was too gentle, he didn’t succeed in cutting it. The hare twitched, and almost got away from me.
“‘Cut!’ Nicola shouted. Now his eyes were feverish.
“Bern pulled the hare downward by its good paw; stretched out like that, it was very long. He closed the shears and plunged them into the animal’s throat like a dagger. I saw the point press into the fur on the opposite side, without piercing it. When he pulled the scissors out with a spurt of dark blood, the hare was still flailing.
“Bern stood frozen, the scissors in his fist. Now it seemed as if the hare were begging him to use them, to finish the job as quickly as possible. Nicola elbowed him aside, shoved the shears into the open wound, and promptly snapped them open. Blood splattered across my face.
“We buried it as far away from the house as possible. Bern and I dug with our hands while Nicola acted as lookout. When we returned to the burial site, a few hours later, there was a cross stuck in the ground. Cesare said nothing about it, but that evening he read a passage from Leviticus with long, eloquent pauses: ‘The hare, which indeed chews the cud, but does not have cloven hoofs and is therefore unclean for you. The pig, which does indeed have cloven hoofs, but does not chew the cud and is therefore unclean for you. You shall not eat their meat, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.’”
* * *
—
“THEY ARE UNCLEAN FOR YOU,” Tommaso repeated. Then he said it again, whispering: “Unclean.”
He cupped his hands loosely, rapt in something.
“But it was Nicola who got us the magazines,” he continued after a moment. “Sometimes Floriana sent him to town to run some errands. She had countless ways of favoring Nicola over us. To me, it didn’t matter; once a month I too was permitted to go into the city to see my father. But Bern couldn’t tolerate it. When Nicola or I came back from our brief outings, his eyes would rake us over, even if he said, ‘Out there? So tell me, what’s out there that should interest me so much?’
“Nicola had spotted the magazines on the display rack at the newsstand. Just a glance, at least so he’d thought, but the news dealer had invited him to take a couple: ‘I’m giving them to you. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your father.’
“We had a long discussion in the treehouse before opening them. We decided to look at only two pages a day, the sin would be less that way. We three talked a lot about guilt, the Commandments, and sin. In any case, we did not respect the agreement. We went through the whole magazines that same afternoon, shocked and unsmiling, as if we were looking straight into the infernal abyss. Even then I knew that I was focusing on the wrong details, I was scrutinizing those photographs differently from my brothers, but they didn’t notice it.
“Bern and Nicola lowered their shorts. It was the beginning of June, the clusters of mulberries left purple smears on the wooden planks, our elbows and knees.
“‘You too,’ Bern said to me.
“‘I don’t feel like it.’
“‘You too,’ he repeated. And I obeyed him.
“We forgot about the magazines. We didn’t need them anymore and we wouldn’t own any others. All we had to do was look at one another. In the evening, at supper, our shame was so great that it made us completely unreadable to Cesare.
“Other boys lived with us over time, but we kept them at a distance, we didn’t allow anyone to climb up into the tree. They only stayed for short periods anyhow, and one morning, without any notice, they were gone.
“Finally, the treehouse in the mulberry became too small. The last one to climb up there was Nicola. He found a hornets’ nest lodged among the branches. We always said that we would build a new, more spacious refuge, maybe over several trees connected by rope bridges, but time had begun moving faster than us.”
* * *
—
HE PAUSED and began counting silently on his fingers, very slowly. A part of me still wanted to urge him on, but another wanted to lose myself in his recollection of the early years at the masseria, to relive the warmth that I too had known there.
“It was still ’96,” he said, “September 1996. Nicola entered the last year of high school in Brindisi, to study humanities. To catch up, he had taken private lessons from a teacher in Pezze di Greco. He had moved out of the room we shared to the one where Cesare kept his oil paintings, to concentrate better. That room was always kept locked. Naturally, we’d broken in many times and we knew that the subject of the paintings was always the same: a meadow dotted with red flowers in which olive trees grew, with one flower much taller than the others in the foreground. That giant poppy was him, Cesare, that’s obvious, isn’t it? But I don’t know if I understood it so clearly back then.
“Nicola now had brand-new textbooks, an English dictionary of his own and a Latin one as well, while Bern and I continued to consult the one that was split in three from wear and tear, the words practically illegible. Nicola forbade us to touch his books, he said they were expensive. In the morning he would leave in the Ford with Floriana and return after lunch by bus. He was exempted from chores on the farm because in the afternoon he had to study, so his tasks were distributed between Bern and me and ate into part of our lessons. In any case, Cesare didn’t seem to want to spend as much time with us.
“And then the computer arrived. Two big boxes on the kitchen table. The technician opened them with a cutter and took out the parts protected by polystyrene. After all the years spent with Cesare, I wasn’t used to technology, we didn’t even have a radio. And now, all of a sudden, a computer! In our house!
“‘In my room,’ Nicola explained to the technician, who was pointing to an outlet in the wall.
“Bern leaped up. ‘Why?’
“He blocked the technician’s way, and almost made him stumble.
“When he saw that he couldn’t stop him, Bern asked, ‘Can we use it?’
“Cesare had put on his reading glasses to make out the small print on the box, but it was incomprehensible to him, you could tell by the worried arch of his eyebrows.
“‘Can we use it or not?’
“Cesare took a deep breath. He spoke looking directly at Bern, undeterred, yet, perhaps for the first time since I’d known him, his voice seemed to show some uncertainty: ‘The computer belongs to Nicola. His teacher . . .’” He stopped. ‘Be patient. Your time will come, too.’
“Floriana was leaning on the kitchen counter, looking tight-lipped at her husband, and I could tell it was a decision that they had made together.
“Meanwhile, Bern was on the verge of tears, the computer now placed in the only room of the house that was off-limits, the object of an irrepressible desire that a moment before he didn’t know he had.
“‘Based on what principle?’ he asked.
“No one answered. The technician unwound the cables and connected them.
“‘Based on what principle, Cesare?’ Bern repeated.
“It’s at that moment that something ruptured between them, in the pause between the question and the answer. Cesare said: ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his field, nor his slave, nor . . . ,’ but he was interrupted by the slamming of the door.
“Later, in the bedroom, Bern vented to me: ‘It’s not fair. They already gave him the room.’
“‘Nicola is older,’ I said.
“‘By a year. It doesn’t even bother you that he goes to school, while we’re stuck here,’ he accused me. ‘You don’t want to learn anything. And you don’t care about anything.’
“But it wasn’t true. Talking with him in the darkness, or listening in silence to the drops that fell from the eaves after the evening rainstorm: that was what I cared about, and it was better than anything I had ever had. Why couldn’t he be satisfied as well?
“‘How do you think they pay for Nicola’s private lessons?’ he persisted.
“‘I don’t know. With what Floriana earns?’
“Something hit me in the face: a balled-up sock. I threw it back at him.
“‘And how do you think they paid for the computer, you fool? Cesare gets paid to keep you here.’
“I didn’t want Bern to talk about it. The indemnity compensation, that’s what they called it on the foster-care forms. I could feel the indemnity compensation pinned to me, like the price tag on a new T-shirt.
“‘So?’ I said.
“‘So my mother also sends money to Cesare, what do you think? Even if he’s her brother. She sends it to him every month. And he benefits from it.’
“I saw his shadow sit up in bed.
“‘Starting tomorrow we’re on strike,’ he announced.
“‘What does that mean?’
“‘We’ll do what the baron did the day he escaped up into the trees.’
“‘Oh, sure. Cesare would make us come down immediately.’
“And yet I would have done so if Bern had asked me, I was ready to do anything for him, even if it meant never setting foot on the ground ever again.
“‘Right, we’ll do what the baron in the trees did,’ he went on, as if talking to himself by then. ‘It’s his approach we have to follow. From tomorrow on, no more lessons. No more prayers. No more chores.’
“I turned around to face the wall. One night, years ago, we had slept in the treehouse with the excuse of seeing shooting stars. Toward morning the air was so cold and damp that we had returned home, barefoot. Cesare had brought us cups of steaming chamomile tea to warm us up. He’d been good to me, more than anyone else. He didn’t deserve my disobedience.
“‘So are you with me?’ Bern asked.
“The next day we gathered under the holly oak to sing God’s praises. Cesare only allowed us to wear our tunics in the morning. When we first awoke, he said, we were purer.
“He read something from Ezekiel, I heard only a word or two. He’s over it, I kept telling myself with relief, sleep has calmed him down.
“Cesare asked him to find the passage about the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew’s Gospel. Floriana handed him the Bible and Bern opened it. He was faster than us at finding the verses, almost faster than Cesare by now. He held the open book in front of him, took a breath to begin reading, but no sound came out of his mouth.
“‘Go on,’ Cesare encouraged him.
“Bern glanced briefly at the sky, then back at the book.
“He closed it again. ‘I won’t read,’ he said.
“‘You won’t read? Why not?’
“Bern’s cheeks were flaming red. I was hoping he wouldn’t bring up the computer right then, if he did it would seem ridiculous, even to me.
“But Cesare understood just the same. He uncrossed his legs and reached over to take the Bible back from him. He gave it to me.
“‘Tommaso, you read for us this morning, if you would be so kind.’
“The olive trees embraced us all around. We could indeed have been the disciples gathered in Gethsemane.
“‘Luke?’ I asked, leafing slowly through the pages.
“‘We’d said Matthew,’ Cesare corrected me, ‘26:36.’
“I found the place. Bern was waiting for my show of loyalty. But he’d forgive me no matter what. Sure, he’d get over it sooner or later. My calves, crushed under my buttocks, had pins and needles.
“Instead Bern cried out: ‘Don’t read!’
“There was no arrogance in the way he said it, if anything it was a supplication.
“‘We’re listening, Tommaso,’ Cesare urged me.
“‘Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane . . .’
“‘Don’t read, Tommi,’ Bern said more softly. He knew he had me in his power now.
“I put the book down. Cesare took it and gave it to Nicola with a patient gesture. Nicola began to read, stumbling continually, the phrases disjointed due to his discomfort. He hadn’t yet finished when Bern jumped up. Crossing his hands behind his head, he rolled up the tunic and pulled it off. He tossed it on the ground like a rag, and stood there in his underwear. He was breathing rapidly, I could tell by the jerking of his shoulders. He seemed so vulnerable, so angry.
“The only sound was that of the leaves stirred by the wind. I bent forward to remove my tunic as well, but I was more awkward than him. Cesare, however, had stopped looking at us. With his eyes closed, he intoned the ‘Alleluia.’ At the second stanza Nicola and Floriana joined him, their eyelids lowered, as if to refuse to look at that naked, infidel version of us. Bern broke the circle and strode off toward the house. I followed him, driven by the accusatory singing of Nicola and his parents. When I was halfway there I turned to look at them sitting under the tree. I stood like that for a few seconds, suspended between the three of them and Bern, two families that were suddenly split, neither of which, I realized instantly, would ever really be mine.
“The strike lasted until the beginning of the summer. The first week, Cesare did not abandon the hope that it was nothing more than a passing whim. He would sit under the pergola with the books neatly stacked, and from there he kept giving us looks that made me sick to my stomach. But after a while he got tired and stopped waiting for us.
“He developed a strange cough. One day he had a long, vigorous outburst, and behind Bern’s back I brought him a glass of water. He accepted it, then took my hand and pressed it to his chest.
“‘Love is imperfect, Tommaso,’ he said. ‘You understand that, don’t you? Every human being is imperfect. If only you could make him see reason.’
“I drew my hand back and left him to himself. After that, he didn’t ask for my help again, he stopped bothering with us altogether. He allowed Bern and me to sit at the table, he still poured water into our glasses and tinted it with a drop of red wine, but it was as if we were strangers. We didn’t talk anymore, we didn’t sing.
“One evening Nicola lost control and went at Bern, slapping him. Instead of reacting, Bern slowly turned his head and offered him the other cheek so he could hit him again. His smile was mocking. Cesare stopped Nicola’s arm, then made him apologize. Floriana left the kitchen, leaving her plate half full; I didn’t remember her ever doing that before.
“‘For how much longer?’ I asked Bern when we went to bed.
“‘For as long as it takes.’
“Together we had not yet stopped praying, but as the weeks went by, new desires emerged in Bern. More than once, opening my eyes during the night, I saw him standing in front of the window, listening to the sounds of distant festivities, watching silent fireworks on the horizon. He wanted to be there, whatever was going on.
“‘Don’t worry,’ he’d say without turning around, ‘I’ll take care of you.’”
* * *
—
TOMMASO DRANK a little water. Swallowing seemed painful for him, all that talk must have left his throat parched.
“And then the palms began to die,” he said. “Word spread among the farmers that the parasite would also attack the olive trees and that the palms should be eliminated as a preventive measure. There was one palm tree at the masseria. For days Cesare wondered what to do about it. He circled around it, studied it. In July there was a scorching heat wave. I don’t know if Cesare was afraid the wind would carry the paras
ites from the south. But one morning we heard the buzzing of the chainsaw. From under the pergola we saw him on a ladder propped against the palm tree. One by one, the fronds dropped. When he was done with those, he got busy on the trunk. The blade slid against the bark, and I squeezed my eyes shut a few times, thinking it might escape his grip.
“With his fists on the table, Bern said, ‘He won’t make it.’
“But Cesare managed to cut into the trunk, and from there it didn’t take much to widen the wedge. The top of the palm remained upright for a moment. Then it leaned to the side opposite the slash and crashed to the ground.
“Cesare ran a rope under the trunk. Tying it around his waist, he started dragging the palm tree’s carcass. He was looking for a clear area to burn it. The trunk trailed a few yards behind him, but he groaned and fell to his knees, drained.
“‘We have to help him,’ I said. My heart was beating out of control. I was afraid he might have broken his back while we looked on uncaringly from the pergola. I took a step toward him, but Bern held me back by the arm: ‘Not yet.’
“Cesare got back on his feet, shifted the knotted rope from his pelvis to his shoulders, and, like an ox, began hauling again. The trunk jolted along, but he fell again, gripped by a fierce coughing fit.
“‘He’ll hurt himself!’
“Then Bern seemed to suddenly come to. We walked over to Cesare. Bern offered him a hand to help him up, then gently stroked his sweaty forehead.
“‘You’ll let us go to school like Nicola,’ he said.
“‘What do you hope you’ll find there, Bern?’
“Cesare’s voice was shaky, and not just from the exertion and the harsh coughing.
“‘You’ll let us go to school,’ Bern repeated, gently fingering Cesare’s torso where the rope had left a red burn mark.
“‘I’ve been praying so much for you. Night and day. So that Our Lord would illuminate your hearts again. Do you remember Ecclesiastes, Bern? Whoever increases knowledge increases grief.’
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