Heaven and Earth

by Paolo Giordano

  “Bern went on wiping away the sweat from his neck, from his chest, with a tenderness that I would have liked him to use on me.

  “‘Will you do it?’

  “Cesare bit his lips, which were cracked by the wind. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he murmured.

  “But Bern hadn’t finished, not yet. ‘You’ll let us go out with Nicola,’ he said, ‘even in the evening, whenever we want. And you’ll give us some of the money you get to keep us.’

  “Something appeared in Cesare’s eyes. ‘Is that what it’s about? Money?’

  “‘Will you do it?’ Bern insisted, already tying the rope around himself.

  “‘I will.’

  “‘Tommi, go to the tool shed, see if there’s another rope.’

  “As I rummaged through the tools, I wondered whether Bern knew it or if I was the only one aware of it: whether he knew how much Cesare loved him above anyone else, above his own son—though he could not admit it to Floriana or to himself and maybe not even to God. Because, though it was true that Bern shared only a fraction of his blood, their souls were identical.

  “After that day, there was a truce. A certain normality was restored, but nothing was the same as before. Now, during prayers, we held hands with a kind of reserve. Floriana had become openly sullen. Looking back, I’m sure she’d suggested that Cesare send us both away, and that he refused. One afternoon, while we were picking tomatoes, I saw her staring at one that was overly ripe, before angrily crushing it to a pulp in her closed fist.

  “Bern and I tore down what was left of the treehouse. By now, any promise that existed for us lay beyond the iron bar across the dirt track.

  “The first afternoon the three of us—Nicola, Bern, and I—ventured out alone in the car, we drove south, down to Leuca, to see how far away we could go. We walked around the lighthouse and Bern thought he could make out the profile of Albania. On the way back we got lost in the maze of streets around Maglie.

  “In the evening we’d go looking for good times. Nothing ever happened in Speziale, and in any case we weren’t well liked there. Once, music led us to Borgo Ajeni, where there was a festival. Smoke laden with animal fat billowed from the stalls. Bern and Nicola held their noses; they would have left immediately if they hadn’t been attracted by the crowd and the band that was playing. The smell of roasting meat made me ravenous. I ate it every time I saw my father, but neither of them knew it.

  “Bern must have seen something in my eyes. ‘I’m getting some,’ he said.

  “‘Don’t!’ Nicola tried to dissuade him.

  “But Bern was already leaning toward the woman who was flipping the ground meat on the grill.

  “I ate a sandwich and stopped, but he wanted another and then another, like a drug addict. The grease glistened on his lips and chin.

  “Nicola darkened and ended up not having any fun at all. ‘You’re murderers,’ he said as we returned to the car.”

  * * *

  —

  FOR A WHILE Tommaso focused on touching his fingertips together, pinkie to pinkie, ring finger to ring finger, and so on, as if to gauge his level of lucidity. “Then we found the Scalo,” he said in a neutral tone.

  He snapped his fingers and Medea got up right away, reached out her snout to sniff his hand and then lick it. Tommaso wiped it absently on the blanket.

  I gave him that moment to catch his breath, and in the meantime I tried to picture them, him, Bern, and Nicola, drawn here and there by music in the air on those summer nights, like strays, then arriving at the Scalo for the first time.

  But when Tommaso started talking again, he didn’t pick up from that evening.

  “Freedom allowed Bern to go to the municipal library in Ostuni and borrow all the books he wanted. After lunch he’d retreat behind the house and read with his back against the wall. During those hours I would sneak into Nicola’s room. The computer hadn’t been purchased for playing video games, but a few had come installed with the operating system and we got others thanks to some new acquaintances at the Scalo. We played one at a time, without a joystick, using the cursors quietly, to prevent Cesare and Floriana from hearing us. There was a level of Prince of Persia that we couldn’t get past. We’d get killed in turn. One day, while I was waiting for Nicola to fail, a movement outside the window caught my attention. It was then that I saw you.”

  Tommaso glanced over at me.

  “You saw us?”

  I understood what he was referring to, not the exact day, not that, but I knew he was talking about the afternoons Bern and I were together, our secret hours.

  “You were crossing the little clearing that separates the house from the oleanders,” he said. “I have a very sharp image: Bern’s tanned back with its jutting shoulder blades, you slightly sharper, in an orange sundress. Nicola didn’t notice, absorbed as he was by the video game. I was about to say ‘Look,’ but something stopped me. I watched you disappear behind the bushes. There was nothing in that direction, except olive trees and hiding places.

  “‘Tommi, you’re up,’ Nicola told me.

  “‘What?’

  “‘It’s your turn. Destroy that fucking skeleton!’

  “‘You go on. I don’t feel like it anymore.’

  “I went back to my room. I lay down on the bed, but when I closed my eyes I could see Bern walking on the reddish soil with you. So I jumped up, ran down the stairs, and went out. I glanced up at the window, Nicola hadn’t moved. A lizard darted in front of me, then scampered up a trunk. I got as far as the mulberry tree, sure you were headed there, and for some reason I felt relieved that it wasn’t so. They must have gone to the blackberry bushes, I told myself then. I went from the shade of one tree to that of the next one, wanting to protect my shoulders from the sun. By then I was certain I’d lost you, when I saw a figure standing in the reeds. I moved closer still. It was Cesare. He was watching something among the stalks and it looked to me as if his stocky torso was shaken by a tremor. He wore only his shorts and sandals, he must have left his room like that. I was about to call him, but he suddenly turned and started running in my direction, rustling the reeds.

  “He was running toward me, Cesare was, and it was strange to see him running because he never did. When he saw me there he was distraught. For a moment we faced each other, barely a fraction of a second. His arousal was mercilessly revealed by the bright midday sun. He covered himself with a hand and then darted to my right.

  “Yet I still hadn’t understood what was concealed behind the emerald-green barrier of reeds. Until I saw you two emerge from that little wood, still cautious as you’d seemed from Nicola’s window, but with a different look, more disarrayed and exhausted, more complicit, as if you had just swum out to sea together. I hid behind the trunk of an olive tree before you could see me.”

  * * *

  —

  TOMMASO’S VOICE had grown fainter, and when he stopped talking, it seemed as if the silence had absorbed it completely. I wanted him to move on, to leave Bern and me in peace in the reed bed. He had no right to intrude in those memories.

  He cleared his throat.

  “In the hours that followed, Cesare and I avoided running into one another, and when we did we looked the other way. I felt betrayed all around: you and Bern, Cesare lurking in the reeds, Nicola looking ahead toward his new life in Bari. At supper Cesare launched into a longer prayer than usual. He held Floriana’s hand and squeezed his eyelids shut so tightly that when he reopened them he had white streaks on his temples. He rummaged for something in his pants pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

  “‘I wanted to read you this homily. I remembered it today, after a long time.’

  “Did he glance at me before continuing? Maybe, I don’t know for sure anymore.

  “He read: ‘Not even the Father is impassible. When we beseech Him He has pity and compassion, He kn
ows something about the suffering of love, He has failings that His sovereign majesty would seem to proscribe.’ For a few seconds he remained there undecided, standing among us as we sat.

  “‘These failings that we all have,’ he added then. ‘All of us. Sometimes we are not able to fight them. We would like to imitate Jesus, but . . .’

  “He paused again. He seemed more and more confused.

  “‘It’s late. Let’s eat now.’

  “I knew that he had chosen the homily for me. Was he excusing himself? Was he asking me to forgive him? He couldn’t imagine how much I stood by him. Maybe the others loved him because they thought he was infallible, but not me. I loved him, period.

  “That night, at the Scalo, I hid behind the trailer and drank as much as I could. I have no recollection of our return home, but I remember that once we were in our room, Bern came over to the bed and put a hand on my forehead. He asked me if I wanted some lemon juice and I told him to leave me alone. In the morning Cesare motioned for me to join him under the holly oak. He was sitting on the bench with the expression he wore on the best days. He had put on his tunic. He tapped the vacant spot next to him.

  “‘I got up very early,’ he said, ‘it was still dark, I think you boys had just gotten home. I went into Nicola’s room and then into yours; I hadn’t done that for some time. I watched you for a while as you slept. It is always miraculous to gaze at innocence while it’s sleeping. And all of you are still the mirror of that innocence, even if you no longer think so. You still are, yes, even if you’ve grown beards on your cheeks.’

  “Which wasn’t true. My facial fuzz could only be seen in the right light, like that of girls.

  “‘I was thinking about when Floriana and I came to take you home. I remember telling her: this boy is destined for a special future,’ Cesare went on, his fingers smoothing the lower part of his tunic and tucking the edge between his knees. Under the holly oak we boys weren’t supposed to talk unless we were questioned, so I kept quiet. ‘It seems like yesterday, and yet it’s been . . . how many years?’

  “‘Eight.’

  “‘Eight, good Lord! And in a few days you will turn eighteen, a man to all intents and purposes. But it seems to me we’ve already talked about this.’

  “‘I think so.’

  “‘So, Tommaso, as you know, the time has come to make your way, to follow your path.’

  “I felt my body sag. ‘I thought I would stay until I finished school. Until graduation, I mean.’

  “Cesare put his arm around my shoulders. ‘Oh, that certainly would have been a possibility. If I had continued to be your teacher, that of all of you, of course. But public education is calling you boys, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I understand that desire. Our Lord understands it too, perhaps he allowed it to germinate because he has a specific plan for you. And who are we to oppose Him? When I think about it, at your age I was planning my first trip. I didn’t have a penny in my pocket, but I made it to the Caucasus by hitchhiking.’

  “There was really no way to be comfortable while sitting on the bench; I think that was one of the reasons why he brought us there. But he would say: It’s impatience that always makes you boys squirm and fidget.

  “‘Now that you’re going to a real school, as an adult, there’s no longer any reason to stay here. I spoke to an acquaintance of mine, his name is Nacci. He owns a resort in Massafra. A magnificent place, perhaps a little opulent for my taste, but enchanting.’

  “‘Massafra is more than an hour away by bus.’

  “‘But there’s a school there, too, what do you think?’ Cesare replied with a smile. Then he suddenly turned serious again. I thought I saw the expression he’d had the day before, that fraction of a second when he’d stood frozen before me.

  “‘We’ve already agreed. You can move there next week. They’ll welcome you warmly and Nacci has sworn that the work will not be hard. You’ll earn some money by day, and in the evening you can attend classes in the city.’

  “‘Does Floriana know?’ I asked. Maybe she would persuade him to keep me there for a little while longer.

  “‘Oh, she was the one who thought of Massafra! It hadn’t occurred to me.’

  “‘And the others?’ I asked in a whisper.

  “‘We’ll tell them later. Together, if you like. Give me your hand now.’

  “I opened my limp palm, and he took it and squeezed it. I wondered if that was really the last time I would touch those perspiring fingers. I had the right words ready in my throat, ‘I won’t say anything about what I saw, I promise!’ but those were not the kind of words Cesare permitted under the holly oak.

  “‘Let us pray for this new chapter of yours,’ he said. ‘May the Lord be at your side at all times.’

  “But I didn’t listen to his prayer. I was looking toward the house: Nicola on the swing-chair, Bern pushing the seat to needle him, the clusters of tomatoes and onions hanging on the wall. A hoe abandoned on the ground. I couldn’t believe that my life was ending like that, all of a sudden, yet another time.”

  * * *

  —

  “SO THAT’S HOW you started working at the Relais,” I said.

  But Tommaso ignored me. His expression had hardened. “It was Floriana who drove me there. When I saw the Tropical Pool, with the little bridges and the huge fountain in the middle, I couldn’t believe it. It was all so flamboyant.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “On the first day Nacci wanted to know what had gone wrong in my family to make me end up under Cesare’s guardianship. I told him in a few brief words, and when I finished he said: ‘Jesus Christ! Why would a man do something like that to his wife?’ Hearing him talk like that made me realize how far I’d come from the masseria. Nobody there would have sworn. Not that Nacci ever treated me badly, but he was different from Cesare, I could tell right away. He never seemed like a father. After enrolling in the evening courses, I never even attended one class and he didn’t urge me to go, maybe he didn’t even notice. I started out calling him ‘Mr. Nacci’ and continued doing so until . . .”

  Until the night of the incident, I told myself. I was sure that Tommaso had been interrupted by the same thought. Though maybe he didn’t call it “the night of the incident” in his mind. Who knows what words he used in his own head.

  “I lived in the employee quarters,” he went on. “During the summer season, because of the constant receptions, and during the autumn months because of the harvest, there would be as many as seven or eight of us sleeping in the same room, in bunk beds. There were no screens on the windows to keep the mosquitoes out, so the nights were punctuated by slaps. Smacking my arms or neck, I thought of the masseria, where it was forbidden to kill even the tiniest creatures. When I heard the buzzing in my ear again, I felt almost relieved. Nacci realized that I wasn’t skilled in anything, that I had never cleaned a swimming pool, didn’t know how to serve a table, and knew only a little something about plants, so he introduced me to Corinne. He told me to remain glued to her for as long as it took. ‘For as long as necessary,’ he said, but I don’t know if he really meant that long.”

  Tommaso smiled. Then he pulled up the edge of the sheet to cover himself better. To protect himself from his own joke, I thought.

  “The first thing Corinne said to me was, ‘You look like the crazy replicant in Blade Runner.’ She didn’t say it to be funny, far from it, she was dead serious. When she was a few steps away, Nacci whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t listen to everything she says. And don’t trust her too much. She’s a junkie.’

  “Corinne taught me how to keep my shoulders back as I made my way around the tables and how to bow slightly when I offered the guests a tray. During role-playing sessions she was always the guest, a capricious guest who used any excuse to humiliate me. ‘You have to get used to it, Blade. They take it for granted that they’re better than you just beca
use you’re serving them drinks.’

  “She showed me how to open the wine and sniff the cork, how to pour water, and when I proved that I could do everything even better than she did, she declared the lessons were over.

  “In October, I wore the uniform for the first time. At the Relais they were celebrating the wedding of an actress, I didn’t know her, but she seemed lost in all the confusion. When I saw that she hadn’t eaten anything, I brought her a little plate of sliced fruit on the sly. ‘Eat this at least, or you’ll feel dizzy,’ I said.

  “In the kitchen Corinne came up and surprised me from behind. ‘Why did you do that?’

  “‘Why did I do what?’

  “‘Eat this at least, or you’ll feel dizzy,’ she mimicked me, whining.

  “‘Did I do wrong?’

  “She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re really a drag, Blade! You take everything seriously,’ she said, punching me in the stomach, hard. I suspected it was an excuse to touch me.

  “Later, in the locker room, she sat down on the bench and stayed there staring at me as I took off my jacket and shirt and finally my pants.

  “‘Want to see a place?’ she asked.

  “I looked at the clock on the wall.

  “‘What’s the matter, too tired? No problem.’ She stood up to leave. Always that aggressive tone. Even then I couldn’t stand up to her.

  “‘Okay,’ I said.

  “I followed her through the dim rooms, to the door that led to the vaults. ‘I’ve already been down in the cellar. Anyway, it’s locked.’

  “Corinne fumbled in her jeans pocket, pulled out a key.

  “‘Ta-dah!’

  “‘How did you get it?’

  “‘A guy who worked here,’ she said, turning the lock and opening the door a crack, all without the slightest sound. ‘If you tell Nacci, I’ll slit your throat, Blade, I swear.’

  “We walked through the equipment and steel tanks.

  “‘Sit down there,’ she ordered.

  “‘On the ground?’