Ernesto

by Umberto Saba

  “How should I know?” The man laughed mirthlessly. “All I can tell you is that I never asked a kid who said no.”

  It was the truth. What he didn’t say was that guided by an almost infallible intuition, he asked only those boys who in their adolescence manifested an inclination in that direction. (Later, almost all of them would change. They would forget or try to forget everything about it.) Many also (but the man wouldn’t have told Ernesto this, at least not then) asked for money. Their price wasn’t high (just a florin). But day laborers didn’t always have a florin to indulge their pleasures. If he were rich, he would have liked to give Ernesto an elegant gift (though not of money). He wanted to give him something for the pleasure he had felt, and because he knew that it thrilled boys to get presents. (Nothing beguiled them more.) But even if he had the money, he couldn’t do it. The boy couldn’t have resisted showing it off to his mother or his friends. (The man was sure, who knows why, that Ernesto had many friends, though in reality, he had few or none at that time.) Even if Ernesto wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to hide the gift. Because what the man wanted to buy him was a gold tiepin, perhaps even one that was set, as was fashionable then, with a small gemstone. But it was useless to even think of it.

  Meanwhile Ernesto was pacing up and down the warehouse. He seemed to be—he was agitated. The man, having taken out his needle and thread, began to work.

  “I’ve got to get to work,” he said. “Otherwise, who knows what the boss’ll say when he gets back and nothing’s done.”

  Ernesto sat down next to him and watched as he worked. But he didn’t remain seated very long. In a few minutes he was up and pacing the warehouse again.

  “What’s wrong?” the man asked.

  “I’m burning.” Ernesto sounded apologetic, as if it were his fault.

  “It’s nothing,” the man reassured him. “It’ll go away in an hour, maybe less.”

  “You think so?”

  “Absolutely. As easy as I did it, I don’t know why you hurt.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is it true that when you’re called up by the army, they examine you there, and they turn down anyone who—”

  The man burst out laughing, and once again his laugh had a forced quality. But then he reassured the boy on this issue, too. He himself had been conscripted eight years earlier, and no one thought of examining him where Ernesto feared. Not him, nor anyone else. “How the hell,” he asked, “did you get such a dumb idea in your head?”

  “It didn’t just come into my head,” he replied, somewhat irked. (He felt that the man had thought him foolish.) “A friend told me. About a year ago.”

  The man recalled that he, too, had once heard something like that and had believed it as completely as Ernesto had. He’d thought that Ernesto was too educated to have fallen for such an improbable tale. Now, however, he wanted to reassure him. A kind of intuition told him that, for the moment at least, the boy was having regrets, and that all his notions, his complaints, and in a certain sense even the burning sensation were more than anything else the effects of the regret, which he, in his unremitting egotism, hoped would soon pass. In addition to the love he felt for the boy (rare in a man of his disposition), with Ernesto he hadn’t experienced any of the revulsion that overcame him with other boys, from whom he would distance himself—flee—as soon as he’d had them. He felt as if he could be with Ernesto forever. And though he’d had to frighten him a little, he was unhappy to see him so worried and distracted now.

  “You still thinking about your mother?” he asked.

  “Not now.”

  “So what are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  The man resumed his work. Then suddenly he stopped, and sounding almost maternal, asked, “You still hurt?”

  “Yeah, still,” the boy answered, for the first time sounding reproachful.

  “Next time,” the man risked, “I’ll bring something so you won’t feel anything bad during or after.”

  “What kind of thing?” Ernesto was immediately curious.

  “Something you get in a pharmacy.”

  “You get stuff in a pharmacy for doing this? But then—”

  “No, not for doing this,” the man replied. “It’s for people who’ve got problems kind of like that. It’s a cone you put up there, it melts in five minutes because your body’s warm. Afterward, kids don’t feel the kind of pain that’s bothering you now.”

  “So what’s this cone made of?”

  “Cocoa butter,” the man replied, never anticipating the effect his explanation would have on Ernesto.

  “Cocoa butter, cocoa butter,” Ernesto repeated over and over again, then burst into laughter—laughter so intense that he had to sit down. Tears began streaming from his eyes. He looked as if he would never be able to stop himself.

  “Cocoa butter up your ass! All the things you know!” the boy said and went on laughing with such delight that its bright, youthful sound cleansed the room of the oppressive air that had filled it. The man was now laughing, too, as though happy and calmed by the youthful joy exhibited by the boy, who didn’t quiet down but continued repeating the components of the medication and the place to which it was applied. The man felt like hugging and kissing him, but didn’t dare. Experience had taught him that young boys didn’t like being kissed. They knew nothing about giving or getting kisses. He was looking gratefully and lovingly at Ernesto when they heard an almost angry banging at the door. It was the boss, who had been knocking for a few moments and was annoyed not to have been let in. He was sure that Ernesto and the worker had forgotten, or had disobeyed his order of the previous night and hadn’t shown up. Laughing too hard to get up and open the door, Ernesto handed the key to the man who rushed over to let the boss in. He entered, grim-faced, and looked about suspiciously. Addressing Ernesto in his usual bad Italian, he asked what was so funny. But Ernesto (who, when he couldn’t tell the truth, would rather not say anything) didn’t answer. The boss shrugged his shoulders and, though not angry, stared at his young employee. He liked the boy, though he’d never let him know it, fearing he’d lose face in doing so. Muttering “verfluchter Kerl” (damn kid), he started towards his office, then looked at his watch and ordered Ernesto to be there in five minutes. He had to give him and the man the papers required for consigning and shipping the goods.

  “Aren’t you going to turn the sack over?” asked Ernesto, who had finally calmed down and recalled his earlier fears. “Aren’t you going to do it for me?”

  “Right away,” the man answered, “but believe me, it’s not necessary. It’s just a little extra work, but for you”—he looked lovingly at the boy—“if it’ll make you feel better, I’m happy to do it.”

  SECOND EPISODE

  ERNESTO didn’t like the man to address him familiarly, as tu. Of course he didn’t do it all the time—just once in a while and only when they were alone. But they were safely alone more often now. Circumstances (inherent in their work for the firm) were facilitating an intimacy which was beginning to weary, if not yet to annoy, Ernesto. Perhaps sadly, the boy hadn’t found that modicum of paternal protection in the relationship, which he, immature and essentially fatherless (his uncle could only be relied on for slaps and a weekly allowance), was unconsciously seeking. And one day (just after they had readjusted their clothes) he complained to the man about the tu.

  “When you’re with a kid,” the man said, “how can you help not calling him tu once in a while? You ain’t offended by a little thing like that?”

  “Not really, but if you get into the habit and let it slip out when there are people around, it’s like you’re telling the whole world,” Ernesto replied. (Something of the fear of being discovered seemed to have passed from the man to the boy. The man was still too captivated to be constrained by fear.)

  The experiment with the cone went badly. The man brought it in one day. Sealed in silver foil, it reminded Ern
esto of almond cakes, and almond cakes reminded him of Christmas. The man unwrapped it carefully and placed Ernesto (who seemed hesitant) in an appropriate position (the same in which he possessed him) over the same sacks, which had not yet found a purchaser and were therefore still in the warehouse. Then he inserted the suppository, pushing it in as deeply as possible despite the boy’s protests. After that he said to wait for five minutes. But Ernesto didn’t feel better or worse, and in response to his pleas the man had to satisfy him with his hand. It seemed to Ernesto that he did it unwillingly, and that fact, for all the acute physical pleasure, nettled him.

  Then one day he said, “I’m fed up. I want to do it once, too.”

  This was a turn the man had foreseen and feared. As we know, he feared women, and would have preferred that Ernesto satisfy himself with a boy his own age. To his way of thinking that would make it less of a sin, of an offense.

  “With who?”

  “How about you?” Ernesto looked at the man again, but this time without much conviction.

  The man laughed—a laugh that struck Ernesto as unpleasant, but was, in fact, a laugh of embarrassment.

  “It’s no fun doing it to a man,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing you only do with boys before they grow a beard and—” (He almost said “before they go with women” but caught himself.) “What pleasure will you get from me? Look, I’ve got a mustache.” (And here he put his hand up to his face.) “If I was a kid your own age, sure, I’d be happy to switch with you.”

  “Can’t you get rid of it?” Ernesto asked, knowing even before the words were out that he was about to say saying something foolish.

  “Won’t do any good. I’m still a grown man.”

  The following day and all that week, Ernesto didn’t come to work. The man had no idea what to think and didn’t dare ask Signor Wilder, the only person who could have told him. Yet it was he who told him without his having to ask. Signor Wilder had been looking for accounts in Ernesto’s desk drawers, where they should have been, but where all he found was a mess; several books from a series on economics whose titles the businessman scanned with scorn, and among a scatter of papers, a caricature in which (luckily for Ernesto) Signor Wilder (who admired and understood only one art—music, and German music at that) didn’t recognize himself. Among Ernesto’s duties was that of collecting payments from both city and suburban bakers. But he wasn’t very good at collecting. Incapable of insisting on payment, the moment a debtor showed the slightest reluctance to pay, he himself would suggest that he return on the Friday of the following week. Thus, in addition to reaping the blessings of almost every customer in financial difficulties, he could look forward to the pleasure of yet another trek through the suburbs and the inevitable rage of his employer. It was these accounts and invoices that Signor Wilder now needed. He figured that the verfluchte Kerl (his private name for Ernesto, for whom, nevertheless, he couldn’t work up the same kind of dislike and distrust that he felt towards his other employees) had probably forgotten that he had put them in a jacket pocket. He summoned the man and ordered him to leave immediately to call on Ernesto, who, he said, was sick at home. He was to find out where Ernesto had hidden the damn invoices, and if by chance he still had them, to get them from him and bring them back. The man’s face reddened on hearing the order. The thought of seeing Ernesto again, and seeing where he lived, would have pleased him were it not for his fear of facing Ernesto’s mother, towards whom (and not towards the boy) he felt guilty. He didn’t ask what was wrong with Ernesto (he was sure it wasn’t anything much) and began walking slowly and somewhat reluctantly towards his house. He already knew where Ernesto lived. But on sending him off, the boss not only told him the address but, to be on the safe side, wrote it for him on a piece of paper.

  The woman who opened the door was rather stout as well as stooped, more by some kind of illness or pain rather than age. At first glance it was difficult to identity her as the mother of a boy as slender as Ernesto: impossible to think that the one shape had engendered the other. Nevertheless, on closer observation, a less agitated person than the man was at that moment would have recognized that her eyes were the color and shape of Ernesto’s and that there was a vague but at the same time unmistakable resemblance in their features. Despite his agitation the man was soon certain that the woman was the boy’s mother. She held the door half open, as if she couldn’t decide whether to open it completely to this stranger. She hadn’t the slightest idea of what he could want of her. Likely, he was on the wrong floor, or at the wrong door.

  “Who are you looking for?” she asked.

  “The boss sent me,” the man replied. “I have to talk to Signor Ernesto about papers he needs.”

  “My son’s been sick,” the woman answered. “He’s much better now, but he’s still in bed. I’ll go tell him you’re here and what Signor Wilder wants. Come in.” She opened the door all the way and the man followed her in.

  “I know who you are,” the woman spoke again, “my son often speaks of you. I’ll be right back,” and she turned to inform Ernesto about his visitor.

  From the tone of her voice the man understood that if Ernesto had spoken to his mother about him, he hadn’t said anything compromising. And the thought, in fact, the certainty it brought reassured him. Most likely, he decided, the boy had reported fragments of their conversations (enough to satisfy his mother’s curiosity), or he’d told her about the boss’s stinginess toward him. “He’s a good kid, that Ernesto, a treasure,” he thought, and felt he owed him a great deal, not only for the things they did together but for way he could do them and not talk about them. Meanwhile, the mother was taking her time. Perhaps, although he was low working class, merely a laborer (the unlikely reader of this tale is asked to recall that it is taking place in 1898, and in Trieste), Signora Celestina wanted to straighten up her son’s room a bit before admitting a guest.

  “Oh, let him come in,” he heard Ernesto’s irritated shout. Clearly the boy wasn’t concerned about the appearance of his room, and could hardly wait to find out what the man had come for.

  Ernesto was lying in a small iron bed, its headboard set midway along the wall of a room whose ceiling sloped towards the window. There was a birdcage—Ernesto had insisted on a large one—at the window. Perched at the very top, a blackbird was asleep on one leg. Everything about the small room looked old, almost antiquated—as though it dated from the beginning rather than from the end of the century.

  Perhaps because of the early onset of heat that year, the boy, looking a bit thinner, wasn’t wearing a shirt. His mother had pleaded in vain for him to put one on to receive a guest. He was only wearing an undershirt. When the man entered, he half sat up and crossed his arms behind his head. There were tufts of hair in his armpits.

  After a lengthy exchange of greetings the man sat down on the chair at the foot of the bed and inquired about Ernesto’s health. Though his mother would have liked to give him every detail of the illness and the course it had taken, Ernesto cut the discussion short. (In point of fact he had suffered severe intestinal pains with such high fever at the onset that she was terrified that he might have typhoid. But her physician, the old retired doctor who had attended Ernesto’s birth, and in whom she had complete faith, reassured her quickly. Now he was better, almost completely over it. More than anything else, he wanted to get out of bed.)

  “What’s the boss want?” he asked.

  “He can’t find the week’s accounts,” the man replied. “He sent me to find out if you stuck them in a pocket or where they’d be in the office. He dug around in all your drawers but couldn’t find them.”

  Having completely forgotten the caricature he had drawn of his employer (or his exploiter, as he called him, since, despite his uncle’s prohibitions, he had begun reading The Worker), Ernesto felt no pangs of conscience, and told the man that he did in fact have the invoices. Then he asked his mother to hand him his jacket, which was lying neatly folded (not by his hand) over the
arm of a sofa. The woman gave it to him, and the boy took a small bundle of papers out of a pocket. “Here, give them to the old skinflint.”

  “I can’t understand why my son always says such terrible things about that nice Signor Wilder,” said the woman. “I hope,” she went on, turning to the man, “that you don’t encourage him.”

  The man couldn’t think of a reply.

  “My mother sides with bosses, too,” said Ernesto. And then, either because he really wanted to offer something to his friend or because he wanted his mother out of the room for a while, he told her to get the man a glass of wine.

  The man tried to turn it down, but Ernesto insisted and almost ordered his mother to hurry about it. She obeyed.

  “You’re hard on your mother,” said the man, the moment the woman shut the door. “That’s not what I expected from what you told me.”

  “I really love her, but she’s too nosy—she wants to hang around to hear everything. Do you see Pimpo?”

  “Pimpo?” asked the man, who had no idea of what or whom the boy was talking about.

  “Pimpo, my blackbird. Over there by the window.”

  The man turned to where Ernesto was pointing and saw the bird.

  “Does it sing?” he asked.

  “Too much,” Ernesto answered. “If I don’t cover his cage with a black cloth at night, he’ll wake the whole house before dawn. And I’ve got a hen, too.”

  “In a coop?”

  “No coop! I like her to be free in the kitchen, at least when I’m home. I let the blackbird out almost every day, too. He takes a bath in a big bowl right here in the middle of the room. This is the only room where the ceiling slopes,” he added. “But I like it. I’m really comfortable here.”

  “What does your mother say about it?”

  “About the ceiling?”

  “About the animals.”

  “Half the time she complains, and half the time she leaves me alone. She’s pretty okay with the hen because of the eggs—she puts them in hot drinks for me. She thinks they’re healthier when they’re fresh. I used to like them, but not so much anymore. The same with cod-liver oil.”