What Hell Is Not

by Alessandro D'Avenia

  His friends kick the dog in its stomach and it makes a muffled gurgle. Then the dog whimpers and grinds its teeth. They break its ribs. Francesco doesn’t know how to repair a broken dog. The only thing to do now is for him to break it, too, so that nothing living and suffering is left. That would be worse than death.

  He kicks it on its snout and it creaks. The trembling spreads from the tip of his foot all the way to the inside of his head like a whip cracking. The only way to shake it off is by giving the dog another kick and kicking harder and harder. And hell is when you no longer feel the pain of shattering something, when you no longer feel it in your spine, in your bones, in your head, in your heart. Hell is the anesthesia that makes you no longer feel the life in what is living. But Francesco has something that resists inside of him even as he kicks the limp, loose flesh.

  He goes over the subjects in the posters, just as the teacher asked his class to do. Let’s repeat together. The letter B is for the bee that once stung him. The letter Z is for the zebra that reminds him of the Juventus soccer club and Roberto Baggio and how he wants to be like Roberto Baggio even though there are still some who prefer Schillaci. The letter F is for the frame that he would like to jump through. The letter E is for the eggs that he likes when his mom makes him zabaione with sugar. He can’t remember what the letter I is for. He just can’t remember it at all.

  And so he just keeps on kicking and he seems like anything but a child. He and his friends quench their thirst with that crushing, wounding, and destruction. The dog’s missing eye opens with each blow, emptier each time.

  Then they push the carcass over as it still gasps for life. They aim for a cinder block with the rods sticking out. The dog ends up on its side and one of the rusty iron rods punctures it, slicing through like a piece of paper. The dog moans hoarsely and falls back on the ground as his innards, now turned to mush, spill out freely. One last convulsion decrees the end to its instinct for survival.

  The children shout. The dog is dead. Losers deserve to die. The children laugh. They cheer like crazy people who know only the game of making sacrifices to the faceless god of apathy.

  Francesco opens the eyes that he had closed because of his fear. But it’s all still there and he can see blood splattered like fireworks around the dog as the flies and wasps began to flutter around it. He still can’t remember what I is for. He cheers as well because he doesn’t know what else to do. The mob mentality has swallowed him up and he can feel the buzz of destruction in his slender arms.

  H must be for hell. But there is no hell on first-graders’ posters. If anything, there is F for fire. But hell and fire have nothing to do with one another. Hell is pure subtraction. Hell is taking away all the life and all the love from within.

  Chapter 4

  It’s over.

  Noontime is the only moment on the last day of school worth remembering. The school bell rings like the Seven Trumpets of the Apocalypse. The summer, which the kids wish were eternal, swallows them up and casts its spell over them. It abducts and scatters them.

  The sunlight is so strong that it practically drowns them. It sparkles on the rooftops before falling on and gushing over the streets of men with amazement. It bathes and warms all the salty surfaces of the sea. Only an impossible rain could crack that blue marble sky. Amid a tide of bodies and souls, you can hear a voice if you lend an ear.

  I like to find the right words. Words and their sounds are what saves me. I learned this at elementary school when everything is, well, elementary: I use words to anchor all the things that drift on the sea inside my heart; I dock them to the port in my head. This is the only way to stop them from crashing into one another, from running aground and breaking apart.

  When I didn’t know the name of something new, I would invent it. And that was all it took. When I was a child, the thing that was hiding under my bed in the dark of night was called Nero. And that made me less afraid. I didn’t even know of the existence of the Roman emperor Nero. And when I discovered there was an emperor named Nero, I was convinced that I had created the tyrant myself.

  I love wordplay. I love rhymes, assonance, and adverbs. But especially adverbs. But when conjunctions connect clauses or sentences (something that I learned at elementary school but later forgot), it has a cathartic effect on my brain.

  ‘Cathartic’ is an anchor-word. It’s one of those words that can dock a large number of things. I learned it when I studied ancient Greek tragedy and it can help you to relax when you are afflicted by the greatest causes of stress: Fear and anxiety.

  I, too, am docked to the four syllables of my name. I pass my time quietly in the port as I watch the world from the shore. My name is regal: It’s composed of the imperial eagle, veins of gold that emerge from my hair, and the wholly confident blue (at least, I’d like to think that’s the case) of my eyes.

  My name is Federico. I was named after Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor. This city was the jewel of his empire.

  That was also the name of my grandfather, commander of ships, who died seventeen years ago. But I know his tomb well. It’s between the cliff and the sea in the shadow of Mount Pellegrino. A tomb with a view of the sea, just like he wanted it. I have no idea what kind of tomb I will have, and it’s not exactly the moment to be thinking about it. But I want it by the sea, too.

  Federico came from far away and he crossed many lands and seas to get here. That’s how he built his empire. Unless I’m a complete loser, my name will force me to do great things in life. I’m not saying I’ll become an emperor. But I do want to have a view of the open sea.

  There are days when the emptiness nips at my chest and the void frays my insides. I know that I should really get a move on but all that emptiness and that void leave me paralyzed. I want for nothing but am still not happy. I don’t even understand how all of this space can fit inside of me. Blood, muscles, and nerves don’t leave much room for emptiness and according to the laws of physics, there is no such thing as a void. But inside of me, a few cubic centimeters are lurking. You can’t see them. They are hidden. It’s as if they had been smuggled in.

  In the byzantine golden light, this guy’s bicycle shimmers to the point of seeming like it could float away. If you look carefully, you can see that he has his bathing suit hidden under his jeans, a common sight around these parts starting in May.

  He turns his back on Vittorio Emanuele Classics High School and a year that was both boring and beautiful. Then he heads down the ancient road that leads from the belly of the city to the port where it dives into the sea.

  But here, the port is everything. There are thousands of cities that men and nature have set up along the sea. But there is just one that can claim this name by its very essence, brilliance, and fate.

  Palermo, the never-ending port.

  The Phoenicians called it Ziz, the flower, because of the rivers that flow like petals to the city’s center. The rivers aren’t there anymore. And don’t even bother looking for any traces left by the flow of water.

  Pan ormus.

  The name meant never-ending port for the Greeks and Romans.

  The original meaning really hasn’t changed. It was the name that ancient mariners used to call it when they managed to moor there after surviving storms or being becalmed.

  Ships were welcomed by these docile sands like heads resting on silk pillows. And the bay would nurse the tired sailors with a feminine embrace: never-ending port. An embrace that was kilometers and kilometers in size. Ever loyal. At least in appearance, just like everything that boasts of being never-ending.

  But you mustn’t ever forget that an embrace can also be used to strangle you. Ambushes set for those who are taken in by such sweetness and lower their guard: Ports are full of sailors and scoundrels, deals and dangers. Double-minded souls suited for an ambiguous place. Once upon a time and forever more, just like there will always be young dreamers ever ready to set out to sea, with no particular destination, because they are unable to see the
horizon without wanting to break it in two.

  I believe that someday I will be a poet. I might already be a poet but a poet who leans toward baroque exaggeration. That’s what my Italian teacher says but, then again, he doesn’t mind a touch of baroque. He also says that I’ll heal someday. He was like this, too, when he was seventeen years old. If you ask me, he hasn’t changed a bit and he’s trying to correct a defect in me that he still has as well. I love the quick-wittedness of the baroque style, the metaphor that dislocates reality and the great plays on words used to raise the ante.

  Maybe that’s the reason why the boy plays with the city and the city with him. He walks through the alleys that lead to the sea like the Cretan Labyrinth. Sudden darkness hides the sun and offers an unexpected coolness. For every light, there is a shadow: In a city lashed by light, the whipping of the shadows can be just as violent. The never-ending port.

  Never-ending cargo, never-ending negotiations, never-ending money, never-ending conmen, never-ending brothels, never-ending wine, never-ending arrivals, never-ending departures.

  From the heart of the ancient Arab city, he can slip through the old alleyways all the way to the actual port. He passes by the Arab–Norman cathedral on his way. It looks like a sandcastle built against a shade of blue for which no adjective has yet been invented.

  The coral-colored cupolas of San Giovanni light up while the gold in the mosaics of the Palatine Chapel do little to pay homage to the Eden that once existed there. Only a few tiles remain. The rubble left over from the Second World War is real as well. It has long since petrified and now stands motionless in the streets of the city center, like a black-and-white photo that refuses to fade.

  He might brush up against the immense ficus as the sun bathes it in light. If he does, he will smell the sea as it impregnates the tophus stones. If it weren’t their natural color, you’d think that it were an exaggerated shade of yellow. But it’s just the effect of the sky, which acts as a backdrop. It resembles a magic lantern from One Thousand and One Nights more than any other city. All you have to do is to rub a few stones together and some genie will appear. Not just any genie: A wheeling-and-dealing genie who will inspire more wishes than he will grant.

  An Arab geographer once said that ‘to look out on to Palermo is to make your head spin.’ It’s all knotted up together, so much so that it can dislocate your brain as if it were your shoulder. The never-ending port. The never-ending embrace. The never-ending crush.

  The boy’s senses are well trained. He lets himself be guided by Ariadne’s thread, which, in this case, is a humble aroma of sfincione, the classic Sicilian pizza, piled up high on a Piaggio Ape, a three-wheeler, known as the Lapino in Palermo. The fragrance of the pizza is mixed in with the dust and noise emitted by low-horse-power exposed motors as they burn gas that has been mixed unwisely with oil. The boy is heading downhill on his bike and he’s nearly as fast as the Lapino. You can have lunch around these parts for just 1,000 lire. Poverty has never been ashamed to show itself here. The simple things are cheap because people have learned to make do with what they have to survive. Sfincione is also a good cure for the blues. To tell the truth, there’s no room in a port for sadness. Those who are sad know the best place to hide it: In the words of the stories. Never-ending port. Never-ending stories. Never-ending voices.

  He stays on the trail of this three-wheeled cart and inhales the smell of onion on a slightly charred bed of tomato. Everything and nothing seem familiar because everything and nothing are constantly being improvised on these streets. Every day and all things are different, even if nothing has changed from day one. The fishmonger knows this. He constantly rearranges his all so as to confuse even the most eagle-eyed of ladies. A raucous voice gurgles through a loudspeaker, promising flavors as comforting as a mother’s bosom.

  ‘You won’t believe how good this sfincione is,’ it says in the Sicilian dialect. ‘Damn, it’s good! Treat yourself today!’

  The vendors hawk their wares like Arab merchants in their souk. And with their words so full of ahhh, they have been imitating the same voices and vocal chords for centuries. They transform their goods into vowels that promise the heavens. It’s all thanks to the repetition and the modulation of their voices. It’s something that has penetrated a people’s dialect and flesh so deeply that it can no longer be removed. Words are as valuable as the wares around these parts. Actually, they are more valuable. Words that push and force you to do things. The boy calls them siren words. They seduce and bewitch even the coolest of brains. A language that was created to seduce and take charge. A language not intended to serve truth. Never-ending port, always open for business. Never-ending sales. Never-ending words. (‘Never-ending words’ is what they should call Palermo!)

  But how do you tell a boy who’s made out of thin air that reality always overflows from a bed of words?

  I feel like singing, though I’m tone-deaf. Though. How wondrous the world of possibilities hidden behind a though! And I’m going to sing at the top of my lungs because school is over and everyone’s going to the beach; because girls are a mix of light and flesh and maybe there’s one out there for me; because I’m going to England for a month; because I can read whatever I feel like reading into the early hours when books open up like flowers in the morning.

  As the street floods with young bodies and hopes, I realize that I’m not going to miss much about school. Italian class, Ping-Pong on the teacher’s desk, exams I passed without studying, and chats with Geppo the janitor who keeps a bottle of the worst vodka and the best Marsala in his closet along with his manuals. He uses them to console himself and the students. We even invented a magic potion, a cocktail that we call Orabuca, made with Sambuca and mint, jasmine (borrowed from Geppo’s wife’s stash, which she uses for cosmetic purposes), and orange peel (Geppo always has at least two kilos of oranges on hand and he wolfs down at least one every hour). Orabuca can help you get over even the most painful disappointment. It makes you remember where you were born and it reminds you that you have no regrets. However badly it’s gone so far, life goes on and you still have everything you need.

  I’ve never studied much. Instead, I’ve practiced the noble art of improvisation as I’ve used my intuition to master certain subjects about which I couldn’t care less. The only thing that interests me is literature and words that can be used to imitate reality or to stab it as I counterattack. That’s why I love to say things like ‘variety is the price of life.’ But I’m the only one who laughs. I’m convinced that every soul is made of at least five words. Everyone should have a list of five words, their five favorite words. Your five words are the ones that reveal the air you breathe. And everything depends on the air you breathe. My five are: wind, light, girl, silently, and though. Everyone should write a poem with those five words. At least that way their souls can dock in safe harbor.

  Here’s my poem:

  Where are you, the only

  One who can sew up my

  Soul silently?

  Girl full of light,

  Can you mend a boy

  Made of wind?

  I search for your name

  Though you have none.

  The strangest thing is that I use words as my anchor. And then it’s those same words that push me toward the unknown, like maps that need to be filled with places. It’s because every word that’s uttered precisely opens an empty space around it, like the pier of a port.

  I read poetry because my house is full of books and I have always loved poetry books since I was a child. I couldn’t understand a thing with all those line breaks but I loved to doodle in the empty space. When my mother found out, she wasn’t pleased, especially when she found a copy of Cesare Pavese’s Hard Labor full of scribbles.

  My brother calls me ‘Poet’ and he makes fun of me because I couldn’t grow a beard even if I wanted to. My mom thinks that I got my wide, doe eyes from her. They are too trusting of the beauty in the world, she says. Dad claims it’s better that I d
idn’t get anything from him. That would be a shame, he says. He pretends to be tough but he knows full well that my heart is as delicate as his and he can’t stand to see me suffer like he does.

  My passion for Dostoyevsky has also earned me the nickname ‘the Idiot.’ My classmates saddled me with it the day I spoke about that book with a geek’s enthusiasm during an oral exam in Italian literature. In that book, it’s written that beauty is the thing that will save the world.

  My classmates say that the world will actually be saved by beautiful girls. They might be right, but my experience in the field is pretty limited and so I prefer putting my trust in writers. I’m getting my experience through them.

  I’m lost in my entirely useless thoughts when I notice a small, black figure among the confetti of t-shirts. It stands out against the festive colors surrounding it.

  ‘Father Pino! I missed you today!’

  Here he is, ‘3P,’ someone I will actually miss now that school is out. ‘3P’ is what we call Padre Pino Puglisi, otherwise known as Father Pino, our Bible studies teacher, with his big shoes, his large ears, and his calm gaze.

  ‘Ready for summer vacation?’

  ‘I am. I’m going to study English in a town near Oxford. I’ve seen photos of it. It’s all green and there are tennis courts and grass soccer fields. Real grass, Don Pino! It’s paradise! And what are you up to this summer?’

  ‘Who? Me? Who needs to go on vacation when you live in a city like this? We’re always on vacation. Just look at what a gorgeous day it is!’

  ‘You work too much, Don Pino!’

  ‘I love what I do. In Brancaccio, there will always be children that remind us that summer is a special time of year.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Brancaccio.’