After that nothing, just garbled noises rising up from his stomach, under this steaming hot gush hitting his neck, his chin, and then, horribly, entering his mouth.
He chokes, as if he were swimming in the sea and had swallowed a wave. Only Marino isn’t swimming, and this stuff may be salty but it’s not seawater; it’s piss filling his throat and lungs. He makes to rise and cough but they keep holding him down even as they pull back to avoid getting hit by the spray.
Around them the crowd hollers madly, people yell and jump in the air and hug each other as if Italy had just scored against Germany in the World Cup. The cry is so loud it drowns out the cars honking angrily behind them, stuck in the middle of the road, people who just want to go home or reach the last nightclub before it closes or mind their own business. All they can see is a tangle of people jumping and shouting, and don’t realize that someone on the ground is almost drowning in piss.
But rather than drown, Marino leans his head to one side and vomits. As it went in, so now it goes out: hot and acidic. Totally awful, totally frightening.
“Fuck, gross!” One of the guys holding him down springs back, shielding his sleeve. He curses and walks off, the others pull away too, and Marino lies there on the asphalt, his eyes burning. He can’t see anything nor does he want to. All he wants is to be left there, for everyone to go away and leave him to vomit some more.
Which is, in fact, what happens, after Bare-Chest lets out a long “Aaahhh” of satisfaction, as if he’d been holding it in forever. The crowd laughs, cheers, and starts retreating from the road, each shut up inside herself, so that what was a crowd has now become many individuals who had momentarily formed a single soul that wanted to see just one thing, and now that they had seen it they were walking away happy. And the cars are happy too. They give one last honk, rev their engines, and floor it down the road leading to the future.
But that road is seldom a smooth one. In fact, rather than sailing straight ahead, the first car to peel away jerks sideways after hitting something: a bump, a branch, a garbage bag that had rolled off of a dumpster.
Or Marino.
A CATECHIST IS BORN
Luna, I implore you, don’t talk to this rogue,” says Zot, locking his bike to a lamppost.
The “rogue” is a black man, an African, the kind who hawks fake brand-name purses on the beach. But this guy’s not on the beach, he’s here in the hospital parking lot. When a car comes, he directs them to a free spot, waves, and, if they hand over some change, says thanks. He waves to us too now that we’ve ridden our bikes straight here from school, and all I have on me is a euro, which I give him.
“You’re giving him money? Must I remind you what these people do to your kind?”
The black man looks at Zot, then at me, and says thanks for the euro. He doesn’t understand. Unfortunately I do. Ever since I told Zot what happens to albinos in Africa he has been fixated on the two of us solving the issue. Me and him.
I tell him to shut up and head toward the hospital entrance. The road from school to here is long and sunshiny. Coming here by bike would have been tough without Zot. But once inside the hospital, given all the checkups and tests I have to take, I know by heart where everything is and hurry along in the hopes of losing him. Zot tries to keep up while continuing to talk breathlessly: “You shouldn’t have given him money. You’re just lucky that wretch wasn’t carrying a cleaver, otherwise who knows what he may have done, who knows if you’d still have legs to run so fast.”
We make it to the giant revolving door that doesn’t start moving until you’re standing in front of it. There’s always a group of old people flanking either side, trying to predict the exact moment when to dive forward and looking on with admiration at anyone who dares to enter. At the information desk Miss Franca greets me. I ask her how it’s going and which room Mr. Marino—I don’t know his last name—is in. “The one who got run over by a car Saturday night on the coastal road,” I say, and Miss Franca knows who I mean, because on Saturday night they brought in three run-over people, but one is a girl and there’s a funeral for the other this afternoon.
Second floor, room 153. We take the escalator and cross paths with two nurses who say hi and ask if Zot is my boyfriend. Three times I tell them No. They laugh. “See you soon,” they say. And it makes me glad, although feeling at home in the hospital isn’t such a great thing. Actually, the more lost in the halls you are and the less you know about departments and wards, the more it means your life is problem-free.
Take Luca, for example. The only time he was in the hospital was when he was born. Mom and I came all the time for my checkups and in the evening he would ask me how it went. He’d kiss me and say, “That’s grand, Luna.” One time he took me to the eye doctor. I don’t remember why. All I remember is that the doctor saw me and wrote me a prescription for even stronger lenses, and since we were his last patients, he measured Luca’s eyes too and told him he had 20/10 vision. 20/10. On a scale where 20/20 is normal, he had 20/10. I didn’t even know that was possible. “Me neither,” said Luca, laughing, and we left. And even if he did see so well, Luca never saw a hospital again.
Not even on his last day. My big brother didn’t die in a white room with the heat blasting and the chemical smell and those machines beeping like cell phones whose batteries were dying. Luca died in the water, in the waves. Even when I don’t want to, I often imagine him like that, floating faceup with his long hair drifting slowly above his head. Then it suddenly turns into seaweed, dark seaweed engulfing him, reaching his face and entering his mouth, his ears, his eyes, his beautiful green eyes with super vision and . . .
And luckily we reach the second floor, room 153.
“Luna, wait, where are you going?”
“Um, inside?”
“Yes, but wait. First we need a present.”
“A what?”
“A gift, a little thought for our catechist: a bunch of flowers, a box of chocolates, at the very least a newspaper. Is there a newsstand in this place?”
“Yeah, below, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“No, it isn’t necessary, but it is courteous. I would be ashamed to walk in empty-handed.”
I look at Zot, wobbling in the too strong, too vivid neon light of the hospital. I know they will never dim this light just as I know Zot will never go in there without a gift, so I huff off back to the escalators and the newsstand.
“Wait for me, Luna!”
“Come on, run.”
“But it’s forbidden to run in the hospital!”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know but it’s forbidden. Maybe because the sick cannot run and therefore it’s mean to let them see we can.”
Sandro recoils into the room, slamming the door shut behind him. He’d been on his way out to smoke and now he’s holding his freshly broken cigarette in his hand, tobacco crumbs between his fingers.
“Weren’t you going out?” asks Rambo, seated beside the bed. Marino tries turning toward him too but his whole chest is covered with plaster. He looks like an upside-down turtle and all he can do is lift his head a little and remain stock-still, rigid, useless.
“I lost interest,” says Sandro. But it’s not true. The truth is that when he left the room he saw her, there in the hallway, the girl with the white hair who had been standing next to Serena at the funeral, Luca’s little sister.
Had he at least been an only child, or had an older sister, an adult equipped for pain. But no, instead he had this tiny little white-all-over sister who was already missing a father—what a nasty, shitty situation. Sandro is dying of guilt and would like to do something for her, really do something, but now that he had bumped into her the best he could do was run. He had gone out to smoke and instead tore back into the room, out of breath.
Rambo stares at him, and Marino tries to stare at him, and fortunately the room is
private, it’s just the three of them. It costs a ton of money, and Marino with his fractured pelvis will have to be there for a long time, but sleeping in a room with other people is out of the question.
“What happened, Sandro?” he asks from the pillow. “You saw a doctor, didn’t you? Did he tell you something? Something I don’t know? Tell me, Sandro, you have to tell me!”
“Nothing happened. I wanted to go and now I’m not in the mood. I’m tired.”
But it isn’t true, he isn’t tired, Sandro is simply a coward. She was right there. He could have gone to her, introduced himself, talked. Instead of agonizing about it day and night, he could have asked her how she was, if she could use anything, how school was going or if she needed help with her homework or whether some classmate was giving her problems. He might even have apologized.
No smoother, more natural occasion would ever present itself. Sure, had he known before he could have braced himself, rather than being blindsided like this. Still, running away was pitiful. Yet it’s normal: Sandro is a sad, miserable coward who deserves to go on like this, plagued with remorse by day and bad dreams by night, this sense of guilt crushing him the way he crushed his cigarette when he recoiled into the room.
Now he could really use a cigarette. Too much stress, too much anxiety. He fishes one from his pack and goes to leave the room when he hears footsteps growing louder out in the hall. He opens the door and something happens that, according to his father, never happens in this life: the occasion ambles up to him a second time.
The girl with white hair is coming back, alongside another, shorter kid. Sandro stands to face this new opportunity to be a decent man. He looks right at her, leans against the wall, and takes a breath, breathes poorly, stops breathing altogether . . . He dives back into Marino’s room and slams the door even harder this time.
Rambo jumps to his feet. “What the fuck is with you?”
“Sandro, what’s happening,” says Marino. “You’re acting strange. You know something. You have to tell me what it is, Sandro. What do you know? I’ll be paralyzed forever, right, stuck in a wheelchair!”
Sandro doesn’t answer, just stands there stiffly. He sweats, listening to the footsteps get closer, praying they’ll do what footsteps ought to do—pass by quickly. Instead they stop. Right there. And two knocks at the door trip his nerves.
“Hello? Mr. Marino, may we?”
The thin, shaky voice could belong to either the girl or the boy, or to a robin dying slowly in the snow. “May we come in?”
Sandro looks around, stares into Rambo’s gaping eyes, and then vaults into the bathroom. He steps inside and shuts the door. Perched on the can, he listens.
“It’s us.”
“Us who?” says Rambo.
“We’re . . . two of Mr. Marino’s disciples.”
“Disciples? Okay, enter, disciples, your Messiah’s in bed.”
Sandro hears the soft patter of footsteps, greetings.
“Oh, children, my dear children,” says Marino, the tone of his voice now a mix of suffering and wisdom, like a Zen master after a bar fight. “Have you come to see me? Why thank you. How are you? Hi Luna, hi Zot.”
Luna, her name is Luna. And a thousand phrases dovetail in Sandro’s mind: “Hello, Luna”; “I didn’t mean to, Luna”; “Forgive me, Luna, please . . . ”
“Excuse us, Mr. Marino,” says the boy. “It disconcerts me to say we have come to you like this, empty-handed. The least we could do was bring you a newspaper, but we don’t have two nickels to rub together.”
“No cause for concern, Zot. And please, call me Marino.”
“Oh no, you mustn’t ask me to do such a thing, Mr. Marino. Especially now that I am mortified about not bringing you a present. But as you see, we came directly from school, and I cannot bring money to school.”
“Why not?” says Rambo. “Against the rules?”
“No. But every day at recess I am subjected to a patdown by my peers. Carrying money on my person is as good as giving it to them.”
“Bastards. I’ll pop by school someday and scare ’em, eh?”
“Thank you, sir. Luna’s mother used to, and it worked. But she doesn’t leave the house anymore, so—”
Serena! Luna’s mom! Sandro rises from the toilet, careful not to make a noise. He leans over and puts his eye to the keyhole, yet all he sees is a bright, static thing that may be the wall. Besides, there’s nothing to see; it’s not as though Serena is there. The boy said so himself: Serena doesn’t leave the house anymore. She’s not well and doesn’t go anywhere anymore, not even to school. She’s shut up at home and no one is around to defend these kids. All on account of him.
“Can I ask you something?” Now it’s Luna speaking. “Did the car run right on top of you?”
“That’s right, that’s exactly what happened.”
“But who was driving? Who did it?” she asks. Sandro squirms, for that’s what she wants to know, that’s what counts: whose fault it is, who’s to blame.
“The Saturday evening crowd,” Marino says with a sigh. “You know, it was late and we were out by the nightclubs.”
“Scandalous,” says the boy. “Two-bit punks. Lowlifes. Misfits with no moral compass. There ought to be a law against such bums!”
Rambo laughs. “Cool it, grandpa.” There’s the sound of scraping and crackling, which probably means Marino is trying to find a comfortable position, as if someone that banged-up could find a comfortable position.
“How long do you have to be in the hospital?” Luna asks.
“Oh, they’re not sure exactly. A little while. Then there’s rehabilitation, as long as nothing is damaged.”
“Damaged?”
“That’s right,” says Marino, “there are a thousand possible scenarios. A fractured pelvis is like the lottery; how it’ll turn out is anyone’s guess. You need time, children, time and faith. We’re in God’s hands.”
“Speaking of God,” says the boy, “will you not be returning to catechism?”
“No, Zot. Not for a while at least.”
“How long is a while?”
“Who knows? Like I said, we’re in God’s hands.”
And then, after a moment of silence, it’s Luna’s turn to ask. Her voice is different, more pained, as if she hadn’t really wanted to hear his answer. “But if you don’t come, who will take your place at catechism?”
Marino doesn’t answer right away. “I can’t say for sure. But bear in mind that it won’t be for long. You know, children, you won’t even notice.”
And the longer Marino dodges the question, the clearer his answer becomes. In fact, after a moment of silence, Luna says, “Oh no. I knew it. It’s Mother Greta, isn’t it?”
“Children, what can I say? It’s not up to me. And right now we have no choice. There are no other catechists.”
“It’s not fair,” says Luna. “Can’t we come here? We’ll all come here on Saturday afternoon. We’ll have catechism here at the hospital.”
“That’s right! We could do that!” says the boy excitedly. “Convent, hospital—what’s the difference? The voice of God reaches everywhere. Otherwise it would be an injustice: those nightclub punks commit a crime and Luna and I suffer the consequences.”
“Ahem,” says Rambo, “the one really suffering the consequences is this bedridden, bent fender.”
“Yes, it’s true, please excuse me. I spoke rashly. Of course Mr. Marino has suffered more than all of us. Having a car run you over must really be a terrifying experience. And it must be even worse to have someone pee on you,” says the boy. Silence.
A huge silence, so total that Sandro, sitting on the toilet, has the impression that the room on the other side of the door is no longer there. And perhaps it’s his excitement or this very powerful disinfectant they use to clean the bathroom, but for a moment the thought r
eally does cross his mind that everything has disappeared, his friends and the kids and the bed and the TV attached to the ceiling, and he almost reaches out his hand to open the door and see what’s out there. But then comes the deafening laughter of Rambo, and amid the laughter, Marino’s pitiful voice tries to rise above it and be heard: “It’s not true! It’s not true, children! Where did you—? Who told you that?”
“At school, Mr. Marino. Why?”
“Because it’s not true! It’s a lie, maliciousness spread by malicious people who take pleasure in other people’s misfortunes! Don’t believe them. It’s not true. Tell everyone: it’s not true!”
“All right, Mr. Marino,” says Luna. “All right. But it wouldn’t be that big a deal. I mean, it’s not your fault if they peed on you.”
“True,” says the boy, “they spit on me every morning and wipe snot on my coat. I reckon pee would disgust me less than snot, since pee isn’t as sticky. Is pee less sticky, Mr. Marino?”
“No, I . . . I don’t know! Why are you asking me? I told you it isn’t true, no one peed on me!”
Rambo chokes with laughter, the kids try to apologize in every way possible yet continue to bring up the story of his being peed on, and at a certain point Marino stops talking altogether. Soon all Sandro hears are bits of farewells, Luna telling Marino she’ll see him at catechism soon, real soon, then the sound of the door closing and goodbye.
The Breaking of a Wave Page 16