Fists

by Pietro Grossi

  “Hi, Piero,” Nico said.

  Piero again looked up, smiling in that lopsided way, and immediately looked down again. Then he waddled on his arms and legs, nudged Nico’s leg with his shoulder and, grunting, went straight back to his place in front of the little pile of shells.

  “It may be best if I leave you two alone,” Maria said, from the door.

  Nico turned and looked at her. Her eyes were sad, and there was an embarrassed half-smile on her lips.

  “Yes,” Nico said. “It may be best.”

  Maria left the room, pulling the door shut behind her. Nico watched as she disappeared and stood there for a few seconds staring at the closed door. When he turned again to look at Piero, his friend was trying to make a shape out of the pistachio shells.

  One of the last times they had spoken on the phone, Piero had been in London on business and had asked Nico to come up and join him.

  “I can’t now,” Nico said. “You come down here.”

  “Shit, Nico, I’d really like that. I’d like to come down there and just mess around for a few days without thinking of anything. Why don’t we go away together?”

  Nico laughed. “Piero,” he said, “you’ve been saying the same thing since you were twelve. But where the fuck do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere. Australia, for instance.”

  “Are you turning gay?”

  “No, but I’m thinking of it. Why?”

  “Because that’s the kind of offer you usually make a woman. Look, I’m not giving you my arse.”

  Piero laughed at that. “It would be nice, though,” he said.

  “What, having my arse?”

  “That, too. No, I meant dropping everything and going away.”

  Nico thought about it for a moment. “But do you really have to go to Australia to drop everything?”

  Piero, too, thought for a moment. “No, maybe not. But Australia’s cool.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the waves.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean the surfing.”

  “Piero, you can’t surf.”

  “I know, but I can always learn.”

  “Fuck off,” Nico said.

  “And also because there aren’t so many people there.”

  “Now that’s a good reason.”

  “A very good reason, I think.”

  “Yes, a very good reason.”

  For a few moments, neither of them had said a word, then Piero said, “Nico?”

  “Yes?”

  “Whatever happened to our dreams?”

  “Dreams? What dreams?”

  “I don’t know, but we must have had some.”

  “My dream was to own a Panda four-by-four.”

  “And?”

  “And now I own a Panda four-by-four.”

  Piero gave a faint, unconvinced laugh and fell silent again. “Oh, well,” he said after a while.

  “Piero,” Nico said, “the people who came before us fucked up our dreams.”

  Piero had been silent for a couple of seconds, then said, “Maybe we should have lived in the Seventies.”

  “Yes, then we would have been disappointed. We’re better off, we were born disappointed and that’s it.”

  “Oh, well,” Piero said again.

  “Piero?” Nico said.

  “Yes?”

  “I think you just need a good sandwich.”

  “You may be right,” Piero said.

  Nico lowered himself until he was sitting next to Piero with his back against the bed. After a few seconds, Piero grunted a couple of times and pushed a handful of pistachio shells towards Nico. Nico moved his hand over them and lowered his head, trying to look his friend in the eyes. Piero stuck his lips out again and slapped his forehead twice with his hand, then calmly arranged four shells in a line, swaying slightly.

  Nico watched him screw up his face and grunt, then he moved two of the shells towards Piero’s line and put them on the side, as if to start a new line at right angles to the first. Piero grunted again and slapped his head with his hand, then waddled to one side, pivoting on his feet, and added two shells to the new line. At last, a square appeared.

  They carried on like this for a while. Piero would put down a shell and Nico would move another shell closer to it, then Piero would add another, and so on until a shape emerged, a star or a circle or whatever, and they would continue until the strange shell design was complete. Then Piero would grunt, slap his head with his hands and smile in the same monkey way, screwing up his face and showing his teeth. A couple of times he laid his head for a moment on Nico’s shoulder. The last time Piero had done that was at least ten years earlier as they came out of a club—he was completely drunk and joked to Nico that he should take him home.

  After about an hour, Nico put his hand on Piero’s bare shoulder and told him he had to go. Piero did not look up, but scratched behind his ear and grunted twice, more softly this time. Nico sat there for a few seconds, looking at Piero with his hand resting on his shoulder, then looked to one side for a moment and stood up.

  He looked at him one last time as he was leaving the room, with his hand still on the door handle. The sun had been down for a while, and the electric light made everything even more absurd.

  When Nico started to walk downstairs, he saw Maria sitting at the foot of the stairs.

  “Well?” Maria said when Nico had come closer, looking up at him without standing. “How did you find him?”

  Nico slowly walked down two more steps, with his hands in his pockets. “Well,” he said, “he’s acting like a monkey.”

  Maria stared at him without saying anything. She seemed a little disappointed. “Yes, but …”

  “I don’t know, Maria,” Nico said. “I really don’t know. The last time we spoke on the phone he was complaining about his work and now he’s acting like a monkey. I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  Maria continued looking at him without saying anything.

  “Would you call me a taxi, please?” Nico said.

  “Of course,” Maria said, rising and half smiling. “But I can give you a lift if you like,” she added once she was on her feet.

  “No, thanks, a taxi will be fine. Really.”

  “As you wish.” Maria climbed down the last two steps and turned. “Will you come back tomorrow?”

  Nico looked at her and took a moment to reconnect. “Of course. I’d be glad to.”

  Maria nodded, smiling. She walked back into the drawing room, went to the telephone and picked up the receiver.

  Piero’s mother was still there, embroidering with an almost military determination. After a few seconds she looked up at her daughter, and saw Nico.

  “Hello!” she cried. She put the embroidery to one side and looked at Nico with those over-wide eyes. “Well? How did you find him?”

  Nico managed to squeeze out a smile. “Fine,” he nodded.

  “Really? I think he’s in good shape, too!”

  “Yes, I agree.”

  “Are you staying for a few days?”

  “Oh, yes, it looks as if I’ll be staying the whole weekend.”

  “How nice! Piero will be glad! Perhaps the two of you could go out for a meal or a drink the way you used to. I’m sure he’d love that.”

  Nico wondered which was worse: that Miriam should pretend nothing was wrong now, or that she had always done so before.

  “Yes, maybe,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

  “Or you could go the cinema. You always liked that.”

  “Right,” Nico said. “It’s an idea.”

  Maria put down the phone and walked up to Nico. “The taxi will be here in five minutes,” she said.

  Nico had never appreciated a taxi so much in his life.

  “What, are you going already?” Piero’s mother asked, frowning sadly.

  “Afraid so,” Nico said. “It’s late and I haven’t even told my parents I’m coming.
”

  “What a pity,” Piero’s mother said. “I was hoping you might be able to have dinner with us.”

  “Yes, I know. Another time, perhaps.”

  “All right, but we’ll see you again while you’re here.”

  “Of course, Miriam. I’ll be back tomorrow as early as I can, I promise. Keep well.”

  “Thank you, darling. You, too.”

  Miriam picked up her embroidery as if nothing had happened, and after a moment Nico followed Maria out of the room.

  “Why don’t you wait here?” she asked at the door.

  “No, thanks, I’ll go and wait at the gate. I like walking.”

  “It’s up to you,” Maria said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” Nico said, then went up to Maria, let her kiss him twice on the cheeks and walked out.

  When he heard the door close behind him, he felt as though someone had stuck an oxygen mask over his face, and the air outside had never seemed so scented.

  NICO GOT IN THE TAXI and gave his parents’ address, then sat close to the window looking out at the road rushing past, trying not to think about the strangest thing he had ever experienced in his life.

  The car passed the big bend, and Nico remembered all the times he and Piero had passed it on mopeds, racing to see which of them could take it faster, the time he had skidded and smashed the moped into the low wall, all the times they had stopped here at dawn, returning from some night out, and leant over to look down at the town and smoke their last cigarettes, and the time Piero had fallen. Then he decided he didn’t really want to remember those things right now, and he started looking out again, concentrating on the road and the cars rushing past.

  That afternoon, on the train, Nico had thought it might be nice to call home and announce his arrival, but then he had decided that he didn’t want to—that it would be amusing to turn up like that at the last moment, like the wandering, unpredictable son he had never been.

  The taxi driver, who was all smiles, dropped him outside his house. There was a breeze now, and the air felt cooler. Nico slid a hand through the bars of the little gate and stretched until he found the button that released the lock. He looked around to see if anyone was watching him. That was something he always enjoyed doing, as if knowing that little secret made him automatically feel at home, especially as what he was doing was vaguely fraudulent.

  Nico went through the gate, climbed the few steps leading to the front door and rang the bell. He heard some indistinct noises inside the house, and his mother’s muffled voice saying something as she came to the door.

  When Nico’s mother opened the door, the sight of him almost took her breath away. She was wearing a stained apron with red and white stripes.

  “Who? …”

  She was licking her fingers, and she froze with her hand in mid-air and her mouth open. Nico wondered if she was simply surprised or also a little bit agitated.

  “Hi, Mum, I’m your son. Remember me?”

  Nico’s mother took a couple of seconds to reconnect and get her hand and everything else moving again. “Darling! What a surprise! What are you doing here?”

  Behind his mother, Nico saw a man rush stark naked across the entrance hall and up the stairs.

  Nico opened his eyes wide for a moment and looked anxiously at his mother. “Mum, why did Dad just run upstairs naked?”

  Nico’s mother raised her eyebrows, turned round with feigned curiosity, then turned back to her son and gave him a lovely smile. “I imagine he was going up to get dressed, darling.”

  It seemed to Nico that he didn’t have time for that.

  “What shall I do?” he asked, pretending to smile questioningly. “Can I come in?”

  “Oh, God, darling, I’m sorry! It’s just … you know …”

  Nico left his jacket in the hall and followed his mother into the kitchen. She was making something strange in the wok—that strange, wonderful concave oriental pan that ought to have produced only exquisite delicacies, but didn’t seem to produce anything very much in the hands of Nico’s mother. Nico tried to remember when exactly it was that his mother had been seized by that obsession with all things oriental, but couldn’t really pin it down. All he knew was that overnight the house had started to fill with strange books with dark-blue paper and red ideograms, extravagant kitchen utensils and gardening tools, colourful leaflets with exotic names on them, batik sarongs and hemp skirts. Nico remembered talking about it to his sister.

  “Do you think this oriental kick of Mum’s is normal?” he had asked her one day over the phone.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, all these books about the Orient and Zen and Japanese cooking, all that kind of thing.”

  “What of it?”

  “I don’t know, don’t you think it’s strange?”

  “Nico, let her do what she wants,” his sister had said.

  Nico wondered if his dad being naked in the living room had something to do with the same cultural revolution, or if he had started smoking dope.

  “Mum,” Nico said, “do Dad and you smoke dope?”

  For a moment Nico’s mother stopped what she was doing—stirring a dark mixture of sorry-looking vegetables in her wok—and looked at her son with a puzzled half-smile. “No, darling. Why? What makes you think that?”

  “No reason. It’s been a long day. I’m sorry.”

  She stroked his cheek. Nico was sitting on the high iron stool next to the ovens, as he had when he was a child, nibbling at pieces of food left over from his mother’s experiments.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, then started stirring the vegetables again. “Will this be enough?” she asked after a while, pensively.

  Silently, Nico lifted his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

  “I don’t think it is,” she said. “I think I should add a little more spaghetti.”

  Nico craned his neck to look in the wok and wondered which of those sorry-looking ingredients came under the admittedly vague heading of spaghetti.

  His mother looked at Nico and stroked his face again. “What a nice surprise,” she said, then went back to stirring the spaghetti and the vegetables. “But what are you doing here?” she asked, and there was something slightly different, almost inquisitorial, in her tone.

  “Piero has started acting like a monkey.”

  “Mm,” said Nico’s mother. “How nice.”

  Nico gave his mother a puzzled look. “Not really,” he said.

  “Oh,” his mother said. Then she stopped for a moment. “I’m sorry, in what way?”

  “Some time this summer he suddenly flipped and started acting like a monkey.”

  “What do you mean, ‘like a monkey’?”

  “Like a monkey: he crouches on the ground, grunts and smiles in a lopsided way like a chimpanzee.”

  Nico’s mother looked at her son with her mouth open in surprise, and Nico caught himself thinking that it was her most genuine expression since she had opened the door. Then she started stirring the vegetables again.

  “I always said he was a strange boy,” she said.

  Nico would have liked to say that being strange was one thing, damn it, but starting to act like a monkey was quite another matter, then it struck him that it wasn’t worth it, he didn’t want to talk about it anyway, he was rather tired and this whole business of Piero and the monkey was perhaps too straightforward to require much discussion.

  After a few minutes, Nico’s father came into the kitchen. He was himself again: he had put on his usual jacket and tie and light-brown trousers. He had gone back to being the aloof, distinguished man Nico had always known. Nico told himself not to think about the fact that only a little while earlier he had seen him run upstairs naked.

  “Hello, son.”

  His father came up to Nico and they kissed each other lightly on the cheek.

  “Hello, Dad.”

  “Everything OK?”

  “Yes, not bad. And you?”

 
“Pretty good. How’s work?”

  “Fine, really. Just fine.”

  “Great.”

  Silence.

  “I’m going to watch the news,” Nico’s father said.

  Nico nodded, and his father left the kitchen, taking a small piece of bread with him. Nico’s mother suggested it might be nice if they all ate in the kitchen, just like in the old days, so Nico got down off the stool and laid three places on the wooden breakfast bar beside the cooker. Over dinner, they talked of this and that as they tried to get his mother’s mixture down them. His father made another attempt to show an interest in his son’s work, and Nico tried to involve him, too, in the Piero thing, but without much success.

  When dinner was over, his mother put the dishes in the dishwasher and they went into the living room to see what was on TV. They all sat down on the sofa, with Nico in the middle. From time to time he turned his head slightly to look at his parents and see if they, too, felt the same kind of cheerful self-consciousness, and they looked at him briefly in return, but then turned back to the TV as if nothing had happened.

  After just over half-an-hour, Nico told himself it had been quite a day, stood up and told his parents that he was going to bed. His mother looked up with an affectionate half-smile and told him his bed was ready, with clean sheets and everything.

  “Just like the old days,” she said, still smiling.

  Nico wondered why they were all so obsessed with the old days. He nodded pensively a couple of times, then turned and walked upstairs.

  His room was indeed just as it had been, with the Moana Pozzi and Rolling Stones posters and the photo of Tom Waits on the wall, together with all the other teenage nonsense no one had had the courage to take down in all these years.

  Nico started wandering around the room, moving a few ornaments and picking up a few magazines. He saw the old issue of Playboy with which he had come for the first time. He leafed through it until he found the photo of Anna Nicole Smith that had caused that miracle, and for a moment he felt like making a real leap into the old days and going to the bathroom to masturbate over his first woman. Then it occurred to him that he was too tired and disorientated even for that. He undressed and went to the bathroom to clean his teeth.