by Giacomo Papi
Maria stopped speaking. Adriano assisted her. The intervals grew shorter and her body was overrun by a monstrous force. She was so shaken by the grief of life that, even though she had separated from her own mother, even though she was becoming a mother herself, she still kicked and bit at the feeling. It was the fury of grass that breaks through cracks in the asphalt. She was sweating and exhausted, beautiful and violent. She didn’t ask permission or advice, she just gave in and pushed against the force that was shaking her, she steered as hard as she could against the wave that was crashing her to shore. The instrument of birth functioned by letting itself be dominated by time.
The old man sat on the opposite side of the bed. Maria grabbed his hands while with her other hand squeezed that of Adriano, and she used both of them to drag herself forward, to sit on the edge of the bed, legs wide, almost crouching on her toes, screaming with the little bit of voice she had left. When the wave subsided she regained her strength and breathed, but as soon as she felt it coming again she would get back into that same position. Adriano got up on the bed and knelt behind her to hold her up under her armpits. She needed it. The sequence of events took place four, five, and six times more, until Maria brought her hand to her vagina, breathed in and uttered.
“I feel its head.”
“It’s about to be born, Maria.”
A contraction came and went, and one more. Each time, during the intervals, she fell to the bed, leaning against her man as if he was a pillow.
“It’s about to be born, now. It’s about to come out. I need to come to the front, Maria. I need to get her.”
“No, not you. I don’t want you to do it.”
“What do you mean, not me? Who, then?”
The old man stared at them, stunned. Adriano protested.
“But Maria, I’m a doctor. This is a delicate operation. Let me handle it.”
“Serafino.”
The old man, intimidated, got on his knees at the foot of the bed, his hands suspended in mid-air, ready to catch a ball.
“Here we go, another one, I feel it coming.”
Adriano helped her straighten herself out. Maria inhaled very slowly, it was a breath that refrained from accelerating and becoming a spasm, and her body was overcome with an extreme tension that Adriano didn’t think possible. She cried out deeply over and over, a sole wheeze that seemed to have no end and no change in tone, a deep sound that rose from the center of her being. Serafino whispered.
“It’s coming, it’s coming, don’t stop. It’s coming, Maria. Here she is, that’s her, we made it, I can touch her.”
For a few seconds, everything froze. More inhaling. The woman sat up again. She moved in a hurry, because she knew time was running out. She waited for the moment. She pushed with all her remaining energy, a deep scream coming out of her chest, powerful, guttural, the scream of humanity, unchanging since the beginning of time.
Now Serafino held something in his hands. Something alive, something strong but delicate.
Adriano helped her lay down and then he moved slowly to her side. Serafino held a baby girl. She was so tiny. Tendons. Bones. Some skin and flesh. Her father held her and shook her lightly. The little being sneezed and a high-pitched and gentle cry invaded the room. He picked her up. He got up. He placed her on her mother’s chest and Maria squeezed her delicately, crying, releasing tension, wiped out by exhaustion, moved by the feeling of birth, by the fact that one could still be born. It was all thanks to her, to Maria, to how she didn’t give up.
The baby was now on top of the dresser. Serafino laid out a towel soaked in hot water. Her father cut the umbilical chord with scissors and medicated her. Then he medicated the mother. When he had finished Serafino covered her with a blanket and tucked in her sheets. Adriano washed the baby in the bucket that Serafino had prepared. She was covered with a thick white cream. She didn’t look like either of them. She looked like a bewildered being wanting to go back into her waters and swim some more. He dried her with all the care in the world, even if his large hands trembled, and he wrapped her in a thin cloth. It was raining outside, hundreds of water droplets on the window.
The pockmarked moon reappeared in the sky. Its rays shone like a nocturnal rainbow. But there was no more time for them. There was no past and there was no future. There was only the present. They rested after the storm. The baby girl was stretched out on her mother’s body. Maybe she slept a confused sleep, full of shadows and infinity, the sleep of someone who is not yet entirely born.
She had tufts of hair on her head and she was very beautiful. Soon she would drink her mother’s milk. The two men sat down on the chairs that flanked the big armoire. They didn’t speak to each other. There was nothing to say. Everything had been said already. They only needed to exist. The wind picked up, they needed to try to survive. The candles had gone out and no one could see clearly. Serafino, for the first time since his rebirth, felt as though he needed to close his eyes and rest.
Maybe he wanted to sleep. Maybe he had stopped living.
Outside there was nothing. The entire world had been demolished in a day. There was only space and time, that space and that time. There was the eternal present, but that too dies. Maybe it would have been enough for them. A man, a woman, and a newborn baby. In that moment, in that bedroom. The end from which every story can finally begin.
About the Author
Giacomo Papi was born in Milan in 1968. This is his first novel.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Originally published in Italy as I primi tornano a nuoto.
Translated from Italian by Clarissa Ghelli and Oonagh Stransky.
Copyright © 2012 by Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino.
English translation © 2014 by Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino.
Cover design by Riccardo Falcinelli.
Cover photo © Dennis Hallinan / Alamy.
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