What Hell Is Not Read online

  Those are the five words that Lucia wrote. If I had never been beat up, I would never have found them. Those five words are the elements of the formula. I just need to figure out how to put them together so that I can tell her: ‘My love, how beautiful you are!’

  Chapter 16

  ‘I’m leaving, Lucia.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Serena? Where are you going?’

  ‘Away from here.’

  ‘What’s going on? First you disappear without saying anything, and now you’re leaving for good? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Lucia is about to hug her but she stops. The expression on Serena’s face speaks loud and clear: Something’s wrong. Even the smile that instantly appeared on Lucia’s face has vanished, as if she felt guilty for her instinctive reaction.

  ‘Nobody knows.’

  Serena bursts out crying. Lucia hugs her friend as she sobs uncontrollably.

  Nuccio. Violence. The father. A baby. Abortion. Running away. Leaving everything behind. Heading north. These disconnected phrases emerge as if plucked from the waking moments of a nightmare that never ends.

  ‘Did you tell Don Pino?’

  ‘What good would that do? My life is over.’

  Lucia’s strength fails her. Hell has taken everything, even her friend’s womb. They’ve shared a thousand tidbits of gossip and have chatted for countless hours on end. She’s her partner in crime when it comes to makeup and clothes they’ve bought together without ever trying them on. She’s the big sister who will be going to college. And now the only thing that will remain of her friend is a body dried up by pain and a fatally fertile womb.

  Chapter 17

  The van limps along but there’s no room for complaints since they are all packed in so tightly. The kids are besides themselves with joy because Don Pino is taking them to the beach. Lucia is giving him a hand. They are all sitting on folding chairs. The van doesn’t have seats, and so Don Pino has remedied the situation with these chairs. They sway back and forth between the kids’ laughing and Lucia’s carsickness.

  ‘I’ve never been to Mondello,’ says Francesco for the second time.

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Never. What’s it like?’

  ‘The beach is gorgeous and the water is clear. The sand is white and very fine. It looks like flour. And there are wooden beach cabins where you can change into your bathing suit and there are tons of food stands where you can get ice cream when it’s too hot.’

  ‘Are we going to get ice cream?’

  ‘Of course we are!’

  ‘When do we get there?’ asks the girl with the doll. She’s sings her question like the chorus of a song as she taps on Don Pino’s shoulder.

  ‘A little bit farther and we’ll be there.’

  ‘Wow! Mondello is far away!’

  ‘You’ll enjoy it all the more when we get there.’

  ‘What does the doll have to say? Does she have a bathing suit for swimming?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t know how to swim. She’s just going to lie out in the sun.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I don’t know how to swim, either.’

  ‘You need to learn!’ says Don Pino.

  ‘It’s easy. All you have to do is float,’ Francesco reassures her.

  ‘My father was teaching me but he’s not here anymore.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘My dad isn’t here either. But my mom learned me how to swim.’

  ‘My mom doesn’t have time.’

  ‘Well, Don Pino will teach you then! Right?’ asks Francesco, making sure to emphasize the word ‘teach.’

  Don Pino has a serious look on his face for a moment.

  ‘Of course.’

  The girl pulls Doll close to her so that she can give her a loving smack on the cheek.

  The sun burns Don Pino’s skin and beats down on his dark clothes. He’s wearing a cap but it’s not enough to protect him from the blazing sun. The children seem to keep popping up out of nowhere like waves. They run around and dive into the water while Lucia and I try to keep them under control. Their bodies can’t seem to contain their bubbly energy. I didn’t know that she would be here and when I first saw her, I was tempted to hide. She greets me with a nod but doesn’t say a word to me.

  I can’t help but be a little ashamed of these kids. They act like wild savages who have never seen a trinket or a bead. I’m worried that I may run into someone that I know. Then I see Lucia’s natural ability in catering to their needs and I try, clumsily, to imitate her. I wish I had her freedom from other people’s judgment. I wish I had the freedom you get from knowing that you are doing the right thing, even though you are the only person doing it. And then I remember what Don Pino told me: They may be a little ill-mannered but they aren’t ill-intentioned. And we are here to help them come into contact with beauty so that they can clean the crust from their hearts as their happiness gushes out. But Lucia is taciturn and her eyes don’t shine like they usually do.

  The girl with Doll is sitting at the water’s edge, just getting her feet wet. Don Pino does the same. He’s rolled his pants up to his knees.

  ‘Will you teach me how to swim, Donpino?’

  ‘Are you sure? You’re not afraid anymore?’

  ‘If you’re there, I won’t be afraid. I want to go behind that.’

  ‘Behind where?’

  ‘There. Where the line is.’

  ‘What line?’

  ‘The line where the sea touches the sky.’

  ‘Why do you want to go there?’

  ‘Because there are tons of things behind that line. Even my dad is there. I think that all the trains go there, too.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Doll.’

  ‘How does she know that?’

  ‘She’s been there.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘A long time ago. She’s a traveling doll. She saw all the beautiful things in the world before my daddy brought her to me. She wants me to see the same things that she saw. She always tells me to keep my eyes wide open like hers. But I can’t swim there.’

  ‘I can’t swim there either.’

  ‘You can’t either?’

  ‘We can sit here together, though.’

  ‘No. I want to go where you can’t touch the bottom. Just like I used to do with my daddy. You can do that, can’t you, Donpino?’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ he answers hesitantly.

  Without saying another word, she takes him by the hand. They go into the water and it’s not clear who’s leading whom.

  The boy and Lucia are amused as they watch Don Pino go into the water with his rolled-up pants and his undershirt.

  They move slowly as the girl squeezes his hand with one hand while she grips Doll ever more tightly with the other.

  ‘It’s so cold!’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s warm.’

  ‘You’re right, Donpino. It was just an excuse because I’m afraid.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re close to the shore here.’

  ‘No. I want to learn how to float where you can’t touch the bottom.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, let’s go.’

  They keep going out into the water but at a certain point the girl needs to hold on with two hands because she can’t touch the bottom anymore. She doesn’t know what to do with Doll. And so Don Pino takes Doll and puts her under his arm while he helps the girl float with his hands. He’s also scared of not being able to touch the bottom, but luckily he’d have to go out a few meters more before that would happen.

  ‘My daddy told me to move my legs like a bicycle.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Look. I know how to do it!’

  ‘Great job. But slow down a little bit.’

  ‘Is this better?’

  ‘Yes, great. Now you need to do something else. You need to move your arms
like you’re making a circle in the water.’

  ‘How do I do that if I need to keep holding onto you?’

  ‘Just use one hand.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘Really? You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She lets go with one hand for a moment. But then she immediately grabs him again.

  ‘Don’t be scared.’

  The girl starts to muster her courage. She lets go and starts making a circle.

  ‘Not so fast, and now start moving your legs, too.’

  ‘Wow! Look at me float! With just one hand!’

  ‘Now we need to try without you holding onto me.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Like you just did.’

  ‘And what else do I have to do? Do I need to make another circle?’

  ‘Yes, just one circle but bigger.’

  She tries but immediately starts to sink. When she touches the sand with her feet she pushes up and comes back up to the surface like a taut spring. She grabs onto him with both hands as she spits out water with her eyes closed. She buries her face into Don Pino’s stomach.

  ‘I almost drowned! Thank goodness you were here, Donpino!’

  ‘I’m not leaving you. Don’t worry. Should we try again?’

  ‘But I need to rest a bit first.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The girl holds onto him tightly and watches him as he smiles.

  ‘You are such a good girl.’

  ‘And you are good like my daddy.’

  When we say goodbye, the kids all hug me and chant my name. You can hear it all across the beach. Now I’ve been fingered as the one guilty of making all that racket. I start blushing. What else is life if not a game played by carefree children?

  ‘When are you coming back?’ asks Totò. ‘I learned a bunch of chords and I can’t wait to play them for you. Your brother is an even better teacher than you!’

  ‘Did you meet my brother?’

  ‘He told me that you were busy and so he substituted for you for a little while.’

  So he did it after all! He didn’t even tell me. That would have been too much.

  I can see the happiness in Totò’s eyes and I imagine my eyes look just as happy in this moment.

  ‘I’m going away with my parents now but when I get back, I’ll come see you, okay? Now keep practicing!’

  ‘Every day. My mom can’t stand it. Yesterday, she was about to throw the guitar out the window.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You fell for it, didn’t you? That didn’t really happen. Manfredi told me that if I keep on learning like this, he’s going to give me the guitar.’

  I mess up his hair, still wet from swimming in the sea.

  When I move toward Lucia to say goodbye, she stops me by gesturing with her hand. But she smiles approvingly.

  I can’t read anything in her eyes anymore.

  We can’t leave each other like this. Tomorrow I’ll go back to Brancaccio before I am sentenced to eternal exile by my parents.

  Chapter 18

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I had to go out that way and so I made a detour. I wanted to say hello to Don Pino and I also wanted to make sure that my guitar was still in one piece.’

  ‘But then you went back, and you still didn’t say anything about it.’

  ‘I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction. Have I ever done anything because you told me to do it? And besides, that kid is too cute. You were stuck at home. So what was I supposed to do? Leave him without a guitar teacher?’

  Manfredi’s scooter cruises through the sun-washed streets. When I confided in him that I wanted to go back to Brancaccio but that I was afraid to, he told me that he would come with me. At least there would be two of us to take a beating. I can face anything if I have my brother by my side.

  We park the scooter a kilometer away. We’re here for the guitar but we don’t want to lose the scooter.

  The train crossing introduces us to the other world of our city.

  The children are finishing their rehearsal with Lucia. We wait in the corner.

  ‘Charlemagne has returned!’ exclaims Totò as he moves toward me.

  The others burst out laughing.

  ‘Did you learn any new chords?’ Manfredi asks him. ‘So, let me hear them.’

  The child smiles and runs to get the guitar.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Lucia asks me.

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, you have one of my books. I came to get it before my parents exile me.’

  ‘Okay. But I don’t want you to ever come back. I’ll go get it.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘If you do, they’ll see you with me. Are you stupid or something?’

  ‘What should I care? Either way, this is the last time I’m coming here. That’s what you told me, right?’

  My brother stays with Totò and the other kids and entertains them with his songs.

  We walk to Lucia’s house.

  ‘You keep telling me that I can’t come here anymore, but you never want to go anywhere outside your neighborhood. The only solution would be that I come escorted by my brother or I buy a bullet-proof jacket.’

  ‘You shouldn’t joke about stuff like this, Federico. You don’t seem to want to understand. Last time you got away with a few scars. Next time you might not be so lucky.’

  I can see from her eyes that there’s something else she’d like to say. But something is stopping her from saying it. She pushes her hair back over her shoulder with her hand and it looks like a simple wave on the nighttime sea.

  We don’t say another word until we get to her house. Lucia gets the book and gives it back to me.

  ‘You keep it. It was just an excuse to see you again.’

  ‘You are so hard-headed. You just had to come to Brancaccio to get your head broken again.’

  ‘I also came to Brancaccio to have my heart broken. By you. I’ll be fine with a broken head and a broken heart, as long as I’m still alive.’

  ‘You won’t be alive for long if you stick around here.’

  ‘Don’t get carried away.’

  ‘Do you know who Rita Atria is?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘So not even you know who she is. We go to school and they don’t teach us anything. They fill our heads with ideas but they forget to teach us about life.’

  ‘So who is it? A friend of yours?’

  ‘I feel like she could have been a friend of mine. She belonged to an important Mafia family from Partanna. They killed her father when she was eleven years old. A few years later, they killed her brother, who had also entered into that world. They were very close, and he had told her about all the business that he knew about. So she decided not keep the secrets to herself. She was a big admirer of Borsellino and she wanted to meet him and tell him everything she knew. And do you know what her mother and her relatives did? They disowned her. And she was forced to leave Palermo. Then they killed Borsellino and Rita threw herself out of a seventh-floor window a week later. She had been in Rome for weeks at that point, by herself. Borsellino had tried to get her in contact with her mother so they could reconcile. But it was no use. She was nineteen years old. Do you get that? None of her relatives even came to the funeral. Not even her mother, who had thrown her out of the house. A few weeks later, her mother visited her grave and took a hammer to the headstone and broke the photo of her daughter.’

  ‘I’d never heard that story.’

  ‘That’s my point. The silence. As long as everyday people are silent, nothing will change in this city for the people who do decide to speak up. Our heroes are too far above us for us to imitate them. Falcone. Borsellino. They have been placed so high that they are unreachable. We need to do what Don Pino does: We need to give people the courage to stand up for their dignity. Rita didn’t make it because they abandoned her. Even in death. One day I want to write a play dedica
ted to her because she’s been forgotten by everyone. You say I should go away. That I should move to another city to go to college. That I should escape. But what use is it to be born here but be different from everyone else?’

  I let those words sink in.

  ‘That’s why I can’t leave you here alone.’

  ‘No, Federico. You need to stay far away, because I love you. Did you see what they did to Serena?’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Just forget it.’

  ‘Waves, darkness, caress, dream, seed. I will keep these five words safe.’

  Lucia’s eyes light up and she turns away.

  ‘One of my teachers told us a story about a Russian poet who was sent away to a work camp in Siberia because he was against Stalin’s regime. The only things that he took with him were the clothes he was wearing and his copy of The Divine Comedy, which he had learned to read by himself. His wife never gave up on him even though he had been condemned to death and they would never see each other again. And do you know what she did? She learned all of her husband’s poetry by heart so that she could keep him alive. Even after she had lost track of him and his body was buried in a mass grave in the ice and mud. Even after all of his books had been burned.’

  Lucia looks at me again and her eyes betray an inner battle. It is resolved for a second with a smile that escapes briefly from the chains of fear and bitterness.

  I see her in all of her strength and fragility. I will never forget this moment, one of those instances that happen at least once in a man’s lifetime: When, on your path in life, you encounter something that resembles nothing else you know. A brilliant wave of joy invades the fatigue that has impregnated life, like a white swan amid trash in an abandoned pond.

  ‘I won’t leave you. I will leave you here, but I will stay here, too.’

  Chapter 19

  Riccardo watches the scene from afar, with a knife hidden in his pocket. The wheel is flat. The car gasps for another few meters and then Don Pino is forced to stop. He goes home on foot. The first person that he meets is Riccardo, who says hello with a beaming smile. Don Pino smiles back, masking his exhaustion. It’s a hot day. Sweat is dripping down his back and his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth.