But Beatrice only manages to take a few steps, then she lets herself go in my arms. Very lightly, like a white snowflake. I help her get back to bed. I turn off the stereo. She looks at me with gratitude for a second before closing her eyes as sleep overtakes her, and in that one look that is shutting down, I understand that I have everything that she is losing: my hair, school, dance, friendship, family, love, hope, a future, life … but I don’t know what I am doing with any of these things.
85
I am unable to study this damned book of mathematics, and tomorrow I’ll have my written test in class. I keep seeing Beatrice’s glance of languishing defeat.
I see it behind the lines,
between the lines,
in the white of the lines.
It’s as if my senses have withdrawn and developed another form of perception: all that Beatrice is losing, I must live not only for myself, but also for her. I have to live it twice. Beatrice likes mathematics. And now I want to study it, and even do well, because it displeases Beatrice to abandon even this mysterious, disgusting thing …
86
At Beatrice’s house, I always transform myself into new characters: first the guitar teacher, now the professor of geography. Who would have ever thought it? I, who never studied geography anyway and was limited to matching the names of countries to their metallurgical industries, among which, by the way, I never knew how to make any distinction. Not to mention the cultivation of sugar beets, which I imagine are plants full of the sugar packets from the local café hanging from them.
I go to visit Beatrice, and every time I take her to a new a city. Beatrice dreams of traveling, and when she recovers, she wants to see the world, to know its languages, to discover its secrets. She already knows English and French; she wants to learn Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. Who knows why she wants to learn Russian, with those incomprehensible letters … isn’t Greek enough?
She says that knowing the languages of others helps you to see the world better. Each language has a different perspective. The Inuit, for example, have fifteen words for snow, based on temperature, color, consistency, while for me, snow is snow and that’s it. Then you add an adjective to understand if you can snowboard on it or not. The Inuit see fifteen different kinds of white in the white I see, which terrorizes me. …
I gather material, studying the usages and customs of a city or nation; on the Internet, I collect images of the most beautiful places to visit, of monuments not to be missed, because they are tied to interesting stories. I prepare a PowerPoint presentation, and then we watch it on the computer while I pretend to take Beatrice around those streets, as if I were an expert tourist guide.
In this way, we have visited the Golden Ring in Russia, covered by a thousand layers of wool to defend ourselves from the cold; we have rested in the gigantic shadow of Christ the Redeemer that hovers above Rio; we have lingered in silence in front of the Taj Mahal in India, an extraordinarily white building lying on red sand that an Indian king built to honor his wife; we have scuba dived in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef after stopping by the Sydney Opera House; we have participated in a tea ceremony, maybe the first tea I’ve ever drunk in my life, in an unforgettable corner of Tokyo.
We still want to navigate the Danube and observe an Icelandic geyser; eat Sicilian cannoli at the beach; take a black-and-white photo on the Seine; stroll and look at all the artists along the Ramblas; hug the Little Mermaid Statue; steal the dust of the Acropolis; buy clothes in the Big Apple and put them on immediately in Central Park; ride around on bicycles along the canals of Amsterdam, making sure to keep our balance so we don’t fall into the water; knock down at least one stone of Stonehenge; frolic on the edge of a Norwegian fjord and risk flying away; stretch out on an immense Irish meadow, thinking that in the world only two colors exist: green and blue … We have the whole world to discover and explore, and Beatrice’s room is transformed into all these places, thanks to our super-low-cost excursions.
“Beatrice, where do you want to go during the summer after you graduate?”
Beatrice falls silent and looks up, bringing a finger to her nose and mouth, like someone searching for a difficult solution.
“I would like to go to the moon.”
“To the moon? A mass of white dust without gravity, immersed in the darkest silence that exists … ”
“Yes, but all things lost on Earth are preserved there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you know the story of Astolfo in Orlando Furioso? He is a knight who goes to reclaim Roland’s wits, who has gone crazy because of love so that he can return to combat.”
I shake my head and imagine a furious Leo who has lost his mind because of love.
“You will study it. But it is only a fantasy. … ” adds Beatrice, almost sad.
“What would you go to reclaim?”
“What about you?” asks Beatrice.
“I don’t know, maybe my first guitar. I forgot it in a hotel in the mountains, and I never found it again. I was very attached to it, I learned to play with that one. … Or maybe my old scooter … I don’t know. … You?”
“Time.”
“Time?”
“Time that I have wasted. … ”
“Wasted how?”
“With useless things. … Time I never used for others: how much more I could have done for my mother, for my friends … ”
“But you still have all your life ahead of you, Beatrice.”
“It’s not true, Leo, my life is now behind me.”
“You shouldn’t say that, you don’t know, you can still get better!”
“Leo, the surgery went badly.”
I am mute. I can’t imagine the world without Beatrice. I wouldn’t be able to bear the silence that there would be. All the cities to be visited would disappear immediately, useless beauty, if I were alone. Everything would lose its meaning, would become white like the moon. Only love gives meaning to things.
Beatrice, if, like the Inuit have for the word snow, we had fifteen ways to say “I love you,” for you I would use them all.
87
Outside of Beatrice’s house, the May light drips down me like a shower after the games with Niko. And when I turn off the water, I have already arrived at Silvia’s house for the dreaded, endless review of Italian before the big exam on the whole curriculum of the second semester of the year.
We keep going until late. It is already eleven o’clock when her mother timidly enters the room to ask if we want something to drink. So while we sip glasses of Coke that wakes us up a little, Silvia suggests that we go out onto the balcony to get some air. The Milky Way seems to have polished itself for the occasion. I begin to show Silvia some of the constellations. I repeat to her what Dad has taught me, maybe adding some detail from my imagination … with my index finger, I point out the stars, which are even more luminous than the lights of the city and that make up some of my favorite constellations: Perseus, Andromeda, and Pegasus.
I tell Silvia, who slowly moves her eyes from my finger to the heavens, as if I were drawing the sky myself, the story of Perseus defeating Medusa, who has a look that petrifies, from whose blood the white winged horse takes flight, white like the foam of the sea: Pegasus, who still waves freely along the Milky Way. Perseus, who runs into Andromeda, a prisoner on one of the shoals, waiting for the sea monster to devour her and frees her. He frees her from the monster.
“My father helped me discover that the sky is not a screen. I used to see it as a television screen, with some colored points scattered here and there, by chance, on the surface. Instead, if you look at it carefully, the sky is like the sea: it’s deep. You are almost able to perceive the distances between stars, and your own smallness can scare you. And you fill that chasm full of fear with stories. You know, Silvia, I didn’t used to believe it, but the sky is full of stories. Before, I didn’t see them but now I read each of them like a book. My father taught me to see the sto
ries, otherwise they escape, they hide themselves, they stretch out like the invisible threads of a plot between one star and another … ”
Silvia is listening, staring at the luminescent points on the uniform backdrop; the odor of the city fades near her, and even the streets seem perfumed. Silvia has peace in her heart; Silvia smiles. “People are somewhat similar to the stars; maybe they shine far away, but they shine, and they always have some interesting story to tell … but it takes time, often a lot of time, for the stories to arrive in our hearts, like the light to our eyes. Besides, you have to know how to tell stories. You know how to do it well, Leo, you do it with passion. Maybe one day you will become an astrophysicist, or a writer. … ”
“An astro what? No, I am not cut out to predict the future. … ”
“What are you thinking, dumbbell! An astrophysicist is someone who studies the sky, the stars, the celestial orbits.”
“Who knows … I would like that. But I’m guessing there would be too much math to study. Even if the Milky Way is one of the few white things that doesn’t scare me.”
“How come?”
“It might be because in reality, that white is made up of many small luminous points, all bound together … and each one of those bonds has a hidden story to remember. … ”
“Right … only the beautiful stories deserve constellations. … ”
“You’re right. Look at how Perseus frees Andromeda and Pegasus who flies, all white and free. … ”
“It takes some imagination, but—”
I interrupt Silvia’s words, floating in the clear air and reaching up to the stars, which seem like they can almost hear us, “I would like to free Beatrice from that monster, like Perseus did. And to fly away on a winged horse. … ”
“It would be beautiful. … ”
“In your opinion, I could even be a writer, huh?”
“Tell me a story. … ”
I remain silent. I stare at a flashing star, which is redder than the others.
“Once upon a time, there was a star, a young star. Like all young stars, it was small and white like milk. It seemed almost fragile, but it was only the effect of the light she unleashed that made her almost transparent, all light. They called her Dwarf, because she was small. White, because she was luminous like milk: White Dwarf, Dwarf for short. She loved going around the sky and meeting other stars. With the passing of time, Dwarf grew and became red and large. She wasn’t Dwarf anymore but Giant, the Red Giant. All the stars were envious of her beauty and red rays, which were like infinite hair. But the secret of Red Giant was to remain Dwarf inside. Simple, luminous, and pure like Dwarf, even if she appeared to be a giant and red. For this reason, Red Dwarf continues to flash in the sky, from white to red and vice versa because she is both at the same time. And there is no beauty more lovely than her in the heavens. And on Earth.”
I become silent. My story is not a story. There is no story, but this is what a luminous star suggested to me. I point to the star.
“I want to dedicate that star to you, Silvia.”
A white and red smile lights up Silvia’s face, as if her face were a mirror capable of reflecting her star’s brilliance millions, maybe even billions, of light years away.
Silvia leans her head on my shoulder and closes her eyes. And, in silence, I stare at Perseus, Andromeda, Pegasus. The sky has become an enormous dark cinema screen, on the verge of projecting all the movies we desire, while without noise, something small and luminous is nesting in a recess of my heart, like a grain of sand that hides itself in an oyster to later become a pearl.
“I love you,” say Silvia’s eyes.
“Me too,” answer mine.
88
The professor of Italian gives me an oral exam and asks me why I only just started to study now. I look at Silvia, who is shaking her head only slightly, and I eat the words I was about to say, but I know who I need to thank. Only one thing went wrong in the oral test: I got the subjunctives wrong.
“Why do you get all the subjunctives wrong, Leo? It almost seems like you do it on purpose. You mistake even the most simple ones. … ”
Even this time I keep silent, and I curse the day that, in order to be accepted by a small group of friends, I hung out with in the third year of middle school, I decided to abandon the subjunctive because nobody there was using it. To fit into a group, you can give up the subjunctive, but to speak proper Italian, you can’t. As a result, I get a seven rather than an eight.
Starting tomorrow, I’m going to start repeating sentences with the subjunctive, whether I like it or not. There, I just did it. I like it, even if it means I will have to correct everything I ever write. If I want to become a writer, I need to learn to use the subjunctive. Sure, the subjunctive is not necessary for living, but thanks to it you do live better: a life filled with nuances and possibilities. And this life is the only one I have.
89
I go to see Beatrice, who is writing in her diary, just like Silvia. She greets me with a smile and asks me to help her write. No one is allowed to read her diary, but she would give me permission, provided I write for her.
“If you help me write, I’ll let you read it,” she tells me, and it seems to me that I’m entering a room that contains all the secrets of the world.
It has a red cover, and the pages are white. White unlined pages. The worst thing that could happen to me. …
“Beatrice, I don’t know how to write on white pages. I’ll ruin everything.”
I say this while staring at the perfect order of Beatrice’s handwriting. The date is in the upper right-hand corner, and then her thoughts come together in a light, elegant, delicate handwriting. It resembles a white dress on a windy day in spring. I read the paragraph that she’s writing: “Dear God … ” What does she mean, ‘Dear God’?! Yes: ‘Dear God … ’ Beatrice is writing a letter to God. Her whole diary is composed of brief letters to God in which she recounts her days and confides in Him her fears, joys, sadness, hopes. I reread the last part of the letter of that day out loud, because she asks me to, in order to pick up from where she has left off.
“ … Today I am really tired. It takes a lot out of me to write to you. And yet, I have so many things to say, but I console myself with the fact that you already know everything. Nonetheless, I like to talk to you about these things, as it helps me to understand them better. I wonder if in heaven I will have my red hair again … if you have made my hair red because you like it that way, full of life. Then maybe I will get it all back.”
While I am reading, my voice is about to crack, but I manage to hold it back.
“Now, you continue writing. Today, writing has truly been wearing me out; my hand was hurting.
“Fortunately, you have sent me Leo, one of your guardian angels … ”
I’ve never thought of myself as a guardian, let alone an angel, but I don’t dislike the idea. Leo, a guardian angel. It sounds good. Meanwhile, Beatrice has stopped to think. Her green eyes stare off into some forgotten place from which they are about to emerge any minute now with an ancient treasure. I interrupt that look, “Are you happy, Beatrice?”
She keeps staring off into space, and after a pause she says, “Yes, I am.”
When I lift my eyes from her diary, she has drifted off to sleep. I caress her, and it feels to me like I am caressing her weakness. She doesn’t feel me. She is sleeping. I stay there looking at her for half an hour without saying anything. Looking at her, I see beyond, I perceive something that frightens me because I am not able to give it a name. I reread what we have written. This time I have rendered someone’s soul visible. The soul of Beatrice, with my crooked, slanted handwriting … I’ve written every line downhill. I only realize that now. I don’t know how to write on a white page, a blank page. It seems like all the words are tumbling down a cliff until they shatter. …
Then her mother enters and I leave. Her mother kisses my forehead and I, not knowing what to do, hug her. By the way she thanks me, I
understand that I have done the right thing. Since I have been trying to live for Beatrice, I have come up with a whole lot of right things to do. This, too, is love, I believe, because afterward I am happy: the secret to happiness is a heart full of love. Today I am taking Terminator out to pee. I might have to do it for the rest of my life. Beatrice can’t, but I can. This too is life.
If Beatrice is writing to Him, then surely God exists.
90
I’m wasting time writing my MWDs (messages without destinations … ) on my cell. It’s true that T9 is more intelligent than me. T9 can come up with seventy-five thousand words, but I can come up with only a thousand. And it’s true. So many words that I don’t know, that don’t come to me, words that I don’t know and that T9 suggests to me. I don’t know the plural of luggage, but T9 does. I don’t know if conscience has an i in it, but T9 knows. I don’t know if acceleration has one c or two. And when I need to write shit to someone, the fourth letter is replaced with one that gives it a different meaning, like ship, and so I’m forced to find a less offensive synonym, and I end up with crap.
Who invented T9, anyway? Who knows how much money he has made off it? I must invent something and make a ton of money too. Maybe if I applied myself more, I could do it. Maybe not. And if I write a novel, I’ll write it with T9. Why do I waste my time thinking about this crap?