(August 1998).
- Please, Emmanuel, be careful: the baby is still very small. Please don't put him in danger.
A sense of impatience assails me at these words: I can't stand being treated by Antonia as some kind of mentally handicapped person, good only for occasional sex. I want to be respected, not treated with the condescension we use towards limited individuals to avoid making them feel too inferior. I want to feel the way Gianni made me feel, unique and precious; I realize how irreplaceable the hyperbolic admiration that only a gay man can have for another man is: no woman can make you feel that way. It truly becomes a drug, incredibly difficult to do without; and, needless to say, I've fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
But that, unfortunately or fortunately, is water under the bridge. My present is here, with this woman and this child, and if it weren't for the bitterness that envelops my days like a toxic smoke, I could almost say I'm happy; but there's no point lying to oneself: I'm not. After all, happiness is a chimera, one must be content with what one has, one must ask the gods not for what one desires, but to free oneself from desire, and so on. I'd like to at least feel serene, that's all: but the tone of indulgent superiority that Antonia always uses with me prevents me from doing so, irritates me.
- Antonia, I say to her, is it possible that you consistently take me for an imbecile? I know he's small, and it's not the first time I've brought him with me, I think?
- Yes, but before it was different: he couldn't walk yet, you put him in a baby carrier and took him for walks like that around the woods or to those strange places you like.
- Of course, I'm the usual loser who takes him around the woods or "to those weird places I like," which, coincidentally, you used to like too: not to San Sicario in the new cabin or to the pool at the villa. I wonder why, huh?
- Emmanuel, come on, don't start…
- Anyway, yes, I also took him around the woods and along the stream: so what? Sometimes I even took him to the mountains and once even to the sea, and nothing ever happened to him.
- Of course, because while you were walking, he was hanging on your back or your chest. But now that he's started walking, everything's different: he's in full exploration mode, he's never still. Even at home, he's constantly falling to the floor around every corner; I'd have to have a thousand eyes to keep an eye on him. So please, be careful.
- I'll be very careful. And Bella's there to help me: Martino loves to walk clinging to her fur, and she's very patient with him.
- Yes, she's a good dog.
Bella confirms with a bark and a broad smile, letting her tongue hang out. I often have the impression that my dog understands Italian, or at least grasps the general gist of what's being said. Martino gives me this impression now too: he understands many words and simple sentences. He's a very curious child, decidedly intelligent, he understands cause and effect relationships, and he's starting to construct two-word sentences, which, from what I've read, represent a fairly advanced stage in a child's logical-linguistic development. I've often heard him say "Mom food" or "Cat ball" when he wants a ball to throw to Gino, who plays with it like an expert soccer player, dribbling around obstacles and making him laugh heartily.
Of course, I don't have the slightest memory of what I was like at his age, but I think I was a rather silly child, the kind who enjoys sitting in their mother's arms and looking around with a dazed, dreamy expression. I loved playing in the garden, yes, I remember that perfectly: I learned to run very early, and I often scraped my knees from falling; but, according to my mother, I never cried.
Antonia finally gives me the baby: I pick him up. He paws the ground and squeals a little, wanting to walk on his own, but I don't let go: I place him in the front seat of the Suzuki, in his special child seat, put Bella in the trunk, go back to give Antonia a kiss, and start the car.
It's a beautiful, warm August day: I turn on the stereo and put in a record that Martino really likes: it's a lullaby reworking of some famous rock songs I loved and still love. I would never have thought, for example, that Nirvana would lend itself so well to cradle-themed covers, but that's not at all strange: there's almost always something childishly catchy about the melodic turns of Kurt's songs, a sort of self-consoling evocation of childhood memories. Martino hums Nirvana in his own unique way, confirming that he really is my son, and he seems quite at ease in his comfy car seat.
It's already half past two, so we can't go far. I'll take Martino to the Orco stream, where I often went as a boy with his mother to study: it's nice to see those places again. Now that I've re-established a relationship with Antonia and our situation has, for better or worse, reached a point of equilibrium, it no longer hurts to return: in fact, I'm happy to take my son and my dog there, even if I realize with a sudden pang of bitterness that Saucepan remains irreplaceable to me. I love Bella very much, but it's a different relationship, external, so to speak. Instead, that poor grayish, faded animal was a part of me, a sort of canine alter ego. This thought clouds the serenity of my mood a little, veiling it with a hint of melancholy. Besides, lately, I've been constantly sad, even when I pretend to be cheerful.
I still suffer from Gianni's loss. I suffer doubly because I shouldn't suffer. I'm here with my son and I wish I were in the arms of a man who could be my father: what kind of man am I? What kind of father can I possibly be?
For weeks, for months now, I've been fighting against myself to forget him. He himself helped me a lot, treating me that indecent way. So yes, I suffer, but I bear the pain stoically. Unfortunately, I know full well that it's his daily phone call that helps me endure it: every time my cell phone rings and I see that number, my heart does a somersault. Now I've changed my attitude: I no longer hang up immediately, but listen silently to what he has to say, without answering. Then I hang up. This way he knows I've heard him: I don't want to make him feel humiliated or rejected. I love him, damn it, and I don't want him to suffer any more. But no, I won't go looking for him again: I'll let our wound bleed peacefully, drowning us both in a lake of melancholic torpor. We drown holding hands: it's a way like any other to stay together.
And there it is, my stream, where it widens smoothly and peacefully into a cove next to the grassy bank I so often chose to study, alone or with Antonia, but always in the company of Saucepan. Fortunately, Bella shares Saucepan's tastes and wags her tail happily, while I lower Martino onto the grass and lead him by the hand toward the water. He trots beside me with small, still slightly unsteady steps, holding on to Bella's tail with his other hand. We sit on the bank and I pick him up; I watch the calm flow of the water, blue and transparent, my chin resting on his red curls, and I feel a strange emotion come over me. Suddenly, the baby fidgets nervously, putting a hand on his pants near his genitals. Antonia put him in a diaper before handing him over to me, and I also have two spares in the Pluto-printed bag I carry with me, which is entirely dedicated to Martino's things. However, I have the impression that he's trying to tell me he wants to pee, and not in his diaper. In fact, he whimpers:
- Pee, Daddy.
I'm astonished: not so much by the message he's communicating to me, which reveals a precocious ability to recognize bladder urges and an equally precocious desire to control them, but by the last two syllables. Anyway, I indulge him, help him get up, and carry him to an area sheltered by bushes (an unnecessary precaution, but my son and I are very reserved types), pull down his shorts and diaper, and help him, supporting him, to pee "like a man," as he desires. Finally, he seems very satisfied and smiles as I pull his shorts back up and lead him back to sit on the edge.
- Martino, I tell him, you were really good at asking to pee like the grown-ups, you know?
He nods with conviction.
- But you also said something else… you didn't just say "pee", did you?
He shrugs, as if it were no big deal.
- What did you say, Martino? I insist.
- Pee, he replies.
- Yes, but what did you say after that?
- Pee! he repeats.
- I understood you said "pee," but then you said something else. I didn't hear it clearly. Can you say it again?
- Peeeeeeeeee!, he blurts out exasperatedly, as if he wanted to end the conversation once and for all.
I sigh in resignation. I'm sure I heard correctly, but I won't hear anything from him; he's closed himself off like an oyster. I'll carry this doubt with me for who knows how long.
- Come on, I tell him, let’s go take a walk in the water: it’s shallow and calm here.
Bella, as usual, immediately grasps the meaning of my words and is happy to comply: she dives into the stream and splashes heavily among the smooth white stones of the riverbed, kicking up splashes and attempting to snap up some passing fish, obviously without success. I accompany Martino to the shore of a small natural pool with blue-green water, just over twenty centimeters deep: it seems like the perfect place to take him for a swim.
- Fitsch!, exclaims the child, pointing to some barbel or chub fry.
- Yes, there are little fish, I confirm smiling.
I take off my sneakers and slip his shoes off, placing them on the dry shore. Then I take his hand and walk toward the water, trying to persuade him to walk into the small blue pool, but the boy balks and resists.
- Come on, Martino, come with Uncle Manu.
- Eat!
- Yes, I'll give you your fruit puree later, but first we'll cool our feet. Look at Bella jumping in the water!
Unconvinced and hesitant, the child lets himself be persuaded and begins to take a few steps beside me. I try to get him to place his feet on the larger, smoother rocks. Martino is beginning to enjoy the walk; we walk hand in hand with our feet in the water for a few minutes, when suddenly he lets out a little cry.
- What’s happening?, I ask him, alarmed.
- Ouch, foot!
I pick him up and my heart stops: his little left foot is bleeding profusely, injured by something I don't know what. I try to reassure him, but in reality I'm in a state of confusion and my heart is racing. I peer into the water to see what might have injured Martino's foot, but I see nothing: probably some damned glass, blending in with the blue-green transparency of the water. The child, of course, starts crying; Bella immediately stops her water games and comes to us barking.
- Shut up, Bella! Don't you understand that this way you're scaring him even more?
Bella immediately falls silent and wags her tail dejectedly.
- It's nothing, Martino, now your uncle will bandage your little foot and then we'll go get treated.
I pick up the baby and carry him to the bank. Then I take a clean cotton handkerchief from my pants pocket, which I luckily brought with me, and bandage his foot, trying to close the wound and keep it from bleeding too much. I know full well that to avoid tetanus, it's best to let the blood flow. But enough has already flowed, and I don't have time to waste. I run to the car with the baby in my arms, place him in his car seat, put Bella in the trunk, and rush to the nearest emergency room, which luckily is only a few kilometers away.
Martino, shocked, stopped crying. The whole ride over, I keep calling myself an idiot.