Agostino (9781590177372)

by Alberto Moravia

  He hesitated, wondering whether it would be easier to go to the Vespucci beach along the water or through the pine grove. He decided on the beach because, although the sun beat down more heavily there, at least he wouldn’t risk walking by it without noticing. He traveled the full length of the street to where it merged with the seashore, then he started to walk quickly, staying close to the walls.

  He didn’t realize it, but what attracted him to Vespucci, besides the company of the boys, was their brutal mocking of his mother and her alleged lovers. He could sense that his former affection was turning into an entirely different sentiment, both objective and cruel, and he felt he should seek out and cultivate the boys’ heavy-handed irony for the simple fact that it had hastened this change. He couldn’t say why he wanted so much to stop loving his mother, why he hated her love. Perhaps it was his resentment at being deceived and at having believed her to be so different from what she really was. Perhaps, since he couldn’t love her without difficulty and insult, he preferred not to love her at all and to see her instead as merely a woman. He instinctively tried to free himself once and for all from the burden and shame of his former innocent, betrayed affection, which he now saw as little more than naïveté and foolishness. This was why the same cruel attraction that had made him stop and stare at his mother’s back a few minutes earlier was now compelling him to seek out the brutal and humiliating company of the boys. Wasn’t their irreverent talk—like his glimpse of her nudity—a way to destroy the filial condition he now found so repellent? A bitter pill that would either kill or cure him.

  When he came within sight of Vespucci, he slowed his pace. Although his heart was beating rapidly and he was almost out of breath, he assumed an attitude of indifference. Saro was sitting under the tarp as usual, at his wobbly table with a flask of wine, a glass, and a bowl with the remains of a fish stew. No one else seemed to be around. Or rather, as he approached the tarp, he discovered, dark against the whiteness of the sand, little Homs, the black boy.

  Saro didn’t seem to be paying much attention to Homs. He was smoking a cigarette, lost in thought, a tattered old straw hat pulled over his eyes. “Where is everybody?” Agostino asked in a disappointed voice.

  Saro looked up at him, regarded him for a moment, and said, “They all went to Rio.” Rio was a deserted location up the coast, a few kilometers away, where a stream flowed into the sea between the sand and a canebrake.

  “Oh,” said Agostino, disappointed, “they went to Rio? What did they go there for?”

  Homs replied, “They went to have lunch,” and made an expressive gesture, bringing his hand to his mouth. But Saro shook his head and said, “You kids won’t be happy till someone shoots you in the pants.” The lunch was clearly a pretext to go steal fruit from the fields, at least as far as Agostino could tell.

  “I didn’t go,” the black boy replied in a fawning voice, as if to ingratiate himself with Saro.

  “You didn’t go because they didn’t want you,” said Saro calmly.

  The black boy protested, squirming in the sand. “No, I didn’t go because I wanted to stay with you, Saro.”

  He had a smarmy, singsong voice. Saro said to him contemptuously, “Who gave you the right to call me by my first name, boy? We’re not brothers, you know.”

  “No, we’re not brothers,” answered Homs, unperturbed. Indeed, he seemed jubilant, as if he were deeply pleased by the observation.

  “So keep in your place,” Saro concluded. Then he turned to Agostino. “They went to steal fruit and corn. That’s their lunch.”

  “Are they coming back?” Agostino asked impatiently.

  Saro said nothing. He looked at Agostino and seemed to be mulling something over. “They won’t be back for a while,” he replied slowly, “not before evening. But if we want, we can join them.”

  “How?”

  “By boat,” said Saro.

  “Yes, let’s take the boat,” cried the black boy. Eager to go, he got up and stood next to Saro, but the man ignored him completely. “I’ve got a sailboat. In half an hour, more or less, we can be in Rio, if the wind is good.”

  “All right, let’s go,” said Agostino cheerfully. “But if they’re in the fields, how are we going to find them?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Saro, standing up and adjusting the black sash around his waist, “we’ll find them.” He turned toward Homs, who was peering at him anxiously, and added, “And you, boy, help me carry the sail and the mast.”

  “Right away, boss, right away,” the black boy said jubilantly, following Saro into the shack.

  Left to himself, Agostino stood up and looked around. The mistral wind had picked up, and the rippled sea was now a purplish blue. In a dust cloud of sun and sand, the shoreline between the sea and the grove appeared deserted as far as the eye could see. Agostino didn’t know where Rio was, and with infatuated eyes he traced the capricious line of the solitary beach with all its points and bays. Where was Rio? Maybe over where the fury of the sun blurred sky, sea, and sand into a single widening haze? He was immensely attracted by the trip, and nothing in the world could make him miss it.

  He was shaken from these reflections by the voices of the two coming out of the shack. Saro had a bundle of ropes and sails in one arm and a flask in the other. Behind him came the black boy, brandishing the green-and-white mast like a spear. “Off we go,” said Saro, heading down the beach without a glance at Agostino. He seemed to be in an unusual hurry, Agostino didn’t know why. He also noticed that his repellent flared nostrils seemed redder and more inflamed, as if the web of capillaries was suddenly swollen with thicker and brighter blood. “Off we go, off we go,” sang the black boy in Saro’s wake, the mast under his arm, improvising a kind of dance on the sand. Saro was ahead of him, almost to the cabins, so the black boy slowed down, waiting for Agostino to catch up. When he did, the black boy made a complicit gesture. Surprised, Agostino stopped.

  “Listen up,” said the black boy in a familiar tone, “I need to talk with Saro about some things, so do me a favor— don’t come. Get lost.”

  “Why?” asked Agostino, surprised.

  “I just told you, because I need to talk to Saro, just the two of us,” the other boy said impatiently, stomping his foot.

  “But I have to go to Rio,” Agostino replied.

  “You can go another time.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  The black boy looked at him. In his blank eyes and oily, quivering nostrils, Agostino sensed an anxious passion that repelled him. “Listen here, Pisa,” he said, “if you don’t come, I’ll give you something you’ve never seen before.” He let the mast slip from his hands and dug into his pockets, pulling out a slingshot made from a pine twig and two rubber bands tied together. “Nice, huh?” the black boy said, showing it to him.

  But Agostino wanted to go to Rio, and Homs’s insistence raised his suspicions. “No, I can’t,” he replied.

  “Take the slingshot,” the other boy said, looking for his hand and trying to force the object into his palm. “Take the slingshot and get lost.”

  “No,” Agostino repeated, “I can’t.”

  “I’ll give you the slingshot and these playing cards,” the black boy said. He dug into his pockets again and pulled out a small deck of pink cards with gilt edges. “Take both of them and get lost. You can use the slingshot to kill birds. The cards are new—”

  “I said no,” Agostino repeated.

  The black boy looked at him, agitated and imploring. Large beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and his face suddenly twisted into a plaintive expression. “Why not?” he whined.

  “I don’t want to,” said Agostino. And he fled toward the lifeguard, who by now had reached the boat on the beach. He heard the black boy yelling, “You’ll be sorry,” and, huffing and puffing, he reached Saro.

  The boat was sitting on two raw pinewood logs, a short distance from the water. Saro had already tossed the sails into the boat and seemed impatient. “What’s h
e doing?” he asked Agostino, pointing to the black boy.

  “He’ll be here in a second,” said Agostino.

  At that moment the black boy came running, the mast under his arm, making long leaps over the sand. Saro grabbed hold of the mast with the six fingers of his right hand and then with the six fingers of his left. He stood it upright and stuck it in a hole in the middle seat. Then he got into the boat, attached the tip of the sail, and pulled on the line; the sail slid up to the top of the mast. Saro turned to the black boy and said, “Now let’s get to work.”

  Saro stood to the side of the boat, gripping one side of the bow. The black boy got ready to push the stern. Not knowing what to do, Agostino looked on. The boat was of medium size, half white and half green. On the bow, in black letters, you could read its name, Amelia. “Heave-ho!” said Saro. The boat slid over the logs, advancing across the sand. As soon as the hull rolled off the rear log, the black boy would squat down, pick it up, press it against his chest like a baby, and leaping over the sand as if in a modern dance, run to place it under the bow. “Heave-ho!” Saro repeated.

  Again the boat slid forward a stretch, and again the black boy raced from stern to bow, skipping and jumping with the log in his arms. With a final push, the boat slid with its stern lower into the water and floated. Saro got into the boat and started slipping the oars into the oarlocks. At the same time, he gestured to Agostino, with a complicity that excluded the black boy, to climb on board. Agostino waded into the water up to his knees and started to climb in. He wouldn’t have managed if the six fingers of Saro’s right hand hadn’t taken a firm hold of his arm and pulled him in like a cat. He looked up. While lifting him, Saro was concentrating not on him but on straightening out the left oar with his other hand. Filled with repulsion at the fingers that had gripped him, Agostino went to sit in the bow.

  “Good boy,” Saro said, “stay there. Now we’re taking the boat out.”

  “Wait for me, I’m coming, too,” shouted the black boy from the shore. Panting, he jumped into the water, nearing the boat and grabbing onto one side. But Saro said, “No, you’re not coming.”

  “How am I supposed to get there?” the boy cried in distress. “How am I supposed to get there?”

  “Take the streetcar,” Saro replied, rowing vigorously from an upright position. “You’ll get there before us.”

  “Why, Saro?” the boy insisted plaintively, running in the water beside the boat. “Why, Saro? I’m coming, too.”

  Without saying a word, Saro set the oars down, bent forward, and placed an enormous wide hand over the black boy’s face. “I said you’re not coming,” he repeated calmly, and with a single thrust shoved the boy back into the water. “Why, Saro?” The boy continued to cry, “Why?” and his plaintive voice, amid the splashing of the water, sounded unpleasant to Agostino’s ears, filling him with a vague pity. He looked at Saro, who smiled and said, “He’s so annoying. What were we supposed to do?”

  When the boat was farther from the shore. Agostino turned and saw the black boy emerging from the water and shaking his fist in a threatening gesture that seemed directed at him.

  Without saying a word, Saro pulled the oars in and laid them on the bottom of the boat. He went toward the stern and tied the sail to the boom, stretching it out. The sail fluttered indecisively for a moment, as if the wind were battering it from both sides, then all of a sudden, it turned starboard with a loud snap, tightening and billowing out. Obediently, the boat also tilted starboard and started to skip over the light playful waves lifted by the mistral wind. “We’re good,” said Saro. “Now we can lie down and rest a while.” He dropped down to the bottom of the boat and invited Agostino to join him. “If we sit on the bottom,” he explained, “the boat goes faster.” Agostino did the same and found himself sitting on the bottom of the boat, next to Saro.

  The boat sailed smoothly despite its potbellied shape, tilting to one side, going up and down on the waves and occasionally rearing like a colt chafing at the bit. Saro was reclining with his head on the seat and one arm slipped below Agostino’s neck to control the tiller. For a while he said nothing. “Do you go to school?” he finally asked.

  Agostino looked at him. Lying on his back, Saro seemed to be voluptuously exposing his nose with its inflamed flared nostrils to the sea air, as if to refresh them. His mouth was half open beneath his mustache, his eyes half closed. Through his unbuttoned shirt you could see the hairs, gray and dirty, rustling on his chest. “Yes,” said Agostino, with a shiver of unexpected fear.

  “What year are you in?”

  “The third year of middle school.”

  “Give me your hand,” said Saro, and before Agostino could refuse, he grabbed hold of it. Agostino felt like he was trapped not by a hand but by a snare. The six short stubby fingers covered his hand, circled it, and joined below it. “And what do they teach you,” Saro continued, getting into a better position and sinking into a sort of bliss.

  “Latin . . . Italian . . . geography . . . history,” Agostino stuttered.

  “Do they teach you poetry, any nice poems?” Saro asked in a soft voice.

  “Yes,” said Agostino, “they also teach us poetry.” “Tell me one.”

  The boat reared up, and Saro, without moving or modifying his blissful pose, gave the tiller a shove. “Uh, I don’t know,” said Agostino, frightened and embarrassed, “they teach me lots of poems. Carducci . . .”

  “Ah, yes, Carducci . . .” Saro repeated mechanically. “Tell me a poem by Carducci.”

  ”By the Sources of Clitumnus,” Agostino proposed, horrified at the hand that would not release its grip and trying slowly but surely to break it.

  “Yes, By the Sources of Clitumnus,’ Saro said in a dreamy voice.

  With an unsteady voice, Agostino began:

  “Still, Clitumnus, down from the mountains, dark with

  Waving ash trees, where ’mid the branches perfumed . . .*

  The boat skipped along, Saro was still on his back, nose to the wind, eyes closed, making gestures with his head as if he were scanning the verses. Suddenly clinging to the poem as if it were the only means of avoiding a conversation he sensed would be compromising and dangerous, Agostino continued to recite slowly and clearly. All the while he tried to free his hand from the six fingers clutching it, but the grip was tighter than ever. He was terrified to realize that the end of the poem was approaching, so to the last stanza of By the Sources of Clitumnus he appended the first line of “Before San Guido.” It was also a test, as if he needed one, to confirm that Saro didn’t really care about poetry and had another very different purpose in mind. What exactly that was he could not quite understand. And the test was successful. “The cypresses which still to Bolgheri run stately and tall . . .” sounded jarring, but Saro gave no indication he had noticed the change. So Agostino interrupted his recital and said in exasperation, “Would you please let go?” while trying to free himself.

  Saro was startled, and without letting go he opened his eyes, turned, and looked at Agostino. In the boy’s face there must have been such wild-eyed repulsion, such barely concealed terror, that Saro seemed to realize immediately that his plan had failed. Slowly, finger by finger, he released Agostino’s aching hand and said in a low voice, as if he were speaking to himself, “What are you afraid of? Now I’m going to bring you to shore.”

  He pulled himself up heavily and gave a push to the tiller. The boat turned toward the shore.

  Without saying a word, Agostino got up from the bottom of the boat, rubbing his aching hand, and went to sit in the bow. As they approached the shore, he could see the whole beach, which was quite wide at that point, and its white, deserted, sun-beaten sand. Beyond it, the pine grove was thicker, tilting, purplish. Rio was a V-shaped crevice in the dunes. Farther up, the reeds formed a blue-green smudge. But in front of Rio, he noticed a group of figures gathered from whose midst a wisp of black smoke rose to the sky. He turned to Saro, who was sitting in the stern adjusting the
tiller with one hand, and asked, “Is that where we’re landing?”

  “Yes, that’s Rio,” Saro replied indifferently.

  As the boat approached the shore, Agostino saw the group around the fire suddenly break up and run toward them. He realized it was the gang. He saw them waving. They must have been shouting something, but the wind carried their voices away. “Is it them?” he asked anxiously.

  “Yes, it’s them,” Saro said.

  The boat got closer and closer to shore and Agostino could discern the boys clearly. No one was missing: Tortima, Berto, Sandro, and all the others were there. And in a discovery he found unpleasant, though he didn’t know why, so was Homs. Like the others, he was jumping up and down and shouting by the water.

  The boat sailed straight to the beach, then Saro gave a shove to the tiller, turning it sideways. Rushing at the sail, he gathered it in his arms, shortened it, and lowered it. The boat rocked from one side to the other in the shallow water. From the deck of the boat Saro picked up an anchor and threw it overboard. “We’re getting out,” he said. He climbed out of the boat and waded through the water to the boys waiting for him on the shore.

  Agostino saw them crowding around and applauding, which Saro welcomed with a shake of the head. Another louder round of applause greeted his own arrival, and for a moment he fooled himself into believing it was friendly and polite. He realized immediately that he was wrong. Everyone was laughing, sarcastic, and contemptuous. Berto shouted, “So, our little Pisa likes to go on boat rides,” and Tortima made a face, bringing his hand to his mouth. The others echoed their behavior. Even Sandro, usually so reserved, seemed to view him with contempt. Homs, instead, was leaping around Saro, who walked on ahead toward the fire the boys had lit on the beach. Shocked and vaguely alarmed, Agostino went with the others to sit by the fire.

  The boys had packed wet sand into a kind of makeshift pit. Pinecones, pine needles, and brush were on the fire. Laid across the mouth of the pit, a dozen ears of corn were slowly roasting. Nearby you could see, on top of a newspaper, a big watermelon and clusters of fruit. “What a good boy, little Pisa,” Berto started up again after they were sitting down, “now you and Homs can be buddies. Sit a little closer to each other. You’re, how can I put it? You’re brothers. He’s dark, you’re white, otherwise there’s no difference. You both like going for boat rides.”