White as Silence, Red as Song

by Alessandro D'Avenia

  “I had no doubt.”

  We laugh. But he explains to me that if I’m in this bed, it’s because I was doing something special. I was accomplishing my dream by delivering the letter. And if a dream encounters so many obstacles, that means it’s the right one. His eyes are shining. When I say goodbye I get muddled up and call him Dreamer. He laughs and adds that he knows that’s what I call him. He leaves and I bite my lip because The Dreamer is so easygoing, even about nicknames. Whoever said that to have authority you have to be unpleasant?

  My teacher’s visit has put me in a good mood. I want to get out of here, have dinner with Mom and Dad, take Terminator for a pee, play music with Niko, study with Silvia, kiss Beatrice . . . But actually, deep down, The Dreamer also ticks me off a bit because—and I hate to admit it—I want to be like that loser history and philosophy substitute teacher.

  Chapter 42

  Mom found the letter. It’s got blood and dirt on it. It was in the pocket of my jeans. She threw the jeans away because they were ripped. But before throwing them away, she checked the pockets. Two euros. A rubber band. A Bart Simpson sticker. Gum. A letter. My blood is on that letter. Now coagulated and dried. And it frames Beatrice’s name. It’s the second time I’ve given blood for her. And it makes me happy, just like the first time. I read the letter again. It’s a good letter, even if some of the words are blurred, smudged with blood. I have to find a way to get it to her. At the cost of having to drag myself out of this bed!

  Chapter 43

  Gandalf came to see me too. I wasn’t expecting it. He has twenty thousand classes, at least eight million students, his own parish, and a hundred or so years to drag around every day in that transparent body of his that resembles the Holy Spirit he believes in . . . Yet he still comes to see me. Not that I mind. Really, I’m touched. I wasn’t expecting it. He asks me to tell him what happened. I tell him everything, even about the letter. I feel at ease. I don’t tell him everything about Beatrice though. I keep that vague. He tells me I am one of God’s favorite sons. I tell him I don’t want to hear about God because if he existed he wouldn’t have let Beatrice get sick.

  “If he is omnipotent and omni-everything, why did he do this to me? Why did he want to make me and others suffer when we’ve done nothing wrong? God’s favorite, my foot. I really don’t get God. What kind of God are you if you let bad things exist?”

  Gandalf tells me that I’m right. What does he mean, I’m right? I provoke him and he says I’m right? I mean . . . surely priests should at least try to defend their position. Gandalf insists that even Jesus, who was the Son of God, felt abandoned by his father and screamed this to him at the time of his death.

  “If God treated his own son that way, he will treat all his favorites the same way.”

  What kind of reasoning is that? But I have no counter-argument because—says Gandalf—this is what the Gospels say:

  “If someone wanted to invent a strong God, he could easily do so. He wouldn’t imagine a weak God who even feels abandoned by his father at his moment of death.”

  Gandalf sees blood on the letter that I keep near me on the bedside table. He tells me it reminds him of the crucifix: a letter written to mankind, signed with the blood of God, who saves us all with that blood. I have to stop Gandalf or he’ll preach a ten-thousand-hour sermon, and I don’t think there’s a need for that now. In any case, he’s given me food for thought, and I like the thing about the blood. Like I did with Beatrice. Maybe it’s the only true thing in that whole discussion about Christ: Love is giving blood. Love is blood-red.

  “Leo, there is no good answer to why we suffer. But ever since Christ died on the cross for us, there is a sense. There is meaning . . .”

  I give him an affectionate hug, as best as I can. He’s already gone when I realize he left his crucifix on the letter for Beatrice. On the back of the T-shaped piece of wood are the words: “To give one’s life for one’s friends, there is no greater love than that.” Not a bad phrase. I want to remember it. I put the crucifix in the envelope. When I go back to school I should return it to Gandalf. Besides, I’m embarrassed to be seen with a crucifix. It brings bad luck.

  Chapter 44

  I am bored with being stuck in bed. Bored to death. The days never end. I’m uncomfortable and my arm itches so much sometimes I’d like to rip the cast off. Minutes never pass. The only way to fill them up is not to think. The TV is on all the time, which is the best form of distraction. Because if I focus on my body I feel pain, and if I focus on my thoughts I feel even more pain. Why has pain decided to become my best friend?

  As The Dreamer says, pain is necessary for dreams to come true, so I put up with it, though I’d gladly do without. There must be an easier way to achieve things, possibly without making an effort. I even get tired watching TV. I don’t know why, given that I am stuck in bed. But it’s a fact. TV wears me out. It’s all the same: a general anesthetic. Half the stories on TV are about people’s secrets, and the other half are about what they do when their secrets are found out. I have a secret, but I wouldn’t go announcing it on TV.

  My secret is Beatrice.

  Chapter 45

  Silvia came to see me. She brought me a book. It’s a book of short stories.

  “To pass the time.”

  Silvia is like the undertow of the sea. Even if you can’t hear it, it’s always there. If you listen to it, it cradles you. If I loved her I would marry her in a flash, but love isn’t an undertow. Love is a tempest. I ask her about Beatrice. She tells me that she is back in the hospital for her second round of chemotherapy.

  “She’s here, in the same hospital as you.”

  I can’t believe it. I am sleeping under the same roof as Beatrice and I didn’t even know it. This sends me into hyper-kinetic rapture. I don’t say too much about this to Silvia because it is such a beautiful thought that I want to savor it alone. I want to get back to this thought later, and I need to do something about it. Actually, I’ll do it immediately.

  “Why don’t you take my letter to her?” I ask Silvia.

  She says that perhaps it’s best not to and lowers her eyes, almost sad. Maybe she’s right. Beatrice sleeps a lot during chemo. It wears her out. And she vomits frequently. Silvia hasn’t got the courage to go there and give her a letter from someone else. Maybe it’s not the right time. I think Silvia is right.

  We talk about school. Erika-with-a-k is going out with Luca. They seem inseparable. The weird thing is that Erika-with-a-k, who is usually a good student, has already come to class twice unprepared. The day before she had been with Luca. Luca has never studied much and spends entire afternoons in town with Erika-with-a-k. They are constantly hanging out and smooching. Erika-with-a-k says she’s realized that studying isn’t important after all. Now that she has love, she’s seeing everything else from a different perspective. Because there is nothing like love to make you feel good. Erika-with-a-k is right. I agree with her. I tell Silvia that happiness is having a heart full of love. Silvia agrees with me, but she says it’s weird that people should change personalities when they fall in love. If Erika has always studied, why stop now that she’s in love? She seems to have become any old Erica-without-a-k, as if she weren’t herself.

  Why does Silvia always have to nitpick issues that seem so clear to me? She’s even made me doubt the untouchable conviction of being in love. I ask her if she’s ever been in love. Silvia nods and stares at her fingertips.

  “With who?”

  “It’s a secret. Maybe one day I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Okay, Silvia, I respect your privacy, but you know you can always count on me to keep any secret.”

  Silvia smiles hesitantly and then tells me about Mrs. Nicolosi. Nicolosi is our PE teacher. A woman in her fifties who must have been beautiful when she was younger but who isn’t anymore. She does everything to appear young, but she looks ridiculous. But nobody has the courage to tell her. She’s not like Mrs. Carnevale. Mrs. Carnevale is our biology
teacher. And even though she’s fifty, she is still a beautiful woman, a beautiful fifty-year-old. Whereas Nicolosi dresses like a twenty-year-old and therefore looks ridiculous. Anyhow, Silvia told me that Nicolosi came to school in a miniskirt and that the guys went crazy.

  “Oh no! And I missed it . . .”

  Silvia stops short.

  “You pig!”

  “No, I’m a lion!”

  The point is, the guys took photos of her with their phones.

  “Don’t you like to be looked at?”

  Silvia hesitates a moment.

  “Yes, very much . . . but I don’t want to force anyone to look at me, and a woman knows how to force you. Others prefer waiting for someone who’s there just for them and want to be discovered slowly, like one does with a dream.”

  That’s something else I have to think about. Dreams are like stars: you only see them shining when artificial lights are turned off, yet they were there all along. You just couldn’t see them because of the brightness of all the other lights. Silvia forces me to think. She does it on purpose. And I fall asleep almost immediately. I wasn’t built for pondering at length. I fall asleep with the regret of what I am missing at school. Even though, just before I plunge into darkness, it crosses my mind that I am not actually missing out on anything that’s important for living . . .

  It’s official: school is useless. If I ever become the secretary of education, the first thing I’ll do is close down schools.

  Chapter 46

  When I wake up, the first thing that comes to mind is that Beatrice is in the same hospital as me—and I suck on that thought like a mint. It makes me forget the pain, the discomfort, the television. When the most beautiful person you know is near you, everything changes—even the bad things. Initially the bad things don’t make sense. Then they do make sense. I must think of a plan. I want to see her, at least. I can get out of bed now. My arm is in a sling and my neck is stiff because of the brace, but I no longer need to stay immobile according to the X-rays.

  I make up my mind. I get out of bed. I’m not exactly a marvel of beauty in this state, and I can’t even take off my pajamas. But hey, in a hospital you get used to seeing people in pajamas. In fact, it’s incredible how quickly you can accept being in your pajamas in front of someone you don’t know. That’s how things are in the hospital. Maybe it’s because we’re all as ridiculous as the next person in the face of pain and suffering—so much the same that pajamas are the right uniform to cancel out the differences. Besides, I have a very nice pair of Dad’s pajamas. Mom brought them to me because they’re bigger and fit over my cast. Also, they smell like Dad, which makes me feel at home.

  Looking classy, I venture along the corridors of the women’s wing. I don’t have the courage to ask the nurses directly about Beatrice, so I wander around as if I’m taking a walk. I peer into the rooms in the oncology department. Silvia told me that’s what they call the cancer section. I don’t know exactly, but the onco bit must be something from Greek that has to do with cancer, because the -ology part of the word always has another Greek term attached to it. I should look it up in the Rocci Dictionary when I get home. Rocci is manna for eye specialists! I don’t miss it at all. I peer into more rooms. Just like in my wing, most of the patients are elderly. Old. I feel like a kind of mascot. The Elephant is seventy-five . . . The hospital is a gallery of white-haired old people. Young people are in the hospital because of bad luck. Old people are there because they’re old.

  But if you see a head with a few wisps of red hair resting on a white pillow, like a rose set down on snow or the sun in the Milky Way, that is Beatrice sleeping. Yes, it’s Beatrice sleeping. I go in. Her roommate is an old lady so full of wrinkles that they seem to have been etched onto her. She smiles like a crumpled piece of aluminum foil.

  “She’s very tired.”

  I smile back. I walk awkwardly toward Beatrice’s bed like an Egyptian mummy. I get scared. She has a drip hanging over her with a tube that ends directly in her wrist. It goes into her veins, and the needle that pierces Beatrice’s skin allows me a glimpse of her red blood. My blood runs in those veins too. My super red blood cells are devouring her white ones and turning them red. I feel Beatrice’s pain weighing me down, and I wish it were my pain and that she were well. I have to be in the hospital anyway.

  Beatrice is sleeping. She’s different from how I remember her. She’s defenseless. She’s pale, a strange blue color encircling her eyes, and I know it isn’t makeup. She’s sleeping. Her arms, flopped at her sides, are concealed by fine, pale-blue pajamas. Her hands are thin and delicate. I have never seen her from so near. She looks like a fairy. She’s alone. She’s sleeping. I stay there watching her for at least half an hour. She continues sleeping. We say nothing, but it’s not necessary. I stare at her face to remember her every feature. She has a small dimple on her right cheek that makes her appear to be smiling even while sleeping. She doesn’t make a sound. You can’t hear her breathing. She’s silent. But as radiant as ever, like a star in the night. Then a nurse comes in to check on her and asks me to leave the room. I get up somewhat awkwardly in my fancy pajamas.

  “Do you know her, Mr. Stylish?” asks the nurse, who wobbles about like Spam because of the joke she’s just made. I say nothing for a second and then reply with a beaming smile:

  “Yes, she’s my girlfriend. I had to break an arm just to be near her.”

  The Spam nurse holds back something more than a smile, something I can’t define. Before leaving, I stroke Beatrice’s face. I don’t wake her though. I want her to find my caress there on her cheek when she wakes up.

  Get better, Beatrice. I have a dream. And I need to take you there with me.

  Chapter 47

  I didn’t leave Beatrice the letter. I forgot about it, all because of the Spam nurse who distracted me. But maybe it wasn’t the right moment. I open the letter to read it again. As if I’m reading it to her out loud. Gandalf’s crucifix falls on the floor. It was in the envelope. It wedges itself in the hardest spot to reach, like only things you really need know how to do. My good arm nearly falls off trying to retrieve it. I clutch it in my hand. Fuming. I look at it. The figure is also sleeping. He has the same look that Beatrice has when she sleeps. And I realize that he too understands what Beatrice is going through because he seems to have gone through it.

  God, why do good people, supposing that you exist, have to suffer? Of course you won’t answer. I don’t know if you’re there. But if you are and if you make miracles happen, make one happen for me: help Beatrice get better. If you do, I’ll start believing in you. What do you say?

  Chapter 48

  I spent the whole day sitting in bed, looking at Beatrice’s sleeping face through the microscope of my memory. I snuggled into the dimple on her right cheek and remained there for hours, like a newborn in a cradle, or like when I colored in those unbearable black-and-white coloring books as a child. The world appeared better from there. I felt as if I could listen to the silence without being afraid of it, as if I could touch the darkness. It was as if my withered senses were stretching out after a long sleep. Hours passed in this way, without me realizing it. But not in the same way as watching TV for hours. Because I’m not tired now. I could start all over again.

  It’s already evening. It’s dark outside. I want to protect Beatrice from the night. I get out of bed and head toward her room. I no longer notice the smell of the hospital, but now I can only smell the odor of sick people and I’m less scared of it. I turn back. I can’t go empty-handed. I go into a room where I see some flowers in a vase. Two ladies are watching TV. It must be one of those ultra-boring films on channel 4. But they seem to have fallen into a channel 4 hypnotic silence. Old people. I walk up to the vase. I take a daisy. A white one. One of the two ladies turns toward me. I smile.

  “It’s for a friend.”

  Her face, which seems to have emerged from a prehistoric cave, gives me a nod. It makes her wrinkles deepen into rivers.
>
  “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  She says it sweetly, relaxing the rivers of her wrinkles into a sea of peace. I leave cheerfully with my flower in hand. This daisy is beautiful. Simple, exactly as a daisy should be. It’s as if the seed was planted by someone for this very moment. That gardener didn’t know it, but he was doing it for me. His work had meaning for this time and place. In a hospital corridor, in the white silence of night, I am taking a daisy to Beatrice, in room 234 of the oncology department. When I walk into the room, it is in semidarkness. I can only make out the silhouettes of Beatrice and the wrinkled lady. They are already sleeping. They are so alike in the dim light! Both are worn out by their illnesses. They are so similar, yet so different. It isn’t fair that a young person becomes old so quickly. Beatrice sleeps. Under the brown hospital blanket I can just make out her profile, which seems to embody all the most beautiful profiles I know. I walk up to her and leave my daisy next to her, on the bedside table. I whisper a song, without shame, without blushing.

  “Good night, good night, little flower; good night between the stars and this room. To dream of you, I need you to be close to me, and close still isn’t enough.”

  I walk away in silence. I’ve done what I had to do: my first-ever serenade. In my pajamas, but I did it.

  Chapter 49

  I go back to bed and can’t fall asleep. When I look at Beatrice a brick lodges in my stomach. It’s different from the feeling you get when you see a girl who blows you away. There are girls who make your head spin because of their beauty. Beatrice planted a brick in my stomach, a weight I have to bear, a gentle weight . . . which must be the sign of true love. Not just the love that makes you giddy like vertigo, but the love that pulls you to the ground like gravity. That’s how I fall asleep with the light on, looking at the painting Silvia gave me. I imagine myself at the helm of that boat with Beatrice by my side, sailing to the island where all our dreams become reality. A daisy nestled in her red hair that blazes in the sun, as if it were made from the sea’s surface.