White as Silence, Red as Song

by Alessandro D'Avenia

  The pain is so dense that you can float on it without needing to swim.

  Chapter 65

  Evening.

  Black outside, white inside. I feel guilty. I took it out on the only person who has nothing to do with it and wants to help me. Silence from Silvia. I imagine her alone on the bench, abandoned, her blue gaze fixed on the ground, looking up at every person who approaches. Now I feel even worse. I write her another message: “Sorry. See you tomorrow.” White silence. Why do I seek out solitude and then when I am drowning in its whiteness with nothing to cling to, it terrifies me? Why do I want someone to throw me a life buoy, but then do nothing to grab on to it? Maybe I’ll understand my capabilities one day, my dreams, but will I ever truly be able to do anything except be a castaway who won’t let anybody help him? I’ll take Terminator to pee.

  Today even he’ll do for silence.

  Chapter 66

  I spent the whole night thinking about what to say to Silvia to apologize. In just a few hours my iron shield has melted into cream. I’m worthless.

  Whatever. I get to school and look around for Silvia. Her eyes meet mine for just an instant as I’m scouring the crowds: glassy eyes in which I can only see myself and not her. She looks away, as if I’m just anyone. That missed eye contact consigns me to the masses, and I sink back into the white nothingness of a perfect nobody.

  I run after Silvia. I grab her arm with more force than I intended. I have never touched her like that, not even as a joke. Silvia frees herself, her face taut with disappointment.

  “I fooled myself into thinking I had a friend. Leave me alone. You only know how to ask for help, and you don’t care about anyone else.”

  I don’t even have time to open my mouth before she disappears into the distance as if a vortex is pulling her in. I chase after her through the forest of low-rise jeans, bumping into a couple of fifth-year bullies who kick me in the butt.

  “Die, idiots.”

  I see her head turn into the corridor where the bathrooms are, and without realizing it I follow her into the bathroom full of girls putting on makeup, smoking, and comparing brands of jeans. They look at me dumbfounded as Silvia locks herself in a stall.

  “What are you doing in here?” asks a brunette with two black slits for eyes, buried amid a purple smudge of makeup.

  “Me? I need to talk to a girl,” I retort, as if saying the most normal thing in the world.

  “You can wait for her outside. And anyhow, forget it. She’s too cute for a loser like you.”

  They laugh. Those words push me out of the girls’ bathroom like the foam on the bare teeth of a rabid dog. I move backward, trying to keep it at bay, and collapse onto a cliff. There is no parachute in the bottomless pit of abandonment.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Naturally it’s the principal who screams at me to follow him to his office. First I run away from Beatrice, then I stand Silvia up, and now I’m being taken for a Peeping Tom. In the space of forty-eight hours I have discovered the existence of shades of black. I have just been through at least three of them, heading toward absolute darkness . . . Pity it’s not the end of a tragic film but only the beginning.

  Chapter 67

  My parents, called in for a meeting with the principal because of my bad behavior, are convinced that I’m so incapable of curbing my restless adolescent hormones that I force my way into women’s bathrooms. Dad says to me in a whisper, “Consider your bones reduced to the dust of your shadow.”

  So I get suspended for a day and threatened with a measly conduct grade, which means failing the year. I gloss over the punishment my parents inflict: immediate seizure of my PlayStation until the end of the year and withdrawal of my monthly allowance. It’s nothing compared to the fact that the day after my suspension all the girls stare and laugh at me.

  “There’s the pig!”

  “Loser!”

  And this is still nothing compared to the insults from the guys.

  “Your bathroom is the one without the skirt drawn on the little man. Perhaps we’ll add a little line so you remember what you have between your legs!”

  Can somebody tell me if there’s any way of getting off this carousel of horrors? Or at least if an instruction manual exists showing me how to become invisible?

  Chapter 68

  An entire day staring at the Green Day guitarist’s hands on the poster hung on my bedroom door. I start bouncing a tennis ball off it until I make a hole in the paper and maim the guitarist.

  I am waiting for two things:

  For someone to save me, or for the world to end right now.

  The second is easier than the first one.

  A phone call: Niko.

  “We won, Pirate! The next match determines the final. Vandal is quaking in fear!”

  I end the call and hope the bed swallows me up without chewing me first.

  Chapter 69

  The intercom. The intercom buzzes. It’s for me. Who can it be at nine in the evening? Silvia. Silvia has surely yielded to the twenty-three messages I sent her today, each time regretting the previous one . . .

  “Come down.”

  It’s her.

  “Mom, I’m popping downstairs for a minute. It’s Silvia.”

  I go down, but Silvia’s not waiting for me. I must have dreamed her voice, convinced as I was that it was her. It’s The Dreamer. That’s all I need. He’s surely come so that he too can say for himself that I’m a spineless good-for-nothing.

  “Evening, sir. What have I done?” I ask, staring at a random point on his left shoulder.

  He smiles.

  “I thought I’d stop by. See if you felt like finishing your speech from the other day.”

  I knew it. Teachers are teachers until death. They have to lecture you even at your own house.

  “Sir, let’s forget the other day’s discussion . . .”

  I really don’t know where to start, and I would like all of this to end immediately, like I always do when I don’t like something. You switch channels and the scene is gone. Vanished, canceled, finished.

  “Let’s go and get some ice cream.”

  He smiles at me. Yes, that’s what he said: ice cream. Teachers eat ice cream. Yes, teachers eat ice cream and they get their mouths dirty just like everybody else. These are two new discoveries that must never be forgotten, and maybe one day I’ll write them down. Speaking of which:

  “Your blog is nice. A bit too philosophical at times, but I read it whenever I can.”

  The teacher thanks me and carries on licking his pistachio and coffee ice cream—usual boring teacher flavors—and he reminds me of Terminator when he licks my tennis shoes.

  “So what happened to you the other day?”

  I knew he wouldn’t let it go. Teachers are like boa constrictors. They wrap themselves around you when you’re distracted, then wait until you breathe out to tighten their grasp. And with each exhalation they tighten even more until you can no longer expand your rib cage and you die by asphyxiation.

  “What do you care?”

  The Dreamer looks me straight in the eyes, and I can barely hold his gaze.

  “Perhaps you need a hand. Some advice.”

  I remain silent. My eyes downcast. I stare at the pavement as if every inch of it has suddenly become interesting. There is someone inside me who is desperate for this, someone who wants to come out but instead remains holed up, defending himself, afraid to be seen as he really is because to surface would mean engaging with the person with ruffled hair and a cheeky expression. Plus it would involve a large quantity of water and salt in the form of tears. So I keep staring at the ground, scared that that someone might ooze out like toothpaste, too much and all at once.

  The Dreamer waits in silence. He’s in no hurry, just like everyone who puts you on the spot. In response I give him a taste of his own medicine.

  “What would you do, sir, if your girlfriend died?”

  And this time I stare into his eyes.
The Dreamer scrutinizes me and remains silent. He stops eating. Perhaps he’s never thought about this. Perhaps he feels bad. There, now he’ll start to actually understand something and quit theorizing. He replies that he doesn’t know and that he probably wouldn’t be able to bear the burden of something like that.

  He doesn’t know. It’s the first time that The Dreamer doesn’t know something. It’s the first time he’s unsure of himself, that he doesn’t dazzle like the Christmas window displays in town. He doesn’t know.

  “Well, sir, that’s what I’m going through, and everything else has become worthless to me.”

  The Dreamer starts looking at the sky.

  “Beatrice.”

  Silence. Then he asks me if that’s the girl everyone is talking about at school: the girl who has leukemia. I lower my head, almost hurt by those words, which unfortunately are true: the girl who has leukemia . . . Silence. The silence of adults is one of the greatest victories imaginable. So I speak instead.

  “She’s not really my girlfriend, but it’s as if she were. You see, sir, when I was talking to you about my dream, I was talking about Beatrice. I know that whatever my journey may be, she will be my companion on that journey, and if she’s not on that journey, I no longer know which way to go.”

  The Dreamer remains silent. He places his hand on my shoulder and says nothing.

  “She’s so pale now. She’s lost her red hair, the hair that made me fall in love with her. And I didn’t even have the courage to speak to her, to help her, to ask her how she’s feeling. I saw her in that state and I ran away. I ran away like a coward. I was convinced that I loved her, I was convinced I would travel to the four corners of the world with her, I was ready to do anything . . . I even gave blood, and then when I was in front of her, I ran. Like a coward. I don’t love her. A person who runs away doesn’t truly love. She was tiny, defenseless, and pale, and I ran away. I’m vile.”

  Those last words crush a concrete barrier that had slowly reinforced itself between my stomach and my throat; it shatters into fragments when it reaches my eyes, turning into tears that are as heavy and painful as stones. I bawl my eyes out with all the pain that I can, because it’s good for me, almost like when I gave blood. I can cry and I don’t know when it will happen again, even if I feel like a humongous idiot.

  The Dreamer stands next to me in silence, with his strong hand on my shoulder. I feel like a fool. I am a sixteen-year-old guy and I am crying. I am crying in front of my history and philosophy teacher, with his mouth still covered in ice cream. Oh well, it’s done now. The dam has broken and at the moment a million cubic yards of pain are flooding the world because of me, but at least it’s no longer held inside.

  Chapter 70

  After letting my tears flow for at least fifteen minutes—the fire of rage conceals at least twice the amount of salty water—The Dreamer interrupts the silence that follows, like the silence of sand after a violent storm.

  “I’ll tell you a story.”

  He says this as he hands me a vanilla-scented tissue.

  “A friend of mine had argued with his father. He loved him very much, but this time he just lost his patience and told him to go to hell. In the evening as they sat down for dinner, his father had tried to speak to him, but he got up and left without saying a word. He didn’t even want to listen to him. My friend had felt so strongly. He felt that he had won, that he was right. The next day his father’s place at the table was empty. His father had had a heart attack, and that’s how they’d parted. Without a word. But how could he have known? Since that day my friend has been unable to find peace because of that mistake. He’s as ashamed of it as if he had committed the worst kind of murder. And do you know why he’ll never forgive himself for having refused a goodbye to his father?”

  I shake my head with a sniffle.

  “Because his father, in a moment of rage, had said to him that he was a loser, that he had chosen the job of a loser, despite the fact that the father had a well-established business that his son could have easily taken over. Tell me if that isn’t something to be ashamed of and to run away from?”

  It takes me a while to break the silence that follows his question.

  “How did your friend get over it?”

  The Dreamer kicks a discarded can on the pavement with anger.

  “By living with it. By promising himself that he would not miss a single opportunity to fix a relationship that has deteriorated for more—or less—important reasons. There is always something one can do.”

  I already feel better. I, who in the face of an error would like life to have a rewind button. But life doesn’t have one. Life goes on regardless, and it continues to play whether you want it to or not. All you can do is turn the volume up or down. And you have to dance. As best you can. But somehow I’m less frightened of it now. The Dreamer interrupts my thoughts.

  “We all have something we’re ashamed of. We’ve all run away, Leo. But that’s what makes us men. Only when we have something written all over us that we are ashamed of do we start to have faces that are real . . .”

  “Do you cry, sir?”

  The Dreamer stays silent.

  Then, “Every time I peel onions.”

  I burst out laughing, even if the joke is pathetic. I sniff and manage to hold back the tears I still have left to spill.

  “It’s normal to be afraid. Just as it’s normal to cry. It doesn’t mean you’re a coward. To be a coward is to pretend nothing happened, to turn your back on things. To not care about any of it. I’m not surprised you ran away. I’m not surprised you’re pissed off”—He said “pissed off!”—“with everyone and with yourself. It’s normal. But getting pissed off”—And again!—“doesn’t solve anything. You can be pissed off”—That’s three times!—“as much as you like, but that won’t cure Beatrice. I once read in a book that love doesn’t exist to make us happy but to show us how strong our capacity to bear pain is.”

  A silent pause.

  “But I ran away! I was supposed to be prepared to die for her so that she could get better!”

  The Dreamer stares at me.

  “You’re wrong, Leo. Maturity is not shown by being willing to die for a noble cause, but by being willing to live humbly for it. Make her happy.”

  I still say nothing. Somebody inside me is leaving the cave. Someone who was hiding there, hurt and in need of help, is maybe finally convincing himself to face the dinosaurs. At this moment I am moving from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Not a huge step, but at least I feel I have some sharp weapons against the dinosaurs of life. The feeling is stronger than the shield of iron and fire that I thought I had built with my anger. It’s a different kind of strength, and this new somebody clings to my skin and makes it transparent, strong, elastic.

  “It’s late,” says The Dreamer as I make an evolutionary leap of at least two thousand years.

  He looks me straight in the eyes.

  “Thanks for the company, Leo. And thanks especially for what you gave me tonight.”

  I don’t understand.

  “Sharing one’s suffering with others is the greatest gift of trust one can give. Thank you for today’s lesson. Today you were the teacher.”

  He leaves me standing there like a stupefied fool. He has already turned his back. His shoulders are thin but strong. The shoulders of a father.

  I want to run after him and ask who his friend is, but then I realize there are things that are better left uncertain. My eyes are red from sobbing, I’m exhausted, drained, and yet I’m the happiest sixteen-year-old on earth because I have hope. I can do something to make things right: Beatrice, Silvia, friends, school . . . Sometimes the word of someone who believes in you is enough to lift your spirits again. I sing out loud, I’m not quite sure what. The people I come across take me for a madman, but I don’t care and sing even louder when someone passes by, forcing them to rejoice with me.

  When I go back home singing and with my face all puffy from crying, my m
other glances confusedly at my father, who shakes his head and sighs. Why do parents think we’re only okay when we look normal?

  Chapter 71

  First: Silvia. This time I’m going to see her in person. None of this stupid texting. I’m going in person, with everything written—tattooed even—all over my face: “I am a poor fool. Forgive me.”

  I do something I’ve never done: I buy her a bunch of flowers. I feel awkward the entire time I stand choosing them under the canopy of the kiosk, knowing nothing about flowers. Eventually I opt for roses. An odd number. I’ve learned this much at least from one of Mom’s magazines. I buy three white roses—the only exception to my fear of white—and I make my way to Silvia’s block. I ring the buzzer. Her mother, probably unaware of anything, opens the door. Something is moving in the right direction. I go up.

  I walk into Silvia’s room, where she’s listening to music with her headphones on and hasn’t heard me come in. She looks up to find three white eyes looking at her and saying sorry. She’s speechless. She takes off her headphones and looks at me sternly, then she smells the roses. When she looks up again, her blue eyes are smiling. She hugs me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. Not any old kiss. A kiss given by someone who is saying more with her lips than just greeting you. And you can feel the extra warmth that remains on your cheek. I sense it from the way she lingers for a moment before moving her lips away. She doesn’t say a word. I just say, “Sorry.” And I say it with words, without the risk that T9 might turn it into fear even though I do feel a little fear. But Silvia cares for me, and when someone cares, “sorry” never means “afraid.”

  I am happy, so happy that the white roses appear almost tinged with red, like those in Alice in Wonderland. “We’ll paint the roses red; we’ll paint the roses red . . . ,” I sing to myself, like a child diving into a pool of Nutella.