Heaven and Earth Read online

  “Not a fish, no. An amphibian, if anything. Let’s see if I’m right.”

  The boys could tell that another contest was coming, and they lit up instantly.

  “On my count of three, you must all hold your breath. The one who lasts the longest wins.”

  He counted slowly, at two I filled my cheeks with air and froze. We eyed one another, and no one giggled, as Cesare crept behind our chairs and stuck a finger under our nostrils to make sure we weren’t cheating.

  The first to give up was Nicola, who got angry and stood up, disappearing inside the house. After him, Bern. Then Cesare stationed himself between Tommaso and me, checking us in turn. My throat started to convulse, but Tommaso, whose neck was a disturbing violet color, opened his mouth an instant before me.

  Cesare offered me the glass of liqueur that I had earned. I drank it too quickly and the alcohol’s warmth exploded in my stomach. It was all so serious, so solemn, as the others watched me drink, as if that act finally marked my coronation as an honorary member of the family: the masseria’s first sister. I didn’t admit that for days I’d been practicing holding my breath in the pool, one of the games I played by myself. It was far more fascinating to believe in a past life, when I was like the frogs that had sprung up in the countryside two summers ago. I could choose what to believe in. I didn’t know that before I went there.

  That year Bern lent me a book. He said it had intrigued him, that it seemed to be talking about him. As I turned the volume over in my hands, I felt that he was looking at me differently, as if he were observing a rough stone and wondering if it was really worth polishing, whether it would survive the transformation or would prove too fragile.

  At home I put the copy of The Baron in the Trees on my bedside table. My grandmother noticed it. “Did they assign you Calvino to read over vacation?”

  “No.”

  “So you chose it yourself?”

  “More or less.”

  “You’ll find it difficult.”

  The next few hours I took the book with me everywhere, out to the yard, to the pool, but I never opened it. That night, in bed, I tried but I lost my concentration immediately.

  A few days after lending it to me, Bern asked me if I’d liked it.

  “I haven’t finished it yet,” I said.

  “But did you get to Gian dei Brughi? It’s my favorite part.”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe I’m almost there.”

  We were walking along the dirt track. It was a sultry evening; disco music reached us from afar.

  “And the swing?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then you haven’t read a word!” he said, scowling. “Give it back to me right now!”

  He was shaking. I begged him to let me keep the book for a few more days, but he demanded that I go and get it. Once I did, he walked away without saying goodbye, pressing the book to him tightly.

  As he disappeared into the darkness, I felt a twinge of sadness, as I often did toward the end of my time there. My thoughts became repetitive: this is the last time you’ll wear your bathing suit, this is the last time you’ll watch the cat slink over to the pool, this is the last time you’ll leave the masseria behind. This is the last time you’ll see him.

  * * *

  —

  THEN, THE FOLLOWING SUMMER, I was seventeen; Bern had turned eighteen in March. A bed of reeds had grown up at a spot in the countryside where water gushed from an underground spring. It was a ten-minute walk from the masseria through the olive trees. Bern took me there during the hottest time of the day, while the others slept: our secret hours from the beginning.

  We lay down on the ground and I closed my eyes. Suddenly the color I saw printed on my eyelids changed; I thought it was because of a cloud, but when I opened my eyes I saw Bern’s face very close to mine. He was breathing hard and looking at me gravely. I nodded almost imperceptibly and he bent down to kiss me.

  That day I let him stroke my face and run his fingers over my hips as we kissed, nothing more. But we always wore so little at Speziale, and the reed bed was so remote from everything. We went back every afternoon, always venturing something more daring.

  The soil along the brook was muddy, I felt it stick to my back, my hair, the soles of my feet, and Bern’s body over mine also seemed to be made of clay. I clung to his back with one hand and sank the other hand into the earth, among the stones and the worms. From time to time I looked up: the reed stalks seemed very tall.

  During that August, Bern explored every inch of my body, first with his fingers and then with his tongue. At times I was so confused, so consumed with excitement that I no longer knew where his head, his mouth, his hands were. I gripped his hot erection and at first I had to help him shove it between my legs, because he seemed paralyzed by fear. I had never been with a boy, and in a single summer he took everything there was to take.

  Afterward he wiped away my perspiration with his hands. He blew on my forehead to cool me. Then he wet his thumb with saliva and rubbed the muddy smears off my skin, brushed the leaves out of my hair, one by one. We always had to pee and we did it side by side, me squatting and him kneeling. I watched the rivulets of urine make their way along the ground and hoped that they would join together; sometimes they did. Then we would go back to the masseria, not holding hands, not speaking.

  At first I was afraid that he would tell Cesare everything during their talks in the shade of the holly oak, but their relationship had changed over the past year. Throughout the whole summer I did not witness a single prayer, except for the brief blessings before meals. There was no singing, and no lessons. Beginning in September, Bern and Tommaso would start attending a school in Brindisi, to prepare for the high school diploma exam as Nicola had done the previous year.

  By then the four of us spent a lot of time outside the masseria. We waited for the cooler hours because of Tommaso’s pale complexion, then we’d pile into Floriana’s Ford. There was a narrow cove at Costa Merlata, where we would lie on the flat concrete area that served as a beach. Nicola and Bern dived from the highest point of the rocky bluff. From below, Tommaso and I would assign them marks. We didn’t know what to say to each other. Some tiny fish kept nibbling at my heels and ankles; I kicked my feet to chase them away, but a second later they were back.

  Then Bern and Nicola joined us, swimming. Bern held me up with one hand and furtively shifted the edge of my bathing suit aside with his fingers, all the while talking to the others.

  In the evening we went to the Scalo. A cooperative of young people had taken over a stretch of rocks by the sea, near an abandoned watchtower. A few benches and tables were scattered around a pink trailer. Bern and the other boys knew everyone there and were constantly greeting people. I almost always ended up off to the side, sipping a beer, alone or with some wasted-looking stranger.

  One night I was stunned to see Bern and Tommaso devour a sandwich with chunks of horse meat. I was sure that for Cesare eating horse meat was a very serious infraction. Nicola picked at his fries unconcernedly, as if by then he was used to their behavior. But when Bern wiped the ketchup off his lips with the back of his hand and told him that someday he was going to tear apart one of his father’s nice plump hens, Nicola leaped to his feet, challenging him with his height. Bern and Tommaso teased him, flapping their elbows up and down like a couple of chickens.

  Toward midnight we walked back to the car on the path through the myrtle bushes, each clinging to the shoulders of the person in front of him.

  When we got back to the villa, the boys got out of the car to walk me to the door. The pool was inviting at that hour; we joked about diving in, clothes and all, and how my father would throw stones at us, but we never did it. From my bedroom window I heard the Ford’s engine start up. My hair was frizzy with salt, my fingers stank of cigarettes, my head was dizzy from the beer, and I had never felt so a
live.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER A WHILE the reeds were no longer enough for us. Bern became obsessed with the idea of a real bed. If I asked him what was so different about it, he answered me vaguely: “You can try a lot more things.”

  But we didn’t see how we could manage it: at the masseria Cesare was always around, and at the villa Cosimo and his wife Rosa stood constant guard. We considered all the possibilities over and over again.

  Meanwhile, we were already past the feast of San Lorenzo, and the heat was different, summer was easing up a little. Everything around us transmitted a sense of urgency.

  “I’ll come at night,” Bern said finally, as his fingertips traced circles around my navel.

  “Where?”

  “Your place.”

  “They’ll hear you. Nicola always says he sleeps more lightly than everyone else.”

  “It’s not true, I’m the lightest sleeper. And besides, Nicola isn’t a problem.”

  “What if my father hears us?”

  Bern turned his head. His eyes were so close to mine, almost unbearable.

  “I don’t make any noise,” he said. “You’re the one who should restrain yourself.”

  But it was another few days before we acted on the plan, days when we did not return to the reed bed because Bern was too focused on the details. I was sorry about it, but I didn’t tell him, just as I never told him that I had fallen in love with him. Though I did my best to drive away the suspicion that getting to the bed had become more important than being with me, that doubt haunted me more and more each afternoon, when he took my hand and instead of leading me beyond the oleanders, he took the dirt track.

  From a hidden spot, we studied my grandmother’s house. “I can put one foot on that ledge, then grab on to the eaves,” Bern said. “Did you try to see if they’ll hold? From there I should be able to reach the windowsill, but you’ll have to help me. Come to the window when you hear this sound,” he said, sucking in his lower lip and whistling something that sounded like a bird’s call.

  On the appointed evening, we did not go to the Scalo. Bern told the others he didn’t feel like it, after all, we’d spent every night there, couldn’t we come up with something different?

  “Such as?” Nicola asked him, a little annoyed.

  “Such as buying something to drink and bringing it with us to the piazza.”

  He always got his way, Bern did, so we went to Ostuni. In Piazza Sant’Oronzo children were running around everywhere; we sat down in the center of the square, at the foot of the saint’s statue. It was ten days to the patron saint’s feast day, but the lights were already up.

  “My father asked me if there would be other girls with us,” I said.

  “And what did you say?” Tommaso asked.

  “‘Of course,’ I told him.”

  My back was leaning against Nicola’s knees, my legs were stretched out over Tommaso’s, and Bern’s head was against my shoulder. We had bought a large bottle of beer, because it was more economical, but mostly because we liked passing it from hand to hand, drinking and exchanging our saliva. I felt more connected to the boys than ever, and I liked it. And besides, there was the secret, what Bern and I would do that night.

  When we went back to the parking lot around one a.m., a group of guys were standing beside the Ford; they had set their bottles on the roof. Nicola told them to remove them, a little brusquely maybe, but not enough to justify the tone with which one of them asked him to repeat it, this time saying “please.”

  Bern blocked my way. I saw Nicola pick up the bottles and one by one move them to the guys’ car. The group hooted in concert, making fun of his bravado. Bern didn’t move, his right arm still stretched out protectively to keep me from moving forward.

  Then one of the guys in a red surfer suit and spotless Nikes offered Nicola a beer.

  “Chill, dude,” he told him. “Have a little drink.” Nicola shook his head no, but the other insisted. “As a peace sign.”

  Nicola took a sip and handed it back to him. He opened the Ford’s door. It would have ended there, he would have backed out and we would have gone to join the snaking line of cars headed to Speziale, if another guy hadn’t pointed to Tommaso, saying: “Did they dip him in bleach?”

  Nicola, lightning swift, dealt him an openhanded blow to the face. It was the first time I’d seen anyone strike a person like that. I gripped Bern’s arm; he hadn’t taken a step, as if he had foreseen it all the very moment we’d arrived there.

  Nicola leaned over the guy and whispered something that none of us heard. Then they were off.

  We got in the car, Tommaso and I in back, Bern and Nicola up front. When we were on the road again, stuck in the line of traffic, all three started shouting excitedly.

  At home, I found my grandmother in the living room. She had fallen asleep with the TV on. I touched her lightly and she started.

  “Where have you been?” she asked, rubbing her cheeks.

  “Ostuni. At the piazza.”

  “Ostuni is terrible in the summer. All those loud tourists. Would you like some herbal tea?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Then make some for me, if you would.”

  When I brought her the cup, she was still motionless as I had left her, her eyes wide open, staring at the screen.

  “Is it the dark-haired one?” she asked, not turning her head.

  The cup clinked on the saucer. “What?”

  “Yes, it’s the dark-haired one. The other one, the real son, is also cute. But the dark one is without a doubt more captivating. What’s his name?”

  “Bern.”

  “Just Bern? Or Bern as in Bernardo?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “I was trying to remember what we used to do at night when I was your age. And do you know what we did? We went to the piazza, in Ostuni. Is he kind to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll bring your tea up to your room,” I suggested. “That way you can lie down.” She followed me up the stairs. Before leaving her to herself, I added: “Don’t tell him, please.”

  I took her smile to mean she wouldn’t. In the hallway, I stopped in front of my father’s door and heard his heavy breathing.

  I took a shower, then more time went by, a period during which I took off my night socks and put them back on, tried on at least four different sleep shirts, lay down under the sheet, and then moved to the chair because Bern might not like getting into a warm bed. The thought of what, at the reed bed, had come naturally now made me nervous.

  By three a.m. I convinced myself that he wouldn’t come. Maybe he hadn’t been able to get away, or else he had forgotten. I focused on the second hypothesis. Yes, the brawl we had come close to had caused him to forget our plan.

  But after a while, I heard something thump. I imagined his foot on the eaves. I forced myself to stay where I was until he whistled. When he reached the window, I opened the shutters and helped him climb in. Right away, he kissed me. His breath smelled of beer. His hands groped for my breasts, first through the shirt, then pushing it up, out of the way.

  “You’re tense,” he said, continuing to touch me.

  “I’m afraid they’ll hear us.”

  “They won’t hear us.”

  He pulled away to glance at the bed against the wall.

  “Do you want to stay on top of the sheet or under?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’d rather be on top. What about the lamp? Should we leave it on?”

  We knelt on the bed, facing each other. He had undressed too. It took my breath away to see him like that, naked in the dead of night, his erection rising from the dark patch of pubic hair.

  He pushed toward me with the sam
e frenzy as before, but this time I stopped him. I told him that we would do it differently, that we would do it slowly. We were in bed and we had all the time we wanted. He pulled back, looking confused. So it was I who went to him and made him lie back as I put my knees around his waist.

  I started rubbing myself back and forth, from his stomach to his legs, back and forth, slowly at first, then faster, until I felt something forming at the point where we were in contact, a kind of heat that quickly rose to my throat. It had never happened to me before.

  Bern stared at me in astonishment, his hands grounded on the sheet, as if he were afraid of interrupting what I was doing.

  My first thought, afterward, was that we had been too loud, that maybe I’d cried out or he had.

  “It was different than I thought,” he said. “You didn’t even let me move.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” he said hurriedly. “It was good.”

  My forehead was resting against his collarbone, I felt like going to sleep, but I could feel that his muscles were still tense.

  “I have to go now,” he said.

  From the bed I watched him put his clothes back on. I wasn’t embarrassed to lie there naked, what embarrassed me was to still want him while he was getting ready to go back to the masseria.

  “You can leave by the door,” I said.

  But he was already climbing through the window. I went over to it. He had gone down a foot or so when he looked up one last time.

  “Did you see how great Nicola was? He protected us all.”

  He steadied a foot between the stones of the façade and jumped down. When he reached the pool, he waved goodbye to me, then started running.

  * * *

  —

  THE FOLLOWING DAY my father asked me to go to Fasano with him to see a childhood friend of his. I didn’t want to go, but I felt guilty about what had happened the night before, so I said yes.

  The friend lived in a yellow row house in the suburbs. He was very fat, and had trouble breathing; he didn’t move from his chair the whole time. With him was a girl my age; she brought him water if he was thirsty, picked up the pillow that was always falling to the floor, and at one point she lowered the shutters a few inches because she noticed that the light was bothering him. She performed those tasks with detachment, as though far away, then sat back quietly and listened to the conversation, or more likely did not listen at all. I found myself staring at her thin, tanned legs.