I Hadn't Understood (9781609458980) (12 page)

 

I
'm still asleep when the door buzzer startles me awake. I start to climb up my mattress and my eyes creak open, but of course I can't see a thing because it's dark out and the light is off. I struggle and grope and touch and grab and miss and I keep on until I get oriented, wall, window, Leksvik dresser, Nives getting dressed in front of me, now I remember everything, yes yes, the Slabang alarm clock on the Hemnes night stand, the digital numbers blinking in the dark, the number on the right is missing its central upright but you can still tell what number it is, zero eight colon zero nine, who the hell rings people's doorbells at 8:10 in the morning?

I implore my body to come to my aid and I get to my feet, dragging myself down the hallway like a hunchback. If it's one of those idiotic old geezers who show up before the blood and urine lab opens in the morning and just ring doorbells at random to get in, I swear by the Virgin Mary, I'll give him a stroke this time.

“Who is it?”

“Dad?”

“Alfre'?” I ask. But in the tone of voice of someone who's not sure they have the right name, if you know what I mean. It's schooltime. He should be on his way to school right now.

“Can I come up?” he asks.

I buzz him in.

I give my hair a quick brush with my fingers. I rub my eyes. I yawn.

The first thing I do is open the door to the landing. I leave it on the latch, so when Alf comes up he doesn't have to knock. Then I go into the kitchen and open the wooden shutter, evicting a pigeon who was loitering on the windowsill. I pick up the Bialetti Moka Express, I turn on the TV and switch to the morn­ing news on Canale 5. I don't know why when I turn the TV on in the morning I always turn to the morning news on Canale 5. I hate it with a passion, the morning news on Canale 5. Especially the theme music, that tremendous theme music that seems to have been composed just to remind you of the horrible things that happen out there in the world. In my opinion, the catastrophic theme music of the morning news report on Canale 5 is designed to make you afraid to go outside. That way you can stay home and just watch shows on Canale 5.

So I fill my Bialetti espresso pot, put it on the burner, pull a Stefan out from the kitchen table, turn it facing the television set, and sit down, waiting for Alfredo to come upstairs and the coffee to boil.

I listlessly watch the news roundup, and then I conclude (with a dismissive air that I don't know where I get) that what the hell, nothing happened again today, and finally I hear Alfredo come in, softly close the door behind him, and call me.

“I'm in the kitchen,” I call back in a disgusting gummy voice.

I come close to losing it when he walks in to where I'm sitting. A two-tone bruise tattoos half the left side of his face, almost up to his eye. His lower lip is swollen, making him look like an old woman who's had one too many facelifts. He's limping.

I leap to my feet so suddenly that it's a miracle that I don't keel over. The Stefan clatters to the floor behind me, though. My heart shoots off like a billiard ball.

Alfredo waves one hand as if to say, it's nothing, it's nothing; which obviously makes me believe the opposite. I freak out, and even I can't say whether it's out of anger or anxiety.

“What the fucking hell have you done this time?” I ask, without even realizing that I'm shouting.

“Please, Dad,” he says, as he pathetically licks his swollen lip, the sight of which sends a wave of pain through me as if I'd just been stabbed.

He pulls out a Stefan and sits down in slow motion.

“Let me get a look at you,” I say, leaning over him.

“Everything's okay, I'll be over it in no time.”

“
Everything's okay?
” I raise my voice again. “
Everything's okay?
What are you saying, what kind of language are you using, this comes straight out of some American movie!”

They always ask the same idiotic question, in American movies. If somebody hits the edge of a table with their knee, it's not like the other person in the scene asks: “Did you hurt yourself?”; no, they say: “Is everything okay?” as if hitting a table with their knee might shatter much more than just their left kneecap. That's just the way Americans are; apparently they're always convinced something much bigger is going on than meets the eye.

“But just look at what somebody did to you. You need to tell me who it was.”

“Dad, stop shouting, please. My head hurts.”

“Ah, you see, something hurts. That means everything's not okay!”

He dismisses my stupid retort with a labored sigh, as if to say that this is no time for nitpicking about schematic details. Which, I instantly realize, is true. Suddenly aware of what a shit I am, I impetuously throw my arms around him.

“Sorry, Alfre', I'm sorry.”

Suddenly I'm on the verge of bursting into tears.

“Ouch, Dad!” he cries.

I pull back.

“Damn, sorry.”

“It's nothing, it's nothing,” Alf says, making an effort to smile. And he reaches up to touch his face, as if I'd knocked it out of alignment or something.

“Do you have some ice?” he asks.

“Yes.” I bolt for the fridge.

The Bialetti burbles away. I pull an ice tray out of the freezer, I look for a clean dish towel. Alfredo turns off the burner under the Bialetti. I find the dish towel, I pry the ice out of the tray with my fingers, ice cube by ice cube. Alfredo pours the coffee. I tell him not to worry about it, because I don't want to interrupt what I'm doing for a coffee break, but he keeps on doing what he's doing. I pile the ice cubes in the middle of the dish towel, I make a little ice bag, and I hand it to Alf. With a series of grimaces, he starts to apply the ice bag to the injured part of his face.

I sit down next to him.

“How's your lip?”

He signals “so-so” with one hand.

“Are you bleeding?”

He looks at me.

“In your mouth,” I say.

He replies by waving his index finger back and forth like a metronome.

“They didn't knock out a tooth, did they?”

“No, no.”

“What about your head? Did you get hit in the head?”

“No, no.”

I stand up. At this point, I drink my coffee.

“Who was it this time?”

He shrugs.

“Can't you tell me anything?”

“On the subway. There were three of them. But two of them didn't do anything. In fact, they pulled him off me.”

I sigh, dispirited.

“Listen, let me take you to the hospital.”

“No, come on, it's not worth the hassle. Then you have to file a police report and everything. It would just be a waste of time, I couldn't even identify them.”

I feel hollow. For an instant, just a single fleeting instant, I consider the possibility of exercising
patria potestas
in its most ancient and antiquated form.

Then I resign myself to the facts, and finish my coffee.

 

It's been a while (oh, let's say six months or so) since Alfredo developed this new fixation with juvenile delinquency. The phenomenon fascinates him, it intrigues him the way a person could be intrigued by heart failure, antipersonnel mines, or white sharks. In the sense that he wants to learn more about it, study it, find out how it functions. So he wanders the city in search of youngsters his age who violate the law, and when he finds them he approaches them, strikes up a conversation and asks them how they spend their days, what they think about, what they hope to achieve, and so on. If he could, I think he'd infiltrate their ranks.

The surprising thing is that, even though he's skinny and small and clearly harmless, he isn't afraid of them in the least. If he crosses paths with four or five hooligans in the street while they molest a young girl, for instance, or just as they're about to snatch a purse, steal a moped, or hold up a married couple, it's a sure thing that he'll change course and follow them until he finds an opportunity to approach them and strike up a conversation with them.

Sometimes it works out for him. And he manages to record documentary material of a certain value. Some time ago, for instance, he let me hear a cassette he'd made (he goes everywhere with his trusty tape recorder in his pocket, like a journalist). He managed to approach the leader of a group of pedestrian-slapppers (the thugs who slap people in the street, but not for money, in fact for no discernable reason at all) and asked him to describe what they did on an average Saturday night.

Aside from the question of how much of what they said was true (because it was blindingly obvious that a lot of it was completely made up), what really made your jaw drop was the complete indifference that rang in their voices, like an accent running through their horrifyingly simple thoughts. Me—this guy—that guy—money—life—death—pussy—balls—freedom—prison. Teenagers who were as hardened as old men.

In this kind of situation, you have to admit it, Alfredo behaves like a complete professional. He listens to the most bloodcurdling details without a hint of surprise. As if he were expecting it, right? Then he asks questions that leave the subjects of his interviews absolutely speechless. Truly brilliant questions, like: “But have you managed to put aside a little bit of money?” or else: “Do you think the girls are having a good time while you rape them?”

In other words, when it goes right, he puts together some documentary audio that you have to respect. Stuff for which the most highly credentialed experts in the sector really ought to go out and buy him cigarettes, as far as I'm concerned.

There are other times, though, when it doesn't go right at all, and that's when they beat him with varying levels of determination, depending on whether they have something to do afterward.

But I have to say that, given how persistent and reckless Alfredo is, he doesn't get beat up that often, truth be told. In six months he's been beaten up three times, including last night, or actually two-and-a-half times, because the time before this one, a police squad car happened to drive by and the thugs cut and ran almost before they got started.

According to Alf, this unusual batting record is due to the fact that when you get up close, nothing is ever as bad as people say it is. Which is a good answer, I know. But I think it's his lack of fear that works as his bodyguard. If you're not afraid of something, then that something learns to avoid you, because it understands that it can only do you so much harm, and with all the harmable people there are around, there's no point in wasting time on someone who's not likely to appreciate it.

So in our family we're trying to come to terms with something that might be described as an anthropological interest—I wonder if you can guess who came up with that terminology. It all started the day that Nives (that's who came up with the terminology) took Alfredo with her to a conference on juvenile deviance, applying the principle that it does kids good every so often to participate in events of this sort, because “even if they don't think they've understood anything, something still sticks in their mind” (which is just a wheelbarrel to transport your balls back home, if you ask me).

In any case, at this conference—after the opening statements from the various prominent officials who express their gratitude, offer their wishes for a productive session, and then are obliged to leave the premises by a variety of prior commitments—a famous sociologist delivered his report, and Alfredo was hypnotized by the sociologist's opinions about the importance of comprehending the malaise of adolescents—that is, comprehending it
for real
, in the etymological sense of the term, by getting your hands dirty and putting yourself on the line as a volunteer for knowledge. He used this exact expression: “volunteers for knowledge.” I wasn't there but I'll bet you anything you care to name that those were his exact words because for a good solid month after that fucking conference, Alf made sure he stitched “volunteers for knowledge” practically into every sentence that passed his lips. In that particular period, I'm not exaggerating, talking, for Alf, had become nothing more than a pretext for saying “volunteers for knowledge.”

In my opinion, leaving aside the famous sociologist's entire presentation, it was this isolated phrase that tipped him over the edge into complete idiocy. Because, if you really pay attention, people tip over the edge into complete idiocy over the tiniest things, and not because they fall victim of who knows what refined perfidy.

At the same time, even though I have pretty clear opinions on the subject, I also realize that when you're dealing with a son in the throes of complete degeneration into idiocy, you can't exactly start off with such a drastic line of argumentation.

There's one thing I know for sure: that if that day Nives, instead of taking Alf along with her to the double-damned conference on juvenile deviance, if she'd sent him out to play soccer, or even left him all afternoon glued to his super-miserable Playstation, right now he wouldn't be sitting in my kitchen holding a bag of ice to the side of his head.

In any case, as I think is already pretty obvious, Alfredo has already decided, though he's only sixteen, that he wants to be a journalist.

From a certain point of view, I'm glad that he already has such clear plans for his future. From a certain point of view. Because from another point of view—that is, the one from which I'm looking at a bruise that covers half of his face—I'd have to rule out all other points of view.

What are you going to say to a teenager with a fixation of this kind? “Don't go around getting your ass kicked, or I'll kick your ass?”

How do I deal with this problem? Poorly, very poorly. With a sense of guilt that's aggravated by the fact that, because of my marital and family situation, I'm naturally inclined to consider my separation as the source of all our suffering. And the worst part is that it strikes me that I'm the only one who feels any guilt. Because Nives, in contrast, treats the whole matter with a professional detachment that destabilizes me. She acts like a psychologist with our son, in other words.