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1. The First Moon
I would never have remembered Professor Marco Ferro had I not heard the news of his death. For reasons I still cannot explain, I was deeply affected, when I first heard it, by the story of the professor and his student Yussef. The story had everything: love and loneliness, class conflict, racism, the tribulations of middle age and the cruelty and vulgarity of adolescence; it depicted the constant transformation of everything into something else both dissimilar and identical; and planted deep within this coil of flesh and blood was the poison seed, at least as I see it: the question of whether people who write novels, short stories, and poems — works of the imagination, in other words — are responsible for the reactions that these novels, short stories, et cetera can provoke in the reader. Not only in the dark corners of the mind, but also in the harsh daylight of action. This is a question that, for years, has never ceased to haunt me, without ever once yielding an answer that would prove satisfactory for more than a day or two. This is the question that has led me to this book.
The first person to tell me about Professor Ferro and his student Yussef was Federica Ruffo. I had not seen her for years, not since the two of us had graduated from the Liceo Pitagora in Crotone, Calabria. We weren’t in the same class: she was in section D while I was in section B, but we both belonged to a close-knit group of friends who shared the same musical tastes, political ideas, and erotic desires — in that order. Rock, pop, and jazz were all we ever talked about, who knows why, leaving little room for anything else, apparently, although to my knowledge none of us later became a professional composer, musician, or even a critic. Together with Francesco, another member of the group, Federica was always the first to discover the latest album of some unknown, experimental British group. But after graduation, and for more than twenty years, I had had no further contact with her or with any of my high school class-mates. Each of us had followed different paths that never crossed; some members had, in fact, engaged in such risky, eccentric pursuits that they quickly lost first themselves and then their lives.
When I saw Federica again, she was still very beautiful and very spoiled. Raven-haired like before, she seemed to be living the exact lifestyle she had decided on for herself. What I mean is that, unlike the others, myself included, she seemed immune to the passing of the seasons: She was in perfect physical shape and her eyes, in particular, still had the fresh, confident gaze typical of early youth, if one happens to be graced by birth into a family that has benefitted for several generations from regular and abundant meals. Her voice bore traces of tutoring by legions of governesses with impeccable diction in at least two languages.The idea of organizing a reunion of former high school students was my sister’s. A few years older than me, she was the one who had inherited our parents’ beach house, and with whom I had already spent a few days of my vacation.
After dinner the two of us usually ended up alone, reminiscing about the past. Her children would go out with their peers, and the two of us, as we cleared the table in the garden or put the kitchen back in order, would get to talking about the old days. It was mostly me asking questions about this person or that, since she, unlike me, had kept in touch with almost everyone. She knew who had married whom and who instead had divorced, what this person was doing and where that person lived. And during the summer when I was her guest for two weeks of lounging on the beach, taking long swims, feasting on grilled fish, and engaged in nostalgic conversations, she surprised me by hosting the dinner that reunited Federica and a dozen other old friends.
We were all a little embarrassed at first, since nothing is more embarrassing than realizing how much you’ve aged: In this sense, we all sported gray hair, extra pounds, and a discrete quantity of furtive glances. Moreover, in your forties — the age we had all reached — you tend to indulge not infrequently in thinking that life has settled into a definitive system of maturity and control. This false sense, oblivious to the radical changes that lay ahead — namely, the fact that the worst was yet to come — makes you feel a bit uneasy, envisioning youth as if it were a distant land, when in reality it’s right around the corner.
But not Federica. As I was saying, her youthfulness was still in bloom, and nothing seemed to shake her composure. She was married to Lino, who was one year older and had gone completely bald, and they had three children, all boys. Lino was a pediatrician at the local hospital, while she, in addition to being an avid reader of novels (her passion for literature, I learned, had taken the place of her passion for music), taught Italian at the same school as Professor Ferro. She and Lino formed a fairly successful couple: Although they had been together since adolescence, their desire for each other had never waned, as exhibited by a thousand small details (the occasional reach of his hand for hers, the wisecracks they exchanged, the extravagant confidence of their body language), although — as my sister did not fail to report to me — there were many rumors circulating about their mutual infidelities.
The evening was pleasant and quite cheerful, thanks in part, perhaps, to the two cases of white wine brought by Francesco, whose post–high school career had been dedicated not only to avant-garde music, but also to the management of his father’s food and wine business. Later that night, someone suggested that we cross the garden and take a nighttime dip in the sea. Lino, Francesco, and the other men headed toward the beach; my sister and a couple of her girlfriends went to the kitchen to do the cleaning up; Federica and I sat down next to each other on deck chairs.
For several minutes we listened to the shrieks coming from the beach and the clattering of dishes in the house. The air was warm, serene, alive with myriad insects flitting over the waves, restless. A glimmer of moonlight. Federica lit a cigarette and offered me one — which I accepted although I was not in the habit of smoking — then took another sip from her glass. She said that I looked good, that she was happy to see me, that she often read the things I was writing. I thanked her: I was happy to see her, too, as well as the others.
She smiled. It was the same smile that, back in the day, had seduced at least eighty percent of the male population of Liceo Pitagora, teachers included. The twenty percent unaffected were either too childish or, like me, cultivating other interests. For a moment, I wondered whether in those years she had ever felt some form of sexual attraction toward me. I remembered the scenes she made after I confessed to her (the first person I told) that I was in love with a boy she said she couldn’t stand. Back then I simply believed she disapproved of my choice: But had she actually been jealous? After all, shortly after my confession, she started flirting with the same boy. But that was long ago and no longer mattered, so I banished the thought.
I don’t remember why, at one point, in the middle of our quiet conversation, she asked whether I had heard about the scandal at the school where she taught. She mentioned the names of Marco Ferro, a colleague of hers, and Yussef. I said no, what happened? She turned around in her deck chair and pulled in her knees, as if to make sure that I would see not only her profile but her whole person. She said it was a long story, that the night was too short to tell the whole thing, and that it would be a good subject for a novel. My reply? All the more reason to hear it. She stared at me the way you would a missed opportunity — and in a flash I could see once again the girl who those many years ago had accused me of losing my head over a complete imbecile, a boy whom she would later seduce and abandon, as if he were one of those decisions we tend to make and disavow. She lowered her voice even more, to emphasize the need for secrecy, and whispered: To some extent, I feel like I’m in the middle of this story, that’s how deeply it’s affected me, and you are the first (she emphasized “first” with a look I couldn’t describe), she repeated, “the first person I’ve told.”
I touched her hand and started to say something to reassure her that I was someone she could trust, when Lino, Francesco, and the others suddenly reappeared from the beach, laughing loudly and asking for terrycloth towels because, although the water was warm, the air blowing outside was not quite so warm, damn it. Two seconds later my sister and her friends came running with towels and bathrobes. Questions (Did you really dive in? Hasn’t anyone broken the news that you’re not kids anymore?), exclamations (What a fantastic dip! And what an amazing moon!), second thoughts (I’m freezing, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten my hair wet), and some teasing of Lino (Baldness has its advantages).
The men went back into the house to get dressed. My sister served whiskey, limoncello, and hot coffee. Any conversation between Federica and me was over. At least for that night. I saw her leave shortly after, as if nothing had occurred, erasing every trace of complicity. At the door, as we said good night, I asked: Can I call you tomorrow? She shrugged her shoulders: If you wish, she replied, as if to make me feel that her implicit request for secrecy a few moments earlier had been a figment of my imagination.
Everything had already been put away in the kitchen. I wouldn’t know about other aspects of her life, but when it comes to order, my sister is a martinet: Wherever she sets foot, within an hour or two, everything is sparkling and in its proper place, or at least in the place she considers appropriate — unlike our mother, who was distracted and southern Italian not by birth but by choice. As I was blowing out the last candles in the garden, I adopted my mother’s same offhand manner: Did you by any chance hear about some scandal at the school where Federica teaches?
And to make myself seem absent-minded, I glanced up at the sky to peer at the moon. It had vanished, drowning in the vast expanse of night.
My sister did not keep me waiting. After apologizing for not having said anything about it the previous days, she gave me a careful but incomplete version of what had happened between Professor Ferro and his student Yussef.