Free Born Twice (Vintage International) by Giuseppe Pontiggia Page B

more athletic than sensual. She’s pretty but her focus is uneven. She can seem cold, typical of women who are afraid of showing their emotions.
    While we take turns telling her about our child, she keeps her eyes downcast. We’ve become experts at describing him in the most charming terms. We smile cheerfully. But it’s the wrong strategy. I fear she’s starting to think that our child is a monster. She asked what he suffered from and the answer— dystonic spastic quadriparesis—left her stunned.
    I close my eyes for a moment while Franca clarifies some of Paolo’s difficulties. We always make the mistake of trying to minimize them, even with doctors. Especially with doctors. We try not to tire him out before his appointments. We tell him to be that which we lack most: calm. We get upset each time he makes a mistake and then he makes more mistakes than usual, as if wanting to justify our panic. I’m afraid we’re a monstrous couple, overwrought with fear and united only in the absurd hope of overcoming it. If anything, we should present him in the worst light possible, so as to avoid a comfortable diagnosis and obtain a more plausible one.
    When the doctors become aware of our circumlocutions, they react with poorly concealed impatience. We go to great lengths to try to show them that our child is more normal than they might believe. The truth is never quite so elusive and distressing as in those moments.
    The mute resistance of Miss Bauer is suffocating me. So without turning to look at Franca, who sits on my right, even though I can imagine what her reaction will be, I speak up.
    “You have a difficult task ahead of you. We know how hard it can be. You will have to devote yourself to it entirely. At times you might even regret having wanted him in your class.”
    I don’t really believe what I’m saying, but when she looks up at me her gaze is calm.
    “Now don’t exaggerate,” Franca says. I squeeze her arm until it hurts and we stare at each other with reciprocal rage.
    “That sounds like a constructive approach. That’s what I wanted to hear,” Miss Bauer says, without noticing a thing. She looks down again.
    Franca rubs her arm. I know what waits for me later. So does she. We both know. Maybe that’s what marriage is all about.
    “I’d rather be prepared for the worst, not for the best,” Miss Bauer adds.
    “How right you are!” I exclaim, as if discovering this as a newly minted truth.
    Miss Bauer looks up; her eyes are misty with emotion. “That’s the way I am. So far it’s been a strong point in my work. Don’t you think it’s a good thing?”
    “Definitely!” I say, with the prodigal enthusiasm that we have when it doesn’t cost anything. It’s what differentiates visitors to an artist’s studio from buyers.
    Bit by bit, as she speaks, she loses her charm. She’s reasonable, focused, and enthusiastic. I’m relieved for Paolo but a little concerned for her. It’s as if, in a game of chess, the player with the advantage were suddenly to surrender. I wonder whether she’d be upset by this comparison. She’d probably be more upset with me.
    “Look at Paolo’s photographs,” Franca says, getting up from the sofa and taking down one of the frames in the hallway in which she’s collected some of his most successful pictures. She’s incorrigible, and yet she obtains what she wants, even if she does go further than I would. In any case, I’ve noticed that the legitimacy of the goal, however difficult, makes one ethically cynical.
    Miss Bauer is looking at me with a knowing smile, as if she knows she can count on me to help her resist kindness. Franca talks about Paolo. She makes him out to be a communicative and easygoing person. By the end Miss Bauer is laughing at the story of how, when someone asks Paolo on the intercom, “Is that you?” he replies from the lobby, “No!”
    “He takes advantage of the linguistic tools available to him,” I comment. “Like in arte povera.