But Agostino wanted to go to Rio, and Homs’s insistence raised his suspicions. “No, I can’t,” he replied.
“Take the slingshot,” the other boy said, looking for his hand and trying to force the object into his palm. “Take the slingshot and get lost.”
“No,” Agostino repeated, “I can’t.”
“I’ll give you the slingshot and these playing cards,” the black boy said. He dug into his pockets again and pulled out a small deck of pink cards with gilt edges. “Take both of them and get lost. You can use the slingshot to kill birds. The cards are new—”
“I said no,” Agostino repeated.
The black boy looked at him, agitated and imploring. Large beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and his face suddenly twisted into a plaintive expression. “Why not?” he whined.
“I don’t want to,” said Agostino. And he fled toward the lifeguard, who by now had reached the boat on the beach. He heard the black boy yelling, “You’ll be sorry,” and, huffing and puffing, he reached Saro.
The boat was sitting on two raw pinewood logs, a short distance from the water. Saro had already tossed the sails into the boat and seemed impatient. “What’s he doing?” he asked Agostino, pointing to the black boy.
“He’ll be here in a second,” said Agostino.
At that moment the black boy came running, the mast under his arm, making long leaps over the sand. Saro grabbed hold of the mast with the six fingers of his right hand and then with the six fingers of his left. He stood it upright and stuck it in a hole in the middle seat. Then he got into the boat, attached the tip of the sail, and pulled on the line; the sail slid up to the top of the mast. Saro turned to the black boy and said, “Now let’s get to work.”
Saro stood to the side of the boat, gripping one side of the bow. The black boy got ready to push the stern. Not knowing what to do, Agostino looked on. The boat was of medium size, half white and half green. On the bow, in black letters, you could read its name, Amelia. “Heave-ho!” said Saro. The boat slid over the logs, advancing across the sand. As soon as the hull rolled off the rear log, the black boy would squat down, pick it up, press it against his chest like a baby, and leaping over the sand as if in a modern dance, run to place it under the bow. “Heave-ho!” Saro repeated.
Again the boat slid forward a stretch, and again the black boy raced from stern to bow, skipping and jumping with the log in his arms. With a final push, the boat slid with its stern lower into the water and floated. Saro got into the boat and started slipping the oars into the oarlocks. At the same time, he gestured to Agostino, with a complicity that excluded the black boy, to climb on board. Agostino waded into the water up to his knees and started to climb in. He wouldn’t have managed if the six fingers of Saro’s right hand hadn’t taken a firm hold of his arm and pulled him in like a cat. He looked up. While lifting him, Saro was concentrating not on him but on straightening out the left oar with his other hand. Filled with repulsion at the fingers that had gripped him, Agostino went to sit in the bow.
“Good boy,” Saro said, “stay there. Now we’re taking the boat out.”
“Wait for me, I’m coming, too,” shouted the black boy from the shore. Panting, he jumped into the water, nearing the boat and grabbing onto one side. But Saro said, “No, you’re not coming.”
“How am I supposed to get there?” the boy cried in distress. “How am I supposed to get there?”
“Take the streetcar,” Saro replied, rowing vigorously from an upright position. “You’ll get there before us.”
“Why, Saro?” the boy insisted plaintively, running in the water beside the boat. “Why, Saro? I’m coming, too.”
Without saying a word, Saro set the oars down, bent forward, and placed an enormous wide hand over the black boy’s face. “I said you’re not coming,” he repeated calmly, and with a single thrust shoved the boy back into the water. “Why, Saro?” The boy continued to cry, “Why?” and his plaintive voice, amid the splashing of the water, sounded unpleasant to Agostino’s ears, filling him with a vague pity. He looked at Saro, who smiled and said, “He’s so annoying. What were we supposed to do?”
When the boat was farther from the shore. Agostino turned and saw the black boy emerging from the water and shaking his fist in a threatening gesture that seemed directed at him.
Without saying a word, Saro pulled the oars in and laid them on the bottom of the boat. He went toward the stern and tied the sail to the boom, stretching it out. The sail fluttered indecisively for a moment, as if the wind were battering it from both sides, then all of a sudden, it turned starboard with a loud snap, tightening and billowing out. Obediently, the boat also tilted starboard and started to skip over the light playful waves lifted by the mistral wind. “We’re good,” said Saro. “Now we can lie down and rest a while.” He dropped down to the bottom of the boat and invited Agostino to join him. “If we sit on the bottom,” he explained, “the boat goes faster.” Agostino did the same and found himself sitting on the bottom of the boat, next to Saro.
The boat sailed smoothly despite its potbellied shape, tilting to one side, going up and down on the waves and occasionally rearing like a colt chafing at the bit. Saro was reclining with his head on the seat and one arm slipped below Agostino’s neck to control the tiller. For a while he said nothing. “Do you go to school?” he finally asked.
Agostino looked at him. Lying on his back, Saro seemed to be voluptuously exposing his nose with its inflamed flared nostrils to the sea air, as if to refresh them. His mouth was half open beneath his mustache, his eyes half closed. Through his unbuttoned shirt you could see the hairs, gray and dirty, rustling on his chest. “Yes,” said Agostino, with a shiver of unexpected fear.
“What year are you in?”
“The third year of middle school.”
“Give me your hand,” said Saro, and before Agostino could refuse, he grabbed hold of it. Agostino felt like he was trapped not by a hand but by a snare. The six short stubby fingers covered his hand, circled it, and joined below it. “And what do they teach you,” Saro continued, getting into a better position and sinking into a sort of bliss.
“Latin… Italian… geography… history,” Agostino stuttered.
“Do they teach you poetry, any nice poems?” Saro asked in a soft voice.
“Yes,” said Agostino, “they also teach us poetry.” “Tell me one.”
The boat reared up, and Saro, without moving or modifying his blissful pose, gave the tiller a shove. “Uh, I don’t know,” said Agostino, frightened and embarrassed, “they teach me lots of poems. Carducci…”
“Ah, yes, Carducci…” Saro repeated mechanically. “Tell me a poem by Carducci.”
”By the Sources of Clitumnus,” Agostino proposed, horrified at the hand that would not release its grip and trying slowly but surely to break it.
“Yes, By the Sources of Clitumnus,’ Saro said in a dreamy voice.
With an unsteady voice, Agostino began:
“Still, Clitumnus, down from the mountains, dark with
Waving ash trees, where ’mid the branches perfumed…*
The boat skipped along, Saro was still on his back, nose to the wind, eyes closed, making gestures with his head as if he were scanning the verses. Suddenly clinging to the poem as if it were the only means of avoiding a conversation he sensed would be compromising and dangerous, Agostino continued to recite slowly and clearly. All the while he tried to free his hand from the six fingers clutching it, but the grip was tighter than ever. He was terrified to realize that the end of the poem was approaching, so to the last stanza of By the Sources of Clitumnus he appended the first line of “Before San Guido.” It was also a test, as if he needed one, to confirm that Saro didn’t really care about poetry and had another very different purpose in mind. What exactly that was he could not quite understand. And the test was successful. “The cypresses which still to Bolgheri run stately and tall…” sounded jarring, but Saro gave no indication he had noticed the change. So Agostino interrupted his recital and said in exasperation, “Would you please let go?” while trying to free himself.