Despite this failure, however, he really had changed. More from his daily association with them than by any act of will, he had grown more like the boys without realizing it, or rather, he had lost his former pleasures without managing to acquire any new ones. More than once, when he’d had enough, he avoided Vespucci beach and sought out the simple companions and innocent games of Speranza beach with which his summer had begun. But there was something so bland about the polite children who awaited him there; their amusements ruled by parents’ warnings and nannies’ supervision were so boring, their talk of school, stamp collections, adventure books, and other such things, so insipid. The truth was that the camaraderie of the gang, their foul language, their talk about women, stealing from the fields, and even their violence and harsh treatment of him had transformed him and made him adverse to the old friendships. Something that happened during that period confirmed his belief. One morning, arriving later than usual at Vespucci beach, he found neither Saro, who was off doing errands, nor the gang. Despondent, he sat down on a boat by the water. While he was staring at the beach, hoping that at least Saro would appear, he was approached by a man and a boy who was perhaps two years younger than Agostino. The man was short with fat stubby legs beneath a protruding belly and a round face with a pince-nez clamped to a pointed nose. He looked like an office worker or a teacher. The pale skinny boy, wearing bathing trunks a couple of sizes too large, was hugging to his chest an enormous, brand-new leather soccer ball. Holding his son by the arm, the man came up to Agostino and looked at him for a while, undecided. Finally he asked if they couldn’t go for a boat ride. “Of course you can,” replied Agostino without hesitation.
The man looked at him skeptically, peering over his eyeglasses, and then asked how much an hour would cost. Agostino knew the fares and told him. Then he realized the man had mistaken him for the boatman’s son or helper, which somehow flattered him. “All right, let’s go,” the man said.
Without a second thought, Agostino took the raw pine log that served as a roller and placed it under the stern of the boat. Then, grabbing hold of the corners with both hands, in an effort redoubled by a strange surge of pride, he pushed the boat into the water. After helping the boy and his father climb in, he jumped aboard himself and took command of the oars.
For a little while, on the calm and deserted early-morning sea, Agostino rowed without saying a word. The boy hugged the ball to his chest and looked at Agostino with a wan expression. The man, seated awkwardly, his belly between his legs, twisted his head around on a fat neck and appeared to be enjoying the landscape. Finally he asked Agostino whether he was the boatman’s son or helper. Agostino replied that he was the helper. “And how old are you?” the man inquired.
“Thirteen,” said Agostino.
“You see,” said the man to his son, “this boy is almost the same age as you and he’s already working.” Then, to Agostino, “Do you go to school?”
“I wish… but how can I?” replied Agostino, taking on the deceitful tone he had often heard the boys in the gang adopt to address similar questions. “I gotta make a living, mister.”
“You see,” the father turned to his son again, “this boy can’t go to school because he has to work, and you have the nerve to complain because you have to study?”
“We’re a big family,” continued Agostino, rowing vigorously, “and we all work.”
“And how much can you make in a day?” the man asked.
“It depends,” replied Agostino. “If a lot of people come, as much as twenty or thirty lire.”
“Which you naturally give to your father,” the man interrupted.
“Of course,” Agostino replied without hesitation. “Except for tips, of course.”
The man didn’t feel like holding up this particular remark to his son as an example, but he made a grave nod of approval. The son was quiet, hugging the ball to his chest more tightly and looking at Agostino with dull, watery eyes.
“How would you like to have a leather ball like this for yourself, boy?” the man suddenly asked Agostino.
Agostino already had two soccer balls, and they had long been sitting in his bedroom, discarded along with his other playthings. But he said, “Yes, I would like that, of course, but how could we manage? We have to take care of basics first.”
The man turned toward his son and, more to tease, it seemed, than to express his actual intentions, said to him, “Come on, Piero, give your ball to this poor boy who doesn’t have one.” The son looked at the father, then at Agostino, and with an almost jealous vehemence hugged the ball to his chest without saying a word. “You don’t want to?” the father asked softly. “Why not?”
“It’s mine,” the boy said.
“Don’t worry,” Agostino interjected at this point with a phony smile, “it’d be no use to me anyway. I don’t have any time to play, but he…”
The father smiled at these words, pleased to have presented a moral example to his son in the flesh and blood. “You see, this boy is better than you,” he added, patting his son on the head. “He’s poor and he still doesn’t want your ball. He’s letting you keep it, but every time you start acting up and complaining, I want you to remember that in the world there are boys like this who have to work for a living and have never had a soccer ball or any other plaything.”
“It’s my ball,” the son replied, obstinate.
“Yes, it’s yours.” The father sighed distractedly. He looked at his watch and said, “Let’s head back, boy,” in a changed and domineering voice. Without saying a word, Agostino turned the boat toward the shore.
As they came close to the beach, he saw Saro standing in the water observing his maneuvers, and he was afraid the boatman would embarrass him by revealing the trick he had played. But Saro didn’t open his mouth. Perhaps he understood. Perhaps he didn’t care. Quietly and solemnly, he helped Agostino pull the boat onto the beach. “This is for you,” said the man, giving Agostino the agreed sum plus something extra. Agostino took the money and brought it to Saro. “But this part I’m keeping for myself. It’s the tip,” he added with smug and deliberate impudence. Saro didn’t say a word. With a crooked smile he put the money in the black sash around his waist and walked away slowly across the sand toward the shack.
This small incident left Agostino with the feeling once and for all that he no longer belonged to the world of children like the boy with the soccer ball, and that, anyway, he had sunk so low that he could no longer live without deceit and vexation. But it pained him not to be like the boys in the gang either. There was still too much delicacy in him. If he were like them, he sometimes thought, he wouldn’t be so hurt by their crudeness, their vulgarity, their bluntness. So he found that he had lost his original identity without acquiring through his loss another.