Giulio Mozzi
A Happy Life

SEVERO WAS A TALL MAN, solidly built, with the large chest and muscular shoulders of a swimmer, the long arms and long, bony fingers. His face wasn’t handsome; it was a sharp, stretched-out oval, the nose too big, the mouth too wide, the lips too thin and pale. His eyes were dark and maybe beautiful, but in my memory, they’re almost not there at all; they’ve been erased. His erased eyes make me think that I probably never got a good look into Severo’s soul. I met Severo when I was twenty and my memory of myself at twenty is confused, almost erased. If I had
to tell my life story, I don’t think I’d know what to say. Nothing’s happened. My brother remembers things that happened to him when he was two, and his life, as far as I can see, has been linear and clear. My brother grew by increments, and so at age thirty-six, he’s a complete man. I believe I grew by steadily shrinking, as if the truth of my body and spirit has never been to fulfill the potential I had at birth, but to bring to light a marvelous, happy, internal consistency. I think of myself as an egg. When I’m unhappy, I can feel the egg inside of me, impenetrable; when I’m happy, I’m inside the egg, a yolk floating in infinite protection. For a long time, I saw myself as better than my brother: he’s always been mild, straightforward, patient, while my gifts are all potential: intelligence, charm, multiplicity, initiative, speech–I have all these things going for me, but they’re deceptive. My every effort to transform these potentials into action has ended in ruinous failure and enormous pain for myself and others. The only way I know to get over a failure is to forget, to erase my memory. I can enter a memory like an unknown, nocturnal land, a land of dust, where I can walk a long time without recognizing even one place as mine and where I meet only shadows, shadows of shadows, refaim. For this reason, when I feel someone or something trying to take shape in my memory, trying to grow more opaque, more weighty, I value this person or thing a great deal, almost like the sleeping cripple, as he dreams of his whole, impenetrable body, values the parts that have been torn away and lost forever.

A year ago, Constantino told me Severo was sick. His illness lasted a few weeks. I didn’t have the courage to see him, even if I knew that one of the best things you can do for the sick and dying is visit them. Constantino had told me that Severo “was no longer himself,” that the illness had won. The funeral mass was held in the parish church where Severo served as deacon. After the final benediction, Severo’s friends sang, I believe I will rise again, and this body of mine will meet the Savior. They seemed happy: Severo had been a good man, kind, aware–a fighter. If little people like Severo can’t reach everlasting joy and union with God, no one can. I’d made sure to arrive at the church a bit late; to avoid being seen, I stayed in the back for the liturgy, and I left during the last song. It was the same a few months later when Agostina’s husband died. Ever since I decided to isolate myself, I see some friends only at weddings, christenings, or less often, at funerals. I don’t feel real pain when others die. They’ve just disappeared, gone missing. A while ago, a person died whom I loved more than I loved myself. It’s been years, but the pain hasn’t come yet. Pain is locked outside the door, waiting for my soul to grow stronger. When my soul’s ready, it will throw open the windows of its little room, put on its best suit, and open the door to pain, like someone letting in a dear friend he can’t live without. Six months after his death, I suddenly remembered Severo while I was riding my motorbike home from the store where I work. As I rounded the corner by the gas station, I remembered Severo, and I immediately wanted to write down my ideas so I could make this sudden memory mine, something I wouldn’t lose. Every time I turn that corner, twice a day, every workday, I think: This is where I remembered Severo. All I need to do is make that short trip, those precise movements, and the memory is there, stronger than ever. Every day, on this corner, Severo is with me. That first day and every day since, Severo isn’t a shadow of a shadow in my mind; he becomes a living body, affectionate, tender, close to me. I know this Severo isn’t real, that my longing for goodness, however confused and reluctant, has found a way to make him flesh–a steady, reliable presence in my life. Another six months have gone by since that first time I remembered him, and I only started writing this today, because scruples that little by little turned out to be wrong kept me from doing what I’d wanted to do. At this very moment, I’m still uncertain, and I realize that for me the most difficult discipline of all is sincerity. There’s a certain extraneousness between me and my words that can be brought on just by the ringing of a phone. All I want is to solve this problem. Today is the last day of January. It’s Sunday, and after getting dressed, I went out to smoke in the garden. My garden’s small, but beyond the wire fence is a public park with some lindens and fir trees, and beyond that, a street. The sky is a milky blue, the air is clear, and with the sun, the lindens’ black bark shines almost silver. Someone in my family made a pile of leaves and twigs in the middle of the garden. The last few days, we’ve had very little breeze. Today the air is still; the sun feels warm on my sweater. Beyond the fence, the sun flashes on the cars going by now and then. In the sunniest corner of the garden, the first tiny yellow primroses have opened. We’re just midway through winter, but it feels like early spring. I thrive on these sensations, and I think I’m good at finding them, storing them, and turning them into tiny, yet indestructible, sources of strength. Visiting the garden makes me feel good; it’s become my small, comforting Sunday ritual. I’d love to have Severo’s company like this, too: an endless friendship. I only need Severo nearby to feel happier. At this very moment, he seems close, his arms open wide in invitation, with that coltish, funny smile of his. I wish I could hug him, love him, feel his warmth.

I was twenty when I met Severo. I’d just started my civil service at the orphanage, the Istituto degli abbandonati. I’d chosen the civil service over the military for reasons I don’t recall now. Probably that I didn’t want to be crowded into a barracks with so many other young men, that I didn’t want to be tested and judged. The Istituto was a sort of school for orphans run by a small confraternity. There were around seventy boys, mostly from ten to fourteen years of age, with five or six slightly older boys. One of these was Constantino, who was seventeen or eighteen at the time. The Istituto was only a little ways from my home, but I’d never set foot inside. I was a good Catholic boy, studious, respectable. I hadn’t yet faced love or pain. For several months, I worked at the Istituto without learning a thing. My job consisted of following the boys around, one group in particular, during their free time after class and before bed. In the beginning, I was with them very little, just during recess and study hours. My service began in February and at first, because I’d always done well in school, I was assigned the third-year boys about to take their exams. The boys were brighter, more grown up than I was, and I had no idea what to do. During the summer, we went up to the Istituto’s summer camp in a small mountain town. Up there, you stayed with the boys all day and, little by little, I started to learn. In October, I was assigned the first-year boys, and they were more at my level. I loved some of them very much–within my limited capacity to love. I wish I could remember M., one of the most intelligent, one of the best people I’ve ever known. I wish I could remember D.; back then, I think I loved D. a great deal, but I didn’t dare see him again after I completed my service. The separation from him is painful, a continual reproach. I hope he’s found happiness, but that hope’s worthless, I know, because everything suggests he’s had an unhappy life. He never had a chance for love, for learning, for money. My love didn’t help him at all: it was an impure love that completely terrified me and shut me down, body and soul. There was no sweetness in me. I must still be punishing myself for loving D., then abandoning him, because ever since that time I’ve tried to push away all affection, to ignore what I’ve learned, to throw away money. I wanted to slip into a life like his, to suffer like he must have suffered. Even my self-loathing’s worthless–it just hurts me and doesn’t benefit anyone else.

When I think of Severo, I can only smile. Everyone called him by his first name, and the irony of that name was perfect. With the smaller boys, Severo was sweet, loving, maternal. At night, in the dormitory, when the little boys were all in bed, he’d tell them stories from the Gospel or from the saints’ lives: fascinating, reassuring stories full of mystery and joy. And during our afternoons in the courtyard, while the bigger, tougher boys played soccer, Severo could easily be found in a corner with five or six little boys or with a group of the more sensitive, considerate older boys. Severo listened to them all, and his face showed rapt attention. I think paying attention came naturally to him, but out of respect and sympathy for the boys speaking, he took special care to show he was listening with his expression, the intensity of his look, and the way he leaned toward them. Then when it was his turn, he did what he had to: he instructed, he trained, he taught. And he wasn’t afraid to talk about difficult things; he knew the boys would listen as closely as they could. He was like a man scattering seed, trusting in the fertility of the soil, convinced no ground can be denied the best seed.

We laughed a lot with Severo around. He’d lived in the Istituto ever since he was a child. I don’t know how old he was when he decided to live there permanently, to join the confraternity and serve those whose fate was similar to his own. When I met him, he was forty and had a bunch of funny stories about the Istituto and his time in the mountains. The stories were entertaining, but the boys listening to them also heard the affection that Severo, in his strange, playful way, still nurtured for all those other boys, grown men now, who’d lived inside these walls. Severo’s love was indiscriminate, and when I first started at the Istituto, I thought that was a fault; in my confusion, I thought love was the exclusive, spontaneous impulse one soul felt for another. Only later did I start thinking that above all else, love is an act of will and that Severo loved the boys equally because his love wasn’t just on the outside, but came from deep within, an inexhaustible spring. Now I think Severo’s love for the boys was strictly on the outside, in the sense that it consisted of behaviors, attentions paid, actions carried out. Severo didn’t express his feelings; he did things. So whatever was in his heart, Severo acted with love. Severo loved the boys the way a runner runs his race, without thinking about the pain to come that will flood his lungs and legs. I like to think that maybe after I left the Istituto, Severo sometimes sat in front of a tiny circle of boys and would start by saying, I remember, and tell some story about a blunder of mine or something that happened to me. And this would be a lesson about not letting your weaknesses make you think badly of yourself, that your weaknesses won’t make others like you any less.

Simply by always living in the Istituto, Severo had seminary training in theology. Long before I met him, the confraternity had wanted Severo to become a priest, but for some reason, he decided not to. I’d like to think this was because he was humble and knew himself. Being a priest means ministering the sacraments, transforming bread, pardoning sins. Severo was above all a teacher–a different ministry. Not many people understood the sanctity of the priesthood like Severo. Another boy from Severo’s generation at the Istituto did become a priest, and I’ve never met anyone so virtuous, so unconditionally obedient to the divine voice, a true servant of servants. The priest who transforms bread and pardons sins almost no longer exists as a man: he’s like a riverbed, the path the current passes over, and not the river or the current. Severo wasn’t capable of that much self-surrender: deep inside him, there was pride. Severo confronted the divine being with his natural intelligence. For him, studying meant finding a deeper knowledge that never lost its mystery. I imagine this as something like wading into a dark sea. Our natural aversion to death keeps us from plunging in completely, but that immersion, after the brief moment of dying, will give us everything we’ve been searching for: a happy life, true knowledge.

Whatever he did, Severo’s movements seemed oddly slow. Actually, it’s not that he moved slowly; his every movement just seemed guided by a thought. A thought takes a short while to form and for the person who watches someone thinking, that can look like slight hesitation. Years later, I met someone else who seemed quite confident but also hesitated every time he moved. This was a big, strong guy like Severo. I convinced myself–this may sound silly–that a large person’s thoughts take awhile to reach the entire body, and that’s why the body hesitates, seems almost asleep. But there are also men who seem to think with their hands and feet, and these men move at once. In my opinion, these men are so consumed with their thoughts, their entire bodies are taken over. That’s obedience. Severo was good with his hands. He was a great cook. Everyone knew when Severo was in the kitchen. At the Istituto degli abbandonati, we ate very well. Because they usually came from very poor or neglectful families, the boys were often small and underweight. After a few months, though, they got extremely fat; then they started to grow. Once there was a community inspection to make sure the Istituto was following the guidelines for proper nutrition. The inspector discovered that the boys ate double or triple the recommended number of calories with each meal. Almost everything we ate was donated. Once for two weeks straight in the mountains, we ate donated melons that were too ripe for market. At that time, we also had boxes of donated dates, so each boy’s midday snack was a half-melon and a cup of dates. Poverty provided these unexpected luxuries. For me, every day felt like I was participating in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. One evening, the confraternity decided the boys could no longer go without new bedding: seventy beds, one hundred and forty separate pieces of bedding–quite the expense. Two days later, we received enough fabric to cover all the beds, with plenty left over. This is what we need to live: food, shelter, not getting beaten. Many of our boys had permanent defects due to malnutrition or their parents’ alcoholism. Many had chronic respiratory problems or aching bones from the cold and damp. All of them were afraid of our hands.

One thing I liked a great deal about Severo: he was slightly vain. In the Istituto, you generally didn’t think about how you dressed because almost everything you wore was donated. Once in awhile, a van arrived full of clothes that wouldn’t sell, clothes in strange sizes or colors, that had defects, or were simply out of style. You wore whatever junk was available. There were plenty of clothes, but it was very hard to find something decent. The confraternity brothers usually looked unkempt, but Severo, though modestly dressed, always managed to look stylish and dignified. When the van came, we emptied the small boxes of clothes onto tables in the refectory, and the boys and the brothers just fished through the piles to find anything their size; Severo kept looking until he found clothes that fit him perfectly and matched his other things. That’s how he dealt with poverty: he hid it as much as he could. He taught the boys to dress well, too, and sometimes after they were in bed, he’d spend the evening in his little room stitching up tears, shortening pants, and redoing cuffs and collars. He took the same amount of care with his studies, his cooking, and his teaching. With his somewhat formal manner and the pleasure he took in being stylish, he stood out from the other brothers, who were almost rigidly austere. He’d started going bald as a young man and every morning he carefully arranged what was left of his hair, adding a dab of brilliantine. Besides the books for his studies, I think his brilliantine was the only reason Severo ever asked the confraternity for money. Every May, on the anniversary of the founding of the Istituto, the confraternity threw a party and invited the families of those boys who had families. Once, while we were all gathered in the courtyard, a parent pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Severo, who took it and smoked it with obvious pleasure. I’m sure Severo never smoked, but he must have tried it at some point and enjoyed it. This time, Severo didn’t smoke out of vice, but out of pure pleasure. He taught me this, too: that pleasure in and of itself isn’t bad, that caring for the body, from food to clothing, is care dedicated to a divine creature. The body was created to allow access to pleasure: and that’s why the promise of eternal life isn’t just a promise of the survival of the soul: it’s a promise of the resurrection of the flesh. When we rejoice in being made one with the divine being, we’ll be wearing this same flesh that we wear now, even if it’s transformed flesh, like transformed bread.

Severo completed his theology studies shortly after my time was up at the Istituto. A few years later he was ordained a deacon. I almost never saw him when my service ended. I hated that building where I’d lived for a year and eight months. I think I simply wanted to deny what I’d learned. Ten years have gone by, and of those ten years, nothing remains. Through failure after failure, I’ve turned out to be nothing. I don’t remember what I was back then or what I hoped to be. On the nothing that I am now, I’m trying to build my happiness, my salvation. I’m very grateful for those who’ve hit me, subdued me, deprived me, enslaved me, knocked me down, thrown me out. I’m happy rolling in the dust. If I die, it will be because I–my masters’ monkey–wanted to rule over people as if I were God.

Constantino told me that during the last few weeks of his illness, Severo had been defeated. He grew mean; he didn’t want visitors and if they came, he insulted them. For the first time in his adult life, he was overheard speaking like someone who hates. I think Severo fought against evil his whole life, with all the strength of his mind, body, and soul. I think the divine being will pity him in his defeat. Severo’s illness was quite painful. The doctors call this sort of pain, “severe pain,” which means continuous pain, the kind that hits the entire body and that the sufferer can’t pinpoint. You can’t treat this kind of pain with drugs: if you extinguish the pain, you also extinguish the mind. The only way to fight this pain is to find its source and remove it from the body through surgery, or to remove it from the mind. Evil couldn’t defeat Severo just by hitting him, wounding him, mutilating him. It had to conquer him completely, his veins, his fibers, his tissue, his bones, his humor, his essence.

I’m in my room and around me there’s no sign of pain. In other times, I’ve been prey to evil, which has controlled me with ridiculous ease. A few days ago, in a letter to a far-off friend, I wrote: I’m armed to the teeth. But I didn’t send the letter because that claim isn’t true; it’s just a wish. Pain isn’t evil; evil uses pain. Driving pain away–always just driving it away–is evil. Refusing pain is the worst master. My masters of old are all dead. Now I’m searching for my friends and I’m happy that Severo came and found me, six months ago, when I was returning home from the store where I work and I rounded the corner by the gas station. Severo’s friendship is alive, is as real as any living person’s. I want to thank him here–I want to thank them all. My life has been built with their hands.

Translated by Elizabeth Harris Behling
A Happy Life was originally published in The Italian Fiction Issue, Fall 2005