Page 63 of Three Times You

Chapter 49

When I get there, San Pietro Hospital strikes me as very different. I’d been there before, after a motorcycle crash, waiting hours outside of the emergency room because I’d sprained an elbow. Another time, it was for a dislocated ankle after a soccer game, and one night after a brawl at the Piper nightclub. Pollo and I came here together, both of us swollen and black and blue.

We’d both sat down, side by side, in the emergency room waiting room, but then, seeing everyone who came in ushered in ahead of us because they were in worse shape, we just decided to go out to the bar on Corso Francia. We had them give us some ice, and we just sat down outside at a little café table, using dirty rags from our motorcycle to hold the ice cubes in place. We did our best to make sure the swelling went down so we’d be presentable before going back home. We’d run through our own amateur live coverage of the brawl, remembering more or less all of the most dramatic moments, exaggerating some and shamelessly making up others, but no two ways about it, it had gone better for us than it did for the other guys, that was the important thing. I was just a kid, with all that rage and all that violence pent up inside me, with my friend Pollo and all his lies. Those were different days.

Now I’m here because I’m changing my status in the city hall of records from husband to father. And in spite of everything that’s happened in the last little while, I’m deeply moved.

I follow the arrows. I climb up to the third floor, and at the end of the hallway, I see Francesca with Gabriele.

“Ciao. How is Gin?”

Her father smiles and nods, but he doesn’t say a word.

Francesca is much more relaxed. “It’s all good. She’s in the maternity OR. It won’t be long because the doctor said dilation is complete. Go on in if you like, if you’re not scared…”

I smile at her, and she, as if to apologize, adds, “Lots of men want to but then they can’t handle it. With me, Gabriele couldn’t bring himself to go in. Today it’s just a miracle that he made it this far. When he goes into a hospital, he feels ill. Sometimes he even faints.”

Gabriele laughs and finally seems to regain the ability to speak. “There now, you’re exaggerating! I did so well this time. If I feel bad now, it’s all your fault.”

I leave them there, arguing lovingly, and I push the big door open. There I am, in a perfectly sterilized room, colder than the hallway.

A nurse appears immediately. “Who are you?”

“I’m Ginevra Biro’s husband. She’s a patient of Dr. Flamini.”

“Yes, they’re both inside. Do you want to watch? She’s about to give birth…”

“Already?”

“Aren’t you happy? Did you want to spend the whole day here?”

“No, no.”

“All right then. Put these on.” And she hands me a set of dark green garments contained in a small, transparent plastic bag. I open it and see that it’s a light smock, a sort of cap, and a pair of shoe coverings. I quickly put everything on and head in the direction I last saw the nurse heading.

I enter a large room. There she is. In one bed, I see Gin, overheated, braced on her elbows with a sheet covering her all the way down to her bent knees.

The doctor is in front of her legs. “Come on. Keep going. That’s it, that’s it, perfect, push…Okay, that’s enough. Now breathe. We’ll start again in a minute.”

Then the doctor sees me. “Hello. You can go over there by the head of the bed, behind Ginevra.”

“My love, you’re here.”

“Yes.” And I say nothing more to keep from ruining everything, to avoid any mistakes.

Gin smiles at me and extends her hand, and I take it and stand there, a little dazed, not quite sure about what to do, and then I feel her squeezing it tight.

“Here she comes now. I see her head. Keep going, that’s it, push, Now breathe, now harder, push, push!”

Gin takes short breaths, one after another, arches her back, clenches her teeth, shuts her eyes almost all the way, and then crushes my hand until she brings Aurora out into the world. And we see this tiny creature, still attached to a long string of flesh, all smeared with muck and hanging upside down until the baby suddenly bursts into tears, taking her very first breath.

The doctor takes a pair of surgical shears and hands them to me. “Do you want to cut it?”

“Yes.”

I always keep saying “Yes,” but nothing else because I continue not to know what else to say.

So the doctor shows me the exact spot. “Right here.”

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