Born Twice (Vintage International) Read Free Page B

telephone, so she promptly informs us. It’s remarkably high. Slightly embarrassed, she observes our reactions, which we manage to hide with ease for once.
    “Is that all right?” she asks.
    “Yes,” I reply.
    There’s something vaguely unpleasant about her manner. She seems nervous and awkward, almost foreign, simultaneously hesitant and aggressive. I realize this now, years later. But at the time, fearing the uncertainty of the results of the medical tests and overanxious to be reassured, I was primarily concerned with not upsetting the mood of the oracle, even if I did intuit some sense of her limitations. So much needs to be said—and in such a wide range of tenses! It takes years to answer things adequately, even ideally. And by then the interlocutor might have died or disappeared or simply have forgotten the question. Very few people actually have those lightning reactions that correspond with future memories. Nor can we who are disoriented with doubt or stupefied with surprise ever hope to imitate them.
    The physiotherapist asks us to tell her clearly about Paolo’s condition. I think she’s afraid I’ll give her too many details or be long-winded, because as soon as I start talking, she urges me on. “Yes, I see—yes,” she says, negating all my efforts at dialogue. So instead I simplify and abbreviate and condense things. I conclude, in exasperation, by gesturing to Franca to pass her the baby.
    The woman gathers him into her arms with maternal rapaciousness, as if it were a salvation. She lays him down on his back on the mat, extends his arms out to his sides, caresses his small hands, and tickles the soles of his feet. In time, I will come to see these actions repeated by many specialists, but now they seem knowing, graceful, expert. She asks us which doctor referred us to her. None of them, I tell her. What do you mean? she asks. A colleague of mine had heard of her, I say. What did the neurologist tell you? We don’t have a neurologist; Paolo was discharged from the hospital a month after he was born. The doctors said his problems would eventually go away.
    “Are they crazy?” she says, getting up onto her knees.
    “No, not at all,” Franca replies, turning pale. “We came to you for confirmation.”
    The physiotherapist looks at her in amazement.
    “Just to be sure,” Franca repeats, growing alarmed.
    “But this child has brain damage!” she exclaims. “He has dystonic spastic quadriparesis! You didn’t mention that!”
    My legs go weak.
    “This is not a passing phase,” she continues. “We have to begin immediately!”
    “Begin what?” I ask, wide-eyed.
    “Physiotherapy! Several hours a day! You’ll have to work with him constantly!” She turns to Franca, whose total silence betrays her panic. “We can’t waste any more time!”
    “What kind of problems will he have?” I ask apprehensively.
    “Too many to list,” she replies. “Besides, it depends on the evolution of his symptoms.”
    “For example?”
    “The way he walks,” she says, “might be irregular.”
    “How?”
    “Like this,” she replies, standing up. She’s barefoot. She begins to walk slowly, like an overweight ballerina, swaying drunkenly from side to side until she loses her balance and falls to the floor.
    “Understand?”
    “Yes,” I whisper.
    It’s a horrible image. I look at Franca. She has covered her mouth with her hand in shock.
    “You’re sure about that,” I say in a monotone, uncertain if I’m questioning or confirming what she has just shown us.
    “No, I’m not sure,” she says, getting to her feet again and starting to walk with erratic movements, as if she were crossing a bed of white-hot coals. “His speech might be affected too, as well as his manual skills.”
    “What about his intelligence?” I ask, looking downward.
    “No, I don’t think so,” she says. “There will be other, different problems.”
    I lean back. Franca dabs at her eyes with her