Emmaus by Alessandro Baricco Page B

tell me what you were doing there, and what’s it all about, your going to her house?
    He was right to ask. I explained. I said the Saint and I had gone to talk to Andre’s mother. We wanted to tell her about her daughter, that she should do something, Andre was destroying herself and her friends.
    You went to Andre’s mother to say those things?
    I added that the Saint had explained to her about us, about the Church, and what we thought. He had advised her to take Andre to confession, to talk to a priest.
    Andre? To confession?
    Yes.
    You’re nuts—out of your minds.
    It was the right thing to do, I said.
    The right thing? Do you hear yourself? What can you understand about Andre? That’s her mother, she’ll know perfectly well what to do.
    Not necessarily.
    She’s a grown-up woman, you’re a kid.
    It doesn’t mean anything.
    A kid. Who do you think you are, to go and teach her a lesson?
    It’s the Lord who speaks, with our voice, said the Saint.
    Bobby turned to look at him. But he didn’t notice that blind man’s gaze. He was too angry. You’re not a priest yet, Saint, you’re a kid, when you’re a priest then you can go back and we’ll let you do your preaching.
    The Saint jumped on him: he’s fiendishly agile, at such moments. They ended up on the ground. They were really giving it to each other. It had happened so quickly that I just stood there watching. They did everything in an illogical silence, concentrated, fists in each other’s face. Gripping around the neck. Then the Saint banged his head hard, on the ground, and went limp in Bobby’s arms. Bothof them were bloody.
    So we ended up in the emergency room. They asked us what happened.
    We had a fight, Bobby said. A question of girls.
    The doctor nodded, he didn’t care. He took both of them through a glass door, the Saint on a gurney, Bobby on his feet.
    I sat waiting in the corridor, by myself, under a poster for those buses where you go to give blood. I went with my father, as a boy. They were parked in the square. My father took off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeve. Evidently he was a hero. At the end they gave him a glass of wine and he let me have a taste. I’m eighteen years old and already happiness has the savor of memory.
    Bobby came out with two band-aids on his face, nothing complicated, one hand bandaged. He sat down next to me. It was late. There was no need to say we loved each other, but I gave him a pat, so there could be no mistake.
    What are you playing with Andre? I asked.
    She dances, I play. She asked me, it’s for a performance, of that stuff she does.
    What’s it like?
    I don’t know. It has nothing to do with what we do. It has no meaning.
    What do you mean?
    I mean it has no meaning, what we do signifies nothing, there’s no story, or idea, nothing. She dances, I play, it’s just that.
    He sat thinking. I tried to imagine.
    So it’s not a good action, he said, it’s an action and that’s all. It has nothing to do with doing something good.
    He said that it had to do with doing something beautiful .
    He struggled to explain, and I to understand, because we are Catholics, and are not used to distinguishing between aesthetic value and moral value. It’s like with sex. They taught us that one makes love in order to communicate, and to share joy. One plays music for the same reason. Pleasure has nothing to do with it, pleasure is a resonance, a reverberation. Beauty is just an accident, necessary only in minimal doses.
    Bobby said that he was ashamed of playing like that, when he did it at Andre’s house, it seemed to him that he was naked, and that had made him think.
    You know when we talk about our music? he said.
    Yes.
    That we should decide to play our music?
    Yes.
    Given that there’s no purpose, only me playing and her dancing, there’s no real reason to do it, except that we want to, that we like