Everything on the Line (3 page)

Again, Ugo cracks up.

“I’ll tell you why,
ragazzo
. It’s because when you play your very best and don’t make silly mistakes, you make your opponent play
his
very best, and that makes you play even better!”

A lightbulb flashes on in the thought balloon above the boy’s head.

Back to the workout, and Giglio and Ugo play a little cat-and-mouse game of tactics where the goal is to get to the ball more quickly than your opponent and to move the other guy closer and closer to the sidelines, then hit your winner into the open court. Giglio starts out as the cat, but this kid is pretty amazing, and after a few minutes, it is not that easy to determine precisely who’s the feline and who’s the rodent.

Bursting with pride, the coach watches his young charge retrieve balls from deep in the corners of the court and return them with pace and grace and precision.

And Giglio is now rallying with the younger, better version of himself and he sees his
vita
flash before his
occhi
and there he is, little Virgilio Marotti the thirteen-year-old prodigy from the town of Fermo, running down balls hit to him in the corners of a red clay court by his mentor, the great former champion Roberto Arpino, and the promise of a pro tennis career but then the cruel judgment from the
cardiologo
concerning his congenital bicuspid aortic valve with leakage,
Non potrà mai giocare a livello professionale
, you will never be able to play as a pro, and then the initial despair but the picking himself up and dusting himself off and starting all over again and throwing himself into his studies, then a career in advertising that was going nowhere and drifting about aimlessly until one day as he was passing by this very tennis court on Via di Brozzi he first laid eyes on Ugo Bellezza, this wunderkind with a world of potential and an extraordinary attitude, and he decided then and there that he, Virgilio Marotti, would help make this special boy into the best tennis player he could possibly be, perhaps surpassing anything the world of tennis had ever witnessed, and who knows on what wonderful odyssey that would take the both of them?

It’s nearly 6
P.M
., there are eight minutes left in the workout, and it is time for the
pezzo forte
…

The Great Knocking Over of Chianti Bottles Challenge!

Giglio places three empty Ruffino Chianti bottles two inches inside the baseline, one in each corner of the court and one in the middle. He will hit balls to Ugo, who must move to his right, almost in the alley, and then, on the dead run, drill forehand drives toward each of three
fiaschi
until they are all knocked over. Six shots to knock over all three bottles is his personal record.

Ready. Set. Here we go.

Bling.

Bling.

Bling.

Little Ugo Oakley has fired at and knocked down all the bottles in the minimum of three shots.

A small crowd that has gathered courtside to watch the sharpshooting exploit explodes in wild applause. Oblivious to the clapping, a giggling Ugo pumps his fist in mock victory and joins Giglio on two plastic seats by the net while the crowd dissipates.

Ugo’s tennis shoes are stained with red clay, as are his shorts, shirt, and wristlet. He presents to his coach the gift of a humongous smile.

Giglio accepts the gift, wraps up the grueling pre-dinner hitting session with some food for thought.

“So,
caro
, let me ask you a simple question.”

Ugo is all ears.

“What is the purpose of playing tennis?”

“Allora…vincere, no?”

“To win?” Giglio says. “Well, that is part of it, of course, but if that is your sole purpose, it will be much more difficult for you to achieve that goal. You see, winning is a by-product—”

“A
by-product
?—”

“That means it will happen naturally when you have a more worthy goal, one that lifts your soul and your spirit, one that is above winning or, for that matter, money and fame.”

Instinctively, Ugo is understanding.

“Now, do you know what
to express yourself
means?” Giglio asks.

“I guess that’s when you say what you are feeling inside?”

“
Molto bene, ragazzo.
But it can be something other than spoken words that are your tools. For instance, what are the tools an artist uses to express himself?”

“Er, a paintbrush? Or maybe a…” Ugo gestures, gripping an imaginary tool and making a gouging motion, but stuck for the word.

“Ah,
un scalpello,
a chisel
? Ottimo!
” Giglio says. “And the tools of a musician?”

“A piano (
Ugo’s fingers play on an imaginary keyboard
)…or a trumpet (
he toots an imaginary horn
)…or a violin (
he moves his fake bow across nonexistent strings
)…”

“
Evviva!
And a writer’s tools?”

“A pen. Or a computer!” Ugo is getting into it big-time.

“And the tool a tennis player uses to express himself?”

Ugo looks down at his racquet and doesn’t need to say another word.

“
Sì,
hai ragione
, you are right! Your racquet is your paintbrush and your chisel and your piano and your trumpet and your violin and your pen and your computer, all rolled up into one! And so, do not waste your time desiring only to win. This will come to you if you are faithful to expressing yourself with your racquet as well as you are able.”

A teeny tear glistens in the corner of Ugo’s right eye.

“Another way of putting it,” Giglio says, “is, well, have you ever heard the expression ‘
Se son rose fioriranno’
?”

Ugo shakes his head.

“
If they are roses, they will bloom
,” Giglio continues. “If your tennis game, like your life, is focused on creating something beautiful and that feels good inside, then it will flower naturally, because that is what it was meant to do. It means that if you do your work, the rest will take care of itself.

“Now,
ragazzo
, let’s take a shower so your
mamma
won’t have to put on her gas mask when we sit down at the dinner table,” Giglio says, covering his nose and mouth with his right hand to make the point.

* * *

The aroma of heavenly ambrosia wafts through Gioconda Bellezza’s second-story kitchen window, down to Via dei Vellutini, and into the four nostrils of Ugo Bellezza and Virgilio Marotti. Black cabbage. White beans. Baked bread. Grated cheese.

“Saliamo in paradiso!”
Giglio says, sniffing the air, then looking at Ugo.

Let’s climb to heaven indeed, and the two returning tennis heroes clamber up the steps that lead to the Bellezza flat, two at a clip.

“Ciao, mamma!”
Ugo says, hugging Gioconda and unconcerned about getting sauce on his shirt.

Gioconda hugs him back, very tight, and says to the two, “
È ora di pranzo, ragazzi. A tavola!
Dinner is served!”

The tennis players rush to the modest dining room and hold their utensils in both hands, perpendicular to the table, two ravenous cannibals preparing for a feast.

The mock barbarians are not disappointed: In waltzes
mamma,
carrying a savory assortment of manna on a large tray.
Schiacciata al rosmarino e salvia
(flatbread with rosemary and sage).
Prosciutto, salame, melone e fichi
(ham, salami, melon, and figs). A side dish of
fagioli all’uccelletto
(white Tuscan beans in tomato sauce). And her pride and joy,
scamerita col cavolo nero
(pork with Tuscan black cabbage).

Plates are filled to the brim, a lovely
vino nobile di Montepulciano
is poured (a quarter of a glass for Ugo), and a prayer of thanks emanates from the lips of Gioconda.

“Ti rendiamo grazie, Signore, per tutti i tuoi benefici e per il cibo che stiamo per prendere.”

“Amen!”

“Amen!”

Giglio—who lives in a flat only a few blocks away, on Via Santa Monaca, right near the Santa Maria del Carmine church and the Brancacci Chapel—is one of the steady and special dramatis personae in the lives of the two Bellezzas and a frequent and welcome dinner guest.

The coach takes a bite of the luscious pork that is imbued with the flavors of garlic, tomatoes, and kale. Well, four-fifths of a bite, anyway. The remaining 20 percent, in the form of a gnarly, slightly chewed, bitten-off piece, is furtively transferred from his mouth to his right hand to the gullet of the trusty and unbearably goofy family dog, Micromega, a large mastiff mix who is mighty famished right about now. The gangly mutt inhales the heavenly chunk in a single unchewed gulp, looks up semigratefully at his adopted master and benefactor, and resumes his prone and persistent begging position at the coach’s feet.

Giglio smiles innocently across the table at Gioconda and she gives him that look and he knows she knows.

Gioconda’s dining area is engorged with love. SCDs (Super Compact Discs, developed in 2020) of her favorite singers fill up an Entertainment Center: Gino Paoli, Milva, Peppino di Capri e i suoi Rockers, Roberto Vecchioni, Francesco De Gregori, Fabrizio de André, Caruso and Callas and Pavarotti. Gorgeous oak built-in bookshelves house her favorite tomes, including Pellegrino Artusi’s
La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene,
plus Dante’s
La Divina Commedia
, Petrarch’s
Canzoniere
, and works by Michelangelo, Leopardi, Montale, Trilussa, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Tasso, Goldoni, Foscolo, Manzoni, Pirandello, Lampedusa, Calvino, and Shakespeare.

Dominating the room, however, is a Plexiglas pedestal there in the corner, on top of which is a magnificent inscribed silver bowl. It was awarded to Ugo just yesterday, at the All-Italian Under-18s Tennis Tourney. The fact that Ugo was barely thirteen at first turned heads, then, by the end of the tournament, signaled to Italy and to the entire tennis world that this
ragazzo
is really going places.

Gioconda Bellezza has filled the bowl with the bounty of apples and pears.

“I bet I know something you don’t know,” Ugo says, his mouth full of yummy beans and pointing to his fork. “If it wasn’t for Catherine de’ Medici of Florence, Italy, who, in 1533, introduced the fork to France, the French would still be eating with their fingers! We learned that in school yesterday.”

Gioconda and Giglio nearly choke with hysteria on their respective bites of flatbread.

After recovering from the hilarity, Giglio says, “And I bet I know something
you
don’t know.”

This is the part of the dinner where the conversation turns to serious tennis stuff.

“S
prezzatura
!”

Virgilio Marotti enunciates the four syllables in an impassioned whisper to Ugo, who gives him that quizzical
huh?
look.

“Che significa?”
Ugo asks.

“What’s it mean?” Giglio repeats the word a second time, slowly, for Ugo’s sake, the boy watching his lips intently as they pronounce each of the four syllables carefully, lovingly.

“Bene,
caro mio
…,
”
Giglio says, then recites from his encyclopedic memory snippets of a passage from Castiglione’s
The Book of the Courtier
:

a certain
sprezzatura
that shall conceal design and show that what is done…is done without effort and almost without thought…we may affirm that to be true art which does not appear to be art…I remember having once read that there were several very excellent orators of antiquity, who…strove to make everyone believe that they had no knowledge of letters; and hiding their knowledge they pretended that their orations were composed very simply and as if springing rather from nature and truth than from study and art…

Again, the
huh?
look.

As he hears himself describe to Ugo the concept of
sprezzatura
, Giglio’s mind wanders back to when he himself was thirteen and saw for the first time the classic Fred Astaire film,
Cappello a cilindro
(
Top Hat
), and how magical Fred’s dancing was and how seemingly effortless but how hard he must have practiced! And from then on, this was always his point of reference whenever he thought of
sprezzatura,
and whatever the context.

“
Allora
, let’s put it this way,” Giglio says. “Do you remember when we visited the Accademia last week to look at the
David
statue by maestro Michelangelo?”

Ugo remembers and smiles a big smile.

“And remember when we talked about how it was funny how David could look tense, with those bulging veins in his right hand and the way he twisted his body and his chest muscles and that fierce stare, but at the same time look calm and relaxed, with the resting of his slingshot on his shoulder and his bent wrists and knees and how his feet were positioned?”

Ugo recalls it well.

“Well, can you imagine how hard it was for Michelangelo to create that feeling, and, on top of it, to make it out of a huge, heavy block of marble that he had to chip away at, little by little, day after day and month after month, for nearly three years?”

Ugo’s smile turns into a look of awe.

“And
that,
Ugo Bellezza, is
sprezzatura
! It is the rare person who can create something of beauty that will last a long time without it really
appearing
to have been hard work. Something that required great practice and great effort and the sweat of one’s brow, but that seems to have been done naturally and with ease.”

Giglio looks at Ugo and is thinking about the astounding similarity between the young tennis phenom and the
David
sculpture: the curly hair, the strong hands, the sturdy physique, and most of all the intensity of the look in the eyes.