The Threefold Denial of Maddalena Amato

This country is too fucking cold.

"I told you" Mel laughs. She has that lazy smile on her face, half-cleft eyelids and lips stained with gin. "'I'm from Northern Italy' she said. 'I won't suffer the cold' she said. Well, joke's on you."

Mel staggers, choking on another laugh, and Saoirse grabs her by the shoulders before she falls. The queue is slow. The wind presses on the skin of Madda's bare legs. She looks up. Behind her, the name of God stares down at her from the last place she'd ever expected to see it again. In large and rainbow letters, on a brick wall covered with glitters.

"That 'love thy neighbor' thing,
I meant it."
-God, probably

The club's neon sign flickers next to it. The alcohol's effect is fading away, and Madda feels her confidence melting in the night. The drag queen in front of her, who's wearing exorbitant heels and an unrealistically blonde wig, turns around and smiles, with the same paternalistic warmth with which third-year students smile at her when they find out that she is a freshman.

"First time?"

Madda nods. It shouldn't be so obvious. A voice echoes in her head. No regrets. She tries to remind herself that there is no reason for her to look constantly at her back, to check other people's gazes, to feel like she needs to hide something. The line keeps going. The cold scratches her skin. A low choir rises around her. Everyone starts humming quietly the song that's coming from inside the club, and there is something solemn in that murmur, like a gay gospel choir at a Doja Cat concert.

An arm wraps around her shoulders. Nathara's mischievous smile meets her halfway when she turns to face her.

"Take 'his, it'll 'elp yu loosen up'," she says, and in her strong Scottish accent Madda manages to catch only 'loosen up'. Then she sees the joint that Nathara is handing her. Her first instinct is to refuse. 'Reckless' isn't something she usually can afford to be. But tonight is different. She owes it to herself.

There's that voice, again. No regrets.

She grabs the joint and brings it to her lips. The aftertaste burns her lungs. The fog reaches her mind. It doesn't take long for that blurred filter to fall on the world around her and maybe – maybe – she's not so scared anymore. God's name continues to observe her, from above, as a warning. Suddenly Madda struggles to reason. Images try to come forward in her mind. She swallows them with the last sip of vodka from the bottle she brought from pres and then follows the footsteps of the drag queen inside the club. Her friends follow her like shadows.

"Yes!" Mel screams, as soon as the deafening music from inside of the club hits them. "I love this song!"

Saoirse rolls her eyes, careful not to let her go.

"Of course they're playing Lady Gaga in a gay club."

"What's wrong with Lady Gaga?" Mel replies, frowning.

"Nothing. It's just..." she sighs. "So stereotypically gay."

Mel laughs, throwing her arms around her neck.

"We are so stereotypically gay."

Saoirse snorts but doesn't retort when Mel leans forward to kiss her. Instinctively, Madda's confused gaze snaps at the people around them, hoping that no one has seen them. Then she remembers. They don't care. Nobody cares.

Again, blurred images try to make their way into her tired mind. Eyes that do care. Eyes that cut her like razors. Madda tries to fight them.

Then, Mel starts singing.

"Judas, Juda-ah-ah!" she screams, lips still pressed against Saoirse's.

Lady Gaga's voice is accompanied by dozens and dozens of echoes. Everyone around Madda dances, and jumps, and screams, and sings, and she is no longer able to distinguish what is true and what is fog, what is filter and what is reality.

In this delirium of irrationality, with that aftertaste of weed and vodka in her mouth, everything becomes relative.

It's guilt. And it's the legacy of a sin.

* * *

They don't really say it. Not to children.

It's something you grow up knowing, even when you don't have a name for it.

Madda always assumed that something must be terribly despicable if people don't even call it by its name.

When her Nonna found out that the baker's son was one of them, she lit a candle for him in the sacristy. Madda went with her to church that Sunday. She was eleven, and no one had ever told her it was wrong. But she could feel it, every time. When grown-ups talked about it the air got heavier. She felt it in her lungs, in their eyes.

That's when she learnt the meaning of guilt. Because every time someone mentioned it her stomach twitched. Her cheeks flashed. And she wanted to hear more. To know more. Even if she couldn't tell why.

That's when she learnt the meaning of sin. Only, she didn't know it had anything to do with God, yet. If it ever did. It had to do with murmurs. With Nonna's eyes on the baker's son, sat in church a few rows in front of them. It had to do with her skin, her lungs, and that thing that didn't have a name and everyone grew up knowing.

The priest looked at her from the altar, and Madda wondered for a moment if he could hear what she was thinking. She looked away, flushed. Guilt. Sin.

"Now, Angelica Sanna, from our choir, will read some passages of the Bible for us," he announced.

The sound of a chair screeched against the floor. Initially, Madda didn't dare to look up, but when she did...

When she did, that thing without a name finally got a name. And a face. And blond hair that looked like golden yarn. And blue eyes. And her voice read about Judas and betrayal in the way fairy tales are read. In the small sacristy of the church of that village lost in the Alps, with psalms flowing through her mouth as poetry, Angelica didn't look like a ten-years-old girl. And everything she said was perfect. And she was perfect.

And, as quickly as Angelica's divine nature had hit her, Madda was struck in the chest with an opposite truth, equally dazzling.

In Angelica's brightness, she saw her own darkness.

Guilt.

Sin.

* * *

"Fuck!"

Nathara's voice suddenly brings her back to reality. That, and the half glass of rum that just spilled on her. Madda blinks, the images fade. Nathara screams something in her ear. Scottish accent. Loud music. Vodka in her system. And weed. Saorise and Mel have become one thing, against the wall next to her. The crowd pushes her. Bodies. Sweat. Music.

In a second, Madda finds herself out of the crowd. The dull light of the bathroom blinds her for a moment. The music is a muffled echo. Or maybe her eardrums have stopped working. Hard to say.

"Fuck. Shit. Me fav'rite dress!" Nathara snorts.

Madda laughs, because right now laughing is the only thing she is able to do.

"Fuck you laughing at?" she hisses "Oof, 've got to piss. Wait f'me here."

And, without waiting for an answer, Nathara disappears past one of the wooden doors of the bathroom.

Madda turns around. Her gaze takes a few seconds to find its focus. For a moment, she dwells on her own image, in the mirror. She looks away. An involuntary reflex.

There is a sentence, written with purple lipstick in the corner of the mirror. Three words. Drunk italics.

Homophobia is gay.

Suddenly, Madda lost the ability to laugh.

Nathara left her glass on the edge of the sink, and she doesn't even think about it. She knocks it down in a sip. She hates rum. She hates the mirror. She doesn't want to look up. The bathroom starts spinning. She closes her eyes.

And the images hit her again.

* * *

In school, Madda hated her literature classes. Yet that day, for some reason, Mr. Marzulli's words kept rumbling in her head, in the same way the sound of her soles against the floor rumbled in the empty hallway.

The girls' bathroom on the second floor was her favourite place in the whole school. It was the silence that attracted her. No one ever went there.

Usually.

The boy jumped as soon as she opened the door, moving three steps away from the girl pressed between his body and the wall. Angelica smiled embarrassed, shooing him away. He obeyed. Madda didn't even turn around to watch him walk out.

"Don't tell anyone. Please."

Madda turned to the sink and decided that she needed to wash her hands. Yes. Hands. Something to focus on. Angelica flanked her, and Madda made the mistake of casting a glance in the mirror in front of her.

She was aware that she had no idea what she actually looked like. It changed with every blink of an eye. Part of her was secretly convinced that her true form only came out when Angelica was next to her. Like a shadow that appears only with light. Something defective that you only notice when you compare it to the prototype. God's masterpiece and His biggest blunder.

Angelica smiled at her in the mirror. Angelica who was head of the students, despite being just a junior. Angelica who was revered by everyone who met her. Angelica...

"Did you know that there are no popes in Dante's Paradiso?"

Mr. Marzulli's words, stuck in her head since the end of the literature class, escaped her without her being able to think twice.

"Really?"

"Mh."

"Why?"

Madda shrugged.

"You are the smart one, with all the answers ready. I thought you would tell me."

Someone knocked on the door. Angelica's boyfriend leaned over the door. She nodded.

And then, her fingers slid slowly over Madda's wrist. She held her breath.

"I'll think about it and I'll let you know."

Her warmth left the room as quickly as it had lit it. Madda closed her eyes, shaking her head. With her gaze, she wandered on the crucifix hanging on the wall, pleading for an answer.

No answer came.

Finally, she allowed herself to look in the mirror. Again, she hated what she saw. She hated her dark hair, her anonymous eyes, pale skin, bruised lips. Not for any particular reason. She just hated it. Whoever that girl in the mirror was, it wasn't her. It couldn't be her.

In the upper right corner of the mirror, someone had scribbled something in red.

"Amare le femmine è una cosa da froci."

Loving females is for faggots. Something snapped inside of her. Impossible to say what. She threw herself on that scribble like a lion on a prey. She scratched it away with her nails, an anonymous tear slipping down her cheek, until her cuticles began to bleed. Then she grabbed a half-exhausted marker that someone had abandoned on the floor.

Jesus watched her, from the height of the crucifix.

With a trembling hand, Madda approached the tip to the surface of the mirror.

"Jesus died for all our sins,
but he left one behind:
the body I'm in."

* * *

The tap drips.

Water slips into the sink. Drop. After. Drop.

Sometimes Madda spends too much time in front of the mirror. And when she does that, a part of her leaves her body. She seems to see herself from the outside, like a faded photograph taken in a hurry. Like when you repeat the same word too many times in a row and it loses its meaning.

That's it. In front of the mirror, Madda loses meaning.

But the perk of being able to observe yourself from the outside is the moment you see yourself. And you meet her. And her eyes aren't anonymous as they once were. And there may be not much left of that blurred figure she used to be, not the black hair that's now purple, not the skin covered in glitters. And maybe there is no reason why her arms are stained with ink, even if they always told her not to. That she shouldn't dye her hair. That she shouldn't drink. That she shouldn't smoke. That she shouldn't love...

The things she loves.

She blinks. Nathara meets her gaze in the mirror.

"R'u alright?"

The room keeps spinning. She watches the water glide over Nathara's fingers as she washes her hands, slowly, one finger at a time. A ritual.

Then she can't exactly explain how she got there, but she's back on the dance floor. Mel and Saoirse are by her side. People around her dance on each other as if their bodies were merged together. Men with men. Women with women. Nathara hands her a drink. And Madda drinks. And drinks. Until every flavour becomes the same. Until the words around her get confused. Until voices rumble in her ears. Words she hoped she had forgotten. A boy next to her screams in sync with Nicky Minaj. Frocio. No. A woman on the other side of the room smiles at her. Travestito. No. No. Focus, Madda, focus.

She feels Nathara's fingers reaching for her face, pushing a shot-glass against her lips. There is something extremely solemn about her movements, in the way she caresses her. She rests her thumb on Madda's forehead while she swallows the liquid, closing her eyes.

This is my blood, do this in remembrance of me.

She opens her lips, Nathara puts a slice of lemon covered with salt on her tongue, and Madda presses it against her palate. The juice burns her throat.

This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.

The thin layer that separates what is real from what isn't is shattered. Thus. There is no filter left to differentiate them. Two languages that become one. Two different songs. The smoke machine hides them. Someone hands her another joint. Ave Maria. And now the fog is incense. The stage in front of her is a solemn altar ready for communion. Children in line, instead of drag queens.

"Which one's yours?"

Madda turns around, and under the kaleidoscopic lights that filter through the mosaic of the church, Angelica smiles at her.

"W-What?"

"Your brother," and she points to the children in line.

Madda remembers that Sunday. How could she forget it? His brother's first communion. Angelica and she, kneeling on the benches of the church, next to each other, surrounded by both their families, and none of them noticed their hands touching under the songbook. Madda's eyes didn't detach from the crucifix hanging above the altar, looking for answers, asking the wrong questions. And when the church emptied, they stayed. Alone. And the answers didn't come.

"Maddalena..."

And Madda wished that her name slipping through Angelica's lips would be the last thing she heard on the verge of death.

"You are different, aren't you?"

Yes. Yes, God, yes. Madda had nodded. Angelica's grip had tightened on her wrist. Like that day. In the bathroom.

And then she had pronounced them. Those three. Damned. Words.

"I'm different too."

Madda's lips sink into unknown lips. Flesh on flesh. The kaleidoscopic lights of the club around her. She closes her eyes. This way she can almost feel it, the vanilla scent of Angelica, incense. Her chin slamming into her own. Her teeth in her flesh. Her fingers in her golden hair. And then on her neck. On her back. And down. Down. Down. As if God hadn't designed her for anything other than to touch Angelica Sanna. As if Madda had waited her entire life for that moment, when she pushed her along the altar, towards the sacristy of the church of that village lost in the Alps, with prohibited words flowing through Angelica's mouth as psalms. The holiest place of all. The greatest sin. That thing without a name, that everyone grows up knowing.

And this is when, for the first time tonight, Madda remembers.

Breath.

She opens her eyes, and staring back at her there aren't Angelica's celestial pearls. It's an unknown face. A girl. Madda's fingers sink into her bare, sweaty back. The stranger's face is covered with lipstick.

On her chest, the girl carries a cross.

Madda smiles. She leans down to lay one last kiss on her lips, and then moves away, without looking back. She can hear the voices of Mel, Saorise and Nathara following her out of the club. They ask her what happened. If she is well.

The icy air hits her face, and Madda fills her lungs with it.

Then, slowly, a drop of water slides down her face. And then another. And then another. Before she can realize it, Madda is soaked. The hair sticks to her face, the dress to her skin. And the water washes away everything. And Madda feels reborn.

Angelica cried. The day Madda took the plane. They'd had so little time. A summer, after which Madda was no longer the same person. Sometimes it seems absurd to her that her name has remained the same.

Angelica hadn't kissed her. Not with Madda's entire family watching them, next to the gate entrance. Angelica had approached her, instead. Red eyes. She had embraced her. With her lips, she'd caressed her earlobe, almost imperceptibly.

"I got it, you know" she whispered.

"What?"

"The reason why there are no popes in Dante's Paradiso."

She'd pulled back. Madda had watched her, waiting. And Angelica had left a kiss in the corner of her mouth. Too close. Too far. It came in a whisper.

"Only the souls who carry no regrets are light enough to ascend to the stars."

Outside of the club, Madda's eyes inevitably find the sky. The meaded music muffled behind her. The neon lights of the club sign trembling.

And from above, the stars smile back down at her.