My brother Ernesto was born in October, on the 20th—he's a Libra. When he was born I don't remember what he was like, but years later my mother found out he was autistic. Ernesto can talk and walk. When he sees something that interests him, he wants to have it. He writes down names and surnames of people he remembers, places he's been, his schoolmates, people from Fede e Luce, and others. I go pale when he says the name of someone we haven't seen in years, because we have other friends, the ones we actually see are just a few, and we only see them in certain places.
I understand Ernesto. He has his troubles. The real problem comes when we have to take him to the dentist, because it's not easy to get him to open his mouth for treatment. It takes a lot of people to hold him steady. Even Giovanni Grossi is afraid of the dentist—if he can't manage and hears me cough, he sends me home. For me it's awful not to have teeth, to have so few, because I need them to chew meat, pasta, cakes. It's a taste of old age.
Ernesto writes. He loves tombola, and the music of Renato Zero and Jovanotti, which he listens to with his new housemates in the group home. When he comes home on Saturdays, he looks for things: phone numbers that he erases to memorize them, Aunt Ludovica's number, whose birthday falls on which day. When we go to Casaliò at the Biopark, out in the open air, he raises a ruckus. Maybe because he feels free and happy, after being cooped up at home—he loves his freedom.
Every so often Ernesto teases Giovanni. He studies me and watches. When we brought him to Fede e Luce, he played Santa Claus: he was happy with the burlap sack and gave out the presents by throwing them and saying the name. What matters to me is knowing his future in a group home, and then in his old age, back at home.