Authors: Niccolo Ammaniti
Stepping over legs and beer cans, Rino got to within thirty yards
of the stage. The music here was so loud he couldn't hear himself
think.
Now he could see the band. With their long hair, those wedges
on their feet and their faces plastered with greasepaint, they looked
like a poor imitation of an American heavy-metal group.
Below the stage he saw a tall, slim girl with short blonde hair,
dancing.
She looks like Irina.
He leaned against a pillar, took a swig from his bottle and shut
his eyes. His chin dropped onto his chest. The whole room swayed.
He grabbed hold of the pillar to stop himself falling.
Irina had been tall and very slim. With small breasts and wonderful
legs. Her legs and her neck were the best things about her. And, apart
from her brain, the rest of her wasn't that bad either ...
How he'd loved her! He remembered that if he went without seeing
her for more than half a day he would get a pain in the stomach.
Where had it all gone wrong?
"I want an abortion ... I'm too young, Rino. I want to live."
"You do and I'll kill you."
And his hand clenching into a fist.
I'm getting maudlin. I've had enough of this. I'm going.
Besides, in the state he was in, he would never be able to pick
up a girl. And he was feeling so miserable now that if he didn't get
out of there he was going to start crying like a baby.
He took another swig of alcohol and stared blankly at the undulating, arm-waving sea of people excited by the deafening music.
I'm thirsty.
Opposite the point where he was standing, on the other side of
the room, was a long table where they were selling beer and mineral water.
He still had some money in his pocket. But getting across that
human carpet seemed to him an impossible task.
Among the people thronging around the drinks table was the
blonde girl. Now he could see her more clearly.
It's her...
Rino recognized that slim model's body, that neck ... And he
thought he remembered that white dress which fell like a tube over
her body, leaving her back exposed.
His heart leaped in his chest as if he'd seen a ghost. He gave an
alcoholic belch, clutched at the pillar and leaned unsteadily against
it, as if he had taken a punch in the face. His legs wouldn't support him.
Irina!
It can't be! What's she doing here? She's crazy. I told her if she
ever came back I'd kill her.
And yet it was her. The same height. The same hair. The same
way of moving.
He couldn't believe it. Not once in those twelve years had he
considered the possibility of seeing her again.
One morning he had woken up with a hangover. Cristiano was
crying in his cot. Irina wasn't there. Her things weren't there. She
had left.
Why's she here now? She wants to take Cristiano away. Why else
would she have come?
He felt a lump in his throat. He pushed through the crowd,
heading for that blonde hair on the other side of the hall, clearing
himself a path with his elbows. She was closer now. He could see
her long hair and her bony shoulders. It was her. She didn't look a
day older.
Now he only had to grab her wrist and whisper in her ear:
"Surprise, surprise! I've got you!" And drag her outside. She was
only a few yards away.
His heart was beating frantically. He reached out and just at that
moment Irina turned her head and ...
Fuck!
... it was a different woman.
Rino felt a strange emotion resembling disappointment. As if...
As if, nothing.
It wasn't her.
Cristiano woke up in front of the television. A man was cutting up
a Coca-Cola can with a knife.
Cristiano got up and passed by the window. The van wasn't there.
He's gone out.
He peed in the kitchen sink. Then he turned on the tap and had
a drink.
He went back into the living room, sat down in front of the TV
and started to surf the channels, using the broomstick. On a regional
channel he found Antonella, a pasty-faced redhead with an eagle
tattoo on her shoulder, who was taking off her clothes and talking
on the phone and grimacing a lot. It was a good ten minutes before
she got around to removing her bra. At that rate it would be daybreak before she got her panties off. Besides, with all those numbers and written messages you couldn't see a thing.
Maybe he could jerk off.
He imagined the redhead coming into the living room. A skimpy
blue top finished just above her navel, leaving the rest of her body
bare. She wore pointed black shoes with high heels. Between her
legs there was a little strip of blondish hair. She sat on a chair with
her legs apart and a ray of sunlight from the window shone on her
pussy, which was open like an oyster ... And she was talking to him
in a matter-of-fact tone about homework.
He could hear the breathy voice from the television repeating:
"Go on, call me ... Call me ... What are you waiting for? Call
me ... Don't be shy. Call me." In the background, behind the voice,
Eros Ramazzotti was singing "I'm still hung up on you," then this faded out and gave way to a mournful song performed by a
famous singer of yesteryear, whose name he didn't know, and who
was saying "when you are here with me this room has no walls,
but only trees, countless trees, when you are here close to me..."
Cristiano had heard a Frenchwoman sing that song on the radio,
in a voice so sweet and clear it made you feel like crying. She had
sung it in a normal voice, just as if she was at home singing to her
baby boy to lull him to sleep. Maybe that really had been what she
was doing. Maybe her husband had taped the song without her
knowledge and had then told her she ought to make a record of it,
and that was how she had become famous.
He didn't know why, but the song reminded him of his mother.
He saw her sitting on his bed with her guitar, singing him a song.
She had straight blonde hair and looked like a girl who presented
A Special Family on Channel 2.
He had gone to Disco Boom to buy the CD, but when he'd found
himself in front of the sales assistant he had been too embarrassed
to ask him if he knew it. He didn't know the name of the singer or
the title of the song. And he could hardly start warbling "when you
are here with me" to him ...
His didn't feel like jerking off anymore. He switched off the television and went upstairs to bed.
Rino Zena woke up in darkness, waving his arms about.
He was falling from an airplane. Below him there was a black
expanse of asphalt. Gasping for breath, he realized it had only been
a dream and it was over.
It was dark. He had a stale taste of whisky in his mouth; his
tongue had swollen up as if it had been stung by a wasp and he had
a monstrous headache. From the smell of cigarettes and damp carpet
he knew that he was in his bedroom, lying on the mattress.
He reached out, groping for the light switch, and touched a body
lying next to him. At first he thought it was Cristiano. Until a few
years earlier he had let him sleep in his bed when he had nightmares.
He turned on the light, and when he finally succeeded in opening
his eyes he saw the blonde from the concert. The one he had mistaken for Irina. She was sleeping with her arms outspread. Her
mouth open. She was naked, apart from a bra pulled down to reveal
two small breasts with small dark nipples the size of fifty-cent coins.
Looking more closely, he saw that she wasn't really a bit like
Irina. She had the same milky-colored skin, long legs and narrow
hips, and a beautiful neck. But the face was different. This girl had
a longer nose and a protruding chin. And she couldn't be more than
twenty-five.
But how the hell did she get here?
Rino tried to think back to the concert. He remembered crossing
the floor, certain that she was Irina, and realizing that she wasn't.
But after that, nothing.
Darkness.
He must have brought her home.
He touched his cock. It was numb.
He had screwed her.
A confused image was fixed in his mind. Him on top and her
underneath. His hands clutching her hair.
Rino was about to get up to go for a pee when he noticed that
beside the mattress, on the blonde's side, there was a syringe, complete with needle, and all the other accoutrements of the perfect
junkie.
Rino looked at the girl's arm. It was peppered with tiny coagulated holes surrounded by purple skin.
A fucking needle freak. And she shot up here, while I was asleep,
with Cristiano in the other room.
Rino grabbed her by the neck, lifted her up off the mattress and
put his hand between her buttocks as if he intended to penetrate her
with his fingers, but instead hurled her like a sack of potatoes, and
she opened her mouth and didn't even have time to wake up, scream,
do anything at all, before she bounced off the door of the built-in
wardrobe and found herself lying on the floor in a corner of the room.
"Jesus!" she screamed, coming to her senses, in terror. She put
one arm around her neck and held the other out in front of her in
an attempt to shield herself, then got on her hands and knees and
started crawling around the room.
"Get out, you piece of shit! You shot up in my house!" Rino
gave her a kick in the ass which lifted up her legs. The junkie ducked
forward, rubbed her snout on the carpet and found her nose two
centimeters away from the pistol lying on the floor.
Rino, who was standing up, stark naked and wild as a demon,
dived to get it away from her, but she nimbly grabbed the weapon,
held it in both hands and backed into the corner. "Don't come any
closer, you son of a bitch! I'll kill you, I swear I will." She was
breathing hard, her eyes wide open. Then she seemed to get her surroundings into focus: the flag with the swastika on the wall, the tattooed psychopath who wanted to kill her. "You fucking Nazi, you're
dead!" And she shot him.
"You stupid bitch! It's not loaded." Rino shook his head. He
opened his right arm, spread the fingers of his hand and moved
toward her, but he stepped on the syringe and the needle stuck in
the sole of his foot. He stifled a yell and started hopping about
holding his foot in his hand.
The girl seized her chance and made a dash for the bedroom door.
Rino grabbed a glass ashtray full of cigarette butts and hurled it
at her like a frisbee. It hit her on the shoulder. She bent forward,
dropped the pistol and managed to slip out.
Cristiano Zena was woken up by the frantic shrieks of a woman.
Papa's screwing one of his slu ... Before he could finish the thought
someone burst into the room screaming.
Cristiano screamed too. He turned on the light.
It was a naked, terrified woman who kept bumping into the
walls like a swallow that had flown in through the window by
mistake.
Rino entered the room, in the nude. He was clutching her clothes
and handbag in one hand and her pointed boots in the other. His
eyes were narrowed to slits and his jaw was quivering with rage.
He's going to kill her, thought Cristiano, and he clasped his head
in his arms.
But instead Rino threw her clothes in her face. "Piss off, you
bitch."
The woman picked them up and wanted to make her escape, but
was scared to go past him.
Finally, clutching her clothes in her arms, she summoned up the
courage. She dashed toward the door, getting a kick in the backside
from Rino as she passed. She tripped and fell headlong on the
landing. Cristiano heard her stumble downstairs and slam the door.
His father went over to the window. "Good. She won't be coming
back."
Cristiano curled up under the bedclothes. "What happened?"
Rino came over the bed. "Nothing. Just some slut. Go to sleep.
Good night." And he went back to his bedroom.
There was no school on Saturday so he could sleep late.
It was eleven thirty when Cristiano Zena stuck his head out from
under the bedclothes.
At one o'clock Trecca would be arriving. There was barely time
to wash and have breakfast.
He was starving. He could have eaten a whole chicken-bones
and all. At the thought his stomach started rumbling.
But he was going to have to make do with bread and jam.
He rubbed his eyes and, yawning, looked out of the window, and
laughed as he thought of that poor girl who had fled from the house
stark naked and with a footprint stamped on her buttock.
That afternoon he felt like going to look at the motorbikes in the
showroom. Maybe he could ask Quattro Formaggi to give him a
lift.
He got dressed and went downstairs. The television was tuned
to MTV.
Rino was in the kitchen and was already set for the meeting with
the social worker. Whenever he saw him dressed up as if he was
going to a wedding Cristiano could hardly help laughing. He looked
like a tailor's dummy. Light-blue shirt. Tie. Blue trousers. Lowheeled shoes with laces.
"Take a look at this!" His father pointed at the formica top of
the dresser.
There was a sheet of greaseproof paper on which a dozen slices
of mortadella were laid out, and on a plate a big wedge of fresh
stracchino and a baguette. The smell of coffee hung in the air. And
a pleasant warmth emerged from the oven door.
The mortadella and stracchino sandwich was in Cristiano's opinion
the best sandwich in the world (closely followed by the one made with mozzarella and cured ham) and there was nothing better than
eating it in the morning with caffe latte.
What had happened? This wasn't Christmas, nor his birthday.
"I did some shopping. Dig in."
Cristiano didn't need telling twice. They ate in silence, relishing
every mouthful. Rino held his sandwich well away from his chest
for fear of staining his shirt.