Authors: Niccolo Ammaniti
He had an epiphany.
Of course! The camper van, the pride and joy of my cousin's
husband.
He pulled out his cell and wrote quickly:
Great!
See you tomorrow 10 pm
Camp Bahamas
He was about to send the message when he had second thoughts
and tremulously added:
I love you. O
That afternoon Cristiano Zena got on the bus and went for a ride.
He had no particular aim in mind and only ten euros in his
pocket, but he couldn't stay at home on Saturday.
After lunch he had tried to ring Quattro Formaggi to ask him if
he wanted to go and look at motorbikes, but his cell was switched
off as usual.
Maybe he had gone to church.
When the doors of the bus wheezed open and Cristiano stepped
down onto the pavement it was only four o'clock, but night was
already falling over the plain. Between the sky and the earth all that
remained was a salmon-colored strip. There was a biting east wind
and the cypresses along the central reservation of the highway were
all bent over to one side. The long advertising banners which hung
under the footbridge were flapping like the slack sails of a yacht.
Straight ahead of Cristiano lay a mile and a half of stores, wholesale and retail outlets, self-service car washes, warehouses, colored
lights, signs flashing up offers and discounts. There was even a
mosque.
To the left, behind the low roof of the Shoe Cathedral, among
the clouds of smoke produced by itinerant vendors of sausages
and roast pork, rose the imposing walls of the Quattro Camini
shopping mall. A little further back stood the glass cube of
Mediastore, and on the other side of the road the big Opel and
General Motors showroom with its lines of new cars, and the wide
open space of the used car lot with its streamers proclaiming special offers. And the parking lot of the Multiplex cinema next to
the little McDonald's.
In the middle of the traffic circle, onto which two other long,
straight roads converged, the old sculptor Callisto Arabuia had
erected his latest creation, a huge bronze sculpture that went round
and round spurting little jets of water into a basin.
Cristiano set off towards the mall. The four towers at the corners of the building could be seen, on a clear day, from miles away.
They were said to be half a yard taller than the bell-tower of the
cathedral in St. Mark's Square in Venice. For the price of one euro
you could go up in an elevator to the top of Tower Two. From there
you could see the Forgese snaking its way towards the sea, and all
the tiny hamlets and villages that speckled the plain.
The mall was an immense rectangular building, bigger than an
aircraft hangar, blue and devoid of windows, dating from the midNineties.
That day, in honor of the month of discounts, the tops of the
towers had been embellished with hot-air balloons decorated with
yellow and blue segments and flaunting the slogan: BIG BARGAINS TO
BE HAD AT THE QUATTRO CAMINI. All around the building was a large
expanse of asphalt covered with thousands of cars.
The Quattro Camini attracted people from far and wide. It
was the largest mall within a hundred miles: three hundred
thousand square feet over three floors and two mezzanines. Plus
an underground parking lot with a capacity of three thousand
vehicles. The ground floor was given over to the Coral Reef
discount market where those big bargains were to be had and
you could take home a case of beer for less than ten euros. The
rest was occupied by shops. You could find everything your
heart could possibly desire: a branch of the Monte del Paschi
bank, Vodafone sales outlets, a post office, a nursery, the big clothes and shoe stores, three hairdressers, four pizzerias, a
wine bar, a Chinese restaurant, an Irish pub, an arcade, a pet
shop, a gym, a medical testing center and a tanning salon. The
only thing it lacked was a bookstore.
In the center of the first floor there was a large oval concourse
adorned with a fountain in the form of a boat and a marble staircase leading up to the second floor. It had been intended by the
architect as a surreal re-creation of Piazza di Spagna in Rome.
Cristiano walked across the parking lot, hunched up against the
icy wind. There were huge crowds, it being the first day in the long
month of special offers.
A long line of vehicles was waiting at the automatic barriers of
the parking lot and a river of people was pouring in through the
doors. Families came out with carts piled high with goods; there
were mothers with children bundled up like astronauts in strollers,
gangs of teenagers on scooters weaving in and out between the cars,
drivers quarrelling over parking places, buses spewing out parties
of old folk. In one corner of the parking lot there was a little funfair with games and a shooting gallery.
The music blared out fuzzily from the loudspeakers next to the
doors.
Cristiano looked behind the row of trash cans where Fabiana
Ponticelli and Esmeralda Guerra usually hung around with their
group in the summer and parked their scooters in the winter.
The Scarabeo with the smiley face sticker was there, chained to
Tekken's motorbike.
His heart began to beat faster.
He looked at the motorbike. He hated to admit it, but that son
of a bitch had a beautiful machine. He had changed the wheels and
had racing ones put on to make it easier to slalom through the
traffic. Cristiano also noticed that the exhaust pipe wasn't the standard one. God only knew how much it had cost him to have it modified. But that wasn't a problem. His father was a big-shot at
Biolumex, the light-bulb factory near San Rocco, so he had always
been spoiled rotten.
Cristiano couldn't help seething with envy. But then he told himself that rich kids had it too easy and when the going got tough
they started whimpering like girls.
Suppose there's an earthquake, for example, and he loses everything he owns, Tekken won't know what to do, he'll be so sad to
be poor that he'll hang himself from the nearest tree. Whereas I
won't lose a thing.
It would be cool if there was an earthquake.
He also found comfort in the idea that great men have always
had to struggle through shit on their own. Just think of Eminem or
Hitler or Christian Vieri.
He joined the crowd going into the mall.
Inside it was very warm. At the sides there were lots of girls
dressed in miniskirts and jackets showering you with promotional
flyers about telephone call rates and discounts on gyms and sun
tans. A cluster of people had formed around a man who was cutting carrots and zucchinis with a plastic gadget.
As always Cristiano stopped outside Cellulandia, the cell phone
shop.
How he longed for a cellphone.
He was probably the only kid in the whole school who didn't
have one.
"Aren't you proud to be different from all the others?" That had
been his father's reply when he had pointed this out.
"No. I'm not proud. I want one too."
He passed an electrical goods shop which was advertising fantastic offers on monitors and PCs. But he didn't stay long. He was
jostled by shoulders and bellies, deafened by lipsticked mouths
shouting in his ears, choked with clouds of perfume and aftershave,
dazzled by dyed hair.
Why the hell had he come to this madhouse?
He reached the Electric Bear Pub and had a look around inside
to see if Danilo was there.
The tables were dimly lit and surrounded by dark figures. The
bar, too, was crowded with people perched on stools. Three
plasma screens were showing a wrestling match. The music was
deafening. And whenever anyone gave a tip the waiters rang a
bell.
There was no sign of Danilo.
Cristiano went out and with the last three euros in his pocket
bought a slice of pizza topped with salami and mushrooms. He decided to have a quick stroll around without stopping to look at
the shop windows.
As the solid mass drifting along Gallery B dragged him with it,
he nearly bumped right into Fabiana Ponticelli.
He just managed to dodge her. He heard Esmeralda saying: "This
way! This way!"
Two colorful imps darting through the crowd, uttering little
squeals of joy. They jumped. They got shoved by people they came
up against, and they shoved back in return. They got a lot of insults
hurled at them, but didn't even hear. They seemed possessed by a
crazy demon.
He followed them, trying to keep out of sight, yet never taking
his eyes off them. Fabiana, quite suddenly, pointed at a clothes shop,
and in gales of laughter she and Esmeralda plunged inside, hand in
hand. Cristiano approached the window.
They took skirts, cardigans and T-shirts off the shelves, gave them
the briefest of glances then rolled them up and dumped them back
in a heap among the neat piles. But every now and then they would
stop and look at the walls and the ceiling.
At first Cristiano couldn't make out what they were doing. Then
the penny dropped.
The security cameras.
When they were out of range of the cameras one of them would
make a loud noise, attracting attention, and the other would quickly
stuff the things in her bag.
He saw Fabiana enter a fitting room with her handbag while
Esmeralda kept watch outside the curtain, pretending to try on a
hat, and when a shop assistant came over, furious at the mess they
had made, she put on a phoney smile and started asking her a lot
of questions, leading her away toward a distant shelf.
Cristiano had no doubt that Fabiana, concealed in the fitting
room, was busy with a pair of pliers, cutting the security tags off
the clothes.
When she re-emerged, she made a sign to Esmeralda and calmly,
with the bag bulging, they walked out of the shop and melted into
the crowd.
They were good. Holy shit, were they good.
He was hopeless at stealing. He made every mistake in the book.
It took him ages to summon up the courage, and if the shop
assistants never caught him it was only because they were too bloody
stupid. But he always ended up taking things that weren't any use.
A pair of Adidases that were too small for him. Another time a
PlayStation joystick which there was no point in having without the
console.
The worst time had been when he had had the brilliant idea of
stealing Strawberry, the ferret in the pet shop.
It had been love at first sight when he had seen that furry
creature. It had a face like a mouse, the ears of a teddy bear and
two ink-drops for eyes. A coat the color of cappuccino and a tail
like a paintbrush. It slept in a big cage, lying on a kind of hammock. A little notice said TAME. And Cristiano, unseen by the
woman who owned the shop, had opened the cage and put his
hand inside. Strawberry had let him stroke his stomach, and had
grasped his thumb with his little paws and licked it with his rasplike tongue.
Day after day he had gone to the shop to ask for information
about how much he cost (an impossible price!), what he ate, where
he crapped, whether he was good-tempered, whether he smelled,
and finally the shopkeeper had said in exasperation: "Either buy
him or get lost'.
Cristiano, offended, had headed for the door, but before reaching
it he had seen that the bitch was selling a packet of cat biscuits to
a customer. He had opened the cage, grabbed Strawberry by the
scruff of the neck and without further ado stuffed him in his pants
and booked it.
The ferret, after a few seconds, had started struggling, squirming
and scratching as if someone was trying to kill it.
Meanwhile Cristiano was trying to walk nonchalantly along the
mezzanine floor but the animal was tearing the skin off his thighs.
Eventually he couldn't stand it any longer and started shouting
out loud and hopping through the crowd like a thing possessed.
He stuck his hand down his pants while behind him a voice started
shouting: "Stop thief! Stop thief! He's stolen my ferret! Stop him!"
The shopkeeper was running after him among the astonished
faces. Cristiano broke into a run. Then the ferret's little head popped
out at the bottom of his pant leg, Cristiano shook his leg and the animal shot out, flew a couple of feet through the air and then
bolted in the direction of the cell phone store, while Cristiano raced
toward the exit.
After that traumatic experience he had sworn to himself that he
would never shoplift again.
But in the meantime, where had those two girls got to?
He went on along the gallery, looking into the clothes shops and
shoe shops.
Piazza di Spagna was crowded with people relaxing at the tables
of the Wild Goose Chase Bar. There was a clown with a top hat
and walking stick who for three euros would pose for photographs
with children. And a bikini-clad blonde lying on a sunbed, her body
covered with sticking plasters and colored wires which made her
buttocks quiver.
There they are.
They were sitting on the steps, engrossed in trying on the clothes
they had just stolen.
Cristiano's first impulse was to just walk on by, but instead he
kept going anxiously backward and forward, throwing furtive glances
at them without their noticing his presence. He pretended to have
an appointment with someone, looking up at the clock on the wall
from time to time.
Another thirty seconds and I'm going.
When the thirty seconds had passed he decided to wait another
twenty. And it was a good thing he did, because when the hand
reached the eighteenth second he thought he heard Esmeralda call
his name.
The music played by the clown was so loud he couldn't be
absolutely sure.
Then the two of them beckoned him over.
Cristiano took his time sauntering up those four steps. Esmeralda
spread her arm, inviting him to sit down. "How are you doing?"
The saliva had gone from Cristiano's mouth and he had difficulty
in saying: "I'm okay."