Authors: Niccolo Ammaniti
"Are we going to have this bath?"
"I can't, I've got to go home."
She had promised the Asshole-aka her father-that she would
be home by ten thirty.
The next morning, at half past eight, skipping the first lesson at
school, she had an appointment with the dentist for a check-up.
Fabiana calculated that even if she left straight away she would
be late getting home. It took a good twenty minutes from there. So
she might as well take her time.
Lucky she'd switched off her cell phone.
The Asshole would have just gotten back from...
Where was it he went?
... and not finding her at home had no doubt jammed her voicemail with messages.
Rino had switched off the television and was staring at the rain that
beat against the sitting room windows, trying to understand what had
made him watch that film. He knew it by heart, he had seen it dozens
of times, yet he hadn't been able to tear himself away from the screen.
Dog Day Afternoon. Starring Al Pacino. One of his two favorite
actors, along with Robert De Niro. If Rino should ever happen to
meet the pair of them in the street he would bow down before them
and say, "You're two of the greats, and you'll always have Rino
Zena's respect."
They succeeded in portraying the crummy lives of ordinary folk
better than anyone else.
But that evening he shouldn't have watched the film. Al Pacino
went into a bank to carry out a robbery and it turned into a bloodbath.
He had realized that the raid on the cash machine was a mistake.
A terrible mistake that he would regret for the rest of his life.
And although reason suggested that the downpour was a stroke
of luck (the streets would be deserted), his stomach told him that
this film shown by Channel 4 exactly two hours before the raid
was a God-sent sign that he should drop the whole idea.
Now he kept thinking about the plan and his mind was haunted by
images of blood and death. Raids like this, seemingly foolproof and
unambitious, were exactly the kind that suddenly turned into massacres.
Are you out of your mind... ?
How many reports had he read in the newspapers about service
station robberies and car thefts that had ended in massacres? You
could bet your life that as soon as they got there with the tractor,
police would pop out from behind every corner.
Why did I let Danilo talk me into this? He doesn't know his ass
from a hole in the ground.
If anything went wrong it meant prison. And a long sentence at
that. A couple of years at the very least.
And if he went to jail, Cristiano would be put in a home or a
foster family till he was eighteen.
How much money would there be in a cash machine, anyway?
Splitting it three ways, too ...
Peanuts.
He must bite the bullet, phone Danilo and tell him he was backing
out.
He won't be happy.
When they had told Danilo, on the way home from the Frecce
Tricolori air display, that the raid was on for that evening, he had
almost burst into tears of joy.
But what does that matter to me?
It was a stupid plan, and the only reason he had listened to Danilo
was that he had nothing to do all day. If Danilo really wanted, he
could still do it with Quattro Formaggi. No, on second thought he
couldn't do it with Quattro Formaggi either.
He'll just have to find someone else.
Lucky he was still in time to drop out.
But what if that presentiment had been nothing but fear? What
if I've lost my balls?
He turned to look at Cristiano, curled up on the sofa fast asleep.
Maybe I have. So what?
He was about to pick up the phone and call Danilo, but he
changed his mind. It was better to wait for him to arrive with
Quattro Formaggi and tell him to his face.
At the same moment when Rino Zena was being assailed by doubts,
Danilo Aprea was sitting in front of the television and smiling.
What a stupid film he had been watching. A story where two
crooks got trapped in the middle of a bank robbery. His own plan
was perfect. There would be no people around, no weapons, no
hostages or any crap like that.
He picked up the newspaper and, with his glasses on the tip of
his nose, leafed through the pages of the property ads, reflecting
that, if you had plenty of capital and a bit of intuition, there are a
million ways of getting rich.
And since he was sure he had a natural instinct for business (he
had predicted that the Quattro Camini would be a great success),
he would soon have the cash to prove it to the rest of the world.
He had already drawn circles with his ballpoint pen around at
least five hot properties among the business premises for sale. All in
shopping malls or in newbuild blocks near the bypass. Strategic
points which would see immense commercial growth over the next
few years.
After the shock of the euro, which had brought the country to
its knees, there was bound to be an economic recovery.
The theory of flow and counterflow.
That was what Berlusconi said, anyway. And how could you not
believe an industrialist of the north who was a self-made man and
had become the richest person in Italy, despite everything the commie
judges had done to thwart him?
And when the recovery came, Danilo would be there, ready and
waiting, with his lingerie boutique.
Now the problem was that he couldn't imagine how many square
feet it would take to set up a decent lingerie shop.
Would one hundred be enough? The important thing is to have
a small back room you can use as a store and where you can put
an armchair to relax in and a little fridge in case you get peckish ...
And then, a crucial point, it would have to be tastefully decorated, but Danilo wasn't concerned about that. That was Teresa's
territory. He wondered if his wife would like a shop in a mall...
You must be joking.
He was sure she would want one right in the center, on the main
street, to make the whole village green with envy. And, all things
considered, she was right.
Eat your hearts out, you bastards. Look at the Apreas' boutique.
Danilo breathed in deeply, closed the newspaper and went over
to the window.
The wind had snatched all the clothes off the clothesline on
the balcony of the apartment opposite, and they had blown onto
the leafless branches of an apple tree. The streetlamp was swaying
to and fro and the alley had turned into a torrent which was
gushing out into the canal beside his house. Through the doublepaned windows he could hear the roar of the current held in by
the banks of the canal.
So much the better. There'll be nobody around.
The display on the video recorder showed ten forty-five.
In a quarter of an hour Quattro Formaggi would be there.
He had lost track of time while looking at the small ads. He must
get ready, and he'd better wrap up warm, or he'd catch pneumonia
out in that downpour.
For too long his life had been parked in a dusty hangar; it was
time to taxi it out onto the runway, ready for take-off.
Rino had told him the news on the way back from Murelle, and
he had been so delighted he had almost burst into tears. Then, when
he had got home, he had spent several hours sitting anxiously on
the toilet, but now that the great moment had arrived he felt as
calm as a samurai before a battle. Something told him that everything would go like clockwork, without a hitch.
He went over to the television and was about to turn it off when
he saw a big painting on a green panel which occupied the whole
screen.
They were showing the usual auction on Channel 35.
In the middle of the painting there was a clown, complete with
top hat, diamond-patterned tie and a round, cherry-red nose.
The clown was clinging like a climber to the peak of a mountain
and stretching out his arm in an attempt to grasp an edelweiss which
grew alone among the gray rocks.
The painter had succeeded in freezing the movement, like when
you put a video recorder on pause.
It was easy to imagine the conclusion: the clown picks the flower
and puts it to his nose to smell its scent.
But that wasn't all there was to the picture. Behind the figure
that occupied the foreground there was a breathtaking sunset. It
reminded Danilo of those summer evenings when he was a child
and the sky was something different, as if the Eternal Father himself had painted it. The color tones shaded and blended into each
other as they do on the peace flag. From black to blue to violet
to the orange of the distant valley, over which floated the ball of
the sun, enveloped in white clouds like a bride in her veil. Above,
where the night had already gained possession of the sky, some
distant little stars were twinkling. But lower down, the plain, with
its villages and roads and forests, was still bathed in the last rays
of the sun.
Danilo knew nothing about art and had never wanted to own a
painting. Pictures, to him, were just receptacles of dust and dustmites. But this one was a real masterpiece.
You can keep your Mona Lisas and your Picassos. This is something else.
What he found most moving was the clown's expression.
Sad and ... even Danilo himself couldn't describe it.
Stubborn?
No, not exactly.
Proud.
Yes, that was it. The proud clown had defied the mountain and
all its dangers to get up there. Although he wasn't an expert climber,
but just a poor clown. What an incredible effort it must have been,
in those long, broken shoes. And just imagine the cold...
Why had he made all that effort? Of course, to pick a rare little
flower to offer to the woman he loved, along with his heart.
He and that clown had a lot of things in common. He too had
been treated like a bum, almost like a murderer, an alcoholic
who was a public laughing stock, but tonight he would defy the
mountain, he would risk his life just for the sake of picking a
flower, the boutique to give to Teresa, the only woman he had
ever loved.
Yes, he and that clown were sad and proud. Two misunderstood
heroes.
The picture widened out to reveal a man at the side of the
painting. His hair was flecked with gray, and he wore a blue blazer
and a pink shirt with a white collar.
Danilo seized the remote control and turned up the volume.
"This painting is one of the magnificent series of clowns in the
mountains by maestro Moreno Capobianco," said the telesalesman,
who spoke with a pronounced guttural R. "But of the whole series,
if I may say so, this is undoubtedly the most effective and accomplished, a consummate work of art, where the artist has given of his
best and has most poignantly expressed the ... how shall I put it ... the
titanic, timeless struggle between man and nature. The meaning is
clear, even to the layman: the clown represents farce, which ranges
beyond the confines of the world as we see it, to reach places where
no one has ever gone. Travelling towards God and love, on a mystico-
religious journey."
Danilo was incredulous. The expert was saying, in more precise
terms, the very things he had thought himself. He turned the volume
up even higher.
"But, ladies and gentlemen, leaving aside the philosophical implications, let us look at concrete things: the magnificent landscape, the
light, the refined phrasing, the confident brushwork ... Capobianco's
brushwork is so delicate that ... Just imagine for a moment having a
picture like this in your sitting room, in your hall, if I may say so,
wherever you wish, this is an unrepeatable opp..."
Danilo glanced at the bare wall beside the door. A rectangle measuring one yard by two seemed to pulse out from the rest of the wall.
That's where it must go.
With a little halogen light just above it, it would be a knockout.
"Imagine making yourself a gift of this masterpiece ... Imagine
having it, owning it, being able to do what you want with it, and for a mere seven thousand five hundred euros! An investment, ladies
and gentlemen, which in the space of five years will multiply seven
or eight times over, never mind your unit trusts and ISAs ... If you
pass up this opportunity, I would almost..."
Danilo turned back toward the television and then, as if in a
trance, picked up the telephone and dialed the number that was
scrolling across the screen.
Quattro Formaggi, too, had absently watched Dog Day Afternoon,
but hadn't made any connection between the film and the raid.
Afterward, growing bored, he had switched on the video recorder
and started up Ramona's Big Lips.
He had fast-forwarded to the scene where she was fucking the
mustached sheriff.
"Don't you know that only whores hitch-hike in this county?"
he recited in the voice of the lawman. And then, in falsetto, imitating Ramona's female voice: "No, I didn't know that, sheriff. All
I know is I'll do anything to avoid going to jail."
While he was performing the dialogue he squatted down on the
floor and started building a new railway station with Lego.
The window, pushed by the wind, suddenly blew open, and a
gust of rain spattered his face and toppled a big table lamp which,
like a crippled spaceship, crashed down onto a cardboard bridge
lined with cars, destroying it, and then plunged into a papier-mache
mountain on which herds of rhinoceros and blue smurfs were grazing
and scattered them among the flocks of sheep and Tiny Toons that
were advancing into the mouth of a canyon.
Quattro Formaggi rushed over to shut the window.
On closer inspection he saw that the wind had wrought further
havoc. The troops of blue soldiers, snakes and galactic robots had
fallen over and some of them were floating in a lake made out of
a Danish biscuit tin.
He ran his fingers through his hair, making strange grimaces with
his mouth.