As God Commands (27 page)

Fabiana Ponticelli hadn't seen her scooter, and had banged into it
and fallen over.

Her shoulder must have come out of its socket. That shoulder
she had dislocated on a skiing holiday at Andalo. Her father had
told her a million times she ought to have it fixed, "otherwise what's
the point in my paying for insurance against accidents? It's a simple
operation, you'll be as right as rain in two days. If you don't, it
might slip out again in unpleasant circumstances."

Un ... pleas ... circum ... stances, her brain repeated as she tried
to get to her feet.

It was a pain far worse than that in her nose. An electric current
was flowing through the muscles of her arm and shoulder, coiling
them up like a rope.

Why don't I faint?

(Because you've got to put it back in.)

Stopping herself from retching, with her left hand she took hold
of her right arm, just below the armpit, and pulled.

Nothing happened.

Again.

She pulled the arm again, but harder and downward, and as if
by magic the electric current switched off and, incredibly, for the
first time since she had decided to stop and help the bastard a feeling
of wellbeing spread through her body.

Good girl. Well done. Now you're okay. You can do it. Wait till
he comes near.

Through her closed eyelids she could see the light that shone on her.

Wait.

Quattro Formaggi went over, grabbed her by the arm and dragged
her toward the side of the road. She seemed to have fainted, but
now and then she opened her eyelids a little to see what was
happening.

He managed to pull her as far as the guardrail and had stopped
for breath, when, with a sudden twist, she lashed out and kicked
him between the legs.

Quattro Formaggi jumped backward as if an invisible being had
pushed him away, and clutched at his groin, then a yellow stream
of bile came out of his crash helmet and as he vomited he realized
that the little bitch had got to her feet and was running away.

The man in the helmet caught up with her and slapped her across
the face with the back of his hand, making her do an ungainly halfpirouette, and Fabiana Ponticelli flew backward, as stiff as a mannequin, banged her left hip against the guardrail, landed first with
her cheekbone and then with the rest of her body on a carpet of
plastic bags, paper and wet leaves, while her ankles rapped against
the concrete base of the metal barrier.

She knew she must get up again, at once, and that she must start
running and get away because it was clear that the man in the helmet
was going to do something to her, something very nasty, yet her
body refused to obey her. It had curled up into a ball of its own
accord. Her hands had gripped her knees and her head had come
to rest against her shoulder.

(At least open your eyes. Look to see where he is.) Her father's voice.

I can't.

(Let him do what he wants! Better to be raped than raped and
beaten to death) said Esmeralda, not mincing her words, as usual.

Esme's right, papa. He'll rape me and he'll leave me here.

Yet inside her there was a stronger, more stubborn part which
urged her not to give in. Because it wasn't right.

She started crying, in silence, sobbing convulsively, cursing herself for having stopped. If she'd known what a bastard he was she
would have ridden her scooter straight over him.

A metallic noise brought her back to reality.

What's he doing?

But she had two black eyes, and even if she opened them she was
submerged in darkness and couldn't see a thing, but she could still
hear, and what she heard gave her a little hope.

The guy was messing about with her scooter.

He only wants to steal the Scarabeo.

He had beaten her up to steal a stupid scooter.

All he'd have had to do was ask.

Take it. It's all yours. Just don't hurt me.

She must just wait. Lie there quiet and calm. And it would all
pass.

Quattro Formaggi picked up the Scarabeo and pushed it toward the
electricity hut.

When he had seen Ramona spin round, bang into the guardrail
and fall head first over it onto the ground he had been very alarmed.

Had he killed her with a slap across the face? Was that possible?

He had looked at her carefully and seen that she was still breathing,
curled up in the rain. Defenseless and as wet as a tadpole when you
take it out of the water.

(Now she's yours. You can do what you want with her. But you
must take her into the wood, so that if anyone passes by... )

He hid the Scarabeo and the Boxer behind the electricity hut,
then went to check whether anyone driving past would be able to
see them.

How strange, despite the blood that was blocking her nostrils
Fabiana Ponticelli thought she could smell mushrooms.

Not cooked mushrooms. But the fresh ones you take out of the
wet earth with two fingers, careful not to break them.

This is the mushroom place.

She remembered that it was from that very spot, from that rest
stop, that they used to start out on the chanterelle walk when she
was small. They would leave the old Saab with its patched-up roof
beside the electricity hut and set off into the wood in search of
chanterelles ...

She saw herself as a little girl, with her brother Vincenzo in his
stroller, her mother with her long hair gathered into a ponytail, like
in that photograph that hung in the hall, her father still sporting a
mustache and herself in her little red parka and woollen hat ... All
together they would get out of the car, holding baskets for the mushrooms, and papa would grab her under the armpits and, hop-la,
whisk her over the guardrail and she would say: "I can do it on my own" and would climb up onto that long metal strip (she seemed to
see all four of them walk by without looking at her, as you do when
you pass a dead dog on the road), then they would enter the wood
and her father would stop them: "The one who finds the most is the
winner."

In risotto, chanterelles are better than porcini.

Mama made a risotto a few days ago. But it was with porcini.
No, it...

A noise.

So he didn't go away.

Fabiana opened one swollen eye. A light. The man in the helmet
was in the middle of the road with the flashlight in his hand, and
was running backward and forward.

(Fabi, you must get away.)

She just had to find the strength to stand up, but now she really
didn't think she could do it. The pain seemed to be circulating from
one side of her body to the other, through her bones, her muscles
and her guts, and every now and then it stopped and dug in its claws.

The wood is big and dark and you can hide.

If she had been well, if that bastard had played fair and not laid
a trap for her, he would never have been able to catch her.

I won the cross-country race three years running.

Fabiana the rocket. That's what they called me ... The rocket.

(If you get up now and go into the wood you'll become invisible.)

(GET UP)

(GET UP)

She clenched her teeth and fists and slowly got up onto her knees,
her right arm completely numb. There seemed to be fragments of
glass in her ankle.

(GET UP)

With her eyes closed she stood up, without even looking to see
where the bastard was, and set off toward the wood, toward the
darkness that would hide and protect her. The pain in the meantime had moved to her face, it didn't leave her for a single step,
and...

It's just a matter of gritting your teeth.

... each time she inhaled the cold air it was like getting another
slap across the face ...

I must look a mess. But it'll pass. You go back to normal. I saw
on TV a woman who'd had an operation...

She couldn't see a thing, but there was no danger because God
would help her to find her way and not to trip over and not to fall
down and to find a hole to disappear into.

She was safe, she was in the wood. The branches whipped her
jacket and the thorns tried to stop her, but now she was far away,
alone, in the darkness, she was walking over a lot of stones, of
rocks, of tree trunks, and not falling down, and this was God.

Danilo Aprea was asleep, sitting in front of the television. He looked
like the statue of the pharaoh Chephren. In one hand the empty
Cynar bottle, in the other his cell phone.

About eight miles away from Danilo's apartment, Rino Zena woke
up in his old camouflage sleeping bag. An atomic bomb had exploded
in his skull. He opened his eyelids: the television looked like a
painter's palette and a group of dickheads were blathering about
pensions and workers' rights.

It was very late. Those two would never come now.

Rino pulled the sleeping bag over his nose and thought that old
Quattro Formaggi was a genius. He had switched off his phone and
that was that.

"Thanks, Quattro." He yawned, then he turned over on his side
and closed his eyes.

Perfect. Nobody will see the scooters now.

Quattro Formaggi turned happily toward Ramona and ...

Where is she?

... she had gone.

He must be mistaken, it was too dark. He started walking faster
and faster, then running, toward the point where she'd fallen.

"Where are you?" he groaned in despair.

He ran back and forth along the rest stop and kept returning
incredulously to the guardrail, where Ramona had been until thirty
seconds before. He gazed for a long time at the black mass of vegetation which loomed over the road. No, she couldn't have gone
into that tangle of brambles.

(Go and see. What are you waiting for? Where else can she have
gone?)

He stepped over the guardrail and entered the wood, lighting his
way with the flashlight.

Before he had gone ten yards he saw her. He leaned against a
tree trunk and heaved a sigh of relief.

She was there, walking through the trees with her arms stretched
out in front of her and her eyes closed, as if she was playing blind
man's bluff.

Quattro Formaggi moved towards her, careful not to make a
noise, pointing his flashlight at the ground. He stretched out his
hand and was about to touch her on the shoulder, but then he
stopped to look at her.

She had guts. None of those other little sluts would have gone
into the woods on their own. And they would have just lain there
on the ground, crying their eyes out. This one never gave up.

"Come on, let's chuck him in the river!"

Quattro Formaggi was twelve years old and was being dragged
along the dry part of the river bed on a carpet of sharp pebbles.
They had caught him. They had stubbed out a cigarette on his neck,
kicked him and thrown stones at him. Then two of them had
grabbed him by the legs and were pulling him toward the water, but he wouldn't give up-he clutched at the rocks, at the branches
whitened by the river, at the reeds. Silently, gritting his teeth: he
wouldn't surrender. He too had shut his eyes and refused to give
up, but he had been picked up bodily and dumped in the water and
carried away by the current.

We're two of a kind.

Quattro Formaggi hurled her to the ground.

Fabiana Ponticelli fell right on a branch, which bent under the
weight of her body and then with a loud crack snapped, tearing her
jacket and cardigan and grazing her side. A sharp pain twisted its
tentacles around her ribs.

So I'm not invisible. And God isn't here, or if he is, he's just
standing by and watching.

She felt a weight on her stomach. It took a few seconds to realize
that the bastard was sitting on top of her.

He grabbed her wrist and she didn't put up any resistance.

Something warm and soft on the palm of her hand. She couldn't
make out what it was.

(Well what do you think it is?) Esmeralda's voice. (Do it. What
are you waiting for?)

Crying, Fabiana began to move her hand up and down.

(See? She did it like a shot, you fool.)

Quattro Formaggi panted as he watched Ramona's little hand.
She was wearing a ring with a silver skull, which was going up and
down, slowly. Breathtaking.

He closed his eyes and leaned sideways against a tree trunk,
waiting for it to stiffen.

He didn't understand. This was the most beautiful thing in the world, so why was it still so limp? He tightened his buttocks and
gritted his teeth, trying to arouse it, but without success.

No, it wasn't possible, now that Ramona was finally doing it to
him...

"Slower. Slower, please..." Quattro Formaggi raised a trembling
fist in the air and thumped himself on the chest.

He knew he could come almost instantly. But it was as if that thing
didn't belong to him. A dead appendage. This was the exact opposite of what he had expected. The warm hand, and his body cold and
unfeeling. Why did it work when he did it himself, but not like this?

(It's her fault. It's this little whore's fault.)

He grabbed her by the hair and muttered to her desperately:
"Slower. Slower. Please..."

It was never going to stiffen.

Fabiana Ponticelli felt as if hours had passed, but it was still as
limp as a dead slug. It seemed to be melting in her hand, like a
lump of butter.

"Slower. Slower. Please..."

She would gladly have obliged, but if she went any slower...

"No, squeeze it. Hard. Very hard. Pull it."

She didn't understand, first slow and now ... But she obeyed.

Eventually she stopped, feeling frustrated and scared and guilty,
and she realized that the bastard was crying.

"Calm down, relax, or you won't make it..." she said, hardly
realizing what she was saying. "Just wait, you'll see..."