Authors: Niccolo Ammaniti
And she's come because of you.
"Brr, it's cold," she said, rubbing her arms.
All Beppe could do was pick up the bottle of melon vodka and
pass it to her.
She gave him a quizzical look. "Aren't you going to give me a
glass?"
"I'm sorry ... You're..." perfectly right. He took a wine glass
from the table and passed it to her.
She poured herself two fingers of alcohol, looking around.
"Small. But well organized." She wrinkled up her nose. "You've
lit some incense. There's a funny smell..."
It was like being inside a tin drum, with the noise the rain was
making on the roof. He shouted: "Yes, there is."
He would have liked to ask her how she had managed to come
without arousing Mario's suspicions, but he didn't.
Ida tossed off the vodka. "Mmm, a bit of warmth. I needed that."
She seemed even more tense and embarrassed than him. "I'm
dying for a pee. Is there a bathroom in here?"
He pointed to the door and wanted to tell her not to open it,
that it was hell in there and that maybe she had better ... But the
paralysis of his vocal capabilities persisted.
"I won't be a minute." Ida opened the door and locked herself in.
The social worker, in dismay, clapped his hand to his forehead.
The river had broken its banks and flooded the fields and soon the
narrow strip of asphalt along which Rino Zena's van was speeding
would be swamped. The headlights of the Ducato slid over the
water-covered fields.
The worn blades of the windshield wipers struggled to keep the
front window clear, and on the inside the glass was misted.
Rino wiped it with his hand and kept wondering why on earth
Quattro Formaggi had gone into the woods. And why was he crying
like that? Was there really something to worry about? Or was this
just another crazy idea produced by that rotten brain?
Trying to penetrate the contorted mechanisms of Quattro
Formaggi's mind was a task Rino had long since given up. Getting
electrocuted at the weir hadn't helped, but even before that he hadn't
been in such wonderful shape. He hadn't had all those tics and he
hadn't walked with a limp, but he was already as dumb as a brush.
He remembered him in the children's home. He would do crazy
things like playing tennis for hours without a ball or a racket against
an imaginary opponent called Aurelio.
He passed the pump of the deserted Agip gas station. From this
point the road climbed up the hill, which was covered with trees.
The headlights made the teeming raindrops glisten, but couldn't
cut through the foliage at the sides of the road.
On the phone Quattro Formaggi had whimpered that he was at
a rest stop where there was an electricity hut.
Shortly before the uphill road began to bend Rino saw a long
rest stop on the left. At the end, near the guardrail, was a concrete
hut daubed with colored graffiti.
This is it.
Rino pulled in, turned off the engine, opened the glovebox, took
out the flashlight with the headlamp and switched it on.
No sign of life. Maybe this wasn't the right hut. He was about to
return to the van when something gleamed behind the cabin. He went
over and saw the Boxer and a Scarabeo leaned up against each other.
Whose is the other scooter?
Then he understood.
Some bastard who had nothing better to do than fuck other
people around must have met Quattro Formaggi on the road.
There had been times in the past when they had surrounded him,
shoved him around, amused themselves by making him dance and
sing. They picked on him because he didn't react.
"You bastards. If you've hurt him I'll kill you." Rino pulled his
pistol out of his belt. He returned to the van, got out the bullets
and loaded it, feeling the anger warming his blood.
He pointed the light toward the trees.
Danilo Aprea had lain down on the bed in his underpants and windbreaker, and was looking at the ceiling, gasping for air.
I feel like shit.
His armpits were ice cold. His feet boiling hot. His guts twisted
in knots. And there was a worrying pain in his chest. The classic
twinge that comes just before a heart attack. The sharp claw of a
falcon digging in between your ventricles.
"Now watch me burst a vein. That'll be the end of me. And you'll
all be happy," and he gave a belch that tasted of grappa.
He wished he could turn off the television, which was blaring
in the sitting room. The voices of Bruno Vespa and those other
assholes blathering on about deficits, taxes and inflation made him
feel terribly sick. But he was afraid of dozing off and dying in his
sleep.
What a fool he'd been to drink that Cynar.
Do liqueurs have a sell-by date?
And then as soon as he closed his eyes he felt like he was falling
into a bottomless pit that would take him right down to the fiery
center of the Earth.
He had to think. Though in that state and with Bruno Vespa
yammering away in the other room it was really hard.
The first thing to consider was that the cash machine plan, as
originally conceived, was dead in the water. The second was that
he had finished for good with Rino and Quattro Formaggi.
"But, as the proverb says, better alone than in bad company," he
mumbled, putting one hand on his chest.
He must revive the plan of the raid. Without them. It was the
best thing his mind had produced since the day he had been born.
It shouldn't just be dropped. The great thing about the plan was
that you could do it any time. Any night. All you needed was the
right friends, not a couple of cowards.
He would find some real professionals with whom he could start
from scratch. At that moment he didn't know who they were, or
how he was going to find them, but next day, with a clear head, he
would certainly think of something.
"Albanians. Guys with balls," he said, panting. "Rino, my friend,
you just don't understand me. What a pity. What a great pity. You
don't realize who you're dealing with. If you want to stop Danilo
Aprea you've got to blast him with a bazooka."
The pale blue brushstrokes of the television, through the doorway,
were painting the ceiling above the bed. It was strange, but in
between the light-blue patches there seemed to emerge a dark patch
with a human form.
"Is that you, my friend?" he asked, looking at the ceiling.
(Sure it's me.)
The climbing clown was looking down at him, stuck to the ceiling
like Spiderman.
"I was right to tell Rino where to go, wasn't I? They mustn't fuck
with me, they just don't understand. The only thing I'm sorry about
is that tomorrow those people are bringing the picture and I won't
have the money. That I really am sorry about." He fumbled about
on the floor for the bottle of Cynar but couldn't find it. "Don't
worry, though ... Trust me ... I'm not chucking my life down the
pan." He was addressing the clown above his head. "I won't leave
you. I'm not like some people I could mention. I swear, I swear on
the head of..."
Laura.
"...Teresa, the most important thing in my life, that you'll be here,
in this apartment. Tomorrow. I'll sell everything I own if I have to."
Suddenly a lump of pain burst like a bubble under his sternum.
He touched his eyes, his cheeks. He was crying and he hadn't
noticed.
"I'm not well," he sobbed. "What should I do? Tell me. Please
tell me."
(Ring her. She's the only person who understands you.) The clown
smiled down at him from the ceiling.
"No, it's not true ... She left me ... It wasn't my fault that Laura
died. I know she thinks it was..."
(Tell her you're giving up drink, as of tomorrow.)
Danilo knew there wasn't any clown up there on the ceiling, that
it was only a shadow cast by the television in the sitting room. Yet
it really seemed to be talking to him.
"Let's not kid ourselves, I'll never manage it." Another bubble of
pain burst under his Adam's apple.
(Yes you will. If she comes back to you and helps you you'll certainly manage it ... Tell her about the boutique. She'll come back,
you'll see.)
Danilo raised his head a little and narrowed his eyes: "Now?
Shall I call her now?
(Yes, now.)
"What if she's angry?"
(Why should she be angry?)
"It's too late. I promised not to call her at night."
(It's never too late to tell the truth. To tell someone you love
them. Tell her what you're doing for her. That you'll climb the great
mountain just for her. That's the kind of thing women like to hear.
Tell her about the boutique. You'll see, you'll see ... )
Danilo lifted his head off the cushion and everything started spinning. He took a deep breath, groped for the switch and turned on
the bedside lamp. The light stabbed his retinas. He put one hand
over his eyes and with the other picked up the phone on the bedside table. "I'll call her cell, though." He dialed Teresa's number.
The phone just rang and rang.
"There's no answer, you see?"
(Call her landline.)
Now that would be a stupid thing to do. Especially at this time
of night, when that shit of a tire dealer would be there. And yet he
had to do it, he had to hear Teresa's voice, the only thing that would
do him any good at that moment.
(Do it. If he answers, you can hang up, can't you?)
That's true...
Besides, this time it was different. It was to tell her he was going
to put everything right. Seriously. He was at the end of the tunnel,
and if he didn't change he was finished. And she would understand. Teresa would understand how much he was suffering and
she would come back home and he, next morning, would wake
to find her curled up beside him wearing her eye-mask to keep
out the light.
(What are you waiting for?)
His index finger slipped onto the keypad, and with surprising
speed for his mental condition he tapped out her number.
He mistook it first for a dog, then for a wild boar and finally for
a gorilla.
Rino took three steps backward and instinctively pointed his gun
at it, but as soon as the flashlight illuminated it he realized it was
a human being.
There on all fours in the middle of the wood, beside the crash
helmet. Soaking wet. Black hair plastered down over the skull... On
one shoulder a hole from which blood was oozing. Hands immersed
in the mud.
"Quattro Formaggi? What happened to you?"
At first he didn't even seem to hear, but then slowly he raised his
head toward the light.
Rino instinctively put his hand over his mouth.
The eyes were wide open, two holes sunken in their orbits, and
the jaw hung down idiotically.
"What have they done to you?"
The face, etched by the shadows, was reduced to a skull. It was
as if something inside Quattro Formaggi's mind had short-circuited,
as happens in some mental patients after a lobotomy. It didn't even
seem to be him.
"Where are they? Where the fuck are they?" Rino started pointing
the gun around, sure they were there, hiding somewhere, in the darkness. "Come on out, you bastards. Fight someone your own size!"
Then he bent down, still pointing the gun forward, and grabbed
Quattro Formaggi by the arm and tried to pull him up, but he seemed
to be rooted to the earth. "Come on! Get up. We've got to get out
of here." Finally, making a tremendous effort, he got him on his feet.
"I'm here. Don't worry." He was about to start dragging him along
when he noticed that his cock was sticking out of his pants.
"What the f..."
"I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I didn't do it on purpose,"
stammered Quattro Formaggi and he started crying. "I'm sorry."
Rino felt as if someone had ripped open his belly with a knife
and simultaneously rammed a sock down his throat.
He let go of Quattro Formaggi, who slumped down on the ground.
He took two steps backward and realized he'd been wrong. Terribly
wrong.
The Scarabeo belongs to that girl... The one that goes to Cristiano's
school... The sticker with the face on it.
He was overwhelmed by the chilling awareness that Quattro
Formaggi had finally exploded. And done something terrible.
Because Rino knew that the fairy tale the locals always repeated,
that Quattro Formaggi wouldn't hurt a fly, was as big a load of bullshit as the idea that the government was going to cut
taxes.
Every day there was someone who would go out of their way to
make fun of him in some way or other, who would mimic him, give
him less soup in the canteen, make him feel like a fool, but he would
never lose his temper, he would smile, and everyone would say
Quattro Formaggi was above all that.
Above it my ass!
That half-smile he gave after someone had imitated him and
called him a spastic wasn't a sign that Quattro Formaggi was a
saint, but that the insult had hit home, had pierced a sensitive part,
and the pain went to swell a part of his brain where something
tainted, twisted, was pulsing away. And some day, sooner or later,
that festering thing would wake up.
A million times Rino had thought this, and a million times he
had hoped he was wrong.
He had to summon up all his strength to be able to speak to
him. It was as if he had been punched in the stomach. "What have
you done? What the hell have you done?" He turned on the leafstrewn ground and walked a few steps, and the yellow beam of the
flashlight on his brow slid over Fabiana's body lying in the middle
of the path. Her head smashed in by a rock.
"A girl ... You've killed a girl."
The phone kept on ringing.
I'm going to hang up ...
(No. Wait at least another fi ... )
"Hello?"
Danilo Aprea puffed out air and started breathing normally again.
His mouth was dry and his tongue felt numb. "Teresa, it's me."