Authors: Niccolo Ammaniti
He made an effort, trying to move his hand. Perhaps he had
moved it, but in this state he had no way of knowing.
"Are you dead?" Quattro Formaggi asked him.
The finger. Move that damned finger.
He must make Quattro Formaggi understand that he had to take
him to hospital at once.
Move the finger. Go on.
He ordered all the ants to converge from every part of his body
into the finger and lift it.
But they didn't obey, and suddenly the mist thickened and his
body started to jerk and quiver as it was dragged into the violet
which shaded into black.
A blazing fire exploded in the middle of his chest, sucking the
air out of his lungs.
Rino implored God to help him, to pull him out of that black
hole, and so as suddenly as they had arrived the spasms ceased and
he found himself alone, in a calm without light.
Quattro Formaggi saw Rino writhing about and struggling against
an invisible force that had caught him and was trying to carry him
away. Rino waved his legs and arms and rolled his eyes, and his
back arched like a bow; he twisted his mouth and shook his head,
and the light on his forehead crazily slashed the woods with a thousand golden blades.
Frightened and shocked, Quattro Formaggi tried to help him, to
throw himself across him so as to hold down his arms, but he got
a blow in the face and a kick, so he retreated in dismay.
Tugging at his hair, he prayed it would soon be over. It was a
terrible sight.
The invisible force was now pushing harder and arching Rino's
back as if it wanted to break it, but an instant later it left him, and
he lay there, limp in the mud. The flashlight had gone out, too.
It's gone because it's taken Rino's soul.
His best friend was dead. The only person who had loved him.
He had come here to help him, and God ...
(who should have taken you, you dirty murdering rapist)
... had taken his life as he lifted a rock.
He crouched down beside Rino.
What now? What must I do?
Normally it was Rino who answered these questions. He always
knew what to do.
Quattro Formaggi sat down and patted him on the shoulder.
"Amen." And he crossed himself.
He died for me. God wanted someone in exchange for Ramona's
death and Rino sacrificed himself.
(They'll find him and think it was him that killed her. You'll be
in the clear.)
Quattro Formaggi smiled with relief. Then he got up, tucked his
cock back into his underpants, retrieved his flashlight and crash
helmet, stuck the gun in his pants and went back to Ramona.
He slipped the skull ring off her finger and limped away toward
the road.
The aluminum doors of the lift drew apart and Danilo Aprea,
wrapped up in warm clothes, came out into the hall of the apartment block.
He leaned against the jamb of the elevator with his eyes reduced
to two slits.
The hall was a long room paneled with slats of dark wood. On
the floor, polished marble. To the left, the porter's lodge with a little
television and a pile of bills. To the right, the stairs. Beyond the
glass doors the raindrops danced on the sodden doormat and lashed
the geraniums in their flowerpots.
Danilo had vomited up three liters of alcohol and drunk a whole
pot of coffee. Now he felt a bit better. His drunkenness hadn't
passed, but at least he didn't feel sick any more.
He staggered over to a concealed door in the wooden paneling,
opened it and without even switching on the lights went down a
short flight of steps, found the handle and threw open the door of
the communal garage. He breathed in.
The same smell of damp and gasoline.
He hadn't been in there since July 12th, 2001.
He steeled himself and pressed the light switch.
The neon tubes flickered and lit up a long underground garage
where two rows of cars were parked.
Danilo walked across it, the sound of his footsteps echoing against
the concrete walls.
The Alfa Romeo was covered with a gray tarpaulin.
He put his hand on the hood. On contact a shiver ran up his
forearm, giving him goose bumps.
Don't think about it.
He took a deep breath and lifted the tarpaulin.
For an instant he imagined his daughter sitting on the little green
child seat, laughing. He banished the vision from his mind.
It was because of that seat that Laura Aprea had died.
"The damned buckle wouldn't open. It got stuck," he had repeated
to everyone till he was exhausted. To Teresa, to the policemen, to
the whole world.
On July 9th, 2001 Danilo had asked for a day off work and had
taken his daughter to the doctor for a check-up. Usually it was
Teresa who looked after these things, but that day she'd had some
business to sort out with the notary's mother.
"Everything's fine," the doctor had said, giving Laura an affectionate pat on the bottom as she chuckled and wriggled, stark naked
on the couch. "This little bundle's in perfect health."
"This isn't a little bundle. It's a little rascal, isn't it?" Danilo had
said to his daughter, grinning from ear to ear. And while the doctor
washed his hands he had buried his face in the little girl's tummy,
making a lot of rude noises. Laura had started chuckling. "And
where are those little mozzarellas? There they are!" And he had
affectionately nibbled those plump little legs that he loved to bits.
After the check-up they had gone to the cash-and-carry.
It was no easy task doing the shopping with Laura sitting in the
cart singing "I love teatime with to-to-to-to-tomatoes."
Then they had got back into the car. Danilo had put the plastic
bags on the back seat and had strapped the child into her seat and
said to her: "Now we're going to see mama."
They had driven off.
Danilo Aprea was working for a freight firm as a night-watchman
at the time and he knew that sooner or later there were going to
be cuts in staff. And there was a good chance that he would be
among the unlucky ones.
He drove along the highway, which was unusually empty for the
time of day, trying to think of a job he might be able to find at
short notice, even a temporary one, perhaps at Euroedil, a building
firm where they often needed laborers.
Suddenly he had noticed that there was a smell of green apples
in the car. Not real green apples, but the synthetic green-apple scent
of the anti-dandruff shampoo.
"I mistook it for the scent of the Arbre Magique," he had explained
afterward to his wife.
"How could you? The deodorant is forest pine and the shampoo
is green apples. They're not the same thing!" she had cried in despair,
her eyes puffy with weeping.
"You're right. But I didn't understand at first. I don't know
why ...
Danilo had turned around and seen that Laura's little red T-shirt
and blue pants were all smeared with green liquid.
"Laura, what have you done?" Danilo had seen the overturned
plastic bag and the capless bottle of shampoo on the soap-spattered
seat.
Then-he remembered it as if it had happened that very dayhe had heard a sucking noise, a strangled croak, and had looked at
his daughter.
The little girl's mouth was wide open and her blue eyes, popping out of their orbits, were red. She was struggling desperately,
but the safety belts of the child seat were doing their job and
keeping her pinned down like a condemned prisoner in the electric chair.
She can't breathe. The cap! She's swallowed the cap!
Danilo had gripped the wheel and, without looking, had swerved
sharply and darted, with a squeal of tires, toward the edge of the road, just missing the front of a truck, which had started honking
furiously.
The Alfa Romeo had stopped in the emergency lane of the highway
in a cloud of white smoke. Danilo had leaped out, tripped over,
scrambled to his feet and with his heart thumping against his chest
had grabbed the handle of the rear door with both hands.
"Here I am! Here I am! Papa's coming..." he had gasped, and
had grabbed the safety buckle of the child seat to free his daughter,
who was flailing about with her little hands and legs, hitting him
on the face and the chest.
But the incredible thing was that the bloody buckle wouldn't
open, it had two huge orange buttons, which you just had to push
together, something he had done a hundred times, always opening
it perfectly, a German buckle designed by the finest engineers in
the world, because everyone knows the Germans are the finest
engineers in the world, which had passed the most stringent safety
tests, been certified by an international commission and been given
the seal of approval, and yet that damned buckle wouldn't open.
It simply wouldn't open.
Danilo had told himself to keep calm, not to panic, that the buckle
would open in a moment, but Laura's desperate expression and strangled sobs made him lose his head, he felt like tearing at the straps
with his teeth, but he had to keep calm. So he had closed his eyes
so as not to see his little girl dying and had continued to push, fumble
and pull while his daughter suffocated, but it was no good. He had
tried to slip her out of the seat, without success, and then had grabbed
the whole damned contraption, shouting, but there were the car's
seat belts that were wrapped around the plastic frame.
I must get hold of her feet. I must get hold of her feet and shake
her...
But how, if he couldn't get her free?
Then, inhaling the smell of green apples, he had stuck his big fingers into the mouth of his daughter, who was now struggling less,
suddenly weaker and tired, and had searched for the cap that was
stuck right down in her windpipe. With his fingertips he had felt
her little tongue, her epiglottis, her tonsils, but not the cap.
Now Laura was no longer moving. Her little head lolled on her
chest and her arms hung down by the sides of the seat.
Yes, he knew what he had to do. Why hadn't he thought of it
earlier? He must pierce her throat, so that the air ... but what with?
He had shouted and pleaded, "Help, help me, a little girl, my
daughter, is dying..." and he had squeezed between the two front
seats, he, a great hulk of a man weighing over two hundred pounds
jammed between the two seats, with the gear lever sticking into his
breast-bone and his arms reaching out toward the glove box in the
dashboard. The middle finger of his right hand had succeeded in
reaching the button and the door had come open and spewed out bits
of paper, brochures, maps and a Bic pen which had rolled under the
seat.
He had groped about, gasping, on the mat and at last had got
hold of the pen and holding it like a bradawl had turned and raised
his right arm, ready to ...
She's dead.
The Bic had fallen from his hand.
Laura Aprea, lifeless, sat in the child seat, her blue eyes staring,
her little arms outspread, her mouth wide open...
A year after the accident, when his life had gone completely down
the pan, Danilo had come across this short item in a newspaper:
Routine tests of child car seats carried out in 2002 have
revealed that certain buckles, made by the Rausberg company in 2000 and 2001, and used by some manufacturers of child car seats, do not always close correctly,
even if they make a distinctly audible click. If the two
metal tongues are inserted obliquely the belt may not be
properly fixed on one side or the other and the buckle
may not open, to the detriment of the child's safety. The
following child car seats have defective buckles: Boulgom,
Chicco, Fair/Wavo, Kiddy and Storchenmuhle. You are
therefore advised to check the date of manufacture of
the child car seat in your possession and should it have
been produced in the period 2000-2001 to return it to
the manufacturers, who have undertaken to replace it
promptly.
Rino's van was parked in the middle of the rest stop.
Quattro Formaggi climbed over the guardrail and looked at it
for a while, scratching his beard with one hand and holding his
wounded shoulder with the other.
He must make sure that passers-by would notice it.
He could call the police and say he had discovered a murder,
then he would be famous. He would appear on television.
No, I can't do that.
He was a friend of Rino's and they would immediately think he
was involved too.
He started slapping himself on the forehead, repeating through
clenched teeth: "Think! Think! Think, you rotten brain."
If he switched on the headlights everyone would see the Ducato.
But the battery would go dead in less than an hour.
He opened the door, turned the radio on full blast and left the
door open, so that the little internal light would stay on.
As he was walking around to retrieve the Boxer the radio began
playing The Police's So Lonely.
He started nodding his head and then, spinning round and round,
opened his arms to the rain, feeling a euphoric joy swell his chest.
Alive! Alive! I'm alive!
He had killed and he was alive. And nobody would ever know.
He wheeled out the Boxer, mounted it and donned his crash
helmet. He couldn't move his left arm and found it a struggle to
start the engine. After a couple of coughs the engine started turning
and producing white smoke.
"That's the way, baby." He stroked the headlamp and, singing
"So lonely, so lonely..." headed for home, pushed by the wind and
rain.
While Beppe Trecca and Ida Lo Vino were inside the camper the
storm raged over Camp Bahamas.
Above the gate the big banana-shaped sign flapped about like a
spinnaker. One of the four steel cables that held it in place snapped
with a CRACK that was lost in the howling winds.
Danilo Aprea screwed up the tarpaulin and put it on the ground.
He approached the driver's door and instinctively put his hands in
his pockets.