Authors: Niccolo Ammaniti
He put his hands on his chest, trying to push and repeat "One,
two, three', as he had seen them do on ER.
He didn't know how to do it or what the purpose of it was, but
he went on doing it for a long time, with no discernible effect except
that the muscles of his arms became as hard as marble.
He couldn't go on; he was wet through and frozen stiff. Suddenly
all the accumulated tiredness and anxiety crushed him and he collapsed on his father's chest.
He must sleep. Just for a short while. Five minutes.
Then he would take him to the van.
He curled up on the ground beside the corpse. The cold was
relentless. He hugged himself, squeezed his arms against his
chest to stop the shivers, rubbed his shoulders trying to warm
himself up.
He took the cell phone out of his pocket, but it didn't come on.
Perhaps I could leave him here.
Better in a wood than in a fucking graveyard, with a bunch of
strangers ...
He would decay into compost. No priests, churches, funerals.
The flashlight, on the ground, painted a luminous oval on a carpet
of dead leaves, of twigs, on a tree stump where a cluster of longstemmed mushrooms grew and on his father's hand.
Cristiano remembered one time when Rino, halfway across a
bridge, had pulled the car over to the side of the road and jumped up onto the parapet. Down below ran the river, flowing between
the rocks that protruded from the eddies.
Then he had started walking along, holding his arms out on either
side like the acrobats in the circus.
Cristiano had got out of the car and started following his father
on the pavement. He didn't know what to do. The only thing he
could think of doing was to walk along beside him.
Cars passed by on the road, but nobody stopped.
Without looking at him, Rino had said: "If you're hoping somebody will stop and talk me into getting down, forget it. Those things
only happen in films." He had looked at Cristiano. "Don't tell me
you're scared I'll fall!"
Cristiano had nodded. He was tempted to grab him by the foot
and pull him down, but what if he accidentally knocked him down
into the river?
"I can't fall."
"Why not?"
"Because I know the secret of how not to fall."
"What is it?"
"Do you think I'm going to tell a snotty-nosed little kid like you?
You'll have to find out for yourself. I did."
"Come on, papa, please, tell me!" Cristiano had protested. His
stomach ached as if he had eaten too much ice cream.
"No, you tell me something. If I fall and die, will you go to my
grave and pray for your father?"
"Yes. Every day."
"And will you bring me flowers?"
"Sure."
"Who'll give you the money to buy them?"
Cristiano had thought for a moment. "Quattro Formaggi."
"Some hope... He hasn't got a penny..."
"I'll take them from the other graves, then."
Rino had burst out laughing and jumped down from the parapet.
Cristiano had felt his stomach ache disappear. Then his father had picked
him up and hoisted him over his shoulder like a sack. "Don't you dare.
I'll be watching you from heaven. I won't miss a thing from up there..."
On the way home Cristiano had asked a million questions about
life and death. Discovering the secret of how not to fall off the bridge had suddenly become the most important thing in the world
for him. And with an eight-year-old child's persistence he had kept
pestering his father till one morning, while they were sitting on the
sofa, Rino had given in. "You want to know the secret? I'll tell you,
but you mustn't tell anyone else. Do you promise?"
"I promise."
"It's simple: I'm not scared of dying. Only people who are
scared get killed doing stupid things like walking on a bridge. If
you don't give a damn about dying you can be sure you won't
fall. Death picks on the faint-hearted. Anyway, I can't die. Not
until the Lord decides I must, anyway. Don't worry, the Lord
doesn't want me to leave you alone. You and I are as one. I've
got you and you've got me. There's nobody else. So God will
never separate us."
Cristiano, curled up in the mud, took hold of his father's hand
and sighed: "Why did you take him, then? I don't understand, why?"
Beppe Trecca was still sitting in the Puma at the side of the road,
watching the windshield wipers do their best to dry the glass.
He couldn't bring himself to drive on.
He was thinking of his mother.
"Don't worry about me, Giuseppe. Go. Go...- Such had been
Evelina Trecca's words to him, from her bed in a ward of the Gemelli
hospital in Rome.
He had sat there beside her, hardly able to recognize her, she was
so withered up ... The cancer was sucking her away.
"Mama, you know if you'd prefer me not to go, I won't. It's no
problem. I don't mind," he had said in a low voice, squeezing her
bony hand.
Evelina had sighed, with her eyes closed. "What's the point in
your staying here? With all the poison they put into my veins I can't
keep my eyes open. I sleep all day long. Don't worry about me,
Giuseppe. Go. Go ... Enjoy yourself a bit, while you can."
"Mama, are you sure?"
"Go ... Go..."
And he had gone. Five days. Just long enough to go and see Giulia
Savaglia in Sharm-el-Sheikh and come back.
He had met Giulia Savaglia at university and now she was working
as a group leader in a tourist village, and she had so warmly invited
him to pay her a visit that Beppe had thought...
On his third day at the Coral Bay she had explained what he was
to her.
How had she put it? "A special person. A dear friend."
That same day his mother had died. She had died without her
son holding her hand. And she had probably wondered where he
had gone after the twenty-five years they had spent together without
ever parting. She had died alone.
Beppe Trecca hadn't forgiven himself.
He had shut himself up in his mother's apartment at Ariccia,
depressed and grief-stricken, not wanting to see anyone. His plans
of becoming a sociologist, of applying for a job as a university lecturer, had gone to the devil. Doped up on antidepressants, he had
vegetated for a year, and the only things he had succeeded in doing,
apart from putting on ten pounds, had been going to church and
praying for his mother's soul and taking a diploma in social work
without even opening a book.
And the twentieth time that his cousin Luisa had told him there
was a vacancy for a social worker in Varrano, he, in exasperation,
had applied.
"Don't worry about me, Giuseppe. Go. Go ..."
I left you to die alone. Forgive me. I ran away. And it wasn't
because of Giulia Savaglia, it was because I knew you were going
and I didn't have the strength to stay beside you and watch you
die.
Suddenly, like a dazed boxer who gets a bucketful of water
thrown in his face, Beppe Trecca realized the monstrosity of what
he was doing.
Sobbing, he jumped out of the car, ran over to the African, who
was lying where he had left him, seized him by the shoulders and
said: "Don't worry. I'll take you to hospital." He started dragging
him toward the car, but stopped, panting, and laid the body on the
ground to regain his breath. He took two steps backward, then like a madman grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket and started shaking
him. "Why do you have to ruin my life? Why did you step out in
front of me? What do you want from me? It's not fair! It's not fair!
I...I haven't done anything to you." He froze, as if he had no more
strength in his arms. The dead man's face a few centimeters from
his own.
He looked peaceful. As if he was having a lovely dream.
No, I can't do it.
I wish I could, but I can't.
The realization that he didn't have the guts to put that man in his
car and take him to hospital made him burst into floods of tears. He
opened his mouth and, sobbing convulsively, addressed the Eternal
Father. "Please, help me. What must I do? What must I do? Tell me!
I can't do it. Give me the strength. I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't
see him ... Please, God, help me." He started walking around the
corpse, then put his hands over his eyes and implored: "You who can
do anything, do it. Perform a miracle. Bring him back to life. I didn't
mean to kill him. It was an accident. I swear to you that if you save
his life I'll give up everything... I'll give up the only beautiful thing
in my life ... If you save him I promise I'll ... " He hesitated for a
moment. " ...I'll give up Ida. I'll never see her again. I swear to you."
He dropped to his knees and knelt there, motionless, with his
head bowed, no longer crying.
Cristiano Zena opened his eyes again.
He must have dozed off.
I must get papa home.
It took him a few seconds to realize that the dark thing slowly
moving in front of his nose was his father's forefinger.
Wait. Don't move.
It must be another hallucination, like the tremor he had felt earlier when he had taken hold of his legs.
Cristiano slowly raised his head.
No, he hadn't been mistaken. It was moving. Only slightly, but
it was moving.
He couldn't restrain himself, he let out a whoop and grasped his
father's hand.
The thumb, the forefinger, the ring finger ... were bending, as if
trying to squeeze an invisible ball.
Rino Zena started twisting his mouth and blinking his eyes, and
a trickle of white foam emerged from the corner of his mouth.
Cristiano shook him by the shoulders. "Papa! Papa! Papa!
It's me!"
His father started coughing and opened his eyes.
It was too much. Cristiano, in the dark, lost all control; the flashlight slipped out of his hand, he hugged him and, sobbing, thumped
him on the chest. "You bastard, you bastard. I knew you couldn't
die. You can't die ... You can't leave me ... I'll kill you ... I'll kill
you, I swear it..."
He picked up the flashlight and shone it in his face. "Papa, can
you hear me? Give me a sign if you can hear me... Squeeze my hand
if you can't talk..."
Suddenly a ten-thousand volt electric shock seemed to go through
his father's body, and Rino opened his eyes again, rolled them
upward and started trembling, grinding his teeth and shaking his
legs and arms and head as if he was possessed by the devil.
It all lasted less than twenty seconds and then, quite suddenly,
the convulsions left him.
Cristiano gave him several slaps on the face, trying to revive him,
but it was no good...
He wasn't dead, though. His chest was rising and falling.
He must rush to the hospital at once, call an ambulance,
doctors ...
Quick! What are you waiting for?
Cristiano got up and dashed toward the road, but he had only
gone a few steps when he tripped, the flashlight flew out of his
hands and he found himself in darkness lying on top of something...
He reached out and touched it, trying make out what it was. It
was soft, wet and covered with wool and cloth and it had ...
Hair!
He jumped to his feet as if he'd been snatched by an invisible
hand and, backing away, put his hands in front of his mouth and
shouted: "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!"
He picked up the flashlight and with a trembling hand shone it
down on ...
Fabiana!
With her eyes open. Her mouth open. Her arms open. Her legs
open. Her jacket open. Her blouse open. Her head open.
A gash began from her hairline, ran down her rain-spattered forehead and split one of her eyebrows in two. Her piercing hung from
a strip of pink flesh. Her hair was soaked in blood and earth. Her
eyes staring. Her bra torn. Her bosom, breastbone and stomach covered with some reddish stuff. Her pants pulled down to her knees.
Her legs scratched. Her violet panties torn.
His guts churning, Cristiano backed away and opened his mouth,
trying to gulp down air, but a wave of warm stuff came up and he
puked out a stream of sour liquid and then, groaning, fled into the
wood, but after a few dozen yards he fell to his knees and, clutching
a tree trunk, tried to vomit again but without success.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and told himself
he hadn't seen anything, that it was only a nightmare and that he
must pull himself together, get out, out of there, and everything
would be all right again.
"Pull yourself together. Now you're going to go away, very calmly."
He must go out onto the road, pick up his bicycle, ride home
and get back into bed.
I can do it.
So why couldn't he get to his feet, why did he keep seeing Fabiana's
eyebrow split in two and that strip of flesh with the ring hanging
from it and those blue eyes flooded with rainwater?
The secret was not to think, to give yourself simple orders and
to carry them out one by one.
Now get up.
He breathed in and, using the tree trunk as a support, got to his
feet.
Now go out onto the road.
He stood up and although his legs seemed to belong to someone
else he started to walk, holding his arms out in front of him, through the dark vegetation. And at last he came out onto the
road. He climbed over the guardrail and started running down the
slope, forgetting his bicycle. Suddenly the wood was lit up by a
beam of light.
Stop them.
He stood in the middle of the road and raised his arms, but at
the last moment, when the car's headlights were about to light him
up, an impulse made him dodge sideways and jump behind the
guardrail before he could be seen.
Lying in the stream that flowed along the roadside he wondered
why he hadn't stopped that car.
Beppe Trecca got back into his car, sniffling.
The Lord hadn't performed the miracle, but he hadn't given him
the courage to take the man to hospital either.