Authors: Niccolo Ammaniti
Trecca looked at him dubiously for a moment. Then he seemed
to believe him. He stretched and started watching the television.
"So she was the reason we got stuck in that traffic jam. Poor
girl."
Meanwhile the report on Fabiana had begun. It showed the parents being pursued by journalists. Then the investigating magistrate, a middle-aged woman in a pantsuit, who said that a
painstaking search for the murderers had already begun and that
no line of enquiry had been ruled out. Then they went on to discuss the funeral that had been arranged for that morning. The
service would be held by Cardinal Bonanni in the presence of the
civil authorities.
Cristiano held on to the back of the sofa to steady himself. He
felt faint. It was as if he was being sucked down to the bottom of
a well of icy water, while his muscles and tendons went limp.
Beppe took his shirt off the chair and put it on. "She was at your
school. Did you know her?"
Cristiano made a superhuman effort to come back up to the surface and reply. "Yes..." He wanted to add that he hadn't known
her very well. But he didn't have the strength.
"Isn't it incredible? They raped her and then killed her by smashing
her head in. What kind of man could do a thing like that? To a
fourteen-year-old girl!"
Cristiano felt that he ought to reply, but couldn't think of anything to say.
I'm going to throw up.
"Anyway, the murderer hasn't got a chance. They'll catch him in
no time."
"Oh ... really?" Cristiano found himself saying.
Beppe stood up, still looking at the screen. "When you kill someone,
they get you. Sooner or later they get you. You can be sure of that.
It only takes one little detail, even the most trivial, and you're fucked.
Only a complete idiot or a madman would think you can commit
murder and get away with it. The only possibility of committing the
perfect murder is if no one gives a damn about finding the culprit. It
wasn't an illegal immigrant who got killed here. It was a fourteenyear-old girl, brutally raped and murdered. Everyone wants to find
the murderer. The family, the police, who don't want to be made to
look stupid, the public, who don't want a monster roaming the streets
killing their children, supporters of the death penalty, people who are
curious to see the monster's face, the television companies and the
journalists who make a living out of this stuff. Take it from me, they'll
catch this guy in a week at the outside. Without a shadow of doubt.
It would take a miracle to save him. If I was the murderer I'd give
myself up. Or rather, I'd blow my brains out."
He put on his pants.
"We'll have to go to the funeral. The whole school's going. You
have to go too. Then we've got an appointment with the judge. To
discuss what's the best thing to do. Okay?"
"Okay." And for the rest of his life Cristiano Zena continued to
ask himself how he had found, that morning, the strength to resist
and not to blurt out the whole truth.
The Carrion Man saw Ramona smiling at him inside the television.
She had made it onto the TV news.
Thanks to me.
He smiled and stretched out his arm, trying to stroke her.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he couldn't
understand how much time had passed nor whether he had actually been asleep.
Through the door that led into the sitting room he could see the
eastern edge of the crib, which reached almost as far as the front
door. That was the most desolate area. Sparse vegetation. Sand
dunes. It was the land of the robots, the spaceships, the UFOs and
the prehistoric monsters. A dangerous, contaminated zone, where
the shepherds didn't venture and even the soldiers dared not go.
The Carrion Man raised his head and looked across to the other
side of the scene. He remembered where he had found each figurine,
each animal, each little car. For example, that black robot there,
with the red eyes and pincers instead of hands, had come from a
fountain in the little public gardens the year before. A mother had
given it to her son. The child had torn open the package, grinding
his teeth as if it contained an enemy that he wanted to kill. He had
taken out the robot, switched on its eyes, made its legs move and
then, already bored, thrown it into the fountain with the goldfish.
The woman had crouched down by her little boy and said to him:
"Antonio, why did you throw it into the water? That's naughty.
Mama paid a lot of money for it. You should respect things you're
given as presents." They had left it there, and the Carrion Man had
retrieved it and placed it in the future zone.
He wished he could return to those days.
Before any of this had happened.
Cristiano Zena was standing in the middle of the sitting room.
Trecca was waiting for him outside.
Perhaps he would never see this house again. He looked at the
beach chair where Rino always lay. He sat down on it.
He had always loathed this unfinished house beside the highway,
but the idea of leaving it made him feel desperately sad. He had
been born here. He looked around for something, a keepsake to
take with him, but nothing seemed suitable.
"Cristiano! Come on. We're late." Trecca's voice outside.
"Just a minute, I'm coming!"
Then Cristiano saw, dumped in a corner, the threadbare blanket
that his father liked to sleep under. He picked it up, sniffed it and
put it in his backpack. Then he went out, slamming the door behind
him.
Outside, the sun had only just risen from the horizon, but it was
already obvious that a warm, cloudless day was in prospect. The air
was transparent and a light wind blew among the foliage of the trees.
"What have you got in that backpack?" Beppe Trecca asked
Cristiano, putting the key into the Puma.
"Clothes."
"Clothes?"
"Yes, some of my father's clothes for Quattro Formaggi. When
we get to Varrano I'll take them to him, then I'll join you in church."
They got into the car.
The social worker started up the engine and fastened his safety
belt. "I don't think that's a good idea. We'll go to the funeral first.
They've set aside an area of the church for the students. They're
expecting you. Then we must go and see the magistrate and we can
take him the clothes after that."
Cristiano gave a forced laugh. "Me? Who's expecting me?"
"Your teachers, your schoolmates..."
The car turned onto the highway.
Cristiano put his feet up on the dashboard. "What are you talking
about? They don't give a shit about me."
"You're wrong. I've talked to your Italian teacher and told her
what happened to your father. She's very sad and she hopes you'll
soon be back at school."
Cristiano shook his head, smiling. "The bitch ... Aren't people
just incredible!"
"What do you mean?"
Cristiano opened the window and then closed it again. "Oh,
never mind ... What's the point? You don't understand these
things..." But then he went on: "What did she say exactly? Tell
me, come on."
"That she was very sorry and that she hoped you would soon
be back at school."
"That's rich, when she's always telling me the best thing I can do
is to leave school as soon as possible! Why does she want me to go
back, then? I don't understand. And do you know what she said
about my father, in front of the whole class? Shall I tell you? She
said he's a good-for-nothing. Who the fuck is she to say my father's
a good-for-nothing? Does she know him? Are they friends? I don't
think so. She's a good-for-nothing herself. The bitch. How much
effort do you think it takes to say on the phone: "I'm terribly sorry,
I hope he'll soon be back at school?" None at all. Zero. Zilch. The
effort of moving your lips. I can just imagine how sorry she is that
my father's in a coma ... I bet she's crying her eyes out all day long.
That cow's just hoping he'll die. But she's going to be disappointed,
because my father's going to wake up...! I don't want to go to this
bloody funeral."
The social worker flicked his blinker and stopped in the emergency
lane, then he looked at Cristiano for a long while before speaking.
"Look, I don't understand this. Fabiana was a friend of yours."
"In the first place, who told you Fabiana Ponticelli was a friend
of mine? I hardly knew her. Friendship is something else. In the
second place, the only people at that funeral will be the ones who
go there to be seen, so that everyone will see how good they are.
Pretending to cry. It's all phoney. Nobody gives a shit about Fabiana
Ponticelli. Don't you realize that?"
"Listen, if your father dies will you be sorry?"
"What kind of a question is that? Of course I will."
"And will Quattro Formaggi be sorry?"
"Of course he will."
"And if Danilo was alive, wouldn't he be sorry?"
"Of course he would."
"What about me? Wouldn't I be sorry?"
Cristiano would have liked to say no, but he didn't have the heart.
"Yes ... I think you would."
"And won't Fabiana's parents be sorry that their daughter has
been beaten up, raped and murdered? Don't you think they'll be
sorry?"
"Yes."
"And her little brother, her relatives, her friends, and anyone who
has a heart, won't they be upset that an innocent little girl whose only mistake was to be late going home was killed like an animal
in a slaughterhouse?"
Cristiano said nothing.
"You've got your father vegetating in a hospital bed. Your friend
Danilo is dead because he got drunk and crashed into a wall. You
should be able to understand what it means to suffer and to be compassionate. Do you know what compassion is? To hear you talk I
wouldn't have thought so. You hate everybody. You're so full of
anger you're bursting. Cristiano, have you got a heart at all?"
"No. I've lost it..." was all he could say.
The voices of the television kept pounding away at the Carrion
Man's feverish brain. An incomprehensible mixture of music, news
bulletins, recipes, commercials. But in the middle of this jumble of
sounds one sentence succeeded in carving itself out some space and
becoming intelligible. "Now we are going to discuss the terrible
murder in the San Rocco woods with Professor Gianni Calcaterra,
the distinguished criminologist and presenter of the show Crime and
Punishment."
The Carrion Man slowly turned his head toward the television,
like a laboratory monkey on opium. He screwed up his eyes and
made a great effort to concentrate.
The screen showed two men sitting on white armchairs. One of
them, a skinny man, he knew: he was the guy who appeared on
Channel One every morning. The other was a fat man with a goatee
and long white hair who looked a bit like Danilo. He wore a gray
pinstriped suit and had an unlit pipe in his mouth.
"Well, Professor Calcaterra, what impression have you formed of
the murderer or murderers of poor Fabiana? By the way, in your
opinion, to judge from the first reconstructions, was the murder
committed by one person or by more than one?"
The professor looked thoroughly pissed off, as though he had
been dragged onto the show by force. "I'd like to make it clear that
given the small amount of evidence in my possession what I say has no scientific value, but is a mere conjecture made in order to help
the public understand."
"Absolutely. We'd like to stress that what the professor says has
no scientific value."
Professor Calcaterra grasped his pipe by the bowl and made a
disgusted face, as if he'd just eaten a still-warm turd. "The first thing
to say is that rape is always the result of a man's problematic relationship with his own sexuality."
The Carrion Man was convinced by now that this guy was Danilo
pretending to be Professor Calcaterra. If it wasn't him it must be a
close relative.
"Rape arises from a feeling of impotence and inadequacy with
respect to the world in general and the female universe in particular.
It is likely, in the case of Fabiana Ponticelli, that the rapist killed the
girl because he failed to get satisfaction during the rape..."
Calcaterra was interrupted by the presenter: "What you say is
really very, very interesting, professor, and certainly adds new perspectives to the understanding of this terrible murder that has
shocked the whole of Italy. It's a pity that we don't have much time
for talking about it. One last question, professor. Do you have any
new information on the case?"
"The search for the murderers of Fabiana Ponticelli is already
well advanced and the investigating magistrates and the police,
though they are not prepared to say so officially, seem moderately
optimistic about the possibility of finding the culprits in a very short
time. Somebody knows and will talk."
Darkness fell on the Carrion Man and a new, immense terror,
such as he had never known until that moment, took possession of
him. His brain was emptied of all thought and even the voices suddenly stopped.
He sat slumped in the armchair, panting and staring at the
ceiling.
Slowly there emerged from the darkness a thought, a name.
Rino.
Rino Zena.
He was the only person who could incriminate him. He was the
somebody who knew and who would talk. He saw Rino's arm rising
up and pointing at him.
But he must be dead by now. The Carrion Man had seen death
hovering near him.
But supposing death had come there for somebody else? A lot of
people die every day in a hospital.
He stood up and, swaying on his feet, picked up off the bedside
table the pistol he had taken from Rino in the wood and gripped
it tightly.
This time they wouldn't stop him.
They left the Puma in the car park of the sports club.
"What are all these doing here?" asked Cristiano, pointing to a
row of buses.