Authors: Niccolo Ammaniti
When he opened his eyes again he noticed that the list was signed
at the bottom by Massimiliano Marchetta.
He smiled.
Max Marchetta was sitting at his desk and talking on his cell phone,
arguing with the Vodafone call center.
He was having trouble in expressing his dissatisfaction owing to the
AZ Whitestrips which he had applied to his teeth and which had to
be left on for at least twenty minutes. "I just don't undershtand...I
keyed in the code but I got a different ringtone. And ish awful..."
He was a large young man of about thirty, with a dark complexion and small, turquoise eyes. Beneath his strawberry shaped
nose he had grown an impeccable D'Artagnan-style moustache, and
under his fleshy lips he had a goatee. His black hair was slicked
back with gel and reflected the neon lights on the ceiling. His hands
were freshly manicured.
Max Marchetta was particular about his appearance.
"A businessman must always be elegant, because elegance is synonymous with efficiency and reliability."
He couldn't remember whether this was a saying of some important person or a slogan from an advertisement. It didn't matter. They
were words of wisdom.
Usually he wore a tailor-made pinstriped suit with matching
waistcoat. That day, however, for a change, he was dressed in a
double-breasted blue blazer and a blue-and-white striped shirt with
a high, three-buttoned collar sealed by a dark tie with a knot as big
as your fist.
The operator's voice, in a strong Sardinian accent, asked him
which ringtone he wanted to download.
"`Toxic.' By Britney Shpearsh. The one that goes..." and he made
an attempt at humming the refrain.
The operator interrupted him. "No, I mean which code?"
Max Marchetta picked up the magazine and checked. "Four three
four one shix."
There was a moment's silence and then: "Number 43416 corresponds to "Era del cinghiale bianco", by Franco Battiato."
"What do you mean? Why does it shay in this magazhine that
`Toxic' is four three four one shix, then? Why does it shay that?"
"I don't know ... Maybe the magazine got it wrong..."
"Oh, they got it wrong, did they? And who's going to give me
back my three euros? Vodafone?" As he talked he sprayed out little
drops of foam.
The operator was caught off guard. "I hardly think it's Vodafone's
fault if the magazine printed the code wrongly."
"It's eashy to go around blaming other people! It's the Italiansh
national shport, isn't it? What do you people care if your clients
loshe their money? And your tone ish very offensive." Max picked
up his pen and held it against his diary. "What'sh your..."
He was on the point of demanding the operator's name to scare
the shit out of him, but suddenly he found himself up in the air.
The next moment he flew over the desk and crashed into a wall
covered with framed photographs. A second later a copy of his
degree certificate in Economics and Business Studies fell on his
head.
Max thought the gas tank must have exploded and that the shock
wave had hurled him out of his chair, but then he saw two paintspattered boots, and at that very moment two burly arms covered
with ugly tattoos lifted him up by his lapels and pinned him against
the wall like a poster.
He spat out all the air that he had in his body and, with his
diaphragm contracted, tried to breathe in but without success, and
made a sound like the gurgle of a blocked drain.
"You're short of air. A horrible feeling, isn't it? It's like the feeling
you get when you reach the end of the month and don't know where
the fuck you're going to find the money to pay your bills."
Max couldn't hear the voice. A jet engine was roaring in his ears
and all he could see was some streaks of light criss-crossing in front
of his eyes. Like when he had been small and there had been a firework display at Ferragosto. His mouth was open and a whitening
strip hung from his upper teeth.
If I don't breathe I'm going to die. That was the only thought
his brain was capable of formulating.
"Calm down. The more you struggle the less you'll breathe. Don't
be frightened, you're not going to die," the voice now advised him.
At last the contraction of his diaphragm eased, Max's rib cage
opened and a stream of air flowed down his windpipe and into his
lungs.
He brayed like a donkey in heat and gradually started breathing
again. And as his purple face returned to its natural color he noticed
that about twenty centimeters from his nose there was the smiling
face of a skinhead.
Then he recognized him. His anal sphincter contracted to the
diameter of a stick of macaroni.
It was Zena.
Rino Zena.
Rino Zena examined the terrified face of that pansy Max Marchetta.
His mustache had gone limp and looked like two rats' tails, his glistening, greasy quiff hung down over his forehead like a shed roof.
Rino couldn't make out what that piece of cellophane was that
was hanging from his teeth.
He continued to hold him pinned to the wall with his left arm.
"Please ... Please ... I haven't done anything to you ..." whimpered Marchetta desperately, waving his arms like a disco dancer.
"Well, I'm going to do something to you." Rino raised his right
arm and closed his fist. He took aim at the nose, anticipating the
pleasure of hearing the septal cartilage crunch under his knuckles.
But his fist remained suspended in the air.
Right next to that terror-stricken face hung a photograph. It had
been taken in open country, on a windy day. The reeds with their
plumes were bent over to one side. The sky was streaked with wispy
clouds. In the center was old Marchetta, in his younger days. He
was short and round-faced. He was wearing a heavy, ankle-length
overcoat, and holding his cloth cap down on his head with one
hand and clasping his walking stick in the other. Around him stood
five workmen in blue overalls. In a corner, slightly to one side, was
Rino, sitting on the wheel of a tractor. He was thin and gaunt. At
his feet sat Ritz, Marchetta's fox terrier. A thick pipe came out of
the ground and ran across the field. Everyone was looking at the
camera lens with very solemn expressions on their faces. Including
the dog.
Still holding Max Marchetta fast, Rino grasped the picture and
lifted it off its hook.
In one corner was the date 1988. Nearly twenty years had passed.
Such a long time.
Then Rino looked again at the young businessman who stood
there motionless, with his eyes screwed up and his arms in front of
his face, whispering: "Mercy. Mercy. Mercy."
So this was the new owner of Euroedil. A guy who spent his days
waxing his chest and looking at himself in the mirror at the gym and who as soon as anyone raised their fists started begging for
mercy.
He grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hurled him on the
sofa.
Max Marchetta opened his eyes slowly, with the expression of a
lobster that has been dangled over a cauldron of boiling water and
then, by some inscrutable decree of fate, put back in the fishtank.
In the chair, on the other side of the desk, sat Rino. He had
lit a cigarette and was looking straight through him as though he
was facing a ghost. He was holding the photo. A very, very
unpleasant feeling was forming inside Max Marchetta. He was
going to remember this day for a long time, if he was still capable
of remembering.
Zena had gone mad and was dangerous. How often had he read
in the news about workers running amok and murdering their
bosses? A few months earlier near Cuneo some workers had set fire
to a young textile entrepreneur in the parking lot of his factory.
He peeked at the cigarette in Zena's mouth.
I don't want to be burned to death.
"Look at this photograph." The psychopath tossed the plexiglass
frame over to him. Max caught it. He looked at it and then sat
motionless.
Rino Zena leaned back in his chair and focused on a corner of the
ceiling. "Eighteen years ago. A fucking eternity. I'm the thin one
on the right. Sitting on the tractor. I still had a good head of hair
then. Do you know how long it took us to build that water pipe?
Three weeks. It was my first real job. One of those where you turn
up at five in the morning and go home at dusk. On the twenty eighth we'd get our paycheck. Your father would hand one to each
worker and every time he'd crack the same old joke: "I'm paying
you this month; I don't know if I will next month." In hindsight
it wasn't so very funny. But you could bet your life he would say
those words. Just as you could bet your life you'd get your money
on the twenty-eighth, even if the Third World War had broken out
that very same day. Do you see that workman there, the shortest
one? His name was Enrico Sartoretti; he died ten years ago. Lung
cancer. Two months and he was gone. It was him who introduced
me to your father. In those days there was only the shed where the
changing rooms are now. And your father worked in a sort of glass
booth. But you must remember that. I used to see you sometimes.
You used to turn up in a red sports car. We must be about the same
age, you and me. Anyway, to cut a long story short, your father
took me on a trial basis the very day they started building the pipe
that took the water out of the river and carried it to the power
station. Twenty days to finish it. And there were six of us. In all
my life I don't think I've ever worked so hard as I did in those
three weeks. On the last day we worked till four in the morning.
And fuck me if we didn't finish on time."
What the hell has got into me? Rino asked himself. Why was
he telling that son of a bitch all these things? And yet he felt that
it was doing him good. He picked up a paperweight made from
an old brick faced with a brass plaque, and turned it over in his
hands.
"Your father cared about his workers. I don't mean he was like
a father to us or any of that crap. If you didn't do your job properly you were out on your ear. No two ways about it. But if you
didn't complain and you worked hard, he respected you. If there
was work, you could be sure he'd call you.
"One Christmas he turned up with panettoni and bottles of
spumante and gave one to every other workman but none to me. I
was upset. Then I thought I must have fucked something up and
that he was angry with me. That job was important; if he sacked
me I was in the shit. He called me into his office and said: "Did
you see that? No panettone for you." I asked him if I'd done something wrong and he looked at me and said, yes I bloody well hadI'd brought a son into the world without having the wherewithal to give him a decent life. I told him it was none of his business. He
was beginning to break my balls. Who did he think he was to pass
judgement on my life?
"But he burst out laughing. `Are you planning to bring him up
in some ramshackle hut? The first thing is a house; everything else
comes afterward.' And he told me to look out of the window. Well,
there was nothing outside but a truck loaded with bricks. I didn't
understand. `You see those bricks?' he said, `They're for you. They
were left over from the last job. If you use them sparingly you might
even get two floors out of them.' And using those bricks, working
on weekends, I built my house." Rino continued to turn the brick
over in his hands. "They were just like this one here. I don't expect
your father has ever told you that story; he's not the type. And when
the phone calls started getting less frequent I realized Euroedil must
be in trouble. There are more building firms around now than there
are dog turds. The last time I saw him was about six months ago,
in the little park near Corso Vittorio. He was on a bench. His head
was nodding and his hands were shaking. There was a Filipino who
treated him like a baby. He didn't recognize me. I had to repeat my
name three times. But in the end he understood. He smiled. And do
you know what he said to me? He said there was no need to worry,
you were there now. And Euroedil was in good hands. Can you
believe that? In good hands."
Rino slammed the brick on the table, splitting it in two, and Max
Marchetta shrank even further back into the huge black leather
armchair.
"You're a lucky man, you know. If I hadn't seen that photograph you'd be in an ambulance by this time, believe you me.
But you got away with it, as you always will, because the world
is made for people like you." Rino smiled. "The world is made
to measure for second-rate poeple. You're clever. You take the
black slaves and those bastards from the East and you pay them
peanuts. And they put up with it. Hunger's an ugly beast. And
what about the guys who've worked their asses off for this firm?
Screw them. You don't even waste a phone call on them. The
truth is, you've got no respect for those sons of bitches who come
to steal the bread from our mouths, or for us, or even for yourself. Look at you, you're a clown ... A clown dressed up as a manager. If I'm not going to break every bone in your body it's
only out of respect for your father. In the end, you see, it all
comes down to respect."
Rino got up from the chair, opened the door and left the office.
It took Max Marchetta about two minutes to get over the fright.
His behavior in such situations was much the same as that of a sardine. After an attack, if it manages to survive, a sardine starts swimming around again just as energetically as before.
Max stood up, smoothed down his suit with his fingers and
straightened his hair. His hands were still shaking and his armpits
felt as cold as if they had ice cubes under them.
He took a deep breath and wondered if the whitening strip he had
swallowed when he had been rammed against the wall would be bad
for his stomach. Should he call his dentist? Or a gastro-enterologist?