Some time later, while she and Astor were in the farmyard, three crows landed on the balcony outside their mother’s bedroom. Perched in a row on the railing, they croaked like self-satisfied gravediggers.
Anna picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at them. ‘Go away, you bastards.’ The three ugly birds hopped down and went haughtily into the house.
She ran upstairs, fetched the key and opened the door. A sickly stench hit her. She clasped her hand over her mouth, but the smell had entered her throat. The three crows were hopping over the corpse, tearing strips of skin off the legs with their beaks. She shooed them away, but they took their time before flying off, looking rather resentful.
It was impossible not to look at her.
Mama was dead, there was no doubt about it. Her skin was mainly yellow, like washing soap, or dark red in the parts where the body touched the mattress. Her features had disappeared into a rubbery mask, the mouth a yellow doughnut, the nose sunken between the eyelids. Her neck, rippling with green veins, had engulfed her mouth.
Anna left the room sobbing, and swearing she’d never open the door again until the hundred days had gone by.
As predicted in the exercise book, the smell became unbearable. Anna moved into the toolshed annex with her little brother, only returning to the house, with a cloth over her face, to replenish their stock of food.
The days passed slowly in an interminable summer, and the shed’s corrugated iron roof became scalding hot. They took to sleeping in the porch or on the back seat of the Mercedes. Every morning Anna would open the exercise book, cross out one bar and have a fleeting glance at the bedroom window. The wind billowed the curtains, white like sails.
She knew there was only a corpse in there, yet she would dream she saw her mother come out onto the balcony, stretch, then rest her elbows on the railing. ‘Morning, children. Up already?’
‘Yes, Mama.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Playing.’
Sometimes she’d manage for weeks on end to put crosses in the exercise book, prepare meals, dig holes to put shit in and gaze at the stars through the rear window of the Mercedes, without thinking about her too much. Then something nice would happen and she’d blurt out: ‘Mama, look …’ And a white-hot blade would go straight through her heart.
When the ninety-ninth day came, she decided to spend it in the car.
Throughout the day an autumn breeze had been shaking the treetops. She and her brother had huddled under a blanket. Anna was just longing for the moment when she could open that door. Everything would be so much better once Mama had been buried.
Sleep came suddenly and, overcome by the tension, she collapsed beside her brother. Some time later she opened her eyes. The wind had dropped and the moon was a perfect ring in the black sky. No haze blurred its outline. Not a sound came from the woods, not even the hooting of owls. All at once she seemed to hear something – a faint noise, an icy shudder, perhaps a sigh. She sat up, digging her fingers into the seat cushion. Through the side window she thought she saw a shadow come down the porch steps and pass by her, as light as a feather. It moved on down the drive and faded into the trees, as though the wood had been waiting for it.
The next morning Anna marked the last cross in the exercise book and said to Astor: ‘Now stay here, keep quiet and don’t be a nuisance.’ She entered the house, fetched the long rope she’d set aside for this occasion and went upstairs. The smell of decay had gone, or perhaps was now such an integral part of the house it no longer bothered her. Walking hesitantly along the dark corridor, she took a deep breath and went in.
The floor was covered with leaves, but nothing else had changed. The desk with the computer on it, the bookcase crammed with books, the poster of the ballerina, the bedside tables crowded with medicines, the radio alarm – they were all still there. On the bed lay a shrivelled corpse. The swelling had gone down, the skin had retracted onto the bones and was now covered with blackish mould. The head had shrunk and tapered.
Anna felt neither fear nor disgust. That thing there wasn’t her mother. At the sight of those remains, she sensed that life is just a long succession of periods of waiting – sometimes so short you’re not even aware of them, sometimes so long they seem endless. But with or without patience they all have an end.
Mama had died at the end of her illness, and now, a hundred days later, her body was light and could be buried. Astor, who now drove her crazy with his tantrums, would stop doing so when he grew older. It was just a question of waiting.
She tied the rope round her mother’s ankle and pulled hard. The corpse, being stuck to the sheets, put up some resistance, then fell on the floor. Without another backward glance she dragged it along the corridor, down the stairs and across the sitting room. The body swung from side to side, and finally latched onto the jamb of the front door, as though not wanting to leave the house, but with another tug found itself ploughing across the yard. The little girl pulled it through the dust, then through the leaves of the wood. Behind the bramble-covered ruins of the pigsty rose the green dome of a fig tree. Under its vault there was a small quiet world. Mama would be happy here; it was shady in summer, and in winter you could see the sky. The stones were there, ready. She arranged the corpse beside the trunk. Fallen fruit formed a brown layer on the ground, where wasps and ants were feasting.
Anna picked up a stone and put it on her mother’s chest. Then she stopped. Even if she covered her with stones the insects would soon strip the flesh off, and in a few weeks there’d be nothing left but bones.
Why not let the ants deal with Mama? Bones can be kept indoors; they don’t smell. Mama would be able to go back to her bedroom and lie on her bed, with her things and her children around her. Anna would put her back together again with the help of the illustrations in the encyclopaedia.
She brought some jam from the boxes in the larder and spread it over the body, saying: ‘There you are, ants. That’ll make it tastier for you. Come on … tuck in … it’s delicious. Clean it up … every single crumb …’
*
Within a month the insects had done their job. There were still a few scraps of dried flesh on the bones, but Anna didn’t let that discourage her. Carrying them all to the bedroom, she sat down cross-legged and scraped them clean with the tip of a screwdriver. After that, she thought it would be a nice idea to draw lines, rings and other tiny geometrical figures on them with a black felt-tip pen. Then she laid them out on the bed and reassembled the skeleton.
Astor would do the same with her when her time came.
*
Anna had fallen into an unthinking stupor. She felt as if she was walking along a road that flowed in the opposite direction. The pursuit, then the nightmare, and finally lack of sleep had left her drained, and now, like a beast of burden, she was enjoying the cool breeze, the silence and the warm rays of the sun, pulsing in the clear sky. So she was a little slow in noticing the bell, and it was only when she heard a voice behind her shouting: ‘Out of the way! Out of the way! Look out!’ that she awoke from her reverie. Turning round, she saw a bicycle coming straight at her.
She jumped up onto a low wall just in time to avoid being flattened by a boy in a cowboy hat riding an orange mountain bike.
The cyclist went past her, squeezing the brakes, which screeched, but the bike didn’t slow down, so he jammed his feet on the ground just in time to avoid crashing into a lamp post. He dropped the bike on the road. ‘These brakes are useless.’ He shook his head and turned round. ‘Are you deaf?’
Anna didn’t reply.
The boy came towards her. ‘I nearly ran you over.’
He seemed about the same age as Anna, but stood some ten centimetres taller than her, and that funny hat made him look like a mushroom. He was tall and thin, with a suntanned face and two mischievous hazel eyes.
What was going on? For the past year the plain had been deserted, but in the last two days she’d come across the blue and white chi
ldren and now this boy.
Anna stepped down off the wall and walked on.
The cyclist followed. ‘Wait a minute.’
Anna continued to walk, feeling the boy’s eyes on her. She turned round and snapped: ‘What do you want?’
‘Look, there’s no need to be scared of me.’
Anna saw the adult features emerging from the childish face and thought he might grow into a handsome man.
‘I’m not scared; I’m in a hurry.’
He overtook her and barred her way. ‘If you’re on your way to the party, you’re wasting your time. It’s all bullshit.’
Anna put her hands on her hips. ‘What party?’
‘At the Grand Spa Hotel. People from all over Sicily are going there. They’re going to burn the Little Lady.’
‘Why are they going to do that?’
‘So they can eat the ashes. It’s said to cure the Red Fever.’
Anna smiled. Michelini’s story had been that you had to French-kiss her.
‘I’ve been there and I’ve never seen the Little Lady,’ the boy went on. He doffed his hat in a chivalrous gesture and introduced himself. ‘My name’s Pietro Serra. What’s yours?’
‘Anna.’
Smoothie. She remembered the word her mother used to use when she went to the newsagent’s kiosk and the owner eyed her like she was a chocolate just waiting to be unwrapped.
Better cut across the fields to get rid of him. ‘Well, I’m off.’ She’d only gone a few metres when she heard the bell ringing and the brakes screeching again.
He stopped alongside her. ‘Would you give me some water, please, Anna?’
Sticking out of a bag strapped to the bicycle’s luggage rack was the neck of a bottle. ‘What about that?’
‘That …’ Pietro improvised, ‘isn’t as good as yours.’
Anna burst out laughing. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I just do.’ He reached for the rucksack. ‘Go on, just one swig …’
She stepped aside. ‘No! I said no!’
‘If you let me have some of your water, I’ll give you a ride.’
This cocky boy was unnerving. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel ill at ease. ‘Two people can’t ride on one bike.’
‘Who says they can’t? You can sit here, on the crossbar.’
Anna hesitated for a moment before replying: ‘I don’t like bikes. Anyway, I don’t want to ride on one with you.’
‘See? You are scared!’
Anna clenched her fists in irritation. ‘I’m not scared, it’s just that …’
‘… you’re in a hurry,’ Pietro finished her sentence for her.
The two of them looked at each other, without finding anything else to add.
The girl broke the silence. ‘Well, goodbye, then.’
‘Goodbye, Anna.’
*
Anna, with the cowboy hat on her head, screamed as she clung onto the bicycle’s handlebars. The wind streamed over her face, and her eyes were watering, as they used to do when she stuck her head out of her father’s Mercedes.
Pietro was pedalling flat out. ‘Well? Do you like it?’
They were racing along, squeezed against each other, on a narrow road that cut across the fields as straight as a ruler. Lamp posts and prickly pears flashed by on either side.
‘Yes,’ said Anna, though the crossbar was cutting into her buttocks and she was terrified of falling off. Every time Pietro’s arms touched her, she flinched and wanted to move away, but didn’t.
Pietro went into a bend without slowing down. Anna screamed and shut her eyes. When she opened them again, she was safe. ‘Go slowly round the bends. Faster on the straight bits, though.’
‘Faster than this?’ panted the boy, his forehead glistening with sweat. ‘Where do you want me to take you?’
‘Torre Normanna. Do you know where it is?’
‘Yes, but can I go a bit slower? This is killing me. I thought you didn’t like cycling.’
‘I like the wind in my face.’
‘Have you ever been on a motorbike? You really do feel the wind then. If you open your mouth, it blows out your cheeks.’
‘I rode on a Vespa with Salvo, the boy who used to deliver our shopping.’
‘My father used to have a Laverda Jota.’ Pietro gazed into the distance, shaking his head. ‘It was orange, like this bike. Some day I’ll find one that works. And I’ll ride on it.’
‘Oh yeah …’Anna burst out into one of her deep-throated laughs.
But he was sure of it. ‘I will, you know.’
They went the rest of the way in silence. The ruins of Torre Normanna grew bigger with each turn of the pedals. They raced past wrecks of crashed cars, melted rubbish bins, the remains of a bar with a sign that said: ‘Takeaway hot arancini.’
Anna had the impression that he was pressing too close against her, but she didn’t actually dislike it. In the end she kept still, with his chest brushing against her back.
Pietro stopped by the village sign. ‘Is this a good place to drop you?’
‘Yes.’ Anna jumped off the bike, rubbing her sore behind. She untied the rucksack from the luggage rack and gave him back his hat. ‘Thanks. Well … goodbye, then.’
Pietro smiled and raised his hand. ‘Goodbye.’
They said ‘goodbye’ twenty more times, but when she’d taken a dozen steps he called after her: ‘Anna!’
He wants a kiss.
She turned round. ‘Yes?’
Pietro had taken out of his jacket pocket a crumpled page from a magazine, folded in four. ‘Have you ever seen these?’
In the middle of the page, circled by a red felt-tip pen, was a faded photograph of a pair of yellow suede trainers with three black stripes: ‘Adidas Hamburg, 95 euros’. Next to it were some smaller photographs. The headline of the article was ‘The Great Vintage Sportswear Revival’.
She looked up. ‘The ones with the ring round them?’
‘Yes. Have you ever seen them? Think carefully.’
‘I don’t think so.’ She looked at her own filthy trainers.
‘Are you quite sure?’
Anna didn’t see the point of all this. He must have a thing about shoes. Strange – the walking boots he was wearing were battered and shapeless. ‘Are you really keen on them?’
Pietro hesitated for a moment, as if reluctant to admit it, then said: ‘Yes. I’ve been searching for them for ages.’
Anna looked at him dubiously, then said: ‘Well, good luck then.’
Pietro kicked a stone. ‘Listen … have you got the Red Fever yet?’
‘No. Goodbye.’ And she went off.
Pietro watched her walk away. ‘Neither have I,’ he shouted.
*
‘All the people I meet are crazy.’ Anna was talking to herself as she hurried along the path towards home. ‘A boy who spends his time searching for a pair of shoes … and ugly ones at that.’
She thought about the party again. Did the Little Lady really exist? There were lots of stupid stories about how to be cured of the Red Fever. Many kids were convinced that a certain number of Grown-ups had survived the epidemic, that there were still some alive across the sea, in Calabria. They were hiding in underground shelters; all you had to do was find them and you’d be cured. Others believed you had to dive underwater with a hen and stay down till it died; you recovered because you transferred the virus to the hen. Some thought the thing to do was to mix food with sand, or go up onto a mountain near Catania which sprouted clouds. There were lots of stories of that kind. All Anna knew was that she’d seen thousands of Grown-ups reduced to heaps of bones and had never met any living person older than fourteen.
*
She went straight into the kitchen, took a jar of peeled tomatoes off the table, opened it with the knife, hooked out a dripping tomato with two fingers and popped it into her mouth, shouting: ‘Astor, I’m back. Everything okay?’
She ate some old biscuits, which tasted of
mould, then poured the oily remains of a can of tuna into the jar of tomatoes and drank the sauce, beginning to sweat. Outside the day was cool, but indoors the old stone walls retained the heat. She drank half a bottle of water. ‘I found the antibiotics!’ Taking another tomato from the jar, she crossed the living room.
There was a white chair by the stairs, with a broken leg. ‘Oh no! You’ve broken Mama’s chair.’ She went upstairs, her face red with sauce, and walked along the landing. ‘Hey! Did you hear me say I’m back?’
Everything was on the floor. The book of fairy tales lay in a pool of water. Shaking her head, she picked it up and put it on the bedside table.
Every time she left him alone, Astor did something stupid. But this time he’d gone too far; he was going to catch it. He seemed to do it on purpose, to punish her.
She looked down from the balcony, called him twice, then went back inside. If he’d gone outside, it meant he was feeling better.
Her hunger still wasn’t sated. A jar of peas wouldn’t be bad. She started down the stairs, musing about the boy on the bike. Where would he have gone? Perhaps he’d stayed in Torre Normanna.
A beam of sunlight shone between the pieces of cardboard stuck to a window, painting a strip of light on the steps, a ball of blankets and a red cap. She picked the cap up. On the peak was the word ‘Nutella’. She turned it over in her hands and held it up to her nose.
She remembered Michelini’s body sprawled by the roadside. The hands clutching weeds, the straddled legs, the back of his head …
She had a flashback to the blues walking off down the road, the tall girl with the red cap on her head …
Her heart started thumping. She walked on down the stairs, the blood throbbing in her eardrums. It was as if she’d never had to cope with a stairway before. It seemed to be swaying.
She went out into the porch. With one hand she screened the sun, which was expanding and shrinking in the centre of the cloudy sky. ‘Ast— Ast— Astor.’ She tried to call her brother, but her lungs were empty. The acid taste of tomato returned to her mouth. She restrained the impulse to throw up and found enough breath to say: ‘Astor … Astor … Astor …’