End of the world...
"Because life is a thrill that flies away, it's all a balance above the madness..."
("Sally", Vasco Rossi)
I must not say a word. I must not say a word. I have to pretend that nothing happened, that I don’t care, that I don’t have hard feelings, that they cannot scare me, that I will not let them delete me. Eleonora was repeating this to herself, the morning after the threats, resignedly going to school. She had opted for silence and a submissive behaviour, wearing innocent-looking jeans and an anonymous blue sweatshirt. In her heart she hoped that this tendency to become invisible would convince the two terrible girls to leave her alone. Not that she had much hope, though. The words of Silvia and Deborah still rang in her ears. She still saw them in the street, threatening, aggressive. Hard to believe they would surrender. There was something about them that went beyond rational and she just could not understand what they had against her. It couldn’t be just because she was admittedly a "swot". Did they hate her because she was beautiful, rich, or just because she came from Milan? Or perhaps, more simply, did they feel allowed to torture her because she was alone, without friends, without anyone who could defend her?
And as she walked, step by step, anger was rising in her again. Anger was a feeling she had never felt before, which left her helpless and weaker. She felt disoriented and even cowardly, as if in moving from Milan to Rome she had lost her physical and moral strength, her ability to react and respond in kind. She badly wanted to run away, go back home, get back under the covers and sleep. Her mood was walking at the same speed of her feet. The initial anger had turned into addiction, weakness, cowardice, and finally became forgetfulness, inability, pain. The thousand Eleonora who were in her marched towards the Marco Polo high with the devastating fragility of the fifteen years. She felt like she had been deported to a foreign land. Yet, she liked what she saw around her.
She felt in the air the delicate aroma of the city waking up, at that time in which Rome was a fair lady, still unaware of the chaos that would cross it during the day. The limited traffic, the voices of transporters, the confident children, hand in hand with their parents, the colourful backpacks, the dogs moving proudly as if they were the real masters of the city, the bowls for kittens ostentatiously left on sidewalks by anonymous kind animal lovers. Here, Rome must necessarily be something more than Marco Polo high. For once, she would have liked to change course, forget about school and things to do and jump on a bus – any bus – and venture in the capital like a metropolitan Indiana Jones discovering hidden beauties. She would program a song of Blasco in her iPod, something like "Sally", and hum happily that "life is a thrill that flies away, it's all a balance above the madness..."
But no, she was already in Borgo Pio, with its separate world. The narrow alleys, the cobblestones and the dreary palace of horrors, the court of miracles that awaited her.
The Marco Polo high was harboured in an elegant two-story building that, until a few years ago, had hosted the Saint Peter hotel, a small hotel very popular with tourists both for its location and for the contained price. The facility, closed overnight for the failure of the English-Italian company that had been running it, had been turned in record time into a school to house the section E of a famous school in the capital, that needed restoration works. According to the initial project, upon completion of the work, the students would be moved back to the illustrious high school on the Lungotevere, and the building would become the youth hostel that Rome badly needed. Facts, however, had taken a different turn. The branch had become a popular destination for parents and children for its human dimension, so much so that now no one wanted to go back to the main school. Indeed, a waiting list for new enrolments had formed. The principal, Paola Maresco, called the Marco Polo "my jewel", and when she wanted to find a moment of peace she sheltered there. She was a lively lady, always elegantly dressed, with a tiny physique, a kind smile. She used to wear her gray, short hair with a well-kept fringe that she deliberately left white, which highlighted her curious eyes. Over the years, however, her expression of career woman had lost intensity, as well as the passion that – early in her career – had led her to throw herself heart and soul into work. She had become convinced that teachers had no future, that school was a dead institution, and she had hung her head, she had adapted. Now she stood looking the nothingness that reigned in the classrooms, counting the time left before her retirement, indifferent, more accustomed to say "I obey" than to take initiatives.
Eleonora didn’t esteem her. She thought she was more interested in chasing the hairdresser for her perfect dye than her students. She wasn’t the right person to trust with the problems she had to face daily with Silvia and Deborah, but in lack of anyone better – she repeated herself – she could tell her about the harassments she had been subjected to, and hope for her to take a definitive position in her favour. There was another person from whom maybe she might seek advice before going into the classroom: Lavinia, the young lady who ran the little shop of fair trade opposite the school. Lavinia knew how to deal with teenagers. She was a beautiful girl with hair dyed of an orange hue, long nails varnished in black and an infectious laugh that attracted customers. She was always on first name terms with anyone, and she was particularly kind to the guys of the school, as if she were their older sister.
"Are you new?" she had asked Eleonora the first time she had entered her temple, driven by the need to escape the petulant mass gathered outside the school, "I've never seen you before... yet by now I know you all."
"I come from Milan, I moved recently", Eleonora had repeated wearily, having learned that litany by heart.
"Milan, how beautiful, I remember it with nostalgia. You know? I lived there two years. It is very different from Rome, you have to understand it. I loved that kind of apparent calm, the greyness of the sky, the frantic and distant people, all well dressed and efficient... and then I had a boyfriend, you know... a crazy Milanese. Enrico, the cyclist. I called him so because he used to ride his bicycle for hours and hours, and he supported Inter like a man possessed. He went to the stadium every Sunday, he even followed the team for away matches. I don’t quite know what we had in common, he and I", and at that she had laughed, throwing her head back, as if struck by a sudden thought, "maybe just health consciousness. Enrico was so sweet... look what you made me remember. Enrico had nothing to do with me, but I liked him. Hmm, how I liked him. It's been a while. Want a ginger biscuit?"
Eleonora had said yes, watching the girl with undisguised curiosity while she held out a glass jar full of biscuits, and meanwhile let go a burst of words. The flavour of ginger slipped into her like a gentle caress, as she lingered there, asking questions and admiring little mother of pearl rings and cloth necklaces. She had bought one of the latter, because its bright colours - ranging from red to orange to yellow to red again – reminded her of summer. She had never been able to wear it, though, as it did not fit her style. Lavinia too, with her extravagant hair, her clusters of silver earrings and her gypsy-like clothes, was very different from her, but Eleonora had returned often to visit her in her shop, because there she felt at home. But that morning, the day after the threats, the shop shutters were still dramatically closed. Eleonora felt abandoned once again by the events and concluded that there was no escape. She had to meet her enemies.
She climbed the stairs with her heart pounding and went into the classroom, gathering all her strengths, with small, bold steps. She sat at the desk, slowly pulled out her notebooks and her colourful pencil box. She loved to put them in meticulous order, without looking up. After all she had nothing to fantasize about. She could feel the eyes of Silvia and Deborah on her skin, piercing her neck. She could feel the hatred of the predator, even the fear. Now she was running the show, she, with her moods, was dictating the rules. She could denounce then, tell the teachers of their conversation. Someone would intervene, the game would come to an end, temporarily giving her an advantage, but Eleonor
a knew perfectly well that winning a battle was not enough to win the war. They would find another way to hurt her. Now she was shaking, terrified. She felt like she was just a moving target, a girl condemned to death, waiting to see how it will come. In the classroom, no one had noticed her tension, with the exception of Luca, who was also her only classmate who spoke to her.
"Can I sit next to you? You're always alone...", he had said, moving the chair with a sudden gesture and sitting down without waiting for a reply, his backpack, pens and even a motorcycle helmet going under the desk. Surprised, Eleonora had nodded and she had felt protected. Eventually, a smile had even escaped her. She was imagining the surprise and resentment painted in the eyes of Silvia and Deborah. She liked Luca because he was simple and direct. Clean. Well-bred. For some time she had been noticing she was the object of his attentions, but she felt she could never feel for him the same emotions that Marco aroused in her. It wasn’t a sensation under her skin, butterflies in her stomach, a vortex that sucked her in. Luca suggested her a different feeling, partly dictated from maternal instinct, partly by rationality, perhaps even empathy. Her new friend was very similar to her, different from others, he too a possible target of the two crazies. Luca was of Moroccan origins, his skin dark but not too much. He had been born and raised in the capital by foreign parents. He spoke Roman dialect splendidly and dreamed of becoming the goalkeeper of the Italian national football team.
"So, would you like to come to the game next Sunday? I play on the back of my house."
"I don’t know. We’ll see. It depends on my parents... if they let me out!"
"We play at three, at five you’ll be back home. Sure they can’t wall you alive. On Sundays we party, and mom makes very good desserts. If you can’t come, don’t worry. I’ll bring some to school so you can taste them. You’re gonna lick your chops."
"Luca, I don’t know, we'll see..."
Eleonora was answering absently, watching from the corner of an eye her two enemies, who were doing the same from the other side of the classroom. From bench to bench. Insistently.
"I'll pick you up. I'm a good boy, I swear. I will even take you back home."
"Okay, okay. Provided my father agrees, though. And now let’s be silent, Mrs. Boschi’s coming in."
The morning passed quickly. In the end, going home at lunchtime, in the midst of hurrying passersby and students of Catholic teaching on leave on the cobblestones of Borgo Pio, Eleonora thought that she had exaggerated, that she had worried unnecessarily. Silvia and Deborah, since the sound of the bell, had begun to ignore her as if they didn’t even know her. They had made themselves invisible. Leaving the school, they had walked away without even a glance. So, the threats of the previous day would not be repeated. At least for now.
"They must have resigned", she immediately wrote to Chicca, who answered with a terse, "Be careful anyway. Don’t trust them."
Eleonora quickly changed topic. She wanted to convince herself that she had worried unnecessarily, and basked in the conversation with her friend. The hours she spent chatting with her favourite confidante, or rather with her only confidante, were the best of her days in Rome. Had she been in Milan, she would have gone straight at Chicca’s. In Rome, instead, she had to live in that precarious balance of moods and situations, studying and talking to the computer as if it were a person in flesh and bones. She had to go on, she repeated. Going on meant putting a good face on things, attending with enthusiasm the dance class, keeping studying with passion. After all, for everyone in class she was simply the swot, and nobody, except for Luca, wanted anything to do with her. Provided that they leave her alone – Eleonora thought – she could live in that forced monastic seclusion, made of books and solitude.
For some days she lived in that blessed limbo, looking over her shoulder but without much anxiety. The presence of Luca by her side shielded her from the general indifference, and Silvia and Deborah kept ignoring her. The situation, however, came to a head again after the class-exercise in Italian. It was an essay concerning the expectations of adolescence, and the one written by Eleonora was rated the best by Mrs. Boschi. The professor was so enthusiastic that she read a passage from it during the lesson, deliberately ignoring the envy it could trigger in the pupils. She hadn’t met a talented student – or at least one seriously willing to learn – in years, and it seemed to her that she could start again to teach something in earnest. Or rather she hoped that the dedication to the study of Eleonora, her commitment, could inspire others to change their behaviour.
"I am only fifteen, but already I see myself projected in adulthood and dream of being eighteen, twenty, to know what will happen tomorrow, where I will take my dreams and whether I will manage to preserve my values and expectations. Whether I will remain a clean person, or how I will lose all the pieces of my current innocence. I think this is the meaning of adolescence: waiting and building. Waiting for what will be, if only for the trivial curiosity to know how many inches taller we will become. And building the palace in which we will live as adults, with its foundations, that is the goods we start to put aside, like study , friendships, values. I want to be in a solid building, full of sunshine and with lots of windows that open onto the world every day. "
At this point, Mrs. Boschi stopped, put the sheet on the desk and, looking around, asked her stunned students: "So, does this sentence makes you think of anything?"
There was only a moment of awkward silence.
"Eleonora is right. We are all here to build our future. I never thought about it, but we do it every day. For example, when I play football and dream of being the best. If I didn’t train, I could never compete with others. I'm building my palace."
When Luca spoke in the classroom he sported a perfect Italian and Mrs. Boschi also appreciated this effort.
"I see that since Eleonora arrived you are making progresses too, Luca. I am very proud of you two this year."
But Luca was the only one to comment on the issue. The others remained motionless, watching Eleonora.
"Well done Milanese. Mrs. Boschi was not enough, now you want to fuck even Morocco."
This time Silvia and Deborah had been waiting in the middle of the street: they appeared in front of her while she was walking, distracted by a thousand thoughts. Eleonora was happy for the appreciation of the teacher, but she would have preferred to receive a more discreet one, maybe apart from the class. Since she had arrived at Marco Polo high, she had changed. A sort of Copernican revolution had turned her into a fragile and insecure girl. She no longer loved compliments, she did not know how to live them and especially feared the wrath of her classmates. She sprang back when they faced her. For a moment, blood stopped flowing in her body. She froze in fear, eyes fixed on their anxious faces. They stood there, like two angry bitches, in front of her, legs apart. Silvia was carrying a yellow toy gun that she pointed at her.
"Come on. I'll kill you off, swot that you are. Don’t kid with me."
Eleonora sighed, she was afraid, but at the same time she felt ridiculous to be frightened by two classmates with a plastic gun. Once she found the strength to speak, she thought she had to react. She was within walking distance from home, in a busy street. Nothing could happen to her.
"Listen to me, you just got on my nerves. I don’t do anything wrong, I try to study and graduate as soon as possible because I want to leave Rome and find a job. I really don’t do anything wrong, I have not even reported you for last time."
"And you did well. You know all too well that your life would have become hell."
Now it was Deborah talking. She had a pair of scissors in hand, perhaps pulled out from her jacket pocket, and was waving them menacingly in the air.
Eleonora started to back away, terrified.
"What’s coming over you? What do you want from me?"
Silvia had grabbed one of her arms, boldly, with the strength that only anorexic girls have.
"Come on. We told you that you would pay."
Eleonora, frightened, was unable to shake off, and instinctively raised her right hand to protect her face.
"You two are crazy, completely crazy."
Deborah grabbed her free hand and pushed it down with a sharp, determined gesture, gripping her wrist with strength. Laughing, she passed it to Silvia, who now held her securely captive, brazenly blocking both of her arms, while she was trying with all the strength in her body to escape.
"Let me go, let me go."
Deborah took a lock of hair between her fingers. She kept laughing.
"See how soft it is", she said, slightly pulling her hair, "it’s too good for you, so red, so well cared for, you really don’t deserve it."
"You are crazy. What are you doing? What are you doing? Help. Help."
Eleonora tried to wriggle away, but before she could say anything more, Deborah fumbled with the scissors and cut the lock of hair. A sudden and determined gesture. Only then Silvia let her wrists go. Eleonora jumped back, close to tears.
"A bit a day we will pull it all off, sweet pussy."
They looked at her smugly. Deborah was waving her lock back and forth, with an amused expression. The girl, terrified and at the same time swollen with rage, had put a safe distance between her and them.
"You are crazy, crazy."
"Come on, bitch. Consider it the last warning."
For a moment Eleonora wanted to reach and beat them, but she knew she would get the worst of it. She looked away and ran toward her house, not even able to cry. She ran into the apartment after a furious struggle with her keys and threw herself on the sofa, panting. She concluded that there was no more time to lose, she must talk to her mother. Maybe she could even change school without losing the year. Leave that place where anything could happen to her, where she couldn’t be quiet. She began to run down the hallway, opening the doors of the rooms. The study of her father, her bedroom, the kitchen with the smell of grilled meat lingering from the night before, the bathroom. There was no one. It seemed to her the clear sign that she had been abandoned. No one cared about her any longer. Not even lunch was ready. She had been finally delivered to Rome, to her mouth like that of a killer wolf, to that high school of troglodyte thugs. Crying desperately, she grabbed the phone.
"Mom, Mom, where are you?"
"Honey, I'm at the hospital. No, don’t worry. It's nothing. I came just for some checks, but they have decided to keep me here for a couple of days. I'll leave on Monday morning, Tuesday at the latest. No, no, nothing serious. It’s just that they are so fussy here in Rome, then they say about us Milanese. For sure you and dad will be able to survive this weekend without me. Sure you can come and pay me a visit. Write down the address, but it’s right in the backyard anyway. Would you bring me some laundry?"