The world falls down...
"Lights in San Siro, in that evening. What's so funny, we’ve all been there. Remember playing in the fog, you hide and if I find you I love you there.”
("Luci a San Siro," Roberto Vecchioni)
E. Bitch piece of shit! Today you'll pay everything!
Marked in chalk, the words shone on the cobblestones, just a few steps from the door of the Marco Polo high. They were the news of the day in the square that housed the high school. The students stopped to look at them curiously, looking down, careful not to step on the letters.
"Who might E be? Who wrote this? What does it mean?"
Questions bounced fast on the sleepy faces of that Monday morning. That sentence could have quickly become the gossip of the week. Generally it was there, in that square of sidewalk, that new loves, quarrels, apologies, declarations of love without hope were made public.
Anna I love you
Valeria forgive me
You’re My Life
There was always a chalk somewhere, and a writing made in the night to tell feelings that were hard to admit while looking in the eyes, as if being glaring could give more value to the words. The week before, a pink Smart had arrived, dressed as Cupid. Early in the morning, just before entering the school, the kids had found the car wrapped in giant sheets of white cardboard on which a gentle hand had written a redundant declaration of love. The him in question had even left a bouquet of roses resting on the roof of the car. The extravagance of the operation alone had left everyone speechless, then they had immediately guessed who was behind that gesture, and someone had even enjoyed recording the scene with their mobile phones to send it to Youtube. But that day, the message left on the sidewalk did not make people think of a broken heart, it felt more like a warning like the mafia use to send. And nobody wanted to know too many details.
Eleonora came to school on time as usual. She advanced slowly, thinking about the day that lay ahead with its thousands of unknowns. Seeing from afar the cluster of students she felt a pang of anxiety.
"What happens? What are you talking about?" she asked, peering behind the group of students.
E. Bitch piece of shit! Today you'll pay everything!
She did not need a soothsayer to interpret the writing. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was meant for her, but she could not imagine what new punishment she would have to suffer. More insults, bad words, hair cut? The situation had become really unbearable. This reinforced the decision she had taken in the night, talking on the phone with Chicca. During the break she would talk to professor Boschi, and possibly also with the principal. She would denounce the harassment suffered, the threats, and even the "cutting of the scalp" which had occurred in the street. Actually, looking at herself in the mirror, she had seen that no one would ever notice anything – Deborah had only taken away a small tuft of her many red curls, and also from a place discreetly hidden by her hair – but this was not a valid reason for silence. She had no intention of submitting herself again to the blackmail of the two crazies, nor of deliberately worsening her school performances to fit in that group of lunatics.
She had not said anything to her mother. She hadn’t even tried. Immediately after talking to her on the phone she had run scared to the hospital, without stopping to think. She had put at random some underwear – panties, bras, a nightgown, a dressing gown – in a shopping bag, the first she had found. In Milan she would never do anything like that, she had thought absently. She would have considered impolite to leave home with a supermarket plastic bag in hand. But that was Rome, outlandish city where no one cared for her, and where not even by doing a triple somersault she would have been able to get noticed. Moreover, the most important thing was her mother’s health. The Santo Spirito hospital was a five minute walk from home, more or less the same distance she walked to go to school every morning. But that afternoon, her body still trembling with the offense received from her classmates, and at the same time with the eagerness to meet her sick mother, she no longer felt a tourist. She was finally home, she was beginning to perceive that she was becoming an adult, that her mother, or her father, or both, might need her help right when she needed theirs the most.
"I must learn to defend myself", she repeated, walking cautiously around in the long hospital corridors. Everything seemed huge to her.
"Mom, Mom", she shouted when she saw her lying on the bed – half-hidden by a pile of pillows – and she seemed to her smaller than she remembered. She looked sleepy.
"Mom, Mom. You scared me", she repeated, flinging her arms around her mother’s neck, crying and laughing, as the woman regained the smile she knew. In fact, she started to laugh.
"What are you worrying about, darling? There is nothing wrong. The doctor says I have to undergo some tests, that I am a bit weak. Too much stress. First granny died, then we moved. I am a bit exhausted, that’s all. But you know how I am... I don’t take much care of myself. I always have so much to do. The doctor has me stuck here for a few days. Don’t worry darling, on Monday I'll be back home", she concluded, rising up in bed.
"Good thing you brought me a change. I'd had enough. Will you take me out of here to smoke a cigarette?"
"A cigarette? Mom, when are you going to stop hurting yourself?"
Heartened for having seen her so quiet, Eleonora followed her docilely. It seemed to her that at that very moment, while she walked beside her in the huge hall of the hospital, they were celebrating an ideal handover. By now they were two women of the same height, of very similar build. Only the colour of their hair and the health of their skins denounced the age difference. Eleonora studied her mother as if she had been a stranger, noticing every detail, from the sunken face to the sudden smile, from the way she moved her hands to the funny gesture she made to brush ashes. She had that habit, she remembered her always having it. She never managed to reach the ashtray in time. She was distracted, perhaps she had always been. A mysterious woman, defenceless, eaten by a perennial worm, yet sick of sense of duty. Dreamy, far away, then suddenly attentive, precise as a computer. A precision that belonged to her as well. And now hers was the task to be a mother to her mother, to protect her. She didn’t know exactly what illness she suffered, but she remember that also when she was little she had left her for an extended period.
"She’s in the clinic", was the only explanation that Eleonora had received.
Only a few years later, her father had confided something – in a confused way – to her. Eleonora had understood only that her mother did not suffer from a defined disease, such as diabetes or hypertension. No, her mother suffered from a kind of fragility of the soul, an underlying latent despair, that could explode at any adversity of life. The man had actually said that, without looking in her eyes; "Fragility of the soul." A phrase that could mean everything as well as nothing.
"Are we talking about depression?" Eleonora had asked, worried.
"No, no, but you have to be careful with her, treat her like a flower, because we might hurt her without realizing it."
And with these words, in spite of her insistence, the matter had been settled. Now that conversation came back to her mind. She saw again her father's face as he spoke with an expression so worried that Eleonora had felt close to tears. She stared sweetly at her sick mother who was smoking, as if nothing had happened, her second consecutive cigarette. It sure wasn’t the time to explain to her that she had decided to change school, that she was not settling at all with her classmates, and on the contrary she was being threatened and subjected to every kind of oppression just because she loved to study and the professors esteemed her.
Her eyes melted for a second with those of her mother, like a caress. She knew she was mistaking her tension for filial concern.
"I love you Mom, I can’t wait for you to come home, I already miss you so much", she finally said with a hint of embarrassment to divert her thoughts.
"I miss you so much too baby, but I'm sure you
will get by fine with dad. You look sad though, is there something I don’t know? Maybe Marco?"
"What are you saying? Sure, I miss him, but now I am only thinking about you."
Her mother made a gesture as if to say it was fine, then jerked.
"I'm cold baby, and you have to go home before it's too late, or I'll worry."
They walked toward the room. Eleonora greeted her sick mother with a kiss, and tenderly tucked her sheets.
"Hello little woman", she said, stroking her cheek.
The girl picked up her backpack and ran down the wide staircase, wondering why, at the threshold of fifteen years of age, she had to be so adult and self-sufficient, when all she wanted was to be hugged and cuddled like a baby.
She put on the earphones of her iPod and chose a sad song to keep her company while she walked home, an old song by Roberto Vecchioni which made her think about Marco and her Milan. She often listened to it, in Rome, when she was in a sad mood. "Lights in San Siro, in that evening. What's so strange, we've all been there. Remember playing in the fog?", she repeated the words as if she were in a trance. Actually she had never been to San Siro with Marco, but the author's melancholy, the nostalgia for the old days were the same feelings she felt at that moment. And she also harboured a number of questions which she found difficult to answer. Where had her adventure as a teenager started? Before the choosy class? Why had she become so mature before her time? Eleonora could not give herself a precise answer. She thought it depended on how she had been educated, with a mania for tidiness, on the books she had read, or maybe just on the curiosity that pushed her to go beyond the surface of things and people. She couldn’t really help being different from others. Hadn’t there been Deborah and Silvia, her relationship with the capital would have been different. Of course, now it was even harder, there was also the health of her mother at risk. The transfer to Rome must have been much harder for her than she had shown. Eleonora felt guilty for not having understood that earlier, for not having helped her. She also speculated that her father might be feeling the same anxiety, but she found him serene, keeping himself busy in the kitchen.
"How about a pizza, miss?"
He was putting frozen food in the oven. They had even joked while eating. Talking to him about what was happening in class? As an hypothesis it was suggestive, but not feasible. She was not in too friendly terms with her father, he was a lonely man. They had never communicated. She hadn’t even tried. Telling him, "Sorry dad, I want to change school because everyone at the Marco Polo high is a bully and threatens me, insults me and calls me the Leaguer", would be like saying that the day before she had happened to score a goal playing with the national male football team.
"I repeat that you cannot miss this year, you only have to study."
Duty first, then pleasure. First important things, then trivial ones. First the law, then everything else. This was her father, a man of exemplary integrity. And that was her, Eleonora the swot, no matter what. But she had the right to live in peace, to be herself even in a class of illiterate troublemakers. She had to talk to professor Boschi, it was the only option left, even though she disliked the very idea, again because of the good manners she had been taught. "You don’t tell tales of other people. You don’t talk behind people’s back. You face them looking in their eyes", their parents had repeated until she was exhausted. Chicca, on the other hand, was categorical on the phone.
"The more you wait the most they will feel entitled to treat you like a doormat. You realize that, right?"
Eleonora hadn’t answered, she knew she was right. She had to report Silvia and Deborah. With this awareness, she had gone to school that Monday morning. To make herself courage, she kept repeating that the operation would be quick and that, returning home, she would find the welcoming arms of her mother at the door. As for the two bullies, reproached by the teachers after her complaints, they would change their target, they would definitely leave her alone. She had the energy reserved for big events, the determination coming from her decision. Then she had been hit in the face by the new warning that had appeared on the sidewalk.
What could "today you will pay everything" mean? She entered the classroom with her nerves tensed, ready to defend herself. Silvia and Deborah were already there, wearing make-up as if they were about to go to a party in a disco.
"Hello Northern Leaguer", they said in chorus, with the usual contempt.
Eleonora hinted a sort of grimace, refraining from responding in kind.
"You will see what I am going to do to you later", that’s what she would have liked to tell them, that’s what she would tell them one day. She was certain of that.
Luca arrived breathless. He was there, as usual, right before the bell, late, his hair dishevelled on his forehead, a smile that tasted of reproach. Eleonora found him almost handsome, he gave her a sense of safety, protection. The boy threw his backpack on the desk, hurriedly sitting down next to her.
"You didn’t come to the game even yesterday. We won five to two. I scored two goals, one on a penalty kick. It was beautiful. You’ll see that we’ll qualify for the high schools final. It’s true that the league just started, but I like to dream... oh, look. My mother sends these sweets she made especially for you. We’ll eat them during the break, so you can tell me if you like them as much as those of Lavinia."
She looked at the package curiously, thinking wistfully that she would have to disappoint again the only friend she had, and thanked him politely.
"Sorry, I had some problems at home. I'll come next Sunday if you play another game. Listen, thank your mom for the cookies, but tell her not to exaggerate. I can’t become all fat."
"Come on, you're beautiful. In perfect shape."
While saying these words he looked away, embarrassed. It was the arrival of professor Boschi to get everyone to silence, at least for a few minutes.
"So guys, have you had a nice weekend? Have you also studied anything? I'd love to hear quite a convincing yes. Anyone of you wants to talk to me about Renzo and Lucia? Have you thought about my proposal to rewrite them in modern terms? And how would Lucy dress today? Would she wear a gray suit or a pair of pants, possibly jeans, what do you think?"
She moved in the classroom, smiling, a sort of agitated elf. She had put the registry and a few books on the desk, closed the window, taken off her black wool coat and the big pink foulard, and now she was looking at them anxiously, arms folded, standing in front of her desk. Her look, straight and firm, embraced them all, charmingly. It was a way to seek approval, to offer a back door to school subjects. Making "The Betrothed" a kind of television drama seemed to her a possible compromise in order to finally teach them something.
"Professor, you always talk too fast. How can we answer?"
"For once I must say you're right, Alessandro", Mrs. Boschi had answered gently, winking in a friendly way and giving everyone an opportunity to laugh heartily.
Alessandro, also called the grim, or just roller, due to his passion for roller skates, was still a mystery to Eleonora. Perhaps more than many other classmates. He seemed to be increasingly over the top, exaggerated in every expression, and she could not stand his language. He used Italian as an option, or better it could be said that he used the Roman dialect as a challenge. There was in him, like in Silvia and Deborah, something that sounded ostentatious, too, like wearing jeans two sizes too big, always ready to slide down his legs, showing coloured cotton underwear, or like the tattoo he wore on his left arm.
"It's the name of my girlfriend, Marina, in Japanese. She asked me to do it", he explained once to Eleonora, "to show my love."
Alessandro was short, stocky, and had a graceless voice, like a baritone. He used industrial quantities of hair gel, and Eleonora had the impression that it was some kind of animal signals, a warning of the suitor who is ready for a new sentimental conquest. But she did not feel him to be bad or uneasy like her two enemies, he rather gave the impression of a complex and compl
icated boy, even sensitive and well-mannered, behind that cheap macho armour.
"I thought, Professor, that Lucy dressed like a soubrette, so Renzo no longer wants her and we finally get rid of Manzoni. Do you like the idea, Professor?"
Everyone had started laughing. Marina had looked blissfully at Alessandro, as if he had been Benigni reciting the Divine Comedy in his own way. Alessia had bowed her head to hide her mirth, like the good, shy girl she was, in awe of Mrs. Boschi. But Silvia and Deborah had not taken part in that wave of collective enthusiasm. They were light years away.
Eleonora looked at Silvia from the corner of one eye. Two desks separated them diagonally. Silvia was checking the clock every minute, moving her feet back and forth. Deborah seemed about to stand up, nervous as a cat. She fidgeted, she rocked in her chair, she drummed her fingers on her legs, wrapped in black stockings as usual. They sat close together, stuck together like Siamese twins. They must have had an argument, Eleonora told herself, but she continued to think about the writing she had just seen on the sidewalk. She recalled the violence with which they had blocked her in the street two days ago, the toy gun, the hair cut. She knew that the event was coming. It was in the air. Now Eleonora was afraid again. Her determination was gradually dissipating. Those two were about to do something and she knew it, felt it. She would be the victim of the day, the sacrificial lamb of their folly, the scapegoat for their inability to study, the target to be deleted to bring back apathy and ignorance to the classroom. She wondered why she had waited so long before talking to Mrs. Boschi, why she hadn’t stayed home, at least that day, waiting for her mother coming back from the hospital. She hated her damn sense of duty. From Thelma and Louise she could expect nothing but evil. What deviltry had they contrived? What was she supposed to face? She reasoned quickly, while Mrs. Boschi spoke about Manzoni and love, urged the class to define the character of Renzo and Lucia, suggested affinities with modern characters. Eleonora thought that perhaps she could say she had a stomach ache, ask to go to the bathroom, or even better be allowed to return home immediately. The principal could call her father and he would run to fetch her, and maybe together they would go to visit her mother.
"May I go to the bathroom professor?"
Oh, no! Silvia had preceded her. She was white as a sheet, she explained that she felt bad. Eleonora watched her going out, so thin, so small, and for a moment she saw her for what she really was: a sick little girl who could barely walk. She felt compassion for her. Luca had explained her that she had serious family problems, that she had been abandoned by her mother and had stopped studying, always hovering between anorexia and bulimia. Maybe she was angry with women because they reminded her of her mother, he had added with that funny expression he had when he felt particularly insightful. That must be it. That must be the explanation. Mrs. Boschi kept talking and Alessandro kept retorting with one-liners. He probably hadn’t read a single page of The Betrothed, but now he was even proposing their classmates to write a song inspired by Lucia.
"Excuse me professor, but Silvia is sick. May I go and see how she is? Maybe she needs a hand, after all it's almost break time."
Eleonora turned to look at Deborah and noticed that her lower lip was trembling, she seemed to her that she was going to faint too. They probably smoked too much, she thought, but she was restless.
"Go, go, your presence is absolutely useless in the classroom anyway. But don’t stay out talking, I would notice."
Mrs. Boschi gave her permission in a low voice, with a hint of resignation. She had no longer been expecting anything from those two girls for a long time. She just hoped that they didn’t disturb too much, that they did not go too far in their total nihilism. With them, school failures had been useless, reprimands and notices sent to their parents in years had amounted to nothing. It was as if they were just gravitating through school, five hours of time stolen from life to annoy teachers.
"And what actors would you see playing the roles of Renzo and Lucia instead?"
She had diverted her gaze and attention.
"Riccardo Scamarcio."
"Anne Hathaway."
"Beautiful couple. What about Arcuri?"
"Too hot... it rather takes a nun..."
And while everyone found something to say, Deborah approached the door very slowly, as if impeded by something. She stopped for a second and her eyes wandered into space. Astonished. Her eyes seemed devoid of expression, then they revived meeting those of Eleonora. She stared at her sternly and ostentatiously. With hatred. Eleonora shivered. She felt threatened. Fear and anxiety were rising inside her uncontrollably. She could not wait for the bell to ring and the break to begin. She had to leave the classroom as soon as possible, breathe some fresh air, be taken home by her father. She kept blaming herself for being there, sitting, after having read the writing on the sidewalk, after having been looked at that way.
"What are they thinking?" she wondered, and meanwhile listened to the class shouting, but it was like a disturbing element in the distance that slid on a parallel track to her thoughts.
It was only a few minutes to the break now. She just had to wait. And for a moment she was taken by the words of Mrs. Boschi, who had opened an old edition of The Betrothed and started reading with an inspired expression the third chapter of the book.
"... Blessed Virgin!" Lucy exclaimed, "who would have thought that things could get to this!”
And, in a voice broken with tears, she recounted how, a few days before, while returning from the mill, left behind by her companions, Don Rodrigo had passed before her, in company with another gentleman; that the former had tried to hold her with chatter, as she said, not at all nice; but her, paying no attention to him, had quickened her pace, and reached her companions, and meanwhile she had heard that other gentleman laughing loudly, and Don Rodrigo say, "I bet..."
Silvia and Deborah came back to the classroom just then, slowly, one after the other, with their heads down. They did almost no noise, they were so quiet. They closed the door behind them gingerly and stood there, looking at the class. Nobody turned to look at them. The shout came as a surprise.
"Don’t say a word or we shoot!"
A chilled silence crossed the classroom. They turned to look. Eleonora swallowed, stiffening on the desk. Sara moved as if to rise, but stopped immediately, and Marina put her hand over her mouth. Amazement and fear. Wonder and panic. Silvia was still in a position she could have stolen from a television series about police. Her legs were spread apart, slightly bent, arms joined, holding a gun. She was ready to pounce. Deborah had a weapon too. She held it in her right hand in a completely natural way, as if it were a pen pointed at the class. For a moment no one moved or said a word. Surprise was hovering in the classroom, in the eyes, in the hands, but it still wasn’t terror.
"What are you doing? What are you doing?" said Alessandro, who no longer had the air of a bully, only that of a frightened teenager.
"Silvia, please don’t scare us", Marina whispered in a trembling voice, and Sara immediately echoed her.
"We are friends, girls..."
"Shit... Come on. Shut up. This is not a game. Stand up. Even friends. There are no more friends. Come on, I want to see you standing!" Silvia shouted. She had straightened her legs, still holding the gun firmly in hand.
"Be quick or I shoot."
They obeyed instantly, throwing chairs on the floor, someone tried to hide under their desk.
"Less noise. I’ll kill the first who screams. It makes no difference for me. Put your hands on your head. Then in single file all at the back of the classroom, back against the wall."
"Girls, have you gone crazy? Put down the weapons immediately or I’m going to call the police, I'll have you suspended... Silvia, Deborah, stop it. I order you to sit down and immediately put the guns away, or I'll call the principal."
Professor Boschi was white as a sheet. She knew she had said something absurd. How could she call Mrs. Maresco, and what could they do tog
ether in front of a gun? She feared for the lives of everyone more than for her own. She tried to use what little authority she had left, but without success. She didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do. She found herself shaking like everyone else in the room. Standing behind the chair, she felt like a ghost.
"Shut up and freeze. We’re in command now, we don’t give a damn about the principal!" Deborah yelled, pointing the gun at her and gesturing her to go closer to the back wall, along with everyone else.
She accompanied her with her eyes. Hard. Silvia had moved too, and she was walking in the classroom while keeping the gun outstretched in front of her. Alessia had started crying. Tears rolled down her face, unstoppable. She was the most fragile of all, or so she felt. Alessandro stood next to Marina, his girlfriend, as if to protect her. Eleonora slowly retreated, looking forward. Fear stopped her breath.
"Shoulder to the wall or window, okay? I want to look in your faces."
Silvia was tense too. All the rehearsals she had done so far in her bedroom – with or without Deborah, in front of the mirror or walking around the room – were of no use to her now. She was improvising again. A true amateur of crime, a mass murderer by chance. She didn’t even remember any longer how her heroes – Eric and Dylan at Columbine – had acted. She could not remember anything, and she had to act fast. She kept repeating that in her mind. Everything had to happen before the break, before someone came to check what was happening in the classroom. A siren was sounding out of the building. Perhaps an ambulance, or maybe the police, already arriving at Marco Polo high. It was time. Now or never. But did she really want to kill Eleonora and the others? She looked at them and thought that she was not sure about anything, but now she could not go back. Emotion caused her a sort of hesitation, she tripped over a backpack that had probably slid to the ground from a chair into the vortex of movements. It was a moment. Eleonora read the hesitation in her eyes and thought it was the right moment to try and escape. She knew she was the target of that scene. She jumped forward to get away, heading at a run toward the door, but Silvia was faster and caught her by the arm, pulling her back.
"Ugly bitch, where do you think you’re going? This time you're done getting on my nerves. I told you, I warned you. Come on, you know. I told you that you had to stop studying, ugly Milanese bitch. And now you want to run too?"
"But what do you want? What have you got against me?" Eleonora whispered, terrified, trying to set herself free.
They looked at each other with hatred. A fraction of a second.
"I hate you", Silvia answered with determination.
She shot her in the chest, at close range, pulling the trigger with all the strength in her body. She wasn’t sure of what would really happen. She didn’t know what would really happen. One, two, three shots. She stopped in amazement. They had started, echoed in the air, reached their destination. The last thing Eleonora saw was that look of hatred focused on her eyes.
"Shit", she heard whispering.
Then nothing. Darkness, silence, absolute nothing. She was gone.
"Lights in San Siro, they will not turn them on anymore."