‘And what do you wait for?’
‘To go to heaven.’
In a way he was right. If you stayed there all your life, you would die and then your soul would fly to heaven. If you got into a discussion with Filippo your thoughts got tangled.
‘Come on, I’ll take you out. Come with me.’ I took his hand, but he stiffened and trembled. ‘All right. All right. We won’t go out. Keep calm, though. I won’t hurt you.’
He stuck his head under the blanket. ‘Outside there’s no air. Outside I’ll suffocate. I don’t want to go out there.’
‘No you won’t. There’s loads of air outside. I’m always outside and I don’t suffocate. How do you think that’s possible?’
‘You’re an angel.’
I must get him to see reason. ‘Listen carefully. Yesterday I swore to you I’d come back and I have come back. Now I swear to you that if you come out nothing will happen to you. You’ve got to believe me.’
‘Why do I have to go outside? I’m all right in here.’
I had to tell him a lie. ‘Because heaven’s outside. And I’ve got to take you to heaven. I’m an angel and you’re dead and I’ve got to take you to heaven.’
He thought about this for a while. ‘Really?’
‘Truly.’
‘Let’s go, then.’ And he started making high-pitched squeaks.
I tried to get him to his feet, but he kept his legs bent. He couldn’t support himself. If I didn’t hold him up he fell down. Finally I tied the rope round his hips. Then I wrapped his head in the blanket, so that he would keep quiet. I went back up and started hoisting him. He was too heavy. He hung there, twenty centimetres off the ground, all stiff and crooked, and me on top, with the rope over my shoulder, bent right forward and without the strength to pull him up.
‘Help me, Filippo. I can’t do it.’
But he was like a lead weight and the rope was slipping out of my hands. I stepped back and the rope slackened. He had touched the bottom.
I looked down. He had keeled over on his back with the blanket on his head.
‘Filippo, are you all right?’
‘Am I there?’ he asked.
‘Hang on.’ I ran round the house looking for a plank, a pole, something that could help me. In the cowshed I found a battered old door with the paint flaking off it. I dragged it into the yard. I wanted to lower it into the hole and get Filippo to climb up it. I stood it on the edge of the hole, but I dropped it on the ground and it split into two halves full of sharp splinters. The wood was all worm-eaten. It was no good.
‘Michele?’ Filippo was calling me.
‘Wait a minute! Just a minute!’ I shouted, and I picked up a piece of that damned door, lifted it over my head and threw it on top of a ladder.
A ladder?
There it was, two metres away from the hole. A beautiful green-painted wooden ladder lying on the ivy that covered a pile of masonry and earth. It had been there all the time and I hadn’t seen it. That was how they got down.
‘I’ve found a ladder!’ I said to Filippo. I fetched it and lowered it into the hole.
I dragged him into the wood, under a tree. There were birds. Cicadas. Shade. And there was a pleasant smell of damp earth and moss.
I asked him: ‘Can I take the blanket off your face?’
‘Are we in the sun?’
‘No.’
He didn’t want to take it off, but eventually I persuaded him to let me blindfold him with my T-shirt. He was pleased, you could tell from the way he smiled. A light breeze caressed his skin and he was really enjoying it.
I asked him: ‘Why did they put you here?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
‘Not anything?’
‘I found myself here.’
‘What do you remember?’
‘I was at school.’ He lolled his head to and fro. ‘I remember that. We had gym. Then I went out. A white car pulled up. And I found myself here.’
‘But where do you live?’
‘In Via Modigliani 36. On the corner of Via Cavalier D’Arpino.
‘Where’s that?’
‘In Pavia.’
‘In Italy?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is Italy too.’
He stopped talking. I thought he had fallen asleep, but after a while he asked me: ‘What sort of birds are these?’
I looked around. ‘Sparrows.’
‘Are you sure they’re not bats?’
‘No. Bats sleep in the daytime and they make a different noise.’
‘Flying foxes fly even in the daytime and they chirp like birds. And they weigh more than a kilo. If they catch hold of the small branches they fall to the ground. I think these are flying foxes.’
After the little wash-bear business I thought I had better keep quiet, maybe in America they had flying foxes too. I asked him: ‘Have you ever been to America?’
‘Yesterday I saw my mother. She told me she can’t come and get me because she’s dead. She’s dead with all my family. Otherwise, she said, she would come straight away.’
I stopped up my ears.
‘Filippo, it’s late. I’ve got to take you down.’
‘Can I really go back down?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Let’s go back.’
He had been mute for half an hour, with the T-shirt tied over his eyes. Every now and then his neck and mouth stiffened and his fingers and toes contracted as if he had a tic. He had been sitting spellbound, quite still, listening to the flying foxes.
‘Hold onto my neck.’ He clung on and I dragged him to the hole. ‘Now we’ll go down the ladder, hold tight. Don’t let go of me.’
It was difficult. Filippo squeezed so hard that I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t see the rungs of the ladder, I had to feel for them with my feet.
When we got to the bottom I was as white as a sheet and panting. I put him in a corner. I covered him up and gave him a drink and said to him: ‘It’s very late. I must get going. Papa’ll kill me.’
‘I’ll stay here. But you must bring me the sandwiches. And a roast chicken too.’
‘We have chicken on Sundays. Today mama’s making meatballs. Do you like meatballs?’
‘In tomato sauce?’
‘Yes.’
‘I like them very much.’
I was sorry to leave him. ‘I’ll be off, then …’ I was about to grab a rung, when the ladder was pulled away.
I looked up.
On the edge of the hole was a man with a brown hood over his head. He was dressed exactly like a soldier. ‘Cuckoo? Cuckoo? April now is through,’ he sang and started pirouetting. ‘Maytime has returned to the song of the cuckoo. Guess who?’
‘Felice!’
‘Well done!’ he said, and fell silent for a bit. ‘How the fuck did you guess? Hang on. Hang on a minute.’
He went off and when he reappeared he had his rifle over his shoulder.
‘It was you!’ Felice clapped his hands. ‘It was you, fuck it all! I kept finding things arranged differently. At first I thought I was crazy. Then I thought it must be a ghost. And all the time it was you. Little Michele. Thank God for that, I was going out of my mind.’
I felt my ankle being squeezed. Filippo had caught hold of my feet and was whispering: ‘The lord of the worms comes and goes. The lord of the worms comes and goes. The lord of the worms comes and goes.’
So that was who the lord of the worms was!
Felice looked at me through the holes in his hood. ‘Made friends with the prince, have you? See how well I washed him? He put up a bit of a struggle, but I won in the end. Wouldn’t give me the blanket, though.’
I was trapped. I couldn’t see him. The sun filtering through the foliage blinded me.
‘Cop this!’
A knife sank into the ground. Ten centimetres away from my sandal and twenty from Filippo’s head.
‘How about that for accuracy? I could have sliced your big toe off
just like that. And what would you have done then?’
I couldn’t speak. My throat was blocked up.
‘What would you have done without a toe?’ he repeated. ‘Tell me. Come on, tell me.’
‘I’d have bled to death.’
‘Good boy. And if I shoot you with this,’ he showed me the rifle, ‘what happens to you?’
‘I die.’
‘You see you do know things. Come on up, move!’ Felice got the ladder and lowered it down.
I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. He would shoot me. I wasn’t sure I would be able to climb up, my legs were shaking.
‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Felice. ‘Pick up my knife.’
I bent down and Filippo whispered: ‘Won’t you be coming back again?’
I pulled the knife out of the earth and, without letting Felice see, replied in a low voice: ‘I’ll be back.’
‘Promise?’
Felice ordered me: ‘Close it up and put it in your pocket.’
‘Promise.’
‘Come on, come on! Up you get, you little runt. What’re you waiting for?’
I started climbing. Filippo meanwhile kept whispering. ‘The lord of the worms comes and goes. The lord of the worms comes and goes. The lord of the worms comes and goes.’
When I was almost out, Felice grabbed me by the trousers and with both hands threw me against the house like a sack. I crashed into the wall and crumpled on the ground. I tried to get up. I had banged my side. A spasm of pain stiffened my leg and arm. I turned. Felice had taken off his hood and was charging towards me pointing the rifle at me. I saw his tanklike boots growing bigger and bigger.
Now he’s going to shoot me, I thought.
I started crawling, all aches and pains, towards the wood.
‘Thought you’d set him free, did you? Well you were wrong. You counted your chickens before they hatched.’ He gave me a kick in the backside. ‘Get up, you little shit. What are you doing down there on the ground? Get up! Haven’t hurt yourself, have you?’ He lifted me up by the ear. ‘You can thank your lucky stars you’re your father’s son. Otherwise by this time … Now I’m going to take you home. Your father’ll decide your punishment. I’ve done my duty. I’ve kept guard. And I ought to have shot you.’ He dragged me into the wood. I was so scared I couldn’t cry. I kept tripping over and falling on the ground and he kept pulling me up again by the ear. ‘Move, go, go, go!’
We emerged from the trees.
In front of us the yellow incandescent expanse of wheat stretched as far as the sky. If I dived in he would never find me.
With the barrel of his rifle Felice pushed me towards the 127 and said: ‘Oh yes, give me back my knife!’
I tried to give it to him but couldn’t get my hand in my pocket.
‘I’ll do it!’ He took it. He opened the door, lifted the seat and said: ‘Get in!’
I got in and there was Salvatore.
‘Salvatore, what are you …’ The rest died in my mouth.
It had been Salvatore. He had ratted to Felice.
Salvatore looked at me and turned away.
I sat down in the back without saying a word.
Felice got behind the wheel. ‘Salvatore old boy, you’ve done a really good job. Allow me to shake your hand.’ Felice grasped it. ‘You were right, the nosey parker was there. And I didn’t believe you.’ He got out. ‘A promise is a promise. And when Felice Natale makes a promise, he keeps it. You drive. Take it slowly, though.’
‘Now?’ Salvatore asked.
‘When else? Get into my seat.’
Felice got in at the passenger’s door and Salvatore moved over to the wheel. ‘It’s perfect for learning here. All you have to do is follow the slope and brake now and again.’
Salvatore Scardaccione had sold me for a driving lesson.
‘You’ll smash the car up if you don’t watch out!’ Felice shouted and with his head up against the windscreen he watched the broken surface of the road. ‘Brake! Brake!’
Salvatore could hardly see over the steering wheel and gripped it as if he wanted to break it.
When Felice had come towards me pointing his rifle at me I had wet myself. I hadn’t noticed till now. My underpants were soaked.
The car was full of crazed horseflies. We bounced on the humps, we plunged into the holes. I had to cling onto the door handle.
Salvatore had never told me he wanted to drive a car. He could have asked his father to teach him. The Avvocato never refused him anything. Why had he asked Felice?
My whole body was hurting, my skinned knees, my ribs, my arm and my wrist. But especially my heart. Salvatore had broken it.
He was my best friend. Once, on a branch of the carob, we had even made a vow of eternal friendship. We used to go home from school together. If one of us got out earlier he would wait for the other.
Salvatore had betrayed me.
Mama was right when she said the Scardacciones thought they were it just because they had money. And she said that even if you were drowning they wouldn’t lift a finger to help you. And dozens of times I had imagined the two Scardaccione sisters on the edge of the quicksands beavering away on their sewing machine and me sinking and stretching out my hand and calling for help and them throwing me honey drops and saying they couldn’t get up because of their swollen legs. But Salvatore and I were friends.
I had been wrong.
I felt a dreadful urge to cry, but I swore to myself that if a single tear came out of my eyes, I would take the old man’s pistol and shoot myself. I pulled the Lanerossi Vicenza box out of my shorts. It was all soaked in pee.
I put it on the seat.
Felice shouted: ‘That’s it, stop! I can’t stand any more of this.’
Salvatore braked abruptly, the engine stalled, the car jerked to a halt and if Felice hadn’t put his arms out he would have cracked his head on the windscreen.
He opened the door and got out. ‘Move!’
Salvatore moved over to the other side, without a word.
Felice grasped the wheel and said: ‘Salvatore old boy, I must be frank with you, you’re just not cut out for driving. Forget it. Your future lies in cycling.’
* * *
When we drove into Acqua Traverse my sister, Barbara, Remo and Skull were playing hopscotch in the dust.
They saw us and stopped playing.
Papa’s truck wasn’t there. Nor was the old man’s car.
Felice parked the 127 in the shed.
Salvatore shot out of the car, got his bike and rode off without even looking at me.
Felice pulled up the seat. ‘Get out!’
I didn’t want to get out.
Once, at school, I had broken the glass door onto the courtyard with one of those sticks they use for gymnastics. I wanted to show Angelo Cantini, a classmate of mine, that the glass was indestructible. Instead, it had shattered into a billion neat little cubes. The headmaster had called mama and told her he had to speak to her.
When she arrived she had looked at me and said in my ear: ‘I’ll deal with you later.’ And she had gone into the headmaster’s room while I sat waiting in the corridor.
I had been scared then, but that was nothing to what I felt now. Felice would tell mama everything and she would tell papa. And papa would be very angry. And the old man would take me away.
‘Get out!’ Felice repeated.
I summoned up all my courage and got out.
I was embarrassed. My trousers were wet.
Barbara put her hand to her mouth. Remo ran over to Skull. Maria took off her glasses and wiped them on her T-shirt.
The light was dazzling, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Behind me I could hear Felice’s heavy footsteps. Barbara’s mother was looking out of the window. Skull’s mother was looking out of another. They gazed at me with vacant eyes. There would have been complete silence if Togo hadn’t started barking his shrill little bark. Skull gave him a kick and Togo fled yelping.
I went up the f
ront steps and opened the door.
The shutters were closed and there wasn’t much light. The radio was on. The fan was spinning. Mama, in her petticoat, was sitting at the table peeling potatoes. She saw me come in followed by Felice. The knife slipped out of her hand. It fell on the table, and from there dropped onto the floor.
‘What’s happened?’
Felice thrust his hands in his combat jacket, lowered his head and said: ‘He was up there. With the boy.’
Mama got up from her chair, turned off the radio, took one step, then another, stopped, put her hands to her face and squatted down on the floor looking at me.
I burst into tears.
She ran to me and took me in her arms. She hugged me tightly to her bosom and realized I was all wet. She put me on the chair and looked at my grazed legs and arms, the clotted blood on my knees. She lifted up my T-shirt.
‘What happened to you?’ she asked me.
‘Him! It was him … he … he beat me up!’ I pointed at Felice.
Mama turned, glared at Felice and growled: ‘What have you done to him, you bully?’
Felice raised his hands. ‘Nothing. What have I done to him? Brought him home.’
Mama narrowed her eyes. ‘You! How dare you, you?’ The veins on her neck swelled and her voice shook: ‘How dare you, eh? You hit my son, you bastard!’ And she flung herself at Felice.
He backed away. ‘So I gave him a kick up the backside. What’s the big deal?’
Mama tried to slap his face. Felice held her wrists to keep her away, but she was a lioness. ‘You bastard! I’ll scratch your eyes out!’
‘I found him in the hole … He wanted to free the boy. I hardly touched him. Stop it, calm down!’
Mama was in bare feet, but she still managed to give him a kick in the balls.
Poor Felice let out a strange noise, a cross between a gargle and the sound of water going down a plughole, put his hands to his genitals and fell to his knees. He screwed up his face with pain and tried to shout but it wouldn’t come, all the air had gone from his lungs.
I, still standing on the chair, stopped blubbing. I knew how much a bang in the nuts hurt. And that was a very hard bang in the nuts.
Mama had no mercy. She picked up the frying pan out of the sink and slammed Felice in the face. He howled and collapsed on the floor.
Mama raised the frying pan again, she wanted to kill him, but Felice caught her by the ankle and pulled. Mama fell down. The frying pan shot across the floor. Felice threw himself on top of her with his whole body.