But now the trick had been rumbled.
Maria started moaning: ‘I don’t want it! I don’t like it!’
Mama lost her temper at once. ‘Maria, eat up that meat!’
‘I can’t. It gives me a headache,’ my sister said as if they were offering her poison.
Mama gave her a sharp slap on the head and Maria started whimpering.
Now she’ll get sent to bed, I thought.
But papa picked up the plate and looked mama in the eyes. ‘Leave her alone, Teresa. So she won’t eat it. It doesn’t matter. Put it away.’
After lunch my parents went to have a rest. The house was an oven, but they managed to sleep anyway.
It was the right moment to search for the saucepan. I opened the kitchen cabinet and rummaged through the crockery. I looked in the chest of drawers where we put the things that weren’t used any more. I went outside and looked behind the house where the washing trough, the vegetable garden and the clothes lines were. Sometimes mama washed the dishes out there and left them to dry in the sun.
Nothing. The saucepan with the apples had disappeared.
We were sitting under the pergola playing spit-in-the-ocean and waiting for the sun to go down a bit so we could have a game of football, when I saw papa going down the steps, wearing his good trousers and a clean shirt. He was carrying a blue bag that I had never seen before.
Maria and I got up and reached him as he was getting into the truck.
‘Papa, papa, where are you going? Are you going away?’ I asked him, clinging on to the door.
‘Can we come with you?’ begged my sister.
A nice ride in the truck was just what the doctor ordered. We both remembered when he had taken us to eat rustici and cream pastries.
He turned on the ignition. ‘Sorry kids. Not today.’
I tried to get into the cab. ‘But you said you wouldn’t go away again, you’d stay at home …’
‘I’ll be back soon. Tomorrow or the day after. Out you get, now.’ He was in a hurry. He wasn’t in the mood to argue.
My sister tried pleading with him a little longer. I didn’t, there was no point.
We watched him depart in the dust, at the wheel of his great green box.
I woke up during the night.
And not because of a dream. Because of a noise.
I lay there, with my eyes closed, listening.
I seemed to be on the sea. I could hear it. Except that it was a sea of iron, a lazy ocean of bolts, screws and nails that lapped on a beach. Slow waves of scrap crashed in heavy breakers that covered and uncovered the shoreline.
Mingled with that sound were the howls and despairing yelps of a pack of dogs, a mournful tuneless chorus that didn’t allay the noise of the iron but increased it.
I looked out of the window. A combine harvester was clattering along the moonlit crest of a hill. It was like a huge metal grasshopper, with two bright round little eyes and a wide mouth made of blades and spikes. A mechanical insect that devoured wheat and shitted out straw. It worked by night because in the daytime it was too hot. That was what was making the sound of the sea.
And I knew where the howls were coming from.
From Skull’s father’s kennels. Italo Natale had built a corrugated iron hut behind his house and kept his hounds locked up there. They were always in there, summer and winter, behind wire netting. When Skull’s father took them their food in the morning they barked.
That night, for some reason, they had all started howling together.
I looked towards the hill.
Papa was there. He had taken my sister’s meat to the boy and that was why he had pretended to be going away and that was why he had a bag, to hide it in.
Before supper I had opened the fridge and the meat wasn’t there any more.
‘Mama, where’s that slice of meat?’
She had looked at me in amazement. ‘Do you like meat now?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not there any more. Your father’s eaten it.’
No he hadn’t. He had taken it for the boy.
Because the boy was my brother.
Like Nunzio Scardaccione, Salvatore’s big brother. Nunzio wasn’t a bad lunatic, but I couldn’t bear to look at him. I was scared he would infect me with his madness. Nunzio tore out his hair with his hands and ate it. His head was all pits and scabs and he dribbled. His mother put a hat and gloves on him so he wouldn’t tear his hair out, but he had started biting his arms till they bled. In the end they had taken him and carried him off to the mental hospital. I had been glad.
Maybe the boy in the hole was my brother, and he had been born mad like Nunzio and papa had hidden him there, so as not to frighten my sister and me. Not to frighten the children of Acqua Traverse.
Maybe he and I were twins. We were the same height and we seemed to be the same age.
When we were born, mama had taken both of us from the cradle, she had sat on a chair and put her breasts in our mouths to give us milk. I had started to suck but he had bitten her nipple, tried to tear it off, the blood and milk was dripping from her tit and mama shouted round the house: ‘He’s crazy! He’s crazy! Pino, take him away! Take him away! Kill him, he’s crazy.’
Papa had put him in a sack and taken him onto the hill to kill him, he had put him on the ground, in the wheat, and he should have stabbed him but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, he was his son after all, so he had dug a hole, chained him inside and brought him up there.
Mama didn’t know he was alive.
I did.
Four
I woke up early. I stayed in bed while the sun began to glow. Then I couldn’t bear to wait any longer. Mama and Maria were still asleep. I got up, cleaned my teeth, filled my schoolbag with some cheese and bread and went out.
I had decided that in the daytime there was no danger on the hill, it was only at night that nasty things happened.
That morning the clouds had appeared. They ran swiftly across a faded sky throwing black patches on the wheatfields and clung onto their rain, carrying it off somewhere else.
I raced across the deserted countryside, on the Crock, heading for the house.
If I found even a scrap of the meat in the hole it would mean the boy was my brother.
I was nearly there when a thick red dust cloud appeared on the horizon. Low. Fast. A cloud advancing in the wheat. The sort of cloud that can be raised by a car on a sun-baked earth track. It was a long way off but it wouldn’t take long to reach me. I could already hear the drone of its engine.
It was coming from the abandoned house. That was the only place the road led to. A car curved slowly round and came straight towards me.
I didn’t know what to do. If I turned back it would catch up with me, if I went on they would see me. I must decide quickly, it was getting closer. Maybe they already had seen me. If they hadn’t it was only because of the red cloud they were raising.
I turned my bike round and started to pedal, trying to get away as fast I could. It was no good. The more I pushed on the pedals, the more the bike jibbed, swayed and refused to go forward. I looked round, and behind me the dust cloud was growing.
Hide, I told myself.
I swerved, the bike reared up on a stone and I flew like a crucifix into the wheat. The car was less than two hundred metres away.
The Crock was lying at the edge of the road. I grabbed the front wheel and dragged it over beside me. I flattened down on the ground. Not breathing. Not moving a muscle. Asking Baby Jesus not to let them see me.
Baby Jesus granted my request.
Lying among the stalks, with the horseflies feasting on my skin and my hands dug into the burning clods, I saw a brown 127 shoot past.
Felice Natale’s 127.
Felice Natale was Skull’s big brother. If Skull was bad, Felice was a thousand times worse.
Felice was twenty. And whenever he was in Acqua Traverse life was hell for me and the other children. He would hit us, puncture our
football and steal things from us.
He was a poor devil. Friendless, womanless. A guy who bullied children, a soul in torment. And that was understandable. No twenty-year-old could live in Acqua Traverse without ending up like Nunzio Scardaccione, the hair-tearer. Felice in Acqua Traverse was like a tiger in a cage. He paced around among that tiny group of houses, furious, restless, ready to pick on you. It was lucky he went off to Lucignano now and again. But even there he hadn’t made any friends. When I came out of school I used to see him sitting alone on a bench in the piazza.
That year the fashion was flared trousers, tight-fitting brightly coloured T-shirts, sheepskin coats and long hair. Not Felice – he had his hair cut short and combed it back with brilliantine, he shaved perfectly and wore combat jackets and camouflaged trousers. And he tied a bandanna round his neck. He drove around in that 127, he liked guns and said he had been in the parachute regiment at Pisa and had jumped out of planes. But it wasn’t true. Everyone knew he had done his military service at Brindisi. He had the pointed face of a barracuda and little gappy teeth like a baby crocodile’s. Once he had told us they were like that because they were still his milk teeth. He had never changed them. As long as he didn’t open his mouth he was almost good-looking, but if he opened up, if he laughed, you took two steps backwards. And if he caught you looking at his teeth you were for it.
Then, one blessed day, without saying a word to anyone, he had left.
If you asked Skull where his brother had gone he would reply: ‘To the North. To work.’
That was all we wanted to know.
But now he had popped up again like a poisonous weed. In his diarrhoea-coloured 127. And he was coming down from the abandoned house.
He had put the boy in the hole. That was who had put him there.
Hidden among the trees, I checked that there was nobody in the valley.
When I was sure I was alone, I came out of the wood and climbed into the house through the usual window. As well as the packets of pasta, the bottles of beer and the saucepan with the apples, on the floor there were a couple of opened cans of tuna. And on one side, rolled up, was an army sleeping bag.
Felice. It was his. I could just see him, sheathed in his sleeping bag, happily guzzling the tuna.
I filled a bottle with water, got the rope out of the box and took it outside. I tied it to the crane jib, moved the corrugated sheet and mattress and looked down.
He was curled up like a hedgehog in the brown blanket.
I didn’t want to go down there, but I had to find out if there were any remains of my sister’s slice of meat. Even though I had seen Felice coming from the hill I couldn’t get it out of my head that the boy might be my brother.
I took out the cheese and asked him: ‘Can I come down? I’m the one who gave you the water. Do you remember? I’ve brought you something to eat. Caciotta. It’s good, caciotta. Better, ten times better, than meat. If you don’t attack me, I’ll give it to you.’
He didn’t reply.
‘Well, can I come down?’
Maybe Felice had cut his throat.
‘I’ll throw the caciotta down. Catch it.’ I threw it to him.
It landed near him.
A black hand, quick as a tarantula, shot out of the blanket and started to feel about on the ground till it found the cheese, grabbed it and whipped it back underneath. While he was eating his legs quivered, like those stray dogs when they come across a bit of leftover steak after days without food.
‘I’ve got some water too… shall I bring it down?’
He made a gesture with his arm.
I let myself down.
As soon as he felt I was near him, he cowered back against the wall.
I looked around, there was no trace of the meat.
‘I won’t hurt you. Are you thirsty?’ I held out the bottle. ‘Drink it, it’s good.’
He sat up without taking off the blanket. He looked like a ragged little ghost. His thin legs stuck out like two spindly white twigs. One was chained up. He put out an arm and snatched the bottle from me and, like the cheese, it vanished under the blanket.
The ghost acquired a long anteater’s nose. He was drinking.
He drained it in twenty seconds. And when he had finished, he even gave a burp.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked him.
He curled up again without deigning to reply.
‘What’s your father’s name?’
I waited in vain.
‘My father’s name’s Pino, what’s yours? Is your father called Pino too?’
He seemed to be asleep.
I stood looking at him, then I said: ‘Felice! Do you know him? I saw him. He was driving down in his car …’ I didn’t know what else to say. ‘Do you want me to go? If you want I’ll go.’ Nothing. ‘All right, I’ll go.’ I grabbed the rope. ‘Goodbye, then …’
I heard a whisper, a breath, something came out of the blanket.
I moved closer. ‘Did you speak?’
He whispered again.
‘I don’t understand. Speak louder.’
‘The little bears…!’ he shouted.
I jumped. ‘The little bears? What do you mean, the little bears?’
He lowered his voice. ‘The little wash-bears …’
‘The little wash-bears?’
‘The little wash-bears. If you leave the kitchen window open the little wash-bears come in and steal the cakes or the biscuits, depending on what you’re eating that day,’ he said very seriously. ‘If you, for example, leave the rubbish in front of the house, the little wash-bears come in the night and eat it up.’
He was like a broken radio that had suddenly started transmitting again.
‘It’s very important to shut the bucket properly, otherwise they’ll spill everything out.’
What was he talking about? I tried to interrupt him. ‘There aren’t any bears here. Nor wolves. There are some foxes.’ And then I asked him: ‘Did you by any chance have a slice of meat yesterday?’
‘The little wash-bears bite because they’re scared of humans.’
Who the hell were these little wash-bears? And what did they wash? Clothes? Besides, bears only talk in comics. I didn’t like this little wash-bear business …
I persisted. ‘Could you please tell me if you had a slice of meat yesterday? It’s very important.’
And he replied: ‘The little bears told me you’re not scared of the lord of the worms.’
A little voice in my brain was saying I mustn’t listen to him, I must run away.
I grasped the rope, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave, I kept staring at him spellbound.
He persisted. ‘You’re not scared of the lord of the worms.’
‘The lord of the worms? Who’s he?’
‘The lord of the worms says: Hey, little sap! I’m going to send down the stuff now. Take it and give me back the bucket. Otherwise I’ll come down and squash you like a worm. Yeah, squash you like a worm, I will. Are you the guardian angel?’
‘What?’
‘Are you the guardian angel?’
I stammered: ‘I … I, no … I’m not the angel …’
‘You are the angel. You’ve got the same voice.’
‘What angel?’
‘The one that talks, that says things.’
‘Isn’t it the little wash-bears that talk?’ I couldn’t make any sense of these ravings. ‘You told me so …’
‘The little bears talk, but sometimes they tell lies. The angel always tells the truth. You’re the guardian angel.’ He raised his voice. ‘You can tell me.’
I felt weak. The smell of shit stopped up my mouth, my nose, my brain. ‘I’m not an angel … I’m Michele, Michele Amitrano. I’m not a …’ I murmured and leaned against the wall and slid down to the ground and he got up, stretched out his arms towards me like a leper asking for alms and he stayed up for a few moments, then took one step and fell down, on his knees, under the blanket, at my feet.
&nb
sp; He touched one of my fingers, whispering.
I let out a yell. As if I had been touched by a disgusting jellyfish, a venomous spider. With that bony little hand, with those long black twisted nails of his.
He was speaking too quietly. ‘What, what did you say?’
‘What did you say? I’m dead!’ he replied.
‘What?’
‘What? Am I dead? Am I dead? I’m dead. What?’
‘Speak louder. Louder … Please …’
He gave a hoarse, voiceless scream, as piercing as a fingernail on a blackboard: ‘Am I dead? Am I dead? I’m dead.’
I fumbled for the rope and pulled myself up, kicking out and knocking earth down on him.
But he kept shrieking. ‘Am I dead? I’m dead. Am I dead?’
* * *
I pedalled along pursued by horseflies.
And I swore I would never, never go back onto that hill. Never, even if they blinded me, would I speak to that lunatic again.
How on earth could he think he was dead?
Nobody who’s alive can think they’re dead. When you’re dead, you’re dead. And you live in heaven. Or maybe in hell.
But what if he was right?
If he really was dead? If they had brought him back to life? Who? Only Jesus Christ can bring you back to life. And no one else. But when you wake up do you know you’ve been dead? Do you remember about heaven? Do you remember who you were before? You go mad, because your brain has rotted and you start talking about little wash-bears.
He wasn’t my twin and he wasn’t even my brother. And papa had nothing to do with him. The slice of meat had nothing to do with him. The saucepan wasn’t ours. Mama had thrown ours away.
And as soon as papa came back I would tell him the whole story. As he had taught me. And he would do something.
I had almost reached the road when I remembered the corrugated sheet. I had run away and left the hole open again.
If Felice went back up he would know at once that someone had been there poking his nose where he shouldn’t poke it. I couldn’t let myself get caught just because I was scared of a loony chained up in a hole. If Felice found out it had been me, he would drag me around by the ear.