Once, Skull and I had got into Felice’s car. We pretended the 127 was a spaceship. He drove and I shot at the Martians. Felice had caught us and yanked us out, in the middle of the road, pulling us by the ears, like rabbits. We cried our eyes out but he wouldn’t stop. Luckily mama had come out and given him a thrashing.
I wished I could leave everything like that, run home and shut myself up in my bedroom and read comics, but I turned back, cursing myself. The clouds had gone and it was scorching hot. I took off my T-shirt and tied it round my head, like an Indian. I picked up a stick. If I met Felice I would defend myself.
I tried not to get any nearer than necessary to the hole, but I couldn’t resist looking.
He was kneeling under the blanket with his arm stretched out, in the same position I had left him in.
I felt like jumping on that damned sheet and breaking it in a thousand pieces, but instead I pushed it and covered the hole.
When I got home mama was washing the dishes. She threw the frying pan in the sink. ‘Well, well, look who’s back!’
She was so angry her jaw was quivering. ‘Where on earth do you get to? You gave me the fright of my life … The other day your father didn’t give you a spanking. But this time you’re going to get one.’
I didn’t even have time to think up an excuse before she started chasing me. I jumped from one side of the kitchen to the other like a goat while my sister, sitting at the table, watched me, shaking her head.
‘Where are you going? Come here!’
I dived behind the sofa, crawled under the table, clambered over the armchair, slithered along the floor into my bedroom and hid under the bed.
‘Come out of there!’
‘No. You’ll smack me!’
‘I certainly will. If you come out of your own accord you’ll get fewer smacks.’
‘No, I’m not coming out!’
‘Very well then.’
A vice clamped on my ankle. I grabbed hold of the leg of the bed with both hands, but it was no use. Mama was stronger than Superman and that damned iron claw was slipping through my fingers. I let go and found myself between her legs. I tried to crawl back under the bed, but she didn’t give me a chance, she pulled me up by the trousers and tucked me under her arm as if I was a suitcase.
I screamed. ‘Let me go! Please! Let me go!’
She sat on the sofa, put me over her knees, pulled down my trousers and pants while I bleated like a lamb, threw back her hair and started to tan my backside.
Mama always had heavy hands. Her spanks were slow and well-aimed and made a dull thud, like a carpet beater on a rug.
‘I was looking for you everywhere.’ One. ‘Nobody knew where you’d got to.’ Two. ‘You’ll be the death of me.’ Three. ‘They must have thought I’m a bad mother.’ Four. ‘And that I don’t know how to bring up kids.’
‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Stop! Please, please, mama!’
On the radio a voice sang: ‘Croce. Croce e delizia. Delizia al cor.’
I remember it as if it were yesterday. All my life, whenever I’ve listened to La Traviata, I’ve seen myself lying with my bottom in the air, over my mother’s knee, as she sat straight-backed on the sofa, beating the living daylights out of me.
‘What shall we do?’ Salvatore asked me.
We were sitting on the bench throwing stones at an old boiler that had been dumped in the wheat. If you hit it you scored a point. The others, at the end of the street, were playing hide-and-seek.
The day had been windy, but now, at dusk, the air had calmed, it was sultry, and a band of weary bluish clouds had settled behind the fields.
I threw too far. ‘I don’t know. I can’t go cycling, my bum hurts. My mother smacked me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m always coming home late. Does your mother smack you?’
Salvatore threw and hit the boiler with a good bang. ‘Point! Three-one.’ Then he shook his head. ‘No. She can’t. She’s too fat.’
‘You’re lucky. My mother’s really strong and she can run faster than a bike.’
He laughed. ‘That’s impossible.’
I picked up a smaller stone and hurled it. This time I nearly hit the target. ‘I swear. Once, in Lucignano, we had to catch the bus. When we got there, it was just moving off. Mama ran after it so fast she caught up with it and started thumping on the door. They stopped.’
‘If my mother tried to run she’d die.’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Do you remember when Signorina Destani told us the story of the miracle of Lazarus?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you reckon Lazarus knew he’d been dead when he came back to life?’
Salvatore thought about it. ‘No. I reckon he thought he’d been ill.’
‘But how could he walk? Dead people’s bodies are all hard. Remember how hard that cat we found was.’
‘What cat?’ He threw and hit the boiler again. His aim was infallible.
‘The black cat, by the stream … do you remember?’
‘Yes, I remember. Skull broke it in half.’
‘If somebody’s dead and they wake up, they don’t walk right and they go crazy because their brain’s rotted and they say weird things, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Do you reckon it’s possible to bring a dead man back to life or do you think only Jesus Christ in person can do it?’
Salvatore scratched his head. ‘I don’t know. My aunt told me a true story. One day a man’s son was run over by a car and he was killed and all mangled up. The father couldn’t go on living, he felt ill, he cried all day, he went to a wizard and gave him all his money to bring his son back to life. The wizard said: “Go home and wait. Your son will return tonight.” The father waited, but the son didn’t come home, so in the end he went to bed. He was just falling asleep when he heard footsteps in the kitchen. He got up feeling very happy and saw his son, he was all mangled up and had one arm missing and his head was split open, with the brains running out and he said he hated him because he’d left him in the middle of the road to go with women and it was his fault he was dead.’
‘So?’
‘So the father got some petrol and set fire to him.’
‘I don’t blame him.’ I threw and finally hit the target. ‘Point! Four-two.’
Salvatore bent down to look for a stone. ‘No, I don’t blame him either.’
‘But do you think it’s a true story?’
‘No.’
‘Nor do I.’
I woke up because I needed a pee. My father had come back. I heard his voice in the kitchen.
There were visitors. They were quarrelling, interrupting each other, trading insults. Papa was very angry.
That evening we had gone to bed straight after supper.
I had fluttered around mama like a moth, to make it up. I had even peeled the potatoes, but she had been grouchy to me all afternoon. At supper she had banged down the plates in front of us and we had eaten in silence, while she bustled round the kitchen and looked at the road.
My sister was asleep. I knelt on the bed and looked out of the window.
The truck was parked beside a big dark car with a silver front. A rich man’s car.
I was dying for a pee, but to reach the bathroom I would have to go through the kitchen. With all those people I felt embarrassed, but I was practically wetting my pants.
I got up and went to the door. I grasped the handle. I counted. ‘One, two, three … four, five, six.’ And I gently opened it.
They were sitting at the table.
Italo Natale, Skull’s father. Pietro Mura, the barber. Angela Mura. Felice. Papa. And an old man I had never seen before. He must be Sergio, papa’s friend.
They were smoking. Their faces were red and tired and their eyes were bleary.
The table was covered with empty bottles, ashtrays full of cigarette stubs, packets of Nazionali and Milde Sorte, breadcrumbs. The fan was spinning, but it wasn’t doin
g any good. The heat was suffocating. The television was on, without the volume. There was a smell of tomatoes, sweat and insecticide burners.
Mama was making the coffee.
I looked at the old man, who was taking a cigarette from a packet of Dunhills.
I later found out that his name was Sergio Materia. At the time he was seventy-seven, and he came from Rome, where he had achieved notoriety, twenty years earlier, as a result of a robbery at a fur shop on Monte Mario and a raid on the central branch of the Banca dell’ Agricoltura. A week after the robbery he had bought a rosticceria-tavola calda in Piazza Bologna. He wanted to launder the money, but the carabinieri had busted him on opening day. He had done a long stretch in prison, had been released for good conduct and had emigrated to South America.
Sergio Materia was thin. With a bald head. Above his ears grew some sparse yellowish hair, which he tied back in a pony-tail. He had a long nose and sunken eyes and his cheeks were dappled by at least two days’ growth of white beard. His long blondish eyebrows looked like tufts of fur glued on to his forehead. His neck was wrinkled, and blotchy, as if it had been whitened with bleach. He was wearing a light-blue suit and a brown silk shirt. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses rested on his shiny scalp. And a golden chain with a sun pendant nestled among the hairs of his chest. On his wrist he wore a solid gold watch.
He was in a rage. ‘Right from the start, you people have made one mistake after another.’ He had a funny way of talking. ‘And this guy’s a moron.’ He pointed at Felice. He looked at him the way you look at a dog turd. He picked up a toothpick and started cleaning his yellow teeth.
Felice was bent over the table drawing patterns on the tablecloth with his fork. He was the spitting image of his brother when he got told off by his mama.
The old man scratched his throat. ‘I told them up North we couldn’t rely on you. You’re incompetent. It was a shitty idea. You’ve screwed up one thing after another. You play with fire.’ He threw the toothpick in his plate. ‘I’m a fool! I sit here wasting my time … If things had gone as they should have done I’d have been in Brazil by this time, and instead of that I’m stuck here in this lousy hole.’
Papa tried to argue. ‘Sergio, listen … Don’t worry … things aren’t yet …’
But the old man shut him up. ‘What fucking things? You’d better shut up, because you’re worse than the others. And you know why? Because you don’t realize it. You’re incompetent. All calm, sure of yourself, and you’ve fucked up one thing after another. You’re an imbecile.’
Papa tried to answer, then he swallowed and lowered his gaze.
He had called him an imbecile.
I felt as if I’d been stabbed in the side. Nobody had ever talked to papa like that. Papa was the boss of Acqua Traverse. And that disgusting old man, who had appeared out of nowhere, was insulting him in front of everyone.
Why didn’t papa throw him out?
Suddenly no one talked any more. They sat in silence, while the old man started picking his teeth again and looking at the lamp-shade.
The old man was like the emperor. When the emperor’s in a black mood everyone has to keep quiet. Including papa.
‘The news! Here’s the news!’ said Barbara’s father fidgeting on his seat. ‘It’s starting!’
‘Turn it up! Teresa, turn it up! And switch off the light,’ papa said to mama.
At my house the light was always switched off when we watched television. It was compulsory. Mama rushed to the volume control and then to the light switch.
The room fell into half-light. Everyone turned towards the TV set. Like when Italy were playing.
Hidden behind the door, I saw them turn into dark silhouettes tinged with blue by the screen.
The newsreader was talking about a crash between two trains near Florence, some people had been killed, but nobody cared.
Mama was putting the sugar in the coffee. And they were saying: ‘One for me, two for me, none for me.’
Barbara’s mother said: ‘Maybe they won’t mention it. They didn’t yesterday. Maybe no one’s interested any more.’
‘Shut up, you!’ the old man snapped.
It was the right moment to go and have my pee. All I had to do was reach my parents’ bedroom. From there I could get into the bathroom and do it in the dark.
I imagined I was a black panther. I crawled out of the room on all fours. I was a few metres from safety when Skull’s father got up from the sofa and came towards me.
I squashed down flat on the floor. Italo Natale fetched the cigarettes from the table and went back to sit on the sofa. I breathed a sigh and started moving forward. The door was within reach, I had made it, I had got there. I was starting to relax, when they all shouted at once: ‘Here it is! Here it is! Quiet! Quiet everybody!’
I craned my neck over the sofa and nearly had a heart attack.
Behind the newsreader was a picture of the boy.
The boy in the hole.
He was blond. Well washed, his hair neatly combed, smartly dressed in a checked shirt, he was smiling and clutching an engine from an electric train set.
The newsreader went on: ‘The search goes on for little Filippo Carducci, son of the Lombard businessman Giovanni Carducci, who was kidnapped two months ago in Pavia. The carabinieri and the investigating magistrates are following a new trail which is thought to lead …’ I didn’t hear any more.
They were shouting. Papa and the old man jumped to their feet.
The boy’s name was Filippo. Filippo Carducci.
‘We are now broadcasting an appeal from Signora Luisa Carducci to the kidnappers, recorded this morning.’
‘What’s this cow want now?’ said papa.
‘Bitch! You fucking bitch!’ growled Felice from the back.
His father cuffed him round the head. ‘Shut up!’
Barbara’s mother seconded him. ‘Silly idiot!’
‘For Christ’s sake! Will you all shut up!’ shrieked the old man. ‘I want to hear!’
A lady appeared. Elegant. Blonde. She was neither young nor old, but she was beautiful. She was sitting in a big leather armchair in a room full of books. Her eyes were glistening. She was squeezing her hands as if they might escape from her. She sniffed and said, looking us in the eyes: ‘I’m Filippo Carducci’s mother. I’m appealing to my son’s kidnappers. Please don’t hurt him. He’s a good boy, polite and very shy. Please treat him well. I’m sure you know what love and understanding are. Even if you haven’t got any children I’m sure you can imagine what it means when they’re taken away from you. The ransom you’ve asked for is very high, but my husband and I are prepared to give you everything we own to have Filippo back with us. You’ve threatened to cut off one of his ears. I beg you, I implore you not to do it …’ She dried her eyes, got her breath back and went on. ‘We’re doing all we can. Please. God will reward you if you are merciful. Tell Filippo that his mama and papa haven’t forgotten him and that they love him.’
Papa made the scissors sign with his fingers. ‘Two ears we’ll cut off. Two.’
The old man added: ‘Yeah, that’ll teach you to talk on TV, you tramp!’
And they all started shouting again.
I slipped back into my bedroom, shut the door, climbed up on the window sill and did it outside.
It had been papa and the others who had taken the boy away from that lady on television.
The pee drummed on the tarpaulin of the truck and the droplets shone in the light of the street-lamp.
‘Be careful, Michele, you mustn’t go out at night,’ mama always said. ‘When it’s dark the bogeyman comes out and takes the children away and sells them to the gypsies.’
Papa was the bogeyman.
By day he was good, but at night he was bad.
All the others were gypsies. Gypsies disguised as people. And that old man was the king of the gypsies and papa was his servant. Mama wasn’t, though.
I had imagined the gypsies as elflike creatures that mov
ed very quickly, with foxes’ ears and chickens’ feet. But they were really just ordinary people.
Why didn’t they give him back to her? What use was a barmy little boy to them? Filippo’s mother was distressed, you could see that. If she asked on television it meant she cared a lot about her son.
And papa wanted to cut off his ears.
‘What are you doing?’ I jumped, turned round and nearly peed on the bed.
Maria had woken up.
I put my dick back in my pants.
‘Nothing.’
‘You were peeing, I saw you.’
‘I couldn’t wait.’
‘What’s going on in there?’
If I told Maria that papa was the bogeyman she might go out of her mind. I shrugged.
‘Nothing.’
‘What are they arguing about?’
‘Nothing special.’
‘But what?’
I said the first thing that came into my head: ‘They’re playing bingo.’
‘Bingo?’
‘Yes. They’re arguing about who draws the numbers.’
‘Who’s winning?’
‘Sergio, papa’s friend.’
‘Has he arrived?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Old. Go to sleep now.’
‘I can’t. It’s too hot. It’s noisy. When are they going?’
In the other room they were still shouting.
I got down from the window. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Michele, will you tell me a bedtime story so I can go to sleep?’
Papa told us stories about Agnolotto in Africa. Agnolotto was a little town dog who hid in a suitcase and ended up in Africa by mistake, among the lions and elephants. We liked that story a lot. Agnolotto could stand up to the jackals. And he had a marmot friend. When papa came home he usually told us a new episode.
It was the first time Maria had ever asked me to tell her a bedtime story, I felt very honoured. The trouble was I didn’t know the stories. ‘Well, I would, but… I don’t know any,’ I had to admit.
‘Yes you do. You do know some.’