Mimmo picked up another stone. ‘What if nobody goes?’
‘They’ll fail me.’
‘So?’ He took a run-up and threw the stone.
‘So I don’t want to be failed.’
‘I was failed three times …’
‘So?’
‘So what does it matter? One year more, one year less …’
Pietro snorted. His brother was being a bastard. As usual. ‘Will you go or won’t you?’
‘I don’t know … I hate that school … I can’t go into the place. It makes me feel sick …’
‘You won’t go, then?’ it was an effort for Pietro to ask him again, but if Mimmo thought he was going to get down on his knees and beg, well, he was wrong.
‘I don’t know. I’ve got a more serious problem at the moment. My girlfriend has ditched me.’
Pietro turned away and said in a flat tone: ‘Well, fuck off, then!’ And he started off down the hillside.
‘Hey, Pietro, don’t be cross, listen, I’ll think about it. If I feel like it tomorrow, I’ll go. If I make it up with Patti, I swear I’ll go,’ shouted Mimmo in that bastard’s tone of his.
‘Fuck off! That’s all I’ve got to say to you.’
122
Flora Palmieri had spent the afternoon wondering what to make for dinner. She had leafed through recipe books and cooking magazines without finding anything.
What would Graziano like?
She had no idea. But she was sure he wouldn’t object to pasta-sciutta. Linguine with zucchini and basil? A fresh dish, for all seasons. Or trenette with pesto. Although that contained garlic … Or no pasta and baked aubergine barchette instead. Or …
It’s a real problem, indecision.
Finally, in desperation, she’d decided on curried chicken with raisins, hard-boiled eggs and rice. Flora had cooked this dish for herself a couple of times, following a recipe from Annabella, and had really enjoyed it. It was something different, an exotic dish, which would certainly appeal to a globetrotter like Graziano.
Now she was pushing a trolley among the shelves of the Co-op, looking for curry powder. She was out of it at home. But, as luck would have it, the Co-op was out of it too, it was too late to drive to Orbano and she’d already bought the chicken.
Oh well, I’ll just do roast chicken with new potatoes and salad. A timeless classic.
She went to the wine section and picked a bottle of Chianti and another of Prosecco.
The idea of this intimate dinner both excited and frightened her. She had cleaned the house and got out the good tablecloth and the Vietri dinner service.
As she busied herself with all these preparations, she had tried to silence an irritating little voice which kept saying that she was making a big mistake, that this relationship would only cause her heartache, that she would fill herself with hopes only to see them dashed, that on the way back from Saturnia she had decided to do one thing but she was now doing another, that Mama would suffer…
But Flora’s healthy side had asserted itself and locked that irritating little voice away in the cellar, at least for the time being.
I’ve never invited a man home, now I’m damn well going to do it. I want to do it. We’ll eat the chicken, chat, watch TV, drink the wine, and that’s it. No necking, no rolling about on the floor like pigs, no lechery. And if it’s the last time I see him, so be it. Maybe I’ll suffer. But what’s a little more suffering to me … ? I know what’s right and Mama, if she could, would tell me to go ahead.
To reassure herself, she thought of Michela Giovannini. Michela had taught physical education at the Buonarroti for a year. She was a petite girl, the same age as Flora, with brown hair and a dark complexion.
Flora had taken an instant liking to her.
During staff meetings her spontaneity came to the fore and left the old bats speechless. Michela always sided with the children. Once she had clashed violently with Miss Gatta over a question of timetables, and although in the end she hadn’t got her way, at least she had told her to her face what she thought of her Fascist methods.
Something Flora had never managed to do.
They had become friends quite by chance. As often happens. Flora had asked Michela for advice about where to buy some gym shoes for walking on the beach. Next day Michela had arrived with a pair of beautiful Adidases. ‘They’re too big for me, someone brought me them from France but they’d chosen the wrong size. Try them on, they should fit you,’ she’d said, putting them in her hands. Flora had hesitated. ‘No, thank you, I couldn’t possibly,’ but Michela had insisted. ‘What am I supposed to do with them, leave them to rot at the bottom of the wardrobe?’ Finally she’d tried them on. They were a perfect fit.
Flora had invited her to go walking with her and Michela had accepted at once, enthusiastically, so every Sunday morning they would walk across the fields behind the railway and go down onto the beach for a stroll. The stroll would last a couple of hours and now and then Michela would try to persuade Flora to run a short distance and sometimes succeeded. They chatted about things.
School. Their families. Flora had talked about her mother and her illness. And Michela had talked about her boyfriend, Fulvio, who worked half-days as a building labourer in Orbano. They had been going out together for several years. He was twenty-two. Three years younger than Michela. They had rented a flat in a block near the Franceschini brothers’ fish farm. She said she was in love with him (she had shown great tact in never asking Flora about her own love life).
One morning Michela had arrived on the beach, grasped her friend by both hands, looked around and said: ‘Flora, I’ve made up my mind, I’m going to marry him.’
‘How will you manage, without any money?’
‘We’ll get by somehow … We’re in love, and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’
Flora had given a conventional smile. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Then she’d hugged Michela hard and felt happy for her, but at the same time she’d felt a vice squeeze her chest.
What about me? Why do I get nothing?
She hadn’t been able to hold back her tears. Michela had thought they were tears of happiness, but they were of envy. A terrible envy. Afterwards, at home, Flora had hated herself for being so selfish.
Michela had begun inundating her with phone calls. She wanted to introduce her to Fulvio and show her her little flat. And Flora, each time, would find increasingly fatuous excuses for not going. She sensed that it wouldn’t be good for her. It would set painful ideas whirling in her head. But in the end, such was Michela’s persistence, she’d been obliged to accept an invitation to dinner.
The flat was tiny. And Fulvio was little more than a teenager. But it was cosy, the fire was crackling merrily and Fulvio had cooked a grouper which he had caught out scuba-diving at Turtle Cliffs. It had been an excellent dinner. Fulvio was very affectionate towards his future bride (kissing her, holding her hand) and afterwards they had sat down to watch Lawrence of Arabia and eat cantuccini biscuits dipped in vinsanto. Flora had returned home at midnight feeling happy. No, happy is not the right word, calm.
That was what she wanted for this evening. An occasion of that sort.
The dinner with Graziano would be a bit like the one at Michela’s. Except that this time she would have a man all to herself.
On her way past a long freezer she took out a tub of ice cream and was heading for the checkout when she saw Pietro Moroni appear in front of her. He was limping slightly and smiled when he saw her.
‘Hallo, Pietro, what’s going on?’
123
‘I wanted to talk to you, Miss …’ Pietro heaved a sigh of relief.
At last he’d found her. He had walked past Miss Palmieri’s house but hadn’t seen her car parked there so he had gone down to the village (a nightmare now – he had to sneak about like a spy to avoid meeting Pierini and his gang) but hadn’t found her anywhere and then, just as he was about to return home, he had spotted the Y10 outside the Co-op. He h
ad entered and there she was.
‘Why are you limping, have you hurt yourself?’ she asked him in a concerned tone.
‘I fell off my bike, it’s nothing serious,’ said Pietro dismissively.
‘What’s going on?’
It was essential that he explain it clearly, then she would find a solution. He trusted Miss Palmieri. He looked at her and, despite his absorption with what he had to tell her, he noticed that there had been a change in her. Not an enormous one, but there was definitely something different about her. In the first place she had let her hair down, and how thick it was! Like a mane. Secondly she was wearing jeans, and that too was a novelty. He had always seen her in those long black skirts. And then … he didn’t know how to describe it, but there was something strange about her face … Something … no, he couldn’t put his finger on it. Just different.
‘Well, what do want to tell me?’
His mind had wandered off as he looked at her. Go on, tell her. ‘My parents won’t come to school to speak to the deputy head and I don’t think my brother will either.’
‘Really? Why not?’
How can I tell her? ‘My mother’s not well and can’t go out, and my father … my father …’ Tell her. Tell her the truth. ‘My father said it’s my problem, I caused all the trouble, not him, so he won’t come. And my brother… my brother’s just an idiot.’ He moved closer and asked her, ingenuously: ‘Will they fail me, Miss?’
‘No, they won’t.’ Flora crouched down to Pietro’s level. ‘Of course they won’t. You’re doing well at school, I’ve told you that. Why should they?’
‘But … if my parents don’t come, won’t the deputy head …?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll talk to her.’
‘Will you really?’
‘Yes, I will.’ Flora kissed her forefingers. ‘I swear.’
‘And the … thingummies won’t come?’
‘The thingummies?’
‘The social thingummies.’
‘The social assistants?’ Flora shook her head. ‘No, don’t worry, they won’t come.’
‘Thank you,’ breathed Pietro, freed of an intolerable burden.
‘Come here.’
He drew closer and Flora gave him a big hug. Pietro put his arms round her neck and her heart filled with a tenderness and pity that made her head spin for a moment. This little boy should have been my son. Her throat was stifled. My God …
She must stand up or she would burst into tears. She rose to her feet and then took an ice cream from the freezer. ‘Would you like one, Pietro?’
Pietro shook his head. ‘No, thanks. I must go home, it’s late.’
‘So must I. You’re right, it’s very late. See you at school on Monday, then.’
‘Okay.’ Pietro turned.
But before he could leave, Flora asked him: ‘Tell me something, who made you such a nice boy?’
‘My parents,’ replied Pietro and vanished behind the pasta section.
SIX MONTHS LATER …
18th June
124
Gloria was trying to pull him to his feet. But Pietro wasn’t collaborating.
He was on his knees, in the middle of the entrance hall of the school, with his hands over his face. ‘They’ve failed me,’ he kept saying. ‘They’ve failed me. She swore to me. She swore to me. Why? Why?’
‘Come on, Pietro, get up. Let’s get out of here.’
‘Leave me alone.’ He shook her off brusquely, but then he stood up and dried away the tears with his hands.
All his schoolmates were looking at him in silence. In those lowered eyes and tight-lipped smiles Pietro saw a moderate dose of sympathy and a larger dose of embarrassment.
One boy, bolder than the others, came over and patted him on the back. This was the cue for the rest of the flock to start touching him and bleating. ‘Don’t let it get you down. What does it matter … ?’ ‘Typical of those bastards.’ ‘I’m really sorry.’ ‘It’s not fair.’
Pietro kept nodding and wiping his nose.
Then he had a vision. A man who, judging from the way he was dressed, might have been his father, entered the chicken run and instead of choosing the plumpest bird (who deserved it more), grabbed one at random, from among the cluster, and said contentedly, ‘We’ll have this one for dinner.’ And all of them, roosters and hens, were sad about their companion’s fate, but only because they knew that sooner or later they were going to get it too.
The bomb that had dropped from the sky had landed on Pietro Moroni, blowing him to smithereens.
I bought it today. But sooner or later you all will. You can bet your lives on that.
‘Are you coming?’ Gloria implored him.
Pietro headed for the door. ‘Yes, I want to get out. It’s too hot in here.’
Standing by the door was Italo. He was wearing a light-blue shirt that was too short and tight for him. His belly tugged at the buttons, stretching the buttonholes. Two round patches darkened his armpits. He was shaking that round head of his, shiny with sweat. ‘She told you wrong. If they failed you they should have failed Pierini, Ronca and Bacci too. It’s a damn shame.’ His tone was that of a funeral commemoration.
Pietro ignored him and went out followed by Gloria, who repelled the inquisitive crowd with the zeal of a bodyguard. She was the only one who was going to tend to his plight.
Meanwhile the sun, millions of kilometres away from these childish tragedies, roasted the schoolyard, the road, the tables outside the bar and everything else.
Pietro walked down the steps, went out through the gate and, without looking at anyone, mounted his bike and rode off.
125
‘Where on earth has he got to?’ Gloria had gone to fetch her backpack and when she had returned Pietro wasn’t there anymore. She took her bike and set off in pursuit, but couldn’t see him anywhere on the road ahead.
She cycled to Fig-Tree Cottage but he wasn’t there either. Mimmo, bare-chested under the shed roof, was tinkering with the cylinder head of his motorbike. Gloria asked him if he’d seen his brother, but Mimmo said no and carried on loosening bolts.
Where can he have gone?
Gloria went to the villa, hoping he was there. He wasn’t. So she returned to the village.
The air was still and the heat stifling. There was nobody around. If it hadn’t been for the merry twittering of the sparrows and the chirping of the cicadas, Ischiano would have been like a ghost town in the Texan desert. The scooters and motorbikes were leaned against the walls. Their stands would have sunk into the asphalt, which was as soft as butter. The shops’ shutters were half down. The Persian blinds of the houses were closed. And inside the cars long white strips of cardboard had been put against the windscreens. Everyone was indoors. Those who had air conditioning were all right, but those who didn’t were not.
Gloria stopped outside the Station Bar. Pietro’s bike wasn’t among those in the rack.
This would be the last place he’d come.
She was exhausted, hot and terribly thirsty. She entered the bar. The air conditioning, turned up to maximum, froze the sweat on her body. She bought a can of Coca-Cola and went to drink it under the parasol outside the door.
She was very worried. It was the first time Pietro hadn’t waited for her. He must be feeling really bad to behave like that. And in that state he might do something drastic.
Like hanging himself.
Why not?
She had read about such things in the paper. A boy in Milan who had failed his end-of-year assessment had jumped out of a fifth-floor window in despair and, when that had failed to kill him, had crawled to the lift leaving a trail of blood behind him, gone up to the sixth and jumped out again and this time, fortunately, had killed himself.
Was Pietro capable of committing suicide?
Yes.
But why was it so damned important for him to pass? If she had failed, she would have been upset, certainly, but she wouldn’t have made a big thing out of it.
For Pietro, though, school had always been so important. He believed in it too much. And a disappointment like this might drive him crazy.
Where could he be? Of course … Why didn’t I think of it before?
She downed the rest of her Coca-Cola and got back into the saddle.
Pietro’s bike was hidden among the bushes, against the wire netting that separated the lagoon from the coast road.
‘Found you!’ Gloria exulted, and she hid her bike next to Pietro’s, slipped behind a large oak and lifted the lower edge of the fence, creating an opening which, though small, was big enough for her to wriggle through on her stomach. Once she was on the other side she put it back into place. It was strictly forbidden to enter there.
And if the WWF wardens catch you you’re in trouble.
One last check and she vanished into the dense vegetation.
The first two hundred metres of the narrow path that threaded between reeds and rushes more than two metres high were passable, but the further it went into the marsh, the more difficult progress became and your shoes sank into that thick green slime till the muddy water prevailed and submerged the path completely.
There was a smell in the still air, bitter and sickly-sweet at the same time, which stunned the senses. It was the water plants decaying in that warm, stagnant swill.
Clouds of mosquitoes, midges and sandflies swarmed around Gloria, feeding on her sweet blood. And there were a lot of eerie noises. The monotonous croaking of frogs on heat. The incessant buzzing of hornets and wasps. And those rustles, those swishes, those quick, suspicious whirrings among the reeds. Those plops in the water. The mournful calls of the herons.
A hellish place.
Why did Pietro love it so much?
Because he’s crazy.
Now the water was over her knees. And she was finding it difficult to move forward. The plants twined round her ankles like long slimy tagliatelle. The branches and leathery leaves scratched her bare arms. And hosts of little transparent fish escorted her as she waded on like a US marine in South-East Asia.