202
Giovanni Pagani, a lanky and rather slow-witted young man, was sitting on a low wall outside the Sacred Heart Hospital. He had recently bought a jacket identical to that used by the Canadian explorer Jan Roche Bobois in crossing the Andes on a hang-glider and was extremely pleased with the garment’s weatherproofness. In addition to this practical consideration, he was pondering what arguments he could use to persuade his girlfriend to have an abortion. Marta was inside collecting the result of her pregnancy test, and he was a hundred per cent certain that it would be positive, given the intimate link that his life had established with Murphy’s law in recent months.
So Giovanni Pagani’s brain was harbouring two very different thoughts. They were as tight a squeeze as two sumo wrestlers in a telephone box, yet a third thought managed to find some room.
That guy who had dismounted from a battered old Boxer looked as if he had just escaped from a lunatic asylum, been thrown bodily onto a rubbish collection lorry and finally, for good measure, beaten up by a gang of hooligans.
Giovanni saw him untie a large wall clock from the luggage rack, but then he noticed that Marta, looking radiantly happy, was coming out of the hospital waving a sheet of paper, and as quickly as it had been born the thought vanished, swept away by that of being a father.
In the entrance hall of the Sacred Heart hospital a group of elderly patients were sitting on shabby, savannah-coloured armchairs. Some wearing dressing-gowns, others pyjamas, they were basking like green lizards in the last warm rays of the sun which filtered through the large window that overlooked the car park. They were all saying how strange it was that a night like that should be followed by a sunny day, and that the weather seemed to have gone completely haywire lately.
Sixty-four-year-old Michele Cavoli, who was in hospital for cirrhosis of the liver, maintained that it was all the fault of those Arab bastards, who were putting a lot of chemical poisons into the atmosphere to kill us. If he had been the president of the United States he wouldn’t have hesitated five seconds. A couple of nice big atomic bombs on the Middle East to wipe them off the map. He was about to add a historical footnote to the effect that if they hadn’t dropped those two bombs on the bloody Japs … But he stopped to observe that there was another bastard who deserved to die, squashed underfoot like a cockroach: Franco Basaglia. That fool, with his bill to close the mental hospitals, had ruined Italy, releasing a host of psychopathic maniacs onto the streets and into the public hospitals. That guy over there, for example, the one with the wall clock under his arm, why the hell wasn’t he locked away in a nice padded cell? He kept staring at the chandelier like an imbecile and gesticulating as if there was someone hanging down from it. Who the hell was he talking to, the Eternal Father?
Michele Cavoli had hit the nail on the head.
Quattro Formaggi, standing in the middle of the hall with his big nose pointing up in the air, was asking God what he should do, but God wasn’t answering him any more.
You’re angry. I’ve done something wrong … But what? What have I done wrong?
He didn’t understand. Cristiano had told him that Rino had been at home when he’d had the stroke. How was that possible? He had seen him die in the wood with his own eyes.
He was so bewildered … If he hadn’t had the skull ring in his stomach he would have started thinking it had all been a dream again.
God had helped him and led him by the hand during the storm, he had put Ramona in front of him, he had struck Rino down, he had revealed the purpose of the girl’s death to him and then, suddenly, for no reason, he had abandoned him.
He had nobody left now but Rino. He was the only person he could talk to.
He looked around. The entrance hall was full of people. Nobody was taking any notice of him. He had dressed up specially. He was wearing the blue suit Danilo had given him because it had been too small for him. A brown tie. And under his arm he held the barometer clock shaped like a violin that he had found a few months before in a rubbish bin.
The gift for Rino.
The problem was that he hated that place. He had spent three months in there after he had nearly killed himself by touching the high-tension cables with his fishing rod. Three months which he remembered as a black hole, lit up here and there by the odd unpleasant memory. A black hole from which he had emerged full of tics and with a head that no longer worked as it had done before.
He approached the stairway that led to the upper floors. Just next to it was a dark wooden door, which stood ajar. A sliver of golden light came out. Above the door was a blue sign on which was written in golden letters: CHAPEL.
Quattro Formaggi looked around and entered.
It was a long, narrow room. At the other end, right in the centre, was a statue of the Madonna illuminated by a small spotlight and surrounded by copper goblets containing flowers. There were a couple of empty benches. Two loudspeakers emitted, in soft tones, a Gregorian chant.
Quattro Formaggi fell on his knees and began to pray.
203
Beppe Trecca was lying on the lounger where Rino Zena had spent the greater part of his last few evenings. A pair of suede Geoxes lay on the floor.
He was rubbing his chilly feet. He had turned on the electric fire, and the room, fortunately, was beginning to warm up. The dying sun on the horizon was firing its last rays through the shutters, glinting on an empty beer bottle.
Beppe was staring at the television without looking at it. He felt tired and was beginning to feel hungry. The last food to enter his stomach had been the chicken with bamboo shoots that he had eaten in the camper. He could have devoured one of Sahid’s kebabs.
How he loved that exotic sandwich! With the spicy sauce, the yoghurt, the tomatoes and that soft bread. In the fridge there was nothing but a jar of pickles and some parmesan rind. In the larder a handful of rice and a couple of stock cubes.
What if I drove over to Sahid’s?
How long would it take him? Half an hour at most.
Cristiano was so tired he wouldn’t wake up till the next day. Beppe had gone upstairs to check and had found him fast asleep, wrapped up in a double layer of blankets, just like a kebab … It was the first time he had been upstairs. He had seen Rino’s room. A revolting pigsty with a swastika hanging on the wall. The toilet filthy, with the door broken in. Cristiano’s room. An empty cube, without a radiator and full of big cardboard boxes.
The boy couldn’t go on living in that squalor. A new home must be found for him as soon as possible. Trecca would find a normal family that could foster him till he was eighteen.
And yet … And yet he wasn’t so sure that that was the right thing to do. Those two lived for each other, and something told him that if he separated them he would only make things worse. The sorrow would kill them or turn them into two ferocious monsters.
The social worker’s empty stomach brought him back to more concrete problems. He realised that the Arab’s van was near Ida’s house, and therefore off limits.
How about cooking myself some rice?
He could always boil the rice and dissolve the stock cube over it with the cooking water.
He stretched, looking around, and asked himself the same question he asked every time he went to see the Zena family.
How could those two live in a place like that? With no washing machine? No iron? Without even a semblance of order?
He too had been born into a humble home. His father had been a ticket-collector on the regional trains and his mother a housewife. They too had found it hard to make ends meet, but his parents were tidy, responsible people. When you entered the flat you always had to take off your shoes, have a wash and put on your pyjamas and slippers. The dirty clothes were put in a cupboard and everyone, including his father, wore pyjamas at home. He had fond memories of the family suppers. They would sit at the table in their nightclothes, their skin softened by the boiling hot shower.
That’s a civilised way of living.
The Zena
home, with a bit of imagination and a few pieces of IKEA furniture, could be improved enormously. A lick of paint on the walls and a good clean, and everything would be different.
Since he was going to be spending a week there he could start cleaning it up himself.
If poor old Rino dies I could adopt Cristiano and live here, thought Beppe Trecca, jumping up from the lounger with sudden enthusiasm.
His mind conjured up the image of him with Cristiano, Ida and her children in the house, now completely renovated. All of them in pyjamas. And then the hikes in the mountains with rucksacks. And him and Ida in the tent making love …
“Oh my God, Beppe … I’m going to come.”
He felt a blade slicing through his guts. That dream would never come true. He would never be able to kiss that woman again. He would never be able to give her pleasure.
He collapsed on the sofa disconsolately and started groaning as if they were giving him a proctoscopy.
You must hold firm. If you can’t, go away.
Yes, perhaps that was the only way to start living again. To go away. For good. He could return to Ariccia and try to get back into university.
His attention was caught by the images of the regional news.
Against a wall there was a car crushed like a beer can.
‘Danilo Aprea must have lost control of his car, which ran into the wall of a building in Via Enrico Fermi. When the rescue services arrived there was nothing they could do. Aprea was …’
The social worker gaped.
Rino’s friend. Cristiano, in the hospital, had said he would go and stay with him.
So that’s why he couldn’t get hold of him.
What the hell was going on? In the same night your father goes into a coma and his best friend, the only person who could help you, has a horrific accident and is killed? Why was fate hitting this poor kid so hard? What had he done wrong?
How on earth am I going to tell him?
His mobile phone, which was lying on the floor, gave two beeps and lit up and Beppe Trecca’s heart skipped two beats in response.
Another text message.
It was the third since that morning.
Stop it. Stop doing it, please.
He felt stifled. He loosened the knot of his tie with his cold-numbed fingers, and then, on an impulse, picked up the little handset and squeezed it tightly. The bluish light of the display gleamed between his fingers like a radioactive element.
He had to restrain himself from smashing it against a wall. With his eyes closed he breathed in. He opened them again.
MULTIMEDIA MESSAGE
DO YOU WISH TO RECEIVE IT?
Despite instinct, reason and logic, despite his stomach, his throat, the blood that was pulsing in his veins, the hair that was standing up on his head, his trembling hands and even his sagging knees, despite the fact that everything was telling him no, no, and again no, the social worker saw his thumb, anarchic and self-destructive, press the green key.
Slowly an image began to form on the mobile’s little screen and Beppe Trecca’s soul started burning like newspaper.
Ida was smiling at him a little sulkily, like a little girl whose sweets had been taken away.
Underneath were the words:
Darling, will you call me? ?
204
‘You’re praying for a loved one, aren’t you?’
Quattro Formaggi, on his knees, turned towards the voice behind him.
He saw a dark form hidden by the gloom of the chapel.
The figure took a step forward.
It was a little man. He must have been about a metre and a half high. A big dwarf. With a round head set between two sloping shoulders. Blue eyes that gleamed like two little lights. Fair hair combed across a balding head. Ears small and crumpled. He wore a grey flannel suit. His trousers, which were too short for him, were held up by a leather belt with a heavy silver buckle. A lozenge-patterned shirt covered, like an air balloon, his distended stomach. He had a black leather briefcase under one arm.
‘Are you praying for someone who is suffering?’
He had a quiet voice and a guttural R. But no particular accent.
The little man knelt down beside him. Quattro Formaggi could smell his scent. It was like that soap they used in the public toilets, which gave him a headache.
‘May I join you in prayer?’
He nodded, continuing to stare at the weeping statue of the Madonna. He was about to get up and leave, but the man grabbed hold of his wrist and, looking him in the eye, said: ‘You do know, don’t you, that our Lord carries off the best people to take them to His home? And that His will is to us, poor sinners, as obscure as the darkest of winter nights?’
Quattro Formaggi knelt there, open-mouthed. The little man’s blue eyes bored into him like gimlets.
What if this man had been sent by God? What if he was the messenger who would tell him everything and clear up the muddle in his head?
‘You do know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Quattro Formaggi found himself answering. His voice trembled and the world around him seemed to go blurred and then come back into focus, as if someone was playing with the lens of a camera. The pain in his shoulder grew more acute, and at the same time the sounds from the entrance hall seemed to stop. Now the loudspeakers were emitting piano music played with the lightest of touches.
‘It is faith that sustains us and helps us to bear the pain.’
The little man was looking at him with a wise and kindly expression, and Quattro Formaggi couldn’t help smiling.
‘But sometimes faith alone is not enough. Something more is needed. Something that can put us in contact with God. On speaking terms. As we might be with a friend. May I ask what your name is?’
Quattro Formaggi realised that his throat was dry. He swallowed. ‘My name is … Corrado Rumitz …’ He summoned up his courage. ‘Though everyone calls me Quattro Formaggi. I’m tired of that name.’
‘Quattro Formaggi,’ said the other, gravely.
It was the first time in his life that someone hadn’t laughed when he’d told them his nickname.
‘Well, I’m very pleased to meet you, Corrado. My name’s Riccardo, but I too have a nickname. Ricky.’
Ricky’s eyes seemed to grow so big that they filled his whole face.
‘May we exchange a sign of peace?’
‘A sign of peace?’
The little man hugged him tightly and remained in that position for a long time, squeezing his bruised ribs. Quattro Formaggi forced himself not to scream with pain.
When he released him, Ricky seemed moved. ‘Thank you. Sometimes the mere embrace of a stranger is enough to make us feel that God loves us. Sometimes faith is not enough for us to enter the graces of the Lord. Often it takes something more. Often we need …’ He looked at his hand, inspired. ‘We need an aerial to communicate with the Almighty. I’ll show you something.’ Ricky picked up his briefcase from the floor and with his short, stumpy fingers opened it quickly. ‘You’re lucky to have met me today. My instinct, or perhaps the will of God himself, always leads me to people who are in need of help.’ The tone of his voice had dropped even lower, if that was possible, and now it was difficult to understand what he was saying.
He took out a little case covered with blue velvet and opened it in front of Quattro Formaggi. Inside, cushioned on white satin, was a small, rusty crucifix attached to a thin golden chain. ‘Corrado, you know about Lourdes, don’t you?’
Quattro Formaggi knew that once a month a big silver coach left from Piazza Bologna for Lourdes and many people went there, especially the elderly, and the trip cost two hundred euros and took eighteen hours, there and back. When you got there they took you to buy frying pans and porcelain, then you prayed in a cave and there was holy water which could miraculously cure you if you bathed in it. He had thought of going there, for his tics. ‘Yes,’ he replied, nervously scratching his beard. His right leg, in the meantime, had begun to
twitch of its own accord.
‘Haven’t you ever been there?’ The little man’s blue eyes stared at him with such intensity that Quattro Formaggi, in alarm, started screwing up his lips. He couldn’t speak, he felt as if a thin black tentacle was winding itself round his neck.
He shook his head.
‘But you do know about the miraculous water of the Madonna of Lourdes …?’
He nodded.
‘And you know that that water has cured cripples, paralytics and people in all conditions, patients considered to be terminally ill by conventional medicine?’ Ricky’s voice slid down into his ears like warm oil. ‘Do you see this crucifix? To look at it, you wouldn’t think it was worth a cent. All rusty. Ugly. There are hundreds of crucifixes in any jeweller’s shop that are worth a hundred times more. Made of platinum, with diamonds or other precious stones. But not one of them, I tell you not one of them, is like this one. This one is special.’ He took it between his thumb and forefinger and picked it up as delicately as if it was a splinter of wood from Noah’s ark. ‘I don’t suppose you know that the cloistered nuns of the convent of the Madonna of Lourdes have a secret pool of miraculous water …’
Why did he keep asking him if he knew this or that? He didn’t know anything.
‘No,’ replied Quattro Formaggi.
Ricky smiled, displaying a row of teeth that were too white and regular to be natural. ‘Of course you don’t; nobody does. Except the people who really count, as always. For thousands of years popes with tumours, dying kings and sick politicians have bathed in that pool brimming with miraculous water. A few years ago the Prime Minister was seriously ill. Cancer was devouring him, just as a serpent eats an egg. Do you know how a serpent eats an egg? Like this …’ He opened his mouth wide, with his eyes narrowed to two black slits, and swallowed an invisible egg.
Quattro Formaggi tightened his throat. He would have liked to say that he didn’t give a damn about the sacred pool. That all he needed to know was where Ramona’s corpse had got to. But he didn’t have the courage, and besides, his lips, his teeth and his tongue had gone numb, like that time when he’d had a rotten molar extracted.