He liked Liliana. The accounts clerk at Euroedil. She was a woman, not a young girl. Alone, like him. And she was kind. She would smile at him, ask him how he was doing. He only had to find the courage to ask her out to dinner, and he could do that …
But a deep, hollow voice that lived inside him whispered that Liliana wasn’t like Ramona.
(Did you see her with that boy with the motorbike?)
It was evening. Quattro Formaggi had been in the public gardens and had just found a one-armed King Kong doll for his nativity scene when he had seen the little blonde arrive with a boy on a motorbike. Hiding behind a tree he had watched them snogging and then the boy had pulled it out and she had put her hand round it.
Up and down. Up and down.
That scene had lodged in his brain like a piece of shrapnel. At night he would wake up and see it. The little hand holding that stiff thing. And Quattro Formaggi, lying on his bed, couldn’t help closing his eyes, pulling down his underpants and …
(Up and down. Up and down. Up and down …)
… he was Bob the lumberjack, and the little blonde and Ramona were holding his cock.
21
The Mahatma Gandhi Junior High School stood on an artificial hill about thirty metres high which dominated the plain. It was a boxlike building with large windows, which on the rare sunny days would fill with light. A trim lawn covered the slopes, and a narrow road led up to a car park for the use of the disabled and the teaching staff. Behind the school was a sports complex with an Olympic-size swimming pool and a gym.
The school had been built on the outskirts of Murelle in the early Eighties as a collection point for all the pupils from the dozens of villages in the surrounding area. It had a population of seven hundred and fifty children divided into eight sections.
Cristiano Zena was sitting at the back of the class. From his desk he stared out at the rain-lashed volleyball court, the lawn strewn with rotting leaves and behind them, half-hidden in the mist, the concrete bastions of the shopping mall ‘I Quattro Camini’.
He had managed to get in halfway through the first lesson. The first excuse that had come to his mind was that a frozen water pipe had burst at home and that since his father had gone out to work he’d had to wait for the plumber. The Italian mistress had pretended to believe him.
Lately Cristiano had noticed that the teachers no longer bothered him very much. And he knew the reason why.
A few months earlier all third-year students had had to complete a questionnaire in which they were asked which high school or other institution they were going to attend after the exam. Cristiano had put a big cross against the option of not continuing his education. And on the three lines provided for an explanation he had written:
Because I don’t want to study any more there’s no point and I want to work with my father.
From that day on, as if by magic, he had suddenly become invisible, like Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four. Now the bastards rarely tested him in class and if he didn’t go to school at all they didn’t give a shit. When he had put that cross on the form they had mentally put another one on his forehead.
He spent the rest of the first lesson and the whole of the second with his chin on his desk thinking about those two bitches Fabiana Ponticelli and Esmeralda Guerra. He had fallen for it again. He hated them.
He must do something to pay them back. Like going out with Laura Re, a girl in 3D whom they loathed because she was even more beautiful than they were.
‘Hey, what about the essay? Aren’t you going to do it?’ A whisper brought him back into class.
It was the boy who sat next to him. Colizzi. A pathetic little nerd whom the maths mistress had put with him because Cristiano used to lark about with Minardi.
Colizzi looked like an old man. He even moved like one. He kept his desk impeccably tidy. And he wrote with a fountain pen without ever making a blot. The things he valued most in life were the cartridges of light turquoise ink that he used for his Mont Blanc. He was such a weed that it wasn’t even worth hitting him – as soon as you touched him he would drop down on the ground and behave like those cockroaches that pretend to be dead when you touch them.
‘What the fuck do you want, Colizzi?’
The rest of the class were bent over their sheets of paper doing the history essay. The teacher was sitting at her desk reading Gente. You could have heard a pin drop.
‘You’d better hurry up, there’s only …’ Colizzi looked at his gigantic calculator watch ‘… one hour six minutes to go. You haven’t written a word.’
‘What the fuck do you care?’
Colizzi retreated along his seat, like a crab into a crevice in the rocks. ‘Oh … No … I just …’
‘Okay. Don’t waste time. You’d better get writing, it’s late. No, wait, since you’re a genius you’ve probably finished yours already: if you write mine too I’ll give you a videogame.’
The crab’s eyes showed a flicker of life and then Colizzi leaned down flat over his desk and whispered, wrinkling up his nose: ‘You haven’t got any videogames.’
‘No, but I can go to the mall and steal one. Just tell me which one you want.’
Colizzi thought this over for a moment, nervously rubbing his mouth with his hand. ‘But will you really give it to me? You won’t double-cross me like you usually do?’
Cristiano put his hand on his heart: ‘Trust me.’
‘All right. But you’ll have to copy it out. Otherwise she’ll twig.’
‘Of course.’
Colizzi started scribbling away. Cristiano looked for the first time at the title written on the blackboard.
THE RISE OF NAZISM IN GERMANY IN THE THIRTIES. EXPLAIN ITS CAUSES AND EFFECTS.
He smiled. ‘Forget it, Colizzi. I’ll do it myself. Don’t worry. I know this one.’
He was an expert on Nazism. His father talked to him about it every day.
He picked up his pen, took a deep breath and began to write.
22
Rino Zena had begun working for Euroedil in Bogognano in the mid-Eighties. On the death of Bocchiola the notary, Quattro Formaggi had been taken on, and in 2002 Danilo Aprea had arrived, having lost his job in the transport firm.
Euroedil was a construction business which had prospered during the Nineties thanks to some large state contracts, but since 2003 it had been going steadily downhill and its workforce had dwindled to a few employees. Only when he won bigger commissions did the owner call in Rino and his friends to do labouring work. This happened two or three times a year. And it would only tide them over for a few weeks.
For the rest of the time the three made do with whatever work they could find. They did small transporting jobs. Emptied cellars and cesspits. Delivered plants for a nursery. Painted walls. Mended roofs. That kind of thing, often arranged at the very last moment.
They were perennially hard up and could barely make it through to the end of the month. And while Danilo and Quattro Formaggi only had themselves to think about, Rino had Cristiano to support as well.
According to a recent survey, the area comprising Varrano and the surrounding villages had one of the highest per capita incomes in Italy. Thanks to a generation of small and medium-scale businessmen who had known how to exploit the region’s resources and human capital, unemployment was practically non-existent.
Our heroes were probably the only citizens of Varrano with an income of less than six hundred euros a month.
But that morning Rino was pleased. At last a bit of well-paid work was in prospect. Euroedil had won a big contract to build a new BMW showroom and was looking for labourers.
The Ducato went through Euroedil’s wide gateway and into a large area of beaten earth, which that day was nothing but a quagmire, surrounded by a high fence. On one side of the yard stood the lorries, the mechanical diggers and the bulldozers, on the other the workmen’s and secretaries’ cars and the Porsche Cayenne of Max Marchetta, the owner’s son, who during the past year had taken o
ver the running of the firm from his father.
In the middle of the yard was a prefabricated building which contained the offices and a meeting room. Next to it, a corrugated iron shed which served as a changing room for the workmen.
Rino parked next to a big yellow bulldozer and the three men got out of the van. The rain had stopped, but there was a cold, biting wind.
‘We’re going to have to get out with the digger in a moment. Can you move your van?’ a black man in a hard hat said to Rino.
‘Move it yourself!’ Rino threw him the keys and the other man, taken by surprise, dropped them and had to fish them out of the mud.
‘Isn’t it amazing. They’re even giving the orders now.’ Rino smirked at Danilo as he set off towards the offices. ‘I’m going to see Marchetta. What about you two?’
Quattro Formaggi and Danilo stopped. ‘We’ll wait for you here …’
Rino wiped his boots on the mat, opened the glass door of the offices and entered a small square room. The floor was covered with imitation parquet. A glass-fronted noticeboard hung on a wall next to a closed door. Two shabby armchairs and a table littered with building trade magazines stood in a corner. Opposite them was a desk covered with an incredible number of little wooden Pinocchios.
Behind a computer screen sat Rita Pirro. The secretary had always been there, at least in Rino’s memories. In her youth she hadn’t been bad looking, but age had robbed her of whatever beauty she’d had.
Her age was impossible to determine. She might have been fifty, might have been sixty. Long years of sitting in that windowless little room suffering the cold in winter and the heat in summer had shrivelled her up like a kipper. She was tall and thin, had a thick layer of foundation cream on her face and wore a pair of red-rimmed glasses with a string of pearls dangling down from them. Behind her back, stuck to the wall, were some faded photographs of three toddlers playing on a seashore thick with beach umbrellas. Her children, probably all married by now.
According to Rino, Rita Pirro had once been old Angelo Marchetta’s mistress. ‘A blow-job now and then. That kind of thing. Short and sweet. In the office, during the lunch hour, so as not to waste any time.’
‘Hello, Zena,’ said the woman, looking up from the screen and scrutinising him, before her fingers continued tapping on the keyboard.
For a moment Rino had an image of her giving a blow-job to that fat old letch Angelo Marchetta, and he smiled.
‘Hello, beautiful. How are things?’
The secretary didn’t even turn her head. ‘Can’t complain.’
What a strange woman. She had always treated him like dirt. As if she was the Duchess of York and it was only by some quirk of fate that she had ended up in that dump. Hadn’t she ever looked in the mirror? Hadn’t she ever stopped to think that all she had to live for was a collection of Pinocchios, some children who didn’t give a shit about her, a husband who had died in a factory accident and that windowless little hole?
Rino approached her desk. ‘Is Marchetta in?’
‘Do you have an appointment?’ asked the secretary, her eyes still on the screen.
‘An appointment? Since when has anyone had to have an appointment to speak to Marchetta?’
‘New orders.’ Rita Pirro made a movement with her head, indicating Marchetta’s door. ‘I’ll fix you one if you like.’
Rino placed his hands on the desk and said: ‘Is this the dentist’s? Will he clean my teeth for me as well?’
The secretary widened her mouth into a kind of smile. ‘Very funny. Would next Friday suit you?’
Rino was astounded. ‘Friday? That’s a week away.’
‘Exactly.’
‘They’ll have organised the team for the BMW showroom by then.’
‘That’s already closed.’
‘What do you mean, it’s already closed? You only won the contract the day before yesterday.’
At last she raised her eyes and stared at Rino. ‘Do you think we mess about here? The team was formed that very same day. Work begins on Monday.’
‘Why didn’t you call me? You didn’t call Danilo and Quattro Formaggi either.’
‘You know I don’t deal with those things.’
‘Where’s the team list?’
The secretary went back to her typing. ‘Where it always is. On the noticeboard.’
Rino went over and scanned a sheet of paper with twenty names on it. All Africans or East Europeans, with just a couple of Italian master builders.
He rested one hand against the wall and closed his eyes. ‘Couldn’t you have called me? Told me? We’ve known each other for twenty years …’
‘What have you ever done for me?’ And she rearranged some of her Pinocchios.
He felt anger spreading throughout his body like a toxin.
Keep calm …
Yes, he must keep calm. Cool-headed. Serene. But how do you stay serene when, as regular as clockwork, people keep ramming a cucumber up your arse?
To keep calm he was going to have to let out a bit of shit. He needed to smash something. Set fire to that fucking hut. Take one of those Pinocchio dolls and …
Meanwhile the bluish veins on his forearms had swollen up under his skin till they looked like macaroni and his calves had started tingling as if he had nettle rash. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms, and breathed in and out to release a little anger.
But he knew that it wouldn’t be enough.
When he opened his eyes again he noticed that the list was signed at the bottom by Massimiliano Marchetta.
He smiled.
23
Max Marchetta was sitting at his desk and talking on his mobile phone, arguing with the Vodafone call centre.
He was having trouble in expressing his dissatisfaction owing to the AZ Whitestrips which he had applied to his teeth and which had to be left on for at least twenty minutes. ‘I just don’t undershtand … I keyed in the code but I got a different ringtone. And ish awful …’
He was a large young man of about thirty, with a dark complexion and small, turquoise eyes. Beneath his strawberry-shaped nose he had grown an impeccable D’Artagnan-style moustache, and under his fleshy lips he had a goatee beard. His black hair was slicked back with gel and reflected the neon lights on the ceiling. His hands were freshly manicured.
Max Marchetta was particular about his appearance.
‘A businessman must always be elegant, because elegance is synonymous with efficiency and reliability.’
He couldn’t remember whether this was a saying of some important person or a slogan from an advert. It didn’t matter. They were words of wisdom.
Usually he wore a tailor-made pinstriped suit with matching waistcoat. That day, however, for a change, he was dressed in a double-breasted blue blazer and a blue-and-white striped shirt with a high, three-buttoned collar sealed by a dark tie with a knot as big as your fist.
The operator’s voice, in a strong Sardinian accent, asked him which ringtone he wanted to download.
‘“Toxic”. By Britney Shpearsh. The one that goes …’ and he made an attempt at humming the refrain.
The operator interrupted him. ‘No, I mean which code?’
Max Marchetta picked up the magazine and checked. ‘Four three four one shix.’
There was a moment’s silence and then: ‘Number 43416 corresponds to “Era del cinghiale bianco”, by Franco Battiato.’
‘What do you mean? Why does it shay in this magazhine that “Toxic” is four three four one shix, then? Why does it shay that?’
‘I don’t know … Maybe the magazine got it wrong …’
‘Oh, they got it wrong, did they? And who’s going to give me back my three euros? Vodafone?’ As he talked he sprayed out little drops of foam.
The operator was caught off guard. ‘I hardly think it’s Vodafone’s fault if the magazine printed the code wrongly.’
‘It’s eashy to go around blaming other people! It’s the Italiansh’ national shp
ort, isn’t it? What do you people care if your clients loshe their money? And your tone ish very offensive.’ Max picked up his pen and held it against his diary. ‘What’sh your …’
He was on the point of demanding the operator’s name to scare the shit out of him, but suddenly he found himself up in the air. The next moment he flew over the desk and crashed into a wall covered with framed photographs. A second later a copy of his degree certificate in Economics and Business Studies fell on his head.
Max thought the gas tank must have exploded and that the shock wave had hurled him out of his chair, but then he saw two paint-spattered boots, and at that very moment two burly arms covered with ugly tattoos lifted him up by his lapels and pinned him against the wall like a poster.
He spat out all the air that he had in his body and, with his diaphragm contracted, tried to breathe in but without succeeding, and made a sound like the gurgle of a blocked drain.
‘You’re short of air. A horrible feeling, isn’t it? It’s like the feeling you get when you reach the end of the month and don’t know where the fuck you’re going to find the money to pay your bills.’
Max couldn’t hear the voice. A jet engine was roaring in his ears and all he could see was some streaks of light criss-crossing in front of his eyes. Like when he had been small and there had been a firework display at Ferragosto. His mouth was open and a whitening strip hung from his upper teeth.
If I don’t breathe I’m going to die. That was the only thought his brain was capable of formulating.
‘Calm down. The more you struggle the less you’ll breathe. Don’t be frightened, you’re not going to die,’ the voice now advised him.
At last the contraction of his diaphragm eased, Max’s rib cage opened and a stream of air flowed down his windpipe and into his lungs.
He brayed like a donkey on heat and gradually started breathing again. And as his purple face returned to its natural colour he noticed that about twenty centimetres from his nose there was the smiling face of a skinhead.