From the fields, on our right, a flock of rooks rose. They cawed and wheeled with outspread wings, borne on the air currents.
The sun was swallowed up by the grey and suddenly it seemed like evening. A clap of thunder. Another. I looked at the clouds as they rolled and wrapped over each other. Now and then one of them lit up as if a firework had exploded inside it.
The thunderstorm was coming.
What if Filippo was dead?
A white corpse huddled at the bottom of a hole. Covered with flies and swollen with grubs and worms, its hands withered and its lips hard and grey.
No, he wasn’t dead.
What if he didn’t recognize me? If he wouldn’t speak to me any more?
‘Filippo, it’s Michele. I’ve come back. I swore to you I would, I’ve come back.’
‘You’re not Michele. Michele’s dead. And he lives in a hole like me. Go away.’
In front of us the valley opened up. It was sombre and silent. The birds and the crickets were mute.
When we arrived at the oaks a big heavy drop hit my forehead, another my arm and another my shoulder and the storm broke over us. The rain teemed down. The downpour lashed the tree-tops and the wind blew among the branches, whistled among the leaves, and the earth sucked up the water like a dry sponge and the drops rebounded on the hard earth and vanished and the lightning struck on the fields.
‘We’d better get some shelter!’ shouted Skull. ‘Run!’
We ran, but we were already drenched. I slowed down. If I saw the 127 or anything strange I was going to leg it.
There were no cars around and I couldn’t see anything strange.
They went into the cow-shed. The hole was there, behind the brambles. I wanted to run and uncover it and see Filippo, but I forced myself to follow them.
The others were standing there, jumping up and down, excited by the thunderstorm. We took off our T-shirts and wrung them out. Barbara had to pull hers forward, otherwise her tits would have shown.
Everyone was laughing nervously and rubbing cold arms and looking outside. It was as if the sky had been riddled with holes. As the thunder crashed the lightning joined the clouds to the earth. The clearing, in a few minutes, filled with puddles and from the sides of the valley dirty streams of red earth flowed down.
Filippo must be scared to death. All that water was draining into the hole and if it didn’t stop soon it might drown him. The sound of the rain on the corrugated sheet was deafening him.
I must go to him.
‘Upstairs there’s a motorbike,’ I heard my voice saying.
They all turned to look at me.
‘Yes, there’s a motorbike …’
Skull jumped to his feet as if he had sat on an ants’ nest. ‘A motorbike?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Upstairs. In the last room.’
‘What’s it doing there?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you reckon it still works?’
‘It might.’
Salvatore looked at me, he had a mocking smile on his face. ‘Why did you never tell us?’
Skull cocked his head. ‘Right! Why did you never tell us, eh?’
I swallowed. ‘Because I didn’t want to. I’d done the forfeit.’
A flash of understanding went through his eyes. ‘Let’s go and have a look at it. Wow, if it works …’
Skull, Salvatore and Remo rushed out of the cow-shed, sheltering their heads with their hands and shoving each other into the puddles.
Barbara set off, but stopped in the rain. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘In a minute. You go on.’
The water had slicked her hair which hung down like dirty spaghetti. ‘Don’t you want me to wait for you?’
‘No, you go on. I won’t be a minute.’
‘All right.’ She ran off.
I went round the house and made my way through the brambles. My heart was beating in my eardrums and my legs were giving at the knees. I reached the clearing. It had turned into a rain-lashed bog.
The hole was open.
The green fibre-glass sheet wasn’t there any more, neither was the mattress.
The water was dripping down me, trickling inside my shorts and pants, and my hair clung to my forehead and the hole was there, a black mouth in the dark earth, and I went towards it. I was hardly breathing, I clenched my fists, while around me the sky was falling and waves of incandescent pain wrapped round my throat.
I closed my eyes and opened them again hoping something would change.
The hole was still there. Black as the plughole in a sink.
I staggered closer. My feet in the mud. I wiped one hand across my face to dry it. I was almost collapsing on the ground, but I kept going forward.
He’s not there. Don’t look. Go away.
I stopped.
Go on. Go and look.
I can’t.
I looked at my sandals covered in muck. Take one step, I told myself. I did. Take another. I did. Good boy. Another and then another. And I saw the edge of the hole in front of my feet.
You’re there.
Now all I had to do was look into it.
I suddenly felt certain there was nobody in there any more.
I raised my head and looked.
I was right. There was nothing there. Not even the bucket and the little saucepan. Only dirty water and a sodden blanket.
They had taken him away. Without telling me anything. Without letting me know.
He had gone away and I hadn’t even said goodbye.
Where was he? I didn’t know, but I knew that he was mine and that they had taken him away from me.
‘Where are you?’ I shouted into the rain.
I fell on my knees. I dug my fingers in the mud and squeezed it in my hands.
‘There isn’t any motorbike.’
I turned round.
Salvatore.
He was standing there. A few metres away from me, his T-shirt soaked, his trousers spattered with mud. ‘There isn’t any motorbike, is there?’
I gurgled no.
He pointed towards the hole. ‘Is that where he was?’
I nodded, and stammered: ‘They’ve taken him away.’
Salvatore came over, looked inside and stared at me. ‘I know where he is.’
I slowly raised my head. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s at Melichetti’s. Down in the gravina.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I heard yesterday. Papa was talking to your papa and that guy from Rome. I hid behind the study door and heard them. They moved him. The exchange didn’t work out, they said.’ He swept back his wet fringe. ‘They said this place wasn’t safe any more.’
The thunderstorm passed.
Quickly, just as it had started.
It was a long way off now. A dark mass advancing over the countryside, drenching it and continuing on its way.
We were going down the path.
The air was so clean that far away, beyond the ochre plain, you could see a thin green strip. The sea. It was the first time I had ever seen it from Acqua Traverse.
The downpour had left a smell of wet grass and earth and a slight coolness. The clouds left in the sky were white and frayed and blades of dazzling sun cut the plain. The birds had started chirping again, it sounded like a singing contest.
I had told Skull it had been a practical joke.
‘Ha ha, bloody hilarious,’ he had replied.
I had a presentiment that no one would go up on that hill again, it was too far away, and there was nothing interesting about that old ruin. And that hidden valley brought bad luck.
Filippo had ended up at Melichetti’s with the pigs, because the exchange hadn’t worked out and because the hole wasn’t safe any more, that’s what they had said. And the lords of the hill and the monsters I invented had nothing to do with it.
‘Stop all this talk about monsters, Michele. Monsters don
’t exist. It’s men you should be afraid of, not monsters.’ That’s what papa had said to me.
It was his fault. He hadn’t let him go and he never would let him go.
Cats, when they catch lizards, play with them, they play with them even if the lizard is all open and its innards are hanging out and it has lost its tail. They follow it calmly, they sit down and knock it and amuse themselves till the lizard dies, and when it’s dead they hardly touch it with their paw, as if it disgusted them, and the lizard doesn’t move any more and then they look at it and they go away.
A deafening roar, a metallic din shattered the calm and swamped everything.
Barbara shouted, pointing at the sky: ‘Look! Look!’
From behind the hill two helicopters appeared. Two iron dragonflies, two big blue dragonflies with ‘Carabinieri’ written on the sides.
They dipped down over us and we started waving our arms and shouting, they came alongside, and turned at the same time, as if they wanted to show us how clever they were, then they skimmed across the fields, flew over Acqua Traverse and disappeared on the horizon.
The grown-ups had gone.
The cars were there, but they weren’t.
The houses empty, the doors open.
We all ran from one house to another.
Barbara was agitated. ‘Is there anyone at your house?’
‘No. What about yours?’
‘There’s nobody there either.’
‘Where are they?’ Remo was out of breath. ‘I’ve even looked in the vegetable garden.’
‘What shall we do?’ asked Barbara.
I replied: ‘I don’t know.’
Skull was walking along the middle of the road, with his hands in his pockets and a grim face, like a gunfighter in a ghost town. ‘Who cares. Good riddance. I’ve been longing for the day when they’d all just fuck off.’ And he spat.
‘Michele!’
I turned round.
My sister was in vest and knickers, outside the shed, with her Barbies in her hands and Togo following her like a shadow.
I ran over to her. ‘Maria! Maria! Where are the grown-ups?’
She answered calmly: ‘At Salvatore’s house.’
‘Why?’
She pointed at the sky. ‘The helicopters.’
‘What?’
‘That’s why, the helicopters went over, and afterwards they all came out in the street and they were shouting and they went to Salvatore’s house.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
I looked around. Salvatore wasn’t there any more.
‘And what are you doing here?’
‘Mama told me I’ve got to wait here. She asked me where you’d gone.’
‘And what did you tell her?’
‘I told her you’d gone on the mountain.’
The grown-ups stayed at Salvatore’s house all evening.
We waited in the courtyard, sitting on the edge of the fountain.
‘When are they going to finish?’ Maria asked me for the hundredth time.
And I for the hundredth time answered: ‘I don’t know.’
They had told us to wait, they were talking.
Barbara went up the steps and knocked on the door every five minutes, but nobody came. She was worried. ‘What are they talking about all this time?’
‘I don’t know.’
Skull had gone off with Remo. Salvatore was indoors, doubtless hiding away in his room.
Barbara sat down beside me. ‘What on earth’s going on?’
I shrugged.
She looked at me. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. I’m tired.’
‘Barbara!’ Angela Mura was at the window. ‘Barbara, go home.’
Barbara asked: ‘When are you coming?’
‘Soon. Run along now.’
Barbara said goodbye to us and went off looking glum.
‘When’s my mama coming out?’ Maria asked Angela Mura.
She looked at us and said: ‘Go home and get your own supper, she’ll be home soon.’ She closed the window.
Maria shook her head. ‘I’m not going, I’m waiting here.’
I got up. ‘Come on, we’d better go.’
‘No!’
‘Come on. Give me your hand.’
She crossed her arms. ‘No! I’ll stay here all night, I don’t care.’
‘Give me your hand, come on.’
She straightened her glasses and got up. ‘I won’t sleep though.’
‘Don’t sleep then.’
And, hand in hand, we went home.
Ten
They were shouting so loud they woke us up.
We had grown used to all sorts of things. Nocturnal meetings, noise, raised voices, broken plates, but now they were shouting too much.
‘Why are they screaming like that?’ Maria asked me, lying on her bed.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Late.’
It was the middle of the night, the room was dark and we were in our bedroom, wide awake.
‘Make them stop,’ Maria complained. ‘They’re disturbing me. Tell them to scream more quietly.’
‘I can’t.’
I tried to understand what they were saying, but the voices mingled together.
Maria lay down beside me. ‘I’m scared.’
‘They’re scared.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they’re shouting.’
Those shouts were like the spitting of the green lizards.
Green lizards, when they can’t get away and you’re about to catch them, open their mouths, swell up and spit and try to scare you because they’re more scared of you, you’re the giant, and all they can do is try and frighten you. And if you don’t know that they’re harmless, that they don’t hurt, that it’s all a sham, you don’t touch them.
The door opened.
For an instant the room lit up. I saw the black figure of mama, and behind her the old man.
Mama closed the door. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Yes,’ we replied.
She switched on the light on the bedside table. In her hand she had a plate with some bread and cheese. She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I’ve brought you something to eat.’ She spoke quietly, with a tired voice. She had rings round her eyes, her hair was dishevelled and she looked worn. ‘Eat up and go to sleep.’
‘Mama … ?’ said Maria.
Mama put the plate on her knees. ‘What is it?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’ Mama tried to cut the cheese, but her hand was shaking. She wasn’t a good actress. ‘Now eat up and …’ She bent forward, laid the plate on the floor and put her hand to her face and began to cry silently.
‘Mama … Mama … Why are you crying?’ Maria started sobbing.
I felt a lump swelling in my throat too. I said: ‘Mama? Mama?’
She raised her head and looked at me with glistening red eyes: ‘What is it?’
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
She slapped me on the cheek and shook me as if I was made of cloth. ‘Nobody’s dead! Nobody’s dead! Do you understand?’ She gave a grimace of pain and whispered: ‘You’re too small …’ She opened her mouth wide and clutched me to her breast.
I started to cry.
Now we were all crying.
In the other room the old man was shouting.
Mama heard him and pulled away from me. ‘Stop it now!’ She dried away her tears. She gave us two slices of bread. ‘Eat up.’
Maria sank her teeth into the bread, but couldn’t swallow for her sobs. Mama snatched the slice out of her hands.
‘Aren’t you hungry? It doesn’t matter.’ She picked up the plate. ‘Lie down both of you.’ She pulled away our pillows and put out the light. ‘If the noises disturb you, put your heads under these. Here!’ She put them on our heads.
I tried to get free. ‘Mama, please. I can’t breathe.??
?
‘Do as you’re told!’ she snarled and pressed hard.
Maria was getting desperate, it sounded as if her throat was being cut.
‘Stop it!’ Mama shouted so loud that for an instant they even stopped quarrelling in the other room. I was scared she would hit her.
Maria went quiet.
If we moved, if we spoke, mama repeated like a cracked record: ‘Shh! Go to sleep.’
I pretended to sleep and hoped Maria would do the same. And after a while she settled down as well.
Mama stayed so long I was sure she was going to spend the whole night with us, but she got up. She thought we were asleep. She went out and shut the door.
We took off the pillows. It was dark, but the dim reflection of the street-lamp lightened the room. I got out of bed.
Maria sat up, put on her glasses and, sniffing, asked me: ‘What are you doing?’
I put my finger to my nose. ‘Quiet.’
I pressed my ear against the door.
They were still arguing, more softly now. I could hear Felice’s voice and the old man’s, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I tried to look through the keyhole, but all I could see was the wall.
I grasped the handle.
Maria bit her hand. ‘What are you doing, are you crazy?’
‘Quiet!’ I opened a crack.
Felice was on his feet, near the cooker. He was wearing a green tracksuit, the zip pulled down below his ribs showed his swollen pectorals. He was staring and his mouth was slightly open, showing his little milk teeth. He had shaven his head bare.
‘Me?’ he said putting a hand on his chest.
‘Yes, you,’ said the old man. He was sitting at the table, with one leg resting on the other knee, a cigarette between his fingers and a treacherous smile on his lips.
‘Me a pansy? A poof?’ Felice asked.
The old man confirmed this: ‘Exactly.’
Felice cocked his head on one side: ‘And … And how do you make that out?’
‘It’s written all over you. You’re a poof. No doubt about it. And …’ The old man took a drag. ‘You know what the worst thing is?’
Felice knitted his brow, interested: ‘No, what is it?’
They sounded like two friends exchanging secret confidences.
The old man put out the stub in his plate. ‘The worst thing is you don’t know it. That’s your problem. You were born a poof and you don’t know it. You’re a big boy now, you’re not a kid any more. Come to terms with it. You’d feel better. You’d do what poofs do, take it up the arse. Instead you act tough, play the man, shoot your mouth off, but everything you do and say sounds fake, sounds poof-like.’