The Crossroads

  Trying to ignore an icy trickle that was running down his back, Danilo closed his eyes and tried to remember where, five years ago, he had thrown the keys.

  About here.

  On the 12th of July five years ago … It was boiling hot and the mosquitoes were driving me mad.

  After Laura’s funeral he had sent Teresa home with her mother and had taken the Alfa and stopped at a bar where he had drunk the first glass of grappa of his life and for good measure had bought a whole bottle, then he had gone to a car accessories shop, bought a tarpaulin and returned home. He had parked the car in the garage, covered it with the tarpaulin and gone down to the canal.

  That day it had looked very different. There had been no rain for a long time and the canal had shrunk to a stinking stream, infested with insects, which flowed slowly among carcases of scooters, skeletons of washing machines and bog arum in bloom.

  Danilo had looked at the greenish water. Then he had taken the car keys out of his pocket and hurled them with all his might into the canal. The bunch had sailed over the stream and the sandy, reed-covered bank, hit the dyke and fallen back onto the foreshore, disappearing among some big concrete blocks embedded in the dry mud.

  This he remembered well, because for a moment he had thought he had better go down and throw the keys in the water in case the old men, who sometimes came to fish from the bridge, should find them and then go and steal his car. But he hadn’t done it.

  Anyone would have thought that it was mathematically impossible for them still to be there – the current must have carried them away and by this time they would be out in the depths of the sea. But that was in ordinary circumstances. The circumstances in which Danilo found himself were not ordinary; this was his life, and if destiny had decided that he should find them, find them he would.

  He ran along the canal, crossed the little brick bridge and went back along to the point where he remembered the keys falling.

  He looked down. It wasn’t a very big drop. Two or three metres. If he lowered himself down with his arms the jump wasn’t impossible.

  The problem would come later, when he had to get out.

  Twenty metres downstream there was a tree trunk sticking out of the water.

  From there I can climb up onto the road.

  Danilo took off his glasses and put them in his jacket pocket.

  He climbed up on the parapet, took out the chain with the Padre Pio medallion, kissed it and lowered himself down from the edge.

  Now he only had to drop down.

  It’s just a question of finding the courage.

  But even if he couldn’t find the courage, he’d never be able to pull himself up again with the mere strength of his arms, so …

  He took a deep breath and let himself go.

  He landed up to his waist in water. It was so cold he didn’t even have the strength to cry out. A billion needles pierced his flesh and he was immediately caught by the strong current. He had to cling with both hands to some weeds that grew in the cracks between the bricks of the dyke to stop himself being swept away.

  He couldn’t even rest his feet on the bed, such was the strength of the current. And the weeds, although they were tough, wouldn’t support his weight for long.

  He started searching for the keys on the bed of the torrent. He let go with one hand and the river pushed him under.

  He drank a lot of water which tasted of earth.

  He put his head up and started spluttering and then, gasping for breath, started groping around on the bed again. He felt with his fingertips the edges of the concrete blocks covered with algae and the slippery stems of the water plants. It was difficult to move his fingers, which were numb with cold.

  They’re not here. How could they be? Only a fool like me could have thought that after five years …

  The branch he was clinging to, without warning, came away from the wall. Danilo felt the current seize him, started thrashing about with his arms and legs like a drowning dog, trying to resist, but it was impossible, so in desperation he tried to grab hold of the concrete blocks, but they were slippery. His knuckles knocked against a steel rod sticking out of the mud. He managed to catch hold of it and hung there, amid the eddies and the deafening roar of the water, like a great big tuna fish caught on a hook.

  He knew he couldn’t hold on for long – the cold was unbearable and the current was pulling him – but if he let go he would be swept away and would be dashed against the sluicegate a kilometre downstream.

  What the hell am I doing?

  Suddenly, like a sleepwalker who wakes up to find himself on a ledge on the fifth floor of an apartment block, he was terrified to see what a mess he’d landed himself in. Only suicidal madness could have brought him from the cosy warmth of home to the swirling eddies of a canal in spate.

  He exploded into a fusillade of unrepeatable blasphemies which would have damned him for all eternity if he hadn’t already been long since doomed, he was sure, to the fires of hell.

  He was almost exhausted, he tried to resist, to cling on to the steel rod, but by now only his nose was sticking out of the water, like a shark’s fin. He was about to give up when he realised that there was something around the rod, something like a metal ring.

  He touched it.

  No! It wasn’t possible!

  In his excitement he almost let go.

  The keys!

  I’ve found the keys!

  My keys.

  All three of them. The one for the car, the one for the front door and the one for the roll-down shutters of the garage.

  What an incredible stroke of luck!

  No, it was blasphemous to call it luck. It was a miracle. A fully fledged miracle.

  When he’d thrown them the keys had hit the dyke, and as they fell the ring that held them together had dropped over the steel reinforcing rod.

  It was a bit like that game in the funfair where if you throw a quoit over a bottle you win a cuddly toy. But he hadn’t taken aim. He hadn’t even seen the rod.

  This meant that God, fate, chance, or whoever it was, had wanted it to happen. What were the odds against such a thing happening? Ten billion to one.

  Those keys had remained there, all those years, immersed in the water and mud, waiting for him to go and retrieve them.

  Half-drowned and nearly frozen to death, Danilo Aprea felt a sensation of warmth in the middle of his chest which heated him up and banished any doubt or fear about what he was doing, just as a red-hot furnace instantly turns a piece of paper to ashes.

  Up there in heaven there was someone who was helping him.

  He slipped the keys off the rod and gripped them tightly, digging them into the palm of his hand. Then, confident that he would find a way of getting out of that river, he took a deep breath, shut his mouth, held his nose and let go.

  136

  The three rusty cables supporting the big banana strained like the rigging of a sailing ship in a northerly gale.

  About thirty metres away from the sign, in the Rimor SuperDuca 688TC, Beppe Trecca and Ida Lo Vino were going at it hammer and tongs.

  The social worker was lying on his back in the sleeping compartment above the driver’s cabin, and sitting astride him, in a cramped version of the ‘candlesnuffer’ position, Ida was pounding and panting and massaging her small white breasts which spilled out of her black lace bra.

  Deafened by the noise of the rain, the thunder and Ida’s head bumping against the camper’s padded ceiling, Beppe breathed in and out, with his best friend’s wife impaled on his penis, and engaged in a battle against his sympathetic nervous system, which had decided to make him have an orgasm in the space of a few seconds. He felt it rise inexorably up through his spinal cord, sink its teeth into his thighs and converge angrily on his pelvis, contracting his muscles.

  He must get Ida to slow down, to stop for a moment – just a moment would be enough – because if she went on like this he wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer …

&
nbsp; He grabbed her by the waist, trying to lift her up and take it out of her, but she misinterpreted the gesture, clung to him tightly and, still pumping away, whispered in his left ear: ‘Yes … Yes … You don’t know how often I’ve imagined this moment. Shaft me!’

  Okay, so that didn’t work. He’d have to find some way of delaying the orgasm on his own – distract himself, think of something disgusting, repugnant, which would calm him down. All he needed was a moment and it would pass.

  He imagined he was humping Father Marcello. That hideous creature, pitted with smallpox and ravaged by psoriasis, who lived in the rectory. He imagined he was penetrating the flaccid, hairy buttocks of the priest from the Italian Marches.

  That did indeed help a little. But as soon as he saw, in the half-light cast by the reading lamp, Ida’s pleasure-distorted face and noticed how, as if in a trance, she was putting her forefinger between her wet lips and passing it over her tongue, he couldn’t resist, he tried to think of something more depressing, he thought of Cortés’s noche triste and the gruesome massacre of the Aztec people, but it wasn’t enough, he came anyway, in silence.

  He couldn’t tell which was greater, the pleasure or the disappointment. He stifled a cry and hoped he could stay erect long enough for her to come too.

  He gritted his teeth, as poker-faced as a Prussian infantryman.

  ‘Beppe … Beppe … Oh my God, I’m going to come … I’m coming! I’m coming!’ Ida moaned, digging her fingernails into his shoulders.

  At that very same moment, outside, a gust of wind gave the coup de grâce to the camp sign, the cables snapped and the banana broke free of its moorings and took flight, whirling like a boomerang across the car park, skimmed over the soft drinks kiosk, over a few caravans and sliced into the right-hand side of the camper.

  Beppe yelled, clutched hold of Ida and thought a bomb had gone off. Mario Lo Vino had discovered them and put an explosive device under the camper. But then he noticed that one wall was split, having been opened like a can of tuna by half a yellow banana, complete with brown stem, which was peeping in between the dinette and the kitchen area.

  The sign must have hit a critical point in the camper’s structure because the roof came away from the side with a sinister groan and the wind, howling through the gap, ripped it off and carried it away.

  The two poor lovers, wet and naked, clung together in terror on what was left of the sleeping compartment.

  137

  On the way home Quattro Formaggi hadn’t met a soul. This hadn’t surprised him, it was a special night.

  His night.

  Nearly five kilometres of flooded streets, fallen trees and billboards torn down by the storm. In Piazza Bologna the great luminous display showing the temperature and the time of day, on top of the General Insurance building, had blown off and was dangling from an electric wire; there wasn’t a single police car or fire engine about.

  Quattro Formaggi stopped outside Mediastore, chained his scooter to the usual post and limped towards the narrow steps that led down to his basement flat. He opened the door and closed it behind him, leaned against it, opening his mouth, and despite the pain in his shoulder, where Ramona had stabbed him with the mirror, he began to weep with joy, shaking his head.

  He looked at his hands.

  Those hands had killed.

  Quattro Formaggi gulped and a lustful shiver gripped his thighs and tightened his groin. His legs sagged and wouldn’t support him, and he had to grab hold of the bolt of the lock to stop himself falling.

  He kicked off his shoes and undressed, throwing everything on the floor as if his clothes burned his skin.

  He shut his eyes and saw the girl’s hand holding his cock, on her finger the silver skull ring. He searched for it in his trouser pocket and when he found it squeezed it hard between his hands and then swallowed it.

  138

  Rino Zena, the Great General of the Ants, had drawn up his army of insects in a million battalions.

  The ants were good and obedient and would do anything he told them to do.

  Listen to me!

  The ants, under the violet sky, stood to attention and billions of black eyes looked at him.

  I want you all to go into my right arm.

  His arm – at least as he saw it – was a long black tunnel which widened out into a sort of piazza from which five small blind tunnels led off.

  The ants piled up inside it, one on top of the other, and completely filled it, right down to the end, to the very tips of the fingers.

  And now if you all move together, in the right way, my arm will move and my hand will pick up the mobile phone.

  Well done ants, you’re doing a great job.

  139

  Danilo Aprea had returned to the garage, he was shivering all over and his teeth were chattering. The cold had got into the very marrow of his bones.

  ‘My God it’s cold! I’m freezing!’ he kept repeating, trying to open the door of his Alfa Romeo.

  At last the half-rusted key entered the lock.

  Danilo held his breath, closed his eyes, turned and, as if by magic, the knob of the door lock rose.

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ He started doing pirouettes with his arms in the air like a flamenco dancer, then he got into the car and stripped off his soaking wet clothes, socks and shoes and was left naked.

  He needed something to wrap himself up in at once, or he’d die of cold.

  He looked to see if there was anything on the back seat that he could put over himself …

  That tartan blanket Teresa used to use for picnics.

  … but couldn’t see anything. What he did find was the bottle of grappa he had bought on the way back from the funeral. It was still half full.

  ‘Just what I need!’ He gulped it down in such a frenzy he almost choked himself. The alcohol went through his oesophagus and warmed his guts.

  That’s better. Much better.

  But it wasn’t enough. He needed something to wear, but he didn’t want to go up to the flat.

  Finally he stripped the black-and-white check plush covers off the front seats and put them on, one over the other. He stuck his head through the hole for the headrest and his hands out between the laces at each side.

  ‘Perfect.’

  But it still wasn’t enough. He needed to switch on the car and turn the heating up to maximum.

  He put on his glasses, inserted the key in the ignition and turned.

  Not a tremor, not a lurch, from the starter.

  The battery was flat.

  What did you expect after all this time?

  He put his hands on the steering wheel and gazed in a stupor at the bottle of Arbre Magique scented with forest pine.

  It was really strange that the car hadn’t started.

  Something didn’t add up. How come God had made him find the keys but hadn’t recharged the battery?

  He took another sip of grappa and, rubbing his arms, began to reflect on the nature of the two miracles.

  As a matter of fact, if you thought about it, they were two very different phenomena.

  That the key ring should have caught on the steel rod was highly unlikely – more unlikely than winning the first prize in the lottery. But there was a chance of it happening. A pretty remote one, admittedly, but there was a chance.

  If the battery had recharged itself, it would have been a mega-miracle, like the Madonna of Civitavecchia weeping blood or Jesus Christ multiplying the loaves and fishes.

  A real marvel which, if the Church had come to hear about it, would have turned that garage into a place of worship.

  Danilo was sure the Lord was helping him, but not to the extent of performing an out-and-out miracle which broke the laws of physics. The finding of the keys was definitely a miracle, but – so to speak – a second-class one, whereas the battery’s recharging itself would have been a first-class one, almost on a par with an apparition of the Madonna.

  ‘Fair’s fair! What you’ve done is enough for
me, Lord. Don’t worry, I’ll see to the battery,’ said Danilo, and at that very moment the garage door rolled up. The dazzling light of two tungsten head-lamps lit up the whole place as bright as day.

  Danilo tried to disappear under the dashboard.

  Now who’s this, for fuck’s sake?

  A big silver four-by-four with smoke-grey windows and golden wheel rims cruised past and parked in the space next to his.

  It’s that stupid little moneybags Niccolò Donazzan. His parents have bought him a car worth fifty thousand euros. He’s probably coming back from the disco stoned out of his mind.

  What the hell did his parents think they were doing?

  Danilo looked at his watch. It was full of water and the hands had stopped. He must hurry, the first commuters would be leaving home soon.

  Niccolò Donazzan got out of the four-by-four wearing a black bandanna, a buckskin jacket with fringes and, attached to his belt, some tatters of denim.

  At the same moment the other door opened and out came a dumpy girl with straw-coloured hair braided into two plaits à la Pippi Longstocking. Some huge, very dark shades were wrapped round her face. She wore a violet coat with a fur-lined hood and trousers so baggy the crotch sagged down to her knees.

  He saw his young neighbour unceremoniously grab the girl by the arms and dump her on the bonnet of the Alfa.

  ‘What the f …?’ Danilo clapped his hand over his mouth.

  Donazzan leaped on the bonnet himself and started kissing her passionately, like he was trying to rip her tongue out of her mouth.

  Danilo, hidden below the dashboard, cursed and swore.

  What now?

  Those two randy little bastards meant to screw on his bonnet. Young Donazzan was tugging at the zip in the girl’s trousers. She was banging her head against the glass, squirming and moaning, though the boy had hardly touched her yet. Either she was epileptic or she was so spaced out she thought she was acting in a porno film.

  Donazzan tried to calm her down: ‘Pannocchietta, if you keep wriggling about I won’t be able to undo your trousers …’