The Crossroads

  Brolli wondered whether the boy might have made his father angry that evening and now felt responsible. He tried to reassure him. ‘He might even have been asleep when the haemorrhage occurred. He had a pretty extensive aneurysm. Did he ever have check-ups? Has he ever had a CAT scan?’

  The boy shook his head: ‘No. He hated doctors.’

  Brolli raised the volume of his voice: ‘Don’t talk in the past tense. He’s not dead. He’s alive. His heart is still beating, the blood is circulating in his veins.’

  ‘If I speak to him will he hear me?’

  The doctor sighed. ‘I don’t think so. Until he gives some sign of regaining consciousness such as opening his eyes … I don’t honestly think so. But perhaps I’m wrong … It’s a mystery to us too, you know. Anyway, if you want to speak to him you can.’

  The boy shrugged. ‘I don’t want to now.’

  Brolli went over to the window. He saw his wife’s car standing in the road. He knew why Cristiano didn’t want to talk to his father. He felt abandoned.

  Dr Davide Brolli, Enrico Brolli’s father, had woken up at seven o’clock every day of his life. Exactly half an hour later he would have his coffee. At eight on the dot he would go out, walk down one flight of stairs and enter his surgery, where he would see patients till five to one. At one o’clock he was at home for the beginning of the television news. He ate on his own in front of the television. From one thirty to ten past two he would rest. At ten past two he would go back to the surgery. He would come home at eight. He would have supper and check his children’s homework. At nine o’clock he would go to bed.

  This happened every day of the year, excluding Sundays. On Sundays he would go to mass, buy the pastries and listen to the football on the radio.

  Sometimes, when he had a doubt about an essay or a translation from Latin, little Enrico would go out of the flat, with his exercise book in his hand, and walk down to his father’s surgery.

  To reach it he had to thread his way along the corridor full of crying babies, prams and mothers. He hated all those little brats because his father considered them his own children. He had often heard him say, ‘It’s as if he was my own son.’

  And Enrico couldn’t make out whether his father treated him like those children or treated those children like him.

  When Enrico was thirteen Davide Brolli started taking him along on his night calls. He would get him out of bed at any hour of the night and drive him in a blue Giulietta across the dark countryside searching for a farmhouse where there was a child with a temperature. Enrico would lie in the back, wrapped up in a blanket, and sleep.

  When they arrived, his father would get out with his black bag and he would stay in the car. If they finished after five o’clock they would stop at the baker’s and have a hot croissant, straight out of the oven.

  They would sit, as night melted into day, on a wooden bench just by the door of the bakery. Inside there were lots of men covered in flour who transported huge trays of bread and cakes.

  ‘What’s it like?’ his father would ask.

  ‘Delicious.’

  ‘They make really special ones here.’ And he would stroke his head.

  Even today Enrico Brolli still wondered why his father had taken him with him at night. For years he had wanted to ask him, but had never had the courage. And now that he felt ready to ask him his father wasn’t there any more.

  Perhaps for the croissants. His other children didn’t like them.

  His father had died nearly ten years ago. His intestine had been devoured by cancer. During his last days of life he could hardly speak any more and was doped up on morphine. With a pen he kept writing prescriptions on the sheet. Prescriptions of medicines for flu, scarlet fever and diarrhoea.

  Two days before he died, in a fleeting moment of lucidity, the paediatrician had looked at his son, squeezed his wrist tightly and whispered: ‘God comes down hardest on those who are weakest. You’re a doctor and you need to know this. It’s important, Enrico. Evil is attracted by the poorest and the weakest. When God strikes, he strikes the weakest.’

  Enrico Brolli glanced at the boy standing by his father, shook his head and went out of the room.

  191

  Beppe Trecca, sitting at the living room table with a thermometer under his arm, took a sip of Vicks MediNite, which didn’t remove the taste of the melon vodka. He gave a disgusted grimace and frowned at his Nokia mobile, which lay in front of him. On the display was a little envelope and beside it the word: IDA.

  Can I read it?

  He had promised the Eternal Father that he wouldn’t speak to her or see her, so, theoretically, if he read a text message he wouldn’t be breaking his vow. It was better not to do it, though. He must accept that Ida Lo Vino was a thing of the past, forget her and clear her out of his system.

  Like a drug addict.

  Cold turkey. And perhaps it would pass.

  He would suffer like hell. But that suffering was the coin with which he would repay his debt to the Lord.

  And this suffering will make me a better man.

  He imagined himself as a kind of movie hero who committed a crime and who as a result of a vow to God became a man of peace, a superior being who devoted his life to the poor and the downtrodden.

  There was a Robert De Niro film …

  He couldn’t remember the title, but it was about a knight who killed an innocent man. Afterwards he repented, and as a penance he dragged his weapons and armour, on the end of a rope, through the forests of Brazil and up a high mountain, and then became a priest, helping the Amazonian Indians.

  He must do the same.

  He picked up his mobile, turned his head away, stretched out his arm as if they were going to amputate it and, clenching his teeth, deleted Ida Lo Vino from his life.

  192

  ‘It’s me. Cristiano. Papa, listen to me! I’m here beside you. I’m holding your hand. You’re in hospital. You’ve had an accident. The doctor said you’re in a coma but that you’ll wake up in a few weeks. Now you’re repairing your brain because you’ve had a thingummy … A haemorrhage. You needn’t worry. I’ve seen to everything else. Nobody will find anything. I’m good at these things, you know that. So you just stay here and repair yourself and I’ll look after everything else. Don’t worry. I’ve tried calling Quattro Formaggi and Danilo, but they don’t reply.’ Cristiano peered at his father’s face, searching for a movement, a twitch of the eyelid, an infinitesimal grimace that might show that he was listening. He looked around, to check once more that no one was there, then stretched out his arm and pressed his forefinger on his father’s left eye, first gently, then harder. Nothing. He didn’t react. ‘Listen to me. I can only come here for a short time every day. So now I’m going home and I’ll be back tomorrow.’ He was about to get up, but stopped. He put his lips close to his father’s ear and whispered: ‘I know you can’t hear me, but I’ll tell you anyway. I told everyone you fell into the coma at home while you were asleep, so …’ nobody will think it was you.

  Cristiano put his hand over his mouth. His stomach had suddenly contracted like a vacuum-packed plastic bag. He sniffed and rubbed his eyes to stop himself crying. Then he got up and left the intensive care ward.

  193

  Quattro Formaggi was sitting in front of the crib.

  He’d had a good wash, had put on his bath robe and then had popped in his mouth all the medicines he had found in the house: three aspirins, two Ibuprofens, one paracetamol, one Sennakot and one effervescent Alka-Seltzer. He had smeared a whole tube of Anusol over his chest and shoulder.

  Now he felt better, except that the more he looked at the nativity scene, spread right across the room, the more he noticed how wrong it all was. He didn’t know exactly why, but it was. Not because of the soldiers, all the statuettes and dolls, all the cars, or the little Baby Jesus stuck to the manger. He had botched the world. The mountains. The rivers. The lakes. They were all badly positioned, without any order or meaning.
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  He closed his eyes and felt as if he was levitating from the chair. He saw a huge valley of red earth which stretched as far as the walls of the room, and mountains of immensely tall rocks that towered up to the ceiling. And rivers. Streams. Waterfalls.

  And in the centre of the valley he saw the naked body of Ramona.

  A dead giant. The girl’s corpse surrounded by the soldiers, the shepherds, the miniature cars. On her small breasts, spiders and iguanas and sheep. On her dark nipples, little green crocodiles. Among her pubic hairs, dinosaurs and soldiers and shepherds, and inside, inside the cavern, the Baby Jesus.

  He thought he was falling, opened his eyes and frantically clutched at the chair. He bent his bruised arm and felt as if a rotating blade was slicing it in two. He let out a scream of pain.

  He waited for the pain to pass before getting to his feet.

  Now he knew what he had to do.

  He had to go back to the wood, take the little blonde’s body and put it in the crib.

  That was why he had killed her.

  And God would help him.

  194

  Beppe Trecca was holding the thermometer in his hands.

  Thirty-seven point five. Must be flu. These things mustn’t be underestimated, if you don’t nip them in the bud they can drag on for months.

  Better to take a day off work. That would give him a chance to devise a strategic plan for keeping his vow. He would have to keep his mobile switched off, and as soon as he recovered from the flu he would change his number. Then he would have to stop organising the meetings in the parish hall. And at the office he would have to avoid Mario Lo Vino as much as possible. Of course, Ida knew where he lived, so he would have to move house too. Though in a small village like that they might bump into each other anywhere. Perhaps it would be wiser to rent a flat in some neighbouring village and keep out of the centre of Varrano.

  In short, he would have to live barricaded in a bunker, with no job and no friends. A nightmare.

  He couldn’t do it. There was nothing else for it but to go away.

  For a while.

  Long enough for Ida to understand that the former Beppe Trecca, the one who had said he would take her even with the children, no longer existed. Had been the passing dream of a single night.

  Keep away until she hates me.

  That was the worst thing of all. Worse than the pain of not seeing her again.

  Ida would think he was a shit, a despicable person. A disgusting individual who dishonoured her in a camper, made a thousand promises and then ran away like a snivelling coward.

  If only I could explain the truth to her.

  Perhaps he should confess all to his cousin Luisa and ask her to tell Ida. That at least would alleviate the pain a little. And Ida, who was a sensitive, God-fearing woman, would certainly understand and silently love and respect him for the rest of her days.

  No, he couldn’t. The value of that damned vow lay precisely there, in that torment. Being mistaken for a monster and not being able to do anything to clear his name. If he eliminated that suffering he would be breaking his promise.

  Besides, if he told Luisa about the miracle he would have to tell her about the camper too.

  No, it’s out of the question. Her husband would kill me.

  His mobile phone started ringing.

  The social worker looked in terror at the handset vibrating on the table.

  I didn’t switch it off.

  It’s her.

  His heart started fluttering inside his ribcage like a canary that has just seen a cat. He opened his mouth and tried to gulp down air. A wave of heat swept through him. And it wasn’t the fever, but the passion that was burning him. The mere thought of being able to hear that sweet voice made his head spin, and nothing else had any meaning.

  Ida, I love you!

  He wished he could throw the window open and shout it to the world. But he couldn’t.

  That bloody African.

  He put his hands over his face and through the gap between his fingers peered at the display of the mobile. It wasn’t Ida’s number. Not even that of her landline. But what if she was calling from another phone?

  He hesitated for a moment, then answered: ‘Yes? Who is it?’

  ‘Hallo. This is Lance Corporal Mastrocola, calling from the carabinieri station in Varrano. I’d like to speak to Trecca Giuseppe.’

  They’ve found the camper!

  Beppe swallowed hard and whispered: ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Are you responsible for …’ Silence. ‘… Zena Cristiano?’

  For a moment the name meant nothing to him. Then he remembered. ‘Yes. Certainly. I’m responsible for him.’

  ‘We need your help. His father has had a serious accident and is now in the Sacred Heart Hospital in San Rocco. His son is there. Could you go to him?’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know. The hospital notified us and we’ve called you. Can you go? Apparently the minor has no family apart from his father.’

  ‘Well, actually, I … I’ve got a bit of a temperature.’ Then he said: ‘Never mind. I’ll go right away.’

  ‘Good. Could you drop by at our office for the relevant documents?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Goodbye. And thank you …’ Beppe hung up and stood there absorbing the news.

  He couldn’t leave the poor kid on his own.

  He took two aspirins and began to get dressed.

  195

  If Fabiana Ponticelli hadn’t decided to go through the San Rocco woods she would have had to make a long, tortuous detour to get back to Giardino Fiorito, the estate where she had lived for fourteen years with her family.

  It was nearly six kilometres away from Varrano. You had to get onto the bypass, then take the provincial road for Marzio and after a couple of kilometres turn left in the direction of the motorway. After driving for another two kilometres between warehouses, factories and DIY stores, you would suddenly see in front of you, encircled with walls like a medieval citadel, the exclusive community of Giardino Fiorito.

  Two hundred cottages (ranchos), built in the early Nineties in an improbable Mexican-Mediterranean style by the celebrated architect Massimiliano Malerba. Blue woodwork, rounded forms and earth-coloured plaster, vaguely reminiscent of the Indian adobes. Half a hectare of garden for each plot. Plus a shop and a sports club with three tennis courts and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Three entrances manned twenty-four hours a day by private guards in blue uniforms. And halogen floodlights all round the enclosing walls.

  The stuck-up inhabitants of the estate were not greatly loved by the people who lived alongside them. Giardino Fiorito had been dubbed ‘Escape from New York’, an allusion to the John Carpenter film in which the Big Apple, cut off from the world by huge concrete bastions, had been turned into a maximum security prison where all the criminals of America were dumped.

  Until the day before, a huge oak tree, more than twenty metres high, had towered over rancho 36, where the Ponticelli family lived. Its green umbrella had arched over Via dei Ciclamini. Its trunk was so thick that three people linking hands could barely embrace it.

  The tree had stood there since the days when there had been nothing here but swamps inhabited by snakes and mosquitoes. It had come unscathed through campaigns of deforestation and drainage, it had survived the concrete vice of the village, but not the phytophotra ramorum, a parasitic fungus of Canadian origin which had colonised its trunk like tooth decay, turning the solid wood into a spongy, friable substance.

  That night the storm had dealt the death blow to the ancient tree, which had come crashing down on the Ponticellis’ garage.

  If its fibre had not been infected by the mycosis perhaps the oak would have resisted the storm as it had always done in the past and would not have reduced the garage to a heap of rubble, and Alessio Ponticelli would have discovered immediately that his daughter Fabiana had not returned home the night before.

  Fabiana’s
father was a perfect representative of the community of Giardino Fiorito. An entrepreneur and a fine figure of a man. One metre eighty centimetres tall. Forty-two years old. Greying hair and white teeth. Married to Paoletta Nardelli, the former Miss Eleganza Trentino 1987. A good father. He frequented the club and detested politics. And, the most important thing, his money was clean and smelled of sweat. He had made it by creating out of nothing Goldgarden, a firm specialising in products for the garden, with a catalogue ranging from aluminium gazebos to reinforced concrete fountains.

  On the night of his daughter’s death Alessio Ponticelli had been stuck in Brindisi. The flight that was due to bring him home had been cancelled because of the bad weather.

  He had informed his wife, eaten a too-salty pizza and spent the night at the Western Hotel. He had returned home on the first flight the next morning.

  The drive to Giardino Fiorito had taken him the best part of two hours. They had diverted the road right out to Centuri. The Sarca bridge had been damaged by the floods and the highway swamped by the waters of the river.

  When Alessio Ponticelli stopped his BMW SUV outside his home he thought he must have got the wrong rancho. A green jungle had grown up outside their cottage. It took him a few moments to grasp that it was the foliage of the great oak.

  He got out of the car with the sensation that the earth was clinging to the soles of his shoes, pushed through the leaves and branches and saw to his horror that there was nothing left of his garage but rubble. His Bottega Veneta briefcase fell from his hand and he stared at the Jaguar which was as flat as a pancake, the remains of the ping-pong table, and the John Deere compact tractor, which he hadn’t even started to pay for, reduced to a mass of twisted metal.

  He remained where he was, frozen. There was an unnatural silence. Then he turned and saw that Renato Barretta, the owner of rancho 35, was walking towards him. He was holding a rake over his shoulder like a halberd and wore tracksuit trousers and a grey quilted jacket. He shook his head as he approached: ‘What a smash! I had a real shock when I saw it this morning.’ And then, proudly: ‘I’ve already called the management and the fire brigade, don’t worry. Lucky there was no one at home …’