Alice laughed nervously and couldn’t work out whether giada was being serious.
“Now, you go back in there and start talking to him,” explained Viola, who had a plan in mind and a very clear one. “Then you come up with an excuse to take him to my room, okay?”
“And what excuse am I supposed to come up with?”
“How do I know? Anything. Tell him you’re fed up with the music and you want some peace and quiet.”
“What about his friend? He’s always glued to him,” Alice said.
“We’ll take care of him,” said Viola with her most ruthless smile.
She climbed onto her sister’s bed, trampling the light green cover with her shoes. Alice thought of her father, who wouldn’t even let her walk on the carpet with her shoes on. For a second she wondered what he would have said if he had seen her there, but then she swallowed back the thought.
Viola opened a drawer in the cupboard above the bed. She rummaged around, not tall enough to see inside, and took out a little box covered with red fabric, adorned with gilded Chinese characters.
“Take this,” she said. She held her hand out toward Alice. In the middle of her palm was a bright blue pill, square and with rounded corners. Carved in the center was a butterfly. For a second Alice saw the filthy fruit gumdrop she had accepted from that very same hand and felt it trapped in her throat again.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Take it. You’ll have more fun.”
Viola winked. Alice thought for a moment. They were all looking at her. She thought this must be another test. She took the pill from Viola’s hand and placed it on her tongue.
“You’re ready,” Viola said with satisfaction. “let’s go.”
The girls left the room single file, all looking down and with wicked smiles on their faces. Federica pleaded with Viola, please, let me have one too. And Viola brusquely told her wait your turn.
Alice was the last to leave. when all their backs were turned, she brought a hand to her mouth and spat out the pill. She put it in her pocket and turned out the light.
13
Like four beasts of prey, Viola, Giada, Federica, and Giulia surrounded Denis.
“Will you come with us?” Viola asked.
“Why?”
“We’ll explain why later,” Viola cackled.
Denis froze. He sought Mattia’s help, but Mattia was still absorbed in the quivering Coca-Cola. The loud music that filled the room made the surface jerk with each beat of the bass drum. Mattia waited with strange trepidation for the moment when it would spill over the rim.
“I’d rather stay here,” said Denis.
“God, how boring you are,” Viola said, losing her patience. “You’re coming with us and that’s that.”
She pulled him by the arm. Denis resisted feebly. Then Giada started pulling as well and he gave in. As they were pushing him into the kitchen, he looked once more at his friend, who was still motionless.
Mattia became aware of Alice’s presence when she rested a hand on the table: the tension broke and a thin layer of liquid spilled over the rim and settled around the base in a dark ring.
He instinctively looked up and met her gaze.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
Mattia nodded. “Fine,” he said.
“Do you like the party?”
“Mmm.”
“Music this loud gives me a headache.”
Alice waited for Mattia to say something. She looked at him and it seemed to her that he wasn’t breathing. His eyes were meek and pain-stricken. Like the first time, she suddenly wanted to draw those eyes toward her, to take Mattia’s head in her hands and tell him everything would be okay.
“Will you come into the other room with me?” she ventured.
Mattia looked at the floor, as if he had been waiting for those very words.
“Okay,” he said.
Alice headed down the hall and he followed a short distance behind. Mattia, as always, kept his head down and looked in front of him. He noticed that Alice’s right leg bent gracefully at the knee, like every other leg in the world, and her foot brushed the floor without a sound. Her left leg, on the other hand, remained stiff. To push it forward she had to make it do a little arc outward. For a fraction of a second her pelvis was unbalanced, as if she were about to topple sideways. At last her left foot touched the ground as well, heavily, like a crutch.
Mattia concentrated on that gyroscopic rhythm, and without realizing it he synchronized his steps with hers.
When they got to Viola’s room, Alice sidled up next to him and, with a daring that startled even her, closed the door. They were standing, he on the rug and she just off it.
Why doesn’t he say anything? Alice wondered.
For a moment she wanted to drop the whole thing, to open the door again and leave, to breathe normally.
But what would I tell Viola? she thought.
“It’s better in here, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yeah,” Mattia agreed, nodding. His arms dangled at his sides like a ventriloquist’s dummy. With his right index finger he was folding a short, hard bit of skin that stuck out from beside his thumbnail. It was almost like piercing himself with a needle and the sting distracted him for a moment from the charged air in the room.
Alice sat on Viola’s bed, balancing on the edge. The mattress didn’t dip beneath her weight. She looked around, searching for something.
“Why don’t you sit down here?” she asked Mattia at last.
He obeyed, sitting down carefully, about a foot away from her. The music in the living room sounded like the heavy, panting breath of the walls. Alice noticed Mattia’s hands, clenched into fists.
“Is your hand better?” she asked.
“Nearly,” he said.
“How did you do it?”
“I cut myself. In the biology lab. By accident.”
“Can I see?”
Mattia tightened his fists still further. Then he slowly opened his left hand. A furrow, light in shade and perfectly straight, cut it diagonally. Around it, Alice made out scars that were shorter and paler, almost white. They filled the whole of his palm, intersecting like the branches of a leafless tree seen against the light.
“I’ve got one too, you know,” she said.
Mattia clenched his fist again and trapped his hand between his legs, as if to hide it. Alice stood up, lifted her sweatshirt slightly, and unbuttoned her jeans. He was seized by panic. He turned his eyes to the floor, but still managed to see Alice’s hands folding back the edge of her trousers, revealing a piece of white gauze framed by Scotch tape and, just below it, the top of a pair of pale gray underpants.
Alice lowered the elastic band a couple of inches and Mattia held his breath.
“Look,” she said.
A long scar ran along her protruding pelvis bone. It was thick and in relief, and wider than Mattia’s. The marks from the stitches, which intersected it perpendicularly and at regular intervals, made it look like the kind of scar children draw on their faces when they dress up as pirates.
Mattia couldn’t think what to say. Alice buttoned up her jeans and tucked her undershirt inside them. Then she sat down again, a little closer to him.
The silence was almost unbearable for both of them, the empty space between their faces overflowing with expectation and embarrassment.
“Do you like your new school?” Alice asked, for the sake of saying something.
“Yes.”
“They say you’re a genius.”
Mattia sucked in his cheeks and bit into them till he felt the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth.
“Do you really like studying?”
Mattia nodded.
“Why?”
“It’s the only thing I know how to do,” he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of
the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn’t hurt them either. But he said nothing.
“And do you like me?” Alice went for it. Her voice came out rather shrilly and her face exploded with heat.
“I don’t know,” Mattia answered hastily, looking at the floor.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he insisted. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“You don’t need to think about it.”
“If I don’t think, I can’t understand anything.”
“I like you,” said Alice. “A bit. I think.”
He nodded. He played at contracting and relaxing his retina, to make the geometric design of the carpet go in and out of focus.
“Do you want to kiss me?” Alice asked. She wasn’t ashamed, but as she said it her empty stomach curled with terror that he might say no.
Mattia didn’t move for a few seconds. Then he shook his head, slowly, still staring at the swirls in the carpet.
With a nervous impulse, Alice brought her hands to her hips and measured the circumference of her waist.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly, in a different voice. “Please don’t tell anyone,” she added.
You’re an idiot, she thought. Worse than a girl in kindergarten.
She stood up. Suddenly Viola’s room seemed like a strange, hostile place. She felt herself becoming intoxicated by all the colors on the walls, the desk covered with makeup, the toe shoes hanging from the closet door, like a pair of severed feet, the big photo of Viola at the beach, lying on the sand looking beautiful, the cassettes stacked haphazardly beside the stereo, and the clothes piled up on the armchair.
“Let’s go back,” she said.
Mattia got up from the bed. He looked at her for a moment, apologetically, it seemed to her. She opened the door, letting the music flood the room. She walked partway down the hall alone. Then she thought of Viola’s face. She turned around, took Mattia’s stiff hand without asking his permission, and together they walked into the noisy living room.
14
The girls had trapped Denis in the corner, near the fridge, so as to have a little fun. They had arranged themselves in front of him, forming a barrier of excited eyes and flowing hair, through which he could no longer see Mattia in the other room.
“Truth or dare?” Viola asked him.
Denis shook his head timidly, to say that he didn’t feel like playing this game. Viola rolled her eyes and then opened the fridge, forcing Denis to lean to the side to make room for the door. She pulled out a bottle of peach vodka and took a gulp, without bothering to find a glass. Then she offered him some, with a complicit smile.
He already felt dizzy and a little nauseated. The whiskey had left a bitter aftertaste suspended between his nose and his mouth, but there was something in Viola’s behavior that prevented him from objecting. He took the bottle and took a sip. Then he passed it to Giada Savarino, who grabbed it greedily and started to pour it down her throat as if it were orangeade.
“So. Truth or dare?” repeated Viola. “Otherwise we’ll choose.”
“I don’t like this game,” Denis objected unconvincingly.
“Mmm, you and your friend really are a drag,” she said. “Then I’ll choose. Truth. let’s see.”
She rested her index finger on her chin and with her eyes traced an imaginary circle on the ceiling, pretending to be deep in thought.
“I know!” she exclaimed. “You have to tell us which one of us you like best.”
Denis shrugged, intimidated.
“Dunno,” he said.
“What do you mean, dunno? You must like at least one of us, right?”
Denis thought he didn’t like any of them, that he just wanted them to get out of his way and let him get back to Mattia. That he had only one more hour to be with him and watch him exist, even at night, when usually the only thing he could do was imagine him in his bedroom, sleeping under a sheet the color of which he didn’t know.
If I choose one of them, they’ll leave me alone, he thought.
“Her.” He pointed to Giulia Mirandi, because she seemed the most harmless.
Giulia brought a hand to her mouth as if she’d just been elected prom queen. Viola turned up one corner of her mouth. The other two exploded into coarse laughter.
“Good,” said Viola. “So now the dare.”
“No, that’s enough,” protested Denis.
“You really are a bore. Here you are, surrounded by four girls, and you don’t even want to play a bit. Certainly this doesn’t happen to you every day.”
“But now it’s someone else’s turn.”
“And I say it’s still your turn. You have to do the dare. What do you say, girls?”
The others nodded greedily. The bottle was once more in the hands of Giada, who at regular intervals threw back her head and took a swig, as if she wanted to finish it before the others noticed.
“See?” said Viola.
Denis snorted.
“What do I have to do?” he asked with resignation.
“Well, since I’m a generous hostess, I’m going to give you a nice dare,” Viola said mysteriously. The other three hung on her words, eager to discover the new torture. “You have to kiss Giulia.”
Giulia blushed. Denis felt a pang in his ribs.
“Are you crazy?” Giulia asked, shocked, perhaps pretending.
Viola gave a capricious shrug. Denis shook his head no, two, three times in a row.
“You were the one who said you liked her,” she said.
“What if I don’t do it?”
Suddenly dead serious, Viola looked him straight in the eyes.
“If you don’t do it you’ll have to choose truth again,” she said. “You could tell us about your little friend, for example.”
In her keen, bright stare Denis recognized all the things he had always thought were invisible. His neck stiffened.
His arms at his sides, he leaned his face toward Giulia Mirandi, narrowed his eyes, and kissed her. Then he tried to draw back, but Giulia held his head, her hand on the back of his neck. She forced her tongue through his pursed lips.
In his mouth Denis tasted saliva that wasn’t his own and felt sick. In the middle of this, his first kiss, he opened his eyes just in time to see Mattia coming into the kitchen, hand in hand with the crippled girl.
15
The others were the first to notice what Alice and Mattia would come to understand only many years later. They walked into the room holding hands. They weren’t smiling and were looking in opposite directions, but it was as if their bodies flowed smoothly into each other’s, through their arms and fingers.
The marked contrast between Alice’s light-colored hair, which framed the excessively pale skin of her face, and Mattia’s dark hair, tousled forward to hide his black eyes, was erased by the slender arc that linked them. There was a shared space between their bodies, the confines of which were not well delineated, from which nothing seemed to be missing and in which the air seemed motionless, undisturbed.
Alice walked a step ahead of him and Mattia’s slight drag balanced her cadence, erasing the imperfections of her faulty leg. He let himself be carried forward, his feet making not the slightest sound on the tiles. His scars were hidden and safe in her hand.
They stopped on the threshold of the kitchen, a little away from the cluster of girls and Denis. They tried to work out what was happening. They had a dreamy air about them, as if they had come from some distant place that only they knew.
Denis pushed Giulia violently away and their mouths separated with a smack. He looked at Mattia and sought in his expression the traces of the thing that terrified him. He thought that he and Alice had said something to each other, something he would never be able to know, and his brain filled with blood.
He ran out of the room, deliberately knocking into him, to destroy that equilibrium he loathed. For an instant Mattia me
t Denis’s red and upset eyes. For some reason they reminded him of Michela’s defenseless eyes that afternoon in the park. Over the years those two gazes would gradually merge in his memory into a single, indelible fear.
Mattia let go of Alice’s hand. It was as if all his nerve endings were concentrated in that single point, and when he broke away, it seemed that his arm gave off sparks, as if from a bared cable.
“Excuse me,” he whispered to her and left the kitchen to catch up with Denis.
Alice walked over to Viola, who was staring at her with eyes of stone.
“We—” she began.
“I don’t care,” Viola cut in. Looking at Alice and Mattia, she had remembered the boy at the beach, the moment when he had refused to hold her hand, while she would have loved to go back to the others on the beach holding hands just like that. She was jealous, a painful, violent jealousy. And she was furious, because the happiness she wanted for herself she had just given to someone else. She felt robbed, as if Alice had taken her share too.
Alice leaned over to say something in her ear, but Viola turned away.
“What do you want now?” she said.
“Nothing.” Alice retreated in fear.
At that moment Giada bent forward, as if an invisible man had punched her in the stomach. With one hand she held on to the kitchen counter and with the other she gripped her belly.
“What’s wrong?” Viola asked.
“I’m going to throw up,” she moaned.
“Gross, go to the bathroom,” Viola yelled.
But it was too late. With a jerk Giada emptied the contents of her stomach onto the floor, something reddish and alcoholic, a mixture of vodka and Soledad’s dessert.
The others pulled back, horrified, while Alice tried to hold her up by the hips. The air immediately turned rancid.
“Well done, you idiot,” said Viola. “What a fucking awful party.”
She left the room, her fists clenched furiously, as if struggling to keep from smashing something. Alice looked at her anxiously and then went back to taking care of Giada, who was sobbing gently.