The Mountain

by Massimo Donati

  ‘But Nonna…’ he began, not knowing how to continue his argument.

  ‘It’s been decided, Roberto. There’s no point ruining your holidays.’

  ‘But…what do my parents say?’

  ‘They’re the ones who suggested it.’

  15

  In the centre of the piazza, huge floodlights were drawing a circle of light, as though any moment now the guest of honour would appear. Actually, the Rovereto town band had performed quite early on, and now those musicians who hadn’t already left were wandering around looking at the market stalls like everybody else, but in a mix of stage wear and regular clothes, any magic now put away with their instruments. There was no real reason for the space still to be lit up; perhaps it was an oversight, or they wanted to keep up a sense of expectation, or they knew that when San Valentino’s piazza was abandoned to the pale light of the street lamps, any desire to stick around would evaporate. But that evening the festival, which was to run all week, was going well: although it was a weekday, tourists and locals filled the stall-crammed streets, and dogs and children scampered between the legs of the passers-by, getting harmlessly lost, since there really wasn’t much to the place.

  It had been Lia’s idea to come. She wanted to make up for her announcement, to dissolve it like a bitter pill in the festival excursion. She knew her grandson well and, although he had not put up any resistance, she was aware that he was frightened by new things and by unsought freedoms. They had brought along Mattia, and also Emma, to make an event of it, and the boys had left the two grandmothers to their talk almost at once and had mingled into the confusion of the piazza.

  Now they were walking among strangers in the artificial light of the market stalls. Roberto was feeling lost in a realm of no control, and tomorrow—without Nonna just a few metres away to orient him—it was going to be worse. The commotion of the festival wasn’t helping.

  ‘What’s up?’ Mattia was looking at him in that sullen way of his.

  ‘Nothing. I don’t like the festival.’

  Mattia nodded. Perhaps something was going through his head, but he didn’t have time to organise his thoughts because just then a chubby boy their age—shirtsleeves rolled up to his shoulders, cheeks red with acne—took him by surprise with a slap on the back that unbalanced him.

  ‘Mattia. So?’

  ‘Hi, Callisto.’

  They sized each other up. The new arrival had the self-confidence of a tribal chieftain and the smile of a door-to-door salesman. He was completely unembarrassed by the painfully inflamed skin on his face, as though he had not even noticed. He glanced at Roberto and decided to ignore him.

  ‘We need one more to make up a team. We’re over there under the floodlights, it’s great. Are you coming?’

  He pointed at the ball, so scuffed as to be half grey, which he was holding under his arm, and which the two boys only now noticed since it had been hidden behind Callisto’s girth.

  Mattia turned for a moment to Roberto. ‘If you need someone, he plays.’

  Mattia was well aware that his friend loved playing football and never needed to be asked twice. Roberto didn’t actually feel like playing, but he needed to clear his head of thoughts and confusion.

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘I’ll watch.’

  Callisto was forced to assess the situation. Uncertain, he looked towards the piazza where, for another half-hour yet, the floodlights would be illuminating a space that was perfect for a four-a-side match. Six local boys were looking back at him and waiting, as time passed.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  While Roberto and the others fought it out over the soggy ball, Mattia sat, strangely quiet, on the lowest step of the stage and smiled at him whenever he stopped to look across, his eyes asking: do you want to leave? But it was never the right moment.

  They were still playing when a violent noise moved through the piazza, bisecting the crowd and finishing up in the space under the lights. Only the high-pitched buzz of an approaching two-stroke and the cursing of passers-by made the players move aside to avoid being run over. Mattia leapt to his feet. A shiny red motorbike crossed the empty space and came to a stop at the edge of the piazza, outside the patch of light. Everybody squinted, trying to work out who it was.

  After the bike had come to an uncertain halt, the riders took off their helmets, laughing. The female passenger, around twenty with dyed blonde hair, continued laughing idiotically as she alighted, like she was high—and maybe she was—arrogantly convinced of her allure. She was well known around that area; they knew what kind of woman she was.

  People stopped looking at them almost at once and the football players did the same. The episode was over.

  The motorbike rider put his arm around the blonde and pulled her towards him decisively, as though to tame her. She pretended to resist and then good-humouredly let him do it. They walked the length of the piazza, by the stage, in the shadow cast by the lights. Almost simultaneously, Mattia and Roberto recognised the man.

  It was Leo.

  That swagger—peremptory, incontrovertible—could be no one else’s. With each step he rose from the earth a little, as though lifted up from somewhere in the centre of his chest. It was unmistakably him and yet Roberto stood incredulous for a few moments, before instinctively seeking out Mattia’s face for an explanation, a plausible excuse. Their eyes didn’t meet. Mattia was staring at the football game with a blank look on his face.

  Leo passed just a few metres in front of Mattia and Roberto saw him turn slightly in the boy’s direction. He must have noticed his son. Roberto had the impression that Leo hesitated for a moment, an imperceptible start, a tiny frown of disappointment. But he looked away, and Mattia continued looking in another direction.

  Only when Leo was further away could Roberto meet his friend’s gaze. He looked over to celebrate a pass, and in that moment was certain he discerned in his eyes, beyond the attempt at impassivity, an explosion of resentment, the echo of humiliation and injustice.

  Soon afterwards, when their grandmothers indicated from the other end of the piazza that it was time to go back, Mattia and Roberto left the group of boys and crossed the square, now almost empty, in silence. Neither had the strength to speak. But before they reached Lia and Emma, Mattia said quietly, ‘Aldeno’s red Caballero really is awesome.’

  16

  The light flooding the grassy plain of Madonna del Bosco right up to the start of the woods was still a pale blue when a black taxi with its yellow sign turned off crossed the field in front of the hotel and pulled up with its boot facing the front steps.

  Lia and Roberto, who had been looking out from behind the glass of the lobby, came out almost immediately. The child had insisted on carrying his grandmother’s bag and she had let him—it didn’t contain much, just the few things she needed for the trip.

  It was still cold outside.

  The driver looked relieved at the sight of her luggage, took the bag from Roberto and placed it in the boot.

  Emma and Rosa appeared behind them. Mattia was there too; he’d come and sat on the steps. Lia left Roberto there for a moment and went back to say something inaudible to the women, then she shook their hands and waved to Mattia, and came back down to get into the taxi. The driver was already at the wheel.

  Now that his grandmother’s departure had suddenly become real, Roberto felt a tightness in his throat, a terrible desire to cry. He brought his hand to his mouth to smother the childish pout he could feel forming. He had come to hate it over the past few days. His grandmother stroked his hair and Roberto jerked his head away to escape the unwelcome hand.

  ‘Everything will be all right, Roberto. You’ll see—you’ll be fine and when we come back for you, you’ll have grown even bigger and you’ll thank us for leaving you here in the mountains with your friend, Mattia.’

  The boy nodded, forcing himself to smile at his grandmother while his eyes clouded. He put his arms around her waist but this was too m
uch for Lia, who delicately peeled him off.

  ‘Come on! You’re a big boy! I’m not leaving for the next life!’

  Then she immediately turned serious, as though she had said something silly. She got in the car.

  ‘Bye, Roberto.’

  ‘Bye, Nonna.’

  ‘If you need to phone for any reason…’

  ‘I just ask Signora Rosa.’

  ‘Good boy.’

  The car sped off down the only street with an intentional squeal of the tyres.

  Roberto turned to Mattia. He didn’t like being seen this way, but right now he couldn’t fight the temptation to seek some sympathy. He sat down on the steps next to his friend.

  ‘It’s no big deal.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Being alone. It’s nothing really. You get used to it really fast.’

  Roberto looked at his friend, unconvinced.

  ‘And now we can really do whatever we want. After all, my mother and grandmother aren’t going to check up on us if I’m with you.’

  The rough grass and twigs of the undergrowth were pricking his stomach, so although he kept changing position he could never find the right one. Mattia, in contrast, was motionless. Every so often he would pass Roberto the cheap binoculars he had brought from home. His initial plan had been to bring the real ones, the ones his father took hunting, but he couldn’t find them, and in any case, the risk of his father noticing and punishing him was too great. The ones he’d brought were basically a toy, just pretend.

  They had been watching for nearly an hour, but nobody had come out of the holiday camp and the way the light was shining meant they couldn’t see through the windows.

  Nothing was happening. There were some abandoned balls a few metres from the building and some little hats on the benches, but all out in the open and too far away. They continued their stakeout but this time, though neither of them said as much, it wasn’t a theft they wanted to commit. Since the encounter with the girl in the woods, both boys had been curious about further meetings with these girls who were their own age and who might hold the potential for all kinds of unpredictable, unimaginable possibilities.

  But the camp appeared deserted. Suddenly, while Mattia was checking the windows through the binoculars, Roberto turned to look at him. From the corner of his eye Mattia saw his friend had moved, and asked: ‘Do you want to leave?’

  ‘No, let’s stay a bit longer.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  Roberto didn’t answer. He didn’t dare.

  ‘Come on, tell me what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I’m thinking about last night.’

  ‘What about it?’

  Mattia lowered the lenses, revealing a dark expression on his face, but did not turn. He waited for his friend to continue. After a long time, Roberto whispered: ‘Last night. The Caballero nearly ran us over. It looked like your father. With her.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, nothing. I just wanted to understand.’

  ‘What the fuck’s there to understand?’

  ‘I told you, nothing. I don’t care, I was just curious. But we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Sure we can talk about it.’

  Mattia sat up suddenly and threw the binoculars to the ground. Roberto had never seen him lose control. He, too, straightened up so they were sitting opposite each other.

  ‘My father’s got balls. I already told you that. He does whatever he likes and no one can say anything. Because he’s stronger than everybody and nobody walks all over him or tells him what to do.’

  ‘Okay. Well, that’s that, then.’

  Mattia got to his feet and leaned over Roberto threateningly.

  ‘But that’s not that, is it? Everybody here criticises him because they’re envious of what he does, and who he sees, because they’d all like to be like him but they don’t have the balls for it. They all remember when he used to win motorbike races and he was famous and everybody would be there shouting at the TV and boasting about being from the same valley as him. And then they just loved it when he got injured and gave it up. And then you lot arrive from the city and you see someone like him and you think you know it all, and you know exactly how things are, and you’re always right because you’ve got money and we don’t. But you’re not right, you’re wrong. When I grow up I’m going to be like my father. I’d kill myself rather than be like you softcocks, who hate the city but stay there because it suits you. I’d kill myself, I swear.’

  Roberto looked up at him, angry at his friend and at himself for having touched on such a sore point. He was unable to say anything.

  Mattia picked up the binoculars and left Roberto there on the ground.

  They made their way back home, Mattia in front and Roberto behind, not speaking to each other.

  But halfway there Roberto started to pant and snort, and when Mattia turned around he saw that the neckline of Roberto’s T-shirt was red with blood and his friend, in an uncontrollable panic, couldn’t even speak to ask for help. He was stammering something while sucking in air through his mouth, his hands—also bloodstained—raised in the air. Mattia held his head and said to him, ‘Calm down, Robbie, take it easy. I’m here. This will pass. It’s only a nosebleed.’

  He’d already witnessed a scene like this the previous summer. It happened to Roberto every so often, without warning. He pulled out the large, coarse handkerchief he always carried with him, spat on it and put it to Roberto’s nose, while bringing his head back to make the bleeding stop.

  ‘It’s nothing. It’ll stop soon.’

  Roberto managed to say, ‘I never know how…to make it stop…’

  Mattia accompanied him back to the hotel and then returned home for lunch. They’d completely forgotten the episode from a little earlier on.

  17

  The doorbell rang for a long time, the sound getting lost in the deserted rooms until eventually Roberto was convinced that nobody was home. He sat down on the stone bench. It was the same one where he had sat before to wait for his friend, but today the wait seemed different. He looked around him—the handful of buildings and even the sawmill made it look as though the village was abandoned.

  He leapt to his feet and began walking decisively towards the hotel, but then he took the road that led to the valley. Mattia couldn’t be at the hotel, unless they’d managed somehow to miss each other. He’d already asked Rosa and she hadn’t seen him.

  He reached Rovereto by mid-afternoon. The road was easy—a well-made asphalt road on which the only danger came from the cars that tore around the hairpins with no regard for pedestrians. This was the first time he’d walked it alone, and he was proud of himself.

  It took him some time to find the machine shop. He didn’t want to ask anyone, because he didn’t want questions—that would only complicate things. When he arrived he stopped outside, even though he was anxious to find his friend. Two border police cars were blocking the entry. Shortly afterwards, four uniformed agents came out. The first, who perhaps was the highest ranking, noticed a few bags of metal parts piled up in the courtyard. He crouched down to touch one.

  They got into their cars and drove away.

  Soon after this, Roberto heard the noise of the lathes starting up again. High-pitched and insistent, the hiss of the steel-eating machines seemed to scrape the air from his lungs. Before going in he wondered how anyone could ever get used to it.

  Leo was working at the only machine in operation, wearing a little yellow welder’s mask but no earplugs or gloves, mechanically inserting steel cylinders a handspan high one after another into the lathe.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Leo couldn’t hear him, but Roberto hung back for a little while; he didn’t want to be intrusive. The man made him uncomfortable—an adult even more difficult to understand than all the others.

  Then: ‘Excuse me! Excuse me!’

  The noise of the lathe stopped almost completely, and Leo finally turned t
o look at him. He did not switch off the machine, but turned to finish off the piece, placed it in a bag on the ground and then chose to pay attention to Roberto.

  ‘Hi. What is it?’

  ‘I’m looking for Mattia. He wasn’t at home.’

  ‘He can’t be running after you today.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He can’t be running after you. He had to do something for me. And take Dino along with him. He’ll be busy until evening.’

  Roberto was disappointed. Dino again.

  ‘Didn’t you see each other this morning?’

  Roberto nodded defensively.

  ‘Well, that’ll do for today. Mattia’s not on holidays. And he’s not at your disposal. Sometimes he has to do things for us. All right?’

  ‘All right. Thank you. Goodbye.’

  He turned to leave. After so much pointless walking, he wasn’t about to stick around for a lecture.

  ‘Hey, kid.’

  Leo stood up. He was an imposing figure and he seemed agitated.

  ‘Kid, listen to me.’

  Roberto didn’t baulk as Leo bent over and placed an intimidating hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You don’t get to come here and turn everything on its head. Mattia’s obedient but when you’re here, God knows why, he gets defiant and starts answering back. I set him straight today but sometimes I run out of patience. So why don’t you help me out and make sure we all get along. Then I won’t give you any grief. Understood?’

  He slapped him on the cheek harder than necessary.

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, signore. But yes…okay.’ He turned and scurried away.

  As he walked through the shop he heard the hiss of the lathe starting up again.

  He began the walk back up to Madonna del Bosco. Then he changed direction. There would be nothing to do at the hotel. Without Mattia, being in the mountains was not as interesting, or as exciting. And without Nonna, he was lonely.

  Soon, he was in the middle of the woods by the holiday camp. He climbed a tree. His excuse was that from there he could see better and not be seen, but that was not the real reason. He climbed up, but he didn’t stop right away, as Lia always told him to. He was agile and he was strong: he felt good. He had chosen a tall, solid tree, one that would hold him. He climbed above the first line of trees, the short, thick ones, and now he could see all around him, as far as the dam and down to the furthest edge of the field beside the holiday camp. The girls were playing a team game where they had to run around and switch places without getting caught by the person in the middle. He couldn’t see very well so he climbed higher.