The Dawn of Sin

by Grassetti, Valentino

  Rinaldo Duranti was seventy-six years old. In his youth he had been a Roman hamlet, one of those filthy and miserable ones admirably told by Pasolini. He had been born under bombardments, he had known hunger, he had lived in the midst of the desperation of the barracks, the filth, the sluts and the street boys. All of them selling themselves for a loaf of bread. Fighting, theft and violence his fellow teenagers, then redemption through Elvis Presley.

  In the 1950s, Rinaldo was shocked to discover what would become a musical phenomenon that would change an era: rock. It began in a dusty cinema in Pietralata, where, amid blasphemies, whistles and the stagnant smoke of unfiltered national teams, he saw for the first time Jailhouse Rock. Stunned by that rebellious quiff and a pelvis that was moving frantically, the young Rinaldo decided that from that moment on music would be his life.

  His first move was to buy an EKO guitar, setting up a small musical group with a few friends. After a few performances

  he realized that he was denied as a musician, but he showed a certain aptitude for organization. He walked around at night with a wooden ladder and a bucket of glue to put up the handmade posters of Pietralata's first rock band, The Strain. The boys performed in the basement of a building where the owner had evicted everyone for delinquency. The five-hundred square metre venue was called The Covo. A few coins were enough to get in. The first time they showed up in twenty. The second time in two hundred and eighty. Rock wasn't music, it was a virus.

  It was a triumph even though The Strain couldn't play. All they had to do was imitate Celentano imitating Elvis. The few pennies left by the audience turned out to be a huge sum in the hands of a sixteen-year-old boy. It was from that rewarding experience that Rinaldo Duranti decided to become an entrepreneur. After seeing the film Un Americano a Roma, he realized that if he wanted to go into business, he had to become a character first. He began to dress like a gangster: the jacket without lapels, the turquoise shirt and the feet covered with spats and elegant black shoes. He presented himself to the artists with nice and quick manners, as a practical young man, while treating them veiled as subordinates. They would have understood immediately that respect had to be earned.

  He devoted his first year to organizing concerts for a dozen singers. Secondly, he founded Gold Music.

  More than 50 years had passed, but Rinaldo continued to dress like a gangster, still loved Elvis, lived at the Parioli and drove a Corvette with sinuous curves, tilting headlights, shiny as a silver cup.

  The day after his meeting with the Navy Seals, Duranti was busy in reading a teenager's diary. He walked into the studio with gold and platinum-covered walls, photos of all the greatest Italian artists, and grateful dedications to their impresario. Above all, there was a giant black-and-white

  photo of Elvis, already fat and unmade and scribbled on it, To Ranaldo Duranti. With sympathy. Written just like this: Ranaldo.

  He read the diary walking as if he were holding a breviary in his hands, underlining some passages with histrionic theatricality.

  13th November.

  It sucks to live here. For everyone it's like dying inside without any fault. Everyone knows how it feels, everyone justifies in some way the nullity of their life. As for me, as I walk through these dark alleys even during the day, I feel my heart beating like a bell ringing. Everyone hears the gloomy chimes, but no one helps you or understands you. O my God, I hate this country inhabited by zombies.

  November 16th.

  That's the way I am. I'm critical enough to understand my flaws. A quality that allows me to judge myself without indulgence, but good-naturedly others, because I am aware that if one smiles too much, he hides a war of his own.

  A smile can hide the scars of battle, whether won or lost.

  But it doesn't work for me.

  So tell me why you laugh.

  What's your problem, Castelmuso?

  November 24th.

  If the good Lord made us all equal, here in Castelmuso we are even more equal than equal. In my school, for example, black boys are always together, like a Jewish caste threatened by the natives. Even bullies hang out with bullies who are equal to them.

  In elementary school, the girls with the designer backpacks hang out with other girls who have designer clothes. All you have to do is have a broken backpack and you're off to the

  group of brats without designer clothes. Usually, it is the daughters of immigrants, the shadows among the shadows, who suffer this fate. Obviously it is the white mothers, respectable by definition, the healthy bearers of certain values to transmit.

  Castelmuso is this: a feud of bigots who preach equality between the unequal.

  6 December.

  I want to leave. This country is not made for restless souls like mine. There are people I find unbearable. In all things. Too much praise, too much admiration will never make them my friends. Besides, I don't know why I like them. Since junior high, people have been looking for me, attacking me. I have many acquaintances, but, let's say, little company. In fact, I only have two friends. One is my mother. The other is Lorraine, my favourite slut... the rest is an abyss of ignorance that outlives itself, and it does so with complacency.

  The way I see it, Castelmuso no longer has medieval walls, but invisible walls that contain nothing.

  December 9th.

  I live on the hill, where the view embraces slices of sea and stretches of mountains, the valleys separating the water from the rock. How can such a superb place, of timeless beauty, contain so much poop?

  "So, what do you think?"

  "It's not serious, Rinaldo."

  "Come on, Daisy. Just pick the most important steps, right? Go on, tell me you agree and I'll get right on with the publication."

  "This time, don't let your optimism get in the way, and don't let that persuasive little voice that doesn't suit you. I said it's off. Stop."

  Rinaldo Duranti had puffed impatiently, spreading his arms towards two collaborators concentrating on taking notes, as if he meant: ʺYou see? It's impossible to reason with her.ʺ

  He had remained silent for a few seconds to think things through, handing himself over his head to squeeze his soggy hair, and the other one clutching the heavy-covered page. He used his thumb to keep it open in the middle, while his eyes glittered greedily over the pages, filled with Daisy's neat, well-written handwriting.

  Rinaldo did not want to give up. He still read a few more passages:

  January 14th.

  The burning coals fall on the palaces of Castelmuso. Adriano confessed this to me. He said that when something horrible is about to happen, it rains coal over the roofs. ‘Heavenly prayers sent to purify evil’, he calls them. He showed me the bruises. The coal had come down from the sky like a pebble, he says, but that's one of many hallucinations. Schizophrenia is a faithful and ruthless companion. She shows you the face of God and demons without letting you know whose side the truth is on.

  "It's all so powerful, so fascinating. But I love Adriano. I assure you, we won't talk about his illness. Otherwise, listen to me. We've got to publish it" Duranti was thrilled by tapping the hairy back of his hand on the hard cover of the magazine.

  "No. I'm sorry. I made a mistake in giving it to you” replied the girl, who regretted entrusting the diary to the producer. It was written when she was a young girl and thought it was worthless, but she was wrong. Everything was still so

  intimate, so current. Emotions that Duranti would have wanted to translate into a business.

  "My love” shook the record company's head, "I recognize that purity of soul is your strong suit, like being a bastard is mine. But this is business. Do you know how many copies we can sell? Come on. Shoot some numbers, see if you can guess."

  "That's not the point" tried to replicate Daisy, immediately interrupted by the record company, who fired a figure, the tone of someone throwing a big handful of chips on a poker table.

  "Tell me if a hundred thousand copies sound good."

  "No, it doe
sn't” replied the girl, crossing her arms over her chest.

  "I'm not that famous yet. We only made one record, and it went well. For the story of my life, it's better to wait."

  "Wait for what? This is the time to do everything. You've been on the charts for four weeks. Everybody's talking about you. We have to take advantage of it. Do you know how much you've had in your pocket in two months?"

  "You tell me."

  "Eighty-six thousand net! You know what I mean? Net. Thanks to iTunes and all the other online stores, the CDs, which some people still buy, the SIAE, club nights made and booked. And do you know how much we're going to get soon? Guess what?"

  "I don't care" she cut short, who lost her temper for a moment and muttered a bad word. Rinaldo proceeded like a train with his numbers. "I'm predicting a good three hundred for the next three months. All with one single. And for the next few months? You know that, huh? No, you don't know. Because nobody knows. But it'll be money. A lot of money. When we record the new songs written by your fucking genius brother, we're gonna be like a fucking business bank."

  Rinaldo Duranti lifted the page to show it enthusiastically to the staff. "And this could help fill the coffers. Just take the best pieces to make the book. I already have an agent ready to propose it to the publishers and..."

  Daisy interrupted him with a dry hand gesture, inviting him to cut short.

  "A biography is something ridiculous!" she said. "I'm only 20, man."

  Duranti was about to argue, but realized he had no convincing argument that could effectively contradict Daisy. His was not a whim. She was right.

  The record company remembered that in the distant past, angry critics had criticized Brigitte Bardot for releasing her autobiography. Someone accused her of writing it too soon. And BB was in her 60s.

  In the end, he surrendered to the obvious and returned the diary to Daisy.

  "It's a shame. This was the right time to do it" he whispered disappointed.

  The skinny, frantic old record company didn't like to waste time, and since it was a business meeting, he snapped his hands to urge the staff to move on.

  "Okay. That's the end of the book, we have to go on. Focus on t-shirts and hats. Listen to the Chinese for bright hearts to sell at concerts. Matteo, insist with the Channel 5 editorial staff. I'll try to call back the art director of the Sferisterio. I'm negotiating to schedule a concert. Twenty-five euros per ticket for two thousand eight hundred seats makes seventy thousand euros. If it doesn't rain, since it's open."

  Daisy was pleased to have Rinaldo as manager. She and her mother trusted the old man. He was a scoundrel who followed her morals. An unscrupulous producer, able to watch his back from treacherous and shrewd people, but extraordinarily good and protective of those he considered

  incapable of petty gestures, such as being ungrateful, sneaky, or short-sighted.

  Daisy slipped the diary into her purse when her smartphone vibrated at the bottom. It had been gone two days. Sandra had called almost every hour to see how she was doing. Daisy reassured her mother, "I'll be back today. "Don't pick me up at the station. That mad man of Rinaldo says that now I have a pile of eighty-six thousand euros, so I can afford a taxi. Yes... yes... see you later. Bye.

  "What? You're leaving?" Rinaldo asked, holding the handset to his ear, his finger stuck in the dial of a 1960s canary yellow phone.

  "I have an exam in three days. And Private Law is not a joke" reported Daisy, who got up from her chair and rearranged her skirt.

  "A taxi from Rome to your country spit. Do you know how many miles that is?"

  "Two hundred and forty-three, listening to the navigator."

  "What? It will cost me at least 1,300 euros! Do you realize?"

  Daisy laughed amused.

  "Come here, you cheapskate. Embrace your golden goose" she exclaimed, arms around the record player's neck.

  "Okay, you bloody leech. God knows I love you. Have a good trip" he said, kissing her on the cheeks.

  "Say hello to Adriano and your mother. I'll call you later."

  Daisy kissed the staff in the air as she walked nervously towards the exit. A buzz of grateful voices answered the greeting. Everyone was aware that Daisy Magnoli was raising Gold Music. After ten years of a black crisis that had been close to bankruptcy on several occasions, there was finally money in the till. Salaries were now being paid regularly, and the outlook for the future was very promising.

  Daisy stepped out of the elegant building behind Piazzale Clodio, the taxi stopped with four arrows waiting for her. The taxi driver recognized her despite her large dark glasses.

  The man, with a short, straight black moustache on a raw face, spoke with an accent on the Castelli area. He pulled out of the double row and turned right onto Via Nomentana.

  The taxi stood half an hour behind a snake of cars parked on the ring road, before reaching the A24, the Roma LʹAquila.

  It was dark. The road, a narrow dual carriageway, sometimes closed for work in progress, was quiet and barely passable. Daisy placed her neck on the soft back of the car. She closed her eyes, exhausted from a series of intense meetings.

  But sleep did not come. She was still tense, full of the frenzy of the Roman days; a tour that began with Rinaldo showing up with his Corvette at Termini Station dressed as a Chicago gangster. The old Roman record company adored him.

  Four years earlier he had sniffed Daisy Magnoli's uncommon talent. He had paid out of his own pocket for her trips to Rome, for her diction classes to take away her country's harsh and closed-mouthed accent, and for the dance lessons she took in Castelmuso from a dancer secretly infected with HIV, while caring for Adriano's health.

  In the last four years Daisy's world had changed. And the most significant passages were written in that diary that she didn't want to publish.

  A sparse drizzle shone through the windows of the taxi, activating the windscreen wiper sensors. Sleep did not come. Her smartphone warned of incoming messages. She answered her mother's most urgent ones, telling her she was on her way home. She said goodbye to Rinaldo, who wanted to know if everything was all right, and then started chatting with Lorena.

  ‘How was Rome?’ The friend asked.

  ‘Everything ok. I'm on the road. I'll arrive around three o'clock in the morning’, Daisy wrote, underlining the sentence with a string of tired faces.

  ‘Got it. You're devastated. Come on, let's talk tomorrow’.

  ‘No, where are you going? Keep me company!’

  ‘Sweetheart, I'm not alone...’

  ‘But... is Christian there? You never change. All you ever think about is getting laid!’ Daisy wrote, putting a lot of little faces out there with her tongue.

  ‘It's called love, my darling!’

  ‘Okay. Say hi to him for me. I read somewhere that they loaned it to the Ascoli. Use a condom, please.’

  The girl greeted the couple of friends, attaching a few beating hearts.

  Daisy imagined them naked between the sheets. It wasn't really a fantasy, as Lorraine used to tell her all the spicy details of her relationship with Christian. Usually, they would start with him excited as hell. She, after a few initial cuddles, would get straight to the point. She unzipped his pants, grabbed his penis and started kissing him. He, panting, couldn't resist her and mounted her to penetrate her. She screamed with pleasure. After, they would take a few minutes off, before doing it again with several variations. And each time, Daisy would get excited to hear the story of their intimacy.

  She was about to turn off her cell phone when a message appeared on Whatsapp. ‘I've sent you the private law notes in PDF. Bye.’

  That was Guido Gobbi. She sent him a thumbs up, without even adding a thank you. She opened the document.

  She tried to take advantage of the couple of hours she was away from home to go over some legal items.

  She liked the law. But with her sudden fame, it was hard to attend university courses. She had the first set of regulations. Fatigue made not
es particularly tedious and disheartening. She was discouraged by all the notions of learning by heart and preferred to let it go.

  The taxi began its journey, an up and down ride through the Apennines to L'Aquila. The rain began to pour down on her. She saw the rock wall of the Gran Sasso in the distance. The

  entire massif was covered by a layer of low, dark clouds that increased the gloom of the landscape.

  Since sleeping would not be possible, she thought it best to deceive the time by reading the diary. He hadn't done that for a long time.

  She unzipped the zipper on the bag, pulled out the notebook with the metal padlock and red leather cover, a gold butterfly stamped on the front, and two straps that seemed to bind the whole thing, but were only decorative.

  She flipped through the pages and found more than she could remember.

  March 26th.

  Guido is always on the computer and never on the books. According to his letter teacher, his behaviour legitimizes being a good-for-nothing. If the professor was right, I could never like someone who has the sole talent of not standing out in anything.

  Could I?

  Is Guido the measure of my failure?

  Daisy sighed at her memories. She turned over a new leaf.

  Guido again. She was moved to read a poem he had dedicated to her, which she had taken the trouble to rewrite in her diary with a particularly round and accomplished handwriting, almost as a child.

  Love.

  You captivated me, captivating my senses.

  My eyes hate the views filled with your absence.

  My hearing can't stand things that don't speak of you.

  My hands refuse to touch anything but your face. And my mouth. Everything is sour, everything is poison compared to that kiss I still owe you.