“‘Cesare is my father! My father, understand, you bastard? You’re the only liar, Bern! Look at what you got us into!’
“I grabbed him by the neck, until he had to let go of Bern to pull me off. When I stopped squeezing, he began coughing.
“‘We’ll find the money we need,’ Bern promised.
“At that point a weariness suddenly came over us. I looked at the expanse of rocks and only then did I see a figure standing on the shore, a shadow barely darker than the rest, very far away. Violalibera.
“Closer to us were the sandy patches where we had danced the summer before. But who remembered that anymore?
“The night is made for sleeping: that’s another thing Cesare used to say, before turning off the light in our room, before giving us the last whispered blessing in the shadowy dimness. The night is made for sleeping. But not for us, we didn’t want to sleep. So we listened to his footsteps move away along the corridor, then we turned on a flashlight and climbed onto Bern’s bed. On that raft we continued our games until it was late, the games children played, games that were innocent yet each night a little more daring, each night a little more risky.
“All of a sudden I saw the figure on the rocks dive off. The sound of the plunge could barely be heard. Unable to move, I said: ‘She jumped into the water.’
“Bern and Nicola quickly turned and ran toward the rocks, calling out Violalibera’s name. Then I too followed them. We stood on the edge of the rocks, all three of us shouting now. The waves were crashing, froth flying. Luckily, there was a little moonlight. Nicola pointed to a spot in the water: ‘Out there! She’s over there!’
“He didn’t have the guts to jump in, but Bern did, diving in feetfirst without looking at what was below.
“‘Shit!’ Nicola cried.
“I dove in too. The water was so cold it knocked the breath out of me. I hit something on the bottom, resurfaced, and swam toward Bern, who had meanwhile grabbed Violalibera and was holding her head above water.
“Then Nicola also joined us. We clung to her, until she said, ‘Okay, let go of me! Let go of me!’
“We swam to shore and helped one another climb up the rocks. The current pushed me back twice before I managed to drag myself up.
“I was trembling from the cold. Violalibera said we had to take off our clothes or we’d catch pneumonia; we obeyed her, and took everything off. Then she told us to huddle close to her to warm her up and again we obeyed. She started laughing then. ‘I gave you a scare, didn’t I?’ she said, and meanwhile, she wiped the drops off our skin with her hands and lips and hair. I found myself kneeling on the sharp rocks, then lying on my back. Fear had excited us. I looked up one last time. Even with the moon you could see countless stars.
“The next day Nicola was waiting for me in front of the cathedral in Brindisi. ‘Leave the motorbike here,’ he said, ‘we’ll walk.’
“‘They’ll steal it if I leave it here,’ I said, but he had already started walking. I shut off the motor and trudged behind him, pushing the Atala. We headed for the waterfront. It was strange to be there alone, just us two, in broad daylight. All of a sudden Nicola said: ‘I’ve thought about it. Bern has spent more time in the tower than we have. Much more time.’
“‘And what does that mean?’
“‘Nothing. Only that he’s been with Violalibera more. It’s a fact. How do we know what they do when we’re not there?’
“‘We were there too, Nicola.’
“‘I’m sure it couldn’t have been me.’
“‘You can’t say that.’
“He gave me a nasty look. ‘Sure, you always defend him. You can’t even see what he’s become.’
“‘What has he become?’
“‘A fanatic, that’s what. And only to provoke Cesare.’
“‘Yeah, but Cesare . . .’
“Nicola stopped short, we almost collided. ‘Cesare what, huh? You two are always ready to attack him. He took you in and took care of you. Without Cesare you would be . . .’ But he didn’t finish the sentence.
“‘He destroyed all his books.’
“‘All his books? Is that what he told you? Two books. Only two.’
“‘Two,’ I repeated softly to myself. I tried to remember the details of the conversation with Bern in the bunkhouse at the Relais. But did two or a hundred make a difference?
“In the meantime we’d arrived at the address, on a street in the old city. One of the balconies was brimming over with the shoots of a succulent, which had wound itself around the railing like tentacles. Nicola checked the house number on the slip of paper he had folded in his pocket.
“‘This is it,’ he said. ‘You buzz.’
“‘Why me?’
“‘Buzz, dammit!’
“An old woman came to open the door; without saying a word, she stepped back to let us in. She pointed to the sofa with a weary gesture, then sat down in a nearby chair and went back to watching television, an afternoon variety show. I had made up an excuse for Nacci, again regarding the nonexistent girlfriend. Seeing the actresses on the screen, for the first time I thought about the Relais with some regret. About Corinne.
“‘Come in,’ a man’s voice behind us said.
“He had a thick, well-groomed beard, and wore a pair of rimless spectacles. He led us into the kitchen. ‘Where is the girl?’
“‘She didn’t come today.’
“‘So I’m supposed to examine one of you?’
“‘We didn’t think . . . ,’ Nicola said, but then, embarrassed, he fell silent.
“‘How many weeks is she?’
“‘A few. We think,’ I replied stupidly.
“‘Which of you is the father?’
“This time we both remained silent. The doctor turned to the sink, filled a glass from the tap, and drank it in one go. Then he put the glass back on the drainboard without rinsing it. He didn’t offer us anything. ‘I see,’ he muttered. ‘She’s a minor, correct?’
“‘She’s sixteen.’
“‘You must bring her to me as soon as possible, is that clear?’ He seemed both weary and disgusted as he said it. The drone of the television could be heard from the other room. ‘The operation costs a million and a half,’ he added.
“‘We were told a million,’ Nicola said, suddenly nervous.
“The doctor smiled grimly. ‘You don’t know who the father is and you don’t know what week she’s in either. But you knew the price, right? Well, the price is different. If it can’t be done, I will give you back a million three hundred thousand. I will only deduct the cost of the examination.’
“‘What do you mean, if it can’t be done?’ Nicola repeated his words.
“‘Doctor,’ I interrupted.
“‘Tell me.’
“‘How is it done?’
“He stared at me for a few seconds. Then he turned, opened a drawer, and took out a knife. He held it up so I could see it plainly, laid the serrated blade against the tabletop and scraped it, as if scraping something off, a patina. ‘Is it clearer to you now?’
“Nicola had turned pale.
“‘It was you,’ the doctor said, ‘not me.’
“Back at the Scalo, we forgot about eating. The music from outside reached us muffled. Violalibera took a piece of paper and set fire to it with a match, then let it burn in her fingers. The flame that was quickly consumed gave the most light I had ever seen down there, and for a few seconds it fully revealed our terrified faces.
“We counted the money once again: nine hundred thousand. At that point, I had exhausted every reserve.
“‘We’ll never make it,’ Nicola said. I was afraid he’d have another attack of nerves.
“‘You could borrow some,’ Bern told him.
“‘Oh, really? From whom?’
“‘From your univ
ersity buddies. They must have money, those guys.’
“‘Why don’t you do something about it instead? You sit here always giving orders without doing a fucking thing.’
“Bern smiled. ‘I see that your law studies are enriching your vocabulary.’
“Violalibera started snickering. That night she was wearing a tank top that exposed her navel. She stretched her bare foot toward the center of the room, toward Nicola, rubbed it against his thigh and then against his crotch.
“Nicola grabbed her foot as if he wanted to mangle it, then shoved it away. ‘You’re crazy.’
“That’s when Bern turned to me. His back had neither improved nor worsened, but he no longer complained. Now his attention was constantly on Violalibera; he took care to make sure she had enough to drink, that she was comfortable. He hadn’t returned to the masseria anymore, so as not to leave her alone. I didn’t know what Cesare and Floriana thought of it, whether they were sick with worry; he didn’t talk about it. He’d made the crumbling interior of the tower his new home. And instead of lying on the mattress next to Violalibera, he slept on the floor to leave her more room, his aching back on the hard ground.
“‘You have to get the remaining money we need,’ he said.
“‘How?’
“‘They must keep money at the Relais.’
“‘You want me to steal it?’
“He sat opposite me, thin, pale. ‘Take it from the cash register the first night when there are a lot of guests. Not too much, leave enough not to raise any suspicions. Be smart about it. If necessary, you’ll have to do it more than once.’
“‘Bern,’ I murmured, ‘no. Please.’
“He slid his backside toward the mattress. Sitting beside me, he pressed my head against his shoulder and stroked the spot between my ear and my neck.
“‘Poor Tommaso,’ he said. ‘We are all very grateful for what you do.’
“‘Bern . . .’
“He tapped the back of my neck softly. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
“Under the holly oak, at a time that seemed to have nothing to do with the present, Cesare had taught a lesson about the Commandments. ‘“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”: the Lord had dictated this law to Moses first, but why?’ he had asked. ‘Why that law above others that to us seemed more important, above “Thou shalt not kill,” for example?’ Cesare had looked at us in turn. We were silent. So he had answered for us, as he always did: ‘Because when the Lord is replaced in our hearts, what follows is nothing but an endless plunge, falling headlong without stopping and violating every other law. When the Lord is replaced in our hearts, we always, inevitably, end up killing.’
“During that period I went to see my father in prison. There was no one else in the visiting room besides us and the guard. He sat across the empty, polished table, a table identical to all the others in the room. Even sitting still we were sweating. Our hands never touched, it had been like that even before prison. At times I thought my father wanted to, that he would gladly reach out to touch me, but he forbade himself. Yet I would have let him do it, maybe not earlier, but by then I would have let him take my hands and hold them in his.
“‘Have you learned to balance and carry the plates?’ he asked me.
“‘Three at a time. Even four, if someone helps me load them.’
“‘Four. I would drop them all.’
“He always wore his shirt when I went to see him, the same one, checked, the first two buttons open. A thin silver cross hung around his neck.
“‘You’re sad,’ he said.
“‘I’m okay.’
“‘Is it because of a girl? One you met in Massafra?’
“I bowed my head. His fists opened slightly, the blood flowed into his white fingers, but then he tightened them again.
“‘Maybe I got her pregnant, Dad. Maybe it was me or maybe it wasn’t, but I was there. I wanted the others more than her, but I was down there.’
“As if sensing something, he said, ‘Don’t worry, Tommaso. You won’t turn out like me.’
“Then the guard approached the table. He didn’t need to tell us that time was up, or point to the clock on the wall. All three of us knew the drill. I stood up first.
“The following day the garden at the Relais was decked out in an exaggerated display of pink and white. I helped the gardeners trim the box hedges, then I did a final inspection of the tables: silver plates and cutlery, tablecloths skimming the floor, and in the center of each table an arrangement of fresh flowers. I checked that each place setting had a napkin folded into a swan. Some of Floriana’s little tasks had unexpectedly proved useful; swanlike napkins inspired Nacci’s satisfaction. Toward four o’clock in the afternoon the party began to get wilder. The children ran around the courtyard, the music’s volume was turned up, and the guests split up between the dance canopy and the bar. Hard liquors and spirits were not included in the price because they were what Nacci made a greater profit on. Corinne and I took turns serving them. We still weren’t speaking to each other after our argument. At a chaotic moment I opened the cash register, grabbed a handful of bills, and stuffed them into my pants pocket.
“The party girl, an eight-year-old who had made her First Communion that morning, began unwrapping her presents. Everyone crowded around her and I took advantage of it to stick my hands in the cash drawer a second time. When I looked around I saw Corinne watching me from behind the window. She didn’t shake her head or anything, but she kept her eyes on me long enough to let me know that yes, she knew what I had done. Then she moved off into the courtyard.
“When I pulled out the money in the bunkhouse, the bills were damp with sweat. I didn’t count them until I was safe inside the tower with my brothers, that same night. Grabbing the bills blindly, I had stolen less than I thought. But Nicola had decided to ask some friends for a loan. So we now had a million two hundred thousand lire.
“The lantern battery was very low and the light flickered.
“Bern asked: ‘When’s the next party?’
“‘In a week. I think.’
“‘Couldn’t you have taken more?’ Nicola burst out.
“‘They would have noticed.’
“‘If we wait longer, the doctor won’t do it anymore. He told us so.’
“Violalibera looked terrible. I think she sometimes vomited, even though she barely ate anything I brought. I didn’t know how many days it had been since she’d stopped washing.
“‘Come here,’ Bern said, ‘all of you. Closer.’
“I went to him, obedient as always. He sat there stiffly, his rigid back supported by the wall. Violalibera clung to his body on the opposite side, then she ordered Nicola: ‘You too.’
“‘No,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t any of you realize?’
“‘Come here,’ Violalibera insisted.
“Nicola came over and, as if suddenly surrendering, slumped down, his head on her legs.
“‘We’ve been apart from one another too long,’ Bern said. It was as if he held us all firmly in a single embrace.
“That’s when I said, ‘I’ll go to Cesare.’
“‘And tell him what?’ Bern asked.
“‘I’ll go to Cesare,’ I said again.
“They accepted that promise without a word. Through the bodies, Violalibera reached for my hand. Now everyone was touching everyone else. Wasn’t that our game? To bond together with every muscle and nerve? And then explore every inch of her, inside and outside of her? I felt the rhythmic pressure of the blood in her fragile pulse. I wondered if it was the same beating of the thing she had inside her.
“‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine . . .’
“But there was no god, so there would be no judgment. The lantern light wavered, the battery nearly drained.
“When I wok
e up, we were still joined like that. The lantern had gone out. Violalibera’s breath brushed my forearm, but the rasping sound was Nicola’s snoring. I unstuck my cheek from Bern’s thigh, damp with my sweat or his. I carefully freed myself from the tangle of arms and legs and dragged myself up the steps on all fours. When I reemerged, I was struck by the same astonishment as always: the world still existed outside the tower.
“I had driven so many hours in the last few days, back and forth from one coast to the other, that the stripes left on my hands by the scorching rubber of the handlebar might never fade. But the country air on a Sunday morning was fresh and invigorating. I arrived at the masseria before it was even eight o’clock.
“I had left that place only ten months ago and already I felt like a stranger. The jumbled stacks of wood, the untrimmed foliage of the trees, the cucumbers invading all the other plants in the vegetable garden. By then I was used to the cultivated grounds at the Relais. I was hoping to find only Cesare up, but he was having breakfast under the pergola with Floriana and the other boy.
“‘Tommaso, good God! What a surprise! And at this time of day. Come, sit down with us. Have some breakfast. Yoan, bring a chair over to the table, would you? Where on earth did you come from, dear boy?’
“He held me in his arms. There it was again, his body, that warmth different from all the others, the reassuring scent of his aftershave. I sat down. Floriana touched my hand and pushed a plate of sliced bread over to me.
“‘Put some butter on it,’ Cesare urged. ‘We buy it at a farm just past the Apruzzis’ property. Just think, not even a mile from here and we didn’t know it existed. Yoan passed it by chance. So many things we don’t see, when they’re right under our noses! They have excellent cattle, nice fat white cows.’
“I sank the knife into the bar of butter, which had softened from the rising heat, and spread some on the bread. I was starving and hadn’t even realized it.
“‘Put some more on. And some sugar on top. Butter and sugar certainly can’t hurt at your age. I’m the one who should be careful, but what can I do? I’ve always been a glutton.’ He watched me bite into the bread and chew it. Then he smiled. ‘Of course, who knows what delicacies they’ve accustomed you to at the Relais. Do you have any news to tell me about Nacci? It must have been last summer that I last talked with him.’
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