by Edoardo Nesi
Because after months and months of fruitlessly choking the chicken, one day Vittorio had locked himself in his room and consulted the encyclopedia under Penis, Testicles, and Sperm, until he had discovered with horror the existence of anorgasmia, a very rare pathological condition which he was immediately convinced he suffered from, because not only did he fail to produce “the sticky, clear liquid,” but he hadn’t even arrived at the “really strange feeling, difficult to describe but really, really cool, and afterward you feel all weak and tired and loose, but it’s really, really great” — and what a slap in the face it was for him to discover that many men suffered from premature ejaculation!
He was bursting with desire just like any other fourteen-year-old, his stomach tied in knots every time he saw a photo of one of those statuesque actresses who shone in his masturbatory pantheon, and he found his dick standing to attention at least three times a day, and yet he was unable to emit his seed joyously like every other creature of earth, sea, and sky, and had to keep on reading about wild fourteen-year-old kids who were impregnating their classmates up and down the country, from Veneto to Sicily!
If entrusting his father with the news of that rift in his masculinity was out of the question, how could he possibly tell his mother? How could he explain to her the symptoms of this incurable disease, and the circumstances in which he had discovered it?
Hammered by insurmountable doubts, Vittorio pushed on through the labyrinth of medieval alleys that would lead him to school, and immediately found himself part of a loose, boisterous procession of kids. That morning, rather than entertain him, the unapologetic collisions, the cigarette smoke, the cries and the squeals and the shrieks of the girls, melted in a great clamor that reverberated off the palazzi and deafened and upset him. Vittorio slowed his pace and let the most raucous group overtake him, quietly accepting pushes and insults, and when he found himself at the back of that human river, among the slowest, with the most timid and silent girls, he slowed even further and let them all overtake him, even the late ones running along, sweating and panting, until he was the last. The last one of all.
Vittorio stopped in the middle of the empty street and smiled. If he hurried — a short run would have been enough — he still could have managed to arrive on time, sit at his desk, and follow the geometry lesson of the first hour — that morning the teacher would explain the parallelepiped. But he waited. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. He counted to ten, then to twenty, then to fifty.
There was no way he would make it on time now. He was skipping school for the first time in his life. His classmates had all done it, even some of the girls. He hadn’t. Vittorio smiled and smelled the still air of the city center, which seemed fresh and sizzling with adventure. A burgeoning sense of immense freedom and happiness was growing in his chest. He could do whatever he wanted. The world was his.
On his right he saw a narrow street with two tiny sidewalks interrupting the irregular pavement of ancient stones, and he walked down it with the spirit of Livingstone. After fifty or so meters, he found a small bookshop and stopped to look at its minuscule window display. At the center of it was an old seat, with three extremely elegant white books written by a certain Samuel Beckett leaning against the backrest. The small space around the seat was occupied by tiny heaps of science fiction paperbacks whose titles could only be read by twisting one’s neck, and the flaming covers of Marvel comics were scattered all over.
Vittorio went in. There were two small rooms: the first was lined with wooden shelves that smelled brand-new, and stacked on them was the complete series of Spiderman, which began with the very first editions, the ones he shared with Dr. Strange — the wizard of Greenwich Village, whose sensational girlfriend Clea had bright white hair and was a sorceress, the niece of the terrible sorcerer Dormammu. Alongside Spiderman were other collections: Daredevil with the Silver Surfer, The Fantastic Four with Warlock, Thor, The X-Men, and the full series of Conan the Barbarian. The second room was dedicated to science fiction, which occupied the entire wall in front of the till, behind which a thin man with a stubble was reading The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, framed by a smaller shelf full of books on theater.
Vittorio spent a few moments in ecstatic contemplation of the completeness of the range on those shelves, which stretched all the way to the ceiling, split more or less equally between the white spines of novels published by Editrice Libra (Children of Tomorrow and Quest for the Future by A. E. Van Vogt, City and A Heritage of Stars and From Atoms to Infinity and Ring Around the Sun by Clifford Simak, The Forgotten Planet by Murray Leinster, Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin, Deus Irae by Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick, The Dreaming Jewels and The Cosmic Rape by Theodore Sturgeon, The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee, Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny), and the golden spines of those published by Editrice Nord (the River-world cycle and The Maker of Universes by Philip José Farmer, John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stranger in a Strange Land and Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, Dune and Dune Messiah and Children of Dune by Frank Herbert, and enormous science fiction anthologies of the golden years of science fiction and the Hugo Awards), while the fantasy section stretched out over the bottom shelves, which, at a glance, seemed to contain all the books of Conan, Kull of Atlantis, and Elric of Melniboné, and all of Lovecraft’s short stories.
Seeing all of those legendary works on display, even those he had heard so much about but had never managed to find in the bookstore specializing in best sellers where his mother always took him, Vittorio was thrilled and went to introduce himself to the shopkeeper. He announced his name and held out his hand, scaring the man half to death, because he had just arrived at the point at which Father Merrin knocks at the door of Regan’s house and the Devil welcomes him by hideously bleating his name from inside the infested room, as violent thuds shake the walls.
In a rush of complete sincerity that he was sure could be forgiven within the walls of that bookshop, he confessed to the shaken shopkeeper that this was the first time in his life he was skipping school, and asked if he could stay there reading until lunchtime.
He explained how he didn’t have any money with him, but that afternoon his mother would come and buy all the books and comics he had read, even the ones he was only halfway through, and that over time he would have bought all of those books anyway, from the first to the last. The shopkeeper nodded, eager to get back to his book: there was no problem at all, he could read as much as wanted, and he immediately lowered his eyes back to the pages of The Exorcist.
Vittorio returned to the large bookcase, removed his loden, set it down, cracked his knuckles like a billiards player and picked up the largest book of all: Asimov Presents the Hugo Awards 1955–1975. He scanned the index in search of the most promising title, sat on the carpet, and began to read the first short story: “ ‘Repent Harlequin!’ said the Tick-Tock Man.” It had been written by a certain Harlan Ellison.
IN A LIFETIME
BEFORE FALLING ASLEEP, Arianna had asked him if the next morning he would take her to visit the building site, because Ivo’s factory was the talk of the town and so many people were asking her how the pharaonic work was going and she never knew what to say because he never told her anything. And when Cesare had answered that it wasn’t the right moment, Arianna had asked if there was perhaps some kind of problem at the site, and then she went on, saying how she didn’t believe that there was a problem, but that lots of people had been bad-mouthing the project, claiming that it was too ambitious and that they would never be able to finish it because Ivo was a megalomaniac who would soon run out of money. And even though she knew that all those words had been put in their mouths by that envious Brunero, and she didn’t believe those stories, not even for a second, she would have really loved to see the building
site, because she was so proud that her husband was the director of such an important enterprise. Then she had fallen silent for a few seconds before telling him that she loved him very much and she always had, more than anything else in the world, and that for her nothing had changed since their wedding day and she wanted to spend her whole life with him.
Cesare had answered immediately that he loved her too, of course he did, and he too wanted to spend his life with her, but it was best to wait a few more weeks before visiting the site, because right now there were so many people working on it — steelworkers, carpenters, crane operators — but he was more than happy to show it to her. Then he had done the right thing: he had called her Baby, and Arianna had melted and started to speak in baby talk, telling him it was such a long time since he had called her Baby, and then she called him Great Businessman. She had said it just like that: “Good night, Great Businessman!” Then she had kissed him on his forehead, wrapped the covers around herself, and after a few minutes was asleep.
Cesare fell asleep, too, right after her, but his sleep was as fragile as a Eucharistic wafer, and he woke up startled by the distant chiming of the cathedral bells, panting like a dog and convinced he hadn’t slept a wink.
He wondered what time it was and whether he could wake up, because waking up would have been his saving grace, but he was afraid to go to the window and draw the curtains just to find out that he was still a prisoner of the deepest night.
So he waited for a minute, then braced himself, drew back the covers, put his feet on the ground, stood up, and pulled back the curtain. The sky before him and to his right was still dark, punctuated by small stars that shone palely around Venus, but on his left the night was growing soft, revealing the jonquil dawn that was about to break — the wonderful reward for whoever had survived the night, that rare marvel that the ill and lovers know well because no sunrise is more beautiful than the one you see from a hospital window, or you glimpse behind the hair of a woman in love who has held you all night long.
The dawn isn’t sunrise, he remembered. His father had taught him that. Dawn is the glow that lights up the sky, but you still can’t see the sun. Sunrise is when the first ray cuts through. Cesare smiled. The night was over. He decided to get up and leave the house immediately. He dressed in the dark so as not to wake Arianna, left the house, climbed into the car, and found out it was almost six o’clock.
He began to drive around the empty streets with his lights on, his mind empty and calm, and when he saw the sign for a bar, he went in to have breakfast. He found himself in the midst of a group of workers who were devouring frittata sandwiches and talking at the same time, showering the place with bits of bread and frittata while the suffocated and growling cacophony that emanated from their full mouths filled the bar’s air, mixing with the smoke of the cigarettes they all seemed to be smoking, from the barista to the last customer, and the continuous thundering produced by the coffee machine in frantic activity.
As soon as he had swallowed the blistering ristretto he had almost lost his patience waiting for, Cesare paid and left the bar. He got back in the car and, as if by magic, the streets were filled with cars and vans and pickups and trucks and scooters which seemed to have left the same immense depot at the same time, and were now shooting past his Alfetta as if it were standing still, honking to spur him on — one man with a hat and a mustache even leaned out the window to shout There’s no time to lose.
Having nowhere to go, Vezzosi was happy to follow the furious flow of traffic until seven o’clock, when he went to a phone booth, put his coin into the slot, and called Citarella’s house. After two rings Maria answered, and behind her he could hear the voices of the children asking questions. She told him, without her usual affable cheerfulness, that Pasquale had already gone to work, so Cesare said goodbye, hung up, got back in the Alfetta, and sat there with his motor running while the traffic brushed past him cruelly.
After the harsh ending, Cesare was still suffering the loss of the Historic Baby Doll, but a little less each day. It was a minimal, constant reduction: the fruit of the hidden work that an ancestral impulse for self-preservation had activated to ensure his survival after so many signs of impending physical and mental collapse. Undetected, totally unbeknownst to him, many small dykes had been built inside his mind to stem the impetuous flow of the great river that was his desire for the Historic Baby Doll, turning it into many innocuous streams of tepid and inoffensive nostalgia, saving him from the blind suffering that had overtaken his life for months, and bringing to light the problem of the construction of Ivo’s factory. Arianna’s questions had just been the icing on the cake.
He had to get things started once and for all at the building site. Of course, you needed a serious leap of imagination to call that bombed-out field a building site! Who knows what Citarella had been telling his wife all that time, what lies he had invented to explain where he was going every morning at sunrise! The poor man!
He asked himself how much time had passed since the last time he had shown up there — how many months — and then he remembered all those mornings he had woken up and shut himself up in the office, staying in there all day without ever once thinking about work. He remembered he had once told Citarella to deal with everything — yes, but how? What was he supposed to do? He was just a painter! And with no plans! He had never given Citarella the plans! Where were they? In his office! He had to get them at once, he couldn’t lay cables without plans! And he had to go straightaway, or Arianna would find out he had done nothing in all these months…There was no time to lose: he had to sort out the fixed cables and lay the plinths, today, immediately! He had to call the steelworkers…
Cesare started the car and left for the site, then he remembered the plans were in the office, so he headed back there, revving each gear to the red. He arrived, ran up the stairs, opened the door, and only then did he realize — and become horrified at — the foul air, the lowered blinds, the chaos, the dust, the broken telephone, the shattered glass of the window. There was nothing left on his desk, the papers and ornaments lay on the floor in a swollen, indistinct mass where he had sent them with a desperate sweep on one of his darkest days. He knelt down and, sorting through the papers, finally found the plans for the factory — all of them crumpled, some worse than others. He collected them under his arm, left the office without even locking the door, got back in the car, and headed full speed toward the building site.
He had suffered a nervous breakdown, he told himself. A big one. This is what had happened. A huge, terrifying nervous breakdown — one of those monsters that brings you to the point of no return, with a loaded revolver in your hand. It wasn’t his fault, it could happen to anyone. He had lost his head completely. He had disappeared from the world for months and months. He could have ended up drooling in a straitjacket in a clinic with bars on the windows. But he had recovered. He was himself again, now, and he needed to make up for lost time.
But what had happened at the site? Why hadn’t Ivo asked him anything about the factory? Why hadn’t he complained at all? And why had he kept paying him every month, without delay or comment? And what had Citarella been doing all that time? Who had paid him? He certainly hadn’t. And what had happened with that Sicilian friend of Barrocciai’s, the consultant? Citarella had told him about this guy. What kind of consulting had he done? Maybe he was an estate agent, or a buyer…Yes, that was it, Ivo had decided to sell the land because he had finally realized it was impossible to go on with that ridiculous plan, and because he did not want to lose face in town, he had found someone from outside to do the dirty work…Maybe he had already sold the land: that’s why he hadn’t been in contact, and of course people were talking about the building site…Why would he even lay the plinths if he had decided to sell? But then why had Arianna told him that it was a pharaonic work? How could it be pharaonic if it hadn’t even started, if they hadn’t even laid the foundations? And why was everyone in town talking about it, then? What wer
e they talking about, an empty field? What was going on?
As he asked himself these questions, poor Cesare hadn’t noticed that he was already on the dirt track that led straight to the site and had in the meantime earned itself a name, judging by the sign that declared it VIA NICOLA TEMPESTINI. Because it was still a dirt track, yes, but it was now perfectly flat and covered with a thick black gravel that made it easy and almost comfortable to drive on. Only when a bulldozer crossed the road and forced him to slam on the Alfetta’s brakes did Cesare manage to escape the foul labyrinth of his thoughts and realize where he was.
Dumbfounded, he counted five structures being built: four were small sheds of a thousand square meters each, and the larger one couldn’t have been much more than two thousand five hundred. Then he realized that those five factories were just satellites orbiting the main planet: a much, much larger building whose first floor was almost completed, as thirty-two huge pillars had already been erected and a floor slab laid, and it was flanked by a thirty-meter crane that was raising a huge bucket filled with concrete to finish laying the pillars for the second floor, the ones that would support the roof.
He stood with his mouth wide open for five minutes, taking everything in, then he found the courage to creep toward the building site and park his Alfetta next to Citarella’s Ape. When Citarella heard the noise of his car, he turned, saw Vezzosi, and immediately detached himself from a group of workers and rushed over to greet him, a broad smile on his face.
Cesare got out of his car, and before he could open his mouth and say something desperate and cutting to Pasquale — something like how it wasn’t right that they had done all that work without him, and if he thought he could do without Vezzosi he was in for some serious trouble because Ivo had entrusted the project to him, and Citarella should never forget he was just a painter and he should never try to bite off more than he could chew; and he should get respect, because Cesare Vezzosi deserves respect even if he hasn’t been at the building site for a long time, because he had been ill with a terrible nervous breakdown and you don’t take advantage of those in need, and anyway, he wanted respect because he deserved respect, Goddamn it — Citarella embraced him with the strength of a Marsican brown bear and, deeply moved to see him so lost and fragile, whispered in his ear