He was calm and resentful, openly brooding on the secret that everyone in the neighborhood had more or less understood: behind Amerigo’s death was a whole collection of things whose menacing light was reflected on every face. It had brightened Alfio’s face, which was gray where the beard grew and dark under the roots of the hair that came low on his forehead, the neck of a boy showing above the turned white collar, as well as the faces of the other uncles and cousins, who, absorbed in the sense of duty and the silent rancor that made them the most important figures in Pietralata, had determined not to speak, to preserve among themselves, in the family, comments on the state of things that had resulted from Amerigo’s death, or at most to make some half revelations with a few threatening, allusive words. There was also, among the other sly faces, Arduino’s, with the black patch that hid the scarred hole of his eye but not the remains of his nose; and that of Sora Anita’s son, and Carogna’s, and Capece’s, whose oblique eyes showed a predatory expression, and, in the depths of their seriousness, a flicker of rich happiness, like that of a soldier in the shower. Alduccio grasped the faint words uttered by Alfio and the other men. His face was flooded by an expression of enlightenment, and, pressing his lips together and pulling his head down slightly between his shoulders, he murmured: “It’s his fucking business.”
“Whose?” said Riccetto, attentively, with a slightly naïve curiosity. Alduccio didn’t answer.
“Whose, Ardù? Ardù!” Riccetto said again.
“The man who spoke,” Alduccio said kindly, distractedly paying attention to him. Riccetto immediately thought of Building 9 and the gambling house, and didn’t say a word. He looked at Alfio Lucchetti with utmost respect. Alfio, meanwhile, had moved a few steps away, separating himself from the group, and he stood there silent and self-assured, with his hands sunk in his pants pockets.
Inside, the women’s weeping could be heard. The men, instead, gave no sign of emotion; on the contrary, there was, if anything, incarnate in the features of beardless youths or cunning old men a vague expression of amusement. In Pietralata, no one was brought up to feel pity for the living, imagine what the fuck they felt for the dead.
The priest arrived in a hurry, without looking anyone in the face. Behind him trotted two creatures as skinny as kittens, picked up in one of the old farmers’ houses that still stood here and there amid the garbage dumps in the burned countryside at the edge of Pietralata. They trotted inside their surplices swinging the censer, past the people who were out under the big high sun amid the apartment complexes and the shacks, walking or playing or shouting. The boys kicking the ball ran after it like a swarm of wasps in their beggars’ rags, shouting in the distance in the violet light, and in the bar at the bus stop there was the usual coming and going of idlers at that hour. They talked, shouting like dogs in the half-empty bar, or stood leaning against the stunted trees or the doorways, faces charged with sarcasm and thumbs hooked inside beltless pants, pushing them down so that the crotch hung to the knees; others stood in the courtyards, beneath the dirty windows, near the remains of outhouses sold to the peasants during the war, brick by brick: now they were all intently watching the funeral from a distance. The priest went into the house, did what he had to do, and shortly afterward emerged, followed by his two puppies, the crowd of women, and the coffin, which was carried outside. This was loaded into a black car, and the parade set off, shuffling, along Via di Pietralata; it passed the bar—preventing a bus, which was at the stop, from continuing on its route—and then passed in front of the dirt space where two or three carousels stood on the bumpy ground, and the clinic, as bare as a prison, the charred fields, the pink houses, the hovels, the factories here and there in such ruin that it seemed they had just been bombed; and arrived at the foot of Monte del Pecoraro, near Via Tiburtina, at that uneven terrain of old abandoned quarries.
“Now what?” Riccetto asked Alduccio, in a low voice, amid the crowd that was walking in confusion, some behind, some ahead, in the convoy with the car and the priest. “Huh, I don’t know,” said Alduccio, swaying, his hands stuck in his pockets under his billowing shirttails. They inched along at the end of the procession, which was moving slowly, but they went even more slowly, and every so often had to hurry to catch up; they were leaning forward, preoccupied, as if their feet hurt. “I didn’t know,” said Riccetto with a sorrowful expression, “that funerals were so incredibly boring.” “I’ll say!” said Alduccio glancing at him. As their gazes met and they observed their silhouettes in all that funeral silence, they felt like laughing, and averted their eyes, straining the muscles of their necks in order to contain themselves and not make a bad impression. With that air as tender as oil, the clear outlines of things, and the warmth of the breeze, which had a sort of April sleepiness, one had the impression that it was a holiday: one of the first Sundays of spring, right after Easter, when people start going to Ostia. Even the traffic on Via Tiburtina seemed to make no noise; it was as if muffled, in a bell jar, under the sun, which, colorless on the low walls and a grimy gray flock, was burning golden on the edges of Monte del Pecoraro. Cheerfully, from inside the Fort, the soldiers’ trumpet sounded the mess call.
After a brief pause in front of the bar at the corner of Via Tiburtina, the small procession dispersed, in the usual disorder. The hearse started up, and, followed by taxis carrying the most important Lucchettis, headed at full speed toward the Verano cemetery.
5.
HOT NIGHTS
A full stomach doesn’t believe in hunger.
—G. G. BELLI
Lenzetta, meanwhile, was waiting for Riccetto and Alduccio, sitting in the dust under a low wall, all dressed up in his velvet pants and a red and black shirt that, according to him, kicked the ass of everyone in Maranella. He was dripping with sweat, because he had knocked the ball around a few times with some boys who were still playing, over in a field between Via dell’Acqua Bullicante and Pigneto. Above the wall, squatting on the tin roof of her shack, which was like a sheepfold, was Elina, enjoying her view of the promenade, with two rings of fake gold dangling from her ears and in her arms the smallest baby, who was whining. Lenzetta paid no attention to her at all, lost in contemplation of life, and every so often cursing Riccetto, who still hadn’t arrived. But he was fairly cheerful. Singing, he leaned his curly head against the flaking wall, every so often chipping off some bit of stone or dust, because as he sang he moved his head slowly, with great passion, from left to right and right to left. His eyes were half closed, and since he was singing in a low voice, as if he were in confession, or wished only to give a small taste of what he could do, someone just a few steps away would have seen only his mouth opening and closing, and the sinews of his neck straining as if they might snap.
He kept breaking off, at the best part of a phrase, to shout at the players, who were stubborn and panting; one, no more than thirteen, was smoking as he played, and another was on the ground, utterly exhausted, loudly complaining to those who were running.
“You wimps!” said Lenzetta, without raising his voice too much, so as not to exert himself. “You can’t even stand up, so why’re you bugging us,” answered the goalie, who stood unoccupied between the goalposts, leaning forward, his ragged pants half unbuttoned and his hands, in gloves found in some garbage dump, cupped in front of his mouth. The kid who was lying in the middle of the field came up to the street, to hell with the ball and with the others, running wildly behind him: he pulled up his pants, completely untucking his filthy t-shirt and letting it flap over his buttocks, and went to meet another kid, just like him, who was walking along as carefree as a young swallow, with a bottle of milk under his arm. They began to play marbles a little way from Lenzetta, near Elina, who, sitting on the tin roof, was outlined against the white sky like the statue of the Madonna in a procession. “Damn them,” Lenzetta said again, irritated, in the direction of Riccetto and Alduccio; but he didn’t really care about anything, and his good humor didn’t f
ade. The kid who had shown up last, and chattered happily as he played, even when he got angry at the other one, who was trying to trick him, roused his sympathy, and he began to defend him. The other immediately behaved and played fair, and stopped trying to cheat the little kid. They squatted, took aim, and zac, with the palms of their hands facing the ground, the marble shot into the hole. Lenzetta watched paternally. When the kid won he did a kind of dance around the bottle of milk lying abandoned on its side on the ground, and immediately crouched down again, his little legs wide and his butt resting on his heels, to take another shot.
“You’re winning, huh, little birdie?” Lenzetta said to him with the air of a benefactor. The other player was bitter: and, doggedly, began to win. “Hey, what? You’re letting him rob you, little bird?” Lenzetta said, teasingly. An empty hearse passed by at top speed, rushing past the big apartment buildings in the direction of the muddy hedges of Acqua Bullicante.
“Farewell, my lovely, farewell!” Lenzetta cried—his only comment on the corpse that it was on its way to pick up somewhere; and immediately he remembered Riccetto, who had also gone to a funeral. “That shit,” he said, flushing angrily.
Lenzetta had left home out of fear of his older brother: and he certainly wasn’t wrong to be afraid, because he had gotten up to something that, when he thought about it, not even he could believe and seemed impossible. He hadn’t behaved badly, in his view, in a moral sense . . . yes! Moral! What the fuck did he and his brother care about morality! It had been a matter of honor, and, to tell the sincere truth, not a stupid thing. But what the hell had Lenzetta gotten into his head that night. . . . Well, obviously he’d been a little groggy because of the beating he’d had first in the detention cell and then in the jail. . . . When he was taken to prison—to Regina Coeli, not to Porta Portese, because even though he still looked like a kid, he was already eighteen—scratching his curly head he’d said: “Now I’m in deep shit,” and he’d been right, because one of the first words he heard as soon as he was inside, from a guy who looked like Lazarus just risen from the house of the dead, was: “What a nice little ass you got there, kid.” But, lucky for him, his brother, Lenzetta No. 1, was one of the most influential thieves in Regina Coeli: and out of respect for his brother he was respected, too, cute as he was. After a few weeks he was released on a suspended sentence, and he went home to Torpignattara. The first thing his mother said was: “If you don’t work you don’t eat, you know!” “Give me a break!” he said cupping his hands under his chin, “I just got out of jail!” And that night he went out with his friends at the Bar del Tappeto Verde, the Green Carpet, also known as the Bar della Pugnalata, the Stab, where the boys who called themselves the toughs of Maranella gathered, kids of around sixteen who had just begun to hang out in the local bars and play pool. He boasted a little to them, gave himself airs because he’d been in Regina Coeli and for that reason was due a certain respect; they drank half a glass of wine each and went off to bed, filthy drunk.
Lenzetta slept with his older brother, in a small, windowless room, one in an old bed like a gondola, the other on a cot. When it was nearly midnight, Lenzetta, who couldn’t get to sleep and was all excited by the wine, threw off the old, mended sheets and began to sing. His brother slept like a log, with his mouth half open and the sheets twisted between his legs, but after a while he began to show signs of irritation: and suddenly he turned over, so that all the sheets were under his stomach. Lenzetta, filthy drunk, continued to sing at the top of his lungs. All of a sudden the other woke up and said, “Huh?” “Fuck off,” Lenzetta replied, standing up. The brother realized what was happening, looked at him, gave him a shove that pasted him against the wall, and fell asleep again. The next morning when Lenzetta went out to the street he saw his brother waiting for him with the scooter. “Get on,” he said. Lenzetta obeyed silently, and his brother crossed Maranella at full speed in the midst of the morning traffic, cut through the back alleys of Torpignattara—at that hour you couldn’t get through the middle because of the market—hurtled at seventy kilometers an hour toward Mandrione, passed it, and, like a maniac, arrived at Acqua Santa. He didn’t get off or slow down along the dusty paths, he kept going in fourth, and when they were right in the middle of the fields and hollows, near a decrepit tower, turned off the engine, got down, and said to Lenzetta: “Get your hands up.” They punched each other for half an hour, and finally Lenzetta, completely exhausted, managed to escape.
Riccetto and Alduccio were moving slowly, because they had walked from Pietralata, and were dragging their feet as if they belonged to someone else, with straight backs and legs like rag dolls, yet boastfully, showing off their sly-guy fatigue. They must have done at least four kilometers, coming from Via Boccaleone, along Via Prenestina, to Via dell’Acqua Bullicante, from a field full of shit to a village of shacks, from a building as big as a mountain to a run-down factory. And still it wasn’t over, now came the most important part, the entire length of Via Casilina. Lenzetta, fresh as a flower, after properly bawling out the two pilgrims and getting called a jerk and a shit in return, walked ahead rapidly, while the other two limped behind, angry because they were tired and their feet hurt.
The place on Via dell’Amba Aradam, Lenzetta had guessed right, was definitely a live one. A bit out of the way, just at the intersection with Viale di San Giovanni, along the green and brown walls, amid gardens overflowing with leafless plants and some old, slightly shabby bourgeois villas. At the top of a slope there was a row of low structures, covered with rusty tin roofs that sparkled in the last rays of the sun. Right at the back, at the corner, was the smallest workshop, but it had a big enclosed courtyard full of scrap metal. There was a deep silence, though from inside the sheds, or near the piles of junk in the yards, the tranquil whistling of workmen could be heard, or voices calling out and responding. The three thugs passed by in single file, one humming and one whistling: only when they had gone a little farther, beyond the ruins, did they make some observations, barely opening their mouths. “Damn,” said Riccetto. “What a load of axle shafts!” “What’d I tell you?” said Lenzetta triumphantly. “Yeah, but it’s still daylight,” said Riccetto, so as not to give him too much satisfaction. “Anyway, here, without a three-wheeler you can’t do a fucking thing.” “Yeah! A three-wheeler! And where you gonna get one, smarty,” muttered Lenzetta, twisting his mouth. “We go down to Maranella and ask Remo the junkman,” said Alduccio, immediately bitter because of the poor reception his idea had gotten. Lenzetta stared at him, scowling with an expression of pity, then clicked his tongue without deigning to respond. “You idiot!” he said suddenly, after a moment, “you want us all three to go to Forlanini? Walk all the way again, from here to Maranella . . . and back! You out of your mind?” “Who’s saying we walk, who’s making a suggestion like that!” said Alduccio, red-faced and disgusted. “You don’t see?” “What?” said the other, questioning, already a little more interested. Riccetto listened to the discussion quietly. “We get some money, okay?” cried Alduccio. “Yeah!” Lenzetta said, disappointed. “Let’s go!” said Alduccio. And without even turning he set off toward San Giovanni. “Where’s that idiot going,” said Lenzetta trotting behind with Riccetto. “Is he nuts?” “He’s not nuts, no, no,” said Riccetto.
It didn’t take long to figure out what Alduccio’s plan was. But when they reached the piazza at Porta San Giovanni, they found not a soul. Yes, up on the benches along the parapet that overlooks the sheer drop of the walls there were some people, but not the sort the three accomplices were seeking. There was a fat woman whose rolls of flesh rippled under her dress of cream-colored silk, her lips still smeared with the sugar from currant buns, her face like a boiled fish, and beside her an ugly little nobody, maybe her husband, with a face like a fried fish, poor devil, who was sobering up. And here and there some little boys and a few servant girls. Beyond the parapet that, like a terrace, overlooked the Tuscolano neighborhood, beyond some tennis courts and exp
anses of packed dirt, evening was descending, hot and red, making the windows on the stacks of pale blue buildings sparkle, so that it looked like a panorama from Mars; on this side of the parapet, where Alduccio and the others had gone to hang out, were the gardens of San Giovanni, equally melancholy, with their flower beds and saplings, grazed by the last light as it hit the loggias and statues of the cathedral and edged with gold the red granite of the obelisk.
Discouraged, and displaying their discouragement with a sneer, the three delinquents sat on the parapet: Lenzetta was lying down, stomach up, with his hands under his dusty neck, singing; Riccetto sat on the edge with his legs dangling; only Alduccio was standing, leaning against the wall with his hip and elbow, his legs nervously crossed. He was the only one who didn’t seem bored, who was awaiting events with some hope. He stood there, one hand in his pocket, as if he were the sheriff’s son, his large lips shadowed by black fuzz, his eyes dark and shining like mussels dripping with lemon.
And his faith was rewarded. When Lenzetta and Riccetto, who, suddenly decisive, had gone to get a drink at the fountain, slowly, taking their time, returned to the parapet, they saw Alduccio happy and ready to go. “Let’s go, come on,” he said: he stuck his hand in his pocket and showed three crumpled hundred-lire bills. “A guy came by,” he explained, “and gave them to me for nothing, out of the kindness of his heart, who knows. I let him have a quick feel,” he added, lightheartedly. The others didn’t look too hard for explanations: these were things that happened. Wasting no time, shouting and talking in loud voices to make themselves heard, they went to the tram stop near Porta San Giovanni, and in half an hour were back in Maranella.
The Street Kids Page 11