The woman nodded her head without adding a word and skillfully reversed her wheelchair, allowing Rocco and Italo to come in. But once they were through the door, they couldn’t go much further than a foot or so. The house was packed with clutter. Newspapers, bags full of clothing, pillows, a junkyard filled the rooms almost to the ceiling. What furniture there was lay beneath a tsunami of various objects that seemed ready to engulf the tenants from one moment to the next. There was only a single path through, a trench in the midst of the accumulated garbage, and the woman threaded that path in her wheelchair. She rolled along and waved for the policemen to follow her. Italo and Rocco walked along the ravine through the dump, looking around them but unable to come up with any coherent thought. They’d never seen such a thing, and as policemen they were accustomed to some absurd sights. There was even a fragment of a mannequin: the head and arms poked up from the rubbish. It looked like the victim of a shipwreck gasping before going down for the third time in that sea of detritus. Panes of pebbled glass, the occasional book, a PC, a drum, toy soldiers, and papers—a never-ending expanse of papers and newspapers.
The hallway led to a living room, and there the piles of objects were stacked against the walls, leaving a space of twenty or thirty square feet. Two small armchairs upholstered in green corduroy stood at the center of the clearing, along with an old television set sitting atop what must once have been a bookshelf, and a small table with two demitasse cups and a sugar bowl. All around was a delirious cornucopia of trash that even covered the one and only window in the room: newspapers, plastic objects, a deflated air mattress, a section of a glider seat, vases, bowls, pipes, a clothes rack, even a chalkboard. The stench of mold, mushrooms, and wet dirt blighted the apartment. Italo was already starting to turn pale. Rocco, on the other hand, simply sat down in one of the corduroy armchairs.
“Do you want an espresso?” were the first words out of the woman’s mouth. She had a faint voice.
“No, Signora, thanks though. I imagine that you know why we’re here.”
The woman nodded. “My father came back not even an hour ago. Now he’s in his room, asleep. Do I need to wake him up?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Who’ll pay for it?” the woman asked suddenly, looking at the two policemen.
“Who’ll pay for what?”
“For my Carlo’s funeral. Who’ll pay for it?”
Italo looked at Rocco. “The town administration, Signora. You’ll see, we’ll do things right. Isn’t that so, Italo?”
“Yes!” the officer agreed.
“But who’ll help me, though?”
To answer that question, you either needed to have the shameless verve of a member of parliament or the sheer brass of a card cheat. Rocco was neither one nor the other. So he said nothing.
“Carlo used to bring home some money when he was working. He was a bricklayer. But he couldn’t always find work. Sometimes he could. Sometimes he couldn’t. Is there a pension?”
“Is there?” Rocco asked, looking at Italo.
“Yes!” the officer agreed again.
“I’ve got social security. My own and my Papà’s. If we put both checks together, we can come up with 800 euros. But the rent, the utilities. Me and Papà both need our medicines. It’s not like I can make it without my medicines. Just take a look.” And she pulled up the blanket that was covering her legs. Or really, the two stumps that were all that remained of her legs. “Without my medicines, I can’t live.”
“No, Signora . . .” said Rocco. “But now we’ll be able to do something, won’t we?”
“Yes,” said Italo. By now, Italo had fallen into a trance, and he could only express himself in sentences of one word. It was up to Rocco to carry on the conversation. He couldn’t hope for any more help of any kind from his officer who stood there, stiff and motionless, eyes wide open.
The woman covered herself up again and sat there, staring at her lap. “My legs. They were beautiful once. Do you want to see?” Without waiting for an answer she spun her wheelchair around and pushed it forward toward a heap of curtains, discarded sheets, and bathroom cabinets. She leaned forward and started rummaging through that pile of junk in search of something.
“But seriously, Signora, it’s all right, don’t worry, we believe you!” said Rocco.
“Yes,” said Italo.
“We believe you. Let’s talk about Carlo now, please.”
“I’ve got it here somewhere,” and without waiting for a response, she rolled out of the living room. Rocco looked at Italo. “Are you starting to feel unwell?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need to leave?”
“Yes.”
“All right then, go. Wait for me downstairs. We’ll see you in ten minutes or so.”
“Yes,” said Italo. Then, without any change of expression, he did an abrupt aboutface and headed straight for the hallway and the front door. A deafening noise came from another room. Followed by silence.
“Everything all right, Signora?” Rocco shouted. But there was no reply.
Then Rocco heard the front door of the apartment close, which meant that Italo had survived the trek and found his way out. At last Carlo’s mother came back to the living room. Empty-handed, though.
“I can’t find them anymore. They were my high school photographs. I can’t find them.”
“Don’t worry. You’re fine. You’re fine just like this.”
The woman burst into tears. She turned red and hid her face in her hands. “Why?” she asked, sobbing. “Why?”
But Rocco didn’t know what she was referring to. Whether it was Carlo, or her life, her disease, or just the fact that she couldn’t find those pictures. Or maybe it was all four things together.
“I was supposed to die first, and only then Carlo could die. That’s how it works. That’s how life is supposed to be. Children are supposed to die after their parents. But instead, what happened? I’m still alive. Why am I still alive? My father is alive, and my son isn’t?”
The deputy chief felt the urge to light a cigarette, but he refrained. A stray spark in that place could set off a blaze of biblical dimensions.
“I really liked Elisa. She was a good girl. And she loved Carlo. But then she went away. And Carlo never found another one like her. Are you married?”
“Used to be.”
“It’s wrong to break up. If you’re together, you can help each other. But not when you’re alone. This isn’t a world for people to be alone, you know? You should go back to your wife.”
Rocco nodded.
“They’ll evict me from here, won’t they? I’ll be evicted, and my father with me,” the woman said now.
“Why?”
“Now who’ll give me the money for the rent? Who’ll pay my bills? And what about when Adelmo dies? Then what will I do? How can I live? Look, all I have are these!” and from the pocket of her cardigan she extracted a handful of crumpled scraps of paper. “Just these.”
“What are they?”
“Coupons . . . for Mimmo’s pizzeria. And I can’t even get there in my wheelchair.”
Rocco looked around. He didn’t know how things went in cases like these. Maybe she’d get a place to stay in public housing? With subsidized health care? He’d never asked those questions before.
“Carlo managed to bring in at least 800 euros a month, you know?” she said, as she daubed at her eyes and nose with a rumpled handkerchief she kept in the sleeve of her moth-eaten cardigan. “Carlo was a good boy. He was a painter and he knew all about plumbing, too. Do you want to see his room?”
“No, Signora. No.” Rocco stood up. “I have to go now, but I promise you that I’ll talk about your situation with those who are in charge of these things. I promise.”
“Are you leaving already?”
“I have work to do.”
“Will you come back to see me?”
“Yes,” he promised. What else could he do?
“Maybe if you ca
ll first, I can tidy up a little.”
Rocco smiled. He reached out his hand to say goodbye to the woman who instead, unexpectedly, leaned her head toward the palm of the deputy chief’s hand. Rocco took a deep breath and caressed her hair. She looked up at him, her eyes still wet with tears, and took his hand, pressing it against her cheek. “Arrivederci, Signore.”
“Arrivederci, Signora Figus.”
“It’s Signora Rosset. Figus was my husband.”
“Arrivederci, Signora Rosset.”
The woman released her grip. Rocco turned and, stepping around mountains of rubbish, found the front door of the apartment.
The snake had turned into a billion crawling ants and Chiara could feel them marching and biting everywhere.
Black ants, red ants, with enormous scissoring mandibles slicing into my flesh. I have them inside me. They run up and down, running and running with matches flaming in their claws, burning and biting. Water. I want water. I need water. I swallow . . . saliva and dust. But I have to be careful not to throw up. If I vomit with my face in this bag, it’s all over. What should I do? It hurts . . . it hurts! And it stinks. The bag stinks of mud, mold, and saliva. My saliva. My old saliva. Please, please, please, my hands. I have to scratch, I have to get this bag off my head, I have to breathe. It hurts inside me. Those fucking ants, get them off me! Get them off me! I want ice. Lots of ice on my pussy. Then it would be all better. I want to get up, run and run, run away. Dive into the sea. Under water. Emitting a streamer of bubbles. In the cold water that caresses everything and puts an end to the pain. I’m underwater, letting bubbles stream away. I’m running out of breath. I’m running out of breath. I come back to the surface. I’m suffocating. I need to get this bag off my head. Right now!
She shook her head three, then four times. But it was no good. The bag wouldn’t come off. With every sudden movement, it seemed to her as if her brain was slapping like jelly against the walls of her skull.
She started crying again.
Why? Why am I here? What happened to me? What did I ever do?
She wept and talked. And the more she talked, the more alone she felt. And the more alone she felt, the more she wept.
Like Grandma in the coffin. With the handkerchief under her chin. Grandma, what’s wrong? Do you have a toothache? Grandma . . . what a big nose you have . . . and what big ears you have . . . now they’re going to shut you up in there, Grandma, and no one is ever going to speak to you again. No one will ever pat your cheek again, no one will look at you or think about you. Where have you gone, Grandma?
Was this what it was like to die? She couldn’t say. You don’t think about that kind of thing when you’re not even twenty.
Am I dead? No, I’m not dead. I can feel pain, and behind the bag over my head is a wall, and I’m tied up. No, I’m alive and I hurt all over, and I’m burning all over too. No, I’m definitely not dead.
But you’ll die, a hidden voice said to her. A dull, faint voice, soulless, genderless.
You’ll die right here, tied up like a salami . . .
I’ll die. I’ll die here, all alone.
She compressed her lips to hold back her tears. Which were no longer tears of desperation or impatience. They were now genuine tears. And those hurt even more. Because they dripped down her cheeks all by themselves, like a mountain stream.
Chiara is dying, Chiara is dying, that voice said again.
In six days it would be her birthday. She’d be nineteen.
Carlo Figus was a miserable wretch. Viorelo Midea was maybe even worse. In the cargo van, except for a few tools, there was nothing of any particular interest. “Maybe I’m getting it wrong. Could I just be obsessing about this license plate? You might have been right after all, Italo.”
“What do you mean? That they were afraid of getting a fine?”
“Maybe so. Maybe that’s all it was about.” Rocco got up from the desk and stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Oh well, see you tomorrow. Are you going over to Caterina’s?”
“Yes. Her fever’s dropped a little.”
“Then she’ll be coming back to work!” said Rocco enthusiastically.
“It’s dropped a little, I didn’t say she was all better.”
The deputy chief grabbed his loden overcoat. “Be well, Italo.”
“I’m coming with you.” The officer switched off the table lamp that stood on his desk.
“Excuse me?” Scipioni had poked his head into the room.
“What is it, Scipioni?”
“I didn’t want to intrude. But they sent these down from upstairs!” and he handed a sheet of paper to Rocco.
“What is this stuff?”
“Those are the numbers from Viorelo’s cell phone. Or actually, they’re the last three numbers he called. They’re still working to extract the earlier ones. That guy deleted them all.”
“What about the directory? Did he have any numbers in his directory?”
“Only a dozen or so, and they all had Romanian prefixes. If you’d care to take a look.”
Rocco glanced at the sheets of paper. Then he handed them to Italo. “Do you mind putting them on my desk? I’ll take a look at them tomorrow.”
The officer did as requested. “Thanks, Scipioni. Have a good evening.”
“Same to you.”
The sun had set in a sarabande of pink clouds, making it clear that the next day it would once again shine in all its springtime potency. The day was coming to an end and the only thing Rocco desired was to wander around Aosta a bit before going home. That was something he enjoyed now that the weather allowed it: wandering aimlessly, with no particular place to go. Just strolling to get a breath of fresh air, look at the faces of the passersby, the dogs trotting on their leashes, stopping to buy a pack of cigarettes from a vending machine. He felt the urge to call Seba down in Rome to see if there was anything interesting going on. Something new that might bring in a little cash. But he was too tired for that. He just wanted to look at the buildings, the Roman arch, and the faces of the people, the sky that had turned so blue it verged on violet, the mountains that, for the first time since he’d come to Aosta, seemed to smile benevolently.
“Do you know how to do these?” Marina asks me. She’s sitting on the sofa. She has the weekly puzzler in her lap. Now she has this new obsession. She does the diagramless crossword puzzles, the ones without black squares, in case you didn’t know.
“No, I don’t know how to do them,” I tell her. And it’s the truth. The best I can do is connect the dots or ink in the spaces. And read the funny jokes.
“Easy to understand. Eleven letters.”
“Clear?”
“Eleven letters, I said!”
“Crystal clear?”
“So you’re just a dope,” she says to me. “Eleven letters. It starts with a p and ends with an s.”
“Precise, no, that’s seven letters. Jesus, Marì, what the hell, I don’t know.”
“Well, in the meantime I’ll do the across clues. Aren’t you going to eat?”
What would I eat? The fridge is empty, there’s an echo in there. There’s a frozen pasta alla carbonara. “There’s a frozen pasta alla carbonara.”
Marina shakes her head and in the meantime she writes.
“Perspicuous,” she says, all of a sudden.
“What?”
“Easy to understand was perspicuous. I’m going to write this on my notepad, too. Nice word.”
Easy to understand. So what is she trying to tell me? “So what are you trying to tell me, Marina?”
“Nothing. Just that it’s easy to understand.”
Just wait and see, she’s referring to last night, to the fact that I didn’t come home. But no, she can’t be referring to that. She knows it. That’s low, material stuff, suitable to me, to someone with both feet solidly planted on the ground, on the floor, not someone who’s part of the air, of the things that rise and are carried away by the breeze.
The pan is sizzl
ing now. I toss in the contents of the bag. Steam rises into the air. And with it, the chemical aroma of the carbonara. Even though this yellowish mess is to carbonara as a tractor is to a Ferrari. I know how to make proper carbonara.
“Do you remember, Marì?”
“Of course. . . .”
“The first night. I told you that I was a wizard at making pasta alla carbonara.”
Marina laughs. God she has a lot of teeth. The light gleams off them, and if I look carefully, maybe I can even see myself in them. That was the worst carbonara in history. “You ate it out of pity, didn’t you?”
She laughs and she doesn’t answer. That’s what she’s always done. When Marina laughs, there’s no room for anything else. Only the laughter. And fair enough. When you laugh, you laugh and that’s that. It’s the only moment of liberty left to us, after all. When we laugh.
She’s not here now. She’s not on the couch anymore. She’s not at my side while I eat my chemical carbonara. Maybe she’s in bed, maybe she’s in the bathroom, or more simply, maybe she’s just gone out.
And it hurts.
Is it the absence that hurts? No. What hurts is the loss. Which is different from absence. The loss knows what it lost. Absence might just be a vague sensation, a silent, disembodied feeling of something that’s missing, something that I lack, but that I don’t really know anything about. Loss is what I feel, because I know perfectly well. And it’s much worse than absence. Because what I knew and held in my hands is gone now. And it’s never coming back. It’s the same as the difference between Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. Stevie was blind from birth, Ray went blind. Ray knew what it was to see, Stevie never did. Ray felt loss. Stevie felt absence. Stevie is doing better than Ray ever did. I’d bet my own eyes.
How long had it been since she’d had anything to drink? Time had lost all meaning and direction. There was no longer any light in the room. Her headache had gotten worse. And the ants kept marching up and down. Every now and then they seemed to stop but then they resumed their race.
Out of Season Page 5