The Sense of an Elephant

by Marco Missiroli

  ‘Did you have fun at Grandma and Grandpa’s, honey?’ Luca sat her in the back and returned to his place in the front. The child paid no attention to the concierge and shuffled toward her father’s seat. Squinted at him, shook her index finger like a magic wand, abracadabra. Touched first one of his eyes, then another.

  ‘Did you see Pietro’s here?’

  But she continued to peer at the distressed face of her father, hugged him as best she could. When the car set off again she pushed further forward and took better hold of him. And her father said to her,

  Don’t be afraid

  It’s just the dark

  A bit of colour

  A great inky gloom

  Don’t be afraid

  It’s just the sun

  Who’s yawning because

  He wants to sleep

  Sara sang softly along with him. Then again as she settled back on the seat. And again moments before falling asleep. Luca repeated it on his own, Don’t be afraid, it’s just the dark, a bit of colour, a great inky gloom, until they parked in front of the condominium. Then picked up his daughter, entered the building and climbed the stairs.

  The concierge accompanied them to the second floor. ‘I’ll be up if you need me.’

  Luca cleared his throat. ‘There’s a man …’ He spoke quietly. ‘A man … I have to visit him in two days. He lives in your city. I need someone who knows the area.’

  Pietro remained silent.

  ‘Come with me to Rimini.’

  Sara lifted her head from her father’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s for work, honey. You get bored when Daddy works.’ Luca scratched the back of her neck. ‘Come with me, Pietro. Your sea will be there as well.’

  The concierge looked at them together. A father and his daughter. The crying had left its mark on Luca’s face, still slightly swollen. Sleepiness weighed down the eyes of both of them. Sara pressed her cheek, stuck her ear to his. Hers alone had the pointed tip.

  Luca waited for an answer. When it didn’t come he entered his flat, begging Pietro’s pardon, and closed the door.

  ‘Goodnight.’ The concierge returned to the lodge. Sat down in front of the window and opened the curtains. Pulled out the elephant, placed it at the centre of the table.

  The witch leapt to the rim of the fountain, did a pirouette. ‘Witches dance at goodbyes. Priests cry.’

  The young priest brought a finger to his dry eyes. ‘I’m not crying.’

  ‘But you’re not a priest.’

  He stood back on his heels, tapped up and down.

  The witch laughed. ‘That’s how you defy Heaven?’

  Pietro went to her and gently lifted her up and settled her on the Bianchi. He got on and began to pedal. ‘This is how.’

  During the night the doctor came down into the condominium’s entrance hall. Pietro was asleep in the lodge’s wicker chair. He woke when Luca tossed the duffel bag to the floor. Stood and saw his son carrying a second duffel, his leather medical bag and a plastic bag containing a limp quilt and orange sheets. The doctor’s face was crêpe paper, his eyes two glass marbles. He held them open wide, closed them and turned toward the stairs. ‘Viola, go back inside.’

  Light footsteps climbed as the sound of a car came from the other side of the street door. Luca picked up the two duffel bags and went out to the street. ‘I have other things, please wait.’

  Pietro took the other things. Carried out the plastic bag and the leather bag. Loaded them into the boot of the taxi that was parked outside, hazard lights flashing. ‘Where will you go, Doctor?’

  ‘Nearby.’

  Luca leaned toward the concierge and wrapped an arm around him. Climbed into the taxi. Pietro waited on the pavement for it to leave before going back inside.

  Viola was a shadow on the stairs. ‘He’s left us … Did he tell you where he’s going?’

  He shook his head.

  She started up. ‘What will I tell my child …’

  33

  Fffffff, Pietro felt blowing in his ear. Fffffff, he opened his eyes wide and raised his head from the lodge table.

  ‘They had a fight.’ Fernando, leaning through the lodge window, blew one last time and stroked the concierge’s forehead.

  Pietro checked his watch and smoothed down his hair. Behind Fernando he could see Paola. ‘I nodded off,’ he told her.

  ‘I didn’t get any sleep myself last night. You saw him leave, didn’t you?’ She clinked the bracelets at her wrist. ‘Good heavens.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ Fernando echoed.

  ‘When I heard them crying my heart just stopped.’ Paola tossed her hair back and squeezed the handbag she held beneath one arm. Turned to watch Poppi coming down the stairs. The lawyer removed his hat. His face was dark. He avoided Paola’s eyes and sought out those of the concierge. His sneer was gone. He tried to speak, gave up.

  ‘Pietro saw Luca leave. It’s terrible.’ Paola hugged her son and walked toward the exit. She was reaching for the button when the street door opened on its own. A headful of curls and a hand holding a paper bag entered. It was Riccardo.

  Pietro looked through the closed pane of the lodge window. The radiographer was like a distorted reflection, growing larger. ‘One chocolate croissant for the cyclist.’ Riccardo dropped the bag in and started up the stairs.

  ‘I’ll catch up with you at the cafe, Paola. Go on ahead.’ The lawyer lit a cigarette.

  She looked him up and down, unable to decide. When she did leave with Fernando, Pietro brought Poppi an ashtray. ‘I need to ask for a day off. The day after tomorrow’ – he paused – ‘I’m going with the doctor to Rimini.’

  Poppi loosened his tie, arched an eyebrow.

  ‘He has to meet a patient and needs someone who knows the area,’ the concierge said.

  The lawyer sucked down more smoke and drew him close. ‘You and I are going up to my place. Right now.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I have a plant that’s not doing well.’

  ‘Can’t this wait till the afternoon?’

  ‘Now.’

  They went up. The lawyer opened the door and invited him in, walked across the living room and hauled a cycad in a pot to the entryway. The leaves came to sharp points, which were in fact dry.

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  Poppi put out his cigarette in the earth around the plant. Held the concierge there without saying anything, without doing anything, and when Pietro tried to speak he pointed to the wall he shared with the Martinis. They heard the muffled voice of Riccardo.

  Then Viola spoke. She said that he left last night, he really did it. He left with hardly a word. Luca knew everything.

  Luca has always known everything.

  Pietro bent over the cycad and tried to lift it but the lawyer prevented him with a foot on the rim of the pot.

  Now we have to tell him about Sara, Viola.

  Not now. I want to protect him.

  Poppi caressed a tribal mask on the wall, bowed his head. His cranium was a gleaming knob.

  Protect him like you’ve done so far?

  Luca needs Sara right now. Today he’s going to pick her up from nursery school and tonight she’ll sleep at his place.

  When are we going to tell him, Viola?

  The lawyer slipped two fingers through the eye sockets of the mask and squeezed.

  When Pietro came down from the lawyer’s flat he went straight to the lodge and checked the condominium register. Turned to the page with the resident notes from the previous concierge. There were five for the Martinis, the penultimate of which was Sara, Crivelli Nursery, ask for Mrs Rita. There was the address, telephone number, and the name of the person in charge. He checked the time and looked up the street in the street guide, left with the Bianchi. Came to a quick halt on the pavement.

  The old man from the petrol station stood in front of the intercom button grid. ‘I didn’t risk buzzing.’ He was wearing nice clothes, a woollen jacket and newly polished sh
oes. ‘I wanted to say hi.’ The man held out his hand.

  The concierge shook it. ‘My son is not home.’

  ‘I wanted to say hi to you.’ He coughed, dabbed his lips with a handkerchief and waited for Pietro knew not what. Then mumbled, ‘Please just tell the doctor that I don’t have much time left. Please tell him that.’ Moved away little by little, disappeared around the corner.

  The concierge mounted the Bianchi and pushed off into the street, pedalling with difficulty during the entire trip. When he arrived he noticed how weak he was. Leaned the Bianchi against a tree and rubbed his face. Sara’s nursery school was in a house with a garden at the front. The gate was covered with plastic panels and on each panel was an image of Jiminy Cricket. A group of people waited out front. Luca stood apart from the group, pacing back and forth on the pavement, kicking a stone and returning it to its original location. Struck it again, greeted a man smoking a cigar. They spoke together quietly until joined by a young woman with a dog on a leash.

  The gate opened and Luca entered alongside the young woman and the man. Returned with Sara, hand in hand. The girl could barely keep up with her father, so he slipped off her schoolbag and carried it over his shoulder. They walked beneath the horse-chestnut trees, through the fallen leaves on the pavement, leaving shuffled footprints. Arrived in the university district and turned down a cobbled alley, stopping in front of a small block of flats with tiled balconies.

  Sara saw Pietro for the first time. She made her father put her down, skipped over to the concierge.

  The doctor stood with a set of keys hanging from his little finger. ‘Pietro.’

  ‘I had passed by the nursery and you …’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m coming to Rimini.’

  The doctor cracked a smile, readjusted the pack on his back. ‘Poppi asked me if he could come as well. He heard about it from you.’

  Pietro screwed up his face and stayed silent. ‘Sorry, it slipped out when I asked him for the day off.’

  Luca looked preoccupied, without moving, then asked Pietro to follow him inside.

  The entrance hall had frescoes on the walls, beyond that a negligible courtyard, then the garden of an independent residence. Luca opened wide the two leaves of a small door next to the main entrance, led them up a few steps and down a corridor with three doors. Tried to insert the key into the lock of the first. His hand shook and could not find the target.

  Pietro helped him.

  ‘Once upon a time my father let it to students.’ He pressed down on the handle. The child ran inside and around the piles of luggage. It was a bare studio, white, with a high table and four stools near the cooking corner, a blue couch against the wall. There was a glassed-in loft with a double bed. The windows looked out onto the street. A tram passed and the wooden floor began to vibrate. Sara scrambled up the narrow steps leading to the loft and continued to explore.

  ‘I was wondering, Pietro …’ Luca bent over the baggage, began to search at random. Slipped his hand into bag after bag without pulling out anything, without seeing anything. His eyes were empty. He covered them with a hand and went to the window. The heads of passers-by appeared in the lower part of the glass. ‘I was wondering if you were afraid when you left God.’

  Sara climbed halfway down the steps and called her father over, made him sit on the step in front of her, began to comb his hair with her hands.

  The concierge approached. ‘I’ve never stopped being afraid.’

  Luca closed his eyes while Sara pulled tufts of hair down flat on his forehead. ‘For the trip to the coast, how about we meet here the day after tomorrow at eight?’

  Pietro nodded.

  ‘And me?’ asked the daughter.

  34

  The young priest stood up on the pedals. The witch perched sideways in front of him on the bicycle’s top bar and her scarf fluttered out behind her. It flew off into his face: witches smell like fresh flowers. The bicycle creaked, chk-chk. He headed toward the music coming from the dance hall. She held tight to the handlebars. ‘What make is this bike?’

  ‘It’s a Bianchi.’ He accelerated again.

  ‘And does it have brakes?’

  He didn’t touch them and the Bianchi flew past beach after beach, into a fog bank, chk-chk. They hurtled by and the witch counted the numbers of the beaches, number five, number four. He rang his bell loudly at a man cutting across his path and the man saw only fog pass. The young priest took a hand off the handlebars, rested it on her stomach, beach number one, then the open sand. He kept it there until they arrived at the inlet next to the jetty, where four strings of lights marked out a tiny plot of sand crowded with people spinning.

  He slowed down.

  The Bianchi had good brakes, which Pietro slammed on now. On the other side of the boulevard three cars queued at the petrol station. The first was being filled by the old man. Pietro stood on the pedals and continued past, turning into a cross-street and turning again, onto the street parallel to the boulevard. He left the bike against one of the sycamores and walked the path along the railway to the improvised gardens. The fence alongside the plot belonging to the old man from the petrol station was broken down at one point. Pietro hopped over it and his feet sank into the earth. The two pomegranate trees were leafless and without fruit. He went closer. To either side were rows of cabbage and lettuce. The whistle of a freight train approached. The smaller pomegranate tree was the same height as the concierge. Pietro went up to it and grasped the two branches that split from the trunk. He squeezed and felt that the wood was dust, crumbling in his hands. Squeezed again and raised his head toward the ugly building. There was a light in Andrea’s window.

  The young priest braked to a stop thirty paces from the dance floor. Music blasted from a plywood shack. The witch jumped down, saying, ‘They’ll see us,’ and pressed herself against him. Crouched down and stroked his calves, took off first one of his shoes, then the other. Stood up and leaned the Bianchi against a tree, remaining to stare at the leaves.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ asked the young priest.

  The witch brought her eyes closer to the tree. ‘Mama says that it’s the fruit of the Promised Land.’ She broke off an unripe pomegranate and slammed it against the handlebars, splitting the fruit open. ‘It has six hundred and thirteen seeds, as many as the rules of the Lord. Some represent sacrifice, some represent grace. Shall we try?’ She gave half of the pomegranate to the young priest and leaned against the tree. ‘If it’s sweet, it’s a grace. If it’s sour, it’s a sacrifice.’ She sucked on a seed and said, ‘Good.’ Another and said, ‘Good.’ Yet another and said, ‘Good. Three graces.’

  The young priest put one in his mouth and it burned on his tongue. He spat it out.

  The house of the pomegranate trees was mute. Pietro pressed the button next to the names Mario and Andrea Testi.

  ‘Who is it?’ The voice of Snow White crackled through the intercom.

  ‘It’s Pietro. Dr Martini’s father.’

  ‘Mr Mario isn’t here.’

  ‘I wanted to see Andrea.’

  The intercom continued to crackle.

  ‘I wanted to see him.’

  The door clicked open and Pietro went up. Snow White was waiting for him in front of the flat. ‘Andrea is happy to see the doctor’s father.’ The young woman had her hair loose and wore a close-fitting tracksuit. She invited him in.

  The entry smelled of cleaning products. Pietro took off his jacket and folded it over his arm, asked if he could go in.

  ‘Andrea’s awake. He’s watching TV that makes him laugh.’ She led him to the room at the end of the hallway, asked him to wait outside. Entered alone and turned down the volume on the television.

  Pietro could make out half a bed, an argyle blanket hiding the shrivelled legs.

  Snow White came out and motioned the concierge forward, stopping him on the threshold. ‘He answers “yes” if his eyes go white once, “no” if twice. He never c
loses his eyes ever or almost.’

  Pietro approached the bed. Andrea had something behind his neck that kept him facing the screen. A cartoon was playing.

  ‘Ciao, Andrea.’

  His hair was combed, his face a mound of sagging flesh. His pupils went up once, looking at the Bristol set against the whiteboard on the wall, on it a sketch of two rows of seagulls and strip of sea.

  Pietro pointed to the Bristol. ‘The drawing is very nice.’

  The eyes went white twice.

  ‘But it is.’

  There was an armchair beside the bed. Pietro removed a fashion magazine and sat down. ‘I come from the sea and I know seagulls well.’

  Snow White caressed Andrea’s head. ‘I’m going into the kitchen. I’ll come back in a bit to see if everything is going OK.’

  They heard her walk down the hallway. Pietro half-closed the door. Took hold of the hissing tube that terminated in the young man’s throat. It was plastic and vibrated with each breath.

  ‘I know you like football.’

  The eyes went white and agonizingly wide.

  Pietro looked out the window. A veil of fog had descended. He crossed the room. The whiteboard had a reading lamp below it. ‘I also know that you like motorcycles.’ Pietro stroked one of Andrea’s arms, a forgotten stick, from elbow to hand. ‘Your father told me everything. He very much likes to talk.’

  The pupils rose.

  Pietro smiled. Rubbed the arm again but the chill wouldn’t leave the skin, covered it with the sheet. Turned on the lamp and directed it toward the wardrobe and placed his hands in front. The shadows of the parrot and the dog came out less lopsided than usual and no longer shivered. He turned around. Andrea was staring at them.

  ‘A woman I know taught me how to make them.’ He lowered the left sidewall and sat down on the mattress, took the tube back in hand, flattened it and one of the machines began to whistle. The young man’s breath began to whistle as well. Pietro released the tube and there were no further sounds.