The Night of the Moths

by Riccardo Bruni

  Once he entered the club, Sandro headed straight to the bar to get his first mojito, something to hold in his hand so he could flex his arms, showing off his biceps.

  That night he had a precise objective: to leave with Fabiana.

  He had met her at the gym. And checked her out. She was little more than twenty and had already had a few auditions to dance on television. While under the weights, Sandro eavesdropped on her and on some of the other girls to gather a little information about her. Once he would have asked his sister for help, but now she went around putting on airs, acting like an intellectual. And Fabiana was the type of girl whom Alice would call vacuous or stupid, because ever since she got that useless degree, she thought she was better than everybody else. According to her, everyone was shallow and wasting their time on insignificant things. Alice had become a pain in the ass. Worse than the hysterical, frustrated teachers whom Sandro was glad to be rid of when he finished high school.

  Fabiana, however, was like him. She spent her evenings on the workout equipment to shape her body, because your body is your temple and you need to take care of it and worship it. And when she went to the pulleys, where she worked on her thighs and glutes, Sandro always made sure to be at the rowing machine, right in front of the mirror in which he could admire her in all her splendor, as her muscles contracted under the tension. But it was the expression that the effort and exertion sketched on her face that drove Sandro crazy, since he imagined that same expression as the result of a different kind of exertion. And the rowing machine was the ideal place to surrender to those fantasies, in part because while he was sitting down, he could conceal the erection that Fabiana regularly aroused in him.

  Then one evening she’d happened to get a cramp in her calf, and he had rushed over to grab her foot to help her stretch it out. In an instant, he’d managed to erase all distance between them. And the feeling that she hadn’t really had a cramp and that she had made it up just to break the ice was even more exciting. Anyway, that’s how they’d met. The rest followed accordingly. She told him about her auditions, that she had once met TV host Paolo Bonolis and that they sometimes texted one another, that hairdressers at the television studios have an edge because they are always up-to-date on current trends, that once she was almost picked, but then they passed over her for another girl favored by the host, Maria De Filippi. That all in all it was hard, but that to stand out in life you have to believe in yourself, otherwise you’d end up like so many others and not do fuck-all. And at the Tortuga, with his mojito in hand, Sandro had the terrible feeling that he was one of those others. Because Fabiana was up there sliding up and down a pole like Catwoman, while he sipped that crap full of crushed leaves that he would have gladly traded for a can of San Pellegrino Chinotto.

  The plan was to hang around and wait for Fabiana to take a break, then approach her and ask her if maybe she’d like to have breakfast somewhere afterward. Then they would stop and get a couple of croissants and he’d take her to the beach to wait for sunrise. He would slip a little soft music into the car’s stereo, a system with a kick-ass subwoofer, and say one of those things that usually make girls melt, of which he had a substantial and reliable collection.

  But the first obstacle appeared a few minutes later. His name was Roman. He worked for Sandro’s father. He was Giancarlo’s foreman, the Albanian who scraped together workers for the construction site. Sandro saw him and some of the other guys come in, all together. As soon as Roman spotted him, he slapped him on the shoulder and dragged him over to the others, who gathered close like a herd that had just found its leader. They danced around edgily and clapped their hands like a tribal ritual. Sandro knew that he should buy them all a drink, because that’s what his father would have done, and if he wanted them to respect him as much as they did Giancarlo, and not just because he was his son, he had to behave the same way.

  Amid the deafening music, Sandro drained his mojito, handed the glass to a guy in the group whose name he didn’t remember but who must have been Polish or something like that, and called them all over to the bar. When they realized that he was buying them drinks, they lifted him off the ground and carried him around triumphantly. There were at least a dozen of them. While the waiter was mixing the cocktails, Sandro saw a guy jump onto the cube with Fabiana. He knew him by sight—they called him Cedro, which was maybe his last name, he wasn’t sure.

  “If you want, I’ll go over there and break his knee.” Roman’s voice in his ear carried the reek of one of those crappy garlic things that he must have eaten beforehand with the others.

  “Never mind, it’s only pussy.” What was he supposed to say? That he needed their help to get her? Because Giancarlo is a man who knows how to make people respect him, but his asshole son needs someone to help him round up a cunt so he can fuck her? “There’s better than that around.”

  “How about we go find a little beaver at Gilda’s?” one of them said.

  “What the hell? Are you all horny tonight?”

  “They all have a fucking hard-on, Sandro,” Roman said. “If I don’t let them get their rocks off, they don’t do good work.”

  According to Roman that was supposed to be a joke. Sandro gave a faint laugh and guessed at what would follow. That if he took them to Gilda’s, with five hundred euros, he would earn what his father wanted him to earn from the workers. And maybe Giancarlo would even pay him back, happy that he had taken the initiative.

  And so Fabiana remained a missed opportunity. He glanced back one last time before he left. He had the feeling that Cedro would be the one to end up on the beach with her tonight, along with the warm croissants and soft music, and that she would find a way to thank him for the lovely evening.

  “You’re the greatest, Sandro. You’re my idol.” Again, the Polish guy, or whatever he was, who must have guessed where they would be spending the rest of the night and was already wide eyed, a hand in his pocket stroking his dick.

  Five

  The little cabin in the woods where the Half-Wit lived looked like it belonged in some children’s fairy tale. The one where the ogre lives, that you should stay away from. Stone walls and a sloping, red-tiled roof. A small pergola in front of the door, along with a broken-down rocking chair, which sometimes moved by itself as if there were someone in it. An open window with a screen torn in a few places. A shovel, always propped against the door.

  A yellowish lamp, with moths dancing around it when turned on.

  The Half-Wit had just returned. He was still breathing hard after running through the woods. He was scared. Sitting on the bed, goggle eyed, he swung his head from side to side. Bent over like that, he seemed even bigger. His huge hands gripped his knees. His mouth was set in a tense grimace.

  When things were too complicated, he got stuck. Sometimes they found him that way, stock-still, head swaying, because he didn’t know which bucket to put the mortar in.

  But he didn’t mean to scare her. He just wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t scare her anymore and that he wouldn’t do that thing that even Mama said he shouldn’t do. She said Jesus saw him, but he did it anyway, because when it itched, he just couldn’t resist and he was a bad boy.

  But the girl got scared. That big, rotten, ugly head of mine, just like Mama said before she raised her hands, she was always raising her hands, because I always made a mess, like when I was playing cards and knocked over the glasses because otherwise I drew my card too slowly and then it wasn’t worth playing Briscola that way. But the girl got scared and instead Sandro—who played with the ball when he was a little boy and I said to him, “Sandro, will you throw me the ball?”—Sandro, the son of Giancarlone, who cares about me and gives me a house and feeds me and gives me work, which otherwise, with that big, rotten, ugly head of mine, like Mama said before she raised her hands, she was always raising her hands because I always made a mess, like when I was playing cards and knocked over the glasses because otherwise I drew my card too slowly and then it wasn’t worth pla
ying Briscola that way. But the girl got scared because I scared her and instead I shouldn’t have done that because Sandro—who played with the ball when he was a little boy and I said to him, “Sandro, will you throw me the ball?”—Sandro, the son of Giancarlone, told me not to do that and I did it anyway, big, rotten, ugly head of mine, like Mama said before she raised her hands, she was always raising her hands because I always made a mess, and if the girl got scared now, the son of Giancarlone who cares about me, no, I mean Sandro who played with the ball when he was a little boy, Giancarlone’s son will cut off my weenie, he’ll do that thing with the shears because he told me to leave her alone and I left her alone and I wanted to tell her that I would leave her alone, that I saw her alone in the woods at night, and I wanted to tell her that from now on I would leave her alone. The girl got scared but I wanted to tell her. The girl started running but why are you running when there’s no way I can keep up with you. I tried to run after her, Jesus knows I tried to run because Jesus, Mama said before she raised her hands, she was always raising her hands because I always made a mess, like when I was playing cards, Jesus knows I just wanted to tell her that I wouldn’t bother her anymore, that if I felt like doing that thing that Mama always said before she raised her hands, she was always raising her hands and she even hurt me and beat me hard and Jesus knows how hard she beat me because Jesus knows everything, he knows like Mama said before . . .

  What was that thud at the door? After I turned off the light, because Jesus doesn’t want me to stay awake when it’s night because then the moths come and the bad thoughts, and I only went outside because I had to pee, and then I saw the girl and I just wanted to tell her that I wouldn’t bother her anymore and she got scared and started running and I tried to run after her, Jesus knows I tried to run because I wanted to tell her that I wouldn’t bother her anymore like he told me, Sandro—who played with the ball when he was a little boy and I said to him, “Sandro, will you throw me the ball?”—the son of Giancarlone who cares about me and gives me a house and feeds me and gives me work because otherwise, with that big, rotten, ugly head of mine, like Mama said before she raised her hands, she was always raising her hands, but now I have to open the door because that thud was a stone and if they throw stones at my house, they’ll knock it down and then he’ll get mad, Giancarlone who cares about me and gives me a house and feeds me and gives me work because otherwise, with that big, rotten, ugly head of mine, I open the door and look outside and there’s no one there and what’s this thing attached to the rock here at the door?

  Oh, what a pretty little necklace, I wonder who gave it to me, I’ll keep the necklace, because Jesus likes gifts, and it’s a beautiful gift and will make Mama happy before she raises her hands, she was always raising her hands because I always made a mess, like when I was playing cards and knocked over the glasses because otherwise I drew my card too slowly and then it wasn’t worth playing Briscola that way, and what a pretty necklace with a little turtle on it.

  Six

  The guy who was Polish, or whatever, pulled his dick out right in the middle of the little private show that Sandro had treated them all to, prompting Roman to give him a couple of slaps, as soon as the brunette, who was doing an interesting trick with the prosecco bottle, leaped to her feet saying, “You don’t touch, got it?”

  Sandro had arranged for a couple of private rooms for his boys. He knew the manager of Gilda’s, Arturo. He was one of his father’s boar-hunting buddies, with whom Giancarlo was doing some land deal. And to forget Fabiana, Sandro had pulled out his last hundred-euro note and granted himself twenty minutes in the company of two girls who twisted their tongues over every inch of his body. Still, the idea that Cedro was probably enjoying the beach and Fabiana continued to rile him, so much so that he was thinking of leaving and taking a ride over there to see if he spotted them.

  He felt macho. Like his father. The talking-to he had given the Half-Wit that morning helped him feel that way. He had taken him aside, just as Giancarlo would have.

  “I’m only going to tell you once, you filthy shitty pervert douchebag,” he’d said to him. “You look at my sister again, go near her again, and I’ll cut off that little prick of yours with the gardening shears you use on the hedge. You get me? And then I’ll stuff it in your mouth and make you chew it like gum. Understand? I’m not kidding, see. I’ll even make you blow bubbles with it, like a piece of bubble gum, you hear me? Look, the only reason I’m not telling Giancarlo is because I want to be the one to hurt you if you do something like that again. Do you understand, you piece of shit?”

  The Half-Wit hadn’t breathed a word. All he did was nod, so vigorously that he seemed to be having a seizure. Sandro watched, feeling no pity for the guy. Should he have? Maybe. When he was little, the Half-Wit always tossed him the ball and then he’d say, “Sandro, will you throw me the ball?” Always just like that. And when little Sandro threw it to him, sending it into the hedge, the Half-Wit raised his arms as if the boy had scored a goal, then ran to him and picked him up to celebrate. Sandro remembered it clearly: when he was left alone in front of the house, he’d see that funny guy who looked like a panting gorilla coming, and he threw him the ball and then made him laugh. He always wore that light-blue cap with his hair sticking out at the sides like a clown. But now none of that feeling remained.

  No hesitation. No soft spot.

  Alice had asked him for help, not his father. And damn if that didn’t make him feel awesome. Maybe Fabiana still thought he was an asshole like all the others, but those who knew him well, like his sister, knew that he was a guy with a nice pair of brass balls. And maybe now he’d go to the beach by himself and take a swim, and if Fabiana were around he would seem like a loner, which really melts the girls’ hearts, even more than croissants with quiet music and the crap you say at certain moments, which seems like something out of a Laura Pausini song. What the fuck.

  He made up his mind.

  He allowed himself to relish the last few minutes of the privé, abandoning himself to the licking and stroking of the two girls who, upon seeing how much the client had shelled out for himself and all his friends, had evidently received clear instructions to give him a little extra.

  When he left the private room at the end of his own little show, Sandro ordered a coffee at the bar and waited for the others.

  “So you took the guys on an outing,” Arturo said, coming up to him.

  “It seems if they see a little pussy now and then, they work better.”

  “Bravo, Sandrino, you know what it takes.”

  “That goes for all of us, right?”

  “The construction is moving along? Giancarlo is happy?”

  “It’s going okay.”

  “He had me by the balls over that thing. You know about it, right?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” But he knew all about it. A small piece of land, which for Arturo had not been buildable, had become so for Giancarlo right after he’d bought it from him.

  “Between friends, playing tricks like that, there’s no cause for it.”

  Sandro smiled broadly, an excuse to show his teeth. He took the pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his leather jacket and lit one, which, given that smoking wasn’t permitted, was like a dog taking a piss to mark his territory, telling you, “Careful, buddy. Don’t go any farther.”

  “No tricks, Arturo. It’s business. Learning to exploit situations is a skill that brings rewards. That eats at you?”

  Arturo sniffs the piss. He doesn’t go any farther. He seemed about to say something else, but then he picked up the phone and read something on the display.

  “Excuse me, we’ll talk more later,” he said and walked away, holding the phone to his ear.

  The guys were starting to head out. Roman came over.

  “Great evening, Sandro. They had a good time. But the kid couldn’t control himself, he made a mess in his pants and now he’s in the bathroom washing up.”

  They
saw him come out after a few minutes. He was drying himself off with toilet paper and laughing. A real jerk-off. In the parking lot Sandro waited until they were all in the van, then he slammed the door shut and got into his car.

  He was already thinking about the beach, about the salty smell of the sea and the swim he’d decided to take, when he realized that his phone had slipped out of his pocket. He retrieved it under his feet and saw that there were a few missed calls and some messages.

  He had set it on mute.

  The messages were from the cell phone used to take reservations when the restaurant was closed.

  He read the first message.

  Call me. A

  That A stood for Alice. Clearly, she had taken the wrong phone. Wasn’t she with the Roman city boy? Had something happened?

  There were five missed calls. All from that number.

  Sandro immediately tried to call back. No answer. Another text told him he had a voice mail message. He tapped the number to listen to it.

  Alice’s voice sliced through like a razor.

  “Where the hell are you, Sandro? I’m walking back and that fucking maniac is following me.” Alice was breathing hard, she was running. Sandro looked around. How long had it been since the call? Shit. “Call me back, otherwise I’ll have to call home, and if he comes he’ll kill him and I don’t want to talk to him about this. Come on, Sandro, call me. I’m almost to the road near the bend.”

  He tried to call again. But there was no answer, it just rang.

  It had been more than three hours since the first unanswered call.

  Sandro sped off in a rush toward the bend. It wasn’t far from home. He kept calling that number. He also tried to call Alice’s phone, but it must have been turned off.