“Ciao, Kia,” he says.
“Ciao.”
“Ciao,” a voice from the back seat calls. A girl. She’s stretched out, her head leaning against one door and her bare feet propped against the other. She’s wearing heavy makeup and the mark of a tattoo shows on her neck.
“My cousin, Rachele,” says Gibo.
Chiara doesn’t exactly know what to say. But she thinks that maybe for some reason he had to bring her with him. So she smiles at her.
“What time do I have to bring you back?” Gibo asks her.
“At whatever time I want.”
Gibo smiles.
“Get it?” Rachele says.
“Of course . . .” says Gibo.
He puts the car in gear, steps on the gas, and zooms off, burning rubber on the asphalt.
“Sweetheart, how come you’re home alone? What about your friends?” In Giulia’s wonderful world spending Saturday at home, by yourself, is a red flag, a clear sign that something is wrong.
“I had some work to do.”
“Remeres?”
“Right.”
“It must be really fascinating to compel you to spend Saturday night on it.”
“And how’s the party?”
“A nightmare, I swear. The caterers arrived half an hour late. I mean, half an hour. Virginia and the Evil Sisters, instead, arrived half an hour early, of course, because otherwise they wouldn’t have found a taxi. So while the caterers were still preparing the canapés, the bitches started roaming around the house and posting pictures on Facebook. Now, it’s just as well we’re moving, because our house is all over their profiles. And then, as the others were arriving, the caterers were still arranging the vol-au-vent on the trays.”
“A tragedy.”
“The tragedy is that you’re not here, my love.”
He can just picture her. In the midst of all her “friends”—a term that, with the help of Facebook (which Giulia is virtually addicted to), has excessively expanded her semantic field, filling their apartment with her girlfriends from the gym, her aperitif friends, her friends from the boutique, friends from the shiatsu center, and even friends from a Facebook book club, which Giulia joined pretending to be a passionate reader while actually just wanting to find a book to surprise Enrico with, instead of the usual sweater gift. And he imagines her there, beautiful and glowing, wearing an evening dress, dispensing kisses and smiles while glued to her phone. After she gets off the phone with him, she’ll call her mother and after that her sister. Yet, for Enrico, at this moment there is only the tube that continues gliding through a confined space. It’s like a question that keeps looking for an answer but can’t find it. Because there’s no way out. The tube can’t get out of the screen. So the fact that it appears to be looking for a way out is only an optical illusion.
Giulia talks a while longer, then abruptly has to go because someone she must greet has just arrived.
And the silence returns.
Enrico looks down at the laptop’s keyboard and finds his old phone on it. When did he put it there? He reads the display and the same message is still there.
I thought you wanted to know, and instead you chose to forget.
It’s bone-crushingly cold tonight, McClane. Enzo Porretta puts on his uniform and zips up the jacket with the security agency’s logo sewn on it. On the job, Lieutenant. He studies himself in the mirror, assuming a tough guy look. In this light, with that peach fuzz on his face that won’t grow but seems heavier tonight, that expression in the eyes that look like two dark slits, he and Bruce Willis have something in common. And, with the cap pulled down, you can’t even see the balding.
“On the job,” he says to his reflection.
Regulation belt. Instead of a gun, he still only has a flashlight, but the agency’s manager promised him that he will soon be supplied with a weapon as well. They just need to settle a few things regarding the permits and then they’ll give him a gun.
He goes downstairs, opens the door, and steps out. It gets dark early and by this hour the streetlights are all lit. Of course, if there were a big street around here with a hot dog stand and a steaming manhole, it would be a different story, instead of this lousy little town where the only place a group of East German terrorists, like the one led by Hans Gruber in Die Hard, could take people hostage is the parish hall where the senior volunteers’ dinner is held on Saturday night.
Shit.
He gets in the company car, arranges all his things, and heads for the Fuorimano, where Saverio is preparing a nice takeout with hot dog and fries, which he will eat in the car like his colleagues in New York do.
“You’re Margherita’s sister, right?” Rachele says from the back seat.
“Yeah, you know her?
“My brother knew her. They went to high school together.”
“Do I know him?”
“Francesco Dallei.”
“Don’t know him.”
“He says Margherita had some problem.”
“A big problem, loser friends.”
“A mental problem, like a breakdown.”
Chiara turns to face the back seat.
“My sister didn’t have any fucking breakdown. You can tell that to your brother.”
“Okay, okay, what the fuck? Take it easy.”
“This is a shitty town, baby,” Gibo says. “They’re quick to spread rumors. People don’t have jack shit to do and they’d rather talk about other people’s shit. But, tonight, we’re here to relax, right?”
“Riiiiight,” says Rachele, stretching herself as far as the car’s interior will allow.
“Hey, girl, everything okay?” Gibo asks.
Chiara is still looking out the window, at the houses gliding by, the glow of lights, the wet, deserted road. The fact is she doesn’t like to hear that kind of crap about her sister. What’s insane is that her mother sees it exactly as Gibo does, maybe it takes her much longer to say the same thing, but in the end that’s the gist of it: people mind other people’s business. The truth is that Margherita may have had her problems, but who doesn’t have problems in a shithole like this? One thing is for sure, she was right to leave. The other sure thing is that sooner or later Chiara will join her. And that’s a happy thought, the kind that could make you fly like Peter Pan. She turns to Gibo, smiles, crinkles her eyes, and nods.
“All good.”
It’s as if everything were coming in waves. Sandro is lying on the bed, floating on heroin. He would like to do what Alice told him, get off the bed and go to Enrico’s to tell him the thing about the phone. After talking with her, it’s as if doing this has become the center of his universe. But then everything is engulfed by something else, a sensation of calmness, serenity, which is so sweet to sink into. Then the wave recedes and that thing he has to do comes back. Now the voices are gone. He’s alone. If he could really talk to Enrico, maybe he would stop seeing the Half-Wit every time he shoots up. “Sandro, will you throw me the ball?” He tries moving a foot. His feet still hurt. Maybe I’ll wait till tomorrow, he thinks. But maybe tomorrow I won’t remember it. And he said he was leaving. And then how will I find him?
The foot moves. But it’s still too heavy. How come this bed doesn’t crash to the floor with a weight like this on it? He has to move like the taipan snake, which has a good memory, is very swift, and is the most venomous in the world. He feels it slithering inside him. Three meters of power and speed. Three meters of creeping death. Sandro grinds his teeth, hisses, contracts his muscles, and after a period of time, which expands and then shrinks senselessly, like a Jim Morrison walk in the desert with a shaman, he sits up on the bed. But he feels the wave coming again, here it is. Calmness, serenity. This sweet lethargy that envelops you and lets you rest your head, like this . . . Lie back . . . Relax . . .
“Fuck.” He opens his eyes again. “Come on, Sandro, get up. You’re over it. I can feel you’re getting over it.”
The taipan snake’s strike leaves the enemy no
way out.
He’s not sure how, but he finds himself on his feet.
Gibo stops the car right in front of the sea. They’re practically on the beach, that four by four isn’t afraid of anything.
“Shall we toke up?” he says.
“About time,” Rachele replies, though she had seemed to be asleep.
“For what?” Chiara asks.
“For some maria,” Gibo says, opening the glove compartment. He takes out a bag with a bulging packet of grass and the usual Smoking Brown longs that he has learned to roll with one hand even while driving.
“Let’s move to the back, come on. We’ll be more comfortable.”
Without getting out of the car, they squeeze between the front seats and climb in back with Rachele. Gibo, in the middle, prepares the joint. It’s ready in a second and Gibo lights up. He blows on the tip to get rid of the residual cigarette paper that flutters away, then takes a deep drag, holding the smoke in his lungs as he passes it to Chiara.
She likes marijuana. It tastes good and makes her happy. It’s not like that synthetic crap that turns your brain to mush and you never recover.
Gibo looks for some suitable music on the iPod connected to the car stereo system and puts on a Pink Floyd album. According to him, as he’s already had occasion to explain, they wrote their songs while they were stoned, so you can only understand certain things if you get in tune with those frequencies.
“What’s it called?” Chiara asks him.
“The album?”
“Yeah.”
“The Dark Side of the Moon.”
“Not bad.”
“Not bad at all.”
They go on passing the joint until Gibo takes a last drag and tosses what’s left of the butt, smoked down to the filter, out the window.
Chiara leans back against the seat and loosens up.
Rachele, however, unzips Gibo’s pants.
“What the fuck is your cousin doing?” Chiara asks.
“She’s not really my cousin . . .”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Let’s have some fun, come on,” Gibo says. “You two go down on me together and I’ll film it. Then we’ll watch it and smoke another joint.”
Chiara hasn’t yet figured out what’s happening when Rachele already has Gibo’s cock in her mouth. Rachele looks at the phone in his hand, filming her, then pulls away and smiles.
“Come on,” she says to Chiara.
“No way.”
“Come on, Chiara,” Gibo says, his smile slack from the weed.
“We’re just having a little fun,” Rachele says.
“Have fun then.”
Chiara opens the door and gets out.
“Hey, where are you going? Come back here,” Gibo says.
“Go to hell. You and your cousin.”
She slams the door behind her and walks away. Her head is spinning a bit, but she knows the way back to town.
She zips up her jacket and pulls up the hood, but no Chris for now, later maybe. Right now she’s really steamed, and she doesn’t want to ruin those songs forever.
The coast road is in total darkness.
Gibo is just a sad little dickhead. She still has to decide if what galls her the most is the fact that she had him all wrong or that Betti had clearly seen through him before she did.
She looks around.
It’s pitch black.
Seven
The wave arrives at the wrong moment. At the curve, he’s on the verge of losing it. Sandro manages to look up an instant before the car is about to take the plunge. He’d taken the curve straight, and would have crashed into the trees otherwise.
“Come on, Sandro!” he yells to wake himself up.
He puts the car into reverse and backs up onto the road. His eyes, wide with fear, suddenly close. He can’t get over the narrow escape he’s just had, his blood is racing at breakneck speed, his heart is pounding in his head like a hammer. He drives off again, begins the descent. He leans against the steering wheel and feels a trickle of drool dribbling down. Here comes the wave. How beautiful. It’s all calm. Feel how the car glides down the hill. How it floats, how it flies. I just need to lean here for a second and . . .
“Shit!” He comes to abruptly and grabs the wheel. The road. Everything is okay.
He reaches the bottom of the hill and turns onto the provincial road.
And after fifty meters a carabiniere appears with a raised stop sign.
Not only is it so dark that if you’re not careful you could end up in a ditch, but it’s also freezing cold tonight. Chiara has let her anger simmer down and plugged in her earbuds, so Chris can keep her company on this walk she wasn’t planning on.
She took the route past the old bridge, and left the coast road behind. In a few minutes, she’ll be back in town. What a shitty evening. And she doesn’t feel much like going home. For one thing, the pot is still swirling around in her head and she’s not yet up to facing her mother, who will be anxious for an explanation as to why she’s back so early.
She brings up WhatsApp.
Vale . . . what are you doing?
She crosses the bridge.
Kia!!! I’m at Fede’s . . .
Alone?
Yep ;) what’s up?
Nothing, a shitty night, I’ll tell you tomorrow.
Wanna come here?
No, thanks anyway.
Vale is with her boyfriend, Chiara doesn’t feel like butting in. Maybe there’ll be someone at the station bar. But she doesn’t want to seem desperate. The best thing is to stop here, at the first available low wall, and listen to Chris and A Rush of Blood to the Head with a few cigarettes—fortunately tonight, at least, she has some.
Walking past the first houses in town, she observes the lights through the windows. They have that yellowish color. She takes out an earbud to listen. In each house a TV is on. The clatter of dishes, someone shouting. There must be a soccer game. Of course, Italy’s match against that team from the East where all the caregivers are usually from. She hears the voices of the sportscasters, who know the names of all the players by heart and recognize them right away, even the foreign ones. Because soccer players are the only foreigners people like. Maybe because they’re filthy rich. Someone swears loudly, it must have been a penalty kick. There’s really something wrong with some people’s lives if they get so excited about things like that. She sits on the steps of a doorway. Puts the earbud back in. She lights a cigarette and lets the opening of “Politik” explode in her ears. And, just then, she sees her father’s car turn the corner.
It’s okay, Sandro. Everything’s fine. No problem. So they’ll put you inside. What can you do? You’ll have a little peace and quiet, put an end to all this crap, and that’s it. In fact, you know what I’ll do? I’ll tell him right now, as soon as I roll down the window and the cop points the light at me. I’ll tell him. Look, I’ll say, I’m hyped up on heroin. There’s not much to add. My life got mired in deep shit many years ago.
“You have a headlight out. Did you know that?” the carabiniere says.
“What?”
“Your left headlight, it’s out.”
“My left headlight.”
“Right.”
“Yeah, in fact it just blew out.”
“You should take care of it.”
“I’ll take care of it tomorrow, first thing.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday.”
“That’s true, let’s say Monday and let it go at that.”
“Everything okay?”
“Hunky-dory.”
“Get it fixed, these roads are dark.”
“Sure thing.”
“On your way now.”
“Night.”
What the hell, Sandro, if only you’d had a stroke of luck like that when you really needed it. Fuck. I came through just fine this time. He takes a breath. Never had anything like that happened, didn’t even ask for his license. How the hell did you manage not to puke all over him, t
he shape you’re in? Because it’s a sign, that’s why. Fuck. Because it’s no accident that Alice said those things, it’s no accident that I managed to stand up in this condition. No. It’s no accident that the cop didn’t notice anything and only told me about the headlight. It means that what I’m doing makes sense. Fuck, maybe it’s the first time in all these shitty years of crap that what I’m doing really makes sense. Holy fucking shit. I’ll go to Enrico’s and tell him the thing about the phone, that way maybe he’ll be able to talk about it, with her. That’s what I should have done. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I didn’t die all these years. It’s because of this night. This thing I have to do. Right, little sister?
“Sure, that’s right.”
“And then I’ll feel better?”
Chiara hides behind a hedge. She lets the car go by. It’s him, she recognizes him. But what is he doing here? Where is he going? Why isn’t he at home in front of the television? He should be watching the game too, with his anchovy pizza. The car turns the corner, Chiara follows it and hides behind the side of the building. The car stops, but the engine remains running. She sees someone coming from across the street. It’s that Mazzei, from the beauty salon. She has that damn dog of hers on a leash, the little turd acting as if he were possessed by an Egyptian demon. The woman approaches her father’s car.
She stops. Ties the dog’s leash to a pole with a “No Entry” sign on it. He opens the car door and she gets in.
They embrace.
They make out like a couple of teenagers. Clinging to one another, they still manage to catch their breath and talk.
Chiara takes out her earbuds. It would really be a shame if Chris were to witness such a sleazy scene like that. How sordid. Mazzei.
He says something to her. She nods. They smile. Then they kiss again. This goes on for about ten minutes. When she gets out of the car and unties her dog, “The Scientist” is playing on the iPhone. Chiara is surprised to realize that her father and the beautician were necking throughout the duration of “In My Place” and “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face.” And as she watches the car move away, hidden behind the building, she feels such a sense of disgust rise inside her that what Gibo and that bitch Rachele left her with seems like nothing in comparison.
The Night of the Moths Page 14