The Book of Hidden Things

by Francesco Dimitri

  I step in, and halt.

  At the centre of the trullo is a cage, a squat cube of steel bars. There’s a leather whip on the floor, a bundle of ropes in a corner, a ball gag, a chain dangling from the roof. Pushed against the wall is a large crate. I open it, and the first thing I see is a black leather mask, shaped like a horse’s head, with a zip where the mouth is. I bring it to my nose and smell sweat – it has been used, a lot. The crate is full of sex toys: a shedload of dildos and butt plugs and advanced BDSM gear – a long metallic thingy which looks like a cage for dicks, small clamps for your nipples, stuff I don’t have the mileage to put a name to. My least favourite is a plastic gag connected to a long tube, whose other end, I get after some consideration, is supposed to go into a vagina. Yuck. No judgement here; I’ve got friends in the scene and all that, but it’s not my scene. Must be one of Art’s phases. In the post-Fifty Shades age, everybody fancies a bite from the forbidden apple. Art, though, was never one for bites; he’d gobble up the apple with skin and seeds.

  There’s nothing wrong with a spot of rough fun, is there? Nothing wrong with books stacked in every nook and cranny of a dark, dusty house. Nothing wrong with dealing a little weed. Nothing wrong with treating a dog like royalty, or with that dog vanishing, or with vanishing in general, or with the Carabinieri not caring about that. There’s nothing wrong here, nothing to see.

  The bad guys are still out there.

  Fuck them. I too know bad guys.

  5

  I was fifteen and ‘Wonderwall’ was playing on the jukebox, on a July night as hot as Satan’s armpits. It was the summer after Art went missing. His parents were finally starting to let him off the hook, and they allowed him to go out again, but only on strict orders to come back too early to have any actual fun.

  We were in Portodimare’s piazza. Mauro had put a coin in the jukebox and chosen ‘Wonderwall’, but in July, with the village full, you never knew how long it would take before your song played. When Liam Gallagher finally started singing that the day of something something had come, our table-football tournament was almost over, with Art and Fabio thrashing me and Mauro. Art was helpless at table football, but Fabio was good enough for three. He had this special move of his wrist that made the little plastic footballers jerk forward in an almost sexual way, sending the ball speeding like a rocket. Now that I think of it, I’d like to play him some day, see if he’s kept his form. I get training in the hospital cafeteria.

  Anna and her friend Rita (who knows what she’s doing now?) had been following the match, each of them shouting encouragement to one team and booing the other. We were the champions, they were the hooligans, and by the end of the third and final match, we were all dripping with sweat.

  ‘Hey!’ Mauro said. ‘The Gallagher brothers are here!’

  Fabio took advantage of the distraction and used his signature wrist movement to send a fireball beyond Mauro’s hapless goalkeeper. Anna clapped her hands, and Fabio and Art exchanged a high five. ‘Three matches out of three,’ Fabio said.

  ‘Losers,’ Art added, with mock contempt.

  Anna inched closer to Fabio. ‘For the hero,’ she said, pecking him on one cheek.

  I brought my hands to block my eyes. ‘Get a room.’

  ‘They’re just friends,’ Rita said.

  And Anna immediately confirmed, ‘That’s right.’

  I didn’t care for Rita. She was from Milan, as was Anna – their families were the advance troops of tourists to come. Anna and Rita were the textbook definition of cool, even better than the Beauties. They were not local yokels, no sir, they came from Milan; they’d seen things, they’d gone places. Anna played it fair, but Rita made it her life mission to ensure you never forgot she was an urban gal. She would cram into one breath the story of a lunch at McDonald’s (terribly exotic to us), a trip to a multiscreen cinema, an amazing hip-hop gig. Us, we didn’t have stories. Stories didn’t happen much in Casalfranco, and those that did, you knew better than to tell.

  ‘Ice lollies?’ Fabio suggested. They were the cheapest way to cool down; you could get six of them for little more than the price of a bottle of beer.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Art said. Then, to me, in a posh voice, ‘I apologise, dear sir, but if I’m not home in twenty minutes Father will blow his top. I will take you up on your kind offer of a lift.’

  I checked the time on my Swatch. ‘Isn’t it early?’

  ‘Nope.’

  It was, but Art must have had his reasons to say otherwise. ‘All right.’

  Mauro said, ‘We’ll catch you guys tomorrow on the beach.’

  Summer was like that: three full months of nights at the jukebox and days on the beach. I wonder if I will ever be that free again.

  Art and I left the others and mounted my moped. ‘What was that about?’ I asked, starting the engine.

  ‘Fabio and Mauro could do with a little space.’

  ‘With the girls?’

  ‘Yeah. Mind, I’m not saying they’ll get laid.’

  ‘Give them some credit.’ I was a bit jealous of them – not for the girls (none of them were my type, I thought), but for the general notion of having a date.

  ‘If Fabio was alone with Anna, maybe. But Rita? She’ll ruin it for everybody. She’s more into drama than into people.’

  ‘Because you’re such an expert.’

  He didn’t reply. It’d turn out he was spot on: Mauro tried to kiss Rita, and, at that, she screamed and accused him of being like all other men and left, and Anna had to follow her. We thought we’d never see them again, but next year Anna returned, and the rest, as they say, is history.

  When we turned into Art’s lane, Art said, ‘Stop here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So that Mum and Dad won’t hear I’m back. You’re right, it’s early.’

  I killed the engine and pulled the moped into a field. We left it there and walked on, accompanied by the soundtrack of crickets. ‘We should’ve bought a couple of beers.’

  Art produced from a side pocket of his cargo shorts a sizeable bag of grass. ‘This is better.’

  ‘Hey, that’s a lot of weed. Where did you get the cash?’

  He smiled smugly, opened the bag and passed it to me. ‘Smell it.’

  I obliged and said, ‘It’s good.’ I couldn’t have told good weed from bad more than I could have told a Montepulciano from a Chianti.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Art said. ‘It’s mine. I grew it. Rocco got me the seeds. It’s cheaper this way, and you get better quality.’

  ‘Your dad will…’

  ‘I hid the pots behind the trullo, and I’m drying the weed in there. Dad knows that’s a no-go zone for him. And besides, what he doesn’t know is what marijuana looks like.’

  I let him guide me through the dampness of the night. Sweat had plastered my t-shirt and my shorts to my skin, and I’d rather have had a gelato than a joint, but I couldn’t admit that. We entered the trullo and Art turned on a torch he kept there. He pointed it at a line of marijuana branches hung upside down to dry. ‘I took down one batch. I couldn’t wait.’

  ‘Did you try it?’

  ‘I don’t like to smoke alone.’ He really didn’t, back then.

  I’d never be as ballsy as Art. And I’d never be as self-assured as Fabio, or as calm as Mauro. I thought I was lucky they wanted to hang out with me, and, all in all, I haven’t changed my mind about that.

  I watched Art roll a gigantic joint and take the first drag.

  ‘How is it?’ I asked.

  He handed me the joint, saying, ‘Try it for yourself.’

  I smoked and said, ‘Wow. Good stuff.’

  ‘Could be better.’ Unassuming and modest Art was not, but he was big on self-improvement.

  ‘Is this your next project?’ I asked. ‘Weed?’ His interest in astronomy was pretty much gone. He had tinkered with some new hobbies recently (sleight of hand, ancient history) but nothing that stuck.

  He shook his head. ‘Photog
raphy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Have you ever seen a naked girl?’

  ‘Unfortunately, no.’

  ‘Me neither. And I’m thinking, photography could do the trick. You tell a girl you’re going to take a portrait, an artistic thing, and she’ll get her boobs out; not for you, for… posterity.’

  ‘It’s a theory.’

  ‘I’m going to test it.’

  My head was light, very light. Art’s weed was way more powerful than what we were used to.

  Art asked, ‘Do you ever think about sex?’

  I laughed. ‘Just about every day.’ Midway through the joint, I was as stoned as I’d ever been.

  ‘No, I mean, seriously think about it. You, me, Fabio, Mauro – we’re best mates. We love each other. So how come we never fuck?’

  I had a fit of laughter and coughing simultaneously. ‘Because we’re not poofs?’

  ‘Poof! That’s only a word. It means bugger all. How does that work? A girl gives you a handjob, and that’s cool, but a guy does the same and it’s wrong?’

  ‘That’s pretty much how it works.’

  ‘Oh yeah? And what if you’re blindfolded and don’t know who’s giving the handjob?’

  ‘You’d better bloody get rid of the blindfold then.’

  ‘What for? Once you’ve got a boner, what does it matter if it’s for a guy or a girl?’

  ‘It matters because I’m not a poof,’ I insisted, laughing. I was laughing a lot; Art was making me uneasy.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he said. Then added, ‘Are you high?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Close your eyes then.’

  ‘Are you going to give me a handjob?’

  ‘Close your fucking eyes, dude.’

  I did. To this day I couldn’t say if I was expecting what was going to happen. I’d never thought I could like men; I wasn’t gay, that wasn’t an option. You were supposed to respect gay people, but also never forget that they were at best sick, and at worst, callous sinners. You didn’t mix with suckers signing up for Hell.

  I felt wet lips touching mine.

  I opened my eyes and made to draw back, but Art pushed my head against his own. I was stronger than him and I could have pulled back if I wanted, but I didn’t. I was enjoying the kiss and I was stoned enough to ignore the fact that I wasn’t meant to enjoy it. Art’s tongue touched my teeth, and sent a hot shiver down from my mouth to my groin. I was getting a boner.

  Art pulled back and watched me in my eyes, with his insufferable smirk. ‘You liked it.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ I sniggered.

  He took off his t-shirt. His scrawny chest was almost beautiful among the long shadows. I stared in amazement while he got to his feet and kicked away his trousers and boxers, and was naked in front of me, his eyes on mine, his boner coming up.

  ‘What’s next?’ he said.

  I reached out with my hand, and grabbed his dick.

  6

  Thank God for Mum’s cooking. For dinner she made orecchiette, the ear-shaped pasta, with tomato sauce, deep-fried aubergines, steak, fresh fruit, and a tiramisu, all washed down with strong Primitivo wine. Where I live in Rome, meals this big went out of fashion, but I’m glad they’re still popular in the deep south. Not that I could eat like this every day; my metabolism isn’t a teenager’s anymore.

  Dad is over the moon about his grandson – he was happy when Elena found she was pregnant, doubly so when she found it was a boy. He’d be even happier if I had a son, because that would mean the surname would live on. Mum is worked up about the baby too, or, at any rate, she pretends well. They make a fuss about not telling me the baby’s name, to leave the honour to Elena. We’re drinking an after-dinner Fernet, the bitterest liquor in the universe, when my phone goes dling with a text. It’s Fabio.

  Crossed path wit my father.

  Fabio only uses the word ‘dad’ to refer to other people’s dads. I text him back.

  How come?

  Portodimare driking and e wos tere with the blody priest.

  How pissed are you? You’re texting like a lolcat.

  Pissed.

  For Fabio to admit to being drunk, he must be off his face. I dial his number.

  ‘Where are you, mate?’ I ask.

  ‘Bar Aloha,’ he answers in a slurred voice.

  ‘I’m coming to get you.’

  ‘No need…’

  ‘I want a drink too.’

  I end the call before he has time to object. Fabio and his dad, Angelo, never got along. Fabio is an only child. His mum died of breast cancer when he was ten. If you think that brought father and son closer to each other, think again. Angelo is old school, straight back, chest out, iron discipline, God and family, which Fabio is so not, and mixing them together is like dropping water on frying oil. The fact that Fabio makes a living taking pictures of scantily dressed ladies doesn’t help – once I overheard Angelo say to a friend that Tony, bless him, didn’t choose to be sick, but what is my son’s excuse? For real.

  I make it to Portodimare just after midnight, to find Fabio emptying what must be the latest of many glasses of rum. In Salento, they don’t believe in shots – you drink like you eat, like it’s a competition. ‘Tony,’ he welcomes me. When Fabio gets pissed, he does his best to put on the dignified face and voice of a schoolteacher.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ I say.

  Fabio uses my arm to prop himself up. ‘I’m on my Vespa.’

  ‘I won’t let you drive, buddy.’

  With him leaning on my shoulder, we totter away from the bar. ‘You can drink and drive here,’ he mumbles. ‘This is Southern Italy, where men are real men and they drink and they…’

  ‘What do you know about real men, dude? A couple of glasses and you’re pissed.’

  He pushes me back. ‘Hey! I’m the realest man of all, am I. See? I can stand on my own feet.’ He staggers. He stumbles. And just like that he throws up. The vomit gets all over his trousers. I spring back too late. Some of it lands on my shoes.

  ‘What the fuck,’ I laugh.

  Fabio isn’t laughing. His eyes are welling up. He lets himself fall to the ground, ass on the dirt. He takes his head in his hands and starts sobbing.

  I’m not sure what to do. I never know what to do when people start crying. I can slice their chest open, no sweat, and clean up their arse, but I’m useless at wiping tears. I sit at Fabio’s side, in the dirt, and wrap an arm around his shoulder, kind of. ‘What’s wrong?’

  His voice is a little firmer when he says, ‘My father.’

  ‘What’s his problem?’

  ‘Alzheimer’s.’

  Bam. I wish I wasn’t a doctor. That way, it’s possible I wouldn’t know how exactly final a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is. I might believe cancer is worse, or HIV, but I don’t have that luxury. Angelo will die a ghastly death. He will lose his mind, and soul, and it might take years upon years before he’s lucky enough to flatline. I know shit happens, but it doesn’t make it any easier to take it when it happens to a friend. ‘I’m sorry, man,’ I say, fully aware of how little help that is.

  ‘He’s still lucid, more or less. He was waiting for me to come this year, to tell me in person. And I didn’t…’ he stops. ‘I’m a fucker.’

  ‘It was never easy between you two. At least you can afford to give him all the help he needs.’

  Fabio scoffs. ‘My ass.’

  ‘Your job…’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of a name, doesn’t mean I’ve got cash.’ He pauses. He jerks his shoulders. He looks like he’s going to be sick again, but he manages not to. ‘I’m broke. You know how much a photographer makes? Think a very small sum and halve it. Then halve it again. Every brain-dead kid with an iPhone can take photos.’

  ‘Crappy photos.’

  ‘Magazines will eat crap as long as it comes cheap. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’ve got enough cash for the next four months, if that, then I’ll need to serve tables or I don’t know what. All I have in my
name is Google hits, and that means fuck all.’

  My mouth goes slack. I wish I could make him stop. To me, Fabio is a symbol of the things you can accomplish when you’ve got brains and guts, which he has, in spades. Every last person in Casalfranco went out of their way to convince him that being a photographer was a stupid idea, that grown-ups need real jobs, with sick leave and steady pay cheques. My mate didn’t yield, and he came out on top. That story was important to me. It meant you can take a stand against what people say, and do your thing. Turns out maybe you can’t.

  ‘Oh fuck, why are we doing this?’ he says, between sobs. ‘Don’t tell Mauro. Please, don’t tell Mauro, no, don’t tell anybody that I…’

  ‘It’s all right, man,’ I say, tugging him tighter. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Don’t tell anybody,’ he mutters. ‘Don’t tell.’

  7

  Elena lives in a newly built house. When we were small the roads in this part of town weren’t paved; now there’s a tobacconist and a grocer, and some villas. Elena’s sits in a wrap-around garden larger than she’d need, with palm trees, fruit trees and prickly pears, scattered in a studiously casual way. It gives off a new-rich vibe, in a style that came into fashion in the noughties and Art dubbed Narco-Chic. I hate to say that in my sister’s case that is not wide of the mark. Elena buzzes me in.

  Her husband Rocco is waiting in the garden, his arms open wide, a bright smile on his face. ‘Hey, Tony!’ he welcomes me. He kisses me on both cheeks and gives me a bear hug. He’s my age, leaner than me, but as strong. When we were boys we fought a lot, playing, sort of. Behind him is Elena, with long chestnut hair and the exuberant figure of the women in my family. Her belly is round as a football. Both her hands rest lovingly on it. Three years of marriage, a baby on its way, and she has lost nothing of her shine; another thing I hate to say is that she’s happy with Rocco. She too hugs and kisses me.

  ‘My handsome brother. I’m so happy you managed to come!’