‘How do you want me?’ she says.
‘Do you need to ask?’
She smirks, and takes off her hat, and I remember how I felt that first time, when Marta D’Antonio dropped her bra. Anna slips out of her long, gypsy-style gown and pulls off her tank top. She is in a bikini now, the same she was wearing on the beach the other day, with her husband and children; but here, even that bikini has a touch of the forbidden.
‘I am going to use these pictures in the book, you know that.’
‘You can stop saying that.’
‘I worry for your career.’
She brings her hands behind her back to undo her bikini top. ‘The rector is a sexist pig, but he’s not stupid enough to say so much as a word about a full tenured professor doing what she likes with her body.’
How can you not fall in love with such a woman?
Her bra drops to the ground. Her nipples are only slightly darker than the clear skin surrounding them. I have seen hundreds of naked girls, and I have seen Anna naked, but there is always something magical about the moment when your eyes touch nipples running free; nipples are a door from one world to another, from the grey of the everyday to a place of enchantment. Anna wiggles out of her knickers, and now she is naked, with that eternal smile on her lips.
‘You’re ravishing,’ I say. I lift my sunglasses onto my head; I need to see the natural colour of the light.
She replies, ‘I know.’
I’m aroused. That happens often when I work. My love for boobs, and bums, and legs, has never waned. Beauty is not something you get accustomed to, and no beauty in the universe is a match for a naked woman’s. I say this with no shame or guilt. I admit that I became a photographer to get girls to undress, but I grew up into a professional, and I learnt (though not without mistakes) where my responsibility lies: I am the one who communicates that beauty, the one who makes it eternal and mobile, transmitting it to other places, to future generations. I want to be aroused when I see my models naked. I channel that energy through the camera, and I fix it forever in my work. Arousal is a natural answer to beauty, it is a beautiful thing in itself.
After what I found out about my father, having Anna naked with me, and a camera in my hands, is like finding a pool of fresh water when you have lost your way in a desert.
‘Turn,’ I say. I don’t waste time with please and thank you on set; I’m not a dick like some other snappers, but I convey empathy through my movements, not my words. The less we speak, the more the model and I can focus on creating something together. A good session is a lot like sex; you don’t want to talk much.
We go on for more than an hour, with some short pauses to refresh ourselves with ice tea. Seen through my camera lens, Anna is even more beautiful than I remembered. The small stretch marks on her belly and bum talk of a life fully lived; of wine and dinners with friends, of her children, and of the effort she made to get back in shape after having them. Anna is a woman who values her beauty without being obsessed by it. She should be on the cover of my book. She should probably write the introduction.
At one point, I know the session is over; I can’t explain the feeling but I have come to respect it. And yet I don’t want to stop. When I say those words, We’re done, Anna will put her clothes back on, she will cover her nipples, and I will feel like all magic has been drained from the world never to come back. Anna is Mauro’s wife. Lara waits for me in London.
Two simple truths I must not forget.
‘We’re done,’ I say.
3
We sit in the shade of one of the lonely carob trees, its thick trunk exposing its old age. Anna has put her bikini back on, and only that; even under the shade, it is too hot to get dressed. I have my jeans on, but have abandoned my t-shirt.
‘Did you get any good shots?’ she asks.
‘Some are going to be brilliant.’
‘Your modesty is impressive.’
‘I was complimenting the model.’
We sit on a towel, eating sandwiches with Parma ham and mozzarella. Anna brought an ice bag, which stood against the attack of the sun and kept the bottles satisfyingly cold. Drinking beer under this sun is not wise; it will only make us feel even warmer and sweat more. But right now, it is too intensely pleasurable for us to care.
‘To Mauro,’ I say, clinking my bottle against Anna’s, ‘for taking care of the girls this morning.’
‘Considering how often he’s left me alone with them during this holiday, it was the least he could do,’ she says. ‘This was supposed to be a family trip, not a mates’ week away.’
‘We kind of ruined it.’
Anna shrugs with a small laugh. There are at least three layers to what she’s saying. Superficially, she is complaining, and on a deeper level she is just kidding. There is a third layer, though, one only visible to a person who knows her well, where real anger lies. While I was snapping, I noticed something in Anna which I didn’t remember ever seeing in her before. A discontent. A trace of disappointment.
‘Mauro thinks Art…’ her voice trails off. ‘I’m sorry, perhaps you don’t want to talk about it.’
‘It’s on my mind too.’
‘Mauro thinks Art is dead.’
‘I tend to agree,’ I say. ‘Though I still hope for a miracle. It might end like last time.’
‘But how did it end last time? Art told a story to the town, a different one to you guys.’
‘I reckon he was lying in both cases.’
‘I always wondered why you didn’t press him for the truth.’
‘We didn’t want the truth.’ I swallow a good mouthful of beer. ‘Once we knew it, we would have had to do something with it, and we were too scared to go there. We should have.’
‘You were kids.’
‘If we’d been better friends, Art would be with us now.’
Sweat glistens on Anna’s skin. ‘Mauro told me about the healing too.’
‘What do you make of it?’
‘I consider myself a rationalist, but it is strange. The way Mauro talks of the night Art disappeared, it almost feels like it was… supernatural, can I use that word? Not that he puts it like that, but the sense is there. And now, the healing.’
‘Said the rationalist.’
She shrugs.
I say, ‘To be honest? I’ve played with the idea that there could be something not of this world about Art’s vanishing.’ It is a relief to say it out loud, without worrying about being laughed at. ‘Did Mauro tell you of the cry Art made as he went into the olive grove?’
‘Yes.’
‘We could never agree on what it meant. I thought it was fear, Mauro thought it was anger, and Tony…’ I shake my head. ‘Tony thought it was, hear this, joy. How odd is that? There were other things too. When Art turned up at my door, his clothes were clean. The kidnapper took the trouble to do his victim’s laundry? And Art, after he returned, he was every bit as clever as before, but even more… self-absorbed.’ I pause to finish my sandwich. ‘So, yeah, I played with the idea of magic. You know what happened that changed my mind?’
‘What?’ I have Anna’s full attention; it is a deeply erotic feeling, one that, if I were Master of the World, I would rule never to end.
‘I grew up. And I learnt that devils, and ghouls, and all the things that go bump in the night, are excuses we make up to tell ourselves that there is something worse than us, something darker than human beings.’
‘How very angsty of you.’ Anna sips her beer, gracefully lifting her neck. ‘You suspect the priest.’
‘It’s him.’
‘May I ask you something personal?’
‘You and I just went as personal as it gets.’
‘Why do you hate religion so much?’
She doesn’t ask, Did something happen with Don Alfredo? But I know that is the question she is really asking. ‘Don Alfredo never got close to my willy, if that’s what you mean,’ I say, getting a laugh out of her. ‘No, it goes back to when my mother
died. I was ten, and desperate. It was so sudden – she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and four months later,’ I snap my fingers, ‘she was gone.’
Anna knows this story. What she doesn’t know is what happened next.
‘There was one day when I was crying, not making a scene, mind, just crying in my room, and Don Alfredo came around, entered without knocking, with my father, and said, You shouldn’t cry, because your mother is with our Lord Jesus Christ. And my father said, Listen to Don Alfredo.’
‘They were trying to help.’
I scoff. ‘And then Don Alfredo added, If you keep on crying, that’ll be a sin. Jesus Christ called your mum and you shouldn’t question the will of Jesus, or he’ll send you to Hell.’
Anna opens her eyes wide. ‘Son of a bitch.’
‘I was speechless. I was so surprised I did stop crying, for the moment. I looked at my father, and he was staring adoringly at Don Alfredo. That gave me such a shock, like an electric shock, you know? I found my voice again, and you know what I said? I said, Better in Hell than with Jesus and you pricks.’
Anna bursts into laughter again. ‘Sorry I asked,’ she says.
But I am laughing too, opening another beer. ‘My father never forgave me.’ My father. Who was expecting me to come this year to tell me he is dying. ‘I don’t believe in God, Anna. If he existed, though, I’d rather be damned in Hell than spend eternity with a smug, omnipotent bully.’
‘Mauro didn’t tell me this story.’
‘I only ever told Art. Mauro and Tony wouldn’t have understood. Not that I’m saying that your husband is stupid or…’
‘I know what you’re saying.’
She bends to get another beer from the ice bag, and I have a flashback of her body, naked, swaying for my camera, and I struggle to refrain myself from making another terrible mistake.
‘A secret for a secret,’ she says. ‘Do you remember the first time we dated?’
I smile. ‘That night when Art and I crushed Tony and Mauro at table football, before you made the clever choice and picked Mauro. You and your mate… what was her name?’
‘Rita.’
‘Rita, yes. You guys said you’d be our hooligans.’
‘It was Art’s idea. He’d sensed that I found you cute, and told me that you were too dumb to make the first move, so I should. And I protested that it didn’t work that way, that it had to be the boy. Art replied, What does it matter? She makes a pause. That what does it matter changed my life, in more than one way. Actually, what did it matter? Being a boy, being a girl, doing girl’s things – it was all rubbish. I could ask out Fabio the Hot Southerner if I wanted to. I could study physics. I could do whatever I wanted. To make my plans less obvious I asked Rita to root for Tony and Mauro’s team. She agreed – for a strawberry lipstick. Funny I still remember that.’
‘So that’s how everything starts,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Art and Art and Art again.’
‘I hope Mauro’s wrong. Art deserves better than dying crazy and alone.’
I don’t speak for a while, basking in the presence of Anna, and the comfort of the beer. ‘Do you ever wonder what would have happened?’ I say. ‘If that night Mauro had succeeded in kissing Rita and…’
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘I don’t feel bad about what we did,’ I say, and it’s almost as if someone else is speaking, a creature made of fire.
‘Me neither,’ Anna says, after a while. ‘We needed to get it out of our system.’
‘I’m not sure I got it out of mine though,’ I say, ignoring my better part, which was shouting at me to shut up, to not go into the most dangerous territory there is.
Anna looks at me. ‘Me neither,’ she says.
MAURO
1
I am having the time of my life.
There, I admitted it, thereby certifying myself as a bona fide Dreadful Person. It had to be done. I have learnt from bitter experience in court that you can lie to everybody but yourself, because when you lie to yourself, all you do is train yourself to believe in lies, which makes it easier for your opponents to feed you theirs. Honesty, like sex, is a private affair. I am sad for Art, of course, and I try not to think about what might have happened to him. Notwithstanding: great time. For once I have something that goes beyond taxes, nappies and Peppa Pig. I feel like an old trinket which was gathering dust on a shelf, until someone bought it, and dusted it, and gave it a new lease of life. That someone being Art.
I asked him once why he doesn’t believe in God. He said, I don’t like the idea of a being more powerful than me.
I wonder what Concetta Pecoraro would make of it. She was famous for a while when we were children, and that peaked during Art’s disappearance, but then his reappearance put an abrupt end to her career. She must have saved something from her salad days though, because her older son still drives a Mercedes – a white Mercedes. It is parked in front of the house where mum and son live cheek to cheek, in the middle of a small vineyard at the edge of Casalfranco.
‘Yeah, that’s the car,’ Tony says. We left ours at a little distance to walk here – the road is not exactly isolated, but it is not very busy either, and we didn’t want to alert Concetta to our presence.
Tony, hands in his pockets and aviator sunglasses on his nose, is looking at the Mercedes. Everybody in town knows that his brother-in-law has friends, which should discourage people from acting hastily. Or not, depending on how clever said people are. What Tony refuses to understand, even after it was spelled out at the Dance of the Swords, is that it is not his brother-in-law having friends, it is his sister. Elena is the boss of the house, and also, she is more than ‘well connected’ with the Corona, she is Corona herself. I can’t say I’m surprised. From what I remember of Elena, the sweet little girl Tony fondly looks back on never existed in the first place. She is only slightly less dangerous than Michele; but I guess we can count on her being on our side.
Fabio pushes the gate open. I have vague recollections of seeing the vineyard on TV in the late eighties, when I was little and Concetta was a local celebrity. It is tiny, just a glorified garden, really. It was known then as the Blessed Vineyard; they said that each of its grapes contained the blood of Christ. The grapes didn’t need a priest, and not even to be made into wine, to be transubstantiated. You could just pluck one, gobble it, and there you go – you had your communion, and a special one at that, for the grapes were supposed to taste like true blood. The Virgin Mary in person had granted the grace. She had appeared to Concetta bringing some major spiritual messages, and the two of them had got along like a house on fire, so much so that Mary promised to come back regularly. That’s how Concetta cobbled together a mystical start-up. Once a month Mary would appear in the vineyard, making herself visible only to Concetta, and give Concetta platitudes about peace on earth and the necessity for people to donate money to Concetta herself, for the greater good. The money would allow Concetta to pray full-time, and so bring peace on earth sooner rather than later (apparently the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost all held Concetta’s prayers in the highest regard). Concetta would repeat Mary’s words verbatim and cash in. On the evidence of Concetta’s visions the Virgin had a shaky grasp of theology and grammar, and was quite mindful of the state of her friend’s bank account. The clergy wasn’t impressed; a lot of folks were.
The bishop issued a statement declaring that Concetta wasn’t, in fact, seeing the Virgin, or anybody else for that matter, and that she would be excommunicated if she were to continue to say otherwise. There was nothing miraculous about her grapes, and moreover Concetta was committing mortal sin by giving communion to the faithful without properly blessed wine, and without being a priest, and without an ecclesiastical authorisation.
Concetta replied that she got her authorisation directly from the Virgin Mary and carried on unfazed.
It was kind of fun, except for the poor gulls who became poorer because of Concetta. Don Alfredo did his best to back the bishop, but a l
ot of people in town took Concetta’s side. They kept eating her grapes and throwing their money at her. At the height of her success, a single grape from Concetta’s vineyard would set you back as much as a dinner in a good restaurant. Concetta paid her fees to the Corona, and nobody bothered her. She would have lived happily for ever after, if it hadn’t been for Art.
2
A TV is playing at full volume inside, a talent show in which a man with no talent is mauling ‘Stand by Me’ in a Venetian accent. I knock politely. The show goes on, nobody answers.
‘Excuse me,’ I say. I try the door, which is open. ‘Signora Pecoraro?’
A few coughs, then a croaky voice. ‘Yes?’
I walk in, followed by Tony and Fabio.
‘Who’s there?’ the voice asks.
We follow it without replying. Concetta sits in a square living room, which is clean and tidy, except for the thick cloud of cigarette smoke. She looks a hundred years older than in the pictures I googled this morning, and at least a hundred kilos heavier. What little is left of her hair is dyed an artificial brown and backcombed to make it look bigger than it is. It gives her the appearance of a decaying prop from the set of a low-budget horror film. She doesn’t seem to recognise us. I would pity her if I hadn’t met so many hustlers of her kind.
‘We are friends of Art,’ I say.
Concetta opens her eyes wide, coughs, and takes a drag from her cigarette. ‘Art who?’
‘Arturo Musiello: you know who.’
‘That little shit.’
‘He’s not little anymore.’
‘A big shit then.’ She coughs. ‘I know who Art is and I know who you are.’
I fold my arms. We have agreed that we need to look like we mean business, but it is an old lady we are dealing with here. Tony and Fabio are queasy. I am not. I am a lawyer.
The Book of Hidden Things Page 14