The Book of Hidden Things
Page 20
‘Who are you calling?’
‘Emergency.’
‘No.’
‘What?’
‘Only if it’s… absolutely necessary.’
‘I know what you’re thinking, but…’
‘Is it necessary?’
My gut says – not at all. Not if I get the right tools. ‘Are you sure?’ I ask.
Mauro nods. He’s losing a lot of blood, getting weaker by the second. There’s no time for debate. I rip off my t-shirt and press it against the wound. I run to where we left the car, open the rear door, and run back. ‘Still alive?’ I ask.
‘For now,’ Mauro manages to say.
I push my arms under his body and lift. He’s lighter than I expected. I drag him to the car, quick but not too quick, to cause minimum distress.
‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘The best surgeon on this beach is on your case.’ I don’t know if he can still hear my words, but I can, and I need all the reassuring I can get.
I slip Mauro onto the back seat, as delicately as possible, and close the door. I run to the driver’s seat, stick the keys in, and start the car. I’ll have to go easy on the brakes. Or Mauro’s body will roll off the backseat. That’d be a laugh.
I keep one hand on the wheel, speed-dial Elena’s number with the other.
‘Hey, big brother,’ she answers.
‘Listen: do you have a friendly doctor?’
There’s a pause on the other end, then Elena asks, in a voice suddenly serious, ‘You need one now?’
‘I need his tools.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I’m coming to yours if that’s okay.’
‘Sure,’ my sister says, and there is no pause this time.
‘Can we keep this between you and me? Rocco too, but nobody else.’
‘Sure,’ she repeats.
I close the call and immediately dial Fabio’s number. I wait and wait, but he doesn’t pick up. I try again. The phone’s switched off.
What the fuck is wrong with that man?
2
Rocco helps me to carry Mauro inside. He holds Mauro’s legs the right way, and does not let the body rock. He has done this sort of thing before. Mauro is still conscious, but he’s not strong enough to talk. We carry him to a room on the ground floor, where a camp bed has been prepared, with a clean white sheet on it. Good thinking. Professional thinking. Elena is waiting for us with a brown medical bag. She appraises Mauro’s condition with the coldness of a doctor, without saying a word – there’ll be time to talk later. Rocco and I lay Mauro on the bed, and she hands me the bag.
‘I hope that’s everything you need.’
I open it and glance inside: yes, there’s everything. Not that I doubted that. ‘Leave me alone.’ They can’t help me. It’d take longer to explain what to do than do it myself.
Rocco and Elena leave, closing the door behind them.
And I’m on my own with a friend whose life I’m gambling. I took a beastly risk: Mauro didn’t travel in an ambulance, this is not an operating theatre, and I don’t have a team with me. I’m good though. More than good.
Silvana didn’t know how to use a gun, and guns have this quality; if you don’t know how to use them, they’ll kill when you don’t mean to, and won’t when you’re out for blood. I learnt that doing night shifts in the emergency room in Rome. People think guns are magic wands for killing, but you need skill to make them work, and luck, as with everything else in life.
I take a few more moments to clear my mind. The body on the bed is not a friend’s, it’s a lump of meat, an engine needing some tough love. It’s an object that I am here to repair. Other doctors cultivate finely tuned detective skills. Other doctors think and discuss and have the leisure of time. But us surgeons? We are fixers, mechanics with a butcher’s attitude. We don’t debate the finer points of diagnostics. We get shit done.
I grab a disposable scalpel, rip its sterile bag open, and get to work.
3
An operation is an act of intimacy. The first time I conducted an operation on my own, from start to finish, I felt something disturbingly close to sexual arousal, and I ended up – I kid you not – with an erection. I was disgusted with myself. I thought it indicated something fucked inside me. I debated whether I should confess it to Dr Costa, the old surgeon who was my mentor at the hospital, and in the end, I decided to give it a go. When I awkwardly confessed my boner, he laughed. It happens to many of the good ones, he said. It took me some time to understand why. When you operate on someone, you must synch your rhythm to theirs; you must understand how their body works, and also, to some extent, how the soul in the body works. The ghost in the machine is still part of the machine. Take two patients the same age, the same weight, the same clinical history, with the same ailment, and they will react differently on the table. It’s a lot like sex. And I poke and thrust and penetrate, and I’ve got to be completely there, all other thoughts forgotten. The main difference being, while in sex you can let yourself go, that’s not an option in surgery, where you can’t trust your patient, you can only trust yourself. Your patient is a machine with a sleeping ghost inside; you, and only you, are in control.
It’s awkward to be intimate in this way with Mauro.
I get a cannula in and inject him with tranexamic acid, to stop the bleeding. He finds enough strength to give a yell when I pop out the bullet. I check for internal damage until I’m ready to swear there is none. I disinfect the wound and sew it closed. As I stitch, I pray, using the stitches as the beads of a rosary. I appeal to the Santi Cosma and Damiano, patrons of doctors. I appeal to Sant’Anthony, my namesake. I appeal to Mary, and to Our Lord and His Son Jesus. Mauro is a good man; and yes, bad things happen to good people, but I’m begging you guys. I’ve seen enough of that.
Mauro flakes out while I clean the wound. Nothing to worry about. I take a chair and drag it to the bed. In the bag, there’s everything I need for a blood transfusion. I am O–, the universal donor; The ultimate blood group for a doctor, Art joked. Probably Mauro won’t need a transfusion, but it’s good to know that’s an option.
I use a sleeve to swipe the sweat from my forehead. I rip open a wet towel bag with my teeth, and use a few towels to wipe most of the blood off my hands. Then I fish out my phone and check the time. It’s less than an hour since we got here. It might as well be ten minutes or ten years; time freezes when I’m operating, as it does when I’m having sex. I speed-dial Fabio’s number. Nothing again.
I leave a voicemail. I’ve still got my phone in my hand when it vibrates and goes bling with a Facebook message.
It’s Silvana.
4
How is he?
I stare at the screen. The nerve this bitch has. Keep calm, Mauro would say. Keep calm and think. Imagining being able to reach at her through the screen and kick her ass all the way to the Carabinieri won’t help. I answer the message with my number – and wait, my eyes fixed on the phone as if it were a rabid dog.
The moment the ringtone goes off, I answer.
‘What the fuck?’
Silence on the other side. Then, ‘Is he alive? The man I… shot, is he alive?’
‘The fuck you care?’
I hear sobs choked back, and Silvana’s broken voice says, ‘Please, please, did he die? Oh my God, did I kill him?’
‘No,’ I say, ‘he’ll be fine.’
‘Jesus, thank you,’ she whispers. The relief in her voice is palpable.
I breathe in and out. I shouldn’t be too hard on her. She’s young, and nuts, and a victim of Art. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘I don’t know what you want from me.’
‘We’re Art’s best mates. Tony, Mauro, and there’s Fabio too. Art never mentioned us?’
‘He didn’t talk about his life. It wasn’t my role to ask.’
My role. My mind flies to the BDSM dungeon in the trullo. ‘Were you Art’s… slave?’ I ask. It’s blunt, but this girl shot my mate. She can take it.
> She hesitates, then says, ‘Yes, I had that honour. I loved him. I… I still love him.’
Everything goes between consenting adults. Silvana’s old enough to qualify as an adult, but she’s also nuts enough not to qualify as consenting. I need to forget what this girl did to Mauro and think about what Art might have done to her, and muster some pity. ‘How did you guys meet?’
‘When he came to talk to Mum, he mentioned he was going to start selling weed to get by. He became my dealer.’
‘Wait, wait. Art talked to your mum? What for?’
‘His masterwork.’
‘The Book of Hidden Things. I read the introduction.’
‘You’ve got to read it all to understand.’
‘I’d love to, but I don’t have all of it. I heard you do. We could meet and…’
She scoffs. ‘Is that a trap?’ she says. ‘Is that a fucking trap?’ she shouts.
I wish I’d specialised in psychiatry, so that I’d know how to deal with nutcases and wouldn’t be swinging between wanting to head-butt this girl and give her the warmest hug I can. ‘You know what happened to Art, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she replies.
‘And you’re afraid because of that.’
She doesn’t answer.
‘We can protect you,’ I say.
She forces a laugh. ‘You can’t even see them!’
‘Who? The… the Hidden Things?’
‘Sssst!’ She pauses. ‘Fuck off, twat,’ she says. ‘Come looking for me and I’ll kill you all.’ She ends the call.
I immediately try to call her back. Her phone is disconnected. I let out a cry of frustration and draw back my arm to throw my mobile at the wall. I stop just in time. This is not the moment to go haywire. I dial Fabio’s number once more, but once more it goes straight to voicemail.
And I start worrying.
FABIO
1
Anna makes me come inside her. The feeling of connection is so intense it is almost an orgasm in itself. She laughs. She is too honest to pretend to be coming as well. I roll on one side, only for the space of a breath. Then I gather my strength, ignore the sleepy grip already sneaking up on me, and roll back on top of her, pinning her to the bed. I use every inch of my body, my tongue, my fingers, my knees, to pleasure and worship her. And finally, when my joints are shivering and my muscles are letting me down, I sense a tremor running through her body. I have buried my head between her legs; I look up to see her face, her teeth biting her lips to stifle a shout coming not from her throat, but from her entire being. I sink my head again and keep licking her, slow circles on her clitoris, and she shakes so violently that I have to grab her ass with both hands and hold tight to stay in place, and I keep going, and I keep licking, occasionally sucking her small lips, until her movements get slower, and I hear her breathe out, and she loosens up in my hands and under my tongue.
I am ready to go again. In five minutes, I will.
For now, I crawl next to her and let myself fall on her side, skin to skin, and I kiss her mouth, the merging of our sweat as exciting as the merging of all other fluids.
‘Can you do that all over again?’ Anna says, with a laugh.
I stick out my tongue. ‘I can’t feel it anymore,’ I say, keeping the tongue out, so that my words sound all strange.
Anna grabs my hand, brings it between her legs. ‘Use that, then.’
It is mad. The south is mad, with its lavish sun setting hormones on fire. We know that being in bed together is an awful, awful thing we are doing, and this is the last time we will ever do it, so we are dragging the moment out as long as we can. Tomorrow Anna and I will still be alive, as people, but we, the awesome entity we make with our naked bodies joined in fucking – that will be dead. We will be dead and we mean to burn bright before that.
So I stick a finger inside Anna, and I close her lips with mine, and stop her tongue with mine, to stop her crying out loud, to stop her waking her and Mauro’s girls.
2
Time is a blur of kisses, skin, and the occasional drink of water.
Anna asks me, ‘What time is it?’
We are getting our breath back, lightly stroking each other’s body, not losing physical contact for a moment. ‘I don’t know.’
Anna frowns, hauling herself up on the bed. ‘Do know, then. They were coming back. The scene would be… awkward.’
She’s right. She’s always right. I roll out of bed and take my phone. I switch it on. ‘It’s past one.’
Anna jumps up. ‘I thought it was midnight at most!’
Tony’s call was more than two hours ago. If he and Mauro were not on their way back, why did he call me? The phone finds a signal, and receives the notification of a voicemail from Tony’s number. I dial voicemail.
‘Where are you, man?’ Tony’s frantic voice asks. ‘We have a problem. It’s Mauro. It’s… don’t get worked up, nothing’s out of control, but come ASAP. We are at my sister’s.’ He gives the address. ‘If Anna calls you,’ he adds, ‘tell her you didn’t hear from us. There’s a couple of things we have to work out.’
‘Was that Mauro?’ Anna asks. She is putting her knickers back on. Our night is over; we are already dead, me and her. ‘Fabio? Was that Mauro?’
I don’t know what to say.
TONY
1
Fabio rings at the door. Only, when I open it, it’s not Fabio I see, it’s Anna, and she is pissed off.
‘What happened to my husband?’
‘I…’
She puts me aside, gently but firmly, and steps in, repeating, ‘What happened to my husband?’
‘Where’s Fabio?’
‘Home, with the girls. Tony, tell me what happened to my husband. Now.’
Fucking Fabio. I told him to keep his mouth shut with Anna. If you can’t trust your mates, then who?
‘He’s alive,’ I say, and immediately switch from cursing Fabio to cursing myself. He’s alive is only good news to doctors. For the rest of the population, alive is what you’re supposed to be. ‘He got shot,’ I explain, ‘but he’s fine.’
‘How can one get shot and be fine?’ Anna is calm, like a calm ocean under which a kraken is curling its tentacles.
‘The bullet didn’t touch any organs, or bones. I stopped the bleeding, cleaned the wound, and stitched it. He’s not at risk, Anna. He’ll wake up just fine.’
She’s pale, and her hair is a mess, as if she jumped out of bed and drove straight here, which is probably what she did, after that dick of my mate spilled the beans. Why did he have to do that?
‘I want to see him,’ she says.
‘Sure.’
‘Why is he not in a hospital?’
‘Long story. It should be Mauro to tell it.’
She replies, glacially, ‘And instead, it’s going to be you.’
2
Mauro’s asleep, and, like all people when they sleep, he looks young and helpless. I have noticed this at the hospital: in bed, an eighty-year-old man can look like a boy, the same childish expression on his face, the same trust that the world won’t hurt him. Anna’s eyes rest on the linen stained red. I open the window; the room smells of blood.
‘You promise he’s all right?’ she whispers.
‘I wouldn’t take chances with his life.’
She knows me well enough to trust me on this. She leans over Mauro and pecks him on one cheek. Then she leaves the room, and I follow.
Elena and Rocco are in the kitchen, making coffee and panini with salami and gherkins (Sirocco makes bread flabby, so they are toasting it). Theirs is a large, modern kitchen, with chromium-plated appliances and cabinets made of solid oak wood, in a ‘rustic’ design that couldn’t be more different from what you’d find in a real rustic household like Art’s. The dining table is oak too, and the chairs. Bundles of herbs are hung to dry under the spice rack, the only detail that resembles our mum’s kitchen. ‘Thank you, sis,’ I say.
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘Tony…’ Anna says.
‘I know, I know. Give me a moment to gather my thoughts.’
There are not many. Her husband had a brush with one of the most dangerous criminal organisations in the world, because of me, and then got shot, because of me. I owe her the truth. As for Art’s disappearance, reading the introduction to his book put a couple of ideas in my mind, of the barmy type, and those I don’t have to share.
‘I’ll give you the whole story,’ I say. And I do. I tell her everything since the moment when the story as she knows it started diverging from the story as it is – when we went to the Dance of the Swords and met Michele. I tell her of Silvana. I tell her that reading the introduction to The Book of Hidden Things made me want to meet the girl.
‘Why?’ Anna asks, coldly. ‘What did you find in it?’
‘It’s not easy to say.’ Bollocks. It’s only that I’d sound insane if I tried. ‘There is something about it, which made me think…’ I pause. ‘In the chapter I read, Art promises he’ll reveal further in the book what happened to him when he went missing, and Silvana read the whole book.’ It is a half-truth, and half is better than nothing.
‘And you wanted to hear what she had to say, whatever the cost.’
I bow my head. ‘We had no reason to believe the girl would be dangerous. No reason at all.’
‘Why, because she looks cute?’
That doesn’t need an answer.
‘I’m sorry,’ Anna says, after a long silence.
‘You have every right to be upset.’
‘I feel for that poor girl, I truly do. She wasn’t well before meeting your friend, and I can’t imagine what he could have possibly done to her.’
Me neither. I suspect I’ve only skimmed the surface, during my brief call with Silvana. ‘She says she knows what happened to Art.’
‘I don’t care, Tony. This story ends now. Are you sure that going to the Carabinieri is not an option?’