‘The Corona said no. Means no.’
‘Then call this Michele, please. Immediately.’
‘I’ll have to talk to the guys first. There might be a fallout, one way or the other, and…’
Anna says, ‘Make the fucking call.’
FABIO
1
‘Where’s Mummy?’
The voice startles me awake. It takes me a moment to remember whether the older girl is Ottavia or Rebecca. ‘Hi, Rebecca,’ I say, tentatively.
She pouts. ‘I’m Ottavia.’
‘Of course you are.’ The girl found me sleeping at the kitchen table. I’d sat here precisely not to fall asleep, but it is too muggy to stay awake. ‘Mum and Dad went out for a walk. They left me here to watch after you.’
Ottavia yawns and glances at the darkness beyond the window. ‘It’s late. Where did they go for a walk this late?’
I’m not good with children. I raise both my eyebrows in what I hope will be a mysterious face and say, ‘It is a secret walk.’
‘Did something bad happen?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I want to call my mummy then.’
I could argue and try to convince her to leave Anna in peace. And she could burst into tears, and wake up her little sister. Calming down two crying girls is vastly beyond my capacities.
I dial Anna’s number and offer the phone to the girl.
‘Mummy?’ she says.
They speak briefly, then Ottavia hands back the phone. I bring it to my ear and say, ‘Anna? Still there?’
‘On my way back,’ she replies, and rings off.
Ottavia’s mind is at rest now. She takes a cup of water, drinks it dry, then honours me with a goodnight peck on one cheek and goes back to bed. Her economy of movements would be the envy of a CEO; she is an almost too-perfect blend of Mauro and Anna.
I should feel guilty. The moment I close my eyes, though, I am back in bed with Anna, or I am picturing in my mind what might have happened to Mauro, or, disturbingly, the two things together. Desire and anxiety, that is all. I have no space left for guilt.
I hear the front door click open, and Anna’s steps.
‘Anna…’ I say, standing up.
‘Tony promised Mauro will be fine.’ She goes to the fridge, takes out a carton of orange juice, and drinks with an expression identical to her daughter’s.
‘What’s the situation?’
‘Silvana shot Mauro.’
‘Silvana?’
‘Tony patched him up and promised he will be fine,’ she repeats.
I don’t need to ask why they didn’t go to a hospital. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Anna puts the carton back and closes the fridge, with the calm gestures of someone who is making a great effort to keep her gestures calm. ‘What were you thinking? Getting involved with the Sacra Corona Unita, like a bunch of bloody teenagers!’
‘We were carried away. It was very… gradual.’
‘That’s how you screwed up your life, Fabio: gradually.’
That is spot on, and it hurts. ‘You’re right,’ I say, after a split second.
‘I’m not blaming you more than I blame Mauro. I want to be clear on that. And I see how you all could get caught up in this little game. But it was stupid.’
‘A little.’
‘The three of you, under the spell of Art, even after he’s dead.’ Anna shakes her head, and puts her car keys on the table. ‘Go, they’re waiting for you.’
‘What for?’
‘Michele is coming.’
2
At the sight of Mauro’s body, guilt finally starts to creep in. I was fucking his wife while he was being shot. He was fighting to stay alive, with Tony at his side, and I had my head between Anna’s legs. Now he is a small thing in another bed, not his own, surrounded by blood, his own. Even though my rational mind knows there is no connection between the two events, between full sex and near death, my gut begs to differ.
Tony rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘Mauro’s all right, considering.’
We seek asylum in the kitchen, drinking ice tea and waiting for Michele. The night is giving way to a hazy dawn when we hear a car outside. He has arrived. When Rocco opens the door for him, Michele pats Rocco on the cheek with a patronising joviality, and then hugs Elena. His hair is perfectly combed, his corduroy trousers crisp and clean. He acknowledges my presence with a swift movement of the chin, then turns to Tony. ‘Who died?’ he asks.
‘Nobody. Mauro got shot.’
‘The Serious One?’
Tony nods.
Michele asks, ‘Was it one of our boys?’
‘It’s more complicated than that.’
‘We’ll need a coffee, sì?’ Michele says with a genial face. ‘Elena, if you please…?’
Elena is already heading to the kitchen. ‘Of course.’ Rocco follows her in silence.
Tony, Michele and I sit down at the dining table, where Tony tells the story, succinctly, but leaving no details out. As a shadow, Elena comes in, leaves a tray with three cups of coffee and a pile of homemade biscuits, and leaves.
Michele sips his coffee, thoughtfully. ‘It’s a pity things went this way.’
‘Indeed,’ Tony concurs.
‘Do you have Art’s book with you?’
‘The introduction, yes.’
‘I’d love to read it.’
‘It’s yours. But, Michele, you won’t… like it.’
‘Why?’
‘When he wrote it, Art was even less keen on our Lord than I remembered.’
‘Art is a complicated man,’ Michele concedes. ‘What’s your take?’
‘I don’t have one.’
Michele finishes up his coffee, puts the cup back on the little plate and the plate back on the tray. ‘Don’t insult me. Please.’
Tony doesn’t reply.
I open my mouth. ‘I think—’
‘Did you read what Art wrote?’ Michele interrupts me.
‘No.’
‘So be a good boy and shut the fuck up.’
I wish I could hit this dancing master, but even I am smart enough to be scared of him.
Tony is fiddling with his hands, nervously crossing and uncrossing his fingers. He says, ‘You are a believer.’
Michele makes the sign of the cross, and tops it off by kissing his own fingers. ‘That I am.’
‘I think Art was too.’
‘You just said a different thing.’
‘No, I didn’t make myself clear. When we were kids, Art was a sceptic through and through. From what I read, though, I’m under the impression he went through a… how can I say… experience that changed his mind. He did believe, in his own way, though.’
‘And what sort of experience would that be?’
‘Whatever happened in the olive grove, Art implies it was something mystical, supernatural. Mind, he never spells it out in the section of the book I read, not openly, but it feels like that. You’ll understand when you read it. Silvana is a young girl with a history of mental illness. Art must have been spinning her all sorts of balls, to sleep with her, or… I don’t know.’
‘You’re not a teenage girl, and you’re convinced too.’
Tony shrugs. ‘Not convinced.’
Michele looks at him for a little longer, as if to make sure those are the last words he will extract from Tony, then he claps his hands once. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘I appreciate that you young men did as you were told. From this moment on, you don’t have to worry about a thing. I’m taking matters into my own hands.’
‘Don’t be hard on the girl. She’s not well.’
‘Don’t worry about a thing, Tony.’
He nods and says, ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re Elena’s brother,’ Michele says. ‘You’re family.’
3
As I drive back to Anna, my hands shake on the wheel, and I don’t know whether it’s because of the inordinate amount of caffeine which I have pumped into my bloodstream in th
e last twelve hours, or from the relief. Whatever happens from now on, we’re out.
Saints and Virgins and Jesus Christ. The level of craziness of all-things-Art has risen exponentially. We should have stopped investigating a long time ago, before anybody got shot. Before I betrayed a friend. I feel like Tony and I just gave our real farewell to Art. Mauro should have been with us. When he wakes up, we will make a toast to our mate, the three of us. This is the end of the Pact, the undoing of the last threads connecting me to the wide-eyed boy I was.
I try not to dwell on Silvana, a girl with mental issues who was used by our friend, and then left, by us, in the hands of the Corona. Michele’s definition of not too hard, I am sure, is not ours. I tell myself there is nothing we can do, and I hope I will convince myself, at some point, that it is true.
I leave the car with Anna, reassure her that our game of detectives is definitely over, and walk back home. The sky is heavy with clouds this morning. I smell a storm coming. It will start any minute – thunder is rolling in from the distance. Sirocco likes to end with a bang. After that the air will be clean, the wind will be gentler. I will return to real life.
Reality hits me jab after jab. I will have to talk to Lara after having cheated on her; I will have to understand my feelings for her. I will have to work out how to pay rent four months from now. I have to decide what to do with my life. But first, I have a friend to mourn. My generation got old fast. I did, at any rate.
I steal inside my father’s home and into my room. Its mementos feel more fake and wrong than ever. I tear off my trousers and my shirt, on which I smell not only my sweat, but Mauro’s blood, too, and Anna’s perfume. In my underpants, I crash on the bed. Lightning shines through my window, and, on cue, the storm begins. Heavy rain starts beating on the window glass, each drop as fat as a worm. I used to love storms. It was something Art said: They are perfect power. We felt like we could control that power, when we were young – harness the storm. We felt like we were immortal. I toss and turn, once, twice, and it is like a fairy-tale spell; I am certain that, at the third turn, I will fall asleep.
4
‘Fabio,’ my father’s imperious voice jolts me awake. His hand shakes me.
‘Can’t you bloody knock?’ I protest.
‘Come down. Your friend is at the door.’
Art! my half-asleep brain thinks. I have been so obsessed with him that I automatically associate the word friend with his name. If only. Art is dead, Mauro in a bed; it is Tony.
Two in the afternoon, and the storm outside is over. The sky is bright clear again, the air, thankfully, a little better. It is still hot, but not as oppressive. I slap on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and descend the staircase to the ground floor. My father could be gracious enough to let Tony in, but no, my only friend deserving his respect is Mauro. I open the door.
Art is there.
Art is there.
It takes me a long, breathless moment to recognise him – his prominent nose, his sticking-out ears, his glasses. He is thin, as he always was, and slightly stooping, as he always was – healthy, too, in good shape. I reach out to him. I touch his arm. It is flesh and bones, warm and sticky. Flesh and bones, what else?
‘Art?’ I ask. My voice is like a child’s who can’t tell whether he’s amazed or terrified.
Art beams at me. ‘Fabio, man,’ he says. ‘I’m back. I’ve come back to save you all.’
TONY
1
Storms are pure power, Art used to say. Or was it perfect power? He was something of a storm expert. He went through a phase in which he studied the shapes and names of clouds, and from there, he graduated to extreme weather conditions. He found out (and we found out with him, because when Art got himself a new hobby, he had to share every last detail with us) that storm-spotting was a thing, and a network of storm nerds existed, communicating mostly through amateur radio, fanzines and, for the lucky ones who lived in America Online land, newsgroups and e-mails – science-fictional gadgets to us. Storm-spotters would travel hundreds of miles just to see, and take records of, the most magnificent tempests. Art couldn’t afford to travel, and there were no other storm-spotters in Southern Italy to exchange notes with, so he contented himself with enlightening us on the delights of rain and thunder, and watching our local storms. Which are, if I may say so myself, not too shabby.
Lightning cracks outside. The rain is drumming on the large concertina door giving onto Elena’s garden. I’ve left the door slightly ajar, so as to let in the delicious smell of rain. It reminds me of when I was a boy and summer was an endless sequence of first experiences and shenanigans with my mates. I like where I am now – the only thing I miss is a steady boyfriend, and that, I am sure, will come. I like where I am, but I’d be lying if I said I never miss how it was then. Before two of my buddies got miserable and the third died, before my baby sister moved into a home built on blood money. I sit on a wicker chair, looking outside, all my energies spent. I loathe every minute I’ve got to stay between these walls.
The best storms come in summer, as a goodbye gift from Sirocco. Art’s favourite spot to watch them was the Sea Star, a bar on a beach in Portodimare. It shut long ago. It was tiny, painted blue, and erected without the least trace of planning permission. Its best feature was a veranda overlooking the sea, from where you could see the clouds making their way over the waves, cancelling the sun, huge and awe-inspiring as a rumbling mountain range. And you could see the lightning, not only its light, but its shape, sparkling magic blue light marrying the sky to the sea, both dressed in black. Not many people stayed at the Sea Star when a storm came; most went back home and waited for the weather to improve. The few who were too lazy to go moved inside, rather than linger on the veranda, where, you know, you could catch your death. The veranda was left as a private place for the four of us – and it was fantastic.
It was during a storm that Art did the only thing I ever saw him do which was authentically crazy, by any definition of the word. It was the end of August. The lightning cracked open rifts of light in the sky, and the raindrops were so big, and fell so heavily, they felt like hailstones. When you looked across the sea it seemed as if the giant drops were squirting out from the water, instead of falling into it, like small seeds the sea was shooting up to the sky. Even Fabio was impressed, and Fabio was rarely impressed when no girls were involved.
‘You know,’ Art said, his eyes on the sea, ‘there is enough energy in a single bolt to power a house for one month.’
I asked, ‘And?’
‘And that means that, in terms of money, the amount of cash a storm generates is enormous. Nature can afford to burn billions. Nature doesn’t care for our cash, our rules, for us. It doesn’t care. We are insignificant.’
‘That’s a bit gloomy,’ Mauro said.
‘Why? I’m not planning on staying insignificant.’
He brought his hands to the hem of his t-shirt and took it off.
Fabio asked, ‘What are you doing?’
Art took off his glasses and put them in a pocket of his trunks.
‘Are you going to swim?’ I said.
As an answer, Art took off his trunks, folded them with his t-shirt, and left everything on a chair. He stood there naked, his hands on his hips like a slightly too old Peter Pan, inviting us to Neverland. ‘Are you guys coming or not?’
Mauro turned his head towards the bar, and I turned mine too – thank God there were no clients left, and the only person inside, the guy at the till, was watching TV.
‘I’m not coming anywhere near your dick,’ I said. ‘Faggot.’
Art raised his hands to the sky. ‘You’ve got to be naked if you want to feel all of it.’
‘All of what?’ Fabio asked, amused.
‘The power. The… the… potential.’
Mauro said, ‘You’ll feel it and then you’ll die.’
‘Maybe.’
He jerked around and started running towards the sea. Fabio, Mauro and I exchanged
a glance and ran after him, to stop him, tackle him if necessary. Water conducts electricity. Lightning could strike Art. Or lightning could strike away from Art, and the electricity would whizz like a shark, and Art would still be dead.
But he was quicker than us.
He ran like a man possessed, ignoring our calls and our shouts. His feet hit the shoreline, and the next moment he dived in and went underwater, invisible.
‘Art!’ I called.
There were only the waves and the storm, and then Art’s head came out of the water, laughing like mad. ‘I feel it!’ he cried. ‘I am it!’ He stood up, raising his arms and his head and his eyes to the sky, immersed in the water up to his belly. ‘I am it!’ he shouted at the top of his voice, while waves and lightning crashed all around him.
And I envied him a little.
2
‘Art had a thing for storms, if I remember,’ Elena says.
Her voice snaps me back to the present.
She is sitting down in a wicker chair identical to mine, next to me, folding her bare feet under her legs. The women of my family are notoriously beautiful. The men make do.
‘Once he went swimming in the middle of one,’ I say. ‘Naked.’
Elena chuckles. ‘I don’t know that story.’
‘I’ve got a ton of Art stories, but I’ve got to make them last now there won’t be any more.’
I see real love, real pity, on my sister’s face. ‘Michele will find him.’
‘Not alive, I don’t think.’
‘But he’ll find him.’
I take my head in my hands. ‘I don’t like it, Elena. No, I’ll be honest with you: I hate it. I hate it with a passion.’
She frowns. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘What you’ve become.’
She lets my words linger. She doesn’t take her eyes from me, and the expression on her face doesn’t change, but she doesn’t speak.
I say, ‘You married a criminal.’
‘Did Mum put you up to this?’
‘No, I put myself up to this. Look, I know he’s your husband…’
‘That’s exactly it, Tony: he’s my husband.’ Elena takes a hand to her round belly. ‘The father of my son.’
The Book of Hidden Things Page 21