The Book of Hidden Things

by Francesco Dimitri

  He is insane.

  It is all over him, from the twitch in his eyes to the way he doesn’t stop moving his fingers; he is way past the stage when he was charmingly quirky. He needs help, lots of it, and well qualified.

  Tony says, ‘I thought all that stuff about hidden things was, like, a metaphor.’

  ‘Why?’ Art asks.

  ‘Because that would mean you’re sane.’

  ‘Who cares whether I’m sane as long as I’m right.’

  ‘What are they, then?’

  ‘They are… something else entirely. A different aspect of the world. The place where they live, it is a real place, as real, no, infinitely more real than this one,’ he says, stomping his bare foot on the sand. ‘La Madama took me there when she kidnapped me.’

  I say, ‘La Madama? We thought that was Silvana.’

  ‘She’s a lovely thing, for sure, but not a patch on the one I love.’

  I do my best not to catch Tony’s eye: Art would be sure to notice, and I don’t know how he would react. I am glad I am not alone with him. There is not one shred of sanity left in the space between his ears.

  Tony says, wearily. ‘Art…’

  ‘You think I’m crazy. That’s why I didn’t tell you before. I knew you’d think that. And I haven’t even got to the best part, yet.’ He stops to produce a Cheshire cat-sized grin, and announces, ‘The part where I get magic powers!’

  ‘Because you have magic powers,’ I say.

  Art laughs and claps his hands. ‘Sure! How else do you think I lit this fire?’

  ‘Matches?’ Tony suggests.

  ‘Magic! And that’s how I came back, too; I was riding the storm! I was being the storm. I somersaulted with beautiful thunder and gorged on luscious raw electricity.’

  Art’s voice has gone up one octave. Tony doesn’t show any reaction. ‘Can you show me?’ he asks. ‘Can you do some magic now?’

  Art shows us the palms of his hands. ‘I could but I won’t. I’m not a show-off.’

  ‘Dude, you’re the biggest show-off I ever met.’

  ‘When I was younger, yes.’

  Art is scaring me. I let Tony do the talking. I want to get this over with, tidy up as much as possible my relationship with my father, and go back home, to London, to Lara. I am not strong enough to survive the place that broke Art.

  He takes a swig of beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘But let’s start from the beginning, shall we?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tony says.

  ‘Where was I? Oh, yes: that night. When I entered the olive grove, I smelt an intense fragrance of violets. Violets, in January? I thought. And then I heard something. It was… not a natural sound, not a sound of this world. It was the sound water would make if water could have an orgasm, you know what I mean?’

  ‘Actually, no.’

  ‘Right. Right. Well, I can’t explain it better than that. I saw a light, of an eerie, delicate shade of sapphire. And a voice said, Good evening, Arturo. There was a woman there with me, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.’ Art winks at us. ‘Naked. I let out a cry and then stood there gaping at her, and she laughed. She eased closer, walking, though the way she did it, it was more like gliding, and sealed my lips with a kiss. You are coming with me, she said, not like a question, or an order, but like a statement. I swallowed and asked, Where? and she – honest to God – put a hand on my crotch, and squeezed lightly, and said, With me. She turned her back to me and started walking. And her ass, Good Fucking Heavens, her ass! It was the roundest, most perfect thing that ever graced this land. Large, fully formed and perfect. I couldn’t help but follow it.’

  ‘And you call that a kidnapping?’ Tony says.

  ‘You stick a hook into a worm and dangle the hook in the water. When a fish takes the bait, can you say, in all honesty, that the fish wanted to become your dinner?’

  ‘Point taken.’

  Art shoves a few more logs into the fire and says, ‘I followed her, and the olive grove grew bigger, and stranger. I… it’s beyond words, literally; the language we have is not made to describe what I saw and did. Suffice to say la Madama brought me to the other side, the hidden one. As soon as we got there, she jumped on me, and started fucking me like there was no tomorrow. Then she fed me some fruits, vaguely similar to figs and prickly pears, but with a spicy aftertaste – like jalapeño, you know? – and sweet wine. And then we talked. That became our pattern: we would fuck, eat, drink, and talk, and fuck again.’

  ‘Yes, but where?’ Tony asks. ‘Was it a house, a field…?’

  I see what he’s doing. Good man.

  ‘Not a house, no. We were always out of doors. The only structure I ever saw on that side were drystone walls. I asked la Madama why, and she replied, They mark the boundaries. As for the rest, it is a place of trees, and grapes, and shrubs. It is always warm, but not too hot. Like late May. Call it Arcadia, if you want.’

  I ask, ‘And what did you talk about?’

  ‘Art. Philosophy. Magic. Name it! And between the fucking, the feasting and the talking, I realised something obvious, a simple truth, the simplest truth there is. Before la Madama took me, I was dying.’

  ‘I seem to remember you weren’t.’

  ‘We all are! As soon as you’re born you start dying. Children talk of getting big, they can’t wait for it, but actually, no, as you grow up, you get smaller. When you are young, you are immense – then you shrink. Everything is possible at five, but what is left for you at forty? With every choice you make you renounce all the choices you could have made instead, and so you become smaller and smaller, each choice consuming you a little, burning your possibilities, until nothing is left of you. Death is a progressive shrinking that brings you from vastness to nothingness.’

  Tony makes a vulgar gesture with his hand. ‘And you had this insight while…’

  ‘Yeah,’ Art laughs. ‘Best way ever to become wise.’

  Tony says, ‘Seems a bad vibe to get, while being all blissful and such.’

  ‘It wasn’t bad at all. It was like, you’re rich, you realise other people are poor, and you feel for them, but that doesn’t change the fact you’re rich, right? I wasn’t dying anymore, Tony; the Hidden Things are changeless, pure enchantment, beyond time and space. On their side, I would never grow small.’

  ‘But you didn’t stay.’

  Art pushes two gherkins into his mouth. ‘La Madama kicked me out. We had one last, glorious fuck, and I fell asleep with my head snug between her breasts. When I woke up, I was back in the olive grove.’

  ‘She didn’t explain?’

  ‘She didn’t need to; she got bored with me.’

  ‘Harsh.’

  ‘She’s la Madama, isn’t she? On our first day together she said to me, Arturo, I was attracted by how bright you shine. When you shine as bright as she does, though, other lights dim fast.’

  ‘That’s when you came to me?’ I ask. ‘Soon after she dumped you?’

  ‘I walked all the way to your place. I could’ve stopped at a phone box and made a call, but I needed to walk, you see. I had to think.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘How to get back there.’

  Tony says, ‘The chick kicked you out the first time…’

  ‘But surely, la Madama would appreciate a human being who found a way to get there on his own,’ Art interrupts him. ‘Now, that is a light shining bright! After school I left Casalfranco. I travelled. I studied whatever I thought might help: quantum physics, mindfulness, fairy tales, most of it rubbish but here and there some good stuff. I came across powerful magic, Marvel Comics-level powerful. You know I can levitate?’

  ‘Can you do it now?’

  ‘Yes, but I won’t. I’m telling you, it was the most frustrating endeavour. Quite a few people have met the Hidden Things over the years, but it was always by chance, or because someone from there took them. Getting there from this side, though, and willingly? That was different. That was trespassing – aga
inst the law. You know me; I couldn’t stand that. It became an intellectual challenge as much as a practical one. Who had decided that humans should be confined to one side and one only? I wanted to trespass, and not only that, I wanted to enable other people to do the same, in the face of whatever metaphysical bore took it upon himself to write the laws and mark the boundaries.’

  These words make me smile. With all his ravings, Art remains Art. ‘Was your return to Casalfranco part of the research?’

  Art claps his hands. ‘Yes! Yes! Precisely! For a while, I’d understood that I could finish my… apprenticeship only here. But I resisted. The change would be enormous. When Mum died, it made me realise it was time.’ He makes a dramatic pause, moving his eyes from me to Tony, back to me again. ‘Ten days ago, I managed to trespass. La Madama was impressed, and promised that I could stay with her forever after.’

  Tony laughs, ‘Seems to me she gave you the boot once more, with feeling.’

  ‘No! I decided to come back, temporarily.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To get you guys.’

  I inch closer to the fire. The night is getting chillier, and it has been ages since the last time I felt the warmth of a bonfire on the beach. It is a unique sensation, water and fire not trying to outdo each other, but coexisting peacefully. ‘You want to bring us on the… side of Hidden Things?’

  ‘I want to save you. You’re brilliant! It’s not right that people like you must die. I won’t have any of that. You have already shrunk so much, Fabio, it’s painful to see. Come with me and you won’t shrink any further. You won’t end up in nothingness.’

  ‘That is…’ Tony clears his voice, ‘…very kind of you.’

  Art raises an eyebrow. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

  ‘Just a little bit.’

  Art chuckles. He reaches into his satchel bag, and extracts three bundles of paper, each kept together by an elastic band. ‘Here. My book. It explains how to trespass and everything. Read it and then we talk, okay? I’d be grateful if you could swing by Mauro and leave his copy with him. And hurry up, guys.’

  I take mine. The Book of Hidden Things, the magnum opus revealing all Art’s secrets in one handy package. ‘Silvana had one of these,’ I say.

  ‘I know.’

  Tony pinches his nose and sighs loudly. ‘You also know the Corona is after her.’

  ‘They already got her, actually.’

  ‘What the…?’

  ‘Fabio told me they were looking for her, and I ran to where I knew she’d hide, a hut in a field near Portodimare. She wasn’t there.’

  ‘And you don’t give a damn.’

  ‘Michele has no reason to hurt her.’

  ‘Aren’t you guys chums? Go tell him you’re back and he can let that poor creature go.’

  ‘It would be a waste of time.’

  ‘It’ll take all of five minutes!’

  Art looks at Tony with an expression I know – the expression he has when he’s trying to make you understand something, and you are too stubborn or stupid to get it. ‘The Time will last only until tomorrow.’

  ‘I sense a capital T in there.’

  ‘It’s in my book. It explains it all. There is only a small window of time during which you can trespass. If we miss it…’ He shakes his head. ‘It’ll take more than five years for the next window to open.’

  Tony is looking for words. ‘Right,’ he settles for. ‘Even so, why should Michele want to waste your time?’

  ‘It’s obvious, Tony: the Corona wants to exploit my magic. You heard I healed a boss’s daughter? They know what I’m capable of, and they want it for themselves. They left me in peace while I kept a low profile, observing my moves. But now? They won’t take the risk of having me run off again. They’ll nab me and keep me trapped.’

  ‘Michele speaks of you as a good friend.’

  ‘I’ve got no illusions about how far that friendship stretches.’

  He is right. In practice, it doesn’t matter that what he is saying is a huge pile of bollocks – if a mafia boss thinks it isn’t, then it isn’t. Fact: Art needs medical help. Fact: we take him to a doctor, we are handing him over to the Corona. Fact: we hide him from the Corona, we are dead meat, and Silvana with us. ‘Art, you son of a bitch,’ I say, under my breath. ‘You’ve screwed us royally.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Art proudly stabs his index finger at the book I hold in my hands. ‘I’m giving you a chance to be whole forever.’

  MAURO

  1

  If Art was here now I would hit him. Or not. I don’t know. This is history repeating, or rhyming at least: Art vanished again, he made us worried sick again, landed us in trouble again, and again came back, apparently safe and sound. This time, though, I don’t have the resilience, or the trust in life, that I had at fourteen. I am drained.

  Tony texted me:

  We have the book. Art’s not with us. Can I drop by yours quickly?

  I replied: Sure. I told Tony to come to the garden gate, so as not to wake up the girls.

  It has been a good evening. We ordered take-away pizza and watched Frozen. The girls sang along to ‘In Summer’, the song in which the little snowman dreams about what summer would be like (forgetting that in summer he’d be dead, which everybody finds a laugh, but I find a bleak commentary on the life of us all). They are in bed now, and Anna and I are in the garden, waiting for the guys.

  ‘Hey,’ Tony’s hushed voice says, from the other side of the gate.

  ‘Where’s Fabio?’ I ask, opening it.

  ‘I dropped him home on my way here.’

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘Only five minutes. I’m knackered.’

  He has a bundle of paper in one hand, which he places on our little table. ‘The Book of Hidden Things,’ he whispers, ‘for your enjoyment. Art got us a copy each. He said he kept them for us since he finished writing.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Not well.’

  ‘Can I get you something?’ Anna asks.

  ‘Ice tea would be awesome.’

  She takes a bottle and three glasses, and we sit down, drinking, while Tony tells us Art’s story. A mysterious woman (gorgeous, ça va sans dire), magic, sex; it has it all. It makes my heart sink.

  ‘An adolescent fantasy,’ Anna sums it up. ‘The sexy woman, the supernatural, a dream of… empowerment?’

  ‘Psychogenic amnesia.’ Tony shakes his glass slowly, making the half-melted ice clink. ‘That’s the name. It is when a memory is too bad to cope with, and you build some fantasy to… hide reality from yourself. Art needs a psychiatrist, before he…’ his voice trails off. ‘I was giving a chance to the supernatural. Honestly, I was. I’m open-minded, you know that, and I said to myself, I believe in God, why not something else? But a flying Art? That stretches it too far.’

  I say, ‘Do we have a clue what really happened?’

  ‘Might have. I’ll have a look at the book, and once we’re cleared with the Corona, I’ll give it to a couple of shrinks, buddies of mine. There must be some hint there; memories don’t come out of thin air. Perhaps the person who abducted Art really was a woman. I bet she wasn’t naked, and she wasn’t magical, but the sex part?’ Tony shrugs. ‘Why not. It’s common for abuse survivors to turn their abusers into figures of awe.’

  ‘About the Corona,’ Anna says, ‘I owe you guys an apology.’

  ‘You owe us an apology?’ Tony says. ‘I nearly had your wuss of a husband killed.’

  ‘Yes, but I insisted that you had to get Michele involved.’

  ‘Anna,’ I say, ‘we involved him in the first place. He’s a professional. We’ll find a solution.’

  ‘Leave it to me.’ Tony checks his watch and stands up. ‘I need to get going. I’ll get some shut-eye before I get cracking with Art’s ramblings. You two carry on with what’s left of your holiday. I’ll keep you posted, and, you’ve got my word, I won’t bring a mafia party to your bedroom.’

  Anna kisses him
on the cheek. ‘Thank you, Tony,’ she says.

  2

  I’m sitting on the toilet, the seat pulled down, in my boxers. I gasp a little as I take off the gauze, ripping out a good deal of hair in the process. I do my best not to tear out the surgical thread with them. The wound itches as if I had chickenpox.

  Anna knocks at the door. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Still alive.’

  I sprinkle on a generous dose of disinfectant, wrinkling my nose at the hospital smell. Then I carefully apply a fresh gauze, and secure it with four stretches of adhesive bandage. I feel badass, like Arnie in Terminator.

  I hobble to the bedroom. My side aches; it is cross at me for how I handled it. Seeing Anna lessens the pain. She is on the bed, naked, reading a novel. She keeps the massive volume in balance just beneath her breasts, in a lovely pose which Fabio could transform into the best cover ever seen on a literary magazine.

  ‘You’re pale,’ she says.

  I let myself fall on the bed, and bring my hand an inch above the gauze, without touching it. It doesn’t give off heat. It’s basically fine. ‘It hurts.’

  ‘Painkiller?’

  ‘That’s my girl.’

  I take Art’s weed from the side table, a pouch of tobacco and a paper.

  ‘I can roll it if you want,’ Anna says.

  ‘Let me see if I remember how it’s done.’

  There’s a lot of coke around in my line of work (I snorted once or twice – not my thing), but marijuana? That’s not a drug for a lawyer. Since the end of university, I’ve only smoked occasionally, either here in Casalfranco with the guys, or at parties with Anna’s colleagues (philosophers, as opposed to lawyers, smoke vast quantities of weed). The joint I end up with is lumpy and misshapen, but it’ll do fine.