But I guess you’re building up a picture of me slowly, and that’s the way I want it.
9
My first day home was awful. The wheelchair etched two sweeping lines through the gravel as my father pushed me toward the house.
The house was sprinkled with shade—August now—and the heat got under my skin, searing my insides.
I couldn’t climb the stairs, though I had crutches.
My father lowered his face. “I found an old mattress in the basement. I’ve made it all nice and tidy.”
“You did what?”
“I made up the basement room. It didn’t take long.”
It made me think of Valentina and how much I still had left to accomplish. She was like a dark weed in a sunless corner in my mind. I would have to root her out as soon as possible. Had she contacted the police? I would soon find out. I looked around the house, feeling tense, expecting the phone to spring into life at any moment. Perhaps they would thrash down the door and close in mercilessly with flashlights and guns?
My father pushed my wheelchair past my grandfather’s ugly paintings and the crates of tomatoes, and down a ramp he had installed that led downstairs into the basement. The light seemed brighter than before. Maybe he had changed that damn lightbulb.
“Everything shipshape,” he said, his voice above and behind me.
He wheeled me into the room that I had prepared for a woman. It was perfect, too perfect. I started shaking in my chair and pressing my fists into my eyes. I felt ashamed of my failures.
My father bowed down by my side. “Son, don’t cry. I’m sorry. Maybe it was a bad idea to bring you down here.”
Water crawled over my knuckles. I was a washout and I knew it. Now I was stuck here with him again, in this house, in a wheelchair.
My father shook his head. “I know you had the accident down here, but it was the most practical thing to do. I can’t carry you up the stairs.” He looked around the room. “I’ve brought some of your books and things down here. You can hole up here for a few days until you’re feeling better.”
Better? Old life bad; new life worse. My father nudged me around in a squeaky wheelchair, fed me, clothed me, washed me. Thankfully, the whole circus lasted only a couple of weeks until I was able to get about on my own with the aid of crutches. An ambulance came to collect me a couple of times to take me back to the hospital for physiotherapy, or physio-torture.
On the day of my last appointment, the ambulance never showed, and I sat on a chair in the garden, holding my crutches across my lap. The sunlight tingled on my cheeks. I watched the wind shaking the tops of the pine trees and the shadows going crazy on the path. Everything hummed in the sun. Lizards crawled past my feet, their giant eyes pulsing. Cicadas buzzed over and over. My neck became sticky with sweat. I felt sick inside, as though I had a stomach fever. My pent-up obsession was still there, clouded now by thoughts of revenge. Sometimes it was hard to keep my mind on the straight and sane.
I felt a lot of stiffness in the leg for a while, but I rubbed on some cool ointment and did the bending, stretching exercises the physical therapist advised. My father, I’ll admit, was a decent coach. He pushed, prodded, scolded or praised, according to my needs. Baths, pills, walks, snacks: you name it, I got it.
It was funny, though. On some days, he would ask me, “Why are you on crutches?” as if he couldn’t remember a damn thing. Yet at other times his mind was quite clear, and I really wasn’t sure if his disease was getting better or worse. When he was compos mentis, he was kind enough to help me get back on my feet. I remember one particular night we were watching TV, and my crutches with their slippery gray handles stood against the back of his armchair. My knee felt numb and my arms ached from hobbling around the house. I was on the mend—it was just a matter of patience. I argued with my father, as usual, about who should have the remote control. He wanted news or documentaries; I preferred sports or films. It was always the same game ending up in some pathetic compromise like watching, in this case, the latest Dutch attempt to break the world dominoes record.
We drank Verdicchio wine and ate taralli, my favorite ring-shaped salty biscuits. The living room smelled of exposed rock and dry timber. This part of the house used to be a barn. Scorpions lived in the roof and often squeezed themselves out of the ceiling in the middle of the night. I bashed them at a rate of three or four per week and always shook out my shoes in the morning. The scorpions sort of freaked me out, and I’d decided that, as soon as my father was dead, I was going to sell this house. But I knew it would be a pity to leave all the memories of my mother behind. I spent a lot of time in her room, trying on her clothes, the stubborn, wiry bras, the thigh-hugging stockings. I even managed to squeeze into her shoes, albeit on tiptoe. Recently, though, I’d spent more and more time in Sonia’s room. I was missing her and it was driving me kind of nuts. I liked the smell of Sonia, I realized, even more than I liked my mother’s smell.
The TV flickered in a corner of the darkened room. I saw the waves of falling dominoes reflected in my father’s glasses.
“Any news about Sonia?” he asked.
“I tried her cell phone, but there’s no answer.”
“Do you think she’s OK?”
“I guess so. If she needed my help, she’d ask.”
I took a sip of wine and stared at the Dutch faces anxiously watching their creations topple over one by one.
He nodded. “She knows the door is always open.”
Open for him, perhaps, closed for her. Old story. My father was the main reason she stayed away, but he probably wouldn’t acknowledge that. Besides, it was hard to know just how much he remembered of our checkered childhood.
“Don’t you think she’s got worse since….”
He turned his head.
“That guy,” I said.
He shrugged and fixed his eyes on the hand-clapping Dutch. “I don’t know him.”
“But you know of him. We all know what he does for a living.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“Right.”
The dominoes kept falling in his eyes, whole parades of them: pirate ships, rockets, helicopters with spinning blades sending rectangles shuttling in all directions.
I knew I had to ask a question and didn’t want to hear the answer. There was no choice, though. Clarity was required.
“What do you remember about the night of my accident?” I asked.
“I just remember seeing you sprawled, and feeling scared. Then I called for an ambulance.”
“Was anyone else in the house that day?”
He scratched the side of his head and looked vacantly at the screen. “What do you mean?”
“A woman, perhaps. One ... with blonde hair, like Mother?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
I drank the wine, refilled my glass, then emptied it again. The alcohol scrambled my circuits and shut off some of the worry.
“Is she nice, this woman?” he asked. “Will you be seeing her again?”
“I sure hope so.”
Fields of dominoes fell like long grasses caressed by the wind.
10
One month later, I didn’t need the crutches any more. If not agile, I was at least functional. I wondered if Valentina had denounced me because every time the doorbell rang I sat very still and told my father to go while I waited in the hall. No policemen showed up. Maybe it wasn’t easy for prostitutes to denounce their clients. I really didn’t know. Still, I knew I had to take care of her somehow because I didn’t want a policeman to tap me on the shoulder one day, and utter my name, and clap on the steel.
During the week, I translated. On the weekend, I walked, or rather shuffled, through town. I passed by the markets with their heaps of oranges and hovering flies and rows of fish. I saw old ladies in black dresses haunting doorsteps. The sun frazzled everything. The wind was Saharan and brought only a taste of hot sand and no relief. Inside the dark shops, the air conditi
oning was like heavy ice pressed to my cheeks, and I soon felt short of breath as though at a high altitude. Outside, the awnings of cafés offered only the shelter of a sauna. One day, tired out, I sat down and sweated in the shade, ordered an almond granita and ate it with a spoon, holding a warm brioche in a paper napkin. Silver chairs grated the stone as a couple stood up to go. I ordered a coffee and was automatically given an espresso. The waiter brought it with a transparent cup of water on a silver tray. I used a napkin to wipe clean the rim of the plastic cup before glugging down the water. The cup gave a little in my fingers as I squeezed it. I drank the coffee and the heat charred my throat, leaving a taste of burnt toast in my mouth. I was awake now, on a Saturday morning, seated in the throng. The city pulsed around me like a jellyfish, glowing, all frills and restlessness.
I heard the smooth clack of boots. Slip, thunk. Slip, thunk. I looked down and saw a pair of reflective toecaps passing by. One arm, sleeveless, swung free. The other was clamped around a man’s waist: a squat Italian in a blue suit, looking indelibly smart. He walked with ease at her side like a magician sure of his trick. A shadow moved across my heart.
Milady.
Valentina looked more tanned. Her features were also deepened, wizened. Had she aged in only one month? What had she learned from trying to beat the life out of me? Something sinister?
I sat there and planned my next move. The man was an unwanted complication. I would have to see to her and him. No two men could own the same treasure; even my father, with his crisscrossed mental wiring, knew that. I braced myself for an awkward reunion, got to my feet and followed in their wake, ten or twelve paces behind, observing the couple’s movements. Was he a friend or a client? Hard to tell.
I trudged behind them along the trash-smelling streets, under the bridge with the railway line and back toward the Piazza dell’Università. Where were they going? Nowhere, apparently. It was just a Saturday stroll. They stopped outside the same shoe shop, Rosati, where I had gifted Valentina her boots. Was she eyeing a new purchase? She peered into the glass display with an acquisitive glare, one I knew well. Her fingers were splayed in his palm. He looked impatient but she would not be tugged away. She angled away from him to stare a while longer at the boots, sandals, and high heels. Was this a moment of happy recall for her, or the initial scene of some nightmare? I watched them, standing like a sentinel, impassive. She would only have to turn around and….
She stared into the windows. He yanked her arm and she turned away with reluctance, looking backwards as her body was tugged forwards. She looked down at her toes at the bus stop, perhaps reflecting on a missed opportunity. They were waiting for the bus out of town, the one I took myself up into the hills.
I approached, staying close to the walls as I advanced. Closer, always closer. I was afraid she would look up and spot me, her broken victim. L’arroseur arrosé. The French have this wonderful expression whose exact English translation escapes me right now. It means something like, the sprayer sprayed, the biter bit. Do you see? I wanted to have her, and I was had, by her. L’arroseur arrosé.
I stepped through the middle doors of the halted bus and eased myself into a seat just behind them. I didn’t like the smell of diesel fumes and other people’s sweat. I had stroked my mother’s perfume through my hair but it wasn’t enough to kill all the bad odors around me. I felt uncomfortable, quite unwell, when a large lady sat beside me and squashed me up against the window. Her skin smelled of garlic and olive oil.
The bus cut a ragged passage through the streets. I saw stray dogs roaming, and old men sitting side by side in chairs on the sidewalk, retired or out of work, exchanging laments. I pressed my nose to the glass and tried not to smell or even think about the large woman. When the bus was held up, at the lights, or in traffic, I leaned forward a little and tried to catch snippets of the conversation spoken between Valentina and her man. I only heard the odd word—home or hill—then the city streamed past the windows of the bus and we drove on, and it was too loud to hear them anymore. I wondered how far they would go.
We left town and I felt the engine throbbing beneath my feet. My body jerked forward whenever the driver braked. The sun scraped the windows and scalded my neck. I pushed my hands through my hair and then sniffed my hands. It helped. Thankfully the old lady shifted away and got off the bus in the suburbs. I was able to breathe again and stare at the back of Valentina’s head. I saw the light reflecting off the dark roots of her hair. The dye had grown out, seeding blackness at the base….
She was a brunette in blonde colors. A fake, through and through.
The bus stopped in a leafy district on the outskirts of the city, still a few miles short of my house. They both got out; I followed. They were hand in hand again, lovebirds, doves. It was hard for me to remain unseen. Only the three of us stepped off the bus and the road was country-like, quiet. At one point Valentina got her shiny black heel caught in a grate in the sidewalk and she swiveled around. I had just enough time to turn my back. Had she seen my face? I thought not. But perhaps she would recognize my body shape or the color of my hair. Was it safe to turn around now? I took a deep breath, counted to ten, looked at my hands—were they capable of murder?—and turned.
The couple had disappeared. Stupid of me to wait so long. There was just a trash can, some sheets of newspaper skittering across the sidewalk, and a famished cat slinking by the gutter. I moved as fast as my body allowed—it was both a jog and a kind of jaded bolt in their direction.
I caught sight of the two of them farther down the road as they entered a terraced house with black shutters, No. 37. The next step? I squatted behind a rose bush and waited. I bent down, pretended to tie my shoelaces, and tapped my ankle. Yes, I had my switchblade. The next task was to creep up to the house and try to find my way in. Perhaps the back door would be unlocked?
I treaded softly through the garden, past lavender, hibiscus, and oleander. I knew all the colors and the smells. I even stopped to twist off a pink head of lavender and crushed it between my palms. I sniffed the heavy scent and felt calmer. These smells, good and clean, always helped. I cannot say why. I moved closer to the house and ducked beneath the kitchen window. I stood by the back door and touched the silver knob. There was an infinitesimal squeak as the door ceded a few inches. I heard sounds of movement within, a rustle on the stairs, perhaps. I peered around the corner….
The kitchen looked empty. Valentina was not there. I saw the back of her man in the hall. He had taken off his jacket and now stood, just over five feet tall, in blue trousers and white shirt. He turned his head and I saw his face in profile. He had a large nose and there was some flab under his chin. He must have been talking to Valentina upstairs because he tilted his head upwards and raised his voice.
‘I’ll make a start on lunch,’ I heard him say, in a Milanese accent.
It was a long way, I thought, to come for a screw. Or perhaps he was her master and took a cut of her weekly wage. So hard to say.
The man stepped into what I assumed was a little bathroom because I heard the faucet running.
I stepped into the house and moved forward slowly, as though wading through a waist-high sea. On a kitchen sideboard I saw the beginnings of a pasta sauce: carrots and celery lined up uncut on a wooden chopping board, a can of tomato sauce unopened. There was a bottle of white wine on the table. I paused and thought about taking it. I had my switchblade, but I disliked the idea of making a series of stab wounds. I wanted to make as little mess as possible, seeing as I had no spare clothes.
I grabbed the bottle and stepped from the kitchen into the hall. I heard footsteps upstairs and imagined the moving boots of Valentina. I thought about her smooth bronze skin and what it would be like to remove some of that skin and how difficult it would be. It wouldn’t just be for the pleasure. Because she had hurt me, the ritual would take on a kind of double meaning. I wanted that element of revenge too.
The man stayed in the bathroom and I heard him washing his hands
and humming to himself. I already knew what I had to do, so I just rolled up my sleeves, stood my ground and raised the bottle, holding the neck. My mind was already in that special place. I didn’t hear any music or voices or anything. I had to feel like the night before the dawn: cold and still. The only sound for a while was that of my own soft breathing. I imagined him on the other side of the door, drying his hands on the towel, not knowing that he was about to meet me. I saw the handle turn gently and heard a little screeching sound because the metal spring had not been oiled. He pulled back the door and stood in front of me. His eyes lost their color; they became just white gaps. He raised his hands and gasped. I pulled the bottle down hard and sharp into the side of his head, and then his skull cracked like a boiled egg filled with blood. The glass smashed and there was a moment as he staggered from side to side. He mouthed something incomprehensible, a kind of agonizing plea, and collapsed flat on the floor. He was down, but not dead, I assumed. A wave went through my head, like one of the heavy waves crashing down on the black, volcanic rocks in Catania bay.
I heard footsteps running fast across the landing and down the stairs, until they softened and slowed.
I turned and saw Valentina standing in the middle of the staircase. Her scream was no surprise. I knew it would draw attention if there were any neighbors around so I had to move quickly. I ran toward her and she turned heel and hurried upstairs, but I followed her and moved faster. I caught up with her on the landing and grabbed hold of the back of her shirt and dragged her down on her knees. She twisted around and stared at me with her brown eyes filled with loathing.
“You,” she said.
“Me,” I said.
I pushed down her head and saw the nape of her neck, the tiny hairs. Without hesitation I slammed the butt of my knife down on the back of her skull, hammer-like. Her head flexed strangely and she fell face down on the floor, still. There were traces of blood on the handle of the knife. That was all right because I guessed she was only unconscious and not dead, and that was what I wanted. I went into the bathroom and rinsed my knife beneath the tap. The redness trickled away down the plug-hole. I slipped the knife into the sheath by my ankle. I washed my hands and wrists and then rolled down my sleeves. Some redness had flicked onto my shirt and I used a sponge with soap and warm water to clean myself up. In the end I thought I looked pretty OK. I checked in the mirror and thought that nothing had really changed. Only now I had Valentina and that was the big difference.
The Skin Room Page 6