Fists

by Pietro Grossi

  Daniel decided he had no great desire to stick around and see what was going to happen, it wasn’t his business, so he said goodbye, turned the horses and set off the way he had come.

  “Goodbye,” the man said gravely, without taking his eyes off Tonino.

  BY THE TIME Natan returned to the area, the purple marks on Daniel’s face had faded, leaving only a few faint blue and yellow patches. His eye, fortunately, had opened and didn’t cause him any trouble, and he only kept the bandage on his face to cover the nasty-looking stitches. The doctor had told him they could come out, too, in a few days.

  It was late afternoon and Daniel was giving his bay a last brush-down.

  Natan approached, tied his chestnut to the enclosure and started undoing the saddle. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” he heard Daniel say, then saw his bandaged, disfigured face emerge from behind the horse.

  Natan felt as if a hand was squeezing his stomach. “What the fuck happened?”

  Daniel glanced at him and continued brushing his bay. “Nothing, Natan, don’t worry.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It was nothing. Forget it.”

  Natan felt a tingling sensation starting in his stomach and moving out along his arms. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Forget it, Natan, it’s not your business.”

  Natan thought about it for a few seconds, then spat on the ground. “Shit,” he said. Then he went and sat down on the fence and started rolling a cigarette. “Does it hurt?” he asked after a while.

  Daniel smiled for a moment. “Not any more,” he said.

  “Can I see?”

  Daniel stopped brushing the horse down and walked to the fence, calmly taking the bandage from his face as he did so, then stopped in front of Natan with his head slightly tilted to one side and his eye closed.

  “Shit,” Natan said.

  There was a reddish line all the way down his face, surrounded by little pieces of black thread.

  “Can I?” Natan said, raising his hand.

  Daniel nodded without a word. Gently, Natan touched the wound with one finger. It was like being a giant and moving your finger over a dirt road.

  The wound seemed to have a voice, and a story to tell.

  “Shit,” Natan said, taking his finger away and standing there for another few seconds admiring the wound.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Daniel said.

  Natan nodded without a word.

  The following day Daniel got up at dawn as usual and went to work at old Pancia’s. Around mid-morning, Natan rode up on his chestnut. Daniel was taking the horses out to clean the stable.

  “Hey,” Natan said.

  “Hey,” Daniel replied.

  “I’m going on a little trip.”

  Daniel stopped and gave him a puzzled look. He had never come to say goodbye before.

  “Oh,” Daniel said, looking his brother in the eyes. “All right.”

  “Who’s she?” Natan asked, indicating the new grey mare with his chin.

  Daniel turned to the mare. “They gave her to me to replace First Deal.”

  “What happened to First Deal?”

  “First Deal died.”

  “Oh,” Natan said. “And what’s this one called?”

  “This one’s called Substitute,” Daniel said, giving the mare’s neck a couple of slaps.

  Natan gave a half-laugh. “OK,” he said. “I’m off.”

  Daniel nodded. “See you soon.”

  Natan nodded, too. “Yes, see you soon,” he said, then after a couple of seconds turned his chestnut and slowly rode away.

  Daniel watched him until he vanished from sight at the end of the road. He had the feeling the trip would be longer than usual this time.

  THE MONKEY

  WHEN THE PHONE RANG, Nico was busy playing Subbuteo. He was expecting an important call from his agent and while waiting had decided that instead of wasting the afternoon he would get out that old green box from the back of the wardrobe. It had been a birthday present from his sister a couple of years earlier. He had never learnt how to play Subbuteo, and ever since he was a child he had envied those friends of his who spent their afternoons bent over a plywood surface and the next day at school talked about their matches as if they’d been playing in the World Cup finals. That green box, those plywood shelves and those little men on their tumblers had always aroused in him the same embarrassing envy as table football. You’re not really a man if you can’t play Subbuteo and table football, he had always thought, and it was a complex that had somehow stayed with him all his life.

  When his sister had given him the Subbuteo set, Nico’s first thought had been that there was some kind of sinister ulterior motive behind the gift—but then he’d thought, Who cares? and had again promised himself to learn as soon as he could. But the box had ended up at the back of the wardrobe. When you get down to it, we are what we are. That afternoon, though, had seemed like a good time to do something about his old resolutions.

  Nico walked nonchalantly to the low table on which the phone stood, without taking his eyes off the Subbuteo mat and those tiny coloured players.

  “Hello, Angela?”

  “Hi, Nico. It’s Maria.”

  “You’re not Angela?”

  “No, I’m Maria.”

  “Shit, I was hoping you were Angela.”

  “Sorry about that. I can try and play her part if you like, even though I don’t know her. Who is she?”

  “My agent. I’m expecting some important news.”

  “I’m sorry I’m not her.”

  “Yes, so am I.” He thought for a moment. “Sorry, but Maria who?”

  At the other end of the line, Nico heard the hint of an unconvincing laugh. “Piero’s sister.”

  “Piero’s sister?”

  “Yes, you remember Piero, your friend Piero?”

  “Yes, of course, it’s just that … Never mind. How are you?”

  The first time Nico had seen Maria she had been half-lying on a small wicker sofa in her garden, reading a thick paperback novel. She was wearing a light yellow dress that moved slightly in the breeze, and a wide-brimmed straw hat shaded her face from the sun. She looked like something out of a story by F Scott Fitzgerald. Nico had immediately fallen in love with her, and for years Maria had been his erotic fantasy, the inaccessible, almost mystical creature everyone encounters some time during their adolescence.

  “Not bad,” Maria said. “And you?”

  “Oh, not bad. You know how it is …”

  “Of course,” Maria said with a smile in her voice.

  Nico thought it unlikely that that almost unreal creature with all those eccentric friends and that glittering life really knew how it was, but when you get down to it that’s the kind of thing people say.

  “How’s work?” Maria asked. Some people had a particular way of saying the word “work”, an imperceptible change of rhythm which made it sound ridiculous.

  “Pretty good. I’m expecting a call from my agent, but, you know, everything’s going along OK.”

  “It must be interesting work.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Nico said. “Better than working down a mine, though.”

  Maria gave a half-laugh, Nico gave a half-laugh, and then they both let that trite remark drift off into silence.

  “Listen, Nico, I need to talk to you about my brother.”

  “Yes, of course. What is it, has he run away again? I haven’t seen him. Haven’t even heard from him for about a month-and-a-half. I know you two were supposed to be going on holiday together.”

  “Yes … No … The thing is … Listen, Piero has started acting like a monkey.”

  “Started doing what?”

  “Acting like a monkey.”

  “Like a monkey? I’m sorry, how do you mean?”

  “I mean some time this summer he started bending double and grunting like a monkey. It was funny at first, we thought it was a game, but then he wouldn’t stop.”<
br />
  Nico said nothing for a long time. Odd coloured images of his friend passed in front of his eyes, followed by images of monkeys, but he couldn’t seem to fit the two things together.

  “Nico, are you still there?”

  “Yes, it’s just that …”

  “Yes, I know,” Maria said.

  Nico was silent again for a few seconds. “It’s just that I find it hard to imagine.”

  “Yes, I realise that.”

  The thing Maria probably didn’t realise was that what Nico found really strange wasn’t this business with Piero but the fact of being on the phone with her. It was as if the monkey story had immediately been relegated to some surreal, comical region which had little to do with reality.

  “I was thinking perhaps you could come here and see him.”

  Nico sank into the armchair and almost laughed.

  “Nico, are you there?”

  “Yes,” Nico said, trying to hold back his laughter. At that moment, the idea of going to see a friend of his who was acting like a monkey seemed ridiculous, nothing more. And his sister’s grave tone even more so. “I’ll come as soon as I can,” he said. “I just need to sort out a few things here.”

  “Great, we’ll be waiting.”

  Nico put down the phone and sat there looking at the receiver. After a few minutes, he took an old, chewed-up orange pencil from the little table next to the armchair, one of the ones he liked to draw with from time to time. He stuck the pencil between his teeth and looked around the room, lost in thought. Every object he rested his eyes on seemed to have some more or less direct connection with Piero.

  It was as if after a while some people got inside you and somehow remained forever part of what you were and what you did, even if you hardly ever saw them. It was as if despite himself that boisterous friend he’d practically grown up with but now almost never saw was an integral part of what he was.

  Nico looked at the telephone again, lifted the receiver and dialled a number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Angela, it’s Nico.”

  “Hi, Nico.”

  “Any news?”

  “Nico, you called me half-an-hour ago.”

  “Yes, I know. Any news?”

  “No, no news.”

  “Nothing from Star Films?”

  “Were you expecting news from somewhere else?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “No, there’s nothing from Star Films. Are you planning to call me every half-hour until we hear something? It could take days, you know.”

  Nico imagined Angela sitting comfortably in her leather armchair in her splendid office overlooking the Tiber. He could just see her sitting there with the receiver wedged between her head and her shoulder, making bored little noises and sarcastic faces as she spoke, especially if her secretary was there. Angela wasn’t exactly what you’d call friendly, but there was something about her and her sarcastic manner that Nico couldn’t do without. She was one of those overweight women with their wombs full of cement who at some point in their lives have decided that a good business deal is better than sleeping with a man. One of those emancipated women who can’t cook and don’t read books, but who go around with big Hermès scarves round their necks and save face by reading the arts pages of the weekend financial paper. Basically, Nico wasn’t supposed to go to bed with her, and all Angela had to do was get him as much money as she could, which was why the fact that she had a womb full of cement and put a good business deal before anything else wasn’t such a bad thing when you got down to it.

  “No, listen, I just wanted to tell you I have to go home for the weekend. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “I don’t know, are you asking me if the city will miss you?”

  “Angela, do me a favour … I was thinking about Star Films.”

  “Apparently they’ve invented these things called mobile phones, you have heard of them, haven’t you?”

  “You know I don’t have one.”

  “Maybe it’s time you did.”

  “I doubt it, but I’ll think about it.”

  “Great, welcome to the twenty-first century.”

  For a few seconds, Nico said nothing, just chewed his pencil. “You know, I’m going to see a friend of mine who’s started acting like a monkey.”

  Nico wondered why he had said that, but then it occurred to him that he was curious to know her reaction.

  “Oh,” Angela said. “Have fun.”

  “Is that all?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Is that all?’”

  “I told you I’m going to see a friend of mine who’s started acting like a monkey.”

  “Yes, I heard you.”

  “Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  “To tell the truth, I don’t really give a shit.”

  “But he really has started acting like a monkey, grunting, that kind of thing.”

  “Well, that’s fine, but—”

  “What would you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If a friend of yours started acting like a monkey.”

  “Nico, I have no idea. I’m your agent, not your analyst.”

  “Fuck it, Angela, you must have an opinion.”

  “Nico, don’t raise your voice to me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it.”

  Silence.

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “This friend of mine. The one who’s started acting like a monkey.”

  “Nico, I don’t know. This is turning into a really weird conversation, and I hate weird conversations.”

  “So that’s your get-out, is it?”

  “What do you mean, my get-out?”

  “A friend of yours starts acting like a monkey and the most intelligent thing you can think of to say is ‘I hate weird conversations’.”

  “No, that’s what I’m saying to you, because I don’t have any friends who’ve started acting like monkeys.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Nico, roll yourself a joint, they say it helps. Now, look, I’m sorry, but I really have to go, I’m very busy, I have to keep this show on the road. Take care.” And she put down the phone.

  Nico stared at the receiver for a moment or two, then calmly put it back. He remembered that in films they always put down the receiver without saying goodbye, and that he’d always thought this the height of bad manners. And in fact, it really wasn’t nice, especially when it was your agent who did it. Nico knew other people who had agents, and they all spoke about them almost as friends. Nico had wondered if it was normal for his agent to take the liberties she did, or treat everyone with that kind of maternal arrogance. In the end, Nico had thought about it and concluded that he preferred it this way, and that the last thing he wanted from his agent was a hypocritical show of friendship.

  Nico put the pencil back in his mouth and thought again about the story of Piero and the monkey. He wondered what his reaction should be to a piece of news like that, if it was right to feel that strange euphoria which had been his first reaction. He wondered if he ought instead to be worried, or upset, or if he should feel as if a burden had been placed on his shoulders. He often wondered if he had the right reaction to dramatic or intense events that affected his life. At that moment, all he felt was curiosity, a cheerful, almost euphoric interest in an event which, one way or another, would add some colour to his otherwise monochrome life.

  All of a sudden, he felt the impulse to go back to his home town and see how things really were. He wanted to know if it was still possible to be surprised. He lifted the receiver again and dialled a number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “How are you?”

  “Fine. What’s the matter?”

  Nico decided to approach things in a roundabout way. “I was just calling to see how you were,” he said.

  “Well, pretty much the same as I was an hour ago. W
hat is it, darling?”

  “Nothing, I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, pretty much.”

  “But there’s something else.”

  “No, not really, it’s just that I have to go home today.”

  “What?”

  “I have to go—”

  “Yes, I heard what you said. No way.”

  “Something’s happened that’s out of my control.”

  “Oh, yes? And what would that be?”

  “A friend of mine has started acting like a monkey.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “That’s the dumbest excuse I’ve ever heard. You know something? Your little fantasies don’t make me laugh the way they used to.”

  Nico moved the receiver away from his ear for a moment and looked up at the ceiling. “I swear to you, it’s the truth,” he said. “His sister just called me.”

  “And who is this friend?”

  “His name’s Piero.”

  “And how come whenever we want to go away for the weekend, you always come out with some story about a friend?”

  “I have a lot of friends.”

  “Don’t be a bastard, Nico.”

  Nico screwed up his eyes and tried to stay calm. “But I’m sure I’ve talked to you about this one.”

  “A friend of yours who behaves like a monkey? I don’t think so. I have a feeling I’d have remembered something like that.”

  “He didn’t use to behave like a monkey. He only started this summer.”

  “And before that, what did this friend do?”

  “You mean, what work did he do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Nico, don’t mess me about.”

  “He’s done a bit of everything.”

  “I’ve never heard of this friend of yours, and you can’t even think up a plausible profession for him. I keep telling you, I can’t stand lies.”

  “I’ve never lied to you.”

  “So you say.”