Italo stopped at the Ischiano Scalo level crossing.
Oh, to find the barrier up just once in my life!
He switched off the engine, lit a cigarette, laid his head back, closed his eyes and waited for the train.
‘Damned Sardinians … How I hate you. How I hate you … God, am I drunk …’ he murmured, and he would have fallen asleep had the pendolino, racing towards the North, not whooshed past him. The barrier lifted. Italo switched on the ignition again and drove into the village.
Four dark streets. Silence. Few lights in the low houses. Nobody about. The whole life of Ischiano was in the bar-cum-tobacconist’s and the games arcade.
He didn’t stop.
His packet of cigarettes was still half full. And he had no wish to play tressette and talk about Persichetti’s hound or the next football coupon. No, he was tired and only wanted to climb into bed, with the boiler turned up to maximum, the Maurizio Costanzo Show on TV and a hot water bottle.
Those two little rooms beside the school were a godsend.
It was then that he saw her.
‘Alima!’
She was walking southwards along the Aurelia.
‘There you are. I’ve found you at last.’
19
It was true.
As usual Pierini was right. The toilet window didn’t close properly. You only had to push it.
Pierini entered first, then Ronca and Pietro and lastly Bacci, who could barely squeeze through. It took two of them to pull him inside.
Inside the toilet you couldn’t see a thing. It was cold and there was a pungent smell of ammonia-based disinfectant.
Pietro kept to one side, leaning against the damp tiles.
‘Don’t switch on the lights. We might be seen.’ The trembling flame of the cigarette lighter drew a half moon on Pierini’s face. In the darkness his eyes shone like a wolf’s. ‘Follow me. And keep quiet. For Pete’s sake.’
Who’s talking?
No one dared to ask him where they were going.
The Section B corridor was so dark it was as if someone had painted it black. They walked in Indian file. Pietro trailed his hand along the wall.
The doors were all shut.
Pierini opened the door of their classroom.
The pale moonlight entered lazily through the large windows and tinged everything with yellow. The chairs, neatly placed on top of the desks. The crucifix. At the back, on a shelf, a cage containing some curled-up hamsters. A rubber plant. A poster of the human skeleton.
The four of them stood there by the door, spellbound. So empty and so silent, it didn’t seem like their classroom.
They went on.
Silent and fearful, like profaners of holy places.
Pierini led the line, showing the way with his lighter.
The footsteps echoed hollowly, but if the four boys stopped and stood still without talking, beneath that apparent peace there were noises, hisses and creaks.
The flush in the boys’ toilet dripping. Plip … plip … plip … The ticking of the clock at the end of the corridor. The wind thrusting at the windows. The wood of the cupboards creaking. The radiators muttering. The woodworm eating the teachers’ desks. Sounds that didn’t exist in daytime.
In Pietro’s mind that place had always been inseparable from the people who were in it. One huge creature made up of pupils, teachers and walls. But no, when everyone went away and Italo locked the front door, the school continued to exist, to live. And things came to life and talked to each other.
Like in that fairy tale where the toys (the soldiers who advance in rows, the little cars that race across the carpet, the teddy bear that … ) come to life as soon as the children leave the room.
They reached the stairs. Opposite, beyond the glass doors, were the headmaster’s room, the secretary’s office and the main entrance.
Pierini lit the basement stairs that plunged into the darkness. ‘Down we go.’
20
‘Alima! Where are you going?’
She was walking along the side of the road, not looking at him. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘Wait, stop for a moment.’ Italo had drawn alongside her and stuck his head out of the window.
‘Go away.’
‘Just for a moment. Please.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To Civitavecchia.’
‘Are you crazy? What do you want to go there for in this weather?’
‘I can go wherever I want.’
‘Of course you can. But why Civitavecchia?’
She slowed down and looked at him. ‘My friends live there, okay? I’m going to hitch a lift at the service station.’
‘Stop. Let me get out of the car.’
Alima stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. ‘Well? I’ve stopped.’
‘Er … I … I … Oh, hell! What I did was wrong. Here. Look.’ He held out a packet wrapped in tinfoil.
‘What is it?’
‘Some tiramisù. I bought some specially for you at the restaurant. You haven’t eaten anything. You like tiramisù, don’t you? There’s no liqueur in it, either. It’s really good.’
‘I’m not hungry.’ But she took it.
‘Try some and you’ll finish it, you’ll see. Or you could have it tomorrow, for breakfast.’
Alima dipped in a finger and brought it to her mouth.
‘What’s it like?’
‘Good.’
‘Listen. Why don’t you come and spend the night at my house? In the cottage. It’s nice there. There’s a comfortable sofa bed. It’s warm. I’ve got some peaches in syrup, too.’
‘At your house?’
‘Yes. Come on, we can watch television, Maurizio Costanzo. Next to each …’
‘I’m not fucking you. You make me sick.’
‘Who wants to fuck? Not me. I swear. Seriously, that’s not what I want. We’ll sleep.’
‘And what happens tomorrow morning?’
‘I’ll take you to Antiano. Early, though. If I get caught I’ll be in trouble.’
‘What time?’
‘Five o’clock.’
‘All right, then,’ said Alima.
21
Pierini knew exactly where he was going.
To the technical education room. Where there was a big twenty-eight-inch Philips TV and a Sony VHS video recorder.
That had been his objective ever since he had known that Italo was out.
The video-didactic equipment (that’s what they called it) was mostly used by the science mistress for showing her pupils documentaries.
The savannah. The wonders of the Great Barrier Reef. The secrets of water, and so on.
But every now and then the Italian teacher used it too.
Miss Palmieri had persuaded the school to buy a set of videos about the Middle Ages, and every year she showed them to the second form.
In October it had been 2B’s turn.
She had sat the kids down in front of the screen and Italo had started the cassette.
Federico Pierini couldn’t care two hoots about the Middle Ages, and so, as soon as the lights had gone out, he’d sneaked out and gone to play volleyball with the third form. At the end of the lesson he had returned, careful not to be seen, and had sat down, all hot and sweaty.
The next week the second episode was scheduled and Pierini had arranged another match. This time he had been caught.
‘Please listen carefully, children, and take notes. And you, Pierini, will write a report at home – let’s say five pages long – since you preferred to sneak off and play last time. And if you don’t bring it to me tomorrow, you’ll get a suspension,’ Miss Palmieri had said.
‘But Miss …’ Pierini had tried to object.
‘No buts. This time I mean it.’
‘Please, Miss, I can’t do it today. I have to go to hospital …’
‘Oh, you poor little thing! Would you mind telling us what major healt
h problem you are suffering from? What was your excuse last time? That you had to go to the oculist’s? And then I saw you in the piazza playing football. Or what about the time you told me you hadn’t done your homework because you’d had a renal cholic? When you don’t even know what a renal cholic is. At least try to be a bit more imaginative when you tell lies.’
But Pierini, that day, was telling the truth.
In the afternoon he had to go to Civitavecchia hospital to see his mother, who was in bed with stomach cancer and who had telephoned him complaining that he never went to see her, and he had promised her he would go.
And now that redheaded bitch dared to call him a liar and make fun of him in front of the class. Being made fun of was something he couldn’t stand.
‘Well, why do you have to go to hospital?’
And Pierini with a mournful expression had replied: ‘Well, Miss … you see, the trouble is, whenever I watch documentaries on the Middle Ages it gives me a bad case of the runs.’
The whole class had burst out laughing (Ronca had rolled on the floor clutching his stomach) and he had been sent to see the head. Then he’d had to stay at home all afternoon to write the summary.
And when his father had come home he had given him a thrashing for not going to the hospital.
He didn’t care about the thrashing. Didn’t even feel it. But he did care about not keeping his promise.
And then, in November, his mother had died and Miss Palmieri had told him she was sorry and that she hadn’t known his mother was ill.
You can stuff your apologies.
From that day on Pierini had stopped studying Italian and doing his homework. Whenever Miss Palmieri was in the classroom, he would clap on his headphones and put his feet up on the desk.
She said nothing, pretended not to see him, never tested him on his homework. And when he stared at her, she’d lower her eyes.
Not content with that, Pierini had played a series of amusing little tricks on her. Punctured the tyres of her Y10. Burnt the register. Thrown a stone and smashed a window of her house.
And he was sure she knew he’d done it, but she didn’t say anything. She was shit scared.
Pierini was constantly challenging her and came out the winner every time. Having a hold over her gave him a strange pleasure. An intense, sordid, physical elation. It excited him.
He’d get into the bathtub and masturbate, imagining that he was fucking the redhead. He’d tear her clothes off. Ram his cock in her mouth. Stick enormous dildos in her vagina. Punch her in the face and she’d enjoy it.
She acted so shy but she was a slut. He knew it.
He had never liked her, but after the video incident, some turbid sensual fantasies had taken root in Federico Pierini’s mind which left him frustrated and dissatisfied.
Now he was going to raise the stakes.
And see how the redhead would react.
22
The 131 stopped outside the school gate.
‘Here we are. This is the place.’ Italo turned off the engine and pointed to his cottage. ‘I know it looks like a dump from the outside. But inside it’s very cosy.’
‘Have you really got some fruit in syrup?’ asked Alima, who was beginning to feel hungry.
‘Yes. My wife made it with the peaches from my tree.’
Italo wrapped his scarf round his neck and got out of the car. He took the keys from his coat pocket and inserted them in the lock.
‘Who put this here?’
There was a chain around the gate.
23
‘One!’
On contact with the floor the TV screen exploded with a deafening bang. Millions of fragments scattered everywhere, under the desks, under the chairs, into the corners.
Pierini seized the video recorder, lifted it over his head and hurled it against the wall, reducing it to a mass of metal and printed circuits.
‘Two!’
Pietro was stunned.
What on earth had got into him? Why was he smashing everything up?
Ronca and Bacci were standing to one side, watching that force of nature unleash itself.
‘Now I’d … like to … see you … show us … another fucking video … about the … fucking Middle Ages,’ panted Pierini, in between kicks at the machine.
He’s out of his mind. He doesn’t realise what he’s doing. They’ll make him repeat the year for this.
(And if they find out that you were here with him … )
Oh no, what’s he doing now? I don’t believe it …
He was smashing the hi-fi equipment too.
(You must do something … quickly.)
Agreed. But what?
(STOP HIM.)
If only he were …
(Chuck Norris Bruce Lee Schwarzy Sylvester Stallone)
… bigger and stronger … It would be easier.
He had never felt so helpless in his life. He saw his happy school-days coming to an end before his very eyes and couldn’t do a thing about it. His mind seized up when he tried to imagine the consequences in terms of suspensions, repeated years, reports to the police. And he felt as if a bread roll was stuck in his gullet.
He went over to Bacci. ‘Say something to him. Make him stop, please.’
‘What can I say?’ muttered Bacci disconsolately.
Meanwhile Pierini continued to vent his fury on what was left of the speakers. Then he turned round and saw something. A crafty smile curled his lip. He walked over to a large metal cupboard containing books, electrical appliances and other material.
What’s he up to now?
‘Come here, Ronca. Help me. Give me a leg-up.’
Ronca went over and linked his fingers, Pierini planted his right foot on them and hoisted himself up level with the top of the cupboard. With one hand he knocked off a cardboard box, which came open, and a dozen cans of spray paint rolled out.
‘Now we’ll have some fun!’
24
What silly fool had chained up the gate?
Some stupid little idiot who wants to repeat the year.
Italo fiddled with the chain, not knowing what to do. He was beginning to get tired of these stupid practical jokes.
What’s the matter with these kids?
If you told them off, they swore at you and laughed in your face. They had no respect for the teachers, the school, anything. At thirteen years old they were already well on their way towards a future as delinquents and junkies.
It’s the parents’ fault.
Alima put her head out of the window. ‘What’s going on, Italo? Why don’t you open the gate? It’s cold.’
‘Just a minute. I’m thinking.’
This time, I swear to God, I’m going to give them hell.
They must be caught and punished, or they’d burn the school down next time.
But how am I going to get in?
He was getting really furious. He felt a rising anger and an almost uncontrollable urge to start smashing the whole place up.
‘Italo?’
‘Shut up, will you? Can’t you see I’m trying to think? Just wait …’
‘Well, fuck you then! Take me ba …’
BANG.
An explosion.
Inside the school.
Muffled but loud.
‘What the hell was that? Did you hear it?’ stammered Italo.
‘What?’
‘What do you mean, what? That noise!’
Alima pointed at the school. ‘Yes. It came from over there.’
Italo understood. He understood everything.
It was all absolutely, completely and unequivocally clear to him.
‘THE SARDINIANS!’ He started raving. ‘THE BLOODY SARDINIANS!’
Then, realising that he was shouting like a madman, he put his finger to his lips, shambled like an orang utan over to Alima and went on in a low voice. ‘Shit, it’s the Sardinians. It wasn’t the kids who chained up the gate. The Sardinians are in the school.’
&nbs
p; Alima looked at him in bewilderment. ‘Sardinians?’
‘Keep your voice down! The Sardinians. It was them that chained up the gate, don’t you see? So that they can loot the place without being disturbed.’
‘I don’t know …’ Alima was sitting in the car, finishing the tiramisù. ‘Italo, who are the Sardinians?’
‘What kind of a stupid question’s that? The Sardinians are the Sardinians. But they’ve made a big mistake. I’ll show them this time. You wait here. Don’t move.’
‘Italo?’
‘Quiet! I told you not to talk. Just wait.’ Italo limped round the side of the building.
There wasn’t a single light on in the school.
It wasn’t just my imagination. Alima heard the explosion too.
He went on round.
The cold air slipped down through the neck of his shirt, making his teeth chatter.
Maybe something just fell down. There was a draught and a door slammed. But what about the chain?
But then he saw a dim glow on the back wall of the building. It came from some gratings over the technical education room.
‘There they …’ are, the Sardinians.
What should he do? Fetch the police?
He calculated that it would take him at least ten minutes to drive to the police station, another ten to explain to those halfwits that the school was being burgled and another ten to get back. Thirty minutes.
Too long. They’d be well away by then.
No!
He’d have to catch them himself. Catch them red-handed.
At last he would have something to show all those sons of bitches at the Station Bar who made fun of him.
Italo Miele isn’t scared of anyone.
The problem was getting over the wall.
He ran to the car, wheezing like one of those air pumps they use for blowing up rubber dinghies. He grabbed Alima by the arm and pulled her out of the car. ‘Come on, you’ve got to help me.’
‘Leave me alone. Take me to the Aurelia.’
‘Like hell I will. You’re going to help me whether you like it or not.’ Italo dragged her towards the gate. ‘Now crouch down and I’ll climb on your shoulders. Then stand up. So I can get over. Crouch down, quick.’
Steal You Away Page 11