He stopped the BMW in a no-parking area in front of the general hospital.
Engineer Ranieri rummaged through his pockets, put together the change for the parking attendant. Ruggero got out of the car.
Five young men and one old man on the podium of the little Zurich Stadtspital. They received the certificates of merit from the mayor. The professor waved his eighty thousand dollar check before an anemic audience of other doctors, researchers, and a few journalists who applauded sincerely, free of the ferocity with which down south it is thought necessary to assert oneself, even through the recognition of the achievements of others. This prize is my safe conduct pass, thought Ruggero. In five or at most ten years, I’ll be where I want to be, he thought as a big girl in a blouse and a black calf-length skirt (a girl who, where he came from, would have been mocked even at a gathering of magistrates) gave Professor Helmerhorst a bunch of orchids wrapped in pink cellophane. In five, ten years. Two weeks later he received a phone call. The managing director of Bari’s national health care clinic was offering him the position of deputy director at the Cancer Institute of the Mediterranean.
They went through the front gate. There was a hustle and bustle of white and green lab coats. Ruggero gestured: “This way.” They walked into pavilion number six.
Amidst the dirty damp walls of the orthopedics ward of the general hospital, on the filthy floors, sensing the encrusted dust on the radiators before seeing it, submitting to the demands of the nurse practitioners on the bulletin board without reading them, in the grim darkness of the hallway, the head physician walked toward them, soberly waving his right hand. A tall man, old and very pale.
He patted Ruggero on the back. He introduced himself to Engineer Ranieri. He invited them to follow him. At the end of the hall, before the exit, after the broken vending machine. In the elevator, as they were riding up to the fourth floor, if one of three had so much as lifted his head, he would have seen the other two staring at their shoes. In the force that frees us, the remains of the force that puts us back in chains. The managing director of the health care clinic had spoken of it as the first alternative to the major cancer treatment centers in the north. Entirely without precedent. They would have a TrueBeam linear accelerator, the tumor-burning machine of which there were only nine in all of Europe. It meant going back to Bari. But it meant going back in triumph. Crossing the finish line before he turned thirty-five. The elevator door slid open.
The room, large and airy, gave the sense of having been cleared out just a few days earlier. The eucalyptus trees waved through the open window. The head physician stood flattened against the door. So there he was, the patient. The off-white blanket followed humps and valleys where the one or the other ought not to have been. The man was nodding from the bed. He seemed tired, disgusted. The engineer described the apartment on Via D’Aquino. “Taranto’s social drawing room.” Ruggero went over to the window. He closed the shutters. He pulled too hard. The room was plunged into darkness. He pushed them back open, slightly, and the head physician was no longer there. In the semidarkness, he met the patient’s half-lidded eyes. The patient closed his eyes, opened them again, flushed with the pain medicine, showing that everything (said the cunning, that is, the patience in those eyes) rested on a presupposition analogous to the force of gravity. Too obvious to speak of it in explicit terms in the presence of body shattered on the ground.
Back on Via Fanelli, in the car with the engineer, Ruggero tried to reassemble his impressions. He had to answer quickly to prevent the questions from going someplace where the words hadn’t yet organized a proper defense. Why did you interrupt your patient consultations? He talked me into it. Did you understand what you were doing with that man?
Every time he came back from Amsterdam—short stays of three or four days—his father would tell him about the situation. The company was many companies bound up together. A welter of interlocking ownerships, investments, corporate subsidiaries. The company, therefore, was in good health. But the company was going through a terribly difficult time. The company was stagnating. And yet, there was a major opportunity taking shape on the horizon. That was what his father told him. Then, just as he did with Clara and Michele—as he would have done with Gioia, if she hadn’t been a minor at the time—he would put some papers before him and ask him to sign.
They passed the tennis courts again. Engineer Ranieri stuck his elbow out the car window. He lifted the cigarette to his lips. His hair tousled by the wind.
Papers to sign were a Salvemini tradition. Over the years, he and his siblings had been summoned for dozens of family meetings. Before Michele left for Rome. Before Ruggero came back from Amsterdam. After Clara married Alberto. Before she married him. They would gather in the villa’s large living room. Here, the head of the family, sitting in his armchair, his legs wrapped in an innocuous looking Scottish plaid blanket, would lay out the situation. Lengthy talks that neither he nor his siblings understood in the slightest. Vittorio talked about shareholder resolutions, or acting partners. Ruggero wondered how it could be possible that the pathogenesis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma concealed fewer pitfalls than an ordinary deed of sale. He looked to his siblings for their reactions. Michele was looking at the trees outside the window. Clara was crossing and uncrossing her long legs, barely covered by a Mila Schön skirt, taking a drag on a cigarette, a sarcastic smile offered in passive resistance to the show. Vittorio was talking about medium-term leasing, about tax loopholes.
They also drove past the auto dealership, the gas station. The two whores were still there. Ruggero clenched the steering wheel. He resisted the temptation to swerve in their direction and run them over.
One Christmas Eve, his father dragged him in front of the fireplace. The banks were demanding supplementary collateral for a newly founded company. Just a small LLC, but strategically important. I named it Cla.ru.mi. “Cla what?” “It’s an acronym, based on your names.” While Vittorio went on talking, Ruggero visualized the auditorium at the Zurich Stadtspital. He thought about the conference on the efficacy of pamidronate at Cornell University where he would be in just two weeks. That was his life. Talking to him about the umpteenth corporate emergency was just wasting his time. Vittorio said: “They’re asking for all three of you to guarantee the line of credit.” Ruggero was ready to grab a fountain pen even before his father had finished talking. Anything, just to be done with it.
“Look out for that asshole!” Engineer Ranieri transferred Ruggero’s recklessness to the small compact traveling in the opposite direction.
So this was it, then? Suretyships? Letters of guarantee? Was it the papers that made him feel he was trapped again? Over the years they’d allowed themselves to be dragged into a fair number of messes. The last one had been faking the purchase of a villa in Porto Allegro and then making him sign a contract guaranteeing he would return it. His father had done the same thing with Michele. The situations weren’t comparable. What did his brother have to lose? Did he own any real estate of his own? Had there ever been any assets in Michele’s life that a creditor could seize? Michele didn’t know, didn’t care, had never dreamed of taking stock of the situation. Otherwise he’d have come to the conclusion that the sum total of the guarantees they’d all underwritten was greater than the estate that not a low-profile journalist but a respected physician, someone who earned real money, could hope to accumulate in a lifetime of work. Three million euros? Four? How much were they on the hook for? Among other things, it had never passed through Michele’s mind that criminal consequences could ever emerge from all those sheets of paper. One day they’d find a couple of marshals on their doorsteps. Oh, Michele wouldn’t have given a hoot. His sister would actually have found it flattering! Clara would have flashed a dazzling smile as she proffered her crossed wrists to the finance police. (He caught himself faulting her as if she were still alive. Once again, the feeling of uneasiness.)
So it was for this? This is w
hat you came back for? Or was it the position as deputy director? He knew that voice.
They pulled into Mungivacca. Low houses, small hardware stores. More than once in the last few months, during family meetings, he had noticed a faint, powdery white trace on the tip of Clara’s cigarette. It wasn’t hard to figure out what she had gone to do in the bathroom. Every so often his sister’s legs were crisscrossed with strange hematomas. Deep dark patches on that unnaturally white flesh. Even clusters of bruises that appeared and disappeared as she uncrossed her legs and recrossed them in the other direction. His sister reduced to a minimum the grinding of her jaws and smiled. A triumphant happiness, that would send shivers down your back. Then she’d look at her father and shoot Ruggero a wink. Vittorio was talking about the villas that would be put in all their names. He said that Michele was fine with it, he’d meet with the notary Valsecchi up in Rome. “It’s all taken care of,” he hastened to conclude. (Every time their half brother was mentioned in his absence, the members of the family all rearranged themselves on their various armchairs and sofas, to ensure that the subtle electric slippage could pass by without leaving a trace). His sister would lift an eyebrow. Annamaria, sitting back straight in her chair, would do nothing more than shake her bracelets, looking at her spouse and biological children as if they were the Windsors during a domestic interlude. Clara would imperceptibly tug the hem of her skirt downward, a provocation more than a concealment. Vittorio went on weaving the web of his extremely intricate lecture. Then the sound of galloping footsteps. Gioia would burst into the living room, displaying a necklace studded with tiny pink diamonds that Annamaria had given her, without informing her father. She was shouting: “Surprise!”
Now the BMW was parked in front of the tobacconist. “Then we’re clear,” Engineer Ranieri said again. Ruggero said goodbye. He heard the door slam. He saw himself turn the car around. The small shops passed from the front windshield to the rear windshield and vanished. Ruggero took a right. He turned down Via Fanelli again. Is this why he’d gone to the general hospital? Tell him no, and tomorrow the banks will come asking for the sums you guaranteed. Disobey him, and the illicit actions for which you’re unknowingly responsible will fall from the sky of inactive guilt and come to hurt you. Is that it? Do you really believe it? Do you remember what happened with the archive?
He knew that voice. The voice knew him. The voice knew what happened to him every time Vittorio camouflaged very specific demands inside an incomprehensible explanation. The world around him gradually dimmed, his throat tightened. Vittorio presented himself as if defenseless, crushed by his problems, he pretended until he convinced himself that he was a child (a sad, sad child). But this was the technique he employed to ensure that what happened was the very opposite. It was Ruggero who regressed, and the only way to stop the process was to do as Vittorio wished.
“Papà, that’s something I can’t do.”
In Bari, a few months after he’d accepted the position of deputy director of the Cancer Institute of the Mediterranean, Vittorio had come to see him at the clinic. He’d invited him to dinner the week before. He wouldn’t give up. He’d even cropped up at the benefit gala for the fight against childhood leukemia held by the AIL. After chatting with the mayor, Vittorio had gone over to the donations table. He’d filled out his check, he’d let it drop into the large transparent bowl. Then he’d headed for Ruggero. Half an hour later, they were strolling in the hotel’s gardens. Flooded by the artificial light, the azaleas were bursting with life.
“Papà, I can’t,” Ruggero had said for the second time.
He crossed Via Amendola again. On either side fields stretched out, colored yellow and green. Similar to a sun, concealed somewhere on the horizon, beyond the olive trees, on the far side of the towns and the adjoining cities. The voice. Ruggero accelerated as if to keep it from catching up with him. He saw the gas station heave into view. He downshifted from fifth gear to fourth. He shot past the gas station, the carwash. Suddenly, he swerved to the right. The girls saw him pull up at a speed that could easily have killed them. They leapt backward, stumbling on their heels, spinning halfway around.
The BMW screeched to a halt just inches from where they would still have been if they’d not moved. The first of the two was wearing a miniskirt that left bare her long and muscular legs. The other one was wearing a tank top and white shorts. For the whole last week, his father hadn’t stopped pestering him about the documents in the Regional Medical Archives. The girls, recovered from their initial fright, were now looking in his direction. No tinted glass. One of them stopped scratching her head. She smiled. They started to come closer. The tall one came over to his side of the car. The other one moved to the opposite side (that way, if he did tear out of there, he wouldn’t hit them both). Stupid African bitch, he thought to himself. He turned off the motor to reassure them. He opened the door. The tall girl leaned forward. “Ciao ciao.” Her eyes were dark, her large lips daubed with transparent lipstick. The wind was moving the trees on the far side of the parking lot. Ruggero said: “Let’s go.” In reply, the girl arched her back, opened her right hand wide. For seventy euros, her girlfriend would get in the car too. Ruggero rummaged in his pockets. His white labcoat peeked out from under his jacket. The girl put on a obliging expression. “The extra money is so that she doesn’t come with you.” The girl failed to pick up on the nuance, but the concept was clear. She gestured to her friend. The other girl stood there with her fingers gripping the car door. Then she released her grasp. The first girl went around the BMW while the second one went back to the edge of the parking area. The girl opened the door, got in the seat next to him. Ruggero pulled out.
Five minutes later they were on a narrow side street surrounded by fields. A stand of cherry trees blossomed beyond the metal fence. They were still in the car and it was still the day after his sister’s funeral. The girl started to recline her seat. Ruggero admonished her, lifting his forefinger in midair. He looked down. He was tempted to smash her face in. The girl ran her hand through her hair. She slipped her other hand into the pocket of her skirt. She looked at him. Ruggero remained motionless. So then the girl leaned forward. She undid his trousers. She lifted her hand to her mouth, tore the wrapping with her teeth. With her hands free, she pulled down his underwear. The gnats hovered in the air. The girl tilted her head, laid a cheek on Ruggero’s thigh, and when she sensed that the time was right, aiding herself with her tongue, slid the condom on. Ruggero had to stop himself from spitting on her. The girl must have sensed something because she grabbed his legs for a moment. The scene shifted definitively to the other end, like a film projector that continues to beam its shaft of light somewhere other than the screen, so that the memories streamed past without Ruggero being able to see them. After hearing that he couldn’t give him access to the archive, his father, in the garden at the Sheraton, had slowed his pace.
“You’re the deputy director,” he protested.
“The Archive of Medical Reports doesn’t come under my jurisdiction.”
Ruggero understood that his father had understood that he was lying. Small white dots whirled around the azaleas. Vittorio shrugged, filled with bitterness. Ruggero felt his throat closing up.
He put a hand on her head. He whispered: “You cow.”
After the time at the Sheraton, his father had invited him out to dinner at the restaurant. They’d talked for no good reason about the renovation of a house. A small villa on the coast. Then Vittorio had resumed his attack. He’d explained that the documentation was needed for a statistical study being undertaken by the National Builders’ Association.
“What does the National Builders’ Association want with our archives?”
“How should I know?” Vittorio had flashed him a comradely smile. “The president just asked me. He’s a close friend. He’s done us a lot of favors.”
“A formal request should be submitted to the health director. A pub
lic institution should make the request.”
“You can also do it yourself.”
His fingers touched the girl’s fingers. She instinctively closed the space between forefinger and middle finger, her thumb hooked around the button of his trousers. She found herself with another fifty-euro note in her fist.
So his father had come to see him personally at the institute. Ruggero ushered him into his office. He had a couple of espressos brought in.
“Papà, do you feel all right?”
Vittorio was pacing back and forth in the room, he was upset. He talked of sums of money on which the Ministry of Public Works had accumulated unbelievable delays in payment, construction projects that were having trouble getting off the ground, and taxes, taxes on corporate incomes, and how when it came to collecting those back taxes the highest officials of those same insolvent public agencies were suddenly transformed into ferocious creditors. He leapt from one topic to another, and when he no longer saw in his son the irascible oncologist with extensive international experience, and perhaps not even the whoremonger, but the simple creature terrified by another’s fragility, the quavering grownup child faced with a picture of paternal helplessness, that’s when he drove the knife in. He asked him again. The papers from the archive. The medical reports for all the cancer patients in Puglia and Basilicata. The girl felt something on her head. As if he were, absurdly, patting her, delivering small taps, tiny slaps, a series of humiliating reprimands with his knuckles. She looked up, bewildered more than indignant, ready to complain. And yet Ruggero knew. He had realized that Vittorio was himself lying. There was no president of the National Builders’ Association. He remembered the file folders in the administrative offices of Salvemini Construction. The file boxes lined up on the shelves that contained the announcements of bare legal titles to property, updated every week. The countryside was gleaming in the glory of early afternoon. This time the girl definitely noticed the slap to the head. Her eyes filled with hatred. She took her lips off her work and looked at him. And then, as if sight had substituted for touch, she understood that he had spat on her. She felt her hair. She was ready to berate him, maybe to hit him. But he let more cash fall. And when more banknotes rained over her, like stones, the situation in which pride might have a price above which more pride is required, and it’s not always easy to feel up to it, certain you’re not mixing pride up with haughtiness, when he tossed that money onto her, the girl went back to kneeling over something that finally had become a man. It was clear what would happen if the two archives happened to be cross-referenced. The medical reports on cancer patients and the list of bare property titles. Ruggero did as his father wished. A doctor in the family can always come in handy.
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