Ferocity

by Nicola Lagioia

  Clara will see Michele months later. The psychiatrists will recommend against any contact with his family. Apparently he’d threatened to kill himself, or to kill someone else, if they made him see any of their faces, even from a distance. And so his father rented him a small apartment in Rome. It turned out to be an intelligent decision. So much so that over the course of the next few months, the situation improved. He even came to see them for Easter. They ate lunch together in the garden. A Sunday afternoon. The construction workers were there. Lots of ravens in the sky. The notary Valsecchi was there, too.

  But she was screwing that guy from the gym and actually I was sick as a dog, thought Michele, smoking at the window.

  The cat leapt up onto the windowsill, mewed. Michele put out his cigarette. It was sad to see her sneeze when the smoke curled in between her whiskers. He stroked her head, the cat multiplied her pleasure, opening her mouth slightly. Ecstasy and a dull daze. Then the invisible thread broke and the animal shot away. A voice called out from the floor below.

  “Michele!”

  The big metallic Audi. He’d seen it from the window. The dark of night through the tree branches, pierced by the beam of the headlights. The driver had walked around the car to open the door. He’d seen the man walk confidently down the driveway.

  He carefully closed the bedroom door. He went downstairs.

  “Hey, wait for me!”

  Hurrying footsteps. Michele stopped and Gioia caught up with him. “Hold on, let’s go together.” She was wearing a peach-colored satin dress that would have been perfect for a debutante ball. Ringlets and color. She’s even gone to the beautician’s, he thinks, nauseated. Now all they needed to do to complete the picture was lock arms. In this slightly ridiculous manner, as if they were a pair of sweethearts, they made their entrance into the dining room.

  Michele saw his father sitting in the armchair next to the fireplace. Decorative logs of firewood. Then the other man. The minute he noticed their presence, the chief justice of the Bari Court of Appeals got to his feet and came toward them. He introduced himself. His sister made an imperceptible curtsey, the way a ballerina flexes her legs. The judge held out his hand.

  “Mimmo Russo.”

  “Michele.”

  “Ah, Michele. Your father told me all about you. You’re living in Rome. The capital. Pleasure to meet you, a pleasure,” he mumbled.

  Michele had to wait for the handshake to relax before he realized that this was actually the judge. However implausible, he’d assumed this was the driver.

  “Let’s not stand here. What are we standing for. Let’s sit down, let’s sit down,” said the man, standing in for the hosts for a moment.

  Michele went and sat on the sofa. The judge resumed his seat in the armchair next to Vittorio’s. Michele felt uncomfortable. The guest’s handshake had left him ill at ease. He tried to observe him more carefully.

  He was a powerfully built man with a slightly hunched back, about sixty-five years old. Despite the tufts of white hair that stuck out of his eyebrows and ears, his hair was black and combed over on the right, which didn’t keep a part of his cranium from revealing its nakedness, as if some diseased form of vanity had pushed him to dye his hair but not get a transplant. His teeth seemed to have some problem with tartar. His manner of speech, all speed and half-uttered words, was evidence of a passion that Michele believed inappropriate at the summit of the judicial system. But his clothing was the tell. His camel-colored suit with the frayed hems would have looked old-fashioned fifteen years ago. The whole package gave the impression of a peasant who’d made money.

  “Mr. Chief Justice, good evening!”

  Annamaria came into the dining room. At her side, the housekeeper was carrying a tray with glasses full of non-alcoholic drinks and an array of canapés. The chief justice of the court of appeals beamed a broad smile.

  “Signora, how are you?”

  The man slapped his hands energetically on his thighs. He got up a second time, and went to greet Annamaria. He staged an impromptu kiss of her hand. He took a glass from the tray. “Let’s be careful not to spill.” Gioia broke into a confidential little giggle.

  The judge went back to his spot. The housekeeper walked by with the tray. Vittorio took a sip. “And so these were charity dinners,” he said to the judge. They resumed whatever conversation had been interrupted.

  “Charity dinners. But now it’s not like you can just go about organizing soirees for Haitian refugees with the region’s money,” and having bitten down on one canapé, he popped a second into his mouth whole, “it’s not as if you can just ignore the constraints of the budget,” he was chomping open-mouthed, brushing his hands over his trousers to get rid of the crumbs.

  “Forgive the delay.”

  Ruggero arrived, too. The judge made to get to his feet. His brother lengthened his stride. “Mr. Chief Justice, please don’t trouble yourself.” He leaned toward him and shook his hand. Serious, not deferential.

  “Well, then, I’d say we can go in to dinner,” said Annamaria.

  The table, you had to admit, was magnificently set. Hand-embroidered white linen tablecloth. Damask linen napkins. In a wicker basket sat the breadsticks and the olive bread. The gold thread of the placemats glittered in the candlelight and when Vittorio picked up the bottle of Amarone and began to pour, the ruby red spun in the eyes of those present.

  “Mr. Chief Justice, the cuttlefish will just melt in your mouth,” Vittorio proclaimed.

  “You say I’m sure to like them?”

  Ruggero asked for the serving dish with the raw fish. He bit into a slice of cheese. Vittorio and the judge, meanwhile, had launched into a discussion of a complicated case involving urban development funding. Every now and then Ruggero would join in the conversation. Annamaria smiled, her chin propped on her hand. Gioia watched them talk, and when the judge’s eyes met hers, his sister would nod. But aside from Vittorio and the chief justice, and perhaps his brother on one or two points, no one had the slightest idea what they were talking about. The tone. The gestures. Those, though, were important. And the gestures—including the mere act of nodding, the mere act of smiling—served the purpose of rendering the surface solid and impenetrable, so that the river could flow along underground. The salt-roasted bass came to the table. Michele looked with disgust at the white tufts of hair on the fingers of the old judge. Annamaria nodded. No one mentioned Porto Allegro. Gioia yawned. She rested her head on Michele’s shoulder. He tried to stay calm. Then his sister shook herself, and resumed eating.

  After five more minutes, Michele said: “Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom.”

  He left the dining room. He walked down the hall. It seemed impossible to him even to think of Clara, as if the conversation had constructed all around the place a leaden shell through which ghosts could not pass. He passed the built-in bookcases, the little table with the telephone. He went into the bathroom. He shut and locked the door. He turned the faucet. He went over to stand before the toilet. He lifted the seat and cover. Kneeled. Shut his eyes and vomited. He got back up on his feet. He went back to the toilet. He vomited again. He flushed, cleaned carefully with toilet paper. He went to the sink, rinsed his face and shut off the water. He left the bathroom.

  In the hallway, he heard the phone ringing. He was about to walk past it. Then he stopped. He lifted the receiver.

  “Hello.”

  It was Engineer Ranieri. He was asking for his father.

  “He can’t come to the phone right now.”

  “But it’s urgent, Michele, urgent,” whined the engineer.

  “I know,” said Michele, overwhelmed by distaste, by nausea, with no idea of what they were even talking about. “My father said you were to report to me. How far along are we?” he ventured.

  “No further than we were last week,” the engineer said after a moment’s hesitation. “The Ta
rantine wants an answer about the matter of the elevator. I wanted to find out from your father what we should tell him.”

  Fury, nausea. He tossed an imaginary coin into the air.

  “The answer is no,” said Michele.

  He went back to the dining room. He resumed his seat at the table. The judge and his father were discussing tourism in the Salento.

  Around half past midnight, after the judge had left, Michele sat smoking in the garden the way he used to do when he was a kid. The moon was pale and full. Swarms of gnats were whirling around the floodlights over the front door. The nausea wasn’t going away. He heard a noise in the hedges. He had a hunch, but it was itself wrapped up inside something else that needed deciphering, so he didn’t turn to look. He took a drag on his cigarette. He coughed. He headed back to the villa.

  He walked through the front door. Annamaria and the housekeeper were tidying up. Ruggero had gone home. Gioia had gone out. Michele started up the stairs. As soon he reached the upper floor, he stopped. He was breathing slowly, as if struggling to overcome the sensation of incredulity. The door to his room was open. He bit the inside of his cheek, strode quickly into the room. Immediately switched on the light. The bed. The armoire. He had the impression he’d glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second, he relaxed. Then he understood. Nothing but a pillow tossed in the corner. He started whistling nervously, under his breath. He stretched out on the floor, peered under the bed. Back on his feet. He pulled open the armoire and started rummaging through the clothes. Suddenly he felt very agitated. He grabbed the chair, set it down next to the armoire. He climbed onto it. He checked the top of the armoire. He got down off the chair. He left the room. He looked in the bathroom, and then in Gioia’s room. He walked down the hall to the master bedroom. He threw open the door without knocking. His father turned over, under the covers. “What on earth is going on?” Michele didn’t answer. He turned on the light. (He thought he could detect his father curling his toes, it disgusted him). He paced the room from one end to the other. He opened the armoire, pointless though it was. “What’s going on? What’s going on?” Michele switched off the light and left. He rushed downstairs. A sister, a mother. He started calling in a loud voice. He whistled repeatedly. Annamaria’s head poked out of the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is that you need to keep that fucking door closed!” shouted Michele, glaring at her with open hatred, and suddenly everything came bobbing back to the surface, everything was clear, transparent, resplendent.

  He advanced toward her. Annamaria stepped back. Michele looked around in the kitchen. Of course the cat wasn’t there. He hurried out into the garden. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and started calling her. “Fuck, fuck!” he shouted, stamping his feet, after five minutes. In spite of the moon, it was hard to see through the darkness. So he hurried back into the house. He came back out with a flashlight, already switched on, in his hand. He aimed it at the bushes, the plants, he raised the beam of light all the way up into the trees. While he went on calling her. A mother. A sister. And now a cat.

  After an hour of fruitless searching, he started toying with the idea that she had retraced her steps and returned to the house of her own accord. And so he headed back in to his bedroom. He climbed the stairs, nurturing the absurd hope that the whole thing had just been a nightmare. The cat wasn’t there. Michele sat down on the bed. He was exhausted. He put his hands on his head. Then he relaxed. Two minutes. I’m just going to rest for two minutes, he said aloud in the hope that he’d awaken from the nightmare.

  He woke up with a start. He’d slept fully dressed. On his feet, the tight clamp of his shoes. He looked at the window. The dim, grainy luminosity that comes just before dawn began to spread. He got to his feet. He ran a hand through his hair. He went into the bathroom to splash water on his face. The house was immersed in silence.

  He went down the stairs. He opened the front door and went out into the garden. The light was more intense. The blades of grass and the trees and the fountain and the rose bushes. He looked both right and left. He shook his head. Two magpies landed on the lawn. The thought of the cat on a paved road stunned him. The total unawareness of evil, and the fact of unexpectedly finding ourselves right in front of it. That’s all it ever was or had been, deep down. He walked up the front drive. His clothing was all rumpled and creased, his hair was a mess. He reached the gate. He clicked it open. With a vigorous shove, he opened one of the gates. He stood there, looking. And then, as if someone had pushed him, he took a step forward. Another, and then yet another.

  In this way, at six forty-five on a morning in mid-June, thirty-two days after returning to Bari, Michele started walking back to a city he hadn’t seen in ten years.

  PART THREE

  All cities stink in the summer

  An army of rotary fans churned the heat from one room to the next, defeated by the majesty of June on the Adriatic. Ninety-five degrees in the shade. Palm trees in the muggy breeze. This year, once again, it had happened without warning. Yesterday people were taking the steps two at a time and now just leaving the house wore you out. An airplane’s contrail cut through the pure turquoise of the sky. And for that matter even those who, with the help of an air conditioner, went from night to morning without suffering the sudden change in temperature, could hear as they awakened the buzz of the mopeds on which kids were deserting school for their first dips into the sea. They zipped down along the state highway, past the gas station’s inflatable puppet, heading straight for the beaches of Mola and San Vito. And so, if you were a grown up, the thought of summer arrived swollen with regrets, dissolving memory in envy.

  Signora Grazioli woke up at seven thirty. She breakfasted on an ounce of oat flakes in a cup of skim yogurt. She allowed herself an espresso. She went back to her bedroom. She turned on her smartphone and waited in vain for a text from her daughter. She smoked a cigarette. Looking out the window, she saw the pool: it possessed the splendor of certain paintings from the school of American realism. Youth really was a paltry thing without a bundle of equity funds. The woman let her nightgown slip onto the hardwood floor. She unhooked her bra, kicked off her panties. She bent over the dresser. She got out the two pieces of her swimsuit and put them on. She went into the bathroom. She put on her slippers, grabbed her bathrobe. She picked up her pack of cigarettes and the latest issue of Astra. She put on her sunglasses, ready for the morning swim.

  Before going out, she turned off the exterior lights. Wall-mounted floodlights. Large oval polyurethane lights. Her husband insisted on leaving them on all night long, because he was convinced they scared away burglars. How stupid. The woman went out into the garden. After a couple of steps she noticed the torn plastic bag, the remains of dinner on the grassy lawn. God only knew what kinds of wild animals were roaming around the area, and he just dropped the garbage outside the door. As if the heaps of dead moths at the foot of the floodlights weren’t bad enough already. The housekeeper would tend to them, but in the meantime, she’d seen them.

  She walked to the lounger. For an instant, she defied the sun from behind her dark glasses. She removed the sunglasses, took a few steps, and dove in. The blue basin. Slivers of light sparkled on the bottom. Deterioration began with a poorly maintained pool, but the chemical balance of the water that morning was perfect.

  After twenty laps, Signora Grazioli decided that she’d had enough. She used the ladder to climb out. Her bent, wrinkled body, struck by the light of a star millions of miles away, was the only image of vulnerability offered to the imaginary witness.

  She stretched out on the lounger. She undid the top of her suit and disposed herself to receive the sun. Then she luxuriated in the pleasure of a Marlboro Red.

  Once she was done reading the horoscope, she cinched her bathrobe and got back to her feet. It was time to review the roses.

&n
bsp; Cherry Brandy. Dame de l’Étoile. Cross breeding worked miracles. Proof if it was needed was that the poor Albertines (a variety that would have looked no different when her grandparents’ great-grandparents had admired them) were already sagging and withered in the heat. As she gazed at them pensively, the woman heard a door slam on the other side of the hedge. At that point she stiffened. The next-door neighbor’s villa. How unfortunate. Now she’d be forced to say hello.

  If only she’d run into him anytime up until a month and a half ago—she thought, stung with remorse—she’d have scolded him for the all the uproar at night. Since the ex-undersecretary was a widower, it wasn’t hard to guess its cause. Not just music. Not just lights from the carefully curtained windows. Women’s laughter. Raucous cries. But now it had been weeks since the last sign of life from the villa. So when her neighbor’s long, grayish face appeared through the leaves of the mastic bushes, Signora Grazioli forced herself to flash him a nice smile.

  “Buongiorno, Signor Buffante.”

  “Buongiorno, Signora Grazioli.”

  The woman went back to the swimming pool. The old man walked through the garden gate. He got into his midnight-black Maserati and pulled out.

  Valentino Buffante was driving down the State Highway 100 on his way into the city center. He had an appointment to meet with his colleagues at VersoSud, the foundation for the development of southern Italy’s Mezzogiorno region, a foundation he’d been chairing since he’d lost his positions at the ministry. He was in a lousy mood, sweating under his shirt. The problems had started when old Salvemini had called him up to tell him about the funeral. Invited him to join a father to share in his grief, which gave him a chance to brandish his daughter, a corpse, as a tool of persuasion. He’d been forced to shake hands with Costantini. He’d successfully avoided the engineer. A few weeks later had come the phone call from the eldest son. “Signor Buffante, I’m so sorry to bother you. Knowing as we do of your experience in matters of public administration, we’d be very interested in getting your opinion concerning a problem we’re trying to solve.”