The clock again. Two minutes more. 19… 18… 17… by Platform 12 I can’t run any more, I’ve got such a stitch in my side.
When I can breathe again I have only half a minute left. At Platform 8 I can see my train. I force my legs on, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3… and turn onto Platform 2. I get as far as the door of the train and press the button. But the door won’t open.
“I have to get on! I! Just! Have! To!” I wheeze and press the button again. Then the train leaves without me.
The rear lights of the train swim in front of my eyes. I’m so furious, at the night train and at my slow legs.
What can I do now? I walk up and down the platform, past the boards with the train times and destinations. I read all the timetables through but I can’t find any other train to Palermo.
There’s no Palermo either on the announcement board in the hall.
I walk out onto the square in front of the station.
Buses blast past, throngs of cars and mopeds weave in and out. Everything here is too fast.
Maybe there’s a bus that goes to Palermo. But the bus-drivers shake their heads or tell me that I need to take the train.
Furious, I shunt pigeons out of my way and see a plane in the sky. A plane wouldn’t work either. Nothing works.
“Taxi?” somebody asks me suddenly. A man comes towards me. “Bochum… great!” He points at my keeper’s jersey with the Bochum crest on the back. “Taxi, taxi?”
I had never even thought of a taxi, but maybe Palermo is too far.
“I’m going to Palermo,” I say.
“Hotel Palermo, no problem.”
“No! To Palermo. Sicily. On the football.”
“Palermo, Sicily?!” The taxi driver gives me a funny look.
Quickly I take out my money-roll. I’ve no idea how dear a taxi is. But I’d spend everything just to get there. I leaf through the roll, pausing at the fifty euro note, so that he can see it properly. I pull the brezel-change out of my pocket too.
“Is that enough?”
My money-roll makes a real impression. The taxi driver thinks for a minute and chews his gum even faster. Then he nods. He nods!
“Good, okay,” he says. “No problem. Palermo, Sicily. Come on.”
He takes my case from me and runs towards the taxi. Right away I’m ten kilos lighter. Maybe this will work. Palermo here I come!
“Is the taxi as quick as the train?” I ask as I run after him.
“Taxi, fast, si, si, my taxi faster than train.”
My case lands in the boot of the taxi. The boot only closes at the third slam because there are two big dents in the back of the car.
Then I’m sitting back in the taxi.
As we career across Rome, I really believe in Palermo again. The taxi horn honks all the cars out of the way and goes through traffic lights, even when they’ve already turned red. I hold on tight to the grip above the window and keep looking straight ahead so that I don’t feel sick.
Then we’re out of Rome. Suddenly all around me looks like Papa’s postcards. There are hills and olive groves everywhere. Warm air streams in through the window; it smells like the herbs for spaghetti-bolognese. I stretch my head out the window and let my mouth fill with air. This is the land of Papa, Pietro and pizza. People here love food, just like me. You can even ride a moped on your own when you’re eleven, Papa says, and when you’ve got a problem, you only need to ask your neighbours.
“Will we get to Palermo in time for supper?” I ask the taxi driver in Italian. In the wing mirror I look like a real Italian, with my black hair and sunglasses. The only thing missing is Papa’s gold chain.
“Si, Si,” says the taxi driver looking back at me.
I sink down further into the soft seat and let my arm hang out the window. It’s better in the taxi than on the train, with the window open and the music on the radio. My tie flutters in the wind, the fields race by. Nothing else is going to stop Don Carlo. I shoot with my fingers into the wind. Bang-bang!
We’re driving along when the taxi suddenly judders to a stop.
“Merda!” The driver punches the steering wheel. “Car broke down, always broke down…” He turns the key in the ignition but the engine doesn’t start. “No good… gotta push… behind… I’ll do the accelerator,” he says to me.
“Okay,” I say. I don’t want to lose a second.
The taxi driver takes my suit jacket so that it won’t get dirty. Then I get out and brace myself behind the car.
“Uno, due, tre!” the taxi driver calls out the window.
I push so hard that the stones under my trainers bounce away down the lane. The engine starts straightaway and the taxi takes off! I raise my arms high as if I’d scored a winning goal, until the taxi driver disappears around the next bend.
I wait. The taxi driver must be doing a loop to get the engine running properly again. I brush the dust off the bottoms of my suit trousers.
Another minute goes by and the taxi still doesn’t come back. Maybe it just stopped again. I go around the corner. There’s no taxi there. It’s not around the next corner either.
I get hot all over. What if the taxi driver doesn’t come back because Palermo has suddenly got too far for him. But then he just wouldn’t disappear like that. He’d want the fare from Rome to here, at least, … my money-roll! Where is it anyway? It isn’t in my trousers pocket. THE SUIT JACKET! IN THE TAXI! MY SUIT JACKET AND MONEY-ROLL ARE STILL IN THE TAXI! AND SO IS MY CASE!!! I feel dizzy. I almost collapse. I pull my tie over my head and hurl it into the dust on the ground. HAS HE STOLEN THE LOT?
I hardly ever cry. But now I can’t help howling.
I’m usually good at recognising mean tricks, being laughed at, sideways looks, stupid sayings and so forth. I’m used to that because I’m fat. But this is something else. It’s much, much worse. He tricked me out of the taxi, got me to help even though there was nothing wrong with the engine! And then I really bawl my eyes out.
I turn around in a circle. There are olive trees and hills all around. Far away, between the hills I see the spire of a church tower. There’s nothing else around. I fix my eyes firmly on the church steeple but everything in my head keeps spinning on. “Whenever you have a problem, you just need to ask the neighbours,” Papa would say. But there aren’t any neighbours here. Nobody helps anyone else in Italy!
I need to breathe a bit more slowly or everything spins faster. Somehow, I try to think like Papa. Right now, he would phone someone in Rome; he’d know someone to ring.
I pull out my phone. Luckily it was in my trouser pocket. The numbers in my phone are my aunt in Berlin and Martin. They’re no good to me now; neither is Mama. There’s only one other person I know, that I’d like to call now. I just need to speak to someone right now.
I blow my nose and press the number.
“Ristorante da Pietro!” calls Pietro down the phone. His voice sounds just like at home. “Hallo? This is Ristorante da Pietro. Who’s there?”
“I…”
“Carlo? That you?”
“Yes…”
“You gotta speak up. I can hardly hear you. You sound like you’re in Italy!” Pietro laughs at his joke. “Carlo, I have a full restaurant here, you have to be quick to tell me what you want.”
The crickets are chirping all around me. I don’t know where I am, just that I’m somewhere in Italy. I can’t tell Pietro that…”
“I… I don’t think I can make it to play cards today…” My throat is too tight for talk. There’s nothing I want more than to sit with Pietro at a table in his pizzeria, to play cards and to tell him about the train guards and the taxi driver. Or tell him that I’m up to my neck in trouble and I can’t get out of it on my own, just like he said. I can tell Pietro about the worst things. But it’s different on the phone.
“Carlo,” says Pietro, “you sound like you lost a football match. What’s wrong?”
I take a deep breath.
“All my money’s been stolen!” I say.
&n
bsp; “Your money! Stolen!”
“It was in my jacket pocket. Now it’s all gone!”
My nose is running again.
“You have to calm down, Carlo. Take it easy. You’ll find your money, for sure. It’s probably in another jacket, or under the sofa.”
“I can’t get to Palermo without my money…”
“You shouldn’t go to Palermo without your Mama, I told you already. Now listen up: you come around to me this afternoon. Then we talk everything over. I don’t have time right now. But food is never so hot in your mouth as when it just cooked. It’ll all work out.”
I hear Italian music from the pizzeria, same as every other day.
“But I… I don’t know if I can make it over to you later. I’m… because… I’m…” I can’t say it on the phone. Talking doesn’t solve anything; I need to see Pietro’s face. Otherwise he’ll get the wrong end of the stick because I haven’t done as he told me.”
“You’ve lost it a bit at the moment. Calm down now. You come over to me in a while. I keep a slice of lasagne hot for you and then the world seem a better place. And if your money don’t turn up, I’ll dip into my till, capito? Now I got to look after my customers, okay?”
“Yeah… yeah…”
“I tell you, it will all work out. Ciao, Carlo! See ya later! Keep your head up!” Pietro hangs up.
His voice is gone and my nose is full again. I pick the tie up off the ground. The knot is still right because Pietro always does things properly. I should have listened to him yesterday. “Go on home instead. Watch a film or play some football. The world is how he is.”
And what if I never make it back to Bochum? What if I never get out of here?
I set off in the direction of the church tower. At least I still have the brezel-change in my trousers pocket, seventeen euros and forty cents. Maybe there’s a bus back to Rome from the church tower, or maybe not.
I still have my phone in my hand. And now I have my thumb over Mama. But what if she cries or shouts at me. Mama is the last resort. She’s always there when there’s nothing else left. Whenever I’m sick or something goes wrong in school, she sorts it out. She would just get into her car and come and get me.
I stand there and wipe my eyes. There’s nothing in front of me, not even a house, not a soul.
I just can’t go on. I can’t get to Palermo. My money-roll, the address and the photo of Papa’s house are all gone. I wouldn’t even find the balcony!
Suddenly I can’t even wait to get as far as the church tower. I want to tell Mama that I need her more than ever, and press the button. The phone dials Mama’s number… and then… I see MY CASE!! It’s in the bushes at the side of the path. It’s open, my white shirt and the cologne lying beside it on the ground. I press the red button before the phone rings and run towards the bushes. Papa’s cologne bottle is still in one piece! I spray some on my tummy. It’s still working.
My suit jacket is in the bushes too!! I fish it out and right away run my hands through the pockets. But the money-roll isn’t there. The taxi driver really did steal it! And the jacket is a bit the worse for wear; there’s a rip in the sleeve.
I take the balcony photo and the envelope out of the pocket. The envelope is crumpled but you can still read the address:
Via Sant’Agostino No 9 – 90100 Palermo
I pull on my jacket. I don’t care about the heat any more. I hang my dusty tie around my neck. Now I look a bit like Don Carlo again. I fold my white shirt and put it back in the case.
Suddenly I hear a tractor. I’m not completely alone here then. As the tractor comes around the bend, I get out of its way. But it doesn’t go past. Instead it stops beside me in a thick cloud of dust. There’s a boy sitting at the steering wheel. He’s not much older than me.
“Ciao! Everything okay? I can give you a lift into the village, if you want,” he says in Italian and laughs.
I sit on the tractor above the big wheel, beside Matteo. Matteo really is only fourteen. Even so, he’s such a cool driver; it looks like curving the tractor around corners is just everyday stuff for him.
We turn off the lane onto a bumpy field and the tractor shakes the stuffing out of me. The church tower bounces in front of me, all over the place, just like my thoughts. I’m going from Mama to Papa to Pietro and from Bochum to Palermo and back.
I tell Matteo about the taxi driver, how he robbed me and how I’ll never get to Palermo now. Matteo gets really mad about the taxi driver. He even thinks that he beat me up when he sees the tear in my sleeve. I like Matteo straightaway. He looks like a thin version of myself. He’s got short black hair too and a wide mouth for laughing.
“My family will help you out,” he says. “No worries! I’ll take you home with me.”
I don’t tell Matteo that I need to phone Mama because there’s no one else to help me. I let my thoughts go on swirling around.
At the farmhouse we spring down from the tractor.
“I hope you’re hungry,” says Matteo running ahead of me into the farmhouse. It looks old. Inside there’s a wooden wheel hanging on the wall in the hallway, beside a black and white Grandpa in a thick wooden frame.
Matteo leads me into a room with a long table laden down with food and with people around it.
“My family,” says Matteo.
I can’t believe that this is a single family; there are so many people around the table. And behind the table, in the corner, there’s a Grandma in an armchair.
Matteo’s mother is the first to notice me. At least I think that it’s his mother. She asks me my name, and Matteo tells her how I’ve been robbed and beaten. Suddenly it all goes quiet around the table and everyone listens as he tells them about the taxi driver’s trick.
“Bambino, bambino!” says the mother after the story. She wipes the dirt off my suit jacket and strokes my face, just like my own mother would.
Then she sits me down at the table, pushing a plate in front of me. It’s full of steaming pasta with ham sauce, and there’s tomato salad and white bread to go with it.
I can’t touch a thing. There are looks coming from everywhere. When the three girls at the table start asking questions, I look down at my plate. I tell them that I come from Germany and that I want to go to Palermo to my Papa. I say I’m fourteen like Matteo. It sounds a bit better to be travelling on your own when you’re fourteen.
“Why are you wearing a tie over your tee-shirt and trainers with a suit?” the girls ask.
Luckily their mother stops them: “Let the boy eat in peace.”
The steam from the sauce goes up my nose while Matteo’s brothers complain about the taximafia and the police. There’s no point in ringing the police, they say, the police won’t do anything about it.
“Why did you want to go by taxi anyway?” asks one of the brothers.
“Because the train from Rome was gone already,” I say.
Then they all start talking at the same time. I’m not good at fast Italian. I only understand that a taxi is far too dear and that there is a train from Rome to Naples every hour.
“The ferries only go in the evening. You would easily have caught the ferry with the next train,” says one of the brothers.
What’s this about ferries and Naples? I can’t understand a thing!
“I didn’t know there was a train every hour,” is all I say.
“Or was your ferry ticket stolen too?”
I shake my head. I have no idea what to admit. If I say that I don’t even have a ticket, they’ll only ask even more questions. They’ll all have questions from the smallest girl to the biggest brother and if they realise that I’m on the journey without telling anyone, then that really would be a case for the police.
I take a big gulp of my juice. I nearly have to spit it out again. It’s wine! Does everyone here drink wine, even Matteo and the girls?
“Let’s just take him to Napoli!” suggests Matteo. And the father looks at the oldest brother.
“Why not,” he sa
ys.
I think about my map of Italy. From Naples to Palermo across the sea is much shorter than taking a train right down the length of the boot. I never even thought of a ferry! I feel in my pocket for my brezel-change. Would it be enough to get across the sea on the ferry?”
I can feel the wine going into my legs, even though I only had a mouthful.
“First you tell your parents what’s happened to you.” says the Mama, handing me a phone. But I’m still only thinking about the ferry.
“I… can’t ring,” I say, “…Mama’s asleep till the afternoon because she’s on the night shift. She turns the phone off.” That bit is true, at least.
“And your Papa?”
“I can’t get through. I did try. I point to my phone and look down at my plate again.”
“No problem,” says the father, because one of the boys will get me to the ferry on time and I’ll arrive in Palermo alright. “We’ll bring you to Napoli.” And he lifts his glass in the air.
“Saluté!” everyone shouts suddenly and drinks a toast to me. Me too!
And then the family all introduce themselves by name, Mama Giulia and Papa Edoardo, three sisters and four brothers; there is an Uncle Michele too. The brothers have carried the grandma in the armchair to the table; she’s called Francesca. The only one missing is Grandpa Giuseppe from the picture in the hall.
I look across at the Papa. He’s dunking his bread straight into the sauce dish. His hands show signs of all his work in the fields, with clay in the cracks of his skin. His face is brown and has wrinkles that laugh even when he’s not laughing.
“You still have to go across to Philippe on the tractor,” he shouts across to Matteo. It’s great to have a Papa at the table, it really is.
I’m going to have such a big family when I grow up, with all this laughing and chatter in the house, just like here. It will never be as quiet in my house as it is at home.
I’m going to have at least three children. They can be as noisy as they like. And I’ll dunk my bread in the sauce and tell them stories, about Palermo, gangsters and all about how I brought Papa back to Bochum.
I’m getting warm from all the hot pasta and the wine. The wine really tastes good because it’s sweet. And it’s making my head fuzzy; I feel like talking more than ever.
Nobody Can Stop Don Carlo Page 3