As God Commands (44 page)

Who was it?

(This is Dr. Brolli. I'm sorry to tell you your father has died.)
He got out of bed and took the phone out of his pants pocket.
"Who is it?" Silence. "Who is it?"

"Rino ...
"

"Quattro Formaggi! Where have you been? You never answered
your phone! What happened to you? I've been worried."

"Cristiano?"

"Why didn't you answer? I called you a million times. What have
you been doing?"

"I haven't been doing anything."

"But what about last night? What happened?"

"I was ill."

Cristiano lowered his voice. "And what about the bank raid? Did
you do it?"

"No, not me. I stayed at home ...Is Rino there?"

He must break it to him gently. Rino was his only real friend.
"Papa's not very well. He had a hemorrhage in the head."

"Is it serious?"

"Fairly. But he should be better soon."

"How did it happen?"

Cristiano was about to tell him the whole story when he remembered that you must never talk over the phone. Someone might be
listening. "Last night. I was asleep and this thing happened and he
went into a coma. Now he's in the hospital at San Rocco."

Quattro Formaggi said nothing.

"Hey, are you still there?"

"Yes." His voice broke with emotion. "How is he now?"

He repeated: "He's in a coma. It's as if he was asleep, but he
can't wake up."

"And when will it end?"

"The doctor says he doesn't know. Maybe in a week, maybe in
two years ... Maybe he'll die."

"What are you going to do now?"

"For the moment I'm going to stay here." Cristiano lowered his
voice to a whisper: "Trecca's here! He's moved in."

"Trecca? The social worker?"

"Yes. He's been very kind. He said he's going to stay for a week.
But you and I can still meet."

"Listen, is it possible to go and see Rino?"

"Yes. Only at certain times, though. Why don't you come around
here? We could go and see him together."

"I can't..."

"Oh, go on." He wanted to say that he needed him, but as usual
he kept it to himself.

"I'm not well, Cri. How about tomorrow?"

"All right. I won't be going to school for the next few days
anyway."

"But how ... how did you find out about Rino last night?"

"Oh, I just went into his bedroom and found him in a coma."

A pause, then: "I see. Okay. Bye, then."

"See you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow."

Cristiano was about to hang up, but he couldn't restrain himself.
"Quattro? Quattro Formaggi?"

"Yes? What's up?"

"Listen, I know that if papa doesn't wake up immediately they're
going to send me to a home. They'll never let me stay here on my
own. I was wondering..." He hesitated. "...could I come and stay
at your place? I know you never want to let anyone in there ... But
I'd be good, if you could just give me a corner I could sleep there.
You know I'm not any trouble. Just till papa..."

"I don't think so. You know what they think about me."

A coil of pain wrapped around Cristiano's windpipe. "Yes, I
know. They're bastards. You're not crazy. You're the best person in
the world. Could I stay with Danilo, then?"

"Yes. Maybe."

"I've called him lots of times but he doesn't reply, either on his
cell or at home. Have you spoken to him?"

"No."

"Oh well. See you tomorrow, then."

I've got so many things to tell you.

"See you tomorrow."

Giovanni Pagani, a lanky and rather slow-witted young man, was
sitting on a low wall outside the Sacred Heart Hospital. He had
recently bought a jacket identical to that used by the Canadian
explorer Jan Roche Bobois in crossing the Andes on a hang-glider
and was extremely pleased with the garment's durability. In addition to this practical consideration, he was pondering what argu ments he could use to persuade his girlfriend to have an abortion.
Marta was inside collecting the result of her pregnancy test, and he
was a hundred per cent certain that it would be positive, given the
intimate link that his life had established with Murphy's law in
recent months.

So Giovanni Pagani's brain was harboring two very different
thoughts. They were as tight a squeeze as two sumo wrestlers in a
telephone box, yet a third thought managed to find some room.

That guy who had dismounted from a battered old Boxer looked
as if he had just escaped from a lunatic asylum, been thrown bodily
onto a garbage truck and finally, for good measure, beaten up by
a gang of hooligans.

Giovanni saw him untie a large wall clock from the luggage rack,
but then he noticed that Marta, looking radiantly happy, was coming
out of the hospital waving a sheet of paper, and as quickly as it had
been born the thought vanished, swept away by that of being a father.

In the entrance hall of the Sacred Heart hospital a group of elderly patients were sitting on shabby, savannah-colored armchairs.
Some wearing dressing-gowns, others pajamas, they were basking
like green lizards in the last warm rays of the sun that filtered
through the large window that overlooked the car park. They were
all saying how strange it was that a night like that should be followed by a sunny day, and that the weather seemed to have gone
completely haywire lately.

Sixty-four-year-old Michele Cavoli, who was in hospital for cirrhosis of the liver, maintained that it was all the fault of those Arab
bastards, who were putting a lot of chemical poisons into the atmosphere to kill us. If he had been the president of the United States
he wouldn't have hesitated five seconds. A couple of nice big atomic
bombs on the Middle East to wipe them off the map. He was about
to add a historical footnote to the effect that if they hadn't dropped
those two bombs on the bloody Japs ... But he stopped to observe
that there was another bastard who deserved to die, squashed underfoot like a cockroach: Franco Basaglia. That fool, with his bill to
close the mental hospitals, had ruined Italy, releasing a host of psychopathic maniacs onto the streets and into the public hospitals.
That guy over there, for example, the one with the wall clock under
his arm, why the hell wasn't he locked away in a nice padded cell? He kept staring at the chandelier like an imbecile and gesticulating
as if there was someone hanging down from it. Who the hell was
he talking to, the Eternal Father?

Michele Cavoli had hit the nail on the head.

Quattro Formaggi, standing in the middle of the hall with his big
nose pointing up in the air, was asking God what he should do, but
God wasn't answering him any more.

You're angry. I've done something wrong... But what? What have
I done wrong?

He didn't understand. Cristiano had told him that Rino had been
at home when he'd had the stroke. How was that possible? He had
seen him die in the wood with his own eyes.

He was so bewildered... If he hadn't had the skull ring in his
stomach he would have started thinking it had all been a dream again.

God had helped him and led him by the hand during the storm,
he had put Ramona in front of him, he had struck Rino down, he
had revealed the purpose of the girl's death to him and then, suddenly, for no reason, he had abandoned him.

He had nobody left now but Rino. He was the only person he
could talk to.

He looked around. The entrance hall was full of people. Nobody
was taking any notice of him. He had dressed up specially. He was
wearing the blue suit Danilo had given him because it had been too
small for him. A brown tie. And under his arm he held the barometer clock shaped like a violin that he had found a few months
before in a trash can.

The gift for Rino.

The problem was that he hated that place. He had spent three
months in there after he had nearly killed himself by touching the
high-tension cables with his fishing rod. Three months which he
remembered as a black hole, lit up here and there by the odd
unpleasant memory. A black hole from which he had emerged full
of tics and with a head that no longer worked as it had done before.

He approached the stairway that led to the upper floors. Just next
to it was a dark wooden door, which stood ajar. A sliver of golden
light came out. Above the door was a blue sign on which was written
in golden letters: CHAPEL.

Quattro Formaggi looked around and entered.

It was a long, narrow room. At the other end, right in the center,
was a statue of the Madonna illuminated by a small spotlight and
surrounded by copper vases containing flowers. There were a couple
of empty benches. Two loudspeakers emitted, in soft tones, a
Gregorian chant.

Quattro Formaggi fell on his knees and began to pray.

Beppe Trecca was lying on the beach chair where Rino Zena had
spent the greater part of his last few evenings. A pair of suede Geoxes
lay on the floor.

He was rubbing his chilly feet. He had turned on the electric fire,
and the room, fortunately, was beginning to warm up. The dying
sun on the horizon was firing its last rays through the shutters,
glinting on an empty beer bottle.

Beppe was staring at the television without looking at it. He felt
tired and was beginning to feel hungry. The last food to enter his
stomach had been the chicken with bamboo shoots that he had eaten
in the camper. He could have devoured one of Sahid's kebabs.

How he loved that exotic sandwich! With the spicy sauce, the
yogurt, the tomatoes and that soft bread. In the fridge there was
nothing but a jar of pickles and some parmesan rind. In the cupboard a handful of rice and a couple of stock cubes.

What if I drove over to Sahid's?

How long would it take him? Half an hour at most.

Cristiano was so tired he wouldn't wake up till the next day.
Beppe had gone upstairs to check and had found him fast asleep,
wrapped up in a double layer of blankets, just like a kebab... It was
the first time he had been upstairs. He had seen Rino's room. A
revolting pigsty with a swastika hanging on the wall. The toilet
filthy, with the door broken in. Cristiano's room. An empty cube,
without a radiator and full of big cardboard boxes.

The boy couldn't go on living in that squalor. A new home must
be found for him as soon as possible. Trecca would find a normal
family that could foster him till he was eighteen.

And yet ... And yet he wasn't so sure that that was the right thing
to do. Those two lived for each other, and something told him that
if he separated them he would only make things worse. The sorrow
would kill them or turn them into two ferocious monsters.

The social worker's empty stomach brought him back to more
concrete problems. He realized that the Arab's van was near Ida's
house, and therefore off limits.

How about cooking myself some rice?

He could always boil the rice and dissolve the stock cube over it
with the cooking water.

He stretched, looking around, and asked himself the same question he asked every time he went to see the Zena family.

How could those two live in a place like that? With no washing
machine? No iron? Without even a semblance of order?

He too had been born into a humble home. His father had been
a ticket-collector on the regional trains and his mother a housewife.
They too had found it hard to make ends meet, but his parents were
tidy, responsible people. When you entered the apartment you always
had to take off your shoes, have a wash and put on your pajamas
and slippers. The dirty clothes were put in a cupboard and everyone,
including his father, wore pajamas at home. He had fond memories
of the family suppers. They would sit at the table in their nightclothes, their skin softened by the boiling hot shower.

That's a civilized way of living.

The Zena home, with a bit of imagination and a few pieces of
IKEA furniture, could be improved enormously. A lick of paint on
the walls and a good clean, and everything would be different.

Since he was going to be spending a week there he could start
cleaning it up himself.

If poor old Rino dies I could adopt Cristiano and live here,
thought Beppe Trecca, jumping up from the beach chair with sudden
enthusiasm.

His mind conjured up the image of him with Cristiano, Ida and
her children in the house, now completely renovated. All of them
in pajamas. And then the hikes in the mountains with backpacks.
And him and Ida in the tent making love ...

"Oh my God, Beppe...I'm going to come."

He felt a blade slicing through his guts. That dream would never
come true. He would never be able to kiss that woman again. He
would never be able to give her pleasure.

He collapsed on the sofa disconsolately and started groaning as
if they were giving him a proctoscopy.

You must hold firm. If you can't, go away.

Yes, perhaps that was the only way to start living again. To go
away. For good. He could return to Ariccia and try to get back into
university.

His attention was caught by the images of the regional news.

Against a wall there was a car crushed like a beer can.

"Danilo Aprea must have lost control of his car, which ran into
the wall of a building in Via Enrico Fermi. When the rescue services arrived there was nothing they could do. Aprea was..."

The social worker gaped.

Rino's friend. Cristiano, in the hospital, had said he would go
and stay with him.

So that's why he couldn't get hold of him.

What the hell was going on? In the same night your father goes
into a coma and his best friend, the only person who could help
you, has a horrific accident and is killed? Why was fate hitting this
poor kid so hard? What had he done wrong?

How on earth am I going to tell him?

His cell phone, which was lying on the floor, gave two beeps and
lit up and Beppe Trecca's heart skipped two beats in response.