Persecution (9781609458744) (22 page)

“When she's in a bad mood she calls her the shiksa. If she's in a good mood she calls her the
haver
. In her moments of happiness she's ‘your German.' She says she goes out with me because of our money. And many other unpleasant things which I prefer not to mention . . . ”

“Where did you meet her?”

“In the mountains. She works in a shop, you know those local emporiums that sell everything. Newspapers, cigarettes, toys, brooms . . . Next week she's coming here by train. My mother said I must not bring her home. That I must not name her. I could care less about naming her in front of her! Just think, she asked my father to cut off my money until she leaves and I come to my senses. If it were up to her I'd be masturbating until I retire. If it were up to her.”

That's the Herrera of yesteryear. He had just announced that there was a woman in his life, and he continued to rant about his mother and his jerking off.

“And your father?”

“My father, poor man, what can he do? He's at the mercy. An order from the matriarch is never under any circumstances discussed . . . Well, in short, the point is . . . I wanted to ask you for a small loan. I'll pay it back as soon as possible and I promise that in exchange one of the nights she's here I'll introduce you.”

There. It wasn't comments that Herrera needed. He wanted a small loan.

“Will you at least tell me what her name is?”

“Valeria. Her name is Valeria.”

The break between the two friends occurred exactly two weeks later.

And it all happened rapidly. They were on the Vespa, returning from the usual game. Not even the defeat of Lazio that had just taken place before their eyes could explain Herrera's dark mood. In other words, what was going on? Where was his Herrera? What had they done with him? There was not a trace of energy in him, as if they had dried him up. What was the matter? The fight between his mother and Valeria? This was really intolerable. The most stoic creature Leo had ever met was finally revealing his breaking point? The only thing a man like that couldn't bear was the atavistic clash between the rights of his mother and those of Eros? And why was Herrera so unfriendly toward him? Why, sitting there on the Vespa, didn't he say anything? Why didn't he show off with one of those pyrotechnic invectives against defeated Lazio or his meddling mother? Why didn't he indulge in one of those orations that would one day surely make him a better lawyer than his father?

But just as Leo was thinking these things about his friend, the other had stung him with the most absurd statement. Herrera had got off the Vespa, in front of the entrance to his building, and, just like that, in passing, as he repaid the loan, had whispered, “I don't want to see you anymore,” in the same tone in which he might have said “See you tomorrow” or “Call you later.”

Leo had barely managed to ask, “Why?”

“Because I've decided.”

“Sorry, but what have I done to you?”

“You haven't done anything. Not deliberately. But you've done a lot of things maybe without realizing it. Maybe by accident. Because you couldn't do otherwise. And that is the most serious thing. And that's why I don't want to see you anymore.”

Leo was incredulous. He couldn't say a word. He was offended. And if he hadn't been so disconcerted he would have been angry. And Herrera no less: all red, flushed, as if he were about to explode. As if that painful conversation were wearing him out. He was ending things there. Period. He had nothing to explain. He wanted only to go.

“Come on, don't be an imbecile. I understand that something happened. But why should I have to pay for your bad mood? I think I deserve a decent explanation. At least tell me what happened!”

Leo was truly stunned. And he was also upset. Never in his life had anyone dropped him like that. He didn't know what it meant to be dropped. That was why he was upset. And then he was irritated by the words he was uttering, too similar to those of a man who asks a woman who has just dumped him for the reasons. If he thought about it his state of mind was not so different from that of a husband abandoned without warning and without explanation.

And Herrera had only exacerbated that feeling of painful dismay with another of those generic and oracular utterances: “You know, that was really terrible the other night.” And he had said it with such wretched misery.

The other night? What had happened the other night? Then a vague memory emerged, something uncertain and wavering like a drunk man walking. And in fact the evening when Herrera introduced Valeria to him, Leo had consumed more alcohol than usual and more than was necessary. Maybe in that alcoholic altered state he had done something inappropriate? But now, no matter how hard he tried to remember, he was almost positive that he had maintained a standard of behavior well above the threshold of decorum.

Of course, he had been astonished by that large garish girl. With her martial tone of voice and her Trentino accent. He had had to control himself in order not to laugh at the sight of the dwarf next to that Viking. A circus scene. But he was certain, good Lord, that he hadn't laughed. That he hadn't let out any potentially outrageous thought. He had behaved very well. He had drunk only a little. And he had also talked a lot. Yes, this, too, he remembered. Just as he remembered Valeria's eyes. Valeria's eyes that were drinking in his words, and Herrera sitting silent in a corner.

The sense of inadequacy. The sensation of being unable to compete with a friend so handsome, so loquacious, so capable of being in the world. Was that the point? Was that the reason Herrera was cutting him off, like a maid caught in the act of stealing? Certainly that was it. Leo suddenly remembered the vague sense of guilt that had come over him, at the end of the evening, a moment before they parted, when, transformed by the alcohol and his loose tongue, he had told Valeria a stupid little story that he should have kept to himself. About the time he had bought cigarettes for Herrera and the cashier had said, “Aren't you ashamed to be buying cigarettes for your son?” Lord, how Valeria had laughed. Frighteningly. Lord, how Herrera hadn't laughed. No less frighteningly. Why had he told such a stupid story? It's true, it was amusing when the two of them recalled it. But to tell it to Herrera's girlfriend, Herrera's first girlfriend, that was intolerable. Herrera's face at that moment! It expressed such humiliation. Such complete shame and disbelief.

Leo was now thinking back to that face, after Herrera had said, “You know, that was really terrible the other night . . . ”

And at that instant Leo understood why when Herrera was with him he was always so amusing, so full of interest, and why, instead, in the presence of others (especially of the female sex) he withdrew into a shell of hostile awkwardness. It was a matter of shame. He was ashamed of being what he was. Shame followed him everywhere. He
was
that shame. Was it possible that Leo understood it only now? They had known each other for so long. Their parents had been friends forever. And he understood him only now. And so why was he astonished that his friend cast him off without explanations? There was nothing surprising about it. And above all there was nothing to explain. It had all been there, for years, within reach. He had only to pay attention. His own fascinating presence made the shame of being Herrera Del Monte all the more bitter.

How could he not have thought of it before? How difficult, how terrible to live that shame. You could never relax. There was not a single being on the planet who would not look at you with disbelief and scorn.

From then on, starting that Sunday, outside of public or social occasions, they hadn't met. So that day at the dentist, seeing the picture of Herrera in the women's magazine, seeing his friend, older but still full of rage, Leo had smiled tenderly. It's still him, he had thought first: a mixture of shame and revenge. Assessing the anger with which Herrera was chasing off the photographers, Leo had thought, You haven't changed a bit, my friend. You got everything you wanted. You're rich as Croesus. You're the most talented and controversial lawyer in Italy. You can fuck all the Valkyries you want. But that shame—the shame of being Herrera Del Monte—well, that certainly has not passed.

It was natural, then, that Leo, at the greatest impasse of his existence, should think of Herrera. Herrera was what he needed. Not only someone who could help him out of his troubles but the only one who could understand Leo's state. A true master of shame. A world-class expert.

Everyone had abandoned him. But Herrera would support him. Because he knew what it means not to be able to look up out of fear of seeing depicted in the eyes of a stranger all the disgust that the sight of you provokes in others.

 

In short, for days Leo had been pondering the idea of going to see him. Asking him for help. If he hadn't done it from the start it was because of his usual sloth, embittered by the wretchedness in which he was living. Now that his wife had stopped helping him, now that Rachel had abandoned him, now that she behaved as if he didn't exist, now that he was living in that sort of bunker lined with records, books, and memories, Professor Pontecorvo was adrift.

If a serious and deplorable event hadn't taken place, Leo wouldn't have called the Del Monte office, or made an appointment with Herrera, or found the strength to get in his car to visit him in his bunker on a hazy, hot Via Veneto.

Just that morning Camilla's father had appeared at the gate of the Pontecorvo house. Along with his wife and the beloved .9-caliber Beretta he had bought for the protection of his shops. The idea was to empty the entire cartridge into that dickhead. And do it openly. In the early light of dawn, to imprint his revenge with Homeric vigor. Premeditated murder? Jail? Life in prison? Kill an unarmed man? Kill him driven by vague, generic accusations, still to be verified? And then deliver himself to the police? Or, in the manner of certain serial killers, take his own life right after shouting “You'll never get me!”? Why not? There are worse things in life. Like leaving that pig unpunished. They still haven't arrested him. What a shitty country! Some pointed out that Leo no longer left his house. Big deal, they can all stay shut up in that palace!

For days Camilla's father had been going around in a rage, saying that pig would have to pay. As if the pretentious and somewhat exhibitionistic indignation typical of certain uneducated and excessively virile men had lodged in him. This pushed him to take refuge in a sampling of rash and melodramatic statements, like “I want to see him dead!”; “Hanging from a hook at the butcher's like a side of beef”; “For certain crimes we need the electric chair”; “The thing you can't forgive is the betrayal of trust”; “It's a disease”; “If I just think of my child . . . ” and so on. The truth is that Camilla's father couldn't wait to show off in front of his adored daughter, who for too long now had despised and rejected him.

So there he was, engaged in his sordid show. First he had tried the intercom, and then he had begun to shout: “Come on out, dickhead. Out! Try to get out . . . I'm waiting for you and I'll show you . . . ”

And Leo, no less inclined to melodramatic gestures in those days, didn't make him wait. He asked nothing better than to do something reckless after yet another sleepless night. So he appeared in T-shirt and boxers before that man who was preparing to be his murderer.

This was the unseemly picture that was served for breakfast to the extremely seemly neighbor: an exceptionally tanned man with long red hair holding a gun, and an unrecognizable Professor Pontecorvo in a state of undress.

The obvious loss of weight and an unkempt beard made him appear even lankier, and even more like a penitent character from an El Greco painting. Written on his face is: “Shoot. Please. Shoot, what are you waiting for? It's what everyone wants. And what we want.” And, to be even clearer, Leo goes down on his knees. In front of his executioner he kneels. And not with the gesture of one who asks for mercy but with the self-possessed, compliant, and impatient motion of the man condemned to death who asks only to get it over with as soon as possible. The polite and implacable gesture of one who is ready for martyrdom.

The ironic part is that Leo chose to kneel down on the same narrow strip of earth where, not so many months earlier, at the end of Samuel's birthday party, he had welcomed Camilla's parents: when he had ordered them to stand still so that he could photograph them. Just like that, Leo kneels in the same place where, in his time, he was able to display the benevolent sense of superiority induced by the sight of those two embarrassed boors. Now the situation is definitely reversed, and all to his disadvantage. Now it's he who has to be ashamed. Now it's he who's at their mercy. Now he's the helpless one. With the same politeness with which they made themselves available to his camera, he makes himself available to their gun. But it's one thing to photograph someone, it's another to shoot him. This banal observation explains why that lout can't do it. Why he can't do what he came here to do. Why he can't shoot.

Demoralized by that painful docility, astonished by that Japanese-style courage, or suddenly aware of the consequences of such an act performed in front of such a numerous audience, he lowers the weapon; his cheeks are streaked with tears, and he begins to whimper like a child. Mumbling his words. And after him his wife, too, begins to sob: “Please, dear, let's go, leave him alone . . . please, sweetheart, it's no use . . . don't you see what sort of worm . . . don't you see, love . . . ”

And then Leo weeps, too. No longer on his knees but on all fours. He weeps. And he doesn't even know why. Until that moment he had managed not to (except in sleep), not in front of his family or in the prostrate solitude in which he spends his days. But now yes, now that they're all watching, he manages to cry. As when he was a child and before starting to cry he would wait till his mother was there, so she could comfort him.