The Crossroads (27 page)

The pale blue brushstrokes of the television, through the doorway, were painting the ceiling above the bed. It was strange, but in between the light-blue patches there seemed to emerge a dark patch with a human form.

‘Is that you, my friend?' he asked, looking at the ceiling.

(Sure it's me.)

The climbing clown was looking down at him, stuck to the ceiling like Spiderman.

‘I was right to tell Rino where to go, wasn't I? They mustn't fuck with me, they just don't understand. The only thing I'm sorry about is that tomorrow those people are bringing the picture and I won't have the money. That I really am sorry about.' He fumbled about on the floor for the bottle of Cynar but couldn't find it. ‘Don't worry, though … Trust me … I'm not chucking my life down the pan.' He was addressing the clown above his head. ‘I won't leave you. I'm not like some people I could mention. I swear, I swear on the head of …'

Laura
.

‘… Teresa, the most important thing in my life, that you'll be here, in this flat. Tomorrow. I'll sell everything I own if I have to.'

Suddenly a lump of pain burst like a bubble under his sternum. He touched his eyes, his cheeks. He was crying and he hadn't noticed.

‘I'm not well,' he sobbed. ‘What should I do? Tell me. Please tell me.'

(Ring her. She's the only person who understands you.)
The clown smiled down at him from the ceiling.

‘No, it's not true … She left me … It wasn't my fault that Laura died. I know she thinks it was …'

(Tell her you're giving up drink, as from tomorrow.)

Danilo knew there wasn't any clown up there on the ceiling, that it was only a shadow cast by the television in the sitting room. Yet it really seemed to be talking to him.

‘Let's not kid ourselves, I'll never manage it.' Another bubble of pain burst under his Adam's apple.

(Yes you will. If she comes back to you and helps you you'll certainly
manage it … Tell her about the boutique. She'll come back,
you'll see.)

Danilo raised his head a little and narrowed his eyes: ‘Now? Shall I call her now?

(Yes, now.)

‘What if she's angry?'

(Why should she be angry?)

‘It's too late. I promised not to call her at night.'

(It's never too late to tell the truth. To tell someone you love
them. Tell her what you're doing for her. That you'll climb the great
mountain just for her. That's the kind of thing women like to hear.
Tell her about the boutique. You'll see, you'll see …)

Danilo lifted his head off the cushion and everything started spinning. He took a deep breath, groped for the switch and turned on the bedside lamp. The light stabbed his retinas. He put one hand over his eyes and with the other picked up the phone on the bedside table. ‘I'll call her mobile, though.' He dialled Teresa's number.

The number was not obtainable.

‘There's no answer, you see?'

(Call her landline.)

Now that
would
be a stupid thing to do. Especially at this time of night, when that shit of a tyre dealer would be there. And yet he had to do it, he had to hear Teresa's voice, the only thing that would do him any good at that moment.

(Do it. If he answers, you can hang up, can't you?)

That's true
…

Besides, this time it was different. It was to tell her he was going to put everything right. Seriously. He was at the end of the tunnel, and if he didn't change he was finished. And she would understand. Teresa would understand how much he was suffering and she would come back home and he, next morning, would wake to find her curled up beside him wearing her eye-mask to keep out the light.

(What are you waiting for?)

His index finger slipped onto the keypad, and with surprising speed for his mental condition he tapped out her number.

He mistook it first for a dog, then for a wild boar and finally for a gorilla.

Rino took three steps backwards and instinctively pointed his gun at it, but as soon as the torchlight illuminated it he realised it was a human being.

There on all fours in the middle of the wood, beside the crash
helmet. Soaking wet. Black hair plastered down over the skull … On one shoulder a hole from which blood was oozing. Hands immersed in the mud.

‘Quattro Formaggi? What happened to you?'

At first he didn't even seem to hear, but then slowly he raised his head towards the light.

Rino instinctively put his hand over his mouth.

The eyes were wide open, two holes sunken in their orbits, and the jaw hung down idiotically.

‘What have they done to you?'

The face, etched by the shadows, was reduced to a skull. It was as if something inside Quattro Formaggi's mind had short-circuited, as happens in some mental patients after a lobotomy. It didn't even seem to be him.

‘Where are they? Where the fuck are they?' Rino started pointing the gun around, sure they were there, hiding somewhere, in the darkness. ‘Come on out, you bastards. Fight someone your own size!' Then he bent down, still pointing the gun forward, and grabbed Quattro Formaggi by the arm and tried to pull him up, but he seemed to be rooted to the earth. ‘Come on! Get up. We've got to get out of here.' Finally, making a tremendous effort, he got him on his feet. ‘I'm here. Don't worry.' He was about to start dragging him along when he noticed that his cock was sticking out of his trousers.

‘What the f …'

‘I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I didn't do it on purpose,' stammered Quattro Formaggi and he started crying. ‘I'm sorry.'

Rino felt as if someone had ripped open his belly with a knife and simultaneously rammed a sock down his throat.

He let go of Quattro Formaggi, who slumped down on the ground. He took two steps backwards and realised he'd been wrong. Terribly wrong.

The Scarabeo belongs to that girl
… T
he one that goes to
Cristiano's school
…
The sticker with the face on it
.

He was overwhelmed by the chilling awareness that Quattro Formaggi had finally exploded. And done something really terrible.

Because Rino knew that the fairy tale the locals always repeated, that Quattro Formaggi wouldn't hurt a fly, was as big a load of bullshit as the idea that the government was going to cut taxes.

Every day there was someone who would go out of their way to make fun of him in some way or other, who would mimic him, give him less soup in the canteen, make him feel like a fool, but he would never lose his temper, he would smile, and everyone would say Quattro Formaggi was above all that.

Above it my arse!

That half-smile he gave after someone had imitated him and called him a spastic wasn't a sign that Quattro Formaggi was a saint, but that the insult had hit home, had pierced a sensitive part, and the pain went to swell a part of his brain where something tainted, twisted, was pulsing away. And some day, sooner or later, that festering thing would wake up.

A million times Rino had thought this, and a million times he had hoped he was wrong.

He had to summon up all his strength to be able to speak to him. It was as if he had been punched in the stomach. ‘What have you done? What the hell have you done?' He turned on the leaf-strewn ground and walked a few steps, and the yellow beam of the torch on his brow slid over Fabiana's body lying in the middle of the path. Her head smashed in by a rock.

‘A girl … You've killed a girl.'

The phone kept on ringing.

I'm going to hang up
…

(No. Wait at least another fi
…
)

‘Hallo?'

Danilo Aprea puffed out air and started breathing normally again. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt numb. ‘Teresa, it's me.'

An instant of silence that never seemed to end.

‘What is it, Danilo?' The tone of her voice conveyed not anger, but something worse, which made Danilo immediately curse himself for ringing her. It conveyed hopelessness and resignation. She was like a peasant who has accepted her inexorable destiny that now and then a fox will get into her henhouse and devour the chickens.

‘Listen. I need to talk to you.'

‘You're drunk.'

He tried to sound offended, almost outraged, at this base accusation: ‘Why do you say that?'

‘I can tell by your voice.'

‘You're wrong. I haven't touched a drop. It's not right, you always thinking …'

‘You promised you wouldn't call me … Do you know what time it is?'

‘It's late, I know, but this is important, I'm not being stupid, or I'd never have called you. It's very important. Liste …'

Teresa interrupted him. ‘No, Danilo, you listen to me. I can't unplug the phone, Piero's mother is seriously ill in hospital, and you know it.'

Shit, I'd forgotten about that
.

‘You know that very well, Danilo. Every time the phone rings our hearts are in our mouths. Piero's in the other room. He'll have realised it's you. You must leave me in peace. How can I make you underst …'

He managed to interrupt her: ‘I'm sorry, Teresa. I'm sorry. You're right. Forgive me. But I've got a wonderful surprise for our future. Something you really must hear about …'

Now it was she who interrupted him: ‘What future are you talking about? It's you who must listen to me. And you'd better listen very carefully. So pin back your ears.' She took a deep breath: ‘I'm pregnant, Danilo. I'm expecting a baby with Piero. I'm in my third month now. You must come to terms with it. I don't want to come back to you, I don't love you. I love Piero. Laura's dead, Danilo. We must come to terms with that. I want to be happy and Piero makes me happy. I want to build a new family. And you keep pestering me, phoning me in the middle of the night! I'll be forced to go to the police. And if that's not enough I'll go away, I'll disappear. If you love me, as you keep saying you do, you must leave me in peace. So I beg you, I implore you, leave us in peace. If you won't do it for me, do it for yourself. Forget me. Start living again. Goodbye.'

CLICK
.

She's dead
.

At least five minutes had passed since Ida had locked herself in the toilet.

Maybe she had fainted from the stink.

Beppe Trecca, worried, put his ear to the door. He couldn't hear a thing, what with the drumming of the rain and the howling of the wind that was shaking the camper.

He had prepared a clear, simple speech, to make her understand that their relationship was a mistake.

He cleared his throat. ‘Ida …? Ida, are you there?'

The door opened and Ida Lo Vino came out, as pale as a ghost.

He gulped. ‘Was there a bit of a stink?'

She nodded, and then said, ‘Beppe, I love you. I love you madly.' And she stuck her tongue in his mouth.

‘What the fuck have you done? You psychopathic, murdering son of a bitch!' Rino shouted, and he shook Quattro Formaggi by the arm. ‘You've killed a girl! You've gone out of your mind, you fool …' He slapped him across the face so hard he heard the bones in his hand crack.

Quattro Formaggi crashed to the ground and started sobbing convulsively.

‘Don't cry, you bastard. Don't cry or I'll kill you.' Rino raised his head like a coyote howling to the moon, gnashed his teeth as he massaged his aching hand, then he kicked him hard in the ribs.

Quattro Formaggi rolled over in the mud, coughing.

‘You smashed her head in with a rock.' Another kick. ‘Do you realise what you've done, you scumbag?' Another kick.

‘I didn't … mean to. I swear I … didn't mean to. I'm sorry,' whimpered Quattro Formaggi, shaking his head despairingly. ‘I don't know … myself … why I did it.'

‘Oh, you don't know, don't you? Well, I don't know either. You lousy fucking rapist …' He grabbed him by the hair and thrust the gun barrel against his eye. ‘Now I'm going to kill you.'

‘Yes, kill me! Kill me. I deserve it …' Quattro Formaggi moaned.

A violent red fury had seized Rino Zena's brain and swollen his muscles and tightened the tendons of his index finger as he squeezed the trigger of the pistol, and he knew he must calm down now, at once, or he would blow the bastard's head off.

He slammed the sole of his foot into the other man's face. Quattro Formaggi spewed out a stream of blood and then curled up in a ball, with his arms over his head.

Breathing hard, Rino stuck his pistol under his belt, picked up an enormous branch with both hands and smashed it against the trunk.

It wasn't enough. He still had too much rage inside him.

He put both arms round a rock, which must have weighed at least fifty kilos, to hurl it God knows where. He heaved it up out of the mud with a roar, but suddenly fell silent.

The rock slipped out of his hands.

The world around him broke up into hundreds of coloured fragments like a shattering pane of glass, and a vice as heavy as a mass of white-hot lead crushed his skull. Two drills bored into his temples, and all the extremities of his body started tingling.

He froze like that, with his knees bent, his trunk leaning forward like a sumo wrestler, his eyes bulging, and he realised that never until this moment had he had the faintest idea of what a headache really was.

He lost his balance and fell down stiff on the ground.

It was ten minutes since Teresa had given him the news that she was pregnant, but Danilo Aprea was still there, sitting on the edge of his bed.

He knew he should at best burst into tears, at worst jump out of the window and end it all.

If only I had the guts to kill myself. What a shit you'd feel, Teresa
dear … Wouldn't it be great! You'd be racked with remorse for
the rest of your life
.

The problem was that he lived on the second floor. And with his luck he'd probably end up in a wheelchair.

He must do something, though. Maybe he could just go away. Fly off to some distant land. Go and live in India. No, he didn't fancy India. It was filthy. And full of flies.

But if he went on thinking about this kind of thing all night till morning, till daybreak, till the sun returned, this night, the shittiest night in a shitty life, would pass. Because Danilo knew that if he stopped keeping his brain occupied he might do something stupid, something he would bitterly regret.

He looked up at the ceiling. The clown was still there. Hanging in a corner where the glow of the television didn't reach.

(Poor woman, I wonder what she imagines, in her fantasies …
That this wonderful news will hit you so hard you'll hang yourself
from the chandelier? You think she'd be racked with remorse? Don't
kid yourself – she'd be happy. She'd be rid of you. That's what she's
hoping for. Well, she's mistaken. If anyone wants to get rid of you
they'll have to blast you with a bazooka.)

Danilo would have liked to smile, but his lips had got stuck together. So he started shaking his head.

She was so naïve, Teresa. She just didn't understand. He had always known it would happen sooner or later.

She's forgotten about Laura. She thinks she can replace her with
another child
.

‘Well done.' He clapped his hands. ‘Well done, what a clever girl you are!'

(But this doesn't change your plans by one centimetre. Teresa
isn't really interested in that nattily dressed tyre dealer. Let's be
honest, he's been useful to her because he's got a bit of cash and
he's got her pregnant. Period. But when you come along with the
boutique and some real money, she'll come back to you.)

‘Ah, who wants her anyway?' he muttered, with a sniff.

(Do the raid on your own. You don't need anyone else. Do it at
once. Now.)

Danilo looked at the clown. ‘You're right. Of course, I can do it on my own, why didn't I think of that before?'

Outside, the storm continued to rage over the deserted village. He didn't even need the tractor. A car would do just as well.

And he still had a car. It was in the garage, unused since the day of Laura's funeral. He'd had several opportunities to sell it, but had never done so. And why was that? Not because he thought he might decide to drive again one day, nor because it was the vehicle in which the angel of his life had gone to heaven. No. Not for that reason. But because he would need it to do the raid on his own.

‘It all fits.'

So the fact that Rino and Quattro Formaggi had let him down was part of a grander plan that God had organised specially for him.

(All the money will be yours. You won't have to share it with
anyone.)

He would be really rich, and to hell with everyone else. And Teresa would come crawling back to him with her tail between her legs.

‘I'm sorry, Teresa. You've forgotten Laura. You said you loved the tyre dealer. That you wanted a child with him. Stay with him, then,' he said, jabbing his finger as if she was standing there in front of him, and feeling the first glimmer of pleasure he had felt in several hours.

He knew what he had to do.

He got up and staggered into the bathroom to stick two fingers down his throat.

When Rino Zena had pointed the gun at his face, Quattro Formaggi had known for certain that he loved life.

He had repeated ‘Kill me, kill me' to show Rino that he felt guilty, not because he really wanted it; deep inside, more than ever before, he had wanted to live.

To live. To live after killing. To live regardless. To live with the burden of guilt. To live in a prison for the rest of his life. To live beaten and despised till the end of his days.

It didn't matter how, but to live.

And even when he had felt the cold steel of the gun against his nose he had known Rino wouldn't shoot him and that, as usual, he would sort everything out.

He just had to wait till his anger subsided.

He had curled up in a ball, and it was right, he deserved them, sure he deserved those kicks, even though it was Ramona's own fault if she had died. If she hadn't taken the road through the woods none of this would have happened.

From the ground, with his head hidden between his arms, he had seen the black silhouette of Rino storm about and pick up a branch and smash it against a tree trunk. And then, like a giant with an eye of light in the middle of his forehead, lift a huge rock and, as he was lifting it, suddenly freeze. For a moment Quattro Formaggi had thought he must have strained his back, but then Rino had fallen on the ground, quite stiff.

And he had lain there motionless. Not saying a word, not uttering a cry.

He had been lying like that for at least five minutes.

He went over to him, ready to run for it if he got up.

Rino's eyes were open and there was a strange expression on his face that Quattro Formaggi couldn't describe. As if he was waiting for an answer.

‘Rino, can you hear me?' he asked, shaking him.

His teeth were clenched and white foam was trickling down from the corner of his mouth.

Quattro Formaggi knew nothing about medicine, but something very serious must have happened to him. That thing that happens in your brain, leaving you virtually dead.

A coma
.

‘Rino! What's the matter? Are you in a coma?'

No response.

He slapped his face, but Rino did nothing. He just lay there with a quizzical expression on his face.

He slapped him again, harder.

Still no reaction.

He took the gun out of Rino's belt, weighed it in his hand and put it against the other man's forehead, imitating his deep voice: ‘You lousy fucking rapist, now I'm going to kill you.' Then he started
sticking the barrel into a nostril, into his mouth, and smearing the drool over his chin.

When he tired of this he stood there for a while, his mind a blank, rubbing his bruised ribs and thumping himself on the thigh with the pistol butt.

Fireflies danced in front of Rino Zena's eyes. He could also see the raindrops, as heavy as mercury, falling on his face.

The rest was a tingling feeling, like ants crawling over his skin.

His legs. His arms. His stomach. His mouth.

Like a bag of skin, full of ants
.

He couldn't remember where he was, but if he concentrated hard he could hear, too: the sound of his own breathing, the storm among the trees.

A kind of violet cloud was covering him, hiding the fireflies.

That was it, he was in the wood. And the patch where the cloud was lighter must be Quattro Formaggi.

“
Help me
,” he said. But his mouth didn't move, nor did his tongue, and the words didn't emerge from his lips, yet they echoed in his ears like a desperate scream of terror.

He felt something on his cheek. A slap, maybe. Or a caress. But it was far away. As if his head was stuffed with wool. Coarse wool. The dark green wool of the blankets in the children's home.

He was surprised he could still think.

Little thoughts. One after another. Violet thoughts immersed in an infinite blackness.

‘Rino! What's the matter? Are you in a coma?'

His heart started beating more loudly. Quattro Formaggi's words, like sharp arrows, pierced through the violet, which closed again after their passage, and reached him.

“
I don't know
,” he replied, aware of not having spoken.

‘You lousy fucking rapist, now I'm going to kill you.' More arrows pierced the haze. But this time Rino didn't understand what they meant.

If only he could move one finger …

A finger full of ants
.

He made an effort, trying to move his hand. Perhaps he had moved it, but in this state he had no way of knowing.

‘Are you dead?' Quattro Formaggi asked him.

The finger. Move that damned finger
.

He must make Quattro Formaggi understand that he had to take him to hospital at once.

Move the finger. Go on
.

He ordered all the ants to converge from every part of his body into the finger and lift it.

But they didn't obey, and suddenly the mist thickened and his body started to jerk and quiver as it was dragged into the violet which shaded into black.

A blazing fire exploded in the middle of his chest, sucking the air out of his lungs.

Rino implored God to help him, to pull him out of that black hole, and so as suddenly as they had arrived the spasms ceased and he found himself alone, in a calm without light.

Quattro Formaggi saw Rino writhing about and struggling against an invisible force that had caught him and was trying to carry him away. Rino waved his legs and arms and rolled his eyes, and his back arched like a bow; he twisted his mouth and shook his head, and the light on his forehead crazily slashed the woods with a thousand golden blades.

Frightened and shocked, Quattro Formaggi tried to help him, to throw himself across him so as to hold down his arms, but he got a blow in the face and a kick, so he retreated in dismay.

Tugging at his hair, he prayed it would soon be over. It was a terrible sight.

The invisible force was now pushing harder and arching Rino's back as if it wanted to break it, but an instant later it left him, and he lay there, limp in the mud. The torch had gone out too.

It's gone because it's taken Rino's soul
.

His best friend was dead. The only person who had loved him.

He had come here to help him, and God …

(who should have taken you, you dirty murdering rapist)

… had taken his life as he lifted a rock.

He crouched down beside Rino.

What now? What must I do?

Normally it was Rino who answered these questions. He always knew what to do.

Quattro Formaggi sat down and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Amen'. And he crossed himself.