The Crossroads (30 page)

He imagined he was humping Father Marcello. That hideous creature, pitted with smallpox and ravaged by psoriasis, who lived in the rectory. He imagined he was penetrating the flaccid, hairy buttocks of the priest from the Italian Marches.

That did indeed help a little. But as soon as he saw, in the half-light cast by the reading lamp, Ida's pleasure-distorted face and
noticed how, as if in a trance, she was putting her forefinger between her wet lips and passing it over her tongue, he couldn't resist, he tried to think of something more depressing, he thought of Cortés's
noche triste
and the gruesome massacre of the Aztec people, but it wasn't enough, he came anyway, in silence.

He couldn't tell which was greater, the pleasure or the disappointment. He stifled a cry and hoped he could stay erect long enough for her to come too.

He gritted his teeth, as poker-faced as a Prussian infantryman.

‘Beppe … Beppe … Oh my God, I'm going to come … I'm coming! I'm coming!' Ida moaned, digging her fingernails into his shoulders.

At that very same moment, outside, a gust of wind gave the coup de grâce to the camp sign, the cables snapped and the banana broke free of its moorings and took flight, whirling like a boomerang across the car park, skimmed over the soft drinks kiosk, over a few caravans and sliced into the right-hand side of the camper.

Beppe yelled, clutched hold of Ida and thought a bomb had gone off. Mario Lo Vino had discovered them and put an explosive device under the camper. But then he noticed that one wall was split, having been opened like a can of tuna by half a yellow banana, complete with brown stem, which was peeping in between the dinette and the kitchen area.

The sign must have hit a critical point in the camper's structure because the roof came away from the side with a sinister groan and the wind, howling through the gap, ripped it off and carried it away.

The two poor lovers, wet and naked, clung together in terror on what was left of the sleeping compartment.

On the way home Quattro Formaggi hadn't met a soul. This hadn't surprised him, it was a special night.

His night.

Nearly five kilometres of flooded streets, fallen trees and billboards
torn down by the storm. In Piazza Bologna the great luminous display showing the temperature and the time of day, on top of the General Insurance building, had blown off and was dangling from an electric wire; there wasn't a single police car or fire engine about.

Quattro Formaggi stopped outside Mediastore, chained his scooter to the usual post and limped towards the narrow steps that led down to his basement flat. He opened the door and closed it behind him, leaned against it, opening his mouth, and despite the pain in his shoulder, where Ramona had stabbed him with the mirror, he began to weep with joy, shaking his head.

He looked at his hands.

Those hands had killed.

Quattro Formaggi gulped and a lustful shiver gripped his thighs and tightened his groin. His legs sagged and wouldn't support him, and he had to grab hold of the bolt of the lock to stop himself falling.

He kicked off his shoes and undressed, throwing everything on the floor as if his clothes burned his skin.

He shut his eyes and saw the girl's hand holding his cock, on her finger the silver skull ring. He searched for it in his trouser pocket and when he found it squeezed it hard between his hands and then swallowed it.

Rino Zena, the Great General of the Ants, had drawn up his army of insects in a million battalions.

The ants were good and obedient and would do anything he told them to do.

Listen to me!

The ants, under the violet sky, stood to attention and billions of black eyes looked at him.

I want you all to go into my right arm
.

His arm – at least as he saw it – was a long black tunnel which widened out into a sort of piazza from which five small blind tunnels led off.

The ants piled up inside it, one on top of the other, and completely filled it, right down to the end, to the very tips of the fingers.

And now if you all move together, in the right way, my arm will
move and my hand will pick up the mobile phone
.

Well done ants, you're doing a great job
.

Danilo Aprea had returned to the garage, he was shivering all over and his teeth were chattering. The cold had got into the very marrow of his bones.

‘My God it's cold! I'm freezing!' he kept repeating, trying to open the door of his Alfa Romeo.

At last the half-rusted key entered the lock.

Danilo held his breath, closed his eyes, turned and, as if by magic, the knob of the door lock rose.

‘Yes! Yes! Yes!' He started doing pirouettes with his arms in the air like a flamenco dancer, then he got into the car and stripped off his soaking wet clothes, socks and shoes and was left naked.

He needed something to wrap himself up in at once, or he'd die of cold.

He looked to see if there was anything on the back seat that he could put over himself …

That tartan blanket Teresa used to use for picnics
.

… but couldn't see anything. What he did find was the bottle of grappa he had bought on the way back from the funeral. It was still half full.

‘Just what I need!' He gulped it down in such a frenzy he almost choked himself. The alcohol went through his oesophagus and warmed his guts.

That's better. Much better
.

But it wasn't enough. He needed something to wear, but he didn't want to go up to the flat.

Finally he stripped the black-and-white check plush covers off the
front seats and put them on, one over the other. He stuck his head through the hole for the headrest and his hands out between the laces at each side.

‘Perfect.'

But it still wasn't enough. He needed to switch on the car and turn the heating up to maximum.

He put on his glasses, inserted the key in the ignition and turned.

Not a tremor, not a lurch, from the starter.

The battery was flat.

What did you expect after all this time?

He put his hands on the steering wheel and gazed in a stupor at the bottle of Arbre Magique scented with forest pine.

It was really strange that the car hadn't started.

Something didn't add up. How come God had made him find the keys but hadn't recharged the battery?

He took another sip of grappa and, rubbing his arms, began to reflect on the nature of the two miracles.

As a matter of fact, if you thought about it, they were two very different phenomena.

That the key ring should have caught on the steel rod was highly unlikely – more unlikely than winning the first prize in the lottery. But there was a chance of it happening. A pretty remote one, admittedly, but there was a chance.

If the battery had recharged itself, it would have been a mega-miracle, like the Madonna of Civitavecchia weeping blood or Jesus Christ multiplying the loaves and fishes.

A real marvel which, if the Church had come to hear about it, would have turned that garage into a place of worship.

Danilo was sure the Lord was helping him, but not to the extent of performing an out-and-out miracle which broke the laws of physics. The finding of the keys was definitely a miracle, but – so to speak – a second-class one, whereas the battery's recharging itself would have been a first-class one, almost on a par with an apparition of the Madonna.

‘Fair's fair! What you've done is enough for me, Lord. Don't worry, I'll see to the battery,' said Danilo, and at that very moment the garage door rolled up. The dazzling light of two tungsten head-lamps lit up the whole place as bright as day.

Danilo tried to disappear under the dashboard.

Now who's this, for fuck's sake?

A big silver four-by-four with smoke-grey windows and golden wheel rims cruised past and parked in the space next to his.

It's that stupid little moneybags Niccolò Donazzan. His parents
have bought him a car worth fifty thousand euros. He's probably
coming back from the disco stoned out of his mind
.

What the hell did his parents think they were doing?

Danilo looked at his watch. It was full of water and the hands had stopped. He must hurry, the first commuters would be leaving home soon.

Niccolò Donazzan got out of the four-by-four wearing a black bandanna, a buckskin jacket with fringes and, attached to his belt, some tatters of denim.

At the same moment the other door opened and out came a dumpy girl with straw-coloured hair braided into two plaits à la Pippi Longstocking. Some huge, very dark shades were wrapped round her face. She wore a violet coat with a fur-lined hood and trousers so baggy the crotch sagged down to her knees.

He saw his young neighbour unceremoniously grab the girl by the arms and dump her on the bonnet of the Alfa.

‘What the f …?' Danilo clapped his hand over his mouth.

Donazzan leaped on the bonnet himself and started kissing her passionately, like he was trying to rip her tongue out of her mouth.

Danilo, hidden below the dashboard, cursed and swore.

What now?

Those two randy little bastards meant to screw on his bonnet. Young Donazzan was tugging at the zip in the girl's trousers. She was banging her head against the glass, squirming and moaning, though the boy had hardly touched her yet. Either she was epileptic or she was so spaced out she thought she was acting in a porno film.

Donazzan tried to calm her down: ‘Pannocchietta, if you keep wriggling about I won't be able to undo your trousers …'

Danilo straightened up and shouted: ‘That's enough, you two! I'm going to tell your father!'

When he heard that voice explode in the silence the boy popped up in the air like a champagne cork and fell off the bonnet.
Pannocchietta gave a querulous squeal and jumped off the car too.

They clung together, frightened and guilty, trying to make out who had spoken.

‘Did you hear what I said? I'm going to tell your father. And I'm going to bring it up at the next residents' meeting.'

At last the two saw that the head of a large man dressed like Fred Flintstone was sticking out of the window of the Alfa Romeo.

It took Niccolò Donazzan a few moments to realise that it was Aprea, the guy from the second floor. He was so terrified by the threat to involve his father that he didn't even wonder why Aprea was sitting in his car at three o'clock in the morning dressed like that.

‘I'm sorry … We didn't know you were there. Or …' he stuttered.

‘Or what, son?'

‘Or I wouldn't have done it. I swear! I'm terribly sorry.'

‘Okay.' Danilo assumed a contented expression. ‘Give me your jacket. I'll give it back to you tomorrow.'

‘My jacket? But it's an Avirex original … It was a present from …' The boy was evidently very attached to his horrendous biker jacket.

‘Do you have a hearing problem? Your jacket! And cut the chat. Do you want me to go and see your father?'

‘But …'

‘But nothing. And give me your trousers and boots too.'

Donazzan hesitated.

‘Give them to him, go on. Can't you see what a state he's in? He's out of his mind, he looks mad enough to carry out a massacre,' interposed the girl, quite calmly. She had recovered well from the fright and had lit herself a cigarette.

‘She's right. Can't you see what a state I'm in? You'd better listen to your girlfriend.'

She corrected him, puffing out a cloud of smoke: ‘I'm not his girlfriend.'

In the meantime the boy had taken off his boots and trousers.

‘Give them to me. Quick.' Danilo reached out of the window and took them. ‘And now you've got to push the car. My battery's flat.'

Niccolò Donazzan said to Pannocchietta: ‘Come on, help me. His battery's flat.'

The girl slouched reluctantly round to the boot: ‘What a drag!'

The two of them started pushing the car towards the garage door.

Danilo waited till they were going fast enough, released the clutch and went into second. The engine lurched three times and fired in a cloud of white smoke.

Those two kids, too
, Danilo said to himself as he drove out of the garage,
were angels sent by the Lord
.

The ants were moving his arm, but in the effort thousands of them were dying and being carried out of the cave and replaced by others that arrived from distant regions of his body.

Rino Zena couldn't understand why they were sacrificing themselves to help him.

The ones inside his hand moved together, with coordination, so as to enable his fingers to bend and grasp the mobile phone in his trouser pocket.

Well done … Well done, little ones
.

Now call Cristiano. Please
…

Rino tried to imagine his thumb pressing the green key twice.

In the Zena household the phone didn't often ring.

And after a certain hour it never did.

A couple of times Danilo Aprea, during one of his fits of missing Teresa, had called after eleven o'clock at night in search of a friendly voice. Rino had listened and had then explained to him that if he ever tried phoning him again at that hour he would make him swallow his teeth.

But that night, after months of silence, the phone started ringing.

The sound took a full three minutes to wake Cristiano, who was asleep upstairs.

He was having a bad dream. He was very warm and had soaked the sheets in sweat, as if he had a fever. He lifted his head and noticed that the gale showed no sign of abating. The broken shutter was knocking against the window. The gate outside was rattling in the wind.

His mouth was parched.

The ham
.

He reached out and picked up the bottle off the floor, and as he drank he noticed that the phone was ringing downstairs.