Джанрико Карофильо - Rome Noir

You don’t know it, Charlotte. Tourists don’t go there. It’s an unreal place of mud, garbage, and weeds. And it’s been like that for thirty years, from the day of Pasolini’s murder. A place abandoned by God and man, where the voice of that violence still sounds in the silence. The voice of an ancient violence, which Rome has never ceased to conceal. And that night the voice was heard again, like an echo, in the deserted fields of the Idroscalo. Loud enough to cover Mario’s words, his protests. What are we doing here, let’s go , he kept saying to me. But I couldn’t hear him. I took him by the arm. I hit him to make him shut up. Then Mario got frightened and ran away. He opened the door and began running through the fields. He ran like a rabbit, Charlotte. Fast, like a frightened child. I started the car and went straight after him. I called to him to stop, but children, you know, they never do what they’re told. Children are never still. Children are never quiet. They can’t keep a secret, even if they’ve promised. I alone could silence him, I alone could stop him. I pressed my foot to the gas. Faster. It was essential to stop him. Before Mario could tell anyone what had happened. I had to end his life. End his world there, in those fields.

My world today goes on turning, Charlotte.

No one knows, no one has ever suspected.

Mario was always out, and his parents were not too concerned about him. Likely he fell victim to someone with evil intentions.

The fault is the family’s, society’s.

The fault is this city’s.

Rome was born in blood, and blood always calls forth more blood. I believe it, Charlotte. The voice of violence shouts every night through these streets, but now among the victims’ cries I seem to hear my name too. And it’s Mario’s voice that accuses me. A voice louder than the others.

It was you , he says. And yes, it was me. I killed that poor boy. It’s no use turning your head and pretending that nothing happened. I tried, but it was all in vain. Two years have passed, and the sound of those broken bones still echoes in my head. That sound is my company day and night, it won’t let me sleep, won’t let me think.

He asked for it , Charlotte. From that day, I’ve been repeating this, over and over, but I’m not persuaded.

Mario’s voice has followed me everywhere. It pursued me over land and sea, until I was exhausted, until it made me say Enough. Enough now. I’m too tired to escape again.

I’m dying, Charlotte. In the end his voice found me. It crossed the silence with which Rome remembers its dead, and murmured in my ear the word “cancer.” And at my age cancer is unforgiving, as you well know. I’m going to die, my dear. And I’m going to die here at Ostia, where everything began. I’m going to die on the white beaches of this blood-colored city, like an old whale that has lost its way in the ocean. And in a way, my love, that’s just how it should be.

Translation by Anne Milano Appel

Fiumicino

I get off the plane in enviable physical shape, proud of feeling and above all looking like I’m in sync with the wealth-producing world around me, not at all nostalgic, stylishly dressed, immune to politics, to freedom of the press and freedom of expression in general, to culture, to global warming, to Muslim terrorism, crime reports, the Democratic party, model towns of quiet living where low-level clerks massacre their neighbors and families for no reason, to rampant pedophilia, the never truly ascertained extinction of the first republic, to world championships, soccer bribe scandals, paparazzi who blackmail public figures, to the uncertainty of work, to Family Day, to Rights for Cohabiting Couples and the Catholic Church’s meddling in the political life of the country and the private lives of individuals. I am a man of my time, having achieved a truce with the world. Not that it took that much, a wink was enough to send the signal: You mind your business and I’ll mind mine. We’re all adults, after all.

In the shuttle that brings us to the terminal, I look around (no one escapes the gaze of others in the airport shuttle: find me another public place where strangers pay so much attention to one another) and declare myself the most attractive man on this flight that just landed in Rome. For a moment I fear competition from a couple of young studs who are flaunting their gym-buffed physiques in tight T-shirts, but seeing that an attractive piece of tail with a child is looking at me and not them, my concern quickly eases.

We arrived right on time, which reassures me about the little game I intend to play before putting myself in circulation. As usual when I come to Rome, I group my engagements. Not that any one of them preoccupies me very much, but it’s the sum of them that adds up, as the well-known joke says — and though it doesn’t make me laugh, I find myself citing it often, a little like a bad tune that sticks in your head the more you try to forget it.

I retrieve my suitcase from the carousel (a job I detest, but since the antiterrorism measures have been in force, they make a lot of fuss, even for us) and before the shooting range I go and have a caffè macchiato, because I find the combination of foamy milk and espresso intoxicating. The cashier, a skinny brunette with delicate features, looks at me in an explicitly inviting way when she gives me my change. At first I think it would be fun to tell her that I’d be delighted to pick her up if she tells me what time she gets off, and then not show up, but her soft little face inspires such tenderness that I choose to spare her the humiliation.

When I finish the coffee I go to the men’s room to complete the job, using for the occasion one of the business cards that I got printed on recycled paper, because it rolls up better. I lay the line I do not have out on the sink counter, prompting the silent disapproval of a family man washing his hands a couple of sinks down. I thin it out with a credit card, I snort noisily with my right nostril, tap my nose with my forefinger, throw my head back, stick my left pinkie in the nostril, then rub the fingertip over the upper gum arch, run my tongue over it, and swallow. The man continues staring at me, mesmerized. He has probably seen that there was nothing on the sink’s marble, but ingenuous as he appears, he must be wondering if maybe they’ve invented some new type of invisible cocaine in the years since he gave up social activity. I can barely keep from laughing in his face. He dries his hands and moves away disgusted. I find myself irresistible, I congratulate myself at length, and finally I go take a leak. While I’m at it, I stop to read the little notes stuck to the outside walls of the urinals, handwritten by a semi-literate homosexual. I find them ridiculous and depressing. I give a little shake, I go wash my hands, I hold them under the jet of hot air from the dryer on the wall, curse the photoelectric cell that doesn’t work, use the other dryer, get bored, finish up, open the suitcase, check that it isn’t missing anything. At first I find myself thinking that I wouldn’t mind strolling around the airport with the handle sticking out of my jacket pocket to cause a little outburst of panic and then apologize to the colleagues who would surround me with their weapons drawn (“Hey, guys, I don’t know what to say, I’m really embarrassed, hasn’t this ever happened to you? After you wash your hands, don’t you sometimes just stick it in your pocket without thinking?”; “Never happened to me” — some idiot itching for a fight would surely respond — “you risk getting yourself killed, doing something stupid like that”; to which I would reply: “It depends on how stupid the one who shoots you is”); but I’m forced to reject the idea because I don’t have much time, so I put it back in the holster, wet the palm of my right hand again, smooth my hair back, and finally get out of there.