Giorgio Faletti - I'm God

‘Or else she’s a stiff in bed, and her husband hopes she’ll tire herself out during the day so she won’t make any demands on him at night. Imagine what it must be like to have that woman lying beside you and feel her reaching out her hand…’

Ron gave a grimace of horror. ‘If it was me, they’d have to stick a pack of dogs in my underpants to dig it out.’

At that moment, two men climbed the steps to join them. Ron took advantage of their arrival to open his container. A strong smell of garlic pervaded the hut.

James Ritter, a pleasant-looking young worker, took a step back towards the door he’d just come in through. ‘Holy shit, Ron. Does the CIA know you’re carrying a weapon of mass destruction around with you? Eat all that stuff, you’ll be able to solder metal with your breath.’

Freeman’s only response was to ostentatiously lift a forkful of food to his mouth. ‘You’re an asshole. You deserve that trash you usually eat. You know, Viagra, which by the way I’m sure you’re already taking, sure ain’t gonna work with that crap inside you.’

Jeremy smiled.

He liked this atmosphere of camaraderie. Experience had taught him that men were better able to do heavy work if things were kept light. That was why he usually prepared something at home and ate his lunch sitting in one of the two huts with his workers.

But when he was in a bad mood, he preferred to be alone. To think about his own business and not weigh things down for others.

He went to the door and stood there for a moment looking out.

‘Not eating, boss?’

He shook his head, without turning. ‘Nah, I’m going to the deli around the corner. When I get back, I’ll count how many victims Ron’s food has claimed.’

He descended the steps of the hut, and went back to being an ordinary citizen. He crossed at the crossing and set off along 23rd Street, leaving Third Avenue behind him. The traffic wasn’t too heavy at this hour and in this part of the city. The rhythms of New York were very regular, except from time to time when things went crazy.

It was like an endless conjuring trick. In this city everything appeared and disappeared constantly. Cars, people, houses.

He got to the deli at a steady pace, without stopping to look in any windows. Partly because he wasn’t interested in what was in those windows, but mainly because he didn’t want to see his own reflection. For fear of discovering that he, too, had vanished into thin air.

He pushed open the door of the crowded deli, and the smell of food hit his nostrils. Seeing him come in, the oriental girl behind the cash register found the time to smile at him before turning to the line of people waiting to weigh their food and pay for it.

He went slowly along the long display counter, looking for something that attracted him in the various containers. Assistants, also oriental, replaced them as they emptied. He took a plastic container, served himself a few pieces of stewed chicken that looked acceptable enough, and prepared himself a mixed salad.

In the meantime, the line at the cash desk had grown shorter and a minute or so later he found himself facing the girl who had smiled at him when he had entered. At a first distracted glance, he had judged her to be much younger than she was. Now that he saw her at close quarters, he realized she wasn’t young enough to be his daughter after all. She smiled at him as if she might be willing to become something different for him. She probably did that with everyone, Jeremy thought. He weighed his containers, paid the money he was asked to, and left the woman to smile at the next customer in the same way.

He went to the back of the deli and sat down alone at a table for two. The chicken kept its promise – in other words wasn’t very good. He almost immediately left it and devoted his attention to the salad, remembering how Jenny had insisted, when they were still together, that he eat more vegetables.

Everything always happens too late …

With his tongue, he pursued the fragments of salad that got stuck between his teeth and washed them away with sips of the beer.

His thoughts returned to the morning’s meeting with Val Courier, a famous architect of somewhat dubious sexuality, and Fred Wyring, an engineer with equally dubious calculations, who had been joined by the wife of the owner of the company. Mrs Elisabeth Brokens, who looked like a brochure for Botox, having tired of going from one analyst to another, had decided that the best cure for her neuroses would be work. Having no aptitude, no training, and no ideas, she had been forced to turn to her husband. Maybe she had freed herself from her neuroses, but only by passing them on to all the people she came in contact with.

Jeremy Cortese didn’t have any qualifications, but had graduated on the job. Day after day, working hard and learning from those who knew more than him. He found arguing with incompetents a waste of time, which he’d eventually have to account for to someone, in this case Mr Brokens in person. Mr Brokens knew his work well but evidently didn’t know his wife quite as well, if he let her stick her nose in things like that.

Every time he saw her show up, he was tempted to set the stopwatch, so that he could demonstrate to his boss how much a visit from his wife to the site had cost him. Maybe it would have been better for him to keep paying the analysts’ fees.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t see Ronald Freeman come in. It wasn’t until he was standing right in front of him that he became aware of his presence and looked up from his salad.

‘We have a problem.’

Ron paused, then put his hands down on the table and looked him straight in the eyes. The expression on Ron’s face was one he’d never seen there before. If such a thing was possible, Jeremy would have said he was pale.

‘A big problem.’

That started ringing alarm bells in Jeremy’s head. ‘What’s up?’

Ron made a gesture with his head towards the door. ‘It might be better if you came and saw for yourself.’

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and headed for the exit. Jeremy followed him, feeling a mixture of surprise and anxiety. It was quite rare to see his deputy fazed by an emergency of any kind.

They walked along the street side by side. As they approached the site, they saw that the men had left the fenced-off area, a homogenous mass of work jackets and hard hats.

Without realizing it, he had started walking faster.

When they reached the entrance, the workers silently stood aside for them. It was like a scene from an old movie, the kind where the camera tracks along a row of despairing faces standing at the top of a mine shaft where a sudden collapse has trapped some of the miners inside.

What the hell’s going on?

They lost no time in putting on their hard hats. Ronald turned right, and Jeremy followed. They walked along the fence, next to what was still standing of a wall, then found themselves descending a staircase that led to the old basement, which was now almost completely open to the sky. As soon as they were at the bottom, Ronald led him towards the opposite side of the excavation. The only wall still partially standing here was the solid one between the two buildings, which was currently being demolished.

They reached the left-hand corner, the furthest from the staircase. Ronald stopped and with an almost choreographed effect, as if raising a curtain, moved aside and left the way free.

Jeremy shuddered, and felt like retching. He was glad he’d only eaten salad.

The demolition work had exposed a cavity wall. Through a gap in it, made by a pneumatic hammer, an arm was visible, dirty with time and dust. Above it, a head, reduced almost to a skull, was resting on what remained of a shoulder and seemed to be looking towards the outside world with all the bitterness of someone who has waited too long to see light and air again.