Giorgio Faletti: I Kill

‘How come you speak such good German?’

‘My father’s second wife, who happens to be my mother, is from Berlin. Luckily for me, she stayed married to him long enough to teach me,’ said Arianna

‘Why would a girl with such a beautiful face keep it bent over a chessboard for so many hours?’

‘Why,’ Arianna had retorted, raising an eyebrow and throwing the ball back at him, ‘would a man with such an interesting face keep it hidden in those soup pots you racing drivers wear on your heads?’

Just then the big cheese from UNICEF who had organized the event had come over to request Jochen’s presence in the ballroom. He had left Arianna reluctantly and followed, determined to answer her last question as soon as he could. Just before entering the room, he had turned back to look at her. She was standing near the balustrade watching him, one hand in her pocket. With a complicit smile, she had raised her glass of champagne in his direction.

The next day, after the practice session at the circuit, he had gone to watch her in a tournament. His arrival had excited the audience and media people. The presence of Jochen Welder, a two-time Formula 1 world champion, at a chess competition with Arianna Parker was no accident. No one had heard of his interest in chess before.

She was seated at the tournament table, separated from the judges and the public by a wooden barrier. She had turned her head in the direction of the disturbance caused by Jochen’s entrance and, when she saw him, there was no change in her expression, as if she hadn’t recognized him. She had gone back to staring at the chessboard in front of her. Jochen admired her intense concentration, her head bent low to study the arrangement of the pieces. That slight female figure was strange in a milieu that usually spoke the language of men. After that, Arianna had made some inexplicable mistakes. He knew nothing about chess, but he could sense it from the remarks of the chess devotees crowded into the room. Suddenly, she had stood up and leaned her king on the chessboard as a sign that she was conceding defeat. Without catching anyone’s eye, she had walked to the door at the back of the room. Jochen had tried to follow her, but she was already gone.

The hectic hours of qualifying his car for Sunday’s Grand Prix kept him from seeking her out again. But he had spotted her in the pits, the morning of the race, right after the drivers’ briefing. He was checking the changes in the car that he’d suggested to the mechanics right after the warm-up and her voice had surprised him, as it had at their first meeting.

‘Well, I have to admit, your jumpsuit doesn’t look as good as your tux, but it’s certainly more colourful.’

He had turned and there she was in front of him, her huge green eyes shining, her hair half hidden by a beret. She was wearing a lightweight T-shirt with no bra and, like almost everyone else around them, low-slung cargo shorts. A VIP pass was hanging around her neck, along with her sunglasses. He was so surprised that Alberto Regosa, his track engineer, had started teasing him. ‘Hey, Jochen, if you don’t close your mouth, you won’t be able to get your helmet on.’

‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ he had said, and placed his hand on Arianna’s shoulder, answering her and his friend at the same time. ‘I’d introduce you but there’s no point. He’ll be looking for a new job tomorrow anyway, so you won’t see him again.’

He had escorted the girl outside, and replied to the engineer’s wisecrack with his middle finger behind his back, as Alberto shamelessly stared at the girl’s legs in her shorts.

‘Honestly, you didn’t look so bad in a tux yourself, but I prefer this. There’s always a little doubt when a girl’s legs are hidden by pants.’

They had laughed, and then Jochen had given her a brief tour of the organized confusion that was the world of motor racing, all so unfamiliar to Arianna. He had explained who was who and what was what, sometimes having to shout above the scream of the revving engines. When it was time to line up on the starting grid, he had asked her if she wanted to watch the race from the pits. ‘I’m afraid I have to put my soup pot on now, as you put it.’ He had said goodbye and left her in the care of Greta, the team’s PR rep.

He had slid into his seat and, as the mechanics strapped him in, he had looked up at her. Their eyes had spoken again through the slit in his helmet and it was a language that went far beyond the emotion of the race. He was out of the race almost immediately, after only ten laps. He’d started well but then, when he was in fourth place, the rear suspension, the car’s weak point, had suddenly given out, sending him into a spin at the end of a sharp curve to the left. He’d crashed into the armco, bouncing into the centre of the track and half destroying his Klover Formula 109. He’d informed the team by radio that he was unscathed and returned on foot. As he got back to the pits he’d looked for Arianna but couldn’t find her. Only after describing the accident to the team manager and technicians could he look for her again. He’d eventually found her in the motorhome, sitting next to Greta, who’d discreetly left when he arrived. Arianna had stood up and put her arms around his neck.

‘I’ll accept the fact that your presence can make me lose a crucial game of an important tournament, but I think it’ll be harder to lose a year of my life every time you risk yours.’ She looked gravely into his eyes. ‘But you can kiss me now, if you’d like…’

They had been together ever since.

Jochen lit a cigarette and stood on the deck alone in the twilight. As he smoked, he observed the lights along the coast. He’d dropped anchor not far from Cap Martin, at Roquebrune, to the right of the large blue ‘V’ of the Vista Palace, the large hotel built on the peak of the mountain. It was three days after the Monaco Grand Prix, with its crowds of people, but the city had quickly returned to normal. The lazy, orderly traffic of a sunny day in May had replaced the blur of the racing cars. This summer promised to be different, for him and for everyone else.

At thirty-four, Jochen Welder felt old, and he was afraid.

He knew about fear: it was a Formula 1 driver’s regular companion. He’d gone to bed with it for years, every Saturday night before a race, no matter which woman was sharing his life and his bed at the time. He’d learned to recognize the smell of it in his jumpsuits soaked with sweat, hanging up to dry in the pits. He’d faced and battled his fear for a long time, forgetting it whenever he fastened his helmet or buckled up in the car, waiting for the strong rush of adrenalin to course through his veins. But now it was different. Now he was afraid of the fear. The fear that substitutes reason for instinct, that makes you take your foot off the accelerator or feel for the brake an instant before you need to. The fear that suddenly strikes you dumb and speaks only through the chronometer, which shows how fast a second is for ordinary mortals and how slow for racing drivers.

His mobile rang. He was sure he’d turned it off and was tempted to do so now. He took it out with a sigh and answered.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

It was the voice of Roland Shatz, his manager, bursting forth like a TV gameshow host, except that gameshow hosts weren’t usually so angry with their contestants. Jochen had expected it, but was still caught unaware. ‘Around,’ he answered evasively.

‘Around? Like hell. Do you have any idea what kind of shit is going on?’

He didn’t know, but could very well imagine. After all, a driver who loses a race he had all but won – because of an error on one the final lap – was great fodder for sports pages all over the world. Roland did not wait for him to reply.