Armando Lazzari - Lilith

I look at the clock for the umpteenth time: 17:15. I really think I could call her now.

The phone rings: once, twice, three times... come on, damn it, what are you waiting for to answer!

Fifth ring: "Hi, I'm not home at the moment, if you want you can leave a message..."

And no, damn, another damn answering machine! Come on, let's talk like a moron with this thing.

"...beep!"

"Hi Angela, it's Davide. We met last night at the club...sorry, but you said to call you after five. When you come back you can call me anytime at 06..."

What the hell! I hung up the phone unnerved, both by Angela's absence and by the feeling of complete idiocy that envelops me every time I talk to an answering machine; and I was hoping they had become extinct like dinosaurs!

By way of ballast I throw myself heavily into the chair. Hypnotized, I follow the hand of the pendulum, which inexorably marks the minutes. It's not one of the best pastimes, but it works.

6:20 p.m.

Driin! Driin!

I make a quick dash toward the device. The edge of the table finds me unprepared and I hit it with my shin. Pain in the ass.

"Hello?"

"Hi Davide, it's Angela. I just got in the house, my daughter Elisa has been wasting my time around, sorry to keep you waiting."

"No worries, I've had a few things to do myself anyway..." Like stare at the pendulum for about an hour.

"I've been thinking all day about the fact that my behaviour toward Roberto has not been very fair. Partly I feel guilty for what happened to him, but mostly because, out of fear, I abandoned him when he needed it."

"I'm sorry, Angela, but I'm a little confused, what really happened to him? I would need you to tell me everything from the beginning. Would you be willing?" I try to be calm, but in fact mine is not really a question.

"Yes, you're right, it's better to start everything from the beginning, but I'd rather talk to you about it in person. I don't live very far from the Canvas, would you like to meet me at home?"

"Sure, that can be arranged."

As he gives me directions, I can't help but smile at the thought of Buba and the blow he'd get if he only learned about the appointment.

It takes me ten minutes to get to my destination and twenty to find a decent parking spot that is discreetly out of the obsessive reach of some easy-pencilled vigilante and/or auxiliary with the sensitivity of a hungry crocodile. Maybe I exaggerated, hungry crocodiles are much more sensitive.

I ring the doorbell and a cheeky little voice asks me who I am. This should be the daughter.

"I'm Davide, a friend of mom's. Is she home?"

She'd be missed.

"Wait a moment, I'll go ask her if she's in."

Perfect secretary sorting visits.

A sound of deadbolts makes me assume that Mom has answered that she is home.

The door opens and the figure of a maybe three-foot gnome appears, her arms clasped at her sides.

"You're lucky, Mom said she's there and you can come in. She's in the bathroom right now, go ahead and have a seat."

She points to the doorway with her hand as she catches her breath from the long sentence she just displayed.

I thank her and smiling I enter the house. I notice that she looks at me grimly. All of her mother.

"Well? How long does it take you to say that?"

The first Gift of children is to displace adults.

"Say what?" I ask her curiously.

"Like what? You have to say: excuse me?. Mom always says that when you enter someone else's home, you have to ask for permission!"

The second Gift, is to make them uncomfortable.

"Elisa!"

Saved in the corner by mom Angela who, despite having the towel tied around her still wet hair, appears in all her glory.

"Sorry about her, but when she gets into it she's awful! Now be a good girl and go to your room and play, and the gentleman and I will sit in the lounge and talk."

With a polite pout, she obeyed and walked to her room.

"Good, now we can talk quietly. Would you like some iced tea?" I humour her and make myself comfortable on the couch.

She is tense, I think the tea is more for her than for me.

She returns to me after a few moments, carrying a tray with an iced pitcher of tea and two glasses. Angela's shaky gait almost makes me bet on a disastrous end of the tray on the floor. Luckily I'm wrong and I manage to sip a little. It's homemade: too much lemon and not enough sugar, ideal for a woman like her who always has to keep in shape. I don't want to press her, but I have to find a way to get her going. Let's start with the basics.

"Have you known Roberto long?"

She unties the towel from her hair and begins to gently dry it, patting it dry.

"Not long, but just long enough to say that he's a good person and that maybe I should have helped him...or at least, insisted that he not make the mistake he did." I frown at such mystery.

"Did he use any particular drugs?"

We begin the elimination game.

"Drugs? Who, Roberto?" She smiles in amazement.

First guess eliminated.

"I don't think he even knows what drugs look like," she adds to punctuate.

"I see, but then explain to me how he got that way?"

She picks up a cigarette and nervously lights it.

"Do you believe in the existence of good and evil? In the sense of a physical embodiment of the thing, I mean?" She's damn serious.

"I don't know, I've never had a chance to personally test either one." What's your point?

"Well, I am, and so is Roberto, at least the part about evil." I raise my eyebrows.

"You don't think I'm entirely sane, do you?" You'd have to give me at least a little sketchy, though.

"I'm not used to judging without having a broad view..." Go with the courtesy.

"Maybe it would be better if I told you how things went from the beginning." Hoping at least that there's a more earthy, less mystical logic to it.

"Back in the day, before Elisa was born, my husband and I were not having a happy marital time. Perhaps precisely because children are a glue for a family and we didn't have any yet. Anyway, to break the boredom, or just to forget the now daily fights, we went to all sorts of parties that were organized, sometimes even by strangers." All good living.

"One night, I don't even really remember who invited us, we attended one of them, where there was an obligation to wear a mask for the entire party. Believe me, it wasn't even among the strangest of requests."

I dare not imagine the others.

"We went to a villa with the usual dull enthusiasm that had reigned between us for some time now, with the only difference being that during the trip we had not yet quarrelled once. On the contrary, my husband, Diego, drove in reserved silence, aided by the three glasses of whiskey he had already drunk at home."

Odd that you got there safely.

"The party itself didn't differ from those of previous weekends: music, buffet, Diego still drinking, Diego being silly with everyone in his way, and me trying to pretend everything was going right."

Basically a nightmare.

"Basically the usual nightmare." Exactly.

"I'd knocked back my martini fix, too, but I could control myself better. Out of the blue, what was supposed to be the hostess announced that the hour was upon us and the real soul of the party was about to begin. Having said that, she urged us to follow her and we all went to what at first seemed to be the cellars of the villa, but then we realized it was the exit to a large room."

Sipping more tea, we are about to get into the thick of the story.

"There was music in that room too, but it had changed, it almost sounded like classical music. I looked for my husband and noticed that he was stranger than usual, but I didn't think anything of it, I thought about the alcohol. The music suddenly stopped and everyone, as if following a well-designed script, first stopped and then arranged themselves in a circle. I began to worry when I realized that I was at the centre of this human chain. I thought it was some sort of prank and didn't want to show my discomfort." In your place I would have run like hell!