Wu Ming - 54

Pierre was almost frightened.

She put the flowers in the vase.

‘I wanted to tell you that I’ve decided to go away.’

The sentence struck him like a fist to the sternum.

He could only murmur, ‘Where to?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ve got a bit of money put aside. But I can’t stay here any longer.’

He had to ask her, now or never.

‘Come away with me. I want to leave too. I can’t put up with all this any more.’

Angela gave him a hint of a smile, the first in weeks.

‘No, Pierre. I’m going away on my own.’

The words stuck in his throat.

Pierre became aware of a profound sorrow within himself, something that would mark him forever, a barrier of hate and pain erected against the world.

She glanced towards the grave.

‘It’s the only way of giving any meaning to what happened. Because Fefe didn’t die for nothing. He wanted me to be free.’

‘He wanted you to be happy, Angela.’

‘When he worked out that I couldn’t be happy, he decided to free me. He gave us a lesson, Pierre, he gave it to everyone. He was too weak to rebel. And now I’m too sad. Throughout the whole of my life I’ve never been able to choose. Someone, something has always made my choices for me. Necessity, misfortune. Now I’m on my own. I want to start over from the beginning, in a different place. All I have here is horrible memories.’

Pierre felt like bursting into tears, but he contained himself.

‘Am I a horrible memory, too?’

That half-smile again. ‘No. But you too must make your decisions on your own. You can’t stay in suspense for ever. What you have isn’t enough for you, and I can’t give you what you want.’

‘I want you.’

‘That’s not true. Neither of us knows what we want. We just know that we have no future here. That’s why we’ve got to go, each our own way.’

Angela seemed gigantic, as though he had always underestimated her, as though the person he had loved was now someone else, a thousand times harder and stronger than he. Pain had seared, turned her into iron.

She brushed his cheek with her hand.

‘I love you, Pierre. But you can’t share my pain. No one can.’

Once again, Pierre heard the thud of that door closing, leaving him in the dark.

He could think of no brilliant words to say. He couldn’t find the right facial expression. He stood there, motionless, as she said goodbye to him.

‘Can I at least ask you for one last kiss?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Better not.’

‘You can’t deny someone a hug.’

She looked at him as you might look at a child. Her eyes lingered briefly on his tight sweater, his clinging trousers.

‘You look like a boxer who’s about to thump someone.’

She said it tenderly. She loved him. Really.

‘Goodbye, Pierre.’

She walked along the path.

Pierre swallowed back the lump in his throat. Was this how it all ended? Was this how he would let her go?

No tears. No breaking voice. Master of the situation.

He gritted his teeth, caught up with her, and put a piece of paper in her hand.

Angela stared at it, perplexed.

‘It’s the address of an English family. Fanti gave it to me, and I trust him: he’s a good person. Fanti will write to them, they’ll help you. Go to them, Angela.’

For a moment he saw that light gleaming in her eyes, the same one that had made him fall in love with her.

He understood that she would have been enough for him. For the whole of his life, if it came to that.

Chapter 44

Bologna, 1 July

Ten hours’ driving, three coffees, two simpamine tablets.

At dawn somewhere near Siena. Florence, another tablet. Bologna.

Park the car. Give the consignment to Shithead. Split up.

Morning spent on recces.

The bars, the main squares, the taxi ranks. Taxi drivers know everything about everyone. They drive, they listen, they see. Taxi drivers are involved in the black market. Retail deliveries and contacts.

The eight o’clock sun warms up the square. A pigeon feasts on a crust of bread. Small crowds gather beneath a kind of castle.

They are farmers. They are peasants. They are discussing the purchase of cows, hundredweights of beetroot, potatoes and calves. Where the fuck have you fetched up? In the Middle Ages?

You throw a few questions around. A certain Ettore, a certain truck. You get blank looks in return. The identikit spreads like an echo. Someone who carries freight between Naples and here. You get indecipherable comments and shakes of the head. Last shot: that lout in the foreground has the most incredible handlebar moustache anyone’s ever seen!

You make for a bar on the other side of the street.

He runs towards you, hugging himself and shouting. Your eye freezes and you press your index finger between nose and chin. When the fuck is he ever going to learn to shut up?

He gets within reach. You grab his shoulder and drag him to the wall.

‘What the fuck are you shouting about?’

He speaks under his breath, now . You can barely make out what he says.

‘I’ve found it, Stiv, are you happy now? It’s in a shed just behind the new hospital, right over there.’

The new hospital is a vast and dusty building site. The man stops the bulldozer and points beyond the fences to the area where the sheds are.

Storehouses for bricks, railway sidings, scrap heaps. You pull on the handbrake, you get out and ask. You go in and out, at a lick.

Your head is crushed with sleep. The simpamine returns it to sender. Bullseye at the fourth attempt. A mean-looking bastard.

‘Ettore’s not here, he’s gone on a delivery.’

‘Doesn’t matter: you might be able to help me. I’m looking for a television. Signore Camarota, from Frosinone, told me you should —’

The bastard interrupted. ‘A television? Yes, yes, wait, I think I remember. A nice big television?’

‘A nice big one, yes, that’s right.’

‘Then that’s the one. We delivered it to a bar in San Donato.’

Bar Aurora.

We’re there. You push open the door, a glance around. The old men look up from their cards. No televisions, but there’s another room at the back and the click of a game of billiards. Hope yet.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I’d just like some information: I’m looking for a television, big, American-made, I was told you had one.’

‘We had one.’

Shit! Take the magnet off the zero. Toni, get the gun ready: time to get paid even without the stuff.

‘You had it. Then what?’

One of the old men turns on his chair. ‘Then it was rubbish, we couldn’t get it to work. So we told the man who sold it to us to get us a new one, and there’s been no sign of the layabout for a good ten days now.’

‘You mean Ettore?’

‘God no. Gas, they call him, or Castelvetri. Gaggia, you’ve got a good memory, what’s his first name?’

‘Adelmo.’

‘Adelmo Castelvetri? Do you know where he lives? I can give him a good price for that television.’

‘I think he lives in Via Mondo, is that right, Gaggia?’

The fiftieth cigarette since the start of the journey finds its way to your mouth without your noticing.

The old man’s voice: ‘When you find him, I don’t suppose you could give him a couple of slaps from us?’

The front door is open.

‘We got there, eh, Stiv? Are you happy?’

You no longer have the strength to get pissed off.

‘Check the doorbells, hurry up.’

First floor: Galassi. Mazzanti. Zaccheroni. Second floor: Alvis. Monari. Castelvetri.

‘Who is it?’

‘Package from the Bar Aurora.’

He opens the door. Gleaming bald head. Reflex action: foot against the door.