Wu Ming - 54

The sounds of a car filled the silence.

Three headlamps. Pierre gripped the gate. The truck passed him as it reversed into the courtyard. The baker’s door was shut.

Palmo switched off the engine and jumped out.

‘You’re late,’ said Pierre.

‘You’re here, that’s the important thing,’ Palmo replied calmly. ‘Come on, hurry up.’

There were six boxes. Palmo picked up three. He nearly lost his balance on the stairs, while Pierre lit the steps with the candle. He had cleared a space behind the sacks of coal. No one would touch them until the following winter.

The boxes would arrive once a month. No more than five or six, twenty sticks each. Most of the load would be sold in a few days, they’d all been pre-ordered, but there was always something left over, and it wasn’t wise to keep it in the shed. Some people used the trick of sending them around the place, by post, like parcels. But then you had to keep your eye on the address, and ten minutes after the package had arrived, you would turn up as a postal worker, apologising for the error and asking to have the box back. Too risky, they’d already got burned a few times using that method.

Palmo put down the second load, and wanted to check the hiding place. Ettore must have recommended it. The coal sacks seemed to convince him.

All was quiet in the bakery. Anyway, weren’t the old ladies of the district forever complaining that the bread wasn’t the same since Gino had stopped getting up in the night and passed the baton to his sons? Gualtiero and Lorenzo weren’t a problem.

Pierre waved and went up stairs. He tried not to make a sound, as always, so as not to wake Nicola. The engine of the truck made more noise than his shoes.

‘Who brought you home?’ asked his brother, turning around under the covers.

‘Eh? No one, who was supposed to?’

‘Didn’t you come back by car?’

‘No.’

‘I heard a car —’

‘I came back on foot.’

‘Oh come on, you’d never get here without a bike. But you did insist on selling it, and now you’re cadging lifts off everyone with a car, and look where you’ve ended up.’

Pierre bit his tongue and didn’t say a word. The phrase ‘go fuck yourself’ exploded in his brain. He folded up his clothes on the chair, grabbed a length of sheet and thought of Angela without too much conviction.

Chapter 14

Evian, French shore of Lac Leman, 21 May

The park was pullulating with grandmothers and nannies pushing tinies from nought to eight around in pushchairs and prams.

Ducks and swans carefully cleaned their feathers on the edge of the artificial lake.

The man opened the paper bag and threw a handful of maize over the fence.

A confused throng of webbed feet. Even a few abusive pigeons.

A few old men on their own, or perhaps with a dog, out to see a bit of the world and renew their interest in the meteorological conditions of the afternoon.

The man praised the patience of those animals. He too would buy a dog, one day, an animal that wanted him to watch it while it shat.

The man was tall, loose-limbed, with greyish-blond hair and blue eyes. The man was forty-five years old. He wore a beige raincoat. He was sitting on a wooden bench, legs apart.

Another handful of grain. A flurry of wings and beaks trying to get to the front.

The swans stretched their necks. The ducks pushed from underneath. The pigeons hopped about on the margins, looking for gaps.

The birds were fat and clumsy.

The duckling bobbed towards the shore. It was a yellow dot in the midst of the dank green of the lake. A grey shadow appeared beneath it and for a moment the chick disappeared under the water. Then it re-emerged, drenched and breathless.

‘It won’t make it.’

‘I say it will. It’s too big, it won’t be able to swallow it.’

‘On the contrary, those creatures are pretty impressive. I don’t even know what they are.’

The little bird swam towards the middle of the lake, so frightened that it had lost its bearings. The shadow followed it and dragged it underneath again.

This time it stayed under for longer. It re-emerged once more

‘It can’t possibly make it.’

‘Five hundred francs says it will.’

‘Done. What time is it?’

‘Quarter to five.’

‘If it’s still afloat by five to five you’ve won.’

‘Fine, ten minutes, then.’

The duck went on swimming, but was starting to tire.

The fish dragged it under for a third time.

On the bridge the two spectators held their breath.

The duckling re-emerged.

The duckling was breathless now.

‘It’s had it.’

‘It’s too big a mouthful, it can’t eat it.’

‘Doesn’t matter. It’ll pull it under, drown it and eat it one piece at a time.’

‘It isn’t as simple as you think.’

‘I know that, but the fish doesn’t. It’s just hungry. I’m betting on its ignorance. And it’s enormous, didn’t you see its shadow?’

‘Water distorts proportions, it makes everything look bigger. And time is passing.’

‘While we’re on the subject, what time’s the meeting?’

‘Five.’

‘Bench?’

‘Bench.’

The duckling was running out of strength.

It was starting to get too tired to swim.

The fish pulled it under again, and this time it took a long time to come back up to the surface. It had taken on more water than the Titanic .

The duckling threw up, tried to quack, but no sound came out.

One leg was half eaten.

The duckling was starting to get too tired to live.

‘One minute and you’ve lost.’

‘Wait.’

A massive shadow, much bigger than the other one, emerged from the bottom of the lake like an ink stain. An impressive mouth gaped beneath the bird and swallowed it up with a sinister sucking sound.

‘Won!’

‘Far from it, my dear fellow.’

‘Because?’

‘Because you were betting on another fish.’

‘But what the hell are you saying? You were betting on the duckling and the duckling is kaput, finished, sunk. Get out your money.’

‘I bet on the duckling. You bet on the fish. You said that you were betting on its ignorance. Your fish lost, like my duckling. So it’s a draw. No winners.’

‘You’re a con artist.’

‘I had a good teacher. It’s late! Let’s get moving, or he’ll be gone.’

The man saw two guys approaching.

He recognised them by their straw hats. Then he noticed their loud suits, the orchids in their buttonholes, their showy bow ties. Affected manners à la Wilde , tuppeny literary quotations. He had been told that was the style of the two Italo-Frenchmen.

They sat down beside him, on the bench, looking at the swans.

‘Good evening. Did you choose your clothes to avoid being conspicuous?’

‘On the contrary, Monsieur Verne, in order to be recognised.’

‘You must be Monsieur Azzoni.’

‘As I live and breathe.’

‘And you will be Monsieur Mariani.’

‘How did you guess? A fine name, Verne, did you choose it with reference to any particular work? Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea? The First Men in the Moon ? Do you think we’ll ever get to the moon? Who’ll get there first, them or us? And what about the centre of the earth?’

‘I want to talk about work, not literature, if you don’t mind.’

‘Certainly, that’s what I’m doing, Monsieur Verne. Do you know Waiting for Godot , by that Irish genius Samuel Beckett? Jean and I saw it on the stage in Paris a year ago. A masterpiece!’

The man didn’t take his eyes off the lake. ‘I don’t follow you, Monsieur Mariani.’