Davide Longo - The Last Man Standing

“Would you like to stay?”

“They seem like respectable people. Alberto says he’d like to stay too.”

It occurred to Leonardo that “respectable people” must be an expression Lucia had picked up from her mother’s second husband. For several days now Leonardo had been feeling a deep, if (to be fair) unjustified, resentment of this man. A sentiment he was ashamed of but which made him feel alive. I’m getting wicked, he thought, and I’ve come a long way down that path.

“If we can, we’ll stay a few days,” he said.

“If we have enough money, we can stay.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not now.”

“Alberto?”

“Asleep. We must get him to wash.”

“Tomorrow, OK?”

“OK.”

While the central-heating pipes were starting up, they heard the sound of a car approaching.

Signor Poli was a man of primitive appearance, short-legged and with disheveled gray hair. He had a suede jacket open on his prominent stomach, a green pullover, and jeans that puckered just below his knees. On the whole, he could have passed as a shepherd used to spending long solitary summer days in mountain pastures or the proprietor of an engineering workshop with little in the way of formal studies to his name but an innate talent for getting others to work.

The two tall young men with him had submachine guns on their shoulders. They were not Italian but not outsiders, either. As soon as he saw this, Leonardo remembered that the man’s wife had been employed at the French embassy, and he felt as if he were hearing one of the more cacophonous passages in Debussy.

Poli told his men to unload the provisions from the van and pour a couple of cans of diesel into the generator, then leaning back against the door of his Land Rover, he pulled a notepad from his pocket. A line of about ten people had formed in front of him.

Calmly, and without lifting his eyes from the pad, he made a note of what each person wanted, took their money, and put paper and pencil back in his jacket pocket. Only when he had done this did he light the Toscano cigar already in the corner of his mouth and look up at the stars. By now only Leonardo and Barbero were still before him.

“Signor Chiri arrived here today with his two children and would like to stay for a few days.”

The man contemplated Leonardo’s bedraggled appearance.

“How old are the children?”

“Seventeen and ten,” Leonardo said.

“That’ll be one thousand five hundred a day. Have you got the money?”

Leonardo nodded.

“You pay at least three days in advance. No one-night stands.”

Leonardo pulled out two banknotes. The man took them and gave him five hundred in change.

“Do you need clothes?”

“I could do with a pair of pants and a sweater.”

“I’ll bring them tomorrow. That’ll be another five hundred.”

Leonardo gave him back the banknote.

“Interested in permits? Fifty thousand each, but I could try and get a ‘certificate of travel in the company of a parent’ for one of the children.”

“I’m afraid your charges are too high for us.”

The man took the cigar out of his mouth and spat something onto the ground.

“How are things going with our permits?” Barbero asked.

“A couple of rubber stamps still needed. A matter of days.”

The man’s face was like a lump of turf cut by a spade. On his feet were strange moccasins with leather tassels.

“Signor Barbero will tell you how things work here,” he said. “I have to go now, I’ve got a long way to go.”

“Of course,” the doctor agreed.

When the internal light came on in the car, Leonardo noticed clothes thrown untidily on the seat and a small road map. The man started the engine and swerved sharply around the open space and onto the unpaved driveway leading to the fields, leaving behind the van in which the two armed men had come. They were nowhere to be seen; they may have still been filling the generator or have taken up sentry duty over the warehouse. The air was still and clear, with thousands of stars. Hearing a rattle of pans from inside the building, Leonardo missed the two nights he had spent in the silence and solitude of the countryside. He had never felt any fear. The rear lights of the Land Rover turned the powdery snow red as its big wheels disappeared into the distance.

“I must thank you,” said Barbero.

“What for?”

“For not saying you met us on the railway.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“We’re not supposed to go so far from the warehouse. We were enjoying a little elopement today, if we can call it that. Community life can be inconvenient and every so often a couple needs a little privacy. I think you will understand.”

“That seems reasonable to me.”

“Good, I have a small flask of cognac. How about we share a drop?”

“I would happily, but I’m a teetotaler.”

The man went on staring at the point where he believed Leonardo’s eyes to be. A strip of light escaped from under the warehouse door.

“It’ll do for another occasion then,” he said, “but now we’d better go in. I wouldn’t like the guards to mistake us for intruders.”

The next morning they had their rations of bread, margarine, and tepid tea at one of the two tables in the day room.

Waking late, they had found most of the guests in front of the baths waiting to use the hot water. The Barberos had been among the first to use the facilities and had then gone for a walk around the building in the cold air to greet the morning.

When they came in, Signora Barbero said good morning to Leonardo and kissed the children on the head. Barbero, sitting down beside them, asked them if they had slept well. Leonardo said he had been disturbed by the baby crying, and Barbero assured him it was merely colic, common enough in males of that age, and one had to be patient. Leonardo took advantage of the occasion to ask him about the problem with Alberto’s eyes. Without examining the boy, the doctor diagnosed conjunctivitis. An antibiotic would have solved the problem in a couple of days, but with none available, the best solution would be chamomile compresses.

Alberto accepted this diagnosis with utter indifference. His eyes seemed to have lost the cold ferocity Leonardo had seen flash in them and were now observing everything with apathy. It was not even necessary to insist on a shower. He washed on his own without complaining that the water was only tepid, after which he and Lucia, but not Leonardo, changed their clothes, and all three sat close to the central-heating radiators to dry their hair.

Lunch was frugal: pasta with chickpeas and boiled onions. The smell, the metal plates, and the large pots and pans the food was cooked in gave them the impression of being in a resolutely Franciscan monastic settlement. Leonardo went out to give Bauschan an onion and a little pasta taken from his own ration. The dog devoured it in an instant. A minute later the Barberos joined them for a walk around the outside of the warehouse. It was a clear, windy day, though not limpid like the day before, and dark clouds from the Alps threatened bad weather.

“It’s the thirteenth of January today,” Signora Barbero said.

In the afternoon Leonardo slept for a couple of hours, and then he went to find Signor Rovitti. This man, introduced to him by Barbero the evening before, looked after the keys to the electricity generator, the heating panel, and the food store. Leonardo found him snoring on his pallet, but no sooner did the man hear him approach than he opened hare-like eyes.

For a while they discussed subjects of which Leonardo knew nothing: how to insulate large buildings of this kind, how to manage food resources, and the importance of regular timetables. Rovitti was one of those men who like to show off knowledge others do not have. Barbero had told him that in his younger days he had been the head of a private school, while his wife had managed a fashionable tennis club by the Po that had counted professional soccer players, industrialists, and female television celebrities among its members. Finally Leonardo asked him if he could possibly have a chamomile teabag. Rovitti said there were none in the food store, but he could order some from Poli that evening. And if necessary, given the confidence, even friendship, he boasted with Poli, he would remember to put in a good word for Leonardo.