Davide Longo - The Last Man Standing

As the valley grew narrower Leonardo heard distant music that gradually got louder. It seemed to come from some kind of industrial machine, like a press with a regular beat. The four left the road for a lane with a sign pointing to a camping site. Following, Sebastiano and Leonardo found themselves on the other side of the river. The trees here formed a thick roof through which light filtered, depicting bizarre animal forms on the asphalt. The further they went the louder the music grew, drowning the noise of the river, until the path opened on a grassy clearing. Then they saw the camp.

Cars, trucks, and trailers were arranged in a circle like wagons in the old Wild West. A motor coach, a truck bearing the logo of a removal firm, and a large cage on wheels completed the circle. In the center was a large fire at least partly formed from tires. The smoke from it was black and rose very high before dispersing. Impaled on stakes around this bonfire were whole headless animals: roe deer, foxes, possibly dogs.

Leonardo studied the few figures hanging around inside the circle. They were confused-looking and half-naked, moving slowly without any obvious purpose, climbing over the bodies of others still lying on the ground. The incessant musical racket was coming from amplifiers and loudspeakers on the roof of the coach.

“Take Bauschan with you,” Leonardo said. “Go by road and you’ll be in A. before evening.”

Sebastiano looked him attentively in the eye, then took off the backpack and offered it to Leonardo.

“Best you keep it,” Leonardo said.

Sebastiano put the backpack on the ground, took off his cloak and draped it around Leonardo’s shoulders, lacing it up carefully, and then he took Bauschan in his arms and walked off. When Leonardo turned they had already passed the bridge. Bauschan was staring back at him, his snout over Sebastiano’s shoulder. He barked, but the din of the music drowned everything.

Leonardo looked at the encampment. He realized he was face to face with the heart of the new world, one of those places where madness was first created and then spread around. He was conscious of its presence and its attraction.

When he took a step he felt about to collapse, but he stiffened his back and stayed on his feet. This is nothing, he told himself as he moved on, nothing compared to what you are going to see.

For a long time he sat with his back propped against one of the great wheels of the truck without anyone noticing him. Every now and then one of the youngsters got up, climbed over the hood of a car, and, without deigning to look at him, went into the forest, presumably to urinate or vomit among the trees. They had all lost their eyebrows and had colored signs on their cheeks. Some, when they came back, opened the door of a white van and took out a beer, which they drank standing up before going back to lie down under their covers or letting themselves drop to the ground wherever they happened to be. Others did not come back. Leonardo imagined Alberto and Lucia must be somewhere in the forest; he imagined the two youths with them, the blond one and the thickset one, waiting for the camp to wake up before making their entry. He told himself there was no point in going to look for them and that it was better to wait where he was and where sooner or later they would come. Using his left hand, he tightened the knot on his bandage. His face was still swollen and painful, but his arm worried him more; he had to find some way of setting his shoulder, or he would stiffen with ankylosis.

He was very thirsty but had no water and could see none anywhere near him. The fire that had been burning fiercely when he arrived was now just a great patch of smoking embers. The sun had climbed up into a contourless sky. It must have been halfway through the morning.

A figure rose from the ground and took a few steps toward a cappuccino-colored trailer, and then suddenly it changed direction and came toward the truck. It was a girl. Leonardo thought she had seen him; then he realized her eyes were closed. She was about Lucia’s age, wearing army trousers and a flannel shirt. She dragged herself on another few meters, then tripped over a cover with two kids sleeping under it and fell down in the dust. On the ground she simply cuddled up to the other two bodies and fell asleep again.

It was past midday when a small individual, older than any he had seen so far, came out of the cab of the truck and, descending the three steps from the platform, trod on Leonardo’s lap. As soon as he regained his balance, the man looked at him with lively little metallic-gray eyes. Unlike the others he had no colored signs on his face and seemed to be in full and conscious control of himself. Leonardo noticed a hump under his jacket. Although his face looked no more than thirty he was bald at the temples, and what was left of his hair shone with brilliantine and hung down to his shoulders.

Leonardo raised his hand in sign of peace, but the man leaped back as though threatened and started jumping around, crying out, and waving his arms. A sharp continuous scream issued from his mouth, which reminded Leonardo of one he had heard many years before from an Arab woman when her bag had been stolen in a market in Marrakesh. The scream was louder than the din of the music and within a few seconds Leonardo found himself surrounded by dozens of youngsters kicking him and covering him with spit. He took what cover he could and protested his innocence, but someone grabbed him by the hair and began dragging him toward the middle of the clearing, where thin coils of smoke were rising from the patch of ashes. Other young people, woken by the noise, emerged from the cars and coach and other vehicles. Realizing what was about to happen, he dug his feet in. A lock of his hair was ripped out and for a moment he lay face down in the dust before other hands grabbed him, pulled off his shoes and socks, and pushed him on to the embers.

Feeling the soles of his feet begin to burn, he tried to turn back but the kids surrounding the fire closed off every escape route. He ran to the other side, but was again hemmed in. Then he hurriedly took off the cowhide cloak, threw it down, and stood on it. The kids, who until then had been laughing and shouting, were struck dumb, until a tall young man with a square face and big tattooed arms uprooted one of the stakes on which meat had been roasting, shook off the scorched corpse of a dog, and began to goad Leonardo with it, trying to drive him off the cowhide.

While he was trying to evade the blows, the hunchbacked cripple suddenly leaped through the circle and pulled the cloak from under him so that he fell. The kids greeted this with thunderous applause. Leonardo quickly got up again and tried to push away the hot charcoal with his feet to reach the ground beneath, but the soles of his feet, smoking and giving off a nauseating smell like burned chicken, no longer had any feeling in them. He howled and wept and hurled himself at the wall of children, who kicked and punched him. Forced back into the fire, he began leaping about.

“A dancer!” a girl screamed. “ Ballerino !”

Someone started a chant: “ Bal-le-ri-no, bal-le-ri-no, bal-le-ri-no ,” and Leonardo found himself shifting the weight of his body from one foot to the other to the steady rhythm of a chorus. He could no longer feel any pain, aware only of a smell of roasting fat. He assumed his feet must have melted and that the fire would gradually climb his legs until it reached his balls and belly, and then he would be dead. The last thing he knew before losing consciousness was a refreshing liquid heat running down his legs.

The next thing he knew he was in a cage. Opening his left eye, he could see the sky through rusty bars with the leafy branches of a tree waving gently above him. The sky was a pale blue and the sun was sinking. He touched his face. By now the deformity of his nose and eye had become familiar, and it was reassuring to recognize them under his fingers. The monotonous deafening music was still thumping the air, its bass notes vibrating inside his chest like a shout in a closed fist.