Davide Longo - The Last Man Standing

The temperature had dropped and each morning powdery flakes that never quite became snow floated down from the sky. The mountains, when the clouds lifted to reveal them, seemed coated with snow and misery. The cold hit Leonardo hardest during the daytime, when there was no fire to give a little heat and David had eaten the branches he liked to use for shelter. So he pressed himself close against the elephant, and when David defecated, hurried to push his hands and feet into the feces to seek out a little warmth. His sweater had grown stiff with blood and dirt and the seat of his trousers had come apart from so much sitting. He asked the doctor for a blanket but was told no one could bring him anything without orders from Richard.

One day the children came near; there were about ten of them, including Alberto and Salomon. It was the first time he had seen Salomon since he left the cage. Now he was only centimeters away, his face painted green and his eyebrows shaved off, his eyes like ceramic fragments.

The children collected mud from the edge of the road and began throwing it at him in handfuls. Leonardo, as usual, started dancing. Alberto laughed and ran with the others to find more ammunition in the ditch. But Salomon stayed close to the wagon, staring at him.

Leonardo signed to him to go with the others, but he shook his head.

The others came back and continued their attack. He was hit in the throat and wiped himself clean before the mud could slip down inside his sweater. The floorboards creaked as he leaped around.

“Theater, theater, theater,” Leonardo chanted. The children laughed. He winked at Salomon, who unwillingly went to pick up a piece of turf and throw it in Leonardo’s direction without hitting him. The game went on a little longer, then the procession halted and the music was turned off. Knowing what this meant, the children ran excitedly to the head of the column. Salomon stayed a moment longer by the cage, then he ran away too.

Camp was set up nearby, on the asphalted area in front of a sanctuary chapel that must once have been the object of Sunday pilgrimages. On one side were the remains of a hut with a sign saying SOUVENIRS AND PANINI and a powerful jet of water pouring into a basin lined with red tiles. The chapel was white and very small.

The usual fire was laid on the asphalt, but the wood was damp and slow to catch and had to be sprinkled with kerosene. A cold drizzle had started to fall, while the mountain peaks were hidden by amorphous clouds.

The older youths left in the camp collected more wood, inspected the chapel, and wandered around a bit in the open space; then they shut themselves up in the cars and coach with the girls. Two untied the woman with the shaved head. She offered no resistance, and they led her into the cab of the van where the cans of gasoline were kept. The children, left on their own, pulled blazing branches from the bonfire and began fencing with each other, raising showers of sparks that leaped impetuously up into the sky only to be suddenly extinguished like faithless prayers. One or two of the children went up to the cars to watch the bodies cavorting inside on the seats, then ran away laughing. Salomon every so often turned his eyes toward Leonardo. His hair, wet from the rain, was stuck to his head. He looked as if he had just emerged from his mother’s womb. Leonardo put a hand to his lips and smiled at him. He ran off with the rest when Alberto called them to destroy their enemies hidden in the chapel.

The raiding expedition returned at nightfall. Leonardo, who had stuck his hands and feet out of the cage to get them nearer to the fire, first heard a confused sound of shouting, then saw the group appear from the ramp leading up to the space before the chapel.

The young people left in the camp, hearing the shouts, leaped out of the vehicles. The two who had been using the bald girl tied her back to the fender with her trousers still around her ankles and ran to meet the others. Even Richard emerged from his trailer, helped Lucia down the steps, and moved without hurrying toward the raiders who were approaching in a compact group. It was days since Leonardo had seen her; she seemed neither thinner nor suffering, just infinitely distant. He called her name twice, but she continued to follow Richard with tiny steps, as if unsure whether the earth could hold her weight. She was wearing the same blue dress as the last time he saw her and had small and livid round marks on her neck.

The youths came into the open space. In their midst Leonardo could see two men; their faces swollen and bloodstained; he guessed one must be about forty and the other about twenty years older. The older one, thin and curved, was looking around himself with imploring eyes. Leonardo was reminded of a watchmaker, a printer or a manufacturer of dental prostheses; someone who had spent most of his life bent over work that required great patience and love of detail. He could imagine him with a cup of caffé americano permanently on the workbench beside him and a cigarette on the edge of a saucer, reduced to a precarious tube of ash.

But the other man advanced confidently, grimacing with contempt. Three lines tattooed on his shoulder represented a man with a shield in one hand and some terrible weapon in the other. He also had several tribal markings, some letters and a stylized mouse. Both men were in tank tops and underpants, the elder with a red sock on his left foot. Leonardo felt sorry for them, but also felt he must not waste on others pity he would need for himself.

Once in the open space, the group fell back and the two men found themselves face to face with Richard. The elder dropped to his knees and began sobbing softly, but the other smiled when Richard traced the sign of the cross in the air.

“Give them something to drink,” Richard said.

The youths went quiet and one ran to fetch a bottle. He was back in a few seconds, but in the meantime the kneeling man seemed to have aged by ten years. He took the bottle, drank a mouthful, and gave it back, nodding thanks. He had a huge hematoma under his armpit, and his hair, when not stained with blood, was a dull white. In contrast, the tattooed man had a nervous body and recently cut black hair. He was losing a lot of blood from wounds on his face and wrists but seemed completely in control of himself. When the boy offered him the bottle he did not even deign to glance at him.

“A path is decreed for each one of us,” Richard said. “God has brought you on to our path to make clear the direction of your own. His hand can sometimes be harsh; he is a shepherd not afraid to strike his sheep when they depart from the way, but…”

“Just kill us, you bastard, and get it over with,” the tattooed man said, then spat, smearing Richard’s tunic with a red stain.

One of the youths lifted his rifle to hit him with the butt, but Richard gestured to him to stop, and he stared without resentment at the man who had insulted him.

“I see your point,” he said, “but you’ll be surprised what the Lord has chosen for you.” For a moment nothing could be heard but the crackling of the fire and the jet of water striking the basin of the fountain. The youths watched the scene without moving, mouths half open and their breath rising in a cloud toward the gray sky. Lucia, at Richard’s side, stared at the bowed head of the kneeling man. The rain grew heavier.

“Enrico!” Richard called.

The cripple came forward. The prisoners looked at him; the rain gluing his clothes to his stunted body gave him the appearance of a child with a very large head. But his face was that of an adult, keen and ruthless.

“Would you be good enough to read the rules?” Richard asked him.

The cripple pulled a black wallet from his jacket pocket and took out a piece of paper.