Paolo Giordano - The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Viola's devoted audience was made up of Giada Savarino, Federica Mazzoldi, and Giulia Mirandi. Together they formed a compact and ruthless phalanx: the four bitches, as some of the boys at the school called them. Viola had chosen them one by one and had demanded a little sacrifice from each of them, because her friendship was something you had to earn. She alone decided if you were in or out, and her decisions were obscure and unequivocal.

Alice observed Viola on the sly. From her desk two rows back, she fed off the broken sentences and fragments of torrid tales; then in the evening, alone in her room, she savored every detail.

Before that Wednesday morning Viola had never spoken a word to her. It was a kind of initiation and had to be done properly. None of the girls ever knew for sure whether Viola was improvising or whether she planned the torture in advance-but they all agreed that it was brilliant.

Alice hated the locker room. Her oh-so-perfect classmates stood around for as long as possible in their bras and underwear so as to make the others envious. They assumed stiff, unnatural poses, sucking in their stomachs and thrusting out their tits. They sighed at the cracked mirror that covered one of the walls. Look, they'd say as they sized up their hips, which could not have been better proportioned or more seductive.

On Wednesdays Alice wore her shorts under her jeans so that she wouldn't have to get completely undressed. The others would look at her suspiciously, imagining the horrors that were surely hidden under her clothes. She would turn her back to take off her sweater so they wouldn't see her belly.

She would put on her sneakers and tuck her shoes, neatly parallel, against the wall, and then carefully fold her jeans. Her classmates' clothes, in contrast, tumbled chaotically from the wooden benches, their shoes scattered about and upside down because they had yanked them off with their feet.

"Alice, do you have a sweet tooth?" Viola asked.

It took Alice a few seconds to convince herself that Viola Bai was actually talking to her. She was sure she was invisible to her. She pulled the two ends of her shoelaces, but the knot came untied between her fingers.

"Me?" she asked, looking around uneasily.

"I don't see any other Alices."

The other girls giggled.

"No. Not particularly."

Viola got up from the bench and came closer to her. Alice felt those marvelous eyes on her, bisected by the shadow of her bangs.

"But you like gumdrops, don't you?" Viola continued in her honeyed voice.

"Yeah. I guess. Pretty much."

Alice bit her lip and chided herself for being so wishy-washy. She pressed her bony back against the wall. A tremor ran down her good leg. The other remained inert, as always.

"What do you mean pretty much? Everyone likes gumdrops. Isn't that right, girls?" Viola addressed her three friends without even turning around.

"Mm-hmmm. Everyone," they echoed. Alice noticed a strange trepidation in Federica Mazzoldi's eyes as she stared at her from the other end of the locker room.

"Yes, actually, I do like them," she corrected herself. She was starting to feel frightened, even though she didn't yet know why.

In the first year, the four bitches had grabbed Alessandra Mirano, the one who ended up being thrown out and going to beautician school, and dragged her into the boys' locker room. They shut her inside and two boys pulled their cocks out in front of her. From the corridor Alice had heard the four torturers egging them on and laughing hysterically.

"I thought so. Now, would you like a gumdrop?" Viola asked.

If I say yes, who knows what they're going to make me eat, Alice thought.

If I say no, Viola might get pissed off and I'll end up in the boys' locker room as well.

She sat in silence like a moron.

"Come on. It's not such a hard question," Viola said mockingly. She took a handful of fruit candies from her pocket.

"You girls back there, what flavor do you want?" she asked.

Giulia Mirandi came over to Viola and looked into her hand. Viola didn't take her eyes off Alice, who felt her body crumpling under the gaze like a sheet of newspaper burning in the fireplace.

"There's orange, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, and peach," Giulia said. She threw a fleeting, apprehensive glance at Alice, without letting Viola see.

"I'll have raspberry," said Federica.

"Peach," said Giada.

Giulia tossed them their candies and unwrapped the orange one for herself. She slipped it into her mouth and then took a step back to return the stage to Viola.

"Blackberry and strawberry are left. So do you want one or not?"

Maybe she just wants to give me a candy, Alice thought.

Maybe they just want to see whether I eat or not.

It's just a candy.

"I prefer strawberry," she said quietly.

"Damn it, that's my favorite too," Viola said, giving a terrible performance of disappointment. "But I'll happily give it to you."

She unwrapped the strawberry candy and let the paper fall to the ground. Alice held out her hand to take it.

"Wait a minute," Viola said. "Don't be so greedy."

She bent down, holding the candy between her thumb and index finger. She rubbed it along the filthy locker room floor. Walking with her knees bent, she dragged it slowly along the whole length of the room to Alice's left, close to the wall, where the dirt had coagulated in balls of dust and tangles of hair.

Giada and Federica were dying of laughter. Giulia nervously chewed on her lip. The other girls had figured out where things were going and left, closing the door behind them.

When she got to the corner, Viola headed for the sink, where the girls splashed their armpits and faces after gym. With the candy she wiped up the whitish slime that lined the inside of the drain.

Then she turned to Alice and held the revolting object under her nose.

"There," she said. "Strawberry, just what you wanted."

She wasn't laughing. She had the serious, determined look of one who is doing something painful but necessary.

Alice shook her head no. She pressed herself even closer to the wall.

"What? Don't you want it anymore?" Viola asked her.

"Go on," Federica cut in. "You asked for it and now you can eat it."

Alice gulped.

"What if I don't?" she summoned the courage to say.

"If you don't eat it, you'll accept the consequences," Viola replied enigmatically.

"What consequences?"

"You can't know the consequences. Ever."

They want to take me to the boys, Alice thought. Or else they'll strip me and not give me back my clothes.

Trembling, but almost imperceptibly, she held her hand out toward Viola, who dropped the filthy candy into her palm. She slowly brought it to her mouth.

The others had fallen silent, and seemed to be thinking, no, she's not really going to do it. Viola was impassive.

Alice put the gumdrop on her tongue and felt the hairs that were stuck to it dry up her saliva. She chewed only twice and something squeaked between her teeth.

Don't throw up, she thought. Do not throw up.

She choked back an acidic spurt of gastric juices and swallowed the candy. She felt it as it went down, like a stone, along her esophagus.

The fluorescent light on the ceiling gave off an electrical hum and the voices of the kids in the gym were a formless mixture of shouts and laughter. Here in the basement the air was heavy and the windows were too small to allow it to circulate.

Viola stared solemnly at Alice. Without smiling she nodded her head as if to say now we can go. Then she turned around and left the locker room, passing the other three without so much as a glance.

There was something important you had to know about Denis. To tell the truth, Denis thought it was the only thing about him worth knowing, so he'd never told anyone.