He stopped by the window of a clothes shop, and saw a beautiful red dress. She’d look like a dream in that. He saw his reflection in the window: he could do with some new clothes too, what with these rags he was wearing. But that could come later. First he had to sort out the most important thing, otherwise he would have put in all that effort for nothing. But the thought of Lisetta wouldn’t leave him alone for a moment, he wanted to stop someone in the street and tell him what she was like, and then if he got annoyed, just hand him one of Don Luciano’s banknotes, easy, now, easy, my friend, I’ll pay you for your time.
Ah, Lisetta. He really did like her. Apart from her job, but what are you going to do, no one’s perfect. When she asked him a favour, with those green eyes of hers and all that hair, and her mouth, and so on, he couldn’t say no. Like that evening when it was cold, and she had asked him to come with her to the American base. And then — once he’d left the orphans — take the bike and go and pick up Lisetta. And pedal, with all that perfume and her hair flapping in your face, pedal away, nearly killing yourself as you take a bend, and her skirt sliding up, and her leg dangling from the platform. It was really driving him out of his mind. Nothing to be done. Lisetta was Lisetta.
He crossed the street without looking and someone beeped his horn. Pagano replied with a loud and liberating insult and strode on.
That evening he had worked out where she was going. To make love with that American officer. She only had to bat her eyelids and he started chucking the money around like he was King of Catalonia. He was due something too, for the journey and the effort. But it was his own fault if he hadn’t had his compensation. Because once he had got to the base, with all that cycling and the perfume and the legs and the hair, and what Lisetta was going to do, he had said to himself, ‘Kociss, you’ve got to have some kind of payment for all your effort, and for your broken heart as well.’ And while he was thinking those things, the payment had appeared before his very eyes, as though the Madonna had been reading his mind.
Great brute of a thing it was, would it fit on the platform? Wouldn’t it bring him and the bike crashing to the ground? And would the tarpaulin be big enough to hide it? And what if the Military Police showed up? Would they shoot him? Don’t be crazy. He had to hurry. Someone might come. They would kick seven shades of shite out of him.
In the end he had been encouraged by a man dressed as a general, pinned to the wall in a photograph, right in front of him. He was smiling. And he was giving the thumbs up, as if to say, ‘Ok, son, go ahead!’ He was right, he would have to be paid. He had taken it. For Lisetta.
The stink of shit was still the same. But he was happy to smell it. The stables of Agnano were his home. He heard the voices of the stable boys greeting him, ‘Kociss, you’re back!’ ‘Where’ve you been?’ ‘What you been up to?’ But he didn’t really hear them. He waved a greeting, but his head and his legs were heading straight to the back of the stables, to the storeroom where the harnesses were kept. One thought in his head: compensation. He walked through the building and came out by a little door at the back, finding himself in a service passage. The shed was covered by climbing plants, and the door could hardly be seen. He found it closed with a steel padlock, and his heart started thumping. He appealed to a few saints for assistance. Before there had just been a rusty chain. The thought of someone cheating him of his compensation put him in a cold sweat. He started walking around the construction in search of a way in: who the fuck had been able to get in there? There was nothing inside but junk and cobwebs!
Nothing, not even a little window. There was nothing for it but to crack open the padlock. He went back to the store, took a pickaxe and a hammer and went and positioned himself by the shed door. A glance around: no one. Off we go. Four dry, precise blows. It fell to the ground with a thud.
He went in, letting in enough light to make out the things inside.
He saw the pile of old saddles, still intact. He felt as though he had been reborn. He dismantled the mountain of leather. Someone had moved the tarpaulin. But underneath, thanks be to the Madonna, the television was still there. Right where he had left it.
He just had to clean it up a bit and it would be as good as new.
He would make money with this. Real money. Bollocks to Cinquegrana and the American army.
Transporting it was a bit of an enterprise. Who knows what had happened to the bike. A rusty old boneshaker, which had transported tons of shit in the past, was the only means of transport at his disposal. He leaned against the tarpaulin and gripped the television. It was one hell of a weight! It seemed to weigh twice as much as it had when he had taken it. Jail had softened him, what a pain in the arse. He had had it up to there already. But his compensation had arrived. Now he faced the final torture: the miles he would be taking the great brute of a thing, all the way to Gigino on the Vico Vasto.
Chapter 40
Slano, Dalmatia, 18 April
In the early afternoon mist, Pierre spotted a dark line on the horizon. He pointed and said, ‘Sipan?’ The man looked up from the tangle of his fishing net and nodded.
That morning, Darko had woken him while it was still dark. A cup of milk and honey sat steaming on the table. Pierre had washed away his sleep in the cold water of the basin and hurried to get dressed.
The cargo was already on board, covered with an old military cloth. Cheese, to judge by the smell.
The motion of the truck had rocked Pierre to sleep. Once they reached Split, Darko had woken him again.
The journey had taken less than an hour.
Pierre narrowed his eyes and looked again. The reflection of the sun on the water was dazzling. He was sorry he had never learned to swim, because the island looked so close. But perhaps that was just an illusion.
He leaned towards the fisherman and touched his shoulder. ‘Do you speak Italian?’
The man’s head rocked to left and right. He pushed out his chest and pointed to someone sitting on the wharf a little way off.
The lorry driver’s name was Stjepan, and he was going to Mostar with a cargo of fish. The turn-off for Mostar was on the coast road, ninety kilometres north of Dubrovnik.
Darko had suggested the alternative: ‘You wait till tomorrow and go with Milos, no problem for him, he has to get to Albania, or else set off now with Stjepan, then find someone else.’
Pierre didn’t want to wait: he had hugged Darko and climbed aboard the lorry.
Over the next half-hour he had not taken his eyes away from the window. The road ran parallel to the coast, through an imposing chain of mountains high above the sea, and the barely discernible line of an island. He had never seen anything like it.
‘You come from Italy?’ Stjepan’s voice had broken the silence. He spoke Italian more or less as Darko did. ‘Learned in war,’ he had added.
There had been twelve Italian deserters fighting in his partisan battalion.
‘Vittorio Capponi?’ A pause to ransack his memory. ‘No, I don’t remember.’
The second fisherman was fiddling with a net as well.
‘Do you speak Italian?’ Pierre asked again.
The reply was more than affirmative.
‘I am Italian, from Rovigno.’
Pierre smiled. ‘Oh, good. I’m from Bologna, my name’s Robespierre. I’m looking for a passage to the island of Sipan.’
‘Are you a tourist?’ His expression was diffident.
‘No, I’ve got to meet a relative I haven’t seen for years.’