He really loves that swing. He doesn’t care if it’s old and broken. It swingy-swings up and down and keeps you company. And the bench under the cypresses is ok too, but it doesn’t say anything, complete silence, good for a nap. An afternoon nap does him the world of good, doesn’t it? Say it, say it: Fefe is going to let you have a nap on the bench.
Do you want a cigarette? No, no, no cigarette, they’re very bad for Davide, you mustn’t give him any. Why on earth did I want to go out naked today? Tell me. Can you go out naked? Not at all. And there’s pie later on. Mimma has made that lovely pie with carrots. Come on, put your trousers on or you won’t have any.
But nothing’s happened. What do you mean, naked?
He wanted to go out like that, you know? Then he wouldn’t eat the carrot pie, then Giorgio went to the kitchen and scoffed the lot.
Can you eat a whole pie? No, Fefe, you can’t eat it, and now Giorgio won’t have any coffee for a week.
When he saw all the pie was gone, he was in a bad state at first. Then he went up to his room, took everything off and went outside. With that great dangler of his, he nearly gave Signora Maffei a fit of the vapours. I won’t give you the whole scene. Did something happen? No, nothing happened at all. Say it, say it. What will Marco say if I do anything like that again? He’ll get pissed off.
So pissed off!
‘Fefe, what are you shouting?’ Angela, behind him, silent on the grass
of the lawn. ‘You don’t have to use bad language.’
‘No, no. Go away! Why have you come?’
‘Well, that’s a nice welcome. We’re in a polite mood, I can see.’
She sat down on the swing in front of him, her arm outstretched, stroking his head. He was sulking.
‘Your friend doesn’t come any more. I really liked her, but she doesn’t come any more.’
‘Be patient, Fefe. She’s very busy at the moment, but she really is coming back.’
‘If Giorgio hadn’t eaten the pie, I could have gone out. What does naked mean?’
Angela smiled, looking for the usual bar of chocolate in her handbag.
‘Hey, ok, you’re just pretending. Marco told me all about it. You did your act again.’
‘Do I deserve some chocolate? There was no pie left and I went out.’
‘And did you have to go out naked?’
‘But there was no pie left! It’s your fault your friend doesn’t come any more. You have to stop coming. You’ve got your own business to attend to, so much to do. Tell her to come.’
‘“So much to do”.’ Angela knew that Fefe knew. She let her eyes slide towards the top of the swing. Storm clouds were swirling in, merging with one another.
‘How are your teeth? You are brushing them, aren’t you?’
‘Marco says it’s because of the coffee, that he can’t give me any more. No, I’m going to pull out my teeth, so that Marco will start
giving me coffee again. Like with the pie.’
‘Come on, Fefe, don’t even say that as a joke.’
‘And then you won’t have to come any more. You’ll have to send your friend.’
Goodness, but Fefe was obsessed. ‘Can we change the subject? Please?’
All of a sudden Fefe starts hitting himself on the head.
‘No! You mustn’t come ever again, never again!’
‘Calm down, Fefe, that’s enough.’
He wouldn’t calm down. Angela tried to hold his arm. He broke away from her grip with a squeal of annoyance. He jumped to his feet, two steps back. Still thumping himself, he stared at his sister. ‘We should throw that swing away. It’s ugly, old, it swingy-swings all day. It’s broken my balls. If there’s some pie, you can’t go out. But without any pie, do whatever the fuck you like! Say it!’
It wasn’t a good sign when Fefe launched a verbal attack. You had to nip it in the bud, or he risked going incandescent.
‘We don’t use words like that.’ Angela glared at him with serious reproach. Usually that was enough.
‘Why not? Give me an example.’
‘No examples. Those are horrible words and I’m getting angry.’
‘Then get angry, so that you’ll send your friend next time.’
‘Exactly. If you go on behaving like this, Teresa will stay at home.’
‘Then say goodbye from me. Hello, Teresa. Bye-bye, Angela. Byebye, old swing. Let’s throw it away. It’s broken and no one likes it. Bye-bye, Fefe.’
He resolutely turned his back and walked along the gravel path. Angela watched him go, then came after him, at a distance of a few metres. Once he had calmed down you had to leave him alone for a while.
Marco had said: unstable weather always makes him agitated.
Odoacre had said: it’s the aftermath of his fit, it’s perfectly normal.
Outside a summer storm was brewing, and Fefe hated them. The thunder reminded him of the bombs, the death of his mother, fear.
But Fefe’s condition was not what it had been. He was more nervous, more obsessive, less tranquil.
That wasn’t the only thing that worried her.
Fefe spoke a language of his own, but there was a meaning to his words that stayed in his head. Angela was used to scenting it out. Picking up references and hidden information. Even when there was no connection and the collage seemed to be casual. There was always a vague impression.
As Odoacre said: most of the time we are reflected in the incomprehensible. But beyond sophistry and personal empathy, Angela understood Fefe better than anyone else.
Their meeting that afternoon had worried her more than usual.
‘Go away,’ he often said to her. It meant: ‘don’t worry about me.’
It wasn’t the first time she had seen him thump himself on the head like that. Odoacre called it ‘self-harming’.
It wasn’t new for him to want to go outside naked. He tried it every now and again, but bribery like the pie was usually enough to hold him back.
She’d seen it all before. So why couldn’t she breathe? The phrase about the swing?
The first thunderclaps shook the windows.
Drops as big as marbles bounced off the windowsill. The dirty white of the sky pressed down on the roofs and hills. Angela ran to bring in the sheets on the line and put them in the basin. She put a hand to her heart, as though to stop it from leaping out. A flash of lightning.
Who knows, Fefe. From the first rumbles he got it into his head that he had to get outside, away, into the open. He was always worried that the ceiling might come crashing down on him. The storm itself didn’t really worry him. In fact, he said he liked the rain, the smell of damp grass, the ‘clean world’ as he called it. They locked him up in his room, officially ‘to ensure that he didn’t fall ill’. In fact, during the warmest months there was no great risk of colds, and a drop of rain wouldn’t have hurt him. Afterwards, though, he had to be undressed, dried, dressed again. Even Marco preferred to avoid the whole procedure with a turn of the key. Poor Fefe.
The image of her brother crouching under his bed with the pillow over his ears made Angela’s state of mind even worse than it was already.
Water and hail hammered relentlessly on the glass in bursts. Five minutes like that and the rain would start coming in. On the other hand, even just leaning out to close the shutters would mean getting drenched from the shoulders up.
A fresh clap of thunder drowned the ringing of the phone. When Angela heard Odoacre’s voice, nausea choked her. He was calling from the clinic.
Fefe. A terrible thing. A tragedy.
Chapter 18
Naples, 31 May
Would have been a Thursday evening, that’s right, first time I saw him, in the club, must have been a Thursday evening. I remember, because on Thursdays Frankie ‘the Cockroach’ Pistocchio brought in the new women to show themselves off and ask if there was a job for them. He lined them up, studied them, touched their asses and their tits. They didn’t like that: Frankie was completely disgusting, he thought with his cock, and it was always hard, an animal, he was, and if he hadn’t been a distant cousin of Joe Bananas, he’d never have set foot in the club, let alone worked there. Scaravagghiu, the ‘cockroach’, his mum called him, because when he was a very small boy whenever he played football he came home so absolutely filthy that he looked as though he was covered with shit and piss. As a little boy and, my God, as a grown-up too: an animal. But the fact that he thought with his cock could be useful sometimes, it was as though he had an antenna fixed to his head, he was like a radio that could pick up whether a girl was a slut or a plank in the sack. One glance and he knew if she was a good fuck or if she wasn’t, if she’d let you in the back door, if she liked sucking dick or if she didn’t. A genius, Frankie.