As God Commands (30 page)

An instant of silence that never seemed to end.

"What is it, Danilo?" The tone of her voice conveyed not anger,
but something worse, which made Danilo immediately curse himself for ringing her. It conveyed hopelessness and resignation. She
was like a peasant who has accepted her inexorable destiny that now and then a fox will get into her henhouse and devour the
chickens.

"Listen. I need to talk to you."

"You're drunk."

He tried to sound offended, almost outraged, at this base accusation: "Why do you say that?"

"I can tell by your voice."

"You're wrong. I haven't touched a drop. It's not right, you
always thinking..."

"You promised you wouldn't call me ... Do you know what time
it is?"

"It's late, I know, but this is important, I'm not being stupid, or
I'd never have called you. It's very important. Liste..."

Teresa interrupted him. "No, Danilo, you listen to me. I can't
unplug the phone, Piero's mother is seriously ill in the hospital, and
you know it."

Shit, I'd forgotten about that.

"You know that very well, Danilo. Every time the phone rings our
hearts are in our mouths. Piero's in the other room. He'll have realized
it's you. You must leave me in peace. How can I make you underst..."

He managed to interrupt her: "I'm sorry, Teresa. I'm sorry. You're
right. Forgive me. But I've got a wonderful surprise for our future.
Something you really must hear about..."

Now it was she who interrupted him: "What future are you talking
about? It's you who must listen to me. And you'd better listen very
carefully. So pin back your ears." She took a deep breath: "I'm pregnant, Danilo. I'm expecting a baby with Piero. I'm in my third month
now. You must come to terms with it. I don't want to come back to
you, I don't love you. I love Piero. Laura's dead, Danilo. We must
come to terms with that. I want to be happy and Piero makes me
happy. I want to build a new family. And you keep pestering me,
calling me in the middle of the night! I'll be forced to go to the police.
And if that's not enough I'll go away, I'll disappear. If you love me,
as you keep saying you do, you must leave me in peace. So I beg
you, I implore you, leave us in peace. If you won't do it for me, do
it for yourself. Forget me. Start living again. Goodbye."

CLICK.

She's dead.

At least five minutes had passed since Ida had locked herself in
the toilet.

Maybe she had fainted from the stink.

Beppe Trecca, worried, put his ear to the door. He couldn't hear
a thing, what with the drumming of the rain and the howling of
the wind that was shaking the camper.

He had prepared a clear, simple speech, to make her understand
that their relationship was a mistake.

He cleared his throat. "Ida ... ? Ida, are you there?"

The door opened and Ida Lo Vino came out, as pale as a ghost.

He gulped. "Was there a bit of a stink?"

She nodded, and then said, "Beppe, I love you. I love you madly."
And she stuck her tongue in his mouth.

"What the fuck have you done? You psychopathic, murdering
son of a bitch!" Rino shouted, and he shook Quattro Formaggi
by the arm. "You've killed a girl! You've gone out of your mind,
you fool..." He slapped him across the face so hard he heard
the bones in his hand crack.

Quattro Formaggi crashed to the ground and started sobbing
convulsively.

"Don't cry, you bastard. Don't cry or I'll kill you." Rino raised
his head like a coyote howling to the moon, gnashed his teeth as
he massaged his aching hand, then he kicked him hard in the ribs.

Quattro Formaggi rolled over in the mud, coughing.

"You smashed her head in with a rock." Another kick. "Do you
realize what you've done, you scumbag?" Another kick.

"I didn't ... mean to. I swear I ... didn't mean to. I'm sorry," whimpered Quattro Formaggi, shaking his head despairingly. "I don't
know ... myself... why I did it."

"Oh, you don't know, don't you? Well, I don't know either. You
lousy fucking rapist..." He grabbed him by the hair and thrust the
gun barrel against his eye. "Now I'm going to kill you."

"Yes, kill me! Kill me. I deserve it..." Quattro Formaggi moaned.

A violent red fury had seized Rino Zena's brain and swollen his
muscles and tightened the tendons of his index finger as he squeezed
the trigger of the pistol, and he knew he must calm down now, at
once, or he would blow the bastard's head off.

He slammed the sole of his foot into the other man's face. Quattro
Formaggi spewed out a stream of blood and then curled up in a
ball, with his arms over his head.

Breathing hard, Rino stuck his pistol under his belt, picked up
an enormous branch with both hands and smashed it against the
trunk.

It wasn't enough. He still had too much rage inside him.

He put both arms around a rock, which must have weighed at
least one hundred pounds, to hurl it God knows where. He heaved
it up out of the mud with a roar, but suddenly fell silent.

The rock slipped out of his hands.

The world around him broke up into hundreds of colored fragments like a shattering pane of glass, and a vice as heavy as a mass
of white-hot lead crushed his skull. Two drills bored into his temples, and all the extremities of his body started tingling.

He froze like that, with his knees bent, his trunk leaning forward like a sumo wrestler, his eyes bulging, and he realized that
never until this moment had he had the faintest idea of what a
headache really was.

He lost his balance and fell down stiff on the ground.

It was ten minutes since Teresa had given him the news that she
was pregnant, but Danilo Aprea was still there, sitting on the edge
of his bed.

He knew he should at best burst into tears, at worst jump out
of the window and end it all.

if only I had the guts to kill myself. What a shit you'd feel, Teresa
dear... Wouldn't it be great! You'd be racked with remorse for the
rest of your life.

The problem was that he lived on the second floor. And with his
luck he'd probably end up in a wheelchair.

He must do something, though. Maybe he could just go away.
Fly off to some distant land. Go and live in India. No, he didn't
fancy India. It was filthy. And full of flies.

But if he went on thinking about this kind of thing all night till
morning, till daybreak, till the sun returned, this night, the shittiest
night in a shitty life, would pass. Because Danilo knew that if he
stopped keeping his brain occupied he might do something stupid,
something he would bitterly regret.

He looked up at the ceiling. The clown was still there. Hanging
in a corner where the glow of the television didn't reach.

(Poor woman, I wonder what she imagines, in her fantasies ... That
this wonderful news will hit you so hard you'll hang yourself from
the chandelier? You think she'd be racked with remorse? Don't kid
yourself-she'd be happy. She'd be rid of you. That's what she's
hoping for. Well, she's mistaken. If anyone wants to get rid of you
they'll have to blast you with a bazooka.)

Danilo would have liked to smile, but his lips had got stuck
together. So he started shaking his head.

She was so naive, Teresa. She just didn't understand. He had
always known it would happen sooner or later.

She's forgotten about Laura. She thinks she can replace her with
another child.

"Well done." He clapped his hands. "Well done, what a clever
girl you are!"

(But this doesn't change your plans by one centimeter. Teresa
isn't really interested in that snappily dressed tire dealer. Let's
be honest, he's been useful to her because he's got a bit of cash
and he's got her pregnant. Period. But when you come along
with the boutique and some real money, she'll come back to
you.)

"Ah, who wants her anyway?" he muttered, with a sniff.

(Do the raid on your own. You don't need anyone else. Do it at
once. Now.)

Danilo looked at the clown. "You're right. Of course, I can do
it on my own, why didn't I think of that before?"

Outside, the storm continued to rage over the deserted village.
He didn't even need the tractor. A car would do just as well.

And he still had a car. It was in the garage, unused since the day
of Laura's funeral. He'd had several opportunities to sell it, but had
never done so. And why was that? Not because he thought he might
decide to drive again one day, nor because it was the vehicle in
which the angel of his life had gone to heaven. No. Not for that
reason. But because he would need it to do the raid on his own.

"It all fits."

So the fact that Rino and Quattro Formaggi had let him down
was part of a grander plan that God had organized especially for
him.

(All the money will be yours. You won't have to share it with
anyone.)

He would be really rich, and to hell with everyone else. And Teresa
would come crawling back to him with her tail between her legs.

"I'm sorry, Teresa. You've forgotten Laura. You said you loved the
tire dealer. That you wanted a child with him. Stay with him, then,"
he said, jabbing his finger as if she was standing there in front of him,
and feeling the first glimmer of pleasure he had felt in several hours.

He knew what he had to do.

He got up and staggered into the bathroom to stick two fingers
down his throat.

When Rino Zena had pointed the gun at his face, Quattro Formaggi
had known for certain that he loved life.

He had repeated "Kill me, kill me" to show Rino that he felt
guilty, not because he really wanted it; deep inside, more than ever
before, he had wanted to live.

To live. To live after killing. To live regardless. To live with the
burden of guilt. To live in a prison for the rest of his life. To live
beaten and despised till the end of his days.

It didn't matter how, but to live.

And even when he had felt the cold steel of the gun against his
nose he had known Rino wouldn't shoot him and that, as usual, he
would sort everything out.

He just had to wait till his anger subsided.

He had curled up in a ball, and it was right, he deserved them,
sure he deserved those kicks, even though it was Ramona's own
fault if she had died. If she hadn't taken the road through the woods
none of this would have happened.

From the ground, with his head hidden between his arms, he had
seen the black silhouette of Rino storm about and pick up a branch
and smash it against a tree trunk. And then, like a giant with an
eye of light in the middle of his forehead, lift a huge rock and, as
he was lifting it, suddenly freeze. For a moment Quattro Formaggi
had thought he must have strained his back, but then Rino had
fallen on the ground, quite stiff.

And he had lain there motionless. Not saying a word, not uttering
a cry.

He had been lying like that for at least five minutes.

He went over to him, ready to run for it if he got up.

Rino's eyes were open and there was a strange expression on his
face that Quattro Formaggi couldn't describe. As if he was waiting
for an answer.

"Rino, can you hear me?" he asked, shaking him.

His teeth were clenched and white foam was trickling down from
the corner of his mouth.

Quattro Formaggi knew nothing about medicine, but something
very serious must have happened to him. That thing that happens
in your brain, leaving you virtually dead.

A coma.

"Rino! What's the matter? Are you in a coma?"

No response.

He slapped his face, but Rino did nothing. He just lay there with
a quizzical expression on his face.

He slapped him again, harder.

Still no reaction.

He took the gun out of Rino's belt, weighed it in his hand and
put it against the other man's forehead, imitating his deep voice: "You lousy fucking rapist, now I'm going to kill you." Then he
started sticking the barrel into a nostril, into his mouth, and smearing
the drool over his chin.

When he tired of this he stood there for a while, his mind a blank,
rubbing his bruised ribs and thumping himself on the thigh with the
pistol butt.

Fireflies danced in front of Rino Zena's eyes. He could also see the
raindrops, as heavy as mercury, falling on his face.

The rest was a tingling feeling, like ants crawling over his skin.

His legs. His arms. His stomach. His mouth.

Like a big leather bag filled with ants.

He couldn't remember where he was, but if he concentrated hard
he could hear, too: the sound of his own breathing, the storm among
the trees.

A kind of violet cloud was covering him, hiding the fireflies.

That was it, he was in the wood. And the patch where the cloud
was lighter must be Quattro Formaggi.

"Help me, " he said. But his mouth didn't move, nor did his
tongue, and the words didn't emerge from his lips, yet they echoed
in his ears like a desperate scream of terror.

He felt something on his cheek. A slap, maybe. Or a caress. But
it was far away. As if his head was stuffed with wool. Coarse wool.
The dark green wool of the blankets in the children's home.

He was surprised he could still think.

Little thoughts. One after another. Violet thoughts immersed in
an infinite blackness.

"Rino! What's the matter? Are you in a coma?"

His heart started beating more loudly. Quattro Formaggi's words,
like sharp arrows, pierced through the violet, which closed again
after their passage, and reached him.

"I don't know," he replied, aware of not having spoken.

"You disgusting fucking rapist, I'm going to kill you." More arrows
pierced the haze. But this time Rino didn't understand what they meant.

If only he could move one finger ...

A finger full of ants.