As God Commands (55 page)

He relived the moment when, in pushing the corpse wrapped in
plastic out into the river, he had brushed the tip of her toe.

The Carrion Man opened the door of the intensive care unit.

His heart was pounding hard in his chest, but its rhythm was
regular.

There was a bustle of doctors and nurses going in and out of the
room where Rino lay.

An alarm bell was ringing.

He drew nearer, biting the palm of his hand.

Around the bed there was a group of doctors who were talking
and blocking his view.

Nobody took any notice of him.

He felt emboldened and moved a little closer. Underneath his
cardigan he felt the pistol pushing against his sore ribs.

Between the doctors' backs he saw Rino's body under the sheets.
The neck, the chin, the cheeks, the eyelids closed ... The tattooed arm pierced with transparent tubes was rising. With the forefinger
pointing at him. The blue eyes staring into his own.

Rino opened his mouth and said: "It was you!"

Music started playing and the congregation fell silent. Only the
crying of a few babies continued.

At the other end of the church, beside the altar, four girls in black
skirts and white blouses were playing a very sad tune on their violins. Cristiano had heard it before in a war film.

Esmeralda looked at Miss Carraccio, the math teacher, who
motioned to her to go, and all her classmates stood up in the pews
to let her pass, giving her pats of encouragement.

The church was so quiet that the heels of her black shoes echoed
in the reinforced concrete arches.

Esmeralda walked gracefully up the three steps, passed the coffin
and stood behind the lectern. She put her mouth to the microphone
and had to take three breaths before managing to say, in little more
than a whisper: "This is a poem. I wrote it for you, Fabiana." Her
hand brushed her eyes. "Fabiana, with your smile. Fabiana, with
your great heart. Fabiana who could light up the darkest days ...
Fabiana who made us laugh ... Now you are..." She bowed her
head and began sobbing. She tried to go on. "...now you are ... now
you are..." but she couldn't. She murmured between her sobs:
"We'll miss you, sweetheart." Then she left the lectern and hurried
back to her seat, covering her face.

Alessio Ponticelli looked at his wife and squeezed her hand tightly.
He took a deep breath and went to the microphone.

Cristiano had seen him sometimes outside the school. He was a
handsome, athletic man, always suntanned. But now he looked ill,
as if all the strength had been sucked out of him. He was pale,
unkempt, and his eyes were tearful and feverish. He took a folded
piece of paper out of his jacket, opened it, looked at it, then put
it back in his pocket and started speaking quietly. "I had written
about Fabiana, my daughter, about what a wonderful creature she was, I had written about her dreams ... but I can't do it, I'm
sorry ..." He sniffed, dried his eyes and started speaking again,
with more vigor. "They say God can forgive. They say God, in his
infinite goodness, created human beings in his image and likeness.
But I don't understand: how could he have created the monster
that killed my little girl? How could he have stood by and watched
all this? A poor little girl being knocked off her scooter, beaten up,
raped and then having her head smashed in with a stone? On seeing
that, God should have cried out from highest heaven in a voice so
loud as to deafen us all, he should have turned day into night, he
should have ... But instead he did nothing. The days pass and
nothing happens. The sun rises and sets and a vile murderer skulks
among us. And they ask me to speak of forgiveness? How can I
forgive him? I haven't got the strength. He's taken away the most
beautiful thing I had..." He rested his elbows on the lectern, put
his hands over his face and burst into a flood of tears. "I want to
see him dead..."

Fabiana's mother got up, went over to her husband, hugged him
tightly and led him away.

Behind the altar Cardinal Bonanni, an ancient hunchback, began
to read the service in a hoarse voice. "Give them eternal rest, 0
Lord, and let perpetual light shine on them."

The whole congregation rose to their feet and repeated: "Give
them eternal rest, 0 Lord, and let perpetual light shine on them."

Cristiano remained seated, crying silently, sobbing so hard he
could hardly breathe.

I'm a monster, a monster.

How could he have lugged Fabiana's blood-soaked body about
without feeling any pity? How could he have lived through those
days without feeling any shame? Without thinking that he had
destroyed a family? Where had he found the strength to clean
the corpse without any remorse? Why had he been able to do
all this?

Because I'm a monster and I don't deserve forgiveness.

It was warm in the Carrion Man's living room.

The sun, high in the sky, was shining through the panes of the
French windows, and dawn was breaking over the eastern region
of the nativity scene.

Through the open window of the bathroom came the twittering of
sparrows, the hooting of cars and the blare of the loudspeakers broadcasting the mass that was being held in the church of San Biagio.

The Carrion Man came out of the kitchen holding a chair.

"Out of the depths I call to you, 0 Lord. Lord, hear my voice;
may your ears be attentive to the voice of my prayer," croaked
Cardinal Bonanni through the loudspeakers.

The Carrion Man, taking care not to knock anything over, placed
the chair in the middle of the nativity scene. One leg rested on a
little lake made out of a blue plastic bowl. One leg on the railway
line. One leg in the midst of a pack of polar bears, which were
tearing a Pokemon to pieces. One leg in the center of a square lined
with tanks and fire engines.

"I hope in the Lord, my soul hopes in his word. My soul longs
for the Lord more ardently than watchmen for the morning."

Then the Carrion Man went back and undressed. He took off
his poncho. He took off his black-and-white Juventus scarf. He took
off his cardigan and vest. He took off his shoes and socks. He took
off his pants. He took the pistol and laid it on the pile of clothes.
Lastly he took off his underpants.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

He spread his arms as if they were the wings of a crippled pigeon,
pushed out his swollen belly, cocked his head on one side and looked
at his reflection in the French window.

The arms, long and gangly. The right shoulder, purple and swollen.
The Adam's apple. The black beard. The small round head. The
crucifix among the hairs on the chest. The emaciated torso dappled
with bluish bruises. The dark penis perched in front of the balls
which dangled like ripe fruit. The right leg, gnarled, withered by
the lightning. The scar, as hard as a knot in a tree trunk, running
across the calf. The feet with their black nails.

He saw a shadow flit across behind him. He didn't turn around.
He knew who it was. He thought he could hear the TOC TOG he
made as he walked on his crutches and the rustle of his black cloak
brushing across the floor.

"Brothers and sisters, to celebrate this Holy Eucharist for our
little sister Fabiana, in the hope that comes to us from the Risen
Christ, we humbly confess our sins," bellowed the priest.

The Carrion Man pulled the plug of the battery charger of his
cell phone out of its socket, strode back, like a colossus, over the
deserts, rivers and towns and got up onto the chair. A little blackand-white cow had stuck to the sole of his foot. He removed it and
wrapped it in the chain of the crucifix.

"Almighty God, have mercy on us, forgive us our sins and lead
us to eternal life."

The Carrion Man stretched his arms up toward the ceiling. Just
above him was the hook for the lampshade and two electric wires
which stuck out from the plaster like the forked tongue of a snake.

He passed the wire of the battery charger around the hook several times and then tied it around his neck.

"0 God, you are the love that forgives; welcome into your house
our little sister Fabiana, who has passed to you from this world;
and since she has hoped and believed in you, give her happiness
without end. For the sake of our Lord..."

How strange. It was as if he was no longer in his body. He was
near it. Just to one side. He saw himself, naked, tying the black
wire around his neck. He saw his labored breathing.

Is that me?

(Yes, that's you.)

What on earth had made that naked man get up on a chair and
put a noose around his neck?

The Carrion Man knew the answer.

His head.

His small head, covered with hair as black as the feathers of a
raven. His crazy head. That head that had ruined his life. There was
something inside it that had made him hear too many things, that
had made him always feel out of place, different, that had made
him do things he couldn't tell anyone about because nobody would
have understood them, that had terrified, exhilarated, blinded him, that had made him hide away in a garbage-filled hole, as frightened
as a mouse, that had made him dream of a nativity scene so big as
to cover the earth, to replace mountains, seas and rivers with papiermache mountains and tin-foil seas.

Well, he was tired of that head.

"Yes, tired," said the Carrion Man, and he kicked the chair. He
hung there above the shepherds, the little soldiers, the plastic animals and the papier-mache mountains.

Like God.

Gurgling, he raised his arms a little and spread out his hands.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie
down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters. He
restores my soul, he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his
name's sake."

Now that he wasn't breathing any more, now that his desperate
lungs were screaming "air, air!," now that his brain was exploding,
now that his legs were thrashing about as on the day they had been
shot through with the current, suddenly he understood.

He understood what had been missing from the nativity scene.

It wasn't Ramona.

It was so simple.

Me.

It was me.

Quattro Formaggi smiled. A dazzling flash. Once. Twice. Three
times.

Then came the liberating darkness.

"Come, saints of God, come angels of the Lord. Welcome her soul
and present it to the throne of the Highest. May Christ, who has
called you, welcome you, and may the angels lead you with
Abraham to heaven. Welcome her soul and present it to the throne
of the Highest. Give her eternal rest, o Lord, and may perpetual
light shine on her. Welcome her soul and present it to the throne
of the Highest."

Cristiano was still sitting among his schoolmates but his mind
was far away, in another church. It was empty. He was standing in
front of the lectern beside his father's coffin. Quattro Formaggi and
Danilo were sitting in the front row.

My father was a bad man. He raped and killed an innocent girl.
He deserves to go to hell. So do I for helping him. I don't know
why I helped him. I swear I don't know. My father was a drunkard,
a ruffian, a good-for-nothing. He was always hitting people. My
father taught me to use a pistol, my father helped me to beat up a
guy when I had slashed the seat of his motorbike. My father has
always stood by me since the day I was born. My mother ran away
and he brought me up. My father took me fishing. My father was
a Nazi but he was good. He believed in God and he never used
blasphemous words. He loved me and he loved Quattro Formaggi
and Danilo. My father knew what was right and what was wrong.

My father didn't kill Fabiana.

I know he didn't.

The wire of the battery charger snapped. Quattro Formaggi fell
down among the shepherds, the Lego houses, the little ducks and
the Barbapapas.

Rino Zena, lying in bed, moved his hand.

A voice said: "Can you hear me? If you can hear me, give me a
sign. Any sign at all."

Rino smiled.

Cristiano Zena opened his eyes.

Everyone stood and clapped as the coffin came by.

He jumped to his feet and shouted: "It wasn't my father!"

But nobody heard.

Prepared by Lindsey Tate

Niccolo Ammaniti

1. "And all the other towns and villages re-emerged with their
dingy colors, with their small or large areas of urban sprawl,
with their modern two-storey houses surrounded by frostbrowned lawns, with their prefabricated industrial buildings, their credit institutions, their overpasses, their car
dealerships and courtyards, and with their vast expanses of
mud" (p. 21). Such is the landscape against which Niccolo
Ammaniti's characters live their lives. Begin your discussion
of As God Commands by examining how it shapes the characters' destinies, how it stunts or strengthens them. How
does the face of this modern-day Italy differ from your own
views of Italy and Italian life? Why do you think that
Ammaniti chooses to set his works against such a backdrop?