My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More) (15 page)

That very evening, Manàch came racing round to my place, out of breath: ‘Come out,' he screamed at me, before rushing up to meet me on the stairs. ‘They've beaten up Stumpy!'

‘Beaten him up? When? Where? Who was it?'

‘Brizzi and his henchmen. Five of them went round to the Polish woman's house … they found them there, Elise and him, in bed together. They dragged her out, in the nude, and carted her off … she was writhing about, trying to get free, screeching like an eagle. They punched and kicked him until he was a bloody mess.'

We were interrupted by the scream of a siren. ‘Hear that? They're taking him to hospital at Luino.'

The ambulance went roaring past in front of us at top speed at that very moment. It was followed by a car driven by the Polish woman, his mother.

I caught a glimpse of Elise three days later in church for Sunday mass. She was wearing dark spectacles and a scarf which covered her face up to her nose. She stayed at the back, beside the confessional. As she went out, she made me a sign to follow her. I caught up with her in the lane alongside the bell-tower. She took me by the hand. ‘I have your paintings! They're lovely … they made me tremble all over. It was us to a tee, clasped together, in another world!'

‘Thank you. How is Stum … I mean Rizzul … your boyfriend?'

‘He's recovering slowly. I haven't seen him yet. His mother does not want me even to go near the hospital. She says I have been the ruination of her boy. Fortunately he sent me a card.'

‘I was thinking of going to see him tomorrow.'

‘Ah yes, that was why I called you over. Would you give him a letter from me?' She handed me an envelope, and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Still dazed, I was about to go when she called me back: ‘Oh, I was thinking of preparing a nice surprise for my Rizzul when he gets out. Would you like to do a portrait of me?'

‘Right away?'

‘No, if it's possible I would come over to your house in a couple of days … provided your mother has no objections.'

‘My mother will be delighted. See you soon.'

Almost a week went by. ‘She's not coming any more…' I said to myself, but early one Thursday afternoon I heard a knocking at the door of my room. It was her, Elise.

‘How did you get here? I was looking onto the piazza and I didn't see you cross it.'

‘I came via the garden. I am being followed by Brizzi's men. Maybe this way I can give them the slip!' She took off her dark spectacles. ‘Don't put this black eye in the portrait.'

She did indeed have a large, black and blue bruise. ‘You're still beautiful the way you are,' I plucked up the courage to say, before blushing. I made her sit with her back to the window. ‘If you don't mind, I will try to paint you against the light.'

‘Do it your way…' Elise ran her fingers through her curls, tossing them up in the air. Her hair itself seemed to expand.

‘Do you know you look exactly like an Egyptian mural painting? Look!' I opened a big book of ancient art which was lying on the table. I showed her the funeral decorations of Amenossis. ‘Incredible. It could be me … in the nude!' She read the caption. ‘
Queen Nofret, wife of the Pharaoh.
Do you really think I'm as beautiful as that? You know, it could even be a great-great-grandmother, considering that my mother came from those parts. She was born at Memphis, on the Nile.' She lifted the book and kissed it: ‘Ciao, welcome home, Gran!' Then she added: ‘If you like, I could pose in the nude, like her!' I almost fainted on the spot. She noticed my sudden pallor and tried to fix things: ‘Oh all right, if you prefer to work from memory … you've already seen me undressed that night at the Polish woman's house, isn't that right?'

I told her I needed to retire to the toilet a moment. I came back almost at once to find she was already posing, reclining like the Egyptian Nofret. I was extremely agitated.

The canvas was already on the easel. ‘Listen, Nofret,' I said with conviction, ‘I prefer to begin with a few sketches.'

I did some drawings on four sheets of paper, then began sketching on the canvas and adding colour. I was in a state of enchantment as I followed the lines of her body, so smooth in the half-light. I had no sense of passing time … she was still there, relaxing, as though peering onto another world.

‘The sun is setting, we'll have to stop.'

Nofret shook herself as though awakening. ‘Let me see what you have done,' she asked, picking up the canvas. ‘Yes, yes!' and so saying she began leaping about the room. ‘It's me … ha, ha, you've made the tresses of my hair just like the Egyptian painting.' She came over beside me. I thought she was about to kiss me but instead she lifted me off my feet, swung me around, repeating in a sing-song voice: ‘Bravo, bravo … my little phenomenon!' She then deposited me on the couch as though I were a sack and, taking one look at her watch, exclaimed: ‘Oh my God, it's seven o'clock already! I'm an hour late. That bastard Brizzi will blacken my other eye,' and off she went tripping down the stairs.

I went to the window and watched her cross the orchard with Gog at her heels. I noticed that in her haste she had forgotten her handbag. I opened the window and called to her, but she did not hear me. Not even Gog heard me, but perhaps he was only pretending not to. I grabbed hold of the bag and went racing down the stairs. I ran up the back alleys in the town, hoping to head her off before she got back to the big house where she lived with the thug. I climbed the Malarbeti staircase and came out in front of the gates which led into Brizzi's garden. There was a police car parked there. A moment later, I saw two officers coming out, pushing Brizzi in handcuffs ahead of them. Next, in a line like the Three Wise Men, emerged his henchmen, they too tightly handcuffed and chained. With them was the Neapolitan police sergeant, a friend of my father's. ‘What's going on?' I asked.

‘Huh, you should know,' he grinned from ear to ear, and marched down to the police van to make sure that his prisoners were properly accommodated. When the van had moved off, he turned back. Just then, Nofret and my Great Dane, who was continually rubbing up against her, made an appearance. My dog and I have the same tastes!

The girl said hello to the sergeant, who proceeded to tell both of us that the very day Stumpy was taken to hospital, the Polish woman had gone to the police to file a report against the thug and his gang for assault and serious injury to her son. As if that were not enough, the assailants had taken jewellery and valuable objects from a sideboard in her bedroom.

‘Unluckily for them, we made our entrance at the precise moment when our honourable friends were brewing portions of cocaine for purposes of trade.'

‘Bloody hell!' I said.

The girl did a somersault, yelling out a shriek of triumph as she turned head over heels. The sergeant removed her dark spectacles. ‘Luckily for you, Signorina, these bruises on your eyes testify to the fact that you were forcibly compelled to stay with Brizzi. Then there's the proof of these photographs.' So saying, he showed the girl a sequence of images taken at the villa when the gangsters were holding her naked and dragging her away.

‘Who took these?' she asked in bewilderment.

‘My men had been stationed for a couple of hours in the garden. They had heard the rumour that the gang would turn up at the Polish woman's villa to settle accounts.'

‘So why didn't you intervene to set me free and get my boyfriend out of the clutches of those villains? You just stood there and watched while they beat him to within an inch of his life.'

‘No, no,' said the sergeant. ‘We weren't just watching. We managed to take quite a lot of photographs through the window of you being beaten up, and if we'd have arrested them that night, we'd have missed the chance to catch them with the cocaine! Think about it: for assault they'd have got a maximum of a couple of years, but for drugs they're looking at a minimum of another ten. OK, we let them knock you about a bit, but now you can breathe freely for a good twelve years. You are as free to enjoy your lives together as chaffinches in spring.'

‘Thanks, sergeant, but seeing as you've gone this far, you don't think you could put his mother, the Pole, inside as well?'

The sergeant gave a raucous laugh. ‘You're not just a pretty face. You're sharp-eyed and smart as well. But heed my advice. Keep well away from drugs if you want to live a long and happy life.'

CHAPTER 17

The
Bindula
Boys

Bindula
is a dialect variation of the verb
abbindolare,
which means ‘to make fun of someone'. The
Bindula
boys were a group of idle smart asses, unsurpassable champions of the practical joke, totally ingenious in the diabolical capers they could think up and pull off.

They used to devise all manner of trickery at the expense of any poor simpleton in the valley or beyond. They had no regard for anyone, no pity for man or beast, but their favourite victim was an ex-soldier with the
Arditi,
known as ‘Pacioch', a candid, credulous nincompoop. He looked like a tree trunk from which daisies might sprout: the classic, good-natured booby; the ideal scapegoat, in other words, for those good-for-nothing charlatans.

One of the leaders of the gang rejoiced in the name of Gratacu (Itchy-arse), the local word for a nettle. One day he was visiting a friend who ran a junkyard for cars above the town. In the workshop, they were dismantling an old car, a facsimile of the famed Bugatti, with the intention of using only some pieces and scrapping the rest. They had already removed the sides, including the doors, pulled out the dash board, hauled away the lid of the boot and stripped the engine down to a few bolts. The sight of the remains of that car gave Gratacu an outrageous idea: he asked his friend to lend him that wreck, just as it was, for half a day. Then, with the help of two fellow
Bindula,
he busied himself reassembling once more the glorious automobile. They put the engine to one side, then, like the master craftsmen-tricksters they were, the three of them made use of a roll of fishing tackle to secure each part to a rope under the chassis: they then let out the various lines, pulling them together and tying them up behind the boot. In other words, they had just stitched together the entire chassis.

Now that the trap was laid, they set off pushing the car, which was now held together by pieces of string, down the hill to the harbour, in front of the chalet housing the Mira-Lago bar. When they were in sight of the chalet, the two
Bindula
boys squatted down behind the boot and made it roll into the piazza. Gratacu was inside the car, pretending to drive.

When they reached the bar, all the customers got up in amazement to have a look at a vehicle which was a museum piece. The supposed driver got out and called over to Pacioch, who was quietly sitting outside, like a somewhat dim-witted cat.

‘Would you do me a favour, if it's not too much trouble…'

Pacioch jumped to his feet at once. To be of service to one of the
Bindula
boys was for him an honour beyond compare.

‘There's no water in the radiator, and the whole thing nearly seized up. Would you be good enough to go into the bar and ask for a bucket of water?'

The poor booby rushed off in a state of excitement. It was rare for them to show so much faith in him! He came dashing back with the pail of water and found the bonnet already up. Gratacu seized hold of the bucket: ‘Thanks, I'll see to it, but if you could close the door for me. I've gone and left it open, and for goodness sake, it's a very valuable, delicate car, so go easy, eh?'

Pacioch did his best to proceed as gently as possible, but as he pushed the door, it slammed shut with a loud bang. Behind the boot, the two accomplices pulled the trip wire: they tugged the lines fixed to the various bits of the car so that the whole structure crashed noisily to the ground. The doors collapsed, the dashboard was hurled into the air, the bonnet flew off and ended up on top of Gratacu. The swine let out a despairing groan and flopped to the ground as though dead. Like two jacks-in-the-box, the other pair suddenly appeared from behind the now-ruined car, making a great display of terror and horror: ‘Christ in heaven, Pacioch, what have you done?' asked one.

‘Did you toss in a bomb?' demanded the second.

Poor Pacioch was devastated. The customers outside the bar joined in. ‘Oh, what a disaster!' was the cry.

‘I don't know,' stammered Pacioch, ‘I only closed the door … very gently.'

Some went over to help Gratacu, who was still playing the part of a recently expired corpse. When he came round, Gratacu went into a rage and attacked Pacioch like a bolt from a catapult. ‘You bloody fool, don't you realise you have just wrecked a jewel fit for any collection? We had only borrowed it for an hour. Now who's going to pay for it?'

One of the tricksters screamed, pointing at the inside of the bonnet: ‘Look, the engine's gone! It's disappeared!'

Everybody started poking around. A boy pointed his finger at the huge plane tree. ‘It's up there in the tree! It's got caught up between two branches.'

It is unnecessary to state that the organisers of the whole trick had put it there before the event.

‘Would someone like to tell me,' interjected one of the group of friends, ‘what on earth kind of blow this creature must have delivered to shoot an engine up as high as that? He's a force of nature. He has the muscles of a wild beast. We should only let him walk about with two circles of iron around his arms to restrain the propulsive strength of his biceps. Otherwise he'd be a public menace.'

Poor Pacioch looked about like a lost soul, swallowed hard in mortification … then quickly made up his mind.