The Crossroads (10 page)

Quattro Formaggi was an orphan.

Like me
.

‘What did you do at school today?' asked Danilo, interrupting Cristiano's thoughts.

‘We wrote a history essay. Shall I read it to you?'

‘Yes, let's hear it,' said Quattro Formaggi.

‘Let's hear it,' echoed Danilo.

‘Okay.' Cristiano took the sheet of paper out of his pocket and started reading. With all those ruts in the road he felt sick. He made an effort to get to the end. ‘… like the ancient Romans where there'll be jobs for everyone and there won't be any communists who've destroyed the idea of the family, they don't believe in God and they've accepted abortion which is murder of the innocents and they want to give the vote to the im migrants. The end.' He looked up. ‘Well, did you like it?'

Quattro Formaggi honked the horn enthusiastically.

Danilo was in raptures. ‘Fantastic! Incredible! Especially the bit where you say we need a new Hitler to build concentration camps for the Slavs and Arabs. Those bastards steal our jobs. Top marks!'

Cristiano turned towards his father. ‘What about you? Did you like it?'

Rino took a draw on his cigarette and didn't reply.

What's the matter with him now?

Half an hour earlier he had been capering about like a lunatic and now he was scowling.

Danilo patted Cristiano on the thigh. ‘Of course he did. It's a brilliant essay. Nobody could help liking it. It's impossible.'

Rino Zena put his feet down on the floor and looked at Cristiano, then stubbed out his Diana Rossa in the overflowing ashtray. His migraine had risen like an acidic tide and swamped his brain. It was that shit Danilo had given him to drink.

He glared at his son. ‘Are you out of your mind?'

Cristiano looked at Danilo in bewilderment. ‘Why?'

‘Did you hand that stuff in?'

Cristiano shook his head. ‘No, I didn't. I'm not daft.'

‘Bollocks. You handed it in. I know you too well. You're so full of yourself you thought you'd written a masterpiece. You can't understand, with that pea-sized brain of yours, what a fucking stupid thing you've done. Do you realize you're going to regret this day for the rest of your life?'

Cristiano's voice cracked: ‘I didn't hand it in, I said! Are you deaf? I wrote it, then I put it in my pocket. End of story! Here it is.'

Breathe. Calm down. Maybe he's telling the truth.
‘Did you show it to anyone?' he asked him, suppressing the urge to grab him by the hair and bang his head on the dashboard.

Cristiano gave him a hate-filled glare. ‘No, I didn't.'

‘You must have read it to your classmates. It's only natural.'

‘I swear to God I didn't, for fuck's sake!'

Rino pointed his finger at him. ‘Don't you dare use God's name to cover up your lies, Cristiano. Don't use His name. Or I'll kill you.'

He hated him when he was like this.

He didn't believe him. And he never would. Not even if the teacher materialised in front of him and told him Cristiano hadn't handed in the essay. Not even if God, the Madonna and all the saints came down from heaven. He would think they were all in it together. All conspiring against him.

What sort of father have I got?

Anyone with any guts had told him to his face that Rino was a fool, and Cristiano had flown at them like a wildcat. He had taken a lot of beatings in the course of his life defending a stupid dickhead. But they were right, a thousand times right. Cristiano felt a piercing pain below his breastbone. ‘I haven't shown it to anyone.'

Rino shook his head and gave that infuriating little smirk of his. ‘Come on, admit it. You did it without thinking, you didn't realise what you were doing, you were just showing off to your mates … “I'm a Nazi, I'm this, I'm that.” Where's the harm in that? Come on, admit it. What's the problem?'

Cristiano couldn't take any more. ‘No,' he shouted, ‘I didn't do that! Fuck off! You're not going to get me to confess to things I didn't do. Anyway, I haven't
got
any friends. And do you know why? Because everyone thinks you're a weirdo. Just a pathetic weirdo …'

He was close to tears, but he would have torn his eyes out of their sockets rather than cry.

Rino Zena couldn't hear anything. A whirlpool of terror had sucked him down into darkness. He could already picture the social worker accompanied by two carabinieri waving Cristiano's essay in front of his face.

They would take him away. For ever.

And that couldn't happen, because without Cristiano he was nothing.

Rino swallowed hard and put his hands over his eyes. ‘Where the fuck do you get these ideas?' He spoke quietly, breathing through his nose. ‘How many times have I told you you've got to keep everything inside … you mustn't let anyone know what you think, or they'll use it against you. You and I are hanging by a thread, don't you realise that? And everyone's trying to break it. But they won't succeed. I'll always be with you and you'll always be with me. I'll help you and you'll help me. Don't you under
stand that you must never bare your throat? Think of tortoises, think of their shells. Always remember you've got be so strong that nobody can harm you.' He slammed his fist down on the dashboard so hard that the glove box shot open, spewing out paper.

‘Why do you do this, papa? Why don't you believe me?' said Cristiano in a broken voice.

‘Don't whine like that! Nobody's hurt you, have they? What are you, a little girl? Are you going to burst into tears?'

Danilo motioned to Cristiano not to react and to keep quiet, and tried to mediate: ‘Come on now, Rino, he told you the truth. Your son doesn't tell lies. You know him.'

Rino rounded on him. ‘You shut your face! Don't interfere! Do I interfere in the problems between you and that whore of a wife of yours? I'm talking to my son. So keep quiet.'

Danilo lowered his gaze.

Cristiano dried his eyes with his hands. Nobody dared to speak. Everyone sat in silence, and the only sound was the background noise of the river and of the branches brushing against the sides of the van.

They stopped in the yard of a disused sand-dredging works from the Seventies. Huge mounds of sand formed a semicircle round the rusty machinery.

Cristiano jumped out and ran towards the extraction tower.

He stopped by a tumbledown hut. Its windows were smashed and it was plastered with graffiti and drawings.

He wanted to go home on foot. It was a long way, but that didn't matter. Although the air was cold, it probably wouldn't rain for a while. The weather was changing. To the south the grey blanket of clouds had broken up, revealing patches of crystalline blue. A pair of cormorants flew overhead. The sound of the rain-swollen river could be heard in the distance.

He pulled his hoodie over his head.

In front of the hut were the charred remains of a bonfire. The metal skeleton of a chair. Tyres contorted by the heat. Some sandals. A gas cooker.

Cristiano took the essay out of his pocket and flicked on his cigarette lighter. He was about to put the flame to the paper when he heard behind him: ‘Cristiano! Cristiano!'

His father was approaching. He wore a tartan woolly jacket with a plush lining. It was open and he only had a vest on underneath.

How come he never feels the cold?

He set light to a corner of the paper.

‘Wait!' Rino took it out of his hand and blew on it, putting out the fire.

Cristiano lunged at him, trying to snatch it back. ‘Give it to me. It's mine.'

His father took two steps backwards. ‘Are you crazy? Why do you want to burn it?'

‘So there won't be any evidence. And you'll be happy. There's always a chance burglars might break in during the night and steal it, isn't there? Or the police … Or the extraterrestrials …'

‘No, don't burn it.'

‘What do you care? You didn't even like it.' Cristiano ran off towards the river.

‘Stop!'

‘Leave me alone! I want to be on my own.'

‘Wait!' His father caught up with him and grabbed him by the arm.

Cristiano tried to wriggle free, shouting: ‘Let me go! Go away! Fuck off!'

Rino hugged him tightly and held his face against his chest. ‘Listen to me for a moment. Then you can go if you want.'

‘What do you want?'

Rino let go, and stroked his shaven skull. ‘It's just that … Look …' He was having difficulty in finding the words. Finally he lit a cigarette. ‘… You must understand that if I get angry there's a reason … If you'd handed it in, that bitch of a teacher of yours would have immediately given it to that arsehole of a social worker and tomorrow we would have had them both on our doorstep waving your essay in our faces.'

‘I'm not a fool and I didn't hand it in. I've told you that, but you don't believe me. What's the point?'

‘Look, it's just that … I wanted to be sure.' Rino kicked at a rock and then, with a sigh, looked up at the clouds. ‘I'm scared, Cristiano … Scared they'll split us up. That's what they want. If they split us up, I …'

He didn't finish the sentence. He squatted down and went on smoking his cigarette, holding it between his thumb and forefinger.

All Cristiano's anger melted away like the snow that had fallen that night. He felt an overwhelming urge to hug his father, but just said, with a lump in his throat: ‘I'll never let you down. You must believe me, papa, when I tell you things.'

Rino looked at his son, then narrowed his eyes, with the stub between his lips, and said in a serious voice: ‘I'll believe you if you can beat me.'

‘What?' Cristiano didn't understand.

‘I'll believe you if you can beat me to the top.' He pointed to the hill of sand in front of them.

‘What the fuck has that got to do with it?'

‘Never mind about that. Don't you realise what a fantastic opportunity this is for you? If you beat me I'll have to believe you for the rest of my life.'

Cristiano was trying not to laugh. ‘What a load of bullshit … Typical …'

‘What's the problem? You're young. Athletic. I'm an old man. Why shouldn't you win? Just think, if you beat me you'll be able to tell me that you heard Quattro Formaggi repeat “Thirty-Three Travellers from Trento” and I'll have no choice … You little bastard!'

Cristiano had suddenly sprinted off towards the hill of sand.

‘This time I am going to beat you!' growled Cristiano, hurling himself at the steep side of the little mountain.

He took the first three steps and had to dig his hands into the sand to stop himself sliding back. All the sand was crumbling away. His father was below him, a couple of metres behind.

He had to win this time. He always lost against his father. At darts. At arm wrestling. At everything. Even at ping-pong, where
Cristiano knew he was an ace and his father was crap. He would get to eighteen or nineteen–six, and only two points away from trouncing him, then that bastard would start telling him he was tiring, that he was scared of winning – he would dazzle him with words and he wouldn't score another point and Rino would win.

Not this time. I'm going to beat you.

He imagined he was an enormous, climbing spider. The secret was to dig your feet and hands right in. The sand was cold and damp. The higher he climbed, the steeper the slope became, and it crumbled under his shoes.

He turned to check where his father was. He was getting closer. His face was contorted with the effort, but he wasn't slowing down.

The trouble was, every three steps Cristiano took forward he slipped another two back. The top wasn't far away, but it seemed impossible to reach.

‘Go on, Cristiano! Go on … You can do it! Beat him!' Danilo and Quattro Formaggi cheered him on from below.

He put everything into it, shouting with the effort, and he was almost there, only a metre and a half from the top, he'd made it, he'd beaten him, when a clamp gripped his ankle. He was pulled down, together with a landslide of sand.

‘It's not fair!' he shouted, as his father went straight over him as if he had caterpillar tracks. Cristiano tried to grab him by the seat of his pants, but his hand slipped and he nearly got a kick in the face.

And his father dug his hands into the summit of the hill, got to his knees and raised his arms to the sky as if he'd scaled K2, shouting: ‘Victory! Victory!'

Cristiano lay there gasping, flat on the sand, half a metre from the top, while everything around him crumbled away.

‘Hey … Come on up. You nearly made it. Never mind. After all, you did come second … you weren't last,' panted his father, bent double with the effort.

‘It's not fair! You held me back.'

‘What about you, then … starting before the word go? Is that … sporting?'

He was blue in the face. ‘Jesus, I'm knackered … The cigarettes … Come on, give me that hand.'

Cristiano grasped his father's hand and allowed himself to be pulled up. He was sick with exhaustion.

‘Well, you lost … But … you did well … I believe you.'

‘You … bastard. I let you win … because you're an old man … That's the only reason you won …'

‘Yes … And quite right too. You should always show respect to the elderly.' Rino put his arm round his shoulders.

Father and son sat on the top of the hill, looking down at the misty plain and the river, which at that point widened out into a big, sandy loop. The opposite bank was far away, lost in the haze, with only the bare tops of the poplars showing through, like the masts of ghost ships. Further downstream the river had overflowed its banks, flooding the fields. They could see the silhouette of the power station, the string of electricity pylons and the viaduct along which the motorway ran.