The Girl with the Crystal Eyes (3 page)

    She
finds herself walking in the sun. Her shadow follows just a step behind her.

    She
is alone, with only her shadow for company. But then she turns and sees them:
the cars speeding by alongside her. She feels a rush of air every time one
passes her. She gets closer and closer to a metal rail, and she realises she's
feeling slightly afraid.

    She
carries on walking. Now the cars are still, and there is silence. Suddenly
there's no noise.

    A
closed door.

    She
stops and stares at it. She looks back for a moment, and realises that her
shadow isn't there any more.

    It's
impossible. She turns round but she still can't see it. And yet the sun is
still shining, right above her.

    The
door. All that's left now is the door. As if the world and all of life were
suddenly there behind that door.

    She
opens it.

    She
is engulfed by speed, a sudden whirlwind of it, wrapping around her. Blood.
Blood everywhere. And those eyes.

    Staring
eyes that are fixed on her, peering out of the blood.

    She
gets up suddenly, breathing heavily; on the bridge the white flag has stopped
flying. Inside her, everything is red.

    A red
river. She is trembling, unable to stop it.

    She
picks up her mobile phone, with its worn cover and the Powerpuff Girls flying
above the sky-blue skyscrapers, and she calls him.

    He
doesn't answer.

    'The
number you have called is…'

    She
doesn't want to know for sure that he might have switched his mobile off.

    She
gets to her feet, opens the fridge and takes out the milk. Milk and chocolate.
Milk, the drug of choice for babies. A drug that calms you down, that tastes of
pleasant dreams. She drinks her milk and turns off the light.

    She
stretches out on the sofa - a sad pair of pyjamas. A pair of pyjamas with a
soul.

    Miew
looks out of the window. The reddish evening light washes over everything; it
shrouds the city, transforming it and distorting every harmony, while she waits
for her owner to return.

    Soon she
will hear the sound of her footsteps running up the stairs, heavy because of
the combat boots she always wears, jumping two steps at a time to get home
quicker, the key in the lock and her voice, soft but slightly shrill, saying:
'Come on, don't be in a huff. I had to work late today.'

    She
looks out. The red is becoming black, and it's as if the city is changing its
clothes. Now it is becoming mysterious, but also cruel, like a devastatingly
beautiful woman who plays with the affections of a dejected lover.

    Via
San Felice, narrow and smelling of piss.

    A
puddle of dried vomit from last weekend, which now seems a long time ago.
Graffiti on the wall, shouting a message that no one understands. A cat
yawning.

    Eva
walks quickly, clenching her fists. She glances into the Irish pub. She often
used to go there when she was younger.

    An
old child, that's what she feels like - an old child.

    A
child who doesn't know anything, yet knows everything about life.

    Disillusion
- it's a good word, but it hurts. It hurts her deep in her heart.

    It's
dark now. She had to work late.

    She
walks quickly, feeling the air on her face. It's cold.

    Eva
has never had a boyfriend.

    She used
to try to picture what her first boyfriend would be like, but she was never
able to come up with a complete image. There was that game,
Gira la moda,
when she was a girl, in the Eighties. There was a wheel and you spun it round;
you filled in the type of hair you'd like, then the face, the breasts, the
legs, and finally the shoes.

    She
used to create fabulous girls, but the game never worked when she tried to
create in her head the ideal boy - someone you'd lose your head over.

    And, perhaps
out of spite, he had never appeared in real life either.

    Fear,
lack of interest, who knows.

    She
has never had a boyfriend. Never kissed a boy.

    She
was curious, at school, listening to what her friends said. 'He kisses well.
His lips are nice - soft and full.' 'Luca's got a huge package. Last night I
gave him a blow job.'

    Art
lessons were when they shared their secrets.

    'But
do you lick him, or just move your mouth up and down?' It was as if they were
writing a guide to the perfect blow job.

    But
she hadn't even understood properly how you did it, a blow job. The half
phrases she overheard did more harm than good.

    The
result: it made her sick to her stomach to think about having to lick and suck
that 'thing', a thing that then spat out some sort of sour-tasting stuff. But
the stories about how it was like gagging on chewing gum always drew a crowd.

    By
the end of her fifth year, and after all those sessions in the art room, she
had realised that giving blow jobs was too dangerous a skill, requiring too
much practice for a girl like her.

    She
walks quickly.

    She
thinks about Miew.

    Absent-mindedly,
Marconi passes through the waiting room and notices yet again the girl with red
hair and blue eyes - such a pale, piercing blue.

    He's sure
he has seen her at least twice already in the last few days.

    He
wants to ask her if she needs any help, but Tommasi calls him over to talk
about that case of the boy without a residence permit, who they'd arrested the
week before during an attempted robbery in a bar in Strada Maggiore.

    'I'm
coming,' he mutters to himself, while he gives her a last look.

    She
drags her gaze away from the window and looks at him for a moment.

    She
reminds him a lot of his first girlfriend, who was beautiful but always sad. At
school she'd kept to herself, perhaps because of her hair, or possibly because
of the freckles sprinkled across her oval face. He had never understood why she
was sad, nor did that matter to him. It didn't matter because he liked her, and
one day he had waited for her and, instead of running home with the other boys,
he had walked with her as far as the police barracks.

    Even
just talking about her father struck fear into him. The man was a warrant
officer.

    An
officer. Just a single word that spoke volumes to him.

    They
hadn't spoken at all on the way home, then, looking at his feet, he had asked
her: 'Do you want to be my girlfriend?'

    'Yes.'

    Just
the one word, accompanied by a smile.

    The next
day neither of them approached the other because they were too shy, and the
great love of their fourth form ended before it began. At the end of the school
year she moved with her parents to Milan, and he had been left with a
heaviness, a bad feeling, like a feeling of failure, a sense of emptiness.

    'So,
how are we doing?'

    'We
can't get out of it,' Tommasi replied. 'The Moroccan consulate says he's
Tunisian. The Tunisian consulate says he's definitely Moroccan. It's always the
same. Another guest for the detention centre.'

    'By
the way, what was up with Morini this morning?'

    'I
think his wife doesn't give him any. But have you seen her? Such a nice piece
of skirt for such a -'

    'OK,
Tommasi, stop thinking about Morini's wife. They found the documents of that
woman who came in last week, the one who had her bag snatched at the market.
She hasn't answered the phone for two days, so get the car keys and we'll go
and check that everything's OK with her.'

    Tommasi
isn't very tall. He has black eyebrows that meet in the middle, a fleshy mouth,
small ears.

    He
picks up the identity card. 'What do you expect? She's eighty, so she's
probably a bit hard of hearing.'

    'Well,
it means that we'll be doing a good deed, doesn't it? Every now and then it
doesn't do any harm.'

    'Of
course, Inspector.'

    In
the waiting room, the seat by the window is now empty. For a moment Marconi
thinks she was just a dream.

    
But
do you love me?

    Marco
is in front of the mirror looking at himself, his chest damp from the
aftershave just applied. He has a bit of a belly - the result of a few too many
beers - but she finds it sexy.

    
But
do you love me with just a tiny bit of the sort of love you see in films? Viola
looks down.

    He
closes the bottle of aftershave that smells of musk and picks up his comb. He
runs it through his thick black hair, which is still wet. He watches his
reflection in the mirror. The mirror image of himself. He loves himself.

    
Do
you love me at least a bit, even just a small amount compared with how much I
love you? Yes, because I love you. I love you, and unlike all those who say
they don't know what love means, I do know. I know what it means to love
someone.

    
I
know that it means doing things even if you don't want to, even if they're not
really you. Just because the person you love likes them.

    
I
know that it makes you breathless.

    
Air.
There's no air when you're not here, and I'm always afraid that you won't come
back to me and then I start crying. I cry if I think that you'll leave me one
day, and clearly this means that I love you, and then when I hear your voice I
tremble a bit and then… And then I wish you wouldn't go out again tonight, but
if you really want to I'll hardly say a word - just the mildest objection - and
then I'll let you do what you want, as always.

    
Because
I love you.

    
And
you, do you love me?

    He
turns and grabs the white shirt that he's left in the bathroom. He slips it on
with an expansive movement of his arms; for an instant he looks like he's
swimming.

    He
fastens the bottom button, then the next two up. He leaves the rest undone. His
chest is waxed, smooth as an eel. He never takes his eyes from the mirror as he
gets ready.

    When
he's finished, he raises his eyebrows and gives a smile that Viola can clearly
see. It's a ghost of a smile but it says so much, not least that he's going out
again tonight.

    He
turns suddenly and heads towards the semi- darkness of the corridor. 'But what
the fuck are you doing there, in the dark? God, you nearly gave me a heart attack.'

    'I
was coming to call you. There's a good film about to start.'

    'What
are you on about? I'm going out, I told you.' 'But…'

    'No
buts, sweetie.'

    The
chopping board sits on the work surface between the fridge and the sink. She
remembers that it has always been there. There is the table linen with the blue
cockerel and the crocheted edge, the piece of decorative ironwork - a local
tradition - hanging on the wall, and next to it a small image of Saint Anthony,
the patron saint of animals.

    It's
a kitchen typical of the Romagna region, like the Sangiovese wine made from
grapes grown by Marietto, the farmer who lives at the end of the road - where
they've now widened Via San Vitale. Marietto, brandishing his hoe, is always
swearing at the cars as they go past, and at politicians, and at the
government.

    At
the dining table, the questions are always the same. 'You
are
eating
properly, aren't you?' asks her mother. 'You look thinner.'