The Last Man Standing (29 page)

After Richard had exchanged a word with everyone, he would inspect what had been brought in. If there was not much booty, or if it was of little value, his face took on a bitter expression, but Leonardo never heard him reprove anyone or show any sign of anger. More often he would clap his hands to arouse the enthusiasm of the young people. Then he would address them with a few words that Leonardo, deafened by the music, never managed to hear, give the cripple a little urn containing the substance the youngsters inhaled, and withdraw into his trailer.

During those four days Leonardo never saw him eat or drink or join in the partying, which always went on in the same way until first light. He would spend all day in the trailer with Lucia, whom Leonardo never managed to glimpse despite keeping his eye fixed on the vehicle’s two windows.

The only person he had any contact with was the doctor, who came each morning at dawn with food for him and David. In his own case this would nearly always be potatoes cooked in the embers and very tough meat which, with his broken teeth, he could not ingest until he had sucked it for a long time. During his second visit the man sprinkled his feet with a yellowish powder before binding them up with care—to prevent infection, he said. Leonardo decided he must have been told to do this by Richard, and when he asked about this, the man confirmed it. But when he asked about Lucia the man would only say that she was well.

“Why does she never come out of the trailer?”

“She can’t.”

“Is she tied up?”

“No.”

Before leaving, the doctor would sweep the cage clean of both Leonardo’s excrement and the elephant’s, after which he would go to David, who was nearly always lying stretched out in his corner, and spend a long time stroking his head and whispering in the animal’s large ears words like those he must once have spoken to his wife and to his daughter before she went to sleep.

Leonardo, too, as the days passed, became fond of the animal. Sometimes, in moments of depression or loneliness, he would call to him by name and the elephant would come over to be stroked.

At night, on the other hand, it would be his turn to crawl on all fours to the end of the cage to seek shelter from the cold next to the animal. David’s skin was rough and his stomach noisy, but his huge body gave enough warmth to help Leonardo fall asleep quickly. At first he was afraid of being crushed, until he realized that David, even when asleep, was extremely careful of the fragile companion whom he had found sharing his cage. Sometimes, when David’s little eyes lit up and his trunk began swinging left and right and turning over backward, it seemed the elephant was laughing. This would happen when Leonardo squatted in a corner to attend to his physical needs. David seemed amused by the bizarre position his human companion had to adopt to perform this function.

On the morning of the fifth day Leonardo woke to find the youngsters sitting in two lines facing the trailer. There was no music and an unreal silence reigned over the camp, broken only by birdsong. He shuffled on his knees to the bars to look for Alberto, who was sitting with the others with his face painted and his dirty hair tied in little bunches.

They waited an hour, perhaps two; Leonardo no longer had any sense of time and was even uncertain about the rising and setting of the sun. Finally the door of the trailer opened and Richard came out accompanied by a young woman. It was immediately clear to Leonardo that this was not Lucia, because she was shorter than her and several years older. She had a very beautiful face and was wearing a ball gown with a wide belt. Her hair had been completely shaved off.

Richard led her to face the youngsters, who were watching in silence.

Then he called “Enrico!”

It was the first time Leonardo had heard Richard’s voice; it was deep and, to Leonardo, full of mysterious overtones.

The cripple got up from the front row and ran forward, took a sheet of paper Richard held out to him, tore it into little pieces, wrote something on each piece, then screwed them into little balls before distributing them among the young people.

When this operation had been completed, Richard said something in the ear of the woman at his side, after which he kissed her forehead and turned to go back into the trailer. She looked astonished, like a bride abandoned at the altar. She watched the door close behind Richard, and when a youth with curly hair got to his feet in the second row, she understood and began weeping.

The curly-haired youth handed the cripple his scrap of paper, then he went up to the woman.

Without looking her in the face he took hold of one arm and pulled her, but she shook herself free violently. He then grabbed her with both hands, but she threw herself on the ground and dug in her heels. The boy seemed discouraged; he was thin with very small bones. His eyes must be the same black as his hair, Leonardo thought.

The boy kicked the woman in the side; she gave a shrill scream but still resisted. Then he started slapping her, but his hands were small and weak and she managed to kick him in the groin. He collapsed, swearing.

“Number two,” shouted the cripple.

“No,” yelled the curly-headed youth, trying to struggle back to his feet. Everyone watched, but no one spoke.

“That’s enough, you idiot,” the cripple said. “Go back to your place.”

The boy went and sat down again with his head bowed. Another got up: about eighteen years old.

He leaped over the front row to the woman, who was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, weeping. Crouching beside her he said a few words, at which she shook her head. Then, when he leaned closer to her ear, she moved sharply away so that he lost his balance and fell. Someone laughed. Then he got up and stood for a few moments staring at the woman’s hips, as if he had heard there was something precious there, but was not quite sure. Then, without warning, he punched her face, knocking her backward into the dust. After a moment of astonishment she tried to scurry away on all fours, but the boy threw an arm around her waist and dragged her toward the coach. When they got there the woman pushed with her feet against the steps at the door, making them both fall backward. This time nobody laughed.

Showing no emotion the boy got up, twisted the woman’s arm behind her back, and banged her head three times on the step. Leonardo saw a wound open on her forehead and blood pour down her face. For the first time since he had been hit himself, he managed to open his swollen eye: he felt tears gush out of it and soak his face down to his chin. Getting to her feet, the woman climbed into the coach without offering further resistance.

A few minutes later the boy came out, raised his fist in triumph, and was received with shouts and applause. Then a third youth got up, handed his ticket to the cripple, and made his way to the bus.

Leonardo spent the rest of the morning huddled in a corner of the cage without raising his eyes from the floor, while David, beside him, watched with his sad little eyes the procession of boys and some girls coming and going from the coach. This continued until afternoon, by then the air had grown cold and the sun had vanished behind a cloud just above the mountains. They lit the fire and the monotonous and deafening music started again. Leonardo, from his corner, watched the youngsters dancing and wondered if Alberto had climbed into the coach.

Bringing him food at first light, the doctor found him crouching like a dog.

“We’ll be leaving soon,” he said.

The man had changed his pants and had a clean shirt on under his blazer. Leonardo took the plate the doctor had left near his feet and threw it at the wall. A potato fell on David’s head; he jolted in his sleep without opening his eyes. The doctor went away without saying a word or sweeping up the excrement.

The procession of vehicles left in the early afternoon and when it got dark stopped right in front of the hotel Leonardo had walked past with the children a week earlier. The climb had been slow because several of the cars were out of gasoline and had to be towed by the trucks and the coach. Leonardo noticed that many of the vehicles had been riddled with bullets. Even the roof of the cage was peppered with holes through which the sun filtered in blades of yellow-blue light. Noticing this, Leonardo got to his feet for the first time, and holding on to the bars moved to the far end of the cage, from where David was placidly contemplating the countryside beside the road. He saw several round scars on the elephant’s body that could have been bullet wounds.

When they were into the hills the vehicles were parked in a circle and the fire was lit in the middle of a little amphitheater once used for children’s shows. The amplifiers were set up and the stakes impaled with animals, and the youngsters began drinking and dancing as usual. Alberto, sitting on the concrete steps with other children, was sharing a pouch from which each inhaled in turn. Every now and then one or other of them would throw a pinecone at the bald girl, who was tied by a short chain to the bumper of one of the cars. The woman kept her head bowed, and even when hit did not react in any way. Her dress had been torn to shreds and her face was a dark stain the fire seemed unwilling to illuminate. A three-quarters moon appeared from time to time from behind the clouds, but its light was lost long before it could touch this part of the earth. The strong wind blowing from the sea brought nothing mild with it. All was cold and tense. Leonardo could see the great wind turbines rotating and the red lights above them marking the escape route along the crest of the hills.

He lay down with his head against David’s stomach and closed his eyes. He imagined Bauschan and Sebastiano sitting at the entrance to a cave, a fire behind them and their eyes fixed on the sea, waiting for something to come from far away. His feet could only just support him, but they did not hurt anymore and the pain in his shoulder had faded to a slight numbness. Only thirst still tormented him.

Even though he tried to ration the water he was given, the bottle would already be empty by midafternoon. The elephant would drink his two bucketfuls and eat though barely awake, spending the rest of the day with nothing. Leonardo wondered how he managed to survive.

With sleepiness beginning to confuse his thoughts he heard someone fiddling with the lock on the door. He thought the doctor must have come early, but when the door opened he saw a boy in black trousers and a yellow shirt, with painted face and no eyebrows like all the others.

“Come,” the boy said.

Leonardo struggled down the short ladder and followed the boy across the field. His bandaged feet trod uncertainly on the damp grass. The boy walked ahead, knowing Leonardo could not escape. He gave off a strong feral smell, as if he had just emerged from an uncured bearskin, and his hair was cut in a triangle with its point between the tendons at the back of his neck.

The young people were waiting on the steps of the little amphitheater while below, facing it, Richard was sitting in his pastel-shade tunic with Lucia at his side. When Leonardo came before them she continued to look at the ground. The boy who had brought him made him kneel and went off to sit with the others. Leonardo looked at Lucia’s white, shaved head, wishing he could weep on it and then dry it with his hands. She was wearing a decent blue dress and long earrings Leonardo had never seen before. Her face and body were intact yet seemed lifeless as if they had disintegrated or been contaminated.

“They tell me you’re a dancer,” Richard said.

Leonardo studied his straight nose, thin lips, long hair, and honey-colored beard framing his light smile: every part of his face expressed beauty and gentleness, yet its light and warmth, like those of a will-o’-the-wisp, somehow had more to do with the extinction of life than its creation. Leonardo looked at his calm blue eyes and found them utterly insane. There was nothing human there. They were more like the eyes of a majestic bird of prey or a great creature from the depths of the sea, infinitely solitary and universally feared.

“I’d like you to dance for us,” Richard said.

There was no mockery in his voice. Leonardo noticed the cripple was sitting a little higher up behind them. Armed with a pistol.

“I can’t dance,” Leonardo said. “I’m not a dancer.”

Richard smiled.

“You’re too modest, dancer,” he said, offering his hand.

Leonardo dropped his eyes and felt the man’s fingers slithering through his hair, loosening the knots of congealed blood that glued it together. Keeping his eyes on the ground, he saw little pieces of straw falling and shining in the shadows. The fire was warm on his shoulders. It was many days since he had felt such heat. Richard pushed Leonardo’s hair back one last time and withdrew his hand.

“From now on you will dance,” he said, “and you will be delighted to do it, because that will give us pleasure.”

Leonardo looked at the man’s neat feet, at his long, well-proportioned hands and perfect teeth. Christ in our time, he thought; a Christ generated by the times we live in and thus certain to make converts and to build a church and sow his word throughout the earth.

He was forced to his feet and led toward the fire. A couple of youths with spades had spread a circle of embers across the concrete which glowed red in the wind.

“Take off your bandages,” the cripple said.

Leonardo’s eyes searched for Lucia, but she was still looking down as though the whole world was confined to the few centimeters of ground between her feet. But Richard’s predator eyes were staring at him, revealing neither malice nor amusement, only an infinite power of concentration.

Leonardo breathed in the smell of meat, bodies, and burned fur weighing on the air. The unskinned snout of a small boar impaled on one of the stakes had caught fire. He sat down and began to unwind his bandages.

“Get up,” the cripple said as soon as he had finished.

He moved unassisted toward the embers. The usual hypnotic music was coming from the amplifiers. He placed his right foot on the embers, then his left. At first all he felt was a light tickling, like walking at midday on a sun-warmed beach, but when the first pangs rose up his legs he began to dance from one foot to the other. The audience drove him on with cries of “Dancer!,” stamping their feet on the steps.