the Solitude Of Prime Numbers (2010) (6 page)

Trembling, but almost imperceptibly, she held her hand out toward Viola, who dropped the filthy candy into her palm. She slowly brought it to her mouth.

The others had fallen silent, and seemed to be thinking, no, she's not really going to do it. Viola was impassive.

Alice put the gumdrop on her tongue and felt the hairs that were stuck to it dry up her saliva. She chewed only twice and something squeaked between her teeth.

Don't throw up, she thought. Do not throw up.

She choked back an acidic spurt of gastric juices and swallowed the candy. She felt it as it went down, like a stone, along her esophagus.

The fluorescent light on the ceiling gave off an electrical hum and the voices of the kids in the gym were a formless mixture of shouts and laughter. Here in the basement the air was heavy and the windows were too small to allow it to circulate.

Viola stared solemnly at Alice. Without smiling she nodded her head as if to say now we can go. Then she turned around and left the locker room, passing the other three without so much as a glance.

6

T
here was something important you had to know about Denis. To tell the truth, Denis thought it was the only thing about him worth knowing, so he'd never told anyone.

His secret had a terrible name, which settled like a nylon cloth over his thoughts and wouldn't let them breathe. There it was, weighing heavily inside his head like an inevitable punishment with which he'd have to come to terms sooner or later.

When, at age ten, his piano teacher had guided his fingers through the D major scale, pressing his hot palm on the back of Denis's hand, Denis had been unable to breathe. He bent his torso slightly forward to hide the erection that had exploded in his sweatpants. For his entire life he would think of that moment as true love, and would fumble around every corner of his existence in search of the clinging warmth of his teacher's touch.

Each time memories like this surfaced in his mind, making his neck and hands sweat, Denis would lock himself in the bathroom and masturbate fiercely, sitting backward on the toilet. The pleasure lasted only a moment and radiated just a few inches beyond his penis. But the guilt rained down on him from above like a shower of dirty water. It ran down his skin and nestled in his guts, making everything slowly rot, the way that damp eats away at the walls of an old house.

During biology class, in the basement lab, Denis watched Mattia dissect a piece of steak, separating the white fibers from the red. He wanted to stroke his hands. He wanted to discover whether that cumbersome lump of desire that had taken root in his head would really melt like butter simply through contact with the classmate he was in love with.

They were sitting close to each other. Both rested their forearms on the lab bench. A row of transparent flasks, beakers, and test tubes separated them from the rest of the class and deflected the rays of light, distorting everything beyond that line.

Mattia was intent on his work and hadn't looked up for at least a quarter of an hour. He didn't like biology, but he pursued the task with the same rigor he applied to all subjects. Organic matter, so violable and full of imperfections, was incomprehensible to him. The vital odor of the soft piece of meat aroused nothing in him but a faint disgust.

With a pair of tweezers he extracted a thin white filament and deposited it on the glass slide. He brought his eyes to the microscope and adjusted the focus. He recorded every detail in his squared notebook and made a sketch of the enlarged image.

Denis sighed deeply. Then, as if taking a backward dive, he found the courage to speak.

"Mattia, do you have a secret?" he asked his friend.

Mattia seemed not to have heard, but the scalpel with which he was cutting another section of muscle slipped from his hand and rang out on the metal surface. He slowly picked it up.

Denis waited a few seconds. Mattia sat perfectly still, holding the knife a few inches above the meat.

"You can tell me; you can tell me your secret," Denis went on. His veins pulsed with trepidation. Now that he had pushed himself over the edge and into his classmate's fascinating intimacy, he had no intention of letting go.

"I've got one too, you know," he said.

Mattia cleanly sliced the muscle in half, as if he wanted to kill something that was already dead.

"I don't have any secrets," he said under his breath.

"If you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine," Denis pressed. He moved his stool closer and Mattia visibly stiffened. He stared, expressionless, at the scrap of meat.

"We have to finish the experiment," he said in a monotonous voice. "Otherwise we won't be able to finish the chart."

"I don't give a damn about the chart," said Denis. "Tell me what you did to your hands."

Mattia counted three breaths. Light molecules of ethanol stirred in the air, and some of them penetrated his nostrils. He felt them rising, a pleasant burning sensation along his septum, up to a point between his eyes.

"You really want to know what I've done to my hands?" he asked, turning toward Denis but looking at the jars of formalin lined up behind him: dozens of jars containing fetuses and amputated limbs of all sorts of animals.

Denis nodded, quivering.

"Then watch this," said Mattia.

He gripped the knife in his fist. Then he plunged it into the hollow of his other hand, between his index and middle fingers, and dragged it all the way to his wrist.

7

O
n Thursday Viola was waiting for her outside the gate. Alice, head lowered, was walking past her when Viola grabbed her by the sleeve. Viola startled her, calling out her name. She remembered the candy and was dizzy with nausea. Once the four bitches had you in their sights, they didn't let you go.

"I've got a math test," Viola said. "I don't know anything and don't want to go."

Alice looked at her uncomprehendingly. She didn't seem hostile, but Alice didn't trust her. She tried to pull away. Let's go for a walk, Viola continued. You and me? Yes, you and me. Alice looked around in terror. Come on, get a move on, Viola urged, they can't see us out here. But . . . Alice tried to object. Viola didn't let her finish; she pulled her harder by the sleeve and Alice had no choice but to follow, hobbling, as they ran to the bus stop.

They sat down side by side, Alice pressed against the window so as not to invade Viola's space. From one moment to the next she expected something to happen, something terrible. But Viola was radiant. She took a lipstick from her bag and ran it over her lips. Want some? she then asked. Alice shook her head. The school shrank in the distance behind them. My father will kill me, Alice mumbled. Her legs were shaking. Viola sighed. Come on, show me your attendance sheet. She studied Alice's father's signature and said it's easy . . . I'll sign it. She showed Alice her own sheet. She faked a signature whenever she didn't feel like going to class. Anyway first period tomorrow is Follini, she said, and she can't see a thing.

Viola started talking about school, about how she didn't give a damn about math because she was going to do law anyway. Alice could hardly believe her ears. She thought about the day before, about the locker room, and didn't know what to call this sudden intimacy.

They got off in the square and started walking under the arcades. Viola stopped at a clothing shop with fluorescent windows where Alice had never even set foot. She was acting as if they were lifelong friends. She insisted they try on some clothes, which she picked out herself. She asked Alice her size, and Alice was ashamed to tell her. The shop assistants watched them suspiciously, but Viola paid no attention. They shared a dressing room and Alice surreptitiously compared her own body with her friend's. In the end they didn't buy anything.

They went to a cafe and Viola ordered two coffees, without so much as asking Alice what she wanted. Alice hadn't a clue what was going on, but a new and unexpected happiness was filling her head. Slowly she forgot all about her father and school. She was sitting in a cafe with Viola Bai and that time seemed theirs alone.

Viola smoked three cigarettes and insisted that Alice try one too. Viola laughed, showing her perfect teeth, every time her new friend exploded in a fit of coughing. She subjected her to a little quiz about the boys she hadn't had and the kisses she hadn't given. Alice replied with her eyes lowered. You want me to believe you've never had a boyfriend? Never ever ever? Alice shook her head. That's impossible. A tragedy, Viola exaggerated. We absolutely have to do something. You don't want to die a virgin!

So the next day, at ten o'clock break, they roamed the school in search of the boyfriend for Alice. Viola had dismissed Giada and the others, saying we've got things to do, and they watched her leave the classroom hand in hand with her new friend.

Viola had already organized everything. It would happen at her birthday party the following Saturday. They just had to find the right boy. As they walked down the corridor she pointed this and that out to Alice, saying look at the ass on that one, not bad at all, he certainly knows what to do.

Alice smiled nervously but couldn't make her mind up. In her head she imagined with unsettling clarity the moment when a boy would slip his hands under her shirt. When he would discover that, underneath the clothes that fell so well, there was nothing but chubby flesh and flabby skin.

Now they were leaning on the fire escape railing on the third floor, watching the boys play football in the courtyard with a yellow ball that seemed not to be blown up enough.

"What about Trivero?" Viola asked.

"I don't know who he is."

"What do you mean you don't know who he is? He's in the fifth year. He used to row with my sister. They say some interesting things about him."

"What sort of things?"

Viola gestured with her hands, indicating something long, and then laughed loudly, enjoying the disconcerting effect of her allusions. Alice felt her face flush with shame, but she also felt a marvelous certainty that her loneliness was truly over.

They went down to the ground floor and passed the snacks and drinks machines. Students had formed a chaotic line, chinking the coins in their jeans pockets.

"Okay, but you've got to decide," said Viola.

Alice spun on her heels. She looked around, disoriented.

"That one looks cute," she said, pointing at two boys in the distance, near the window. They were standing close together, but they weren't talking or looking at each other.

"Who?" Viola asked. "The one with the bandage or the other one?"

"The one with the bandage."

Viola stared at her. Her sparkling eyes were as wide as two oceans.

"You're crazy," she said. "You know what he did?"

Alice shook her head.

"He stuck a knife in his hand, on purpose. Right here at school."

Alice shrugged.

"He looks interesting," she said.

"Interesting? He's a psychopath. With a guy like that you'll end up chopped to pieces and stuffed in a freezer."

Alice smiled, but went on looking at the boy with the bandaged hand. There was something in the way he kept his head tilted down that made her want to go over to him, lift his chin, and say to him look at me, I'm here.

"Are you absolutely sure?" Viola asked her.

"Yes," said Alice.

Viola shrugged.

"So let's go," she said.

She took Alice by the hand and pulled her toward the two boys at the window.

8

M
attia was looking out the opaque windows of the atrium. It was a bright day, an anticipation of spring at the beginning of March. The strong wind that had cleared the air during the night seemed to sweep time away too, making it run faster. Mattia tried to estimate how far away the horizon was by counting the roofs of the houses that he could see from there.

Denis was surreptitiously staring at him, trying to guess his thoughts. They hadn't talked about what had happened in the biology lab. In fact, they didn't talk much at all, but they spent time together, each in his own abyss, held safe and tight by the other's silence.

"Hi," Mattia heard someone say, too close to him.

Reflected in the glass he saw two girls standing behind him, holding hands. He turned around.

Denis looked at him quizzically. The girls seemed to be waiting for something.

"Hi," Mattia said softly. He lowered his head, to protect himself from one of the girls' piercing eyes.

"I'm Viola and this is Alice," she continued. "We're in 2B."

Mattia nodded. Denis's mouth fell open. Neither of them said anything.

"Well?" Viola said. "Aren't you going to introduce yourselves?"

Mattia spoke his name in a low voice, as if just remembering it himself. He offered Viola a limp hand, the one without the bandage, and she shook it firmly. The other girl barely touched it and smiled, looking in another direction.

Denis introduced himself next, just as clumsily.

"We wanted to invite you to my birthday party the Saturday after next," said Viola.

Again Denis sought Mattia's eyes, but Mattia responded by staring at Alice's timid half-smile. Her lips seemed so pale and thin to him, as if her mouth had been carved by a sharp scalpel.

"Why?" he asked.

Viola looked at him askance and then turned to Alice, with an expression that said I told you he was mad.

"What do you mean why? Obviously because we feel like inviting you."

"No, thanks," said Mattia. "I can't come."

Denis, relieved, quickly added that he couldn't come either.

Viola ignored him and concentrated on the boy with the bandage.

"You can't? I wonder what could be keeping you so busy on a Saturday evening," she said provocatively. "Do you have to play video games with your little friend? Or were you planning on cutting your veins again?"

Viola felt a tremor of terror and excitement as she uttered those last words. Alice gripped her hand harder to make her stop.

Mattia reflected that he had forgotten the number of roofs and wouldn't have time to count them again before the bell.