I'm Not Scared (12 page)

‘Isn't your mama a clever lady?' said Letizia Scardaccione.

‘And isn't she beautiful?' added Aunt Lucilla.

‘And you're a very handsome little boy. Isn't he, Lucilla?'

‘Very handsome.'

‘Antonia, isn't Michele handsome? If he was grown up wouldn't you marry him?'

Antonia laughed. ‘Like a shot, I would.'

Aunt Lucilla took a pinch of my cheek and almost pulled it off. ‘And would you marry Antonia?'

I went all red and shook my head.

The two sisters shrieked with laughter, and went on and on.

Then Letizia Scardaccione picked up a bag. ‘I've got some clothes here that are too small for Salvatore. Take them. If the trousers are too long I'll shorten them for you. Do take them, I'd be very pleased if you did. Just look at the state you're in.'

I would have liked to. They were practically new. But mama said we didn't accept charity from anyone. Especially not from those two. She said my clothes were perfectly all right. And she
would decide when it was time to change them. ‘Thank you, Signora. But I can't.'

Aunt Lucilla opened a tin box and clapped her hands. ‘Look what I've got here. Honey drops! Do you like honey drops?'

‘Yes, I do, very much, Signora.'

‘Help yourself.'

These I could take. Mama never found out because I always ate the lot. I took a good supply. I filled my pockets with them.

Letizia Scardaccione added: ‘And give some to your sister too. Next time you come bring her as well.'

I repeated like a parrot: ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you …'

‘Before you go, pop in and say hello to Salvatore. He's in his room. Don't stay too long though, he's got to practise. He has his lesson today.'

I went out of the kitchen and crossed that gloomy corridor, with that black, sombre furniture. I passed Nunzio's bedroom. The door was locked.

Once I had found it open and had gone in.

There was nothing in there, except a high bed with iron railings and some leather straps. In the middle the floor tiles were all scored and broken. When you passed the villa you used to see Nunzio walking backwards and forwards, from the door to the window.

The Avvocato had done all he could to cure him. Once he had even taken him to see Padre Pio, but Nunzio had grabbed hold of a Madonna and knocked her over and the friars had thrown him out of the church. Since he had been in the mental hospital he had never been back to Acqua Traverse.

I must go and see Filippo, I had promised. I must take him the cake and the sweets. But it was hot. He could wait. It wouldn't
make any difference to him. Besides, I felt like spending a bit of time with Salvatore.

I heard the piano through his bedroom door. I knocked.

‘Who is it?'

‘Michele.'

‘Michele?' He opened the door, looked around like a hunted criminal, pushed me inside and locked the door.

Salvatore's room was big and bare, with high ceilings. Against one wall there was an upright piano. Along another a bed so high you needed a little stepladder to get onto it. And a long bookcase with lots of books in it arranged according to the colour of their covers. The games were kept in a chest of drawers. A heavy white curtain let through a ray of sunlight in which the dust danced.

In the middle of the room, on the floor, was the green Subbuteo cloth. Laid out on it were Juventus and Torino.

He asked me: ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Nothing much. I brought a cake. Can I stay? Your mother said you've got your lesson …'

‘Yes, you stay,' he lowered his voice, ‘but if they notice I'm not playing they won't leave me in peace.' He picked up a record and put it on the record player. ‘This'll make them think I'm playing.' And he added with a very serious air: ‘It's Chopin.'

‘Who's Chopin?'

‘He's one of the best.'

Salvatore and I were the same age, but to me he seemed older. Partly because he was taller than I was, partly because he had white shirts that were always clean and long trousers with a crease in them. Partly because of his placid way of speaking. They forced him to play the piano, a teacher came once a week from Lucignano to give him lessons, and, although he hated music, he didn't complain and he always added: ‘But when I grow up I'll stop.'

‘How about a game?' I asked him.

Subbuteo was my favourite game. I wasn't very good at it, but I really enjoyed it. In the winter Salvatore and I had endless tournaments, we spent whole afternoons flicking those little plastic footballers around. Salvatore played on his own too. He would move from one end to the other. If he wasn't playing Subbuteo he would be lining up thousands of soldiers round the room and covering the whole floor till there wasn't even room for your feet. And when they were all finally set out in geometric formations he would start moving them one by one. He would spend hours in silence arranging armies, and then, when Antonia came to say that dinner was served, he would put them all back in the shoeboxes.

‘Look,' he said, and took out of a drawer eight small green cardboard boxes. Each box contained a football team. ‘Look what papa gave me. He brought me them from Rome.'

‘All these?' I picked them up. The Avvocato must be really rich to spend all that money.

Every single year, on my birthday and at Christmas, I asked papa and Baby Jesus to give me Subbuteo, but it was no use, neither of them heard. Just one team would have been enough. Without the pitch and the goals. Even a Serie B team. I would have liked to go round to Salvatore's with my own team because, I was sure, if it was mine I would play better, I wouldn't lose so much. I would have adored those players, I would have taken care of them and I would have beaten Salvatore.

He already had four. And now his father had bought him another eight.

Why didn't I get anything?

Because my father didn't care about me, he said he loved me but he didn't. He had given me a stupid Venetian boat to put on the television set. And I couldn't even touch it.

I wanted a team. If his father had given him four I wouldn't have said anything, but he'd given him eight. He had twelve now, altogether.

What difference would one less make to him?

I cleared my throat and whispered: ‘Will you give me one of them?'

Salvatore frowned and started pacing round the room. Then he said: ‘I'm sorry, I would give you one, but I can't. If papa found out I'd given it to you he'd be angry.'

That wasn't true. When had his father ever checked up on the teams? Salvatore was stingy.

‘I see.'

‘Anyway, what difference does it make? You can come and play with them whenever you like.'

If I'd had something to swap, perhaps he would have given me one. But I didn't have anything.

Wait a minute, I did have something to swap.

‘If I tell you a secret, will you give me one?'

Salvatore gave me a sidelong glance. ‘What secret?'

‘An incredible secret.'

‘No secret's worth a team.'

‘Mine is.' I kissed my forefingers. ‘I swear.'

‘What if it's just a trick?'

‘It's not. But if you say it's a trick I'll give the team back to you.'

‘I'm not interested in secrets.'

‘I know. But this is a great one. I haven't told it to anybody. If Skull found out, he'd be over the moon…'

‘Tell it to Skull then.'

But now I would stoop to anything. ‘I'll even take Lanerossi Vicenza.'

Salvatore goggled. ‘Lanerossi Vicenza?'

‘Yes.'

We loathed Lanerossi Vicenza. They had a jinx on them. If you played with them you always lost. Neither of us had ever won with that team. And it had one player that had lost its head, another that had been stuck on with glue and a goalkeeper that was all bent.

Salvatore thought it over for a while and finally conceded: ‘All right. But if it's a crappy secret I'm not giving it to you.'

And so I told him everything. About when I had fallen out of the tree. About the hole. About Filippo. About when he was crazy. About his bad leg. About the stink. About Felice keeping guard over him. About papa and the old man wanting to cut off his ears. About Francesco throwing himself off a cliff with his pecker out. About his mother being on television.

Everything.

It was a wonderful feeling. Like the time I had eaten a jarful of peaches in syrup. Afterwards I had been ill, I felt as if I was bursting, I had an earthquake in my stomach and I had even got a temperature and mama had first boxed my ears then put my head down the toilet and stuck two fingers in my throat. And I had brought up an enormous amount of yellow acid gunk. And had started living again.

While I talked Salvatore listened silently, impassively.

And I concluded: ‘And then he's always talking about little wash-bears. Little bears that wash clothes. I told him they don't exist, but he won't listen to me.'

‘Little wash-bears do exist.'

I gaped. ‘What do you mean they do exist? My father said they don't.'

‘They live in America.' He got out the
Great Encyclopaedia
of Animals
and leafed through it. ‘There it is. Look.' He passed me the book.

There was a colour photograph of a sort of fox. With a white muzzle and a little black mask over its eyes like Zorro. But it was
furrier than a fox and had smaller legs and could pick things up with them. It had an apple in its hands. It was a very pretty little animal. ‘So they do exist …'

‘Yes.' Salvatore read: ‘A bearlike carnivorous genus of the Procyonidae family, with a rather plump body, a pointed muzzle and a large head, and big eyes surrounded by brownish-black patches. Its fur is grey and its tail not very long. It lives in Canada and the United States. It is commonly known as the little wash-bear because of its curious habit of washing food before eating it.'

‘It's not clothes they wash, it's food … Oh.' I was shaken. ‘And I told him they didn't exist …'

Salvatore asked me: ‘And why do they keep him in there?'

‘Because they don't want to give him back to his mother.' I grabbed his arm. ‘Do you want to come and see him? We can go there straight away. Would you like to? I know a short-cut … It won't take long.'

He didn't answer me. He put the footballers back in their boxes and rolled up the Subbuteo pitch.

‘Well? Would you like to?'

He turned the key and opened the door. ‘I can't. My teacher's coming. If I haven't done my exercises he'll tell those two women and I'll never hear the end of it.'

‘What do you mean? Don't you want to see him? Didn't you like my secret?'

‘Not much. I'm not interested in loonies in holes.'

‘Will you give me Vicenza?'

‘Take them. They're rubbish anyway.' He thrust the box into my hand and pushed me out of the room. And shut the door.

I pedalled towards the hill and I didn't understand.

How could he not care less about a boy chained up in a hole? Salvatore had said my secret was rubbish.

I shouldn't have told him. I had wasted my secret. And what had I got out of it? Lanerossi Vicenza, the jinx team.

I was worse than Judas who had bartered Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. With thirty pieces of silver just think how many teams you could buy.

I was carrying the box stuffed inside my shorts. It was bothering me. The corners stuck into my skin. I wanted to throw it away, but couldn't bring myself to do it.

I wished I could turn the clock back. I would have given the cake to Signora Scardaccione and gone away, without even calling on Salvatore.

I went up the slope so fast that when I got there I felt sick.

I had ditched my bike just before the slope and covered the last part on foot, running through the wheat. I felt as if my heart was tearing out of my chest. I wanted to go straight to Filippo, but I had to flop down under a tree and wait till I got my breath back.

When I felt better, I looked to see if Felice was around. There was nobody. I climbed into the house and got the rope.

I moved the corrugated sheet and called out to him. ‘Filippo!'

‘Michele!' He started moving about. He was waiting for me.

‘I've come. You see? You see? I've come.'

‘I knew you would.'

‘Did the little wash-bears tell you?'

‘No. I knew you would. You promised.'

‘You're right, the little wash-bears do exist. I read about it in a book. I've even seen a photograph of one.'

‘Cute, aren't they?'

‘Very cute. Have you ever seen one?'

‘Yes. Can you hear them? Can you hear them whistling?'

I couldn't hear any whistling. There were no two ways about it, he was crazy.

‘Are you coming?' He beckoned me down.

I grabbed the rope. ‘Yes, I'm coming.' I lowered myself down.

They had cleaned up. The bucket was empty. The little saucepan was full of water. Filippo was wrapped in his disgusting blanket, but they had washed it. They had bound up his ankle with a bandage. And he no longer had the chain round his foot.

‘They've cleaned you!'

He smiled. They hadn't cleaned his teeth.

‘Who was it?'

He kept one hand over his eyes. ‘The lord of the worms and his dwarf servants. They came down and they washed me all over. I told them they could wash me as much as they liked but you would catch them anyway and they could run away as far as they wanted but you could follow them for several kilometres without getting tired.'

I grabbed his wrist. ‘You didn't tell them my name, did you?'

‘What name?'

‘My name.'

‘What is your name?'

‘Michele …'

‘Michele? No!'

‘But you just called me …'

‘Your name's not Michele.'