The Sense of an Elephant (17 page)

‘I'll catch up with you at the cafe, Paola. Go on ahead.' The lawyer lit a cigarette.

She looked him up and down, unable to decide. When she did leave with Fernando, Pietro brought Poppi an ashtray. ‘I need to ask for a day off. The day after tomorrow' – he paused – ‘I'm going with the doctor to Rimini.'

Poppi loosened his tie, arched an eyebrow.

‘He has to meet a patient and needs someone who knows the area,' the concierge said.

The lawyer sucked down more smoke and drew him close. ‘You and I are going up to my place. Right now.'

‘For what?'

‘I have a plant that's not doing well.'

‘Can't this wait till the afternoon?'

‘Now.'

They went up. The lawyer opened the door and invited him in, walked across the living room and hauled a cycad in a pot to the entryway. The leaves came to sharp points, which were in fact dry.

‘I'll take care of it.'

Poppi put out his cigarette in the earth around the plant. Held the concierge there without saying anything, without doing anything, and when Pietro tried to speak he pointed to the wall he shared with the Martinis. They heard the muffled voice of Riccardo.

Then Viola spoke. She said that he left last night, he really did it.
He left with hardly a word. Luca knew everything.

Luca has always known everything.

Pietro bent over the cycad and tried to lift it but the lawyer prevented him with a foot on the rim of the pot.

Now we have to tell him about Sara, Viola.

Not now. I want to protect him.

Poppi caressed a tribal mask on the wall, bowed his head. His cranium was a gleaming knob.

Protect him like you've done so far?

Luca needs Sara right now. Today he's going to pick her up from nursery school and tonight she'll sleep at his place.

When are we going to tell him, Viola?

The lawyer slipped two fingers through the eye sockets of the mask and squeezed.

When Pietro came down from the lawyer's flat he went straight to the lodge and checked the condominium register. Turned to the page with the resident notes from the previous concierge. There were five for the Martinis, the penultimate of which was
Sara, Crivelli Nursery, ask for Mrs Rita
. There was the address, telephone number, and the name of the person in charge. He checked the time and looked up the street in the street guide, left with the Bianchi. Came to a quick halt on the pavement.

The old man from the petrol station stood in front of the intercom button grid. ‘I didn't risk buzzing.' He was wearing nice clothes, a woollen jacket and newly polished shoes. ‘I wanted to say hi.' The man held out his hand.

The concierge shook it. ‘My son is not home.'

‘I wanted to say hi to you.' He coughed, dabbed his lips
with a handkerchief and waited for Pietro knew not what. Then mumbled, ‘Please just tell the doctor that I don't have much time left. Please tell him that.' Moved away little by little, disappeared around the corner.

The concierge mounted the Bianchi and pushed off into the street, pedalling with difficulty during the entire trip. When he arrived he noticed how weak he was. Leaned the Bianchi against a tree and rubbed his face. Sara's nursery school was in a house with a garden at the front. The gate was covered with plastic panels and on each panel was an image of Jiminy Cricket. A group of people waited out front. Luca stood apart from the group, pacing back and forth on the pavement, kicking a stone and returning it to its original location. Struck it again, greeted a man smoking a cigar. They spoke together quietly until joined by a young woman with a dog on a leash.

The gate opened and Luca entered alongside the young woman and the man. Returned with Sara, hand in hand. The girl could barely keep up with her father, so he slipped off her schoolbag and carried it over his shoulder. They walked beneath the horse-chestnut trees, through the fallen leaves on the pavement, leaving shuffled footprints. Arrived in the university district and turned down a cobbled alley, stopping in front of a small block of flats with tiled balconies.

Sara saw Pietro for the first time. She made her father put her down, skipped over to the concierge.

The doctor stood with a set of keys hanging from his little finger. ‘Pietro.'

‘I had passed by the nursery and you …'

‘What's happened?'

‘I'm coming to Rimini.'

The doctor cracked a smile, readjusted the pack on his back. ‘Poppi asked me if he could come as well. He heard about it from you.'

Pietro screwed up his face and stayed silent. ‘Sorry, it slipped out when I asked him for the day off.'

Luca looked preoccupied, without moving, then asked Pietro to follow him inside.

The entrance hall had frescoes on the walls, beyond that a negligible courtyard, then the garden of an independent residence. Luca opened wide the two leaves of a small door next to the main entrance, led them up a few steps and down a corridor with three doors. Tried to insert the key into the lock of the first. His hand shook and could not find the target.

Pietro helped him.

‘Once upon a time my father let it to students.' He pressed down on the handle. The child ran inside and around the piles of luggage. It was a bare studio, white, with a high table and four stools near the cooking corner, a blue couch against the wall. There was a glassed-in loft with a double bed. The windows looked out onto the street. A tram passed and the wooden floor began to vibrate. Sara scrambled up the narrow steps leading to the loft and continued to explore.

‘I was wondering, Pietro …' Luca bent over the baggage, began to search at random. Slipped his hand into bag after bag without pulling out anything, without seeing anything. His eyes were empty. He covered them with a hand and went to the window. The heads of passers-by appeared in the lower
part of the glass. ‘I was wondering if you were afraid when you left God.'

Sara climbed halfway down the steps and called her father over, made him sit on the step in front of her, began to comb his hair with her hands.

The concierge approached. ‘I've never stopped being afraid.'

Luca closed his eyes while Sara pulled tufts of hair down flat on his forehead. ‘For the trip to the coast, how about we meet here the day after tomorrow at eight?'

Pietro nodded.

‘And me?' asked the daughter.

The young priest stood up on the pedals. The witch perched sideways in front of him on the bicycle's top bar and her scarf fluttered out behind her. It flew off into his face: witches smell like fresh flowers. The bicycle creaked,
chk-chk
. He headed toward the music coming from the dance hall. She held tight to the handlebars. ‘What make is this bike?'

‘It's a Bianchi.' He accelerated again.

‘And does it have brakes?'

He didn't touch them and the Bianchi flew past beach after beach, into a fog bank,
chk-chk
. They hurtled by and the witch counted the numbers of the beaches, number five, number four. He rang his bell loudly at a man cutting across his path and the man saw only fog pass. The young priest took a hand off the handlebars, rested it on her stomach, beach number one, then the open sand. He kept it there until they arrived at the inlet next to the jetty, where four strings of lights marked out a tiny plot of sand crowded with people spinning.

He slowed down.

The Bianchi had good brakes, which Pietro slammed on now. On the other side of the boulevard three cars queued at the petrol station. The first was being filled by the old man. Pietro stood on the pedals and continued past, turning into a cross-street and turning again, onto the street parallel to the
boulevard. He left the bike against one of the sycamores and walked the path along the railway to the improvised gardens. The fence alongside the plot belonging to the old man from the petrol station was broken down at one point. Pietro hopped over it and his feet sank into the earth. The two pomegranate trees were leafless and without fruit. He went closer. To either side were rows of cabbage and lettuce. The whistle of a freight train approached. The smaller pomegranate tree was the same height as the concierge. Pietro went up to it and grasped the two branches that split from the trunk. He squeezed and felt that the wood was dust, crumbling in his hands. Squeezed again and raised his head toward the ugly building. There was a light in Andrea's window.

The young priest braked to a stop thirty paces from the dance floor. Music blasted from a plywood shack. The witch jumped down, saying, ‘They'll see us,' and pressed herself against him. Crouched down and stroked his calves, took off first one of his shoes, then the other. Stood up and leaned the Bianchi against a tree, remaining to stare at the leaves.

‘What are you looking at?' asked the young priest.

The witch brought her eyes closer to the tree. ‘Mama says that it's the fruit of the Promised Land.' She broke off an unripe pomegranate and slammed it against the handlebars, splitting the fruit open. ‘It has six hundred and thirteen seeds, as many as the rules of the Lord. Some represent sacrifice, some represent grace. Shall we try?' She gave half of the pomegranate to the young priest and leaned against the tree. ‘If it's sweet, it's a grace. If it's sour, it's a sacrifice.' She sucked
on a seed and said, ‘Good.' Another and said, ‘Good.' Yet another and said, ‘Good. Three graces.'

The young priest put one in his mouth and it burned on his tongue. He spat it out.

The house of the pomegranate trees was mute. Pietro pressed the button next to the names
Mario and Andrea Testi
.

‘Who is it?' The voice of Snow White crackled through the intercom.

‘It's Pietro. Dr Martini's father.'

‘Mr Mario isn't here.'

‘I wanted to see Andrea.'

The intercom continued to crackle.

‘I wanted to see him.'

The door clicked open and Pietro went up. Snow White was waiting for him in front of the flat. ‘Andrea is happy to see the doctor's father.' The young woman had her hair loose and wore a close-fitting tracksuit. She invited him in.

The entry smelled of cleaning products. Pietro took off his jacket and folded it over his arm, asked if he could go in.

‘Andrea's awake. He's watching TV that makes him laugh.' She led him to the room at the end of the hallway, asked him to wait outside. Entered alone and turned down the volume on the television.

Pietro could make out half a bed, an argyle blanket hiding the shrivelled legs.

Snow White came out and motioned the concierge forward, stopping him on the threshold. ‘He answers “yes” if his
eyes go white once, “no” if twice. He never closes his eyes ever or almost.'

Pietro approached the bed. Andrea had something behind his neck that kept him facing the screen. A cartoon was playing.

‘
Ciao
, Andrea.'

His hair was combed, his face a mound of sagging flesh. His pupils went up once, looking at the Bristol set against the whiteboard on the wall, on it a sketch of two rows of seagulls and strip of sea.

Pietro pointed to the Bristol. ‘The drawing is very nice.'

The eyes went white twice.

‘But it is.'

There was an armchair beside the bed. Pietro removed a fashion magazine and sat down. ‘I come from the sea and I know seagulls well.'

Snow White caressed Andrea's head. ‘I'm going into the kitchen. I'll come back in a bit to see if everything is going OK.'

They heard her walk down the hallway. Pietro half-closed the door. Took hold of the hissing tube that terminated in the young man's throat. It was plastic and vibrated with each breath.

‘I know you like football.'

The eyes went white and agonizingly wide.

Pietro looked out the window. A veil of fog had descended. He crossed the room. The whiteboard had a reading lamp below it. ‘I also know that you like motorcycles.' Pietro stroked
one of Andrea's arms, a forgotten stick, from elbow to hand. ‘Your father told me everything. He very much likes to talk.'

The pupils rose.

Pietro smiled. Rubbed the arm again but the chill wouldn't leave the skin, covered it with the sheet. Turned on the lamp and directed it toward the wardrobe and placed his hands in front. The shadows of the parrot and the dog came out less lopsided than usual and no longer shivered. He turned around. Andrea was staring at them.

‘A woman I know taught me how to make them.' He lowered the left sidewall and sat down on the mattress, took the tube back in hand, flattened it and one of the machines began to whistle. The young man's breath began to whistle as well. Pietro released the tube and there were no further sounds.

Snow White appeared in the doorway, stepped into the room. ‘You can't be on the mattress, Mr Pietro.'

The concierge replaced the sidewall. Snow White nodded and returned whence she had come.

‘Sofia is pretty.' He moved to the end of the bed, to the spot where Andrea's eyes were looking.

Pietro looked at him as well. ‘Do you want to die, my son?'

The eyes were opened wide, and raised. Once.

That night in the studio flat Sara asked, ‘Why doesn't Mama come here?'

Luca murmured, ‘Take deep breaths, honey. That way you'll fall asleep sooner.
Don't be afraid, it's just the dark, a bit of colour, a great inky gloom. Don't be afraid, it's just the sun, who's yawning because he wants to sleep
.' They sang together and then she whispered, ‘Will you take me to the sea?'

‘You've got to go to nursery school. We'll go to the sea this summer, right now it's cold.' He rocked her in his arms and she said, ‘I want to come with you to the cold sea.'

The deep breaths began but no one fell asleep in the studio flat, nor in the house of the pomegranate trees. The old man from the petrol station lowered one of the bed's sidewalls and lay down next to his son.
You and I, we're like Rossi and Altobelli against Germany, world champions, like Rossi and Altobelli, we take everyone by surprise
. The father closed his eyes and coughed. The son raised his pupils once. His voice echoed in the concierge's lodge. From the recorder came the crackling voice: ‘My name is Andrea Testi. I am thirty-four years old and I know how to dribble. You have to have strong ankles to dribble well, and I have strong ankles.' Pietro listened to it again and again as he stared at the letter on rice paper held down by the elephant and by the pomegranate. Dozed off, then the voice of Andrea was silent and Pietro slept until the following morning.