The Sense of an Elephant (2 page)

‘I'll have an espresso, thank you.'

‘The specialty here is cappuccino with cinnamon. Alice makes them like no one else. Please try one.'

‘That will be enough, Mr Poppi.' Fernando's mother fingered the string of pearls at her neck. ‘How are you finding it with us, Pietro? Have you settled in?'

The concierge nodded.

The barista came toward them. She wore a fringe and the top two buttons of her shirt undone. She smiled at Pietro. ‘Can I get you something?'

The lawyer elbowed him.

‘A cappuccino,' said Pietro.

Fernando raised his head. His face was broad, his smooth cheeks inflamed.

‘One cappuccino. Anything else, sir?'

‘Yes,' the lawyer replied for him. ‘On top of the cappuccino for my friend Pietro, could you draw' – he raised his voice – ‘a cinnamon heart as only you, Alice, can?'

Paola turned toward her son. Fernando had straightened
up and sat poised on his seat. Then mumbled something incomprehensible and sank down limply on the table.

His mother stroked his face. ‘Do you want to go home, Fernandello?' Stroked his face again. ‘I'm taking you home.'

The lawyer smothered a laugh behind a handkerchief. ‘He thinks she makes the heart in the cappuccino foam just for him.'

Paola turned back to them. ‘You'll pay for this, Poppi, you cruel, cruel man.'

The lawyer winked and stood. He left two notes under the plate, kissed Fernando on the neck and walked out.

‘He does things like that, but he's a good person,' said Paola, fussing with her wedding ring. ‘It's only thanks to him that we received …' she whispered, ‘the compensation.'

Pietro frowned.

‘It's been five years now since my Gianfranco died. Seems like an eternity. He worked with asbestos for decades. If it hadn't been for Poppi, we wouldn't have seen a single cent.' She sighed. ‘We are widow and widower, the two of us.'

Pietro looked at her.

‘I'm sure you've seen the two names on the lawyer's letterbox. Daniele, that was his name. They spent a lifetime together.' She nodded to herself. ‘I was left with my son. He was left with the condominium. That's why he worries about everyone, especially now …' She paused. ‘I don't want to seem like a gossip.'

‘You don't seem like a gossip.'

Alice served the cappuccino, a cinnamon heart at the
centre of the foam, a butter biscuit on the plate. Pietro placed the cup on Fernando's table.

The boy immediately began to drink, and Paola said, ‘You know hot milk is bad for you, stop it now!' Then lowered her voice, ‘I watch television in the kitchen, it was a habit my husband and I had. Unfortunately, our room shares a wall with Dr Martini's study, and walls talk. Things with them are not at all well.'

‘I know that he lost his mother recently.'

Paola touched his hand lightly. ‘Things with them are not at all well.' She shook her head, stopped, sniffed and sniffed again. ‘Do you smell something too?'

The putrid odour came and went, overpowering when it did the whiff of cream. She leaned closer to her son. ‘Fernando, stand up.'

Fernando was resting his chin on the palm of one hand and eyeing the barista as she cleaned the espresso machine. He said no and gulped down the last of the cappuccino.

‘Fernando, stand up.' She bent over him. ‘Hot milk is bad for you, not that you ever listen to me.' Tugged at him, helping him to his feet. ‘Come on, honey, let's go home.'

Fernando pulled off his glasses. They swung from their cord and bounced on his chest. He looked down and shuffled like a penguin, Alice said bye, then he passed and only then did Pietro notice the dark halo staining his trousers. The stink had become unbearable. Paola tied her herringbone coat around her son's waist.

*

The witch was saying, Where did the cat's soul go, Father, tell me where it went. She hunched her shoulders and her voice could barely be heard.

‘Come,' said the young priest, leading her through the crowd and into the church. Then he hurried to find the hydrogen peroxide and when he returned he disinfected the scratch. She flinched at the sting. She was beautiful like the year before and the year before that, with one ring more on her finger, something less in her eyes.

‘Your cat is dead and I'm a witch because I killed it.' Her fleshy mouth trembled. She pressed a hand to her stomach.

‘Does it hurt?'

‘I'll go to hell.'

He continued to press the cotton to her knee, longer than necessary. Lifted his eyes to her chest swelling her dress.

‘Your name's Celeste, isn't it?'

‘I want to purge myself of this sin, Father.'

‘You didn't see the cat.'

‘I want to confess. In the confessional, right?' The witch stood and headed for the booth, did an about-turn and plucked some chewing gum from her mouth. ‘If I talk with this in my mouth, will the Lord be offended?'

Pietro remained in the cafe. He had ordered a hot chocolate and waited for it to cool, enough for the slightly bitter film to form on top. Scooped it up with the spoon then dunked the two butter biscuits that Alice had brought on the side. He ate them as he drank, and as he drank he watched the condominium through the window. The Martinis had yet to return.

He paid at the register. As Alice gave him his change, she said, ‘I feel bad for that boy Fernando. I never know how to act.' The concierge put the money in his pocket without counting it and went out. He crossed the street and passed into the courtyard of the condominium. A plaster Madonna in its alcove stood out against the ivy. The lawyer Poppi had asked to have it removed, but the residents refused. It had been there since the Second World War, a gesture of thanks for having spared the building from English bombs.

Pietro stepped up onto the rim of the mosaic-tiled basin and checked the ivy in the vicinity of the plastic halo. The snails were gone. He looked down. They had fallen near the plants that the residents had entrusted to him. He gathered up the snails and deposited them beneath a lemon tree and a flowering cactus.

‘My gardenia is all dried up, I can feel it.'

Pietro turned around.

Viola Martini was at the entrance to the courtyard, toying
with a lock of honey-blonde hair and awaiting the verdict on tiptoe. ‘It's dried up, isn't it?'

‘Good afternoon,' said the concierge, attempting to smile. ‘Give it a few more weeks and it will pull through.'

‘You're a miracle worker, you are.' She bit her lip and came forward. ‘How is it going, Pietro?' She winked at him and he smelled the scent of vanilla that lingered on the stairs each night.

Dr Martini stood further back, their daughter in his arms. Set her down and the child skipped over to the gardenia. Poking from her pocket was a pencil that was a magic wand. She drew it out like a small sword and touched Pietro on the head.

‘What have you turned me into?' asked the concierge.

Sara scrunched up her coal-black eyes and slipped her head among the leaves of the gardenia, disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the plant. Laughed from her gap-toothed mouth and stared at the snail in the pot. Touched the magic wand to its horns and the snail retreated. The child's face darkened.

‘He's gone back into his shell to have a snack, honey,' said Dr Martini as he picked her up. Blew gently against her neck as his phone began to ring. Checked the display and immediately passed the girl to her mother. ‘Hello, I'll call you back in five minutes.' Listened a moment. ‘I said I'll call back in five minutes.' Hung up.

‘Who was it?' asked Viola.

‘The hospital.'

‘You're going in tonight as well?'

The plants covered Pietro. Through the leaves the doctor's face was a sliver of sparse beard chewing gum. ‘I'm not going, don't worry.' Then he turned to the concierge. ‘Is there any post?'

Pietro went into the lodge as mother and daughter started up the stairs, leafed through the envelopes. ‘There's a package and a registered letter. I'll need your signature.'

The doctor scribbled his name. ‘My daughter adores you.' Held the gum between his teeth for a moment before returning to chewing. ‘If you have this effect on all children, come and see me in the ward.' Screwed up his face in a grimace, the same as in the photograph on the Vespa. Drummed his fingers between an ashtray and the radio that the concierge had brought with him from the coast. Turned it on. His mobile phone rang again and he turned up the radio. The phone persisted and he picked it up. Before responding he stuck the chewing gum in the ashtray. ‘Hello.' The doctor left the lodge. ‘We agreed that I would call back.' He paused. ‘Tonight I can't.'

The concierge turned off the radio. The doctor said, ‘No, tonight I can't. I'm on tomorrow night at the hospital. I'll come over before, around seven. Yes, tomorrow. Don't call any more, it's risky. It's risky, I said.' The doctor was an attenuated shadow on the wall of the entrance hall. He put away his phone and rested a moment with a hand over his eyes. ‘See you, Pietro. I'm going.'

‘Have a good evening.' The concierge waited for him to go
up. Then went to the ashtray.
It's risky, I said
. Snatched up the doctor's chewing gum and went into the bedroom. In the suitcase there was also an old matchbox. He stuck the gum inside, beside another, rock-hard piece of gum.

Pietro had learned that they were looking for a concierge in Milan from the letter with the Emilio Salgari stamp. The postman delivered it one ordinary afternoon to his old address, an eighteenth-century church fronting on a piazza in Rimini. He put it into the hands of the servant, a wisp of a woman with shifty eyes and bow legs.

‘I'll make sure he gets it,' she said. ‘Don Pietro hasn't lived here for a year.' And she walked over to the old priest's new house.

‘Padre.' She knocked three times. ‘Padre.'

Pietro opened the door. ‘I'm no longer Padre.' He returned to the living room.

‘You are for me.' She pulled her shawl close and followed him in, leaving the letter on a folding bed in the living room.

There was no return address, just his name and the address of the church in anonymous cursive script. There was this stamp and the rice paper that shed invisible specks. Pietro opened it along the short side. Inside were a photograph and a sheet of paper folded in thirds. He pulled out the paper and began to read. Immediately stopped.

‘Everything OK?' The servant had shuffled closer to him. ‘Everything OK? Is it the woman?'

Pietro closed his eyes.

*

He had read it that evening, and again at night. Two times in all. The photograph, on the other hand, he never stopped looking at. He had followed the instructions: call some lawyer by the name of Poppi and set up an interview for the concierge job. He met him the next week in Milan, in this elegant but not pretentious condominium, and following their conversation returned to Rimini.

Three days later, sitting on a rock in the sea, he found out he would become a concierge.

The lawyer was the one to call him with the news. When Poppi heard the seagulls in the background he said, ‘Pietro, you've got to be crazy to come to Milan to look after a condominium.' He revealed that in the interview Pietro's conservative haircut and a certain propensity for silence had been decisive. His past employment as a priest had elicited the agreement of all the residents except him. But majority ruled. Would he accept the job?

Pietro accepted, and before finishing they agreed when he would start.

Then the lawyer cleared his throat, ‘Just out of curiosity, why did you divorce God?'

‘He wasn't so easy to get along with.'

‘You and I are going to be great friends. See you in four days.'

Pietro put away his phone and pulled out the letter on rice paper, squeezed it till he crumpled Salgari. Then passed by the church that had been his for a lifetime. In the piazza at the front, two old men greeted him. He continued without
turning toward the walls that he had traded in for a tiny dump on the outskirts of the city. Three rooms in all, an equal number of pieces of luggage. The same ones that he would bring with him to Milan: two duffel bags and the suitcase with the boxes.

On the evening of his departure he abandoned the rest: shelves full of books and a drawer of Benedictine knick-knacks. With one bag on his back and the other in one hand, he laid the suitcase across the handlebars of the Bianchi and headed to the station. The train was on time. He bought his ticket and made a phone call.

‘I'm coming tonight, Anita. They've hired me. Sorry about the last minute.'

In the notebook where he set down things not to forget, he wrote,
Dr Martini, at around seven tomorrow, then the hospital: risky
. He quickly closed it and went to the telephone on the shelf in the lodge, dialled the only number he knew by heart.

‘Anita, I'm running late.'

He hung up and returned to the flat. One of the bags was on the kitchen table. He dumped out what had been left inside. At the bottom were crosswords and balled-up vests. He threw everything into the wardrobe, empty at the bottom except for two woollen jumpers and some worn shoes, and removed from a hanger the only outfit hanging there, a black suit and white shirt. The jacket had mother-of-pearl buttons and the trousers were cuffless. He kept his good shoes under the bed in a plastic bag. Pulled them out now and rummaged through a dresser drawer. The skinny tie was stuffed against the box of earplugs. He smoothed it between his palms. Dressed hurriedly and wheeled out the Bianchi. As he emerged from the condominium he found a petrol-blue SUV parked up on the pavement.

‘Oh, good evening, Pietro.' Poppi the lawyer was leaning against the vehicle door. A thin man stood beside him. ‘May I introduce you to Dr Riccardo Lisi? Radiographer and a good friend of the Martinis.'