The Sense of an Elephant (6 page)

He was already awake. He turned over on his other side and closed his eyes.

‘I dreamt about my son.'

The young priest clutched the sheet, yanked it, then got out of bed and went to the window, cracked it open. The witch was wrapped in a headscarf, numb with cold.

‘Can I come in?'

‘Go home.'

‘So it isn't true that the house of the Lord is always open?'

The young priest descended to the ground floor and went through a side entrance to the church. He did up the last button of his nightshirt and opened the front door.

The witch came toward him.

‘I dreamt of my son. He was playing with your cat.' She laughed. ‘You look good in pyjamas.' She removed her headscarf and let her hair down, took two steps which were one. Arrived at the votive altar and picked up a new candle.

‘Tell the Lord why you killed your son.'

‘It's a secret.'

‘He keeps everyone's secrets.'

The witch lit the candle and reserved the first bit of melting wax for herself, dripping it onto the back of her hand. ‘Because it was the son of my father.' It burned.

The young priest didn't move.

She looked at him.

‘I don't know why I'm telling you all this.'

‘You're telling it to God.'

‘I'm telling it to you.'

The next morning the first to stop by the concierge's lodge was Viola, holding four wrapped pastries and jingling the bracelets at her wrist.

‘Now I'm spoiling you, Pietro,' she said as she entered. ‘
Cornetti alla crema
.'

‘I've already had breakfast, thank you.'

She put the packets down on a wicker chair.

‘Everything all right?'

The concierge held out her post to her and checked a note that he had made in his diary.

‘Nicolini the magician is coming to see the courtyard for the little girl's birthday.'

‘I was going to tell you. Luca has to leave for the hospital soon. He'll talk to you about it when he comes down.'

Viola looked at the Bianchi leaning against the wall behind them. It had been sanded down. Beside it were two open tins of paint, one red and one bottle green. She bent down and picked up a brush, dipped it into the red.

‘I'll just try.'

She painted a bit of the top tube and nodded to herself, painted another bit and blew on it.

‘Now get on.'

Pietro kept his back to her.

‘C'mon, it'll suit you. Get on. Without getting wet paint on yourself.'

The concierge hid his hands in his pockets. The sandpaper had abraded his palms and cut up his thumbs. When he had come down from the roof terrace he had begun to strip the Bianchi, in a fury. The front fork came first and then everything followed. He had stopped when the doctor had returned from the hospital, in the dead of night.

‘It was just to see how you looked on it.'

Pietro hesitated, then climbed on the Bianchi and grasped the handlebars.

Viola smiled, like in the photograph of the lavender field, full of candour and sensuality.

‘It's official: red.' She slipped her post into the pocket of her jeans and rested a hand on his back.

‘And you'll be sorry if you don't let me know when you've finished painting it. We'll have to have a test run.'

‘Test run for what?' A voice came from the entrance hall.

Both of them turned around. Riccardo smiled at the lodge door. He was holding a backpack.

Viola tightened the straps on her shiny high heels, clicked them against each other. Gathered up the pastries, no longer looking at the concierge. ‘I'll go and make coffee.'

The radiographer remained on the threshold. ‘Wait for me. I've got something for Pietro and then I'll come with you.'

She left on her own.

Riccardo moved aside to let her pass and watched her out of the corner of his eye, then came all the way in.

‘The Martinis have invited me to breakfast,' he said in a lowered voice and laid the backpack on the chair. A man of sharp angles, his thinness was belied by the slowness of his
gestures. The tendons on his neck stood out and his eyes were bigger than they ought to have been. They sparkled in a face of rough edges.

Pietro went to the letterboxes, pushed in a letter that was sticking out. He turned.

Riccardo was standing immobile in the middle of the room.

‘I know that you met Lorenzo …' He appeared lost in thought. ‘You know, I did the ultrasound on his mother, an odd woman.' He opened the backpack and drew out a heavy chain as long as his leg. Then a padlock with the key in. ‘Here, for your soon-to-be red Bianchi.'

‘Thank you, but there's no need.'

‘They steal everything in Milan.' Riccardo put down the chain and made to leave. ‘I forgot, you haven't by any chance found a leather bracelet?'

‘I haven't found anything, sorry.'

‘I must have lost it playing football.' He went out.

The concierge waited for him to climb the stairs then went into his flat. Rummaged around in the night-table drawer. Drew out the bracelet he had found in the courtyard and looked closely at the date etched on the back:
14-9-2008
. Closed it in his fist.

When Nicolini the magician arrived, the Bianchi was in several pieces. Pietro had taken it apart and placed the frame on some old newspapers. He saw him enter as he was stirring the red paint in its tin.

‘Why do you need to get a look at the courtyard?'

‘Magic needs its own space.'

He accompanied him into the courtyard and as soon as Nicolini began to stroll about, the second floor began to empty. Viola came down with the little girl. Pietro did not greet her and returned to painting the Bianchi. It was the fifth time in forty years that he had shed its skin and given it a new one, and he had yet to learn how to do it properly. He painted in all directions and failed to remove the excess paint from the bristles. Rivulets ran together and clotted, studding the frame with pustules. He tried to burst them by rubbing a rag along the surface. His hands became spattered and he tossed the brush down. Fernando and his mother and the lawyer appeared immediately after. They greeted him, Poppi with a wink, and went out.

Martini came down with the radiographer when there remained just a tiny bit of painting to finish the Bianchi. As soon as he went to speak with the magician, Riccardo went over to Pietro.

‘Faster. If the colour dries on you, you'll be able to see signs on the frame.'

‘Do you want to do it?'

‘I wouldn't dare.'

The concierge hastily finished the painting then moved newspapers and frame into the courtyard where a shred of sunshine shone. The magician approached him after Martini and the radiographer left.

‘A perfect courtyard for spells.' He mimicked the flick of a wand. ‘I'll be happy to set up the day before. I'll turn you all into toads.'

The concierge accompanied him to the street door. Nicolini made a half bow in farewell and left the building.

That was when Pietro saw Snow White. The woman who had let Dr Martini into the house of the pomegranates. She was standing transfixed in front of the intercom grid.

‘Pardon me …' Snow White came toward him, her raven hair strangled by a red ribbon. ‘Pardon me, does Dr Martini live here?' She was very young and had a foreign accent.

The concierge nodded.

‘So the “Martini” on the intercom is him.' She brushed the hair from her forehead. Her cheeks showed signs of past acne. She continued to twist a lipless mouth, extended a hand to buzz.

‘The doctor isn't home.' Pietro took a step toward her. ‘Can I help you?'

The woman said no and dropped her hand, raised her eyes to the first-floor windows. She tapped the heels of her boots as if shivering, crossed the street and waited on the other side.

Pietro returned inside to the lodge, opened a cupboard and picked out a cloth and the multipurpose cleaner. Went back outside and began to polish the grid of intercom buzzer buttons. Made four passes from top to bottom and meanwhile watched Snow White out of the corner of his eye. After a while she crossed over again.

‘Do you know when the doctor gets back?' She attempted a smile. ‘He's not at the hospital, and it's urgent.'

‘You can leave word with me.'

‘He's not picking up his mobile.'

‘You can leave word with me.'

Snow White turned in a circle.

‘I'll write him a note.'

Pietro told her to follow him, led her inside to the lodge and closed the door. He offered her the back of an advertising flyer and a pen. The woman took a seat at the table. She was even prettier seated, holding one arm as if she had a child in her lap. When she finished writing she folded the sheet of paper four times.

‘It's urgent.' She handed it to the concierge.

He immediately placed it in his pocket. ‘I'll give it to him as soon as he returns.'

‘Thank you.' Snow White left the lodge and continued outside.

Pietro hurried into his flat, peered out of the small window above his bed. The woman was nowhere to be seen. Then he pulled the paper from his pocket, opened and held it under the light, read
Come as soon as you can. It's important. Sofia
.

He held it in his palm as he took the ‘Back soon' sign from the table drawer, planted the suction cup on the lodge window.

He went to look for the doctor.

He found Dr Martini on the ward, talking with two other physicians and consulting a medical file. Pietro made his presence known and waited for him in front of the bulletin board with the crayon drawings, all shapeless scribbles except an aeroplane with two crooked wings in a fiery red sky. It was signed in the corner,
Giulio
, every letter a different colour.

‘He'll be a great pilot.'

Pietro turned around.

The doctor adjusted his coat.

‘Giulio will be a great aerobatic pilot.' He pushed down on the tack holding the drawing. ‘Two visits in two days, Pietro?'

‘There's a message for you, Doctor.' He gave him the note from Snow White. ‘She said it was urgent.'

Martini read it.

‘When was she there?'

‘Forty-five minutes ago.'

The doctor read the note again and appeared distracted, then noticed the gift-wrapped package that the concierge was holding at his side.

‘Is that for Lorenzo?'

‘I saw it in a shop window on my way here.' He came closer. ‘The woman who wrote the note said it was urgent.'

Martini looked at him.

‘Lorenzo will be happy to see you. Come.'

He followed him into the waiting room, which was
deserted. The smell of soup choked the air. Murmurs came from the patients' rooms. Pietro heard a rustling, a cry. They went down a narrow corridor and turned into the second room on the left. Weakly glowing overhead lights illuminated two beds. A young couple watched over the first, where a chubby child sat up on a pillow and played with two figures made out of Plasticine. The young woman said, ‘I'm angry with him because he won't eat anything.' The doctor greeted her and passed on to the other bed, which was unmade and empty. On the wall above the headboard hung a poster of Donald Duck dressed as a pirate. Two wardrobes occupied the far wall.

‘Do you see anyone here, Pietro?'

The concierge shook his head.

‘Our Lorenzo is invisible today. He's doing it in protest because he wants to go to the lake. But I always know where he is …' He approached the left-hand wardrobe and opened it, discovering only clothes. ‘Come on out now, where are you?'

Neither of them had seen Lorenzo watching them from the corner beside the other wardrobe. He blended in with the whiteness of the wall, genuinely invisible, with two fingers in his mouth and his pyjamas askew. Beside him on the night table was a silver-framed picture of him at the beach being hugged by a beautiful woman. Pietro saw the photograph first, then the child. He laid the gift on the bed.

Lorenzo slipped in and curled up under the covers.

‘Did you see what Pietro brought you? Go ahead, open it.' The doctor turned toward the window and reread Snow White's message.

The child hesitated.

Pietro opened the gift, struggling somewhat to tear through the shiny paper with the blue bow as the little boy peeked out in curiosity. The concierge set aside the paper and pulled a rubber elephant from its packaging. It was the height of his palm, with short legs and a kind of carpet on its back. Lorenzo reached out a hand and seized it, plucked the carpet from its back, chewed on one of its feet.

The doctor refolded Snow White's message and stood in a daze before Lorenzo, not seeing him, not seeing either one of them. He awoke suddenly and turned around and began to gather clothes from the wardrobe. Went to the child and kissed him on the forehead, took him in his arms and told Pietro to follow them. They left the room ahead of the concierge, crossed the corridor and entered an empty room. ‘Wait for me in the lobby, Pietro.' The doctor shut himself inside with the child.

The concierge did not have long to wait. Lorenzo emerged from the corridor almost immediately, bundled up in a blue down jacket that reached his knees, the shape of his tiny legs impossible to make out inside his jeans. He had a paper bag in one hand and the rubber elephant in the other.

The doctor took him in his arms and winked at a nurse, said to Pietro to come with them, then exited the ward, continued down the stairs and outside. He led them around the corner of the building. ‘If you feel cold, tell me right away, OK, Loré?'

The child wasn't listening to him. The lake was there. Enormous, surrounded by bamboo as sharp as swords, with lily pads on the surface that made floating flowers. He'd seen
them the summer he came to the hospital for the first time. With the cold weather the frogs stayed hidden, the water snakes too. Lorenzo wanted to get down. Swung the paper bag and swayed as he made his way to the shore. Sat down on a low wall and waited.