The Mountain

by Massimo Donati

  He’d done it. They’d done it together. Now he’d be able to jump off alone. He was no longer afraid. They hugged, laughing.

  ‘You know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hadn’t ever done it before, with another person.’

  Roberto, suddenly serious, looked at him, and then laughed.

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  Later on, when they’d finished doing jumps, they sat down alongside each other with their backs leaning against the pole to which the cable was attached. Roberto felt calm. There was a sense of freedom and of peace in the mid-morning air. Mattia pulled out a packet of cigarettes.

  ‘To celebrate.’

  He handed the packet to Roberto. ‘I stole them from my father’s stash. He’s so disorganised, he’ll never notice.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Of course. You ever tried it?’

  ‘Yeah, at school. But I don’t like it that much.’

  ‘Neither do I, really.’

  ‘So what’s the point?’

  ‘I wanted to have a vomiting competition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That guy from Rovereto reckons that if you smoke five in a row you vomit. Guaranteed. So I wanted to try.’

  ‘I don’t think anything happens. When she’s nervous, my nonna smokes way more than five, and I’ve never seen her vomit.’

  ‘Exactly five. It’s scientifically proven. You want to bet?’

  ‘If it matters that much to you…’

  Mattia took out five cigarettes for himself and five for his friend. They began smoking the cigarettes. The first did little. By the second one Roberto was starting to feel strange and a bit confused. By the third, his head began to spin.

  They took in great lungfuls, to get through them faster.

  ‘Cigarettes are disgusting.’

  They laughed.

  Suddenly Mattia, still holding his fourth cigarette, turned serious, so Roberto asked, ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I think my father’s disgusting.’

  Roberto took a drag on his cigarette.

  ‘He’s a bastard. I don’t give a shit what he does, but then my mother ends up crying all night when he doesn’t come home.’

  Mattia put a cigarette to his lips. There was rage in his eyes now. A cold, deep-seated rage that had settled long before and was now ready to explode.

  ‘I hate him. As soon as I’m grown up I’m going to kill him. I might even find a way to do it sometime soon.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’

  Roberto said this in complete earnest. Mattia nodded. Whatever he might do, whatever situation he might leap into, Roberto would follow him. This was a decision taken long ago. They shook hands as firmly as they could.

  ‘I swear,’ Roberto said.

  Then Mattia stood up. He had just lit the fifth cigarette when the retching began. He moved a few metres away.

  ‘The fifth one. Scientifically proven.’

  Roberto laughed. Then he became serious. His own fifth was still unlit in his hand. He lit it.

  ‘I’m mad at my parents too. They say they love me, but then they treat me like a child. They don’t get that I’ve changed.’

  Now Mattia was the one quietly listening. Roberto inhaled deeply. He couldn’t feel any vomiting coming on. He wanted it, just as he wanted to feel the same vengeful rage as his friend. Even though with his own parents it was different.

  ‘They told me they’re leaving me up here so as not to ruin my holidays, since it means so much to me, but the truth is they don’t want me underfoot. And because I’m a dumb kid they don’t want me to see how horrible dying is, and they don’t want me at the funeral.’

  He smoked the cigarette right down to the filter. Then he put it out. His head had become heavy and his eyes inflamed. Now it was easier to spit everything out.

  ‘And my mother doesn’t realise that thanks to her I’m going to lose my grandfather. Forever. I won’t even get to say goodbye to him at the funeral. I wanted to be there, to see what it’s like when somebody dies. To see if you feel something.’

  The retching had begun. Holding it back instinctively had not been wise. He stood up slowly, one step at a time, but once he was on his feet he rushed behind the pole, alongside Mattia. For a few minutes he threw up everything that was inside him. As he was vomiting he was laughing, because he could hear Mattia laughing on the other side of the pole.

  ‘It’s scientifically proven.’

  When he moved around to the other side, Mattia had become serious once more. He was thinking.

  ‘We’ll hold our own funeral. Tonight.’

  19

  The candles stuck to the skin of his back were annoying him like hell. They were freezing cold. Tucked under the elastic of his underpants, they were like icicles, perhaps because the inside of the tiny church—little more than a cupboard—was always dark and damp. Mattia had sent him to get them, saying you couldn’t not have candles at a funeral. Mattia thought he should steal them—it wasn’t as though anybody would see him—but he didn’t feel like it. So he took some money from the emergency wallet his grandmother had left, and as he took the candles he put the coins in the donation box. Eight hundred lire for four candles.

  Just before coming into the hotel he’d slid them under his T-shirt, but around the back, so he wouldn’t be discovered, and as he was entering Rosa stopped him. She never did this, and yet that one time she felt like hearing about his day with Mattia, if he was having a nice time and so forth. Roberto replied briskly, one hand behind his back the whole time for fear the candles would fall. He felt like laughing when he thought about them.

  ‘Is your back hurting, Roberto?’

  ‘A little. I probably spent too much of the day sitting around.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to go for a nice long walk tomorrow, then it’ll pass. You’ll see.’

  Roberto said goodbye to Rosa and scurried off to his room. They had already gathered the required items on the bed. Blankets from the wardrobe, a bible, a little comic book with monsters, electric torches, a black cardboard box. Mattia had coloured it black using his brother’s marker pens but it hadn’t come out very well; in places the ink didn’t cover the box properly, so Roberto finished colouring it. It was nearly dinnertime.

  Later, after he’d eaten, he went up to his room to wait for the appointed hour. He stretched out on the bed but found he was getting sleepy, so he decided to sit up with the window open.

  When the hotel was quite silent, at the time he’d agreed with Mattia, he left by the back door and reached the part of the road at the bottom of the grassy plain, where the fork that led to the woods was. He was carrying the two backpacks he had prepared.

  Mattia should have been there already. Roberto waited by the road for a few minutes, then sat down on a tree trunk hidden in the shadow of the trees. He didn’t want to be seen. He didn’t want problems. He continued looking in the direction from which Mattia was supposed to appear, all the while cursing the idea of the funeral and his friend, who still hadn’t turned up.

  But then the delay became so unbearable that Roberto began to have serious doubts. Maybe they’d caught him and stopped him leaving the house. And now he wouldn’t be able to come.

  His sleepiness increased, and he felt the cold of the woods more and more. He stood and began walking slowly along the road because he hadn’t yet resolved to give up.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  He turned towards the field. Out of the darkness, Mattia was emerging, walking through the high grass.

  ‘Christ, where were you going?’

  ‘I’ve been here an hour!’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not my fault.’ Mattia was becoming agitated, yet couldn’t speak. ‘My brother.’

  Angrily, he grabbed the second backpack.

  ‘The idiot started to kick up a fuss when I got up to leave. So then my mother woke up and I had to go back to bed and pretend to be sleeping until the idiot
and my mother went back to sleep. Luckily my father was out.’

  They started walking.

  ‘When he’s like that…’

  They went deeper into the woods. They were in almost complete darkness, but as they made their way downhill the trees became less dense and the moonlight allowed them to make out the path. They didn’t even really need the torches, but were able to move faster with them on.

  They got there quickly. The thundering of the stream seemed louder this time.

  In the encompassing dark it was scary walking on the waterside pebbles. Mattia held a torch and led the way, creating a small island of light in front of him into which Roberto slid with his own light. At first he couldn’t keep up with Mattia and had to yell out over the roar of the water for him to wait.

  When they reached the bus they looked around to check that everything was quiet.

  ‘What if an animal has made its den here?’

  ‘We’ll ask it if we can stay.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Relax, there’s no one here. I’ve been here at night before and…’

  ‘Yeah, right, like jumping off the cableway together. I’m not going to be fooled again.’

  They laughed.

  ‘There’s nobody here. I’ll go in first and if everything’s all right I’ll call you.’

  ‘Okay, that’s good. You go.’

  ‘I’m going…you hero.’

  Mattia entered, shining the torch over each row of seats as he passed.

  He stopped halfway. ‘You can come in. There’s nobody here.’

  Roberto joined him. ‘All right. Where do we start?’

  ‘With the coffin.’

  They took the box they had coloured black, and Mattia drew a white cross on the lid with a piece of dry soap he had taken from the hotel. Then they took out the blankets and put them on. They felt warmer, and the effect was a bit more ceremonial.

  They lit the candles and turned off their torches. Mattia took out a bible. He also pulled out a comic book about vampires and monsters.

  ‘In the name of the father, the son…’

  ‘Did you mark the bit you have to read?’

  ‘Yes, I got my grandmother to find it for me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Mattia read the text from the funeral mass. Praying wasn’t much fun, and it made them sleepy, so he skipped several bits until he got to the main part.

  ‘Now you can say something in memory of your grandfather.’

  ‘I only ever saw him, maybe, three times. What can I say in memory of him?’

  ‘Whatever you like. Make something up, or just say whatever you want.’

  Roberto thought about this in silence.

  ‘In memory of my grandfather, I’m going to say what I got and what I didn’t get.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘What I got: a Mattel race-car track, the best one ever. Chocolate bunnies. Big Jim—Warpath. With the hut.’

  ‘You got the hut?’

  ‘Yeah, and the canoe.’

  Mattia looked at him with admiration. Roberto became serious.

  ‘But above all I got love from someone just because I exist, because I’m my mother’s son. It didn’t matter if I was good or naughty, kind or mean. I don’t know if it’s right but it’s a fact.’

  A breath of wind moved the candles and the boys instantly looked around as though they might spot someone.

  ‘What I never got: I’ve never gone to the park or anywhere else with Nonno Giulio. I’ll never know if I like him or not. I’ll never know what you’re supposed to say or not supposed to say to this grandfather, and because my parents didn’t let me go back, I’ll never even get to see his body and know what it feels like to look at your dead grandfather.’

  Roberto thought he’d finished, but Mattia pulled up his blanket, picked up the comic book, re-lit a candle that had gone out and went on: ‘Now we come to the mystical part.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This comic book describes the part of the mass that’s necessary to save a dying person.’

  ‘Mattia, I don’t know if I like this.’

  ‘If you like we can stop here. But you won’t be able to say you did everything you could for your grandfather.’

  Roberto looked doubtful.

  ‘Let’s try it.’

  Mattia began reading some magic formulas from the book. They had to be repeated by each of them. Roberto was reluctant, but he did it.

  ‘Would you save your grandfather if you could?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘These formulas allow you to change fate. You can save your grandfather. But there’s a price to pay. Are you willing to pay it?’

  ‘What price?’

  ‘Death requires a tribute. Are you willing to exchange someone else’s life for your grandfather’s?’

  Roberto frowned.

  ‘That’s bullshit. You can’t do things like that.’

  ‘Maybe not. But just say you could. Would you exchange the life of someone, someone you don’t like, or who’s just a drag, for your grandfather’s?’

  Roberto closed his eyes and thought about it at length. Eventually he reopened them, and gave Mattia an uncompromising look, as though the exchange were really possible.

  ‘Yes, I’d do it.’

  Mattia read out another formula.

  ‘Good. If you thought of someone in particular, the exchange will take place. Amen.’

  Mattia repeated a formula over and over with his eyes closed. Then he sat in silence for what seemed to Roberto a very long time.

  ‘This kind of thing freaks me out, Mattia. Let’s go now.’

  Mattia reopened his eyes and gave a demonic laugh that was very effective in his hoarse voice.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot or I’ll get really scared.’

  Mattia remained silent. Then he laughed in his usual kid’s way.

  ‘I was joking. It’s all pretend.’

  Another gust of air moved the candles, almost blowing them out. In that very moment a shadow moved at the far end of the bus. There was something down there and it was moving up towards them. The two boys yelled out, frightened to death.

  ‘Oh! What are you yelling at?’

  Mattia and Roberto yelled out again.

  ‘Cut it out! Do you want a punch in the head?’

  Finally the figure stepped into the weak glow of the candles.

  ‘What are you two doing here? Are you nuts?’

  Standing there, looking even more bewildered than they were, was Aldeno. They calmed down, although the fright still echoed through them.

  ‘What are we doing…here?’ Mattia replied timidly.

  ‘Yes, what are you doing?’

  ‘We’re performing a funeral mass for Roberto’s grandfather.’

  ‘You’re mad. You can leave my bus right now, go back home and tomorrow I’m going to come and talk to your father. And we’ll see if he’s happy about it.’

  ‘Wait—why do you have to go and tell him?’

  ‘I find you at night in a busted-up bus in the middle of a raging stream. And you’re a pair of kids. Why wouldn’t I tell him?’

  ‘And what are you doing here?’

  Aldeno paused a moment. He hadn’t expected this.

  ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘And ours. If you tell on us.’

  Aldeno looked hostile.

  ‘I’m an adult. I go wherever I want.’

  ‘Okay. But I think a lot of people will be wondering what you’re doing in the middle of the night in this bus.’

  Aldeno grunted, disappointed. ‘You are not going to tell anybody.’

  ‘As long as you keep to yourself that you saw us here. Agreed?’

  Mattia approached and held out his hand.

  Aldeno would have liked to crush it, but Mattia saw that coming and quickly pulled his hand away after a brief touch.

  ‘Done. Now we’re leaving.’

  He started to collect his t
hings and Roberto did the same.

  ‘One last thing: this bus is mine. If you look at the entrance, you’ll see we signed our names to mark our territory. I don’t know if you’ll be able to use it again.’

  ‘Look here, Mattia…’ Aldeno began.

  Roberto and Mattia scurried out. Aldeno came after them like he owned the place.

  ‘I want absolute silence about this. I mean for your father’s sake too.’

  Mattia stared at him coldly. ‘We know what not to see, if necessary.’

  With this, Mattia headed off, Roberto right behind.

  Then, when they were a few dozen metres from the bus, they stopped. Waited.

  Somewhat lacking in foresight, Aldeno came out of the bus after a few minutes and went straight to a spot where he’d left something earlier. In the moonlight it was not difficult to make out his movements if you knew where to look, but it was almost impossible to work out what he was doing. They pressed up against the rocks at the water’s edge and drew a little closer. Saw him open the lower luggage compartment and place two bags inside. Then he closed it and returned to the bus.

  ‘Let’s get out of here now.’

  They proceeded for a long stretch without turning on their torches, until they were out of sight of the bus. The return trip was full of speculation about what Aldeno was trafficking, but they spoke little: both of them were becoming drunk with sleepiness.

  We decide that our first attack should be on the largest group of baby-children in the valley. We think about the boys and girls who are like us. We’re doing this partly for them. And to see their reactions, to see if they’re really like us or just look like they are.

  One of us steals a bottle of petrol because he knows how to siphon it out of the truck at the sawmill. It’s not as if they’re going to notice. The petrol is red and it gives us a headache. We keep it in the woods in a plastic bottle. We go to the holiday camp when it’s almost dark—they’re all inside already.

  We wait until it’s completely dark outside and then we throw the petrol on the roots and trunks of the trees that are closest to the buildings. We make sure the petrol really gets on the wood and the ground. We don’t want a big fire, but big enough that it can be seen from the camp. For this reason we only do two trees.

  Then we watch what happens from a distance. The fire looks nice in the dark and through the trees, and it grows quickly.