The Dawn of Sin

by Grassetti, Valentino

  Salieri gave a further tear.

  A few more moments, and under his hands he would have felt the vertebrae of his neck shatter, but a sudden roar announced the unleashing of the earth's feral fury.

  Fraction of Poggio, 6:26 p.m.

  The photos of Filippa possessed an undoubted aesthetic charm, with the rays of the sun making the colours of the fields in the foreground shine, the long shadows of the poplars, the flourishing leaves of the beeches that seemed to be moved by the wind. In the background, the column of cars and trucks, now far away, was lost in the dust raised by the wheels of the vehicles in motion. The premonition of the earth had been heard and respected. An ancient awareness,

  rooted in the heart of the valley people, had led two thousand people to leave their homes.

  Manuel was bent over the hood of his car, used at the time as a desk. He was working on the piece to go to press the next day. An article that required a great deal of imagination, given the unusual mutism of the valley dwellers.

  Leo had approached a few farmers, but was unable to gather any interviews. The people on the land, mostly elderly, with faces and hands dug out from the hard life of the fields, paraded silently, without speaking.

  In the glade a warm wind had risen and disrupted the hair of Filippa. The girl took her eye off the viewfinder of the digital camera, her gaze fixed on a row of limes, without seeing them.

  "Did you hear that?" she said to her friends, her ears intent on listening to every little noise.

  Manuel stopped writing and stood with his shoulders up, watching the whole valley with a wide sweep of the cape.

  "Shit, I can hear him!" exclaimed Manuel, dark in the face.

  The wind was carrying with it the distant yelp of a dog.

  "Listen. He is not the only one” exclaimed Filippa, hearing a stubborn bark that went up and down the valley.

  "Let's not be influenced. It may simply be a coincidence and..."

  "Coincidence my ass!" cut Filippa short. "Let's get the fuck out of here right now."

  The three of them jumped on the old Citroen. Manuel turned the key in the patch, the wheels spun on the wet grass in the clearing. They punctured the path that cut through the fields, the same one used by the tracked vehicles used for tillage.

  The dirt road was bumpy, and the two horses were jumping dangerously at every pothole.

  At that moment, all the warning signs ceased to be a warning. The scientific theories, the alertness of nature, the

  deep fear of men, conversed like many rivulets channelled into one crucible.

  The earthquake was preceded by a thunderous roar.

  The rocks of the mountains moved, slamming and crackling. The barks of the trees swayed freeing swarms of birds. The branches crunched and waved like skeletal arms that fumbled to the sky. A row of oaks suddenly tilted to reveal a tangle of roots that came out of the damp soil.

  A few miles away, the waters of the lake vibrated as if someone had thrown a huge punch at the mountain.

  The shock swelled and lowered the earth around the lake, as if it followed the sinuous movement of a huge snake crawling underground. The twenty million cubic meters of water of the artificial basin tilted, slamming on the Piediripe dam with a shock wave higher than that procured by a medium power atomic bomb. The lock, however, could withstand an earthquake of magnitude nine, and did not withstand the pressure of the water.

  The surface of the lake, like a calm, slow wave, turned back and spilled over to the west side, where the second lock was.

  The Valle Memoria dam was less solid, but it held up well to both seismic waves and pressure, which found another formidable bulwark in the embankment.

  The massive mass of water turned back again, flowing all the way east, and thunderously hit the Poggio Muso barrage. It was the weakest sluice: an earthen wall where routine maintenance had long since been suspended. The dam that protected the valley where the Muso River flowed shielded the water pressure.

  The wall held up well to a shock of six point five magnitude.

  But it was not over.

  The monster still had to release all his anger.

  Monastery of Castelmuso, 6:32 p.m.

  The walls of the cell where Guido was imprisoned moved with arrogance. The boy fell to the ground rolling from one point to another in the room. He clung to the wall amidst the deafening noise of slamming glass, the screeching of the walls, the creaking of the beams.

  The walls bent and swayed, giving him the feeling of being locked in a box held by someone who was enjoying bending the corners in a random order. The cracks widened into the ceiling, twisting like the path of lightning. Guido was hit by a massive rain of bricks and rubble, but it didn't hurt him.

  He heard the painter's voice again.

  “You must stop him...”

  The tremors deformed the door jamb, blowing out the hinges.

  The hinge suddenly opened, dangling in a shuffle. Guido staggered out of the room. The tall, sturdy monk was still in the hallway. He seemed to care neither for him nor for the earthquake. He was praying on his knees, his arms outstretched and his gaze turned to the sky, miraculously balanced despite the tremors.

  Guido raced along the corridor, crossing strips of dust falling from the ceiling. The floor swayed without a precise criterion, above his head, the rafters of the ceiling snapped, splitting one by one.

  “You must stop it before she is completely his.“

  Guido felt a stabbing pain in his ribs, as if someone had broken them with a sledgehammer.

  The monster was trying to stop him in every way. The young man was not bleeding and there were no traces of wounds or scars on his body. The pain, though, was real.

  "Daisy!" he screamed angrily.

  Father Romualdo was confined to a corner of the room, absorbed in his prayers, heedless of the two young men in an incestuous embrace.

  The cell where the two brothers lay had not been shaken in the slightest by the earthquake. Outside, the sounds of the apocalypse reached far away and muffled. All was quiet. He had decided that nature's fury should act outside his thalamus.

  The monk opened his arms like a Christ who died on the cross, his face lit by the lightning of a new revelation.

  “Evil is only a detail, when it is the living manifestation of God.”

  Adriano mounted his sister, pressing her soft breasts with his chest. She opened her legs like two petals, sinking her nails into her brother's buttocks, encouraging him to penetrate her.

  "Daisy!"

  "Guido..."

  "Daisy, where are you?" yelled Guido again.

  Daisy's eyes opened wide, as if she had woken from an unwanted sleep. He saw Adriano naked and excited on top of her. Memories of the last few hours appeared and disappeared like ghosts. Daisy saw herself back at home, drunk, high on coke and on pills. She couldn't remember anything else. Just a feeling of fragility, a sense of being manipulated and circled.

  She looked at Adriano once again: his phallus was now pressing frantically on her sex in order to possess her. She felt like she was squeezed between the tentacles of a snake.

  "Stop. What are you doing?" she screamed horrified, pulling her brother away from her.

  A restless tremor cracked Father Romualdo's prayer.

  Concede mihi misericors Deus que tibi placita sunt ardenter concupiscere...

  Guido stopped in front of their room. The glass was slamming against the window, driven by an increasingly evil force. The entire corridor swayed with renewed violence.

  Guido felt a blow to his spine. He grabbed the handle so as not to fall.

  He was trying very hard to keep him away from her.

  Another knock, a scream, and the boy fell to the ground, as if a hammer had broken his knees. Inside the room, Daisy had pushed herself to the far edge of the bed, curled up like a fetus in her mother's womb.

  "Adriano! Come to your senses, please” she cried out in tears, full of anger and shame.

  “Adriano, A
driano, Adriano! I'm not your brother” scream he.

  When Guido broke into the room, the monster released all his anger.

  Lake Montevicino, 6:33 p.m.

  Seventy seconds after the earthquake began, the rocks of the fault fractured along the ridge.

  The seismographs of the National Earthquake Center zigzagged a peak of Magnitude seven point two.

  The Poggio dam vibrated dangerously. A crack widened on the right side of the embankment. The water began to spurt from the cracks that gradually opened along the perimeter of the lock.

  The water mass shifted to the west side, then turned back and fell on the fragile Poggio bastion.

  The embankment collapsed. Millions of cubic metres of water began to pour down the valley.

  The waterfall fell on the gorge where the river flowed. It began to submerge the woods around it, uprooting the trees, dragging the earth, the rocks, overwhelming the wild animals.

  Leo, Manuel and Filippa, inside the car, were tossed around like puppets for the duration of the shock.

  The earthquake lasted ninety-eight seconds before it completely stopped.

  The earth around them had swollen, cracked, the cliffs cleared.

  The earthquake had caught them in the middle of the countryside, as they were walking along a path that cut through the ploughed fields. Luck would have it that the boys found themselves in a large space, free of any danger.

  They were shocked by the violence of that tremor. If they were expecting it, but not of that magnitude.

  "What a fucking hammering" exclaimed Leo, his fists clenched on the steering wheel, gazing out, the face of a survivor of a carpet bombardment.

  Manuel was petrified in the back seat. Filippa, who had blasphemed for the duration of the shock, made an initial analysis of the situation. He reassured his friends by saying that the centre was probably the one predicted by the geologist, where radon peaks had been detected around the lake of Montevicino, several kilometres away from the towns.

  Probably villages like Castelmuso had suffered a lot of damage, but the distance from the epicentre was such that nothing would suggest a real catastrophe.

  Filippa took the digital camera and used the zoom to enlarge the villages around. There was no dust cloak rising from the villages. This was a sign that there were no obvious collapses in the area. She pointed the machine at the hamlet of Poggio.

  A grey cloud had risen and faded into the sky. There the earthquake had struck without a shadow of a doubt. Fortunately, the village had been completely evacuated. Filippa put her sights on the monastery at the foot of the valley. It was still shrouded in a thick blanket of fog.

  Suddenly, the car moved again, but not because of a new shock. The car swayed, propelled by a wind that ran steeply along the ridge, lifting shrubs and tangles of brambles.

  The boys heard a roar, like an airplane breaking the wall of sound.

  Filippa bleached his face. She realized it was an impact wave, as if a huge mass was falling down the valley.

  "The dam. It gave way to the Poggio dam” he exclaimed with blasphemy.

  The natural reservoir where the river flowed was a few miles away. The boys were aware that they were safe, but not completely safe. They saw a waterfall of water and mud fall from the ridge of the mountain, which poured with the roar of thunder into the valley carved like a V, where the winding path of the river flowed.

  They watched to their horror the huge mass of water falling on the hamlet of Poggio.

  The walls of the houses fell as if struck by a forest of cannon shots. A muddy wave overlooked the church bell tower. The bronze bells circled, disappearing into a raging ocean. The village was wiped out in seconds. In its place there was nothing left but a gloomy valley of mud.

  The waterfall continued its course, flooding the fields, overwhelming birch trees, beech trees, olive trees, agricultural sheds, stables, high-tension pylons, and killing hares, martens, badgers, foxes, wild boars.

  The overflowed water reached the plain, spreading like a stormy sea. The muddy waves rolled one over the other, roaring and bubbling, ready to break down their last obstacle.

  Sister Cecilia had forced the boys at the cooperative to move away from the river, as if she had had a premonition. Caterina had to dismantle the picnic table, load all the chairs, leaving the snack in half.

  But the boys didn't protest much. A damp fog had come down, and being outdoors would not be as much fun. Caterina tried to call Guido, but his cell phone kept going straight to voice mail.

  After loading the boys into the van, the girl was determined to enter the monastery to find out what had happened to Guido.

  The shock came at that moment, sudden, but not unexpected. Caterina saw the monastery bend and flex, the dry noise of the bricks screeching and splitting. The convent skidded and creaked. Pieces of travertine fell on the pavement raising clouds of dust.

  But the building was solid and massive, and Catherine was certain it would never collapse.

  The cooperative van parked on the forecourt skidded dangerously. Piero jumped on the wheelchair as if he were in an electric chair. Onofrio grabbed the armrests of the paraplegic's chair, preventing his friend from tipping over on the ground.

  The rest of the boys cried and despaired, but no one was hurt in the end.

  When the shock stopped, Sister Cecilia invited all the boys to join in prayer. There was a deep silence in the van. Everyone thanked the Lord by singing the Lord's Prayer.

  The worst seemed to be over, when they heard the roar of the waters in the distance.

  27

  One kick, two kicks, three kicks. The cell door jumped off its hinges and Guido broke into the room.

  At that moment the earthquake stopped completely.

  Father Romualdo was still praying with his eyes turned to heaven, staring at the Divine beyond the ceiling beams.

  Adriano gave Guido a malignant glance.

  Daisy, at the sight of Guido, burst into tears. She covered herself with a sheet and ran towards him, crouching in his arms like a bird in a nest.

  “So you chose” Adriano bitterly said, putting on his clothes.

  "Stay away from her” exclaimed Guido furiously, feeling no more pain.

  Adriano shook his head. “I can crush you at any time, boy, trust me. But it would be useless. Daisy's feeling for you is an insurmountable obstacle for me too.”

  "Guido, take me away. Please!" she begged him in the sobs.

  Adriano, aware that he no longer had any kind of power over Daisy, spread his arms, pointing with admiration at all the space around him.

  “I have always loved this land, feeding on the essence of everything around me. I have always loved beauty. How could I not choose her best creature?”

  "Who are you?" Guido asked, creeping into what seemed to him to be an open breach in a patently inhuman heart.

  “Who am I? What can I tell you? All these centuries I have been called a monster, a demon, a renegade son of God, an exterminating angel. But naming me doesn't help anyone. It is a problem of you humans to define everything above your comprehension.”

  Adriano drew a sigh and looked at Daisy.

  “I did everything I could to keep her away from you. She represents the perfect essence. That is why she deserved more than a brief existence anchored to a mortal body. I set her free. But it was all for nothing. “

  Daisy lifted her head and watched Guido, her Guido, in tears.

  "I remember. I remember everything. I was burning. I was burning at the stake in the car” she said with a distressed hiccup.

  Guido hugged her hard. He wanted to reassure her. He wanted to make her understand that she was alive and well, and he was there to protect her.

  Adriano, lowering his voice a little, explained: "Releasing you is the only way to give you timeless beauty, Daisy. I hope you understand that.”

  Guido stroked Daisy's hair tenderly. As he moved his thick hair, he noticed a patch on her cheekbone - a small red, pu
rulent spot that was spreading like a scar.

  She laid her gaze on his astonished one. She turned her head to mirror herself in the opaque glass of the window. The

  underside of the glass reflected the image of the old monk, motionless and lost in his prayers.

  On the upper side was her, Daisy, embracing what had been the only love of her life. She looked with a sigh of resignation at the wound on her face. He passed the palm of his hand over her face, touching her wound. She closed her eyes to enjoy every moment of his last caress. On the other side of her face, her skin widened like the film of a film melting in the heat of the fire.

  "Good God, Daisy..." he exclaimed, lost.

  "Guido. My Guido..." she whispered in a whisper, struggling against the forces that were leaving her too quickly. Guido, desperate, could not hold back his anger, and cried out to Adriano, "Do something, damn it!"

  “I have already done a lot”, the boy answered. “Beauty, once enslaved and indulged, subjugates us, only to destroy us irrevocably. After all, she is the beauty, the real demon.”

  Adriano smiled sadly, as if the monster inside him was saying goodbye with sadness.

  “We shall see Daisy again. As always. We shall see each other again when these humans are just dust dispersed by time.”

  Adriano groaned. His hardened features gradually cleared. Their expressionless eyes, as cold as a snake's, faded away, only to be rekindled with warm, human light. He looked around without fully understanding where he was.

  Father Romualdo stopped praying. He took off his hood with his gnarled hands shaking. He wandered looking for something that seemed to have been ripped away from him with force.

  "No. He cannot have abandoned us” he said in astonishment.