The Garden of Monsters

by Lorenza Pieri

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep.”

  “A lot of newspapers just print lies, you ought to know that.”

  In the meantime, they had arrived in front of a big gate, which opened onto a long allée of cypresses. “Give my greetings to your father,” the tall guy said.

  “And give mine to yours,” said Saverio, as a kind of joke.

  The other replied, “I don’t even know when I’ll see him.”

  The dog had gone on in and had started running toward the house. The tall guy took two steps, then suddenly turned around.

  “Do you have a dog?”

  “Yes, a mutt called Tiburzi, I have no problem telling you his name.”

  “Do you take him out with you?”

  “Usually he takes himself out, but sometimes he comes with me.”

  “And when you both return home, whom does your father greet first, you or the dog?”

  “Neither of us.”

  The tall man smiled. He had a very sad expression. “We have much more in common than you might think.”

  “I assure you, all the same, that there is very, very little. Surely less than I would like,” Saverio said, laughing.

  “Don’t believe it. Have a good afternoon, thanks for the company, and above all for your quick reflexes. If you’ll allow me to make a recommendation: I would advise you to drive a little more slowly on these roads,” he said, closing the gate in front of him.

  Saverio turned around quickly, extremely agitated. He had dodged a tragedy, he had lost an opportunity to keep his mouth shut, and he had taken a walk that he would remember for the rest of his life. Especially many years later, on the day when, on the television news, he would recognize the tall man with the sad expression, who had thrown himself off an overpass on the Torino–Savona expressway.

  But now his concern was the car—to pick up the supermini as soon as possible and find the money to repair it. The heat was atrocious, the cicadas were chirring nonstop. The stubble of burnt hay and the smell of smoke all around him increased the sensation of being inside an oven. Saverio was heading back to the car at a quick pace, now drenched in sweat. He swore under his breath when his sister pulled up alongside him on her moped.

  “What are you doing here, Savè?”

  “What are you doing here, more like it? Shouldn’t you be at work at this hour?”

  “I’ve got the night shift today. But what in hell are you doing on foot, all sweaty? Maremma—what a bump, have you seen your forehead?

  Saverio touched it. “Shut up, go away, I nearly ran over a big shot who was here. Give me a lift to the bar, I need a drink.”

  Annamaria managed to get the moped going, with a bit of skidding because of her brother’s weight, which almost made them fall off. “Well done, two near accidents in one hour, that must be a record. I deserve two drinks.”

  Annamaria put the kickstand down in front of the bar, on the big curve, where the old men playing cards looked them over without saying hello.

  Saverio ordered a beer and Annamaria a Coke. While she stuck in a straw, she asked her brother, “Will you tell me what happened?”

  He began as if he were in a trance, with no preamble, without taking a breath, the same way he usually talked to her, taking it for granted that his sister could immediately enter his train of thought when it was already in motion.

  “What an asshole, I saved his life, but did he offer to give me a single lira, much less a Fiat, in thanks, or even a glass of water, when it’s so hot out? It wasn’t appropriate to let me in, it wasn’t appropriate to tell me the name of his dog—you know, for some people, privacy is sacred. You’d think I was going to kidnap him and then ask for ransom for his shitty dog, which was made to pull a sled on the ice, and you bring him out to walk in the dust when it’s a hundred degrees out? Do you think that just because you belong to the richest and most powerful family in Italy that everyone wants to get something from you, to blackmail you, to ask you for money? Fuck, if I wanted I could even press charges: it’s your fault that my car is now a heap of metal, you were standing in the middle of the road, in the middle! And I, to avoid hitting you, got into a crash, stinking Maremma! And really, who do they think they are? They’re horrible people, too, just like us. There’s no such thing as generosity, even men who could afford to act justly do not. Then, there’s the way they treat us, as if they aren’t even the same species, with that tender pity, in a way that always makes you feel like you’re in the wrong.

  Saverio continued, mimicking: “If I were you, I would not permit myself;” “Let us address each other formally . . .” Like spending time with them is the greatest thing you could ask from life; a concession, an honor, like the Sanfilippis do with Babbo, acting all the time like they expect to be thanked for being served by him, by Mamma, by you. What a privilege to be permitted to clean up your filth, truly. They’re terrible to us, but also to each other, I think. What good is it to be taught, to be educated and to have money, if in the end you’re worse than the rednecks? If you’re incapable of loving anyone, if you cheat on your wife, screw over your business partner, your brother, exploit the workers, greet your dog before your son. They’re just like us.”

  “What do you mean, Saverio? I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

  He continued without paying her any heed. “What do you have to do to become a better person? I certainly don’t know who to look to as a role model, and now it’s probably too late. I’m a piece of shit. Not that it matters if I say so myself, but there it is. Even poor Tamara, I’ll have to marry her sooner or later. And if Babbo and Mamma love you more, maybe one reason is that you’re nicer, you’re more helpful. But I’m a man, it’s not my fault, nobody teaches us men what to do to be liked. And then, we can’t ever be accommodating. If we’re accommodating, in the end, nobody will let us fuck them.”

  “Well, of course, that’s always the sole objective.”

  “Anyway, that guy’s also pathetic, I felt a little sorry for him. Then again, what’s the point of that pity, he’s loaded with dough, with villas, cars, vacations, and freedom, he can do whatever the fuck he wants in life, I mean, who could be luckier than him. But still, I don’t know. He had this sadness in his eyes. And that thing he said, about how his father didn’t love him, you know. Don’t worry about it, it’s enough that he gives you money. You’re guaranteed to find some nice girl who loves you to death, you’re so good-looking.”

  “Oh my god, you ran over Edoardo Agnelli?”

  “No, no, well . . . sort of. I’m not totally sure, I think it was him. But who knows. He walked onto their estate. Anyway, it’s a good thing I didn’t kill him, with all his curls. It could have been worse, a lot, lot worse. We’re lucky, the two of us. Tonight I’ll light a candle to Our Lady of Providence, then I’ll go to the hunters’ bar and get drunk. Given my bad luck, driving by at the wrong time, I don’t half deserve it, I’m goddamned lucky.”

  “Savè, you’re losing your mind. You’re talking about people you don’t know anything about. You’re doing crazy things, driving like a lunatic, and you’re too quick to put the blame on everyone else. And if you don’t stop going so fast, one of these days you really are going to get into trouble. I’m leaving now. And besides, I wish there were more high-class people like them around here.”

  “Before you go, kid, tell me what you were doing here at this time of day?”

  “I went to see Giovanna. She shows me the Garden and tells me about what they’re doing, she’s nice to me.”

  Saverio kept sweating and wiping his face and neck with the bandanna. Up until that moment he’d had a wild look. Annamaria knew this was how he normally looked, that her brother often could be mistaken for a coke fiend, when really, he’d always just been a moody guy, tense, hyper, and irritable. Suddenly his expression changed—it seemed to her that he finally was registering her presence.


  “Hang on a second. Does Mamma know that you go there?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you tell her?”

  “Because she wouldn’t take it well. But I’m not doing any harm.”

  “If you’re not doing any harm, why wouldn’t she take it well?”

  “Savè, my god, don’t play dumb, everything that has to do with Aunt Adriana and Giovanna and all of that bothers Mamma, but that’s ancient history, and it has nothing to do with us. Giovanna is incredibly nice to me, and I like what they’re doing there at the Garden. Every time I go there, I feel like I’m not in the real world anymore, like I’m Alice in Wonderland.”

  “Watch out, kid, you don’t know what they’re smoking in there. Who knows what’s going on. I can see the effects. You shouldn’t go there anymore. I’m older than you, and I know Giovanna and her friends. They’re weirdos, they’re communists, drifters, and some of them are fags as well. And Giovanna doesn’t seem all there to me, either. She goes out with that guy Rossano, who’s insane.”

  Annamaria wanted to turn the table over on him. Her brother was so dense, so narrow-minded. Full of snap judgments, closed in by the walls of the village.

  “Savè, let me put you straight. It just so happens that smoking is forbidden in the the Garden because the artist has respiratory problems. And besides, I’ll go where I want.”

  “Even if I tell Mamma?”

  “Even if I tell Tamara?”

  “And what would you have to say to Tamara?”

  “Everything I know about you.”

  “And what do you know?”

  “A lot of things that Tamara would not want to hear.”

  “Come on, be nice and keep your mouth shut.”

  “Well, you too.”

  Saverio shrugged his beefy shoulders. His T-shirt did not have one dry inch on it. The cicadas continued droning in the motionless air.

  The old people at the other table swore half-heartedly behind their menus without much energy.

  “It’s good for brothers and sisters to get along. To look after each other, right? Drive slow and don’t act like an idiot. You pay for my Coke.”

  “If you like. You’re the one with the job.”

  “What are you, a man, or a fag?”

  She put on her helmet and gave him the finger. He smiled at her with the despairing air of someone who has no comeback.

  As she drove to the Seaside Cowboy, Annamaria watched the road. She went more slowly than usual, feeling strange and uneasy at higher speeds. In the space of a few hours, everything that had happened to her had to do with driving too fast, and the coincidence had spooked her, it felt like a bad omen. A little before she had bumped into Saverio, Giovanna had told her an anecdote about Niki. She told her that she’d never seen her cry, which seemed very strange to her, for a person with Niki’s sorrows and sensitivity. Once, she’d had the courage to ask her why that was, given that there often were weeping women in her illustrations, their tears drawn one by one, like pearls, dropping from their eyes onto their faces, turning into necklaces. Niki told her that she’d learned how not to cry when she was little, that even when faced with the harshest and most painful punishments (her mother hit her with the back of a hairbrush; her father had whipped her one time, after catching her smoking in secret) she’d kept everything inside, she didn’t ever want to show that she was upset. Still, she regretted this very much, because she was holding back tears that were liberating, which had the power to cleanse the soul. She was convinced that the tears she suppressed had hardened into rocks inside her and were the source of her asthma. She could only cry when she watched romantic movies, and whenever she watched a movie, she nearly always hoped things would turn out badly so she could cry freely. She told Giovanna that she knew women’s tears were a great weapon, especially against men, but that she was so incapable of using them that once, hoping to convince Tinguely to drive more slowly because she was terrified by his speeding, she’d brought an onion into the car to try to persuade him with tears, but he’d figured out the trick at once and made fun of her, without slowing down.

  Giovanna added, “But now she drives like a maniac herself. When we drive to town together to go shopping, I have to hold onto the dashboard and beg her to slow down. I invent spots on the Aurelia where the police are hiding to make her afraid of getting speeding tickets, but it has no effect, she seems to be unable to drive unless she’s going fast, as if she were in an airplane that would fall to earth if it slowed down. It must be an artist’s thing. Either top speed or stock still; a life of adrenaline, or death.”

  Giovanna was talking, smiling, and putting things in order without ever stopping, as if she too had this mania in her blood. Annamaria watched her go about her activities in the Garden, tidying the interior of the Sphinx as if it was an ordinary house, washing glasses, putting them away in the kitchen that had no corners; sweeping leaves off the mirrored walk. To Annamaria, it all felt practically surreal, the reflection of the sun on the sculptures made the heat feel even more torrid; an odor emanated from the land here that was different from the air she breathed outside. As she headed to the gate to pick up her moped, strange thoughts came to her, setting her head spinning.

  She’d said to Giovanna, “You seem to be in the crater of an active volcano, one that’s filled with flowers.”

  “Is being inside this place turning you into an artist? Today a poet, tomorrow who knows. By all means, go crazy like all of us. Are you sure you want to come back?”

  Annamaria had laughed and said it was just the heat that was making her longwinded. With Saverio, she didn’t say a word about speed, or tell the anecdotes about Niki and Jean, who drove too fast, just like him. But as she drove her moped to the restaurant, she gripped the handlebars firmly and stepped lightly on the gas pedal, paying attention to every crossing; she didn’t even pass the tractor that was ahead of her near the end of the Aurelia. She scanned every foot of the road, and knew that the fear that gripped her wasn’t about getting into an accident, it was something more personal. Perhaps it was the need to keep her balance, not so much to prevent a fall as to remain steady; I am Annamaria, I am cautious and normal; only crazy people go too fast, and I don’t want to be a crazy person.

  She arrived late at the restaurant and told her mother that she’d fallen asleep after lunch, and that her grandfather hadn’t woken her up.

  10. THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

  Wealth. Cycle. Destiny.

  The damage to the car was more serious than Saverio had anticipated. The entire body had to be redone on one side, but the hood was also compromised, and above all, the driveshaft had to be replaced. It wouldn’t cost much less than buying another used car, but Saverio clung to his supermini as if it were his favorite horse. It was his symbol. Also, he liked being able to talk about the incredible accident he’d had.

  He’d told Tamara, “Today on the way to Pescia I almost ran over an Agnelli.”

  She’d replied, “The important thing is that nothing happened to you; lambs like the Agnellis we roast on the spit.”

  He’d laughed and told her everything: “They may be lambs, but it would have been me on the skewer.”

  He didn’t want to ask his dad for money, which meant he had to borrow some from Tamara, and then he asked some people at his gym in Albinia if he could become an instructor. He had no education in physical training, but he’d been one of the gym’s most faithful members for years, and by now he was familiar with all the machines, he had all the workout programs down, and he knew what kind of repetitions, and how many of them, were recommended for building up different muscles. Over the last year, he’d practically become addicted to working out. He went to the gym five times a week, and his body now looked like a true bodybuilder’s. The owner had entered him in a regional competition. He’d trained furiously and gone on a high-protein diet, with a little hormone t
herapy added in. Illegal substances circulated at the gym, passed off as food supplements. Andrea, the owner of MaremmaGym, who was also a bodybuilding pro, had persuaded him. He knew the right time to give them injections to ensure they wouldn’t test positive for hormones in the drug checks. They’d gone in the car to Ponsacco, in the province of Pisa, arriving so early that they’d had to wait an hour for the gym to open. They’d attended all the workout sessions in the competition, watched the other participants’ trials, checked out the size, muscular definition and tension of every bicep, quadricep, abdominal, and deltoid. There were enormous men, and there were women whose biceps were bigger than his. Saverio was almost on the verge of dropping out, but a girl from their gym, Sabrina, was participating just for fun; and also, Andrea told him that that once he’d slathered on dark walnut balm he would look like the others: massive and chiseled, with bulging muscles, perfect. “Savè, don’t worry about it, you might even win.”

  The thing he liked best about the contest was when he and Sabrina were smearing walnut balm on each other. They laughed, their hands brown and oily, spreading the color uniformly across each other’s backs, legs, and butts. When Saverio had reached Sabrina’s glutes, he had lingered for a long time. Then he said into her ear, “You’ve got the most beautiful ass in the world, and I’ve got so much testosterone circulating in my system that I’m not going to make it to the competition, I might explode first.” She’d started laughing and said, “Me too . . .” then had invited him to follow her into the bathroom. They’d fucked hastily, full of tension and excitement, and they’d both come very quickly, even if he suspected that she had pretended, but that didn’t matter much to him. Their outfits had been stained by the dye, so they had to change and apply the walnut balm all over again, this time in a more relaxed way. Sabrina had placed second-to-last in her category, Saverio third. All the same, in the car on the drive back, though Andrea had showered them both with praise, they’d decided they wouldn’t do competitions anymore, that, basically, they’d felt kind of ridiculous. “It’s a meat market,” Saverio had said. “I felt like a side of beef hanging from a butcher’s hook.” And Sabrina, who wasn’t very bright, had added that she’d felt awkward, too; she wasn’t meant for the spotlight. All the same, they’d kept on going to the gym, and fucking in the bathrooms whenever nobody was around. Saverio had gotten a few photos from the competition enlarged that made him look really massive, and had framed one of them, the one that showed off both his front biceps, his arms raised high with bunched fists, one leg forward, his foot turned at an angle to show off his quads. He’d given it to Tamara. In his own room, however, he’d put up the one that showed the crunch, in which he was slightly bent forward, displaying his washboard abs at maximum contraction. He looked handsome in that photo, a smile and sculpted abs, blue eyes, skin bronzed from the tanning bed and further darkened by the balm, with bulging muscles: all things that made him feel confident and irresistible to girls; but which his father’s female friends took in with contemptuous looks that he refused to acknowledge in any way.