Battiato's Bandiera Bianca - 'White Flag' - is playing in the background.
She falls asleep while the white flag flutters on the bridge.
She finds herself walking in the sun. Her shadow follows just a step behind her.
She is alone, with only her shadow for company. But then she turns and sees them: the cars speeding by alongside her. She feels a rush of air every time one passes her. She gets closer and closer to a metal rail, and she realises she's feeling slightly afraid.
She carries on walking. Now the cars are still, and there is silence. Suddenly there's no noise.
A closed door.
She stops and stares at it. She looks back for a moment, and realises that her shadow isn't there any more.
It's impossible. She turns round but she still can't see it. And yet the sun is still shining, right above her.
The door. All that's left now is the door. As if the world and all of life were suddenly there behind that door.
She opens it.
She is engulfed by speed, a sudden whirlwind of it, wrapping around her. Blood. Blood everywhere. And those eyes.
Staring eyes that are fixed on her, peering out of the blood.
She gets up suddenly, breathing heavily; on the bridge the white flag has stopped flying. Inside her, everything is red.
A red river. She is trembling, unable to stop it.
She picks up her mobile phone, with its worn cover and the Powerpuff Girls flying above the sky-blue skyscrapers, and she calls him.
He doesn't answer.
'The number you have called is…'
She doesn't want to know for sure that he might have switched his mobile off.
She gets to her feet, opens the fridge and takes out the milk. Milk and chocolate. Milk, the drug of choice for babies. A drug that calms you down, that tastes of pleasant dreams. She drinks her milk and turns off the light.
She stretches out on the sofa - a sad pair of pyjamas. A pair of pyjamas with a soul.
* * *
CHAPTER FOUR
Miew looks out of the window. The reddish evening light washes over everything; it shrouds the city, transforming it and distorting every harmony, while she waits for her owner to return.
Soon she will hear the sound of her footsteps running up the stairs, heavy because of the combat boots she always wears, jumping two steps at a time to get home quicker, the key in the lock and her voice, soft but slightly shrill, saying: 'Come on, don't be in a huff. I had to work late today.'
She looks out. The red is becoming black, and it's as if the city is changing its clothes. Now it is becoming mysterious, but also cruel, like a devastatingly beautiful woman who plays with the affections of a dejected lover.
Via San Felice, narrow and smelling of piss.
A puddle of dried vomit from last weekend, which now seems a long time ago. Graffiti on the wall, shouting a message that no one understands. A cat yawning.
Eva walks quickly, clenching her fists. She glances into the Irish pub. She often used to go there when she was younger.
An old child, that's what she feels like - an old child.
A child who doesn't know anything, yet knows everything about life.
Disillusion - it's a good word, but it hurts. It hurts her deep in her heart.
It's dark now. She had to work late.
She walks quickly, feeling the air on her face. It's cold.
Eva has never had a boyfriend.
She used to try to picture what her first boyfriend would be like, but she was never able to come up with a complete image. There was that game, Gira la moda, when she was a girl, in the Eighties. There was a wheel and you spun it round; you filled in the type of hair you'd like, then the face, the breasts, the legs, and finally the shoes.
She used to create fabulous girls, but the game never worked when she tried to create in her head the ideal boy - someone you'd lose your head over.
And, perhaps out of spite, he had never appeared in real life either.
Fear, lack of interest, who knows.
She has never had a boyfriend. Never kissed a boy.
She was curious, at school, listening to what her friends said. 'He kisses well. His lips are nice - soft and full.' 'Luca's got a huge package. Last night I gave him a blow job.'
Art lessons were when they shared their secrets.
'But do you lick him, or just move your mouth up and down?' It was as if they were writing a guide to the perfect blow job.
But she hadn't even understood properly how you did it, a blow job. The half phrases she overheard did more harm than good.
The result: it made her sick to her stomach to think about having to lick and suck that 'thing', a thing that then spat out some sort of sour-tasting stuff. But the stories about how it was like gagging on chewing gum always drew a crowd.
By the end of her fifth year, and after all those sessions in the art room, she had realised that giving blow jobs was too dangerous a skill, requiring too much practice for a girl like her.
She walks quickly.
She thinks about Miew.
* * *
CHAPTER FIVE
Absent-mindedly, Marconi passes through the waiting room and notices yet again the girl with red hair and blue eyes - such a pale, piercing blue.
He's sure he has seen her at least twice already in the last few days.
He wants to ask her if she needs any help, but Tommasi calls him over to talk about that case of the boy without a residence permit, who they'd arrested the week before during an attempted robbery in a bar in Strada Maggiore.
'I'm coming,' he mutters to himself, while he gives her a last look.
She drags her gaze away from the window and looks at him for a moment.
She reminds him a lot of his first girlfriend, who was beautiful but always sad. At school she'd kept to herself, perhaps because of her hair, or possibly because of the freckles sprinkled across her oval face. He had never understood why she was sad, nor did that matter to him. It didn't matter because he liked her, and one day he had waited for her and, instead of running home with the other boys, he had walked with her as far as the police barracks.
Even just talking about her father struck fear into him. The man was a warrant officer.
An officer. Just a single word that spoke volumes to him.
They hadn't spoken at all on the way home, then, looking at his feet, he had asked her: 'Do you want to be my girlfriend?'
'Yes.'
Just the one word, accompanied by a smile.
The next day neither of them approached the other because they were too shy, and the great love of their fourth form ended before it began. At the end of the school year she moved with her parents to Milan, and he had been left with a heaviness, a bad feeling, like a feeling of failure, a sense of emptiness.
'So, how are we doing?'
'We can't get out of it,' Tommasi replied. 'The Moroccan consulate says he's Tunisian. The Tunisian consulate says he's definitely Moroccan. It's always the same. Another guest for the detention centre.'
'By the way, what was up with Morini this morning?'
'I think his wife doesn't give him any. But have you seen her? Such a nice piece of skirt for such a -'
'OK, Tommasi, stop thinking about Morini's wife. They found the documents of that woman who came in last week, the one who had her bag snatched at the market. She hasn't answered the phone for two days, so get the car keys and we'll go and check that everything's OK with her.'
Tommasi isn't very tall. He has black eyebrows that meet in the middle, a fleshy mouth, small ears.
He picks up the identity card. 'What do you expect? She's eighty, so she's probably a bit hard of hearing.'
'Well, it means that we'll be doing a good deed, doesn't it? Every now and then it doesn't do any harm.'
'Of course, Inspector.'
In the waiting room, the seat by the window is now empty. For a moment Marconi thinks she was just a dream.
; * * *
CHAPTER SIX
But do you love me?
Marco is in front of the mirror looking at himself, his chest damp from the aftershave just applied. He has a bit of a belly - the result of a few too many beers - but she finds it sexy.
But do you love me with just a tiny bit of the sort of love you see in films? Viola looks down.
He closes the bottle of aftershave that smells of musk and picks up his comb. He runs it through his thick black hair, which is still wet. He watches his reflection in the mirror. The mirror image of himself. He loves himself.
Do you love me at least a bit, even just a small amount compared with how much I love you? Yes, because I love you. I love you, and unlike all those who say they don't know what love means, I do know. I know what it means to love someone.
I know that it means doing things even if you don't want to, even if they're not really you. Just because the person you love likes them.
I know that it makes you breathless.
Air. There's no air when you're not here, and I'm always afraid that you won't come back to me and then I start crying. I cry if I think that you'll leave me one day, and clearly this means that I love you, and then when I hear your voice I tremble a bit and then… And then I wish you wouldn't go out again tonight, but if you really want to I'll hardly say a word - just the mildest objection - and then I'll let you do what you want, as always.
Because I love you.
And you, do you love me?
He turns and grabs the white shirt that he's left in the bathroom. He slips it on with an expansive movement of his arms; for an instant he looks like he's swimming.
He fastens the bottom button, then the next two up. He leaves the rest undone. His chest is waxed, smooth as an eel. He never takes his eyes from the mirror as he gets ready.
When he's finished, he raises his eyebrows and gives a smile that Viola can clearly see. It's a ghost of a smile but it says so much, not least that he's going out again tonight.
He turns suddenly and heads towards the semi- darkness of the corridor. 'But what the fuck are you doing there, in the dark? God, you nearly gave me a heart attack.'
'I was coming to call you. There's a good film about to start.'
'What are you on about? I'm going out, I told you.' 'But…'
'No buts, sweetie.'
* * *
CHAPTER SEVEN
The chopping board sits on the work surface between the fridge and the sink. She remembers that it has always been there. There is the table linen with the blue cockerel and the crocheted edge, the piece of decorative ironwork - a local tradition - hanging on the wall, and next to it a small image of Saint Anthony, the patron saint of animals.
It's a kitchen typical of the Romagna region, like the Sangiovese wine made from grapes grown by Marietto, the farmer who lives at the end of the road - where they've now widened Via San Vitale. Marietto, brandishing his hoe, is always swearing at the cars as they go past, and at politicians, and at the government.
At the dining table, the questions are always the same. 'You are eating properly, aren't you?' asks her mother. 'You look thinner.'
'Have you met any trendy people yet? Do you go out a lot in the evening?' asks her thirteen-year-old sister, apparently without needing to pause for breath.
Eva has learned to lie, and is very good at it, keeping her answers vague so that there's no risk of forgetting the details.
'Yes, I've met lots of nice people. There's one girl I go and see a film with every Tuesday evening. And they've finally given me more responsibility at work - I'm helping out on an advertising campaign they're creating soon for a new shopping centre in San Lazzaro.'
The television is on, providing the background noise to their chatting.
Time passes between the pasta (lasagne or cappelletti), the roast chicken or cold cuts and bread, and finally the coffee. Then it's time for a quick game of cards while they digest their meal and each of them gets a chance to show off. They play in pairs, the two sisters against their parents. They exchange coded looks and signals to distract their opponents and mislead them. The old trick of looking unhappy when you have a good hand almost always works. The first to get to seven is the winner, no objections allowed. When her father loses he gets angry, and sometimes some colourful phrases in local dialect slip out. He gets up and goes into his study to get himself a shot of grappa.
'Bye. I'll be back on Sunday evening.' Eva strokes Ken, the guard dog, or rather the dog that used to be their guard dog. He's got seven scars - and a half - and his ear was almost ripped off by the neighbour's cat. It was definitely the cat, even if Paolino doesn't agree. He insists that Tibia couldn't have had anything to do with it, that his cat is well behaved.
Eva knows the way home by heart: for a year and a half she's been going backwards and forwards between Bologna and Ravenna, to spend the odd evening or a Sunday with her parents.
Before she began living with Miew, she used to sleep in her old room on Saturday nights, so she could spend the whole weekend with her family.
By the sea.
It's the sea that she misses most. The sea in winter, but in autumn as well, and in spring.
Not summer, though. She doesn't miss the sea in summer, because of the tourists. She never likes going down to the sea in the summer. It's too busy, with too many deckchairs.
How many Sunday mornings has she spent walking along the shoreline, even when it's raining or there's that wind that makes you feel restless - caressing your hair and making it stiff because of the salt, and then you've no choice but to wash it.
She used to wake up early, call her sister with the promise of a plate of fried fish and a glass of white wine at the canal port, and then she'd head down to the empty beach, the one between Ravenna and Punta Marina.
She would walk along, bending down to pick up shells. She looked particularly for those cone-shaped shells you hardly ever find in one piece, but when you do they bring good luck.
The sea makes her think about her life. But not too seriously - thoughts empty out of her head and she doesn't look too deeply inside herself.
Eva just lives, nothing more. She doesn't ever ask herself whether she's actually happy. And after all, what is happiness?
Since she's had Miew, everything has changed. It was inevitable that she would lose something when such a special new friend arrived. When something really beautiful happens, you always need to establish a new balance. The proportion of good and bad always has to stay the same, Eva reckons. She has always thought that.
'God, I need to pee. I can't wait any longer,' she says aloud, interrupting the flow of her own thoughts. She slows down to look for a lay-by where she can stop.
I don't understand why they design them like this. It's gross.
She switches on her indicators even though there's not a soul around. She then gets out of the cocoon of her car.
Brrr, it's cold.
The steaming pee on the icy tarmac creates a little cloud of hissing fog. She likes to watch herself while she pees. She smiles.
The headlights of a car that seems to be slowing down. Two round eyes of white light shine on her as she hurries to shake off the last drop, so she can pull up her trousers. Fuck. Someone would turn up right now. So much for privacy, she thinks while she walks faster to get back in her car.
The yellow eyes go dark. Silence surrounds her. That silence that you only hear at night.
By day, silence is noisier.
She pulls the car door open, her thoughts already elsewhere, but then something stops her violently: a shadow by her side, a shadow that frightens her, the shadow of a short, thin man, with a moustache. He is staring at her.
With a look that she's never seen before.
Time stops for a moment; she doesn't move - or understand. She just feels an overwhelming terror that probes into her flesh and brings a lump to her throat.
He pushes her hard, making her fall back against the passenger seat, so the
gear stick presses against her spine. He doesn't give her time to get up again. In a second he is on top of her, pinning down her hands, brushing her face with a moustache that smells of tobacco while he tells her to stay still or he'll hurt her.
She shouts, but makes no sound. She feels wetness because of the tears streaming down her face.
The man slaps her, making a noise that reverberates in the silence and surprises her.
'Shut up, bitch. Don't make a sound. Stop that!' he says angrily, his eyes wild, his mouth drooling. Then he lets go of her with his left hand so he can undo his trousers.
Obscene words are muttered through clenched teeth while he fondles her breasts, hurting her.
'No!'
'Shut up, bitch. I know you want it. You're all the same - you play hard to get but really you like it. Come on, take me in your mouth! Do it! Do what I tell you!'
He holds her down. He's astride her and he tries to put himself in her mouth, while she turns her face from side to side, one arm held down above her head.
He lets go of her again. Another slap. Nastier, harder, this time.
A moment's pause.
To die.
Or to live.
She's like a wounded deer. She reaches for the rock she keeps in the tray at the bottom of the gear stick. It's blue, smooth and shiny, in the shape of an egg. It is her good luck charm, a souvenir from a trip to Sardinia with her family.
She clutches it tight. It's like an artificial hand, an extension made of hard stone. She lifts it up, strikes him.
Just one blow, and he falls backwards. He slumps against the car door, his mouth hanging half open.
His prick, still hard, looks up at her, surprised.
His body slides down into a puddle.
Eva watches him fall and doesn't move.
The good luck charm is in her hand. It's still her hand, but now it's covered in blood.
* * *
CHAPTER EIGHT
'Why don't you open it.'
The Girl with the Crystal Eyes Page 2
