*
When the sun appeared in the dip between two hills opposite the hotel it was ten past seven in the morning, but few were able to enjoy the sight.
Many had ceased to suffer during the night. Many were asleep, knocked out by alcohol, medicine and The Little Lady’s Tears. Others, nearing the end, stared into space with frozen pupils and open mouths, like mystics experiencing visions; or tossed and turned, coughing, feverish and choked with catarrh. Others wandered about on thin, stork-like legs, hunched under blankets, searching for leftovers, something to eat.
The solar dot melted like butter in a black frying pan, grew into an orange dome, left the hills, tingeing the sky with purple foam, and extended its rays as far as the hotel. At ten past eight it crept under the shed.
Anna, suspended between wakefulness and sleep, felt it on her neck and through closed eyelids. Her head was being crushed in a vice and her stomach ached, but the effect of the drug had worn off. Clenching her fingers, she ran her tongue over her teeth. She couldn’t remember how she’d got there, nor what had happened in the pool, but the feeling of the boys’ marauding hands on her body was still there. A shudder of embarrassment. She opened her eyes and brought into focus, a few centimetres away from her nose, the cobweb-covered underside of the shed.
She had to get out of this place.
Coming out from under the shed, she was dazzled by the sun and screwed up her eyes. The crowd had grown bigger and there wasn’t a single free seat. Everyone was huddled around dead fires, wrapped up in nylon sheets, blankets and cardboard boxes in an attempt to keep warm. The narrow path to the exit was filled with interweaving streams of people going in opposite directions.
Her way towards the gates took her across the top of the amphitheatre. The sun glinted on shards of broken bottles, tin cans and coloured foil snack wrappers. The terraces were a mass of sick children emitting a chorus of wheezes, coughs and groans. The guardians dragged away the ones who hadn’t survived the night and piled them up under the columns. A girl with long red hair was singing beside a lifeless body.
Anna entered the covered passage that led to the gates, but as she was going against the main flow it was hard to make any headway. She found herself squashed against the wall. Nobody was checking the entrances any more.
Where was she was going?
Mulberry Farm had been desecrated, and there was no sense in going to Calabria without Astor. There was no sense in anything without Astor. She’d grown up with her brother as a tree grows around barbed wire; they’d fused together and were now a single entity.
She stared at the gaunt faces and blank expressions of children pushing to get in.
She was one of them, one of the many, mixed up in that desperate crowd, one sardine in a shoal of sardines which the Red Fever would devour indiscriminately, like a hungry tuna fish.
She let the flow of the crowd carry her back again.
*
Between two rusty mechanical diggers, a group of children – all boys – had created a sheltered niche for themselves and were feeding a fire with pieces of cardboard and wood. They were handing round tins and packets of biscuits.
Anna watched them from a few metres away, her mouth watering. Plucking up courage, she moved closer and asked: ‘Will you give me something?’
The boys exchanged glances.
Anna put her hands together in silent prayer.
Who knows? Maybe they could see the beauty hidden under the clumps of greasy hair and the dirt that covered her face, or maybe they just felt sorry for her; the fact is, they motioned to her to sit down and passed her a small jar.
She pulled out a soft slimy pickled gherkin, which she found delicious. She finished it in an instant and searched the bottom of the jar with her fingers for remnants.
Seeing her so hungry, a shaven-headed boy with feminine features rummaged in a big bag between his legs and handed her a bigger jar.
Without even stopping to read the label to see what it was, she unscrewed the top and stuffed the mush in her mouth. It was tasteless. Without asking if anyone minded, she picked up a bottle of Sprite from the ground and took a swig from it. She looked at the boys. Each of them wore a close-fitting red vest with a number on the back, and among their possessions was a big orange ball.
She learned that they were the survivors of a youth basketball team from Agrigento. After the epidemic they’d assembled in their gym and they’d lived there together for the last four years, sending out small groups to find food. The oldest boys were dead now. It had taken them a long time to get to the hotel, and they’d had all kinds of trouble. They’d been attacked by dogs, then by a group of kids who’d robbed them one night and beaten them up for no reason. Their point guard had been stabbed, their power forward bitten by a viper while they were crossing a field.
‘Do you know when the party starts?’ a fair-haired boy asked her, brushing aside the fringe in front of his eyes.
‘No, I haven’t got the faintest idea.’ Anna had spotted a jar of pesto near the embers. She loved that green sauce.
‘They say the Little Lady’s incredibly tall. More than two metres,’ said another boy. Long and thin, like a stick insect, he appeared to be the team captain.
The shaven-headed boy didn’t agree. ‘No, I’ve heard she’s beautiful. They keep her locked up in Room 237 of the hotel.’
Each boy had his own theory.
Anna took another swig of Sprite. ‘Do you know why they never show her?’
The others gazed at her in silence.
‘Because there’s no such person as the Little Lady. It’s a lie. The Grown-ups are all dead.’
The thin one protested. ‘But this one’s special. She managed to survive. She’s … What’s the word?’
‘Immune,’ said another boy, who had a woollen hat pulled down over his forehead. ‘She has the substance that destroys the virus in her blood.’
Anna grinned sarcastically and repeated: ‘The Grown-ups are all dead, have you guys forgotten that?’ She pointed at the hotel. ‘All this mumbo-jumbo is just a way for those guys with necklaces to get people to give them stuff when they come in. I bet there won’t be any party. They’re making fools of you.’
The boys fell silent, their eyes fixed on the flames.
One boy, whose lips were covered in pustules and scabs and who’d kept in the background till now, spoke in a faint voice. ‘It’s you that’s wrong. There is such a person as the Little Lady. She does exist.’ He coughed violently, as though he was going to spit out his lungs. ‘They’ll burn her, we’ll eat the ashes and we’ll be cured of Red Fever.’
‘If you want to believe that, please yourselves.’ She picked up the jar of pesto, dipped in her finger and licked it.
The atmosphere had changed. The eyes staring at her were less friendly now.
Anna ran her tongue along her lips. ‘I always used to have pesto with pasta.’
The sick boy sighed in a barely audible voice. ‘Why are you here?’ He must have been fat before the disease; now the skin hung off his skeleton like a dress on a coat hanger.
‘I came to look for someone … But he wasn’t here. I’ll be leaving soon.’
‘Leave straight away,’ said the captain. ‘We’re sure we’ll survive, because we’re the greatest …’ He looked at the others and put his hand to his ear. ‘Who are we?’
‘The San Giuseppe Club!’ they all shouted together, raising their arms.
Anna got up and went to find a free wall to sit on.
A few metres away, a group of children were rooting about in the rubbish, squabbling over a blanket.
*
She spent the rest of the day searching for food and dozing. She’d tried to get into the hotel, but she didn’t have a bone necklace and they’d turned her away.
A rumour was going around that the Fire Party would take place that night. Someone had seen groups of guards erecting barriers down at the quarry and there was even talk of a lorry moving.
> Even Anna was becoming convinced that something was going to happen. The place was packed and expectations had grown too high – there was a risk of a riot.
She wandered aimlessly among the crowd. Cigarette lighters, candles and electric torches shone in the darkness, and sheets billowed like bright sails over recumbent bodies. Bonfires scattered sparks as they devoured wheels, wood, plastic, anything combustible. Drums beat a rapid unchanging rhythm. Twice she passed Pietro going in the opposite direction. He was hovering near her, not daring to approach.
Tiredness had slowed down her thoughts, which just drifted aimlessly.
Someone touched her shoulder. ‘Excuse me …’
She turned and found herself facing a kind of big ape. He had an oval head which looked as if it was made of plasticine, a pug nose and two small black eyes. His shoulders sloped down steeply like the sides of a roof. He’d painted his face red and white and his mouth green, as if he was on his way to an Italy match. He was naked except for a pair of long johns that encased his buttocks, held up by a strip of black elastic which bore the words: ‘Sexy Boy’. He pointed at her. ‘That cardigan’s mine. You took it, down by the pool.’
Anna pulled out the tattered garment with both hands. ‘Do you mean this?’
‘Yes. Could you return it, please.’ He had problems with his rs and ps.
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘It was my grandpa Paolo’s,’ Bigpants explained. The flames of the bonfire shone on an improbably perfect white smile which moved independently of his lips.
A sensible little voice implored Anna to keep quiet, but she ignored it. ‘Were your dentures your grandpa Paolo’s too?’
The other changed his tone and started spluttering. ‘Give it back. Or I’ll …’
‘Or you’ll what?’ Anna realised that the lethargy she’d felt all day had disappeared. The adrenaline roused her, she felt alive and quarrelsome. ‘All right. Here it is.’With a shout, she charged at him head-down, butting him in the stomach. It was like hitting the door of a fridge. She bounced back and found herself lying on the ground among a small crowd of spectators who turned their torches on them, anticipating a show.
Bigpants looked at her hesitantly, hands on hips. ‘What was that supposed to be?’
Anna got up, shook her head and charged again, but a hand as wide as a pizza shovel was waiting to slap her across the face.
She spun round on one foot like an ungainly ballerina and fell down, hitting her collarbone on the edge of the wall at the side of the path. A sharp pain shot through her shoulder.
The people around them shouted, encouraging Bigpants, who spread his arms and clenched his fists. ‘Are you going to return it to me or not?’
Anna looked at the sky. The stars were tiny quivering holes through which the light of a huge sun shone, from where it lay hidden behind the curtain of night. There was a metallic taste of blood on her teeth.
This guy’s going to kill you. Give him the cardigan and stop this, the sensible little voice advised her.
But the audience were urging her to fight on and she couldn’t let them down. He was only a fat ape, like the other one who’d taken her brother.
She spat blood. ‘Now I know who you are. You’re the Little Lady’s twin brother.’
Bigpants was not amused. He clamped his hands round her arm and calf and lifted her up in the air like a rag doll. Anna clenched her fingers and landed a well-aimed punch on his flat nose. The giant’s eyes goggled, he spat out his false teeth and put his hands to his face, dropping her on the ground.
Treacherously, the audience began to shift their allegiance to her. Two spectators fought over the false teeth, as if they were a tennis ball that had landed on the terraces at Roland Garros.
Anna got up, hopped forward and aimed a kick at his crotch. She caught him on the inside of the groin.
He bent double, yelping with pain. Anna raised her arm, whipping up the crowd and forgetting the only rule that matters when you’re in a fight: never take your eyes off your opponent.
Bigpants rushed at her with his arms outspread and hit her on the side, slamming her down on her back among rubble and litter. The impact knocked the wind out of her lungs. The ogre climbed over the wall and brought a gigantic fist down on her shoulder.
Anna’s back arched and her head rose. She gave a hoarse yell and fell down again, gasping. Faces, arms and flames blurred and sharpened in flashes of yellowish light. She saw her opponent towering over her, holding a stick in both hands, and the crowd undulating in slow motion like balls on the waves of the sea.
Of all the possible deaths, this was the stupidest: being killed by a boy who wanted his grandpa Paolo’s cardigan back.
Anna covered her head with her arms and shut her eyes tight.
An explosion shook the hill.
She opened her eyes.
On the starry vault of the sky a bright red hydrangea fired out curving yellow tendrils which faded beyond the walls of the hotel. This was followed by a green sphere which shot out white quills, and by less colourful but noisier bangs, which echoed around the valley.
Bigpants, his small eyes gleaming with coloured lights, dropped the stick and started clapping with his pudgy hands. Everyone looked upwards, open-mouthed.
Somebody shouted: ‘The Fire Party has started.’
*
Like a multicellular organism, the crowd camped around the hotel sent its human offshoots out along the ridges of the hill – they clogged up paths and tracks, crossed seas of rubbish, walked through woods, scaled heaps of rubble and headed towards the quarry, shouting as they went.
The fence that blocked off the way had been removed. A river of children poured onto the road, guided by fires lit on the valley floor. Some, in the darkness, fell down onto rocks and slid down screes, others were trampled underfoot.
Groups of fevered, limping, scab-covered individuals also converged on the scene from the amphitheatre. Some hobbled along, supporting themselves on crutches, others leaned on a companion, some gave up and let themselves be overrun by the flow.
Anna, aching all over, found herself struggling against hundreds of arms, shoulders, terrified faces, bodies squashed against each other. A wave from behind pressed against her, pushing her forward.
She turned and saw a camel, its large head swaying smoothly from side to side. Clinging onto its back were three children with flaming torches. Bellowing desperately, the animal knocked down anyone who blocked its path. Its tongue hung out of its mouth like a huge blue slug. Anna dodged to one side and threw herself on the ground, letting it pass. When she got up again and started running, she saw the camel’s mangy hindquarters already far away, framed between crowds on either side. A couple of wretches had caught hold of its tail and were letting themselves be pulled along, while trying to stay on their feet.
*
Anna came to the end of the road and found herself looking at a dark undulating sea of heads which covered the floor of the quarry, spreading even onto the mounds of sand and the scree. The valley was divided in two by a long strip of burning rubbish, from which tongues of fire rose up. Squeezed onto one side was the audience; on the other, veiled by a curtain of thick smoke, were the crane holding up the skeleton, the piles of bones and the tanker where she’d hidden with Pietro the day before. She tried to push her way through the crowd, but after gaining a few metres, she gave up. The warehouse loomed over the crowd like a metal island. In the reddish gleams, small antlike figures climbed up the pylons that supported the structure.
She skirted the crowd and pushed her way up among the children attempting the climb. A human column had formed on the pylons, and some, finding nothing to hold onto, fell back on top of those below them.
Anna grabbed rusty crossbars, shoulders, arms, stepped on heads and reached the corrugated iron roof. The metal was sagging under the weight of hundreds of kids. She found a small space on the ridge of a roof tile and sat down.
The barrier of fire crackle
d as it devoured tyres and plastic, blotting out the stars and the moon. Now a strange silence reigned, broken only by the roar of an internal combustion engine clanking somewhere in the darkness.
‘What happens now?’ asked a girl sitting next to her. One of her arms was swathed in dirty bandages and one of her hands had only three fingers.
‘I don’t know,’ Anna replied.
A short time passed and the crowd grew restless again.
Suddenly loud music blared out and a woman’s voice, amplified and distorted, started singing. ‘If you want to leave, I understand you … Yes … Again … Take me back again … Sensual on my heart … Because I love you still …’
The crowd roared.
Someone on the roof shouted that it was the Little Lady’s voice.
One after another, three electric spotlights came on, transforming the smoke into an iridescent pall, reflected on thousands of astonished faces.
The audience gasped and responded with a spellbound ‘Wow!’
‘Who’s that over there?’The girl with three fingers pointed at something above the curtain of smoke. ‘Look!’
A huge dark silhouette materialised in the haze. A gust of wind blew through the valley, revealing the big skeleton floating in the air, suspended by its head.
Its movements were slow and gangling. It raised one arm and lowered the other, bent one leg and straightened the other, like an astronaut in space. Teams of little blue devils, hanging from ropes attached to the marionette’s wrists, elbows, knees and ankles, were pulled up into the air and swung down again, counterbalancing the weight of the limbs.
The giant seemed about to step over the curtain of fire. The bones that adorned it shimmered like a fur coat in the floodlights.
The excited crowd jostled each other, pushing forward against the flames, but the heat drove them back.
Anna Page 14
