The Sense of an Elephant

by Marco Missiroli

  44

  Pietro waited for dawn with the lawyer. The glow crept up the walls and showed them one beside the other. His vigil continued. He removed the mask and thanked him. Gratitude is of this world as well. Took one of the lawyer’s cold, hanging hands into his own, interlaced their fingers. Then walked away. Left the flat and headed for his own, arriving in the bedroom. The lamp had remained on and directed at the closed boxes. He knelt before the pieces of his memory. I’ve never lost you, Celeste. Said the same to the rosary at his wrist, I’ve never lost you.

  Mist arrived with that prayer and covered Milan. Pietro stood, retrieved a plastic bag from the wardrobe and bent down over the boxes. Opened them and took the bell and the hairpin, the foil wrappers. Took the crucifix, the photographs, the chewing gum and all the rest. Took Fernando’s hat and the elephant. Removed the lid from the largest box, picked up the young priest’s gown. The black was still black, the cotton fabric ragged. He pulled out the rice-paper envelope with the Emilio Salgari postage stamp. Put everything into the bag and went to the kitchen. Tore up the lawyer’s farewell card and tossed it in. Returned the keys to Poppi’s flat to their hook and retrieved the post that had come for Luca. As he emerged from the building with the Bianchi he heard someone calling him, Marcello, Marcello.

  He raised his head. Alice had just arrived at the cafe. Now she came towards him. ‘I wanted to invite you …’ She looked at the bag hanging from one of the Bianchi’s brake handles. ‘Tonight there’s a little going-away party for me at the cafe.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘I’m going back to Sardinia. You’re all invited, you, the doctor and Fernando, his mother, everyone’ – she looked up at the condominium – ‘even the lawyer, who gave me his Siamese without telling me the cat had an attitude.’

  Pietro smiled at her. ‘Till tonight, then.’ He patted her gently on the cheek and left. The cobbles made the jewels bounce in the bag. He hunched down over the top bar and let the Bianchi run. The mist obscured the streets. The concierge laboured to arrive at his destination, the black-and-white-striped wall of the cemetery. He left the bicycle beside the hut of a flower-seller and passed through the front gate. Left the gravel path as Poppi had explained, entered the underground passage between the wall tombs. As the sunlight stole up the walls it seemed to swallow up the tombs. From the far end he counted back seven panels. On the eighth was written Celeste in iron. Above it the witch smiled, a faraway look in her eyes, her face ravaged by time. Her husband was in the next photograph along, underground for the past five years. Pietro knelt down for the second time that day. Ciao, he said to her, and dug. Dug below the gravel. Luca looks like me. Dug as deep a hole as he could manage. Our son looks like us. Scraped and his nails blackened. Collapsed forward, bent but not praying. I can’t tell him I’m his father, he brought his hands together, but I promise you I’ll protect him. Sat up, grasped the bag and opened it, filled the hole with the pieces of his memory, one by one. I promise you that I will protect him. Last into the hole were Fernando’s beret and the elephant. He covered them with earth and with the stones. What was left was the rice-paper envelope.

  He tore it. Tore it again and again until he could no longer hold on to the shreds of the letter and of the photograph. They fell and scattered. Only then did he know himself to be divested of all that he had been.

  Pietro leaned the Bianchi against the pole of the traffic light and buzzed the intercom of the studio flat. No one answered. Through the window he could see a lit wall. ‘It’s Pietro.’ He held on to the window bars and tapped on the glass. ‘It’s me.’

  The building door clicked open shortly after. Pietro entered and proceeded to the mezzanine floor.

  ‘I was expecting Viola and him.’ Luca stood in the doorway. He went back inside and climbed up into the loft with his shirt hanging out of his trousers, stretched out on the bed.

  Pietro climbed to the loft. ‘They’re coming at nine-thirty.’

  Luca held up his mobile, its screen dark. ‘At nine-thirty they won’t find me.’ Raised his head from the pillow. ‘The dolphins. I’m taking Sara on that dinghy.’

  An overturned lamp lay on the floor beside the night table. Pietro set it right side up. ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘I’m headed to the nursery school soon. Sara loves surprises.’ He turned over on his side. ‘First I have to do something.’

  The lamp threw their shadows on the ceiling. Luca sat up against the headboard. His shadow narrowed and pierced Pietro’s. ‘Why have you done all this?’

  ‘All this?’

  ‘Lorenzo. The visit to the professor. Returning to Rimini. Coming here.’ Luca stretched an arm into the empty half of the double bed. A tiny pair of pink pyjamas sat balled up on the second pillow. He gathered them up, folded them carefully, first the bottoms, then the top, and held tight that bundle that fitted into his two palms. ‘Why have you?’

  Pietro looked at him. His son’s matted hair had been swept up into a horn at the centre of his head. His eyes were two bottomless pits. Pietro bent over and grasped him under the arms, tried to pull him to his feet. Luca wrapped his arms around Pietro’s neck, thrust himself up and his legs slipped on the sheet. They didn’t let go until they found themselves standing one before the other. They held on.

  Then Luca changed his shirt, smoothed down the hair on his head. Climbed down from the loft and disappeared into the bathroom. Pietro sat down on the bed and placed the post on the bedside table. Stroked Sara’s tiny, tiny pink pyjamas.

  Luca came out of the bathroom and called up that he was ready.

  Pietro stood and saw him put the old man’s recorder into his leather bag.

  45

  Celeste passed the rocks and continued on her way.

  Pietro held on to the hairpin and three broken hairs. Damn you, God. The sea pushed him down. He flailed, sank below the water. The current dashed him against the sea floor. You’ve never given me anything. He sunk into the sand. Awaited the end with open arms. The current suddenly drew him up, forced him to draw a breath. Damn you.

  He flailed again and reached the rocks, climbed up. His feet were stones bound to his ankles. He put on his trousers only, limped down the jetty, down the promenade, raised his eyes to the Grand Hotel and reached the fountain of the four horses. Continued on to the witch’s house, walked around it. Her window was dark. He picked up a handful of gravel, threw and threw again until the light went on. The shadow of the witch stretched out along the wall. ‘Celeste,’ he shouted. ‘Celeste.’

  The window opened. Pietro saw only a hand holding a scrap of paper, letting it drop. It was their punishment.

  46

  Father and son left the studio flat. Pietro followed Luca onto the street. He went through the street door last and pulled it shut without locking it. ‘Have a good trip.’

  Luca hesitated on the pavement, was blurred by the mist. Came closer to the concierge.

  Pietro raised his arms but not before his son did the same. Luca embraced him, enveloped him, pulled him close. Then walked away alone. Before he turned the corner he looked back, seeking him one last time, but he was no longer there.

  Pietro had gone back into the courtyard to wait.

  Viola arrived an hour later. Pietro heard her voice through the street door. ‘I called him last night and he confirmed nine-thirty.’

  He heard Riccardo as well. ‘Buzz again.’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘I’ll call him now.’ Riccardo cleared his throat. ‘His phone’s off.’

  Pietro came out onto the street. Viola stood before him. ‘You?’

  ‘I brought the doctor his post.’

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘He’s gone back to Rimini.’

  Riccardo was leaning against the SUV. He swung his crutches their way and hobbled over. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘He’s gone back to Rimini.’

  Viola looked at Riccardo. ‘Let’s let him be. Please.’
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  ‘He said he’d stay there for a few days,’ said the concierge.

  ‘A few days,’ she sighed.

  ‘With the little girl,’ Pietro added.

  Riccardo shook one of his crutches and spun around. ‘I’m going to Rimini too.’

  ‘Wait, we can …’ Viola fiddled with a button on her coat.

  ‘I’m tired of waiting.’ Riccardo hurried toward the car. ‘Do you feel like driving?’

  Viola leaned against the pole of the traffic light, along with the Bianchi. She recognized it and stared. Pulled a brake lever. The concierge stared at her and his bicycle. The red suited it. He saw again the witch on the top bar and the young priest who carried her into the night by the sea. Pietro closed his eyes. ‘I’ll go with you.’

  47

  The old man was waiting at the entrance to the house of the pomegranate trees.

  The doctor nodded and made his way into the kitchen, laid his coat and leather bag on a chair. He had not yet looked at the man. Did so now. He was a skeleton in his nicest outfit.

  ‘Go right ahead, my Andrea is through there.’ The old man accompanied him down the hallway and returned to the kitchen alone. Closed a packet of biscuits with a clothes peg and lowered the rolling shutter, reassembled the stovetop percolator from the pieces in the dish rack. Returned it to a cupboard and started to fold tea cloths but stopped because Luca had returned.

  ‘You’ve seen how handsome my Andrea is? More handsome than when he was alive.’

  Luca sat down and wedged the bag between his feet. From it he drew out what was needed. Poured the tranquillizers into a glass that he found on the table, inserted the stethoscope’s earpieces into his ears. Returned the recorder.

  Beyond the window the mist had turned to fog.

  The old man left the kitchen and walked down the hallway to his son’s room. Luca unwrapped the syringe and filled it. Ankle, ball, ankle. And he went.

  Pietro kept an eye out as he drove ever since they had entered the motorway. The steering wheel was crumbling inside. He held it where the leather was ragged, stuck two fingers in, withdrew them to change gears.

  ‘Would you mind going faster?’ Riccardo was behind him, his leg in the cast stretched across the rear seats. Viola twisted a lock of hair in the seat beside Pietro, slowly knocked her knees together, gazed out at the descending fog.

  ‘Would you mind going faster?’

  Pietro stiffened his fingers into the seams and the leather covering the steering wheel gave slightly. He did not accelerate. Riccardo said something to him. Pietro stared at the point of the windscreen where the fog split.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Viola asked.

  Pietro nodded and accelerated.

  Luca took seven steps down the hallway, entered Andrea’s room. The old man had removed the bed’s sidewalls and now sat next to his son, supporting his head. ‘Last night we watched the 1982 World Cup final, then I pulled out the tube.’ He brushed aside the hair from his forehead. In front of them the whiteboard held a pristine piece of Bristol board. The television was off. So, too, were the machines. They could hear the trains rolling by beyond the wall of fog.

  ‘My Andrea was happy when I told him that the doctor had agreed, that we wouldn’t be separated for long.’ He coughed. ‘We’d made a pact, he and I: together. That we’d leave this place together. I had the courage for him. I don’t have it for myself.’

  Luca went closer and saw that the Bristol at the board wasn’t entirely white. Two black strips marked the top right corner and a band of blue ran along the bottom.

  ‘Please have a seat, Doctor.’ The old man pushed the armchair in his direction with one foot, without leaving his son. ‘Sit down, please.’

  Luca did not sit. Instead he approached the bed with the glass.

  The old man covered his son’s eyelids. ‘Andrea asked me to do it.’ He straightened up and took the glass, looked inside. ‘He asked me to do it with his eyes.’ He drank. Rolled up a sleeve of his shirt, revealing a bare, reed-like arm. Offered it up to him.

  Pietro pulled his fingers from the seams of the steering wheel, turned and moved into the left lane. Accelerated again and returned to the centre lane. He raised his eyes to the rear-view mirror.

  Riccardo was staring at him. ‘Did he tell you why he’s going back to Rimini, Pietro?’ Without waiting for an answer he said to Viola, ‘Hand me the documents in the glove box, would you?’ He left off speaking, looking as they all were at a pool of water that came out of the fog and shone on the asphalt ahead of them. The pool came closer and they understood what it was in the instant it hit them. Water and rotten leaves. It broke open and a clump of leaves landed on the windscreen, on the back window, covered the side windows. The concierge turned on the windscreen wipers. The leaves lifted while Riccardo took from Viola the folder with the car’s documents.

  A leaf got stuck in the corner of the windscreen. Pietro turned off the wipers just in time to save it. He scrutinized the veins, some still with traces of green. The leaf stalk was broken. The wind threatened to carry the leaf away. The concierge moved into the right lane. From behind the hand of Riccardo reached forward, holding a Polaroid. He turned it round. It was the same ultrasound stuck up on the Martinis’ fridge.

  The leaf held out, then the wind took it away. Pietro heard the voice: ‘It’s Sara. It’s my daughter.’

  ‘He’s my son.’ The old man held his naked arm in the air and caressed his Andrea. Carefully shifted his limbs as he had learned to over the years, first the legs, then the shoulders and finally the head with a hand behind his neck, slowly. Lay down beside him and took his hand into his own. ‘We’re Rossi and Altobelli, world champions.’ Then the doctor nodded. The old man settled his head onto the single pillow and now Luca could see them together, the father’s face frightened, the son’s at peace.

  A thread of voice remained to the old man. ‘Your father looks like you.’ He still had his arm up in the air. ‘Mr Pietro looks like you. You must be proud of your father.’

  Riccardo held up Sara’s ultrasound. Viola took it from him and said, ‘Stop it, please.’

  Pietro moved to the middle lane and slowed down. He turned over his hands. Now he controlled the wheel with the backs of his hands and looked at his palms. They were those of a child, smooth. His right hand curled into a cup. He closed it slightly and the hollow became deeper, like in the night by the sea, under the window, after the witch had dropped the scrap of paper with their punishment. He had picked it up and laid it on that palm, gazed on it from different angles. On it was written: Forget. The punishment was absence. He had raised his head to the window, now closed again. Celeste, he had called to her, Celeste. The witch’s silhouette was visible through the curtains, Celeste. It was the last time the young priest saw her. Witches fly away. Pietro gripped the steering wheel again.

  ‘She’s my daughter,’ said Riccardo. ‘My child.’

  The concierge clenched his right hand. ‘Does anyone else know?’

  The rain had started again.

  ‘Does anyone else know?’ Pietro repeated.

  ‘The three of us,’ said Riccardo. ‘It’s weighed on us for two years now.’

  Viola covered her eyes with her hand and leaned her elbow against the window, crying. The concierge took her other hand and closed it in his own.

  The SUV was approaching the bridge over the River Po.

  48

  Pietro maintained his speed. An estate car moved in front of them and he passed it. He let go of Viola’s hand and grasped the steering wheel. Passed another car and accelerated toward the bridge.

  In the house of the pomegranate trees Luca held up the old man’s arm. He massaged it where there was still a bit of flesh. ‘Mr Pietro looks like you.’ The old man’s voice was a death rattle. ‘You must be proud of your father.’

  Luca massaged the arm for the last time, a caress, then said, ‘My father died five years ago.’

  Ahead the lights of the barriers indicated
the location of the broken guard rail. Pietro slowed down and the SUV started across the bridge. At the same moment Luca removed the cap from the syringe and the old man took hold of his own trembling arm. ‘God bless you, Doctor.’ Luca pierced the skin and as he lowered the plunger he stared at the tired father.

  Pietro stared at Viola collapsed against the car window. The SUV moved to the left lane. The lights of the barriers came through the fog. There began the bank of the river and there Pietro turned the wheel. The SUV struck the temporary rail and broke through.

  The old man died gazing at his son. Pietro with the words of Celeste. The past is in this letter, a past thirty years long. Yes, it’s me, and I’m about to die. I don’t want to take the biggest secret with me.

  His name is Luca. He’s our son.

  That night in the sea, Pietro. That night a witch once again became a mother and chose silence. That’s how I tried to protect you. The truth is that I was only protecting myself. Forgive me.

  Luca is the future we never had, but he is us. He lives with his wife, Viola, and their little girl, on the second floor of a condominium that’s looking for a new concierge. If you want, you could be that concierge. And this is the last thing I leave to chance in my life.

  Call the person whose name I’ll write at the end of this letter. He’s a friend and the condominium administrator. I asked him to send you this letter. Take care of Luca. Watch over our son. He’s a boy on the ball.

  Pietro, I’ve never stopped feeling like you were with me. Never. I wanted to tell you with this flesh while it lasts. It’s an honest love, and I’ll take it with me where I go. And wherever I am, witch or ballerina, I’ll be ready. First with the heel, then with the toe.

  Author’s Note

  All references to real facts and persons are purely coincidental. For narrative reasons, slight modifications have been made to the topography of Milan and Rimini. The song quoted in chapter 36 is ‘Il mare d’inverno’ (The sea in winter) by Loredana Bertè.