Ring of Fire

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  “Darn it.”

  “Darn what?”

  Fernando looks at the stairs he’s just come down. “I left my novel up in my room. Maybe I should go back and get it. Tonight I could—”

  “Leave it there, Fernando,” the old woman sighs. “I don’t think our Chinese friend wants to steal your masterpiece. Why don’t you give me a hand with this chair instead?”

  Fernando puts his pile of clothes down on an armchair and wheels Irene up to the black gate of the elevator. “Was it hard to convince them?” he asks.

  “No more than usual,” she answers sharply.

  The iron doors open up with a metallic groan. Fernando Melodia tilts the rubber wheels up slightly and then, with a gentle push, wheels the chair into the elevator. “It’s snowing,” he sighs. “That hasn’t happened in Rome for a long time.”

  “Let’s go up to the roof, then,” Aunt Irene suggests. “We can’t miss seeing the city mantled in white.”

  The yellow Mini zips through the traffic on the city’s ring road, called the Grande Raccordo Anulare. Its little wipers battle against the snow sticking to the windshield. A graceful symphony is playing on the radio. Swinging from the rearview mirror is a stuffed skull-shaped toy.

  “I’ve heard a lot of stories about you, Mr. Mahler,” says Beatrice, passing a hotel’s white minibus, whose red taillights glimmer through the snowflakes like butterflies.

  “And what were the stories like?”

  “They all ended the same way,” says the young woman with a smile, edging the Mini into a gap between two cars.

  “And did you enjoy them?”

  “Very much.”

  “You like sad stories.”

  “Sometimes sadness can be fascinating.”

  “More often than that, it’s just plain sad.”

  For a few moments the two remain in silence, which is interrupted only by the rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers.

  “I don’t think you’ve fully understood the nature of my work,” the man with the violin says.

  “Joe Vinile talks about you like you’re some kind of legend.”

  “I’ve never met Joe Vinile. A legend at what?”

  “At crime.”

  The gray-haired man shakes his head slightly. “Exactly. What did I tell you? He got it wrong.”

  “So it’s not true?”

  “Actually, I’d say my job is to efficiently satisfy other people’s expectations,” the man affirms.

  “That’s a matter of one’s point of view.”

  “Points of view don’t exist.”

  “Then what does exist?”

  “What you know how to do. And what you don’t.”

  “Right. Work, then.” Beatrice keeps both hands on the steering wheel of the Mini. “Joe told me this mission is being done for—”

  Jacob Mahler’s hand darts out as fast as a lightning bolt. His finger is already in front of Beatrice’s nose when a low, threatening hiss comes out of his lips. “Shhh … Never say that name.”

  She keeps both hands on the steering wheel. She pretends she doesn’t see his finger in front of her nose. She lets out a faint laugh of surprise. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s just you and me here in the car.”

  “Never say that name,” the man with the violin repeats, pulling his hand away dramatically. “That’s a friendly tip.”

  “So we’re friends?”

  “Want another tip? Ask fewer questions.”

  Beatrice shrugs.

  For an instant, she rests her right hand on the stick shift. Then she turns up the volume on the radio.

  Her yellow Mini splashes across the glistening asphalt.

  It’s snowing harder and harder.

  4

  THE COINCIDENCE

  “COME IN!” ELETTRA CALLS OUT, SWITCHING OFF THE FAUCET. SHE thought she heard someone knocking. “Come on in!” she repeats, this time louder.

  Her room is shrouded in darkness, with the exception of the light coming in from the street, through the window grating. It’s a soft, warm light made vibrant by the falling snow.

  The door leading out to the hallway opens up just enough for Mistral, the French girl, to slip inside. Elettra gives her a little wave and points at the bunk bed. “It’d be best if you took that one, over mine,” she suggests, her mouth still messy with toothpaste. “That way we can leave the other one to Harvey and …” She can’t remember the Chinese boy’s name.

  “Sheng,” Mistral says, finishing her sentence. She’s brought a large lilac-colored bag with her. Pajamas, a change of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste. She’s very tall, taller than Elettra, and she’s pretty, dainty, with straight-cut hair and very large eyes, which are perfectly round and perfectly blue. Perched on a slender neck, her triangle-shaped face looks like that of a wading bird, a watchful, tranquil stork. The girl moves with careful slowness, not touching anything, her timidity verging on utter stillness.

  Elettra looks at her with the critical eye of someone who’s accustomed to forming an opinion about others based on very few details. A typical defect among those who see dozens and dozens of people pass through their lives, people who only appear different from each other. Her initial verdict is: hopeless. Mistral’s slow. The two of them could never get along. Elettra’s used to rushing around self-confidently, while Mistral, to be mean, looks wimpy. And that’s no good. Especially for a pretty girl who’s much taller than Elettra is.

  “Your room is beautiful,” says Mistral. Her English has a peculiar cadence.

  The tone of her voice and the look on her face make Elettra immediately reconsider her first impression. “You really think so?” she asks.

  “Yes. It’s wonderful.” Mistral rests her flowered, lilac-colored bag on the bed, opens it up and takes out a pair of cloth slippers and a white towel. “It smells very nice. And it’s so tidy.”

  “Basic survival, believe me,” jokes Elettra. “Aunt Linda forces me to keep everything in its place. It’s all got to be perfect, right down to the last millimeter. Come with me. I’ll show you the bathroom.”

  Mistral is captivated by the mirror surrounded by little lights. She brushes her hand over the lit lightbulbs and murmurs, “I’ve always wanted a mirror like this.” She stares at it with a dreamy look on her face. Standing at the door, Elettra watches her and smiles, happy to be able to share in that little emotion.

  “And just think, I almost never use it …,” she says.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve got sort of a problem with mirrors,” Elettra says with a sheepish smile. “The more I use them, the more … the more they lose their shininess and turn dull.”

  Mistral laughs. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No. And that’s not all. I burn out lightbulbs and all kinds of electrical devices. So for me, a mirror surrounded by lightbulbs is a sort of … minefield.”

  Her curiosity piqued, Mistral asks her a few questions, laughing with amusement at this oddity. Her triangular face reflected amid the lightbulbs is a portrait of tranquility itself. And so, as Elettra answers her questions, she’s very happy to gradually do away with her label of wimp, replacing it with a more positive one: romantic dreamer.

  “What are you thinking?” the French girl asks her, resting her hands on the edge of the sink.

  Elettra snaps out of it. “Huh?”

  “It’s like you were looking at me through a magnifying glass … or am I wrong?”

  “Oh, no, sorry. It’s just been a long time since …” Elettra gathers her hair in both hands and lets it tumble back down onto her shoulders. “Since I shared this room with a friend.”

  Mistral smiles in reply, making a vague gesture with her hand. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Because of my mother’s job, I’m alone a lot, too. And as soon as I’m around other people, I get the feeling I’m being ripped apart and judged.”

  “I wasn’t ripping you apart, believe me. Quite the opposite.”

  “Just pretend I didn’t even say it.�
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  “Okay,” Elettra says, changing the subject, “so what does your mother do?”

  “She works with perfume,” Mistral explains. “That is, she makes it.”

  “She makes perfume? How?”

  “Oh, hopefully I’ll learn that when I’m older. You need to go to a special school. The one I want to go to is called International Flavors and Fragrances.”

  “You mean there are perfume schools?”

  “In France, yes.”

  “And where’s the one you like?”

  “In Grasse, a town on the Côte d’Azur. They’ve been making perfume there for hundreds of years. It’s not easy, believe me. To become a perfumer you need to study a lot. You need to know how to tell the difference between the various fragrances in the right categories. There are perfumes that affect the mind, the heart, the spirit, which are light and soft, and then there are earthy ones, which last the longest. Perfumes can be sharp, sweet, sandy, natural, chemical. … It’s enough to make your head spin!”

  “Wow,” murmurs Elettra, fascinated. “I didn’t know there were people who … who were actually trained to make perfumes.”

  As the two girls are talking about the smell of lavender and the large copper stills used to distill rose water, there is a second knock on the door.

  It’s Sheng, already in his pajamas. The Chinese boy with a pageboy haircut that looks like it was cut with a bowl is sporting cheerful, blue-striped, two-piece pj’s and a pair of cumbersome red gym shoes.

  “I forgot my slippers at home,” he explains at once, noticing the girls’ bafflement.

  Elettra goes to shut the door, but Sheng tells her that Harvey, the American, is on his way down, too. “I heard footsteps in the hall behind me.”

  And, in fact, a few moments later, Harvey appears in the doorway. Despite his height, he’s all hunched over, as though he has a world of problems hanging from his neck. And his hair is over his eyes, as though he doesn’t want to see anything except his feet. “I haven’t got any pajamas,” he says, looking at Sheng’s striped pj’s. “Is that okay?”

  “How are you going to sleep without them?”

  “I’ll just stay in my undershirt and boxers,” he answers, turning beet red, his back to the girls.

  “We aren’t scandalized,” replies Elettra, winking at the French girl. “Are we?”

  Mistral lets out a little peal of laughter, which is interrupted by Harvey’s stomping over to his bed. “I’ll sleep up on top, okay?”

  “Okay, hao,” says Sheng in a soft voice. “I’ve always dreamed of getting the bottom bunk. …”

  Harvey stiffens, as if he heard a hint of irony in Sheng’s reply. “Did I say something wrong? You want the top bunk? Whatever.” And without waiting for an answer, he grabs his gym bag and tosses it onto the lower bunk. “I’ll take the bottom one.”

  “Hey! What are you doing?” Sheng asks calmly.

  “Bedtime,” Harvey announces, disappearing into the darkness of the bottom bunk. Standing there in his gym shoes, Sheng looks at the girls with amusement, his face plainly showing how surprised he is by all this. Harvey seems like a pretty bullheaded guy. The kind who wants to act tough.

  Elettra senses a challenge in the air, which she readily accepts. She rests her hand on the boys’ bunk bed, and, leaning over to look at the jeans and tennis shoes that the American boy is still wearing, she asks him, “Do you always sleep with your shoes on?”

  Harvey opens his eyes wide with alarm. “Huh?”

  Elettra repeats, “I asked if, over in America, you sleep in your shirt, boxers, jeans and shoes.”

  Only then does Harvey realize he’s still completely dressed.

  Embarrassed, he stares at Elettra’s pajamas, then at Mistral’s and finally at the striped outfit worn by Sheng, who starts undoing his gym shoes, explaining, “I forgot my slippers. But I always take these off before I go to bed.”

  Outside of the room, the snow drifts down slowly. The two girls are sitting cross-legged on the floor. Harvey’s in the bathroom and Sheng’s brushing his hand over the dandelion-shaped lamp on Elettra’s nightstand. It’s a bundle of countless tiny wisps of glowing glass. “My father?” repeats Sheng in impeccable English. “He works in tourism.”

  “Does he have a travel agency?”

  “Kind of. He organizes cultural exchanges. A Chinese boy goes to live with a European family for a month and a European boy goes to live with a Chinese family for a month. It’s a sort of student exchange.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “I’ll let you know in a month,” Sheng mutters. And then he explains. “Basically, I’m going to act as a guinea pig in Rome, although my father really wanted to send me to London.”

  “Why not Paris?” breaks in Mistral.

  “Because I like Gladiator more than The Da Vinci Code?” quips Sheng.

  “Paris is Paris.”

  “And Rome is a beautiful city,” Elettra replies in its defense. “It’s old and new at the same time.”

  “And with the snow, it looks … magical,” adds Sheng, peeking out the window.

  “You guys are lucky. It almost never snows in Rome.”

  “Have you already met the family you’re going to live with?” Mistral asks the Chinese boy.

  Sheng shakes his head.

  “No. I’ll meet them next year—that is, in a few days.”

  “Do you know if you’ll end up in a house with a boy or a girl?”

  “I haven’t got the slightest idea.”

  The bathroom door opens up and is instantly snapped shut again. Harvey walks up to them, dragging his bare feet on the floor. “Done. If you want, we can go to sleep now.”

  None of the other three kids seems to want to answer him.

  Elettra hugs her knees in her arms and says, “It sure must be strange, living away from home for a whole month. I don’t know if I’d like it.”

  “A month where?” asks Harvey. When they explain, he sneers, “I’d never want a stranger in my house.”

  “I’m not the least bit surprised,” replies Elettra.

  “Um, why’s that?”

  “Because you obviously don’t like company. You’ve barely said a word since you walked into the room. Except ‘Bedtime.’”

  “Well, what was I supposed to say? I’m exhausted.”

  “You could’ve said something like, ‘Guys, I’m exhausted. How about you?’ It’s called ‘pleasant conversation.’”

  “I didn’t know what to talk about.”

  “Well, how about your favorite movie, the last book you read, when your birthday is …,” Sheng blurts out, running his fingers through the lampshade’s tiny wisps of light. “In fact, I’m tempted to tell you guys when I was born—”

  Harvey cuts him off with a hoarse laugh. “Actually, my birthday’s pretty funny.”

  “Not as funny as mine,” Mistral adds.

  “Believe me. Mine’s the worst,” Sheng insists.

  “I don’t think so,” Harvey shoots back, clasping his hands behind his neck. “I was born on February twenty-ninth. Can you believe it?”

  A sort of electric charge fills the room. Elettra can clearly feel it surging down to her fingertips. It’s a shock that comes from outside, from the street, or maybe from much higher up. As if in the sky, at an infinite altitude, some ancient mechanism made of stars and ancient mysteries has switched on.

  The air echoes with silence and then suddenly becomes still and cold.

  Sheng’s hand grabs on to the dandelion lamp’s wisps. Mistral, sitting at the foot of the bed, gasps.

  Realizing he’s said something strange, Harvey sits up and asks, “Weird, isn’t it?” But there’s a note of uneasiness in his voice. “Don’t you think it’s strange? February twenty-ninth!”

  “I was born on February twenty-ninth, too,” Sheng whispers, turning to stare at him.

  The room grows even colder. And the electrical charge in Elettra’s hands grows stronger.

 
“I don’t believe it,” says Mistral. “It can’t be!” Her blue eyes are gleaming with amazement. “Me too.”

  Sheng’s hands freeze completely amid the lamp’s wisps.

  “Man …,” he murmurs. “What … what a bizarre coincidence.”

  “Go figure …,” muses Harvey, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  Elettra needs to move. She’s boiling hot. Inside of her is a seething volcano. She walks up to the window and throws it open, letting in the chilly nighttime air. How could it be? she wonders.

  She looks up. The sky is overcast. No stars can be seen.

  But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

  She shuts her eyes and lets a few snowflakes land on her face. They melt into tiny teardrops. Her hands are so hot her fingertips are aching.

  When she opens her eyes again to look at the three people in her room, she notices that none of them has said a word.

  Grouchy Harvey.

  Dreamy Mistral.

  Cheerful Sheng.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences,” Elettra says, her voice trembling.

  She’s logical, rational, perfectly organized. She understands people at a single glance. She categorizes them, classifies them and always has an explanation for everything.

  Except for when she winds up burning out lightbulbs or ruining mirrors. Except for when a printer goes haywire or a television screen changes colors when she walks by.

  She doesn’t believe in coincidences. Not ones like this, at least.

  Because Elettra was also born on February twenty-ninth.

  When she tells the others this, she feels the need to lean against someone. Her hand barely touches Sheng’s shoulder, and all the tension and heat she’s been keeping inside of her instantly surges out like a flooded river.

  “Aaahh!” cries the Chinese boy, feeling a burning sensation.

  The dandelion lamp in his hands lets out a burst of blinding light and shatters into a thousand pieces.

  5

  THE CALL

  MANTLED IN WHITE, THE TRAFFIC IN ROME SLOWS DOWN TO A HALT like a weary animal. All alone in her yellow Mini, Beatrice tries to cancel out everything around her as she sits in the protective comfort of her car. She turns up the volume of her CD player full blast and lets the music carry her thoughts far, far away. She’s surrounded by endless lanes of cars, honking horns and glaring headlights. The statues guarding the bridges of the Tiber River stare at her sternly.