Savage Kiss

by Roberto Saviano

  That is why, in Naples, creatures are sacred, holier than elsewhere. Sacred is what brings the gift of life, in absolute terms, with no knowledge of the death that it carries within it. Like animals, like plants, like the fertile soil of the vegetable gardens at the foot of the volcano that, were it to reawaken, would devour everything and everyone.

  Everything that has substance and meaning takes shape around children: families, the neighborhoods from Forcella to Vomero, from Chiaia to Secondigliano.

  That’s why the child is the king of Naples; the only king that no one has ever tried to hurl from his throne. But like a young dauphin from the old days, the child, the creature—’o criaturo—enjoys none of the rights of childhood.

  Creation does nothing to educate, it does nothing to protect, it teaches no distinction between good and evil. Creation knows nothing but the sacred potential of existence and transformation, remaining forever immortal. The creature comes into the world in imitation of it. The creature grows. It learns to clear a space for itself, or else to submit. It learns by playing, like all puppies do, which, in order to keep them from wandering into mortal danger, must be grabbed by the scruff of their neck and held back. But some are always lost. Some invariably wind up in the jaws of a predator.

  All the children in the world believe that they’re immortal. Any newborn appears to its parents like a book of blank pages on which the world will ink a history that they dream will be better than theirs. The creatures of Naples, though, don’t have that time before them.

  They define at every instant in this existence what they are and what they will be, just as creation itself decides without deciding, concerning a tree felled by a lightning bolt, a seed that gives birth to a flower in the midst of an arid, hardscrabble flower bed.

  Baby kittens are blind and toothless, but soon enough they will become hunters. Baby rats are born hairless and pink, but those that survive will become long, fat, and hairy, learning young to go out at night, alone, under cover of darkness. Only little human creatures must establish which among them will become prey, and which will become predators.

  It’s not merely out of black hunger yesterday, or for an iPhone today, that the children of Naples steal, shoot, and occasionally murder. Rather, it’s because the life of each and every criaturo defies death, just as it ought to: until death comes and finds them, and takes them in its talons.

  THE VISIT

  Forcella at dinnertime is made of cork just like any manger scene, and like a manger scene, the lights all go on at once. Inside the apartments, one after another, as if they were torches taking flame from sparks borne on the wind.

  Drago’ was in his bedroom, lying on the bed, captivated by the stories of those American characters who bid on storage units that have been abandoned and put up for auction. The last season of Storage Hunters promised big surprises but still never seemed to answer the question that Drago’ always asked himself: How could anybody forget all those valuables in and among the worthless knickknacks?

  His mother, in the kitchen, was making dinner, and as she did, she kept her eyes on Renato in the soap opera Un Posto al sole, while in the armchair his sister, Antonietta, twelve years old, a faint swelling of breasts flaunted with pride, was playing with her smartphone.

  The roar of an engine distracted him from the screen. It was too full-throated and powerful to be a car from the neighborhood. He sat up and craned his neck to see if he could guess the model. “Audi S8,” he said. He leaned out the window and smiled; he’d guessed it right.

  “What the fuck is a car like that doing in Forcella?” And he dived back onto the bed, alarmed. He grabbed his phone.

  Drago’

  Guagliù, there’s a strange car.

  Maraja

  Cops?

  Drago’

  Impossible. It’s serious-looking.

  Lollipop

  So who is it?

  He didn’t have time to formulate a hypothesis before the doorbell rang, announcing a visitor: the Audi was there for him. “I knew it.”

  He stuck his cell phone in his pocket, his gat down his pants, and rushed toward the front door. His mother had just pulled away from the peephole, wiped her already clean hands on her apron, and opened the door.

  Viola stepped through the door, ceremonious and impeccable, from the permanent in her hair to her well-tended fingernails. She leaned down to kiss Drago’s mother, brim of her hat in her face. Then she did the same with Antonietta.

  “Look what happy, shiny faces you have!” she said, pretending her feelings had been hurt. “And to think that I’ve always entered this house by kicking the door with my feet.”

  “What does it mean that she always came in with her feet?” Antonietta asked her mother.

  “Your cousin will explain it to you.” Viola brushed her cousin’s hair back behind her ears. “There, now you look like a real princess. Don’t you remember the gifts I brought you?”

  Antonietta nodded decisively.

  “And how do you think I could get into your apartment with all those packages in my arms?” She planted a kiss on her forehead.

  “Has something happened, Viola?” Drago’s mother was uneasy; Viola certainly hadn’t dropped by just to say hello.

  Viola went on, speaking to her aunt. “Is this what we’ve come to, that when you see me, it must be because of some piece of bad news? I can’t just come to my aunt’s home, I can’t come visit my cousins?”

  “I’m just saying”—Drago’ began, leaning against the hallway doorjamb. Viola seemed to notice he was there at that very second, but Antonietta was the only one who could believe the look of surprise that she displayed on her face—“but the last time we saw you, the last time you set foot in this apartment, it was when your father turned state’s witness and you rushed around swearing up and down on a stack of Bibles that you hadn’t been part of it, but no one in the neighborhood believed it for a second.”

  “Eh, times have changed,” said Viola, waving her hand in the air with a gesture of nonchalance. As if she’d been invited to make herself comfortable, she stepped forward, gazing around with a blend of curiosity and indifference. “Ah, but here I can see that everything’s remained exactly the way it always has been.”

  You’re wrong there, Viola, thought Drago’. Absolutely nothing’s the way it was. Now we’re the bosses here in Forcella, he thought, and your husband gives us blow jobs. Times have changed.

  Viola slipped a handbag out of the shopping bag that hung off one of her shoulders. “Come here, little one,” she said. “Mamma mia, you’re a woman already. And a woman needs a nice purse.”

  Antonietta turned beet red in surprise: “Ua’, Viola, are you serious right now?”

  “Nothing less, and when you come to Rome, and you stop by my store, I’ll give you more … all the purses you want!”

  Antonietta clapped her hands, grabbed the handbag, and clutched it to her breast. It was a Saint Laurent Kate! It was the actual Kate Moss bag! If it hadn’t been for her mother’s stern glare, she would already have taken a selfie and shared it with her girlfriends.

  Viola ran a hand over her hair: “Antonietta, these pretty eyes of yours can only match up with a purse like this one. Never settle for less, you always need to want more than you have.”

  “Grazie, grazie, grazie!” Antonietta thanked her in a high-pitched singsong, hugging Viola, who ruffled her hair like she was a baby doll.

  Drago’ watched this scene, annoyed by that faux-cunning move of openly buying the sympathies of the littlest one in the household, but also by Viola’s sheer physical appearance. All that overstated personal care smacked of arrogance, as far as he was concerned. In the meantime, his mother had gone back into the kitchen, followed by Viola and Antonietta, who were walking hand in hand.

  “Aunt, can I help you?” asked Viola.

  “No, take a seat in there,” said Drago’s mother. “It’s all ready to eat.”

  Viola was going to be staying for di
nner, and without even asking. Drago’ started feeling uneasy.

  “Thanks, Auntie. How pretty you are,” said Viola. “I don’t think you’ve aged a single hour since the last time I saw you. Even though I know how hard your life is. Two children, a husband who’s retired like an old lion…”

  At the stove, Drago’s mother said nothing and Viola went over to sit at the head of the table, in front of a plate turned upside down, to keep off the dust.

  “That’s Papa’s seat, get out of it,” Drago’ snarled. He took his plate and turned it over, and he did the same with the other two. He would have preferred to just keep everybody from eating.

  “Eh, mamma mia, ’o Viceré wouldn’t have been offended,” Viola replied in a dismissive tone of voice.

  “What do you know about it?” Drago’ snapped. “Why are you trying to put words in my father’s mouth?”

  “Because I’ve come to pay you back for all the pain and sorrow that ’o Viceré has been carrying deep inside, and that you’ve all been carrying, too.”

  “We don’t talk about these things at the table,” Drago’s mother put in. “The table belongs to the Lord and money belongs to the Devil. Come on, everyone, sit down and eat.” And she turned the bowls over on the table, including ’o Viceré’s bowl. Then she served the spaghetti.

  “Your hair looks nice the way you have it fixed, Drago’,” said Viola, but he went on eating without waiting for anyone else, and without answering her. The tomato sauce immediately burned his stomach, and he tried to put out the fire with a glass of red wine.

  In the meantime, Viola went on with her show. At every mouthful of spaghetti, it was a shimmying and shaking of ringlets in a sign of approval: “They’re heavenly, Zietta,” Viola said, “just heavenly,” and Viola kept talking to her increasingly captivated niece. “Look here,” she said to her cousin, and showed her a selfie with Chiara Ferragni that she’d taken at the Los Angeles airport.

  “Ua’, Chiara Ferragni! Viola, your hairdo looks exactly like hers. Your hair looks good, not Luigi’s, he looks like a baby chick.”

  “I got it done in Rome, picciri’.”

  “Ua’, I wish I could spend a few weeks in Rome,” said Antonietta, dreamily.

  “When you grow up, I’ll take you on to work in my shop. It’s in Rome, on Via Bargoni,” said Viola.

  “Swear you will!”

  Drago’ put his fork down in his bowl: “Don’t you worry, when Antonietta grows up, she won’t need to come work as a cleaning lady for you.”

  His sister glared daggers at him, her eyes glittering with rage and despair: in that improvised family meeting, only Antonietta enjoyed the presence of the guest, and everyone else was just waiting for dinner to be over so they could get to the real reason for Viola’s visit.

  Viola had already lost interest in her; she ran her napkin over her lips, tinging it with her lipstick, then set it delicately down on the tablecloth. Then, looking hard into his eyes, she said: “So, Drago’, can I speak to you, as a soracucina to a fratocucino?”

  “Antonie’, ja’,” said Drago’s mother, quickly stacking the dishes. “Help me do the dishes, and then we’ll go to sleep. Say good night to Viola.”

  Before vanishing reluctantly into the kitchen, the girl went over to plant a kiss on Viola’s cheek: “But, seriously, I want to come to Rome,” she whispered in her ear.

  When she heard the kitchen door shut, Viola was able to explain the reason for this visit: “I’m here to bring you a message from Micione,” she said.

  “I don’t have anything in common with your husband,” Drago’ retorted, and found himself unsurprised at what Viola had to say.

  “This is important, Luigi’. You need to come out to San Giovanni a Teduccio to see us.”

  “What have you got to tell me?”

  “Good things, Luigino!”

  “Micione has always turned his nose up at us. Why on earth has he changed his opinion now?”

  Viola touched her bangs with one hand, as if to make sure her eyes were free of interference so she could look at him more intensely: “You have the same blood as I do, as his wife, and he’s never turned his nose up at you.”

  “My blood is mine alone. It’s not shared, it’s not a post on Facebook.”

  “Luigi, we share the same blood. Diego, ’o Micione, he’s borrowed blood,” Viola promptly retorted, “but the family is ours. It’s always the Strianos who command.”

  “Nice—so is he blood lent to you or are you blood lent to him? Seeing that he sold out Forcella…”

  Viola got to her feet, her first sign of impatience since she’d walked in the door.

  “You listen to me,” she said, “tomorrow morning ’o Pagliaccio is coming to pick you up. Make sure you’re ready for him!”

  “What if I’m not, then what happens?”

  “You can tell me another day and we’ll come get you ourselves,” she concluded, with a flexibility that deprived Drago’ of his urge to bite. Viola recovered her smile for the farewells: “Auntie,” she said, stepping through the kitchen door, “give my best to Uncle. Tell him that he’s the pride of our family, that he saved our honor.”

  Drago’ had remained sitting at the table. Inside him, there was room for curiosity. Curiosity about what Micione wanted to offer him.

  AT THE ROYAL PALACE

  In the Hummer, sitting next to ’o Pagliaccio, Drago’ felt calm, even relaxed. Viola’s little speech about affiliation and loyalty hadn’t had that much of an effect on him. Luigi Striano felt that he wore in his flesh both faces of the city, and he lived that, it strengthened him: he bore the marks of birth and rebirth as if they were two badges, his noble blood and the flaming wings tattooed on his back. He was a Striano, but he was also a member of the Piranhas. And most of all, he was a brother to Nicolas.

  “They’re old, we’re new.” In this simple phrase that he kept repeating in his mind, the paranza’s whole philosophy was summed up in a few words. Micione had screwed them with the sly trick of Roipnol’s murder, but they’d find a way to reclaim that corpse, the same as they’d figure out how to reclaim all the piazzas. In the meantime, gaining access to Micione’s private residence was a privilege, so he was savoring the excursion. He got out of the Hummer and admired his reflection in the smoked-glass windows, straightening his hair, which had wilted a bit during the drive. While ’o Pagliaccio searched him carefully from head to foot, Viola was already waiting for him, smiling in the doorway. She was impeccable, as always. She looked as if she’d just stepped out of the beauty parlor.

  “You look handsome, just like Grandpa, Luigi’,” she told him, and her smile widened. Drago’ wondered when Viola had become so syrupy and cloying: was her father’s turncoat betrayal to blame, or was it a result of mixing her blood with the diabetic blood of the Faellas? He followed her inside, eyes on her ass, which if anything had improved with age. Captivated by that swaying sashay, he didn’t notice at first the hollow sound that Viola’s heels made on the floor. But when he lowered his eyes, he found himself gazing down on an enormous stingray swimming under his feet, followed by a school of electric-blue fish. Drago’ leaped away, hurling himself with his back to the wall, legs shaking in fear.

  “What the fuck is that?” he managed to stammer out when he finally realized that he wasn’t plummeting into the void.

  Viola emitted a high-pitched, careless laugh: “Come on, ja’, Diego is waiting for us.”

  Micione was wrapped in a cardinal-red dressing gown, but a closer look revealed it was one that a boxer might have worn, not a man of the church. The furnishings were sober, understated, probably the result of Viola’s hand. And then there was glass everywhere, and mirrors. They liked each other and themselves, and they liked looking at themselves.

  “Luigino bello,” Micione began, shaking hands with him. “Or what is it you call yourself now? Drago’. You look exactly like the cartoon character.” Drago’ didn’t react. “Do you know that once, when you were little, you came
here before? You were tiny, knee-high to a puppy, you were a scignatella…”

  “I don’t remember…” Drago’ replied in a flat voice.

  Micione had finally let go of his hand, and now he was pushing him toward Viola. “Of course, it’s understandable, you were too small,” she put in.

  “My father, God rest his soul, Antonio Faella,” Micione went on, “when he had my brother’s first communion, you know, ’o Gialluto, he invited all the Strianos. That was when I fell in love with my Viola.” He pointed Drago’ to an egg-shaped chair and chose for himself a leather armchair that had nothing to do with the rest of the furnishings—his favorite. “We’ve always been family,” Micione went on.

  “I don’t remember a thing,” Drago’ said again, still standing and doing nothing to conceal his mistrust. “How long is this yammering going to go on?”

  Micione took the rude words without blinking an eye. “But why,” he asked, “is someone expecting you?”

  “Come on,” Viola broke in, pulling her chair closer, “sit down, Luigi’.”

  “Viola, do me a favor, get the photographs, would you?”

  She sprang to her feet and grabbed a couple of silver picture frames on display on a shelf behind her. She set them down on a coffee table in front of Drago’. They were two group photographs, in black and white: men and women, elegantly dressed, celebrating who knows what, arms around one another; familiar faces, forgotten faces, some of them entirely anonymous.

  Until that moment, Drago’ had been there but not really there at all; he’d left a substantial chunk of himself outside, standing sentinel, maintaining a safe distance from this invitation that smelled of a trap. But then, in one of the faces in those photographs, he recognized his grandfather, and decided that yes, he was handsome, he was fierce and proud; he saw his mother, very slender, and a man who laughed and put his arms around her, and who was trying, in the other photo, to kiss her on the neck while she feigned offense: that was his father.

  “Ua’, look at how young Papa is there,” said Drago’, feeling for a moment as if he were truly in a family.