I’m Not Scared

[The hill] looked like a panettone. A huge panettone that some giant had placed on the plain. It rose in front of us a couple of kilometres away. Golden and immense. The wheat covered it like a fur coat. There wasn’t a tree, a crag, a blemish, to spoil its outline. The sky around it was liquid and dirty. The other hills, behind, were like dwarves compared to that huge dome. Goodness knows how none of us had noticed it till that moment. We had seen it, but without really seeing it. Maybe because it blended in with the landscape. Maybe because we had all had our eyes glued to the road looking out for Melichetti’s farm.

‘Let’s climb it.’ Skull pointed at it. ‘Let’s climb that mountain.’

I said: ‘I wonder what’s up on top.’

It must be an incredible place, maybe some strange animal lived there.

I wasn’t going to say anything to anyone.

‘Finders keepers,’ Skull had decided.

If that was so, the boy at the bottom of the hole was mine.

If I told them, Skull, as always, would take all the credit for the discovery. He would tell everyone he had found him because it had been his decision to climb the hill.

Not this time. I had done the forfeit, I had fallen out of the tree and I had found him.

He wasn’t Skull’s. He wasn’t Barbara’s either. He wasn’t Salvatore’s. He was mine. He was my secret discovery.

I woke up during the night. I had had a nightmare.

Jesus was telling Lazarus to rise and walk. But Lazarus didn’t rise. Rise and walk, Jesus repeated. Lazarus just wouldn’t come back to life. Jesus, who looked like Severino, the man who drove the water tanker, lost his temper. He was being made to look a fool. When Jesus tells you to rise and walk, you have to do it, especially if you’re dead. But Lazarus just lay there, stiff as a board. So Jesus started shaking him like a doll and Lazarus finally rose up and bit him in the throat. Leave the dead alone, he said with blood-smeared lips.

I knew witches met at night in abandoned houses and had parties and if you joined in you went mad and that ogres ate children.

I must be careful. If an ogre caught me, he would throw me in a hole too and eat me bit by bit. First an arm, then a leg and so on. And nobody would ever hear of me again. My parents would weep in despair. And everyone would say: ‘Michele was such a nice boy, we’re so sorry.’ My aunts and uncles would come, and my cousin Evelina, in her blue Giulietta. Skull wouldn’t cry, not him, nor would Barbara. My sister and Salvatore would, though.

I didn’t want to die. Though I’d have liked to go to my funeral.

‘Are you alive? Can you hear me?’

I waited, then I picked up a stone and threw it at him. I hit him on the foot.

A thin, slender foot with black toes. A foot that didn’t move a millimetre.

He was dead. And he would only get up from there if Jesus in person ordered him to.

My flesh crawled.

Dead dogs and cats had never affected me like this. Fur hides death. But this corpse, so white, with its arm thrown to one side, its head against the wall, was repulsive. There was no blood, nothing. Just a lifeless body in a dismal hole.

There was nothing human about him any more.

I must see his face. The face is the most important thing. From the face you can tell everything.

Maybe the boy in the hole was my brother, and he had been born mad like Nunzio and papa had hidden him there, so as not to frighten my sister and me. Not to frighten the children of Acqua Traverse.

Maybe he and I were twins. We were the same height and we seemed to be the same age.

When we were born, mama had taken both of us from the cradle, she had sat on a chair and put her breasts in our mouths to give us milk. I had started to suck but he had bitten her nipple, tried to tear it off, the blood and milk was dripping from her tit and mama shouted round the house: ‘He’s crazy! He’s crazy! Pino, take him away! Take him away! Kill him, he’s crazy.’

Felice Natale was Skull’s big brother. If Skull was bad, Felice was a thousand times worse.

Felice was twenty. And whenever he was in Acqua Traverse life was hell for me and the other children. He would hit us, puncture our football and steal things from us.

He was a poor devil. Friendless, womanless. A guy who bullied children, a soul in torment. And that was understandable. No twenty-year-old could live in Acqua Traverse without ending up like Nunzio Scardaccione, the hair-tearer. Felice in Acqua Traverse was like a tiger in a cage. He paced around among that tiny group of houses, furious, restless, ready to pick on you. It was lucky he went off to Lucignano now and again. But even there he hadn’t made any friends. When I came out of school I used to see him sitting alone on a bench in the piazza.

A lady appeared. [...] She was sitting in a big leather armchair in a room full of books. [...] ‘I’m Filippo Carducci’s mother. I’m appealing to my son’s kidnappers. Please don’t hurt him. He’s a good boy, polite and very shy. Please treat him well. I’m sure you know what love and understanding are. Even if you haven’t got any children I’m sure you can imagine what it means when they’re taken away from you. The ransom you’ve asked for is very high, but my husband and I are prepared to give you everything we own to have Filippo back with us. You’ve threatened to cut off one of his ears. I beg you, I implore you not to do it...’ [...] ‘We’re doing all we can. Please. God will reward you if you are merciful. Tell Filippo that his mama and papa haven’t forgotten him and that they love him.’

The old man rinsed the razor in the water. ‘Don’t you know you’re supposed to knock before going into the bathroom? Didn’t your parents teach you that?’

‘I’m sorry.’ I wanted to leave but I stood rooted to the spot. Like when you see a cripple and you try not to look at him but you can’t help it.

He started shaving his neck. ‘Are you Pino’s son?’

‘Yes.’

He scrutinized me in the mirror. ‘Are you a quiet child?’

‘Yes.’

‘I like quiet children. Good boy. You don’t take after your father, then.

And are you obedient?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then go out and shut the door.’

Togo squirmed but Barbara held him fast by his scruff and his collar. She pushed him under. I saw him disappear in the mud.

She started singing again. ‘One fine morning I woke early. O bella ciao! Bella ciao! Bella ciao ciao ciao!’

She didn’t pull him out again.

She wanted to kill him.

I shouted. ‘What are you doing? Let him go!’

‘And you’ve got an electric train. With an engine and a funnel. I saw it.’

‘I haven’t got that any more. It got broken. Nanny threw it away.’

‘Nanny? Who’s nanny?’

‘Liliana. She’s dead too. And Peppino’s dead. And papa’s dead. And grandmother Arianna’s dead. And my brother’s dead. They’re all dead. They’re all dead and they live in holes like this one. And I’m in one too. Everybody. The world’s a place full of holes with dead people in them. And the moon’s a ball all full of holes too and inside them there are other dead people.’

He started touching me. ‘How old are you?’ He ran his hands over my nose, my mouth, my eyes.

I was paralysed. ‘Nine. What about you?’

‘Nine.’

‘When’s your birthday?’

‘The twelfth of September. And yours?’

‘The twentieth of November.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Michele. Michele Amitrano. What year are you in at school?’

‘The fourth. What about you?’

‘The fourth.’

‘Same.’

‘Same.’

‘I’ve got some clothes here that are too small for Salvatore. Take them. If the trousers are too long I’ll shorten them for you. Do take them, I’d be very pleased if you did. Just look at the state you’re in.’

I would have liked to. They were practically new. But mama said we didn’t accept charity from anyone. Especially not from those two. She said my clothes were perfectly all right. And she would decide when it was time to change them. ‘Thank you, Signora. But I can’t.’

‘Filippo, it’s late. I’ve got to take you down.’

‘Can I really go back down?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right. Let’s go back.’

Mama curled up beside me and whispered in my ear: ‘When you grow up you must go away from here and never come back.’

‘Stop all this talk about monsters, Michele. Monsters don’t exist. It’s men you should be afraid of, not monsters.’

I felt a lump swelling in my throat too. I said: ‘Mama? Mama?’

She raised her head and looked at me with glistening red eyes: ‘What is it?’

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

She slapped me on the cheek and shook me as if I was made of cloth.

‘Nobody’s dead! Nobody’s dead! Do you understand?’ She gave a grimace of pain and whispered: ‘You’re too small...’ She opened her mouth wide and clutched me to her breast.

I opened my eyes again.

Papa was crying. He was stroking me. His hands red. A dark figure approached. Papa looked at him.

Papa, you must run for it.

In the roar papa said: ‘I didn’t recognize him. Help me, please, he’s my son. He’s wounded. I didn’t...’ Now it was dark again.

And there was papa.

And there was me.