couldn’t tell whether he was Mario or Paolo, but one look was enough to tell her that he had Red Fever. His lips were covered with scabs and sores, his nostrils swollen and inflamed, his eyes ringed. A reddish blotch covered his neck. He might live a few more weeks. A couple of months if he was tough.
She took the CD out of her rucksack. ‘Well? Do you want it?’
The twin screwed up his eyes. ‘Let me see.’ He examined it and gave it back. ‘We’ve already got it. Anyway, I’m fed up with Massimo Ranieri. I prefer Domenico Modugno.’
Anna craned her neck to peer into the shop. ‘Are you on your own?’
The fat boy coughed, spattering a yellowish sludge on the floor. ‘My brother’s dead.’ He raised his eyes and counted silently. ‘It’s been five days now.’
Anna waited only a couple of seconds. ‘Listen, I need some medicine.’
‘I told you we don’t swap things any more.’ The twin turned round and shuffled back into the shop. She followed him.
It took her eyes a minute or two to get used to the gloom. Everything was on the floor – jars of honey and orange marmalade, dry dog food, tins of ragout, tubes of anchovy paste. A can of oil had been knocked over and shards of a broken bottle were immersed in a pool of wine.
It horrified her to see all that good food wasted. The day before she’d almost been torn apart for a few tins of beans. ‘What on earth happened?’
‘I stopped tidying up.’
‘Look, will you give me these medicines? It’s important, they’re for my brother. If you want, I’ve got some charged batteries too.’
The twin went behind the counter, rested the shotgun against the wall, flopped down on a small wicker chair, legs stretched out in front of him, arms hanging by his sides, and started coughing again. The Red Fever hadn’t succeeded in slimming him down yet. Two sausage-like legs, white skin dotted with freckles and fair hairs, protruded from the tracksuit trousers. A spherical head sitting on rounded shoulders, without the interval of a neck.
‘I don’t need your batteries. I’ve got loads of them.’ He opened a drawer full of packets of cigarettes. ‘Would you like one?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘What brand do you like?’
‘Any one.’
He passed her a packet of Marlboro, together with a lighter. ‘How old’s your brother?’
Anna lit the cigarette. ‘Seven, maybe eight.’
‘It can’t be Red Fever, then.’
‘He must have eaten something rotten. He’s got a temperature and he keeps being sick. I need some antibiotics.’
The fat boy rubbed his neck. ‘Do you want to see him?’
Anna realised he meant his twin brother. ‘All right. But which one are you?’
‘Mario. Paolo was my brother.’ He led her into the area at the back of the shop, a storeroom full of cardboard boxes and crates, and a white van with the word ‘Despar’ on the side. ‘I put him here.’
Paolo lay in a big open freezer, the kind that used to be used for storing pizzas and bags of prawns. Heaped up around him were jars of tuna preserved in oil, of various makes. He was starting to swell up. The eyes had gone, sucked down inside two purple blobs. Hands like blown-up gloves. He smelled really bad.
Anna took a drag on her cigarette. ‘I bet tuna was his favourite food.’
‘And how old are you?’ Mario asked her.
‘I’ve lost count.’
He smiled, displaying small yellow teeth. ‘I remember you at school.’ He examined her. ‘Have you got the blotches?’
Anna shook her head.
‘Why do you think my brother died first? I can’t understand it – we’re twins. We were born together, we should have died together.’
‘The Red Fever comes to everyone differently. You can even catch it at fourteen.’
He nodded, pursing his lips. ‘How long do you reckon I’ve got?’
Anna stubbed the cigarette out under her sole and went up to him. She scrutinised his neck, made him lift up his T-shirt so she could see the other blotches on his back, and checked his hands. ‘I don’t know . . . Maybe a couple of months.’
‘That’s what I think.’ He rubbed his eye. ‘But have you heard the rumour? They say a Grown-up has survived.’
How many times had she heard such stories? Everyone she met said there were Grown-ups who’d survived somewhere or other. It was all bullshit. The virus had exterminated the Grown-ups, and as soon as children reached puberty, it killed them too. That was the truth of the matter. And after all these years she no longer believed the rumours about a vaccine. But she kept quiet, still hoping to get the antibiotics for Astor.
‘I know you don’t believe it. I didn’t either, at first. But it’s true.’ Mario put his hand on his heart.
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘The guy who told me must have been at least sixteen. Had a beard, and not a blotch on him. Said a big woman had saved him. Not a normal Grown-up, bigger. They call her “the Little Lady”. She’s three metres tall. Caught the Red Fever, but recovered.’ Mario’s face, until then about as expressive as that of a grazing cow, came to life. ‘It cost me five bottles of wine to find out where she lives.’
‘And where does she live?’ asked Anna.
‘In a place in the mountains. The Spa Hotel, he said. Do you know it?’
Anna thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I do. It’s not far away.’
‘Have you been there?’
‘Not to the hotel itself, but very close. Anyway, it’s easy to find on a map.’
‘This Little Lady can cure you.’
Anna couldn’t suppress a sceptical smile. ‘How does she do that?’
‘You have to kiss her, on the mouth. Her saliva is magic.’
Anna burst out laughing. ‘Kiss her using your tongue, you mean?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What if she won’t let you? If she doesn’t like you?’
‘She will, she will. As long as you take her some presents.’ He started coughing again, nearly choking. Then he went on in a feeble voice: ‘Especially bars of chocolate.’
‘Chocolate’s no good nowadays. It’s all white and tasteless.’
Mario smiled like a grocer displaying his
