legs, but, as soon as the other started to eat, Manson jumped on him and ripped off one of his ears. Surprised and terrified, the other dog turned round, dripping with blood, and sank his teeth into the Maremma’s thick coat. Manson backed away, then jumped forward and with one twist of his neck tore out the other dog’s jugular, windpipe and oesophagus, leaving him writhing in a pool of blood.
Fights among dogs and wolves are seldom lethal; they serve to clarify the hierarchy, to distinguish the lower ranks from the leaders. But Manson wasn’t in the habit of playing by the rules; he didn’t stop till his adversary was dead. Christian Oddo’s intuition had been right. Manson was a killing machine, and all the pain and torture he’d undergone had made him indifferent to wounds and merciless in victory.
Blood excited him, gave him energy, won him the respect of other dogs and the favour of bitches on heat. He liked this world: there were no chains, no cruel humans, and all you had to do to gain others’ respect was use your fangs. In a few weeks, without even having to fight the chief, who rolled over on the ground with his legs apart, he became the alpha male, the one who had first choice of the food and impregnated the females.
Three years later, when the explosion of a natural gas tank surprised the pack as they surrounded a horse in the car park of the Sunflowers shopping mall, he still hadn’t lost his rank. What a horse was doing in the car park was a mystery of interest to none of them. Emaciated and covered in sores, it had got one of its legs stuck in a shopping trolley and was standing there in a cloud of flies, near the cashpoints, its big brown head hanging between its legs. The horse was in that state of dumb resignation that can sometimes come over herbivores when they realise that death has caught up with them and that all they can do is wait. The dogs were closing in slowly, almost casually, certain that they were soon going to eat some fresh meat.
Manson, as leader of the pack, was the first to attack the horse, which barely even kicked out when it felt his teeth sink into its hind leg. But a wall of fire, fanned by the wind, suddenly enveloped the scene in a blanket of acrid, scorching smoke. Surrounded by flames and terrified by exploding petrol pumps, the dogs sheltered behind a household appliance store. They stayed there for several days, nearly asphyxiated, under a vault of fire, and when everything had been burnt and they came out, the world was an expanse of ash devoid of food and water.
*
Anna pulled back her hair.
The Maremma crept forward and stopped, ear cocked, eyes fixed on his prey.
She looked at the fence. It was too high. And there was no sense in going back to the car: he’d tear her to pieces in there.
She opened her arms: ‘Come on then! What are you waiting for?’
The dog seemed uncertain.
‘Come on!’ She sprang up and down on her toes. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
The dog flattened down on the asphalt. A crow passed overhead, cawing.
‘What’s the matter? Are you scared?’
The dog sprang forward.
She sprinted towards the car and reached it so fast she hit her hip against the side. Groaning, she slipped in through the door and shut it behind her.
There was a thud, and the car swayed.
Anna grabbed the seat belt, wound it round the door handle and tied it to the spokes of the steering wheel. Through the misty glass of the side window she saw the dark shape of the dog jump up.
She climbed into the back and crouched down in the boot, but almost at once the suitcase she’d jammed in the rear window came crashing down on top of her, followed by the enormous dog. She fended him off, using the case as a shield, and searched for some kind of weapon. There was an umbrella under the seat. She grabbed it with both hands and held it out like a spear.
The dog jumped into the back seat, snarling.
She jabbed the tip of the umbrella into his neck, and blood spattered her face.
The dog yelped, but didn’t retreat. He advanced along the seat, rubbing his filthy back against the ceiling.
‘I’m stronger than you!’ She stabbed him in the side. When she tried to pull the umbrella out, the handle came off in her hand.
The dog lunged at her, the umbrella sticking out of his ribs. His teeth snapped shut a few centimetres from her nose. She smelled his warm putrid breath. Pushing him away with her elbows, she climbed over onto the front seat, falling among the woman’s bones.
The dog didn’t follow. His coat plastered with blood and ash, his mouth dripping with red foam, he looked at her, turning his head as if trying to understand her, then swayed and collapsed.
*
Anna was singing a jingle she’d made up: ‘Here comes Nello, funny-looking fellow; his trainers are pink and his whiskers yellow.’
Nello was a friend of her father’s; he drove over from Palermo now and then in a white van to bring her mother the books she needed. Though Anna had only seen him a few times, she remembered him well; he was a nice guy. She often thought about those whiskers.
The sun had risen among streaky white clouds, shedding welcome warmth on her skin.
She shifted the rucksack on her back. The dogs had torn at it, but hadn’t succeeded in getting it open. The bottle of Amaro Lucano hadn’t been broken.
Before leaving, she’d taken one last look at the big dog from the door. He was still breathing hoarsely, his dirty coat rising and falling. She’d wondered whether she should put him out of his misery, but didn’t dare go any nearer. Better to leave him to die.
She started down a road which ran alongside the A29 for a while before curving away towards the sea through a retail park. All that was left of the discount store where they used to buy food were the vertical supports and the iron frame of the roof. The Furniture House, where they’d bought the sofa and bunk bed, paying by instalments, had been burnt down. The white stone steps at the front were now covered with a thick layer of ash. The handsome flowerpots decorated with Moors’ heads had gone. Inside there were only the skeletons of a few sofas and a piano.
Anna crossed the forecourt of a Ford salesroom lined with neat rows of burnt-out cars and walked out onto the fields. All that remained of the vineyards were some vine supports, stumps of olive trees and dry stone walls. A combine harvester near the ruins of a farmhouse looked like an insect, but with a full set of teeth. A plough seemed to be rooting in the earth like an anteater. Here and there shoots of fig trees appeared among black clods of soil, and light green buds could be seen on charred trunks.
*
The low modern structure of the De Roberto Elementary School floated on a black sea among waves of heat which seemed to bend the horizon. The basketball court behind the building was overgrown with grass. Fire had melted the backboards behind the hoops. The windows had lost their glass; inside, the desks, chairs and lino were covered with earth. A drawing of a giraffe and a lion by Daniela Sperno still hung on the wall of Anna’s classroom, 3C. The teacher’s desk was on the dais by the whiteboard. Some time ago Anna had opened the drawer and found the register, the little mirror with which Signorina Rigoni used to check the hairs on her chin, and her lipstick. Anna usually went in and sat at her old desk for a while. But this time she walked on by.
*
