mobile began ringing in my pocket.
I waited a moment before answering.
‘Mum . . .’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you on your way?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is there much traffic?’
A Dalmatian careered past me. ‘A bit . . .’
‘Can you put Alessia’s mum on?’
I lowered my voice. ‘She can’t talk right now. She’s driving.’
‘Well, I’ll speak to her this evening then, so I can thank her.’
The Dalmatian had begun barking at its owner because it wanted her to throw it a stick.
I put my hand over the phone and ran towards the street.
‘All right.’
‘Bye.’
‘All right, Mum, bye . . . Hey, where are you? What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. I’m in bed. I wanted to sleep a little more.’
‘When are you going out?’
‘I’ll go and see your grandma later.’
‘And Dad?’
‘He’s just left.’
‘Ah . . . okay then.’
‘Bye.’
Perfect.
There he was, the Silver Monkey, sweeping up the leaves. That’s what I called Franchino, our building’s doorman. He looked exactly like a kind of monkey that lives in the Congo. He had a round head covered with a strip of silver hair. This band began at the nape of his neck and curled up over his ears and down his jawline until it joined up on his chin. A single dark eyebrow crossed his forehead. Even the way he walked was strange. He moved forward hunched over, with his long arms swaying, the palms of his hands facing forwards and his head bobbing.
He was from Soverato, in Calabria, where his family lived. But he had worked in our building since forever. I thought he was nice. My mother and my father said that he was over-familiar with them.
Now the problem was how to get into the building without him seeing me.
The Silver Monkey moved very slowly and it took him a lifetime to sweep the courtyard. Hiding behind a truck parked on the other side of the street I pulled out my mobile and dialled his home number. The phone in his basement flat began ringing. It took the Silver Monkey ages to hear it. At last he dumped the broom and loped towards the entrance. I watched him disappear down the stairs.
I grabbed the skis and boots and crossed the street. I just missed being hit by a Ka, which began honking at me. Behind it, other drivers had slammed on their brakes and were yelling insults.
Gritting my teeth, as the skis kept slipping and the backpack cut into my shoulders, I turned off my mobile and walked through the gates. I passed by the moss-covered fountain where the goldfish live and the English-style lawn with the marble benches you weren’t allowed to sit on. My mother’s car was parked next to the shelter near the main door, under the palm tree she had saved from the red palm weevil.
Praying that I wouldn’t run into anyone on their way out of the building I slipped into the foyer, ran along the red carpet past the lift and dived down the stairs which led to the cellars.
When I made it downstairs I was out of breath. Patting my way along the wall I found the light switch. Two long, faded striplights came on, illuminating a narrow, windowless corridor. Along one side ran pipes, along the other, closed doors. Standing in front of the third door, I stuck my hand in my pocket, pulled out a long key and turned it in the lock.
The door opened onto a large, rectangular room. Up high, two small windows veiled with dust let in a sliver of light which fell on furniture covered with sheets, on boxes full of books, saucepans and clothes, on termite-ridden window frames, on tables and wooden doors, on lime-crusted sinks and stacks of upholstered chairs. Stuff was piled up everywhere I looked. A flowery blue settee. A heap of mildewed mattresses. A collection of moth-eaten Reader’s Digests. Old records. Crooked lampshades. A cast iron bedhead. Rugs rolled up in newspapers. A big ceramic bulldog with a broken paw.
A Fifties household amassed in a cellar.
But over on one side was a mattress with blankets and a pillow. Neatly set out on top of a coffee table were ten tins of corned beef, twenty of tuna, three bags of sliced bread, six jars of vegetables in oil, twelve bottles each of Ferrarelle sparkling water, fruit juice and Coke, a jar of Nutella, two tubes of mayonnaise, biscuits, snacks and two bars of milk chocolate. A small television sat on a chest, along with my PlayStation, three Stephen King novels and a couple of Marvel comics.
I locked the door.
This would be my ski week.
2
I started talking when I was three years old. Small talk has never been one of my strengths. If someone I didn’t know said something to me I would answer yes, no, I don’t know. And if they insisted, I would answer with whatever they wanted to hear me say.
Once you’ve thought something, what need is there to say it aloud?
‘Lorenzo, you’re like a cactus: you grow without bothering anyone, you just need a drop of water and a bit of light,’ an old nanny from Caserta used to say to me.
My parents used to bring over au pairs for me to play with. But I preferred playing on my own. I would close the door and imagine that my room was a cube that floated through space.
My problems started at primary school.
I have very few memories of that period. I remember my teachers’ names, the hydrangeas in the schoolyard, the metal containers full of steaming hot maccheroni in the canteen. And the others.
The others were anyone who wasn’t my mum, my father and Grandma Laura.
If the others didn’t leave me alone, if they pushed me too far, the blood would rise up through my legs, flood my stomach and spread out to the tips of my hands, and then I would clench my fists and lash out.
When I pushed Giampolo Tinari off the wall and he fell on his head on the cement and had to get stitches in his forehead, they called home.
In the staff room, my teacher told my mother: ‘He looks like he’s at the station waiting for the train to take him home. He doesn’t annoy anyone, but if any of his classmates tease him he starts shouting, turns red and starts throwing whatever he can get his hands on.’ The teacher had studied the floor, embarrassed. ‘Sometimes he is frightening. I don’t know . . . I would recommend you . . .’
My mother took me to see Professor Masburger. ‘You’ll see. He helps a lot of kids.’
‘But
