Thank you, sir, the boy had said, taking big gulps of his Coke. He must have been barely fifteen, but already the expression of a scoundrel was painted on his face. Of a little adult. The bartender at that kiosk on the beach, Antonio, or whatever the hell his name was, seemed to confirm my impression.
“This kid here is a rogue,” he said in a friendly fashion. “He always finds a way of getting something from the customers.” At those words, I was tempted to withdraw, to make a prudent retreat, as if I feared that a stranger could read my mind and discern my guilty thoughts. Because, Charlotte, I had done something ugly. I had looked at that boy a moment too long. And in that moment all my desire returned from where I had buried it, leaving me like that, like a Lazarus come back to life, wandering alone on the beach, anxious to see that boy again, to hold him in my arms.
Charlotte, I don’t understand why you had to die first. I surely deserved such an end more than you. But destiny tricked us both, and now I’m certain that you’re looking down at me. So go on looking. Look at me, on this train again, when I had sworn to myself that I would never return to Rome, that I would never walk the white beaches of Ostia. And yet now I’m here, and now not even you can slow my descent into the Underworld. If I could, I would have done it two years ago. And even then you didn’t stop me. You, Charlotte, you let the darkness enter my life like an unwanted guest. You opened the door to the night that made me a murderer. You gave it the keys to my house, my life. A curse, Charlotte. Why did you do this to me? Why did you let me believe that you could give me peace, when in reality you granted me only a truce. If you had told me the truth, I would not have done what I did. I would not have waited for Mario at sunset, with the excuse of buying him another Coke; I would not have followed him home, just to know where he lived; I would not have bought him that ball just to see him happy. I swear, Charlotte. If I had known I couldn’t stop, I wouldn’t have done any of the things I did in the days of our last summer together.
I wouldn’t have told Mario that I would take him to a nice place for a pizza that night, a place here in Rome that only I knew, and that he was not to say a word to anyone. It’s a secret, Mario. Don’t tell anyone; otherwise, no pizza.
My God, why did a scoundrel like him pay any attention to me? Why on that particular night were you sicker than usual, did you seem scarcely aware of me?
There are many questions that I can’t answer, and even today, Charlotte, I wonder why I didn’t take Mario to have a pizza for real. It would have been so simple to get to central Rome, I had even rented a car. But at the last minute I changed my mind. I changed course, and brought Mario to the Idroscalo, the old seaplane station. I stopped the car and sat peering at the darkness all around.
You don’t know it, Charlotte. Tourists don’t go there. It’s an unreal place of mud, garbage, and weeds. And it’s been like that for thirty years, from the day of Pasolini’s murder. A place abandoned by God and man, where the voice of that violence still sounds in the silence. The voice of an ancient violence, which Rome has never ceased to conceal. And that night the voice was heard again, like an echo, in the deserted fields of the Idroscalo. Loud enough to cover Mario’s words, his protests. What are we doing here, let’s go, he kept saying to me. But I couldn’t hear him. I took him by the arm. I hit him to make him shut up. Then Mario got frightened and ran away. He opened the door and began running through the fields. He ran like a rabbit, Charlotte. Fast, like a frightened child. I started the car and went straight after him. I called to him to stop, but children, you know, they never do what they’re told. Children are never still. Children are never quiet. They can’t keep a secret, even if they’ve promised. I alone could silence him, I alone could stop him. I pressed my foot to the gas. Faster. It was essential to stop him. Before Mario could tell anyone what had happened. I had to end his life. End his world there, in those fields.
My world today goes on turning, Charlotte.
No one knows, no one has ever suspected.
Mario was always out, and his parents were not too concerned about him. Likely he fell victim to someone with evil intentions.
The fault is the family’s, society’s.
The fault is this city’s.
Rome was born in blood, and blood always calls forth more blood. I believe it, Charlotte. The voice of violence shouts every night through these streets, but now among the victims’ cries I seem to hear my name too. And it’s Mario’s voice that accuses me. A voice louder than the others.
It was you, he says. And yes, it was me. I killed that poor boy. It’s no use turning your head and pretending that nothing happened. I tried, but it was all in vain. Two years have passed, and the sound of those broken bones still echoes in my head. That sound is my company day and night, it won’t let me sleep, won’t let me think.
He asked for it, Charlotte. From that day, I’ve been repeating this, over and over, but I’m not persuaded.
Mario’s voice has followed me everywhere. It pursued me over land and sea, until I was exhausted, until it made me say Enough. Enough now. I’m too tired to escape again.
I’m dying, Charlotte. In the end his voice found me. It crossed the silence with which Rome remembers its dead, and murmured in my ear the word “cancer.” And at my age cancer is unforgiving, as you well know. I’m going to die, my dear. And I’m going to die here at Ostia, where everything began. I’m going to die on the white beaches of this blood-colored city, like an old whale that has lost its way in the ocean. And in a way, my love, that’s just how it should be.
Part II
In the Footsteps of Caesar
Don’t Talk to the Passenger
by Diego De Silva
Translation by Anne Milano Appel
Fiumicino
I get off the plane in enviable physical shape, proud of feeling and above all looking like I’m in sync with the wealth-producing world around me, not at all nostalgic, stylishly dressed, immune to politics, to freedom of the press and freedom of expression in general, to culture, to global warming, to Muslim terrorism, crime reports, the Democratic party, model towns of quiet living where low-level clerks massacre their neighbors and families for no reason, to rampant pedophilia, the never truly ascertained extinction of the first republic, to world championships, soccer bribe scandals, paparazzi who blackmail public figures, to the uncertainty of work, to Family Day, to Rights for Cohabiting Couples and the Catholic Church’s meddling in the political life of the country and the private lives of individuals. I am a man of my time, having achieved a truce with the world. Not that it took that much, a wink was enough to send the signaclass="underline" You mind your business and I’ll mind mine. We’re all adults, after all.
In the shuttle that brings us to the terminal, I look around (no one escapes the gaze of others in the airport shuttle: find me another public place where strangers pay so much attention to one another) and declare myself the most attractive man on this flight that just landed in Rome. For a moment I fear competition from a couple of young studs who are flaunting their gym-buffed physiques in tight T-shirts, but seeing that an attractive piece of tail with a child is looking at me and not them, my concern quickly eases.
We arrived right on time, which reassures me about the little game I intend to play before putting myself in circulation. As usual when I come to Rome, I group my engagements. Not that any one of them preoccupies me very much, but it’s the sum of them that adds up, as the well-known joke says — and though it doesn’t make me laugh, I find myself citing it often, a little like a bad tune that sticks in your head the more you try to forget it.