At the beginning of that adventure, Carlo was in the next-to-last car, Marta in the last. Both were reading books: Carlo Asylum, and Marta Ocean Sea. In the grip of literature they hadn’t been aware of anything. Then, trying to get out, they had come face to face. Both were frightened, and screamed as if they’d seen a ghost.
What morons, Carlo said to Marta later, how could they not have noticed anything? For Carlo it was his first experience, so to speak, of being possessed by reading. In Marta’s case, on the other hand, it often happened that she didn’t get off at her stop. Now they were both locked in the metro. They couldn’t even inform the emergency services, there was no way. They spent the night together somewhat fearfully, they talked to each other about many things, and when, early in the morning, the motorman got them out, they began to laugh. The sort of laughter that covers embarrassment: at having been a bit foolish but, at the same time, at having said some important things. At having bared themselves, so to speak, in front of one another. An inversion: They had been underground together, and had been so comfortable that when the morning light illuminated them they were pained, as if they had been hurled out of the earthly paradise, which this time, however, was down below.
What a moron, Liliana, Carlo’s wife, said to him, when she saw him again. I’m here in this place working all night and you’re in a train reading Asylum. Practically the same thing that Liliana said again when, a few months later, she discovered that her husband not only was fucking Marta but was in love with her. Really, his wife said to him. In love? What a moron... I’m here in this...
Francesco and Cinzia
The boy had noticed awhile ago that there was something odd. If there was any value in what he did — that is, almost nothing, from morning to night — it was that he could look around. And looking around, Francesco had noticed the storefront. He had his girlfriend look, too, saying to her, There’s something odd. To this observation his girl, Cinzia, had replied: Right. A word that she repeated often, especially when Francesco commented on something he saw: Right.
Cinzia adored Francesco. She saw in him everything she didn’t see in her other contemporaries and schoolmates. Francesco was someone who got respect. He used his fists. That was how he resolved things, with his fists. And he was successful. He wasn’t like her classmates, all very polite and very fake, according to Cinzia. Francesco and Cinzia went to the French school, a private school. They were in the same class. What am I supposed to do? My father is a moron, he enrolled me in this school, so in his view I’m learning important things and hanging out with fancy people. But what can I learn from some filthy rich morons?
Right, Cinzia answered. She found herself in the same situation. Her father and mother had a lot of money and could afford to have all sorts of luxuries. And they had them. And in having them, according to Cinzia, they contributed to the devastation of the world. Cinzia detested people who were devastating the world. They got on her nerves. She bought clothes from street vendors without worrying about the label or the quality. She didn’t even worry when her mother borrowed her clothes. Cinzia’s mother, in fact, considered her daughter a born style-maker. Someone who wherever she shopped would buy the right thing. In fact, Cinzia created trends. So her mother said. Right, Cinzia commented, my mother doesn’t understand shit about anything. You should see my father, Francesco added. As a matter of fact, the two had become acquainted talking about their fathers and mothers. Then they had gotten together when, during a discussion about pacifism, the girl had seemed to go crazy because her interlocutor, according to her, not only underestimated the problem of imperialism but also made some out-of-place remarks, partly to undercut Cinzia, the style-maker, and partly to tease her. The discussion ended when Francesco got involved and started punching the boy. Every time he hit him he said: What’s the matter? You’re not laughing anymore.
Right, said Cinzia, some time later, when they kissed for the first time. From then on no one wanted to have a discussion with Cinzia the pacifist or her warrior companion, Francesco. And the two formed a close, intimate couple. But isolated.
Now, this storefront which had something odd about it was actually a warehouse: Twice a week a van arrived and unloaded refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines. And on an almost daily basis, these household appliances, one by one, left the place. The operations occurred in a regular, straightforward fashion. Matteo Cosentino, the owner, waited in the doorway of the store for the arrival of the van and helped unload it. His wife, Daniela Lo Prete, came out and handed over the receipt. The business was repeated in the opposite direction immediately afterward, in the sense that Matteo loaded into his minivan, a Fiat Ducato, a television, a refrigerator, but also a chair, a lamp. His wife gave him a packing list, and then every other time, according to her mood, she said goodbye to her husband, who, every other time, according to his mood, departed saying goodbye to his wife with a wave of his left hand.
These were all simple operations that went on without any interference. The neighborhood was in the process of changing, it’s true; for much of the day someone with a truck was loading or unloading goods, but there were no traffic jams or parked cars that got in the way of movement. Matteo loaded up and left.
There was something odd, however.
Matteo and Daniela (and Little Giulia)
Once a week, Matteo and his wife, Daniela, lowered the metal shutter halfway. This happened when the gold tokens arrived. Matteo and Daniela had the job of counting them and delivering them to the winner. There was no danger as long as the whole operation unfolded in low profile, so to speak. It shouldn’t attract attention. To keep the operation’s profile low, the gold tokens, placed in a canvas sack decorated with a red ribbon, were put in a gym bag and loaded into the back or, sometimes, left on the rear seat. What in the world could there be of importance in a gym bag? Not to mention the fact that the gold tokens were not a very desirable haul; even people who received them as a prize had to exchange the gold for money. In this exchange the tokens lost twenty percent of their value — imagine if you’d stolen them.
For two years Matteo and Daniela had managed the franchise for third-party delivery of prizes won on television.
It was a modern business, certain to expand. Television will give away more and more prizes (of all varieties), and there will have to be agencies to handle the delivery, at least one in every major city, to reduce the costs of transportation. Anyway, if you won a television, it did not reach the winner directly, by courier. From the factory it went to the agency and the agency took care of delivering it to the home.
Matteo and Daniela, who had been married for three years, had decided to take this job. They had also decided something else: to have a child. The truth is, Daniela had made (and imposed) the decision. Matteo temporized. Now that the business was about to get going, a child could slow its progress. You had to take care of a child, Matteo always said; we can’t leave it to grandparents or babysitters. Let’s wait. We’re just getting going and then we bring a child into the world. If we wait for the right moment, Daniela answered, it will never arrive. There are no right moments. Since Daniela believed in what she said, one fine day she simply informed her husband that the right moment had arrived: in the sense that she was pregnant. Nine months later Giulia was born. Adorable, happy, healthy, good-natured. If only she had slept at night, it would have been perfect — the right moment, so to speak. But she was a child who liked to be up, maybe she was already immersed in the sweet nightlife of the Pigneto neighborhood. Matteo rocked her whenever he could. In brief, the matter stood like this: Matteo no longer slept. And the work suffered from it. I told you so, he said to Daniela. She put up with it; she had to devote herself to the child, she couldn’t worry about her husband’s sleep. It will pass, calm down, that way you’ll calm Giulia as well.