To emphasise his point, Tartaglione sniffed deeply, a stage sniff, a sniff so aggressive it sounded as if it might damage his head.
‘Everyone at USIC is… concerned about you,’ said Peter carefully. ‘You could get transported home.’
Tartaglione snorted. ‘Lungi da me, satana! Quítate de delante de mí! Haven’t you read the USIC contract? Maybe you need help translating the lingo? Well, I’m your man. Dear highly skilled misfit: We hope you enjoy your stretch on Oasis. There’s chicken tonight! Or something very like it. So settle in, don’t count the days, take a long view. Every five years, or maybe sooner if you can prove you’re batshit insane, you can have a trip back to the festering scumhole you came from. But we’d rather you didn’t. What you wanna go back there for? What’s the point? Your uncle and his goddamned frog collection are gonna be history soon. Everything’s gonna be history soon. History will be history.’ He paced back and forth in front of Peter, his feet scuffling the dirty floor. ‘USIC concerned about me? Yeah, I’ll bet. That fatso chink dude, forget his name, I can just see him lying awake at nights thinking, I wonder if Tartaglione is OK. Is he happy? Is he getting enough vitamins? Do I hear a bell tolling, has a clod been washed away by the sea, is a piece of the continent gone, am I just a little fucking diminished here? Yeah, I can feel the love. Who’s on love duty today?’
Peter dipped out of consciousness for a second or two. The flesh of his brow was contracting tight against his skull, pushing in on the bone. He remembered once having a fever, some sort of forty-eight-hour flu, and lying helpless in bed while Bea was at work. Waking in the middle of the day half-deranged and parched with thirst, he was puzzled to feel a hand on the back of his head, lifting it from the pillow, and a glass of iced water raised to his lips. Much later, when he was better, he found out that Bea had travelled all the way home to give him that drink, and then all the way back to the hospital, in what was supposed to be her lunch break.
‘I would have survived,’ he’d protested.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I love you.’
When Tartaglione spoke again, his tone was philosophical, almost apologetic. ‘No use crying over spilt milk, my friend. Let it go rancid and live for mañana. The unacknowledged USIC motto, wise words, wise words, worthy of being tattooed on every forehead.’ A pause. ‘Hell, this place ain’t so bad. I mean this place I’ve got here: casa mia. It’s more cheerful in daylight. And if I’d known you were coming, I’d’ve had a bath, you know. Maybe trimmed the old barba.’ He sighed. ‘I had everything here once. Tutte le comodità moderne. Todo confort. Torches, batteries, shaver for my pretty face, paper to wipe my ass on. Pens, too. Prescription glasses, magnification 3.5. The world was my mollusc.’
‘What happened?’
‘Moisture,’ said Tartaglione. ‘Time. Wear and tear. Conspicuous absence of a multitude of people working round the clock to keep me supplied with goodies. But!’ He rummaged about, and there was the clatter of plastic, followed by a glotch of submersion into the liquid-filled crib. ‘But before they vamoosed, the little fairies in the bathrobes did teach me one of their secrets. The most important secret of all, right? Alchemy. Turning boring old plants into booze.’
There was another glotch. Tartaglione handed Peter a mug, took a slurp from his own, and continued raving.
‘You know the most wacko thing about the USIC base? The one, single, most sinister thing? I’ll tell you: No distillery. And no whorehouse.’
‘That’s two things.’
Tartaglione ignored him, fuelled now. ‘I’m no genius, but I comprehend a few truths. I understand nouns and verbs, I understand the labial fricative, I understand human nature. And you know what people immediately start looking for, five minutes after they arrive someplace new? You know what’s on their minds? I’ll tell you: How are they gonna get laid, and where are they gonna find some mind-altering substances. That’s if they’re normal. So what does USIC do, in its infinite wisdom? What does USIC do? It scours the entire world to dig up people who don’t need those things. Needed them once upon a time maybe, but not anymore. Sure, they crack a few jokes about cocaine and pussy — you’ve met BG, I take it?’
‘I’ve met BG.’
‘Three hundred pounds of bluff. That guy has killed off every natural need and desire known to mankind. All he wants is a job and a half-hour under the big yellow umbrella to flex his biceps. And the others, Mortellaro, Mooney, Hayes, Severin, I forget all their damn names now, but who cares, they’re all the same. You think I’m weird? You think I’m crazy? Look at those zombies, man!’
‘They’re not zombies,’ said Peter quietly. ‘They’re good, decent people. They’re doing their best.’
Tartaglione spluttered fermented whiteflower juice into the space between them. ‘Best? Best? Take your cheerleader pom-poms off, padre, and look at what USIC has got here. What’s the score on the vibrancy meter? Two and a half out of ten? Two? Anybody offered to teach you the tango or sent you a love letter? And how’s USIC’s maternity wing going? Any pitter-patter of piccoli piedi?’
‘My wife’s pregnant,’ Peter heard himself say. ‘They wouldn’t let her come.’
‘Of course not! Only zombies need apply!’
‘They’re not — ’
‘Cáscaras, empty vessels, every single one of them!’ declared Tartaglione, rearing up with such righteous vehemence that he farted. ‘This whole project is… nefasto. You cannot create a thriving community, let alone a new civilisation, by putting together a bunch of people who are no fucking trouble! Scuzi, pardon me mama, but it cannot be done. You want Paradise, you gotta build it on war, on blood, on envy and naked greed. The people who build it have got to be egomaniacs and lunatics, they’ve gotta want it so damn bad they’ll trample you underfoot, they’ve got to be charismatic and charming and they’ve got to steal your wife from under your nose and then sting you for a loan of ten bucks. USIC thinks it can assemble a dream team, well yeah, it is a dream, and they need to wake up and smell their wet pyjamas. USIC thinks it can sift through a thousand applicants and pick the one man and the one woman who’ll get along with everybody, who’ll do their job without being a pain in the ass, who won’t throw tantrums or get depressed or freak out and spoil the whole damn thing. USIC is looking for people who can feel at home anywhere, even in a big fat nowhere like this, people who don’t care, they’re not fussed, no sweat, keep cool, hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to work we go, who needs a home anyway, who cares if the house where you grew up is burning down, who cares if your old neighbourhood is underwater, who cares if your folks are being slaughtered, who cares if a dozen scumbags are raping your daughter, everybody’s gotta die sometime, right?’
Tartaglione was panting. His vocal cords were in no shape for such heavy use.
‘You really believe the world is coming to an end?’ said Peter.
‘Jesus fucking Christ, padre, what kind of a Christian are you? Isn’t this the whole fucking point for you? Isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for for thousands of years?’