48
Wednesday, 2 September
Locri
With just three hours to go before the Polsi celebrations began, Enrico Megale phoned Ruggiero Curmaci and said, ‘Are you coming today?’ His voice was full of excitement, perhaps because of the day ahead, perhaps because his father was there.
‘Sure,’ said Ruggiero.
‘You need a lift?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Ruggiero.
‘No? How are you getting there?’
‘By car, I suppose,’ said Ruggiero.
A few beats passed before Enrico said, ‘OK. I’ll see you there. Call us if you need a lift, OK?’
‘Sure,’ said Ruggiero. ‘Are you going with your father?’
‘Yes! Great, isn’t it? Look, I’m sorry your dad couldn’t make it back. I hear there are problems. Maybe he’ll arrive at the procession at the last moment, huh? Did he say anything?’
‘We’ve not heard from him.’
‘So, your mother’s going to drive?’ asked Enrico.
‘I guess,’ said Ruggiero.
‘We won’t be leaving for another hour and a half, so… you know.’
‘Thanks, Enrico. You’re a good friend.’
‘Yeah, oh listen you haven’t seen my uncle anywhere, have you? Zia Rosa is out of her mind with worry. Pietro got a call yesterday afternoon, went out, and hasn’t come back since and has turned off his phone.’
‘I’ve been here all the time, Enrico, so I never saw him. Who called him?’
‘He didn’t say. He didn’t even say someone had called. My aunt heard his phone ringing, then it stopped and he left without saying a word. He took the car. Did I tell you about the car?’
‘No,’ said Ruggiero. ‘You mean the old Fiat Ritmo?’
‘Yeah. The other night it slipped out of gear, went rolling out of the drive on to the road, and got stuck in a ditch. Wild! Imagine if it had hit someone. It would have been like getting hit by a car driven by a ghost. Yesterday morning, Uncle Pietro looks out the window and says, “They’ve stolen the fucking Ritmo!” And then my aunt says maybe it slipped out of gear and rolled away, and he says, “No, they’ve stolen it, the bastards.” Then my aunt, she puts some cheese on his bread, waits till it’s all in his mouth, and says, “How much do you think they’ll get for it?” And my uncle almost died from laughing, choking on his bread, and had to spit it out, the two of them like kids, howling at the idea of someone trying to sell the Ritmo. It turns out it was her fault. She was the last one to drive it, and she remembers not bothering to put it into gear when she parked under the kitchen window. My uncle says women drivers are so bad they even have crashes after they’ve parked, which was a good one.’
‘That’s a hell of a story about the car.’
‘Yeah. It’s gone, too. Zio must have taken it. It’s a pity your father’s not here for you.’
‘Maybe he went straight to Polsi, to avoid certain people,’ said Ruggiero. ‘You never know.’
‘Yeah, could be. Our dads were booked on the same flight, but yours pulled out at the last moment.’
‘He’ll have had his reasons.’
Enrico lowered his voice. ‘My dad is fucking raging at Uncle Pietro for disappearing like this. Says Pietro never acted responsibly. Says that’s why no one ever tells Pietro anything.’ He raised his voice again. ‘Let’s hope we meet there, then. Let me know, huh? Also if you see Pietro…’
‘No problem,’ said Ruggiero, hanging up, and tossing his phone onto his bed.
Ardore
Lacking a watch and deprived of his phone, he measured his time in cups of water and in the inches of progress he was making in scraping away the sharp limestone and daubs of cement around the bottom hinge of the door. He was using a rusted fork and a flat butter knife for the purpose. In his pocket was an old lever-type opener with which he had stabbed open a can of soup and drained the unheated contents into his mouth. He might make better progress on the cement if he used the opener, but if it broke, he would not be able to open any of the remaining cans, though some of them had swollen so much that they looked like they might explode if he merely tapped them.
Sometimes he turned off the lamp and worked for as long as he could in the darkness. Occasionally he thought he heard buzzing and saw a glow from where the body lay in the corner of the cave, but he knew it was just his mind playing tricks. Rigor mortis, livor mortis and algor mortis. The rigor had come and perhaps was gone already. The body temperature should be coming down to that of the cave, which, to Blume, seemed increasingly cold.
It was a fork, not a knife, that first penetrated through to the other side. Blume tried to peer through the tiny hole he had made, but could see nothing. His hands were puffed and watery with burst and swelling blisters, but it would surely take only five or six more hours increasing the size of the hole, weakening the hinge, though he could hardly remember why he wanted to.
A shiver ran down his back and shot forward suddenly into his stomach making him gasp. His bowels seemed to loosen. With great effort, he controlled himself, clutching his stomach and sweating. He needed to find a place. But after he had gone a few paces, the sensation passed. It would return, and he needed to choose a place to serve as his latrine. Not near the water. Next to the body was too disrespectful. He picked up his lantern and walked over to where the corpse lay, whiter than ever, the mouth a black hole, the eyes devoid of all colour, the pupils not even visible. He passed by it hurriedly, and found a small declivity that could be used.
When he was finishing up, he gathered up the lantern again, then roared and instinctively flung the lamp beside him at the corpse. The head that had been staring up at the roof of the cavern had turned and was watching him as he squatted. The mouth was grinning, and making a sound.
The lantern bounced, cracked and went out and the dark arrived at the speed of light. The totality of the darkness caught him unprepared again. He struggled upright, brought his fingers up to his face, and touched his eyelids a few times, checking that his eyes were in fact open. By rubbing them, he could produce deep purple blots that floated in the air and comforted him a little. Pietro’s face had been so white it must surely still be visible, yet it, too, had been completely swallowed by the darkness. He closed his eyes, opened them: no difference. But the tiny buzzing sound persisted.
If rigor mortis had just worn off, it was perfectly possible for the head to move, the jaws to slacken. The faint buzz he had heard had not necessarily come from the mouth, and it was still going on. Faraway flies made that sound. He thought he could smell the beginning of the decay, or maybe it was just the smell that Pietro had carried with him in life. How much time had passed?
Extending his hands in front of him, he took a careful step forward and immediately almost tripped on the irregular surface. He needed to take baby steps. He could not afford to fall and injure himself. In his mind’s eye, he tried to replay where he had hurled the lamp, how it had illuminated the corpse, then dashed itself against the rock behind. It made better sense for him to get back to the table, which still had two more lamps. But the table was so far away and he was not sure of the right direction.
He reckoned he was a third of the way back when his foot stepped on something soft and yielding. He poked at it for a moment, then kicked in frustration and heard something like an exhalation followed by a sloshing sound. He had hardly made any progress and was only now drawing level with the corpse. He edged his way past, tapping at it with his feet, finally finding the skull, and then took a larger step into the darkness.