Locri
They had been inside the bar for an hour and a half now, and no one had said anything to them. The only absolute if unspoken condition was that they remained there until told they could go. Ruggiero watched as Enrico made his way through the pistachio ice cream, then quietly offered him his, saying, ‘I haven’t touched it.’
Enrico waited impatiently until Ruggiero had put the ice cream in front of him, then set to it like he was being chased. Ruggiero thought no one had noticed, but then Salvatore, who served at the bar without anyone ever thinking of him as a barman, came over.
‘You don’t like Mr Basile’s ice cream?’
Enrico raised his eyes for a moment, smiled sleepily at them both, then returned to spooning the sweet green cream from the wafer cup into his mouth.
‘I’m just not hungry,’ said Ruggiero.
‘It was a generous gesture. What sort of ingrate would turn down a gift from Mr Basile?’
‘I’m not hungry,’ repeated Ruggiero, knowing, without being able to do much about it, that he was speaking in a tone of detached contempt for Salvatore, and that this would do him no favours. He could have said more. The ice cream was bright green and over-sugared. Its sweetness made him gag. The bits of nut that Basile left in to give it a natural taste were surrounded by crystals of frost, and chewing through them felt like a chore. Ruggiero could remember when the gelateria was run by Pino Nicaso, a man who knew his trade and then was pointlessly put out of business by Salvatore and Basile, bringing to an end the only happy place in town.
Salvatore left them alone and did not, as Ruggiero had feared, return to force-feed him one of Basile’s special treats.
The other kids had started playing table football. Abandoning Ruggiero in the corner, Enrico went up to join in, but was made to watch instead, and then pushed roughly aside by Luca who blamed Enrico’s flab for getting in the way and allowing Giovanni to score.
Pepe had chosen to play the poker machine, and remained impassive as the machine dealt him hand after hand in defiance of all rules of fairness and statistical probability. He had a thunderbolt design shaved into the back of his crew cut. He kept his face turned towards the screen and away from his companions, but Ruggiero knew the screen also had a mirror effect, and he was watching them as they stole surreptitious glances at his back.
Ruggiero, as sometimes happened, seemed to have become invisible in his corner. He was hungry, but for real food. A Sunday meal prepared by his mother, not the vile ice cream or, worse still, one of the stale bar sandwiches wrapped in plastic. He was bored, too. Bored with the table football and the tough-guy curses of his companions, bored with defending Enrico from attack, bored with the ugly furniture and the sly bald Salvatore, said to have used a meat cleaver to cut the arms, legs and cock off a policeman in the 1960s. The policeman, the story went, survived and lived the rest of his days in bed, though without female company. Maybe none of it was true.
Once again, as so often happened, the joshing and casual teasing of Enrico’s lack of skill had hardened and grown colder. Enrico, sweating with effort, still lost nine-one to Luca and was told to fuck off and stop wasting everyone’s time.
He came back over to Ruggiero and sat down heavily beside him like a wet seal. His arrival put Ruggiero back inside the exclusion zone in which Enrico lived. When Enrico was near him, Ruggiero could clearly see the hostility and contempt of those who looked in their direction. All he had to do was step outside the zone, away from Enrico, and the hostile looks became almost invisible again. Yet Enrico’s father Tony was both feared and respected: more the former than the latter. His uncle Pietro was at least feared. It was the contrast with them that did Enrico no favours. As to his own family, Ruggiero knew that no one quite trusted his father, his mother or him. They were regarded as excessively reserved and insufficiently local. Most of the time he was quite comfortable with it; now he felt under pressure, and he knew, even if Enrico was too dim to recognize it, that some sort of test was being done on them, not on the other kids.
The front door of the bar, closed to the public, was opened to admit a small man with dirty skin and a white beard, whom Ruggiero recognized as a friend or relation of some sort of Salvatore. He was dressed in the dark-green working clothes of the forestry protection corps, the one state uniform that it was no dishonour to wear. Ruggiero was not entirely sure of the status of the scruffy visitor, but he knew it was surprisingly high. His name was Tommasino and his job was to clear the woods of undergrowth and cull foxes. Occasionally he lit summer fires that raged for days and were reported on the national news. The burned-out land was perfect for construction developments, and the firefighting equipment and firefighters themselves were all part of a supply racket run by the locale of the town, whose boss was Basile.
‘What are all these kids doing in the bar, Salvatore? I come in here after a day’s toil expecting a quiet grappa, and I find myself in a schoolroom, or is it a Cubs’ meeting?’ He grinned, showing yellow teeth. One of his incisors was snapped in half. ‘Get them out of here.’
‘You heard him,’ said Salvatore. ‘Time to go home.’
Obediently they moved away from the table. Pepe made one more play on the poker machine, then casually walked towards the door. Enrico took larger and faster spoonfuls of ice cream.
‘Wait!’
Tommasino lifted a stinking jute bag off the floor and handed it to Pepe. Pepe glanced into the bag, and smiled, then pulled out their six phones and dropped them on the counter.
‘I happened to meet your coach,’ said Tommasino. ‘He said he was sorry he couldn’t make it and asked me to give you these, and I was happy to do a favour. Go on, take them, turn them on. You’ll need to phone your mothers and apologize.’
Salvatore motioned Pepe over to him, and whispered a few words.
The forester looked across at Enrico, who was just now finishing his ice cream. ‘You’re Pietro’s nephew.’
‘I am Tony Megale’s son,’ said Enrico, an unexpected upsurge of pride and defiance in his voice.
‘That goes without saying. I happen to know Pietro, not Tony. How about a beer?’
Enrico looked around for help, but Ruggiero, fed up with it all, cast his eyes down and looked away. He just wanted to go home. He stretched out his hand to pick up his phone, but Pepe snatched it up first.
‘Give me that,’ said Ruggiero, more bored than intimidated by Pepe’s antics.
Pepe tossed it to Salvatore behind the bar. ‘Ask him for it.’
Salvatore stepped back and allowed the phone to hit the floor in front of him. He stood there immobile, his bald head balanced like a skull on the top of his thin body. Pepe whitened and apologized, then came around the bar to retrieve the phone from the floor and put it on the counter beside Enrico’s. Then he and the other three left in silence.
Salvatore fixed Ruggiero with a stare that lasted only a few seconds, then turned his back. Ruggiero left his phone where it was.
A minute later, the silence of the piazza was ripped apart by the noise of souped-up scooters.
‘What about it, Enrico, will you buy me a beer?’ asked the forester, when the noise had died away.
‘I don’t think I have the money,’ said Enrico. ‘I would if I had it. Maybe I could borrow some from Ruggiero?’
‘ Figluolo mio. I am joking. I am the one who buys the beers in here, isn’t that right, Salvatore?’
Salvatore draped a damp bar cloth over his shoulder and said nothing.
‘I don’t want a beer,’ said Enrico, making to stand up then deciding to sit down again.
Ruggiero puffed out his cheeks in exasperation, and went over to sit next to Enrico, who was going to need help.
‘Thanks,’ whispered Enrico.
Ruggiero shrugged. The forester came over and sat down beside them, bringing with him a smell of wood chippings, urine, sweat and tobacco.
‘Then you’re having a grappa.’
‘I don’t drink,’ said Enrico.
‘Maybe if you learned to drink, you wouldn’t eat so much, Enrico. Salvatore, no more of Basile’s ice cream for the boy.’
Salvatore, who was bent down and talking through the serving hatch to someone in the kitchen, presumably Basile, raised a hand either in acknowledgment or to tell Tommasino to be quiet. Either way, the forester lowered his voice and spoke in a furious whisper to Enrico. ‘You don’t refuse a drink from me when I generously offer you one.’
‘Sorry,’ said Enrico.
Tommasino called out, ‘Salvatore, let’s put some water in Enrico’s grappa. Make it half water half spirit, like Enrico himself.’
Salvatore nodded. Out of a satchel, Tommasino produced some dark bread and a shiny yellow cheese studded with hot chili peppers. He started paring his cheese with a wooden-handled curved knife. Salvatore arrived with a bottle of grappa and a jug of water.
Tommasino poured Enrico a glass and sat watching as he drank it, then poured him another, then another, ignoring Enrico’s burbling protests and clicking his knife open and shut.
‘What about you, young Curmaci? Want a drink?’
Ruggiero refused with a barely perceptible lift of the chin and a slow closing of his eyelids. No one should expect him to have to speak to the stinking, unlettered forester. He chose a point behind Tommasino’s head and focused on it, allowing the forester’s murderous gaze to hit the wall behind him. If they were alone, he might have returned the gaze, see what came of it. He felt calm enough.
After half an hour, Salvatore came over and said, ‘Enrico, you can go home now. Pick up your phone on the counter.’
‘What about Ruggiero?’
‘You can tell your aunt he was delayed here.’
Enrico tried to bring his eyes into focus. ‘My aunt will tell his mother. So wouldn’t it make more sense…’ — but he lost track of his line of argument.
‘Tell his mother, too,’ said Salvatore, ‘if you think that will help.’
Enrico reached over and grabbed the bottle and poured himself another grappa. ‘I’m not leaving without Ruggiero!’ He downed the glass in a single gulp and spent the next few minutes coughing and wiping the tears from his eyes.
Another half hour passed and now the bottle on the table was empty and the glass in front of Enrico had tumbled over. Enrico’s face was flushed, his eyes shone bright and his head was lolling from side to side. Cheese rinds lay curled on the table.
‘Salvatore?’ asked Tommasino.
From behind the bar, Salvatore nodded.
He brought over their phones and placed them on the table, giving Ruggiero a wink as he did so. Ruggiero remained impassive, and waited until Salvatore had withdrawn before picking up his phone, and standing up.
Enrico had begun moaning and muttering something incomprehensible.
The forester cackled as if at some private joke, then left the table and went up to the bar counter. ‘Young Megale has drunk too much,’ he said to Salvatore.
‘That’s fine. His good friend Ruggiero is here to look after him. The Curmacis are renowned for their loyalty. The Curmacis and Megales are old friends, working together in faraway hostile lands.’
‘Let’s hope the alliance lasts. It seems to me Enrico is as much a liability as a friend. Here, young Curmaci, what do you want us to do with Enrico?’
‘He’s my responsibility,’ said Ruggiero. I’ll look after him and take him home.’