Anna. Niccolo Ammaniti
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At this rate it’d be dark before they got home. ‘Do you want to switch jobs? Shall I push?’
Michelini shook his head.
‘Is the gun loaded?’
‘I’ve got four bullets.’ Bullets were hard to come by. He’d fired all the others in the early months of the epidemic, during the looting and riots.
They started down a narrow road flanked by dry stone walls.
The twin stopped for a breather. ‘It’s strange for me without Paolo.’ He looked at Anna. ‘Have you got any hairs yet?’
‘Yes.’
‘Show me.’
Anna undid her shorts and pulled them down to her knees.
Without taking his hands off the wheelbarrow, Michelini bent down to look at the little strip of black hair.
‘What about breasts?’
Anna pulled up her T-shirt. On her chest were two hillocks surmounted by pink nipples.
They set off again, moving away from the village. Anna was seething with impatience, but was forced to fall in with the snail’s pace of Michelini. To take her mind off it, she suggested they play a game.
He was dripping with sweat. ‘What game?’
‘Think of an animal.’
‘All right. A walrus.’
‘You’re not meant to say it; you just think of it and I ask you questions till I find out what it is. Got it?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right, then. Does it fly, walk or swim?’
Michelini gave a crafty smile. ‘It flies, walks and swims.’
‘What animal could that be?’
‘A duck.’
‘You’re not meant to tell me straight out.’
‘You asked what kind of animal it was.’
‘I was thinking out loud. Think of another one.’
‘All right. A rabbit.’
‘Maybe we’d better just walk.’
They passed a billboard on which there was an advert showing a car with a man dressed in jacket and tie, saying: ‘Choose your future today.’
*
Nine wraith-like figures were coming across a field of burnt olive trees. The two oldest ones were out in front: a fat male and a skinny female, both painted white. The others were about Astor’s age, naked and painted blue, their hair falling on their shoulders in tangled masses. Some of them had sticks.
Anna and Michelini watched them from behind a wooden fence. The twin scratched his chin. ‘What shall we do?’
‘Speak quietly,’ whispered Anna. ‘If they spot us they’ll steal everything we’ve got.’
Not far away, on the other side of the road, was a small block of flats with an underground garage over which was the sign: ‘Pieri’s Car Repair Workshop’.
Anna grasped the handles of the wheelbarrow and started moving forward, with her head down, hiding behind the fence. ‘Keep down and follow me without making a noise.’ But she’d only gone a few metres when a shot rang out behind her.
Michelini was standing in the middle of the road. A plume of white smoke was coming out of the barrel of the shotgun.
She gaped at him. ‘What have you done?’
‘That’ll scare them off.’
‘You fool.’ Anna started pushing again, but the wheelbarrow swerved to the right and left. She ditched it and ran towards the building, without looking back. Going down the concrete ramp, she was confronted with three lowered shutters. The one on the left was raised about twenty centimetres. Leaves and earth carried by rainwater had accumulated in the gutter. By scrabbling like a dog, she opened a gap, then she took off the rucksack, and squeezed underneath, holding her breath to make herself thinner. Her legs went through, and so did her thorax, but her head wouldn’t. Pressing her cheek on the floor she made it inside, her face grazed on both cheeks. She reached out to retrieve the rucksack.
The workshop was in darkness. She tried to lower the shutter, but it wouldn’t budge. Holding her hands out in front of her, she advanced towards the end of the room. Her knee banged against a car and her shin hit some shelves full of metal objects, which fell down onto the floor with a crash. She swallowed the pain and with her fingers followed the shelves, touched the rough wall, found a door and opened it. Beyond, the darkness was even blacker, if that were possible. She ventured forward on her hands and knees until she felt the edge of a step.
Outside, some shots rang out.
She sat down, nursing her knee, and prayed they hadn’t seen her.
*
The first shot had made the small group turn round.
A fat boy was standing in the middle of the road holding a shotgun, and a figure was bent over, running towards a small block of flats, pushing a wheelbarrow.
The older girl had blown a whistle, pointing them out to the blue children. They had picked up some stones and charged at him, screaming.
Michelini, holding the weapon at hip level, had fired his three remaining shots into the group. The last shot had hit one of them, who’d collapsed in a cloud of ash. ‘Yes!’ Throwing the gun aside, he’d started galloping towards the block of flats, but the fever and all the kilos he was carrying made breathing difficult. He turned round to check where his pursuers were and a stone hit him on the head. He let out a yell and, as he was putting his hand to his temple, tripped over. He took three disjointed steps, wheeling his arms in an attempt to regain his balance, but crashed like a bulldozer into the fence at the side of the road and fell on his face, with his arms outspread, in a field. He didn’t even try to get up again. He clutched the grass in his fists, pushed his face into the warm earth and thought of his brother.
*
The children’s shouts echoed in the garage.
Anna stumbled up the last flight of stairs and slammed into a closed door. Opening it, she found herself in the entrance hall of the block of flats. Daylight came in through the frosted glass of the big front doors. To one side were the mailboxes, covered with dust, next to them a yellowed notice announcing the date of a residents’ meeting and another one decreeing that bicycles and pushchairs must not be left unattended.
She tried to open the small wicket door, but it wouldn’t move. Not knowing what else to do, she ran up the stairs. On the first floor all the flats were locked. Same thing on the second. On the top floor, too, everything was bolted shut.
The children were in the entrance hall.
She opened the landing window. Down below was the concrete ramp of the workshop; fifty metres further off, Michelini’s body. To the left, a metre away, a balcony jutted out from the wall.
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