There, they did it: they’ve disassembled the freight hoist. When we arrived, they were still bringing stuff down, and Claudia and I were enthralled by the cage coming down filled with boxes and going back up again empty. There really is something fascinating about the way it works: despite its simplicity—a freight hoist, as I was saying, that glides up and down a stairwell—it conveys a very reassuring idea about the achievements of progress and prosperity, due to the heavy labor it has replaced, which no one will ever do again. The movers, two Slavic guys and an older Italian, probably the boss, were as synchronized as an assembly line—load, send down full, unload, put in truck, send back up empty—like the gears of a much bigger machine, suggesting something powerful, unstoppable, superior. At least that’s what I liked to think while I was watching; who knows what Claudia was thinking.
Then I accompanied her to the lobby, waited with her for the bell, killed time talking to the father of one of her classmates, and now that I’m back outside the job is done. The back door of the truck is still open, the guys have disassembled the hoist and packed it up, the boss and the man who calls me dottore come out of the building at the same time and exchange a few words—they’re probably scheduling an appointment at the Roma Nord tollbooth in about seven or eight hours; then the boss goes over to the guys and the man who calls me dottore comes over.
—We’re all set, Dotto’,—he says.
I smile, nod, can’t figure out what to say. One thing for certain, however, is that everything is much less sad than yesterday, much lighter, less awkward, and I suddenly feel as if I understand the reason for this evolution: yesterday this man, bound and gagged, was still facing the past tormenting him with its horrendous groaning; now, though, he’s facing the future, and this is the giant machine whose gears have been turned by the movers: of the future, to be precise; of his future. A future that chases away any weariness in his brown eyes, holding as it does a return home after thirty-six years, his golden years close to the sister who sent him cases of Frascati, the phenomenal tomato sauce prepared with the secret recipe he learned at cooking school, the bitterness of widowhood diluted by the language of childhood (he’s already rediscovered it: he said dotto’ like a Roman), and the serene acceptance of all the other things that will come willy-nilly, which the man who calls me dottore finally feels prepared to face thanks to the unique and perhaps final condition placed on his life: I’m out of here. I’ll accept everything, even solitude, even disease, even agony, but in Rome, not Milan, the city where I lived only because she was here, and when she passed away I found myself sweeping the house like a lunatic in an immense effort to pass the time. Because there are people who migrate once and for all and people who leave and then return, and that’s who I am, I’m the type that leaves and then returns.
Am I projecting? Am I projecting myself onto him, am I maybe attributing my feelings to him? I don’t think so, I wouldn’t say so: I’m not risking madness because my wife is dead—I’m not even grieving; and I don’t need a future somewhere else, because I already have one, not in another place but in another person. I have Claudia, yes, and she is carrying my future on her back.
—This is good-bye—shaking my hand—I’m sorry I didn’t invite you up sooner, but I’m shy.
—Good luck,—I answer, who knows why.—And give my regards to Rome.
—I’ll send you a postcard sometime, if you give me your address. One of the classic views: the Coliseum, Saint Peter’s, the Imperial Forum…
—Via Durini 3. Want me to write it down?
—No, it doesn’t matter…
And now he does something surprising. He takes a felt-tip pen out of his pocket, probably the one he used to write his address on the final boxes he packed up this morning, and writes my name on the back of his hand, like a schoolgirl. Then he looks at me, smiling.
—And remember,—he says,—the darkness lasts for one year. Our ancestors were right: twelve months of mourning. Once they’ve passed, everything will clear up. You’ll see.
No, I’m not the one who’s projecting: it’s him. He suffered like a wounded animal, and he thinks I’m suffering like a wounded animal. Who knows how much sympathy he felt day after day, looking at me from the window, ever since the neighborhood gossips clued him in to what had happened to my wife; who knows how much sorrow he imagined coloring my every gesture in the hours I spent out here feeling no pain. Who knows how much he spoke about me with his only friend—was it the newspaper vendor or the café owner?—telling him every detail of how I felt and how long it would last…
—Thank you,—I tell him.—I guess this is good-bye.
—Good-bye, Dotto’. Hang in there.
He turns around and goes back to the mover, who’s waiting for him by the back door of the truck. I stand there looking at him for a while, thinking how wrong we can be about the things we’re most sure of. Is this also happening to me? With reference to what? Then I hear a pssst. I turn around quickly and find Piquet in front of me.
—Hello. Were you in a daze?
—Oh! How long have you been standing there?
—Five minutes. But you were speaking with that man…Who is he?
—A guy who used to live across the street. He’s going back to Rome.
The back door of the truck closes, the engine starts, and the man who called me dottore returns to his bare and despairing home. Another half hour in that hole, maybe only twenty minutes, and it’ll all be over. He makes a last nod of the head in my direction, and I reciprocate.
—Feel like a coffee?—says Piquet, pointing with his chin toward the café where, in fact, I usually have my coffee around this time.
—Sure.
—Can you believe this weather? On the radio they said today will be even…
He’s unable to finish his sentence, because all of a sudden there’s the sound of a brutal collision behind us, followed by a sinister rattling. We both turn around. The truck. In reverse. It made the wrong maneuver and hit a parked car dead center.
I can’t believe it.
The car it hit is the very same parked car.
I dash to the scene of the accident, ignoring Piquet—without regret, since he’s been badmouthing me. The rear corner of the truck backed into the C3, bending it backward and smashing in the rear windshield. All hell breaks loose: the elderly mover gets out to check, scratching his head—he must have been at the steering wheel—immediately joined by other people, including the man who calls me dottore and the traffic cop who saves a spot for me every day; everyone gathers to see the results of the train wreck, but only the rough and primordial understanding they’re afforded. The economy of their movements betrays the certainty that they are facing a simple, indisputable fact; no one seems to suspect that all this simplicity might be concealing a trick. No one, for example, is attaching due importance to the little card whose whiteness shines through the shards of broken glass on the trunk; no one seems to even vaguely suspect the truly exceptional nature of what they have witnessed, the amazing statistical incongruity; everyone is convinced they have seen a moving truck badly damage an almost new Citroën C3. Yet for at least as long as the truck is stuck in this position, it would still be easy to reconstruct the arabesque that fate has drawn over its unhappy carcass, because the damage I did more than two weeks ago is visibly incompatible with the latest damage and with the unfortunate reverse maneuver that caused it. For Christ’s sake, how can no one see it? To strike the car from that angle, the truck cannot have smashed in the whole side—I did. It’s right there before their eyes: all they have to do is notice. It’ll be another matter entirely once the truck has been moved to free up the roadway—which seems imminent, given the traffic jam forming; but someone should notice right now, dammit. But it looks as if no one will: no, for them everything happened a few minutes ago. I look at the man who calls me dottore, who’s talking to the mover: maybe he knows; maybe when I crushed the C3 to clear the road he was looking at me from his window—if, that is, he already knew my story, which I can’t assume; and it was raining that day, it was cold, it wasn’t summer like it is today, there was no reason to sit down and linger by the window; but the accident did cause a terrible racket, and maybe he ran to the window and got there in time to see that I was the cause…
Here we go, the time has expired: the trapped cars start to honk their horns, and the traffic cop has lost control over them. The mover is an expert in these things—a professional traffic obstructer—and he realizes the time has come to move the truck. He excuses himself, climbs back in, starts it up, and shifts gears while the crowd of curious bystanders scatters, freeing up the street, and the traffic cop starts to get the traffic moving. At least the dynamic of the accident is clear…
I’m still standing next to the C3, in the grip of a joyful and boyish relief. No one is looking at me, no one is noticing—like when I got out of the water the day Lara died, and I had just saved that woman, and even there no one noticed. I could reach my arm into the trunk, grab my business card, and be gone.
Who would notice?
Maybe Piquet would see me. He’s still here, and he’s looking at me: he’d notice. But it wouldn’t be a problem; he’s so paranoid he’d never imagine what he’s seen. Why did you stick your hand through the hole in the rear window? I was removing a dangerous shard of glass. I was afraid someone might get hurt. Oh…No: the problem is the man who calls me dottore. He might know. He’s coming back now, he’s coming straight toward me. He opens his arms and says, “Some way to start, eh?”—with my address written on his hand. But if he knows, he should tell me and give me the chance to save face: for the love of truth, he should say, maybe addressing the traffic cop, who represents authority, the only damage my mover did is this part, here in the middle, while the damage to the taillights, here, and around them, to the bumpers, all the way to the broken mudguards and the awful crumpling of the sheeting pressed against the tires, that was caused by the gentleman over there a few days ago, wasn’t it, Dotto’. And then I would say yes, he’s right, it’s a very strange coincidence, I did it with my sister-in-law’s car, and I even left my name and phone number to pay for the damage, there it is, can you see? Between the bits of broken glass? That’s my business card: I stuck it under the windshield wiper, with my phone number and everything, but the owner never called me, and the car has been sitting here…But he doesn’t say a thing and doesn’t even give me a dirty look to insinuate that he knows but doesn’t want to be a snitch; forget about it, he walks away again, it’s all the same to him. For the traffic cop, too: like it or not, the crushed rear axle of that car has been staring him in the face every morning for more than two weeks, yet he doesn’t notice, or he doesn’t remember, or he acts like nothing happened. And especially the mover, who parked his truck in a no-standing zone and immediately came back here to check, to touch, to explain that his clutch slipped; he doesn’t give the least indication that he realizes his fender bender cannot have generated all that damage, that it must have been there before—which is already less obvious now that the truck is gone. No: the only element that continues to connect this car to what truly happened—the famous truth—is my business card; once that’s gone, it will simply have been struck by a moving truck doing a maneuver—as all of us here are ready to testify.
What should I do?
I count to ten: if by ten no one says anything, I’ll take it back and forget about it.
One. Two. Three.
Which in the long run doesn’t change a thing for the mover. He did his damage, plain and simple, the penalty on his insurance will kick in regardless, and by one of the many quirks of insurance policies, the extent of the penalty has nothing to do with the extent of the damage, therefore…
Four. Five. Six.
Nothing will change for anyone, and that’s the truth. The truth is that no one cares a thing about this car because it doesn’t belong to anyone.
Seven. Eight.
And no one is looking at me.
Nine.
And stealing from insurance companies isn’t the same thing as stealing.
Ten.
Done.
Today will be even hotter than yesterday, they said on the radio. I heard it myself.