Today I logged on to the internet again and visited the site of that TV program devoted to missing persons. My file is always among the “urgent” cases, despite the fact that more than a year has passed since I left my apartment one night and never returned. The newspapers pursued my case for a while. Almost everybody was convinced that I’d taken my own life because I’d left everything just as it was—the apartment, shop, car, even the garage where I kept the memories of my previous life. Good old Presotto came up with the hypothesis that I felt guilty for helping Beggiato get out of prison. Fact is, I’m alive and thriving, and I’d been thinking about taking off for a while. The death of the widow Mandruzzato forced me to retrieve the bag with the money and passport from her storage space. It stayed under my bed for a week before I decided to open it. I spread the dollars on the duvet and leafed through the fake passport made out in the name of Pietro Andrea Bertorelli. Only the photograph was missing. In a side pocket I found the embossing stamp that needed to be used to authenticate the photo. I started counting the money. Beggiato could never have spent it all, even if he did his best. It was enough for a lifetime. I returned the bag to its place. Every night, before I slipped under the covers, I checked that it was there. Around that time, my solitary existence was interrupted by the arrival of another letter. A yellow medium-size padded envelope. The sender was someone called Gianna Tormene. It contained two photographs. They both pictured a woman sitting on a park bench, smiling at the camera. It was Clara, but it took me a while to recognize her. For too many years, her face, even in the sweetest dreams, was the one I saw in agony at the hospital. In the accompanying note, the woman explained she was the mother of a schoolmate of Enrico’s. One day they happened to be in the park with the children, and she took the photos for fun. She apologized for not having one of Enrico, but he and her son had started running across the lawns and just then they were far away. She got my address from my lawyer, who was a friend of the family. She decided to send them to me, even though many years had passed. She thought they might give me pleasure.
I framed them and put one in the bedroom, on the night table, and the other in the living room. But I tried not to look at them. The woman wasn’t my Clara. Gradually everything became unbearable. The apartment, Heels in a Jiffy, the cemetery, the food from the rosticceria, the wine in the carton, the TV quiz shows. I was getting worse all the time. The darkness that engulfed my mind was rent by flashes of light; Siviero’s and his wife’s blood turned redder and redder. Valiani and Beggiato became insistent thoughts, difficult to drive away. Sometimes I’d lose my breath and be seized by a panic attack. Afraid that I was losing control, I even went to a specialist. I was very careful in describing the symptoms—and in omitting the truth about what was happening inside my head. Besides, my story was more than enough to convince him I was sick. He prescribed a series of drugs, and right away I started to feel better. Much better. My strength came back, even though my whole life continued to be unbearable. Very soon the specialist was too. Useless, annoying chitchat. One day, at lunch time, I went to the photographer in the supermarket. At home that night I glued one of the four photos in the passport and embossed it with the stamp.
“My name is Pietro Andrea Bertorelli,” I said out loud in front of the mirror. One, two, three, twenty times non-stop.
I started to go out with the passport in my pocket. I couldn’t be Silvano Contin anymore. One Sunday I happened to see a travel program on TV. Everything else was just a matter of following thoughts and actions in succession. I now live in Fort-de-France on Martinique, and I am Monsieur Pietro Andrea Bertorelli. The darkness still clouds my mind, and the past continues to torment me, but at least I’m a little more calm and aware. I still rely on drugs, but I’m very happy to do so. They allow me to live without hurtling down into the abyss of madness. I must only be careful not to use any alcohol, which could alter the chemical balance that governs my mind. This isn’t such a big sacrifice. The French Antilles are famous for rum, but I prefer fried bananas to liquor. Here I’m no longer the man whose wife and son were murdered, and I can look about me without any fear of being recognized. I gaze at the flowers and the gaudy colors of the girls’ flimsy dresses. From the terrace of my new house I observe the sunset on the sea. The only emotion I feel is curiosity. Today I’m perfectly aware that I killed two people. I could’ve avoided it. But it was my right to choose whether or not to forgive. And I haven’t forgiven anyone. Not even Beggiato. He thought he’d given me another chance at life by avoiding prison. He might’ve also thought he was making a noble gesture and squaring accounts. But only in part has he restored what he took away from me.