I start the car, screeching away from the kerb. Cullaccio is still groaning in the seat next to me. He can’t take it all in. This is not the evening he had planned. Everything can change in the space of a split second – I should know. The life you imagined turns to dust and you’re left with nothing but a pain that won’t go away. He’s gasping for air, bleeding heavily in his chair. He needn’t worry – he won’t die of his injury. I made sure I didn’t pierce his stomach. The blood is running, soaking through the crotch of his trousers. He’s afraid. I know how that feels. He can see himself dying here after hours of suffering. I know how that feels too.
We drive on. I know the way by heart – I’ve rehearsed this so many times. I glide along Via Partenope, following the seafront. The cobbles jolt us up and down in our seats. With every bump, he groans a little louder. We head down towards the port. He doesn’t ask questions, just grumbles, whimpers and talks rubbish. Maybe he thinks I’m going to hit him. What would be the point? He’s already in pain. The road is covered in potholes – that’s torture enough. I make no effort to avoid them. He clings to the glovebox and tries to catch his breath, but soon he’s wriggling like an eel again. He can’t find a comfortable position. I’ve been there too. I remember squirming, trying to push the pain out of my body, but it was no good. It was a long struggle for me, too, with my father screaming and crying next to me. I remember how white my father’s face was, how he could do nothing but hold me tightly, so I would at least feel the comfort of his arms.
I wonder if Cullaccio’s blood is dripping from the car. I’d have to pull over to check. It would be good if it was – I’d like to see his blood spilt on the streets of Naples, for it to soak through the tarmac and wake my father. It’s dark now. The buildings to our left are as gloomy as a town abandoned to the plague. The lights from the handful of cargo ships docked on our right are reflected on Cullaccio’s sweat-covered face. He looks like a crying clown. No one will hear him whining. Even if they did, people keep themselves to themselves around here. I try not to drive too fast. I want to make the most of this. I hear his gurgles of pain and every so often catch him grimacing. This is good.
We pass the two turrets overlooking Piazza del Carmine. This is where I was born. I tell him so. He says nothing in reply. I don’t know if he heard me or realised I was talking to him, so I tell him again: here, right there, on the lawn at the foot of the turrets. He stares back wide-eyed. He looks more scared than if I’d just told him I was about to give him a beating. I must be mad. That’s the only possible explanation. Nobody’s born here, beneath the turrets opposite the harbour. It’s just a patch of dirty grass strewn with beer cans, where junkies and illegal immigrants sleep, lulled by the constant drone of traffic. But I’m not lying – this really was where I came into the world for the second time. Of course, the first time I was born it was in a hospital, coming out of my mother’s belly, surrounded by her visceral warmth. But years later, I was born again here, purely by my father’s will. The air I breathed in was the air of this filthy dual carriageway and, as at my first birth, I blinked in amazement and screamed as the oxygen burnt through my lungs. I remember it all. Even what came before, which makes me sick and fills my head with screams at night. But I won’t tell him about that. There’s too much to say. Maybe in time he’ll work out who I am. He won’t understand – who could? – but the goose pimples and shivers running over his skin will tell him everything I’m holding back. For now, he’s trying his luck, doing his best to talk through the pain. I’m not listening. He must have decided to try to reason with me. Maybe he’s offering me money, or begging me for mercy. He keeps on talking, but I’m miles away. I’m remembering my mother’s eyes, the deep warmth of her neck. That was so long ago. I remember her smell and her infectious laugh. My mother, who turned her back on me. Dropped me, like a memory she would rather forget.
We pass the outlines of two black steel silos on our left. Only the shells of the huge cylinders remain, but they loom, redundant, over the surrounding buildings. Soon I’ll have to move into the right-hand lane and leave Naples by the tangenziale.
When I indicate to join the motorway, Cullaccio begins to panic. He’s like a spider caught in a torch beam. He can’t bear the idea of being torn away from the backstreets of Naples. I’m going fast now. The tangenziale rises above the city. We pass the business quarter, its five or six tightly packed skyscrapers rising up out of nowhere like a forest of money amid the grime. The road signs point to Bari or the Amalfi Coast. I change lanes. It’s a maze of bridges, roads, entrances and exits. Capodichino. I follow signs for the airport. A plane takes off in the darkness and passes overhead. I imagine how the passengers would react if the pilot told them the car they’d just flown over contained a man in his sixties bleeding his guts out like a pig. Up above us or driving down the opposite carriageway, people pass by, totally unaware of what’s happening. So many lives sliding past, oblivious to one another.
Cullaccio is panicking. His pain is giving way to terror. He’s noticed the signs for the airport and he thinks I’m going to make him board a plane. To where? If I told him where I’ve come from, he’d be begging for God’s mercy. I leave the tangenziale. We drive alongside the cemetery, looking down over the city. He thinks – I can tell from the pitiful expression on his face – that I’m looking for a place to kill him. I pass the main gate of the cemetery. I don’t stop. I need to go a bit further. Three hundred yards on there’s another entrance, smaller and less frequently used. I park in front of the rusty old gate. I’ve often come here at night and imagined what this day would be like.
I drag Cullaccio out of his seat. He falls to the ground and lies there for a while, crying like an old woman, face covered in snot, legs bathed in blood. I leave him there – there’s no risk of him getting away. I fetch a pair of bolt cutters from the boot and slice through the padlock. The gate is stiff, rusted to the ground by years of neglect. I rattle it angrily. It gives way, opening just enough to let us through. Cullaccio’s going to have to stand up now. I tell him so, my voice sufficiently authoritative that he gets to his feet, weak as he is. We enter the cemetery. The gravestones look like strange ships in the night. I mustn’t be afraid. Mustn’t let the nightmares take hold of me. The statues seem to smile at us as we pass. I recognise the heavy silence of death. I begin to struggle for breath. I need to focus on Cullaccio and forget everything else. We walk between the rows, scattering several cats as we go. I push him ahead of me. He stumbles often. It’s good to see. The living sound of him struggling to walk brings me comfort. It really is him, in the flesh, carrying his pain and his injury. Each time he falls I hoist him back up and push him in front of me again. He’s puffing like an animal. It’s strange how little I feel. I don’t take my eyes off him but I feel no pity, no disgust, in spite of his ugly, childish cries.
‘There it is.’ The sound of my voice stops him in his tracks, like an order. He turns and scours the area around us. I point to a gravestone. There it is. I want him on his knees. He turns his head towards me. He looks like a gargoyle, pleading. He starts to speak, stammers that he doesn’t know who I am but if he’s done something to upset me … I don’t let him finish. We’re here. I show him the headstone and ask him to read it. He turns his head anxiously. ‘Out loud,’ I add. I want to hear him say it, loud and clear. He hesitates. I give him a kick, the way you nudge a dog to make it run. He does as he’s told. Filippo De Nittis. 1974–1980. His words turn to sobs. He doesn’t know why he’s crying: anticipating the blow he thinks is imminent, perhaps … He’s racking his brains, but nothing comes to mind. The names and dates on the headstone are no help. He’d like to know who I am and what it is I want revenge for, but he doesn’t dare ask me anything. At this point, I start to see things. I remember the Underworld. The vast, empty halls filled only with the wails of departed souls. The forest of ghouls where the trees are twisted by icy winds. I remember loose groups of souls walking together, waving the stumps of their limbs. All of this runs through my mind, roars in my ears. I have to stay strong. I think of my father again. I can feel him watching me, willing me on, bringing me to life. I take Cullaccio by the hair and push his face into the gravestone. I order him to put his hands on it. I can tell by his silence that he thinks this is it: I’m about to kill him. I pin him down by putting my knee on his head. His cheek must be rubbing against the granite. I grab hold of his wrist. With my right hand, I take the knife out of my pocket and I cut off his fingers. One swift action severs all but the thumb. As I cut, his whole body responds with a movement that almost throws me off. Blood pours from his mutilated hand. ‘The other one.’ I shout so he’ll hear me despite the pain. He begs me to stop. I’m not listening. I take hold of his right hand and I look at it. That finger, his index finger – that’s the one he shot with. The pressure on the metal trigger came from this finger. I start cutting again. The screams coming out of his mouth are horrendous. I get up. He collapses, sprawled on the tomb, clutching his two useless stumps to his belly. This is what I want – for him to stay this way for the rest of his life, powerless, unable to hold anything or perform the most basic tasks. He’ll have to rely on people. He’ll understand the humiliation of having to ask for help to get up, to brush his hair, blow his nose. A nurse will look after him like a poor old thing, doing her best to hide her disgust. He’ll remember me with every simple gesture he can no longer make. I’ll be with him until his dying day. I’ll drive him mad. And if he tries to come after me, even if he puts the whole of Naples onto me, he’ll soon find that all paths lead here, to the tomb he’s howling on. Every time, he’ll come up against a crazy truth he will never make sense of: my name is Pippo De Nittis and I died in 1980.
I leave him there, slumped on the ground, wailing, half conscious, muttering gibberish. I begin to walk away, retracing my steps back to the car. I take one last look at the scene to sear it onto my memory: the tombstone is spattered with blood. There are some fingers lying on it and others strewn on the ground around it. I bend down and pick up two fingers and then I leave Cullaccio to his pain. He won’t die of this. He’ll soon be found. He’ll be carried off and treated and then they’ll start asking questions. The customers at Da Bersagliera will have long since raised the alarm. It’s fine. He isn’t meant to die. I turn my back on him. I’m done with him. It’s a mild night. The blood is pumping through my veins. I’ll head back to the car and I’ll go. There’s still so much I need to do.