Read an Excerpt
1.
I saw them swimming in the pool, at night. There were three of them and they were very young, barely children, as I too was then—just a girl.
In Speziale, my sleep was continually interrupted by new sounds: the swooshing of the irrigation system, the feral cats that tussled in the grass, a bird that made the same sound over and over again. In the first summers spent at my grandmother’s, it seemed I almost never slept. From the bed where I lay, I stared at the objects in the room as they receded and drew near, as if the whole house were breathing. That night I heard noises in the yard, but I didn’t move right away; sometimes the watchman came up to the house to leave a note stuck to the door. But then there were whispers and muffled laughter and I decided to get up.
Making sure my feet avoided the mosquito coil that glowed from the floor, I went to the window and looked down: I was too late to see the boys undressing, but in time to catch the last of them slipping into the black water.
I could make out their heads, two that were darker and one that looked like silver. Apart from that, seen from where I stood, they were almost identical, moving their arms in circles to keep afloat.
There was a kind of tranquility in the air, after the tramontana had subsided. One of the boys started playing dead man in the middle of the pool. I felt my throat burn at the sudden sight of his nakedness, even though he was only a shadow, more my imagination than anything else. He arched his back and somersaulted into a dive. When he reemerged and gave a shout, his silver-haired friend slapped his face to shut him up.
“You hurt me, you idiot!” the one who had somersaulted said loudly.
The other boy shoved him under the water, then the third one also jumped on him. I was afraid they were beating one another up, that someone might drown, but instead they broke apart, laughing. They sat on the edge of the pool over by the shallow end, their wet backs turned to me. The boy in the center, the taller one, reached out and draped his arms around the others’ shoulders. They talked quietly, but I was able to catch a few words here and there.
For a moment I thought about going down and sinking into the steamy night with them. The seclusion I felt at Speziale left me hungry for any human contact, but at fourteen I didn’t have the nerve for certain things. I suspected that they were the boys from the neighboring property, even though I had only ever seen them from a distance. My grandmother called them “the kids from the masseria.”
Then the creaking of bed springs. A cough. My father’s rubber flip-flops slapping on the floor. Before I could call out to the boys to run, he was rushing down the stairs, calling the caretaker. The light went on in the làmia, the caretaker’s lodge, and Cosimo came out at the same instant my father appeared in the yard, both in their boxers.
The boys had jumped out of the pool and were grabbing their scattered clothes. Leaving some behind on the ground, they started running into the darkness. Cosimo started after them, shouting, I’ll kill you, you little bastards, I’ll beat your brains out, and after a moment’s hesitation my father followed him. I saw him pick up a rock.
From the darkness came a cry, then the smack of bodies against the fence, a voice barking no, get down from there. My heart was pounding rapidly, as if I were the one running away, the one being chased.
It was a while before they came back. My father was holding his left wrist, he had a mark on his hand. Cosimo examined it closely, then pushed him into the lodge. Before he too disappeared into the house, he stared a moment at the darkness that had swallowed the invaders.
The next day, at lunch, my father’s hand was bandaged. He said he’d stumbled while trying to put back a magpie nest. In Speziale he turned into a different person: in just a few days his skin became very dark and even his voice changed with the dialect. I felt as if I didn’t know him at all. Sometimes I wondered who he really was: the engineer who in Turin always wore a suit and tie, or the man with the unkempt beard who went around my grandmother’s house half naked. In any case, it was clear that my mother had chosen to marry only one of the two, and that she wanted nothing to do with the other one. She had not set foot in Puglia in years. At the beginning of August, when my father and I left to face the interminable car journey to the south, she didn’t even come out of her room to say goodbye.
We ate in silence, until we heard Cosimo’s voice calling from the yard.
On the threshold, in front of the caretaker, were the three boys from the night before. At first I recognized only the tall one, because of his thin neck and the oblong shape of the head. But then my attention was drawn to the other two. One had very fair skin, with hair and eyebrows as white as cotton; the other one was dark-haired, tanned, and his arms were scored with scratches.
“So,” my father said, “have you come to get your clothes?”
The tall one replied flatly: “We came to apologize for entering your property last night and for using the pool. Our parents send you these.” He held out a bag and my father took it.
“What’s your name?” he said. In spite of himself, he had softened slightly.
“Nicola.”
“And them?”
“He’s Tommaso,” he said, pointing to the albino one. “And he’s Bern.”
They looked uncomfortable in their T-shirts, as if someone had made them wear them. I exchanged a long look with Bern. He had dark, close-set eyes.
My father jiggled the bag a little and the jars inside clinked.
“It wasn’t necessary for you to sneak in,” he said. “If you wanted to use the pool, all you had to do was ask.”
Nicola and Tommaso lowered their gazes, while Bern continued to stare at me. The white stone of the patio behind them was dazzling.
“If something had happened to one of you . . .” My father broke off, more and more embarrassed. “Cosimo, did we offer these boys some lemonade?”
The caretaker rolled his eyes, as if asking him if he had lost his mind.
“That’s okay, thank you,” Nicola said politely.
“If your parents will allow it, this afternoon you can come and have a swim.” My father glanced at me, perhaps to ask for my consent.
At that point Bern spoke up: “Last night you hit Tommaso from behind with a rock. We committed an offense by entering your property, but you committed a more serious one by injuring a minor. If we wanted to, we could report you.”
Nicola elbowed him in the chest.
“I didn’t do any such thing,” my father replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The image of him bending down to pick up the rock came back to me and again I heard the sounds coming from the darkness, that cry that I had not been able to make out.
“Tommi, show Signor Gasparro the bruise, please.”
Tommaso drew back, but when Bern reached for the edge of his T-shirt, he did not resist. Gently, Bern rolled up the fabric, uncovering his back: it was even paler than his arms. The pallor made the bluish contusion, the size of a glass, stand out.
“See?”
Bern pressed his index finger on the bruise, and Tommaso squirmed free.
My father seemed dazed. Cosimo intervened in his place; he issued an order to the boys in dialect and they calmly said goodbye with a bow.
When they were already in full sunlight, Bern turned around to cast a stern look at our house. “I hope your hand heals quickly,” he said.
That afternoon a thunderstorm struck. In a few minutes the sky turned purple and black, colors I’d never seen before.
The rain lasted for almost a week; the clouds came from the sea, out of the blue. A lightning strike splintered a branch of the eucalyptus tree and another incinerated the pump that drew water from the well. My father was furious and took it out on Cosimo.
My grandmother, on the sofa, read her paperback thrillers. Just to pass the time, I asked her to recommend one to me. She told me to pick one at random from the bookcase, they were all good. I chose Deadly Safari, but the story was boring.
After staring blankly into space for a while, I asked her what she knew about the boys from the masseria.
“They come and go,” she said. “They’re never the same ones for too long.”
“And what do they do?”
“They wait for their parents to take them back, I imagine. Or someone else who will.”
She put down the book. “Meanwhile, they pray. They’re part of some kind of . . . sect.”
When the bad weather ended, there was an invasion of frogs. At night they leaped into the pool, and no matter how much chlorine we added, there was no way to keep them out. We found them trapped in the filters or crushed by the wheels of the pool cleaner. Those who survived swam along peacefully, some in pairs, one clinging to the other’s back.
One morning I went down to the patio for breakfast, still in my pajama shorts and tank top, and I saw Bern. From the edge of the pool he was pursuing the frogs with a net. When he caught one, he let the water drain out, then overturned the creature into a bucket.
For a while I wasn’t sure whether to let him see me or go back in and get dressed, but in the end I went over to him and asked him if my father paid him to do that job.
“Cesare doesn’t like us handling money,” he said, barely turning around. After a pause he added: “ ‘Then one of the Twelve went to the chief priests and said: “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.’ ”
It seemed like a nonsensical answer, but I didn’t feel like having him explain it to me. I looked into the bucket: the piled-up frogs leaped upward, but the plastic walls were too high.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Let them go.”
“If you let them go, they’ll come back tonight. Cosimo kills them with caustic soda.” Quick as a flash, Bern looked up. “I’ll take them far enough away, you’ll see.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know why you’re doing this lousy job if you don’t even get paid for it.”
“It’s my punishment, for using your pool without permission.”
“You already apologized.”
“Cesare said we had to make up for it. But until today I haven’t had the chance because of the rain.”
In the water, the frogs were hurriedly fleeing. He pursued them patiently with the net.
“Who is Cesare?”
“Nicola’s father.”
“Is he your father, too?”
Bern shook his head. “He’s my uncle.”
“What about Tommaso? Is he your brother?”
Again he shook his head no. When they had introduced themselves at our door, Nicola had said “our parents.” But Bern probably wouldn’t make it easy for me to understand and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
“How’s his bruise?” I asked.
“It hurts to raise his arm. At night Floriana makes apple vinegar compresses for him.”
“Anyway, I think you were wrong, it wasn’t my father who threw the rock. It must have been Cosimo.”
Bern didn’t seem to be listening to me, he was wholly absorbed in fishing out the frogs. He was wearing pants that at one time must have been blue, and he was barefoot. Then, point blank, he said: “You really have some nerve.”
“What?”
“Accusing Signor Cosimo to excuse your father. I don’t think you pay him enough for that.”
Another frog plopped into the bucket. There must have been about twenty or so, they swelled up and deflated.
I wanted to cover up my earlier lie, so I asked: “How come your friends didn’t come?”
