The Patron Saint of Second Chances PDF

watching from the ceiling, did not remember in time, and missed his chance to do it over again, a different way. He watched his younger self rumple his daughter’s hair. ‘You can’t stay home for ever, cucuzza,’ he said. ‘Pretty soon, when you are big, your mamma and I will kick you out.’ Little Gemma...

watching from the ceiling, did not remember in time, and missed his chance to do it over again, a different way. He watched his younger self rumple his daughter’s hair. ‘You can’t stay home for ever, cucuzza,’ he said. ‘Pretty soon, when you are big, your mamma and I will kick you out.’ Little Gemma had flung her head back and gasped, just as if her father had slapped her across the face. ‘I am never going to leave!’ she’d cried. ‘Never, never, never!’ And then she had thrown the teapot, and it had smashed on the floor. Signor Speranza woke with a start. It was morning. The events of long ago faded, and the events of yesterday trickled back to him, and he fell back on his pillow and sighed. Just outside the door, he heard the scuffling sound of his daughter’s slippers. ‘Gemma?’ he called. He heard her pause, and then walk on. She didn’t answer. With no word yet from God, Signor Speranza took his coffee in bed and activated the municipal phone chain, alerting residents to a town meeting on a vague but critical topic, to be held two days hence, at eight o’clock Monday evening, in the church. He would have preferred it to be tomorrow, but there wasn’t any sense in wrecking everyone’s Sunday. Then he rang his old school friend, Alberto Martini, who now lived thirty kilometres north in Oliveto, about renting a three-bedroom apartment. ‘He says we have to act fast, or we will miss our chance,’ Signor Speranza told Betta after hanging up the phone. ‘He says places are going like hot cakes.’ Betta, whose usual equanimity was more or less restored this morning, was folding towels. She shook one out and raised her eyebrows. ‘In Oliveto? Tuh.’ Swiftly, she gathered the towel into a neat square. ‘That man is a con artist. I don’t know why you are friends with him.’ ‘He might be a useful friend to have,’ Signor Speranza said, glancing at the notepad on the nightstand, which was covered in pencilled computations. ‘We are not dealing with a lot of capital here.’ Betta clapped her stack of towels between two hands and started for the linen closet. ‘If the apartment is in Alberto and Maria’s house, I would rather live on the side of the road.’ Thirty minutes later, Signor Speranza parked in front of the Martini home. They lived on the outskirts of town, in one of the newer houses with a clay tile roof. Alberto was waiting on the portico, smoking a cigar, the smoke mingling with the hazy July heat, and, when he saw Signor Speranza pull up, he began waving his arms. ‘Hello, Speranza!’ he hollered. ‘How are you doing, you magnificent son of a bitch?’ Signor Speranza climbed out of his car, uttering a quick prayer of thanksgiving that Betta hadn’t insisted on coming with him. He could almost hear her – That’s it; we’re done. ‘Where did you steal that thing?’ Signor Speranza called, pointing at the garage. He could just make out the bumper of a red Alfa Romeo. Alberto grinned, twirling his cigar. ‘What can I say? I got lucky.’ With Alberto, there was no going to see the apartment and then going home. He had to make a production of it. ‘I told Betta I would not be too long,’ said Signor Speranza, glancing at his watch. They were in the Alfa Romeo now, with the top down, riding around town. ‘She’ll be fine,’ said Alberto, cranking up the radio. He was a spry sixtythree, and, driving, he gave the impression of a little kid playing a car-racing game at an arcade, bouncing on the seat, his feet scarcely reaching the pedals. ‘Besides, this is part of the tour. You are not only renting an apartment – you are renting all of this!’ He made a flourish with his hand to encompass the surrounding area, with its dusty trees and its haphazard traffic signs, and the car veered sharply, nearly careening into a pair of indignant chickens on the side of the road. Signor Speranza sighed. As he looked around, the eleven o’clock sun broiling the top of his head, and the wind whipping his moustache into a froth, he could not help but notice that things were different here from the last time he had visited. When was that? He frowned. Six months ago? A year? However long it had been, something had happened. The Oliveto he remembered was even sleepier than Prometto, if that were possible, but today the Alfa Romeo wound through streets filled with life. There was a velvet rope outside the poky little café, with a line of people behind it, waiting to get in. The car turned on to the main boulevard, and Signor Speranza did a doubletake. Was that a McDonald’s? Betta would never believe it. Signor Speranza turned to his friend and shouted over the radio and the roar of the engine. ‘What’s all this? What has happened here?’ Alberto grinned. ‘Isn’t it great?’ he shouted back. ‘It’s a great story. You know George Clooney? Film star? American?’ Signor Speranza considered. Film stars were not his speciality. He turned the radio down. ‘What film?’ ‘You know.’ Alberto rolled his eyes. ‘The Ocean film. They rip off a big casino.’ Signor Speranza racked his brain. ‘Oh right,’ he said finally. ‘Il biondo?’ Alberto shook his head. ‘No, no. That’s Brad Pitt. The other one. Black hair. The one with the aunt. You know – “Mambo Italiano”.’ He did a little dance in his seat. ‘Okay.’ Signor Speranza was getting impatient. He could just see Betta, making her hand into a puppet, talking, talking. Chiacchierone, she would say, exasperated. ‘So,’ said Alberto, looking directly at Signor Speranza and not at the road at all, his disconcerting blue eyes shining. ‘About six months ago, a big magazine runs a story. George Clooney thinks he will buy a house in Oliveto.’ ‘No kidding?’ Signor Speranza said aloud. Why would he want to do that? he said in his head. Alberto was looking at the road again, but he took one hand off the wheel to snap his fingers. ‘Just like that, everything changes. People come from all over. If this place is good enough for George Clooney, they say, then it’s good enough for me.’ ‘No kidding,’ Signor Speranza murmured again. Alberto whipped the Alfa Romeo into a parking space on a cramped, illlit street. ‘We’re here,’ he announced, snapping off his seatbelt. Signor Speranza looked around. There wouldn’t be anywhere for Carlotta to ride her bike on a street like this. He didn’t like the look of one of the houses, either, with an old washing machine rusting on the lawn, and a dented sign tacked to the fence – Beware of Dog. He got out of the car and stepped gingerly over the broken kerb. ‘And?’ he asked, curious. ‘Where is George Clooney?’ Alberto pressed his key fob, making the red car beep, and grinned so widely that Signor Speranza could see one of his silver crowns. ‘I don’t know,’ he said brightly. ‘If I see Brad Pitt, maybe I’ll ask him.’ * ‘Needs a spruce-up,’ said Alberto, picking his way through the layer of rubbish that carpeted the living room floor of the limited-time-only, get-itwhile-it’s-hot three-bedroom apartment. ‘You said it had a back garden,’ said Signor Speranza, staring out of the back window. Alberto joined him. ‘It does,’ he said, pointing. ‘See? The property goes to the treeline.’ Signor Speranza suppressed the urge to ring his friend’s scrawny neck. ‘It’s a ravine!’ ‘Mm,’ said Alberto, looking down. ‘You did not want a ravine?’ Signor Speranza gazed at the ceiling, noticing an alarming brown patch of water damage. Alberto’s eyes followed his. ‘Look, Speranza, I know it’s not perfect,’ he said, in that smooth-talking tone Betta hated. ‘But you just have to think of it as a starter home.’ Signor Speranza laughed bitterly. ‘I am sixty-two years old. I’m past the point of starter homes.’ ‘Listen … ’ Alberto was getting bored. He kept fidgeting and glancing towards the door. ‘ I can give it to you for seven hundred a month.’ Signor Speranza’s mouth dropped open. ‘Seven hundred a month? I thought you said you could give me a deal!’ Alberto threw his hands in the air. ‘Seven hundred is a deal! Wake up, Speranza. How much do you think things cost? Where are you going to go, Rome? For seven hundred a month, they might let you piss in a bucket.’ Signor Speranza closed his eyes and rubbed the sides of his head. It had not been helpful, Alberto mentioning Rome like that. With his eyes closed, he noticed the smells – the mildew and the wood rot and the mouse droppings. Finally, he opened his eyes and held out his hand. ‘Grazie, Alberto,’ he said. ‘Mille grazie. I will talk to my wife.’ 5 Signor Speranza Consults his Conscience When Signor Speranza arrived back in Prometto, he sat in the car for an hour, trying and failing to picture Gemma in that apartment of Alberto’s. Then he turned off the ignition and walked into town. He had not smoked a cigarette in twenty-five years, but he was smoking one now. He stood outside Maestro’s butcher’s shop, glaring up at the battered stuffed boar mounted over the awning and sucking his cigarette down to the filter. He had spent a fair amount of time contemplating this boar over the years. It was missing one tusk and stared beadily over the horizon, and sometimes, when Signor Maestro came outside and stood on the step in his white apron, gazing stupidly in the same direction, they looked like brothers. ‘Maestro is not my friend,’ Signor Speranza muttered aloud. Then he pointed his cigarette stub at the boar. ‘He was not your friend, either.’ The boar did not answer. Signor Speranza looked up at the sky. ‘This, Lord?’ he asked, raising one eyebrow. ‘This is what you want me to do?’ There was no answer from that quarter either. Signor Speranza sighed. There wasn’t any other way forward that he could see. No one else in Prometto had any money. He tossed his cigarette on the ground. ‘Signore!’ he called heartily as he entered the shop, throwing his hands in the air. ‘So good to see you. You look as if you could wrestle a bear. Business is good?’ Signor Maestro, who was standing behind the counter like a pillar of wood, made a guttural sound in his throat. ‘What do you want, Speranza?’ Signor Speranza meandered around, trying to keep it casual, and perusing the merchandise. He wondered if Signor Maestro went home smelling like salami and copper. ‘This is good. Very good,’ he said, nodding at the rack of cured salamis. ‘You have a wonderful selection. I tell everyone that. You must be making a lot of good money here.’ When Signor Maestro remained silent, Signor Speranza decided he had better put his money where his mouth was. He bent in front of the largest glass case and pointed at a pair of pork chops. ‘I’ll take these,’ he said. ‘Betta will be pleased.’ Signor Maestro took down an order slip and licked the point of his pencil. ‘Where do you want me to send it?’ he asked. Signor Speranza balked. ‘I don’t need you to send it anywhere. I am standing right here.’ Signor Maestro swung his pencil out, pointing at a laminated sign. ALL MEATS THIS CASE MAIL ORDER ONLY ‘New policy,’ he grunted. ‘I had to make some changes. How else am I to make money in this town? The world is out there, Speranza.’ He slugged one of his giant paws in the same direction the boar outside was looking. Signor Speranza blinked, first at the sign, and then at Signor Maestro. ‘How long does that take?’ he asked, incredulous. Signor Maestro shrugged his fat shoulders. ‘Three to five business days. Depending on where you’re located.’ Signor Speranza felt his blood pressure shoot up ten points, and he forgot why he was there. ‘I’m located directly in front of you!’ He regretted this outburst immediately, of course. There was silence for a moment, and then, from the back room, the sound of chairs scraping against the floor. That would be Maestro’s sons, no doubt, coming to defend their father’s honour, and his right to sell meat exclusively via mail order. Could all fifteen of the sons fit back there? Signor Speranza wondered dizzily, trying to peer over Maestro’s shoulder. Was it still possible to make a run for it? Signor Maestro, meanwhile, had crossed his arms over his gore-smeared apron. ‘Do we have a problem here, Speranza?’ he growled. Signor Speranza held up his hands. ‘I was just joking. Send them to me. I don’t care how. Post office. Carrier pigeon. I would love to eat them for dinner next week.’ Signor Maestro counted Signor Speranza’s bills into his stuffed cash register. Signor Speranza stared balefully at the thick stacks of money, remembering why he had come here in the first place. ‘Signore,’ he said, in as pleasant a voice as he could muster, ‘you are a businessman. Have you ever considered investing in Prometto? Putting money back into the community?’ Signor Maestro snorted and slammed the cash drawer shut, tearing off the receipt. ‘Speranza,’ he grunted, ‘don’t be an idiot.’ The next day was Sunday. Signor Speranza slept late and woke with a headache. ‘Where is your mother?’ he grumbled to Gemma when he padded into the kitchen. Gemma was at the table, sitting in front of an untouched glass of orange juice, and hunched, like Antonella, over her phone. She didn’t look up. ‘She took Carlotta to church.’ Signor Speranza grunted and dragged out a chair. ‘What about you?’ he asked peevishly. ‘You don’t have to go to church?’ Gemma glanced over the top of her phone and stuck out her tongue. ‘And what about you, Papà? You have a dispensation?’ Signor Speranza frowned, drawing his mouth up and into his moustache and emitting an indistinct burbling noise, which indicated he was not currently available for theological debate. ‘Who are you talking to?’ he asked instead. There was a pause. Then, ‘Nobody,’ said Gemma, shrugging, her voice half an octave higher than usual. Signor Speranza felt the old, familiar well of panic. Better if his daughter were like Antonella, trying to talk to ‘everyone’. Everyone was better than what he suspected was this particular nobody. He cleared his throat and made his own voice light and casual. ‘Do you ever talk to Luca Ricci any more?’ he asked, his eyes wide and innocent. ‘You know, I saw his cousin—’ It was a mistake. ‘Papà!’ said Gemma, her eyes flashing, just like the little girl who had thrown the teapot. She clutched her phone to her chest and flung back her chair. ‘I’m going out,’ she muttered, and stalked out of the kitchen. Signor Speranza listened as the front door slammed. He gazed at the ceiling and sighed. Where had he gone wrong? Where had it all gone wrong? He looked at the cracks in the ceiling, and his mind wandered … ‘Am I on that sign, Nonno?’ he could hear Carlotta asking, dimly, as if from somewhere very far away. ‘Am I one of the numbers?’ It was five months ago, and he and Carlotta were walking home, in a wet February wind, from the beach. They had just come upon Prometto’s weatherbeaten sign, mounted crookedly on a stake at the side of the road, and Carlotta was staring up at it, awestruck. PROMETTO POPULATION: 212 Signor Speranza had looked down at his granddaughter, so small and so eager, and utterly disbelieving that she could merit such an honour, and his throat had felt strangely constricted. ‘Of course, tesora,’ he had choked. ‘Of course you’re on that sign, what do you think.’ She had clapped her little hands with the joy of it. He had not lied to her, Signor Speranza told himself sternly as they continued their walk. She was one of the numbers. She was. He had just not seen any need to tell her the whole story. Why would a little girl need to know that the sign hadn’t changed when she was born? The baby had come, and, before even bothering to see her, the father had left. It had been a oneforone switch. At six a.m. Monday, the day that Signor Speranza was meant to stand up in front of his friends and neighbours, and weep, and tell them that they were all going to lose their houses, he woke with a strangled cry. The sound woke Betta, and she sat bolt upright. ‘What is it? Nino, what happened?’ Signor Speranza, who was tangled in the sheet, struggled to sit up. ‘I was robbing a casino,’ he gasped, his heart still pounding. He squinted, trying to remember the details. Yes, he had been rappelling down the side of a shiny building, a pack of money on his back, but when he’d looked up he had seen the junior plumbing inspector looming at the top, his clip-on tie whipping in the wind, sawing through his rope with a knife. ‘Alberto was there, too,’ he said, frowning at the memory. ‘I think he was singing “Mambo Italiano”.’ Betta groaned and dropped back on her pillows. ‘A nightmare,’ she said. ‘Any dream with Alberto is a nightmare. Now go back to sleep.’ She turned on her side and pulled the blanket up to her chin. But Signor Speranza was fully awake now. ‘Did I tell you George Clooney – the actor – was supposed to buy a house in Oliveto?’ he asked. ‘Alberto told me.’ He related the whole story about the magazine article. Betta snorted. ‘George Clooney? In Oliveto?’ Signor Speranza nodded. ‘That’s what the magazine said.’ ‘And who told the magazine, huh?’ Betta closed her eyes to go back to sleep. ‘Three guesses, and they are all Alberto.’ Three guesses, and they are all Alberto. Betta’s words knocked around in Signor Speranza’s head as he got up and washed his face, and as he walked to work two and a half hours early. They kept bobbing back to the surface as he sat at his desk and paged through the Compendium in search of a lastminute rescue team, until all the saints’ names blurred, and ran together. Three guesses, and they are all Alberto. Well, and so what if it were true? Signor Speranza thought, with a surge of defiance. What if Alberto had started that rumour himself? Maybe it was wrong, technically speaking, to lie, but in this case, wasn’t it also sort of … brilliant? People nowadays didn’t know what they wanted. Or they thought they wanted one thing, until a celebrity on TV told them they wanted something else. Everything had to be bigger, better, new-and-improved. A fading place like Oliveto, or Prometto, didn’t stand a chance without a little edge. And what harm did it do? George Clooney wasn’t sweating it. It was a victimless crime! If a few vapid people believing that some film star wanted to come to Prometto could jumpstart the economy and save people’s houses, then what was it to anyone, really? What is it to God? Signor Speranza thought, with a twinge of conscience. He glanced up then, and through the front window, and spotted Don Rocco across the square, sweeping the little pathway in front of the church. Signor Speranza hastened across the shop and opened the front door, the bell jingling. ‘Good morning, Father!’ he called, waving. ‘How about breakfast? My treat!’ Fifteen minutes later, Signor Speranza and Don Rocco sat at their usual table at the café, the one next to the dusty olive tree that the café’s proprietress, Signora Catuzza, watered with leftover cooking liquids, and which therefore always smelled vaguely of chicken soup. Signor Speranza was eyeing the unwitting young priest, who was shovelling frittata into his mouth without a care in the world, as one would an opponent. How, he wondered, could he put this so as to get the answer he was looking for? ‘Let me ask you something, Father,’ he began lightly, and then drained his cup of espresso in a single gulp. ‘Pretend that I say something to you, hypothetically speaking, only you take me at my word. Would that mean that I have lied to you?’ This, Signor Speranza thought, was his best shot at avoiding mortal sin. If he were just to let slip, casually, that it would really be something if some famous person – Brad Pitt, for example – were thinking of buying a house in Prometto, then he wouldn’t actually be lying, would he? Linguistically – grammatically – he wouldn’t have done anything wrong. Don Rocco wiped his mouth with his napkin and considered. ‘That does not sound like a lie to me, signore. That sounds like a misunderstanding.’ ‘Ha!’ Signor Speranza clapped his hands and pointed at the priest. ‘A misunderstanding. Yes! That’s perfect. Thank you, Father.’ Don Rocco frowned. ‘But if you’re hoping I’ll misunderstand, then that changes matters, signore. That’s different territory altogether.’ Signor Speranza’s momentary exuberance fizzled out, and his moustache drooped. ‘Of course, Father. Of course,’ he mumbled. Moodily, he pushed his food around his plate. It was all over, then. There was no answer to his problem. It would take a miracle to save them now. With his fork, he flipped over his piece of toast, and, happening to glance at it, he gasped. ‘Father! What does this look like to you?’ He plucked the toast off the plate and showed it to the priest. Don Rocco squinted. ‘Semolina?’ ‘It’s Baby Jesus, Father!’ Signor Speranza pointed. ‘See the halo here, and the manger.’ He tilted the toast so the priest could see it better. ‘I think there is even a cow, or maybe a donkey.’ ‘Let me see that, signore.’ Signor Speranza handed the toast over and waited on the edge of his seat. ‘Could be something big, Father,’ he said, excited. ‘People would come from all over to see something like that.’ Don Rocco examined the toast, turning it over and holding it up to the sun, and then, when he was finished, he shrugged. ‘Sorry, signore, I don’t see it,’ he said, and took a big bite. 6 Signor Speranza Finds the Answer Signor Speranza spent a fitful day at work, and, with several hours left until the meeting, closed early and went to the Bosco di Rudina to argue with God. This was the ancient forest which was located at the highest point of Prometto’s elevation, about a twenty-minute walk from the centre of town. Signor Speranza often felt it was holier than any church. He lay on a moss-covered stone the size of a helicopter launch pad and stared up at the crisscrossing canopy of branches and leaves and sky. It was very quiet, and if Don Rocco, stalwart defender of truth and justice, had been there, he might even have admitted that the forest had the same cool, bottled air as his church, and the same stillness. ‘Why do you not answer me, Lord? What do you want me to do?’ Signor Speranza called. ‘You want me to let Prometto fail? Is that what you want?’ A greenfinch called back to him, and nothing else. ‘A sign, Lord,’ Signor Speranza grumbled. ‘Would it hurt for you to send a sign?’ He lay there a few minutes longer, stripping olive tree leaves down to their veins to pass the time, just in case there was a time delay on his prayers travelling upwards and reaching the Lord’s ears, although he did not think the Almighty actually constrained Himself to the same laws of physics He imposed on everybody else. When he grew tired of waiting, he walked, picking his way over roots and vines and so many layers of dead leaves that it was like trudging through the bottom of a fish tank. He paid no heed to where he was going, and at a certain point the air changed, and there was a whiff of woodsmoke that brought him back to an evening last October, when he and Don Rocco had talked about people who were gone. ‘Do you ever miss your parents, signore?’ Don Rocco had asked as they sat outside the café with a bottle of Chianti, the shops around them lit up like lanterns, and the sky filled with stars. Signor Speranza had shrugged. ‘I talk to my father all the time, Father. It’s not so different.’ Don Rocco was startled. ‘You do not actually hear him, right?’ Signor Speranza had rolled his eyes. Then he’d rooted in his pocket for a piece of card and a stub of pencil. He’d scribbled something on the card and flipped it over, slapping his hand on top. ‘Father!’ he’d bellowed suddenly. ‘On Sunday – and I don’t care what you say, or the Pope, either – I am not going to Mass! I am going to have my own Mass in the forest instead, and I don’t think God is going to give a damn about it.’ Don Rocco had sat bolt upright. ‘Signore! A forest is not a church! And you are not a priest! And don’t say damn!’ Signor Speranza had turned the card over. Signore! it said in blocky letters. A forest is not a church! And you are not a priest! And don’t say damn! Don Rocco had gasped, and Signor Speranza chuckled. ‘Do you see, Father? If you know a person well enough … if you know what he might say …’ And so Signor Speranza did not have to miss his father, not really. They talked about all the same things they had when he was alive – new vacuum models, the rising cost of petrol, the ludicrous Nativity scene made entirely of delicatessen meats which Signor Maestro insisted on placing in his shop’s window every blessed year. It was different with his mother. She had died when he was only two years old, and he could not remember her, at least not clearly. She was still there somewhere in his mind, the ghost of her, but she was always disappearing around corners. Unlike his father, she would not sit down. He exited the Bosco di Rudina on its northern side, where there was a small clearing and a couple of ramshackle houses, and, beyond them, the sheer drop of the cliffs, and the sea. As he did so, he came upon a clump of pulmonaria, that delicate purple flower with a name like a lung infection, and must have trodden on one of the blooms, releasing its fragrance, because, in one of those miracles of half-remembered scents, his mother, Caterina, suddenly appeared before him. ‘Mamma!’ Signor Speranza gasped, and he reached out, as he had when he was small, to touch the hem of her dress. At that precise moment there came an unearthly cacophony from the garden of one of the houses, and Caterina Speranza vanished as quickly as she had appeared. Signor Speranza fought his way through weeds and vines to find her, and found Signor Rossi instead, standing in the middle of the garden, his hands covering his eyes. ‘Signore,’ Signor Speranza panted, bending to catch his breath and hide his disappointment, his hands on his knees. ‘Che cosa? What is happening?’ Signor Rossi peeked out from between his fingers. ‘It’s my Bambolina, signore,’ he groaned. ‘Just look.’ Signor Speranza straightened, and shielded his eyes, peering out over the horizon. He followed the dreadful sound, which was simultaneously like the honking of cars and the squealing of pigs, and his eyes alighted on a spectacle such as he had never seen, awake or dreaming. A scant ten metres from where they were standing, there lay a great, fluffy orange mound, and, teeming over it, seven or eight small, furry, salt-andpepper-coloured creatures. ‘My God,’ Signor Speranza marvelled, watching the furred demons swarm and re-form, swarm and reform. He bit his knuckle. ‘She is covered in schnauzers.’ Finally, he could stand it no longer. ‘I’m going in!’ he announced, and charged across the lawn, even as he heard Signor Rossi cry after him. ‘Be careful, signore! Careful!’ The closer Signor Speranza got, the less sure he became. He had assumed that as he approached, squawking and waving his arms like a mad windmill, the beasts would scatter, but they did not. One even jumped off the mound to stand guard, yapping at Signor Speranza and alternately darting forward and dashing back, daring him to come closer. Signor Speranza panicked, and his eyes swept the garden. He spied a wooden bucket off to one side. ‘Lord!’ he prayed, shouting to the sky, and veering sharply to the left. He snatched up the bucket and rejoiced: it was filled with water. Then he charged, sloshing, and uttering a strange, yodelling cry. Whoooosh! Eight small schnauzers shot outwards, like eight rays of the sun, and Bambolina, who was too slow to get out of the way, took the brunt of the cascade. ‘I want to thank you, signore,’ said Signor Rossi. ‘But you understand, I cannot simply throw a bucket of water on Bambolina every time this happens.’ Signor Speranza was wet. Bambolina was wet. They were both sitting near the fire wrapped in blankets, Signor Speranza with a cup of hot coffee, and Bambolina eating a plastic cup of tapioca pudding, which was being fed to her on a spoon by Signora Rossi. ‘Isn’t there something you can do to help us, signore?’ Signor Rossi pleaded. Looking back on this moment later, when he had come to the end of things, Signor Speranza could see where God had intervened again. He had been on the point of opening his mouth, of telling these humble people that Bambolina would not be plagued by schnauzers much longer – only fifty-seven more days, as a matter of fact, since they would all be moving out of their houses, when Signora Rossi interrupted. ‘Shh, Bruno,’ she scolded. ‘Can’t you see Signor Speranza has had enough today?’ She turned to Signor Speranza and smiled. ‘Please, signore. Would you like to stay for dinner?’ And something – or Someone – made Signor Speranza say yes. ‘I think my mother used to make this, signora,’ Signor Speranza said of the cooked beans and toasted bread, trying to grasp at the thread of memory. ‘It is delicious.’ Betta had made the same thing many times, but he had never made the connection before. It must have been the added smell of Signora Rossi’s woodstove that brought the memory back. For the second time that day, he fancied he saw his mother out of the corner of his eye, just for a second, before she whisked softly away from him. ‘This is a very nice house,’ he said, looking around. ‘It’s like the one where I grew up.’ There was the wooden table where they sat, with four wooden chairs. There were wooden racks on the walls, with battered tins for flour and spices. Everything was scrupulously clean. In the corner, there was a wooden broom, its bristles made from dried rushes. It was as though he had stumbled out of the Bosco di Rudina and into the past. After dinner, they sat in the living room, on a flowered couch with broken springs and doilies draped over the arm-rests, Signor Speranza in the middle, and Bambolina ensconced on a tufted cushion at their feet. Together, they perused the family photo album. There were a great many photos of Bambolina, from the time she was a tiny, brownish ball of fluff, to now, and in all of them her pink tongue lolled out the side of her mouth, and it seemed almost possible, if one were to hold the photo album up to one’s ear, to hear her gentle, relentless panting. There was also a little girl in most of the photographs. ‘Serena!’ said Signor Speranza, pointing at a photo of the Rossis’ daughter. ‘She has grown so big.’ Serena was one of Antonella’s friends, and, as in the case of Antonella, Signor Speranza had not seen her actual face in at least six months. Signor Rossi sighed. ‘Too big,’ he said. Signor Speranza shrugged. ‘We cannot stop them from growing up, can we?’ Signora Rossi made a small clicking sound with her tongue. ‘We’re worried that Serena will not want to stay here,’ she said, a thin, worried crease appearing in the middle of her forehead. ‘She is always somewhere else.’ She gestured at the ceiling. ‘Talking on her phone. Dreaming about film stars.’ She shook her head. ‘I think she’ll want to leave us … ’ she said, her voice trailing off. Like the rest of them, Signor Speranza thought, finishing Signora Rossi’s sentence for her. Like the rest of the young people who have left this place and never looked back. ‘She will stay,’ said Signor Rossi firmly. ‘Where else would she go?’ And then he and his wife and even Bambolina, who lifted her head from her cushion, all looked at Signor Speranza, as if he, perhaps, might know the answer. It was a funny thing about signs, thought Signor Speranza, as he hastened down the mountain, away from the Rossis and the Bosco di Rudina and towards Speranza and Son’s. The sun was sinking in a bank of fiery clouds to his left, and a fresh breeze was frisking over the sea three hundred metres below him, so that his lungs, which were practically bursting with exertion, also burned with an occasional zing of salt. Every so often, he removed his mobile phone from his pocket and waved it around, hoping to find a signal. His heart was thudding in his ears, and he kept glancing behind him, as if concerned that the devil, or perhaps a pack of miniature schnauzers, might be pursuing him. It was a funny thing about signs: they were subject to interpretation. For example, in the moment that Signor Rossi had turned to him so appealingly, and repeated his own words of the other night back to him, the words he had used about his own daughter, Gemma – where else would she go? – a funny feeling had come over him. Signor Speranza had been sitting there, on a couch that looked very like the couch of his own childhood, with a bellyful of food such as his own mother used to feed him, and sandwiched between Signor and Signora Rossi, as if he were their own enormous child, and a very funny feeling indeed had come over him. A feeling that was very like the feeling one might imagine one would experience if God Himself were attempting to deliver a Very Important Message – an answer. He really could not account for his words and actions after that. ‘Your daughter likes this actor, this Dante Rinaldi?’ he had heard himself say, plucking the name out of the air in the most appalling, cavalier tone. He told them he had it on very good authority that ‘this Dante Rinaldi’ was interested in Prometto. No joke. Not only interested – he was thinking of buying a property here. What might Serena say about that? Would she still want to leave if that were the case? ‘Tell her,’ he had said, with nerves of steel. And then, shamelessly, ‘Tell her to tell her friends.’ Now, as Signor Speranza hurtled down the mountain, his nerves coming apart at the seams, it did not seem quite so clear any longer that he had been acting according to God’s Holy Will. It seemed much more likely that he had just perpetrated a serious infraction of the Ninth Commandment. For the second time ever, his mobile phone rang. He fumbled with it and managed to press the button that Betta had shown him. ‘WHAT?’ he shouted in the direction of the mouthpiece. ‘Boss?’ Smilzo’s voice crackled over the line. ‘Boss, where are you? There are some people waiting by the church. Don Rocco wants to know if you are coming – if he should let them in.’ Signor Speranza froze. He thought of the report from the Water Commission, folded in thirds in the top drawer of his desk at the office. He thought also of Serena Rossi, arriving home later this evening to the fantastical fabrication that Dante Rinaldi – in one of his famous tank tops, no doubt – was on the point of showing up any day now. He thought of her shrieking and hugging her mother and jumping up and down, and then of her tapping the big news out on her phone, and sending it to Antonella – maybe sending it to ‘everyone’, whoever ‘everyone’ might be. An image flashed through his mind of Alberto Martini, bouncing around the front seat of his red Alfa Romeo, a cigar in his stupid mouth, and whipping the steering wheel this way and that, like a kid at a video arcade. What if? A little frisson of hope tickled Signor Speranza’s nose, and rippled over his moustache. What if this plan could actually work? ‘I’m sorry,’ he mouthed at the sky, and shrugged. The little frisson of hope had grown and expanded, until it tingled in his fingertips. He held the phone ten centimetres away from his face. ‘CANCELLED!’ he shouted. ‘TELL THEM THE MEETING IS CANCELLED!’ 7 A Once-in-a-Lifetime Investment Opportunity ‘It’s remarkable,’ said Don Rocco. He was perched on top of Signor Speranza’s desk, eating a large bag of ready-salted crisps and watching his freshly charged, manufacturer-refurbished Roomba s9+, which he had purchased against Signor Speranza’s express wishes, traverse the low-nap carpeting of Speranza and Son’s. ‘It’s an idiot,’ muttered Signor Speranza absently. As if he didn’t have enough problems already, now the priest had gone and put a perfectly good vacuum cleaner out of work and replaced it with a robot. He didn’t have time for this kind of nonsense. He lingered by the front windows, peering this way and that, looking for any evidence that the colossal lie he had told the night before had borne immediate economic relief. What he had witnessed thus far was not promising. The square was empty. Beppe Zello sat on a chair outside his dental practice, ostensibly reading a newspaper, really dozing. Signora Catuzza had placed a placard in the ordering window of the café that read Closed for lunch. This, as Signor Speranza understood it, referred to Signora Catuzza’s lunch, and not anyone else’s. When the proprietress of a café had ceased caring about anyone’s lunch but her own, things had come to a pretty pass, indeed. If this were an American Western, Signor Speranza thought grimly, a tumbleweed might be expected to roll past at any moment. ‘Have you heard from Antonella today, Smilzo?’ he asked, pacing up and down. ‘No, boss.’ Smilzo, who was toiling over a tricky act break in his screenplay, looked up, surprised. He fished his phone out of his pocket and examined it hopefully. ‘Was I supposed to?’ ‘Well, I think it’s very clever,’ Don Rocco resumed, crunching into a handful of crisps. ‘And it’s cute, too, like a little dog.’ This observation was infuriating enough to command Signor Speranza’s full attention. He stopped pacing. ‘You want me to tell you how clever your robot is? This story has a dog in it, too, so you will like it.’ Signor Speranza proceeded to regale them with the tale of a man who had left his Roomba and his dog alone at home together. The dog, who was not an idiot but was poorly trained, had had an accident on the kitchen floor, and the Roomba, who, despite being trained, was an idiot, had attempted to vacuum it up, dragging the pungent mess over every square centimetre of the owner’s home, afterwards docking itself proudly at its charging station. ‘That is how smart your robot is,’ he concluded, with a sharp clap of his hands. Don Rocco took another contemplative crunch of crisps. ‘That sounds like user error to me.’ Signor Speranza’s blood pressure scarcely had the opportunity to rise before Smilzo jumped up. ‘Antonella’s coming, boss! I can see her.’ He pressed his pointy nose up to the glass. Signor Speranza could see her also, a frizzy-haired speck in the distance, running towards the shop. He acted quickly. ‘One more test, Father, and you’ll be all set,’ he said, snatching the bag of crisps from the priest’s hand. ‘Signore!’ Don Rocco protested. ‘What are you doing?’ But Signor Speranza was already at the front door. It jingled merrily as he wedged himself in it, turning the crinkly bag over and shaking the crumbs on to the step. ‘Go get it!’ With his foot, he nudged the Roomba over the threshold, and then shooed the priest out after it. ‘Enjoy your robot, Father!’ he called, waving. ‘I’m sure you will be very happy together.’ Antonella, out of breath and this time with a pair of plastic turquoise-andyellow-spattered hoop earrings stuck in her hair, careened into the shop not thirty seconds later. Signor Speranza was relieved. Lying was one thing; lying in front of one of God’s own officers was entirely another. ‘Oh, signore!’ Antonella gasped. ‘Is it really true?’ Everything came out then. ‘Dante Rinaldi?’ Smilzo squeaked. ‘Here?’ He glanced sidelong at Antonella and swallowed repeatedly, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his