In a Heartbeat (30 page)

I went back inside and leaned towards my father. ‘I have to go. Try to get some rest.’

My father gasped and grabbed my wrist. It seemed impossible that a skeleton of a man could have such a steely grip.

‘Don’t … leave … me … here.’

‘Let go, c’mon.’ I shook my arm but he wouldn’t let go.

‘Don’t leave me … ’

I pulled and he grabbed me with his other hand. It seemed as through all his strength had returned at once. He held on as he sobbed, ‘Don’t … leave … me here.’

‘Jesus, Dad.’ I tried to yank him off of me and he slid out of bed, ripping the oxygen mask from his face and knocking the IV stand against the wall. His fingers still gripped onto my wrist like a vice. ‘Let me go!’

‘Noooo.’

His legs twitched, his feet crashing into the nightstand as he dragged the sheet from the bed. The catheter bag fell to the floor, splashing urine everywhere.

‘Shit!’ I took my free hand and pried his fingers off one by one. He was still on his stomach and tried to grab my ankle. I evaded his grip by a hair’s breadth as I leapt out the window.

The fall against the cement knocked the wind out of me. I ran towards the park and hopped over a couple of employees playing cards on a step.

‘Where are you going?’ one asked.

I didn’t know, as long as it wasn’t the main entrance. I ran through the bushes until I got to the wall.

I heard voices in the distance.
He went that way. It’s him. Hey you, stop!

The wall was at least three metres high and made from blocks of reinforced concrete. I put my foot in a crack and was able to climb up and grab the edge.
Pull yourself up, you fat old bastard. C’mon! Up!
Under normal conditions I would never have been able to do it. But with adrenaline pumping through you, miracles can happen. I put my right elbow over the edge and pushed myself over and fell to the other side. In the comic strips there’s always a bush on the other side to break your fall. I had nothing, just a pavement on a dead-end street. It hurt like hell but I only felt it later. I got up and kept running. My lungs and spleen burned. The tenth time I turned around I almost ran into a couple of carabinieri cars. I flattened myself against the entrance of a shop. It was a butcher’s. Ustoni’s face was smiling from the display: The
Ustoni
Salami SMS Contest! Win a New Set of Ustoni Kitchen Knives!
A look at the prize took what was left of my breath. I went in.

The butcher looked like a tailor and was dressed just as elegantly. I was the only customer. ‘How may I help you?’ he asked.

‘I’d like to know more about the prize.’

‘Really?’

‘Do you have a better picture of the knives?’

‘You’d like to know if they’re worth it? Look behind the window.’

Between jars of pickled vegetables, there was an open briefcase. Inside was a set of Ustoni knives.

‘They gave us a set of demo knives for the customers.’

I got closer to the glass. The cleaver blade was identical to the one that I had picked up from the street after the biker tried to cut my head off. Same colour. Same metal.

‘I shouldn’t tell you,’ continued the butcher, ‘but they’re not the best. If I used them they would definitely break but, hey, they’re free; what do you expect? So, you want some Ustoni salami?’

‘No, thanks.’

I was dizzy and I began to feel the falls. The same knife, but why? Did Max take it from my house when he put the bomb in my computer? It didn’t make sense.

The phone vibrated in my pocket. I just threw it against the wall. If they could send me phone ads, then they could certainly trace where I was. The phone broke into two pieces, and I stomped on it until only splinters of plastic remained.

I started to walk slowly. I was far away from the old folks’ home and the pigs couldn’t seal off the entire neighbourhood. Maybe they were watching me from space by satellite or even sniffing my DNA in the air. In this world everything was under surveillance, spied on and connected to the internet. There was no way to get out.

I turned onto a street that was full of cars and people. I adjusted my coat and dusted off my trousers. I was one among many anonymous faces. Until my photo was sent to every phone, iPod, plasma-screen TV, and giant TV monitor where Christmas commercials ran alongside news about suicide bombers.

Get him. Arrest him.

I got on a tram and then took a bus that went in my direction. In half an hour I got to Viale Ortles and at the first intersection I found the halfway house. It was a four-floor red brick building with a solid polished wood door that stood out from the surrounding desolation. A sign indicated the offices of the Holy Blood Community. The rest of the buzzers were anonymous.

The offices were on the ground floor and they opened directly onto an inner courtyard typical of old Milan. There were a dried-up fountain and cast-iron benches. Inside a couple of people waited in a queue in front of what seemed to be an office window. I waited for my turn, pretending to be a patient. The guy in front of me was getting his mail and wanted to know if anybody had come looking for him. They were residents who had previously worn coloured jackets. They all came from the Centre, even the guy inside. I saw prison tattoos on his hand.

‘Can I help you?’

I told him who I was; he didn’t seem at all impressed. I said I was looking for Max.

‘We can’t give that information out,’ he said.

‘It’s important that I contact him. I’m with the Founding Committee; my name should be around somewhere. I’m on the website, you can check.’

‘Even if you were the president of the Republic, I couldn’t tell you. I’ve got to work here.’

‘Do you know Father Zurloni?’

‘Of course.’

‘Call him and ask him about me. I would do it myself but I forgot my phone at home.’

‘I don’t know … ’

I convinced him. He said who I was and Father Zurloni asked to speak to me.

‘Son, what’s going on? The police are looking for you.’

‘I’ll explain later. Can you help me with this guy at the halfway house?’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t. Santo, I think that it’s better that you … ’

‘Thank you, I’ll tell him myself.’

‘Santo … ’

‘OK. I’ll tell Monica that you said hello. Thanks again and see you soon.’

I hung up the phone and leaned against the counter. ‘You see.’ I said to the guy.

‘If Father Zurloni says it’s OK … ’ The phone began to ring.

‘Please, I’m in a rush, answer later.’

Ring. Ring.
‘The person that you’re looking for was here for only a few days. He found a job and a place to stay almost immediately.’ He looked at the phone.

Ring. Ring.
I picked up the phone and then hung up. The guy pulled a face. ‘Maybe it was important.’

‘Sorry. Do you know where he is now?’

‘I can look in the register. It’s usually written here.’ He slid the chair to the computer and tapped on the keyboard. ‘Here it is. He found a job as a doorman.’

‘Where?’

‘Corso Vercelli 6.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s my address.’

He checked and his expression changed as he looked at me. ‘You said that your name was Denti, right?’

‘Yes … ’

‘I don’t understand. He was left in the custody and supervision of his employer. It says here Santo Denti. And that’s you.’

3

Ring ring. Ring ring
.

‘I’m sorry but now I have to get that,’ the guy said.

He reached for the phone and my world began to melt. It was like watching one image on top of another. There was the office of the halfway house; the guy was sitting at his desk. Behind him there was an empty room with drilling sounds coming out of it. The guy answered the phone. ‘Yes, he’s still here.’ I looked beyond him. Two men were painting the walls; an electrician was pulling wires over a desk. I turned to get out; the door appeared and disappeared like a dream. ‘Signor Denti,’ he called, ‘it’s Father Zurloni.’

I left. A priest walked through me. A woman pushed a baby pram against me and disappeared. I couldn’t move without bumping into people who had the consistency of air. People were dressed for winter, then in tank tops, then overcoats and shorts and umbrellas and sunglasses. They passed like a film in fast-forward stepping over and through one another. And through my body. I was in the present and in the past, the years and days blended into one another.

‘No, please, no.’ I begged. ‘Please.’

The moon and the sun were in the sky. It was dark and then bright. The street was glowing and filled with old and new cars that disappeared behind one another. A multi-coloured plastic bus contorted and became an old orange tram. A lorry parked on top of a group of men digging into the street. They kept working. The signs changed from new to old, from Boutique della Banana to Fruttivendolo, from MailBox Etc. to Cartoleria, from Mediaworld to Elettrodomestici. A newsstand turned into a rusty old kiosk. Lights in building windows turned on and off. Italian flags and peace flags appeared and disappeared. Cranes appeared and levelled a five-storey building and then it was a worksite and then a park where children played. Sun, rain, night, day. A parade of workers filled the streets for a moment, whistling and beating drums.

I put my head in my hands and yelled, ‘Enough!’

Dark. Light. Advertisements went up and were ripped down in the blink of an eye. The mannequin in a shop window went from a coat to a swimsuit and then the window was covered in plastic sheets. Nothing was there long enough for me to get a fix on it. The trees absorbed their leaves and their branches went back into their trunks that began to thin. Sun, rain and night. I concentrated and tried to walk. My shoes changed with every step, boots, moccasins, sandals and multi-coloured Nikes, boots. I tried to jump over a hole where men dressed in jumpsuits were laying blue plastic pipes. I hit the wall of a building. It was solid. Thank God it was solid. I held on to it and closed my eyes. When I reopened them, it was snowing, real snow. My face and hands were cold. It brought me back. That kept me from going crazy. The ghosts disappeared behind the snowflakes, which now began to cover real objects, real people, who lived in reality and not in the memory of the Ad Exec that churned in my brain. Concentrating on what I thought was real or what I hoped was real, I was able to orientate myself in the present.

I had to get out of there.

The police were looking for me and Zurloni knew where I was. Without thinking, I got into a taxi. It was white, not like the yellow ones that danced in and out of my field of vision. I gave him Sally’s address and managed to get a grip on myself along the way. The world outside my window stopped changing. Now I was moving though a single Milan, cold and covered with white.

When I reached my destination I ran to the call centre. Ragiul and his two friends stood at the entrance, watching the snow fall.

‘Where’s Salima?’ I asked.

‘At the Centre. Do you need the keys?’

‘Yes.’

I took them, ran through the alley, and charged through the iron door. I shot up the stairs to the gym. The police had left broken-down doors and smashed glass. Salima, dressed in a karate suit, sat cross-legged in the freezing room. Children mimicked her hand gestures. I grabbed her by the arm. ‘We have to go,’ I said.

She looked at me, confused. ‘Santo, I’m giving a lesson, I still have half an hour left.’

‘We can’t wait, let’s go.’

My tone and expression must have scared her because Sally broke up the class and rushed to the bathroom to change.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked me on the stairs.

‘Salima, I have to get out of here.’

She stopped me on the stairs. ‘Is it the police?’

‘Yes. Please, we have to go.’ She didn’t move. ‘Hurry up.’

I leaned against the wall, confused, frustrated and scared. ‘Sally … I was looking for the wrong man. The one who killed Roveda.’ Max. How many times did I see him sitting there in the guard booth of my building? I thought he was an old man but it was his body that was devastated by disease. The Ad Exec wasn’t like me. He didn’t go there to find him and kick his ass. He had hired him and given him another chance. He was satisfied having him take clean underwear to his father and watching him remove his cap with respect. The Ad Exec was the lucky one who had made it.

‘Now there’s no time for anything. They’re looking for me and I’ve made a mess.’

‘But … ’

‘Sally, my lawyer said that I have to face reality, but I don’t know which one. I can’t trust myself. I see things that aren’t there.’ Maybe even the guy on the bike who tried to kill me was just in my head. Maybe I put the bomb in the computer myself. Why not? I was crazy. ‘You have to help me.’

She was crying. ‘What can I do?’

‘Half of your friends are here illegally, aren’t they? They know how to get in across the border. I need to get out. It should be easy, shouldn’t it?’