Catastrophe: And Other Stories Read online

  Antonio’s lip trembled. “What do you mean?” he began. But at the same moment, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman raise her arm to throw more mud. He seized her wrist, stopping her; the dirt spattered from her fingers.

  “Oh, so you go for women too, do you?” said the young man in the T-shirt. “I suppose you’re the boyfriend?” He brought his leering face close to Antonio’s. “Now, now,” he threatened, drawing a hand provokingly in front of the boy’s face. Antonio clenched a fist to push him back. But he struck out clumsily, grazing the man’s shoulder.

  The young man didn’t give an inch. He smiled, apparently highly amused; then he began to mark time with his feet like a boxer, fists flailing. “Now take this!”

  His left arm lengthened, slowly it seemed, with no particular force. But Antonio, for some reason, was unable to avoid it. It was apparently quite a mild blow, hitting him in the stomach. But as soon as he drew a breath he felt an atrocious pain spreading within him: a deep, dull, evil pain. He was unable to breathe.

  “For goodness’ sake! For goodness’ sake!” cackled the young man, still mimicking. Then the other arm lengthened. The blow hardly seemed to touch him. Yet a second later Antonio was doubled up, groaning. A horrible wave of nausea rose from deep within him. He could see only a confusion of shadows. He backed toward the nearest tree, to lean against it.

  When he recovered—it was only a matter of seconds—something new was happening at the fountain.

  Anna was still in the middle. Spattered with mud, her face twisted into an expression of anguish, she was dividing her attention between shielding herself with her hands and trying to splash water at those who were aiming at her. But she moved with difficulty, as though suddenly overcome with exhaustion. She was standing among the children in the hopes that their mothers, not wanting to hit them, would spare her too. “Antonio, Antonio,” she called, “look what they’ve done to me! Just look at me!” She continued to shout the phrase mechanically, as though she could say nothing else.

  “Out! Out! Get out! . . . Come away, Nini . . . come away all of you children!” shouted the women. The children began to move away, leaving Anna standing quite alone.

  At this point, even if Anna had decided to come out, the issue would no longer have been simple. Would they have let her pass? Would they not have attacked her still further? In the surrounding trees the cicadas’ note sounded suddenly angrier, harsher, louder than before, as though panic had swept through the leaves. Almost at the same time, a child of about eight or nine, excited by the shouting, approached Anna brandishing his roughly made wooden boat threateningly. When he was close to her, without a word, he banged the toy hard against her shin. The keel, which was strengthened with a strip of tin, cut sharply to the bone.

  Much can happen in a couple of minutes, men achieve many things in such a short space of time—even if it is hot and the foul-smelling air from the rotting rice fields wafts over the town, poisoning their existence. The girl tried to shriek. But all she produced was a soundless breath, a sort of whistle. In the moment of panic she seized upon the child and threw it down into the water. For a moment, its head disappeared below the surface.

  There was a horrible shriek from the side of the fountain, like the roar of an animal. “She’s killing my child, she’s killing my child! Help! Help!”

  Naturally, the heat was suddenly forgotten. This was a heaven-sent opportunity. There was no longer anything to stop them pouring out their very souls, from ridding themselves of that whole load of filth and evil that piles up inside one for years and that no one really notices is there. A wave of frenzy swept through the women: “Murderess! Murderess! Murderess!” they shouted senselessly.

  Some dozen yards away, with that insistent pain still in his side, Antonio was still panting. He could only partly see what was happening and failed to understand the full significance of it. But now he did notice that the people were not speaking as they had previously: they’d been speaking the ordinary dialect of the town, which he could easily understand. But now, inexplicably, their mouths seemed to swell and splutter, and produce different-sounding words, rough and shapeless; it was like some hideous black echo from the distant city wells. Was this the evil voice of the old forgotten underworld, heavy with crime, breaking the long silence? He was among foreigners, in a remote, unpredictable land; he was an enemy.

  The shouts became louder than ever. People were jumping over the edge of the fountain and into the water. There was a struggle. Then they all climbed out again, led by Anna held roughly between two women who were hitting her. She looked crumpled and mud-bespattered and her face was ashy pale, with an expression of utter anguish. Was she crying? Sobbing? Shouting? Antonio couldn’t tell, her voice was drowned by the shrieks of the crowd. Every now and then she stumbled under their blows, but they continued toward some unspecified destination, pinning her arms behind her back.

  Antonio looked on in terror. All around him he saw harsh, glaring, staring faces. His heart pounding, he ran to find a policeman. Then he heard a new burst of shouting: “To the cage with her!” they seemed to be saying. Was that it? What could it mean?

  He had gone only about two hundred yards when he saw two policemen, walking in the direction of the crowd attracted by the uproar, although they did not seem to be in any particular hurry. “Please hurry, they’re murdering a girl. They’ve got her, they’re taking her away!” he stammered out.

  The two policemen looked at him in amazement, as though they hadn’t understood; nor did they walk a fraction faster, though the crowd of people dragging Anna was coming toward them. Anna’s defenses were completely broken down. “Oh, God, oh, God,” she repeated endlessly. They drove her along like an animal.

  But right behind her came another group, mostly women, triumphantly carrying a child, the one that Anna had thrown into the water. Its mother was stroking its legs. “Tonino, my love,” she was shouting. “My own treasure! That cnn che lev mmmmmmm!” After the first word the phrase disintegrated into a meaningless lowing sound. The other women all nodded violent approval and clapped their hands; then one suddenly ran forward, as though she had not a moment to lose, and pounded Anna viciously with her fists.

  What exactly were the policemen waiting for? Moving uncertainly, they had come up alongside the procession and were gesticulating oddly. A small hunchback went up to them. “We’ve got her,” he reported, panting. “She was trying to mmeg n bemb ghh mmmm mmmm!” The policemen turned pale.

  One of them glanced at Antonio, apologetically. But the boy’s expression of dismay reminded him of his duty. He signaled to his companion that it was time for action, then seized one of the women by the arm. “Just a moment, now,” he said uncertainly.

  The woman didn’t even turn around. Some vast power of darkness dragged her along with the rest. There was a buzz of incomprehensible comment. The policeman relaxed his grip. The tramping of numerous feet was sending up clouds of dust which mingled with warm breaths of foul-smelling air.

  They were pushing Anna toward the old castle, which stood at the edge of the gardens. There, hanging above the drawbridge and suspended by means of a sort of winch was a small iron cage, originally used for pillorying criminals. Hanging against the yellow wall, it looked like a huge bat. The crowd, with Anna in its midst, gathered beneath it, then the cage began to sway, and moved jerkily down into the crowd. The shouts became triumphant. A few minutes later the ropes tautened and the cage swung upward, this time holding a human being: a human being in blue, kneeling shaken with sobs, hands gripping the bars. A hundred arms were raised toward it, unrecognizable objects flew upward to strike it.

  However, just as it was about a yard above the heads of the crowd, the ancient crane-like contraption grated and gave way, leaving the wooden handle to fly around freely. No longer held taut, the rope began to move faster and lowered the cage over the bridge into the black castle moat. Finally, with a last creak, the winch stopped moving, the cage banged against the outer
wall and stood still, about twelve feet above the ground. The crowd howled, terrified of being baulked of its spectacle. People left the bridge and crowded around the iron railings, leaning forward and staring down. Someone began to spit.

  From where they stood, they could see Anna’s slight shoulders heaving, her head bent; earth, stones and rubbish of all sorts fell on her matted hair. “Look at her, look at her!” they said. “She hasn’t got cragghh craghh guaaah!” They raised the uncomprehending Tonino high on their shoulders and he looked around in terror.

  At last Antonio managed to reach the parapet. Now he could see the cage. “Anna, Anna!” he began to shout amid the uproar. “Anna! It’s me!”

  He tried three times, but then someone touched his shoulder. It was a pale and depressed-looking man of about fifty, and he was shaking his head. “No, no,” he said and Antonio felt a rush of gratitude on hearing him speak civilly. “No, please don’t!”

  Antonio didn’t understand. “Don’t what?” he stammered.

  The other shook his head and put a finger on his lips to imply the need for silence. “Now, please don’t . . . you’d better leave . . . it’s hot here . . . very hot . . .”

  “Me? Me?” he repeated shakily; suddenly he saw around him half a dozen horrific heads craned forward to listen. He left the parapet.

  Sundown was approaching but bringing neither cool nor comfort. The shouts were gradually dying down into a low resentful murmur, but the crowd along the moat railings did not disperse. Nearby the policemen walked in pairs, aimlessly and nervously. Were they just waiting for people to go? Perhaps that was the rule here, to avoid riots.

  “Oh, Lord, how awful,” murmured Antonio, trying to regain his position at the edge. He succeeded after a few minutes, but found himself some way from the cage. Once again he tried to call Anna.

  Then he felt a sudden blow at the back of his neck. It was the young man with the T-shirt. “You again?” he asked, smiling poisonously. “Aren’t you bst bst sedin gaaaah!” He broke into inarticulate gurgling.

  “He’s an accomplice, arrest him! Get guish guish aahh . . . mmm . . . mmm . . . !” they shouted.

  “Get him too,” suggested someone. “Him too,” they all replied. Antonio tried to move away, but he was seized and held. They bound his wrists and pushed him over the parapet, so that he hung over the moat suspended by a rope, then they dragged him along the wall until he was above the cage; they slackened their hold. Antonio fell suddenly onto the floor of the cage, crushing one of Anna’s hands as he did so; she didn’t move. A savage roar sounded above them. The light was fading.

  Loosening his hands with difficulty, Antonio put his arms around her and felt the slime with which she was covered. Anna kept her head bent and went on murmuring expressionlessly. Then she began to cough, her whole body shaking. The crowds above were still shouting.

  But now many people were moving off, satiated, even faintly disgusted. The twilight swifts twittered, darting around the castle. The sound of the last post could be heard from a distant barracks. It was night at last in that dust heap of a town. Suddenly an old woman with a large package appeared, laughing gleefully. “Tonino, Tonino!” pointing to the package as though it contained some delightful surprise. The crowd drew back to let her pass.

  When she reached the edge the old woman opened the bundle, revealing a child’s chamber pot; she lowered it so that the crowd could catch a glimpse of its contents. “Tonino, Tonino,” she repeated, pointing to it.

  Then she leaned out over the railing, held the pot over the cage and took aim. “Not that you deserve it!” she added.

  The contents fell, softly, on Anna’s shoulders. But she didn’t move, or protest. All that could be heard was the straining sound of her cough, deep and dry.

  There was a moment of indecision among the crowd. Then, as the old woman sniggered, a laugh spread through it.

  In the ensuing silence, from the section of the moat wall by which the cage was hanging, came the tremulous call of a cricket. Its chirp became louder, as though it were coming nearer.

  Anna put out a small trembling hand through the bars toward it, as though asking for help.

  Oversight

  SIGNORA ADA TORMENTI HAD GONE TO THE COUNTRY for a few days as the guest of her cousins the Premoli family. There were a lot of other guests. As it was summer, they would sit in the garden talking until one or two in the morning. One night the conversation touched upon town houses. There was a man there called Imbastaro, intelligent but unpleasant. He said, “Every time I leave my house in Naples, ha ha, I run into some kind of trouble, ha ha” (he was sniggering meanly, apparently pointlessly; or was his aim, perhaps, to make the others feel uneasy?). “I leave the place, and before I’ve gone half a mile, the tap I left on makes the washbasin overflow, the cigarette I left alight sets the library on fire, or rats break in and eat me out of house and home; ha ha, or else the portress, who’s the only person left at this time of year, suddenly dies and is found the next morning ripe for burial, with candles, priest and coffin all organized. That’s life.”

  “Not always,” said Signora Tormenti, “luckily.”

  “Not always, you’re right. But would you be willing to swear that you’ve left your flat perfectly organized, that you haven’t forgotten anything? Now, think carefully.”

  At these words Ada became deathly pale: a fearful thought struck her. In order to come and stay with the Premoli family she had taken her four-year-old daughter to stay with an aunt. Or rather she had decided to take her. But now that she thought about it, although she was certain she had done so, she couldn’t remember how or when she had taken Luisella to her aunt’s. How extraordinary: she could remember nothing of how they had left the house, nor of their actual journey, nor their goodbyes. It was as if a gaping hole had opened in her memory.

  The doubt, in short, was the following: that she, Ada, had forgotten to take the child to her aunt and absentmindedly, on leaving, had shut her in the flat instead. It was an absurd thought; but imagination can weave strange webs. Absurd, unheard of, yet the thought was enough to freeze the blood in her veins. The rest of the company looked up surprised when she rose suddenly and walked away. One said to Imbastaro, “Excuse me, but did you say something to upset her?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary, ha ha, can’t understand it.”

  Ada went indoors and straight to the telephone, without telling anyone. She put through an urgent call to Milan, giving her home number. She waited, twisting her hands.

  She was connected almost immediately. “Hello, hello? Is it you calling Milan 40079277?” “Yes, yes,” she said. “Go right ahead then.”

  And talk to whom? She had rung assuming that there would be no reply. The house was empty and locked up, surely? If someone did answer, it would mean that her first fear was founded and that Luisella was locked in (she was only four, but she was quite capable of answering the telephone). But that was ten days ago. It was murderously hot and she hadn’t left a bite to eat in the house. The heat! During heat waves furniture was said to combust spontaneously in empty houses, and human beings, if there were any, to die of suffocation. Ada felt death upon her. Trembling, she said “Hello.”

  “Hello,” a man’s voice replied from Milan. In a flash, Ada pictured what had happened: Luisella alone and locked in, unable to open the door, her shouts, the immediate neighborhood alerted, the police, the door broken down, the child half-crazed with fear. “Hello, who is that?” asked the man’s voice.

  “It’s me, the mother. But who are you?”

  “What mother? I know no mothers.” And he put down the receiver.

  Ada immediately called Milan again (although her first moment of terror had already passed). She got the right number, heard the ringing tone and got no answer this time.

  She sighed with relief: thank goodness. What an absurd thought to have had in the first place. She powdered her nose in the mirror and went back into the garden. The assembled company glanced at her, but
said nothing.

  But as soon as she was in bed, and the heavy silence had fallen upon the big country house and the only sound that could be heard, from time to time, was the crickets through her half-open window, then she felt another burst of fear. Amid all that silence she began to imagine the child, by now half-dead with heat and hunger, eyes wide with terror, on her knees and clutching the padlock, sobbing her last. It was no use her telling herself that, if it came to it, someone would have heard her shouts. Another treacherous voice objected: if someone had heard her, they would have let her out by now; you left home ten days ago, they would have contacted you already. And perhaps all the nearby flats were empty too, now that it’s the holidays. The portress, five floors below, would hardly be likely to hear.

  She looked at her watch—four o’clock. There was a train at six. Ada leaped out of bed, dressed, packed her case. Perhaps this way madness lies, she said to herself. But she couldn’t resist any longer.

  She left a note of apology, crept down the stairs, went through the door to the garden and set off toward the station, three miles away.

  As the train neared Milan, her panic increased. It arrived at about three in the afternoon. The city sizzled under a layer of hot, damp dust. Stammering with emotion, she gave her address to the taxi driver.

  There, at last, was the house. Nothing seemed to be wrong. The blinds of the flat were all down, just as she had left them, eleven days ago.

  She rushed past the porter’s lodge; the portress nodded to her as usual. Thank goodness, thought Ada, it’s been a nightmare, nothing more.

  Great peace and quiet on the fifth-floor landing. Yet her hands trembled as she put the key in the lock. The padlock sprang open. As the door opened she felt a breath of warm heavy air.

  Suddenly, as she opened the inside door, Ada felt a movement of pain within her; just above her head, as if anxious to escape her, there floated a small inexplicable plume of smoke, a tiny pale oblong cloud with no smell at all.