The Sense of an Elephant (16 page)

The house where Lorenzo lived appeared lifeless. Pietro got out of the taxi and approached the art-nouveau villa. The front gate clicked open before he could buzz. The doctor emerged immediately and walked up to him. ‘It's since yesterday that he's been getting worse.' He grasped his shoulder. ‘Since yesterday.'

Pietro looked at Luca. He was a wreck. A drooping reed. The concierge followed him up the path to the villa. Its shutters were closed and the lawn perfectly groomed.

They went inside. A housemaid was waiting for them beside a vase of fresh calla lilies. She took Pietro's coat and led them down a broad, dimly lit hallway, interrupted three-quarters along by a couch with paw-shaped brass feet and an end table covered with magazines. The freshly painted walls smelled old. Two doctors emerged from a room, called Luca aside. ‘Wait for me here, Pietro.'

The concierge waited in front of an electric fireplace. The false flame glowed behind glass. Above the mantelpiece hung an oil painting of Lorenzo posing with his mother and a Dalmatian as tall as he was.

Luca returned. ‘Let's go.' And he proceeded to the end of the hall.

She was there. Leaning against the door frame, more beautiful than the portrait with the Dalmatian. She had her hair tied back and a shawl that brushed the floor, a teddy bear in her hands. She herself was a doll with vacant eyes and a rigid neck, staring at the floor. Stared now at Pietro and said nothing, turning just slightly.

Luca touched her shoulder. ‘Giulia, this is Pietro.'

The doll opened her mouth slightly. She wore no lipstick. ‘He wasn't baptized.' Torment faintly spoiled her face. Grace remained in her frightened gestures. She stroked the teddy bear. ‘My son wasn't baptized.'

Luca opened the door to the room. In the middle was a four-poster bed draped with light blue chiffon. On the walls a poster with lions, another with monkeys. In the corner a clown made of fabric. On the far side a table with folded clothes and a picture book:
The Animals of the Savannah
. From the windows, their shades half drawn, could be seen a field of nothing but weeds. The light was failing.

Lorenzo was a tiny ball of a thing, curled up on his side under a dark blue blanket. When he left his head was bent nearly to his chest, leaving the blanket halfway up a face whose paleness had become pink. Luca pushed aside the chiffon and sat down on the bed. Pietro remained standing and watched his son caressing the son of another. The doctor pinched the child's leg through the covers and gently shook him,
My dear little boy
, lowered the sheet to free his face. His hand grazed Lorenzo from forehead to chin, then he turned him on his back with his arms along his sides. He made space for Pietro.

The priest came forward. He perched on the mattress and stroked Lorenzo's cheek as he had at the lake, and as on that day he closed a hand over one of the child's hands. The cut on the thumb was almost healed. Pietro rubbed it and turned toward the mother.

She continued to stand in the doorway, hands around the teddy bear, hands raw in the fingers, raw at the knuckles from scratching. Her face of porcelain. The woman threatened to fade from visibility, transparent in the same way as her son. ‘I'm here,' she murmured and at the same time backed further away.

The priest pressed the pillow down and settled Lorenzo's head at its centre. Only then did he see it: the elephant that he had given him peeked out between the mattress and the headboard, its feet in the air and its trunk buried in the folds of the sheet. He placed it beside him. ‘It's here,' he said, and made it so that one foot touched the child, because that was the sense of the elephant and of all fathers, their devotion to all sons. He held Lorenzo from above, in the hollow of his arms, squeezed and was afraid of hurting him.

The other doctors called Luca and he went to them. The mother retreated further, becoming a mere porcelain shadow in the doorway. She stared at the bedroom window and squeezed the teddy bear. Met the priest's gaze, looked away when the child's mouth abruptly fell open. The priest clamped it shut and said, ‘Take him with you, O Lord, because you are the Father he wants and he is the son you want.' He made the sign of the cross and placed a hand over the boy's eyes.

*

Lorenzo's mother held on to the door jamb. Then she slowly came forward, her dress encumbering her walk. Dropped her shawl and pushed aside the chiffon of the canopy, stretched out a hand and touched the little one's neck. It was still warm. She touched an arm and his ribs beneath his pyjamas, so hard. Then she recognized her son.

‘My child.'

Her voice was weary, her grace lost. She slipped off her shoes and sat down. Gently shook the child and lay down beside him. She put the teddy bear in his arms and rested her cheek against his smooth head. ‘God takes from the ungrateful.'

Pietro backed away.

The mother collapsed onto her son.

A bluish strip in the west was all that remained of the day. The concierge left the villa ahead of Luca and when he was in the street he searched his coat. He drew out the elephant. He had taken it even as the mother gazed at her son and called him her child. Pietro held it in both hands, noticed that the trunk and feet had been gnawed on, felt the traces of Lorenzo's teeth. When he got in the car he saw that Luca was already inside, leaning his head against the window. The doctor started the car and slowly drove down the street, went round the block, turned again and returned them to their starting place. The light over the villa's entrance had gone on, so too several lights behind its windows. Luca stared at them. ‘All you need to survive is one decent memory. His mother probably has one.'

Pietro protected the elephant's trunk in his fingers, closed them over it. They set off again. They took the street that ran along the park and led to the airport. The rows of houses rhythmically notched the sky. Luca bumped his head back against the headrest, a puppet without strings, bent forward and straightened up again, collapsed. ‘Every time one of my children died I would go to my mother.' He could not cry, rubbed his eyes and sounded the horn at the cars stuck under the flyover. Changed lanes, accelerated. ‘I'd go to her.' Stretched his neck and half-closed his eyes. ‘Now I go to whom I have left.'

Pietro recognized the street. ‘Viola.'

Now Luca nodded and, halfway down the street, slowed. Slowed further as he ran his wooden hands down the steering wheel from top to bottom. Dropped them in his lap and took his foot off the accelerator. A gurgling rose from his mouth. He lowered the window and steered over to the shoulder of the road. He breathed with difficulty, gasped and coughed. The crying came upon him, a sobbing without tears. He tried to say something, mumbled. Mumbled again: ‘I've always known about them. About her and Riccardo. I didn't want to lose them.'

The car came to a complete stop.

Pietro was looking through the windscreen. The evening had consumed the bluish streak. He looked at Luca, who had dropped his chin to his chest. They resembled each other in the dimple in the right cheek, the forehead crease.

Luca's face was calm. The murmur of the car's engine drowned out his deep breaths. He wiped his eyes and extended an arm toward the concierge.

Pietro felt the cold wood, warmed it between his hands.

The young priest arrived at the fountain on his bike. The witch was waiting for him, seated Indian-style. The four horses, sculpted with their rears joined in the centre, snorted water from their nostrils. He braked to a stop and dismounted before her. ‘What do you have to say to me?'

The music of a seaside dance hall reached them. The witch stood and ran through a few steps. ‘There's not much to say in a goodbye.'

‘This is goodbye?'

‘You belong to the Lord. And I've already committed the greatest sin.' She touched her stomach. ‘I'm made of remorse.'

‘And I of regrets.' He pulled away and made to climb back on the bike.

She grabbed a handlebar. The water in the horses' nostrils stopped.

‘Stop here, please,' said Luca.

Pietro parked in front of a terraced house with a yellow facade. He had taken the doctor's place behind the wheel after he had said he couldn't manage. He glanced now through the window at the house. ‘Who lives there?'

Luca fixed his hair and shirt. Before getting out he looked down at his trembling hands. Got out and rang the doorbell. The door opened and he disappeared inside. Re-emerged shortly after with Sara clinging to his neck, giving him a series of kisses on his head and holding him tight.

‘Did you have fun at Grandma and Grandpa's, honey?' Luca sat her in the back and returned to his place in the front. The child paid no attention to the concierge and shuffled toward her father's seat. Squinted at him, shook her index finger like a magic wand, abracadabra. Touched first one of his eyes, then another.

‘Did you see Pietro's here?'

But she continued to peer at the distressed face of her father, hugged him as best she could. When the car set off again she pushed further forward and took better hold of him. And her father said to her,

Don't be afraid

It's just the dark

A bit of colour

A great inky gloom

Don't be afraid

It's just the sun

Who's yawning because

He wants to sleep

Sara sang softly along with him. Then again as she settled back on the seat. And again moments before falling asleep. Luca repeated it on his own,
Don't be afraid, it's just the dark, a bit of colour, a great inky gloom
, until they parked in front of the condominium. Then picked up his daughter, entered the building and climbed the stairs.

The concierge accompanied them to the second floor. ‘I'll be up if you need me.'

Luca cleared his throat. ‘There's a man …' He spoke quietly. ‘A man … I have to visit him in two days. He lives in your city. I need someone who knows the area.'

Pietro remained silent.

‘Come with me to Rimini.'

Sara lifted her head from her father's shoulder.

‘It's for work, honey. You get bored when Daddy works.' Luca scratched the back of her neck. ‘Come with me, Pietro. Your sea will be there as well.'

The concierge looked at them together. A father and his daughter. The crying had left its mark on Luca's face, still slightly swollen. Sleepiness weighed down the eyes of both of
them. Sara pressed her cheek, stuck her ear to his. Hers alone had the pointed tip.

Luca waited for an answer. When it didn't come he entered his flat, begging Pietro's pardon, and closed the door.

‘Goodnight.' The concierge returned to the lodge. Sat down in front of the window and opened the curtains. Pulled out the elephant, placed it at the centre of the table.

The witch leapt to the rim of the fountain, did a pirouette. ‘Witches dance at goodbyes. Priests cry.'

The young priest brought a finger to his dry eyes. ‘I'm not crying.'

‘But you're not a priest.'

He stood back on his heels, tapped up and down.

The witch laughed. ‘That's how you defy Heaven?'

Pietro went to her and gently lifted her up and settled her on the Bianchi. He got on and began to pedal. ‘This is how.'

During the night the doctor came down into the condominium's entrance hall. Pietro was asleep in the lodge's wicker chair. He woke when Luca tossed the duffel bag to the floor. Stood and saw his son carrying a second duffel, his leather medical bag and a plastic bag containing a limp quilt and orange sheets. The doctor's face was crêpe paper, his eyes two glass marbles. He held them open wide, closed them and turned toward the stairs. ‘Viola, go back inside.'

Light footsteps climbed as the sound of a car came from the other side of the street door. Luca picked up the two duffel
bags and went out to the street. ‘I have other things, please wait.'

Pietro took the other things. Carried out the plastic bag and the leather bag. Loaded them into the boot of the taxi that was parked outside, hazard lights flashing. ‘Where will you go, Doctor?'

‘Nearby.'

Luca leaned toward the concierge and wrapped an arm around him. Climbed into the taxi. Pietro waited on the pavement for it to leave before going back inside.

Viola was a shadow on the stairs. ‘He's left us … Did he tell you where he's going?'

He shook his head.

She started up. ‘What will I tell my child …'

Fffffff
, Pietro felt blowing in his ear.
Fffffff
, he opened his eyes wide and raised his head from the lodge table.

‘They had a fight.' Fernando, leaning through the lodge window, blew one last time and stroked the concierge's forehead.

Pietro checked his watch and smoothed down his hair. Behind Fernando he could see Paola. ‘I nodded off,' he told her.

‘I didn't get any sleep myself last night. You saw him leave, didn't you?' She clinked the bracelets at her wrist. ‘Good heavens.'

‘Good heavens,' Fernando echoed.

‘When I heard them crying my heart just stopped.' Paola tossed her hair back and squeezed the handbag she held beneath one arm. Turned to watch Poppi coming down the stairs. The lawyer removed his hat. His face was dark. He avoided Paola's eyes and sought out those of the concierge. His sneer was gone. He tried to speak, gave up.

‘Pietro saw Luca leave. It's terrible.' Paola hugged her son and walked toward the exit. She was reaching for the button when the street door opened on its own. A headful of curls and a hand holding a paper bag entered. It was Riccardo.

Pietro looked through the closed pane of the lodge window. The radiographer was like a distorted reflection,
growing larger. ‘One chocolate croissant for the cyclist.' Riccardo dropped the bag in and started up the stairs.