Creative Work
Voyeurs (short story)
Beneath the awning of his bar,
Mario and the old man watched the dusty Fiat Uno chug up the steep hill to the
village, breaking into the monotony of the baking afternoon. An Englishman
unfolded his long legs and stepped out of the car, wiping his brow with a
handkerchief. His wife flitted over to the fountain and flirted with its ice
cold spray, flicking spots of water on to her neck and shoulders.
The piazza was deserted except for
Gennaro lying under the plane tree, scratching the stray dog’s bristly ears.
Mario remembered the hushed voices around the open door of the tenement after
Gennaro’s birth, remembered holding his Mamma’s hand as they walked by, seeing
the baby’s head lolling as it was passed from one neighbour to the next, mouth
dribbling. Nothing’s changed then, Mario thought, as he saw the spit shimmering
at the corners of Gennaro’s mouth.
Eyes narrowed, Mario stared as the
Englishman swaggered across the dusty cobbles to the bar. Mario admired his
cowboy-like stance, hands in the pockets of his long shorts, hips loose. You
could tell the man fancied himself as a bit of an adventurer and it’s true that
not many tourists ventured this far. The hair pin bends were enough to put
anyone off. What was there to attract them? If Mario hadn’t been born in
Altomonte he knew he would never come here. As it was, he dreamt his life away
working out plans to escape.
When the Englishman entered, Mario
busied himself polishing glasses. With a jerk of his head Mario signalled to
the tables outside. If the foreigner wanted serving then he could pay the full
sit-down price.
The Englishwoman brought the
sweetness of suntan lotion on her shiny skin and the glamour of the Riviera in
her sun streaked hair that she tossed back as she lifted her dark glasses. She ordered
a gin and tonic, then she smiled into his eyes and asked him for a light. Their
hands brushed. Her husband, lobster face sunk in the menu, ordered steak and
chips.
Mario heated up the oil for the
chips and took the pasta that his mother had made out of the freezer. He held
his cigarette in his left hand as he fried the chips with the other, flicking
ash onto the floor.
The woman toyed with her pasta and
chain smoked, eyeing Mario.
“Why is she not eating?” Signor
Baffi asked.
“She’ll be dieting,” Mario
shrugged.
“She’s all skin and bone,” Signor
Baffi spat on the tiles Mario had mopped only that morning.
The Englishman sliced into his
bloody steak. Mario approached the table with a clean ashtray and gave the
woman a faint smile. She leant forward, exposing her low cleavage.
Mario flopped on one of his plastic
chairs near the old man and lit another cigarette. This heat sapped your
energy. They looked on as Fabio, a swarthy young man with a bull-like head,
threw himself down under the plane tree next to Gennaro, who lay with his head
on the dog’s stomach.
“Ciao, Gennaro,” Fabio offered as
he got out his mobile phone and began texting.
Glancing at the large boy lolling
beside him, he pressed his key pad with great dexterity. Gennaro sat up and
smiled, pleased to have company.
Mario could tell from Fabio’s
restless movements that he was bored. Usually you only saw him swarm past on
his vesper with the other teenagers, on their way to the beach. Fabio was just
a few years younger than Mario but Mario felt the difference between them was
as wide as the gulf across the valley. He had been like Fabio once, not a care
in the world, his only interest chatting up girls. Then he had got his
girlfriend pregnant and within months was married with a baby. Mario sighed as
he slung his butt end onto the cobbles and began to wipe tables.
Satisfied after his steak dinner,
the Englishman settled himself in his plastic chair to survey the tranquil
scene before him. His wife sat in a haze of smoke, watching Mario. He was
conscious of her eyes on him and bent over the tables for longer than
necessary, his buttocks tight against the thin linen of his slacks.
“Fabio! Fab!”
They all looked round to see a wide
face peering round the corner behind the bar. It was Davide, son of the local
carpenter. Mario took no notice when he saw
Fabio strut over to his friend and disappear into the carpenter’s workshop
behind the bar. The English couple ordered more drinks and seemed unperturbed
by the banging that echoed round the carpenter’s courtyard. Fabio called out to
Gennaro, who beamed and lumbered across the piazza, surprised
to be wanted.
When he heard the hammering, Mario
thought it odd that they were breaking the afternoon code of silence but
assumed the carpenter had a deadline. He sliced a lemon into thin slithers and
arranged two of them on the lip of the Englishwoman’s beer glass, hoping that
she would notice his artful presentation.
Mario tucked in his white shirt and
lifted the tray of drinks in one hand. As he stepped onto the terrace he heard
Fabio say, “Hold still, Gennaro!” Then Davide’s voice, “Tighter. Tie it
tighter.” Mario placed the drinks in front of the English couple and, with a
flourish, he placed a complimentary bowl of cashew nuts on the table. His elbow accidentally grazed the woman’s breast.
There was a grinding noise and
Mario turned to see Fabio and Davide heaving an enormous cross past the bar,
with Gennaro tied to it. His arms were outstretched, fastened with ropes round
his wrists, armpits and middle. Gennaro was dribbling, his mouth fixed in a
half-smile. The two boys dragged the enormous
crucifix towards the tree, clattering over the cobbles. Panting, they paused
halfway across the square.
Mario was transfixed. All eyes
followed the spectacle. All mouths fell open. The Englishman rose in alarm. The
old men shook their heads. For a moment, nobody in the bar said anything.
“Do something!” cried the woman.
Mario watched as Fabio and Davide
rattled across the cobbles with their human burden.
“What are they doing to him?” the woman
began to cry.
Mario was torn between wanting to
impress the woman and wanting to find out what they intended. It was as if the
scene before them were enacted on a TV screen. He made as if to step off the
terrace but thought better of it, avoiding her eye. The boys sweated as they
struggled to raise the cumbersome crucifix to a vertical position. Gennaro
began to whimper, alarmed as his carriage rose higher. The cords holding his
wrists dug in deep. Fabio, arms thick as a butcher’s, managed to wedge the
cross against the tree.
An old woman genuflected as she
shuffled to afternoon mass, head bent under her black shawl. At that very
moment, his mother turned the corner opposite the bar, carrying a Tupperware
dish with Mario’s lunch in it. His palms began to sweat as she caught sight of
poor Gennaro on his crucifix, helpless as a baby in its pram. She dropped her
dish and let out a terrible shriek that resounded round the piazza, bounced off
the pebble-dash walls of the church and brought the priest at a run from his
ritual preparations for worship.
“Mario! Mario!”
Mario half-ran towards the tree,
closely followed by the Englishman. His heart thumped in his chest, faster and
faster, just like when he was a boy and his mother was cross with him. He
fumbled with the cords tying Gennaro’s hands and the Englishman lowered the
cross gently to the floor.
Fabio stopped fiddling with the
camera controls of his mobile phone and shoved it in his pocket. Davide hung
his big head and offered his penknife to Fabio to cut the cords.
“Poor Gennaro. We’ll have you off
there in no time,” Mario’s mother stroked Gennaro’s face. She turned her venom
on the two culprits. “Get out of my sight, you evil skunks. How could you let
this happen, Mario? That a son of mine could stand by and watch. Dio mio, what
shame you bring on us.”
Mario’s mother crossed herself.
“It was them, not me.” As if to
emphasize his own innocence, Mario struck Davide round the head. The priest
arrived on the scene and Gennaro was tenderly coaxed up to a sitting position.
“We didn’t hurt him. We just wanted
a photo.” Fabio kicked the dust.
“He was okay about it,” added
Davide.
“Shut-up and get inside the church,”
ordered the priest. “Let God hear your penance.”
“Go and get some water,” Mario’s
mother instructed him.
Hang dog, Mario rushed to the bar
and filled glasses with cold water, his hands shaking as he realised the import
of what had happened.
When Gennaro’s wounds had been
bathed at the fountain by Mario’s mother and Mario had been sent to get
Gennaro’s own mother, the police finally arrived. The
door was wide open and she rose in alarm as she saw Mario’s anxious face.
“What is it? Where’s Gennaro?”
“Come quickly, Signora.”
She leant heavily on Mario as they
walked back to the piazza. She was panting and he was afraid she might
hyperventilate.
The ambulance men were carrying a stretcher
towards them and Gennaro’s mother fell to her knees beside her son, taking him
in her arms and crying. Mario stood by, fumbling for a cigarette in his pocket.
The priest went into his church to
give the culprits their chiding from God before handing them over to the police.
Mario, with his pigeon English, helped the tourists give their statement to the
police.
“Never seen anything like it,” the
Englishman said.
The woman sat on the wall by the
fountain, chain smoking and saying nothing. They all gathered round as the
ambulance door closed on Gennaro, who whimpered and held his mother’s hand.
Mario’s mother went off to get her car to follow the ambulance to hospital in
Sam Remo. She rang Mario later to say that Gennaro would be kept in overnight
for shock. He was treated for minor abrasions on his wrists, armpits and waist.
Mario watched with regret as the
woman tottered to the Fiat Uno and got in beside her husband. She refused to
return his gaze, eyes intent on the road ahead. They set off gingerly down the
mountainside, their windows wound down to let in the air heavy with wild
rosemary and thyme. Mario imagined her stretched on her sun bed, roasting on
the beach with the other tourists.
Next morning the incident was
headline news in the local paper “Il Mattino Cuneese”. Mario
ignored the old men waiting for their morning coffee, put his feet up and read:
“What could have motivated two ordinary young men to commit such a
heinous crime against a mentally retarded boy? Did the midday heat go to their
heads? Was there a vendetta between the families? Fabio Contese and Davide
Barricardo are charged with reviling a religious symbol and causing personal
injury.”
A few weeks later, Mario appeared
as a witness at the trial. Uncomfortable in his late father’s black suit that
his mother had insisted he wore, he found it hard to control a twitch in his right hand. When asked why
he didn’t intervene sooner he replied, “it was so shocking it felt as if it
wasn’t really happening.”
The morning after the trial, Mario
fastened a small suitcase to the back of his vespa and left Altomonte for good.
He sent money back regularly to his wife and son but never returned to the
village.
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