The Girl in the Fog Page 10

  ‘Good, Priscilla,’ Martini said. The girl lowered her eyes and smiled, as if she had received a great compliment. One of her classmates mockingly imitated her simpering reaction. Priscilla responded by showing him her middle finger.

  Martini was well pleased: he had got them to the point he had been hoping to reach. ‘You see, bad actions are the real driving force of every narrative. A novel or film or video game in which everything goes well wouldn’t be interesting. Remember: it’s the villain who makes the story.’

  ‘Nobody likes the good guys.’ This comment came from Lucas, who was noted for his poor grades, especially when it came to conduct, and for the skull tattoo peeking out from behind one ear. Maybe he felt implicated and saw this as an opportunity for revenge: no, nobody liked the good guys.

  Martini felt a strange sensation whenever he managed to get somewhere with his class. It was a sense of relief. Not that it would have been easy to say what it meant. Reaching such a goal might seem a modest achievement to anyone else. But it wasn’t modest to a teacher, it wasn’t modest to Loris Martini. At that moment, he was perfectly conscious that he had sowed an idea in their minds. And that that idea might stay there. Notions could indeed be forgotten, but the spontaneous formation of thought followed a different route. The idea would follow them for the rest of their lives, maybe lurking in a corner of their brains and appearing suddenly when they needed it.

  It’s the villains who make the story.

  That wasn’t just literature. It was life.

  When his colleagues talked about the class, they used expressions like ‘human material’, referring to the pupils, or else they were inclined to complain or to impose an iron discipline that was easily circumvented. On his first day, several of them had told him clearly that it was pointless having too many expectations because the average level was quite low. Martini had to admit that at the beginning of the school year, he hadn’t nourished any great hopes for the results he would achieve from his ‘human material’. But as the weeks had passed, he had found a way to overcome their distrust and little by little had started gaining their confidence.

  In Avechot, there were only two values that counted. Faith and money. Even though many of their families were part of the brotherhood, the pupils mocked the former and worshipped the latter.

  Money was a constant topic of discussion between them. The adults in the village who had got rich thanks to the mining company showed off their affluence, driving big cars or wearing expensive watches. They were the object of admiration and respect from the younger people, who at the same time tended to feel sorry for those – including their own parents in some cases – who couldn’t afford certain luxuries.

  The school was the place in Avechot where the difference between the two social categories into which the village was divided was most noticeable. The children of the better-off were always fashionably dressed and showed off their enviable gadgets, starting with the latest model of smart phone. All this was often a source of tension. There had been fights in the playground because of the scorn felt for those who were less privileged. There had even been cases of theft.

  That was why, when Martini had presented himself to the class in his velvet jacket rubbed away at the elbows, his fustian trousers and his shapeless old Clarks shoes, he had aroused a great deal of mirth among the students. He had immediately grasped that he didn’t enjoy their respect. And he had to admit: in that moment he had felt inadequate. It was as if he had been vainly pursuing the wrong objective his whole life – and he was now forty-three.

  ‘I won’t assign you any homework for the Christmas holidays.’ Cries of jubilation rose from the class. ‘Partly because I know you wouldn’t do it,’ he added, arousing a laugh. ‘But in the intervals between smashing windows or robbing banks, I want you to read at least one book from this list.’ He took a sheet from the desk and held it up. The discontent was general.

  There was only one of the pupils who didn’t say a word.

  He had spent the whole lesson with his head bowed over his desk at the back of the class, writing or scribbling something in the big exercise book he always carried with him along with his camcorder. He had withdrawn into his own world, one nobody else could enter, not even his classmates, who responded by isolating him. Whenever Martini had tried to engage with him, he had been rejected.

  ‘Mattia, what about you?’ Martini now said. ‘Do you mind reading at least one book in the next two weeks?’

  For a moment, Mattia raised his eyes from his exercise book, said nothing and went back inside his shell.

  Just then, the bell rang for the end of the lesson.

  Mattia quickly grabbed his satchel and the skateboard he kept under his desk. He was the first to leave the classroom.

  Martini addressed the students one last time before they left. ‘Have a good Christmas, all of you … and try not to cause too much damage.’

  In the corridors of the school, there was a frantic coming and going of pupils preparing to exit the building. Some were running, dodging Martini, who walked along at a normal pace with his usual vague air, a green corduroy bag over his shoulder. He heard someone calling him.

  ‘Signor Martini! Sir!’

  He turned and saw Priscilla coming towards him with a big smile on her face. Even though she got herself up like a delinquent, with that green parka that was too big for her and the boots that made her look taller, Martini thought she was very pretty. He slowed down and waited for her to catch up with him.

  Priscilla did so. ‘I wanted to tell you that I’ve already chosen the novel I’m going to read in the holidays,’ she said with somewhat excessive enthusiasm.

  ‘Oh yes, which one?’

  ‘Lolita.’

  ‘Why did you choose that one?’ Martini was expecting her to say that, all things considered, the main character was like her.

  ‘Because I know my mother wouldn’t approve,’ she said instead.

  Martini smiled. When it came down to it, books were a form of rebellion. ‘Enjoy the book, then.’ He tried to get away, partly because he had been aware for a while now that Priscilla had a crush on him, and his colleagues had noticed it, too. That was why he always tried to avoid spending too much time with her in public. He didn’t want anyone to think he was encouraging her.

  ‘Wait, sir, there’s something else.’ She seemed embarrassed. ‘Did you know I’m going to be on television tomorrow? I’m picking the numbers for the brotherhood’s charity tombola. It’s only a local TV channel, but you have to start somewhere, don’t you?’

  Priscilla had often expressed a desire to become famous. One day she wanted to take part in a reality show, the next day she wanted to be a singer. Lately, she had got it into her head that she’d like to become an actress. She didn’t have any clear idea about how to achieve this, but maybe it was simply a cry for help, a way of telling everyone that she would like to get out of Avechot. It was likelier, though, that in a couple of years she would find a boy as messed-up as her who would make her pregnant and force her to spend the rest of her life here. After all, that was what had happened to her mother. Martini had spoken to the woman once, at a parent–teachers meeting. She was identical to her daughter, only older. Even though there was only fifteen years between them, Priscilla’s mother had deep lines around her eyes and an ineluctable sadness in her gaze. Martini recalled that she had made him think of a belle of the ball who keeps dancing with her diadem on when the party lights have already been switched off and everybody has gone home. Priscilla looked a lot like her. From what he’d been able to ascertain, she was one of the most popular girls in the school. She was also a terrible gossip. She had read the graffiti written about her and her mother on the walls of the boys’ toilet.

  ‘Have you talked to anybody else about wanting to act?’

  Priscilla turned her nose up. ‘My mother wouldn’t agree, because the people in the brotherhood have put it into her head that actresses aren’t respectable. But she wante
d to be a model when she was young. It’s unfair of her to stop me following my dream just because she never managed to make hers come true.’

  Yes, it was absolutely unfair. ‘You should study acting, maybe that way you’d convince her.’

  ‘Why, don’t you think I’m beautiful enough to make it on my own?’

  Martini shook his head good-naturedly in reproach. ‘I took a drama course at university.’

  ‘Then you could give me lessons! Please, please!’

  Her eyes were shining with excitement. It was impossible to say no to her. ‘All right,’ Martini said. ‘But you’ll have to work hard, otherwise it’s just wasted time.’

  Priscilla took off her satchel and put it down on the ground. ‘You won’t be sorry,’ she said, tearing a strip from a page of her exercise book and writing something on it. ‘This is my mobile number. Will you call me?’

  Martini nodded and smiled. He saw her walk away, as carefree as a butterfly. ‘Happy Christmas, sir!’ she called to him.

  He looked at the number on the paper, written in pink ink. Priscilla had added a little heart. He put the paper in his pocket and continued to the exit.

  On the forecourt in front of the school, some pupils lingered, laughing and joking, while others sped off on scooters. One of these was his rebellious pupil Lucas. As Martini searched for his car keys in his bag, the boy passed close to him, brushing against him playfully as he did so. Then he turned. ‘When are you going to change that old crock, sir?’

  His friends laughed. Loris Martini, though, had learned not to pay any attention to Lucas’s provocations. ‘As soon as I win the lottery,’ he said in response.

  At last, he found his keys in the bottom of his corduroy bag and unlocked the door of his old white four-by-four.

  The twenty-second of December was one of the shortest days of the year. By the time Martini got home, the light was already starting to fade.

  He walked in and saw her, stretched out on the wicker armchair by the window. She had a tartan rug over her knees and had fallen asleep with a book in her hand.

  Clea was so beautiful in the glow of sunset that he felt a pang in his heart.

  Her chestnut hair was tinged with fire, while half her face remained in shadow, as if in a painting. He would have liked to go closer and kiss her half-open lips. But his wife seemed so serene, he didn’t have the courage to wake her.

  He put his bag down on the wooden floor and sat down on the bottom step of the stairs that led to the upper floor. He joined his hands under his chin and gazed at his wife. They had been together for at least twenty years. They had met at university, where she was studying law and he was studying literature.

  Future judges or lawyers usually don’t mix with those who consider literature the only way to talk about the world, she had told him. She wore glasses with thick black frames, probably too big for her beautiful face, he had thought. Denim dungarees, a red T-shirt bearing the logo of the faculty, and a pair of white tennis shoes ruined by use. She was holding law books clutched to her breast. A rebellious lock of hair fell insistently over her forehead and she kept pushing it back. They were in the grounds of the university. It was a radiant spring day. Loris was wearing an old grey tracksuit. He had just finished his Thursday morning basketball training and was all sweaty. He had spotted her from a distance as she was on her way back to her room and had started running towards her, catching up with her before she could enter the women’s dormitory. His hair was dishevelled. He leaned with one hand on the brick wall of the building. He was taller than her, but Clea didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. She looked at him as if she wasn’t afraid to tell him to his face what she thought. And she was serious.

  Future judges or lawyers usually don’t mix with those who consider literature the only way to talk about the world … At first he had thought of it as a joke, a bit of flirtatious banter. ‘Of course, but that doesn’t stop future judges or lawyers from eating regularly,’ he had retorted with a smile.

  At that point, she had looked at him with suspicion. Her gaze contained a hands-off sign. Does this guy really think it’s so easy to get me into bed? Loris had felt the sinister creaking of his own ego on the verge of collapse.

  ‘Thank you, but I regularly eat alone,’ she had replied, turning her back and hurrying up the steps leading to the entrance.

  He had stood there, paralysed by surprise – or by disappointment. Who did the stuck-up bitch think she was? They had met a few evenings earlier at a party thrown by students in the Department of Natural Sciences. There was booze and stale sandwiches. He had immediately noticed her with her black sweater and her hair gathered at the back of her neck. He had spent ages looking for a pretext to approach her. The opportunity had presented itself when he had seen her talking with a guy he barely knew and whose name he didn’t even remember – Max or Alex, it didn’t matter. He had approached with the excuse of saying hello to him, in the hope that he would introduce them. The guy had taken his time: maybe he, too, had designs on her. In the end, he had introduced them only to save her the embarrassment of standing there in silence while they conversed.

  ‘I’m Loris,’ he had said immediately, holding out his hand, as if she might escape him at any moment.

  ‘Clea,’ she had replied, frowning. Over the years, that frown would become familiar to him: a mixture of curiosity and scepticism. She was looking at him the way primates were watched at the zoo, but at that moment Loris had found her gaze adorable.

  They had exchanged enough basic information to start a conversation. Which faculty do you attend, where do you come from, what are your plans after university? Then they had looked for an interest in common, a thin thread from which to begin to weave a relationship. He had formed an impression of her: she was naturally beautiful but proud enough not to exploit her beauty, intelligent but without necessarily feeling any desire to humiliate other people, progressive and tolerant and, last but not least, proudly independent.

  He had concluded that the one thing they had in common was basketball.

  Loris had started naturally to hold forth about tactics and players, Clea knew all about statistics and scores. The university championship held no secrets for her.

  So they had talked all evening, and he had even managed to make her laugh a couple of times. He was sure that inviting her out wouldn’t be a problem, but he didn’t want to overplay his hand. Next time, he had told himself. Because with a girl like that, you mustn’t rush things.

  But what happened that morning outside the women’s dormitory was completely unexpected. She had given him the brush-off, coldly, almost with disgust. In fact, definitely with disgust. And Loris had silently told her to go to hell.

  The rejection, though, had proved difficult to digest. In the days that followed, he had thought about it a lot, sometimes shaking his head in amusement at the absurdity of it all, but sometimes with anger. Without realising it, a little worm had got into his mind and was digging a hole that needed to be filled.

  He couldn’t forget her.

  It was then that he made the craziest decision of his life. In a department store, he bought a blue suit, a white shirt and an absurd red bow tie. He pushed back his unruly lock of hair, invested a figure out of all proportion to his finances in a bouquet of red roses, made sure he was outside the lecture theatre where a class in comparative private law was being held at nine in the morning, and waited. When, at the end of the class, the mass of students burst into the corridor like a river in full spate, Loris stood his ground. He remained stoically still in the midst of the current, waiting to meet a specific pair of eyes. When it happened, Clea immediately realised that he was there for her. She walked up to him without hesitation.

  Gravely, Loris held up the flowers. ‘Will you allow me to invite you out for dinner?’

  She looked at the gift, then peered at him with a frown. Unlike the first occasion, when he had asked her in his tracksuit, sweating after a game of basketball and with the ai
r of someone who takes a positive answer for granted, Loris had this time taken the trouble to demonstrate to her how much he respected her and how much he wanted to go out with her, at the risk of appearing ridiculous. Clea’s face lit up in a smile. ‘Of course,’ she said.

  As he remembered that episode, watching her sleeping with the winter sun settling like a caress on her face, it struck Loris Martini that he hadn’t seen a smile like that on her lips for a long time now. It was a painful thought.

  They had arrived in the valley six months earlier. She had been the one to suggest moving there. He had found a vacancy in Avechot and they had moved without too many second thoughts. There was nothing to guarantee that a little village in the mountains was the right place to start over again, but so be it. Clea had been determined to move, but now Martini feared that his wife wasn’t happy. That was why he studied her at a distance, trying to catch the signs of something not being right. Maybe it had happened too quickly. Maybe in the end all they’d done was run away from something.

  The thing, he told himself. Yes, it’s all the fault of the thing.

  Clea started to wake up. First she opened her eyes slightly, then she let go of the book she was holding in her lap and opened her arms to stretch. Halfway through the gesture, she noticed him and stopped. ‘Hey,’ she said with a slight smile.

  ‘Hey,’ he replied, remaining seated on the stairs.

  ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘I only just arrived,’ he lied. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  Clea pushed away the tartan rug and looked at her watch. ‘Oh, I’ve slept quite a while.’ Then she folded her arms over her breasts with a shiver. ‘Isn’t it a bit cold here?’

  ‘Maybe the heating hasn’t come on yet.’ Actually, he had moved the timer forward a couple of hours that morning, because the last bill had been quite high. ‘I’ll see to it immediately, and I’ll also light the fire,’ he said getting up from the step. ‘Any sign of Monica?’

  ‘I think she’s up in her room,’ Clea replied, with an anxious expression. ‘At her age, it’s not good to isolate herself the way she does.’