The Sense of an Elephant (5 page)

‘Alice is happy with pretty flowers.'

‘What?'

‘Alice is happy.'

Pietro helped steady the cactus in the boy's arms. ‘It's not completely flowered yet. We have to wait because like this it's not a nice gift.'

Poppi put an arm around Fernando.

‘Let's go home, son.'

‘Alice wants pretty flowers.'

‘And we'll bring them to her. At the right moment, that is. With women it takes patience. Listen to someone who knows about these things.'

Poppi led Fernando and his cactus upstairs. Before disappearing he looked towards Pietro for an instant.

The concierge looked towards him as well. Then he slipped into the lodge and into the flat. Went into the bedroom, turned on the light and drew from his suitcase a rectangular
box containing a plastic bag. It looked empty. He held it up to the light and saw what remained of a long hair, an invisible filament. Inside he also put the paper with the writing copied from the doctor's office,
How will you condemn me, God?

Then he said to himself: ‘Tonight at seven o'clock.'

The whole afternoon Pietro had fiddled with a wheel on the Bianchi that was slightly out of true. A patched inner tube was also slowly losing air and needed to be replaced. As he put the bike back together he saw the entire second floor gradually returning, in last place Viola, who hurried past without greeting him.

At six Pietro shut the lodge door and sat down, continuing nonetheless to monitor a slice of the entry through a gap in the curtains. He worked on a crossword puzzle in pen as he waited, solved four clues across and two down. Then, at ten minutes past six, he saw him. The doctor passed through the entrance hall and exited the condominium. Crossed the street to enter Alice's cafe, drank something at the counter against the backdrop of Mastroianni from
8½
, paid at the register. When he left, the concierge followed him at a distance. The doctor pushed through the evening air with bowed head, leather medical bag in hand and a blue jacket over his shoulder. He was a reed, his gait slow and princely. Pietro had been introduced to him by the lawyer on his first day at work. He had been in his lodge for an hour when Poppi knocked, beside him this polite and largely silent young man. Pietro had kept his gaze down, the doctor's on the rusty Bianchi. ‘Big cyclist?' he had asked. ‘I am,' the concierge had replied. They had shaken hands and Pietro had held on to that handshake all evening.

The doctor continued down the boulevard lined with acacia trees, stopped in front of a closed pastry shop and gazed at the Sachertorten on display. Opened his leather bag and drew out a piece of paper, read it and put it back, then brought his phone to his ear. As he started to walk again the wind lifted the jacket from his shoulder. He put it on. It was cool out, not night and hardly evening. The doctor passed the church of Sant'Andrea and its bell rang half-past six. At the last peal he looked up at the statue of a saint on the parapet. The concierge looked at the saint as well. When they lowered their eyes the mist had risen.

The glittering moist air isolated them. The doctor became a vague shadow speaking on the phone, stepping off the pavement and very nearly dropping his bag. He took the road to the hospital but continued on past the entrance. At five minutes to seven he turned into a sycamore-lined street that ran along the railway.

The mist dissipated. Martini left faint footprints in the fallen leaves as he slowed in front of an ugly greenish building with closed shutters and a series of informal garden plots in front. In the most kempt stood two pomegranate trees without fruit. Pietro hid himself behind a sycamore. The doctor pressed a button on the intercom and a light went on two floors above. A short while later a young woman appeared in the garden, fussed with the gate latch. She wore her dark hair pulled back in a bun and walked quickly. The doctor followed her, resting a hand on her back before disappearing into the building.

Pietro pressed himself up against the sycamore, feeling
cold. Rubbed his shoulders, huddled up to the tree and leaves fell around him. When he looked at the branches he saw that they were bare. On the thickest branch a long-haired cat was scratching its claws, stretching and scratching. It scratched one last time and stared at Pietro with yellow eyes. The concierge was unable to tear his gaze away from the beast. Meanwhile the cold came to his scars. They hurt. He grazed the biggest one, on his ankle, and collapsed against the sycamore. Sank down to the base of the trunk and stayed like that until the young woman walked the doctor back to the gate, forty minutes later. She reopened the latch and exchanged a few more words with him. Her hair was loose now. She brushed it away from her forehead with a graceful gesture and rested her hand on a statue of Snow White just outside the gate. Caressed the plaster head and spoke to the doctor. She herself resembled Snow White. Was Snow White. When she went back inside, the doctor hurried into the street and stopped abruptly beneath a street lamp, covered his face with his hands. Moved on with Pietro behind him.

The doctor arrived at the ward some time before eight. Pietro waited between two parked cars across the street. The hospital was a citadel rising out of the darkness, with the illuminated accident and emergency department and six other buildings scattered among fir trees, an artificial lake to one side.

Pietro went through the gate and started down the path between fir trees, reached the building with the sign reading
Paediatric Oncology
. The neon light at the entrance flickered. Through the windows passed the faint echo of treble voices.
They came from the profiles of people behind half-open windows. He entered. Climbed the first flight of stairs and the neon light went out. Climbed a second set and as the neon glared again he found the doctor. Kneeling with his back to Pietro, he was draping his jacket over a child.

‘And you wanted to go to the lake now?' he was saying. ‘In your pyjamas?'

Of the little boy only a sliver of gleaming head could be seen. The doctor kept him wrapped in the fabric and massaged his hips, did up the buttons on the jacket and it became an elegant cloak. The boy pulled his head all the way through and flashed deep blue eyes. He noticed Pietro, watched him without saying a word.

‘
Ciao.
'

Dr Martini turned around.

Pietro raised a hand. ‘
Ciao.
'

The child stepped forward in his elegant cloak, holding tight to a book with two elephants on the cover titled
The Animals of the Savannah
.

‘Lorenzo, this is my friend Pietro.' The doctor picked him up. ‘So you really did come by to visit us.'

The concierge pointed to the book. ‘Do you know what elephants do to spray water on themselves?'

The child brought a hand to his nose and that became his trunk.

‘Good boy.'

‘Today this so-called good boy made me angry.' The doctor beckoned Pietro to follow and opened the glass door to the ward. ‘And now little Lorenzo is heading straight to
bed; if not he'll catch a cold.' As he led the way in he addressed a nurse. ‘He was on his way to the lake. That's the second time he's slipped by you.'

In the cramped waiting room a floor lamp threw light on three hot-air balloons painted on the wall and some crayon drawings pinned to a bulletin board.

‘Now why don't you show Pietro your book?'

He settled the child on a chair and went to speak to a women waiting beside the yellow hot-air balloon. Lorenzo flipped through the book and turned towards the large window overlooking the lake. He was a poor little mite.

Pietro approached him. ‘Have you ever seen an animal of the savannah?'

The child continued to seek out the lake beyond the glass, shook his head.

‘I have.' The concierge crouched down and extended his arms beneath the lamp. Beside it on the wall appeared a lump of shadow the size of a football. It turned more vague, out-of-focus, then became two elephant ears.

The book fell from Lorenzo's hands.

And from the shadowy ears of the elephant appeared tusks and a trunk. It was enormous. It was tiny. It swelled and ran forward and back, lifted up its tusks.

Lorenzo's mouth dropped open. He edged forward on his seat. The greyness in his cheeks was gone. He stammered, stammered more loudly.

‘What is it, little guy?' The doctor stepped over to him and picked up the picture book.

The child continued to stare at the concierge. Martini picked him up.

‘I think it's time for beddy-bye.' He attempted a smile but his mouth failed to follow through. In place of his eyes there were two slits. ‘Today's not a great day for visits. Come by another time if you can.'

‘Bye, Lorenzo.' Pietro pushed open the glass door but did not go. ‘Doctor,' he said, ‘do you ever do house calls?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘House calls.'

‘I haven't for a long time. Do you need anything?'

‘You never know,' said the concierge. ‘See you tomorrow.' He headed down the stairs, blinded by the neon lights. As he descended he held on to the handrail and to the memory of the doctor in the white coat and the child in the elegant cloak, of Snow White and the house of the pomegranate trees.

The path through the fir trees was a dark stripe. Standing astride it was an old man, half ghost and half scarecrow. ‘Are they letting people in?' he asked. The man was more withered than a fallen fruit and wore the jacket and cap of a petrol pump attendant, both with the word
Total
. He brought his ravaged, crêpe-paper face closer. ‘I have to talk to Dr Martini. Are they letting people in or not?' He coughed.

Pietro said no and slipped past him.

Before Pietro could make it back inside the condominium he heard his name called from above. He raised his head: the lawyer was balancing on the parapet and motioning for the concierge to join him at once.

Pietro continued to stare up at him from the street. Come down, he indicated, but Poppi wouldn't listen. The concierge entered and made directly for the stairs, hanging on to the handrail up to the second floor, where he had to slow down to catch his breath. Proceeded to the third and to the fourth. On the fifth there were skylights and an iron door that didn't lock. The door was heavy and half rusted and it screeched as he pulled it towards him. It opened onto the communal terrace, a square of concrete crowded with satellite dishes and a labyrinth of clotheslines. He stepped outside, peered around. There on the raised section of the roof toward the front of the building was Poppi, wrestling with a satellite dish and cursing. Then the lawyer stepped up again onto the parapet wall, trying to straighten the dish from the feed arm. Swaying from side to side, he had the balance of a wading bird and a small torch between his teeth. He now directed it at Pietro and muttered something.

‘Mr Poppi, get down from there!' The concierge went over to him.

The lawyer pulled the torch from his mouth. ‘This thing won't get any channels. I can't see a thing.' Managed to shift
the dish slightly. He wore an overcoat over pyjamas, zigged and zagged in satin slippers. ‘Do you know anything about satellite dishes?'

Pietro seized one of the man's calves and it felt to him like a shrivelled balloon. ‘No. Come down.'

‘I'm surprised, given what you're able to pick up.' He cursed again, then threw up his hands in a sign of surrender. Stayed on the wall and gave a kick to the dish.

The concierge helped him down. They sat and regained their breath. The lawyer wiped his forehead and switched off the torch, turning them into two more scraps of darkness. They became visible again for a moment when Poppi lit a cigarette.

‘In the evenings, a broken satellite dish can hurt more than a divorce.'

The bed sheets flapped on the lines. Pietro watched them for a time, then turned to the street. The cafe was still open and through the window he could see two men at a table drinking beer. A tram was at the stop and a line of cars was forming beyond the traffic light. Crossing at the light were Paola and Fernando. The strange boy was weighed down with bags of groceries and followed his mother over the stripes.

‘Are you afraid of heights, kibitzer?'

Pietro shook his head.

‘Then you should come up here more often.' He ashed into the void. ‘Up here is closer to your god.' With his cigarette he pointed at the sky. ‘And to the movements of your residents.' He pointed at Fernando, about to enter the building. ‘Do you know why he always wears that beret? It was his father's. He
gave it to him not long before passing on to a worse life.' He blew a smoke ring. ‘A warning: never touch it. Another warning: be more careful when you decide to clean the Martinis' flat top to bottom.'

Pietro leaned toward the lawyer. ‘It was a moment of weakness …' He stood. ‘It won't happen again.'

‘Ah, but I love a good top-to-bottom cleaning too, my friend.' Poppi was nodding. ‘And I can assure you that from up here they turn out better.' The lawyer was still staring down at the street. Fernando and Paola were coming in, the tram had continued on, the two men were still seated at their table at the cafe. ‘They turn out much better, believe me,' he repeated as if speaking to himself, looking just past the cafe to the beginning of a one-way street. Pietro followed Poppi's gaze to a petrol-blue SUV, pulled over with its headlights on, its right side dented. He didn't immediately recognize it. The passenger door was ajar and the dome light on. Inside were the radiographer and Viola. They were smiling. She made to get out and Riccardo held her back. They laughed.

The lawyer flicked his cigarette butt down off the building.

‘I'm the one who's afraid of heights.'

That night the witch threw a pebble at the young priest's window.

‘Father, I dreamt about my son and your cat. Father, wake up.'