Chapter 6 - La Strada

‘You’d like to have a mission wouldn’t you?’ Salvatore’s brother Mimmo let the cigarette smoke billow out of his mouth. They were both on the balcony, lounging on chairs. Salvatore had been showing Mimmo the comic book he’d been reading, but after a few seconds Mimmo had leaned over and closed the book.
‘You don’t want to read comic books all your life.’
‘What mission, Mimmo?’
‘How old are you?’
‘You know I’m ten’
‘But it’s not your age that matters. What matters is, are you a man?’
‘I’m a man.’
‘Are you strong?’
‘Yes.’ Salvator flexed his muscles and did his impression of a boxing commentator – ‘in the red corner, the undefeated heavyweight champion, fifty one fights, fifty one victories, forty nine of them by knockout…’ The old woman hanging out washing on the balcony opposite screeched at him that her mother was trying to sleep.
‘You’d better go and check the old bat’s still alive’, Mimmo shouted back.
She muttered something.
‘What was that?’
She didn’t answer. Instead she took a yellow bedsheet and billowed it out into space, alarming a black and white cat passing below.
‘Why is she scared of you Mimmo?’
‘Because she respects me. One day you’ll have that respect too.’
Salvatore wasn’t sure he wanted respect. He didn’t like the men that came to the doorway on the vicolo sometimes and asked for Mimmo. The older ones growled like bears and had cold eyes. The younger ones always wore sunglasses that reflected the light and looked through him as though he wasn’t there.
‘Come on, we’re going on Killer,’ Mimmo interrupted his thoughts.
‘Great. Va va Voom! Can I drive?’
‘Did I say I wanted to die?’
‘Should I wear the helmet?’
‘I thought you said you were a man.’
‘Ok, no helmet.’
Salvatore followed Mimmo inside. He could hardly see a thing, it was so dark after the bright sun on the balcony. He grabbed his denim jacket that was flung across the back of a chair, opened the cupboard and took a spoonful of chocolate spread out the tub.
‘HURRY UP!’
‘Coming Mimmo.’
Salvatore’s Mum came into the kitchen with a basket of washing. She put it down and glared at Mimmo.
‘Where are you taking him?’
‘We’re just going out. I’m his brother. His father’s not here so it’s my job to show him things.’
Ignoring Mimmo his mum grabbed Salvatore’s arm and held it, forcing him to look into her eyes. Salvatore noticed they had dark rings round them like a panda, and she had a bruise turning purple on her cheekbone.
‘I don’t want you turning out like him,’ she whispered. ‘If you go out now you’re to go to school tomorrow, you hear.’
‘There’s no school tomorrow, the water’s bad.’
Salvatore was telling the truth. Someone at the water company had added ten times the right amount of a nitrate chemical into the supply.
‘Well when there is school you’re to go, and work.’
‘Yes Mum.’ Salvatore took advantage of a relaxation in her grip to wrench free. He ran down the stone steps after Mimmo. He wasn’t going to stay in all afternoon, helping his Mum hang out washing.
‘Killer, killer, killer’, he shouted. He liked the sound of the word. It was the only English he knew. Mimmo’s beloved motor scooter was waiting for him in the tiny courtyard, revving with anger and power. No sooner had he climbed on than they roared out through the arch into the street.
‘If you find him, you phone me ok.’
Salvatore looked at the photo. To him the black guy looked pretty much like any of the Africans who sold stuff on the streets all over Napoli, especially around the station.
‘How will I find him?’
‘He’s in Portici or Ercolano. You know where they sell pirate stuff round here. Ask around.'
'Why?'
‘Don’t ask why. That’s just your mission.'
'Do you know why?'
'Of course I do.'
Mimmo’s answer was sharp. On the bike they’d gone up to the Circumvesuviana station at Ercolano and waited until a man who Salvatore vaguely recognized had pulled up in a car. Mimmo had asked Salvatore to wait while he went over and spoke to the man through the window. Something had been handed over and then the car had driven off. Now he was holding a sheet of paper with a colour printout of a digital photo on it. The quality wasn’t great but the guy looked scared, as though he was cornered. The background was dark and it looked like a flash had been used. Mimmo had other copies of the same sheet and he gave Salvatore two more –
'Take these to Nello and Franco’s shops, then start looking yourself.'
He turned the keys and the bike’s engine started revving.
'Where are you going?'
'I’ve got other stuff to do.'
'What’s his name?'
But Mimmo was already speeding away across the asphalt. On the other side of a mesh fence the Vesuviana clattered out of a tunnel on its way round to Pompei. Salvatore had never visited the ruins but he knew when he saw a tourist that was probably where they were going.

'So where exactly did you hide them?'
They were driving along the cobbled road that followed the seafront a few hundred metres to the right. Passing some cultivated gardens Mina saw an old man carrying a rake disappear under a canvas awning. Here at least, life was carrying on as it had for centuries. That was the paradox of Napoli’s suburban sprawl: in amongst the madness of trade at its frenzied, unregulated height, you had people still growing oranges on patches of land their family had owned for generations. Just a pity their soil was blighted by pollution from the rubber factory next door. The gardens finished and were replaced by an immaculate modern hotel complex with rolling lawns tended by sprinklers. Needless to say the wall that had stood for generations wasn’t enough – a high fence laced with the wires of an alarm system kept unwelcome visitors out. Who would own a place like this? If she was with Nico he might have been able to tell her which local boss had his finger in the pie, but now, without him, she was none the wiser. This clan at war with that, alliances formed and broken – but what it came down to was one senseless death after another – and over it all hung the refrain you could always use to play the whole thing down: si ammazzano fra loro- they kill amongst themselves. It was true to an extent: innocents died – family members fair game for vendetta – but outsiders would have to do something special to get involved. The engine of violence was propelled too much by the logic of the past to admit strangers into its ritual sacrifice.
And that was the puzzle? Why would they chase an African? Had he raped one of their daughters?
He was looking out the window anxiously.
'They are gonna be looking for me.'
It made sense. If they thought he had something people would be watching the squat, even if they’d already searched there.
'But it’s not at the factory, right?'
'Yes and no. They looked in the building. But outside, there's a wall at the back and a big tree at the corner with rubbish all dumped round it. The DVD’s are inside the tree in a yellow bag.
'I’ll get them.'
'You?'
'They won’t recognize me.'
'It’s dangerous.'
'It was dangerous when you tried to mug me.'
'Not really, I was only gonna take your bag.'
'And how was I supposed to know that. Anyway that’s what I’ll be doing. Just picking up a bag, right?'
'I should go.'
Who wins that argument? The muscled athlete who was gonna be a football star, or the skinny English Scottish woman who just left the car with keys in the ignition and Ransome in the passenger seat. You guessed it, she is one crazy chick. Even now Ransome contemplates driving off. Sometimes you just gotta let your brain play with possibilities nevermind you know they are wrong. Remember now what my father said one period when he was clean: Ransome boy, you don’t know nothing about evil, then you don’t know nothing about good either. But this lady she just seem one hundred percent angel. Least Ransome can do when she come back is a bit of getaway driving.