After a while, however, Astor started throwing tantrums again. First he wanted light, and Anna certainly couldn’t give him a candle in the cupboard. Then he started saying the long-haired lizards didn’t want him there any more and said nasty things to him.
Then the questions started. What’s out there, beyond the wood? Why can’t I come into the Outside with you? What kind of animals live there?
To persuade her brother to let her lock him up, every evening Anna would tell him stories about the Outside. He’d listen quietly until his breathing became regular and his thumb slipped out of his mouth.
The Outside, beyond the magic wood, was a waste land. No one had survived the wrath of the god Danone (Anna had called him that in honour of the chocolate puddings of which she had fond memories): no adults, no animals, no children. The two of them had the good fortune to live in that wood, which was so hidden away and dense that the god couldn’t see into it. The few animals that had survived had taken refuge there. Beyond the trees there were only craters and haunted ruins. Food and other things grew at the bottom of ditches. Sometimes tins of tuna sprouted there, sometimes cereal bars, sometimes toys and clothes. The smoke monsters, the god Danone’s servants, roamed that world. They were giants made of black gas who killed anyone who crossed their path. Some evenings, in Anna’s stories, the smoke monsters would turn into prehistoric monsters like those in the Big Book of Dinosaurs. If Astor took one step outside the farm, they’d eat him alive.
‘Couldn’t I escape? I’m a fast runner.’
Anna was categorical. ‘Impossible. And even if the smoke monsters weren’t around, the air’s poisonous and would kill you. If you went outside the fence, you’d be dead before you’d walked a few metres.’
Astor would chew his lips, unconvinced. ‘Why don’t you die, then?’
‘Because when you were small, Mama gave me a special medicine, and the monsters can’t hurt me. You were too small to be given it.’ But at other times she replied: ‘I’m magic. I was born like that. When I die the magic will pass onto you and you’ll be able to go out and find food yourself.’
‘Wow! I can’t wait for you to die. I want to see the smoke monsters.’
Anna had to explain to her brother what death was. They were surrounded by corpses, yet she was at a loss. So she’d catch rats and lizards and kill them in front of him.
‘You see? Now it’s dead. All that’s left is the body; there’s no life in it. You can do what you like, but it’ll never move again. It’s gone. If I hit you on the head with a hammer, it’ll happen to you too: you’ll go straight into the other world.’
‘Where is the other world?’
Anna would grow impatient. ‘I don’t know. Beyond the wood. But it’s always dark and cold, though the ground is fiery and burns your feet. And you’re alone. There’s nobody there.’
‘Not even Mama?’
‘No.’
But Astor still wasn’t satisfied. ‘And how long do people stay in the other world?’
‘For ever.’
These long tortuous ontological discussions wore her out. Sometimes Astor would accept her arguments; at other times, as if sensing that his sister wasn’t telling him the truth, he’d look for contradictions. ‘What about the birds that fly overhead, in the sky? How do they do that? I see them. Why don’t they die? They haven’t taken the medicine.’
Anna would improvise. ‘Birds can fly above the poisonous air, but they can’t stop.’
‘I could do that too. Never stopping. Jumping from tree to tree.’
‘No, you’d die.’
‘Can I try?’
‘No.’
Anna had an idea. Between the wood and the fields, about a hundred metres from the boundary of Mulberry Farm, were the Manninos’ cattlesheds. The cows had died of thirst and their carcasses were crawling with worms. When you went near them, the smell of decay was overpowering.
Anna took her brother to the fence. ‘Listen to me carefully. Since you’re so set on it, I’m going to take you outside. But remember, I’m magic and I don’t notice the smell of death. You’ll have to be more careful. If a foul, sickening smell reaches you, it means you’re about to die. Run back as fast as you can, don’t stop, climb over the fence and you’ll be safe.’
The little boy was no longer so keen on the idea. ‘I’d rather not.’
Smiling to herself, Anna grabbed his wrist. ‘You’re going. I’m fed up with your questions.’
Astor burst into tears, dug in his heels and clung onto a branch. Anna had to drag him along.
‘Come on!’
‘No, please . . . I don’t want to go into the burning land.’
She lifted him up and dumped him over the fence, then climbed over herself and, holding him by the neck, pushed him between the ivy-covered trunks and the holly. Astor, his eyes brimming with tears, held his hand over his mouth. But still the stench of rotting flesh penetrated into his nostrils. He eyed her in despair, gesturing that he could smell it.
‘Go! Run home!’
With a cat-like leap, the little boy re-entered the farm.
From that day on, there was no need to lock Astor under the stairs.
*
The air was cool: ideal walking weather.
Leaving the wood behind her, Anna walked round Torre Normanna and onto the provincial road.
Some crows perched on electricity cables croaked at her like pious churchgoers in mourning clothes.
She speeded up. There was still some way to go to the Michelini twins’ convenience store.
*
Paolo and Mario Michelini were identical twins. A year older than Anna, they’d been in the fourth year when she was in the third. Big, bulky, indistinguishable. Same expressionless little eyes, same carrot-coloured hair. Dotted with freckles, as if someone had left them next to a saucepan of boiling ragout at birth. They were no geniuses at school and never did their homework, but they frightened everyone, including the teachers, with their sheer size. If there was a football around, they’d take it, and if you wanted it back you had to pay.
Their mother dressed them alike: blue tracksuit, red T-shirt and trainers. Their father ran a Despar supermarket in Buseto Palizzolo.
Before the virus, Anna used to meet them on the school bus, but they ignored her. They’d sit at the back, playing Nintendo in silence; communication between them was almost telepathic. As far as they were concerned, the world was something to be looked at with four eyes, touched with twenty fingers, walked through with four feet and peed on with two dicks.
After the epidemic, Anna had gone past the Despar from time to time. The shutter was up and the chewing-gum and liquorice machines stood by the door, near a neat row of trolleys. Dirt and destruction surrounded the shop, but inside it everything was tidy. And at a particular time the shutter came down, as if the Red Fever had never existed. The only difference was that the shop sign didn’t light up.
Anna had wondered if the twins’ father had returned from the afterlife. Every time she felt an almost irresistible desire to discover the truth, but was scared. She hung around nearby, gazing at the door with its notice: a dog behind a cross, and the words ‘We stay outside’.
One day, after walking backwards and forwards, she’d pushed the glass door open. A bell had rung. Inside, it was just like when she used to shop there with her mother on the way back from the beach. The food on the shelves, the panettone on special offer, the display case with the radios and razors for card-holders.