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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2007 by Edizioni E/O

  First publication 2009 by Europa Editions

  Translation by Anthony Shugaar

  Original Title: Nordest

  Translation copyright © 2009 by Europa Editions

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco

  www.mekkanografici.com

  ISBN 9781609451721

  Massimo Carlotto, Marco Videtta

  POISONVILLE

  Translated from the Italian

  by Anthony Shugaar

  In Padana City, with the death of the political parties and the Catholic parishes, power is no longer in the hands of members of parliament, prefects, mayors, bank presidents and association chairmen, CEOs, judges, and colonels. Power is in the hands of a few major families. It is an assembly made up of a few private business groups led by powerful citizens working together that constitutes the structural framework of power . . .

  —GIULIANO RAMAZZINA,

  Fuori Mercato, 2002

  A WEDNESDAY LIKE ANY OTHER

  It had been a Wednesday like any other. A winter Wednesday in northeastern Italy. During the day, the roads filled up with commuters and semitrailers. Long lines of vehicles crept along overburdened superhighways, national highways, and provincial roads. In Padua and Vicenza, as on so many Wednesdays before this one, air pollution was well above the legal limit. Long after sunset, the Mestre viaduct was still a grinding procession of heavy vehicles advancing slowly in both directions: a long smoky conveyor belt bringing freight—legal and illegal—from and to the countries that lie to the east. On that particular Wednesday, four more companies had gone out of business; the largest of the four employed fifty-one people. There were four more now-empty industrial sheds with “For Rent” signs, posted in Italian and in Chinese. Industrial sheds had been the subject of a lecture that morning: a professor of urban studies at the Department of Architecture, University of Venice, had told his class that, with the construction of 2,500 industrial sheds annually, the countryside had lost no fewer than 1,350 square miles of farmland, and that in the province of Treviso alone, there were 279 industrial parks, an average of four industrial sites per municipality. The professor was profoundly concerned; he told his students that the devastation being visited on the countryside was widespread and deep-rooted—and possibly irreparable. In the Northeast, the proliferation of industrial parks had wiped away the memory of the soil—the land—and people’s identity. In another university classroom, the topic of discussion that Wednesday had been local identity. Three residents out of four continued to use the local dialect, even in professional settings. It was a reassuring statistic, according to the professor: local dialect was a significant factor in the preservation of community. And indeed, many colorful expressions in dialect were uttered during a conference held at the Museo dello Scarpone in Montebelluna, a foundation for the documentation of the local hiking-shoe and ski-boot industry. During the conference, it had been announced that forty-four local shoe manufacturing companies would begin outsourcing production. It’s all China’s fault, more than one attendee had said. Imports of leather footwear from China had risen seven hundred percent in the last year alone. The minister of industry had issued a call for the introduction of anti-dumping tariffs to discourage the phenomenon. Also, the Coldiretti, the association of Italian farmers, had issued a press release that Wednesday afternoon, expressing its concern over the skyrocketing rise in the importation from China of dried beans and and pickled vegetables, both of which had long been major sectors of production in several areas of the Northeast. That Wednesday, Chinese investors had also purchased a couple of storefronts and various local businesses. The Chinese always paid cash, and never haggled over the price. There had been considerable discussion of money, on the other hand, in various meetings where banking executives expressed their satisfaction with the positive trend in quarterly profits. Profits were also the topic of discussion at a press conference held by the tax police—specifically the profits of 262 tax evaders arrested in a recent sweep. In the course of that investigation, agents had also discovered 1,200 undocumented workers and 776 workers without valid residency permits. Many of those workers were immigrants without visas or work permits. Illegal immigrants, in fact, accounted for the majority of those arrested by the police across the Northeast. For years, criminal cultures from Eastern Europe and the third world had established a local presence; in fact, Italian organized crime was only a fond memory of aging police-beat reporters. Prostitutes, defying the bone-chilling cold and the blanketing fog, had been out lining the provincial roads since the late-morning hours. In the evening darkness, they were everywhere, in villages, towns, and cities. Streetwalking was a flourishing business. Just like drug trafficking, for that matter. The sector that was suffering, on the other hand, was higher-end prostitution, in nightclubs and lap-dancing clubs. The nightclub owners had been the first to notice the symptoms of an impending recession. The manufacturers and professionals who once came out in droves, spending thousands of euros a night on champagne and escort services, were beginning to vanish from circulation. The only sector that was doing better than last year was wine production; wine exports had increased. That Wednesday, once again, hundreds of cases of Marzemino, Prosecco, Sauvignon, and other wines had been shipped to various places around the world. Politically speaking, the future was uncertain, though the recent elections had returned the incumbent regional administration to office. That day, there had also been meetings and secret sessions, both in the majority and among the opposition, in an attempt to reconcile internal conflicts and thwart reckless power grabs. It appeared that no one was capable of governing the future. It had been a Wednesday like any other. When midnight finally put an end to that Wednesday, a thick, milky fog reigned everywhere. The heart of the Northeast beat a little slower, taking refuge in the momentary respite of nighttime.

  Why isn’t she here by now? It’s almost one in the morning.” The wax sculpture that was taking shape in his hands couldn’t give him an answer, even though the resemblance to her—with all the work he did on it—was becoming more unsettling day by day. The shaft of illumination from a small spotlight fell on that perfect, unearthly face. But something was still missing. And what was missing was a soul. How could he capture her soul? He wasn’t really much good as a sculptor—to tell the truth, he wasn’t much good at anything. And a sense of anxiety was devouring him; his artificial hip refused to tolerate all those hours on his feet. Even the scar on his cheek was pulsing, as if it were reawakening at night. Perhaps it was the thought of Giovanna, who in just nine days would be married to Francesco.

  He reached a hand out to his work table and wrapped his fingers around one of the sharp metal tools that he had set to heat up in the flame of the spirit stove. He inserted the red-hot blade of the tool into the socket of the sculpture’s right eye.

  The eye, says the proverb, is the mirror of the soul, and he wanted to carve that soul out of her, if he ever succeeded in finding it.

  “Why isn’t she here by now?” he wondered once again, as the wax sizzled at the contact with the red-hot steel.

  * * *

  Despite the dense fog, she pressed her foot down hard on the acclerator, and the red Mazda hurtled along well above the legal limit. She knew that country road; she knew it very well. The last thing she was
worried about was curves in the road. The man who had ruined her life, the man who had turned her into a slut, was waiting for her.

  Just one more curve and she would be there, with him, for the last time. Her friend Carla was right. She couldn’t marry Francesco without confessing the whole truth to him. But how could she tell him? What would happen? Would Francesco still want her?

  Ugly thoughts kept proliferating in her brain like a metastasizing cancer, and she was losing control of the car. The idea that she might lose Francesco fell like a dark screen between her and the windshield. For a moment the road vanished. Her heart lurched into a whirlpool, just in time for her hand to make the imperceptible movement that took her back onto the straightaway, beyond the curve.

  “Focus on driving, you stupid slut.”

  Her right foot, wrapped in an elegant piece of sexy, revealing footwear, lifted off the accelerator. The car lurched suddenly to a slower speed, and at the same time her heart lurched with it. If only she could save herself from her own thoughts with such exemplary speed.

  But around that curve, at the end of the straightaway, he was waiting for her. The man who had ruined her life.

  A glaring light in her rearview mirror blinded her thoughts. Once again, instinct made her wary, cautious. The headlights swerved to the left, the smoked-glass windows of a Jeep Cherokee were lowered, and savage howls poured out as the vehicle pulled up next to her. She knew she shouldn’t turn her head to look but she couldn’t help herself. It was only for an instant, long enough to glimpse a blurry figure gesticulating in the fog. Better not to accelerate, it would only give them an excuse to start a race, to get their pulses racing even faster. Soon she would be there.

  Two hundred yards further along the road, Giovanna parked as close as she could to the elegant little villa. The Cherokee was parked on the far side of the roadway.

  Just twenty quick strides and she would be at the front door.

  Only five minutes earlier, it would have seemed inconceivable that she would be turning to him for safety. Her high heels slithered in all directions in the gravel. Walking in the gravel in those shoes was like climbing up a sand dune. The important thing was not to turn around. She heard nothing—no slamming car doors, no running footsteps behind her. It was not until she reached the front door that she decided to turn and look. The dark windows of the offroad vehicle had been rolled up, and at that point, she no longer even cared whether they were staring at her. Another instant and he would open the door and let her in. Fog and darkness. She leaned on the doorbell.

  “Giovanna, at last you’re here. I was so worried.”

  His reassuring voice.

  She walked in and allowed herself to be embraced, resting her face against his chest, breathing in his aroma.

  For a moment she no longer felt like his lover, his troublesome trollop, as he liked to call her. For a brief second, she felt like a daughter who had returned home after a nasty and frightening brush with danger.

  It was in the aftermath, when he lifted her face with a finger under her chin and kissed her on the mouth, in the mouth, that his authoritative passion had once again made her swoon helplessly, lost, under his power.

  Without a word, he had pushed her down onto the bed, and now he was thrusting inside her, the way she liked it. He was strong and confident. She didn’t sense in him that anxious need to please her that she always felt from Francesco. He gave and he took, gave and took. That was the game they played. But then he took her soul and she had nothing left to give. Now she knew what she had to do. She had to push with all her might to lift that body off of her, free herself from its weight.

  “No, that’s enough! I don’t want to do this anymore, that’s enough! Did you hear me?”

  He stopped. He looked into her eyes and understood.

  He got up, freeing her of his weight, and sat on the side of the bed.

  “It’s over, isn’t it?”

  Giovanna didn’t anwer. She delicately rested the tips of her fingers on his naked back.

  He nodded wearily.

  She hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

  But now here she was, lolling in a bathtub full of hot water, enveloped in a curtain of steam. Her mind drained of thoughts, her body protected in a warm liquid cradle. Ever since she was a little girl, she had loved hot baths. It seemed as if there were no safer place on earth.

  The nicest moment of the day, when her mother kneeled in front of the tub to wash her hair. Her hair was blonder and longer then: it reached down to her hips. My little mermaid, her mother used to call her.

  Childhood had been the only truly happy time in her life. Later, she had been forced to grow up in a hurry, without time to distinguish between men and boys, as if adolescence had been denied her. From teddy bears to a law degree had been a single dive from the Olympic platform—without even enough time to slip off her waterwings.

  In town, people said that she had set her sights on Francesco to make her way into the circles that mattered. Instead, what had really happened was that Francesco had given her back her adolescence. Even better, he had shown her what innocence was. Francesco had been her redemption. And that was why, the next day, she was going to tell him everything. Not to free herself of a burden, but for the sake of honesty. Out of love.

  Once she had read a Japanese poem: “Take what is good. / Pile it in one dish of the scale. / Do the same thing with what is evil. / Balance the two dishes. / When the scale is level, you will know the exact weight of life.”

  If Francesco could find it in his heart to forgive her, their life together would be like those Sunday mornings when you wake up in the warmth of a comfortable bed, hear the rain outside, and have all the time you want to snuggle or fall asleep, smell nice smells, run your fingers over your smooth and well-rested skin, and feel happy. Happy that you’ve woken up.

  The water was losing its warmth, but she hated to get out. She turned the faucet for more hot water. She closed her eyes, slipping into a pleasant slumber.

  When she startled awake, she wasn’t sure what had made her open her eyes. A gust of cold breeze, a shiver across her skin. The candle flame trembled.

  He appeared in the doorframe, in shirtsleeves. For one happy moment she had forgotten about him. He had remained in the other room, sitting on the side of the bed. Without talking, without looking at her. She hoped he had gone away. Out of her life forever. She was so stupid. The Ativan tablet that she had swallowed before climbing into the bathtub, with a long sip of Armagnac as a chaser—that’s why she felt so unconcerned.

  The hot water kept pouring from the faucet; the tub was beginning to overflow.

  He leaned over to turn off the water.

  “Did you fall asleep?”

  She watched as he sat on the edge of the tub, rolled up his sleeves, and squeezed some shampoo into his hand. She felt his hands slide delicately over her hair.

  Like my momma—the thought emerged, absurd and incongruous.

  His strong manicured hands ran through her hair, the hair that was much shorter than it had been when she was a girl all those years ago. His hands slid down her neck, to her shoulders.

  “This is the last time you’ll ever touch me. Tomorrow I’m telling Francesco everything.”

  The hands froze, motionless, resting on her shoulders.

  “And so we put an end to this.”

  The hands rested for another moment. Then they shoved her under. The water tasted of jasmine, but it was salty. She would never have imagined he could be so strong. She managed to lift her head, but not enough to get her nose and mouth above the surface. Now he was in the tub; he had one knee braced against her sternum. She could feel the oxygen draining out of her chest, forming bubbles. Her eyes were burning. Her arms scrabbled along the walls of the tub. One leg surged out of the water. “Salt on my lips, the taste of the sea.” The words of a song from t
he sixties surfaced in her mind, strangely. She felt a sharp pain, her heel slamming against the edge of the tub. Then nothing: her eyes opened on darkness. The last few little bubbles.

  And the grieving moan of the man who had put an end to her life.

  * * *

  At night, the smaller train stations were deserted. Instead of ticket vendors and train dispatchers, everything was automated now: computerized machinery managed railroad traffic and issued tickets. That is why he had chosen the last train from Venice. No one was expecting him, no one could even have guessed he would arrive in town. He was certain they’d never see him. Even if he did happen to cross paths with someone, he could rely on the fog to provide concealment.

  In that dense fogbank, he felt as if he were a damned soul in one of those circles of Dante’s Inferno that he had studied, distractedly, in another lifetime. He pulled up the collar and lapels of his heavy jacket. As he felt his way through the darkness, navigating by instinct, he felt as if the enveloping mist were issuing from him. He thought back to the bull. The bull. He was ten years old, coming home from school. A bull had suddenly appeared before him, blocking his way. The bull must have been lost. It stood there, motionless, staring at him, snorting and puffing. He had never told another living soul about that meeting. For years, though, he had cherished the belief that the bull was a devil, and that the fog was an evil spell the demon employed to steal children away, without interference. Now, though, it was he who snorted and puffed in hatred. It was he who would use the fog to act, undisturbed.

  He arrived in the main piazza, where he recognized the silhouette of the bell tower and the neon sign of the Bar Centrale. He dropped his heavy suitcase on the pavement. He turned slowly, looking all around him, and leaving to his memory the task of glimpsing each and every detail.