The race I was just about to overtake Salvatore when I heard my sister shout.
Chapter 1
The race
I was just about to overtake Salvatore when I heard my sister shout. I turned round and saw her swallowed by the grain that covered the hill.
I shouldn't have taken her with me, mother would have made me pay.
I stopped. I was sweating. I caught my breath and called her. "Maria? Maria?"
A little suffering voice replied. "Michele!"
"Are you hurt?"
"Yes, come."
"Where did you hurt yourself?"
"My leg."
She was pretending, she was tired. I'll go ahead, I said to myself. But what if she'd really hurt herself?
Where were the others?
I saw their tracks in the grain. They ran up slowly, in parallel lines, like fingers of a hand, up to the peak of the hill, leaving behind them a trail of trodden grass.
The corn was high that year. At the end of spring it had rained a lot, and halfway through June the plants were more blooming that ever. They grew densely, brimming with lavender, ready to be picked.
Every thing was covered with grain. The hills, low, followed one another like waves of a golden ocean. Until the edge of the horizon there was nothing but grain, sky, crickets, sun, and heat.
I didn't have a clue about how hot it was, at nine years old one doesn't understand much about degrees and centigrade, but I knew this wasn't normal.
That damn summer of 1978 was notorious for being the hottest of the century. The heat entered through the stones, cracking the earth, burning the plants and killing the beasts, setting houses on fire. When you picked the tomatoes from the orchard, they were without juice, and the aubergines small and hard. The sun took away your breath, your strength, the will to play, everything. And at night you would still be bursting.
At Acqua Traverse adults didn't leave their houses before six in the evening. They trapped themselves inside, blinds shut. Only we dared to venture ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
That damn summer of 1978 was notorious for being the hottest of the century. The heat entered through the stones, cracking the earth, burning the plants and killing the beasts, setting houses on fire. When you picked the tomatoes from the orchard, they were without juice, and the aubergines small and hard. The sun took away your breath, your strength, the will to play, everything. And at night you would still be bursting.
At Acqua Traverse adults didn't leave their houses before six in the evening. They trapped themselves inside, blinds shut. Only we dared to venture into the fiery, abandoned fields.
My sister Maria was five years old and followed me with the persistency of a bastard dragged out of a dogs' home.
"I want to do whatever you do", she'd always say. Mother said she was right.
"Are you, or are you not, her older brother?" And there were no saints, it was up to me to drag her everywhere with me.
No one had stopped to help her.
Obviously, this was a race.
"Go straight, right up the hill. No swerving. It is not permitted to stay in single file. It is not permitted to stop. Last one up pays with a forfeit." The Skull had decided and given me a concession; "OK, your sister can't participate. She's too small."
"I'm not too small!" Maria protested "I want to take part in the race too!", and then she fell.
What a shame, I was third.
First was Antonio. As Always.
Antonio Natale, otherwise known as the Skull. Why we called him the Skull, I can't remember. Maybe because one day he stuck a skull to his arm, one of those transfers you could buy at the newsagents that clung onto you with water. The Skull was the oldest of the group. Twelve years old. And he was the boss. He liked to rule and if you didn't obey he became nasty. He wasn't very tall, but he was big, strong, and courageous. And he climbed up that hill like a damned bulldozer.
Second was Salvatore.
Salvatore Scardaccione was nine, the same age as me. We were in the same class. He was my best friend. Salvatore was taller than me. He was a solitary boy. Sometimes he came with us but more often than not he minded his own business. He was more awake than the Skull, it would have been easy for him to take his place, but he wasn't interested in becoming boss. His father, Emilio Scardaccione, is a very important man in Rome. And he has a load of money in Switzerland. Or so they say.
Then there was me, Michele. Michele Amitrano. And I was third, yet again, going strong at first, but because of my sister I ended up standing still.
I was deciding whether I should go back to her or leave her there, when I found myself in fourth place. On the other side of the ridge that duffer Remo Marzano overtook me. And if I didn't start climbing straight away, Barbara Mura would as well.
It would have been horrible. Being overtaken by a girl. And a fatty.
Barbara Mura was climbing on all fours like an infuriated sow. All sweaty and covered with earth.
"What are you doing, aren't you going to see your sister? Didn't you hear her? She hurt herself, poor girl, " she grunted happily. For the first time the forfeit wouldn't have been assigned to her.
"I'm going, I'm going... And I'll beat you too". I couldn't let her win like this.
I turned around and started to descend, agitating my arms and screaming like a Sioux. My canvas sandals were slipping on the grain. I fell on my bum quite a few times.
I couldn't see her. "Maria! Maria! Where are you?"
"Michele..."
There she was. She was sat there, little and unhappy, on a circle of snapped stalks. With one hand she massaged an ankle and with the other she held up her glasses. Her hair stuck to her forehead and her eyes shone. When she saw me, she scrunched up her mouth and blew up like a turkey.
"Michele...?"
"Maria, you made me lose the race! I told you not to come, damn you " I sat down "What happened to you?"
"I got caught up in something. I hurt my foot and... " She opened her mouth wide, squinted her eyes, rocked her head and exploded in a whimper "My glasses! My glasses are broken!"
I would have slapped her so hard. It was the third time she'd broken her glasses since school had finished. And every time she did, according to mum, whose fault was it? She would say "You've got to be more careful, you're her older brother, you don't understand! I don't find money in the allotment. Next time those glasses break you'll get such a large punishment that..."
They had snapped in the centre, where they had already been sellotaped. They were for the rubbish bin.
Meanwhile my sister carried on crying.
"Shall we go home? I'm so thirsty."
We were far behind everyone else, there was no chance of beating that fat pig, and lunchtime had already passed by some time. Mum would have been standing by at the window, waiting for us. I wasn't anxious to get home...