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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 Sellerio Editore

  First publication 2014 by Europa Editions

  Translation by Howard Curtis

  Original Title: La briscola in cinque

  Translation copyright © 2014 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 978-1-60945-219-3

  Marco Malvaldi

  GAME FOR FIVE

  Translated from the Italian

  by Howard Curtis

  To my grandfather, and my grandmother

  Caminante, son tus huellas

  el camino, y nada más;

  caminante, no hay camino,

  se hace camino al andar.

  Walker, your tracks

  are the path, nothing more;

  walker, there is no path,

  the path is made by walking.

  —ANTONIO MACHADO

  PROLOGUE

  When you start swaying on your legs, when you light another cigarette to kill five more minutes even though your throat is stinging and your mouth is so furred up you feel like you’ve eaten a tarpaulin, and then the others also light cigarettes and linger a while longer—when all that happens, then it really is time to go home to bed.

  It was ten after four in the morning, in the middle of August, and three young men were standing next to a green Nissan Micra. They had all drunk more than was strictly necessary, the owner of the Micra more than the others, and the others were now trying to persuade him not to drive.

  “I’ll take you home,” said the shortest of the three, whose head was shaven everywhere except on the top of the cranium, which made him look like a palm tree. “Leave the car here and I’ll take you home.”

  The second young man was trying to refuse. He had just come out of the disco, and in addition to having the blood-alcohol level of an unemployed Russian, his head was full of little lights that made it hard for him to think. All the same he was putting up a good argument.

  “Fuck it, if my dad sees I left the car and came with you, he’ll say ‘You’ve come home drunk,’ and he’ll kick my ass. He isn’t stupid, my dad.”

  “If your dad sees you come home in that condition,” Palm-Tree Head insisted, “he’ll kick your ass because you came home on your own, and mine because I didn’t come with you, that’s firstly. Secondly—”

  “No, no, I’m going by myself. Don’t worry, I’ll get there.”

  “Why don’t you say anything?” Palm-Tree Head anxiously asked the third point of the triangle, who had gone to the hairdresser that evening and requested—with a certain firmness, presumably—and actually been given the chance to leave with his polenta-blond hair charmingly decorated with purple streaks like a punk leopard. Two bright, cow-like eyes and a half-open mouth complemented his appearance in an appropriate fashion.

  “If that’s what he wants, it’s up to him,” was his verdict.

  “That’s dumb. What if he goes thirty feet and smashes straight into a tree?”

  “Listen, I’m off. If I don’t feel up to it, I’ll give you a ring on my cell phone and you can come and get me.”

  Palm-Tree Head looked at his friend as if thinking, “Dammit, he’s stubborn,” and received by way of reply an even more vacuous look that meant: “I don’t give a fuck, I’m going home to bed in a couple of minutes.”

  “Go on, then, we’ll wait here for ten minutes. If—”

  “Don’t worry, if I’m not up to it I’ll call you.”

  The young man had tried to speak clearly and without cursing, as best he could, to give the impression that it was passing. In reality, his head was still ringing, and if he moved it he had the impression the world was following him with a second’s delay.

  He took a deep breath, groped in his pocket for the key, and found it immediately, which seemed a good omen. He looked at it for a moment, approved its appearance with an unsteady nod of the head, and got in the car. He closed the door, turned the key, and set off—all things considered—without any problems.

  After about half a mile, coming level with the parking lot by the pine wood, he had to stop. While he was driving, the car had seemed like rubber, swaying frightfully in one direction, without ever going in the other. It was like being inside a washing machine, with the drum turning around him. Swish, swosh, swish.

  He opened the door, not without difficulty this time, and stepped out.

  “I’m sure a bit of fresh air will do me good.”

  He was still making an effort to speak without cursing—even though he was alone—in order to convince himself that everything was fine. And also to keep awake, which wasn’t easy.

  “But now I have to urinate. Yes, I really do. Oh, yes. I think it’s necessary.”

  As he was performing this soliloquy, he approached one of the trash cans.

  It had rained the night before and the ground in the parking lot was still muddy, in spite of the heat. Avoiding the puddles, he reached the trash can and, with a brief mental speech, selected it as his personal urinal.

  About a century later, as he was pulling up his zipper, he noticed there was a girl in the trash can. It also struck him that she was quite pretty. Almost simultaneously, something told him that she was probably also dead. He wasn’t immediately surprised. Rather, preserving a calm that only alcohol could have given him, he started to think aloud. Contrary to what we read in mystery stories, the discovery had not helped to clear his head.

  “Do I know her? No, I don’t think so. I have to tell the police. I’ll go to the car and get my cell phone.”

  He did so, and discovered that the battery of his cell phone was completely flat.

  “Fuck, that’s all I need. What do I do now?”

  He looked around as if there was someone there who might suggest an answer.

  “Wait, wait. I saw a bar on my way here that was open. Now, take a deep breath. I have to concentrate and stop seeing everything turning, or I’ll never get there.”

  Before getting back in his car, he opened his hands and concentrated on them for two or three minutes. Paradoxically, he felt relieved: he had been afraid to go home at this hour in the state he was in, and the discovery of the body would justify both the delay and his blood-alcohol level, given that someone who finds a dead body is entitled to something strong, isn’t he? Ergo, at least he had gotten past the fear.

  “There, now everything’s fine. Keep calm, just follow the white line and you’ll get there.”

  He did in fact get there, after another minute of fear, and walked straight to the door of the bar. Pull yourself together, he told himself mentally, then turned the handle of the glass door and went in. Behind the counter, the barman was washing and putting away glasses. He gave him a curious look. The young man tried to appear cheerful, which merely emphasized the state he was in, and asked with a smile, “Excuse me, do you have a phone?”

  “Behind the ice cream freezer.”

  He was about to go and phone when an inner voice stopped him. He raised one finger and asked, “Do I have to order something?”

  “The phone works just fine without it,” the barman said.

  He reached the telephone, dialed the number, and said, “Hello, is that 113? Listen, I have to tell you that
I found the dead body of a girl in a trash can, she’s really dead, I’m sure of it.”

  A brief silence.

  “Yes, in the parking lot by the pine wood, where the Germans go for picnics, but I think the girl is Italian, she has dark hair.”

  A brief silence.

  “Yes, in a trash can. The gray one near the parking lot for camper vans, the one where the Germans go. Yes, for picnics.”

  A brief silence.

  “Yes, I know I’m drunk, you don’t have to tell me that, but this is true! Really . . . Sorry to say this, but you’re as stubborn as a mule! It’s true . . . ”

  Silence.

  He stopped and looked at the phone for a moment.

  “They hung up,” he said, incredulous and vaguely offended.

  Meanwhile, the barman had come out from behind the counter and was looking at him with a mixture of surprise and severity. “Is there really a body?”

  “Damned right there is. It’s in the parking lot by the pine wood, the one where—”

  “Yes, I got that. Come on, we’ll go there together and you can show me, then I’ll call the police.”

  The barman took his cigarettes from the counter, lit one, glanced at his watch, and walked outside, followed by the young man.

  “Give me the keys, I’ll drive.”

  BEGINNING

  The only pleasant thing to do, at exactly two in the afternoon on a day in mid-August, when the air you’re breathing is liquid and you’re trying not to think that it’s still six or seven hours to dinner time, is go to a bar and have a drink with a few friends.

  You sit down at one of the tables outside, adjust your pants—the crotch of which is so wet it needs wringing—cool off for ten seconds, and magically become yourself again. Whoever in your group is feeling in good form goes inside to order from the counter, because when the barman saw you he glared at you and is now washing glasses (or rather, one glass—the same one for the past five minutes ) and if nobody goes inside to order, forget it.

  The important thing, though, is that there’s a bit of a breeze.

  That wisp of wind, just strong enough to lift your shirt away from your skin a little, gently count your vertebrae, and cool the gaps between your toes—to which your plastic flip-flops have given very little relief thus far—but not so strong as to ruffle the hair you’ve brushed over your bald spot. The iodine smell of the sea breeze unblocks your nostrils and persuades you to breathe, and by the time the hero who has taken on the job of a waiter returns with the drinks and the cards, you’re feeling in a good mood again and the afternoon has suddenly gotten a hell of a lot shorter.

  Such things are pleasant at the age of twenty. At eighty they are the salt of life.

  The little group outside the Bar Lume, bang in the middle of Pineta, consists of four sprightly old-timers of a type common in these parts. The two other once common types, old men with walking sticks and grandchildren and old women knitting in doorways, cannot compete numerically and are thus seen with decreasing frequency.

  On the much reviled threshold of the twenty-first century, Pineta became, to all intents and purposes, a fashionable seaside resort, and so the associations promoting the locality have been inexorably extinguishing the above-mentioned categories, turning the very architecture of the town against them. Where there was once a bar you could play bowls at there is now an open-air disco-pub, an open-air gym has materialized in the pine wood to replace the playground where you used to take your grandchildren, and it’s impossible to find a bench, only stands for motorcycles.

  The four men must be quite good friends, to judge by the way they are arguing: three of them sitting with Papal dignity on plastic chairs, one standing with a tray bearing a pack of cards, a Fernet Branca, a beer, and a Sambuca with a couple of coffee beans. One of those sitting is writhing on his chair as if bitten by a tarantula.

  Clearly, something is missing.

  ***

  “What about my coffee?”

  “He didn’t make one.”

  “He didn’t make one? Why?”

  “He says it’s too hot.”

  “What do I care if it’s too hot or not to drink coffee? As if it isn’t bad enough my daughter counting the cigarettes I smoke, now the barman starts worrying about my health? Let me deal with him!”

  Ampelio Viviani, 82 years old, retired railroader, decent former amateur cyclist and uncontested winner of the cursing competition held (unofficially) as part of the Unità festival at Navacchio from 1956 for twenty-six consecutive years, gets proudly to his feet with the help of his stick and heads boldly for the bar.

  “Look at him go, he looks like Ronaldo!”

  “It must be the way he holds his stick!”

  Reaching the counter, he aims his stick straight at the barman. “Massimo, make me a coffee.”

  Massimo has his head bent over the sink. He is slicing lemons, and seems totally absorbed in the operation, like a Buddhist monk meditating. In the same ascetic fashion he replies, “No coffee. Too hot now. Later. Maybe.”

  “Horseshit! Listen to me, I fought in Abyssinia and you think it’s too hot here for me to drink coffee?”

  Still with his head bowed, Massimo retorts, “It isn’t too hot to drink it. It’s too hot to make it. You really want me to stand here in this Turkish bath, sweating like an ox? All for a lousy coffee that wouldn’t even come out right, with all this humidity? Have an iced tea, on the house.”

  “Iced tea! If I’d wanted to feel sick I’d have stayed at home with your grandmother and watched the TV news! This is the last time I set foot in this bar.”

  At last, Massimo raises his head. He’s about thirty, with curly hair and a beard. There’s something vaguely Arab about his appearance, accentuated by his loose, knee-length pirate-style shirt miraculously devoid of patches of sweat. He has a sulky, sidelong way of looking at people. He raises his eyes to heaven for a moment, briefly, untheatrically. Then, with his eyes once again on the lemons, he says, “Look, Grandpa, this is the only bar in the whole of Pineta where anyone can stand you, and that’s only because it’s mine. So if you want a coffee, just wait a few hours, you don’t have a job to go to.”

  “Give me a grappa, and to hell with my daughter!”

  By the time Ampelio gets back to the table, Aldo, the owner of the Boccaccio restaurant, is shuffling the cards.

  “Scopa, briscola, or tressette?” he asks.

  The other two regulars sitting at the table raise their heads. The first to open his mouth is retired postal worker Gino Rimediotti, who looks all of his seventy-five years, and who now says, as he usually does, “I’m fine with anything. As long as I don’t play in a pair with him there.”

  “Listen to him! As if it’s always my fault . . . ”

  “Yes, it is your fault! You never remember what cards have been dealt even if they bite you.”

  “Gino, listen, I’m fond of you, but someone who winks like he’s swallowed gravel the way you do should just keep still, OK? When you’re dealt a three anyone would think you’re having a heart attack. Even the people inside the bar know what cards you have.”

  The name of the fourth man is Pilade Del Tacca. He has watched seventy-four springs glide pleasantly by and is happily overweight. Years of hard work at the town hall in Pineta, where if you don’t have breakfast four times in a morning you’re nobody, has formed both his physique and his character: apart from being ill-mannered, he’s also a pain in the butt.

  Aldo stops shuffling. The crucial moment has arrived. In a neutral voice, he says it’s ridiculous that it’s always he or Ampelio who has to choose, and then Del Tacca always complains. “Either you choose, or we do something else.”

  “I don’t mind choosing,” Ampelio says, “but if you don’t like it we can change the pairs.”

  “If who doesn’t like it?” Del Tacca asks.
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  “Your whore of a mother!” Gino says. “Who do you think? All of us.”

  The air has turned heavy, you can’t feel the breeze anymore.

  In the silence, Massimo comes out of the bar, grabs a chair, and joins the little group.

  He lights a cigarette, and takes the cards. “I left the girl to mind the bar,” he says. “There’s nobody about at this hour. How about a game of briscola for five?”

  There isn’t even any need to exchange glances. There’s a gleam in their eyes now. They empty their glasses, put their elbows on the table, and away they go.

  A game of briscola for five is always welcome.

  Some six months earlier, Ampelio’s voice had rung out as usual over every other noise in the bar, skillfully illuminating the twists and turns of his mind—he was someone who never missed the opportunity to communicate urbi et orbi his opinions on every subject under the sun.

  “What I don’t get is what people see in it! They shut you up in a big room with the music blaring out, you’re all crowded together one on top of the other, you can’t dance, all you can do is wriggle about like you had sand in your underpants, and by the time you leave your mind’s all befuddled. And they actually make you pay to be treated like that! Now you tell me if that’s normal . . . ”

  “Grandpa, first of all, lower your voice and stop making such a fuss. Thank you. Now, what do you care if people want to enjoy themselves that way? Are they hurting anyone?”

  Ampelio put down his glass. “I tell you who they’re hurting!” he went on. “Themselves, that’s who! I say if they want their ears to ring, they should bang their heads a few times with a hammer, at least it’s free . . . ”

  Aldo stood up to get his lighter from the pocket of his coat. It was the day the Boccaccio was closed, and being a carefree, gregarious widower, he liked coming to the bar in the evening because he was sure to always find someone there.