Anna. Niccolo Ammaniti

her hand, the jars, boxes of cereal and bottles of balsamic vinegar would surely have vanished.

      ‘Can we help you?’

      The twins were standing side by side, in their tracksuits and white shoes. One was holding a shotgun.

      ‘Would you like a trolley?’

      Anna gestured that she wouldn’t.

      ‘We’ve got everything, including Easter eggs with a surprise, and Nutella,’ the one with the shotgun had explained.

      Nutella was very hard to find. It had been one of the first things to disappear after the epidemic.

      Anna had looked around. ‘Ferrero Rocher, too?’

      ‘Certainly.’

      ‘How do I pay you? With money?’ But she knew the world was full of money and nobody cared about it.

      ‘We swap things. Have you got anything to swap?’

      She’d searched in her trouser pockets. ‘I’ve got a Swiss knife.’

      The two teddy bears had shaken their heads in unison. ‘We’re interested in batteries, but only if they have some charge left – we check them. We’re also interested in medicines and Massimo Ranieri CDs.’

      Anna had raised an eyebrow. ‘Who’s Massimo Ranieri?’

      ‘A famous singer. Our father used to like him,’ the one with the shotgun had replied. ‘In exchange for him we can give you three large jars of Nutella or six small Toblerones. Everything you see in here can be swapped. It’s a mini-market.’

      Anna had never heard the twins utter so many words in succession.

      Over the next few months, wherever she went, she looked for Massimo Ranieri CDs. There was plenty of Vasco Rossi and Lucio Battisti, but no Ranieri. Then one day, in an autostrada service area, she’d found, among mobile phone cases, deodorants and sodden books, a triple album titled Naples and My Songs.

      That would buy her the antibiotics.

      *

      She’d gone the wrong way. There was a shorter route to the twins’ shop and yet, as if her feet had made their own decision, she’d found herself on the autostrada.

      The car with the dog in it was there.

      Anna stared at the open door, biting her thumbnail. She wanted to see him before the crows left nothing but bones.

      She drew the knife from her rucksack, went up to the car and peered inside. A patch of dirty hair. She screamed; there was no reaction. Leaning further in, she saw the dog through the gap between the front seats. In the same position as when she’d left him. The blood had dried below the neck and the back seat was soaked in it. Big metallic grey flies settling. Tongue hanging out of the open mouth, over dark gums covered in drool. One visible eye, as big as a biscuit and as black as diesel, wide open, staring into the void. Breathing so faint it was barely audible. Tail limp between the back legs, twitching slightly.

      Anna touched him on the side with the tip of the knife. No movement of the body, but the pupil shifted, focusing on her for a moment.

      As if he was looking forward to death. It happened to all dying creatures, human beings and animals.

      In the past four years Anna had seen many children become covered with blotches and fade away. Slumped in a dark recess under the stairs, in a car like this dog, under a tree or in a bed. They would put up a fight, but eventually they would all, without exception, realise it was over, as if death itself had whispered it in their ear. Some kept going for a little while longer with that awareness; others discovered it only a second before they died.

      Anna’s hand, almost of its own accord, reached out and stroked the dog’s head.

      Still motionless and indifferent, but for a moment the tail lifted and fell back down in what might almost have been a feeble wag.

      Anna shook her head. ‘Aren’t you dead yet, you ugly brute?’

      Among the rubbish in the gutter beside the guardrail she found a deflated plastic football. She cut it in two and got back into the car with one half. Taking the bottle out of her rucksack, she poured half its contents into the improvised dish. She held it near the dog’s mouth. At first he ignored it, then he lifted his muzzle slightly and, almost reluctantly, dipped his tongue in the water.

      She pushed the dish closer. ‘Drink! Go on, drink.’

      The animal gave a few more licks, then flopped down again.

      Anna took a tin of peas, opened it and poured the contents out beside his mouth.

      She’d done what she could.

      *

      Buseto Palizzolo, a small village of modern houses clustered under a hill, had also felt the effects of the fire. But the flames had only caressed the Michelinis’ Despar, blackening the walls of the building and melting the green plastic blinds on the upper floors.

      Anna knocked on the shutter. ‘Open up, I want to do a swap.’ She waited a few moments. ‘Is anybody there? Can you hear me? It’s Anna Salemi, from 3C. I want to do a swap. Open up.’ Growing impatient, she walked round the building.

      The tradesman’s entrance at the back was barred, and through the small grilled windows she couldn’t see a thing. Going back round to the front, she tried to lift the shutter, but it was locked. She kicked it. All those months spent searching for that stupid CD! She’d come all that way for nothing. Where was she going to find antibiotics now?

      ‘All right, then, I’m going. I had a Massimo Ranieri CD. It’s a really good one and I don’t think you’ve got it.’ She put her ear to the shutter.

      Somebody moved inside.

      ‘I know you’re in there.’

      ‘Go away. We don’t swap things any more,’ replied a sleepy voice.

      ‘Not even Massimo Ranieri?’

      The shutter clanked up. Out of the darkness of the shop emerged the silhouette of one of the twins. He was holding the shotgun.

      Anna couldn’t tell whether he was Mario or Paolo, but one look was enough to tell her that he had Red Fever. His lips were covered with scabs and sores, his nostrils swollen and inflamed, his eyes ringed. A reddish blotch covered his neck. He might live a few more weeks. A couple of months if he was tough.

      She took the CD out of her rucksack. ‘Well? Do you want it?’

      The twin screwed up his eyes. ‘Let me see.’ He examined it and gave it back. ‘We’ve already got it. Anyway, I’m fed up with Massimo Ranieri. I prefer Domenico Modugno.’

      Anna craned her neck to peer into the shop. ‘Are you on your own?’

      The fat boy coughed, spattering a yellowish sludge on the floor. ‘My brother’s dead.’ He raised his eyes and counted silently. ‘It’s been five days now.’

      Anna waited only a couple of seconds. ‘Listen, I need some medicine.’

      ‘I told you we don’t swap things any more.’ The twin turned round and shuffled back into the shop. She followed him.

      It took her eyes a minute or two to get used to the gloom. Everything was on the floor – jars of honey and orange marmalade, dry dog food, tins of ragout, tubes of anchovy paste. A can of oil had been knocked over and shards of a broken bottle were immersed in a pool of wine.

      It horrified her to see all that good food wasted. The day before she’d almost been torn apart for a few tins of beans. ‘What on earth happened?’

      ‘I stopped tidying up.’

      ‘Look, will you give me these medicines? It’s important, they’re for my brother. If you want, I’ve got some charged batteries too.’

      The twin went behind the