Anna. Niccolo Ammaniti

      Maria Grazia didn’t even consider abortion. She explained to Franco that he was free to choose: either he could recognise the child, or she’d become a single mother, and that would be fine with her.

      Franco asked her to marry him, feeling that it was his duty.

      Six months later the wedding took place in the village hall of Castellammare, the Salemi family’s place of origin. The Zanchettas thought their daughter deserved better than this southern taxi driver and didn’t attend the ceremony.

      There was no honeymoon. The couple moved to the centre of Palermo, where they lived in a flat on the third floor of an old palazzo near the Politeama Theatre.

      Signor Salemi discovered that he had heart problems and retired, leaving the running of Elite Cars to his son.

      Two months later, in an inflatable birthing pool full of warm water, Anna was born, dark-skinned like her father, with her mother’s features.

      ‘I brought Anna into the world by accepting pain. Because women can give birth in the peace of their own homes.’ So Maria Grazia would say to anyone who asked her about her unusual choice.

      The Salemi family couldn’t stand their daughter-in-law. They called her ‘the madwoman’. What other word was there for a woman who gave birth like a monkey and smoked pot?

      Over the next two years Maria Grazia, as well as looking after the baby, graduated and got a temporary job teaching Italian and Latin at a high school. Franco, meanwhile, had expanded Elite Cars, buying more taxis and hiring new drivers.

      They didn’t see much of each other. He would come home exhausted in the evening, bringing boxes of food from the takeaway, and collapse on the bed. She taught during the day, and in the evening, in her book-filled study, cuddled the baby and read about psychology, the environment and women’s liberation. And she started writing stories, which she hoped to publish.

      Sometimes they quarrelled, but on the whole they respected each other’s interests, even if they didn’t understand them.

      And gradually the same differences that had brought them together became a source of division which drove them further and further apart. Without ever saying as much, they allowed the gap to widen, in the awareness that neither of them would be able to close it.

      When Franco’s old grandmother died, she left him a cottage in the countryside near Castellammare. He wanted to sell it, but Maria Grazia was tired of living in the city, with all the pollution and noise. Anna would have a healthier upbringing in the countryside. Franco, however, couldn’t move; his work was in Palermo.

      ‘What’s the problem? You can come over at weekends, and I promise you I’ll learn to cook better than your mother,’ she said.

      They took out a bank loan and renovated the cottage, putting in double glazing, a new central heating system and an attractive new roof. Maria Grazia sowed a large organic vegetable garden, declaring that her daughter needed to eat vegetables free of any chemical pollutants. She started teaching at a high school in Castellamare.

      After a year of shuttling back and forth between the city and the country, Franco fell in love with the woman who owned the tobacconist’s shop opposite Elite Cars’ garage. One evening, finding courage in wine, he confessed everything to his wife.

      Maria Grazia gave him a big hug. ‘I’m happy for you. The important thing is that you continue to be a good father and come to see your daughter every weekend as you’ve always done in the past.’

      From that moment on, their relationship bloomed like the zucchini in the vegetable garden. She persuaded him to read Women Who Run With the Wolves and he took her to see an air display by the Italian Air Force aerobatic team in Marsala.

      After an isolated drunken fit of passion, Maria Grazia became pregnant again. A baby boy was born. They called him Astor, after the great Argentinian tango musician, Astor Piazzolla. Franco continued to go back and forth from Palermo and to see the tobacconist.

      Who knows? Maybe with time they’d have got back together. But the virus arrived from Belgium, and this family, like millions of others, was swept away.

      When Franco and Maria Grazia died, Anna was nine years old and Astor was five.

      *

      The roof of the farmhouse was covered with dry leaves and branches. The porch, supported by white pillars, concealed the front door. On the upper floor two windows with faded shutters each opened onto a small balcony. In the middle of the façade, in a whitewashed niche, was a small statue of the Madonna overgrown by a caper bush. The pink plaster had flaked away and what little remained of the gutter had leaked onto the walls, streaking them with green. The Virginia creeper, in only four years, had taken over one side of the house, and the big gnarled mulberry tree had spread its branches over the roof as if to protect it.

      Anna opened the gate, closed it behind her and went down the path, which ended in a clearing of bare earth. To the left was the former vegetable garden, now a field of nettles. On the other side a long wooden bench stood among weeds in front of the wreck of an old black Mercedes and a row of rusty barrels where Anna collected rainwater. A dirty, naked little boy was crouching beside the car, hacking at the hard earth with a rake. Tufts of black hair emerged from under the cycling helmet on his head.

      As soon as she saw her brother, the weight lifted from her heart. ‘Astor!’

      The little boy turned round and smiled, displaying a row of irregular teeth, then went on digging.

      Anna sat down beside him, exhausted.

      He stared at her torn knees and scratched legs. ‘Did a smoke monster do that?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘What was he like?’

      ‘Nasty.’

      ‘Did you beat him?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Astor spread his arms. ‘Was he big?’

      ‘As big as a mountain.’

      He pointed at the hole he’d dug. ‘It’s a trap. To catch rhinoceroses and rats.’

      ‘That’s great. Are you hungry?’

      Her brother stretched his back. He was thin, with long legs and a prominent belly. The nipples on his flat chest looked like lentils and his pointed face was dominated by huge blue eyes which homed in on things as quickly as bees on nectar. ‘Not very.’ He took hold of his penis and pulled it like an elastic band.

      His sister gave him a shove. ‘Stop that!’

      ‘What?’

      ‘You know.’

      Astor was obsessed with his penis. Once he’d covered it with sticky tape, and it had been a terrible business getting it off.

      Anna took off her rucksack. ‘How come you’re not hungry?’

      ‘Did you find anything good?’

      Anna nodded, putting her hand on his back, as they walked towards the house.

      *

      The fine barrel-vaulted sitting room, fitted with rustic furniture and Persian carpets by Maria Grazia Zanchetta, was awash with rubbish. The windows were stopped up with cardboard, and the half-light revealed mountains of bottles, jars, books, toys, printers, newspapers, bicycles, mobile phones, envelopes, clothes, radios, pieces of wood, teddy bears and mattresses.

      In the kitchen, light filtered in from the windows, painting bright strips on swarms of flies feasting on remnants left in tins of tuna and meat. Cockroaches and ants scuttled across greasy floor tiles. The marble table was covered with countless bottles of water, Coca-Cola and Fanta.

      Anna took a long drink. ‘I was dying for that.’

      Astor peered into the rucksack. ‘Any batteries?’

      ‘No.’

      Batteries