Ammaniti - I'm not scared

I was about to pass Salvatore when I heard my sister scream. I turned and saw her disappear, swallowed by the wheat that covered the hill.

I shouldn't have brought her along; mama would be really mad at me now.

I paused. I was sweaty. I recovered my breath and called to her. "Maria? Maria?"

A wee, doleful voice replied. "Michele!"

"Are you hurt?"

 "Yes, come."

 "Where did you hurt yourself?"

 "On the leg."

 She was feigning; she was tired. I'll keep going, I said to myself. But what if she really was hurt?

Where were the others?

I saw their tracks in the wheat. They were climbing slowly, in parallel lines, like the fingers of a hand, toward the hilltop, leaving behind a trail of trampled stalks.

That year the wheat was tall. It had been a wet late-spring, and by mid-June the stalks were more luxuriant than ever. They came up thick, loaded with ears, ready to be harvested.

Everything was buried in wheat. The hills, low, rolled sequentially like the swells of a golden ocean. Wheat, sky, crickets, sun, heat, as far as the eye could see.

I had no idea how hot it was; a nine-year-old doesn't know much of degrees centigrade, yet I knew it wasn't normal.

That cursed summer of 1978 went on record as one of the hottest of the century. The heat got into the stones, crumbled the earth, scorched the plants and killed the beasts, turned the houses into ovens.

When you picked the tomatoes in the garden, they had no juice and the zucchini were small and hard. The sun took away your breath, your strength, your desire to play, everything. And at night it wasn't any better.

At Acqua Traverse the adults never left the house before six p.m.. They shut themselves up indoors, with the shutters closed. We were the only ones venturing out in the sweltering and deserted countryside.

My sister Maria was five years old and followed me with the obstinacy of a little mongrel delivered from a dog-pound. «I wanna do what you do,» she always said. Mama sided with her.

«Are you or are you not her big brother?» And there was no saying; I had to take her along.

No one had stopped to help her.

But then of course, it was a race.

"Straight up the hill. No turns. No tailing one another. No stopping. Last one up pays forfeit." Skull had set out the rules and to me he had conceded: "all right, your sister is out of the race. She's too small."

"I'm not too small!" had protested Maria. "I want in!" And then there was the fall.

Damn! I was third.

First was Antonio. As always. Antonio Natale, aka Skull. Why they called him Skull I can't recall. Perhaps because once he had stuck a skull on his arm, one of those transfers you bought at the tobacconist's that went on with water.

Skull was the oldest in the gang. Twelve years old. And the chief. He loved bossing you around and if you didn't obey he turned nasty. He wasn't all that smart, but he was big, strong, and brave. And he was going up that hill like a goddamn bulldozer.

Salvatore came second.

Salvatore Scardaccione was nine, my age. We were classmates. He was my best friend.

Salvatore was taller than me. He was a lonely kid. He came with us at times but often kept to his own. He was smarter than Skull, he would have easily deposed him but he had no interest in the position of chief.

His father, avvocato Emilio Scardaccione, was a big shot in Rome. And he had a stack of money in Switzerland. So the buzz had it.

Then there was me, Michele. Michele Amitrano. And even this time I was third; I had been going up well, but because of my sister I was now at a standstill.

I was deciding whether I should go back or leave her there, when I found myself in fourth place. On the other side of the ridge that washout Remo Marzano had overtaken me. If I didn't get to climbing again right away even Barbara Mura would have left me behind.

And that would be a shame. Overtaken by a girl. Chubby. Barbara Mura was going up on all her fours like a raging sow. All sweaty and covered in earth.

"What are you doing, aren't you going for your sister? Didn't you hear her? She's hurt, poor little girl," grunted she happy. For once the forfeit wouldn't be falling to her share.

"I'm going, I'm going... and I'll beat you too." I couldn't let her have it her way this easily.

I turned back and started down, waving my arms and whooping like a Sioux. My leather sandals slipped on the wheat. I ended on my butt a couple of times.

I couldn't see her. "Maria! Maria! Where are you?"

"Michele..."

There. There she was. Small and miserable. Sitting on a ring of broken stalks. Rubbing an ankle with one hand and holding her glasses in the other. Her hair was stuck to her forehead and her eyes were moist. When she saw me, she twisted her mouth and swelled 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 tripped. I hurt my foot, and..." She threw her mouth wide open, squinted, shook her head and exploded into a wail. "My glasses! My glasses are broken!" I could have slapped her real hard. It was the third time now she had broken her glasses since school-end. And every time who did mama blame?

 «You must look after your sister, you are her big brother.»

«But mama, I...»

«Don't you give me no mama, now! You haven't got it in your head yet, but I don't find the money in the garden. The next time you break those glasses you are grounded and...»

They had snapped in the middle, where they had been glued together before. A write-off.

My sister continued to weep.

"Mama.... She's going to be mad... What are we going to do?"

"What are we going to do? Fix it with Scotch tape, that's what. Get up, now."

"They're ugly with the Scotch tape. Really ugly. I hate them."

I slipped the glasses in my pocket. Without, Maria couldn't see a thing, she had a squint and the doctor had said she should get an operation before she grew up. "It's all right. Get up now." She stopped crying and started sniffing. "My foot hurts."

"Where?" I kept thinking of the others, they must have made it to the top ages ago. I was last. I only hoped Skull would not have me do too tough a forfeit. Once when I had lost a race he had forced me to run through nettles.

"Where does it hurt?"

"Here." She showed me her ankle.

"It's only twisted. It's nothing. Soon you won't feel a thing."

I unlaced her sneaker and took it off with great care. As a doctor would have done. "Is  that better?"

"A little. When are we going home? I'm dying of thirst. And mama..."

She was right. We had come too far. And for too long. It was way past lunchtime and mama must be on the lookout at the window.

Our homecoming didn't look well at all. But who could have divined it only a few hours earlier.