21

 21

THE WOODS WERE FILLED with the scent of resin and living wood. He felt it flood his lungs and oxygenate his hippopotamus hide, thinning it down. At first it seemed he was betraying Turin, but then he told himself that his expedition was the same as a Sunday walk in the mountains.

Worms had been forced to the surface where the rain had turned everything swampy. Martino knew why: it was to do with their breathing. Worms absorb oxygen through their skin, so if the rain floods the earth tunnels they live in, they must come out—or suffocate. He knelt to stir around with the end of his stick, stifling the desire to chop them into pieces provoked by the colors of their guts: pinkish, nude, and purple with microscopic rings, bulges, and swellings along the length of their stringy bodies.

From where he was crouched on the ground, he saw two hairy caterpillars latch on to a blade of grass. Beetles emerged from holes in the bark and ran over it like small metal cars, swerving around the protuberances and the gray fungus species that are one with their trees. Those he willingly battered with his stick; at any rate, they didn’t break. He watched a woodpecker bore into a beech in search of larvae: it ate the larvae and the larvae ate the wood. A couple of times Martino ended up with his face in a spider’s web. He tore up a fern and turned it over, noting the brown traces of spores.

He was distracted, not really looking for anything. He picked up a few pine cones and threw them like hand grenades, making the sound of an explosion with his mouth. He poked at globular grayish puffballs to see their powdery clouds, singing to himself, “Wolf farts! Wolf farts!” He poked at the white-blistered umbrellas of toadstools, too. Then he started using his stick as a sword against swarms of his comic-book Thugs. The tall grass wrapped itself around him and detained him, branches crisscrossing like real duelers. He battled against the locusts threatening him with their green spurs.

He became winded and had to slow down. He patted the pocket of his raincoat: his inhaler was there, in its place. It was in fact the magic potion given to him by a shaman as a sign of gratitude following a heroic exploit: for the record, the rescue of his only daughter, who’d been captured by enemies. At this point, he recalled his mission and climbed farther, right up to the semi-abandoned chapel. There was a small jar behind the iron grille but the flowers had dried up and been rained on. The Black Madonna in the niche was fading and had grown a ridiculous beard of moss. The baby, also black, looked like a miniature adult with goggle eyes. Whoever painted them was awful, thought Martino.

The vegetation became confused from that point onward. Brambles had colonized the undergrowth and no one came to cut wood or gather walnuts, hazelnuts, and chestnuts. Martino found it tiring to walk, but rather than holding him back it encouraged him because he imagined himself once more in the jungle. He came upon a small clearing and saw places where the grass and leaves had been trampled. He didn’t know it, but those were prints left by roe deer who went there to sleep. A little farther on he recognized the shape of a hut, a sort of stable besieged by trees. A Thugs’ bivouac. He crept up to it stealthily, brandishing his stick.

He intended to proceed by the rule book. The first thing to do was peep inside and get an idea of the enemy forces, even though he would jump right in anyway and slaughter everyone: the greater the number of assassins waiting to strangle him, the greater the glory. He took off his scarf and knotted it over his head like a turban. He was ready.

He peeped inside and immediately leapt backward, flung from his fantasy. He gasped in surprise, his chest gripped by a single spasm without release. He felt compelled to flee but would have to catch his breath first. He couldn’t have an asthma attack there in the middle of the woods. He stepped away from the door and leaned against the boards of the hut, groping in his pocket for the spray. He inhaled the stream several times, blood thundering in his ears.

This wasn’t like playing, when he trembled with fear in the belief that he could see the Thugs or Apaches even though they weren’t real. There was someone in there. All the same, when he went back to lean in (as little as possible), he hoped he was wrong, that he had mistaken a sack or a pile of hay for a person.

He saw hair, a face, a jumper, a skirt. The missing teacher was only two steps away from him. Alive. He hid again and counted up to ten as his mother made him do when she wanted him to calm down (it never worked). Then he thought, holysmoke, holysmoke, holysmoke, holysmoke, clenching his teeth and bunching his fists. Things seemed a little better, but he still couldn’t believe his eyes. He closed them, pressing his thumbs against them to make sure they were working, and then removed his thumbs. The light behind his eyelids flooded with red. Little by little, the woods came into focus along with his shoes, caked with earth and darkened with moisture. It wasn’t a dream. She really was there.

He decided to peer in again, and he noticed that the teacher had remained in exactly the same static position, as if dazed. She was spellbound, her eyes cloudy, and it made him think of their neighbor’s dog on the landing in Turin, blind from glaucoma. But that wasn’t all. The teacher stank. Martino dared to laugh from tension, bewilderment, and disgust. Silvia Canepa smelled of piss, sweat, and musty clothes: it was a rancid smell, distinct from other ones in the woods. Martino wanted to plug his nose but he wasn’t brave enough and anyway, with his condition it wouldn’t do to block his airways.

He wondered whether he should say something, try to speak to her. What do you say to a teacher who’s hiding and stinks of piss?

No, he decided, I’ll have to call for help, and instantly he imagined running down at breakneck speed to raise the alarm. I’ve found her! and then fighting against his mother’s and the other adults’ skepticism, riding on Gianni’s hopes, showing them the spot and from a distance, watching the first rescue workers enter the hut and come out a little later carrying the teacher, covered with a blanket. His back would be sore from all the pats and his cheeks would be worn out from smiling at all the compliments. Yes, I went out just so I could find her. I went into the middle of the woods all by myself and discovered the hut.

A rush of pride filled his belly. The next day at school: the hallways overflowing with admiration, small talk crackling like campfires at break time, and him in a corner twinkling modestly. Sister Annangela, Miss Fogli, the head all sending for him, thanking him. Giulia approaching him timidly and surely feeling the emotion, murmuring her thanks. If it hadn’t been for you . . .

He looked in one last time to see if the teacher was injured. How long had it been since she’d eaten? Why wasn’t she dead already? She’d drunk rainwater; that must have kept her going. But she didn’t even have the strength to sit up anymore. Her head drooped over her chest in rhythm with her breathing.

He heard Gianni’s voice once more: I hope she hasn’t gone crazy with grief . . . and something about a mental institution and doctors. Martino imagined doctors and nurses holding enormous syringes like in a cartoon from Puzzles Weekly. Well, surely he should call for help. Better a mental institution than a cemetery.

With sudden inspiration, he took the butter sandwich out of his pocket. He didn’t dare approach her, really didn’t dare. It was quite something that he hadn’t run away already. So he threw it toward her as gently as he could, trying not to give her a fright or awaken some violent act of madness—who knows?

Silvia squinted and rubbed her forehead dully, as if a chunk of meteorite had just fallen beside her. She raised her head very slowly and focused. A boy at the entrance to the hut. A terrified child who would uproot her from the woods and prevent her from starving. She hadn’t spoken for who knows how long: her mouth wouldn’t respond. Martino read the effort in her face and tensed up in return, ready to bolt. The teacher opened and closed her lips like an asthmatic, bubbles of saliva forming at the corners of her mouth.

“Don’t tell anyone!” she breathed. Then she went back into her shell.