Inspector Vitali parked his car behind the concrete mass of the Sant’Andrea hospital, which had a shape like melting ice cream, and made for the entrance across the car park that clung tightly to the feet of the building. He was disturbed by the fact that he still could not understand the connections. While children were running in front of him with paper kites, he was busy figuring out who might have made an attempt on Ma-gios’s life and whether he would succeed in getting him safely back to Tibet. He poked his fingers into his nest of hair for a moment, which, as his wife liked to say, was more like a haystack rather than a human coiffure, then fished a cigarette from his pocket. He passed his favourite little paper-coated tobacco roll under his nose, inhaling its aroma with pleasure, but then caught sight of the red No smoking! sign on the door. His elation abated. He did not want to stuff the cigarette he’d already taken out back in the packet, so he simply put it into his pocket. At the lift, orderlies pushing gurneys carrying elderly people with listless eyes creaked past him, and, on very floor, nurses fussed with white-coated doctors. Vitali was making his way up to the fourth floor. Secretly, he hoped that a piece of the boy’s memory would return: maybe a piece others would consider insubstantial would help him make sense of this story. Passionate about his profession since his childhood, loving mysteries and puzzles, he was a detective through and through.
The door opened after two rings. The corridor was deserted. This surprised him because it was time for morning rounds, but he was tired so he found this peace pleasant. He headed towards Ma-gios’s room but, to his great astonishment, one of his colleagues peeped out of the neighbouring ward, making him slow down.
‘What’re you doing here?’ Vitali inquired with wide-open eyes.
‘What are you doing here?’ the other one rejoined.
‘I’ve come to see a boy in the next room. A complicated matter.’
‘Is that right? And what’s happened to him?’
‘I think he was attacked. He was brought in with serious injuries’
An affected smile spread on the other one’s face. ‘Is that so? While this old lady’s died of food poisoning – in a hospital of all places. Nonsense! Botulinum toxin was found in her blood at the post-mortem.’
‘An accident, or a murder?’
‘Oh c’mon, Vitali! Who’d want to poison an eighty-year-old lady with no money?’
‘You still checked, right?’ asked Vitali with a sardonic grin.
‘According to the toxicology lab, some meat product she ate was infected.’ The other policeman tried to divert attention away from himself.
‘Tainted meat? Exciting.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then enjoy the job. Still, it’s a bit strange that it killed nobody else, since everybody gets the same food here.’
‘Right. Don’t you think that’s why we are here, Vitali?’ asked the lanky inspector with straw-coloured hair, tapping his colleague’s forehead.
Vitali shrugged and entered Ma-gios’s room. The boy was standing with his back to him, barefoot on the stone floor in his pale green pyjamas. He was feasting his eyes on the disc of the sun dipping into a bed of cumuli.
‘Do you like the view?’ asked Vitali.
Ma-gios turned.
‘I miss my home. Good morning, signor Vitali.’
The inspector glanced round the room and realized Ma-gios really appeared to be a stranger in it. He belonged to nature in his own country.
‘Would you step outside with me?’
‘Sure,’ said the boy. ‘I feel like I’m being squashed by this room, that’s what frightens me, although it’s so familiar.’
‘Familiar? Does it remind you of something?’
‘I’m not sure,’ the boy replied, dropping his head. ‘I don’t know anything.’
Vitali touched the boy’s shoulder gently.
‘I’m sorry that we hardly know any more either, Ma-gios. Well, put something on and let’s go out into the sunshine.’ Vitali encouraged him with a fatherly smile.
Having put on his borrowed, oversize slippers and a women’s pullover, Ma-gios was ready to leave. The inspector looked him up and down with a wry countenance.
‘Well, son, I’ll ask for some decent clothes for you in the centre. It seems nobody here can help you out.’
‘A uniform? That’d be great, signor Vitali, I’ve always wanted to dress up like a policeman.’
Vitali laughed.
‘No, silly, you won’t get a uniform, don’t even dream of it. Now, c’mon!’ he answered and, tucking his jacket under his arm, drove the boy out of the door.
Passing by the neighbouring room, they stopped for a second. The policemen in there taking swabs did not escape Ma-gios’s inquiring eyes. On reaching the lift, he said, ‘Vitali, what’s happened to the lady? Why isn’t she in her room?’
The man sighed and pushed the call button. ‘She’s passed away.’
‘Passed away? But she was feeling quite well just yesterday. I saw her.’
‘She could’ve lived longer,’ replied Vitali. ‘She possibly had food poisoning.’
The boy’s face turned ashen with dread.
‘Food poisoning? But then I’ll die too!’
‘No, not at all. You’d already be dead by now. Relax, son,’ the man answered and patted the boy on the back.
The lift arrived and opened its wings like jaws, with the colour of poison ivy.
‘It’s like there’s a little bird inside.’
‘Where? Inside what, Ma-gios?’
‘Here in the lift. It sings so beautifully. I’m sure the one who made the lift was longing for nature like me.’
‘Oh yes, yes.’ The man stared straight ahead.
They stepped into the roomy lift and Vitali pushed the button for the ground floor. The boy began to hum a tune. Vitali thought that Ma-gios only wanted to conceal his embarrassment, but he was wrong. Although the boy spoke excellent Italian, his thoughts were thousands of miles to the east. His whole being was filled with tales of a faraway land that had birds singing, no lifts, and where reaching mountaintops at the push of a button was impossible.
‘Ma-gios, when you were with the old lady yesterday, did you see anyone there? In her room, or on the corridor?’
‘Her relatives were there.’
‘And anyone else?’
‘No one. But I cried yesterday.’
‘Why?’
‘Dad or Mum should’ve visited me.’
‘But they don’t even know you’re here, and your mother passed away a long time ago, didn’t she?’
‘I know, but even so! I feel so bad here,’ he murmured in a faltering voice. Then he composed himself. ‘But the angels took pity on me and sent me a visitor.’
The lift trilled again. Vitali suddenly looked up and grabbed the boy’s shoulder.
‘Who came to see you?’
‘An old lady dropped by, telling me she’d seen me collapse in the street and was wondering if I was well.’
‘Did you talk to her?’
‘Not much, because she was in a hurry. She was very kind and brought me chocolates.’
‘What else did she say? Tell me everything, precisely.’
‘She said she’d called the ambulance when I’d collapsed and she was wondering whether I was still alive.’
‘And, and?’ The inspector was pressing him impatiently.
‘Nothing special. She gave me the chocolates and warned me not to let the nurses see them because it’s forbidden to eat such things here.’
An ecstatic thrill possessed Vitali, like a foxhound that had just found a fresh drop of blood on the forest moss.
‘Let’s sit down here.’ He pointed to a group of cheap plastic chairs standing empty by the wall. ‘Ma-gios, chocolates aren’t forbidden in the hospital.’
‘Aren’t they? Then why did she tell me that?’
‘So that only you ate them and you wouldn’t offer them to anyone else. Have you eaten them?’
‘No, I haven’t. I don’t like stuff like that. They’re too sticky and weird.’
‘So what did you do, then?’
‘I gave them to the old lady in the other room.’
Vitali stroke such a blow on one of his hands with the other that, on hearing the bang, all the nearby patients, nurses and doctors looked towards them.
‘Damn!’ the inspector shouted and sprang up from his seat. ‘Quick, let’s get back to your room quickly.’
‘But what’s happened?’
‘Don’t you get it, son?’ roared Vitali, his lips shaking with rage. ‘They wanted to poison you, not the old lady!’
Understanding cascaded into Ma-gios’s brain.
‘The chocolates? Were they poisoned?’
‘Sure.’
Like a tractor, Vitali dragged Ma-gios towards the lift.
‘C’mon, tell me all about that old lady. Everything, you hear me?’ He shook the boy. ‘We’re going upstairs to my colleagues. They don’t even suspect we’re working on a common project.’
It was late in the evening by the time the crime scene investigators finished questioning Ma-gios and the police artist had done his sketch. An elegant old lady with regular features, curly hair and wrinkles from years of smiling came to life on the paper. A cleaning woman swore it was her to the life – the lady had almost fallen over her bucket the day before. The only worrying fact was that the lady had been wearing wide-rimmed sunglasses that hid half her face.
‘Ma-gios, c’mon, is this really what she looked like? It’s not a face you’ve seen in a fashion magazine?’
‘No, it’s not,’ the boy replied, hurt. ‘That’s exactly what she looked like.’ He bent down his head. ‘The old lady died because of me. If I hadn’t offered her the chocolates, she would still be alive.’
‘But, son, you’d have died yourself. Really. Why didn’t you eat them, anyway?’
‘I’ve told you, I didn’t feel like eating them,’ he lied. He remembered the thought that had first scared him, then forbade him to eat even one of the chocolates.
Ma-gios was given protection the next morning and the investigation went on. Weeks passed without any result: the lady with sunglasses had evaporated. The boy often sat lonely on the edge of his bed, at other times he sat with Agnese on the concrete terrace on top of the hospital, his feet dangling into space. Of course, patients were forbidden from going up to the roof but they made an exception for Ma-gios – freedom emanated from him. A narrow staircase beside the lift on the top floor led up to the roof. Swallows occupied the sunlit, though secluded, corners and their twittering even rose above the murmur of the air-conditioning system. Lying there on his back, he stared at the sky for hours. Airplanes stretched white threads through the atmosphere, and these were shredded by upper-air winds time and time again. If he climbed up there at night, he saw satellites flashing across the sky. He supposed they were angels and never failed to make a wish.
One glorious afternoon, Agnese went up to see him on the roof. Her dark curls were tied in a ponytail and her white coat was unbuttoned because of the heat. Her belly and bra flashed through the patterned slits on her snow-white polo shirt, transparent stockings covered her thighs as they emerged from her denim skirt.
‘I’ve finished for today,’ she chirped, ‘and thought I’d see how you’re doing.’
She sat down softly beside the enchanted boy and went on, ‘I’ve heard you’re going home soon. Does your granny live in Yilhung too?’
‘Yes,’ Ma-gios replied but could not take his eyes off Agnese’s thighs.
A baby cried out in the car park behind the hospital.
‘Ma-gios, do you know how babies are born? Has anyone explained?’
‘Yes, their mothers bear them.’
‘And how do they get inside their mothers?’
Ma-gios put on a shocked face. ‘Well, a man and a woman unite. Even I know that.’
Agnese laughed.
‘I can see you know the facts inside out, but I was thinking of love. When a man and a woman fall in love with each other, they decide to live together, get married and have children. What do you think about girls, Ma-gios? Are you interested in them?’
‘I think I am, as a matter of fact.’
The nurse cleared her throat.
‘And how about me? Do you like me?’
Ma-gios blushed as he realized that Agnese had deliberately turned the conversation in this direction.
‘I’m s… sorry, Agnese,’ he stuttered, ‘it w… wasn’t why I was l… looking at your thighs. You’re just beautiful.’
‘Oh, you dear boy. Don’t be ashamed. I’m glad the man inside you has stirred.’
She pecked him on the fluff of his beard.
‘Did you like the kiss?’ she asked.
In, his embarrassment, Ma-gios could not utter a word, he could only gape into the distance.
‘Touch me, Ma-gios. You’ve never touched a woman, have you?’
‘I don’t remember if I have.’ He evaded the question.
‘Then touch me.’
At last, the boy glanced at Agnese, then at her thighs.
‘C’mon, boy, go ahead. Don’t just look, touch.’
‘But I can’t, I can’t. I’d be so ashamed of myself.’
Agnese grabbed his wrist and placed his hand on her thigh. His hand was warm and sweaty.
‘Relax, my dear. Your hand shouldn’t be like the pickup of a record player just placed on the LP. Let go.’
‘The what of a record player?’ asked the boy.
Agnese began to laugh with all her heart.
‘Let go of yourself. Well, how does it feel? Feels good?’
Ma-gios stroked the object of his desire, feeling the muscles strain under his palm.
‘Wonderful,’ he answered with a huge gulp in his throat.
The nurse placed another kiss on Ma-gios’s petrified face and stood up.
‘I’m leaving, you dear boy, because I have to come back for a shift tonight. I haven’t slept at all yet.’
‘Bye, Agnese. Then see you tonight.’
‘See you, dear.’
The sunlight flashed on her hair clips and, with graceful footsteps, she skipped towards the corrosion-stained roof door. Watching her swaying hips, Ma-gios experienced something new happening to his body. He was startled by a tingling in his underpants. He fingered his stone-hard penis. So this is how lovers unite. Overjoyed, he walked back to his room, where an envelope tied with a green ribbon was waiting for him. It had been posted in Lhasa. He tore it open madly and, as soon as he saw what was written in it, started to weep. His tears dropped on the letter, scrawled in Italian:
We’re expecting you home with love! Everybody would like to see you and everybody loves you – Grandma and the village.
He was reading the telegram-short lines for the tenth time when a warm hand touched him on the shoulder. It was Vitali.
‘You can go home at last, son. Your birthplace may be important to the investigation, so we’ve been given money for the whole journey. We need to get you back to your relatives too, of course. You can at last return to where lakes are freezing and clear, where the summits reach to the skies, where real birds sing.’
Ma-gios looked at Vitali and began to weep even more.
‘Oh yes, another thing. I’ve brought
you a real police hat.’
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