A Little Lumpen Novelita Read Online Free PDF Page A

looked superficial and egotistical, like someone who only cared about herself.)
    “What actress would you be?”
    Maria Grazia Cucinotta.
    “Do you know anyone who would risk his life for you?”
    No, I don’t. And if I did, I’d do everything I could to change his mind. I’d tell him it wasn’t worth risking his life for me. I’d reveal my true self and then he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me.
    “If you were a bird, what kind of bird would you be?”
    An owl.
    “If you were a mammal, what kind of mammal would you be?”
    A mole. Or a rat. In fact, I already live like a rat.
    “If you were a fish, what kind of fish would you be?”
    The kind that’s used as bait. Once, when I was little, I saw a fisherman on Lake Albano, near Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope lives. He was fishing with a giant fishing rod and next to him he had a bucket and a little box. In the bucket were the fish he had just caught, three, I think, horrible, half dead, sandy black, and in the little box were the fish that the fisherman used as bait. They were tiny fish, translucent and silvery. When I asked the fisherman if he had caught all of them, he answered that he hadn’t, that some of them, the big ones, were the parents, and the little ones were the children. And that he had caught the big ones, and bought the little ones at a fishmonger’s in Frascati. And that they weren’t good to eat, they were only good as bait.
    “What kind of geological feature would you be?”
    A deep-sea trench.
    “If you were a car, what kind of car would you be?”
    A Fiat of flesh. (Not a good answer. What I’d really like to be is a vintage car, a Lamborghini. And I’d only leave the garage two or three times a year. I’d also like to be a Los Angeles taxi, the seats stained with semen and blood. Actually, I don’t know how to drive and I couldn’t care less about cars.)
    “If you were a movie, what movie would you be?”
    I’d be
War and Peace,
with Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. I saw it a while ago on TV. And a strange thing happened: my brother and the Bolognan fell asleep. But the Libyan made it to the end and he said that he thought it was an amazing movie. I think so too, I said. Yes, I could tell, he said.
    “If you had to kill someone, who would you kill?”
    Whoever. I’d go over to the window and kill whoever.
    “If you were a country, what country would you be?”
    Algeria.
    “Would you call yourself attractive?”
    Yes.
    “Would you call yourself intelligent?”
    No.
    “If you had to kill someone, what weapon would you choose?”
    A gun. I had a friend at school who said she’d like to blow up her boyfriend with an atomic bomb. I remember I thought that was really funny, because it wouldn’t be just my friend’s boyfriend who’d die, I would die too, and so would everyone in and around Rome, maybe even the fishermen of Frascati.
    “How many children would you like to have?”
    Zero.

VII

 
    Saturdays and Sundays were the worst, because the four of us were home together and we had nothing to do. The rest of the week my brother and his friends went out to look for work (or so they said when I got home), but they never found anything, not even seasonal work, or the occasional odd job that might bring in a little money to help us get by.
    At night, when I went to my room (they stayed up all hours watching TV), I thought about my parents, the accident, the winding southern highways, and everything seemed so far away that it made me weep with rage.
    When that happened I jumped up, went back to the living room, motioned to one of my brother’s friends (not caring whether my brother saw) and led him to my room, where we made love until I fell asleep and I could dream about other things, at least.
    I didn’t like my life. The nights were still crystal clear, but I had become less of an orphan and I was moving into an even more precarious realm where I would soon lead a life of crime.
    What kind of crime? It didn’t