Damned psychopaths, asthenics, schizophrenics! Then the young man’s face, turned soft with anguish, like mayonnaise coming loose from a jar, aroused his pity. ‘Let’s go back to my sister’s.’ They had been sitting for almost an hour in the car, parked outside the Musocco cemetery and, what with the surroundings and the senseless story Davide had told him in a senseless monologue, he felt the need for a change of scenery. He didn’t have many places to go with this would-be madman: not his apartment in the Via dell’Annunciata, no, the great Engineer Auseri might turn up at any moment, nor could they go back to the villa in the Brianza, maybe to a hotel, but later: for now he preferred to take him to his sister’s. He telephoned her, from a bar, unexpected visitors are never welcome, while Davide drank freely at the counter. Let him drink. ‘I’m coming back with my friend, the one you met before. You’ll have to be patient, you’re going to have to help me, can you get my room ready for him?’ ‘Has something happened?’ ‘No, nothing, just a crisis of imbecility.’ On the way there, he stopped at a pharmacy, bought a little tube of the most basic sleeping pills, and once they got to Lorenza’s apartment he made Davide lie down on the bed and gave him a pill and, like a babysitter with a child, sat there watching him until he fell asleep, which happened almost immediately, because after his confession the neurotic giant was exhausted and fell into what was more a state of collapse than sleep.
