Dark Is the Morning

I.

HARRY

There is a house in Abruzzo, on the steep but fertile slope between the ancient hilltop town of Vasto and the Adriatic Sea. Its walls are charred and blackened, and several of the windows have lost their glass. A sign that says BEWARE OF THE DOG hangs on the metal fence that surrounds the property, but the dog in question has long gone—if indeed there ever was a dog. The lawn has not been cut in years, and one of the huge terra-cotta urns has fallen over. The pool is empty.
To live in that beautiful place, among the olive groves, the acacia trees, and the bursts of pink and dark red oleander, you need to be wealthy. Many of the houses are recent builds, not farmhouses, but villas and haciendas, with wide sun terraces, lawn sprinklers, and electric gates. The peaceful, almost sleepy one-lane roads and the views over the wide blue sweep of the Adriatic give the area an exclusive feel. Hardly anyone passes through, just residents, and the occasional cyclist in bright, tight-fitting Lycra.
Only the other day, I took a left turn off Via Istonia and drove up to the house. I stopped by the front gate and put the car in neutral. It was a pilgrimage of sorts—or perhaps I was trying, once again, to come to terms with what happened back in the early 2000s.
I still find the whole thing hard to believe.

II.

GINO

It had all started so well. I was surprised that Raul had included me in his birthday celebrations, since I had only been working in the department for a few months. Raul was my boss. Eighteen of us gathered on Thursday evening, in his favorite restaurant in Vasto, but then, towards midnight, as the other guests were beginning to take their leave, I ran into Uccello, an acquaintance from my teenage years, and suddenly I found myself in a basement club, drinking rum and Coke and doing lines of God knows what.
I glanced at my watch. Twenty to seven.
As the road curved uphill, through the woods, I shifted into second gear. My heart was leaping in my chest, and my mouth tasted of ash. I must have smoked about a thousand cigarettes. The sky soared overhead, its pale blue dusted with gold, though the sun hadn’t lifted above the mountains yet, and the olive groves and vineyards in the valley were still in shadow. Somehow, it was Friday already. Where had Thursday gone?
I passed the track that led to the six-hundred-year-old oak tree, then I rounded the final bend, and there was Caracciolo, its houses arranged along the spine of a ridge, facades of bare concrete and decaying stone, most of them austere, untended, the church taller than the rest.
Caracciolo, where I had been born and raised. I would die there too, if I wasn’t careful.

When I walked into the kitchen, my father was sitting at the table, dressed in a blue shirt and a gray waistcoat. He liked to help out at the comune, in an administrative role. In his fifties and early sixties, he had served two terms as mayor of the village, and he had kept in touch with things ever since, even though he was past retirement age. Once he stopped work, he would probably spend all his time on the land, growing the fruit and vegetables he was famous for. As I pulled up outside the house, I had known that he would be waiting for me. He was always there when I fell. Not to catch me, though. No, never that.
I thought it was a dinner, he said. His head was lowered, and he was turning his empty coffee cup on its saucer. It was, I said. But then I ran into somebody I used to know, and one thing led to another.
All this running around. It’s making your mother unhappy.
He looked at me, over his shoulder. His eyes were dark brown and soulful, just like mine. It was something that people who knew our family would come out with—You’ve got your father’s eyes—though it was always said with a certain regret, as if they weren’t actually talking about similarities at all, but about differences, the things I hadn’t managed to inherit from my father. His judgment, his patience. His goodness.
You’ll be thirty soon, he said. Perhaps it’s time to think about settling down.
I couldn’t help laughing.
People don’t do that anymore, I said. And anyway, I’m nowhere near thirty.
My father ran a hand over his thinning hair, not quite touching it. What happened to Franca?
Franca?
Marcello’s daughter. You used to like her.
Why are you talking about Franca all of a sudden? I haven’t seen her for years.
She wanted to marry you, didn’t she?
For Christ’s sake, Dad, not you as well. It was bad enough hearing that from all my friends.
My father looked down again, the corners of his mouth twitching. He had this way of smiling that looked painful. I’m just saying. Standing up, he took his cup over to the sink and gave it a quick rinse. I think she’s living in San Salvo now.
He placed the cup in the drying rack, then picked up his keys and walked towards the door, resting a hand on my shoulder for a moment as he passed me.
When he had left the house, I climbed the stairs. Pausing outside my parents’ bedroom, I heard a murmur. That was my mother, Gabriella, saying her rosary. I moved on down the passageway. Once in my room, I closed the shutters against the daylight, then I lay down on my bed.
Franca.
She had appeared in class when I was nine. I don’t know where she had been to school before. Maybe in Gissi, which was where her family were from. Or maybe nowhere. She was a strange, stringy little thing, with a thin face and brown hair that hung past her shoulders. People were cruel to her at the beginning, especially the girls. They called her The Rat. It didn’t seem to bother her too much. She’d probably been called names before. Either that, or she didn’t care what people thought.