The Crossroads by Niccolò Ammaniti

and started reading. With all those ruts in the road he felt sick. He made an effort to get to the end. ‘… like the ancient Romans where there’ll be jobs for everyone and there won’t be any communists who’ve destroyed the idea of the family, they don’t believe in God and they’ve accepted abortion which is murder of the innocents and they want to give the vote to the im migrants. The end.’ He looked up. ‘Well, did you like it?’
    Quattro Formaggi honked the horn enthusiastically.
    Danilo was in raptures. ‘Fantastic! Incredible! Especially the bit where you say we need a new Hitler to build concentration camps for the Slavs and Arabs. Those bastards steal our jobs. Top marks!’
    Cristiano turned towards his father. ‘What about you? Did you like it?’
    Rino took a draw on his cigarette and didn’t reply.
    What’s the matter with him now?
    Half an hour earlier he had been capering about like a lunatic and now he was scowling.
    Danilo patted Cristiano on the thigh. ‘Of course he did. It’s a brilliant essay. Nobody could help liking it. It’s impossible.’

33
    Rino Zena put his feet down on the floor and looked at Cristiano, then stubbed out his Diana Rossa in the overflowing ashtray. His migraine had risen like an acidic tide and swamped his brain. It was that shit Danilo had given him to drink.
    He glared at his son. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
    Cristiano looked at Danilo in bewilderment. ‘Why?’
    â€˜Did you hand that stuff in?’
    Cristiano shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. I’m not daft.’
    â€˜Bollocks. You handed it in. I know you too well. You’re so full of yourself you thought you’d written a masterpiece. You can’t understand, with that pea-sized brain of yours, what a fucking stupid thing you’ve done. Do you realize you’re going to regret this day for the rest of your life?’
    Cristiano’s voice cracked: ‘I didn’t hand it in, I said! Are you deaf? I wrote it, then I put it in my pocket. End of story! Here it is.’
    Breathe. Calm down. Maybe he’s telling the truth. ‘Did you show it to anyone?’ he asked him, suppressing the urge to grab him by the hair and bang his head on the dashboard.
    Cristiano gave him a hate-filled glare. ‘No, I didn’t.’
    â€˜You must have read it to your classmates. It’s only natural.’
    â€˜I swear to God I didn’t, for fuck’s sake!’
    Rino pointed his finger at him. ‘Don’t you dare use God’s name to cover up your lies, Cristiano. Don’t use His name. Or I’ll kill you.’
34
    He hated him when he was like this.
    He didn’t believe him. And he never would. Not even if the teacher materialised in front of him and told him Cristiano hadn’t handed in the essay. Not even if God, the Madonna and all the saints came down from heaven. He would think they were all in it together. All conspiring against him.
    What sort of father have I got?
    Anyone with any guts had told him to his face that Rino was a fool, and Cristiano had flown at them like a wildcat. He had taken a lot of beatings in the course of his life defending a stupid dickhead. But they were right, a thousand times right. Cristiano felt a piercing pain below his breastbone. ‘I haven’t shown it to anyone.’
    Rino shook his head and gave that infuriating little smirk of his. ‘Come on, admit it. You did it without thinking, you didn’t realise what you were doing, you were just showing off to your mates … “I’m a Nazi, I’m this, I’m that.” Where’s the harm in that? Come on, admit it. What’s the problem?’
    Cristiano couldn’t take any more. ‘No,’ he shouted, ‘I didn’t do that! Fuck off! You’re not going to get me to confess to things I didn’t do. Anyway, I haven’t got any