Chapter 1

On that occasion, Lila and I decided to climb the shady staircase, and we walked up, step by step, floor by floor until we reached the door of Don Achille's house, and that was the day we started our friendship with each other.

I remember that there was a kind of purple light in the yard and the air was filled with the scent of a spring evening. The mothers were cooking dinner and it was time to go home for dinner. Instead of going home right away, we were battling each other. Although Leila and I never spoke, we were competing to see who had the guts.

This competition had been going on for some time now, both in and out of school, and we were always competing. Leila stuck her hand and even her whole arm into the pitch-black hole of the sewer; I put my hand in right away, too, but my heart was pounding, and I hoped the cockroaches wouldn't crawl up my arm and that the rats wouldn't bite me. Leila climbed up to the window of Mrs. Spagnuolo's house, which was on the first floor, and hung from the bars of the window, where the clothesline was tied. She hung there, swayed her body, and then jumped violently onto the sidewalk. I immediately did the same, but I was terrified of falling and hitting myself. Leila stuck a rusty French brooch into her skin, which she had picked up on the road and which she had been carrying in her pocket, saying it was a gift from a fairy. I watched as the white metal tip left a white gash in her palm she handed me the brooch and I did the same as she did.

At this point, she gave me a look that was characteristic of her, her eyes narrowed and determined, and then looked at the building where Don Achille lived. I was stunned, because Don Achille was a fairy-tale monster, and I could never go near him, look at him, talk to him, or spy on him. I have to pretend that he and his family don't exist. Not only in my family, but everyone had an emotion of hate and fear for him, and I don't know where this emotion came from. The way my father talked about Don Achille made me imagine him as a tall, fleshy, very irritable man, even though he was called "Don," which to me is a very calm and serene authority figure. I imagine him to be made of some indescribable materials: iron, glass, and nettles. But he was a living person, with a hot breath coming from his nose and mouth. I felt that even the sight of him from afar would sting my eyes. If I had dared to come near his door, he would have killed me.

I hesitated for a moment to see if Leila would change her mind and back off. I knew what she was trying to do, and I vainly hoped she would forget the incident, but she didn't. The streetlights were still on, the lights in the hallway were dim, and unsettling sounds were coming from the house. To follow Leila's footsteps, I had to leave the light of the faint blue sky in the yard and enter the dark gate. I finally decided to follow her inside. At first, I couldn't see anything but old objects and the smell of DDT pesticide. My eyes finally adjusted to the darkness and I noticed that Leila was sitting on the first step of the first flight of stairs. That's when she stood up and we started to climb up.

We walked against the wall, her two steps in front of me and me following behind. I felt conflicted, not knowing whether I should catch up and close the distance between us or pull away. We walked with our shoulders against the wall where the plaster was peeling off, and at this point, I had a feeling that those steps were very high, higher than the stairs in our building. I was shivering. The sound of footsteps, any kind of sound, was the sound of Don Achille appearing behind us, or coming up to us, carrying a long knife, like the kind that guts chickens, and the smell of garlic fried in oil filling the hallway, and Don Achille's wife Maria would throw me into the hot frying pan, and some kids would eat me, and Don Achille would suck my brains out and swallow them like my father ate fish heads like that.

Now and then we'd stop, and every time I'd wish Leila would back off. I was covered in sweat, and I didn't know how she felt. Now and then she looks up high, but I don't know what she's looking at, and overhead is the big gray window of the stairwell. That's when the light suddenly came on, but it was faint, the light was dusty, and there were a lot of scary corners submerged in darkness. We paused for a moment, trying to figure out if it was Don Achille who had turned on the light, yet we heard nothing, no footsteps, no sound of doors opening or closing. Leila continued to walk forward, and I followed behind.

She felt like she was doing something that needed to be done, and I forgot the reason I was there. The only certain thing is this: I was there because she was there. We slowly walked toward the people we were most afraid of all those years ago, and we went about exploring and interrogating our fears.

When we reached the fourth flight of stairs, Leila surprised me: she stopped and waited for me for a moment. I caught up with her and she offered me her hand, a gesture that changed our relationship forever.