The Jaguar tried to brake hard. Step, caught off guard, also braked and sat there, motionless, in the middle of the intersection. The motorcycle coughed and died. Babi held on to him tight. The car’s powerful headlights were reflected in her frightened eyes as it hurtled toward them.
The snout of the big, wild cat rebelled against the crude application of the brakes, and the car fishtailed. Babi shut her eyes. She heard the roar of the engine being reined in, the ABS perfectly controlling the wheels, the rubber tortured by the brakes. Then nothing.
She opened her eyes. The Jaguar was there, just inches from the motorcycle, motionless. Babi heaved a sigh of relief and released Step’s jacket from her terrified grip.
With an impassive face, Step gazed at the car’s driver. “Where do you think you’re racing to, asshole!” Then he started the motorcycle back up.
The guy, a man about thirty-five with a perfectly groomed head of hair, thick and tightly curled, lowered his electric car window, displaying his angry face. “Excuse me? What did you just say to me, kid?”
Step turned off the motorcycle. He smiled as he got off. He knew this type of guy. He must have a woman sitting beside him and didn’t want to come off looking like a fool. Step walked over to the car. Sure enough. Through the glass, he saw a pair of feminine legs next to the man. A pair of shapely hands crossed on an elegant black evening bag and a fancy evening gown. He tried to glimpse the woman’s face, but a streetlight reflecting on the glass concealed her. Kid. He called me kid. Wait until you see what this kid does to you.
Step opened the guy’s car door very politely. “Come on out, asshole. Maybe you’ll be able to hear me better.”
The man started to get out. Step grabbed him by the jacket and dragged him hurtling out of the car. He slammed him down on the Jaguar’s head. The short antenna of his telephone vibrated. Step cocked his fist back, poised in midair, ready to slam down.
“Step, no!” It was Babi. Step turned to look at her. For a second, he’d completely forgotten about her. He saw her standing next to the motorcycle, her gaze filled with concern, her arms hanging helplessly at her sides. “Don’t do it!”
Step released his grip, and the guy took advantage immediately. Free now and a coward at heart, he punched Step in the face. Step’s head rocked back. But only for a moment. Surprised, he raised his hand to his mouth. His lip was bleeding. “You filthy son of a…” Step lunged at him.
The guy threw his hands up and dropped his head, trying to flee in fright. Even he didn’t know why he’d dared to hit Step. Step grabbed him by his curly hair, yanked his head down, ready to slam his knee into the guy’s face, when suddenly he was hit again. Differently, this time harder, a blow that went straight to his heart. A short, sharp jab. A mere word. His own name.
“Stefano…”
The woman had stepped out of the car. Her handbag was sitting on the hood, and she was nearby. Step looked at her. Then he looked at her bag but didn’t recognize it. He wondered who’d given it to her. What a strange thought.
Slowly he opened his fist. The lucky curly-haired guy was suddenly free. Step stood gazing at her in silence. She was as pretty as ever. A faint “Ciao” issued from his lips.
The guy pushed him aside. Step moved back, letting himself be pushed.
The guy got back into the Jaguar and started the engine. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Step and the woman stared at each other for one last instant. Between those two similar pairs of eyes, a strange magic unfolded, a long history of love and sadness, suffering and the past. Then she got back into the car, beautiful and elegant, and as quickly as she had appeared, she left him there on the street, with his lip bleeding and his heart in pieces.
Babi ventured closer to him. Worried about the only wound she could see with her eyes, she delicately dabbed at the blood with her hand.
Step recoiled from that kind touch, so filled with a new burst of love. He mounted his motorcycle in silence and waited until she was seated behind him before he took off, in anger. He shot forward. The motorcycle tried to resist at first but soon, docile and submissive, it veered to the right, turning onto the Lungotevere. Step upshifted. Then he twisted the throttle, and the motorcycle shot out onto the road, the rpms climbing steadily.
Without thinking, Step started racing. He left old memories behind him, accelerating to outrun them. Eighty kilometers per hour, ninety. Faster and faster. The chilly air pricked at his face, and that new source of suffering seemed to provide some relief. Ninety-five, a hundred. Faster and faster still.
With his turn indicator blinking, he went racing between two cars side by side. He almost brushed against them as his half-open eyes looked elsewhere. Happy images of that woman filled his tangled mind.
A hundred five, a hundred ten, a gentle rise and the motorcycle practically flew through an intersection. A stoplight that had just turned red. The cars on the left honked their horns, stopping short just after starting up at their green. Obeying the dictates of that arrogant, bullying motorcycle, as fast and dangerous as a navy-blue chrome-plated bullet.
A hundred ten, a hundred twenty-five. The wind was whistling. The road, its sides blurry now, merged at the center. Another intersection. A distant stoplight. The green vanished. The yellow appeared. Step pressed his thumb down on the small button on the right, marked in English as the HORN. The horn sounded its voice in the night like the scream of a wounded wild animal, galloping to its death. Step shouted into the darkness, like an ambulance siren, piercing as the shout of the wounded man it was carrying. His scream came out loud and deep, a suffering mirror of what he was feeling.
Closer and closer now. The traffic light changed again. Red light.
Babi started pounding her fists against his back. “Stop, stop.”
At the intersection, the cars started up. A wall of metal, dozens of colorful, expensive bricks, was suddenly erected, loud, in their path. It drew closer and closer, dangerous and insurmountable.
“Stop!” That last scream, that cry for life. Step suddenly seemed to snap out of it. The throttle, suddenly released, quickly dropped to zero. The engine downshifted under his domineering foot.
Fourth gear, third, second. His left hand clenched down hard on the steel brake handle, practically bending it. The motorcycle shook as it braked to a halt, as the RPMs dropped dizzyingly, in a rivalry with the speedometer to drop to zero. The tires left two deep, straight stripes on the asphalt. The smell of burning rubber swirled around the smoking pistons. Motionless.
The cars went rolling past just inches from the motorcycle’s front wheel, just beyond the white stripe, the limit line. None of the drivers had noticed a thing.
Only then did Step remember Babi. He turned around. She’d dismounted. He saw her there, leaning against a wall at the side of the road.
He put the bike on the kickstand and got off, crossing the street to join her. Fragile cries were emerging from her chest, unrestrained like the tiny tears that streaked her pale face. Step didn’t know what to do now. Standing there, facing her with his arms spread, fearful even of touching her, afraid of the idea that those faint nervous hiccups might be transformed by his mere touch into an unstoppable wave of sobbing.
Nevertheless, he dared to touch her. But her reaction was unexpected. Babi pushed his hand away forcefully, and her words came pouring out in something approaching a shout, broken by her cries.