Il rumore di fondo. Manuale di sopravvivenza per scrittori di talento in un mercato che preferisce l'aperitivo

...e per  oggi intendo gli ultimi trent'anni.

Sì perché, prima di allora, essere scrittori era un titolo di merito e si guadagnava il rispetto perpetuo. I commenti della gente erano sempre benevoli:

sai, quello ha pubblicato un libro e adesso guadagna un mucchio di soldi;

è stato quattro anni in Tibet e racconta il suo vissuto;

avrei voluto sentirlo alla presentazione ma il palazzetto dello sport era pieno, quella sera.

E prima ancora, quando scrivere voleva dire cestini pieni di carta appallottolata, macchine Olivetti prese usate dal catasto, lunghe ricerche in umide biblioteche, correzioni di bozze a matita rossa, copie carbone, il lavoro di mesi affidato alla copisteria di quartiere e pile di buste da affrancare e spedire ovunque. 

Ma se pubblicavi era fatta. Iscritto nell'albo dei vincitori, scolpito nelle lapidi del tuo paesello, invitato alle feste patronali, consultato a ogni occasione da giornalisti a caccia di opinioni su qualunque argomento. Diventavi il Renzo Arbore della letteratura, praticamente.

Poi è arrivata l'autopubblicazione, l'offerta di titoli in commercio si è centuplicata e le case editrici, per non essere da meno, incrementano il loro catalogo (qualche volta tappandosi il naso, evidentemente) e si sviluppano corsi di marketing - strateghi, strategie e video blog per aiutare lo scrittore senza ispirazione né talento, spinto solo dalla voglia di rivendicare il suo ruolo nella rivoluzione e pronto a tutto - specialmente a fottere i colleghi.

Avete capito bene. L'autore rampante, consapevole della sua inattitudine alla scrittura, tenta (e molto spesso riesce) di levare visibilità a chi scrive con talento e convinzione. Book Party (un aperitivo in cambio di un download), recensioni comprate a pacchetti di 50-100-150, giornalisti compiacenti, numerosi amici (evidentemente soddisfatti dell'aperitivo) che fanno quadrato con un muro di commenti favorevoli e condivisioni, firmacopie e presentazioni a nastro. Amici volenterosi disposti a stroncare le opere degli altri.

E dalla malattia scaturiscono gli anticorpi.

Dapprima qualcuno storce il naso, si chiede se questo fenomeno della proliferazione di scrittori non sia qualcosa di deleterio, poi arriva una vera e propria diffidenza malcelata, fino all'odio e alla dura presa di posizione:

non leggerò mai un autore che non sia stato ricevuto al late show o che non abbia vinto un premio nazionale.

Falso. I premi, con l'andare delle cose, non servono a nulla.

Lo dico perché ne ho vinti cinque ma le obiezioni sono state:

E vabbè, c'eri solo tu.

E l'interfaccia di Terminator, quella a sfondo rosso sulla quale il processore dell'androide suggeriva le possibili soluzioni, propone un ventaglio di risposte o atteggiamenti da assumere:

1- C'erano 200 candidati.

2- C'erano 200 candidati, coglione!

3- La giuria era autorevole, gente nell'editoria da lustri, critici, giornalisti.

4 -Terminare l'interlocutore.

oppure.

Allora vinci lo Strega, se pensi di essere bravo.

Quindi adesso arriva il film?

Interfaccia di Terminator:

1- Per partecipare allo Strega devi avere dietro un editore importante.

2- Televisioni e piattaforme si muovono solo su proposte degli editori con contatti in quel mondo e sono meno di quello che pensi.

3 - Terminare l'interlocutore.

La diffidenza è legittima. L'odio è incomprensibile.

Qualcuno che si ritiene intelligente e generalizza come un qualunque idiota. 

Leggi di autentiche crociate, portate avanti da gente infastidita da troppa mediocrità sul mercato (hanno ragione ma è una evidenza statistica che aumentando i candidati, crescono anche le probabilità di trovare un campione)

È capitato con la responsabile di un blog importante, l'odiatrice di tutte le odiatrici. Prima invoca una legge per bloccare piccoli editori e autopubblicazione, poi si lamenta di avere la vita rovinata e che non leggerà mai nulla che non sia uscito dalla tipografia di un grande gruppo multinazionale e favorevolmente recensito dalla stampa mainstream. Inutile argomentare.

"Odio quelli come voi!"

"Ne hai ben donde ma...tutti?"

" Nessuno escluso"

"Bè, potresti leggermi un capitolo, tanto per ricrederti"

"Odio quelli come voi!"

L'interfaccia a sfondo rosso frigge come una tv col cavo dell'antenna rosicchiato:

1 - Ci sono molteplici variabili che talvolta hanno influsso negativo sulla carriera di un autore.

2 - Qualche volta è l'ambiente. Sai, la nicchia di Milano non è esattamente come quella di Femminamorta in provincia di Pistoia.

3 - C'è un rumore di fondo che rende invisibili gli autori di qualità, offuscati, quantomeno. Cioè, devono gridare fino a sputare le tonsille!

4- Terminare l'interlocutore 

E percepisci che il lancio del tuo nuovo romanzo sui social suona come un insulto. (i social sono da evitare. Troppi haters a piede libero)

Aspetti la bella stagione e le occasioni per presentare e stare a contatto con il pubblico. Quelle cose, nutrono.

E qualche volta vince quel pessimismo che striscia come i serpenti di Indiana Jones.

L'interfaccia a sfondo rosso elabora la domanda. Ventilatore in tilt. Qualche secondo di attesa.

1 — Era meglio quando si stava peggio. 

2 — Si spera in un futuro migliore. 

3 — La naturale compensazione delle cose esiste ed riporterà tutto in equilibrio. 

4 — Terminare l'interlocutore.

Selezionata opzione 4. 

Benvenuti nel mio Blog Ufficiale – Welcome to my Official Blog

Benvenuti nella mia casa digitale. 

Questo spazio è dedicato ai miei racconti, alle riflessioni sulla letteratura noir e di genere, e a tutto ciò che ruota attorno al mio percorso di scrittore. Se amate le atmosfere fumose, i misteri psicologici e le storie ambientate tra le ombre di Torino (e non solo), siete nel posto giusto. Qui troverete estratti dei miei libri, racconti inediti e aggiornamenti sulle mie pubblicazioni. Potete trovare i miei romanzi disponibili su Amazon e nelle migliori librerie. 

 Grazie per la visita e buona lettura! 

Welcome to my digital home. 

This space is dedicated to my short stories, reflections on noir and genre literature, and everything related to my journey as an author. If you love smoky atmospheres, psychological mysteries, and stories set in the shadows of Turin (and beyond), you are in the right place. Here you will find excerpts from my books, unpublished short stories, and updates on my latest releases. You can find my novels available on Amazon and in major bookstores. 

 Thank you for visiting and enjoy the journey!

Una questione di principio - A matter of principle

A group of unusual visitors has arrived in Bardonecchia. They are the full cast and crew of an adult film production — actors and technicians who have rented a large villa and locked themselves inside. Lieutenant Elettra Keita, who has commanded the local Carabinieri station for only a few months, discovers that a massacre has taken place inside the villa. All fifteen occupants are dead, each killed by the same weapon, fired by the same hand. No witnesses. No gun. Forensic units, investigative specialists, the medical examiner, and the Susa Command are all mobilized — but Elettra investigates her own way, trusting her instincts over procedure and her judgment over the chain of command. She doesn't play by the rules. For her, it's a matter of principle.

My name is Elettra, and I'm about to surprise you.

I'm telling this story in the first person, and I can promise you — a lot happened. So if I forget a detail here and there along the way, you'll forgive me.

It's a general strike. The kind nobody has seen in years. Marches, rallies, squares packed so tight that even the television networks had no choice but to cover it. The feeling in the air is that people have simply had enough.

Almost everything has ground to a halt — including the trains, obviously — and the chaos is so complete that you could board a high-speed train in Rome and end up in a parallel dimension, where time and space work differently from anything you've ever known.

Piero — back from a trip to the capital to promote his latest novel, which, God help me, is apparently being turned into a film — has begged me to come down to Turin, scrape what's left of him off the platform at Porta Susa station, drive him back to Bardonecchia and his grandmother's house, chain him under the shower, and check back in a couple of hours to make sure he's still breathing.

You know that feeling when the arrivals board updates to tell you the train from Rome is running another hour late? You know that when the total delay climbs past two hours, any reasonable person would be justified in firing a shot in the air and calling for the Red Cross, the fire brigade, or divine intervention?

Piero, apparently, is stuck somewhere near Rondissone — a name that means nothing to you, but which, he says, inspires the kind of rage that makes you want to hit something. If they'd only let him off the train, he could find a taxi and finish the journey himself. But he's sealed in there with a carriage full of other stranded lives, the windows hermetic, the doors locked shut.

The story began last weekend — a Sunday that was frantic, loud, overloaded, and more intense than anything Bardonecchia had seen in years. I'd only been in command of the local Carabinieri station for five months. Up to that point, I'd handled a couple of road accidents, the theft of a tractor — later claimed by the self-styled Friends of Borgo Tre Case Liberation Front — one or two late-night brawls, a petty thief who fancied himself Arsène Lupin but managed to sever his own finger trying to break through the back door of a shop, a failed apartment burglary foiled by the neighbour's dogs, and a false alarm domestic disturbance that turned out to be a group of football fans screaming at the television.

We had also arrested half a dozen drunk Englishmen who had smashed a shop window with rocks, vomited in the corridor of the Carabinieri station, and then paid double the cost of the damage to avoid being formally charged. Small things, all of them. Nuisances, light-years away from the cases that still visit my dreams — uninvited — in the middle of the night.

As for illegal immigration and drug trafficking through the Fréjus Tunnel, the French Gendarmerie and the State Police had that covered.

Every platform has its cast: someone shouting about a corrupt government, someone else resigned to waiting, someone pacing back and forth along the yellow tactile strip meant for the visually impaired, checking the time on their phone every thirty seconds. A girl has memorised the entire vending machine menu and is turning a coin over in her fingers — then thinks better of it and walks away. At platform seven, a boy with a guitar has just snapped a string hammering out the riff to Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash.

The smell of the brakes is exactly as I remember it.

I was going to say there were no Boy Scouts — but there they are, patient as ever, clustered around a mountain of backpacks stacked against a pillar under the canopy of platform three, wearing the inevitable short trousers.

One thing I've always loved about big railway stations: you can be as strange, eccentric, or outrageous as a drag queen at a parish charity fundraiser, and nobody will look twice.

Not wanting to be late, I'd jumped in the car in full uniform after issuing a rapid-fire series of orders to Valeria Ridolfi — a Marshal in her first year of service, a novice, with kind eyes, a pleasant face, an impressive figure barely contained by her uniform, and the expression of someone terrified of reaching the end of the day without having done anything right.

Nobody here gives me a second glance. The only interesting thing that could happen is the arrival of a train. Even the student sitting next to me on the bench — dishevelled, with a questionable relationship with deodorant — doesn't bother to look up. In my rush, I forgot to bring a book. But I have plenty to think about. Starting from the very beginning of this story.

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Prova a prendermi - Try to catch me

"No. This is a whole different story," she says. At first, the tear rolling down to her chin is ambiguous — but the doubt doesn't last long. "Hold me!" The embrace is so tight that something creaks. It's always like this at the end of a story, because it makes sense: everything must come to a close. And the story of Wosh, of the kidnapped girls, and of lovers with too much trouble between them, will end that night. How, we shall find out.

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"Shall we put one more record on the turntable? The last one, I promise! We've stayed up late, but I can feel good vibrations in the air — as though our listeners don't want to go to sleep just yet. There's something magical tonight, don't you think? The smell that announces snowfall is always the same, the one we learned to love as children, and yet every time, believe me, it's as though it were the first. And when it happens, everyone has their own rituals. Some wait for the first flakes outside in the street, to feel them settle on their face. Some fix their gaze on the nearest lamp post, waiting for the cone of light to turn into one of those glass snow globes you shake whenever you want to repeat the miracle. Others simply go down to the courtyard to lift the windscreen wipers. Me? I put on my pyjamas with the little cartoon figures and fall asleep with the idea that tomorrow I'll go for a long walk. And what better way to ease yourself into a good night's sleep than a famous track from a few years back — guitar strings pulled taut, reverb, and that wonderfully vintage atmosphere? Beautiful, isn't it? I'm Lady J., the airwaves are those of Radio Bardo, and she is Nancy Sinatra. Bang Bang."

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Un colpo solo - One shot

A provincial town, too small to be entertaining, large enough to allow a serial killer to strike and vanish without a trace. Three murders at the onset of autumn, always carried out under cover of darkness and always following the same, cold-blooded method: a single gunshot to the heart. The new Commissioner, a young woman fighting to earn the respect of her superiors and colleagues. The senator, a cunning, selfish, and unfaithful man, often away from home due to the important positions he holds. The crime boss, who bribes officials and invests in the construction of a bypass road where none should exist. The crime boss's spokesperson, a young and attractive man who turns up at the least predictable times and places. The bodyguards, the prosecutor with no leads, the frightened people, and the city closing in on itself. The unsolved murder of a young prostitute, committed a few years earlier, coming to light just days after the new Commissioner takes office. Few clues and not a single piece of evidence. No one has the faintest idea who the killer might be — someone who could be hiding anywhere...

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The sleeve caught on the thorns.

They cut into the skin of her arm and held a blue strip of fabric.

It was a dense bush, grown beside a road sign warning drivers to slow down for animals.

The stylized deer appeared swallowed by the leaves. The plate below, bent by some vandal's show of force, indicated that the hazard would continue for at least a kilometer.

Blood soaked the intact part of the sleeve, trickled down to the leather strap of the small watch, and fell in wide warm drops onto the uncertain edge of the roadside.

One direction led deep into the woods, the other would have seen the vegetation gradually thin out, giving way to the houses that preceded the town proper. Miriana stood there, surrounded by the smell of damp earth and trampled grass. Indecision eroded her small advantage like a storm over sand.

To get away from the damned bastard who had beaten her with the butt of his pistol, she had run, cutting like the wind through the uncertainties of a forgotten wood: a succession of trees fallen to the ground, branches tangled like barbed wire, and treacherous ditches camouflaged by dead leaves. She had leaped over the stream while a stabbing pain in her chest spread down to her bare legs. She had risked her heart bursting, and now her shoes — so flat and flimsy they would have struggled on a poorly maintained pavement — were torturing her wounded feet.

Her socks alternated mud stains with purplish blotches, and the laces had collected the sticky little burrs that cling like hedgehogs.

The short socks, together with the brief skirt now reduced to a rag, had allowed grass, thorns, and nettles to reduce her bare legs to a lunar landscape. The tendril of a weed had wound itself into the dark, unkempt tangle of her dishevelled hair.

She looked left.

The road seemed to narrow where the tall grass met the asphalt. The summer-heavy branches bent until they reached their twins on the opposite side. The late afternoon sun filtered through the boughs in a thousand blinding blades of light. To the right, a mirror image of that same view, with a slight rise breaking the monotony a few hundred metres ahead.

Right.

The hard surface of the asphalt accepted no negotiations. Every step was an ordeal.

Miriana listened to the sounds behind her. She could hear water flowing and birds singing. She could hear the sound of the wind harmonising with millions of leaves, and the distant croaking of a frog.

Right.

She heard footsteps — heavy and deliberate — and the birds fell silent.

She moved to the centre of the road and asked her exhausted body for more. Her breath, reduced to a thread, began to wheeze like the brakes of a car at the bottom of a hill. A sickly warmth took hold of her neck.

She looked back and saw the road sign from behind, beside the sharp branch that had kept the scrap of fabric and a little of her skin.

She tried to run but the adrenaline was no match for the pain. Her feet felt as though they had been through a press; her knees creaked like an old boat on the open sea. The rise, distorted by a play of light, shadow, and heat, gave the impression of having moved further away.

The stretches of asphalt where the sun had managed to break through burned like hell beneath her thin soles, and a thirst of a thousand years and a thousand miles added itself to the foul taste in her mouth. Miriana did not know it, but a thick white foam had clotted at the corners of her mouth, making her look even more wretched. The bruise beneath her now-swollen eye had filled with a yellowish fluid and forced her mouth into a grotesque grimace.

When she realised that the rolling blur of light and reflections was a car, she threw her mouth open in a cry and found the strength to wave her arms.

She planted herself in the centre of the road and prayed to God that whoever was driving might help her. The car swerved and bounced, preceded by a shriek of tyres and metal, grazed her with its wing mirror inside a foul-smelling rush of air, and disappeared accelerating beyond the road sign. She watched it regain its line and dissolve into the shadow.

Left.

The footsteps following her struck the edge of the road without hesitation.

Six full minutes passed, and who knows how many cars.

Her heart struggled not to abandon her; her blood completed its circuit at least ten times. Fear crept under her skin, corroded her nerves, confused her senses. She saw a windscreen explode with reflected light, wheels lock up before her only to pull away the moment her face — ravaged by violence and exhaustion — came into focus. There were imperious swerves, engine roars, the smell of burning clutch. Sneering grilles bearing down on her, forcing her to jump aside.

She could feel her killer's eyes on her.

A few metres before the rise — deemed impossible to clear — she chose the woods.

After all, the woods had protected her, and she was certain they would do so again.

Before stepping in she caught her breath, leaning against the concrete pole of an old power line. She breathed, rubbed her hands over her face, and freed herself of the watch that was now torturing her swollen, bleeding, wounded wrist. She unclasped it and it fell on the edge of the asphalt together with the small gold case.

It broke the moment it touched the ground.

Invisibile - Invisible - The cases of Elettra Keita

It is all true. For years, every seven years, a young woman in Bardonecchia vanishes without a trace. The predator has finally emerged, and he is more dangerous than ever. Elettra and her partner, Piero, find themselves lost in a maze of confusion, where anger often threatens to cloud their judgment. As autumn settles over the mountains, the investigation reaches a chilling deadlock. "Know your enemy," says the ancient Eastern wisdom. Within these pages, you will witness the genesis of a monster—but only by paying the closest attention will you discover his one fatal weakness.

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La regola del sette - The rule of seven - The cases of Elettra Keita

Elettra Keita is a Lieutenant in the Carabinieri. To the world, she is simply on vacation in the alpine resort of Bardonecchia, but in reality, she is conducting an undercover investigation. No one suspects a thing, yet in certain esoteric circles, a dark rumor persists: since 1986, every seven years, a young girl—often just passing through—vanishes without a trace. Accustomed to the high-stakes world of counter-terrorism and drug trafficking, Elettra starts by simply observing. The evidence for these crimes is thin, and her superiors view the mission as a mere formality—a "working holiday" to recover from the dangers of her previous assignments and a tactical move to silence local gossip. But in the shadows of the mountains, the truth may be far more sinister than anyone imagined.

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To write you need to be physically fit, with strong legs and a sturdy heart. You need to sleep well and eat properly. There's no point hammering at the keyboard like a blacksmith and forcing yourself through eight hours of work, and it's equally pointless to skip breaks or start a new chapter when what you really should be doing is taking a walk through the pine forest. Smoking or drinking is ruinous — never mind that Bukowski or Hemingway always kept a good bottle on their desk; they belonged to a different category entirely.

To succeed you need a strong opening, a good story that holds together, and a touch of cruelty. Clear away the distractions, the irritating noises, and the people who can't keep quiet. The television will be switched off without exception, and the place, above all, must be the right one.

Piero is sitting in the half-light of a room that smells of stale air, furnished with pieces from the eighties and covered in photographs and memories. A 2001 calendar, nailed beside the key hook, is frozen on the month of September. Seated in a swivel chair that creaks when it turns right, he rests his bare feet on the carpet, and the thin light filtering through the half-closed shutters makes the keys of the keyboard just legible. A bottle of water with a little lemon is all he needs to feel content, and at the foot of the desk sits an Invicta backpack in a serious shade of military green, packed with care. From the main pocket protrudes the paper-wrapped tube holding the last seven Ringo Ferrero biscuits, which must last the entire day.

Two chapters, four pages, three hundred words. The right pace to reach the end of the day with the calm of the righteous and the appetite for a decent dinner. The inspiration is good, the ideas are flowing and his fingers are galloping — but the walls are too thin. On the other side of the partition there must be a CD player set on loop. For a good half hour it has been repeating the same track, and with each repetition the volume rises slightly, until Piero's Shazam identifies the song in under three seconds. It's a disco track by Hot Chocolate. It's called "Every 1's a Winner" and it's packed with effects and synthesisers as though it had been composed by an electrician. But so far, so good.

The chapter is nearly finished. All that remains is to complete a series of dialogues and find the right closing line — but the track starts again: Never could believe the things you do to me, never could believe the way you are.

The apartment has the advantage of being at the end of a long corridor, on the fourth floor of an enormous building, a block with three units that has the air of having been designed by someone with a nostalgia for the former Soviet Union. Even though the façade was recently refreshed, those windows — small and closely spaced — do no justice to the beauty of the village or its enchanting mountain backdrop, and the bold architecture of the roof, with its overlapping and interlocking pitches, does little to compensate. Hot Chocolate raises its voice again.

Sometimes it's a small detail that ruins the atmosphere, and Piero gives up trying to continue and reads back what he has written so far. There is a spacing error, a double letter with one keystroke stuck, and a word that repeats itself after only three lines. He returns to the description of his protagonist and wonders whether he should plump up her lips a little.

The doorbell of the neighbouring apartment rings. Not a polite, brief, gentle tap — more like an air-raid siren. Piero grips the armrests to stop himself jumping out of the creaking chair and takes hold of the backpack strap. The gap between the first and second ring is only a few seconds. The second lasts an eternity.

"Clizia, sweetheart, I know you're in there," pleads the voice of a boy who can't be more than twenty. "Open up, please, I... I can't keep it all inside. I need to see you" — and the volume rises again, and it feels like being transported back to the disco era, with strobes and mirror balls scattering light across the room and girls in tight trousers dancing beneath mountains of hair styled in the most daring perms.

He whimpers: "Please, Clizia."

Piero would love to say something — to advise the broken heart to seek comfort elsewhere, to explain a couple of things he has learned about women. The boy gives up on the doorbell and knocks.

"Again today, sweetheart, just one last time" — but it's clear that door will never open, and that wounded women can hold out longer than a castle under siege, and that if poor Clizia has retreated to Bardonecchia in the off-season, it's because, evidently, she wants to be left alone.

To write you need physical stamina — that has already been established — but shipwrecked love affairs played out half a metre from your front door are corrosive and ruinous, and the effect on inspiration is fatal.

"For God's sake, kid, someone's going to have to tell you that Clizia doesn't want you anymore..." Piero would like to say — but he merely murmurs it, keeps it all to himself.

The opportunity to stay silent should always be seized.

I casi di Elettra Keita - La collezione The Cases of Electra Keita - The Collection

Elettra Keita: l'ufficiale che non sa ubbidire, in una Valsusa dove il silenzio uccide." 

"Elettra Keita: a rebel in uniform, solving crimes where the mountains meet the law.

Love Italian Crime but can't read Italian? You can easily translate the EPUB version of my books using AI tools like DeepL or Immersive Translate. They preserve the formatting, allowing you to enjoy Elettra Keita's adventures in English, French, or German with professional-grade fluency.

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Read the Italian Noir original atmosphere with professional-grade AI translation.

Pista fredda - I casi di Elettra Keita - Capitolo finale

 

Valsusa. Quattro scomparsi in ventidue anni. Nessun corpo.

Elettra Keita, Capitano dei Carabinieri, non crede alle coincidenze. Quando scopre che tutte le vittime si erano fotografate davanti alla stessa casa abbandonata, capisce: c’è un pattern.

C’è un killer. E nessuno lo sta cercando.

Per prenderlo, Elettra recluta un team di geni: un ex militare, un’americana con troppi segreti, una criminologa. Li tiene sotto ricatto. Li usa come armi e costruisce una trappola usando l’unica cosa alla quale il killer non può resistere: una nuova vittima.

Ma il mostro che stanno cacciando ha ucciso per venticinque anni senza lasciare tracce.

Ha un rituale.

Ha una logica.

E sa aspettare.

Valsusa. Four disappearances over twenty-two years. No bodies.

Elettra Keita, Captain of the Carabinieri, doesn't believe in coincidences. When she discovers that all the victims had photographed themselves in front of the same abandoned house, she understands: there is a pattern.

There is a killer. And no one is looking for him.

To catch him, Elettra recruits a team of geniuses: a former soldier, an American woman with too many secrets, a criminologist. She keeps them under blackmail. She uses them as weapons and builds a trap using the one thing the killer cannot resist: a new victim.

But the monster they are hunting has killed for twenty-five years without leaving a trace.

He has a ritual.

He has a logic.

And he knows how to wait.

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I ponti inutilizzati, quelli esclusi dal transito e dalla storia, quelli di archi e pilastri in cemento armato e con audaci pretese stilistiche, dovrebbero essere abbattuti. Quello a fianco della statale 24, che supera la gola della Dora Riparia, è interrotto, tagliato contro la struttura del nuovo viadotto, in definitiva un ramo secco che ha perso significato ma ha acquistato un fascino perverso. Si stacca dall'alveo del fiume di ottanta metri e se si mette in pratica la formula per calcolare il moto di caduta libera, si scopre che quattro secondi e cinque centesimi sono il tempo che ha riavvolto il film dell'esistenza di un bel po' di persone. Lo chiamano il ponte della morte e dopo la sua chiusura è rimasto uno scheletro vuoto che attira il dolore.

Damiano ha parcheggiato l'Audi lungo la strada, ha scavalcato il guardrail, ha seguito in discesa la breve scarpata fino all'imbocco della struttura e ha reciso, con un paio di tenaglie, il filo di ferro che lega la pesante griglia di acciaio che blocca l'accesso al ponte. Cammina su un tappeto di terra vegetale ed erbacce e si guarda bene dall'avvicinarsi ai vecchi parapetti labili. Quando arriva al centro del ponte, lancia la borsa nel vallone e la guarda cadere. I primi metri - una decina - sono in verticale come il piombo di un muratore e poi la borsa di jeans si arrende alle correnti d'aria e piega verso nord. Si capovolge, rallenta, si apre come un paracadute. Invece di impattare sull'acqua, rimane impigliata, con un rumore di ossa rotte, a un ramo sul bordo del fiume. Complice l'autunno, le foglie cadenti disegnano una nuvola di farfalle.

La seconda borsa è identica: jeans, grosse tasche e lampo aperta per tre quarti. Anche lei parte con le migliori intenzioni ma naufraga verso il bosco sull'argine, non lontano dalla prima. La scena è molto simile. La chioma si inghiotte l'oggetto. Insieme alla nevicata di foglie secche c'è una coppia di merli che prende il volo.

Cristiana percorre il ponte come la passerella del prêt-à-porter. Le scarpe basse affondano nel terriccio ma le gambe lunghe aiutano a non perdere l'eleganza. Non ha paura che si spalanchi una voragine sotto i piedi, anche se il vuoto si avverte, è presente, è parte di quel posto. Damiano è abituato a vederla così, coraggiosa. I capelli biondi, sciolti sulle spalle, si arrendono a una folata improvvisa al centro della campata. Damiano non conosce quei paraggi e lei nemmeno. Hanno imparato che la Valsusa è nemica dei parrucchieri o complice, a seconda dei punti di vista.

La terza borsa uguale ciondola dalla mano destra.

«Che dici, sprechiamo anche questa?»

«Mi fai le pulci, adesso?»

Cristiana guarda giù. Pensa a quando era bambina, al trampolino della Piscina Comunale di Torino, al blu, che la invitava a lasciarsi andare. Ma lì non si moriva, nulla a che fare con un trapasso, solo un drastico cambiamento dell'ambiente intorno, dall'aria calda e asciutta dei dieci metri sopra il pelo dell'acqua a un liquido disinfettato che improvvisamente pesava sui polmoni come una colata di cemento e a pensare alla cronaca nera di quel ponte, alle morti, alle lettere d'addio, alle famiglie spezzate, sente un brivido che le corre addosso.

Disused bridges—those cut off from traffic and from history, built with concrete arches and pillars and bold stylistic ambitions—should be torn down. The one beside State Road 24, spanning the gorge of the Dora Riparia, is severed, abruptly ending against the structure of the new viaduct: a dead branch that has lost its purpose but gained a perverse allure. It rises eighty meters above the riverbed, and if you apply the formula for free fall, you discover that four point zero five seconds is all it takes to rewind the final moments of many lives. They call it the Bridge of Death, and since its closure it has remained a hollow skeleton that draws in grief.

Damiano parked the Audi by the roadside, climbed over the guardrail, and made his way down the short embankment to the entrance of the structure. With a pair of pliers, he cut through the wire securing the heavy steel gate that blocks access to the bridge. He walks across a carpet of soil and weeds, careful to keep his distance from the crumbling parapets. When he reaches the center, he throws the bag into the ravine and watches it fall. The first few meters—ten or so—are vertical, like a mason’s plumb line. Then the denim bag yields to the air currents and drifts north. It flips, slows, opens like a parachute. Instead of hitting the water, it gets caught—snapping like breaking bones—on a branch along the riverbank. With autumn as an accomplice, falling leaves sketch a cloud of butterflies.

The second bag is identical: denim, large pockets, zipper three-quarters open. It too sets off with the best intentions, only to veer toward the wooded bank not far from the first. The scene repeats itself. The foliage swallows the object. Along with the snowfall of dry leaves, a pair of blackbirds takes flight.

Cristiana crosses the bridge as if it were a fashion runway. Her flat shoes sink into the dirt, but her long legs preserve her elegance. She isn’t afraid the ground might give way beneath her feet, even though the void is there—present, tangible, part of the place. Damiano is used to seeing her like this: fearless. Her blonde hair, loose over her shoulders, yields to a sudden gust at mid-span. Neither of them knows this area. They’ve learned that the Susa Valley is either an enemy of hairstylists—or an accomplice, depending on your point of view.

The third identical bag dangles from her right hand.

“What do you think—should we waste this one too?”

“Are you nitpicking now?”

Cristiana looks down. She thinks of when she was a child, of the diving board at the municipal pool in Turin, of that blue that invited her to let go. But there, you didn’t die. It had nothing to do with crossing over—just a sudden change of environment, from the warm, dry air ten meters above the surface to a disinfected liquid that instantly weighed on your lungs like poured concrete. And now, thinking of the bridge’s dark history—of deaths, farewell letters, shattered families—she feels a shiver run through her.

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