The Book of Hidden Things Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Fabio

  Tony

  Fabio

  Mauro

  Fabio

  Tony

  Fabio

  Tony

  Fabio

  Tony

  Mauro

  Fabio

  Mauro

  Fabio

  Tony

  Mauro

  Fabio

  Tony

  Fabio

  Mauro

  Fabio

  Mauro

  Tony

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  “What a joy to have this in English. Francesco Dimitri’s fantastic fantasy novel has everything I like. A sensation of damp shadows moving just out of sight, and a slow, joyful, and mysterious unravelling of events. I can’t recommend it too highly.”

  Joe R. Lansdale, author of The Thicket

  “Francesco Dimitri’s first novel in English is a wonder and a revelation. Hidden within this gripping, frightening story about an arcane manuscript is a deep, clear-eyed, and compassionate meditation on friendship as it evolves over time. The Book of Hidden Things is fantasy at its best: using magical tropes to illuminate real life.”

  Terri Windling, author of The Wood Wife

  “The Book of Hidden Things is both a mystery and a map. Follow the clues along the trail in Francesco Dimitri’s dazzling debut and you’ll be ushered into a hidden world of magic, not only within these pages, but also within your own life. Be prepared to be transformed.”

  Mark Chadbourn, author of the Age of Misrule series

  “What a glorious read! This sun-drenched fantasy is a feast for the senses, reflecting on the value of friendship and what it means to finally grow up. If you loved Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, this book is for you.”

  Helen Marshall, author of Gifts for the One Who Comes After

  “The Book of Hidden Things shows us that memories are stories that refuse to belong only to the past. Such stories can create places that are both wonderful and dangerous; whether we believe in them or not is up to us.”

  Aliya Whiteley, author of The Beauty

  “As soon as I read the first lines of The Book of Hidden Things, I felt at home. It is an immersive book, that draws you in and never lets you go. Gripping, ruthless in the way it describes the age of reason, dominated by a mysterious, magical Salento landscape very far from the chocolate box images we are used to. In a word, unmissable.”

  Licia Troisi, author of Nihal of the Land of the Wind

  “In lesser hands, this blend of detective story, organized crime thriller, and supernatural investigation would feel like a grab bag of plot devices, but Dimitri has created a thrilling spectacle that also manages to point poignantly at the way the landscapes we grow up in shape us in ways even beyond our understanding. A deeply felt look at the idea of home, clothed as a popcorn-worthy page-turner.”

  Kirkus, starred review

  “An evocative meditation on friendship, adulthood, and the liminal spaces that lie just outside human perception… Dimitri’s beautifully written tale, steeped in nostalgia, folklore, and religion, will enthrall and terrify readers.”

  Publishers Weekly

  THE

  BOOK

  OF

  HIDDEN

  THINGS

  FRANCESCO DIMITRI

  TITAN BOOKS

  The Book of Hidden Things

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785657078

  Electronic edition ISBN: 9781785657085

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: July 2018

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 Francesco Dimitri. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  For ‘that’ Paola.

  When the storm comes you are the eye,

  When the sun burns you are the shade,

  When it is all kind of good, well,

  You are better.

  She held herself not in the way of a mortal, but in the shape of an angel, and her voice had a sound which was other than human. A spirit from Heaven, a living Sun, that was what I saw.

  Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere, ‘Sonnet 90’

  FABIO

  1

  Sitting at the table next to me is an elderly German couple. When the waiter recognises my accent, still local despite my best efforts, he winks and says, ‘They’re from Berlin. Moved here last month.’ He is thrilled that someone has taken the trouble to move all the way from Berlin, no less, to dump their bones in this pit. I wonder what the pull of Casalfranco is for them. So what if it is sunny down here? They have sunlamps in Berlin. I glance at the couple; they look happy. Give them time.

  No, I don’t like it here. I don’t mean the pizzeria; the pizzeria is fine. I mean this town, this part of the world: Puglia. Oh, I’ll grant you that in this season it hits you with a heady scent of rosemary and lemon and flowering thyme. When I got out of the cab on this warm June night, I had to close my eyes and drink it all in, like sweet wine on a date. But it is a honey trap. Another three weeks and the summer sun will evaporate the scent and burn the land to a cinder, and what little life there is left will have to start a war for the last drops of water left deep underground. I didn’t trust Casalfranco when I was here, and I trust it even less since I got out. This place is feral. I am only back for tonight, for the Pact. And I am unsure, to be honest, if the Pact still stands. It is a miracle it lasted this long.

  I am at a corner table; not any table, but the table, our table. It was free straight away. I am alone, surrounded by three empty chairs, wondering if the others will come. In front of me is the wood-fired oven, a cavernous mouth of white stone. A dark-skinned pizzaiolo is working a ball of dough with jerky movements, while another handles a pizza overflowing with Parma ham, rocket and parmesan shavings. I think I know the dark-skinned guy: Guido or Gianni or something like that. I was at school with his second cousin.

  I came to American Pizza (their pizza is as Italian as it gets) direct from Brindisi Airport. In the authentic southern tradition, the car I had booked was nowhere to be seen. It took me two hours to get another, so when I finally reached Casalfranco I was twenty minutes late for what had been since time immemorial (or secondary school anyway) the hour of the Pact. I called the B&B to tell them that I would check in after dinner. I had forgotten that being twenty minutes late, in Southern Italy, means being anywhere from ten to thirty minutes early. I forget every time. Art says I do it on purpose, but I don’t think so.

  Maybe the Pact has fizzled out.

  They will come, I say to mys
elf. They will come. I have been repeating this all the way from the airport. It’s the Pact; they won’t break it. The Pact was Art’s idea – hence the capital P, because Art always puts capitals on words, multiplying their power, transforming them into Words. The Pact is a silly game which I swore I would stop playing last year, and if the boys don’t show up (I am by now almost sure they won’t) I will feel like a complete idiot. I could have put to better use the money I spent on this trip – the flight and the B&B were dirt cheap, but lately for me dirt cheap has become synonymous with stupidly expensive. And yet, here I am.

  I am nibbling a bruschetta heavy on garlic, washing it down with what is left of a glass of Primitivo, the strong local red, when I see Mauro enter the pizzeria. So one of them has come after all. With his cream chinos, white shirt and navy-blue jacket, Mauro plays the part of the grown-up with a grace I can only dream of. In keeping with the Pact, I acknowledge his presence with a small nod, as if I see him regularly. He nods back and comes to the table. He’s put on some weight since I saw him two years ago, but he’s got a better haircut. Both things please me.

  ‘Been waiting long?’ Mauro asks, sitting down.

  ‘Less than the last time.’

  ‘Making progress.’

  ‘Baby steps, Mauro, baby steps.’

  He cracks a smile and pours himself a glass of wine. ‘I wasn’t so sure we would see you again.’

  ‘Neither was I.’

  ‘When did you fly in?’

  ‘Just now. I’m here straight from the airport.’

  ‘You didn’t swing by Angelo?’

  ‘He doesn’t know I’m in town.’

  Mauro undoes his smile. We’ve been friends for too long to hide our feelings, and right now, he feels I’m a jerk. He doesn’t understand my relationship with my father, and I can’t blame him; most of the time, I don’t understand it either.

  ‘I’m not staying at his,’ I explain. ‘I’ve booked a B&B. I’m leaving tomorrow early in the morning, and I thought it wasn’t worth the hassle to stay with him.’ Stop that. I don’t have to justify myself – I am a grown-up.

  ‘Say we bump into someone you know and they tell Angelo.’

  ‘Let’s hope it won’t happen.’

  Mauro raises his hands in surrender, and says, ‘I arrived yesterday.’

  ‘Have you seen Art?’

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  I reckon not: it would feel like a breach of the Pact. Silly as it is, we are serious about it, or have been. Either way, I have let it draw me back to Casalfranco, inexorably, once a year, for seventeen years, with the exception of the last one. What my eighty-year-old widowed father can’t accomplish, the Pact can. I reckon this is our last hurrah; I’ll make the most of it.

  ‘Art is bonkers,’ says a voice behind my back.

  Mauro stands up. ‘Tony!’

  I turn my head to see Tony make a bow and a flourish. ‘These days I go by Tony the Mighty.’

  Tony is not tall, but he is so muscular and compact, in his sleeveless shirt, you only need a quick glance to decide that you are too tied up right now to mess with him. He always was physically imposing, and a bit of a buffoon too. He was the main reason why bullies, after some half-hearted attempts, gave up on Art – though Art could be scary in his own right. We thought Tony would become, say, a professional boxer, or perhaps an enforcer for the Sacra Corona Unita, Sacred United Crown, the local mafia. He ended up a surgeon, and a good one at that. Some months ago, he managed a particularly difficult heart transplant, which gave him his fifteen minutes of fame. We were often wrong, back then. Take Art, for example. All the expectations we had.

  Tony rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘You graced us with your presence, I see.’

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make it last year.’

  ‘You will be, man,’ he says, as he sits down.

  Mauro tells him, ‘I’ve read of your master stroke.’

  ‘It was impressive,’ I say, grinning. ‘I mean, I didn’t think you could tell a heart from a kidney.’

  Tony says, ‘I got lucky. I happened to be holding a heart in my hands and I tripped and the heart flew up and landed snug in the right place. Only,’ and he lowers his voice, ‘between you and me, I’m not sure it was a human heart I was holding. Could’ve been a dog’s.’

  ‘As long as it works,’ Mauro says.

  ‘The fellow isn’t barking. Yet. How are you guys doing, anyway?’

  ‘Fine,’ Mauro says.

  That is an understatement. Mauro is not exactly modest. It is the other way round. His approach is more like, If you don’t know about me, then you can’t afford me. Mauro is a lawyer in Milan, a specialist in taxes and finance. He lives where money lives, and when you live where money lives, a part of that money is bound to come and live with you too.

  As for me, ‘Can’t complain,’ I lie.

  ‘Of course you can’t,’ Mauro says, with a wink. He thinks I’m doing grand, and why shouldn’t he? He doesn’t know, none of them do, and that is fine by me for tonight. Plenty of time tomorrow to face the bucketload of mess I made of my life.

  I check my watch. ‘Where’s Art? It’s getting late.’

  Tony says, ‘Hey, I just arrived.’

  ‘Yeah, and you were late even by local time.’

  ‘Fabio, my dearest friend, are you hungry? ’Cause you’re a bitch when you’re hungry.’

  ‘I’m kind of peckish,’ I admit. I barely registered the slice of bruschetta I’d already had; southerners can eat, and it is a mortal offence to imply otherwise. Casalfranco has this power, when you step into it. You revert to old habits.

  Mauro waves to attract a waiter. ‘Antipasti please,’ he says, ‘while we wait for our friend.’

  2

  Art has big ears and a big nose, the blackest eyes you have ever seen and bottle-bottom glasses. In the mid-nineties nobody would have considered him attractive; nerd fashion was yet to become a thing. Not that Art was so easily classifiable. His marks were high, his social grace disputable, yet there was something about him – an intensity, a magnetism, for want of a better word – that set him apart from your run-of-the-mill geek. Part of it was that he wasn’t intimidated by girls (or bigger boys, or priests, or professors); it was him who brought Anna into Mauro’s life, when we were fifteen.

  Anna and Rita went to the beach at the same spot we did, in Portodimare, a village less than ten miles from Casalfranco. The beach was smooth white sand, fading into water just slightly less clear than air. When tramontana, the northern breeze, blew, the sea was still come una tavola, like a table. Look at it from the seashore, and you would see the sand and rocks on the bottom, with banks of cazzi di Re (King’s cocks, brightly coloured fish) swimming by. They’re so called because, local wisdom has it, the cock of a king has more colours than yours.

  We were used to fish, less so girls. We had noticed Anna and Rita; their accent marked them as Milanese, and thus deserving awe. We had no clue how to approach cosmopolitan, sophisticated, world-weary Milanese girls. They had noticed us (out of boredom, I would say) but it was the boys’ job to make the first step. It was a Mexican standoff: we eyed them and they eyed us, and everybody kept their positions, until one day Art said, ‘Enough.’

  We had been playing football on the boiling-hot beach, hoping the girls would take heed of our athletic feats. They hadn’t. We had cooled down with a swim, emptied two bottles of ice tea from Mauro’s bag, and now were sitting on the sand, sulking.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, annoyed, ‘because you know what to do.’

  Art tilted his head towards me and brought two fingers to his eyes, as if to say, Watch me. He jumped up – and almost tripped over the ball. We chuckled. He was unfazed. He straightened his glasses and walked, in his trunks that were too large for him, to where Anna and Rita were lying on their beach towels. When he got there, he hunkered down beside Rita and asked her, ‘May I bother you one sec?’

  Rita scoffed, ‘If you really have to.’


  ‘I noticed your hands.’

  ‘My hands?’

  Art nodded, and in all seriousness he said, ‘My mum’s a gypsy. She taught me how to read hands.’

  ‘No way.’

  Art laughed. ‘I’m not saying I believe it works.’

  ‘And why do you want to read my hand?’

  Seamlessly, Art took Rita’s right hand into his own. She let him do it. Bending over her like some goblin from a book of fairy tales, Art traced the contour of her palm with the index finger of his left hand. Coming from anybody else, that gesture would have been downright creepy, but Art was so disarming that even I would have fallen for it, and I knew perfectly well that his mum was as much of a gypsy as I was a Swede.

  ‘Your hands have a special shape,’ Art said. ‘Mum would say it’s the hand of a dreamer. You’re quite a sensitive young woman, aren’t you?’

  Rita opened her mouth, amazed. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s all over here. And look at this line! The line of relationships, can you see it? All windy and dramatic. People just can’t get you; your special sensitivity singles you out from the crowd. You feel lonely at times, even though you’ve got plenty of friends.’

  ‘That’s… that’s right,’ Rita said.

  Then Anna intervened. ‘Bullshitter,’ she said, pushing Art, amused more than annoyed. Art lost his footing and his goblin-like pose, and we all guffawed. It didn’t happen very often that Art was called on his bullshit.

  Art laughed too. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘maybe.’ Ice had been broken, his point had been proven, and he had already lost interest. That’s Art, that’s always been Art: easily intrigued, easily bored. He sticks to us, and to the Pact, and that is all the stability he needs in his life.

  3

  Art doesn’t show up.

  We make our way through the antipasti (warm bread, Parma ham, deep-fried calamari, oven-baked mussels, hard cheese, grilled vegetables, and olives – everywhere else it would be a complete meal; here, it is a warm-up), pizza and two bottles of Primitivo wine, and Art still doesn’t show up. Even Mauro looks disappointed, and Mauro is the unflappable one. On the night of the Pact we show up. You might go abroad and get married and become a prince in a foreign land, but on the night of the Pact, you show up. There are no ifs and no buts. That’s the theory – and we carried on the practice for a surprisingly long time. The first time, during our first year of university, none of us were really expecting to find the others, but there we were, all of us. After that it became sort of a game to hold on to the Pact and see who would drop out first.