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livers.
    The first time I attempted to eat it I vomited it up, amazed to see there was no difference at all between the puddle of sick on the floor and the food which remained in the plate—a dark mush in the middle of which, floating about like the victims of a shipwreck, were the entrails of the animals that had been sacrificed in some terrifying ritual carried out by Father Skullhead in the inner sanctum of the kitchens.
    For he it was who’d invented this exquisite dish: it was obvious from the zeal with which he patrolled the tables checking that we all had enough. Whenever he came across some delicate soul who’d just lost his appetite, down the knuckles would come.
    I’d never called on my mother to help me out. It was as if I’d put her into deep freeze, in a dimension I couldn’t reach. But the risotto with chicken livers forced me to make an exception.
    â€œWhat should I do, Mommy? Give me a clue.”
    Strange: I’d always hated that expression, “Mommy.”
    A bright idea popped into my head when Father Skullhead was only two tables away. I needed to stay cool and move quickly. Holding my breath, I lifted the plate piled high with chicken livers and passed it over the heads of my neighbors to Rosolino, a boy capable of eating anything—he’d happily munch sweet wrappers and pen caps which had already been chewed by others.
    Even Rosolino was disgusted by the chicken livers—but not enough to interrupt his continuous cycle of grazing. He greedily ladled up three huge spoonfuls into his mouth and handed the empty plate back to me just a second before old Skullhead bent over to give it, through his glasses, a beady-eyed examination.
    Rosolino continued to empty my plate meal after meal, until on one occasion—one very dark day—he somehow dribbled back into the plate some black, half-masticated glob.
    â€œDid your mother never teach you to wipe your plate clean?” Father Skullhead breathed over me.
    He took a piece of bread, mopped the plate up with it and pushed it into my mouth.
    I repelled the alien mouthful and spat it out: it landed on the cassock of the kindly provider. I was suspended for two days and Dad didn’t speak to me until the summer break. We communicated by gestures.
    Those were the years when students set fire to schools and attacked the police. I’d spat chicken-liver risotto over a priest, but no one regarded me as a hero.

twelve
    Rosolino came from Sicily, and had arrived in Turin just at the right age to fall into Skullhead’s clutches. If you believed his stories, his father made millions. But our classmates—fair-haired local boys—said he smelt. This, together with his southern accent, was enough to gain him admission to the school’s “Rejects’ Club.”
    Our shared experience of disgrace gave rise to a friendship which would come to an end each evening when we returned home on the schoolbus. We used to play at flipping Panini cards of our favorite football stars on the soft leather seats. If you could flip a card over so it landed picture-side up again you won the right to keep it.
    Rosolino cheated, and so did I—but not so skilfully. Insults flew between us.
    â€œSouthern peasant!”
    â€œBastard!”
    I didn’t know what the word meant, and when I found out my friend had already moved to another city.
    I’d told Rosolino—as I’d told everyone—that my mother never came to fetch me from school because her work required her to travel a lot. She sold Indian cosmetics.
    Top marks for originality, wouldn’t you agree? There must have been an occasion when an agent selling beauty products had called on Mom. I vaguely remembered a lady painting her nails pink. The Indian connection, on the other hand, was my very own dash of poetic license, inspired by recent events.
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    The Christmas holidays were like one long Sunday, made worse by the ghosts of the past.