Little misunderstandings of no importance : stories

SPELLS

For instance, you see, these are my father’s feet; I call I them Constantine Dragases, like the last emperor of I Byzantium, a brave and unfortunate men — they all betrayed him and he died along on the battlements — but you see them as two ordinary feet made of plastic. I found them on the beach last week; sometimes the sea washes pieces of dolls ashore. Well, I found these two legs and immediately I understood that it was Papa, from wherever he was, sending me a facsimile of his feet in order to meet my memories halfway. I felt it; I don’t know if you understand.

And I said, well, yes, of course I understood, but couldn’t we play at something else, outdoors, in the garden? In the house everyone was sleeping; it was an adventure to slip out while they were all taking their afternoon naps and the house was immersed in silence. But if that didn’t suit her we could stretch out, flat on our stomachs, on the rug in her room and read The Phantom of the Opera. This time I wouldn’t budge, I promised, so as not to disturb her reading. I revelled in it, I thought I was dreaming, when she read aloud, in a whisper, close to my ear. I’ll be your humble listener, Cleliuccia, I said, I swear it. Then I wanted to kick myself because I’d blown it. Damn the carelessness that was always causing me to mix up Cleliuccia with the unhappy witch Melusina!

She threw me a fierce look through her one good eye and then took off the ridiculous glasses with one cardboard lens, letting her defective eye roll around in peace instead of rotating wildly as it did when she was angry. Words counted a lot for Melusina, how many times did she have to tell me so? Because words are things, of course, no need to repeat it, I got the idea: they were things transformed into the ghost of pure sound, and with the things of this world you have to be very careful, because they are sensitive, quite so. But how to make the point that her squint wouldn’t be offended if she simply called it a squint instead of a lack of focus in the left eye? It wasn’t even noticeable unless she was nervous, and she had long blond hair, and I liked her, even her ineptness at sports didn’t bother me; I should have liked to tell her all these things. But it would have been disastrous to speak of her ineptness at sports after the unpardonable mistake of calling her Cleliuccia. Cleliuccia indeed! That was what Aunt Esther called her and for this reason she came close to hating my aunt, that is, if she hadn’t been Aunt Esther, and you couldn’t hate Aunt Esther, no matter how hard you tried. How can you hate someone like my mother, Clelia would ask, as if seeking my assent. True, very true, I answered with a feeling of relief; nobody can hate Aunt Esther because she’s too good. Stupid, that’s what she is, she retorted, and you can’t hate somebody stupid; what I hate is clever people, clever and tricky. I knew whom she meant and preferred to change the subject. Not that it bothered me, perhaps I simply wasn’t interested; I preferred playing in the garden. I was only three years younger and my company wasn’t to be scorned. And then do you think it’s good for you to stay in the house all day, in semi-darkness, among the dolls? I asked her. Didn’t the doctor prescribe fresh air and sports? I looked out of the window and felt an enormous, almost overpowering urge to make for the pine woods. I was thinking of previous summers, and how things would never be the same. I could no longer count on the gateman’s son; during the year he had grown tall, there was a thin line of hair under his nose, he smoked, stealthily, behind the garage, and rode along the shore on a bicycle. He was called Ermanno now and wouldn’t have played Lothair to her Mandrake; I wouldn’t dare suggest it. Within a short time everything had changed. What “everything”, and why? I thought of the time when Clelia was Diana, betrothed to the Man in the Iron Mask, or the terrible Queen Maona, the snake charmer, and Ermanno and I tried to discover the secret of her elixirs. Now it seemed almost ridiculous, and so it must seem to her, too, as she sat in her half-dark room, reading Gaston Leroux, Arsene Lupin, and The Dead Woman’s Kiss. Our races to the pine woods and among the bushes… all gone, I knew it. Now, at best, there was the walk to the beach, two boring hours under the beach umbrella and, on Saturday evenings, ice cream at one of the tables set out at the cafe of the Andrea Doria Bathhouse. Then the same thing all over, day after day; only ten days had gone by and the summer would never end. I thought, first, of writing to my father, but what excuse was there for asking him to come and take me away, just that I no longer liked being there? And what Clelia had told me about her new father, could I tell him that? No, I couldn’t, I’d sworn not to. I had to call him Uncle Tullio and be nice to him as he was nice to me. When he arrived, on Saturdays, he always brought two parcels, one for Clelia and one for me. In Clelia’s there was a doll, because she had a collection of dolls, even if she no longer played with them. And what did I have to say? Actually I liked Uncle Tullio; he was the jolliest fellow and, when he was there, the house was no longer a morgue. On Saturday evenings, he took us to the Andrea Doria Cafe, and I could have two ice creams, including “Nero’s Cup”, with the candied cherries. I liked the way he dressed, too, impeccably, with a linen jacket and a bow tie. He and Aunt Esther made a very fine couple; when we strolled on the promenade people turned around to look at them and I was happy on my aunt’s behalf. My sister couldn’t stay a widow for the rest of her life, said my mother; she did well to make a new life for herself, poor dear. Anyone would have said the same thing, to see her strolling on the promenade, in her pretty blue dress, her hair cut as short as a girl’s, a happy woman on the arm of a husband who had forgotten the horrors of the War. Everybody seemed to have forgotten the War; they were all disporting themselves on the beach. As for me, I had no memory at all of the War; during the bombing I was in the process of being born. But from inside the house Aunt Esther’s life didn’t seem so happy, and I was in a position to know. On the day of my arrival she’d called me into the small drawing room with the spinet piano (why there, as if I were an honoured guest?) and almost implored me to have a good time this summer, such a good time. Play, play, my boy, to your heart’s content! A strange request, since I’d come, just as in the preceding summers, looking for a good time. And why did she wring her hands? Be good to Cleliuccia, please; keep her company and play with her, do you hear? And she hurried out of the room as if she were about to cry.

To play with Cleliuccia… it was all very easy to say. And it would have been easy enough during the unusual days that followed, after the wind from the African desert had damaged the roof, carrying sand even into the drawing room, through the hole made by a flower pot which had rolled against the glass door onto the terrace. But one day it was The Mystery of the Yellow Room and another Carmilla, Queen of the Witches’ Sabbath, and all those dolls lined up on the bookshelves and the half-dark room… I didn’t know what games to suggest; my stock was exhausted. Aunt Esther’s eyes were always shiny, and she had a vaguely absent air. After lunch she went to her room and stayed there the whole afternoon until she came out, wandered desolately about the house, and finally sat down at the spinet and stumbled through Chopin’s Polonaises. I could only tiptoe from one room to another, trying to think up something to do and keeping out of range of the severe eyes of Flora, who would have looked at me reproachfully because my aunt needed to rest and I was doing everything possible to disturb her: Why didn’t I go and snatch a breath of fresh air in the garden?

It was a revelation. Anything else I could have imagined, but not that. At first I couldn’t believe it but on second thoughts it was quite credible: I remembered how my Aunt Esther had been two years before, a witty, energetic woman. She used to take Clelia and myself to the beach on the luggage rack of her bicycle, arriving hot and red in the face, with her eyes gleaming and, in a second she was out of the cabin, in her bathing suit and into the water, where she swam like a fish. Something important and incredible must have happened to reduce her to this condition. This is what happened, said Clelia; did I understand? I understood, yes, but who had done it? Clelia’s eye rolled wildly, a sign of extreme nervousness, but her mouth remained shut, as if she were afraid to pronounce the name. Never mind; I understood. And bewitched wasn’t the word; better possessed, since the sorcery was the work of a diabolical being. I could almost have laughed at the idea of Uncle Tullio as Satan, with his bow tie and pomaded hair, his formal and considerate ways. I felt sure, if she wanted to know a secret, that my father thought he was ridiculous. Well then, if that was the way I saw it, did I want her to tell me the whole truth, did I want to know what this fellow with the pomaded hair and the diabolical smile had been capable of doing? That handsome Tullio with his bow tie had killed her father, yes he had; he was at the root of all the trouble. No, he hadn’t exactly killed him with his own hands, of course, but it came to the same thing. He’d turned him in to the Germans, and she had proof, in the form of a certain letter, of which she’d make a copy to show me. And why, did I know why? Simply in order to cast a spell over that stupid mother of hers, to possess her money and her life, that was why. This seemed to me exaggerated, unthinkable, but I didn’t argue about it, because Aunt Esther had told me not to contradict Clelia; it was bad for her health and brought on an attack. But that night I couldn’t sleep. I dreamed of Uncle Tullio, wearing a trench coat, in command of a firing squad, with his bow tie sticking out from the trench coat collar. The man sentenced to death was Uncle Andrea, whom I had never known and whom I couldn’t see because he was too far away, standing with his back to the wall. I knew he was Uncle Andrea because he called out: I’m Clelia’s daddy! That cry woke me up in the middle of the night; the garden was full of crickets and the beach was empty. I stayed awake, listening to the roar of the sea for I don’t know how long, perhaps until daybreak. But in the morning everything was just as usual, and the idea of writing to my father seemed absurd. The house was so beautiful, so bright, Aunt Esther had suggested that I go with her to do the weekend shopping, Clelia was working with wax and Uncle Tullio would be arriving the next day. He’d take us to the cafe and on Sunday evening we might go to see Son of Tarzan at the open-air cinema. Besides, a promise is a promise and I’d promised Clelia loyalty and silence.

Uncle Tullio arrived with a kitten, a black kitten with a white spot on its forehead, which I found adorable. The kitten was in a cloth-lined straw basket, a tiny creature that had to be fed milk with a spoon. He had a pink ribbon around his neck, and his name was Cece. He was a present for Clelia; perhaps he’ll distract her a bit, there’s no harm in trying, I heard Uncle Tullio say to Aunt Esther. I remember the forced smile on Clelia’s face as she came down the stairs, the alarmed glance that she shot me and a rapid gesture, which I detected but could not decipher, but which seemed to say: Don’t worry, don’t be afraid. But afraid of what? And I remember the equally forced or, rather, fearful smile of Aunt Esther, who was worried lest Clelia fail to like the kitten and say so. Instead, she said he was a darling, a ball of fur. She thanked Uncle Tullio with casual grace, but distractedly. She wasn’t feeling up to scratch, she said, and she was busy finishing a wax puppet. For the time being Flora could look after the kitten. Cats are always happy in the kitchen; there’s no place they like better. Later on, in her room, I found out why, and I couldn’t stomach it. I’d had enough of such talk, honestly I had, and perhaps I’d better write to ask my father to take me away. And why did she insist on frightening me? It seemed as if she got ajkick out of it. Just at that moment Flora cried out from downstairs, with a cry as penetrating as a drill, and then a lament, an invocation, tears and sobs like those of a death rattle. Clelia grasped and squeezed my hand. Oh, my God, she said, and then some incomprehensible words, followed by strange gestures. I realized that something terrible was going on, something mysteriously terrible and revolting. Clelia took off her glasses and laid them on the bed, as if she were afraid of breaking them, and her left eye rolled around wilder than I’d ever seen it. I felt fear rising within me like a fever. She had turned deadly pale; she clenched her fists and then her mouth stiffened, showing her teeth as if in a grin. She fell backwards and lay stiffly on the floor, twitching as if from an electric current. I ran, almost tumbling, down the stairs. I remember my disastrous entrance into the kitchen, where I nearly broke my neck by slipping on a spreading drop of oil which I failed to see. I remember Aunt Esther and Uncle Tullio trying to pull off Flora’s stockings as she sat, moaning, on a chair. I remember the horror of seeing the stockings peeled off, taking with them strips of flesh and leaving brown spots on the legs. I remember my stammering phrases, the inability to express myself, the nausea in my mouth until I managed to summon up the breath to shout that Clelia was dying, after which I broke into tears.

The next day was one of silence. Clelia looked at me calmly, as if nothing had happened, as if the preceding evening she had not been at death’s door. Sunlight poured into her room through the wide-open window; it was late in the morning and the house seemed flooded with suspense. Did I understand that the horrible thing which had happened to Flora was intended for Clelia? Did I really feel, now, that I should get away? Was I capable of writing to my father and leaving them there, in that house? Would I really do it?

The day dragged on. We ate a bite of lunch, very late, because Aunt Esther and Uncle Tullio spent the morning at the hospital and then came back, bringing Flora with them, her legs swathed in bandages after being treated for second-degree burns. Of course there was no mention of Son of Tarzan. Who could have wanted to see it? In the late afternoon Uncle Tullio went back to the city and life resumed its normal course, with the difference that we had to be on guard, intensely on guard, because danger hung over us and it might be necessary to do something in a hurry. But why did danger hang over us, that’s what I wanted to know, and why was I included; I had nothing to do with it, the problem was all Clelia’s. And what was the something that might have to be done in a hurry? My heart was pounding. Dusk was falling and the crickets were chirping madly. One of them must have been on the windowsill, and it filled the room with sound. I looked at Clelia’s dolls, lined up on the shelves. I didn’t like those dolls, there was something wicked and threatening about them, and I didn’t want to look into the suitcase guardedly pulled halfway out from under the bed. I’d have preferred to go away, yes, really, please, Melusina. The cricket fell suddenly silent, and its silence underlined the silence of the house, the garden, and the quiet evening. Something had to be done at once, surely I understood, the treacherous mechanism had been set in motion; it had hit Flora, but Flora wasn’t the real target, she knew it, and so did I; yes, look, silly boy, I made this puppet out of wax, last night; don’t gape like an idiot, it’s only a little animal; do you think it looks like the real thing? And then she gave a little laugh when I cried out the name. Cece, my eye! Silly! The cat he gave me isn’t Cece, that’s the name he gave him to fool simpletons like you. Now I’ll tell you his real name, Matagot, yes that’s it; don’t stare at me as if I were mad, I can’t stand it. I know the name means nothing to you, but that doesn’t matter because I’m not fooled. You don’t know about Matagot, only a few of us do; he’s Beelzebub’s cat, they are always together, the cat walking ten feet ahead of him on the left side, in order to prepare the spell for his-master. Give me that paper cutter. She looked at the lovely creature as if it had the plague, and yet she had fashioned it herself, and very successfully; it was the spitting image of Cece, but I simply couldn’t understand. A spell hung over us, certainly, yes, you little fool, over you, too, standing there as stiff as a scarecrow. Careful not to touch the victim with your hands, only with the instrument, and you must hold him up. Only stop calling him Cece or you’ll ruin everything. Try to concentrate and repeat, silently: Dies, mies, jasquet, benedo, efet, sovema enitemaus. She struck him, sideways, with the paper cutter, and the head came off cleanly, without the wax crumbling; there were only a few white cracks like those on a piece of glass struck by a stone. Clelia took the white cloth off her head and blew out the candle, but I hadn’t repeated the words. We’ll see tomorrow, she said; the spell is cast.

That’s how the game began, as if we were in the book about the witch Carmilla. Finally I too had something to do; I wouldn’t spend the day hanging about the drawing room. But the day wasn’t as exciting as I’d imagined. My only job was not to let Cece out of my sight for a single second. Perhaps I was the emissary of the priestess Melusina and he was the diabolical Matigot, but he was still a cat and behaved like one, like a stupid household cat, with no mystery about him. He spent part of the morning dozing in his basket, which obliged me to go repeatedly into the kitchen or to linger nearby, arousing the suspicion of that idiotic Flora, who saw me as a threat to her jellies and jams, as if I could possibly go for the sticky concoctions she guarded so jealously in the pantry. Towards noon, Cece deigned to come out of the basket. Flora had given him some milk in a bowl — obviously she held no grudge against him for what had happened — and he licked the edge of the bowl indifferently, like a spoiled child. Then he continued to act like a cat, not in the least diabolically, rolling onto his back and pawing the air as if to catch something to a cat’s taste. Clelia had promised to take my place, briefly, before lunch, but she didn’t keep her word and I resigned myself to waiting, seated on the small sofa in the entrance hall and pretending to read the Children’s Encyclopaedia while I kept an eye on the kitchen door. Finally Flora called out that lunch was ready. Aunt Esther came in from the garden with some geraniums which she put into a vase on the console table in the entrance hall. The bell on the upstairs floor echoed, with its metallic ring, in the kitchen. I guessed, of course, what it meant and so did Aunt Esther and, sure enough, Flora came back down with a dark look on her face. Signorina Clelia didn’t feel well and preferred to have lunch in her room. Aunt Esther bowed her head over her plate and sighed, and I laid my napkin on my knees. Lunch was silent, as usual. There were ham and melon, and the melon was so sweet that I’d gladly have had a second helping, while Aunt Esther ate her portion listlessly; she had cut it up into tiny squares and carried them to her mouth in an incredibly slow manner, staring absentmindedly at the tablecloth. Finally she got up and said she was going to have a nap. Better if I didn’t go out; the light was glaring and the hot sun was bad for the digestion, we’d see each other at teatime. Flora finished washing the dishes and then went out into the little porch off the kitchen, where she dozed off during the heat of the early afternoon. The clock struck two and the afternoon loomed up like a huge puddle of light and silence, interrupted by the chirring of grasshoppers. I thought again of writing to ask my father to take me away. But would he reply? What if the letter came back to me, bearing the inscription “unknown”? What would Clelia say, what sort of a story would she make up? Doubtless she’d say that my father wasn’t like hers, like the Constantine Dragases, who sent her a facsimile of his feet in order to meet her memories halfway; my father was indifferent to any message, completely out of reach. What an idea! Why shouldn’t my father reply? He’d reply, of course he would. I’ll come right away, little boy; I realize that house is no place for your holidays. I’ll take the earliest train next Saturday or, better still, I’ll buy a car, a red Aprilia like the one you saw in front of the Andrea Doria Bathhouse. I know you took a shine to that car and you expect me to arrive sooner or later with one like it. Yes, I’ll go and get a handsome car and call for you, if not this coming Saturday then the next Saturday or the one after, have no fear; sooner or later you’ll see me turn up… Cece slipped out of the kitchen door and looked around, seeming undecided about what to do, and I pretended to be asleep and didn’t budge. He chased a fly and wheeled around several times, then came to a halt, bewildered, and made for the stairs. What if he were to start up them? The very idea made me break into a cold sweat. I imagined the commotion, Clelia’s outcry and the crisis that might well follow. I had to stop him. But I mustn’t touch him, Clelia had made that clear: to touch him meant breaking the spell, and besides it was very dangerous. Luckily Cece turned back, wrinkled up his nose at the carpeting of the stairway, tested his claws on it and began to whirl madly around chasing his tail. Then, with three joyful leaps, he made for the front door and went out into the garden. I followed him, not so much out of curiosity as just for something to do. The afternoon promised to be empty and lifeless, and there was no use writing to my father; he knew what I wanted and sooner or later he’d arrive with the red car. Only why had there had to be a war? Better not think about it and simply enjoy the day, including the sight of that stupid cat, so stupid that he was actually funny; he ran, leaping, after a butterfly, so heedlessly that he wound up in a rose bush. He didn’t like that, and he arched his back, furiously, as if a dog were attacking him. I gave a low bark, trying not to disturb the people in the house, but it was quite enough to terrify him to the point where his fur stood on end. Stupid little kitten trying to imitate a grown cat! Unexpectedly he veered to one side in the direction of the wall. I realized that he was running away and tried to coax him back. Cece, Cece, come here, kitty… but it was too late. He slipped through the fancy ironwork of the gate and crossed the road. I saw the accident happen, with the impressive deliberateness of a slow-motion film. The man on the scooter was approaching, at a low speed, on the right-hand side of the road. Cece had stopped at the edge, uncertain whether or not to cross. The man saw his indecision and moved over to the white line in the middle of the road. At this point Cece lunged forward, but stopped halfway across. The man wavered, then returned to the right. Cece remained motionless, then turned back just when the scooter was only a few yards away. The man leaned dangerously to one side in order not to hit him, but did hit, or rather, graze him. Cece jumped backwards and slipped through the gate, miaowing and dragging an injured paw behind him. The scooter described a zigzag path — fortunately nothing was coming in the opposite direction — until the handlebars escaped from the rider’s hands and it turned clear around; the mudguard scraped the cement, raising a stream of sparks, and the man rolled two or three times over on the ground as far as the lamppost. He got up quickly, and I saw that he was not badly hurt, even if he was in a scary condition, his trousers torn, one knee swollen and his hands bloody. Flora, awakened by the sound the scooter made when it ran against the wall, was the first to arrive on the scene. She went straight to the man and took him into the house. Aunt Esther soon followed. Not Clelia, no, she must be behind the curtains of her bedroom window, in a state of terror, and didn’t come down; I could imagine what she’d have to say to me.

That danger more than ever hung over us, that everything was worse than before, that the real guilty party must be struck… it had to be done and Saturday was only forty-eight hours off. The suitcase dragged out again from under the bed, her thin hands with the bitten nails working over the white suit of that curious doll with the bow tie and the smile… How do yon like him, tell me. Doesn’t he remind you of somebody? Now we take this string, we have to make knots, a little knot here, a little knot there, and you must repeat this word after me, no, not like that, silly, but as if you meant it, otherwise it won’t work. And finally that big pin, brandished like a dagger in search of the right place to strike — the eyes, the heart, the throat… we had to decide. And what did I advise? I advised nothing, I didn’t want to advise. It was no longer a game, the way it was in other years, a game to pass the summer away.

On Saturday evening Uncle Tullio took us to the Bathhouse. Son of Tarzan was no longer playing; there was only a film we couldn’t see because minors weren’t allowed, but we had a fine walk, all the finer because Clelia had consented to come along. Aunt Esther was radiant, you could read it on her face. We stayed late so as to hear the band. Aunt Esther ordered a fancy ice cream and Clelia and I sat among the potted palms, listening to Mamma solo per te la mia canzone vola and picking up the caps from bottles of Recoaro, which bore the same design as that on the T-shirts worn at championship soccer matches. Aunt Esther and Uncle Tullio danced on the platform bordered with potted palms and then we went home by the shore road. It was a beautiful evening and the tree-lined road was quiet and cool. Aunt Esther and Uncle Tullio walked briskly, arm in arm, and Clelia hummed as if she were happy. I felt as if we were back in the summers that had gone before, when everything was yet to happen. I wanted to hug my aunt and uncle or write to my father not to come for me, to pay no heed to my wish to see him arrive in a red car, because I was content with things the way they were. But Clelia tugged at my sleeve and said: It’ll happen tomorrow, you’ll see.

But on the morrow nothing happened. The morning was superb and we went to the nine o’clock Mass so as to avoid the noonday heat. Aunt Esther had a headache — because of the follies of the night before, she said contritely — but her eyes were shining with joy. Flora had made a fish chowder and the house was filled with an appetizing smell. Cece was convalescing in princely style in his basket and Flora was thrilled because there was a film at the Don Bosco with her favourite actress, Yvonne Sanson. Sunday dinner was a better occasion than any in a long time, filled with laughing and chatter. Then Aunt Esther went to take her nap, saying we’d meet again at teatime. Uncle Tullio had something to do in the garage; if I wanted to go with him he’d show me how to take the distributor apart. I shot a glance at Clelia, but I couldn’t make out if there was any danger involved. I liked the idea of fooling around with the distributor, but I didn’t want to cause Clelia any worry and so I said yes, I’d be glad to serve as assistant mechanic, but not for too long, because Clelia and I were reading a very exciting book, which we wanted to finish. As I said these words I broke out into perspiration. But Uncle Tullio didn’t notice, he was pleased with the way the day was going. In the garage he put on a pair of rubber gloves so as not to dirty his hands and opened up the hood. Here’s the engine block, here’s the dynamo, here’s the fan, there are the spark plugs… give me the toolbox, it’s on the workbench over there to the right. To take apart the distributor all you do is press on the two springs, then use the screwdriver to loosen these two screws, that’s it, very good, just be careful not to pull too hard so you won’t snap the wires. It was a fine car, not brand-new like my father’s Aprilia, but nothing to turn up your nose at; it could get up to a hundred and ten kilometers an hour. I worked until four o’clock, when I went into the house, leaving Uncle Tullio with his head still buried in the engine. Flora was probably sleeping in the deck chair on the back porch; she’d be going to see the film that evening and she wouldn’t want to doze off in the middle. Cece was lying under the small sofa in the entrance hall, sticking his head out every once in a while. I tiptoed upstairs and knocked softly at Clelia’s door. Everything’s going right, she said, with an incomprehensible gesture, he suspects nothing, it seems to me, what do you think? I said it seemed to me, too, that he suspected nothing, but wouldn’t it be wise to think twice about it? Uncle Tullio was such a good fellow, and our game was turning into something… something evil; she’d have to forgive the word, but that was what I honestly thought. Clelia looked at me in silence; the house was silent and even the usual noises from the shore were lacking. I wished that someone, anyone, would give signs of life — Aunt Esther, Flora, Cece — but there wasn’t a sound and I was afraid even to breathe. Because now there was no way of turning back, everything was ready, and only an hour was left before the appointed time; the hands of the clock in the entrance hall were ticking away, inexorably. Then I said: I’ll go down. But an indeterminate time had gone by when I said it; I was sitting on the rug near the half-open window and I had dreamed — or was dreaming — my father was driving along the shore in a red car and smiling at me. He was smiling at the wind, but the smile was meant for me and I was sitting there, waiting, and at the same time I saw him and waved my hand to tell him to stop. Then Clelia touched my shoulder and said let’s go, and I followed her down the stairs as if I were somewhere else. In the dining room Flora had set the table for tea, so quietly that no one could hear; there were the teapot, the pitcher of lemonade, the toast and biscuits. Clelia sat down and I followed her example; Flora arrived promptly and said that the grown-ups would be there in a minute and we could begin. Uncle Tullio came in from the garden and Flora went upstairs to call Aunt Esther. She knocked at the door on the balcony and said: Signora, tea is ready. I was just starting to butter a piece of toast when Flora cried out. She was at the doorway of Aunt Esther’s room, holding one hand over her mouth as if to prevent herself from crying out again, but another shrill, choked moan of horror and despair broke out of her throat. Clelia got up, overturning a cup of tea, and started to run towards the stairs, but Uncle Tullio prevented her. He, too, had got up and was looking with stupor at Flora, all the time holding Clelia close to him as if to protect her. I saw that she had taken off her glasses and her eye was rolling dizzily. She looked at me in a terrible manner, with an expression of terror and nausea and also of bewilderment on her face, as if she were silently begging for my help. But how could I help her, what could I do? Write to my father? I would have done that, with all my heart, but my father wasn’t like Constantine Dragases. From where he was he couldn’t send me even a facsimile of his feet to meet my memories halfway.