The Days of Abandonment

33

I laid the dog’s head on the floor, I got up. Slowly the voice of Ilaria returned, calling me, immediately afterward Gianni’s joined it. I looked around, I saw the feces black with blood, the ants, the dead body. I went out of the room, I went to get a bucket, a rag. I opened the windows, cleaned the room, working quickly but efficiently. I kept calling to the children:

“Just a minute, I’m coming.”

It seemed to me brutal that Otto was lying there, I didn’t want the children to see him. I tried to pick him up, I didn’t have the strength. I took him by the back paws and dragged him across the floor to the living room, onto the balcony. How heavy a body that has been traversed by death is, life is light, there’s no need to let anyone make it heavy for us. I looked for a moment at the dog’s fur ruffled by the wind, then I went back in and, despite the heat, closed the window carefully.

The house was silent, it now seemed to me small, concentrated, without dark corners, made almost cheerful by the voices of the children who, laughing, had begun to make a game of calling me. Ilaria said mamma with the voice of a soprano, Gianni repeated mamma like a tenor.

I hurried to them, I opened the door with a secure motion, I said gaily:

“Here’s mamma.”

Ilaria threw herself on me, hit me again and again, slapping my legs.

“You mustn’t lock me in.”

“It’s true, I’m sorry. But I unlocked you.”

I sat on Gianni’s bed, he was certainly less feverish, he seemed like a boy who couldn’t wait to go back to playing with his sister, to shouting, laughing, furiously quarreling. I felt his forehead, the drops had had an effect, his skin was warm, just slightly sweaty.

“Does your head still hurt?”

“No. I’m hungry.”

“I’ll make you some rice.”

“I don’t like rice.”

“I don’t, either,” Ilaria added.

“The rice I make is very good.”

“Where’s Otto?” asked Gianni.

I hesitated.

“In there, he’s sleeping, leave him alone.”

And I was about to say something else, about the dog’s serious illness, something that would prepare them for his disappearance from their life, when, completely unexpectedly, we heard the electric charge of the doorbell.

All three of us were as if suspended, without moving.

“Daddy,” murmured Ilaria, full of hope.

I said:

“I don’t think so, it’s not daddy. Wait here, I forbid you to move, you’re in big trouble if you leave this room. I’m going to open the door.”

They recognized my normal tone, firm but also ironic, words deliberately excessive for minimal situations. I recognized it myself, I accepted it, they accepted it.

I went along the hall, reached the entrance. Was it possible that Mario had remembered us? Had he come by to see how we were? The question gave me no emotion, I thought only that I would like to have someone to talk to.

I looked through the peephole. It was Carrano.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Nothing. I only wanted to know how you were. I went out early this morning to see my mother and I didn’t want to disturb you. But now I’m back, I found a window broken. Has something happened?”

“Yes.”

“Can I help you?”

“Yes.”

“Can you open the door, please?”

I didn’t know if I could, but I didn’t tell him. I reached my hand toward the key, I grasped it decisively with my fingers, I moved it slightly, I felt it obedient. The key turned in the lock simply.

“Oh, well,” Carrano murmured, looking at me in embarrassment, then he took from behind his back a rose, a single long-stemmed rose, a ridiculous rose offered with a ridiculous gesture by a man not at his ease.

I took it, I thanked him without smiling, I said:

“I have an ugly job for you.”