The house at the edge of time
As every evening, I turn in round in bicycle, with Barabau that wags the tail behind me. And as every evening, grandmother waters garden and garden with a rubber pipe. You/he/she cannot be done before, because otherwise they burn the plants. It needs to do him/it to the sunset, pander or less that I/you/he/she am.
From inside house the television feels him that speaks alone. The Americans that keep on celebrating the five hundred years from the unloading of Cristoforo Colombo Columbus, French that are not so sure anymore to want to interrupt the nuclear experiments in that distant atoll that calls Mururoa.
While he/she is sprinkling, grandmother loses a button of the blouse among the roses. It starts rummaging to four legs mumbling incomprehensible sentences to the bulbs and the roots. It tells me to climb than above to take her needle and thread.
I open the drawer that has told me her, the first one. I don't find anything. Then I open the second. The third one. I look through with ten fingers all the drawers. In the last one, that of the laundry, finds the ball of white thread pierced through to the heart from the needle as from a sword. While I am picking up her/it in the middle of the soft one, my palm it stumbles in an edge of metal. I feel with five fingers: there is here something under. I move the piece above of a pajamas. The edge does it departs of a rectangle. The rectangle of a frame to face under.
I turn her.
I look at her.
I close the eyes. I press me strong the lobe of the ear. Feeling to fall, to fall. Down, down, down, in the den of the Rabbit.
"Zoe? How much do you put there?"
A voice from out, from the real time, distant worlds and worlds. Grandmother's voice.
I put again the photo to his/her place, to face under. I cover her with the pajamas. I go down of run the staircases. I arrive in the kitchen with the fiatone.
"Thing you have?" grandmother forfeits the ball pierced by my hands.
"Nothing."
I take a seat me to the table of kitchen, elbows supported on the wood, while grandmother closes an eye to center better the eye of the needle. I swallow. I don't stop her/it torturing me the lobe of the ear. On the table, there is the orphan button of the blouse. There are the dishes to put in table, one on the other. There is also the coffeepot, with the fierce beak and the black knob on the head as bonnet. It bleeds.
25
I knock to the door of Lawrence
I knock to the door of Lawrence, but nobody responds. I peer at from the porticina of Newton, but I immediately rise again then me. I have a white suit with bordini of black satin and to the feet black ballerinas. I cannot get dirty. Tonight we go to country. There is the party of the Delight Estense. They make her every year, next to the castle. Toy balloons and ribbons colored badminton from a tree to the other, the inhabitants serve free tortelli of pumpkin and to midnight it is everything one fire of artifice.
They finally open me, but Lawrence is not yet hello. His/her grandmother picks him/it around up, worse of a female, you/he/she says. What stuff to spend the hours in front of the mirrors, insists, Zoe looks as it is nice without need to be us so much to think. Lawrence presents with the hair that challenges the strength of gravity, all for air. I lengthen the hand. It seems to touch the stings of a porcupine.
There is odor of sausage. And of antizanzare. In the plaza in party there are all the passengers of the house-train, from the locomotive to the last wagon and some other person that I know. There is that friend of grandmother that repairs the things together with his/her child. There are the eyes of Demetrio that are taken around his/her body. They are also there the sisters of grandmother. There is Cackle Zampacorta that as soon as he/she sees me it attaches with the history of the bite to the edge of the table. There is people that laugh people that dance. Mother and Charles also dance. You make the movements of when it is embarrassed for something. I don't understand for what, lie very well. You/he/she has made ten years of classical dance, it also taught her/it to his/her/their children.
To the edges of the plaza the skewers shine on the fires, in line one behind the other. A little more distant, they are also in line the bears in prize for the one that wins the draught to the target. But there that bears are very calmer than the skewers, they live in that draught to the target from who knows how old and it is not certain tonight that they will move.
Lawrence is hypnotized in front of the caramel that rotates together with the almonds in the belly of a kind of round cement mixer heated by a flame. It calls crisp and it is very sweet. I am more melting chocolate type.
The inhabitants stir happy in the perimeter of the plaza, people that come and people that go. Under to the insignia of the cafe, there is who looks at the glass showcase where announcements can be put. The tickets say this way: "VENDESI UOVA." "BABYSITTER REFERENZIATISSIMA OFFRESI." "HOME MASSEUSE." There is also someone whom says that it organizes "I Raced For Diventare BARMAN", but somebody else has cancelled her/it "R" of barman and to its place has put us one "T." I almost almost enroll me.
The orchestrina plays that song that Charles likes it, that that says that we have the sun in plaza few times and the rest it is rain that bathes us. At the edge of the dance footstep there are Mujo and his/her brothers. They are dressed from hard, jackets of black skin and bracelets borchiati to the wrists, but to look at them in the eyes they seem some intimidated. I make him sign to come with the hand. Mujo smiles from far, but ago of no with the head. They go before the fires of artifice and the tortellis of pumpkin. Behind of me someone says:
"It was now."
26
Today afternoon has happened again
Today afternoon has happened again.
The oven. You/he/she has ignited alone, while I was being in the other room. I have felt a beep from the kitchen and then a prolonged humming. When I/you/they have arrived, it was there that it heated a baking-pan of invisible lasagnas. Risiamo, has thought there. I have thrown suffered by grandmother to tell him him, I have reached her to short of breath and of ideas. You, instead, his/her idea on the oven if the era already sort. It was not anything strange, you/he/she has said. Things that happen to the ovens.
"It is old, you/he/she can happen. The teeth of the time eat all the things."
And you/he/she has kept on drawing you look for with the sponge on the glass of the window, as if it were normal administration that the ovens ignite to betrayal, without nobody has ordered him/it to you.
Can happen! But who want to take around? If the oven is old, if, you/he/she should not work when one wants to turn on him/it, at all the contrary one.
I go out. In this house-train that never departs, nobody wants to be about to feel me. Possible that doesn't understand that there is something strange in this summer? I noisily puff but nobody realizes, apart my hair that flies away from the forehead frightened.
I make the turn of the locomotive, I emerge behind the house, next to the garden, to see if at least I succeed in training me some to the vertical one. I find Lawrence, Mujo and other children of the outskirts supported in line against the wall instead. It is the first time that I see Mujo so that nearby. It has green eyes. Green. Not me aware n'ero never. It laughs. And when it laughs, they tremble him the freckles. To me instead they tremble some the legs. I look for some word to make to go out of the lips. In this moment, it would be enough for me to find only also some it salivates to send down. Nothing. I don't succeed there really. I would never have thought about being able to have put in chessman from four incisive, two canine teeth, four premolaris and six molars. Without counting the inferior arcade.
Of hit Lawrence comes me meeting as an actor that tries to darken the photographic objective of a paparazzo. It has a strange face, it pushes back me to palm of hand, it says in a low voice that I cannot be there, that must go suffered. Why? If you/they are measuring them.
27
Day of immovable leaves
Day of immovable leaves, of cunning and silent cats. They are at the afloat home, I take
advantage of the fact that grandfather there is not. I like to be here. I can read in peace the books that Charles has given me and to insert paper in the salvapensieri. There is no anybody that bores. Any noise. Apart the wings of the crickets and the liquid fingers of the river that slip in the delta.
From the window I see Mujo that fishes on the other bank of the river. I draw near me to the glass and I peer at him/it of hidden. It traffics with the reed, it makes to rotate the eddy until it doesn't recover a shabby fish. Look him/it at some, it is undecided whether to throw again him/it in water. It comes me to mind to write him on the glass OAIC, a regard contrarily, as I have done in the locomotive of the house-train. I mist some the glass with the breath. It is dirty here. You sees that grandmother cannot enter, who knows from how much time they don't clean him/it this glass. Continuous to breathe us above, as long as to a line I stay me.
On the glass there is already writing something. Something that I have not written and that you/he/she is written contrarily also. I cannot believe there. I feels like racing out for telling him/it Mujo, but he has disappeared together with the reed and to the shabby fish. I rub me the lobe of the ear. I return in front of the glass. I read to tall voice:
OTUIA
But who has written him? Grandfather? Impossible. Then who? Is there someone who enters the afloat house when grandfather there is not, even at night?
And if instead it were the glass to have written him/it? Yes, you/he/she could be the way that the afloat house has for communicating with the rest of the world. As you/he/she cannot speak, he/she writes on the glasses what wants to say. And he/she writes him/it to upside-down, so those that are out can see.
But because you/he/she has written proper OTUIA?
I return home maltreating me the lobe of the ear. It missed only us that the house on the river was a speaking house. I should perhaps tell him/it grandfather. No, it doesn't suit me to also tell him the matter of the things that you/they speak to me. And then the adults never understand anything. Lawrence? Let's show up us. That doesn't succeed in going besides the UFOs.
I don't know whether to think, but a thing is certain: reality is shouting me in the ears.
I leave the bike against the wall of the garden and enter house of run. Inside, all have the serious faces. Serious. Something serious must have happened, because the TV, for you/he/she is not speaking alone once; they are all before there that they are her/it to listen. I try to ask, but they immediately hiss me.
The television, meanwhile, sends images of a certain road in Palermo that it calls away Of Amelio. The voice of the journalist is making a list of people and I put some to understand there that those people are all death. There is a car rolled up that he/she still sends smoke. Dirty sheets of blood. Noise of sirens in foundation. And people. So much people all around, estate back from the white and red cords of the police. They widen the shot. There are other cars rolled up with the wheels for air. There is stuff that burns. There are buildings with the walls eaten to bites. There is a folded up handrail as if it were made out of wax. Seen by the tall one they seem some toys. But this is not a game.
It is Sunday, but we dine in silence and badly. Grandfather says what kind of country has become, this, where the judges are killed. Already the second in two months. The continuous television to send images of that road in smoke until the night rolls down as a curtain. The pillow seems me uncomfortable, today. I fall asleep me repeating to half voice: OTUIA. OTUIA.
OTUIA.
28
I have on a yellow suit
I have on a yellow suit that mother has given me. And among the hair a ribbon of the same color. Tonight we go to theater. Charles has taken the tickets for a concert. You/he/she has taken four of them, one also for me and for mother. To the beginning she didn't want, as usual you/he/she is made to beg some, but as usual you/he/she has said then of yes.
We go to see the pianist that listens to Charles on his/her French radio. That Michel that he/she doesn't speak of Paris, but of the memory in Paris.
We depart with his/her car toward the seven. Charles drives well, rather very well. Even if it sometimes turns him to look at mother to a semaphore and then it happens that it doesn't realize that the green has gone off and we must tell him him Lawrence and I. Then he straightens him on the back, it says to excuse him/it, it is that in these days it hurts him some the back. It is the pain that distracts him/it. According to me it is because time is too much sat in front of the Letter 22. I tell him that in country there is a masseuse that comes home. I have read him on the glass showcase in the piazzetta, under to the insignia of the cafe. It is experienced. And also reserved, you/he/she was written there. Charles makes a strange smile with the eyes, that I see through the small mirror retrovisore. It seems that there that massages don't interest him.
We have arrived. The room of the theater is great. Huge. Also greater than as I remembered her/it to me. Here inside you/he/she could quietly land us a spaceship. I take a seat me on the poltroncina of velvet of side to Charles. This evening I don't have intention to look behind the scenes. I want to do as they do the others: to enjoy me the show and enough.
The lights are finally extinguished. Michel enters, the public applauds. I rub the eyes, I have not seen well perhaps. I look at Charles. I look again at Michel. Then again Charles. But who want to take around? This is not at all here Michel. Michel is tall at least one meter and eighty, it is everything frac and black hair. It has an ivory smile with more notes of the keys of the piano. Want to smuggle this impostor for a true musician!
"He/she listens" Charles whispers me, that has realized of my nervousness.
Unwillingly I focus me on the cheat in the cone of light, to the center of the stage. It is too low to be a musician. Decidedly. And then the hands, above all the hands are impressive. You/he/she can be said that they are the greatest part of all of his/her person. Everything of its body assembles him in the hands there. When it begins to play, it moves her so fast that my eyes don't succeed in putting her to fire. However I begin to put to fire the whole rest. Michel as its music, are not Paris but the memory in Paris.
He plays, and around reality disappears. The notes stay me attached to the body and the rest of the evening it skids away without the ticking of the clocks without the voice of the things that you/they want to speak to me. I have not even realized that my yellow ribbon has slipped to earth and that Charles has slipped on the poltroncina of side to that of mother. Decidedly, this part of the world is in descent. It hangs toward right.
But it doesn't care. This evening no carpets that plot neither coffeepots that bleed. This evening I want to enjoy after all her until. I climb the staircases of house without worrying me about possible lacking steps. I cover well me with the sheet to rub the mosquitos: they won't have me as snack of midnight. There is still that creaking leading that it drags him along the walls, but I don't care because the music covers him/it and is so that it will go tonight. The hands of the clocks turn without making noise. I fall asleep me with the notes of Michel in the ears, his/her enormous hands in front of the eyes. And the memory in Paris in the mind.
29
A special ticket for the salvapensieri
A special ticket for the salvapensieri: you/he/she has come to find us my cousin Iris. It will be from us for a few days because his have departed and they don't want to leave her/it alone to house.
Iris is five years old in more than me, the hair as Madonna and the jeans torn on the thighs. Door of the soldier boots even if it sustains to be a pacifist. You immediately understands that that boots there, for her, they have a vital importance. It brings them even if it is summer and there am out trentacinque degrees.
"I never separate me from my Dr. Martens" you/he/she has said once.
It was the first time that I felt someone call his/her shoes for name and to also give him a title.
Behind the black glasses, Iris has the lost eyes, clearer than the usual one. Iris has the ey
es of his/her/their grandfather, that are also the eyes of mother. I have the eyes of dad instead. To me the eyes of Iris seem me facts of water and certain times they also make me some impression.
Grandmother is electrified, all happy to see her/it. You continuous to nibble him the fingernails, with the bonnets on the ears from which a thread of thin music slips out. According to me it is evident that it doesn't have anybody desire to be here, where life doesn't fry. But you/he/she cannot do us nothing, this it is I break down him/it that his/her parents have chosen her for the next days. And we cannot even do there nothing us; the production has almost imposed us its entrance in scene without warning.
Iris disembarks in our summer so, with the Dr. Martens to the feet, the sunglasses among the hair, the bonnets on the ears and a trip purse that it overflows of life. It doesn't seem the purse of whom must stay only a few days. I wonder me if it will also acknowledge her that noise leading that it booms in the angles of our days, the ticking of the time bomb that is about to explode and that I don't know whether to defuse.
I accompany him than above. We will divide the same room and it will be my turn to surrender her part above of the bed in castle for matters of seniority.
For before thing she opens his/her trip purse, it throws out some rolls of paper that scatter him on the bed. Then he/she takes the scotch, salt on the mattress that bounces under the weight of the Dr. Martens and it puts on to stick the rolls. They are of the poster. Iris will be only from us few days, but you/he/she doesn't have intention to pass them in the white of the walls.
In the first poster there is one combed as her. Madonna. In the second there is one with the sunglasses of Vasco Rossi and the bandana of Vasco Rossi. It is Vasco Rossi. In the third one there are five boys dressed of white that I have never seen. It is a group, it tells me, that is not still famous in Italy, but that in England it seems they don't listen to other all day long. I ask as they call. You say a thing type teikzet, I don't understand well.