The house at the edge of time

  Some years ago, on that same wall, you/he/she had stuck does her/it of one who called Nick Kamen. This Nick Kamen I remember him/it well to me, because thanks to him I have won a historian hide-and-seek. Some years ago has happened, I had found all, it missed only my cousin. Impossible to succeed in rousing her/it. Then, of hit, the radio starts transmitting the last success of Nick. And here that the shutters of the closet open as for magic and my cousin it shells out of the hideaway as the snakes from the enchanters' baskets, scarfs and sweaters that slip down from her head. Den for Iris. Losing so to alone hide-and-seek to succeed in listening to the song of one that doesn't even have righter to a space on the wall above the bed.

  Now the teikzets are in concert to Paris.

  "Then they will certainly go to the it extracted" I say.

  Iris looks me as if I/you was just disembarked by Mars. The extracted he/she doesn't know what both, but it is convinced that that teikzets will go elsewhere there to make the concerts.

  I am sceptic. I look better at them. They don't convince a lot me. They don't convince at all rather me. The only one that I like is what is extended in low, with the black hair and the angles of the mouth that laugh without laughing. I ask as it calls.

  "Robbie Williams."

  This Robiuiliams I am sure that it will have success as singer, it has the angles of the mouth that laugh too much for one who won't have of it. Certain, however, you/he/she should learn to play the trumpet and lasciar to lose the others four.

  From under, the voice of grandmother calls Iris.

  "You come that I must tell you a thing."

  You go down the wood of the staircases grinding a rubber among the teeth. Grandmother calls her/it in garden. I stay some to look at the angles of the mouth of Robiuiliams, while I am feeling her speak out of the window, there under. They don't know that from here I can feel her.

  "Remembered to never speak of what has happened not to make any reference to the life of before. Have you understood? The child has suffered a trauma. Remembered: you must never name him/it."

  I draw near me to the shutter of the window. I see Iris that lifts the shoulders, ago a pink ball with the rubber, says that however it didn't have any intention to speak of what has happened, what she doesn't care of it nothing. And if really they want to know him/it, he was also her unpleasant.

  30

  Iris tells grandmother that we go to buy an ice cream

  Iris tells grandmother that we go to buy an ice cream in country, but you/he/she is only an excuse to slip in the first telephone box that she meets on the road. I don't care it, because the ice cream has bought me him the same. While I am licking the whipped cream that strains me along the fingers, I see her/it get excited through the glass. You complains that in this place there is no anything. NOTHING. It tells him/it in capital, straight. The friend on the other side some thread consoles her/it: you/he/she must be only after all here few days, at all forever. But that few days, to my cousin, they seem the longest and unfair of his/her life.

  It goes out of the most depressed box of when you/he/she has entered there. We walk for a piece of grass while she is nibbled the fingernails and me I keep on licking the white of the ice cream. We reach in silence the bridge on the river. Some years ago spent together always the summers. Grandmother sewed us of the supereroe customs and us we flew around for the courtyard with our spatial mantles. We don't speak almost anymore today there.

  "Looks, a flamingo!"

  You turn as soon as the head toward the pink one of the feathered one, is illuminated then her eyes. You/he/she has individualized qualcos'altro in the green, something of red. A door of telephone box + a telephone of telephone box = a telephone box all whole. There him slingshot immediately inside.

  Sigh. I believe that also to her, as to mother, it would like a lot the invention of that dwarfish telephone to bring in pocket, but I don't say anything. Iris from great he/she wants to be an engineer, he/she is never known that if the remembers and comes her to mind to invent for indeed that diabolic gadget.

  Back to the house-train we find the sisters of grandmother. Cackle Zampacorta has brought to make to see the films some marriage of his/her daughter. A true pearl, says, beautiful, good and good.

  From as he/she speaks of it, it seems a cocktail of Einstein and Claudia Schiffer. Iris asks what you/he/she does in the life. And then we discover that, besides being intelligent and noisily beautiful, the daughter of Cackle Zampacorta is also very modest and at all ambitious: he/she works in a supermarket, to the bench of the fish. That is, not really to the bench of the fish. It is there above all of side, with on a cane custom Findus, and it distributes good discount and tastes of various products of the brand. You/they have also offered her to pass to the box, but she has said of no, because he/she doesn't want to abdicate the relationship with the clients. Iris suffocates a giggle and grandmother you/he/she launches her an occhiataccia, summoning to sit her on the couch. From a side there is Cackle Zampacorta, from the other there are grandmother and mother. We are rubbed, you/they have cut us the streets of escape. It will be our turn to also assist us to the marriage of the cane.

  With two pleased fingers, Cackle inserts the precious cassette in the mouth of the VCR. However he/she is not seen anything, only a to whirl of formichine. Cackle says I don't understand and he/she sends some before fast with the remote control until an image it doesn't appear.

  We can finally appreciate us also the beauty of his/her daughter. The films it begins really with a shot of his/her face. There is no denying it, it is really beautiful. It has a blessed and happy expression. Cackle is all proud and looks us of hidden for to spy our faces. Then the image widens, up to also frame the bridegroom. There is no denying it, it is beautiful also him. It has the black hair, almost blue, and does her/it blessed as her. However, here it doesn't seem the image of a marriage. They seem above all two that they make gymnastics. Only that are doing her/it naked. They are in a kind of gym, standing on a rug of blue rubber, him behind of her, and they stir stuck, making some movements with the basin to the rallentatore. Nobody says a word, Cackle seems some senseless, but it pretends of nothing. Something stutters and he/she sends another po' before fast with the remote control. I am again formichine. Then the daughter of Cackle and his/her husband that make gymnastics naked leave again, this time knelt for earth to four legs and with faster movements. Just fast.

  Cackle tries to extinguish, but the remote control doesn't respond to the orders anymore. You/he/she has decided to do of his/her head, some as the keys, the carpets and the other things.

  Of side to me, Iris tries to suffocate a laughter. I don't know why, but so much comes to also laugh to me. We try to hold back us, but the laughter stirs in the throat. It presses, it pushes, salt on, it races up to the teeth, up to the gate of the lips that we don't succeed in holding closed anymore, until it explodes in a boato. It is a sound ever felt a rhombus of thunder. It is as if we had not given back for years, as if our laughters had been for a long time imprisoned and today, finally, the day of the scarcerazione they were enjoyed. We give back as anybody you/he/she has ever laughed from the birth of the world. We roll there on the couch caring the belly, the tears to the eyes, while mother puts in front of the screen, braccia and wide apart legs to prevent us to look, and Cackle and grandmother look for in every way to stop the recording and every thing that do you/he/she is comic even more and you/he/she adds laughters to our laughters. We keep on laughing up to when Cackle leaves the house-train, excusing himself/herself/itself so much with grandmother, saying that if it didn't wait for him/it really, that won't happen anymore. We are still laughing when we salt than above to take the shower. We keep on also laughing to supper, while grandfather asks what it has happened of so much amusing and grandmother svicola not to speak of the two that the naked gymnastics they did on the rug of blue rubber. When I lie down me in the embrace of the sheets I am still laughing. Iris has already put to sleep, in the bed above my head. I
let me cradle from his/her regular breath. Good night, world. Perhaps for once I can trust you.

  31

  Grandfather and I are hypnotized in front of the television

  Grandfather and I are hypnotized in front of the television. Grandmother gives us before with the broom, but we doesn't even see her/it to us. It crosses again again in opposite direction, but for us it is only a ghost that crosses the room. It returns back and he/she asks if we want an orange juice. We don't answer. Our bodies stazionano there, on the couch but us in reality we are to Barcellona, that is the capital of the Catalogna. It is there that this year they are disputed the Olympiads.

  Today it is the day of the rhythmic gymnastics. Grandfather likes to see her/it together with me. He likes the rush of the gymnasts, he likes as they turn the work into beauty. It seems that has a good time, but what you/they do is difficult and very hard. To succeed in making him/it seem a game it he/she takes an enormous will power.

  Grandmother passes again with a bun that smokes on a tray. I don't see her/it, but I recognize the bun from the odor. It is that with the yogurt. It starts her cooling on the windowsill. To distract he/she asks us we want a slice of it. In choir, grandfather and I shout "Shhh!". It is about to go down in platform Maria Petrova.

  Maria Petrova is to the rhythmic gymnastics as Maradona it is to the kick, only that she is thinner and slender. It is more Bulgarian. A female and Bulgarian version of Maradona, here. The television cameras frame while it is drawing near to the platform with its unmistakable footstep, in its ear there is still the puff of the last recommendations of the trainer. It has a body of white lycra, in hand the red ball, shiny. The other ones go down in platform with some fires of artifice in the customs, does her/it painted, and they smile as of the fools the whole time of the exercise to ingratiate the members of the jury. Maria Petrova no. You go down in platform with a white body and it don't smile.

  It has black hair, picked in a way that seems that they are on alone, that was born for being this way. The other ones choose aggressive music. You no. Of music you of it enough only a thread. Here. It goes down in platform. It dries the palm of the hands on the lycra of the custom. You/he/she has not shaken, only assembled. Ready. There is a silence that he breathes, before you begin the music. Grandfather and I hold back the breath. Let's hold back him/it for one minute and thirty seconds.

  With Maria Petrova every time this thing some strange happens. It doesn't seem her to follow the music but the music that it follows her/it in every movement of his. And also the ball, the red ball, follows her/it. He/she jumps in air, yes, but then it lands in his/her palm or in the hollow of the back or among his/her ankles. In short, exactly there where you/he/she must arrive. It never loses her/it. It seems that I/you/he/she am attached to his/her body with an elastic. The ball gets further for some, but then you/he/she cannot make to less less than return from her.

  Maria Petrova makes this effect to the world: the music, the utensils, the platform, the people that look at her/it on the slopes and the whole rest it seems that is for her there, only for her, that gravitates around her in natural way and cannot make to less less than do him/it.

  At the end of the exercise the whole public is standing and shouts its name. We go off standing also me and grandfather, applauds as if you/he/she could feel us. And she smiles, it feels indeed perhaps it for.

  You directs toward his/her trainer. Now the worse moment comes, that in which the jury sends forth the vote. Maria Petrova has a straw of nervousness in the look, while it is waiting for the verdict. It didn't have him before the exercise, when the things depended only on her. It has him now, that the things depend from somebody else. Grandfather and I return on the couch, we cross the fingers, we tighten us strong the hands. And the Italian Rai Radiotelevisione chooses that precise moment to interrupt the connection with Barcellona.

  Grandfather and I jump on the pillows, we insult the reporters, we beat the fists on the television. All useless. Part initials her/it of it Returns home Lessie. Cannot believe there! Grandfather swears that you/he/she won't pay anymore the canon in his/her life.

  At the end we are forced to surrender us, he returns his/her home on the river, I go out in the courtyard. I must wait for tomorrow's connection afternoon to know if Maria Petrova will win the gold medal or no.

  Out, Lawrence asks if I feel like making a run of side to the house-train, from the locomotive up to the last wagon.

  "We do to whom arrives for first to the river."

  I lose because I am distracted, I think too much about Maria Petrova. One day I will become as her. I will have a custom of white lycra, I will dance on an Indian melody and the things they will turn around me and they will exactly do what I say me. To say, to do, to kiss, letter, will. Lawrence, that doesn't know yet that from great I will become Maria Petrova, it chooses the penitence to make me do. I see him/it disappear from my visual field and to reappear later immediately with that certain pillbox with the holes that serve for making to breathe the frog. But I don't care it. This evening I have convinced the others to eat out, in garden. There will be all the inhabitants of the house-train.

  I help mother and grandmother to prepare the table. When it is ready, they pick her/it for the legs up and they move her/it in the courtyard. I climb above of run to change me. Behind the garden grandfather cooks the meat to the fire, the perfume you/he/she climbs on, up to the first floor.

  Iris is happy, tonight. It has a white bodice and a skirt of jeans. Then I put also a clean suit. It is red, it has the thin shoulder strap and the wide skirt. When turn on myself seems a corolla of flower. I peer at me satisfied in the mirror of grandmother, before my look remains glued to the reflex of Iris that puts make up on him. I am immovable to look at her/it, all you brush and brillantini and colored case box. The thing that does me more impression is when he/she takes the black pencil and it makes him a line really in the eye. You/he/she must do bad. You smile, it says you come here. It unscrews the cork of a pink barattolino and it smears me on the lips a cream, pink also that. It calls lucidalabbra and he/she knows about strawberry.

  This evening Iris abdicates the Dr. Martens and it is laced to the ankles of the sandals of woven leather. Then I put the shoes of mother, those with the tall heel. They are all right me. I want to say, almost. I try to walk, but the heel shells out to every footstep. I abdicate. However that leather bracelet comes to mind that I have found in the abandoned house. I rummage in the pockets of all of my shorts and at the end I find him/it. To touch I feel again it that strange shake. But it is not anything, it immediately passes. I lace him/it to the wrist in front of Iris, that he is brushing with a pink dust, thin as the sugar to veil that grandmother puts on the cakes. Look me through the mirror and to a line it jams.

  "Thing is that?"

  By instinct I hide the left arm behind the back. It doesn't suit me to say that I have found him in the abandoned house. Mother doesn't want that I/you/he/she go us. And he/she doesn't even want that I/you/he/she pick up the earth things.

  In the mirror, for an instant, Iris has a strange face. It seems that I/you/he/she tremble her some the chin. And the eyes, above all the eyes are strange, they seem emptied of water.

  Then it returns to his/her brush dipped in the pink one. It says only:

  "If I were you, I would not put him/it."

  I look again at the bracelet, with the tail among the legs. I untie him/it plain and I return to insert him/it in that certain pocket where I have found him. I am satisfied me with the bracelet of mother, that with the pendants to form of star. I lace him/it the steep one going down some staircases. Iris is already of under.

  Out, grandfather smiles, you/he/she says as you are beautiful. It puts us in hand a crouton of bread, to press on the meat that cooks. Some to the time, the table is filled with dishes and glasses. Of baskets of bread and bottles. The meat grigliata also arrives. Grandmother reaches with the potatoes the oven. There is really everything, doesn't miss an
ything. There is the music that comes from the radio of Charles. There is the light of the evening, that is not already more that of the sunset and it is not still that of the night. And then there are all the inhabitants of the house and, for the occasion, also grandmother's sisters. Grandfather uncorks a bottle of Fortana of the Wood Eliceo. A toast to us, momentary of a house-train. To the kites, it adds. It is to the wind, I think, that puffs soon on our platform.

  Lawrence eats with the hands, you/he/she chews to wide open mouth to make me appreciate the perfect mechanics of his/her molars. His/her grandmother tells him to eat as you/he/she is owed, that stuff, to show to the others what one has under to the teeth, Zoe you/he/she looks as you/he/she is composed, as she knows how to use knife and fork. Grandfather fills again all the glasses up to the edge, while grandmother passes the tray of the potatoes to the oven and Iris you/he/she nibbles a cutlet of pig with the rubber to still chew in mouth. Cackle Zampacorta peeps as usual. It tells private stuff of people that I don't know. Another invention comes to mind to absolutely set before the telephone to put in pocket: a spray that sprinkles him/it in the air and it hisses the people that are you before. It doesn't do him/it in brutal way, no. It creates around only yourself a kind of bell of glass; those keep on speaking but you don't feel them and continuous to eat your cutlet of pig.

  As my spray doesn't exist yet, it is my turn to listen to Cackle that speaks of one who has lost the job. Of the child of somebody else that has been planted by his/her wife. And also of that friend of grandmother, what repairs the things. Cackle says that his/her neighbor has entered his/her shop because she wanted to see some toys to make a gift. To look at that toys, has remained there the whole afternoon. You/he/she must have shows them to him really all, grandmother's friend.

  "I don't know if has made her also see his, of toy" it says Cackle.

  All burst to laugh. Someone adds that all the women need a toy this way. Also mother. Above all mother. I would want to know why they laugh so much. And because mother should ever have need to play. You blush some, but since nobody is almost dark it doesn't realize. I realize only of it me, because you/he/she has begun to make the movements of when it is embarrassed for something. Also Charles, sat of side to her, it seems me that I/you/he/she make some strange movements. But it is not my father, therefore I don't know well the movements that it does when it is embarrassed for something. However they are all happy ones this evening. They seem happy straight. The supper rolls up to the night and also some more in there. I breathe a sigh of relief. For once the things you/they have not opened mouth.