Читать книгу Coma - Federico Betti, Federico Betti - Страница 11

IX

Every now and then, thinking about what he went through with his younger brother and seeing the current health conditions, Mario Mazza got tears in his eyes.

He looked after him since they were children and has always been next to him during the following years; they lived many happy moments.

They had similar characters, other reason that made them get on well, and they felt really good when they were together.

The image of a smiley, playful Luigi came to his mind and he remembered only a few sad moments, since his brother, like him, was positive and optimistic for nature.

Although the discrete age difference and the belonging, as a matter of fact, to two different generations, Luigi and Mario together were a good pair: they compensate one another and between them there was an almost indescribable understanding.

It was like they were best friends: the one considered himself the perfect half of the other, at lest under certain points of view, and this situation became stronger and stronger as time passed by, especially after Mario was widowed.

Luigi felt in his debt for all that the older brother did for him: “some things you can’t forget”, he told him the day his wife died, “I’ll always be next to you, always”

And Luigi kept his promise.

Not even a day passed by without them seeing each other, or, for the worst, talking to each other on the phone, usually they always knew the other’s appointments, when they felt the need they asked and gave each other advices.

It was a long time that they both were single and, even if they mutually agreed to live in different flats, they still felt together, the one next to the other.

Sometimes they had like the impression that, in the long term, they developed some sort of telepathy between them, and that developed it with time. They understood each other right away, it was like they transmitted their thoughts with a gaze, and often they didn’t even have the need to talk to decide certain things.

I never thought that all of this could be broken in a few seconds, thought Mario while he found himself before his brother’s body, lying motionless in a comatose status.

Luigi’s conditions kept getting better day by day, or that at least was a good news, but seeing him always there, in the same position, put Mario in an uncomfortable situation: he felt a knot in his throat that would hardly be dissolved before his awakening.

All the days passed by like that since the accident: they all were alike, like photocopies.

And even that day the night came without that Mario Mazza realized, so immersed in his thoughts he was.

When he was awakened from a servant’s voice that invited him to leave the hospital because the time to visit the patients was over, the man walked towards the exit, went down the stairs and, with the coat well closed, he prepared to face the bad weather: outside it started to snow.