Читать книгу The Smile Of The Moon - Klaus Zambiasi - Страница 8

It’s 8.03 pm on an April evening in 1970.The black and white TV atop the fridge in the town’s bar is broadcasting the national news on the first channel.

Paul McCartney, in the middle of an endless array of microphones, has just announced during a press conference that the Beatles are officially splitting up, shocking millions of fans across the world and throwing them into a turmoil.

It’s the first story of every national and international news, the scenes alternating between teenagers, young girls and ladies of any age, all desperate for the end of their idols’ band.

The bar is dominated by cigarette smoke, with a couple of classical still lives hanging on the wall.

There’s an old man, white-bearded and pipe in hand, looking like a sailor, and seeing him here, in a small town in the middle of the Dolomites, feels somewhat odd. He’s celebrating the latest victory of Gigi Riva’s Cagliari, about to win its first ever football championship. The ‘loyal regulars’ are playing cards and drinking red at their usual tables.

An abstract and unexpected sensation sweeps through the air, some family men go back to their homes.

The 8 o’clock news is also reporting about the American space shuttle Apollo 13, which has just taken off from the space station in Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to the moon. While orbiting in space, during the attempted moon landing, some technical problems hinder its arrival. The event is broadcasted across the world, keeping the viewers waiting with baited breath. Apparently, the three astronauts on board won’t be able to come back.

They risk an awful end on live TV, unless they manage to repair their malfunctions and return in time, landing safe and sound on the Pacific Ocean.

There must have been some strange and particularly hostile conjunction of stars these days in the April skies.

That’s probably what Mr Remo also thought when they told him what happened at his house.

He was there at the bar playing cards as usual; in theory, come dinner time, a good husband should be home with his family.

But we all know how these things go, one more game, let’s play another, the rematch, the final… and so on, time flies. He fit in that context, at least until the news, the shocking news, reached him.

He doesn’t even have the strength or the courage to go back home – Remo can neither know nor imagine what’s waiting for him there.

A dear friend of his offers to put him up for that night, and the following too, should he need to. Remo gladly accepts: after all, friends are often an essential anchor one can cling onto for a little comfort at painful times like these.

Not far from there there’s a great bustle, some commotion, it’s hard to understand what’s happening, blue and red lights in the night. A white cloak blends into the crowd, almost like a spectator, staying and watching the scene and not knowing whether to vanish or to give up to their own conscience.

An elderly mother, incredulous and desperate, is trying to take care of her own young daughter, while a life is ending.

Four years and ninety days later…