Читать книгу Puppies - Maurizio De giovanni - Страница 7

Before falling asleep, Lara dreamed.

It wasn’t a real, full-fledged dream.

Instead, it was one of those flashes, midway between consciousness and unconsciousness, that flit through your mind as sleep creeps in. Images and faces and perceptions that don’t even filter through the coherent structure of reason, that are strangely exempt from the demands of story or plot; a senseless tangle, devoid of the developments that logic demands. Sensations.

She saw her home, in winter. A desolate expanse, the untilled field behind the apartment building. There was lots of snow, perhaps because that’s how her mind translated the actual chill that it felt on her skin as she slipped into unconsciousness. The sky was leaden, as always. Lara even thought she could smell the aroma of burning wood that rose from the chimney pots of the scattered homes, few and far between.

She saw a black dog running. It was playing, because it darted from side to side, in an unpredictable zigzagging course. She wanted to call to it, but she couldn’t remember its name, and anyway her voice wouldn’t come out. Lazily she thought that maybe the dog was chasing something; a rabbit, a mouse, or a cat. Its prey, though, must have been white, because she couldn’t make it out against that frozen blanket.

She saw her mother. She didn’t look like she had when Lara had left home: she was young in the dream. She was smiling and leaning over something; maybe it was actually a memory from her cradle. She was beautiful. Lara could see her mother’s teeth, which were actually nearly all missing now, her lips pulled back in a kind and glowing smile, her eyes filled with fondness and pride. No deep-carved wrinkles, no creases on her face, the legacy of so much grief and sorrow, the punches and smacks, the bottles drained. Hi, Mama, thought Lara. How pretty you are. Her mother said nothing in reply, just went on gazing at her sweetly. Then she said: What a pity, my little one. What a pity.

But these were flashes, just scattered images before falling asleep; so Lara didn’t answer her, and she didn’t even ask her what she meant. She had already moved on to the next flash.

Now she was seeing Donato. He had his back to her, he was sitting in front of the television set; the glowing screen was a flickering staticky mess, there was clearly some problem with the broadcast. She wanted to touch him, shake him to let him know there was nothing to watch, but she lacked the energy. Besides, she was about to fall asleep. And in any case, her voice was stuck in her throat, once again.

She vaguely considered the thought that if only she had been able to summon his attention away from that stupid, empty screen, Donato might have been able to help her. After all, it was him that she turned to every time she needed help. Certainly, Donato was what he was; there were many who feared him and she herself, having seen him in action, would never have wanted to go up against him. Beneath the blanket of unconsciousness, thicker and thicker as she gradually slipped down into sleep, she wondered whether instead she shouldn’t be wary of Donato, whether she shouldn’t be afraid of him and turn to someone else for help. Donato with his powerful hands. Donato with his unexpected gentleness. Donato with his untroubled voice that could make shivers run down your spine.

But Donato, his back turned as he faced the empty screen, gave way to another fleeting flash.

This time, it wasn’t her sense of sight that remembered, it was her sense of touch. It was something wrinkled and yet impossibly light, warm, and tiny. Skin, maybe. Yes, skin. A minuscule fuzz, and soft silk beneath the palm of her hand. And the memory of a strange scent, moist and agreeable. Lara’s body responded with a faint spot of warmth on her right breast.

If she hadn’t already been on the verge of dropping off into slumber, if she hadn’t already had one foot inside the dark room of the deepest sleep, the sleep without images and without dreams, without memories or consciousness, then Lara would have remembered the baby girl.

For the whole time she’d had the little one inside her, she’d never given her a name, in view of what would be coming later. She hadn’t even wanted to know whether it was a boy or a girl, to avoid giving it an identity. Now, though, one of those flashes of her reason as it lost contact with reality was a glimpse of that flesh, red and wrinkled but new like nothing else could ever hope to be.

Sense of touch. Memory. Even her sense of hearing brought her something, like the sucking sound of the sea washing out, the sea sleeping at night outside a half-open window. The voice of Signora Cristina, as she patiently explained the workings of the half stitch. The insistent voice of Signor Sergio, in the half-light. The voice of the priest, behind the red curtain, in gentle supplication.

How strange, Lara’s brain thought with some difficulty, by now almost entirely sedated. A priest supplicating a woman in confession. What do you have to beg for, priest? Shouldn’t it be me, begging you? But by now the time separating waking moments from sleep was about to run out, and it was too late to ask questions. Too late for answers, too.

As if flying through the air, Lara’s thoughts flew to Nazar’s funny face, his figure, chest thrust out, tie knotted at his neck, awkward and smiling. To the clothes that she had embroidered. To the immense sea that never once stops moving and yet which seems utterly immobile. To the heat, to the cold.

The dog was still running through the snow, following mysterious trajectories. Donato was sitting motionless in front of the screen. The skin of the baby girl was moving gently under her hand.

But by now, she really had run out of time.

The cord tightened one last time around Lara’s neck.

And at last she died.

And stopped remembering.