Читать книгу The Long Shadow Of A Dream - Roberta Mezzabarba - Страница 13

The day was coming to an end: the sun now low on the horizon was lighting up the clouds still high in the sky with colorful lights and the emotions going over the two of them like calm, unpredictable and devastating tides. Going down from the top of the mountain, through the stairs carved into the rock, Greta saw some specimens of prickly pear and told Ernesto how gigantic those plants were in Sicily, and what a beautiful scenery they create: in Greta's words there was nostalgia and affection for a land, her own, which she had not seen for nearly six years.

They quickly reached the small boat they had left on the shore, gently lapped by the lake's waters. Ernesto broke away from the shore of the island pushing with an oar to the ground: the lake was slightly rippled by a cool wind that crept annoyingly under their light clothes touching their skin, causing slight chills.

Although it was already late, they decided to go around the island by boat, before returning to the land. The dark cliffs, almost gloomy from which Ernesto kept a distance of fifty meters,

they were going down towards the water, one on top of the other, as if to give the feeling that in a few moments they could slip into the depths of the lake, disappearing as if they had never existed. They got to an easterly tip of the island, they found themselves in front of a block of stone that had slipped and remained out of the water in an almost vertical position.

It looked like a funeral stele.

The inlets carved, with dark shadows, the cliff that rose high in the sky, and with its semicircular shape reminded Greta of a gigantic ruined amphitheater, the only witness to a burnt crater of a volcano. The stones of the tower, and of the several settlements, scattered rubble, which seemed so huge and majestic before from a short distance, they were indeed so far away, on top of that jagged wall, which seemed frightening by the shadow of the night that advanced rapidly. Even Ernesto seemed so distant, from those moments, dripping with night dew. The thought of him was so unreal ... his words were only a faint echo brought by the dark wind of dusk.

Finally they came out of the fearful shadow that the island projected on the lake's waters making them gloomy, to find the sun, the last glimmer of a large orange, which had already coloured the whole sky with a red halo that reflected with vermilion waves on the surface of the lake, as far as the boat and the depth of their hearts.

The late hour and the strange light of the setting sun caused a sense of dismay in their hearts, as if the end was now near, as if the end of that journey could only represent a sad and painful farewell.

* * *

It was now almost dark when Greta, standing on the pier again, waited for Ernesto to finish mooring the boat. The lights came on one at a time, reflecting their glow on the slightly rippled surface of the lake.

She felt embarrassed like the first time she agreed to date Alberto, eight years earlier.

"Alberto".

The thought of him struck her like a slap in the face, reawakening her from her dreams: in a way that day betrayed, even without realizing it, the memory of that love that she had sworn would remain the only one. She had betrayed him by taking Ernesto's curly head in her arms.

This awareness came down on her like the shadow of an unexpected storm.

She was startled when Ernesto squeezed her waist with his strong, muscular and warm arm.

Her dark hair, disheveled by the wind, was moving about before her eyes: he moved it away to see once again that face that stirred so many feelings all together: he would have liked to be able to read in those dark eyes like a moonless night.

«Greta, it's all so strange ... tonight, now, it feels like a farewell, as if we are saying goodbye and never see each other again. The Martana island often causes melancholy in the heart of those who visit it, but tonight I am afraid of what I feel inside ... you are so sad, my love.»

«It's not the Martana islands' fault, it's not your fault... it's me, no matter where I am, I can only cause pain, even to a sweet person like you. There are days when I feel so different from the people around me, that I seem to be like one of those animals that are kept inside the cages, in a circus: a freakshow used to frighten children and to impress adults. I don't know what happens to me, even now, here with you.

I can't understand what I have inside: a hundred, a thousand voices murmur, shout out loud their opinion, their story and I am doomed not to understand anything. Just a lot of confusion, that’s all I get. I would like so much that the relaxing sound of the sea that laps the shore or some rocks only at night, could stand above all this.»

Ernesto was speechless.

That girl attracted him so much, but at the same time it was as if she rejected him with all her difficulties, with all her problems that to a normal person could just sound as nonsense. He saw the desperation in the girl's mind, he saw it as light filtering through a crack, he felt it running down the skin like water, he breathed it in the air like incense in the churches, he wanted to escape it like the shadow of a terrible omen.

He held her in his arms.

He kissed her lips gently, then they hugged for a long time, motionless under the moon, an iridescent scythe barely visible in the blue sky surrounded by black clouds.

They said goodbye. From a distance, Ernesto stood watching Greta move forward until she was swallowed up by the shadows of the night, already wondering if that girl had really existed.

Greta got to the front of the door and she hesitated, she didn't want to go into her house: she didn't want to sleep, but above all she didn't want to be alone. Then she knocked lightly on Giacomo's door: she hoped with all her heart that he was still awake.

The door opened with a slight squeak, which echoed in the air of the square until it was completely filled: Giacomo appeared with his dark face, and his snow white eyebrows. They were furrowed, as if to ask Greta the question that his lips would have never afford to say: what was the reason she was there, at that time?

«Giacomo, I need to speak with you. This afternoon I was on the Martana island with that fisherman who had already taken me to the Bisentina island ...»

«You work too hard ... did you have to go now to the Martana island? I have to go and talk to that notary myself .»

The old man interrupted her, to play the situation downe: he saw them coming back, he saw them on the pier, he saw the way they hugged. He had probably seen more than Greta herself could understand.

«No, it’s not like that, I didn't go there for work, I wish that was the reason, I went with Ernesto to visit the island and ... oh my God, I made a holy mess, a really holy mess! My mother told me, I'm always the same. Giacomo, what should I do? You tell me, what should I do? »

« First of all, come in, and then we'll talk about it. Come on in.»

Greta would have liked to have a peaceful existence so much, perhaps with Ernesto, but she could not even think about it, at least until she managed to shake off the ghosts that constantly besieged her, at every step of her life. Giacomo was right, only that was her real problem.

Greta had already made up her mind. She would leave for Sicily the next morning.

She had a blank sheet of paper in front of her, where she had started writing a letter for Ernesto.

"Dear Ernesto

maybe you were right last night: the Martana island causes really strange thoughts in its visitors, and so it was.

Maybe I was just waiting for an excuse to cling on to, maybe I have been thinking about going back to Sicily for a long time. However, it does not matter how I got to that. I just have to go.

I will take with me the rose you picked on the Bisentina island, and all the things that I discovered and found together with you. I will take them with me in the hope that they will help me overcome all my fears and the ghosts that hide behind them. I will take them with me because one day they will bring me back to you, here, in your heaven…and if one day, near or far, I will come back ... it will be to stay.

I just wish you wouldn’t forget me: it would be the greatest pain you could give me. Maybe remember me as a madwoman who ranted about her fears, and the shadows she said she felt inside, but never let other faces stick onto mine, suffocating it.

Sweet ferryman of my most beautiful thoughts, I say goodbye to you, and I will not hold you back any further.

I love you, and will love you forever.

Greta"

She wrote those words quickly, without thinking too much, and without thinking too much about what she was doing.

She should also have written a note for the notary De Fusco: she knew perfectly well that she was behaving once again as unconscious. She was nearly thirty years old, but she felt empty like a newborn baby: all her experiences, her emotions, her past had only passed by her leaving only some faded traces of pain and remorse. She wanted answers and wanted to give them. She knew only too well that only by closing a chapter and returning to a clean page would make it possible to start over.

She didn't know how long it would take to get rid of her dreams, from the fears that had grown inside her, to bleed the poison that was slowly flowing into her veins mixed with blood.

She was not even sure that she would succeed. But it was worth trying.