Lost Words (23 page)

“You're the best man I've ever met.”

“You're wrong. You don't know anything about me!”

“I'm not wrong. I know
everything
about you!”

She shivered, as if she had a fever. She took one of his hands in hers, kissed it, and in a sudden gesture wrapped an arm around his neck.

“What are you doing, Elvira?” he scolded her, trying to break her away from him. “Come now, we're not children! Stop!”

Since he couldn't pull her arms off him, he slowly and compassionately hugged her sobbing shoulders. In the sudden silence, the only thing you could hear was the electric hum of the refrigerator. I placed my hand on her shoulders, too. For a moment we became one person. For a moment the barriers that divided us disappeared. For a moment . . .

My mother's tears stopped. She straightened her spine and her head. A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind and vanished into an unknown distance amid the batting of her moist eyelashes.

“Where have you decided to go?” she asked him.

“Me? . . . Well, I was thinking of moving . . . I'd like to go to Africa or maybe return to India. I don't know yet.”

She had no comment.

They spoke to each other like two strangers.

The Professor stood up and reached for the doorknob. “Oh, I almost forgot something.” He reached into the left pocket of his overcoat and took out a packet. “This is for you, Luca. Merry Christmas.”

I followed him with my gaze from the bedroom window all the way to the gate. He took a few more steps and vanished into the darkness.

I withdrew into the bathroom and ripped away the newspaper pages in which it was wrapped . . .

What was it? A steel comb, all black, in the shape of a shell? . . . A closed fist of many fingers? . . . The skeleton of a fan? . . . No, it was a mechanical spider that moved its legs over my palm like a living, breathing creature . . . No, it wasn't that, either. So what was it? All of a sudden I understood. The Professor had given me the heart and soul of his beloved Olivetti! Those impatient, movable legs were the typebars! The fire hadn't consumed them. It had only blackened them. You could still see the letters perfectly.

Copyright © 2012 Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore Milano

Translation copyright © 2016 Michael F. Moore

Published by arrangement with Marco Vigevani & Associati Agenzia Letteraria.

Originally published in 2012 as
Le parole perdute di Amelia Lynd

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

This translation was made possible by a grant from the Zerilli-Marimò Prize/City of Rome for Italian Fiction. The writer and translator also gratefully acknowledge the hospitality of Writers Omi at Ledig House.

First published as New Directions Paperbook 1338 in 2016

Manufactured in the United States of America

Design by Erik Rieselbach

eISBN 9780811224765

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

by New Directions Publishing Corporation

80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011