The Young Bride (21 page)

She went in and saw Modesto and the Father.

They were both dressed with flawless elegance. The Father was lying on the bed, the features of his face contorted.

Modesto gave two small coughs. The young Bride had never heard them before, but she understood perfectly. She read in them a studied mixture of dismay, surprise, embarrassment, and nostalgia.

Yes, she said, with a smile.

Grateful, Modesto bowed and moved away from the bed, taking the first steps backward and then turning around as if a gust of wind, and not an inconvenient choice, had decided for him. He left the room, and this book, without saying a word.

Then the young Bride approached the Father. They looked at each other. He was extremely pale, and his chest was jerking uncontrollably. He breathed as if he were biting the air, he couldn't control his eyes. He seemed to have aged a thousand years. He gathered all the energy he still had available and uttered, with a great struggle and unsuspected firmness, a single sentence.

I will not die at night, I will die in the light of the sun.

Instinctively, the young Bride understood everything and looked up at the window. Only darkness filtered through the half-closed blinds. She turned to check the time on the clock that in that room, as in all the others, measured, with a certain indulgence, the time for the work. She didn't know when dawn would break. But she understood that they had several hours now to vanquish and a destiny to dissolve. She decided that they would make it.

Very quickly she reviewed the possible actions she could take. She chose one that had the flaw of being risky and the value of being inevitable. She left the room, went back along the corridor, entered the room where the girls kept their things, opened the drawer that was hers, took out a small object—a gift that was immensely precious to her—and, clutching it in her hand, returned to the Father. She locked the door of the room, approached the bed, and took off her cloak. She went back in her mind to a precise image, of the Mother holding between her legs the Father of the Father, so many years earlier, stroking his hair and speaking to him in a whisper, as if he were alive. Since she had learned that the only exact act is repetition, she climbed onto the bed, drew near the Father, lifted his body, and very gently placed it between her legs and on her chest. She was certain that he knew what she was doing.

She waited for the Father's breath to become a little more regular, and took the gift that was so precious to her. It was a small book. She showed it to the Father and read the title, in a whisper.

How to Abandon Ship
.

The Father smiled, because he didn't have the strength to laugh and because those who have a sense of humor have it forever.

The young Bride opened the book to the first page and began to read aloud. Since she had leafed through it many times, she knew that it was identical to the Father: meticulous, rational, slow, irrefutable, apparently detached, secretly poetic. She tried to read as well as she could, and when she felt the Father's body acquire weight, or lose will, she accelerated the rhythm, to chase away death. It was on page 47, more or less in the middle of the chapter devoted to the rules of politeness that are imposed on board a lifeboat, when through the slats of the blinds a light just veined with orange began to filter. The young Bride saw it skimming the cream-colored pages, on every letter and in its own voice. She didn't stop reading, but she realized that any weariness in her had vanished. She continued rolling out the surprisingly numerous reasons that advise settling women and children in the prow, and only when she moved on to examine the pros and cons of rubber life jackets did she see the Father turn his face toward the window, and remain with his eyes wide open, in the light, stunned. Then she read a few more words, more slowly, and then some words in a whisper—and then silence. The Father kept staring at the light. He blinked his eyelids, at a certain point, to chase away the tears that he hadn't taken into account. He sought the young Bride's hand and squeezed it. He said something. The young Bride didn't understand and then she leaned over the Father to hear better. He repeated:

Tell my son that the night is over.

He died just as the sun rose above the horizon, and there was no death rattle, no movement, only a breath like so many others, the last.

The young Bride looked for a heartbeat, in the body she was holding in her arms, and didn't find it. So she ran the palm of her hand over the Father's face to close his eyes, in a gesture that has forever been the privilege of the living. Then she opened the small book with the blue cover again, and continued reading. She had no doubt that the Father would have liked that, and in some passages she felt that no funeral oration could have been more apt. She didn't stop until the end, and, reaching the last sentence, she read it very slowly, as if to protect herself from the risk of its breaking.

Four years later—as I happened to write days ago, in my mind, while I was staring, without seeing it, at a sea that I will nevermore abandon—a man with an anomalous fascination appeared at the brothel; his simple clothes were elegant and he possessed a strong, unnatural calm. He crossed the salon almost without looking around, and stopped confidently in front of the young Bride, who, sitting on a chaise longue, a champagne flute in her hand, was listening with amusement to the confessions of a retired minister.

Seeing him, the young Bride narrowed her eyes slightly. Then she got up.

She stared at the man's face, the lean features, the long hair pulled back, the beard that framed his lips, slightly parted.

You, she said.

The Son took the champagne flute away from her and offered it to the retired minister, without a word. Then he took the young Bride by the hand and led her away with him.

Emerging into the street, they stopped a moment, to breathe the sparkling air of evening. All of life lay ahead.

The Son took off his jacket, which was of a rough wool and an enchanting color, and placed it over the young Bride's shoulders. Then, without the slightest hint of rebuke, and in an almost childlike tone of curiosity, he asked her a question.

Why in a brothel?

The young Bride knew the answer with absolute precision, but she kept it to herself.

Here I ask the questions, she said.

Alessandro Baricco is beloved by readers worldwide for his innovative tales of guile and charm, his atmospheric novels and their memorable characters. He is one of Italy's bestselling and most critically acclaimed authors. His novels include
Silk
(Vintage, 1996),
An Iliad
(2006), and
Mr Gwyn
(2011).