When the Night (11 page)

“See you later.”

MAYBE I’M WRONG about her, and Albert is right.

“You need a woman, Manfred. You spend too much time alone.”

Who needs a woman? I’ve been through hell; I’ve earned my solitude.

I go out on the terrace. There she is, lying on the grass. The baby is asleep on top of her, and she has her eyes closed.

Deep down, I hate this place, but I keep coming back. With my clients, and to see Albert. We used to spend hours on that swing; now his kids play there. I have a memory of her, hanging laundry near the swing, just as Bianca does now. Nothing changes.

How can Albert stand to live here and see them do the same things we did? She wakes them in the morning, bathes them, dresses them for school, kisses them before they leave the house. Just like when we were kids.

IN THE AFTERNOONS, when we came home, our mother would give us hot tea and three slices of the cake she had made for the guests. She set them aside for us.

“You’re freezing! How was school today?”

Then she would send us off to play.

“Manfred, you go too! Stop hanging around, I need to cook!”

That day when we came home from school, she wasn’t there. The cleaning lady had left us two slices of bread each and a cube of butter. We had to spread it ourselves. The butter was cold, and the bread crumbled under the knife.

They too have three children; it’s just like it was, at least until the day Bianca decides she’s had enough. Some people are like that; they repeat the same things. Others do the opposite; they try to sever all links to the past.

THEY’RE ASLEEP TOGETHER, on the grass. Albert told me I should apologize, but I won’t do it. I’m not convinced that things happened as she says. I trust Albert, but I trust myself more. I look up at the summit of the Gigante. Mountains don’t change either.

BEFORE FALLING ASLEEP, I look out at the summit of the Gigante from my first-floor window. I’m sure that the giant is asleep in his mountain lair, with boulders and trees piled on top of him. If he should wake and emerge from his lair, the earth would tremble and the lodge would be swallowed up.

Children think more than we do.

Ever since Simon and Clara went away, I walk in order to keep myself from thinking and to forget the pain in my stomach. I went to the doctor once.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Manfred. I’ll give you some drops to calm your nerves.”

I didn’t buy them.

I didn’t mean to hit her. And anyway, that’s not why she left. I didn’t mean to do it. The hatred was inside of me. I didn’t mean to bang her against the wall and make her nose bleed. She fell to the ground. She stared at me in silence; she couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t either. I didn’t mean to hit her in the face; I wanted to hit myself, to rid myself of her.

It’s three o’clock, time to go. I’ll see if she wants to take the jeep into town, if she’s tired. But I won’t apologize.

I STAND OVER them as they lie in the meadow, blocking their sun. She opens her eyes.

“It’s three o’clock, we should be getting back.”

She starts.

“You startled me.”

The bumpkin smiles. His face creases, and he looks like an old man. Marco stands up, ready to follow him, but I hold him tight.

“Go ahead, don’t wait for us.”

He stares at me, confused. “Are you going down on your own?”

“Yes, later. Or maybe we’ll stay up here.”

He’s stunned. “You’ll stay here?”

“Yes, maybe. They told me there’s a fair this Sunday, the Festa della Dama, in honor of the woman who died on the mountain with her guide. There will be dancing, a venison roast, it sounds like fun.

“I know. I was born here.”

“Yes, of course.”

“But you didn’t bring anything with you.”

“I have what I need for three days. I’ll manage. I have three diapers. And Bianca said she’ll ask Albert to buy me some more tomorrow.”

“Bianca will ask Albert?”

“Yes, your brother.”

“Ah. So I shouldn’t wait for you?”

“Marco, say good-bye to Manfred! Say bye-bye, thank you, and see you soon!”

“Bye-bye.”

“Bravo, my darling.”

“Well, good-bye then.”

“Good-bye. This way you won’t have to hear him cry for a few days.”

He turns around. He didn’t seem too happy; he wasn’t expecting this.

HOW DID SHE manage to get the better of me? I don’t understand. It’s my fate: to feel stronger, and then lose. First Luna, and now this one.

“Wait!” she calls out.

“What?”

“The keys to the apartment. Tomorrow the carpenter is coming to repair the door. Could you leave the keys in the umbrella stand?”

I
PEER AT MY watch. It’s eight o’clock. Marco has slept through the night. I run over to the crib. He’s lying on his stomach with his hands in fists, wrapped in Mario’s old sweater. I listen closely; he’s breathing. I sit back down on the bed. Maybe I’ve awoken into a different life? I’m not sleepy. I woke up on my own, not startled by a baby’s cry. It’s the first time in two years. I climb back under the covers and try to remember my dream. It dissolves into the worn upholstery in the room, the old stains, familiar landscapes. Framed in the window I can see a single mountain, a little bit apart from the others. Enormous boulders form the profile of a sleeping man. I’ve been told that this is the Gigante.

This was the room where the three boys, abandoned by their mother, once slept. When Albert and Bianca were married, they moved upstairs. The setting of their childhood loneliness is now one of ten hotel rooms. Bianca showed me around.

“This is where the boys slept, when the family lived on this floor.”

Last night I discovered a secret drawing on the wall next to the bed. Between two faded flowers, there hid a tiny figure wearing glasses, standing on skis. None of the boys wears glasses. Who could it be? A friend? Their father?

I didn’t tell Mario about my decision to stay here. Too complicated, and pointless. The floor boards are black. The lodge is old. I bathed Marco in the sink attached to the wall. In the afternoon, he played with Bianca’s children.

“Don’t worry, the two elder boys will take care of him. They’re used to it. They look after their little sister.”

They play behind the house. On the swing, on a pile of sand with little buckets and shovels, and amid the laundry hung out to dry. Under the woodshed, where a cat recently had her kittens. Every so often I check on him. Marco is drunk with glee; he holds a kitten in his arms, and lets himself be pushed on the swing by the eldest; he pours a pail of sand on the little one. In the evening, he falls asleep as I’m bathing him.

MANFRED APPEARED IN my dream, wearing glasses. I see his face, covered in wrinkles, and his light-colored eyes, the malicious smile, but he is the same size as Marco. I introduce him to Mario.

“He’s our child. You don’t know him. I’m sorry, but this is how he came out. We don’t get to choose.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Too bad. There’s nothing we can do.”

Then, we go outside to play in the garden. Now I’m Silvia, Bianca’s little girl, and Manfred pushes me on the swing. We crawl under the woodshed to see the kittens. It’s snowing. The kittens are gone, but there is blood on the snow. The cat sleeps. Manfred kicks her awake.

The dream was not upsetting. The swing, the snow, the woodshed, our games. Manfred’s kick felt good, and so did seeing the traces of blood, not yet concealed by the snow.

Marco sits up and looks over at me.

“Good morning! You slept well! Let’s get dressed and go down for some breakfast. Then we can go play with the kids. Does that sound nice?”

“Yes.”

SHE SAID, “COULD you leave the keys for the carpenter?”

Next, she’ll tell me to pack her things and bring them up to the lodge. I’ll put the keys in the umbrella rack and leave.

It’s gray out. Tourists are arriving for the feast; they’ve asked me to take them up to the lodge for the roast. The idea that she’s up there with Bianca and Albert doesn’t sit well. She’ll ask questions, stick her nose into our business, and Bianca has never been on my side.

BIANCA AND LUNA were friends. She protected Luna, and they confided in each other. They would lower their
voices whenever Albert or I came into the room. Albert didn’t care.

“Who cares? We also talk about things that we don’t want them to hear.”

“What do we talk about?”

“About Caterina’s ass, and how much we’d like to sleep with her.”

“Exactly, nothing. You don’t know women, Albert.”

Once, I hid behind a door and listened to them.

“Albert has bad breath.”

Luna answered right away: “Yes, it’s the onion. Once, Manfred stayed in town. I ate in front of the TV and slept diagonally across the bed. I thought to myself—if he doesn’t come back, I’ll be sad, but I’ll adapt.”

And they laughed.

“Women don’t need us, Albert.”

“Don’t be silly. We don’t need them either. Look at our father.”

But now that he’s old he’s found himself a woman. Maybe it’s Caterina, the one with the nice ass. One day I’ll show up unannounced and find out who it is.

Next time Simon and Clara come, I’ll take some time off. I called them yesterday, but they don’t talk. They just answer yes or no.

Luna doesn’t say much either. I told her: “Put them on the train and I’ll come get them. It’s only an hour.”

“They’re still young, Manfred, they can’t travel on their own.”

“So come with them.”

“I’m busy at school.”

She doesn’t want to see me.

I LOOK AT the broken door, mended with a board. I haven’t been inside the apartment since that night. It’s my house. I’ll go in and look around, that’s all. I turn the key and push.

It still smells of wine. The armoire in the bedroom is open. There are clothes on the chairs, and the beds are unmade.

There is a photo on the dresser. Three girls. I look more closely. They claim that nearsightedness improves with age. I should get new lenses. The eye inside sees clearly, but no one knows that.

She must be the one on the left, the only one with dark hair. How old is she? Eight, ten? And the others? They must be sisters, friends.

Next to the photograph there is a small notebook. It contains shopping lists, drawings of flowers, houses, mountains. Maybe she makes them for the boy.

I pick up the book on the dresser and a sheet of paper falls out. I open it and sit down on the unmade bed.

A letter from her husband. “I’m worried about you.” Not enough, it would seem …

The baby drives her crazy. Did you hear that, Albert? I’m not mad; I’m the only one who knows the truth, even if I don’t have the proof and you say that I have it in for women.