The legacy Page 13

  "Hopefully" she had hoped. "Poor thing, he understands davero he was to die, because he loved to Simon."

  "So are we. Everyone, "he added Roberto.

  "Yes, it is true, is true. Although I miss her, I prayed a lot and he also told my children to pray in Ukraine. "

  "Thank you. It ... is there? "he asked, pointing to the living room, which had reached the voice of a TV presenter. Isa always kept the volume very high.

  "Yes, vai, vai well, Robert. I finish eating and I'm doing. "

  "Do not worry, I'll think for a while '. Thank you. "

  Rarely had been visiting Isa alone, either because they would have liked, either because they would not know what to talk and you would be lost in long, awkward silences. However, the current situation required that, although uncomfortable, he also took parts of Simona and made his presence felt at Isa, who was certainly suffering the loss of his daughter to him.

  He told Olga that her mother-in-law was confused and felt like the news through a filter, but he thought to himself, and knew that was not so, not quite. The silence in which she had taken refuge there was a witness. It was also good that this was the only reaction was, at the time, because at his age and his condition could have gone much worse.

  "Hello, Isa," he greeted, deliberately maintaining a high tone of voice to overpower the volume of the television and capture the attention of the mother-in-law, sitting in his chair staring at the screen with a lost look, almost as if he were sleeping with open eyes really interested in the program aired.

  Isa had remained motionless, her hands folded in her lap, her eyelids half-lowered, the bottom of the face relaxed, his chin jutting forward, like a crust of rock break off and ready to crumble at any moment. Only the eyes were moving, moving slowly in his direction. They had registered their presence and had returned to fix the television, indifferent. Robert had thought his own image, captured by that look, trying to reach the fatigue of the brain and found the path blocked Isa. The thought was not pleasant.

  "How are you?" He asked, still with that tone of voice. He felt a strange feeling to put the silly question, but he had already guessed that Isa would not be disturbed easily by its silence and its isolation and that he should try to meet her as much as possible. Isa had distracted attention from the TV, in fact, even when the kitchen came the clatter of pots had fallen.

  Roberto had waited a few seconds. He was embarrassed: the behavior would be more logical to get up and go, barely Isa would notice, but he had had the courage. Simon would not have approved.

  "I do not believe still true ..." he commented, hoping that Olga came as soon as possible, to have someone to exchange a few words, without the impression of talking to an empty room, and for the chance to return home no remorse for having abandoned his mother-in-law.

  Isa had remained impassive. The TV images of the wrinkled face had lit up like flash different colors, projecting on the walls of his living silhouette.

  "With all the bad people who are in the world ..." he continued Robert, realizing that it was making use of all the phrases he knew. It was an impression or being in the company of elderly amplified this trend? "I do not deserve it." Again the strange sensation of a moment before, as if he had talked to someone else, instead of its Simona. He had not been able to explain how he managed to hold back tears.

  This time, however, Isa had shown a reaction. He turned his head toward Roberto imperceptibly, but without taking his eyes from the screen, and was inspired to say something, but was stopped immediately. He had shown his face in the initial position and had knitted his bushy eyebrows, assuming a stern expression, as if ...

  Roberto had jumped. For a moment, before his eyes, the figure of Isa had assumed a green color, its brightness, glow, like the figures he had dreamed that night. The face and the stern look, as scolding, were the same women who ordered him incessantly "Kill them!" While he was immobilized in bed. Those were Simon and his ancestors and Isa was one of those, only that he was still alive. For the rest, in those eyes staring at the TV could have read the same, macabre invitation to kill whomever.

  "You something to drink, Robert?" Olga had entered the living room without that Roberto had noticed it. "A tea, a cup of coffee?"

  "No," he answered without even thinking about it, barely moving his thoughts by Isa the caregiver. "Now ... I must go home, the boys are waiting for me. "And above all he had been afraid of having to find yet alone with his mother-in-law, as proves the incredible, absurd. But the terror he had felt that night was resurfaced and threatened to take possession again and then it could be said that it was just a nightmare.

  "Oh, yes, poor" was Olga sorry. "Sensa Mom, what an ugly thing."

  "And he never speaks more now?" Said Mattia yet.

  "How?" Responded Robert, back to reality. "Oh, no. I mean, I do not know. I think ... Perhaps it is a reaction, the grandmother is a bit 'sick and ... "

  "I think she is angry with us," said Cristina, lapidary, speaking in his speech.

  "What do you mean?" Marveled Robert. "Why should ...?"

  "I do not know, certainly not with Matthew. With you I do not know, even if you never hit it off, maybe now that he knows there is no mother feels alone and with no family of his "original" to be near her ... because mom finally gave always right ... "The words came out of his mouth like a river irrepressible animated by a current of resentment, as if they had been waiting for that moment of relief for days. "But I definitely have it ..."

  "Cristina, do not say ..." Robert tried to explain, while Matthew watched his sister with curiosity and a vein of sadness.

  "It's true. That day that Daniel has spent here at home, then when I returned in the evening ... when I quarreled with my mother the first time ... There was also the grandmother, we were there in the room and she was here in the kitchen, but we have heard arguing and screaming and ... I went down for dinner when I saw that I looked bad and I bet they will say something about me to my mother, because they've never been to the genius and ... I do not know, will think that my mother was nervous for my sake and that the incident did perc ... »

  "ENOUGH!" Robert yelled, clapping his hands on the table and doing a reverse glass. Matthias jumped in fright and Cristina, who in the heat of the speech had barely restrained, burst into a crying taking his face in his hands. "I do not want to hear talk like that. You do not have ... you should not even think about it. We must not seek reasons for what has happened is ... success, and that's it. None of us is to blame and no one, neither Isa's grandmother, or grandmother Gisella, nor anyone else think that we are responsible. Is that clear? "

  "Yes," said Mattia, terrified, unable to stand the gaze of the father who had indulged in an unusual outburst.

  "Cristina?" Urged the Roberto, who suffered as she was acting, for more in a moment so dramatic, but still decided and conscious that he was the only way not to let the winds of despair disperse the remnants of their family.

  "Yes," said Cristina, his voice broken and muffled from your mouth.

  Roberto said no more and began to eat. However, his daughter had put a flea in the ear annoying. He could not have all the wrongs: Isa had never considered the ideal son Simon, and this incompatibility, combined with old age and sorrow for the loss sustained, could justify any hatred towards him and his children. He remembered the look he had seen her that afternoon and decided that it would no longer visit her mother-in-law, unless it be forced.

  ***

  Two days later, shortly before eleven, were all ready for the first memorial Mass for Simona. Matthew and Christine were in the kitchen along with Gisella, who had arrived early in the morning to give a hand to rearrange the house and preparing food. Li was invited to lunch at his house, as did almost every Sunday, but no one had heard Roberto and asked her to dine with him. Now, the rings were covered with pots and pans and the air was permeated with tempting aromas.

  Roberto was in his room and he was just doing his tie. It was an ordinary, made more difficu
lt by the thought that the appointment was to appear in her elegant dress: not a wedding anniversary dinner, no output between pairs of friends, but the celebration of Mass in memory of his deceased wife.

  Simona. Died.

  Unthinkable, unbelievable, more and more with each passing day.

  He left the bedroom to get his children and his mother but, passing by the door of the study, his attention was caught by an envelope propped against the desk. A thought flashed and decided to humor him: he was a little late but a few seconds would have sufficed.

  Entered the study and recovered the bag which contained the last phone bill. They had received Monday or Tuesday, he did not remember exactly, and he supported himself on his desk waiting to go to pay for it. He pulled the sheets and tried those with the list of calls. The sales period was the months of March and April, but hoped that the call log was updated enough to enable him to dispel his doubts.

  He ran quickly looked over dozens of rows of dates and numbers written in lowercase, the search for the prefix 0521. He found a pair in April, but the first few numbers - the last three were encrypted - not correspond to those that interested him.

  Then, right at the third last line, he spotted another call to a prefix of the province of Parma. The number of visible digits were the same as indicated in the letter of Erika. The call had been made at nine-thirty in the morning, when nobody was home except for Simon, and lasted more than fifteen minutes. So Erika was not lying, not quite.

  Perceiving a strange contraction of the stomach, Roberto put the bill in the envelope and went downstairs. He tried to remove the myriad of thoughts that the new discovery had generated, saying that what he found did not show anything and could not be a valid reason to give credence to unfounded rumors of a depressed woman who had appeared unstable and Erika at the cemetery. However, when he entered the kitchen, announcing that he could leave and apologized for the delay, could not refrain from casting a glance at the belly of Cristina.

  ***

  Cristina was holding the stick to perform a pregnancy test. Leaning against the toilet seat down there was a bottle full of pee just made. It was ensured that the bathroom door was locked and that his father had engaged to Mattia and ground floor were watching an action movie on TV and had no problems for a while '.

  That Monday morning he had insisted on going to class in Parma, Roberto had even tried to make her change, saying it was not in a mood to resume classes at the University and that no one would blame a few hours of absence . But she did not want to listen to reason, and because he was convinced that the best way to react to the tragedy that had struck ributtarsi was soon into the fray of everyday life, and because he had already planned to stop at a pharmacy in town to buy the pregnancy test kit.

  He thought if you talk to Daniel before, but had concluded that it was better to act alone, at least initially. He made her nervous, taking underestimated what it would be a significant problem, as if they could afford to carry out an accidental pregnancy, with all the responsibilities and the difficulties this would entail, so do not want to risk fighting heavily before you have some reliable information.

  At that moment her hands were trembling, as if what he was holding a detonator was ready to blow up an entire city. And again he was seized with a sense of guilt and shame for being involved in something important and secret behind his father. At the same time, he was observed, as if she were alone in the bathroom, and concluded that it had to be thinking of his mother, wherever she was now, however, was spiritually at his side: he hoped only that was watching her with loving eyes and pride in how he was doing, and not with blame for the mess in which half was expelled despite his warnings.

  He tried to regain concentration and knelt in front of the bottle of urine, always clutching the stick as a magic wand that would soon reveal everything about his future. As he read the leaflet, dipped in pee and expectations, focusing on the small window would appear where the colored stripes. The strip, actually, because one would indicate that everything was fine, that was just upset by the mourning, and had to hope so, not to sink into despair still more atrocious, not to add insult to injury.

  He waited a few minutes and the result seemed clear. He waited another five minutes for safety, until he hurt the wrist strength to squeeze the stick. At the end there were no more doubts. He got up, taking a breath.

  ***

  Ten days later, Robert was sitting at the computer study. It was his free morning and, after accompanying Matthew to school and going to the cemetery to say goodbye to Simon, he had spent several years preparing for the next assignment in English class. He began to live in a normal way, if we could define, or at least had taken the road towards a new equilibrium. It was still early, of course: the memories of Simona loomed suddenly in the wrong moments, and made him stagger, rigettandolo into disarray and convincing him that she would not ever done, that what had happened was too much. But then he found the strength to go up, he found her in the eyes of Matthias and Christina and Simon, too, when they cruised in the photographs of which the house was still strewn about.

  At that time it was the computer for a little 'entertainment. He sailed on the internet without a definite purpose, proceeding almost by association of ideas: a news site, then another on the local folklore of some Italian regions, then a collection of traditional recipes. Eventually he decided to combine business with pleasure, looking for some exercise to offer its students for the upcoming audit.

  TEST OF ENGLISH began typing in the search engine bar, but stopped immediately. The Auto-Complete Text of the proposed research already stored in another computer. Overcome by curiosity and a moment of apprehension, I click and opened the page of results. A couple of links were colored in purple, and, though it was just a lover of technology, he knew perfectly well that this indicated that had already been visited. He had a sinking heart and a thought flashed.

  Despite himself, he got up and went into the living room. Reached one of the baskets that still remained after the tragic day of farewell to Simon: the flowers were wilted and had been removed, but the plants were kept in memory the affection of the people. He tried the foot of the basket the envelope that was sure to have seen up to three days before, in the same place where he had thrown in anger after reading the letter from Erika, but could find none. His mother must have done recently cleaned.

  INTERLUDE

   

  ' T ll the results that had already been displayed had to do with pregnancy, pregnancy symptoms, tests to understand when you're pregnant, "said Robert, gazing toward the now empty coffee cup between his hands. He spoke for almost an hour and, although he was accustomed to long monologues when he explained in class, talk like that were immensely more tiring and stressful. His mouth was dry. "Are you thirsty?" He asked, prevaricating for the first time since he had begun to tell.

  "No, thanks," said Erika, who had been paying extra attention to his every word and seemed lost in deep thoughts. He was sweating profusely: the forehead was beaded with droplets of short hair and bangs were stuck there. To see her, no one would have said that he had enough fluids in the body to produce such a sweat, but the unusual heat was destroying herself.

  Robert got up and went to the refrigerator. "I never believed in the self-styled mediums, sensory or whatever you call those women who say they know the secret things that people do not even know. I have read or heard somewhere that collect information here and there or sometimes they pull a guess, just to fool the ignorant and steal their money. "He took a bottle of water unopened and put it on the kitchen counter, while the hand free opened a cupboard to retrieve a clean glass. "You do not seemed to me one of those, though. You have not asked for money, not so far, and I still got to check that what you said was true: I found some phone calls from our number to your phone bill on the list. Yet I must admit that, for some time, I believed that I wanted to mock me, for some unknown purpose, and that I had taken advantage of information that you had somehow got to earn my tru
st. I'm talking about Cristina's pregnancy, if that is really pregnant. "

  "How could I meet you know?" Erika is defenses. "And that I should take advantage of meeting with you?"

  "Exactly," agreed Robert, pouring himself a drink. "In fact I have reasoned very first to call you, I have carefully read and reread your letter and came to the conclusion that you were sincere. What you honestly believe you can help me to know the truth about the incident of Simon, or at least the past that I wanted to hide. "

  "I hope so too."

  "As you see, though," continued Bob, sipping cool water as nectar "I do not have much information apart from the bare facts of the accident and what followed. Unless you have not read anything more in the dream I had that night, I do not see other points of doubt in my story. So I hope that your side of the story is enlightening, or may complete the mine, otherwise we are again. "

  "As I was saying" Erika sighed, looking down and wringing her hands clasped between the thighs "of what happened just before the accident I know very little about nebulae of Cristina, her boyfriend and his quarrel with Simona. There would be nothing strange, if I could somehow see a connection with what we have experienced myself and Simona better with girls, or because she has lived, a link that might be the only explanation for the apprehension and anxiety of Simona in those days and maybe the cause of the distraction that has taken her off the road. "

  "So we have" said Roberto, reaching back to the table. "What is this mysterious secret that Simon did not tell me he never wanted? What has combined a kid? "

  Erika gave a long breath. "You will not like, probably, but ..."

  "I do not even like the idea that Simon is dead, so I hope that, whatever you say to me, can rendermela less difficult to swallow."

  "When we were girls, Simona was pregnant" Erika finally confessed.

  Roberto denounced the coup and said no more.