The house at the edge of time



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  Ilaria Vitali

  The house

  at the edge of time

  The house at the edge of time

  Copyright © 2012 Zerounoundici Edizioni

  Cover: Immagine Shutterstock.com

  This history derives from imagination. He/she speaks of the meticulous one send her/it profane drawn by the case. He/she speaks of water and of kites of mute coincidences and of speaking coincidences. Every reference to facts, places and existing people really or existed it is to consider himself/herself/themselves a mute coincidence.

  To the red ball of Maria Petrova

  Hands of clock, I hate you

  Vinicio Capossela

  1

  From some time it happens that the things speak to me

  From some time it happens that the things speak to me.

  I don't tell him/it so much to say, it is really this way. The things speak to me. This morning, for example, when I wake up the coffeepot he/she drowned in a puddle of black liquid. It seemed it lost blood from I don't know what invisible hole. I have tried to pretend of nothing. I have him cleaning up and replacement to his/her place. Nothing. It kept on bleeding the same. It was clear that he/she wanted to speak to me of one discomfort of his. But which? Can from thing suffer a coffeepot?

  It had also happened to house, before mother and I departed. And then, you just arrive here, there has been the fact of the vase of tulips, what grandmother had put on the ledge of the piece of furniture in the room from lunch, next to the statuettes of the shepherdesses that boast him to know how to change color when you/he/she changes the time, but that in reality they stay always color blue of it. Really scarce as meteorologists, the shepherdesses. Stuff to bring back her to whom has sold you her. But surely they were a gift. Of those horrible that do you for Christmas and you also have to pretend that you like.

  However I was saying: the vase of tulips. I wanted to draw him/it with that new colors that have given me, those in the red case box, but I have not even done in time to write in full my name on the first page of the notebook. I was to the second "and" of "Zoe Merlante" when I have felt the thud. An instant the vase of tulips there was not later, more. I have gotten up plain, plain, from the chair. I have looked down, over the table. The tulips groped in the middle of the splinters of glass as fishes out of the transparent ball, while water drew on the floor long liquid fingers that aimed right-hand to my feet.

  It is useless to find excuses, to say that the weight of the flowers has unbalance downward the vase or even that they have been the shepherdesses of side to give him a beautiful push with the elbow to take him the whole space on the ledge of the piece of furniture there. Everything, the shepherdesses are too much idlers to make a similar thing. And then I know what it has happened for indeed, to the vase. You/he/she has committed suicide. It is this way. Useless to pretend of nothing. Now, what I wonder me is: why to commit suicide him really in front of me? Could not you/he/she choose him of it another, of witness? You/he/she could do him/it in front of mother, for example, or in front of the grandparents, that are the landlords and therefore they also have a certain responsibility towards their tulips. Or in front of anybody, that so much to the people doesn't interest then very the suicide of a vase of flowers, is not stuff that you/they put on the first pages of the newspapers, here.

  And instead no. The vase has chosen me, really me.

  I rub me the lobe of the right ear, as I always do when I am absorbed from a thought. Help me to assemble me. But this time I don't reach any reasonable explanation. I don't succeed really to understand what he/she wanted to tell me that vase.

  However, the fact of the things that you/they speak to me has been happening for a few months. From when I have turned eleven years old for the precision. At night I for example feel strange noises. I know him/it that they are them. It is wood that scricchiola wall that cracks. The table wants to return tree and the cement it sand-blasts of sea. In the morning I wake up myself and the carpets are not to their place anymore. They go around on the floor believing himself/herself/itself fishes on the fund of the ocean. Of kilometers are not moved, otherwise they would realize all and it would be too much easy. No, they are moved only of some centimeter. They don't want to arouse suspicions. They slip more every day some toward right, as if the house were in descent. They are light movements theirs. Almost invisible.

  Besides me, nobody acknowledges all this. Nobody decomposes him. To all it seems normal that the coffeepot bleeds, that at night the armchairs go to amusement and the carpets slips toward right. The adults lift the shoulders and they don't leastly think it. Rather, every time that I have tried to talk to an adult of it, that you/he/she is done really a laughter.

  The vase of tulips he commits suicide? To grandmother, while it was picking up the splinters with the broom, it didn't seem at all strange. Really at all. "Each has the right to choose of what death to die" you/he/she has declared, ramazzando glasses before and back. Her was sorry only that the tulips had chosen to sink the accelerator toward the proper floor in that beautiful piece of glassware.

  Me, however, continuous to torment me the lobe of the ear. I am certain that that vase meant me something. But thing?

  2

  Flat. All flat

  Flat. All flat. A hill is not seen here in the ray of kilometers around the Great River. At all they call not her Lowland Padana. I don't now, pretend to find me of forehead the Alps innevate every time that I wake up myself. And not even to turn the handle of the door and to move of hit, that I know on the woodpeckers of a bluff whipped by the ocean. But at least I would want to see a rag of hill, the shade of a relief, here. A minuscule subsidence here and there. Instead nothing. The Lowland Padana is inflexible from this point of view. It refuses to surrender terrestrial to the smallest high ground. It accepts solo extended of fields of wheat, corn and risaie. At the most some timid poppy. And water. Of that is us of it in abundance. It is us of it for earth and for air, you also find again her/it to you in the bellows when you breathe. But as for the hills, those remain out of the door.

  The only positive thing here, in the middle of the fields, it is that the sun doesn't find it hard to tramontare as in the city, where it always entangles him in the edges of some building or he/she remains inserted in the narrow passage of a road. Here it has the whole disposition horizon. And it takes advantage of it. It goes down slow, slow, the dive foretasting himself/herself/itself in the blue air that is behind the earth. It goes down so plain that a lot of people they come from all the parts of Italy, they place an easel and they photograph him/it while it is rolling down to the rallentatore. Him ago the pander
, some remains suspended above the terrestrial crust, then it blushes for the shame and it hides him in hurry in the blue one.

  Mother and I have arrived with the sunset of last night to breathe the air already breathed last summer. We come here to house of the grandparents every year, but this is the first one turned from when dad doesn't live with us anymore. This year we have come before the usual one because mother says that grandfather is not well. To me it seems that coop very well. It was not even in house when we have arrived. You/he/she is introduced only to the time of supper, with the straw hat crouched on the head as a patient animal and Barabau, patient animal also him, that wagged the tail behind him. Every summer that passes, grandfather is some more tanned and some more hunchback. It is around always along the river, it comes only to house to eat and to sleep.

  The house is a long parallelepipedo. Long. It was an old house agricultural session in the middle of the fields as a pascià. Once all the brothers of grandfather lived us, the families were behind in line one the other as in the wagons of an immovable train. Today three of that wagons are inhabited only. My grandparents live in the first one, that more next to the road. In the locomotive, in short. Road, is then a big word, they will pass at the most ten cars a day. The city is distant kilometers and kilometers. To star here he could also convince that it doesn't exist.

  "That balls."

  It is my neighbor Lawrence, that tells him/it. It is also him from the grandparents for the summer. They are years that I don't see him/it. The last time had a hole to the place of the incisive ones and a very beautiful mother. Now instead the teeth it has them, it is his/her mother that has disappeared. His/her family is cut to half as mine, only to the mirror: from him there is only the masculine part.

  Lawrence lives in another city, greater than mine, and for this ago the spocchioso as all those that you/they live in the great cities. It doubles even the consonants of the words, when he/she speaks. It says "Arroma" instead of "To Rome."

  "It calls syntactic raddoppiamento" he/she explains me Charles that is his/her father and that insignia linguistics to the university "it is a phenomenon that strikes all the Italian, from the Brands down" it smiles "it doesn't have anything to do with it the greatness of the city."

  The dad of Lawrence is a person that throws sweetness from the lips to every word that says. It smears her/it on to you as the butter and later it seems that life slips better away. I like to be about to listen to him/it while it is smearing. Another thing that I like of Charles is that he/she speaks to me as he/she would speak to any other person. To any adult, wants to say. They are not at all in so many to do this way. Rather they usually turn him to me talking to the rallentatore, as if I were foreign. They exaggerate the expression of the does, they twist the mouth in ridiculous way and the voice it becomes him of hit more acute. This whole appointment to say stupid things type: "You have him the fiancé?". But Charles no. Charles throws sweetness from the lips and speaks to me as you/he/she does with the adults. At times mother that walks looks and sweetness ends him all in the look. If you/he/she is speaking he distracts and I must bring to his lips the last word that has pronounced. Usually, after mother has passed, he doesn't remember him more thing was saying and we must restart afresh everything.

  Mother ago this effect to the men. Once, when there was dad, it bothered me. But now no, it almost makes me like. For an instant I try to imagine that mother and Charles put together. They get married, even. I would like to have Charles as dad. A dad of recovery, is true, not that original, but also always a dad. He would come to live to our house with all of his/her books. Or we would perhaps go to him. I should change house city. To learn to talk to the syntactic raddoppiamento. Then it comes me to mind that I would become the sister of Lawrence. Bleah. Gate everything.

  3

  Summer 1992. Year of United Europe

  Summer 1992. Year of United Europe, of mine, of your vacations. This way it sings that type that calls as my neighbor to the radio. Me, dear Lawrence, the vacations I will pass here her, on the delta of the Great River, I will eat tortelli of pumpkin and I will sleep in a house that seems a train. In the locomotive, for the precision.

  To look at her/it well, seems really that the house of the grandparents has turned indeed the world for; there are everywhere memoirs of trip. Souvenirs, call them. What horrendous postcards, wood clocks of the Val of Fassa and quadretti messed up with the colors to oil of more distant beaches would be then. In short, a lot of foolish trifles. Grandmother, however, a sense has tried to give him/it for him. She likes a lot to catalog the things and in his/her house, even if it doesn't seem, all rotates according to a precise order. Understood the hands of the clocks of the Val of Fassa.

  In room from lunch, on the first ledge of the piece of furniture in walnut-tree, there are the statuettes of the shepherdesses that the time foretells, but that in reality they don't do anything all day long. Of the true slackers. Next to the community of the shepherdesses nullafacenti there is a string of balls of glass that if the you turn they make to fall the snow on St. Mark or on the tower in Pisa, according to the need. Now that there are not the tulips anymore, there that is the plan devoted to the meteorology. Above, there is instead the commemorative ledge. There are the photos of the marriages of the children of the grandparents that don't even do anything them as the shepherdesses. They are there, immovable, inserted in their silver frames. There is also that of mother and dad. Mother always turns her/it every time that gives us before. Then grandmother passes, that turns her/it in the correct verse. In that photo, mother is a stem of flower in the snow. It has makes her/it verdolina because it was excited, but apart this the rest is everything white. Bianca her, white around because it was Christmas and there was the snow. It seems that some also trembles. Of cold, I think. Instead dad doesn't tremble, because you/he/she is dressed of blue instead that of white. It smiles.

  The frames tell our history, they continue right-hand up to the end of the ledge and also more in there. Grandmother has thought well about continuing his/her collection over the wood, hooking the photos to the wall. A strip of images squirts as a rocket launched by the piece of furniture and ago the whole turn of the room. In the last frame there am me. You/they have put in profile me under glass, supported to the baluster of a road to peak on the sea. I am about to vomit. I am not joking, it is really this way. It is that I suffer the car, above all in summer. Dad always had to stop for making me go down to take air. But so much I vomited the same. If nothing else not in car, but to the feet of a baluster to peak on the sea. It is there that you/they have gone off the photo, before I vomited. Mother adores that photo. It says that I have an air melanconica and romantic. You sees that before vomiting him it becomes some sentimental ones. However, in reality, from the photo he/she is not seen that I was about to vomit. Let's know only it the baluster and I. And also mother, naturally, even if she has removed him and he/she insists with the history of the romanticism. I become me account that the photos are some traitresses, they fake to document a certain moment, but then they say what you/they want them.

  You attach to the showcase of grandmother, they are also there a lot of postcards sent by the four angles of the planet. From who, he/she is not known. However meanwhile I am there, under the look of the shepherdesses that you/they don't know how to make the meteorological forecasts and, instead of being ashamed, if they laugh her/it. There near they are also there ugly two cats of porcelain that are to look at the whole day, apart after I have passed, that turn them of shoulders, as it is mother with the photo of his/her marriage. I like here a lot the cats but these I am a true insult to the feline kind.

  Lawrence has a cat in meat and bones that you/he/she goes enough of accord with Barabau. It calls Pralina. Overweight is black and very lazy. It is always to short of breath. I strive him/it greater than it does in his/her day it is to pass from the gattaiola to go out. To recover from the work is rolled up as a bun to the feet of Charles and if he/she sleep
s her/it for a mezz'oretta. The wild cats of the outskirts pick around surely her up. For this Pralina it is always with us and it doesn't estrange more than ten footsteps from the platform of the house-train. Charles has explained that the gattaiola is an invention of a some Signor Newton. This Newton was a great scientist that was spaparanzato in garden to wait that they fell the apples on his head, as you/they have explained us to school. An apple after the other, an unbelievable idea has come to mind and you/he/she has put on the paper a whole theory that calls this way: Universal gravitation. But the invention most important of Newton is not this, no. It is another, that brings a different name: the gattaiola. The history says this way, that the Signor Newton had a cat that called Marion. Marion was very beautiful, but it had the problem that you/they have all the cats: when I am inside, they want to go out and when I am out, they want to return inside. As Newton was busy with his/her apples in garden and you/he/she was gotten tired to spend the time to opening and to close, a beautiful day has taken the measures of Marion and you/he/she has done in the door a hole of the same greatness. You/he/she has also put us a sportellino, so that Marion you/he/she could go and to come to his/her liking passing us inside. Anything else other than Universal Gravitation.

  While mother and I finish emptying the porter of the little that we have brought with us, from the porticina of Newton it shells out a whisker of Pralina + an ear of Pralina + four legs of Pralina = a Pralina all whole. Also this time has passed there, but it almost has the short breath as its legs. It Avoids our look, it is probably ashamed some. Once it shelled inside and out well enough, but this year gives us to work. If it keeps on eating so, you/they must widen the door of Newton. I tell him/it Charles, because it seems me an enough serious scientific problem, that could have consequences unhinging on the whole system newtoniano, understood the Universal Gravitation. He starts laughing. I insist that a serious discourse to Pralina must do for convincing to grow thin her/it. My room is upstairs, with the window that gives on the back, and that is in the garden and not on the avenue. It is small. Rather, dwarfish. They are hardly us a closet and a bed to castle, inserted as the pieces of a puzzle. I don't know indeed as has succeeded in making them pass from the door. According to me, you/they have planted some seeds in the floor and you/they have sprinkled them every day until you/they have not reached the actual dimensions. The closet and the bed are in bloom there inside and there they will stay until they won't fade. Every summer, when we arrive here, mother measures me and ago a nick on the wall with a pink pennarello. I undergo me to this Barbaric ritual hoping that I/you/he/she hurry him. From the point of view of the height I am not a granché. Instead mother is all fair of every centimeter that I succeed in tearing from the strength of gravity of the Signor Newton thanks to the courses of rhythmic gymnastics and she annotates him/it on the wall with his/her pennarello - that, I am certain, you/he/she has bought on purpose for the occasion - writing us of side, every time, my age. Ended the ritual, she must be satisfied to undo the suitcases and me I can finally put to place my things and to rub me the lobe of the ear in holy peace.