The house at the edge of time, Page 3

  Then grandmother has fought the palm of the hand on the forehead, as when she suddenly remembers a thing that seemed impossible to forget. You/he/she has gone with sure footstep up to the edge of the table, you/he/she has grasped the bag and you/he/she has extracted the bunch of keys, that sparkled and it tinkled never of it, as to take around us. If you/he/she had been able, you/he/she would also have started laughing. But since it was not able because it was a bunch of keys, you/he/she is limited to sparkle and to tinkle.

  "I must have puts her in the purse last night when I have closed the door, so, without thinking" you/he/she has said her.

  A temple is rubbed with two fingers.

  "In fact I don't remember him/it to me."

  The keys have returned in hurry to their place - and that is that informer of the hole of the lock - and the door has decided to let us go out. All are returned to their occupations. We have now had lunch to the usual one, while the television spoke of the trip of the Pope in a city distant of Africa, and then of the siege of a near city, that calls Sarajevo. Nobody has more thought about the matter of the traitorous keys. Except me. I know him/it that also this time has happened something strange something to which nobody has given importance. The keys wanted to warn me on the imminent arrival of the trip of the future.

  While all make the siesta after lunch, I go out. I maneuver with caution the hilt of the door, as if it dealt with the cloche of a spaceship able to ferry me in another dimension.

  Instead no.

  Out the world is as before. There is no anything strange. It is a harmless world a world that he/she sleeps in the first afternoon. The hen sleeps in the hen-pen, Barabau sleeps under to the tiglio. All, men and animals sleep. Apart the crickets, that keep on rubbing the wings for the warm one.

  I make some footstep coasting along the platform of the house-train in point of feet as if earth had become a carpet of eggs. I turn around the eyes as it would make a secret agent, if I had the raincoat I would also lift the collar. Water, fuochino, fire. water.

  The world keeps on being him of it silent. Any sign. My silent investigation I continue, until one rolled of wheels on the cement of the sidewalk it interrupts her/it; it is not the future that I was waiting, it is only Lawrence that reaches all speed above the skateboard. Sweaty hair makes a black glue on his forehead. You/he/she is worried.

  "It is true that you have been closed inside the whole morning?"

  I look at him/it with attention, I appraise if it is the case to tell him of the keys that wanted to care prisoners and of all the other strange things that have been happening for some time. I don't know him/it if it would understand.

  I feel the ground.

  "Lawrence, to you you/he/she has ever happened to see things that the others don't see?"

  He shells the eyes.

  "You intend UFO or stuff this way?"

  I shake the head.

  "No, I intend other things."

  "Which things?"

  I intensely look at him/it.

  "And if I told yourself that I see things that any other he/she sees?"

  "That is you have some visions?"

  "No, no, macché! I see what you/they then will see also the others, only that. in short, s, that I see him/it before.

  "You want to say that you are a clairvoyant?"

  I shake the head for the second time.

  "It doesn't deal with reading in the future. And is it a future however very brought closer, that confines with the present, do you understand?"

  Lawrence looks me with the eyes, the nose and the mouth of one that you/he/she has not understood. I try to explain better me improvising an example.

  "You have ever been to theater? Here it imagines to be sat in a beautiful armchair of red velvet. There six?"

  "I am there."

  "Bushels there sat and do you enjoy your show on the stage, correct?"

  "Correct."

  "We say that I have sat there, of side to you."

  "Mmh mmh."

  "Also I see the show on the stage."

  "Certain."

  "Only that I succeed to also see a pochino what happens behind the scenes. I don't see well it as that that happens on the stage. I realize him/it. I that there behind there are the actors and the scenographies of the next action, what you then will see you also what you/they will see everybody. Have you understood?"

  Lawrence shakes the head. Here, note.

  "You explain me as you do to see behind the scenes, if you have sat of side to me there?"

  "Was only an example Lawrence!"

  He knits the eyebrows, he gets stubborn.

  "And because me that I/you/they have sat of side to you I don't succeed in seeing behind the scenes?"

  It is really what I would want to know Lawrence: because the others don't see the things that are so evident to my eyes. Me, for example, that dad would have gone I had understood him beforehand. Beforehand what it told me him mother, in every case. I knew that it would have happened, what I didn't know was when. If only had been able to foresee him/it! Instead a morning I wake up and he there was not more. For some days mother has pretended of nothing, put of the excuses. Dad didn't return because you/he/she was in trip for job, you/he/she had had to stop from some part. But it returned, I had to not have on the subject however doubts. If you/he/she had not greeted me before going away, it was really because he/she knew to return soon. I looked at her/it cry in the kitchen, while it was mincing carrots and not onions. Then, one day, you/he/she has put me an arm around the shoulders and you/he/she has explained me that dad would not have returned anymore. What you/he/she had gone to live in another city with another woman. But what I had to not worry me. What he loved as before me. Rather, some more. I listened to her/it to explain me what I already knew. I had to have a face some strange, because at the end she looked me with the knitted eyebrows, surprised that I/you had picked her so well up. This way I have pretended to despair me, as if I/you had just discovered what had happened. And above all I have begun to cry to allow to also cry to her.

  One year has passed since then almost. And today I feel also on the point of the fingers that strange prickle that tells me that something is about it to happen. Them, the great ones, don't acknowledge anything, but me it is as if I felt in foundation the ticking that announces a bomb. I don't know yet of what bomb he treats, but a thing I know her/it of certain: it will explode.

  I rub me the lobe of the ear with stubbornness, while in front of me Lawrence keeps on speaking at random. You/he/she has been firm on the platform of the history of the armchairs of the theater, while my mind it derailed elsewhere. You feels envoy in discussion because he/she doesn't succeed in seeing behind the scenes of the things and therefore it begins to do the hard one. It makes to squirt in air the skate jumping us above with a foot, it recovers him/it to the flight with the palm of the hand. He/she speaks and he/she speaks, it puts together a lot of things that they don't have anything to do with it and it concludes with a:

  "It looks that you are not more cunning than me and me I see well us how much you, dear."

  I do of yes with the head to reassure him/it.

  "Certain, I also think him/it. You see well us how much me.

  Look me, the braccias hanging.

  "And then because I don't also see me behind the scenes?"

  "Probably" I say "because it doesn't interest yourself. And it doesn't even interest in the others. When people have sat on a beautiful armchair of red velvet, the show enjoys him and enough."

  "It seems me correct" confirmation satisfied Lawrence, while earth riposiziona the skate "the show enjoys him."

  "Already" sigh "the show enjoys him."

  "Therefore don't you have any powers paranormali?"

  I shake the head for the third time.

  "No."

  "Sinned."

  A foot behind the other, Lawrence climbs on the skate and fast sleigh toward the last wagon of the house. I look at him/it get furth
er. Better not telling him gods tulips, who knows thing would understand. I, however, continue my secret investigations without making word of it with anybody. Before the coffeepot. Then the vase of flowers. And now also the keys. If only I succeeded in understanding what scene he prepares behind the scenes.

  7

  While I am waiting for the next movement of the teatrantis

  While I am waiting for the next movement of the teatrantis behind the curtain, I train me to the vertical one against the wall behind the house. I extend the muscles of braccia and legs. I want to be prepared, anything happens.

  I measure well the space for the support of the ten fingers, I lift the braccias above the head, I take the push and hop, they are down to head, legs against the wall. I want to learn to change point of view to be prepared to the changes of the things. I want to learn to also accept the world when it is upside-down, as in this moment.

  I look in front of me. After the garden, I see Mujo, the little boy of the house-train on the platform of forehead. It makes me sign to wait. He/she takes the push and it also puts on him on the hands, without wall. From far we smile there. Who knows if to upside-down we are us or the rest of the world. Blood begins to me to go to the head and I don't know if I/you/he/she were guilt of the vertical one or the smile of Mujo. To take back me, down the eyes on the open hands on the grey one of the sidewalk, on the hair that you/they caress the cement. When rise the look, Mujo there is not more. There are two men that go down from a car of the policemen, instead. They are in uniform, they have the pants with the red strip that climbs from the basin to the ankles. I look at them down to head. They speak in a low voice with mother, but from here him it doesn't feel what they say. They deliver her a yellow envelope cicciottella. I return feet against earth. I do as soon as in time to see the wheels of the car that make manoeuvre on the gravel of the avenue before disappearing on the road. I wonder me what in that envelope is and because has delivered her really to mother.

  "Zoe?"

  Lawrence calls me. He/she asks if I want to play to bell, you/he/she has already drawn the boxes with the pieces of chalk on the sidewalk. We jump in that world until mother and grandmother they reach me with their bicycles. Tonight we go to country, where the inhabitants always find some motive to celebrate something so that to have an excuse to play to trump or to bingo, and to eat sausage or tortelli of pumpkin. The other evening they celebrated because it was the day of a saint. And then the feast of the duck has come. And that of the bread. This evening, it seems me that the celebrated ones are the volunteers of the Red Cross, but I are not sure of it. When we arrive in the plaza, white furgoncinis there are a lot of, in line one behind the other, with above the writing "AZNALUBMA." To me you/he/she has always made to laugh contrarily this thing of the writing. With dad, at times we played to also upset other words. AIRECCITSAP. ETNAFELE. EOZ. It also works with the sentences. ENEB OILGOV IT. Dad said that I was very good in that game. What after some it became almost me natural. As the vertical one against the wall to head down. You sees, dad, that I have had to learn to feel me to my ease in the reverse of the things. I call contrarily mother with his/her name, to laugh, but her ago as soon as the shade of a smile bewaring of another part. This evening mother is very strange. In the piazzetta of the country I ask her what they wanted the policemen and thing there was in that yellow envelope that you/they have supported among her fingers, but it doesn't feel me for the confusion of the orchestrina. It doesn't care, I will ask you him tomorrow. To the return I go to find grandfather to the afloat house. The night is damp. He is bending the steccatures of a new kite to the light of a lantern attacked by the nighttime butterflies. I look at him/it tame the wood. In the air that I breathe there are bright dots as stars, that shine to intermittence. I ask what I am.

  "Fireflies."

  8

  Lawrence and I take the bicycles

  Lawrence and I take the bicycles. We have sandwiches to the ham in the backpack and a water bottle of juice of fruit to the apricot. We are dressed as explorers, but in reality we won't get further there more than a kilometer.

  We depart from the platforms of the house-train and we coast along all the wagons. The locomotive, in which the grandparents are. The second wagon, where the family of Lawrence is. The third one and the quarter that are empty. And the fifth one where alive Demetrio, that would be the crazy half brother of grandfather. At the end of the house, we follow the paths that mark the border between a field and the other. We pedal toward the Great River. We make some sopralluoghi before choosing the perfect place for ours pic-nic: a cherry, after the afloat house.

  Lawrence throws out the tablecloth to quadretti that his/her grandmother has prepared him. I throw out the sandwiches from the backpack. We soothe there. It is beautiful to eat sat on a tablecloth. The air plays of crickets and the branches of the trees of invisible birds. The cherry above of it strains us to us in head his/her sticky resin. I laugh, I think that if we stay here up to evening they find us among one hundred years mummified in the glue of the cherry. Finished eating it is the turn of the ants. They are not pretentious, they are satisfied with what we have left us. After some we shake all, we leave the crumbs to the grass. We return home. From the path that it separates two fields, I see grandfather that glues paper for a kite, in front of the afloat house. It makes us a regard moving the air with the hand.

  To the sunset the swifts turn tall around the train of the house. Badminton fast. Fast. They are acrobats. They launch a cry to every passage, as to ask if we have seen them. Charles tells that they do so when they return to the nest in the evening, because for them you/he/she is a party to return home.

  "I would like to see nearby from one of it."

  It seems that he is not able. What they have the short legs and if they touch earth they don't succeed in dividing anymore. It seems that they sleep in flight straight. An alone half of the brain sleeps, the other they use her/it to check the trajectory. I would want to so also make me sleep with an alone half of the brain. If I were a swift, I would have felt dad that went that night. I would have asked to the keys of house to make that trucchettos of theirs of the disappearance. You/they would have concealed in a secret hideaway, unattainable, and you/they would not have allowed to turn the handle.

  9

  The carpets are plotting something

  The carpets are plotting something.

  Yesterday I had already started to notice an unwise move of that what is in the room from lunch. Today you/he/she has been the time of that along long on top of the staircases. You/he/she was lifted in the center straight, as if a mouse had dug a tunnel to pass. I, have naturally pretended of nothing. I have put again the carpet to his/her place, I have stretched well him for with the palms of the hands. Nothing to be done. Today afternoon, here it is there again, the tunnel of the mouse. It is as if a piece of the carpet was imperceptibly slipping toward right. Or perhaps it is the house that is imperceptibly slipping toward right.

  "Zoe?"

  I caress me the lobe between the index and the thumb and I go down the staircases, even if I don't have at all desire of it: there is people of under that it doesn't suit me to see. The summer is the moment in which you/they come to find us his/her relatives. Those that you/they live around here and that in the rest of the year we never see. Mother and grandmother are all excite ones, they make the parties as the dogs to whoever you introduce him to our door. I say: there will be also a reason if in the rest of the year we never see them.

  Today it is the turn of the sisters of grandmother. One is delicate, the hair of straw, pink of leg as a stork. The storks have the pink legs and they speak Egyptian, as he/she writes that Andersen of the fables. The other one is cicciottella, pull to shiny from head afoot, with glasses to fund of bottle that you/they make to seem after all his/her eyes two minuscule fishes to a ball of glass. Unlike the first one, this has the short legs, short, and for this self I call her/it secretly "Cackle Zampacorta", as the hen in that fable
always of Andersen.

  These two has been defending him for the time that it passes to hits of phon and lipstick. They grasp the handle of the bag as it was a weapon. Certain times worry me seriously.

  They begin to scrutinize me when they are still on the last step of the staircases, they examine well me for, without skipping nothing. They say as you are grown, as you have become beautiful. A girl. And the hair! What marvelous hair. Some shoal, however. Thin as one day without bread.

  From behind their glasses and hair of straw, they measure on me the centimeters of the time that you/he/she is passed. How much they are changed. How many centimeters of time stay him.

  "It doesn't resemble at all you" it says that with the aquarium on the eyes - and that is Cackle Zampacorta - looking at mother and then before me, then again mother.

  "Is unbelievable! Impressive! It is identical to him.

  Of hit a hand brings him enameled of red on the mouth, sudden a passage to level to stop the train of the sentence behind the teeth. Wasted work: the locomotive has already gone out.

  I see mother that looks at grandmother, grandmother that looks at mother, mother that looks at Cackle Zampacorta that he/she doesn't know who to look and it is there, beating the meat of the eyelids above that stupid hen eyes.

  The situation is so tense that also the ropes of violin, to comparison, they are relaxed. I would feel like speaking, to say that you/they can also name him/it, dad, that is not the case to make only so many scruples because I am present. But I know that so much would be useless.

  Cackle Zampacorta the voice clears him, he/she forces the train in its mouth to make dietrofront and it looks for as it is able to convert the load-commodities in qualcos'altro. It says that he/she still remembers him of when I was four years old and I have given a bite to the wood table of his/her kitchen. It laughs. Tell him/it every summer. The others also laugh, it seems that the thing is very amusing.

  It is a pleasure for me that the tension is loosened, but I don't understand because has had to loosen her/it to my expenses. Now, there earth to specify that I have not given a bite to any table. I was alone there supported above with the teeth, for boredom. They kept on speaking of sick people or, still worse, death, that for more I didn't know, and the table was there, to the correct height of the support. They still see the signs of the dentinis on the wood, they laugh.