Read The house at the edge of time Page 10


  32

  From when Iris is in circulation

  From when Iris is in circulation, we don't do anything else other than to listen to the music that is brought behind from house. It would have his/her bonnets with that small recorder that she calls uolcmen, but it says that it feels better him on the stereo that is in the house and so the whole day is our turn to feel one who complains him that the man you/they have killed Spider and an anything else other than it declares to have bought an used motorbike but held well for going to the beach. I would want to succeed in listening to some in peace my trombettistis with the denture. I shelter me to house of Lawrence, hoping to find Charles with the turned on radio.

  There is, but another of his/her sheets is writing with the Letter 22. It is a long thing, that that you/he/she is writing, a kind of book for his/her students. However it says that I can turn on the stereo to insert us inside all the cassettes that I want. I choose with writing one of it above Birdland.

  A music that seems me to have already felt by some part immediately departs, perhaps in a publicity, that that spoke of Milan and of stuff to drink or it said that you/he/she could also be drunk Milan, I don't remember him/it to me more. Charles him stiracchia on the chair.

  "Six a connoisseur" he/she affirms.

  He/she explains me that these gentlemen that play the song in the Milan to drink call Weather Report, that wants to say "meteorological bulletin." It marks him/it to me on a sheet so I learn as he/she is written. These Weather Report, in reality, they were not people a lot of course for the forecasts, however they played really well. They were particularly five, all good ones but us n'era one that it was better than everybody.

  "Also him a trombettista?"

  "No, a bassista."

  To say the truth, continuous Charles, to the beginning it played the battery, but then one day is broken a wrist and you/he/she has begun to play the electric lower part. It played and it played with a Fender Jazz Bass and all they told him that it was really good. Good. But since he was not satisfied, one day has taken I chisel him/it and you/he/she has removed the keys from the handle of the lower part. The others said that was crazy, but he has filled the holes on the handle with the wood mastic and you/he/she has smeared us above ten layers of resin. The lower part played better of before and all kept on telling him that it was good. But since he was not satisfied yet, you/he/she has begun to use the Fender Jazz Bass as if it were another tool and instead of serving as accompaniment to the others, you/he/she has begun to do of his/her head and to play us above of the melodies.

  "You/he/she has succeeded in imposing the electric lower part as I orchestrate soloist."

  "As it calls?"

  "Jaco. Jaco Pastorius."

  I like a lot this Giaco that has detached the keys from the handle of his/her electric lower part. I would want to detach the mudguards from my white bicycle to make her/it resemble to a mountain bike.

  Charles puts another piece that calls The Chicken. Who knows because it calls this way, "the chicken." Does Giaco perhaps live in the country? I ask to Charles where alive, but he explains that he/she doesn't live anymore: some years ago is dead. You/they have filled him with barrel out of a cafe. Also him! I sincerely wonder me thing doesn't go to these musicians that always crush them as soon as out of the places and then it ends that the mouldings of the roofs exchange for the corridors.

  33

  I don't believe it

  I don't believe it. The television doesn't work. You/he/she has waited really today, day of the Olympic ending of rhythmic gymnastics, to decide to become an ant hill. It is a den of bugs that you/they swarm from this morning, on all the channels. I am sure that you/he/she has done him he/she waits for, as the keys and the carpets.

  Grandmother has called his/her usual friend, what the things repair and make to see around his/her toy, as Cackle says. I hope that he intends as than televisions him it doesn't intend of staircases. To say the truth, seems me that doesn't understand more than me and of Lawrence of it, but I don't say anything. He maltreats the spar and the cables. It jokes with grandmother that offers him a coffee. This way distracts him/it!

  Between a sip and the other, the gentleman of the toys keeps on trafficking, the language among the teeth. I lift the eyes to the sky and I pray in an angle: Ago what the television shakes him of back the formichines before the connection with Barcellona, that is the capital of the Catalogna.

  Nothing to be done. The friend of grandmother insists, but you/he/she is evident that he doesn't know from what you/he/she departs to start. I don't even believe that he/she will succeed in reassembling all pieces in the order in which you/he/she has gotten off them. It says that it will return with his/her child tomorrow that it understands more of it. There risiamo.

  Grandfather asks if I want to go with him on the river. If there is wind, we throw out the kites. I look out. There are the hens that peep. There are the crickets that the wings are rubbed for the warm one. There are the head of hair of the immovable trees. There is everything. The only thing that there is not, it is really the wind. I look on the ledge the shepherdesses idler that, also as meteorologists being scarce, they also know theirs that today won't blow a beautiful anything. Also grandfather seems to hear their voice, in fact he doesn't insist and goes whistling with Barabau that reaches far it from.

  I also go out. I make a lazy turn around the house-train. Lazily I stay me in front of the garden. To discharge me, puts the lazy hands a step away from the wall, where the crack is lazily born, I rotate the legs above the head and I do a vertical lazy.

  I wait for the good moment to detach me from the wall. I withstand more always. The braccias he is strengthening. But it is not only matter of muscles. It is above all a fact of equilibrium and the equilibrium it is a fact of head. Account: one, two, three. arrival up to sixteen. I return against the wall.

  Today I feel me a swift, not because I succeed in sleeping with an alone half of the brain, but because of those minuscule zampettes that prevent from taking back once the flight fallen to earth. And earth self there are fallen, I know him/it well. I also knew him/it before seeing that old doctor, that said that my box was the ITN and that to mother you/he/she has said other words that I have not felt.

  If only I succeeded in understanding what you/they want to tell me the things, if only this summer were so entangled. every day, it is as to try to loosen a ball made of broken threads: you throw one of them, but the skein never loosens him.

  "It is because you are down too much to head" mother says "you must be with the feet for earth, well planted in the Aldiquà, as they do everybody."

  I look me the hands supported on the smooth one of the sidewalk, I still have to the wrist his/her bracelet with the stars. Blood suits me to the head.

  "Well planted feet in the Aldiquà, have understood?"

  I return to earth and I look me the palm of the hand. In the meat the pendants are engraved to form of star.

  34

  Lawrence and I more often go always

  Lawrence and I more often go always the afloat home. We go there in the afternoon, when grandfather sleeps. Lawrence plays with the Game Boy, at times curious between the job utensils and the kites. I write tickets to insert in the salvapensieri, I try to decipher the signals and the signs as it would be a Lieutenant Colombo Columbus. I have respected the pacts; I have written all without skipping nothing. Yet, I always have the feeling that you misses something. I shake the tickets in the belly of the salvapensieri. I try to give an order to also give a sense.

  "Thing is?"

  "Nothing."

  I don't feel like explaining to Lawrence that from some time I pick up the messages in bottle of the world. So much would not understand and it would go on with that stupid history of the UFOs.

  He lifts the shoulders, as to say that it doesn't interest him, but I know that it is not this way. It returns out to play. I keep on shaking paper before and back, but it doesn't ignite me any though
t. They are to diet of ideas in this period. I look at the glass of the finestrina, to see if there is another message written to upside-down. Nothing. Grandmother must have passed of here. There is not a grain of dust in the ray of kilometers. I peer at around some, to see if I succeed at least to rouse an idea among the utensils of grandfather, even in the cassette of the utensils. Water. Nothing even there. I pass in review all of his/her kites. Fuochino, fire. The airplane, the hot-air balloon. Fuochissimo. I pick her among the hands with the idea to steal within to see the effect that does from us up, but I immediately jam me: on an angolino hidden under the mouth is written, almost invisible, the letter "L."

  I allow to fall to the ground the hot-air balloon and I feel a spark that ignites in the breast. It is as a thorn that hammers him in the heart. It doesn't do bad. It is annoying, however. I look around me, I try to calm fixing me inanimate objects, immovable. It works. Until, in an angle, my eyes rouse a kick ball of white leather, with above the writing "Italy 90." I bring me a hand to the lobe of the ear, I maltreat him/it between the index and the thumb. Of a line seems me to see a whole net of secret relationships among Lawrence and grandfather, that it waits for him/it to the house on the river, that plays to kick with him, that also devotes him the kites. A net of which I don't know anything, really nothing.

  I go out to take a seat on the wharf feet that graze the water that flows under. I look at Lawrence to intermittent but precise glances, as it makes Charles with mother. It dries me some that grandfather has wanted to devote to him his/her last creation. Lawrence doesn't even like the kites. Sigh. Grandfather would perhaps have preferred to have a male nephew. Perhaps also dad would have preferred to have a male child. To that thought, a shiver races me along the back.

  I look at the water that flows under. To calm I try me to make to take to my thoughts another direction. I ask thing to Lawrence he/she wants to do from great.

  "The veterinarian."

  "I thought I wanted to make the soccer player" I throw there.

  "Macché soccer player! I don't like to play to kick. I play to basket."

  "As to basket? And that kick ball that there is in the afloat house?"

  "But which ball?"

  "That with writing above "Italy 90.""

  "But of what do you speak? It is not mine. Me the kick I hate him/it."

  I lift the shoulders and I don't insist. I know well that the ball is his. Of who other should be? Its words know about put make up on die. When it does so, Lawrence is unbearable. I sigh and I try to be satisfied me with the fact that wants to become a veterinarian. What a banal idea, then. You/he/she could say, that know, the pitcher of knives, the planner of spaceships. Or the pilot of comets.

  "And you? What do you want to do from great?he/she " asks.

  Me? Already, thing I want to do me. I think it some and the first thing that it comes me to mind it is the skin of the trumpet caressed by the fingers of Chet Baker. And I don't have doubts:

  "The musician."

  "But if don't even play a tool!"

  "Because, have you ever taken care of a wounded animal?"

  "No, however. be', it is not at all the same thing."

  "Because no?"

  "Be', because. perch no.

  I lift the shoulders. If I cannot be a musician it is not a problem: I have a team of other ideas that you/they ride me in the mind.

  "Then I will be a conjurer" I declare "or the detective. Or the collector."

  "Collector? And of thing?"

  "I don't know him/it, something will come me to mind. Rather, no. I will be a gymnast."

  He shakes the head, serious.

  "You want to make too things, too much different. He is not able at all. It needs that you decide one of it. An alone. As I have done me."

  I think it some on. It doesn't suit me to give up one of that jobs. Of hit they seem me all necessary ones. More: fundamental. It doesn't suit me to abdicate the trumpet that shines in the hands of Miles Davis and to the denture that shines in the mouth of Chet Baker. The geese that walk in single file look I pour the water, long of neck and court of leg. It doesn't suit me to abdicate to inspector Christopher Columbus overcoat or to the customs of white lycra of Maria Petrova. It doesn't suit me to abdicate in general any job.

  "You owe for strength" Lawrence insists "at all them you can do all. it needs that you choose one of it."

  The geese lengthen the white of the neck I pour the water. An ashy heron detaches the flight. There will be a way, you/he/she must be us. A job that combines together them everybody, that any other doesn't exclude of it.

  "Then?Lawrence " insists.

  I think it. And of it comes only to mind one.

  "The writer."

  35

  Sensation in the capital of the Catalogna

  Sensation in the capital of the Catalogna, that is always Barcellona. The television is just shaken of back the ants I have known that Maria Petrova is ended scene in general classification, after a penalizzazione of well 0,20 points. A terrible thing has happened, appalling, of those things that make you definitely lose that po' of trust that you still had in the world: during the exercise with the circle, the zipper lightning of its custom is torn. You/he/she has opened to betrayal. This way you/he/she has had the penalizzazione and you/he/she is ended scene in general classification.

  I don't believe that I can ever recover. It is too much, too much unfair. Grandfather tries to console me; does it say after all, does he always treat of the fifth place to the Olympiads also, no? Are speaking of the world of the whole world! I don't even want to feel them these discourses. You/he/she cannot be been satisfied us with the fifth place when it deserved him the first one, only because the fifth place is not quite badly also.

  Walk along the desolate platform of the house-train, in the mind blacker thoughts of the clouds that graze the horizon. The keys of house that disappear really when you must go out, the zippers of the customs of white lycra that decide to get torn of hit he/she waits for him to make you arrive scene and those stupid shepherdesses nullafacenti that if they keep her/it on laughing in the room from lunch, instead of making to blow some wind to make to fly the kites. There is seriously something that doesn't go to this world.

  Grandfather tries to distract telling me me a history of his.

  "Between thousand and thousand years there was a house that resembled to a train.

  I don't know him/it if they are in vein of histories, today.

  From the sidewalk, Lawrence asks if I want to make a game to dame. I answer him of yes. It is an ancient game, that gives me the feeling to have been coming for another time. On the round tavolino in front of house, we move some the chubby body of Pralina to make place to the chessboard. I like it, the chessboard, country of rational and predictable trips, without the possibility of unexpected crossings. I like the pedines, biscuits of chocolate to the milk and flux. I almost always win. You are fortunate, it says him. No, Lawrence: I am good. And I am about to win again. Even if.

  "Done! Have won! Have won! This time I have rubbed you."

  I look at the chessboard. Don't be possible! My pedines are mice in trap, immobilized in every direction. I try in the mind to invent me some movements. Nothing. I lengthen two fingers, I choose one it tags after, I put again her/it to his/her place. I choose another of it.

  "Emmuovi!Lawrence " says with the syntactic raddoppiamento.

  "An instant, no?! I must think."

  "Macché to think and to think. however you move you six rubbed. Have won!"

  "There will be a way.

  "No that there is not! There don't be!Lawrence " shouts. And he/she calls witnesses to his/her victory.

  "Dad, true that there is not?"

  Charles separates unwillingly from a you for you with mother. You/he/she is dragged for the cloth of the pants in front of the chessboard. It looks at the table, it looks at me, then it shakes the head. It doesn't need to stick words above the scene.

  "Have won, ha
ve won!"

  Lawrence goes around for all the gravel of the avenue a kind of grungy prehistoric dance that knows him only.

  But I don't resign me. No, no. He/she doesn't speak. I knit the eyebrows and continuous to think. There will be a way, you/he/she must be us. Charles tries to convince me of the contrary one, you/he/she makes me see what it would happen if I moved me in that or in that other direction. After some he gets tired and it returns from mother. You Lawrence also gets tired. They get tired all and I remain alone to play to iron arm with the chessboard.

  Demetrio crosses the courtyard with the usual plucked chicken footstep, it shakes the head and it chews words to half voice. Stubborn, this ragazzina. Too much. The horizon grumbles storm. I support the edge of an elbow to the circle of the tavolino. There will be a way, must be us! In the sky a pink strisciolina transits, thin. It is a flock of flamingos in escape from the storm.

  36

  As every year, the television

  As every year, the television announces that this is the warmest summer of the century. Never recorded so tall temperatures from the 1860. All guilt of the Sahara. And of the hole of the ozone. And some effect shuts. They are them the persons responsible, but I don't know if really in this order. The television also advises to be in the house in the warmest hours, to avoid to be too for a long time to the sun, to drink a lot of water and to protect the head with a hat. I lift the shoulders, one month ago it sustained that this was the rainiest summer from the 1815.

  It is the time of the siesta, but I lean out me the same to the door of Lawrence and I ask if he/she wants to come to make a bike ride. Him however it is so busy with the Game Boy that it doesn't even feel me. I refold on Barabau. I take the white bicycle from the edge of the house-train, I go him/it to wake up under to the tiglio. He/she just sees the wheels in movement, it gets up of rush and it comes behind me. I do him "Shhh!" with the index in front of the mouth. I don't want that the inhabitants of the house-train realize that I am destroying.