Read The house at the edge of time Page 11


  I pedal under the white light of the first afternoon. It is one silent day, in which it doesn't stir a leaf. Around nobody is seen. The crickets are the only presences apart me and Barabau. After all to the house-train, I take toward the river. I pedal fast, fast, along the bank. I tear off the hands from the handlebar. The air pushes back me the hair to the. I feel the thoughts that do to push with the elbow in my mind, they make him the trips each other and they stumble without arriving from any part. I leave half open the eyes. I would want to have a kind of can-opener as that that it uses grandmother, to free them, to throw entirely out them make them race around to the wild state. A can-opener of the thoughts. Here is another invention that must precede without doubt the telephone to put in pocket.

  Also today the coffeepot has bled and I has not understood the why. It also seems me that the crack on the wall next to the garden he is some widened. I/you/they are marked him/it to me and I have put everything in the salvapensieri, even if continuous not to understand what they want to tell me the crack and the coffeepot. It is because I am too assembled on the future, Charles says. And on the future you/he/she could not have been taken if you/he/she is not taken on the past there. That gentleman also tells him/it that speaks of the time and of the crescentines, you/he/she seems me.

  On the edge of the river, Barabau for sniffing the trunk of a tree. I stay me and I also sniff the air me. It is strange, it doesn't seem me to be there is ever here, yet it is not away from house. I go down from the bicycle and I look around me as an extraterrestrial just disembarked on the planet Earth. There is a strange odor, as if reality was fermenting. Barabau has shaken. Continuous to bark to blunder. I caress his head to calm him/it, but he insists. Of hit, it escapes me from under the fingers and it squirts away as a lightning.

  "Barabau!"

  I race behind him, but it is very faster than me. I race stronger to reach him/it. All of a sudden of the run, the bank changes face, the poplars are spaced out and earth detaches him from the water without telling. Barabau stops him in a precise point, among two trunks of tree, and it puts on to bark to an invisible creature.

  "Barabau, stop her/it!"

  I reach him/it panting. I don't understand what it has, it is usually so calm. Continuous to bark looking in before, toward the river. I also look, but there am no anything.

  "Thing you have? What have you seen?"

  Barabau keeps on barking desperate. I look for everywhere with the eyes. I look through with the look the bank of desert forehead, the branches of the trees without birds, the river that flows slow under of us. For an instant I see me reflected on the surface. Then water ripples him, the reflex disappears and I has the feeling to also disappear me. And it is then that it happens.

  It is then that I faint.

  White. All white. I don't know where I am me. I know only that am swimming in apnea in a sea of fog color milk. It is not an unpleasant feeling, I don't do anybody work to hold back the breath. I feel me a newborn that slips in the water as a fish. Swimming lengthening the braccias in before. There is around a kind of world, but it is as become less frequent. As if the world were still in phase of study. The outline of Barabau that he/she barks to something that he/she is not seen gives me of side rotating in the white as a figurine. I keep on swimming, an armful behind the other. I hear the voice of grandmother without seeing her/it: "Who doesn't run away from the abyss, the abyss if he/she picks him/it up." I lengthen legs and braccia in the white. Lawrence gives me of side on his/her skate, the wheels they don't make noise. While it is slipping away, he turns and he/she asks me if I succeed in seeing the UFOs. In distance there is the face famigliare of the house, the house-train. I push on and down with the legs, more, always more. On the platform, Charles extends me a gentleman's book strangled by a blue jacket.

  "The doctor had said that it could happen."

  In the white, mother's voice. I look for her, but I don't see her/it. I don't understand well thing it says. I succeed in intercepting a word on two, and contrarily. EMUIF, ASROCS ETATSE. And again that word, AMUART, that also to upside-down the white penetrates as a blunt object.

  I keep on making armfuls in the fog, I slowly estrange me from the house-train, sailing toward the river. On the bank I someone turned back. It seems that coop throwing kicks to something, perhaps a ball. I don't succeed in seeing him/it in face, however. And I have as the impression that from does her/it of that person everything depends. Everything how much. Here it begins to turn the head.

  "It looks, you/he/she is opening the eyes."

  Grandmother's voice, while around me the white is spaced out.

  No! Not yet, not yet!

  An instant and all it disappears together with the fog. An instant and I am again glued to the skin of the world.

  I wake up myself stretched out on the couch of grandmother, above of me the faces of all the passengers of the house-train. After an instant of dismay, they smile. General euphoria. They look at each other and they breathe sighs of relief. They almost almost uncork a bottle to toast.

  Mother sticks me kisses on does her/it.

  "Zoe, as do you feel yourself? Are you well?"

  I ask what it has happened, even if a half idea I/you/they are already done me her. It looks like I/you/they have fainted on the bank of the river, probably the warm one, a hit of sun. Had not you/they told him, those of the television, that this is the warmest summer of the century? Had not you/they told him to be him of it in the house and not to go out in the warmest hours? There was a little far luckily Demetrio that has given the alarm. Stubborn, this ragazzina. Always to do to iron arm with the world. It is him that you/he/she has brought me to house and eccomi there, on that couch. In all they are spent few minutes, even if to me they are seemed days, months, whole years.

  I try to put to sit me. I have the impression that has put me in a blender and that all the various pieces of myself has been slammed here and there and is lost who knows where. I feel of the livid ones from some part and the light head. Light. As emptied, flood of fog. But I am well, indeed.

  I am well.

  37

  Today Iris has a strange odor

  Today Iris has a strange odor. It says that it is because it has the menstruations, but according to me it is because you/he/she must depart. His have returned home and you/he/she can finally return also us her. It will also happen to you, you will see, it says. They will come you the occhiaies and you will have a strange odor in the days of the menstruations. I shake the head with stubbornness, while I am picking up the hair above the nape and I tame them with an elastic. To me it won't happen really a beautiful nothing, thinks. The menstruations are not a thing that concerns me. And not even the occhiaies.

  Iris spends the day in bikini in the middle of the grass, so when you/he/she returns in the city you/he/she can invent him that you/he/she has been on a tropical beach. Only that Iris is as mother: it has the white skin. White. It would burn even if it stretched him on a bunk to the sunset. What here hard so much, is true, it is a sunset professional, but he/she remains always also a sunset.

  The sisters of grandmother give to ask if we also go to the procession. Grandmother asks what procession, theirs respond that don't know him/it still, but there is however a procession. Iris lowers the sunglasses on the nose and looks her as if they had been coming for another century. For her an alone bibbia exists and calls Vogue.

  To midday the follower of the sect of Vogue already has the color of the tomatoes grigliati. Grandmother, that has abdicated the procession without name, the supplication to protect at least the head with a straw hat. But she persists him, it declares that it is well, that is true that now it seems a tomato grigliato, but if really they want to know him/it tomorrow it will be an appetizing dessert to the caramel. It tells him/it his/her bibbia. From the verse 53:2 of Vogue: "If you cannot go to the beach, you leave that the sea comes to you: lay down you in bikini on the lawn of your house and tanned you, tan you, tan you."


  Grandmother shakes the head. Iris passes the rest of the afternoon to sharpen his/her history of invented vacation and me I pass the rest of the afternoon to move the reality in my salvapensieri. In the last days, from when I/you/they have fainted on the river, I have felt some spark in the middle of the breast. Nothing serious, knows him/it, it is only glass that tinkles, as that of the princess Coppers. Things that head, only that her at least it was a princess. It comes me an idea. I race than above, support the salvapensieri on the comodino, undresses the sheets of grandmother of the bedspread and I wears him/it as if it were a queen mantle. The trailing fills the whole room. Here, now yes, the sparks he is extinguishing. I hold in air the pen as a scepter. Would want us a crown on the head.

  While I am looking for with the eyes in the room, in the rectangle of the door I intercept two feet of Iris + two legs of Iris + an uolcmen of Iris = an Iris all whole. Look almost worse me of as you/he/she has looked at the sisters of grandmother. I swallow. It doesn't suit me that has seen me so, while I was making the princess you Copper. I feel the cheeks that become of fire. Surely you/he/she will have thought that I was playing and instead it was a serious thing. Serious. I make to slip plain the bedspread up to earth. But Iris seems not to be him aware of nothing, or you/he/she pretends of. It climbs over my mantle of occasion and it recovers the overflowing purse of life with which you/he/she has arrived. It forks the black glasses, it inserts the Dr. Martens and me riscavalca toward the exit.

  "I go" it chews from the staircases stamping on the carpet that every day slips more toward right.

  "Then hi" I say, when I don't already see her/it anymore.

  I take a seat me on the bed, the cheeks they slowly return to their usual temperature. Suddenly I feel the Dr. Martens that stops him on the wood of the staircases. I feel that they make dietrofront, that returns in top.

  Iris reappears in the rectangle of the door. With some hesitation, it unthreads the glasses and it draws near. He/she sits on the bed of side to me. Look me with the eyes that am today full of water more than the usual one. You say that it is because you/he/she has caught too much sun, but according to me it is because you/he/she must depart.

  "He/she listens" it whispers taking me the hands "anything tells you them, you not to be them to feel. You go on for your road and not to turn you. Have you understood? I know him/it that you are strong, stronger than all envoys together of theirs and that history of the trauma and the loss of the memory, be', according to you have picked them around to me all up. And you have done well."

  It lengthens and it tightens me strong. Strong. Almost I don't succeed in breathing. It unthreads from the neck the bonnets of the uolcmen and it says that it gives me him, not before having recovered the cassette of Vasco Rossi that there is inside. For an instant it looks me with that eyes of water, that you/they remember me so much when we raced along the river in our supereroi customs. It is a distant memory. Distant. A memory in which we are inside me, somebody else and she of which I don't succeed in seeing the face there.

  It is only an instant. Before Iris forks again the sunglasses. Before you get up from the bed and that I/you/he/she feel again the noise of the Dr. Martens on the wood of the staircases.

  38

  I insert in the mouth of the uolcmen

  I insert in the mouth of the uolcmen that Iris has given me the cassette that Charles has given me. I beware the blue of the window. There is a sky washed with the soap of Marsiglia. Not even a cloud to see some fasmate. I think about the sun, I think about the rain. I think about this wind that never arrives. I could ask forecasts to that community of shepherdesses in the room from lunch, but their meteorological bulletin is more improbable than that than the Weather Report.

  I systematize on the shelf the books that Charles has given me. It gives of of it new every week. I skim through at random one of them. It is the history of a gentleman that one day realizes that its furniture go for a walk for house. What they go out of the door, straight, and you/he/she must go him them to repurchase from a junk dealer. It is what will also happen to me, I am certain of it, if I continue this way.

  I read the author's name reflected in the mirror. TNASSAPUAM. Then I move the look from the book to me and that that I see it makes me rub the eyes. Hey, expected an instant. Am I me this? I look me of forehead and almost I don't recognize me. I bend me some side, as to peer at over the surface of the mirror, as if it were a door that can be opened. Will I be me indeed? I have a different face from that of yesterday. Yet the eyes are there, always equal, always to the same place. I am also there the nose, the mouth, the hair. The pieces, singly taken, they are yesterday always the same of, but as a whole the landscape of the does me it seems everything different. I go down of under, watching out for to shun the carpets that every day slips more toward right. I wonder me seriously if the others will recognize me.

  Out, grandfather looks at a piece of country up to the river, the faithful legs of Barabau crouched to his/her feet. Lawrence is putting in line the statuettes that you/he/she has found in the merendines of the White Mill. Mother is drinking the coffee with grandmother, in choir they ask me if I want a piece of bun that makes company to a juice of fruit. I stay immovable on the platform of the house. I don't dare to move me for fear to lose me other pieces of myself and that they end so away from not to succeed in recovering them anymore.

  From the door of Newton it shells out a whisker of Pralina + an ear of Pralina + four legs of Pralina = a Pralina all whole. It comes to rub his/her chubby body against my thin ankles.

  "Then you want her/it, or no this bun?"

  Nobody realizes that I am not me anymore.

  39

  Stray night

  Stray night of cats on the roofs and mute stars. Thieves' night.

  They have come from us yesterday, with the complicity of the dark without moon. The passengers of the house-train have not felt as usual anything. Me the noises I have felt them, but I have not made us case. I thought they were the usual armchairs that go for a walk taking advantage of the night, as in the stories of TNASSAPUAM.

  This morning grandmother has found the drawer of the silverware desert.

  "The good service!you/he/she has exclaimed, squadernandosi the hands on does her/it.

  You will understand. I believe both the first time that those forks leave the belief. You/they could not probably do more than anything of it the whole day and you/they have begged the thieves to bring him her street. To Charles, you/they have stolen the Letter instead 22. But luckily you/they have left him all the sheets of that book that you/he/she is writing. They have been so kind to also be unthread the page written to half that there was in the car. You/they had to be thievish very sensitive. To Demetrio the mean of locomotion has disappeared: the wheelbarrow. He has begun to curse all, to say that it is guilt of the gypsies, that has been their. What you/he/she has seen them while they were training him to make the thieves. That poster that there was on the bank, that with the writing "Forbidden the standstill to the nomad", you/he/she has moved him nearer, really of side in our house. It spends the days to make the watch before and back. It is perhaps afraid that steals him that certain trunks full of gold that nobody has ever seen. I am not afraid instead because I don't have anything to steal. Apart my salvapensieri. But to whom could interest to steal him/it?

  The people of the trailers is closed in key. They don't make him see, as when it rains. I don't see Mujo anymore. I imagine him/it to me behind the glass of a window, with the eyes that more greens become every day that passes. It is away from the poster of Demetrio as a fox it is to the wide one from the trap.

  In the house, the continuous television to speak alone. The Pope is completely taken back by the operation of June. To London they hold a lecture to make to end the war in Bosnia Erzegovina. A few months ago, a ship Chinese freighter has lost a load of trentamila rubber paperelle, that really in this moment you/they are sailing in the Pacific. You foresees that they will disembark on
the coasts of Europe among a few years. I look for grandfather to the afloat house to tell him this thing of the fleet of paperelle, but I don't find him/it.

  Lately grandfather he wakes up late, slow. Mother says that you/he/she is because you/he/she is not well. I peer at him/it of hidden, always more often. Won't it have intention to leave also us at all him?

  He smiles and it says to be calm, that is not the moment yet. But what sooner or later it will also touch to him, certain, as to everybody. It is the normal one to flow some time, it says.

  Me, from when there has been the minute from sixty-one seconds, to the time I don't believe it more and I don't understand really this hurry to move from the Aldiquà to the Aldilà. Me raggomitolo on the bed of side to grandfather together with my salvapensieri, proceeds a den between the circle of his/her arm and the belly. I tell him that the colonel of the meteo thinks that a beautiful wind of libeccio is upcoming. And that we must plant a seed of cherry. And grigliare meat behind house. Besides making to fly the kites, naturally. In short we have a lot of things to do, I tell him pressing on his belly the salvapensieri. And then he/she won't want at all to lose the unloading of the rubber paperelles?

  I also remember him that you/he/she has not told me the end of that history yet where the protagonist was a house that resembled to a train.

  40

  Thing other must happen

  Thing other must happen because the great ones pay me attention? Why does also realize theirs that something doesn't go to this summer that fakes to be harmless?