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### Giovanni David Piras

### Lead petals

www.quellidized.it

Lead petals

Copyright © 2012 Zerounoundici Edizioni

ISBN: 978-88-6578-171-5

Cover: Image Shutterstock.com

Lead petals it is a work given birth by the imagination of the author. Possible references to people or really done happened they are purely casual. Nevertheless the places, the customs, the customs, the descriptions, the signs and the historical events belong to the truth of that period.

The concentration camp of Pertzogiu, that according to the news it was found where the actual airport of Fertilia rises, near Alghero, best man in a lot of lists of reference on the Nazi fields of the second world war. On his/her use however don't be had certain information and all of this that it concerns him/it it is for a long time an enigma irrisolto; there is who strongly doubts even of his/her real existence.

The system of piecework, invented by the engineer French Charles Bedaux, in the mines of Montevecchio you/he/she has been introduced in the temporal phase in which the novel develops him. Nevertheless, for demands of the history, the author is taken the license to anticipate this event of a few years.

In fascist epoch it was given us of the" you" and not of the" her", but, not to create confusion in the reading, is maintained inside the dialogues the" her" of our days.

The engineer Filippo Minghetti, Alberto Castoldi, Giovanni Anthony Sanna and his/her daughter Zely, further to other memorable figures of the fascist period they have really existed, but none of the actions from them finished in the novel it is corresponding to episodes of testified life, make exception the documented news that esulano from the plot of the book. The author Giovanni David Piras has chosen to preserve the original nominatives of these characters, imbuing so the history with a strong territorial characterization that only an archaic and mysterious island as Sardinia can give. _All the other characters belong to its creativeness._

# In this alone game in appearance unbalanced, in which the reality mixes him and continually overlaps to the imaginary one, the pivot is crystallized around which wheel the whole plot: the suffering of whom has lived to that time in the mines. IT IS THIS THE MOST TANGIBLE ASPECT OF EVERYTHING: THE TALLEST RELATIONSHIP OF THE DESPERATION HUMAN Á. WHAT REFERENCE SHOULD BE MADE ALWAYS FOR MEASURING THE FELICITÀ OF AN EXISTENCE.

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# 1

January 1937

Obscurity had dragged with itself a penetrating dampness, of those that numb the bones up to the marrow. The wood, mute and dismal, it compressed the two sides of the path. The tops of the corks seemed to hang the a verse the others, giving life to a dark tunnel of which the end could not be imagined. Only the impetus of a stream notched the taciturn character of the night. The solitary silence of the deaf ones reigned, sharp as the smoke of leccio that was emitted by the chimney pots of stone of the houses, only presence of life in the winter evenings of Montevecchio.

«There is at the most here a meter of water!»

That voice vomited by the stony throat of the Linas mountain shattered the quiet. In that instant Emilio took the path, but he/she didn't hear the warning, it was still distant.

It was cold. Gasps of vapor were emitted by its mouth, raising himself/herself/itself in the dark as you signal of smoke Indian. The job overall that he/she wore it was of a thin fabric that could not defeat the imminent frost. Later a few times would be seemed him to be himself/herself/themselves lost in a banchisa. To the awakening, the countries would have been of an arctic whiteness. Only in appearance dressed up with Christmas suits, pierced through in reality by knives of ice destined to tear the idea of that mantle of snow. Sometimes the early-morning frosts were so consistent to be allowed that the frailty of his/her/their children passed above puddles of water without grazing its frozen surface.

Emilio inserted him the hands in pocket before the cold tore him every remnant of sensibility. During the winter months, deep breakings covered him hands and lips, bleeding in continuation as stigmate; torturing him/it more than the blows that you/he/she had taken in youth from his/her father. When he bared, its body seemed the statue of Christ brought around in the procession of holy Friday.

Bushes that were moved, were moved with uproar.

Emilio was crushed by a shiver. By instinct it refolded the neck among the shoulders to protect himself/herself/themselves from a cold that the most red-hot fabric would not even have succeeded in mitigating: a cold coming from the soul.

Silence, had been only perhaps a wild boar.

It reacted to the numbness and he shifted, a little convinced in truth, but it did him/it. Its feet were swollen as the breasts of the cows to the morning. They didn't ache him so that when to eight you/he/she had run after in the middle of the German thorn the most stubborn sheep of the flock that tziu Boreddu had given on consignment him. The animal had trespassed the pastures of Boreddu and you/he/she was inserted to ruminate in a field of cauliflowers. Did that ground belong to Humerus Gallus, did some good that first shoot and then he/she asked" who is?"

Emilio had raced fast afoot barefoot on the German thorn and cursed to narrow teeth. To every footstep you/he/she was seemed him to stamp on one of the porcupines who raided the fruits of the degenerated perastro. When you/he/she had reached the sheep it was furious. You/he/she had picked her up to kicks in face so so many times that the beast had finished his/her days chewing the grass with the gums.

Now, not very distant from him, about twenty men they formed a human chain. They threw a big rope that lost him on the eyelash of a ditch to work. The breaking created him in the mountain was deep more than eight meters. «Oh, hoist! Oh, it hoists!» it articulated the group to every sharp tug. To the rope it was suspended the sergeant Podda, that almost weighed seventy kilos. The small body that held narrow to its breast, weighed at the most instead winds of it,: it was the carcass of a five year-old child remained to I release in a meter of water for two days.

The face of the sergeant emerged from the crack. It sustained those bare lower case letters with a torn embrace. A gold chain with hung the crucifix it fell from the head penzolante of the child, it bounced twice on the walls of the hollow, tinkling and shining in the air. Before withdrawing himself/herself/themselves in the water, the reflexes of the gilded sweaters struck marshal Pietro Troise's eyes, that it almost felt pain in the contrast among its addicted pupils to the darkness and that lightning of light that it blinded as a welder.

Ranieri Scintu and Calistru Puxeddu grabbed for an arm the sergeant and they threw him/it out of the hole. Water dripped him from the sleeves but the insistent ticking that he/she was heard they were its teeth that beat for the cold. It abandoned with care the body of his/her/their child to earth, forgetting himself/herself/itself that by now the dead body you/he/she could not complain for an abrupt manoeuvre anymore. Tito Espis, Paulu Vaccargiu and the rest of the components of the human chain for an instant felt their heart change rhythm and almost to halt himself/herself/themselves. You/they would have preferred to get by the eyes rather than to see how death could reduce a creature.

«The dead body there are not doubtful it is of Giuseppino Masala» it announced the sergeant melting himself/herself/itself.

The marshal Pietro Troise scrutinized hypnotized that corpse of as soon as five years, that you/he/she preserved only the cinders some life. Giuseppino Masala was of a surreal pallor, faded by the death as a glass of watered black wine. You/he/she had disappeared two days before, after having estranged from his/her father Emilio, a miner of Guspini that filled with the carboys of water in the source of he/she Knows it will Lose. A setter to the pursuit of a hare was fallen in the same ditch. Helium Siddi, in the attempt to recover his/her dog, you/he/she had made the grisly discovery among the mountains that the village of Montevecchio encircled. And the suffering, that for a long time to Montevecchio it gave less escape of the haemorrhagic fevers, was now ready to infect Emilio. Years back if ill n'era also the marshal, yet you/he/she had not served him to develop the antibodies of the immunity, and it still suffered.

A man from the aristocratic air drew near to the body, you/he/she was the doctor Saints. His/her white moustaches and parish priests, united to a bombetta headgear, did him/it more English to appear how Italian. You inserted a monocle lens in the orbit of the right eye, that endowed with a more acute sight. You/he/she had received him in gift from a junk dealer to whom you/he/she had succeeded to take care of an ugly pneumonia. You bent on the dead body to examine him/it. The body was swollen because of the rigor mortis and slimy for prolongs her/it exposure to the water. Those of Giuseppino were limbs that spoke of a brief existence and without remorse, that you/they would never have known the sore of the time and ignored the emotions that life knows how to give; at times sweets as the strawberries, at times to love as the wild almonds, but always ready to differentiate the men from the ocean and from the mountains, that old as the world a weeping neither a smile they are never granted.

The doctor raised again the head. «It has both the broken legs!»

On the place there were threatening shepherds, agriculturists and some itinerant. In unison they stared at him/it petrified. They were men dressed of rags fathers of family that saw in Giuseppino the themselves children.

«It has to accidentally be fallen. Making a flight of eight meters was inevitable that its legs broke him» it still added the doctor.

Shook Troise the head and it covered him the eyes, a hand placing himself/herself/itself on the forehead. Giuseppino was fallen breaking himself/herself/itself the bones. You/he/she had felt an inhuman pain. It was still conscious on the fund of that accursed hole. You/he/she had perhaps howled, petrified, without nobody felt him/it. You/he/she had perhaps tried to go up again seizing himself/herself/itself to the rock with the fingernails. Perhaps it was dead of fear, with the feeling to have been abandoned; and plain pian dark had devoured the light.

In the hands there were not the fingernails anymore, torn by the stones that Giuseppino had scraped off up to the last breath.

That thoughts perceived in the mind of everybody, branding to fire their conscience. The tears of Troise broke the banks. «Holy Christ, was only five years old!»

The doctor shot on individuals' crowd hedged in around the body, words exploding as they were pellets. «With the broken legs you/he/she has not succeeded in throwing him on and that meter of water has done him/it drown. You/he/she has tried to hold the head out of the water in every way, the torn fingernails don't do whether to confirm him/it.»

Luigi Zedda, a very tied up miner to the father of his/her/their child, tried to cover him the ears not to feel. The words of the doctor captured the feelings more angosciantis.

Among the bystanders there were no women, only men. They sobbed in silence, trying not to notch their sexist pride with the weakness of a weeping. You/they would have broken everything to discharge their frustration but in the discourses from inn it didn't have to exist an incentrato of it on their femminucce skirts. What you/they had seen would have accompanied their nights for so much time. In the instants that the sleep precedes, with the head supported to the pillow, you/they would have made the accounts with him same and with the hidden torments behind the daylight.

The sergeant was now wound by a cover of orbace that had him I bring Didu Zara, one of the most shaken, that you/he/she trembled as if a dog had infected him/it with the cimurro.

Made invisible by euforbie, lentischi, corbezzoli and myrtles, the hollow you/he/she was filled with the water piovana. «There is at the most here a meter of water!» you/he/she had said the sergeant. A shabby measure to be imagined but enough to kill Giuseppino.

The doctor premises the abdomen of his/her/their child and from the mouth you/he/she squirted a surge of rotten water. «I don't believe that there am the necessity of an autopsy. The causes of the death seem me evident» it announced staring at the marshal.

Troise nodded with the head without confirming that gesture with the words. It lined up the look with the sergeant. «Podda, goes to look for Emilio. I regret it, but someone will also have to lend him to this torment. You communicate the disappearance of Giuseppino.»

Those words pierced the sergeant as the sharp horns of Achille, a bull that nobody had ever succeeded in calming down. You/he/she had given up also trying us his/her master, Giaccheddu Gessa, after having also put again us first the balls and then his wife.

Podda puffed scrutinizing the fund of the hollow and wondered what words you/he/she would have used for telling to a mother and a father that their only child would not have returned anymore to house. Giuseppino was dead to alone five years, with few milked sheep and so many picconates still from sferrare in the mines. For a parent you/he/she would have been a punishment atrocious way of living knowing not to have succeeded in protecting a child.

«If I/you had had the money to make to be him/it to house!»

«If I/you had never brought him/it to take the water!»

«If I/you had known that you/he/she would have gone so, I would not even have never it conceived!» his/her parents would be repeated for the whole life tearing to pieces himself/herself/itself from the pain. You/they would have had to thank for that five years of intense love lived with Giuseppino instead, rather than one hundred years serenely lived without ever having him/it known. Unfortunately that only instant in which you/they would have understood not to have their child anymore could freeze under the icebox of the suffering and to last up to the eternity.

The sergeant became entangled more still to the cover of orbace: the assignment that had to perform paralysed him/it more than the icy water of which its uniform was soaked.

A caress of wind grazed Emilio. It marveled, you/he/she would have sworn that the clear sky and the rigid temperature could not conceive the company of the north wind. For now it concerned only a breeze.

You shout next, indistinguishable.

Some outlines, cleared by the yellowish light of the lamps, they appeared and they disappeared among the leafy branches of the leccis just upset by the wind. Emilio opened wide the eyes and swallowed with sacrifice the saliva.

It was around for the woods from almost two days and you/he/she had seen only imprints of foxes and wild boars. Of his/her child there was not even the odor of ovine dung that imbued the suits of it after the visits to the sheepfold of tziu Boreddu. He didn't like at all that swarm of people, it made him presage the irreparable one. It the footstep, walking graceless among the bushes; by now it was out of the path.

The marshal Troise saw him/it serve capolino as a ravine and had an instant release that didn't even give him the time to think. Whispering in agitated way said: «holy Christ, is Emilio. You immediately cover the body of Giuseppino. A father cannot see this fool.»

The sergeant Podda wriggled him from the warm embrace of the orbace and abandoned the cloth on the body of Giuseppino.

The marshal sketched a smile, then you/he/she turned him doing himself/herself/itself I meet to the unlucky miner. «You are fortunate sergeant, I will talk me to Emilio.»

The face of Emilio was illuminated by a cone of light coming from those that seemed the lighthouses of an automobile. The noise of the motor with the gear in neutral made company. It had the eyes spiritati. Its face revealed everything: he/she already knew what had happened but it faked not to realize hoping to awaken elsewhere himself/herself/themselves with a bump in head and the light stomach as the yellow and black philanderers that fluttered in spring of it.

The marshal lowered the look fixing the shoes cobbled of the miner. "This is not poor, but dead people of hunger", he/she thought after having seen to sprout the alluce from the sole of Emilio.

«Hi, Emilio!» he/she greeted him/it, then the hand tightened him. It was cold as the sea of Piscinas of that times.

In front of the anterior chest of the automobile, erect as statues of marble, the rings of the human chain by now loose they observed benumbed the conversation.

Emilio stentava to loosen the taking from the hand of the marshal, that warm and rigenerante gave back flow to its hibernated blood.

«You have found again Giuseppino?»

Troise, its eyes were shiny. «Yes, we have found him.» The face of Emilio became expressionless; you/he/she had already noticed the gathering of people and their tomb silence.

«My child is dead, you/he/she is not so?»

The marshal was spiazzato from that so sincere question and strabuzzò the eyes. It placed a hand on the shoulder of the miner and there was no necessity of further confirmations. Emilio he left go beating violently the whirlbones on the ground. Didu Zara turned the face feeling pain for him. The knees of Emilio were ended against a spike of granite, anything else other than it bones German.

Emilio was thrusted a fist in mouth to contain the moan that he/she craved to go out. «I can see him/it?» he/she asked with mixed words to verses that seemed the braying of a donkey.

Troise made a grimace of disappointment. From the stream vapors that thickened him in a banchiglia of opaque fog whirled.

«No! If I can advise you, believe me, it is better of no. You would torture yourself seeing him/it, remembered of your child from alive. Don't leave that its corpse image torments forever yourself destroying all the beautiful memoirs. I know well that this happens!»

The dark skin of the sky was stormed by gilded freckles that him specchiavano in the crack of the death. Emilio the face covered him with both the hands. «I want to see at least where dead is, as it is dead» it shouted raising the tone of the voice.

Troise. The man that had before it was a manikin that stirred without control. «You come, I accompany you.»

They reached the edges of the ditch. Emilio didn't even see him/it, you/he/she was assembled on the bundle of orbace that the sergeant tried to screen with his/her figure. Took Troise Emilio for an arm and it tried to drag him/it away from the body of Giuseppino. «We go, Emilio, leaves alone, I show you thing has happened.»

But the destiny had implacably decided that the times were by now mature. It armed the hand of the wind entrusting to disclose him/it to Emilio the body of his/her child. A sudden gust got depressed on Montevecchio, also forcing the trees to stoop himself/herself/themselves to see from near the death. An edge of the white cloth waved in the air, inflating himself/herself/itself as the sail of a vessel. Another gust and the cloth you/he/she was swept away; it went to strand himself/herself/themselves among the tallest branches of the corks.

The dead body of Giuseppino exhibited him with rawness in front of the incredulous eyes of his/her father. It was swollen. A pair of short pantalonis in fustagno and a cotton giacchetta, reduced to a heap of dusters, they left the filthy manines and the barefoot footsies open. The left leg was unnaturally refolded in more parts and the skin it seemed a lot of jute full of dust of bones. Under the knee of the right leg, the meat had a deep laceration that splinters of tibia and fibula spit out. A viscous and whitish substance, mold, lined perhaps its face but not the eyes: blacks and depths as the galleries that Emilio had picconato for a life whole, immovable and expressionless, mantled by the pupils. Two dark globes similar to the eyes of a shark.

A whimper got up toward the moon becoming a dirge of desolation. It was the weeping of a father the desperation of Emilio.

Faces lacerated with hands among the hair assistettero to the pang of a destroyed man. Emilio took in arm the dead corpicino of his/her child and cradled him/it, howling and bathing him/it with his/her guilty tears. A distraction. Then a meter of water. You/he/she had been a solo they put and meaningless meter of water to kill him/it.

The following day, to the center of the humble stay of house Masala, the dead body of Giuseppino was extended inside the small stuffed white coffin with some pillows of reddish velvet. You/he/she was sustained by four stools impagliati. A lame belief hung toward the door of entry. Some candles without logic had been systematized for the room. Around Giuseppino there was so much people and someone had also lifted the transparent veil to touch him/it a last time.

A few times back, Emilio and his/her wife Maria you/they had been able him/it to see alone. You/they had washed him/it with warm water and a small bit of soap. You/they had used delicacy, love, repeating a ritual finished hundreds of times when Giuseppino was a newborn in bands. The white mold that the face covered him had gone away with one rubbed energetic. After that it seemed the usual Giuseppino, only some fattened up by the swelling, for this you/he/she was decided not to close the coffin during the funeral vigil. You/they had dressed him/it with cotton pantaloni, long, to cover his/her unswathed legs and a shirt of white silk that you/he/she had used only for two marriages in life. The shoes had been forced to ask her to the brother of Emilio. Giuseppino possessed only a pair of it, old and unusable to wander in the aldilà.

For the whole time both had remained of side to them child, incapable to look at himself/herself/themselves in face and to perceive in the eyes of the other the deepest desperation. Perhaps really for this, Maria, after the long silence of reflection, you/he/she had opened the eyes of his/her/their child. It hoped to find something different in comparison to the dark that the look of his/her husband was taken. But you/he/she had seen only the void in that eyes that stared at her/it and they seemed to acknowledge her. It was only a fictitious perception: Giuseppino didn't see anything else other than the angels.

In a village where the average was of you are or seven children for family, the consorts Masala had chosen to make to know only the hunger and the poverty to Giuseppino. Yet you/they would now have given heart and soul to be able to cry on the shoulders of the blood of their blood. The suffering for the disappearance of Giuseppino would have been indelible, but the happiness of power however to love another child would have mantled as a slim nebbiolina the dark stone of the pain; that nebbiolina had been swept before forever away five years, when the decision not to conceive other children had taken the semblances of the wind.

Before andar by you/they had cried and courage to look at himself/herself/themselves in the eyes was finally lavished in their intimate. Unlike Emilio, Maria had not seen only desperation. There were also sweets memoirs to guard to key inside of itself, ready to be taut out in the glumness that would have disseminated his/her old age. In the terrestrial life the torture for the death of a child would never be been able to fade away but the memoirs could make him/it less oppressive.

Emilio and Maria had kissed Giuseppino. That last contact with the skin of their child had been a torment. Maria had fainted and you/he/she had risked that the coffin fell her I set. Emilio trembled of pain and anger. It tightened the fists up to stick himself/herself/themselves the fingernails in the palms of the hands. To close the coffin and to confine forever Giuseppino in the dark an uncle would be occupied, for them you/he/she had already been to see too much it so: corpse and cold, dormant of a deep sleep but apparently ready to awaken himself/herself/themselves.

They did to less less than pay a prèfica to cry the dead one, they were enough it shouts her acute of whom had wanted him the whole good of the world.

# 2

Four years later, the complaints of the funeral vigil were the howl of the siren, that echoed up to the eighth level of the well Amsicora. That sound infiltrated him up to the most impervious firesides of the mines of Montevecchio.

Hung to the walls of the gallery, the lamps to carbide emitted thread-like shines that intersecting a cobweb of light was plotted. Two oblong shades were projected on the ground of pebbles. Emilio Masala scrutinized perplexed the look of his/her most trusted companion: Luigi Zedda, the same lanky type that a few years before the ears were covered for not hearing the bloody words of the doctor Saints. The expression of Luigi was crafty. It shook the shoulders being him of it silent.

Emilio and Luigi showed up among the little that had succeeded in holding him the name of baptism. Dad Tainei and dad Isanzu had given them the name of the grandparent, continuing a stock that to alternate generations you/he/she would be extinguished only when the seed would not have given children anymore males. To Montevecchio if you called yourself Carmine you became Gramminu, unless I was not lower than a meter and fifty, and then you would have been Grammineddu. If you called yourself Felice you became Ciu, if instead of name you made Raffaele you were condemned to be Arraffiebi. For a long time it went this way. To evidently cripple the name from Emilio in Emiliu had not filled to sufficiency the palate of the fellow townsman, and so Emilio was held his/her name. Instead Luigi had been Luizu. It hated that name that made him/it more" sardegnolo" of that that it was already. Luizu had lasted up to when Luigi had understood that the cazzottis worked better than the complaints. But to Montevecchio there were also cacaredda, conchemallu, pappamusca, nasciustancu and so many others, that had inherited the nickname of family. Emilio was of Guspini and his/her nickname peideproccu you/he/she had not followed him/it up to Montevecchio. Instead Luigi was a de is puligheddas, the half saws, nickname buckled to his/her trisnonno because you/he/she was said that idler and indolent person you/he/she was so weak to be had to call his wife to make himself/herself/themselves hold up the bird when you/he/she pissed. The motive for which nobody called more Luigi with the nickname puligheddas was the same that had made to disappear Luizu.

To Montevecchio you felt yourself call with your true name after few days of life, in arm to your father in front of the official of the registry. The second time that happened was the voice of a priest to pronounce him/it for the baptism. Two only times in the whole life, three for the one whom he/she got married. After that they called you with the name of baptism for the last time: you there were, but you could not feel him/it, because the coffin of your funeral was made out of strong wood.

After the death of Giuseppino, Luigi had shown his/her philanthropic side. It was already the last of five children males parties all for America from years. And the only person was not married to which could lend attentions you/he/she was his/her mother. They also died among his hands the chicks of colombo. You/he/she had never been good to mind nothing and perhaps for this motive you/he/she had heard the necessity to help somebody else. Maria, the wife of Emilio, had been less strong than that that you/he/she was waited for to be and you/he/she had not succeeded in leaving him to the shoulders the loss of his/her/their child. You was buscata a nervous breakdown. To be nearby her, Emilio had been forced to lose himself/herself/themselves numerous days of job and you/he/she had risked to be outcast away from the mines. They would have him/it certain fact if Luigi had not covered him/it with his/her nonsense. «But how many grandparent does it have this Emilio?» you/he/she had asked the group leader to Luigi, in one of that absences. In that period to Emilio it was dead his/her grandfather five times, his/her grandmother four and at least once every his/her dozen of uncles and cousins. You/he/she had also passed of all: from the measles to the cholera. Finished the sample of illnesses, Luigi had come to say that Emilio was taken the mildew. «But the mildew is not an illness of the grapevines?» you/he/she had asked marveled Giaccio Statzu, the employee to the control of the to plot fascist.

«Note, Emilio has drunk a glass of wine gotten by contaminated must and you/he/she is taken the mildew» Luigi had answered.

I lie Statzu it didn't even have the first elementary and he/she still believed that earth was flat. If someone had told him that on the top of the Linas mountain they grew the mussels on the trees, he would be raced to pick up her with a tied up coppo to the sides. From that time all it took is offering him a glass of wine to make to run away him/it among the brambles hurriedly.

When if they didn't wait for him more, Maria had been pregnant and Franco had been born. To Montevecchio every time that a child was born you/he/she was a new bud of hope, a fist of damp earth among the hands of a farmer after years of drought.

Maria was thirty years old ten less than Emilios. Its bottom had also remained very hard after the pregnancy and the breasts, now that nursed, you/they were inflated even more. To Montevecchio if a man won his/her ten year-old wife, and a second child reached distance of so much time, the least one that could be done was to attribute to third that pregnancy. You/he/she was said that that child was Luigi's, then of the arganista, then of the butcher. The voices were stopped only when the eyes of the small Franco had taken the unmistakable color green emerald of those of Emilio. «Your child is! Eccome if it is him/it!» you/he/she had been the comment of the gossipy crows dressed of black.

Emilio and Maria had also thought about calling the Giuseppino child, but you/he/she would have been as to try to replace him/it. Emilio had hidden to his/her wife the true motive for which you/he/she could not accept that name: every time when you/he/she had called his/her child, that Giuseppino would be remembered there was not more; and there was not more for his/her guilt, that for two carboys of water if the era lost of sight. For the first time. For the last time.

In all that four years, Luigi had always been of side to the family Masala without asking nothing in change, apart the sanguinaccis of pig with the raisin and the almonds that Maria sent him every month of November.

Behind Emilio and Luigi it detached a calendar slightly softened by the damp. Its lines synthesized the existences of the miners, scribbled with clipboard on the worked hours, quantity of drawn out metals and crosses of countersign. These were in effects their lives: the lead and the zinc of the mines, their extraction, the crosses on the calendar, one day in more lived and one in less to suffer. The last of those crosses pointed out the date of June 10 th 1941. It was departed one year demanded from when to Rome the Duce Benito Mussolini, from the balcony of Building Venice, had announced the entrance in war of Italy beside Germany. One year: period in which he over threatening tremiladuecento that populated Montevecchio had tried to instruct his/her own eardrums to distinguish the different resonance of the siren. Before the war the siren had announced only the white deaths, but now you/he/she was everything different. The exercises of evacuation followed him and it were necessary to learn to the quick one to distinguish the sound of more obstinate alarm, that he/she invited all to conceal in the shelter of Gennas, dug in the heart of the Jeweler mountain. Sardinia had not known until after all the horrors of the war yet but it was only a matter of time.

Emilio and Luigi didn't even have the possibility to cross a second time his/her own looks. A horde of afraid miners emerged from the bowel of the fifth level definitely dissipating the doubts on the reality meaning of the annoying melody. Emilio inserted him in the middle of the group succeeding in being among the first ones in front of the entry of the metallic cage. Luigi had less fortune and you/he/she was forced after all to the line.

The metallic cage was the mean of transport used for stirring in the various levels of the mine. Six ropes from the steel soul wove him in an only wide band, the only grip that prevented the metallic cage to fall. You/he/she had been made a will in approximate way for the maximum transport of nine workers. That inaccuracy made to tighten the culo to everybody less that to Farrucciu Altea, the pecks at some cemetery. In the unexplored depths of the mine, years of falls had created a small human ossario able to simplify the job in cemetery and Farrucciu you/he/she was been able to please in the art that more he liked and more he/she succeeded him: to do nothing all day long rather than to make himself/herself/themselves come the hernia of the disk to dig ditches or to transport dead in shoulder.

The level in which you/they were found stopped the miners was situated to centocinquanta meters deep from the exit of the well; an ample, yet less distance incolmabile of that that separated them from the happiness of a calm life, without hunger and war.

The miners begged the God of the skies, but it were Foffu Dessì their God in earth. Foffo made the arganista and was the only one to have the abilities to drive the imposing mechanical capstan. One wrong manoeuvre of his could sweep away the lives of the passengers ferried in that elevator for the hell. The capstan was fed by a presser powerful Sullivan and, as all the things to the state-of-the-art one, originated from the United States. Its form was similar to a locomotive and painting of a lost black it aroused fear; to listen to its whiffs brought the mind a distant trip, up to the Icelandic geysers.

The telegraph croaked. Foffo contemplated that marchingegnos of antiquariato and lifted the look in sign of surrender. To communicate had been him promised a telephone, even if by now you/he/she was resigned to the idea to receive him/it for the month of ottembre. Foffo used the code it and had the possibility to hold him in close contact with Gigi Medda, Toti Pinna, Loi Burroi, Grain Frau and others, that made the ingabbiatoris of work. Toti Pinna, out of the mine, it had eight hunting dogs. It held them free in a ground encircled by the boned thread to make the watch to the hens that rummaged to the wild state. The dogs were the legionaries of a cucciolata trained with the kicks not to touch the feathered ones; those that you/they were absent, after having tasted the meat of chicken, you/they had made the knowledge of his/her/their brothers rifle and lead.

When the dogs barked more than the due one, Toti picked them up to lashes with a pole and then it confined them in a cage of plate and grid. «If not you bark I don't make you climb in the cage» you/he/she had gotten used to say mocking the miners to the place of his/her dogs, and it was waited indeed that from a moment to the other one they barked. From the day in which Boricheddu Satta, after having barked, an arm had bite then him leaving him as I remember the tattoo of its denture, Toti had not said anything anymore.

Foffo Dessì not at all to the world you/he/she would have thrown on the cage without to have first received the order by one of the ingabbiatoris.

The miners quickly withdrew him on two files as the waters to the passage of Mosé. Walking to rilento, sure that without him the cage would not have stirred of a centimeter, the most experienced group leader of the mine appeared. Also Toti Pinna removed him, seniority had to be respected. The group leader looked straight at it in the eyes. The same miners, that up to few instants first was almost I taken to fists to conquer him the precedence on the metallic cage, suddenly they kept silent and the words of the group leader resounded as the yelps of the dogs of Toti Pinna in the nights of full moon. «It deals with a true alarm bombardments or is it the usual exercise? I would like to know him/it because there are some ready explosive positions to shine» churches in annoyed way.

Toti Pinna prevaricated, he/she didn't know what to answer. That morning had been communicated him that there would have been an exercise but the orders of the direction, her" Montecatini. Montevecchio", you/they had been clear: the exercises were worth as the bombardments and it were necessary to preserve the human material.

«I regret it, Secci, to this question I cannot answer. Among thirty seconds I send on the cage. Prepare you!»

To an old marpione as Anthony Secci, group leader from over trentacinque years, the few words of the ingabbiatore were enough for understanding that it dealt with an exercise. It turned the back to the hole in which it had center the cage for the transport and it announced: «Boys, are the usual exercise, therefore you climb on the cage nine for time and quietly do you him, so much French or the English won't insert today even us a rocket in the culo.»

A buzz was unraveled along the galleries; it was a laughter reassured by the exhilarating wisecrack. Also Toti Pinna laughed, yet there was so little to be rejoyced. The life in mine didn't leave a lot of space to other and the pay it didn't allow you revel. A generic worker that had stipulated a fixed contract to times perceived the poverty of winds or twenty-five liras a day, but at least you/he/she had the faculty to be able to sometimes beat the weariness. Zemiro Biancu, was for example famous to succeed in also shirking himself/herself/themselves inside the dens of the mice. Emilio Masala and Luigi Zedda belonged to the category of the jobbers instead and they were paid in base to the quantity of drawn out metals. To be assumed you/they had been forced to dig with the drill, to load carts and to bring them up to the mules under the control of the timer. The direction, following the intuition of a bastard French engineer, Bedaux or something of the kind remembered Emilio, to assume pretended that the workers were able to complete the" 60 of footstep": a quantity pre-arranged of job, for every different duty, to reach in as soon as sixty seconds. To succeed to have us an entire physicist was necessary and a speed above the average. There was people that had tried us more than ten times and at the end you/he/she had released. With this system, to get a dignified pay they worked as slaves. It sometimes happened to be himself/herself/themselves to dig in so poor veins of metals whether not to lose the day was necessary to also stop himself/herself/themselves for thirteen or fourteen hours inside the well. Once Emilio had been given even for lost.

The continuous exercises burdened really on the shoulders of the jobbers, that you/they saw day by day to be reduced himself/herself/themselves the quantities of drawn out metals because of the thrown time. Cianu Farris was one of the few happy for those interruptions. He was a laborer with the contract to times and it spent the whole day to break himself/herself/themselves the back shattering blocks of granite with a club sharpened by seven kilos. It was not quite been sorry to suspend the job for a few times. «God pays him/it to him!» it exclaimed smiling.

Luigi accused him/it. «You yes that you are well. So much jobs or you don't work the salary it arrives to you the same.»

The smile did soon to fade away from the dirty face of Cianu. «If you want from tomorrow we do to change.»

«And which would the problem be?»

Cianu made a disgusted grimace. «You jobbers you are all equal ones. You believe of more than the others to work. You if you give yourself to make harbors to house a good pay, instead I can also kill me that a lira I don't take more.»

Luigi raised the dose. «I have not seen one of it of you to kill him of job yet. It seems me that you have swallowed a whole beautiful iron crowbar.»

Cianu puffed angry. «What cazzo you are saying? What does it enter it the crowbar now?»

Luigi sought complicity in the look of the other jobbers that you/they assisted to the dispute, and you/he/she got her/it. «The crowbar that you have swallowed is rigid and prevents you from folding up the back» he/she explained.

Laughs smothered there, all of the jobbers.

«Think of her/it as you want. I wish you to never try to shatter blocks under the control of tziu Saba. That vecchiaccios it is a crazy person, it doesn't even give us the time to lift the head. It seems desire to leave from the mines.»

Luigi laughed, a team of forced laborers imagining himself/herself/itself to work looking himself/herself/itself at the feet, with tziu Saba that checked them tightening in hand a whip to whip the horses. It squeezed the eye. «Not to heat you Cianu, wanted only to prick you some.»

Cianu smiled in turn but it was ashamed to have reverted in the nth trap of Luigi.

Toti Pinna assured the chain that wanted to be safety and it turned the crank of the telegraph for four times: it was the signal. The mechanical capstan started. The band, tightened by the alarming phoneme that the weight imposed her, it started to clean dust from its imperceptible pore.

Emilio belonged to the first trip. It always had a minimum of fear: draws her with the cage they were extremely dangerous. To infuse him trust he/she took to sing one of the popular trallalleros,canzonis of sfottò in rhyme. The other miners that traveled with him found together the amusing idea and all they tuned up the refrains deriding himself/herself/itself to story. The time went by and technology advanced, but to come unharmed to destination always had the physiognomy of a twelve to the game of the dice.

# 3

The marshal Pietro Troise left in hurry and fury the barracks of Montevecchio to go himself/herself/themselves to village you Rule, one of the small communities of the Linas mountain that entertained the miners and their families. A little before the ruler of house had reached him/it and alarmed on the conditions of his/her daughter Geneva.

Pietro had been born in the outskirtses of Caserta. To eighteen you/he/she had chosen the military life and to twenty-three it was already marshal of the policemen. His had been a rapid career, built with so many sacrifices and, despite someone he/she thought him/it without any spintarella. You/he/she had lent service to Naples with the mobile battalions, participating in many clashes with the insane demonstrators that, incited by the political ferment, they knew how to be extremely wild and dangerous. Pietro had made a will him/it on his/her own skin. You/he/she had done some courage his/her strength, but when the fascist empire had sent him/it to the delicate recapture of Empoli, something you/he/she was happened that had marked him/it. You/he/she had been encircled from hundreds of communist red watches and for the first time you/he/she had trembled of fear. From that clash you/he/she was gone out uninjured only his/her physicist; a phase was followed in which had believed to be able to release everything. After some months you/he/she had arrived to him the injunction of transfer in Sardinia. You/he/she had twisted the nose, account making himself/herself/itself not to be still ready for the calm life of country. As you/he/she would have done, then, without the pizza of his/her brother Ciro and the Neapolitan pastiera of grandmother Rosalia? The only thing that made him/it proud was to be able to practice in the earth in which the history of its uniform had been born. His/her distant predecessors had been the men of the Sardinian army, select as first policemen of Italy.

The barracks of Terralba had been assigned to, a small country of cinquemila souls, anticipating by chance what would have happened him however more before. The policemen's weapon with the advent of Mussolini had been marginned to the rural zones, while it was growing to excess the consistence of militia and police in the great cities. The Duce feared the great fidelity of the policemen toward the monarchic power. Pietro Troise exactly represented the type of person from which you/he/she would have had to look at himself/herself/themselves: a man everything of a piece, in love of the country and of his/her work.

In the calm of that place of province you/he/she had known Barbaric. Pietro told that they were still him in love before meeting himself/herself/themselves. Theirs had been a love at first sight, of those reported in the fables. You/they were gotten married later as soon as four months of knowledge, ignoring the common custom that imposed years of alone engagement to be able to be welcomed without murmurs in the house of his/her/their in-laws in Sardinia. Bernardino Ariu, his/her father of Barbaric, if the tied up era to the finger and you/he/she had forgiven that alone sgarro when Geneva had been born, the most precious gift that could receive.

Pietro and Barbaric they were happy when they walked with Geneva in arm for the plaza of the country filled of people. In Sundays in summer it never missed the trip to the pond of Marceddì. Bernardino was a fisherman. They departed of good morning from the costiscedda with on ciu: a boat without proper keel to sail in the low backdrops of the lagoon. On ciu it was of a painted wood of green and blue. On the left broadside, under a cancellation of black shade, it brought the new name that Bernardino had given her": Geneva", so you/he/she had rechristened her. The gulls detached the flight from the wood stakes to which the boats were berthed and they chirped in front of the mullets that jumped out of the turbid waters.

The mighty spallates of Bernardino pushed the oars in the dark water of the pond up to Head Branch, the most extreme point before the open sea. The algas of posidonia and the mucus of pond were aground in the oars and then they lost him behind the wake of the boat. Bernardino faced twice the same crossing at least a week. After that language of earth, inside the creels bigger lobsters of the lobsters were fished and, if he were well equipped, you/they could be taken to the hook tunas that cut the hair of the water as dolphins.

To Head Branch water was crystalline as the distillate of elder and the so white beach that, with its soft summits, it seemed an I mix of meringue worked with thin sugar and egg white of egg. There were days in which the African wind he brought behind the sand of the desert. It was so hot that prevented to hold the open eyes and it dried up the lips more than the artichokes.

Pietro and Barbaric they remained the whole day in water, passing himself/herself/itself of hand in hand the small Geneva. Bernardino observed them happy. It had a slender physicist, with the hoary hair and a fascinating face still: it seemed an actor. Contrarily, his/her wife Stelvia was very nice but incredibly ugly. Its features were spigolosi as those of a man and the masculine behaviors they made still her less female. If you/he/she had put some cosinzoses to the feet and worn pantaloni of velvet with a sweater of orbace, you/he/she would have been enough for her to hide his/her long tail of horse inside a barritas to have exchanged for a balente; you/he/she would be been able to push to challenge to it will die her/it the shepherds of the Gennargentu without arousing the least suspicion that was a woman. Even her, that never went over the water to the ankles, to hold in arm Geneva also exaggerated bathing himself/herself/itself up to the breast. Not that he/she wanted then us very, considering that the seventy years had wrinkled its breasts as the salty and annoyed tomatoes to the sun to make is pibadruas. Inside the undershirt they went down so much to cover her navel. Another po' and you/they would be ended inside the mutandonis of raw cloth, making difficult to understand if they were in effects breasts or haversacks.

To Head Branch the Mediterranean stain went down from the rocky hill and almost arrived inside the sea. The red oxen didn't fear the man and they were sometimes seen to walk calm behind the beach. The strong odor of cisto and tamerice he/she invited to close the eyes and to listen to the whispers of the sea, that he/she caressed the beach with his/her backwash and it gave peace to every thing.

Behind the beach there was a great salt pan from which it never missed to fill the pouch of salt for the whole week. To see her/it, the salt pan seemed a frozen lake on which to skate free. Under the layer of big salt it hid a mud that was worse of the mobile sands instead. Sometimes we remained dry someone of the red oxen; the great horns of their skull and crossbones sprouted from the mud as a warning. Bernardino and Pietro, assisted by the men of the family Coa, you/they had also succeeded in saving one of that oxen. Life was marvelous. "How beautiful you/he/she would have been to stop the hands of the time"!, he/she thought Pietro every time that riaffioravano that memoirs.

Then the illness had arrived of Barbaric. Unexpected and stranger had burnt away all: dreams, hopes and life. Not burnt life but life, because when Barbaric it was dead, with her the soul of Pietro was dissolved also. You/he/she had not even served to anything the trip of the hope in a clinic in which he was studying that unknown illness. You/they were pushed thin in Hungary, in the city of Csejthe. Later one year of false hopes and promises ever maintained had decided almost to reenter to house. To the illness a strange name had been attributed and almost unpronounceable: epilepsy. The opinions of the physicians were discordant on the consequences of the epilepsy and it didn't exist the certainty that the crises brought to the death. Barbaric you/he/she had risked to strangle him with his/her same language in more than an occasion. Yet death arrives in the most mocking way. Pietro had found his/her wife in the bath, you/he/she pours again to earth in a puddle of blood. Barbaric it had lost the senses during the crisis and slips to earth. Its skull in the impact with the ground was fractured in more points without leaving I escape her. And so many years you/he/she had employed the small Geneva to understand that the words of his/her father were not anything else other than an utopia: his/her mother from that long trip would not have returned anymore.

When you/he/she had gotten sick Barbaric, the sleepless nights had been the companions of Pietro, that with the lowered head on the books you/he/she had looked for in every way of finding a solution. A lot of times, the morning, Barbaric it found him/it dormant on the desk with the face crushed on the books; books that would be been able to rewrite thousand times if only the tears of Pietro had contained ink.

Pietro had analyzed so many theories on the epilepsy, some of which maddish or even ashamed. Casually comes upon in the writings of a pathologist, a some Caesar Lombroso. Over whether to boast to be able to go up again more or less to the nature criminal of a subject analyzing the characteristic lines of the face of it, Lombroso it sustained the possibility that every crime was the result of a connected epileptic attack with the folly. But Lombroso didn't know Massimino Peddis, a blacksmith that frightened only to look at him/it, but that it brought every evening instead bread and fave to the kindergarten of the orfanellis. And above all it didn't know Barbaric, that beautiful as a sunset in summer admired by the lagoon of Marceddì, rather than to crush the flies pursued her for the whole house trying to address her toward the open windows. "It was this the connected crime with his/her epilepsy?" you/he/she had wondered Pietro. If you/he/she had not been some that the buttocks would have irritated him, after having cacato you/he/she would be rubbed the culo with the pages of that book: a stupid polished up by the stronzates.

Time later, when you/he/she was starting to accept the death of his/her wife, you/he/she had also gotten sick Geneva and it seemed to suffer badly some same unknown that his/her mother was brought away. The same physicians that had been impotent during the long hospitalization of Barbaric you/they had started to sketch archetypes of cares, more fruit of experiments that of you found searches. The origins and the causes of the epilepsy didn't result clear and they were still it I lead the cares able to neutralize her/it.

The family Troise was not rich, nevertheless it enjoyed of an acceptable economic situation. All useless, considering that the skirmishes of the war had swept away the value of the money. The medicines had still disappeared before the conflict instigated him. Pietro was not even sure that his/her daughter had strength need of that medicines but so much you/he/she was worth to try. From five years you/he/she had been transferred to the barracks of Montevecchio a village of mountain that made even more complicated to follow a care.

The marshal brusquely braked the motorbike military green Guzzi on the road excavated that you/he/she unthread in front of his/her house; in the air you/he/she got up a dense dust cloud. With the foot it threw down the easel firmly parking the motorbike so that it didn't fall. But he would have cared then thing of that motorbike. The heart bounced him in throat almost crushing him the esophagus. He/she lived with the fear that every instant passed with his/her daughter could be the last. His were the same fears of so many people: of his/her children that saw his/her own fathers approach himself/herself/themselves in mine, of his/her mothers that cried while his/her own children departed for the war. The brittleness of the human beings was cruel: one day there six, that later who knows.

Pietro advanced fast up to the small staircase that conducted to the landing of entry. It put the boot on a step and it was given the rush. The leap allowed him to overcome all and four the stairs of granite. Concerned in front of the stipite of the door. It was open. The room in Geneva was found after all to a long corridor that departed really from the entry. Pietro saw the light of the power on room. Crossed that I treat with the feeling not to have placed the feet in earth and it entered the room. It heavily troubled and it was almost forced to bend himself/herself/themselves on the knees to take back breath. The ruler was a pair of meters away from the bed with a hand in front of the mouth. Its eyes were blocked from the terror.

Geneva had the pupils turned back to the and its eyes seemed those some devil. A foamy drivel escaped abundant from her mouth. Its body stiffened him jerky, then it waved crossed by thousand electric shake. It was a death row inmate during the execution on the chair. On the right side of the bed, the doctor Saints it confusedly tried to revive her/it.

Pietro was immovable on the door, petrified by the eyes of his/her daughter Geneva, invested for an instant of the powers of the mythological Jellyfish. Gradually, the body in Geneva relaxed him and taken back conscience. You urinated I set; to stain of oil, the present damp shade in its suits was also propagated on the sheets. Happened at the end of every crisis that Geneva if it did her/it I set, the relaxation of the muscles prevented her the control of the stimuli.

«Dad, has happened still me!» Geneva exclaimed, with a so weak voice to be resulted imperceptible.

In fact, apart a smothered complaint, the ruler and the doctor Saints they didn't feel anything. It was not so for Pietro Troise, that when he/she spoke his/her daughter it turned him into a to be able of to also perceive the lowest frequencies. You fell of side to his/her child and it tightened her strong the hand, smiling her. «Hi, adorn with stars! I am here now there me, not to worry you about nothing.»

Geneva tried in turn to give a hold to the hand of his/her father. Pietro turned of release to stare at the ruler. «Mrs. Loi, prepares to warm bath for my daughter, The beg her/it. It has need to relax himself/herself/themselves and to rest.»

The woman nodded and hastened to reach the kitchen. It poured some water in a tub of pond and with a match it set the brushwood of dry sarmento that rested in the fireplace on fire, crushed by some trunk of leccio. The ardent fires put us few to arrive. With the poker the ruler pushed some of it from the fund of the fireplace toward of her and you/he/she put us above a tripod of blackened iron. The tub settled her/it above to work, because it weighed as the sacks of potatoes that reached twice the month from Guspini. When water was to the ideal temperature, it transported her/it up to the bath with a copper pot of lighter aluminum of the tub. The tub was filled for half. «The bath is ready!» he/she called shortly after.

Pietro gently took in arm Geneva and conducted her/it up to the lavacro. Geneva was twenty years old, yet it didn't feed the least embarrassment in to appear naked to his/her father. You allowed to help to undress himself/herself/themselves and when it entered the water warm churches to Pietro to stay with her. Her liked immensely to listen to the stories of his/her father while she was to I release in the warm water, to steal the foam from the edges of the tub. He/she adored the histories on Caserta and on the distant relatives but he/she preferred when Pietro told her memoirs of Barbaric, his/her mother that almost you/he/she didn't remember anymore.

In the saddest moments of his/her daughter, Pietro lied her telling her that some physicians had almost succeeded in finding a care for the illness. It was a lie and Pietro it needed to express her as Geneva to feel her/it. You knew that his/her father lied, perhaps to also make strength to himself, and you/he/she was all right this way. It found beautiful to feel to be said that you/he/she would be recovered: a beautiful dream.

The night, only in his/her bed, Pietro cried. He/she cried for his/her daughter as you/he/she had cried for his/her wife. How much coward had been the destiny attacking himself/herself/itself on him a second time.

Pietro was of middle stature, with complexion, eyes and dark hair, to the antipodes with his/her daughter. Geneva was very beautiful, more beautiful than his/her mother. So beautiful that his was an objective grace that escaped to the rules after all of the world, for which the sorrow of the subjectivity was in force. It was tall and with the clear skin. Long shining hair of black and great green eyes that would have made to lose the head to any man. Pietro tormented asking himself/herself/itself because generating energy had lavished so so much beauty to a girl that would never have been able to preserve living for a long time her. It was a waste: there were so so many horrendous girls on which to make to revert that cross.

«They are already ugly as the hunger, it would miss us that God had condemned her also doing her epileptic» Mrs Loi reproached when Pietro showed the racchies of the village.

After two years that were found to Montevecchio, Geneva to the sudden one was not wanted to go out anymore. For three years to admire his/her beauty was become a privilege of few people: of his/her father, of the ruler and of the physician Santi. Perhaps tired, perhaps aware of not to be able to fight alone or simply resigned to the course of the events, you/he/she had reacted. You/he/she had started over frequenting Montevecchio, at first only to shop in the place of the wine cellar, then you/he/she had known Daniel Minghetti. Daniel was the unique child of Phillip Minghetti, the head of the direction of the mines, the most powerful man of Montevecchio.

To brief, Daniel and Geneva would have fixed the wedding. Pietro was not certain that his/her daughter loved Daniel Minghetti, yet you/he/she strongly supported their union: the pact not writing that Phillip Minghetti had proposed him you/he/she strongly went beyond his/her doubts on the nature of that love. It was vital that Geneva and Daniel got married.

The problems were complicated to be hidden. Pietro tried us. Every day abandoned the illness of his/her daughter inside the domestic boundaries. You/he/she had been for protecting Geneva that had refused the comfortable adjacent to setup the barracks of Montevecchio, opting for that house in the country twos kilometers from the country. Its private life didn't concern the geese of the country, he would have minded his/her daughter without arousing compassion indesiderata.

Cradled by the words of his/her father and risucchiata by the sweet warmth of the water, Geneva it fell asleep. Pietro contemplated that angelic body and for an instant you/he/she seemed him to see his/her wife again. Only God knew how much you/he/she missed him.

# 4

A lance black ardea darted burning the tornantis and leaving himself/herself/itself to the shoulders the private railway station of the mines. To his/her guide there was Daniel Minghetti the child of the engineer. To twenty-four it was a step away from the degree in engineering, with in dowry a crown of laurel and the praise. You/he/she would have followed the tracks of his/her father, so it said.

The automobile unthread in front of the villas of village you Rule and it stopped a little anymore him before. Some women dressed of black contemplated her/it to open mouth. It was not the first time that they saw her/it but they remained however bewitched. In a place where the more frequent means of transport were bicycles, motocarrozzette and wagons hauled by oxen, a lance ardea always produced flattering comments that could last for days.

Daniel extinguished the motor and descents gently shutting the counter. He/she caressed the capotta and it stole above from us, sending away the dust that was deposited. It held in maniacal way to that car. Of person went to the factory of Bolzano to purchase her/it, in 1939, on the thresholds of the war. Then the factory had been bombed and that of Daniel represented one of the few exemplary sfornati before the catastrophe. The lance was a mixture of class and power: motor to four cylinders and thirty horses, two places to sit and three doors, a true jewel.

The women approached to the auto postponing for some their matters. They faked indifference and they chatted to few about ten meters from marshal Troise's house. They were intenzionate to give a peek more detailed both to the car that to his/her driver.

Daniel Minghetti was tall almost a meter and ottantacinque. Its tanned complexion showed the hair blond ash and the eyes chestnut clear, cat eyes, almost yellow pale yellow, that shone clear as two gems of gilded amber. His was a face common from the light lines, but that electroplated colors made him/it very unusual and, who knows because, they did him/it attractive to the eyes of the women. The comments of the gruppetto of curious they did soon to converge on him. Daniel acknowledged the looks ammiccanti. It made a smile and for few someone it didn't faint, also among those that already brought the faith to the finger. Daniel was the bachelor of Montevecchio that every girl desired to get married, the prototype of the man of the dreams: tall, beautiful, intelligent and rich. With Geneva it shared particularly two things: both were very beautiful, and both had inherited the physical aspect from his/her/their mothers. The character, was contrarily the exclusive fruit of the fatherly geniuses.

The marshal Troise emerged from the stipite of entry. He/she wore the uniform and the feathered hat that it never brought. That day had decided to put him/it. This way, without a precise motive. You/he/she woke up and looking himself/herself/itself at the mirror was seemed him that it missed something. With the feathery headgear that feeling was enfeebled and you/he/she had decided to hold him/it. He/she saw Daniel and smiled. The eyes of his/her future son-in-law they sparkled as gold nuggets. It dressed an elegant black suit with grey tie. A pair of shoes in shiny skin, opacified by the dust of the avenue, they sprouted from the base of the dust coat. It was warm but people of his/her intelligence had to also maintain a certain behavior in the attire.

The air was impregnate of a strong sweetish odor. Mrs Loi was preparing on gattou: a dessert fact with pinoli of Montevecchio mixed in dissolved sugar and allowed then to cool. Daniel sniffed and curled the nose throwing out the language. It hated on gattou. You/he/she had happened him to taste him/it. You/he/she had bite a crisp piece of gattou and the exaggerated sweetness you/he/she had made him close the eyes with a grimace. You/he/she had continued to sbocconcellare, correct not to appear discourteous, but the sticky hands and the shreds of pinoli among the teeth had disgusted him/it. Unfortunately Mrs Loi was convinced that that repugnant plate of sugar and pinoli he liked indeed. Every lunch never missed to prepare him as dessert and he/she remained to observe how much Daniel found him/it delicious. But he had learned soon to hide his/her portion in the pockets of the jacket, wound in a handkerchief.

Pietro smiled. «Good morning, Daniel. Enter! Geneva is in the house.»

The terror that Mrs Loi could make to again taste him on gattou overhung in Daniel any intention of courtesy.

«Hi, marshal, would go some you/he/she scrubs, if you/he/she could call her Geneva you/he/she would do me a favor.» He/she knew that the marshal if you/he/she would be picked her/it up.

Pietro launched him an occhiataccia. «As you want, boy!» It howled" Geneva" and with carelessness he/she greeted simply lifting the hand. It was offended and he/she was seen.

Daniel frowned. Little lasted. From the door it leaned out Geneva, it was very beautiful with a red suit that put in prominence his/her clear skin. The color of the cloth opposed with the green emerald of its eyes. Geneva smiled and holding himself/herself/itself to the baluster the brief stairway went down. In his/her face and in his/her body there were no traces of the epileptic crisis.

Daniel was shocked. He/she didn't succeed in tearing off her eyes of back and it had an idiot face. «My mother, but didn't we have to get married us among a few times?»

«I don't believe that your mother would be enthusiastic to see to climb me on the altar with a red suit. I have as the impression that would appreciate more a classical white suit» he/she insinuated Geneva, thinking to how much his/her future mother-in-law was rigid and conservative.

Daniel became serious. «You believe indeed it?»

«Because you no?»

Daniel seemed to reflect before answering, you/he/she didn't say anything instead.

«I was joking only!» it continued Geneva.

«Yes, I know him/it, but mother is not as you/he/she seems.» It was not true, Mrs Minghetti was just as it seemed. Geneva knew him/it, as also Daniel.

They climbed in automobile truncating the discourse. They were direct to the outskirts of Montevecchio, where it rose the villetta that would have entertained them after the wedding. For the whole journey Daniel didn't utter word. The frecciata in Geneva on the nuptial model of his/her mother had upset him/it. You/he/she had been only a wisecrack, even if you/he/she was clearly understood that Geneva didn't try great liking for his/her future mother-in-law. What she didn't know anchor, was that for the lady Minghetti the thing was mutual. Clotilde had even tried to make to interrupt to his/her child that relationship. «It allows to lose my child. They is different people from us. There that will make you madden. You don't interest her you, our money interests only her. And then they also say that I/you/he/she am sick. Do you want to live with a sick wife? Possession sick children?»

Beautiful Geneva Troise was beautiful, yet for the lady Minghetti was not enough. You dreamt that Daniel married the daughter of some political main points, of some general; in short, with the daughter of someone that counted really, not with the heir of a marshal of Caserta, a place where difficult to find someone that spoke to comprehensible way Italian was even. The Minghettis came from Turin and the ideas filofasciste of the engineer they made the rest. But Phillip had accepted the choice of his/her child and if done n'era a reason. If Geneva were what Daniel it desired, he would have welcomed her as a father.

Montevecchio respected the conformation of the mining villages. Avenue Empire was the principal channel. The holds lanes that they were born of it, crushed by the suffocating shade of the houses, dipartivano as rivulets of water. The auto driven by Daniel as a boat ploughed the dust of the river Empire. There was to the left the chiesetta of Santa Barbara, shaded from the sumptuous building of the direction. The hospital seemed to scrutinize silent the back bumper of the Lance. Great buildings in raw bricks and stone entertained the barracks, the school and the dopolavoro. The cinema was a small stable that attended still to know the plaster; the reddish color of its bricks, in the days of sun, it gave the impression that the façade was dirtied with the particular earth of Sardara, so red to seem soaked of blood. The mail, a stumpy building, flanked the block of the local cafeteria. The avenues were always orderly, only some sterpos it escaped the purge of the hoes.

Montevecchio was a variegated place: the peace and solemnity of the Linas mountain that it was contrasted to the convulsive viatico for the grandiose seas of the green coast. In the month of March the lentischis, the mimosas and the brooms went to flower, carpeting the roads with a paper from protected by the marvelous colors. Their wild perfume drenched the mountain, that only in June he/she succeeded in shaking him/it to him of back to get ready himself/herself/themselves to another bath offered by the green coast to the aroma of rosemary and cisto.

The one on the other, along the holds lanes there were the bare tenements of the miners. Manufactured with the raw bricks they sputtered the straw from the façades and they were so near that if him scoreggiavas in a house responded" health" from another. Those residences screeched with the luxury of the building of the direction and the guesthouse. In center they rose one after the other modern blocks that perfumed of it limes and appreciated wood: they were shops to the state-of-the-art one for capacious pockets. Montevecchio was this: a place where him estremizzava the contrast among hungry and satiated, between workers and executives, among cultured and ignorant. A place where the miners used the sentence" to work for living", even if you/he/she would have been more appropriate to say" to live for working"; a simple inversion among two verbs, an exchange that contained the sense of their existence. The buonanima of Raymond Spanu, worked for example thirty meters under the level of the sea, and he/she didn't even know how to swim. Ten years back the pomps were spoiled and in few minutes the mine had overflowed of water. The surges that sprinkled from the entry of the well had given the effect of an abandoned pitcher under the cascatella of the source of he/she Knows it will Lose. Everybody was saved less that Raymond, that was dead drowned as a mouse of sewer during a flood. To Montevecchio it was necessary to be ready to be some his/her own wife a widow and of his/her own children of the orphans. But from this whole Daniel Minghetti you/he/she had never been grazed. You/he/she could not be said that if it didn't care about but of certain it didn't lose us the sleep the night. He had been born rich. It knew to memory the accounts and the consequential profits from the extraction, yet he/she didn't even know as they were miners to piss every day in those galleries without being smothered from the sharp stagnation of the them same urine. Daniel in mine there had not been never, two only things interested him: to make money and to marry Geneva his/her mannerism. When you/he/she had seen her for the first time esterrefatto you/he/she had remained. You/he/she had realized from the first instant that only she would be been able to become his/her wife. From that moment you/he/she had boycotted the court of young girl of the high middle class, inclusive that of Verdiana Locci, a porca that beat her/it to him in face from the dawn to the sunset. Verdiana was so attractive that if Lisanziu Cireddu and Gamabedda would also be done her/it, two that if donkeys had been born they would have of certain preferred the baton to the carrot, even if you/they had not expressly confessed never their sexual tendencies. Daniel of Verdiana didn't care anything. The obsession to take him Geneva infested its mind as the sore of the grasshoppers that you/they flagellated the fields of wheat campidanesi, and you/he/she had also survived to the fires and the bran poisoned with the arsenic.

After the first knowledge you/he/she had invited her to a party in the guesthouse. Without worrying himself/herself/themselves to save the face you/he/she had succeeded in convincing to withdraw her/it him in the undergrounds that entertained the places kitchen. You/they had crossed a long corridor on which they leaned out the lodgings of the servitude and you/they had reached a ramp of staircases. You/they had gone down toward the basement, where the local boilers and the kitchens resided. The staircase twisted him around them two taken by the hand portraying a stairway to snail of a medieval castle. In the basement, handed left half open from which the puff of the boilers seemed to announce the loaded irruenta of the bull Achille; then the kitchen: an immoderate environment and stracolmo of the most varied and unthinkable gastronomic utensils. Daniel and Geneva had entered together, risking to be aground in the frame of the door. Cooks and labourers had left the place, exhausted by the bustle of dishes and applications of eccentric dishes. In the great room he made party and nobody would have asked some other food, the interest was moved toward the ample counter of the cafe. Two deprived pots of cover sat on the out stoves. Daniel had grabbed Geneva for then to push her/it above a table. A pesciera almost acted her from pillow. The long evening gown had rolled up her until above the knees and with a furtive gesture you/he/she had succeeded in unthreading her panties. Geneva had not been able to oppose resistance but his/her expression he/she didn't speak of excitement, he/she spoke of fear. Daniel was open the zipper of his/her pantalonis and you/he/she had extracted the penis. You/he/she was forked among the legs in Geneva that you/he/she had spasmodically shut the hands to the sides of the table. When it was about to penetrate her/it, Geneva was twisted as an eel. A tagliere, a boiler and a casserole were upset to earth producing a big din. Daniel had stepped backwards and by instinct you/he/she was dressed again.

«Excuse me, but I don't feel me ready yet» you/he/she had said her the face covering himself/herself/itself with the hands.

Daniel had forcedly answered. «Calm, Geneva! I can wait if it is what you want.» And he/she anchors now it waited.

In distance the their future villetta resided alone, carved in the shade against the energetic light of the morning. A fence delimited the perimeter of the courtyard. Two gigantic trees of mulberry grazed the path that conducted to the villetta; their red fruits sprouted among the branches as you decorate Christmas. The blackberries of mulberry were prey of the hungry little boys that you/they attended with impatience the summer months to do it raids of it. They ate and they blessed every time the Arabs, that during their domination in Sardinia you/they had cared that stately tree exploiting him as natural habitat for the proliferation of the silk bacco. Daniel had pecked at quite a lot times the young thieves. He/she asked them to show the hands with the excuse to find the guilty one. The juice of the blackberries of mulberry was of a blinding red, more intense than the earth of Sardara, and it the skin as an indelible shade. Daniel faked to be raged with the boys that showed him without saying a word the muddy hands. To that point Daniel laughed, because all also had half pregnant face of red juice and there were no certain need to show the hands to be accused of the furtarello. Every summer the same history. Daniel played us and allowed to do, he knew that that thefts were dictated by the hunger, not from the bad intentions. That children were thin as grasshoppers and they rummaged among the heaps of discards that were left in head to the fields of vegetables. Some had been seen to also eat the dry leaves of the cabbages. In the last months it was dead a horse that nobody had dared eat. To kill an illness had been him/it that had made him squirt even the blood from the eyes. All had thought that it was better to stay ignorant and not to know if that disease could result contagious. After three days, where the horse had been buried, you/they had found a deep and empty hole. Ciu Barrua with Ginetto Pintori, children of two teachers of wall that worked to the construction of the hotel for threatening, you/they had been seen to gobble him of seasoned rotten meat with earth and worms. Despite this, you/they could not even name the word hunger. In Poland there was who was very worse. And did the adults answer to hard face then: «You are hungry? Hunger they had in the year twelve» they said, remembering the hunger of the year 1812, due to the famines that had brought to the death of thousand of people. Those were children that in the night of first November they went to sleep terrorized. For a long time the legend of Maria Point Oru existed: a kind of witch that to midnight, now that had been separating the day of Every Saints for the day of the corpses, it wandered for the houses with the purpose to satiate its appetite. It was tradition that all the children left some pasta in their dishes, and then Maria Point Oru would have eaten and you/he/she would have thrown right-hand. In contrary case, you/he/she would have punctured the belly of his/her/their children with a point, to recover himself/herself/themselves the pasta that had been escaped her. The small ones blindly believed in the witch but the portion of pasta that you/they could eat it was so narrow that they rarely succeeded in not making himself/herself/themselves mock from the hunger. Teodorico Vincis, a child with problems of heart, was even dead of fear. Those that left some spaghettos in the dish were indeed little. In the night of Maria Point Oru they didn't close eye, vigilant in the dark of the room and terrorized by the sting of the witch, ready to punish them for their greed. Teodorico that time had eaten all of its spaghetti and you/he/she had gone to sleep with the terror in the eyes. The hunger you/he/she had also been stronger than the fears and you/he/she had surrendered, repenting only him of it to full stomach. His/her mother, with a power on candelabrum under the chin, you/he/she had entered the room to check him/it. You/he/she had called him/it without getting answer. Worried you/he/she had turned on the other candelabrum that systematized on the undone comodino. Teodorico was immovable with open braccia: stiff corpse. Its little heart had not held up. His was the face abominated of whom had believed to see Maria Point Oru in the face illuminated of his/her mother and everything for a dish of spaghetti.

Daniel was not to the current one of the history of Teodorico, after all you/he/she was normal, considering that you/he/she knew only the aristocrats. It opened the door of the auto and it made to go down Geneva helping her/it with a rider gesture. Locusts and lecci in the green and they encircled the villetta. They protected her up to the bare zone that cold and rock had imposed with arrogance to the Linas mountain. Geneva adored the peace of that place. The sparrows peacefully chirrupped, as if they loved that serenity and they didn't intend to disturb her/it. The residence was beautiful: white and structured on two floors, with a beautiful balcony at sight and with the altana that detached above the roof of tiles marsigliesi; of the you tan elegant they embellished the external hangings.

Daniel climbed five steps and was found on the landing in front of the front door of entry. Geneva was interdicted on the kick of the first step, with the staid elbow on the knob of the baluster. It fixed a niche positioned of side to the stipite of the front door, in which the statue of the Madonna seemed to want to welcome them with the tense braccias. Daniel turned the key and was heard the definite release of the cylinders that you/they reentered in their lodgings. They entered. The environment was dark. Daniel opened wide the taxes and the daylight you/he/she illuminated the saloon. Every mobile, every furnishing, every single maiolicas of the floor testified unknown economic possibility for the whole rest of Montevecchio. A great table in walnut-tree was found to the center of the stay. Two couches of dark skin formed an elle that contained two some three sides that leaned out in front of the fireplace. There were mirrors. There were drawn back of the ancestors of Daniel. There was everything. There was wealth.

Suspended so that to form a pyramid, a two weeks of baskets in straw they occupied the frontal wall to the front door of entry. They were the gift of the marshal, even if himself didn't include the real value of it. In that remote angle of Sardinia the wealth of a bride was quantified in base to the number and the quality of its service of baskets. Tzia Piricca, before the marriage of his/her daughter, to make to appear through the baskets his/her wealthier family of that that was, had sold halves the flock of goats received in dad inheritance Antiogu. Instead Pietro had gotten used to the customs of Caserta, where wealth was calculated in base to the possessiones: money, terrestrial, immovable, inheritance. At the most, for the one that was affection from the allergy for the banks, the wealth it determined her/it the mattress of the bed, stuffed of banknotes by thousand liras. You/he/she was adjusted and you/he/she had commissioned to an impagliatrice that service of baskets without minding expenses, it was had to make beautiful figure in front of the child of the ingegner Minghetti.

«You like?» he/she asked Daniel with a smile.

Geneva looked around him. It sipped every centimeter of that house that she had alone veduto in phase of preparation. It was the first time that visited her/it from when you/he/she had been furnished. Its mouth opened and struck by the sun it showed the reverberation of its sparkling teeth. «Daniel, is very beautiful!»

«I am happy that you like. I have tried to satisfy your tastes.»

Geneva embraced him/it tightening him/it strong. «You have succeeded to the great one there!» But Daniel in that embraced you/he/she perceived something icy of convict.

# Shortly after Geneva had the nth epileptic crisis.

#

#

#

# 5

The summer advanced, eccentric, among warm torrid and unexpected flashes in autumn. In that days the silicosi was brought away Mario Zuddas and Avelino Madeddu two boys that had not completed trentacinque years yet. Mario had four children. Avelino seven, and the greatest still had to make the confirmation.

In mine it was pierced to dry, without water that the dusts extinguished, and dusts went to calcify in the bellows bringing to a spine-chilling death. Together with the soul him present blood spit in almost all body. Who had the fortune to escape to that horrendous illness, in the most greater part of the cases it brought him behind a memory of the mine however. Many were deaf because of the strong bursts of the positions, others, handling the explosive, you/they were become some unusable monchis by the society. Efisio Olla had lost both the braccias. Its reward had been a letter of dismissal. You/he/she had committed suicide throwing himself/herself/itself to precipice on the rock-cliffs from the Spanish castle of Tower of the Pirates. That day the sea violated the battigia scattering its foamy seed. The foam climbed on the rock-cliffs and then he allowed to grab for the feet from the water, that brought back her. The body of Efisio had been dragged away and swallowed by the eddies that the tides formed on the verdigris hair of the sea. You/he/she had never been found again.

Nazareno Cuccu instead one were alone of the so many that had contracted the angioneurosi: an illness that because of the vibrations of the drills it destroyed the nervous system and it made a simple urination the most twisted enterprise of the world. In the last days in mine of Nazareno nobody placed side by side him more to him in the usual urinations of group. «You won't believe that I/you/he/she make me piss the feet from you. You will see that with those hands, to fury to wave you the pea, you will end up having an orgasm. After the third shaking he can already call saw» his/her companions told him to cheer him the moral one. He was mocked more than the others but his/her heart he/she cried heavy tears as the lead. To eat the watery soup was reduced to let from his/her wife to be taken and he/she didn't take in arm anymore his/her children for fear that you/they fell him to earth.

Raymond Puxeddu was one of the most unlucky. You/he/she had used for twenty years the drill. The model BBR was affectionately called by the mined pisitta he/she is known, the cat, because among the hands it twisted him as a feline inside a lot and it produced an identical sound to the toward of the cats in love. That name struck indeed in the sign, because as the cats they know how to extract the eyes with their claws, the drill was also able of to blind. Raymond, after years of constant exposure to the vibrations of the drill, had suffered a total separation of the retina. The loss of the sight to an eye had been the consequence. To stay himself/herself/themselves was a luxury that didn't belong to the world of the ragamuffins and it was necessary to persist for being able to guarantee a they put of bread stumpy to his/her own children. In little time Raymond had also lost the sight to the healthy, and cruel eye as a fair the dark arrives, I crush and inseparable actually at the end of the days. Raymond sometimes walked still for Montevecchio, helping himself/herself/itself with a baton smoothed of oleastro of those that the water diviner used for finding the water. You sat in the park in front of the building of the direction and it fixed the road. It and it almost seemed that its eyes kept on seeing. For one as him, that had loved the beautiful women to the point to commit follies to have her, it had to be a torture to try to imagine what you/he/she could not see anymore.

In every angle of Montevecchio there were stories of suffering that turned into illusion the happiness. Among all the histories particularly one moved to listen to her/it. The direction, pitied perhaps, you/he/she had been assuming for some years a boy sordomuto from the birth. They were in debt with him for the premature death in mine of his/her father, disappeared to alone twenty-seven years.

Lucio was a particular boy. Besides being sordomuto, also its aspect testified that mother nature had an open account with him. You/he/she had been born with the harelip and the nose crushed on the left part of the face. The deformed mouth never allowed its slanting teeth to find hideaway. And for the gums, so redheads to be seemed you brush of blood, the fate had not been dissimilar. Of beautiful things the Padreterno did so many of it, but when it decided to do of of it ugly it seemed to undertake more also himself/herself/themselves. To contemplate that face seminascosto from long red hair created uneasiness without reason for guilt, an uneasiness that nobody called with his/her true name": reluctance."

In mine Lucio preferred to work alone and the evening declined the company of the other miners. It hated to show his/her features more than the due one. You saw a little around and you/he/she had been sighted more than once to wander solitary in the countries during the night. What it did in his/her nighttime exits it was a mystery that the inhabitants of Montevecchio felt little like deepening. That boy from the mistrustful ways aroused them an unavowed fear.

The miners called him/it" Gnagno", between them. That nickname had given him for him Felicino Putzolu, a stupid at the last gasp that his/her mother would have derided also. Felicino had assisted to an attempt served as Lucio to purchase some bread in the place of the wine cellar, in the department I sell off provisions. You/he/she had come out a cacophony of incomprehensible verses that you/they had brought to that appellative of it. Nevertheless he was still to the search of whom dared pronounce that nickname in his/her presence. Felicino feared to silently do also it to his/her shoulders, as if he/she didn't believe until after all to his/her condition of sordomuto.

Lucio developed the duty of stoker. The group leader of his/her level had thought that not could suffer the burst of the explosive positions you/he/she would be found to wonder in that setup.

Now it was found in the well. It organized with care the explosive position that would have produced a passing stove from the level Yosto to the level Rolandi. It tried to create a circle of air that prevented the frequent voids of depth oxygen. Turned on the fuse connected to about twenty positions that the one would be exploded I approach to the other and runs to the shelter holding well tightened the lamp to carbide. You sheltered to the angle of the principal gallery that intersected him to duty. A blinding shine illuminated to day the whole level Yosto. The unbearable din of the burst forced the miners to open the mouth and to get stopped up himself/herself/themselves the ears with the filthy fingers workers. The wave of decibel risked to destroy their eardrums.

Emilio was distant from the explosion. I approach to the vibration he/she saw the dust shake off himself/herself/themselves however and to fall from the attic toward of him. By instinct shake quickly the head, despite the dust you/he/she had covered afoot afresh already it. Luigi was not with him. You/he/she had received an envelope sealed of the army and you/he/she went in barracks to ask lights. Emilio had not read that letter, even if it fed the suspicion that concerned a call to the front. From as Luigi you/he/she had described him/it, the symbol that brought the letter was unequivocally that of the empire.

After the brillanza of the explosive positions there was always the risk of landslides. The level Yosto had the fame to be one of the surest of the whole well Amsicora. The shipowners had propped the galleries with aces cylindrical and wood beams sustained to the base by big trunks of chestnut tree.

When the quiet prevailed on the echo, the eardrums of Emilio sent away that hiss that after the explosions it pirouetted as a flea in the ear duct. Extended the ear as you/they had taught him the elderly ones. Superstition said that the chestnut tree was the only sincere wood, because before breaking it was warned with some scrunches. Emilio didn't feel anything, apart his/her more sincere thoughts also of the chestnut tree: «What cazzata! At times the old men are wise, other times are naïve only!» He still went to the search of a wood type that broke him without having first scricchiolato.

Where the danger was considered tall, the engineers you/they had foreseen the use of beams in iron. All it took is asking to Sisinnio Zoccheddu if the practice had worked. The sulfates corroded the metal and the only protection against the collapses the prayers they stayed, different from those addressed Foffo Dessì to the arganista. He could maneuver only the capstan not the landslides. And so Sisinnio, after having been buried I live from a landslide, now he/she lived paralyzed from head to toe. Before the accident you/he/she would not even have asked help to his/her/their mother-in-law if you/they had hung him/it to a tree of fig trees. Tzia Rosa Piscedda had never wanted him/it as I produce. «You have already done her beautiful to get married you to this corpse of hunger» it reproached his/her daughter Lucrezia.

Sisinnio would have pissed gladly her in front of that old bagassa, so much it was the contempt that tried for her. Instead it was now forced to have the culo and the testicles washed from that accursed, because his/her wife didn't have time anymore for him; you/he/she had to work for letting their children eating. It dealt with a humiliation that had made him lose the reason. Tzia Rosa already entered snickering in the room of Sisinnio, that stinked of stuffed pannolone of the only true signs of the life. If one doesn't throw out more nothing from the body is ugly sign: or it is dead or it is about to be him/it.

«You six cagatos I set today also?» tzia Rosa asked him with a hysterical giggle. Sisinnio closed the eyes because you/he/she could not cover him the ears. Tzia Rosa then the penis lifted him and let him/it revert on one side and from the other. «Oh, it doesn't work today even the knickknack. Sin, sooner or later Lucrezia will have to look for him another gun to play to watch and thieves» it said laughing more and more strong. Sisinnio, that succeeded in moving only the language and the eyes, tried to spit her in face but it didn't tell anything to his/her wife Lucrezia: it trembled to the alone idea of thing you/he/she would have made him Rosa when you/they had been alone, if he had blabbed something.

In conclusion, it was not true that the level Yosto was surer than the others. The shipowners periodically effected the mass in safety of the galleries in all the levels of the mine; that level had simply been assisted by the good star and you/he/she was created the legend.

Lucio escaped from the canton. It advanced to the blind one and it coughed with work. From his/her thoracic cage it went up again a hoarse sound.

Dust circled sharp pain in the air before falling asleep again himself/herself/themselves to the ground up to the following position. Lucio quickly shook the braccias crossing her more times to the height of his/her face. It tried in vain to send away that floury cloud. When the layer dissolved him, its eyes were pierced through by intense glare. He/she was amazed. Its vocal chords had not been projected to wave producing some sounds but its mind it had the ability to put black on white what with the words you/he/she was blocked him. "I don't believe in my eyes, this is quicksilver", he/she thought.

The explosion had brought a rocky wall to the light straripante of galena, the stone from which the lead and the silver were extracted.

To little distance, Emilio had started over striking the rock with his/her strong pick. That day the utensil produced only a big din and bounced without sinking. His/her air compressed pisitta was jammed in shop, in attended that in the foundry of well San Antonio was forged the piece of exchange of which it required. In the meantime it was found forced to the manual throw. He/she didn't succeed in transmitting strength in his/her hits; it was exhausted and inside his/her cart you/he/she had deposited only few stones of good mineral. It dried the forehead hello to desist. In front of his/her eyes the image of the small Franco appeared, shrunken and skeletal as a patient of spinal meningitis. Emilio had seen Zelia Brovelli, one neighbor of his, to die of spinal meningitis, and it still trembled remembering his/her bones that twisted him under the skin as runaway mice under a cover of orbace. It shivered, transferring instantly his/her residual strengths to the pick.

The village of Montevecchio was a narrow community that could not entertain the totality of the miners. The direction had made to depart the jobs for the construction of a hotel that this lack covered. Unfortunately the works, with the arrival of the war, they proceeded to rilento. Emilio was forced to cross every day the nine kilometers that separated Guspini, his/her country native, from Montevecchio. It got up every morning at four o'clock and, in the best of the cases, after the ten or twelve hours of job they waited him/it for other nine kilometers of drudgery. If then it were forced to take the trip of reentry together with Ernesto Oliva, a logorroico that also spoke to the sleep, besides the physicist it was also exhausted the mind. Whoever reentered with Ernesto it was not able whether to give credit to the words of Mario Spissu, that it told to end the journey with the balls that crawled him in earth, leaving a more useful furrow of the crumbs of bread of Pollicino, and at least there was not the danger to lose himself/herself/themselves.

The production of Emilio was halved, his/her family had more and more hunger and his/her body you/he/she was falling asunder as a decrepit hut. It was forty years old but it showed more at least winds of it. Ingobbito and thin already of constitution, with the job in mine you/he/she was still become more battered.

You folded up in before sustaining himself/herself/itself with the handle of the pick. The sweat from his forehead in constant way. It scrutinized the drops to slip away for then falling on the dusty ground and it was certain that remaining in that position would have given life to a puddle. It fixed the empty cart, then still the ground darkened by his/her sweat. «How much work at all!» tired gemette.

When it was about to arrange to the rocky barrier the nth tired hit, a hand it stopped him/it shutting with strength his/her arm. You turned of release and frightened to death it made him fall the pick.

Illuminated by the lamp to carbide, the ill-made face of Lucio it appeared in front of him terrorizing him/it. The body of Emilio still trembled and its eyes looked for protection behind the hands devastated by the calluses. The light emanated by the lamp to carbide was few more than soffusa but in the dark contour of the mine it was enough and it advanced for hurting its iridiums clear. You/he/she had shaken. «What you want?»

Lucio didn't respond, as you/he/she had always been serving for the day of his/her birth; impetuously it dragged him/it with itself. Emilio didn't oppose resistance. You/he/she would not be been able not to even escape that human vice if you/he/she had wanted him/it. Lucio was in strengths and had a double build in comparison to his: a titano of almost two meters with braccia and job legs. Closed Emilio the eyes and he allowed to transport as a pup of dog grabbed for the fur by his/her/their mother.

When Lucio abandoned his/her arm they were departed few instants. Emilio reopened the eyes and was inactive to open mouth. It was found in front of the wall rocky richer in galena that you/he/she had ever seen.

Lucio pushed one of the wagons cart along the rails placed to the center of the gallery; it positioned him/it in proximity of the zone in which the position was exploded. Gesticulating and producing some illegible verses made to understand to Emilio to start to load the mineral ones. Lucio was paid in base to the number of the stoves that succeeded in creating and you/he/she would not have earned more anything from that rich layer. You/he/she had thought that for a jobber to the throw as Emilio it was a good opportunity to put aside something in foresight of the periods of thin.

Emilio started to picconare with vehemence the new discovery. The galena jumped out to immoderate nuggets, able to return him the energies that he/she believed not to possess anymore. By now it was enough experienced to be realized that from that so fertile galena, for a lead ton you/they would be been able to almost get thirty silver kilograms an enormousness. Peppi Curreli would have eaten the hands from the envy and you/he/she would perhaps have stopped interviewing at the end of the day all to know if you/he/she had won the competition of the job contract.

In a few hours Emilio succeeded in crowding well seven carts wagon. It was radiant of joy because Franco would have eaten for at least three weeks from that load. Its skeletal image would not have tormented him/it for quite a lot time.

With a rope it hoisted all the seven carts on the strong shoulders of a mule. Electricity had not replaced entirely still the job animals in the mine. Before the war a diesel locomotive was experimented, also set aside immediately. Emilio if he/she remembered well it: you/he/she had been almost smothered from the gases of unloading and you/he/she had risked to die as the Hebrews in the fields of extermination. Of the company that that tragedy had grazed you/they had also made part Mario Zuddas and Avelino Madeddu. It was difficult to understand if a few years in more than life all the sufferings that the silicosi had brought to the two had been worth. Emilio went to make visit to Avelino first ch'egli it died. You/he/she had seen him/it erupt blood in the bed as if you/he/she had just bite a piece of raw liver of pig. Just as it made Janu Canoi, a balente emigrated by the Barbagia, that if it still devoured him/it warm accompanying him/it with one or two glasses of good pig blood. Avelino twisted him from the pain while its bellows tightened him as a plastic piece to the fire. In the room it seemed you/they had slit a hog. His wife, in the last days of Avelino, you/he/she had sent his/her children from a sister to Villacidro. You/he/she had preferred that his/her children didn't see the atrocious punishments that their father was suffering.

Emilio had embraced him/it and you/he/she was arranged on a chair of side to the bed.

«You remind yourself when the gas of the locomotive was about to kill all of us?» Avelino had asked him.

Emilio had sent forth a nostalgic sigh. «Some that I remember him/it to me!»

Avelino coughed and some rivulet of blood strained him from the angles of the mouth. «I am reformed not to be forever me dormant breathing that gases. Then it seemed me hot and terrible but I swear you that in comparison to what I am passing today you/he/she would be seemed me sweet as the kiss of the good night of my children.»

Emilio had dried the blood from his mouth with a handkerchief. It felt the eyes that were inflated, pressed by the affection for a companion of life that was about to leave him/it. You/he/she had been the last time when you/he/she had seen him/it.

The face of dispersed Avelino him in the endless abyss of the memoirs. Now Emilio scrutinized the poor mule to slowly put a leg in front of the other, dragging to work the enormous load and disappearing wound by the darkness of the gallery. The carts would be riaffiorati in surface thanks to the capstan and then conducted in the laveria" Sanna." In that place, a troop that between women and children it didn't admit virile intrusions, you/he/she would have effected the selection of the material. The rich stones would have been separate from those sterile to mad rhythm, without privileges for the workers children or for the one that guarded in womb the crop of the same virility that in the laveria you/he/she was not allowed, but that in the house it represented the law. He/she knew something Ann Lasio that, not to serve himself/herself/themselves discover pregnant as the lance-corporal that it checked her, you/he/she was had to sew a suit of two greater ransoms and to tell that you/he/she was eating as a sow. You/he/she had given birth at night and the morning was already in laveria hardly dragging the slingshot legs, so scosciate from the baby of five kilos that you/he/she would be passed in mean a motocarrozzetta there full of sarmento. All not to lose that job.

Even if you/he/she could not see him/it anymore, Emilio felt the clogs of the mule that it advanced to memory without baton and dog it drives. Every time it had a shiver in to ascertain the horrifying fate that touched to the mules. The animals, after one year of life, when by now they were able to sustain the exaggerated loads of the carts, you/they were lowered inside the wells. From that moment they didn't receive the warm kiss of the sun anymore. Their eternal abodes become the dowdy stalls of pagliericci and you prepare in the various levels of the mine. Without anymore the light, in little time the mules became completely ciechi. Emilio had seen hundreds of times their eyes to discolor up to become as the marbles of bone white that his/her children used to play to on canabi. After you are or seven years the mules died of silicosi, because being in the middle of the dusts twenty-four hours on twenty-four they contracted a lot her before the man. But those beasts spit only the blood, their soul was away already flight toward green lawns, putting aside himself/herself/itself the sufferings that only the man is able of to procure for the others: this liked to think about Emilio. The mules at the last gasp you/they were brought in surface and abandoned to their destiny in the middle of the fields: not because he/she was wanted to give a more dignified end to that animal wretches but only not to feel inside the well the unbearable stench of their dead body in decomposition. When it was dead Giuseppino, Emilio you/he/she had cursed. How could a good God pick up him a child of solos five years? Luckily you/they had done in time to baptize him/it, otherwise that good God would have denied also the entry in heaven to Giuseppino, that didn't have guilts. You/he/she would have confined him/it in the limbo without any trial, only because Adamo and Eva had given a bite to an apple. Then Emilio, even if it still felt grudge for God, you/he/she had stopped cursing. Seeing what the war was bringing and having every day to that to do with the bleak life of the poor mules had understood that him as all the other men, deserved him the misfortunes that were happened him.

"The men have the conceitedness to consider him the only ones to be able to feel feelings as the love, the hate, the suffering and the nostalgia. But in this life you/he/she is not given to know what you pass in the head of the animals" Emilio was said. Toti Pinna was chosen the dogs, Corudepedra the cats. They grew them, them sfamavanos, made them join; they decided all for them. When the pups of a cat or a dog, Toti and Corudepedra they arrived they took that that more it pleased them. The others, if he succeeded in finding someone whom they wanted, you/they were given. When this didn't happen, Toti inserted the pups inside a lot as garbage, then he/she killed them beating them to earth with all of his/her strength. Corudepedra was more resolved. Him the kitten he/she drowned them inside a tub of water. They made this whole solo because they didn't have the place to hold all of them, or only because they intended to hold only one of it. Emilio knew that, in the world, of Toti Pinna and Corudepedra us n'era one to every street angle.

"The mother of that pups could suffer as us! Could hate to have picked up us her his/her children! Could hear the nostalgia of his/her pups, that the soul devours her destroying her/it day after day!" They were these the considerations that you/he/she had done. «To the man captain the misfortunes and you/he/she should not be complained» it said. «Because God, that we consider the only being to us with the usual conceitedness superior, you/he/she could have the same conception that we have us some animals. He/she perhaps believes it some beings troglodytes that you/they know only how to eat, to drink and to pair off himself/herself/themselves, over whether to make himself/herself/themselves the war. He/she perhaps believes that we cannot do anything else other than to follow the instinct and when he/she takes to pick ago up it a dear person as a child him and enough, only because it feels like doing him/it. God doesn't think about creating us pain, he wants only close to itself that that more you/he/she attracts him/it of us; as they make the men with the animals: with the dogs, with the cats. and the mules.» They were these the deep thoughts that upset him/it. The remorse for the old mule gave him the impression to have the knotted guts. But there was of the anything else other than it didn't allow him to be happy after all until. You felt in guilt to have tried terror seeing the face of Lucio. Contrarily, the boy had made him an unimaginable gift. That extraordinary vein was a gift.

«A gift» it said Emilio, so faintly that it had the impression to want to hide to himself that word. The meaning of that hesitation didn't dissolve him. He/she was aground among the bristly folds of his/her throat. To think well of us, Emilio had never made a gift to the buonanima of his/her child. For Christmas Giuseppino it had the right to a double ration of sausage but at the end it never finished her/it and they ate everybody of it. For the birthday, Maria prepared him a small cake of apples with an only candle to the center: an alone, indiscriminately for all the five birthdays. A good father avoided to consider gifts a piece of sausage and a tortina of apples with an only candle to the center. A father was kept to give to eat to his/her child, you/he/she had the duty to make him/it happy, you/he/she had the obligation to give his good possible life: with winds liras a day, good possible life had the features of a piece of stale bread and two spoons of watery soup.

The image of the small coffin white last rapids in front of the eyes of Emilio. Then it disappeared, fast as you/he/she had come, and it was enough to remember him that perhaps the only true gift done to Giuseppino was really that coffin. He/she remembered the night when its trembling hands had chiseled him; the anguish that the heart bursted him to every scratching of file; the tears that destroyed the job of its brush. In the room there was beside died Giuseppino. Emilio was skilled in to work every type of material, from the lead to the stone. Its familiarity with the wood had guaranteed to Giuseppino a more dignified funeral: the money saved for the coffin had been run over in flowers and epitaph. That coffin represented the only object that Emilio had ever done with his/her hands for Giuseppino that, joke of the destiny, had been able never to see him/it. Emilio had put us the whole possible attention and a beautiful job had come, out really a beautiful job, Giuseppino would have appreciated him.

Emilio was aroused by the hits of a hammer. It timidly drew near to the refuge you equip. Lucio was unriveting the cover of the wood scatolonis that you/they contained the positions for the following day. With a touch of hand on the back, Emilio attracted his/her attention. Lucio saw in the face of Emilio a certain emotion.

Emilio not smiled, was contracted. It looked for with some gestures to make to understand something to Lucio. The sordomuto kept on staring at him/it without having the least idea of thing they meant those gesticulations.

«Tonight I don't reenter to Guspini. Luigi gives a festicciola for his/her village birthday you Rule and I am guest from his/her cousin. Would it go you to come?»

Reading the labial one, Lucio grabbed the name of Luigi and made a sign of assent with the head, repeating in incomprehensible way the name.

Emilio lengthened the left arm and the breast grazing himself/herself/itself made to go on and down the right hand, as him same strumming a guitar. Lucio understood and smiled. «Slice! Yes, slice!» it exclaimed, that meant for him" party." It scrutinized with gratitude the smile that had sent away the austerity from the face of Emilio. It was the first time that someone of the colleagues gave him importance, even inviting him/it to a party. Laughed happy, then it shook the shoulders, he/she didn't know if you/he/she would have gone to that party, it was already so much being invites.

# 6

The moon was disguised alone, as if the god Apollo had decided to extend over the owed one the services of the red-hot bright disk. To save, Emilio extinguished the lamp to carbide, that yes that it was sincere, not as the chestnut tree: when he extinguished allertava on an imminent lack of oxygen; for the miners during the job in depth it meant to have it saves the life. In twenty years, to Emilio had already happened quite a lot times to be saved himself/herself/themselves thanks to his/her inseparable companion. The only advantage to be pendulum-like was that to be able him to bring behind the lamp; the residents had to deliver her/it in lampisteria at the end of every man day instead. Antiogu Prinzis, the storekeeper, was fussy as the bees workers and annotated everything. The first time that someone didn't redeliver the lamp, the cost was escaped him increased by the salary. The second time that happened was better to look for him another job. It was necessary to be careful to the tools received in endowment, the mines kept on magnifying him really because they were also watched the most meaningless expenses.

The path excavated that Emilio was crossing it was well clear, illuminated by the natural torch that embellished the sky. From village you Rule they still separated some hundred meters and him to it you/he/she could separately hear already the sound of the guitar of Luigi. villaggio Righi era uno degli insediamenti che si erano creati attorno alle miniere di Piccalinna e San Antonio. The well Amsicora was very more next to the village of Telle, yet the miners of the zone were poured again to village you Rule. Telle was busy to a large extent from the meurredduses: hates him iglesienti that, according to the arburesis, you/they were trespassing and fottendo the job that was up to others. For the truth you/they were poured again in the arburese because the American airplanes had devastated with the bombs the mining fittingses of Carbonia and outskirtses. But the fear to lose the job had worked with the arburesis as a blinker for horses. The pulsating heart of the Linas mountain was the village of Montevecchio, where the building of the mining direction resided. «Anything else other than mountain Olimpo! You remember, boys, that we here are to Gennas, be you of it proud» it told his/her pupils teacher Tiddia, that read more books now of when it attended the magistral school. In Roman epoch, Montevecchio called Gennas, built on the hill of" Genne Serapis", in honor of the Greek-Egyptian divinity Serapide, protectress of the underground world. Even if teacher Tiddia would not have agreed, the miners said that Montevecchio of divine you/he/she had only the name. The mines resembled to of the endless holes that conducted to it inflicted him. In antiquity the slaves worked us under torture; they begged the goddess Serapide to assuage their sufferings. Those prayers still wandered in depth, waiting for to be granted. The goddess Serapide had chosen to listen to the centurionis rather than the slaves. Life went and will always go this way. They will be dissatisfied the poor men, the weak, the defenseless ones. As that time that the destiny had made to lose by chance to the jeweler a gold bracelet. Romeo Ghiani" the laborer" you/he/she had stamped on him/it without not even seeing him/it; to find Gramminu Pilloi had been him/it" the hereditary one", a nullafacente recipient of the fortune of a known rich aunt never. Stumbles in a lock of grass and it was fallen with the open mouth, the bracelet finding again himself/herself/itself among the teeth without being him not even scratched the face. You/he/she had gone so, and so it will continue to go.

Village Rules it was surely the most pleasant village of all the others. Placed to around two kilometers by Montevecchio a happy island he/she remained. The night they arrived miners and families from the whole zone. To forget the war was looked for to make party and it was enough well few to have a good time him. That village distinguished him so much from the others that all called him/it Shanghai, for the fervor of its nights.

Emilio observed the great cork oaks and the stately leccis that shaded his/her walk. It increased the footstep. Before a rustle among the leafy branches of the trees, then the song of an owl they made him accapponare the skin. In the daytime the wood was pleasant and marvelous but the night had the power to turn him/it into a left and anxious place.

The to strum more and more some guitar and the song of the people near they succeeded in infusing in Emilio a safety minimum. You looked around wary. When it emerged from the planted with trees path it almost did him/it of run. In front of him the new villas of mint were risen: you build in 1938 you/they had not made the knowledge of bombs or machine guns yet.

You turned and it gave a last look to the wood. A gust of wind made to dance the leaves of the leccis that seemed to greet him/it.

Despite the big noise, the lamps were all out ones. The voice was turned that the pilots of the airplanes unhooked their bombs really in correspondence of signals of light. Taddeo Trincas, a legionary of the war of Ethiopia reentered with a leg and four fingers of the hands in less, you/he/she had told that in first line the soldiers smoked the cigarettes with the power on point in mouth, to avoid that the fiammella attracted the enemy. Nobody knew if that history were real, of truth there was that all intended to avoid to be the first ones to discover him/it.

The party blazed to the plain earth of the last villa the most hidden and reserved. You clearly heard the voice of Luigi tune up one of the trallalleroses.

«Luigi plays the guitar and also plays the violin but when his/her woman goes you/he/she is in bed a little dog. Trallalera larillalillalera, trallallera larillalillala!» This time you/he/she had been the voice of Terenzio Bellu to speak and you/he/she had just dared to challenge Luigi with a trallallero; you/he/she had mocked him/it because to thirty played Luigi was still bachelor.

Emilio timidly mailed him in the villa. Luigi is sat on a chair to the center of the room and you/he/she aimed the guitar. Around him a flood coming from every angle of Montevecchio. Luigi was a phenomenon of the trallallero and nobody almost dared to make him/it object of the wisecracks in rhyme. It was rapid in to elaborate the answers and he/she left spiazzati his/her adversaries. Terenzio Bellu, with that provocation, a hit of hoe was given to alone the feet. Luigi stared at him/it with a sneer that didn't allow to presage nothing promising. It strummed the ropes of the guitar and it unsheathed his/her trallallero of it replies: «Luigi will go in bed also with a dog, but you/he/she is a particular dog, you/he/she calls Teresina and I do her/it howl. Trallallera larillalillalera, trallallera larillalillala!»

People bursted to laugh. Terenzio Bellu, was instead inactive as a ferret in hunting, that stings a snake. If the looked for era. The Teresina of which he/she spoke Luigi was his/her sister. Who possessed sisters or a beautiful wife it was thrusted in serious troubles pricking Luigi, because his replies it was acute and prickly more and more.

Without notice, Luigi interrupted the refrain of the trallallero. There was silence. It faked to look for the concentration with the lowered head on his/her guitar. It played some slow notes, then the rhythm grew and all recognized the song" Dust of stars" of Natalino Otto. The fascist regime had prohibited the broadcast diffusion of that song defining her/it a Barbaric black antimusica. The disks however they were found in commerce. From when Gennaro Fois, dealer of return from Rome, had made to know that song to Montevecchio, the people you/he/she loved her/it to go crazy. The things after having been for a long time ignored, when you/they are prohibited they become necessary: allegories of rebellion. All observed abducted Luigi and they dreamt that the notes emitted by the musical tool were magic and they had the power to change their lives to make her best. Plain Pian to his/her song the voice of others united him, then of other anchor, up to that the uproar instigated him. Susan Porcu dragged in footstep his/her husband Giandomenico; I taken to braccetto they kicked first with a leg and then with the other, using him/it style of dance of the music folk. Loredana Melis put us few to follow bringing them with itself his/her brother Giaggio. There was not to eat but all danced and they sang happy. They took the by the challenges for the one who withstood more dancing in couple. The untiring Pino Demontis and Cisca Satta to the long one would have remained to circle alone in footstep: they always won them.

The next day was Sunday and as every week from the advent of the Duce you/he/she would not be worked. You/he/she could be done late. Toward midnight his/her children were brought by their mothers to the close-up of the villa that, as the other levels, were constituted from an only great room occupied by some bed and a myriad of covers. The floor gave the impression of a carpet. That room would have offered kindergarten for the night to all the babies, while down he kept on making party.

Luigi was a real rascal, an animal from stage, knew always as to revive the evenings. Another of his/her specialties they were the jokes with the Sardinians protagonists. Every Sardinian would have been able to tell jokes on the Sardinians for times but those of Luigi they were unbeatable. It invented her himself, he/she perhaps thought of her the night. To the sudden one it deposed the guitar for earth, on the side of the chair. When it told the jokes it gesticulated quite a lot. «A French, an English and a Sardinian go to Africa for a safari and forgive him in the jungle. You/they are captured by a tribe of cannibal and death row inmates.»

The circle was tightened and the people by now it was behind their preferred cantastorie.

«The head of the tribe decides to give a possibility to the three and says": to have salute life, you to plunge in a fall tall fifty meters, to comb fierce bear and finally to make love with my daughter".» Someone already snickered, only for the way according to which Luigi told. Anybody however it had idea of as you/he/she would have gone to end the joke.

«The first one to try the enterprise is French. You plunges from the fall and the bone of the neck breaks him. "Dead. end. caput" the head of the tribe exclaims. "Before another"!»

Emilio could see only the shoulders of Luigi, even if the faces of the people spoke alone. People to open mouth, smiled sincere, thoughts distant from the hunger and from the war.

«For according to the English it is thrown and, with great surprise, he/she succeeds in still resurfacing alive from the fall. The head looks at him/it and tells him": Now you to enter cave of bear and to comb him, then to make love with my daughter." From the cave they come out it howls terrible and the English is devoured by the bear. "Dead. end. caput" the head tribe exclaims. "Before another"!»

The attention of the spectators reached the apex. Everybody knew that now the Sardinian would have entered in scene. The end of the joke was near the pure laughters.

«The last to try the enterprise is the Sardinian. The head tribe looks at him/it and while it is being about to again explain the three tests, the Sardinian stops him/it and tells him": I have understood everything, other explanations don't serve me." You throws from the fall and as the English it goes out from there uninjured. Does it put on to place the hair and does he/she ask": Where the cave of the bear is?" The head points out him the direction. The Sardinian enters and from the cave they are felt you/he/she howls terrible. The head tribe snickers but when he/she sees the Sardinian go out of the cave he/she remains to open mouth. The Sardinian, with a proud look, does it look at him/it and does he/she ask him": Where it is his/her daughter that now have to comb her/it"?»

A boato of laughters flagellated the villa. The walls waved as I shaken by an earthquake. Emilio didn't succeed to riprender anymore breath from how much it laughed. Some were laid down to earth and they rolled him. The women, usually more composed, genuflesses cried. Also Luigi laughed at taste for his/her same joke. But you/he/she was not ended there. You unthread from under the bottom a long red ribbon. It climbed above the chair and the band tied him on the sides, staging a teatrino with his/her cousin Bruno. To be able to work in the mines was necessary to be enrolled to the fascist party and to show every saint day the enrolls to the entry of the wells; the communists were hidden for fear of retaliations but in past you/they were distinguished going around with a showy red band to life, just as that of Luigi. From above the chair, its face detached more aloft than everybody as its ribbon. It started to recite the part of a rich communist owner. His/her cousin Bruno put on to four legs and neighed as a horse. Luigi jumped us in rump and howled as a crazy person: «Ridarò the mines of Montevecchio to the miners, will become all rich ones,» while Bruno him imbizzarriva and you/he/she tried to unsaddle him/it.

People were folded up in two by the laughters and Emilio you/he/she didn't make exception, there was so much need to forget the insufficiency of their lives, the horrors of the war and the bites of the hunger.

Toward the two, only the eyelids of few stoic miners had succeeded in withstanding the twelve hours of job. Bruno, from good landlord, definite to reward them. «I have a surprise for you old scoundrels!» It rummaged in a belief and it again advanced in direction of the residual gruppetto. It hid something behind the back. It almost been sorry. «I preserve for a long time her for a great occasion. Beh, believes that has arrived.» It lifted aloft the arm that held hidden behind the back. The reverberation of the moon filtered from the windows and was enough to misguide the dark. You clearly distinguished a dusty bottle of Scottish whiskey from the worn-out and faded label.

Emilio and the rest of the miners started as if you/they were admiring a millennial object, they seemed centuries that you/they didn't see a bottle of Scottish Whiskey. The Duce had banished all the products that didn't derive from Italian workmanships: to drink a Whiskey or a coffee was become an unattainable desire. That evening the dreams could be made true.

«I am ready to kill for an I drip of that Whiskey» the arganista Foffu Dessì shouted, breaking the religious silence that was created. And they still laughed.

Each had his/her goccetto and it tried to taste doing him/it last him/it the more possible. Emilio made to tinkle his/her cup of scraped aluminum banging her/it against that of Luigi; it dealt with a toast. «Then that letter?»

Luigi lifted the shoulders. «It said not to leave Montevecchio. I have to maintain me available in case of a call to the front.»

«I understand! You will see that the war will still be ended before calls you.»

Luigi smiled and nodded. «Certain! Certain!» it whispered looking at his/her glass.

Emilio still lifted the cup. «To your health, friend, has been really a beautiful birthday party. Thanks!» You looked around and shaken the head being sorry himself/herself/itself, Lucio you/he/she had not taken part to that party.

# 7

Foffu Dessì gave gas to the enormous presser Sullivan. The cage put on in movement. Goes up again her it lazily proceeded and the cage danced about on one side to the other of the principal stove. The most experienced miners were solidly placed in front of the two deprived holes of protection. The beginners were to the center of the cage. One of these, Tonietto Cabua, lost the balance and went to beat on Emilio.

«But what cazz.» Emilio cursed, holding himself/herself/itself to Luigi not to fall down.

Tonietto Cabua, a rickety dwarf to the first weapons, scrutinized the dark that signoreggiava under the cage. It understood that if the most experienced miners had not served him as compact barrier, you/they would have picked up his/her shreds to duecentocinquanta meters deep.

«You excuse me, Mr. Emilio» it chewed to lowered head.

«It learns to be firm on the legs boy. In the cage an instant is enough for losing the balance. Understood?»

Tonietto lifted the look. «Sissignore! But I already knew him/it!»

Emilio lifted resigned the eyes to the sky. «You know him/it? But what do you know? You have been working in mine for two days with tomorrow.»

Tonietto Cabua tried to justify him and Emilio it interrupted him/it on to be born. «He/she leaves alone, you have the same arrogance of all the inexperienced persons.»

To way his/her Luigi confirmed the verification of Emilio. «Emilio is right. You believe to know how to do everything, but you still have to eat of it of smoke of macaronies. You are as that laborer in the first day of job, which the mason tells": you/he/she Checks if that pillar is to lead." The laborer puts the lead and answers": Perfect, you/he/she is to lead." The mason looks at him/it doubtful and asks him": But you are sure to know how to use the lead, to me that pillar seems crooked." The laborer to that point answers impolite": you Look that I know well what I do. Have told her that the pillar is all right, is even three more centimeters to lead!" Here, you inexperienced persons you are so.» And all laughed forgetting the skirmish, also Tonietto. At the end of the day there was also more desire to laugh to the jokes of Luigi.

It was Monday. The party to Shangai had left its trailing and you/he/she had been a day of job more fatiguing than the others, always admitted that someone existed of it less heavy. Emilio and Luigi had brought a discreet quantity of blenda of zinc to the light. As animals had worked hard but now they were happy.

Someone of the miners before going out of the well had to hurry some matters to the third level. Foffu Dessì had been warned by Toti Pinna with the telegraph. It gave a rapid look to the tacchetta of the mark-turns and it threw the lever of the brake. The descent of the metallic cage arrested him. The tool mark-turns he/she approximately esteemed the meters crossed from the cage in base to the rotations of the spools. The calculation was generic and the cage was sometimes positioned to a different quota of the desired levels. It also happened that time: the cage was arrested to around a meter and a half below the level Inoria. The motive for which two of the four sides of the cage were disclosed was simple: it needed to jump.

«Is callonis! It seemed me that today everything smooth was spun» Luisu Tiddia inveighed, a miner sulcitano. Its accent was so marked that to Luisu the cut of the language as way of disguising he/she remained only it.

One for time, three of the nine miners that occupied the cage reached the level Inoria, detaching some sure leaps.

Luisu Tiddia showed Tonietto Cabua. «You go first you, boy, I will jump for last.»

Tonietto still leaned out from the cage and saw the void under of him: black as the pitch and pleasant as of the ardent carbons. It swallowed and its legs took to tremble. «Someone has fallen? never» it Hoped not to repent instantly him to have asked that question. Luisu Tiddia didn't answer but it puffed. It made him/it Emilio to his/her place, after having smiled of a bitter rice. «Almost all the weeks, boy.»

Tonietto him maledì immediately to have been too much curious and to have received an answer. Luisu Tiddia placed a hand on his shoulder. «You take runs after her/it and it jumps without thinking and above all without looking down.»

But down Tonietto had already looked. Takings run after her/it and it detached the leap. The push was tired. It bumped the breast on the wall of the principal stove and his/her stumpy hands they didn't succeed in grabbing the ground of the gallery. Closed the eyes, sure to be next at the end.

Memmo Cicu and Bettu Scalas stuck out him and to the last one they succeeded in grabbing the boy bringing him/it in safe. Tonietto found again him with the earth back and started to laugh as a crazy person. His was a sick laughter, without logic, because if you/they had tried to insert there above him a pin for the culo you/they would not have succeeded. It fibrillated. «Thanks boys!»

Nobody had the strength to answer. Grain Frau, the ingabbiatore of the third level, the crank of the telegraph rotated. Foffu Dessì deciphered the code and still operated the capstan. The miners remained on the cage continued goes up again her/it. Emilio looked upward, the dot of light grew becoming the lighthouse of a great I bring.

When riaffiorarono in surface, their hands remained over one minute to protect the eyes from the sun. The gallery was illuminated with the lamps that were not enough for smacchiare the dark halo that imbued the blanket of the mine. During the winter the eyes of the miners were saved the painful punctures of the light. You entered mine that was still dark I crush and he went out to deep night; for months and months they were alone of the bats.

They jumped down all from the cage. Luigi for last. «Finally the dry land!»

«As the ship boy of Cristoforo Colombo said!» it added Luisu Tiddia that, seeing how the things had gone, you/he/she had decided to return him of it to house and to leave the duties a following day: not both never that you/they had launched him some curse that had struck Tonietto Cabua instead.

Luigi had a wince, you/he/she was of certain thinking something that didn't leave him/it behind Luisu. It clapped the hands as if you/he/she had received the folgorazione. «No, finally dry land, as the Sardinian said that had gone to swimming in America after having betrayed his wife. When you/he/she had arrived had you/they told him": But do you excuse, could not you/he/she come in America with the ship?" The Sardinian had answered": I was not able, I had to sow her/it that ship." In the I bring all they looked at him/it incredulous and one had told him": I don't believe that she to swimming has reached before a ship the dry land." The Sardinian was explained: «you/he/she is free to believe what wants, but now makes me space because I have to arrive in Greenland before that airplane, my mother-in-law after the ship will use of certain that to come to look for me.»

Luisu clapped in turn the hands to applaud the imagination of Luigi. «You should make the cantastorie to the parties paesane, Luigi, you would make the money.»

Also Foffu Dessì had felt the last of Luigi. Laughed at taste before speaking. «To the place of this damned telegraph I had to have you, Luigi, in the room capstans. At least I would not annoy me.»

Luigi scratched the head embarrassed. «I do better than mine to hold company.»

Capannelli of miners and grading machines chatted in the square of the well Amsicora. Also in the laveria the turns of job were finished. Maria, the wife of Emilio, worked as grading machine. During the day it was his/her mother to take he/she takes care of him of the small Franco. The surfaces of the great tubs of the laveria sparkled with silvery reflexes that you/they sobbed among the ripples of the water. Luigi aimed the index in that direction. «That is not Maria?» Yes, it was Maria. Emilio saw her/it and was not alone.

A thick boy, with the so cooked skin from the sun that you/he/she had taken the tones of the ebony, it turned around her. You seemed calm even if the boy the passage almost closed her. Maria usually finished very first his/her turns in comparison to Emilio. It made reentry to Guspini with some of the other grading machines. That day had done you delay.

«Thing us ago that with Maria?» he/she asked Emilio, more to himself that to Luigi.

Luigi lifted the shoulders. «I don't know him/it, Emilio, but it tries to be calm.»

«Because I should be calm?»

«Simply because what is with your wife is Savior Piras, one of the meurredduses. And as well you know the sulcitanis they don't leave alone never one of their clan.»

When Luigi had pronounced the term meurreddus, the tone of his/her voice you/he/she was fallen. It looked around also now him to verify that nobody had felt him/it and it decided to do him her to pay. The sulcitanis detested that derogatory epithet with which you/they had been branded. During the African invasions on the coasts of the southwest of Sardinia you/they had been dominated by the mauritanis; and so you/they were called for remembering in every moment their origin" African." The iglesientis were a proud people and it were often tried to wash the shame of that offense with the knives. After the bombardments of the mines of Carbonia, the direction had grabbed their great abilities of workmanship. To the meurredduses the suburb of Telle had been assigned, to few hundred meters from the well Amsicora. In that village you/they were isolated completely from the rest of the miners, creating a branch of the sulcis in which you/they could continue their traditions.

«A cazzo of the meurredduses doesn't rub me! I want only to know what he/she wants that from my wife there!» it continued angry Emilio.

They did wide among the people and they reached few meters from the tubs; they clearly heard the words of the miner sulcitano. «We go, Maria, are you very beautiful, does thing do us with that there? You would have been able to have so many children and you/he/she has not even succeeded in giving you this joy. You come with me, I will do you happy. You will never have to fear to leave me our child among the hands, I won't lose him/it, I won't be his/her assassin. I ask you to think of us, you are only thirty years old.»

Emilio and Luigi were amazed. Emilio took to tremble, not for what had felt, rather because his/her wife had not even told a word his/her defense. Now it was what he/she thought of him. It was better perhaps for her to put on really with the sulcitano. A regurgitation of pride pushed him/it to speak. «Because you don't leave my wife alone?»

Maria and his/her lover turned him and they saw him/it. The sulcitano smiled at provocative way. «I don't leave her/it to see alone how much people don't make him his/her cazzis!»

Emilio went him in front of hard face, grazing his breast. It was lower and you have to lift the look to stare at him/it in the eyes. Savior Piras turned him and also smiled to some threatening ones that were following the scene. «When I look you and I think that with a wife such you have succeeded in making a solo child, I feels like saying only a thing: empty cazzo!» it exclaimed with contempt. Without notice it pushed Emilio with strength, making to tumble him/it to earth in the middle of the dust.

Emilio spit and put on in knee, checking himself/herself/itself the elbows peeled that they burned him. It got up and it cleaned him from the dust shaking himself/herself/itself the suits with the hands. When its eyes still crossed those some sulcitano, they shone of an insane light and in an instant Emilio it became a fierce beast that it attacks furiously on its prey. A fist, then a kick and the sulcitano you/he/she was dashed to earth. The whole square prepared him to raggiera and all they howled inciting the two fight dogs. Maria was desperate. «Firm Emilio, prays you. I want only you, firm, I pray you!»

Useless supplications. By now Emilio it was a fury. A calcione on the mouth of Savior Piras, that was still to earth, and some teeth flew to the barefoot feet of the grading machines. They did to competition to pick up them. Dust, howls, filthy women with tied up handkerchiefs on the forehead, threatening possessed by the sight of the blood: there was everything to instigate Emilio to keep on striking. Savior Piras by now you/he/she was reduced to a heap of swollen meat. Emilio didn't mention to arrest his/her rain of disruptive hits. From the village of Telle, recalled by the cackles, the sulcitanis took to go down to crowds from the hill: for Emilio he was putting very bad.

Unaware of everything, the marshal Troise stazionava in front of the barracks. The wind had tilted the insignia" Policemen." The sergeant Podda, above a wood staircase, it followed his/her directives to try to straighten her/it. «Marshal, believes that soon we will have some job to develop, you look there.» The sergeant had just seen five men to advance expeditious in their direction.

Pietro saw the herd of miners advance with worried air. «I bet that they are again stabbed. To be to contact twenty-four hours on twenty-four makes the impossible cohabitation.»

The miners seemed almost gone crazy and they gesticulated shouting incomprehensible words in dialect. After years, now Pietro succeeded in understanding the dialect but when the Sardinians talked between them to big speeds his/her brain you/he/she was not able to translate.

«Currei ca funtis boccendisì, Currei ca funtis boccendisì» they howled to squarciagola.

Pietro made a doubtful sign the hand shaking himself/herself/itself under the chin. «But what heck you/they are saying?»

Podda was Sardinian and understood very well the island dialect. «Troubles in sight, marshal, says to race that they are him to kill.»

The crew reached them. You did before Marfidio Tronci, a type on the about forty with the so muddy face that also be results unrecognizable for his/her mother. «You race to the well Amsicora, marshal. Emilio Masala and Savior Piras killing they are him!»

Pietro summoned the calm. «Now is calm and exactly explained me what has happened!»

Marfidio observed in tralice the companions. «Piras was troubling the wife of Emilio and you/he/she has bursted the brawl.»

Podda went down from the staircase to pegs forgetting himself/herself/itself the motive for which had been climbed you. The insignia of the barracks remained penzolante on the front door of entry. Pietro approached while the miners vivisected both with the look. «We go, sergeant!»

«I take the car from the back of the barracks?»

«You leave alone, we will do more in hurry with the motorbike.»

Pietro raced holding himself/herself/itself of side the motorbike Guzzi with the hand pressed on the lever of the friction. When the allascò, the rhombus of the motor seemed the roar of a tamed lion. It climbed in rump to his/her steel horse and it gave an accelerated for heating the motor; it turned him showing Podda. «Climbs. and is held strong!»

Podda forked with the legs the seat of skin of the motorbike and tightened him to the sides of the marshal. It was the first time that probably salivates in motion and at the end of that brief journey you/he/she would have decided that would have been also the last. Troise gave an accelerated volitive forcing the motorbike to take a seat on the back wheel. That anterior lifted him of about fifty earth centimeters and Podda it was almost catapulted inside the barracks. The motorbike Guzzi crossed avenue Empire leaving behind of itself a dusty wake unprecedented. If the miners that had remained in front of the barracks had been able to see the face of Podda, you/they would never have recognized him/it under that bautta of dismay.

Five minutes and the motorbike it entered with authority the vast square of the well Amsicora. Pietro decreased the turns of the motor bringing them to the least one. To reduced walk it reached the entry of the room capstans and it jammed, sustaining the weight of the motorbike and that of Podda planting to earth his/her legs. It extinguished the motor and it turned him toward the sergeant. «Now you/he/she can also go down.»

Went down Podda and it went for a stroll to void dancing a grungy dance. It had a pale face. That sequence of tornanti crossed to centoventi hourly kilometers you/they had made him see nearby the a lot of Acheronte from.

The square looked like a great it extracts of sand and a clear effervescence was visible. The miners congested the passage for the tubs. The women and the children of the laveria Sannas jumped and they howled: you/they had certainly finished their turns, otherwise in front of the lance-corporal that checked her they would not be never hazardous even to dissuade the look from the stones that you/they were grading.

Because of the great ring of people the marshal and the sergeant could not see anything. Now Emilio was to earth. The sulcitanis had intervened and you/they had overpowered him/it. His was a mask of blood. Luigi and Maria had tried to intervene but you/they had been jammed and threatened instantly.

Emilio raised again him and invested with a heading to the abdomen his/her dirimpettaio. They fell both to earth, by now exhausted. Then a boato of amazement and dismay it bursted out from the assemblage and it reached the couple of policemen. Ciacciu Desogus and Nanni Sinzu, two meurredduses half jailbirds that had the already paid installments with everybody, had lifted earth Emilio immobilizing him/it. Savior Piras was unthread by the pocket an arburesa. Bringing himself/herself/itself behind that knife risked big: a decree law had established that to Montevecchio and outskirtses you/he/she could be used only he/she knows guspinesa: a knife with the handle in bone or wood, that it had the particularity of the blade cut in point. You/he/she had reached that decision after the difficult cohabitation among threatening the pens you/he/she was cost to quite a lot people. Ulderico Cabriolu was made one month of hospital and it still brought it lavishes scars for the hits inferti from the guspinesa of Erminio Battolu, but at least you/he/she could tell him/it. If the aggression had happened with the pointed blade of an arburesa you/they would have used its skin to drain the pasta.

Savior Piras fiercely tightened in hand his/her arburesa with winds centimeters of blade next to pierce the throat of Emilio. It drew near him staggering as a drunkard. From his/her mouth it dripped some blood. The eyes were closed from the swelling and the eyelids they had the color of the eggplant in season. Two deep cuts lengthened on both the cheekbones. Smiled. From the black hole in the enclosure of the teeth it sprouted his/her language, that lascivious it licked away from the angles of the mouth the scarlet rivulets. It spit to earth a mixture of saliva and blood, then it approached the point of the blade to the throat of Emilio. A crazy person grimace appropriated him of its turgid face. «I kill you, bastard dog. you have not even been able to look at to child. You are not even good to sweep. With a wife so you should have for family a team of kick. And instead.»

Closed Emilio the eyes. He/she thought that Savior was right. He/she thought a day that his/her child was lost and you/he/she was certain that to have killed him/it with his/her same hands you/he/she would not have done then so much difference that to see drowned him/it in a meter of water. It didn't deserve his/her wife, he/she thought. It attended that the blade assuaged his suffering of a senseless life; it waited for to finally be freed by a torment that it didn't bear anymore.

Maria hardly succeeded in lengthening a hand among the miners that held back her/it and you/he/she howled to squarciagola. Luigi to that point struck with a kick to the shoulders one of the men who stopped the crowd. It was Liccu Poles, called on boi by the meurredduses, because it was big as an ox and in the brawls it broke the bones of whoever to headings it happened him to draught. But that time fell with the face for earth. Its belly forced him/it to remain down as an inverted tortoise.

«Bastard! Leave him/it alone, an African's fottuto» it shouted Luigi. Runs toward Savior Piras shunning the attempts of tackling of the meurredduses. It didn't do in time to arrive from him: an immense figure darkened Savior Piras; it grabbed him/it and it dashed him/it to earth as if it were a rag to throw. It was Lucio. The giant takings to the neck Savior and a meter lifted him/it from the ground. Savior moved the legs before and back. Its swollen eyes squirted from the orbits and an edge of language it still escaped from the empty space left by its teeth. Lucio was strangling him/it and this time none of the meurredduses dared to challenge the" Ercole" of the mountain. Liccu Poles doesn't even say on boi, that faked not to succeed in rising again himself/herself/themselves with the sweat that slipped cold from his forehead.

The hand of Savior lost the last energies and opened allowing to fall him arburesa. Lucio gave two vigorous sharp tugs to his/her body by now lifeless.

Then, a shot loosened the crowd. You/he/she had departed from the gun of the marshal. Luigi and Maria benedirono that shot, the more sadists the maledirono. Crowd quickly freed the passage for the tubs. Pietro saw Lucio cast Savior Piras against the edge of armed cement. The victim shook him the hands around the neck and sent forth some strangled complaints similar to the grunt of a sow. His/her bellows him strafogarono of air to avoid the collapse.

Maria raced verse his/her husband that lay in knee and you/he/she observed the look imbufalito of Lucio. The takings for the flannel and it pushed him/it with ferocity. «Emilio, is well? What a fool that you are, I will leave never you. Have you understood?»

He didn't respond. Maria the takings still for the collar and the shake with more decision. «You have understood?» it howled him in does starting to cry.

The head of Emilio went on and back risking to take a hit of whip. He finally aroused. «Yes, I have understood.» His was a lost look, absent.

The sergeant picked up him earth arburesa and showed her/it to the marshal. Pietro nodded and turned him to Emilio, Savior Piras and Lucio. «I want you all and three in barracks within mezz'ora. If you won't introduce you they will be serious troubles.»

The sergeant exhibited the knife to Piras that in the meantime you/he/she had put on sat keeping on touching himself/herself/themselves the neck marked by the sore. «This will cost you a beautiful po' of country houses, boy.»

Savior Piras if it got by with a report for illegitimate possession of white weapon. Emilio and Lucio were not reported but rebuked to duty. If they were fallen the recidivist, for them you/they would have opened the doors of the queens jails.

Some hour later, Savior Piras was already in the square of the suburb of Telle. Sat in front of a bench prepared with bricks and mason large tables it toasted with his/her table companion. They drank some carignano red ruby, gift of the Phoenician ones to their earth, and they celebrated remembering the words with which Savior had humiliated Emilio: a man that according to them you/he/she was not worth the underpantses cacate that brought I wear.

# 8

The big heat had formed a damp cloak that suffocated Montevecchio. The air was so damp that glued you the suits I set as resin of pine.

The marshal Pietro Troise didn't succeed in resting. To be able to breathe was forced to hold you open wide the taxes of his/her room. The abnormal moon kept amused with its senses, preventing to convince him eyes and body that the night was still to horse of the stars. You leaned the hands behind the nape crushing her above the pillow. It felt the sticky hair that drenched him/it. In the nights when he/she didn't succeed in taking sleep he/she always thought about his/her wife. You/he/she would have liked to embrace her/it and to tell her of as his/her daughter had become strong, of as it boldly faced the illness. It lengthened the arm on the empty plaza of the matrimonial bed and it grazed the covers of satin imagining to caress Barbaric. With that thoughts he/she was dozed off. If only you/he/she had been together with Barbaric, you/he/she would have abandoned the life to eternally fluctuate in the limbo of the dreams.

A scrunch. Of release Pietro sat him on the bed giving refreshment to his/her moist back of sweat. That noise could belong to a dream but you/he/she was seemed him real: it originated from the room in Geneva.

They followed instants of silence.

Still extended the ear in restless way. A deaf thud frightened him/it. You convinced to get up for checking: the dreams, when he is you wake up, they don't make noise. It opened the drawer of the comodino and it extracted a packet of cigarettes and his/her gun. It went out of the room and it slowly advanced in point of feet, with the upright hair on the moistened skin. The door of the room in Geneva was half-open. That of Mrs Loi was totally closed and the ronfatis that crossed the threshold testified that he/she blissfully slept. Pietro pushed the door of the room in Geneva and remained of stone: there was no anybody stretched out in the bed of his/her daughter.

In distance, in the dark of the clearing that extended him over the villa, the he/she was heard to break himself/herself/themselves of bushes under the weight of something or someone. Pietro nailed the shoulders to the wall and lengthened the neck to perceive from the window. The moon succeeded in disclosing only halves its contracted face, the rest he/she was protected from the shade. Dressed with his/her delicate negligee of celestial silk, Geneva walked in direction of the wood. Pietro unriveted from the wall and stuck out him from the window more than you/he/she was able, sustaining his/her body with the firm braccias on the windowsill. The fleeing reflexes of the celestial silk that he/she wore Geneva sparkled as falling stars in the night of san Lawrence. Pietro saw to disappear his/her daughter in the wood, swallowed by tenebrous fauci between oaks and secular lecci.

"Thing us ago my daughter around in the wood to this time antelucana?" he/she wondered. An only fear invaded its thoughts: Geneva could be in danger. There was not an instant to lose.

You dressed to the quick one with the first suits that happened him to draught: the pantalonis of the uniform, black with red gangs, a sweater of his/her summer pajamas, grey with some bottoncinis on the collar. It had the ruffled hair and the bulgy eyes for the sleep. His was the aspect of a ragged crazy person. It put back the gun in the comodino to aim a preserved hunting rifle in the ciclopico closet of his/her room. In the room in Geneva it turned all upside-down and it rummaged in the drawers up to when it found one of his/her stockings. The takings and it went out to the quick one in the courtyard. It revolved a shed for the utensils in which it also stacked the firewood for the winter. Pipizziri, the hunting bastard that the baker Momo Muntoni had given him, you/he/she wagged the tail and you/he/she lifted him on the back legs. It was almost strangled with the collar extended by the chain, that granted his deceptive liberty of a two weeks of meters. Pietro stooped toward the beast and unhooked the chain from the collar of skin. The dog yelped and skipped about as a grasshopper for the gratitude. Pietro made him sniff with care the stocking in Geneva. Taken a cigarette by the packet and if the turned on with a match; it made a definite pull and it held back the smoke more than the usual one in the bellows, then from the nose it postponed him/it in the air ingrigendo the figure of his/her dog. «You go, beautiful, hands me from her, I pray you!»

Pipizziri still yelped and as a rocket sbrecciò the wall of bushes that you/they preceded the great wood. Pietro tried to hold the footstep of the animal that, you/he/she gradually released the souvenirs of foliage that as memory of the façade was brought, behind. The moon was vivid but not enough. Pietro found difficulty in to follow Pipizziri: that dog raced as if you/they had set on fire him the tail. Luckily its heat left at least traces of broken branches.

Pietro incedeva from about twenty minutes when he stopped spiazzato. In that point the dog had not left signs of his/her passage. It knelt and taken a fist of damp earth. «Before, Pipizziri, where are you ended?»

Lit up another cigarette. He/she remained in knee to observe the wood. It tried to focus himself/herself/themselves isolating the heartbeat that by now hammered him the eardrums as a drill. That rhythm prevented him from gaining a sound, a rustle, something that could reach the sudden one in his/her suffrage.

It was really a rustle to arouse him/it. It aimed the rifle at the bush of broom from which originates. It frantically did him/it, without knowing from who or from thing it had to look at himself/herself/themselves. With the heart that now a red woodpecker was become, you/he/she approached the finger index to the trigger of the powerful weapon. The sweat irrigated his eyes making them overflow of burning.

Going out of the bush of broom as a splinter, with some unpredictable releases to zig-zag, a hare he made prank of him.

Pietro abandoned the position of draught and him you/he/she allowed to fall the rifle on the knees. Taken back breath. A red woodpecker started to dig his/her nest in an oak; that sound confused him with the palpitations of Pietro. The zone was infested by that red woodpeckers. The mine of Piccalinna had taken the name proper from the assonance among the hits of pick of the miners and you pecks at her some woodpecker on the trees. It beats the wood: Piccalinna.

Pietro started again standing and made some footstep. It felt an express metallic release and you/he/she was crossed by a painful sharp pain to the foot. You allowed to escape a moan but it didn't howl. You/he/she had made to go off a trap for the wild boars. You/he/she had been taken only of graze but the sole in leather of his/her boots it seemed nibbled by the mice. You freed the foot cursing the bastard that had systematized that trap. The poachers would have been a little enthusiastic the next day. It was for a long time that Pietro chased out the the assassins of bucks, mufloni and wild boars season. It suspected of Isaccu Garreas, that organized the whole year base snacks of meat to the fire and black wine in his/her uliveto. Pietro didn't have tests but the following day you/he/she would have made a capatina in the uliveto of Isaccu however and if you/he/she had found something. better not thinking about the point in which you/he/she would have made him go off the trap.

You heard a bark; it was Pipizziri. Pietro squeezed together the rifle to the breast and started to race. It widened the compass of his you stride for avoiding to fall in pernicious traps of bushes. It troubled and its breath wandered in the air for hundreds of meters, transported by the secluded silence of the wood.

He/she anchors a bark, this time nearbyer. It stamped on the branches trying to make himself/herself/themselves road. It removed a tangle of thorny blackberry, correct that little that would have allowed him of incedere. He/she finally saw the brown down of Pipizziri to few meters from him. The dog was immovable and with the face you/he/she aimed a direction. It held the upright tail and the leg anterior right refolded along the same side. That ladylike laying blurted the inarrivabilis ability of its trainer that, without the help of potions, from a bastard base you/he/she had succeeded to produce an elegant by-product and from the magnificent smell. Making silence bent him on the dog and he/she embraced him/it. Pipizziri reciprocated licking him the face.

«You are good beautiful!» it whispered Pietro, the face cleaning himself/herself/itself with the sleeve of the pajamas.

Under of them, the clearing stepposa separated him from the densest brushwood. Pietro heard the foliage whisper; you/he/she didn't deal with the push of the wind. Timidly, from the opposite part to his, the outline in Geneva appeared. Pietro stretched on the damp ground of the hill, in prone position, concealed by the stately oaks you testify some time that was. He/she succeeded in clearly seeing the features in Geneva. How much beautiful was kissed by the weak rays almanacs. Its black hair glowed the light as a spellbound mirror. "But as you/he/she has done to come from the opposite slope of the wood?" it was about to wonder Pietro. Those last words still died him in mouth before being pronounced. He/she was interdicted with the open mouth and the shelled eyes; it stared at the creature that had appeared without notice in the wood. He/she saw the strong shoulders of that being that, shaken him by the numbness, it advanced aiming Geneva. It defrauded instantly the rifle from the sure one. Its hands trembled and it were complicated to hold under draught the target.

The being had the thick build of a man. Only a pair of old pantalonis of velvet covered him/it. The back was naked. The peculiar game of lights among the moon and its skin of sweat put him in prominence the muscular fibers of the back. These were symmetrically propagated to dull angle, from the narrow plinth of the sides to the mighty shoulders; few distant from the being compared to the striped muscular bands of a colt. That body was perfect. Hair shone of proper light and they sparkled as they did those of Geneva. Pietro imagined that from a moment to the other on that sculptural back, forming a depth tear in the skin, they would be blunt two great white wings, feathered wings, angel wings. The angel tightened Geneva to itself making to disappear her/it under his/her impetuous embrace.

Disturbed, Pietro loosened the pressure of the index on the trigger. You asked if instead it were his/her daughter an angel and that being a messenger come by the sky. The creature turned him showing him the face and that thoughts they dissolved him in a lightning.

Pietro started and tried for the first time that feeling that anybody to Montevecchio he called with his/her true name: reluctance. The creature in the wood was Lucio, the sordomuto from the deformed face. It is in the imaginary one of Pietro, the whites wings of angel became ax wings of bat skin, attached to a demon from the infernal face.

Distant from the looks of everybody, two eyes jumped in the shade of the bushes: somebody else had seen everything. You/he/she could be a poacher or who knows who. There was the risk that soon, to Montevecchio, everybody knew that the future bride of Daniel Minghetti if it did her/it with a crippled and dirty miner.

Pietro believed to be alone in the wood. He/she thought about Daniel Minghetti. He/she thought about Phillip Minghetti. He/she thought about seeing himself/herself/themselves a relationship been born by the deception. He/she thought that if you/he/she was jumped out be rumors for years of that scandal. He/she thought about the pact stipulated with the engineer: a pact that if broken you/he/she could cancel the liberty in Geneva, the hope of taking care of his/her illness his/her desire to live.

That fears increased for him the pressure on the trigger. An uncontrollable quiver crossed his arm and it was sure that you/he/she would have been able to make to jump the brains to the sordomuto. But it was not sure that the betrayal toward Daniel Minghetti was connected with that unstoppable anger. The point was another: his/her daughter could not be with that monster. It owed to have taken from his/her grandfather Bernardino in to choose him a horrendous companion. How had her passed for the mind to make only himself/herself/themselves graze from that to be repugnant? Geneva was sick and that animal had exploited his/her weakness, Pietro was certain of it. If Geneva had to risk to die for love, you/he/she would have had to do more it for something.

It was furious. The hate toward that" thing" taken to instill him in his/her mind and he forgot that Lucio as all the Christians, only guarded inside of itself the guilt of the original sin but you/he/she had paid for this any other man of Montevecchio. It forgot that also Lucio in his/her breast possessed a pulsating heart. It forgot that that boy from the amorphous face could feel some feelings. But an idea gave him aversion overcoming the whole rest: it was the fear that that beast had already made the love with his/her daughter. It tried the terror that Lucio could love Geneva more than Daniel Minghetti, more than himself and perhaps any other to be present in the world.

It grinded and it slowly made to slip back to the the trigger. He represented the law and you/he/she could invent him any history and you/they would have believed him. That homicide would have passed unpunished. A bark of the dog frightened him/it really when its finger premises until after all the trigger. A deafening shot made to flutter with uproar all the birds that the trees filled. The little balls of the cartridge lost him in the void of the night.

# Lucio and Geneva were tightened even more strong and their afraid looks scrutinized the hill. Pietro stepped backwards crawling with the terror to be seen. When it was certain to be protected from the trees, he/she jumped standing and takings to race homeward. To his/her daughter you/he/she would have hidden all of that night. Pipizziri had prevented him from shooting Lucio, but perhaps you/he/she had also saved his/her liberty. and the love in Geneva.

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# 9

Some German soldiers garrisoned the carriage one that conducted to Ingurtosu the other village of miners that rose just before the sea of Piscinas. From a few days it turned the news that French could try a proper unloading on the coasts of Piscinas. A state was established by and large allerta.

To Montevecchio the German armed forces were a palpable presence. The village was the crossroad necessary for the seas of the west. To reach the hinterland disembarking from the green coast was owed for strength to cross the village. The proximity of the airport of Trunconi, to Villacidro, some kilometer after Guspini, facilitated the garrison of Montevecchio from the Germans. The airplanes arrived from Comiso, in Sicily, and in the port villacidreses were supplied of bombs and fuel before unloading the devices on the ships English that from Gibilterra they aimed at Malta.

The German soldiers were very mistrustful with Italians and they often shifted the proposals of friendship. With the Italians, they otherwise behaved instead. Some university ones, in prevalence you give birth some executives of the mines, they succeeded in loosening some the ice that wound the soldiers. Someone of the boys, thanks to his/her studies, he/she spoke German and English. Gavino Firinu, conversed for example of the, more and of the less with the Germans that sometimes manifested their desire to escape from the register, always after having received the crismis from his/her own officers. Gavino gossiped and then it told what was said with the, in prevalence the loving histories that had been born between the Germans and some girls of the village. Once, not to slander that Genoveffa Salis was made to climb on from a German officer as a foolish mare, you/he/she had pretended from her to ride equally.

Pietro saw some jeeps parked on the wrong side. They obstructed big part of the road. It with the motorbike in front of the place of block. The fuoristradas brought in the counters the Nazi insignias: black cross hooked only on white background and in the back chest a black cross. A colonel recognized the policeman uniform of Pietro and greeted lifting the right arm with the open hand. It was Michael Basthuberr, a young altoatesino that belonged to the German army and he/she spoke very well Italian. Among the German soldiers the legend that Basthuberr was a spy fluttered, but nobody believed it really.

Pietro answered to the regard lifting in turn the right arm and leaving the left one to check the handlebar of the motorbike. You granted a half smile, in his/her mind it was still clear the image of his/her daughter that he/she was embraced with the sordomuto in the wood. You stopped close to the colonel staying in saddle to the motorbike.

A soldier made to threateningly go off the bolt of the rifle. They took away the some smothered laughters. Basthuberr incinerated his/her company with the look. It lifted a hand to order to the buffoons to stop her/it with their jokes. The soldiers stopped laughing, they already thought about the wash of head by now imminent.

«It has to excuse my troop, marshal, was playing only» you/he/she said Basthuberr launching the nth occhiataccia to his/her men.

Pietro leaned out and showed the soldier that had tried to play him the joke: a boy from the beardless face and the blonde hair. «I don't doubt of it, colonel Basthuberr, but you tell that boy that I turn armed also me but to his/her difference usually joke few.» Then the shoulder belt of white skin systematized him and from the lining it extracted the gun. «Bang!Bang!» it exclaimed shaking on and down the weapon toward the blonde greenhorn.

The soldier swallowed the saliva and disappeared hidden from its fellow soldiers, leaving behind of itself a wake that he/she knew about fresh excrements.

The soldiers wore the classical military green uniform with the helmet. Basthuberr instead, in spite of the big heat, showed off the grey uniform from colonel, with the military beret and the red band with Nazi cross on the left arm.

«I can offer her a coffee to make to forgive me, marshal?»

Pietro accepted. Germany had not boycotted as Italy the foreign products and when they wanted a coffee they didn't have to worry himself/herself/themselves to go to grind bowline or acorns. A soldier positioned the coffeepot above a small fornellino from camping.

«How it proceeds, colonel Basthuberr?»

Basthuberr widened the braccias twisting the mouth. «As always. There are of the blow ones every day and they toss us on one side to the other, almost always uselessly.»

«I understand!»

The gurgle of the coffee that escaped interrupted the conversation. The perfume was exceptional. A soldier poured the hot liquid in two steel cups by the use. They drank the coffee to the German, sweetened with sugar of reed. Pietro found him/it delicious. They also made a pair of pulls of cigar. Basthuberr came well compensated to leave that the flocks of the shepherds of Villacidro pastured in the neighboring fields to the airport of Trunconi.

«I now have to go, colonel Basthuberr!» It redelivered his/her cup and he/she greeted making to beat the heels with the lifted arm. Basthuberr and his/her men answered in unison to that regard. «Talk to you soon, marshal!»

Pietro pushed the accelerator of his/her motorbike. While it was darting free he/she thought about the Germans. He/she wondered if they had the same ideas of their dictator or as if everybody the soldiers only performed the orders not to be shown as traitors of the country. After that thought it grazed him/it a more troublesome doubt: it was not surer than Italy you/he/she had seen us correct allying himself/herself/itself to Hitler and Germany. Foolish thoughts, were said.

It extinguished the motorbike Guzzi in front of the place of the wine cellar: a big building that to his/her inside it picked up numerous departments. It entered an intruder becoming in the great room crowded only with women. The most greater part of them, more than flour or civraxu would not have been able to purchase. On civraxu it was the black bread of the poor men: great, round, crushed and above all economic. Is civraxus of tziu Angelinu Peddis, the baker, in the years you/they were become famous to also reach the weight of two kilos and a half. Because of the rationing that imposed at the most centocinquanta grams of bread for person, tziu Angelinu had been forced to see again I mix him of his/her breads. They weighed at the most now a kilo and a half, hangs saleable to the numerous families. To sell one of the old civraxuses a family it would be taken of almost winds people. A hard number to also be reached for Macciocci Pisu, one that was busy few other after supper whether not to always go to sure hit and it already had fourteen children.

The other types of bread, gotten with flours and more expensive workmanships, they were proper commodity for the pockets of the servants, you fill to duty from their engineers and employees.

The place of the wine cellar was enormous and endowed with a long bench that before the war and of the rationing provisions you/he/she had been loaded of balances and pots of glass containers of everything: from the sott'olios to the jam and from the pickles to the rotten cheese with the worms. Of all of this the balances remained only. Behind the bench, for all of his/her length, it extended him a ledges shelf that had known flour sacks and of sugar, vegetables, long and short pasta, sweets, wines, liqueurs and soaps; but it now appeared thin, with some flour sack, three or four bottles of wine and two types of bread.

When the women saw Pietro, they stopped instantly whispering. They certainly spoke of the wedding of his/her daughter. Pietro didn't mind you as, you/he/she was normal that in such a narrow community the voices flew as the wind.

«Marshal is what you/they say?» Ciccitta Marongiu pursued him/it a widow of the mine that tightened a baby of few days in arm. You/he/she was given suffered by to do after the death of his/her husband and it assisted an old man to live. To get that place was said that you/he/she had worked a lot of mouth and legs but not to race and to speak. The baby that tightened in arm spits to Agenore De Cortes, the child of the old one to which Ciccitta rinsed the culo; just as it was the mother-in-law of the paralytic Sisinnio Zoccheddu, but with different satisfactions decidedly. Ciccitta Marongiu was so linguacciuta that he/she knew everything about everybody. People thought that you/he/she was also marked in the calendar how many scorregges played from the mandolin of its fellow townsman.

Pietro fixed the barefoot feet of the gossiper with an absorbed face.

«It depends on what you/they say» he/she answered, without dissuading the eyes from that feet zozzi.

You seemed disorientated by that answer. «Behs, say that his/her daughter Geneva is officially engaged with Daniel Minghetti.» and it made an instant of break, as him same deciding whether to I give or The leads the question that beat him in head. «. And they also say that to brief they will get married him. It is not so?» it finished.

Its words had succeeded to tacitare the present people in the place of the wine cellar. All exclusively attended the alms of an answer.

Pietro puffed. «Even you would like that it was not so.» It launched a grim look toward all the bystanders. «You would do well to make you your business, once so much.» And it turned the shoulders leaving that swarm of people to settle amazed. It was nervous. It feared that someone could discover what was combining his/her daughter; you/he/she could not allow him/it.

Ciccitta Marongiu twisted his/her nose adunco. When Pietro turned, she had made him the evil tongue. For that time you/he/she would not have annotated anything on his/her calendar.

Genoveffa Manca pointed out the greater black bread. «Giovanna you give me that civraxus?» In his/her house they were in twelve.

The order, Giovanna Nieddu, a good girl that worked hard without never complaining about himself/herself/themselves, weighed on civraxu. Taken a pencil and he/she annotated in it enrolls her/it some rationing the kilo and a half of bread for the family it Misses. It delivered the civraxu wound in an envelope of paper. «Ago four coins!»

Genoveffa Manca was immovable. In the palm of his/her open hand two coins sparkled only. «But up to yesterday I paid two coins!» You/he/she was surprised and embarrassed.

Giovanna made spallucce. «I regret it, Genoveffa, but the direction has still increased the prices.»

Genoveffa tightened the two coins with anger. «But I don't have nient'altro. We are at the end of the month and we wait for the salary of Venanzio!»

Giovanna was sorry. «I would give him/it for you, Genoveffa, but if I do him/it they discount her/it to me the difference.»

«Accursed! This is to steal. They are not ashamed to steal from poor people as us?» it shouted raging Genoveffa.

Giovanna thought that Genoveffa was right but it didn't tell him him. It feared that someone could make the spy in direction. and then goodbye job.

Genoveffa showed her/it. «You don't say anything, you?»

The face of Giovanna moistened and a strong heat went up again from her stomach to the ears. He/she didn't know as to behave him anymore.

«Genoveffa is right! But Giovanna doesn't have anything to do with it nothing» he inserted Pietro removing from the embarrassment the order, that resumptions his usual colored earth.

Pietro patrolled the pockets and threw out two coins of Montevecchio. You/he/she had had her to the plain earth of the building of the direction, in the office of change. It tossed her making to circle her up in the air and it seized again her with a hold of fist decided, almost same capturing a fly in flight. In the shops of Montevecchio you/he/she could exclusively be purchased with the coin of Montevecchio. The office change served really to replace the liras with the local coin. Benito Di Isanto, the employee of the office change, approssimava always the accounts for defect and it happened to be himself/herself/themselves in hand some coin in less. To find again only him of it one more than the correct equivaleva to see that paralytic of Sisinnio Zoccheddu to dance on ballu sardu to braccetto with his/her mother-in-law Rosa Piscedda.

Pietro scrutinized the rags with which the women and their barefoot feet were dressed tortured by the stones. You disdained to the place of the gentlemen of the mines. Taken the hand of Giovanna and on the palm it put us the two coins. «Holds, today I offer me for Genoveffa.»

Genoveffa for a little it didn't start crying. «Thanks, marshal! I don't know what I would have done without her. My boys work as slaves yet we cannot even allow there the bread» he/she sobbed.

The production in the wells was almost jammed but in the carpentry he was manufacturing the chairs for the theater of Cagliari. In the chemical laboratories rather than to separate the metals with the cyanide lipsticks, perfumes and polishes they were manufactured for shoes. The flower to the buttonhole was the foundry, that guaranteed the war restocking with the lead and the zinc, paid scentedly.

Pietro was irritated. «Christ santo,voi miners' families you should make to feel you. You cannot always suffer without complaining you!»

Genoveffa bent the head. «If one speaks, later the day is without job!»

Pietro felt the anger that strangled him the guts. It was certain that the executives pocketed some small in less than when the war didn't rage, of certain they didn't starve however. Yet, with the stratagem of the stockjobbing, scarnificavano the already shrunken salaries of the miners. In the shops they made the prices to them liking, also drawing earningses from that activity. It was a situation that Pietro ache it digested and could have greater powers you/he/she would have let that usurers spit blood, understood Minghetti. «I understand you! But you will see that when this war will be ended they will change so many things.»

Genoveffa and Giovanna smiled. "The marshal is really a brav'uomo", they thought in unison.

Pietro pointed out one of the deep baskets in which bread kind was divided for kind. «Gives me two of that sandwiches color gold!»

Giovanna Nieddu taken an envelope of paper and it inserted you with parsimony the two sandwiches. That was good bread that cost an eye of the head. If it were her fallen to earth a solo of that sandwiches you/they would have escaped part of his/her daily pay. It looked at Pietro and smiled without betraying the apprehension in to handle that commodity. «Here to her, marshal! Eight coins» it said with evident gratitude to have removed her/it from the claws of Genoveffa Manca.

Pietro paid and abandoned the wine cellar leaving together with his/her money an aura of hope that wound everybody less that Ciccitta Marongiu.

In the park, balillas dressed of black marched in paramilitary formation, driven by the teacher of the elementary ones. The tambureggiamento of their footsteps spurred the sparrows that were raised in air. The pines from the tall points, that the idea of cathedrals gave, were bare of their company. The balillas turned the angle of avenue Littorio and they disappeared. Pietro followed them with the look, appreciating the discipline of that the teacher had succeeded in transmitting to of his/her/their children as soon as eight or nine years.

It climbed on the motorbike and it departed sgommando. It felt like escaping from all that problems: his/her daughter's epilepsy, the atrocious memory of his/her wife, the war and now that accursed night in the wood that had put to risk all of his/her projects.

# It brought the tablet accelerator and it burned avenue Littorio; it took the slant that conducted to Guspini between so many tornantis and few rectilinear. In those insane runs he/she succeeded in turning away himself/herself/themselves from the world forgetting himself/herself/itself of everything, even to have been born. The motorbike and he existed only. It bends to the right and it bends to the left, rectilinear and then intersection. It knew to memory that road and it crossed her/it without fears, unaware that would have been enough him to peck at with the wheel a pebble to hurl in air and to make an ugly end. But after all if you/he/she had not been out some of head you/he/she would never have bought a motorbike. and you/he/she would never have been to policeman.

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# 10

To Montevecchio of true bandits not us n'erano; the sequestrations he/she brooded them the mine and the whole gold of the world could for the most part be paid as I ransom but his/her own darlings would not be more however him seen again.

Other four miners were lost that evening, all inexperienced persons, among which Tonietto Cabua and Zoseppi Tuveri. Under the moon, the laveria and the room capstans shone of basaltic stone. The polar star intensely shone and seemed to judge all as the severe eye of a cyclops.

Emilio observed the arc in aged mattoncini that delineated the railing of the gallery. He/she thought that a writing of the type" you Leave every hope or you ch'entrate" there would have been to wonder. That tunnels you/he/she had been being abandoned for years and it gave the impression of a gloomy place. Who knows if Dante for his/her trip in it inflicted him you/he/she had imagined something of the kind.

Piccalinna was the most ancient well of everybody and from his/her entry they were untied the orifices that connected all the mines of Montevecchio. That gallery was the only way to find again that wretches. Luigi, Pinu Froi, Galeddu Zou and Mantrancheddu delayed behind the most experienced Emilio. They followed him/it with uncertain footsteps. Piccalinna was a kind of crypt in which to proceed him was forced to bend himself/herself/themselves in two: it was a burrow of red mattoncini and I cement sfalsati one after the other, to the endless one.

«From here we will find them!» Emilio exclaimed, with a reasoning given birth in simultaneous from brains and vocal chords. Luigi nodded.

The cave didn't overcome the meter and fifty of height and gave the impression to be able him to subsequently tighten from a moment to the other. Cold and dark, it seemed even more narrow. The crumbled walls slipped along the walk and there were flakes of mattoncini and cinders of blenda that the miners had been abandoning for decades. On the right side, coming from the attic, a dripping ticked articulating the time, precise as a clock to pendulum. The lamp to carbide of Emilio disclosed the meander hidden of the burrow. The desolation was for a long time that of a gallery dismessa. The compressed air pumped by the mighty pressers Sullivan there had been only a mirage. Picks and shovels had drummed without truce, killing of job first the prisoners of the Romans and then the miners, until when the seam of mineral you/he/she was exhausted. The imagination of Emilio projected for an instant the figure of the slaves that picconavano those walls and it seemed even him to hear the metallic sound of the picks that you/they struck the rock. Luckily, him the pick had used only him in case of breakdowns to its drill, but you/he/she had passed of of it however terrible. In youth you/he/she was pushed up to the eighth level of the well Amsicora, thirty meters under the quota of the sea. To that depth it was enough a collapse or a breakdown to the pomps to die as Raymond Spanu, drowned as mice of sewer. Emilio remembered well that period and remembered better still what its old man told him: «Emilio you are careful because God is anywhere, but there under you/he/she won't protect you, he in gallery there has not been never, that is the abode of the devil.» It is in that instant it saw the face tried of his/her father to make him that same recommendation again. In twenty years of mine Emilio had succeeded in climbing well four levels. It now was not able certain to say of spassarsela, but in comparison to the times of the eighth level it was found in heaven. Years back you/he/she had been involved in a collapse: they were dead in twelve on fifteen. That time the miners had understood the melody that announced the death. The siren had howled as the sad and puzzling complaint of a she-wolf siberiana, private forever of his/her pup from cruel hunters.

Emilio was saved. After all that years he/she didn't know yet if you/he/she had survived because more deserving than the other miners or simply because it had an enormous patrimony: an impudent culo. When it was dead Giuseppino, the life you/he/she was taken back by Emilio that same patrimony and with saltier affairs of any bank.

He/she showily limped now. The brawl with Savior Piras had marked both. If you/he/she had not been Anthony Secci, the most elderly group leader, to ask to use him his/her knowledges to find again the boys, would have left that to look for some other miner had been them. Also because the father of one of the fools that you/they were lost was Giuda Iscariota a kind of man that water didn't even deserve him that he/she drank. Spillu Tuveri, alias Giuda Iscariota, while his/her brother was dying for to have remained crushed by the weight of his/her inverted wagon, his/her sister-in-law you/he/she was beaten. To that time, Emilio and Spillu they were great friends. Strongly of this, Emilio was felt in right to bring him/it to the reason when by chance you/he/she had seen him/it confine him in the barn with Gelsomina, the wife of his/her/their brother Amilcare. "But are you of head out? It looks that Gelsomina for me is as a sister. Have you perhaps taken me for a maniac?" you/he/she had been the hypocritical explanation that was felt to return from Spillu. You/he/she had believed us attributing that clandestine meeting to the casualness that sometimes produced the job. But Spillu had a defect: he also liked the wine more than the women. Once drunk it told his/her facts and those some generation: in wine veritas. To know the truth, that child of good woman that was Costanzu Contini had offered him to drink up to empty the shelves of the circle dopolavoro. Do I tap Tuveri you/he/she had told him between a belch and the other, eating himself/herself/itself the words with the language that seemed mixed of mud, but the meaning you/they had understood him all however: you/he/she had made a pleasure to his/her/their brother his wife sweeping himself/herself/itself, of however it was not Amilcare that had told Gelsomina to refer himself/herself/themselves a life when he there would not be more state? And then you/he/she had been respectful Spillu, because you/he/she had been delicate, inserting only the beak of the bird and leaving the eggs out of the nest. In country all had laughed to crepapelle of those villainous affirmations, less that Emilio. He was felt to burn of anger to have believed in the bona fide of his/her friend Spillu. All had seized him/it for the fondellis, and you/they had sing-songed him the same sentence that he had used to the exhaustion to excuse the companion": bawls of the malelingues."

The news had reached the ears of the other brothers of Giuda. To Montevecchio to his/her/their brothers the tied up quarrels to the inheritance were forgiven, even that usually besides the debts he/she understood a pair of saucepans in copper, an used chamberpot and a tavern which the hogs would not have entered even. The matters of horns, however, touched the honor. In love and in war everything is permitted but, when the women there were middle, the war did him with him arburesa: an attached moderate blade to the handle of bone. Spillu had caught at night it in his/her kitchen. Molenti and Chiccheddu had immobilized him/it; Zuanne had torn him the testicles and, before ricucire the scrotum with a cobbler awl and hemp string, the wound had disinfected him with some brandy. Spillu didn't have to die, because as you/he/she had enjoyed in the fottersi his/her sister-in-law, now it had to be good to veder to enjoy the others of the humiliation that were inflicting him. Before fainting you/he/she had done in time to feel the words of his/her/their brother Zuanne: «Now you can also continue her/it to you to fottere that dog. Anymore the honor of the family you won't ruin impregnating Gelsomina with a bastard.» Spillu was waked up again tied up in the large case of a motocarrozzetta that played the horn in continuation. In mouth it had his/her same balls, as it does him with the oranges for the wild boars to expose around as trophy for the country. «We see if anchor throws yourself Spillu. If it doesn't work you more you can always call that two frocis of Lisanzio Cireddu and Gamabedda, to give us inside of culo» Molenti had told him. People had come to knowledge of that that had happened and to the passage of the motocarrozzetta you/he/she had submerged Spillu of spits. With Gelsomina his/her brothers Tuveri had decided to use the indifference. The carnival had come to change that choice. To the cry of" the man is not man if after having vomited for a drunk you/he/she immediately doesn't take back the glass in hand" you/they had guzzled the whole evening. If that adagio had been true, that day his/her brothers Tuveri would also have squirted testosterone from the ears. You/they had started to have been drinking soon brandy for the morning, devouring kilos of zeppole, parafritti and lies of lard that every family offered in beautiful sight in the banquets set in front of the entries. The men turned with the barritases in head; the white uniform white they sprouted under the bodices of black velvet and the pantalonis white ragas in flax they were narrow from the leggings; On leather collettu it acted from mantle and from the shoulders it fell opening himself/herself/itself on the before up to the knees. The parade of customs Sardinians it was about to finish when, under a white and red shawl with gilded ricamature, Gelsomina had appeared. It walked to tall head with a fierce walk and the puffs of the white shirt sbordavano with folklore from the black and gilded bodice; a long skirt fell her on the point of the barefoot feet.

Zuanne had looked at her with contempt. «Look! That puttana also dares celebrate the carnival!»

To their looks confused by liters of bovale and myrtle a solo intersection you/he/she had been enough for agreeing all on the to make himself/herself/themselves. They followed her behind the procession. While Gelsomina opened the door of house, Molenti had pushed within her with ferocity. You/they had not raped them to her, you/they had left the duty to one of those violet and enormous eggplants; you/they would have preferred to make himself/herself/themselves a sheep rather than to get dirty himself/herself/themselves with that baldracca. «Not to howl that you will also like!» you/they had shouted laughing to crepapelle. If n'erano goes staggering, you intoxicate rotten and excited to the improbable one by the sweet taste of the revenge. Gelsomina had remained session, to open legs on the eyelash of the bed, and from the bassoventre it dripped her a scarlet drizzle. The face was covered with the hands and you/he/she had cried tears that hurt some poisonous sting of the aragna. You/he/she had not even been crossed by the idea to report his/her brothers Tuveri; if you/he/she had done him/it, the next thing that you/they would have thrusted her in the middle of the thighs would have been a spit. And Emilio would have been sorry for her equally of as you/he/she was despaired for the novelty that you/they had torn the testicles from that carcass of Spillu.

Emilio tried a sharp pain to the memory of Giuda, as if its bothers were not enough. The knee ached him terribly and it pulsated. «And now?» he/she asked Pinu Froi when they came in a branched interlacement of galleries. Emilio entirely stretched out the arm and went beyond with the lamp the threshold arcade of the gallery in which you/they were found. You/he/she had done him/it for habit, as it was used to do with the carbide to ascertain the levels of oxygen in the galleries. Without realizing you/he/she had imagined of it that the lamp was alive and that, going to reconnaissance, you/he/she could announce not to have seen him nothing of reality. In fact, Emilio had veduto something terrible.

After all to the gallery that arrived from their right an indefinite form more similar to a tangle reflected the illumination of the lamp. Emilio swallowed the saliva and him it turned toward his/her companions. «There are perhaps!»

Luigi remained the other three miners. Galeddu Zou trembled in front of his/her same shade, but perlomeno had never said to be brave. Mantrancheddu, made around contrarily the arrogant person, even if at the end it was everything chatters. Both remained to the shade of Luigi and Pinu Froi, that few was boasted and they acted so much. Emilio took the other gallery. Luigi and Pinu walked ingobbiti to his shoulders: of their happy character there was not more trace. There was more space in that tunnels, it was tall two meters and fifty around. A river bed coasted along the left wall.

The image appeared in front of their eyes, clear and unequivocal. Huddled up on himself, the body of a youth was I pour again to the ground. Emilio opened wide the eyes and a shiver it crossed afoot afresh it. «Here is the first one!» It dealt with Tonietto Cabua, the boy that slips him I set in the cage of the mechanical capstan. Undecided whether to touch him/it or less, Emilio remained to contemplate him/it in silence. It hoped to perceive the rhythmic movement of the abdomen. «It is Tonietto Cabua!» it whispered. You bent and it premises two fingers on the neck of Tonietto. There was pulsation, the boy was still alive. "God in gallery there has not been never, that is the abode of the devil", he thought Emilio. Its old man was right: God had not been really able to protect Tonietto, but you/he/she could succeed us the doctor Saints. «Luigi, races to call the doctor Saints, I cannot race and I stay here.»

Luigi stared at him/it surprised. «But.»

«Race! We have made little road, there is not some risk that you lose you.» It touched the skin of Tonietto, it was lukewarm. «Hope that your physicist has at least some your same arrogance! I had warned you to be awake in mine. You have not listened to me. You withstand, boy, is so young!» it whispered Emilio. The companions looked at him/it incredulous, you/they had never seen him/it let him go to the feelings. Emilio realized that you/they were looking at him/it and it roughly reacted with his/her usual position of defense. «Race, Luigi! Pino, you instead brought behind these two cacasottos and you look for the others!»

Pino made a sign of invitation with the head to Galeddu Zou and Mantrancheddu that unwillingly they followed him/it with the most narrow culo of the staves in oak of a barrel full of wine.

Luigi went out of the gallery and uttered a cry. To brief half mine you/he/she would have been there. The residence of the doctor Saints alone distava some hundred meters from the well of Piccalinna and Luigi it reached her/it to long falcades. It arranged to the front door three fist closed stangate that gave life to an uproar. You heard some ferment inside the house, then the front door opened squeaking. It leaned out a woman of half age, with the chubby face oddly for the times that raced. It brought the short and hoary hair and he/she wore a beige negligee with the narrow belt above the navel that put in prominence some kilo of too much.

"You/he/she can be the wife of the doctor", he/she thought Luigi. Of side to a separate and fascinating man as Saints you/he/she would be waited for to find a well more attractive woman, the lady evidently had other virtues.

«You are you, Luigi!» it whispered the woman that, unlike what believed Luigi, it knew very well it. But as to give her blame: people it was very more feasible than cinquemila they remembered the face of a man, that a man the face of cinquemila people. Evidently Luigi's shows to Shangai had also received success and fame among the bourgeoises. «I immediately call you my husband. I pray, arrange you.» The lady Saints it made road toward the stay. In a cristalliera it appeared in beautiful sight a collection of photographic cars of every model and brand. The environment was orderly and perfumed of clean. The woman invited Luigi to take a seat on an armchair, but he declined the proposal. «There is a boy that is very bad!»

The woman pointed out a ramp of staircases. «In such case you go down in directly the basement, you will do more in hurry of me. My husband is there.»

Luigi launched on the steps.

«In the meantime I prepare you a coffee of bowline!» it said the woman before entering kitchen.

The doctor anatomized a dead body. The basement was cleared by the flames of a candelabrum to four arms and the air it was addicted from a prickly wax perfume typical of he/she asked her. A big pot sat on the fire. To his/her inside water and syringes boiled. The dead body that made company to the doctor had abandoned the earth of the alive ones and it traveled toward the world of the corpses. Luigi saw him/it and you/he/she hoped that the soul of Tonietto didn't undertake the same trip.

The basement was a laboratory that the doctor had prepared with means of fortune and that you/he/she allowed him to also work with calm in particular schedules. Luigi noticed the seams of thread on the abdomen and on the skull of the body that you/they gave the first signals of stretch. The dead body started to swell himself/herself/themselves. It still contemplated that pumped body and you/he/she was crossed by a thought that it gave him the nausea. "Another po' and those seams will jump making to explode in air all the inside organs."

It curled the nose and he/she succeeded in taming the aggressive sense of disgust. «Hi, doctor!» he introduced.

The doctor staggered and allowed to fall the scalpel that held in hand. «For the poverty, you want to make a heart attack come me. I already suffer from angina, me.»

«You excuse me, you/he/she has made me go down his/her wife. It has to follow me to the well Piccalinna, a boy it is very bad,» then Luigi heard to his/her shoulders the voice of the lady Saints. «Eccoti the coffee of bowline, Luigi.»

He/she saw to ripple the black fluid inside the cup and you/he/she was invested by the sweetish aroma of the bowline. Its look abandoned him on some droplets of dark liquid that slipped from the seam on the skull of the dead body. They traced a strip that ended up dirtying the beige color of the bunk of infirmary. "Is coffee of bowline!" a vocina exclaimed that only he could feel; and you/he/she was crushed by the disgust, imagining that the lady Saints you/he/she had filled the cups with that disgusting liquid. The voice made him still feel more stentorian. "He/she doesn't drink his/her coffee Luigi? To get has been squeezed him/it some good brain"!, and retchings impregnated its stomach. You covered the mouth tightening her/it with both the hands and it climbed the ramp of staircases racing madly. The lady Saints you have to make aside himself/herself/themselves; it bent his/her abundant abdomen and it lifted of release the tray until above the head: it was the only way to avoid to be overwhelmed. «But what is you/he/she taken him?»

The doctor lifted the shoulders. «Not to offend you, dear, you/he/she has not escaped for your coffee, I undeniably believe that the sight of the dead body has slightly shaken him/it!»

Saints it put us some before going up again from the basement. When it did him/it, crossed the steps sustaining himself/herself/itself to the wall. The senescenza advanced without knocking first to the door and the rheumatic pains they remembered him in every moment its sessantacinques years.

Fissures give some basement they lengthened rectangles of light that made yellow the corvine road. On the avenue any alive soul. There was the curfew. Saints it turned on the motor of a grungy alpha 1920 romeo, black and with the you look for red. It was warm and the flexible canopy had been retired. Luigi took place. It had the reddened eyes and the bloodless face. To the doctor it seemed clear the destination of his/her run toward the untied air. They departed. The wind caressed the face of Luigi and succeeded in appeasing its sense of nausea. They put us few to reach the well, only a few minutes. They went down from the auto and Luigi it made road, well careful not to mistake run. «Follows me, doctor!»

Saints it walked fast behind his" Cicero." In the gallery the echis of the voices overlapped, chaotically jumping on one side to the other. For Luigi it was difficult to understand from where they arrived. You/he/she could not even trust his/her memory: as a rule it also forgot him what you/he/she had eaten to lunch, despite the list of the dishes it had few some chilometrico. Some late, but at the end they came on the place. Besides Emilio, around the body there were Pinu Froi, Mantrancheddu and Galeddu Zou, but also Geggei Brau, Tinu Pancetta, Nasiseddu Mebi and Zoseppi Tuveri: the other miners that were lost.

Emilio shook the cold hand of Tonietto. «I finally believed, you would not have arrived anymore!»

The doctor Saints it sneezed. The dust and the odor of mold tickled his nose. It rummaged inside the handbag of skin that was brought I approach. It extracted a sfigmomanometro and it systematized him/it on the arm of the boy. It gave two pump: the pressure was low. «It has the low blood pressure, but if it will get by» it was unbalance.

Emilio scrutinized the other miners. «Thing can have happened?»

Saints it lifted from earth the head of the boy. «I believe that has had a collapse, even due to the united panic to the warm one, to the hunger and the thirst. Luckily it is young and you/he/she has overcome him/it.»

Emilio barked against the inexperienced persons. «The neighbor turns you try to be more careful, you.»

Luigi put a hand around his neck. «He/she leaves alone, I am alone of the boys!»

Emilio brusquely wriggled him from the hold of the friend. «No that I don't leave alone. The mine is not a game. In mine he dies. This boy I had told before already him a few times. Do you have idea of what pain you/they would try your darlings if happened you something?»

Nobody responded, all were looked at the shoes. The eyes of Emilio were injected of blood. «Before referring a cazzata not thought about yourselves! Think to whom loves you! Life is yours, but from you the happiness of so many other people depends!»

They nodded. All to Montevecchio knew that Emilio had lost a child, nevertheless they were in few to know the true pain that had tried. A pain that tried to implore to the others in every occasion: a system to redeem him from the guilt to have lost sight his/her child. To save the other ones attenuated his/her sense of guilt.

The doctor Saints it injected away endovena a some intruglios to Tonietto. You/he/she had used one of the syringes that first they boiled in the pentolone: a sure practice like the descent of the cage in the wells. In three years there had been two epidemics of hepatitis and four of various infectious illnesses. The first one had departed from the buttocks of tziu Zazà, that was become yellow of hit as the saffron for guilt of the liver. Then The illness had spread more with the boiled syringes, ideally you sterilize, that for a direct contagion with him. The second epidemic had been it will pass her/it of Luisica Paulis to spread her/it and the village was infected almost all. The others had brought her the sozzeria and the mice.

Pinu Froi and Luigi burdened of weight Tonietto and they brought him/it out of the gallery. In front of the entry there were about ten people, among which Giuda Iscariota.

«Thing you do us you, here?» Mantrancheddu asked him, that knew to be feared by him.

Giuda got excited. «Aspect my child!»

In that instant from the gallery it went out really Zoseppi Tuveri. Mantrancheddu spit for earth. «Pick up you your child and you disappear!»

Giuda took by the hand Zoseppi and broke the lines. Bofonchiò something and it hastened to reenter to house; better not stopping himself/herself/themselves, to that time his/her brothers Molenti and Zuanne were already drunk and they turned for Montevecchio. In the car with the doctor it climbed Cesiro Cabua the father of Tonietto, that showed up in the middle of the people come in front of the gallery.

«Thanks, doctor!» Emilio exclaimed, holding the hands supported on the anterior chest of the alpha romeo.

«Of thing?»

«Beh, to be always available. It serves so much patience in this village of wretches!»

Saints it smiled but not what was about to answer came too much, him from inside. «Emilio, doesn't know what it is the first water that that bathes?»

# To Emilio further precise statements were not needed, you/he/she had understood the sense of that sentence. Also for the doctor, to the dawns of his/her profession, you/he/she had not been to practice effortless in a place where a physician didn't have an instant to devote to himself to his/her family. You/he/she had done only now probably us the habit but not for this it found him/it simple.

#

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# 11

That evening, the breeze coming from the north accompanied a thin cloudy blanket. The people of Montevecchio had been assuaged by the torment of the last canicular days.

In the last times, Pietro Troise had not spent day, minute or now in which doesn't was not wander about in front of his eyes the image of that monster to embrace and to tighten his/her daughter to itself Geneva. You/he/she had been an event difficult to accept. Only he realized now than hypocrisy belonged to the human nature. It came him easy to commiserate the least fortunate ones and to stigmatize who was ghettoizing the world. You acquitted or it condemned with carelessness when you/he/she was not directly interested. But now his/her daughter and the things there was middle they changed. You/he/she had been amazed also him in to discover that Pietro Troise was able of to be racist. You/he/she would not have believed before never us up to few days. When it lent service in the mobile battalions, a commander lombardo named Ambrogio Lazzari called him/it every time" terrone." They were almost come to the hands. Pietro had sworn that if a day had become marshal or commander you/he/she would not have put aside never someone for its origins. Yet, with Lucio you/he/she had done very worse already and despite inside of itself he/she knew well to be wrong, you/he/she could not allow that Geneva saw that being again. No, you/he/she would not have granted him/it: she deserved more him. Few would probably have lived and for this the right sacrosanto was conquered to receive every desirable gift from the life. An abortion of husband was not really the most beautiful gift that could be dreamt to receive, but this was what he/she believed him.

A rhythmic whirring of fruscoli to the wind played in the air as a distant musical tool a life. Accompanied by that sound, Pietro left the guesthouse to the shoulders. You penetrated in the middle of a pineta that served as windbreak to the sporting field and it laboriously climbed him toward the top of the hill. Where the brushwood was grown in way spropositato the stamberga of Lucio he eclipsed, marginalized by the whole rest as its master.

Pietro didn't have well clear thing us same going to do. For the time being it was enough for him to reach her/it, then you/he/she would have decided the to make himself/herself/themselves. The roofing of reeds that mantled the hut of Lucio sprouted from the bushes of corbezzolo. The lamp was power on. He was awake. Pietro distinguished his/her enormous shade from the window. It almost sinuously fumbled. It was an intangible outline and his/her shade the fruit of a shrewd game of Chinese hands.

Pietro took a seat giving the shoulders to the residence, setting himself/herself/itself on the trunk of pine more strong than he saw. It feared that the other more slender plants could not sustain the weight of its anger. It unthread from the pocket of the pantalonis a withered packet of cigarettes: national without filter. It curled the nose ascertaining that there were only two of it to the inside. They were the last, then before again smoking some good tobacco you/he/she would have had to attend the progress of the war or even the final result. The maritime traffic was diminished, the smugglers were not even risked more for the Mediterranean one: it was too much dangerous. Pietro already knew that in lack of other you/he/she would also have smoked the leaves of eucalyptus. It smoked from when it was thirteen years old and you/he/she had never succeeded in stopping. You/he/she had tried us two or three times but you/he/she had withstood at the most for a week. It smoked more before now. Geneva had proposed him to try with the candy to stop; quickly he had responded her to have tried us but the candy you/they had not wanted to know of it to ignite.

It dragged a match on the gang of paper implicit glass door in his/her wrapping. The small fiammella sparkled as a fatuous fire in the obscurity. From up there he/she succeeded in perceiving in full the elegant structure of the guesthouse. It inhaled a mouthful of cigarette. When it expired, the image of the building became confused as in a dream, darkened by the stagnation of the haze. You still remembered the luxurious offices and the lodgings of engineers and executives of the mine decorated to the limit of the modesty.

After the memory, Pietro granted the pleasure of the present. In the façade of the guesthouse a zoccolatura in stone detached him up to an earth meter and a frame to the quota of the windows it contained her/it. Tent roofs with finishes in tiles marsigliesis crowned a gilded frame that mantled the three levels of the building. That structure and the comfort that it guarded screeched with the poverty of the miners as a nuraghe emerged to the sudden one by the depths of the sea.

Two sentinels piantonavano the avenue of access in the guesthouse: to the ragamuffins of the mines you/he/she was not even allowed to pass to lowered head in front of the wonder of that building. It was a microcosm of which they didn't make part and to which didn't have access. Windows give the unreal blaze of that place it was perceived. The delicate refolo of the god Eolo pushed up to the hill the dance music played by a gramophone.

Pietro shook the cigarette making to fall the ash to the ground. It didn't dissuade the look from the windows illuminated to electricity, not from lamps to oil as in the rest of the country. For an instant it envied those people that gaily if they enjoyed her/it to the face of the war. You reformed trying disgust for that thought: he/she didn't want to have nothing to whether to do with that noble rabble. If you/he/she had not been for the pact with the engineer. and for his/her daughter.

Once he had been invited to also stop an evening in the guesthouse by Evaristo Santoni, an executive that a favor had asked him, or better, that had pretended him. In the ample counter of the cafe, fottendosene of the prohibitions of the Duce, he was tracannato so much of that Whiskey to intoxicate colonel Basthuberr's whole company. The ladies dressed sumptuous suits. With their constant foul smell under the nose they had the power to make to go out of hinges any man endowed with a speck of dignity.

The peak of the party was palpated in her/it" room of the mirrors." This way the favorite of God called her/it. It was a room endowed with anything a man it was distantly able only to imagine: tables from billiards, poker tables, tavolate stracolme of food, pictures, clocks, wine glasses of crystal and silver silver wares. There were also flaming models of radio balilla and of radio roma,oltre that an object able to project in the future: it was a wood box that contained a crystal, that for a hour per diem it imprisoned small fascist. They called her television. With the war you/he/she had not been turned on anymore, because it was said that its transmission interfered with the issues of the plant of landing of the airplanes, but it was there always ready to still amaze.

To discern the room from the whole rest, however, they were really the mirrors, prepared in enormousness along every visible recess. The inhabitants of the guesthouse seemed to undouble him in that eccentric place. You specchiavano assiduously, to remember as continually their magnificence to him same and the others was great. Pietro had eaten tartine to the caviar, drunk French champagne and Scottish Whiskey. You/he/she had chatted of politics of business and of women. You/he/she had danced with attractive women and he/she was seen far a mile that you/they died from the desire to know him/it more approfonditamentes. You/he/she had lost fifty pokers liras and you/he/she had won to black one hundred of it jack. Any man would have considered that memorable evening, instead Pietro had gone away from the party with the nausea, drunk and disgusted by everything and everybody. That herd of stupid they swept his wives each other without the least respect. But their true obsession was to display his/her own wealth to the exhaustion, coming to lick up the fetishism. With the maids and the sguatteres there was not even instead need to ask. Them same were often granted, with the hope to find a more dignified job. The superior plan you/they had been climbed to, where the lodgings were. «He/she wants to favor, marshal?» Evaristo Santoni had asked him, that he was already opening the braghetta. In front of them there was a beautiful naked girl that shook the culo for air. You/he/she had been at that time that you/he/she had decided to leave the party.

Disgusted equally of that evening, Pietro turned to the sudden one, as if you/he/she had decided thing to do. The lamp of Lucio still burned. In the air a vague sign of damp earth was perceived, from some part it was raining. The summer storms were rare but very dangerous. If Pietro had intention to do something, you/he/she had to do her/it to the quick one.

You/he/she had perhaps been climbed until up there to frighten Lucio, telling him in face as the things they were, he/she thought. A secluded regurgitation of humanity originated him from the depth, imploring to arrest him/it that sudden scorribanda.

A blinding lightning showed the whole valley and the authoritative din of a thunder it let Pietro jolted. A pluvius drop struck him/it to the face, then another and other anchor, up to that it didn't find again him in the middle of the downpour. Another thunder. Nearbyer. To Pietro him accapponò the skin. The wind increased, forcing the pines to stoop himself/herself/themselves in respect to its strength. Their points trembled fast. They tried not to give a point of fixed reference to the arrow that the clouds were about to unload on Montevecchio.

Pietro was wet rotten. Water strained on his eyes veiling its view. Was the residence of Lucio to few footsteps and Pietro you/he/she would have been able to ask shelter, but as you/he/she would be introduced? «Excuse me, joke of the nature, had come to recommend to leave you my daughter alone, otherwise to attend next time you in the wood will find a pellet hammered in head. Did Ah, forget, it is not that you would entertain me up to the term of the storm?» That possibility was unthinkable, better coming down and to ask hospitality in the guesthouse, even if in that place they existed some well more dangerous monsters of Lucio.

By now the ground you/he/she was reduced to a mud and it made the descent an action to complete with extreme caution. Pietro went down for about twenty meters seizing himself/herself/itself to a trunk of pine and then to another. You stopped for taking back breath and it took advantage to rub himself/herself/themselves the hands on the pantalonis in the attempt to polish up her from the residues of bark and resin of it. It made a painful grimace and it cursed: you/he/she was remembered to have inserted the packet with the last cigarette in the pockets. Chaotically it patrolled their fund of cloth. Its face gave the idea to have lost forever a ring of inestimable value. It was enough for him to feel the wrapping with the point of the fingers to understand that that last cigarette had gone to make to be blessed. He/she succeeded in extracting that that he/she remained of the weakened packet and it opened him/it. The cigarette was still entire, even if damp and wrinkled and so much was enough for not being able to be smoked. The tobacco after having been to contact with the water acquired a disgusting taste. It unthread the cigarette from the packet in desolate way: a death row inmate felt him to which the last desire had been denied also. With anger it gave the object of his/her only vice to the animals of the wood. «Merda!»

The fiery illumination of the guesthouse succeeded in clearing its walk. Pietro still launched from a pine to the other and felt him burn the hands. The irregularities of the bark had hurt him/it provoking him some excoriations. You found again in a point in which the presence of trees was spaced out. Now it was forced to come down without grips for an almost double line in comparison to the mistakes. It tried to sideways reach the pine to him adjoining. To little distance, a shine invaded abbacinante the obscurity, a series of segments voters engraved the film of the sky and they came down jagged up to the ground. A boato made to tremble the earth shaking the shoots of the trees. Senseless, blinded and deaf from that to follow him of lights and sounds, Pietro it lost the balance and it slipped prone toward the feet of the hill. You/he/she was dragged by a fall of water and mud. With the lengthened hands it tried to protect himself/herself/themselves from the obstacles of stone and wood how aggressive as the sows that feel threatened his/her own pups they tried to bite him/it. To his/her passage, a delirium of mud squirted for air without control. He/she saw the shrunken face of the death emerge behind every tree and to try to clutch him/it with skeletal hands. His was the petrified face of whom knew where it brought those slip. After the guesthouse there was the deep void of a precipice. A strong trunk of pine cut him the road: there was an appalling crash. Pietro felt a pain that had never tried, so acute not to be able to be even never imagined. The last feeling that tried was as to be stabbed to repetition on a side from an assassin that it intended to be certain to have killed him/it. But it was nothing in comparison to the terror of the descent to the dark, to the fear not to see anymore his/her daughter again. Lost the senses and the river of deposits that it raged on the hill it dragged downstream it.

Times later, an incomprehensible harmony, then a delicate hit they craved to tear Pietro from that state of blessed drowsiness that wound him/it. Him mugugnò something but there was need of other to definitely escape him/it to the claws of the doziness. It was as if that feeling of peaceful relaxation had abducted him/it and it demanded a full-bodied ransom to return him/it to the world of the thinking ones. Pietro was well, you/he/she felt him close to his/her wife. An energetic jolt spurred him/it and the first thing that felt was an atrocious sharp pain on the left side. Disclosed the eyes and it grinded the teeth for the pain. Plain Pian its sight took back transparency. In front of him there was the doctor Saints that it stared at him/it worried. Pietro arched an eyebrow in interrogative way. That was not the house of the doctor Saints and tantomeno his. It supported the hand to the pallet trying to rise himself/herself/themselves and he/she heard the dry sound of the pagliericcis that you/they broke him. An odor of rotten vecchiume oppressed the room. To earth there were three aluminum casseroles and a chamberpot: they picked up the water that infiltrated him in from the ceiling of reed more points. The clay floor was wet and seemed the bed of a porcilaia. Pietro twisted the nose for the disgust. In an undone fireplace there was still some trunk of residual chestnut tree in the winter and a deep crack it marked the wall that was of forehead. A mouse passed to big speeds and was sheltered behind two shelves of table on which some cups of can and two dishes of pretense were systematized porcelain. Pietro was astounded. It did for getting up and another sharp pain struck him/it forcing to remain him/it in that position. It scrutinized the face of the doctor Saints and shake the head. «But where are we and does thing do us here?»

The doctor placed behind him a hand on the breast and one the nape, accompanying his/her body up to the pallet. Pietro didn't have to get tired himself/herself/themselves, you/he/she was too soon still. «Yesterday night she has been caught in the act by the storm. You/he/she has made a beautiful flight and you/he/she has cracked some ribs, over that gotten series excoriations. But you/he/she has been fortunate because you/he/she could go worse, very worse.»

Instantly, as if an unknown entity had uncovered him the skull and thrown to the inside a knapsack of memoirs, Pietro it remembered what you/he/she was happened him. In his/her reason the images of that whirling fall quickly perceived, as if it were him the principal actor but somebody else. He/she remembered the purpose of the climb on the hill and the deformed face and ghignante of Lucio it took possession him for an instant of his/her thoughts. The muscles him they benumbed him causing him the nth violent stab. It opened the mouth but the pain it worked from cork and it allowed him to send forth only a hoarse and smothered complaint. «Doctor, has answered only to one of the questions that I have done you. Do I repeat her, where do we find us?» To pronounce those thin words was seemed his greatest work of his/her existence.

The doctor smiled widening the braccias. «As I have told her before, you/he/she has been fortunate. The river of deposits has dragged downstream her over the guesthouse. You has been aground in a bush of broom but you/he/she would have remained him/it for few. before falling in the void of the precipice. You/he/she has been Lucio to find her/it and to bring her/it in safe to his/her house. Only after you/he/she is raced to tell me what happened. I have put there some to understand what wanted to tell me but at the end I have decided to follow him/it and I have been this surprise.»

Pietro covered the face with the hands, you/he/she was seen indeed now the greatest work of his/her existence: to accept that life had been saved him instead by a man that him it had even thought about being able to kill. «Him where it is now?»

The doctor pointed out the door. Some second remained in that position. With the other arm along the side it seemed a scarecrow mutilated by the wind. «Lucio is out there, I believe that is defile for leaving you calm.»

The mind of Pietro went to tumult. Lucio had saved him the skin yet, despite the heart it told him to be him thankful, he/she didn't succeed in accepting that it frequented his/her daughter. «Doctor, begs her/it, does him/it enter!»

Saints it set out toward the door. Its footsteps to the eyes of Pietro seemed, or you/he/she would perhaps have liked that were him/it to postpone what by now you/he/she was become necessary. The hand of the doctor opened the door and a colossal shade incombette on the room. Lucio entered, behind of him there were the fears and the remorses of Pietro. The giant was dressed with the same pantalonis of velvet usurato that wore the last time. An undershirt, that once had been white, mantled its torso defined to the excess. It almost frightened. Two-headed and three-headed bulgy they showed a branched interlacement of greenish veins. It drew near to the pallet. It tried to shake the hand of Pietro that instinctively it withdrew her/it. Lucio remained marveled by that to withdraw himself/herself/themselves disdainful and a veil of regret made capolino on its face. A melancholy smile didn't succeed in concealing its state of mind.

To Pietro it didn't escape the sad light of that face. «Thanks!» he/she succeeded in saying. And that only motionless word was suspended in the room, as if his/her promoter had pronounced her without being really convinced to want to send her/it to target. The doctor Saints it gave two affectionate pat on the shoulder of Lucio to encourage him/it. Pietro, reformed, it lengthened the hand toward Lucio, that tightened her/it and smiled; this time it dealt with a cheerful rice.

«Doctor, would like to reenter to my house, Geneva will be in punishment!»

The doctor Saints it shook the head. «Coop calm, marshal, with Mrs Loi, Geneva is in good hands. However I have already told in barracks that the sergeant comes in auto to withdraw you and to bring you home. It will be here to moments.»

In the head of Pietro they crossed thousand of thoughts that had the power to mislead him/it as in a sorcery, then sergeant Podda's voice stormed in the room. «How he feels, marshal?» he/she asked, after being him first raised the pompous policeman hat.

Pietro turned almost afraid. The silence with which the sergeant was introduced in the room had surprised him/it. It usually caused also trouble to lace him the boots. «Bruised but entire, I would say, sergeant!»

The sergeant Matteo Podda had thirty years and the bicyclist physicist: dry land and minute. You/he/she had been Pietro to choose him/it among about twenty pretenders to the degree of sergeant and him it was not able whether to eternally be him thankful. The father of the sergeant made the laborer and for years you/he/she had hoed the vineyards on behalf of others, receiving few more than the dust in change. If Matteo Podda could eat something different from the bread and chicory it was worth of Pietro.

The sergeant set apart him with the doctor Saints. «The torrential rain of last night has swept away the only carriage path. I have had to park the automobile in front of the guesthouse. It is necessary to transport the marshal of weight up to valley.»

The doctor twisted the mouth and. «The marshal has taken an ugly blow and you/he/she is very weak, you/he/she would be better to avoid too many scombussolamenti.»

Pietro saw the two confabulate. To be kept in the dark of what personally concerned him/it it bumped him/it in exponential way.

«Hey, you two, thing done think, that I/you/he/she am a child with the mucus to the nose? I would appreciate to be partecipe of your discourses, always if trouble doesn't cause too much you.»

The sergeant twisted him the hands, you/he/she always did him/it when you/he/she felt him embarrassed. «Marshal, is necessary that we transport downstream down you until. The landslide of the ground has caused the collapse of some trees that have obstructed the only carriage path.»

The doctor Saints it was inserted among the two interlocutors. «I don't believe that I/you/he/she am the thing.» Pietro hissed before you/he/she could dispatch in full his/her opinion. «It doesn't interest me as but I intend to return home and I won't stay more here one minute» it announced nervously tightening with both the hands a bunch of pagliericci.

The doctor Saints it lowered the head and it felt like sprinkling him/it to him of ash. «As it desires her, marshal!»

They went out of that hovel. The sergeant held Troise for the legs, the doctor Saints for the braccias. But if for sergeant Podda's thirty years the weight of Troise was notable but sustainable, for the sessantacinques of the doctor Saints that few meters all it took is for exhausting its giacenza of energies. «My boy, believes not to make her/it. I already feel braccia and legs that tremble me» he/she confessed Saints folding up himself/herself/itself on the knees and panting.

Lucio saw them in difficulty and didn't make him pray to give strong hand. It grabbed Troise loading him/it to him in shoulder and it started to come down from the hill with the agility of a goat of mountain. The sergeant Podda and the doctor Saints were immovable to contemplate that strength of the nature. Without revealing some work, Lucio transported the seventy kilos of the marshal as if it had in shoulder a baby of few months. It abandoned him/it on the back seats of the balilla 1100, the automobile that, furnished by the weapon to all the departments, you/he/she had saved the future descents of the policemen. Before those autos, the fugitives were pursued among the mountains, in saddle to of the hacks or with some shattered motocarrozzettes, and many testicles were ended squeezed in the bumps.

Closed again Lucio the counter without receiving thanks. The sergeant climbed fast in auto and you/he/she inserted her/it before. The automobile departed toward village you Rule. Pietro succeeded in perceiving the outline of Lucio from the car window and despised him considering to the inevitability of the gesture that had done; his had been a pathetic thanks. And disgust did even more him, because after what Lucio had done for him, its grudges were not enfeebled. And if you/he/she had not been able to kill him/it as a dog anymore, it was sure that if you/he/she had still caught him/it with his/her daughter you/he/she would have shot however, even only to hurt him/it, but you/he/she would not have spared him/it. "But what kind of man six, Pietro Troise? Able to shoot he who has only saved you the life because his is not a face from Casanova" it repeated him in continuation the echo of the conscience. The shade of the great leccis saddened him/it; closed the eyes and he/she thought about his/her daughter together with a beautiful blue prince. The sergeant premises the foot on the pedal of the accelerator. Not to be lacerated by the pain, more mental that physical, Pietro fell asleep; by now you/he/she missed few and you/he/she would have returned home.

# Silently, the auto was parked in front of the villetta. They went down and, sustained by the sergeant, Pietro entered the residence. Mrs Loi him he made meeting distressed. Its fears had not sprung only from the conditions of the marshal, there was also another motive: Geneva was hardly taken back by a strong epileptic crisis.

#

#

#

# 12

Burnt by the sun, the countries rippled him blown by the wind as the waves of a sea of yellow oil. The green mosconis besieged goats and sheep. The equine flies didn't disdain, but they preferred mules, horses and donkeys. At times they decided to also pinch the men taking himself/herself/itself away small edges of skin. They tore that bit of meat and they flew away frightened by the cry that it followed. Boricheddu Macis had everywhere crusts of blood. He/she slept with the livestock for fear that thieves and foxes they halved him/it to him. Its odor of rotten cheese perhaps confused the equine flies, that didn't give him truce exchanging him/it for a male sample of its same beasts.

«Look! You look!» Luigi exclaimed, attracting the attention of his/her companions toward the fund of the avenue. They were direct toward a shed furnished with a bench of large tables and some botchy bench: their cafeteria, very different from the places that to Montevecchio they entertained the meals of the employees.

Emilio, Pinu Froi and Sandrinu Spada lengthened the look. A barrier of fig trees of India served as windbreak to a vine of black grape. The vivacious colors of the fig trees jumped on the thorny green scenography of the fat plants. Two children stopped close to the plants and three young German soldiers they observed them handle a reed. A little anymore in there, also the colonel Basthuberr fixed incuriosito the scene. One of the small ones were Coccoreddu and it brought a pair of pantalonis dirtied to three quarters of leg: it was blood and it strained up to his ankles. The pantalonis had been sewn by his/her mother that, working in the laveria, you/he/she had succeeded in scrounging some jute cloth. It was a material used for the packing of the mineral ones destined to the foundry of St. Gavino and abrasive decidedly for the skin. Marisedda, the mother of Coccoreddu, as all the other mothers it knew of the consequences caused by the rubbing of the jute on the skin. There were not unfortunately, neither money and neither cloth mettibile, so you/he/she had chosen that would have been better some abrasion rather than to turn out with the culo of. Then Coccoreddu didn't bring the underpantses and the contact between the jute and his/her groins you/he/she was directed; they were slashed in hot way. It strove us as he was able. Dark scars dyed the inside thigh of every child of Montevecchio, all they wore the pantalonis of jute cloth. Tzia Veneranda, that to Guspini once had one" potacaria" (today pharmacy), it welcomed all in the house trying to take care of those lacerations exploiting the grasses of the mountain. It drew the old infusions of his/her/their grandmother to use as palliatives, more effective for the mind that for the body. Tzia Ninna, to disinfect his/her nephew sacrificed some brandy instead, dissipating the only residual patrimony from the beginning of the war. If tziu Calloneddu had discovered him/it, her husband, to avoid to waste the brandy if you/he/she would be drunk her/it all of a breath. As it did with the myrtle and the distillate of elder to the circle dopolavoro.

Bobo Atzeni, one of his/her/their children, had succeeded in inserting a flat stone in the extremity of the reed, that had opened in four small sticks forming a joint. Emilio knew well Bobo Atzeni. Giuseppino, when it was still alive, it often returned home with the livid ones, signs of his/her overbearances. But the nature of worse Bobo was vivacious. Emilio had never succeeded in bringing grudge toward that child. With his/her misdoings, Bobo had given him fat laughters: as the time when you/he/she had wound a merda of dog inside a piece of paper and you/he/she had set on fire him after having knocked the front door of house of August Taris, one of the leccaculos of the ingegner Minghetti. August Taris was gone out and you/he/she had tried to extinguish the fire stamping on the sheet of paper, unaware of the gives that it contained. The fire had extinguished him, but its house had stinked for weeks of the merda of dog left around by its shoes.

Bobo Atzeni tightened a piece of string around the part pulped of the reed to stop the stone to the inside. He/she knows cannuga it was ready: it dealt with an object conceived for suffering the fig trees of India the tallest plants without filling him with the annoying microspines of the fruit.

Coccoreddu dressed again the inside of a basket with of the leaves of life and with mastery he/she filled him/it with fig trees of India. It was well careful to detach the fruits with the shoulders to the wind, not to be invested by the storm of microspine that you/they fluttered to the solo touch of the plant with he/she knows cannuga. Bobo Atzeni lifted the eyes toward the miners and made the occhiolino; it had of of it certain designed one of his.

Luigi turned to the companions. «What scoundrels, are organizing a beautiful scherzetto to the Germans.»

Emilio and the other ones had understood: in Germany they didn't grow the fig trees of India and probably it was the first time that the soldiers saw those plants. and that fruits.

Bobo Atzeni drew near to the two soldiers with the full basket of green fig trees of India, red, oranges and yellows; from his/her face an affected smile shone through. It lengthened the basket offering the fruit. Also the colonel Basthuberr drew near to the basket. Luigi and the other miners snickered. Emilio no, it had in head other worries.

The soldiers didn't make him pray. Their stomacis bubbled for the hunger as those of the miners. They grabbed a fig tree of India every, of those orange that had the most appetizing air, and they voraciously him/it. Luigi's laughters, Pinu Froi and Sandrinu Spada melted him with those of Bobo Atzeni and Coccoreddu. Bobo Atzeni recovered the basket with the rapidity of an astore that planes on a snake and, followed by Coccoreddu, taken to race toward the source of he/she Knows it will Lose.

The soldiers started to spit shreds and seeds of fig trees of India. Too late, by now they had mouth, language and completely loaded hands of thin and impossible thorns to raise. Unfortunately for them they didn't know but the fig trees of India they went first peeled. In a few hours you/they would have had the lips as the culo of a donkey and the language so swollen from not to be able to be contained in mouth. More they got excited and the thorns passed anymore from the hands to their face. They would be reformed for some days of that idea of hearty meal. The inflamed pomfis that the thorns surrounded would have remembered theirs that the fig trees of India had to be peeled.

The colonel Basthuberr was escaped to the trap of the small scoundrels; you/he/she was made suspicious seeing the immovable miners that fixed the scene snickering. You/he/she had left that his/her boys served as guinea-pigs and you/he/she had done well. With some dry grass brushed two fig trees of India that had fallen from the basket during the escape of his/her/their children. After having polished up the fruits from the thorns, he/she picked them up in hand and with a nothcy dagger it removed the peel of it. It tasted the juicy pulp and it swallowed without spitting the seeds. It also peeled the second fruit and it handed him/it to the three soldiers that strabuzzarono the eyes and they quickly shook the head: you/they would not have eaten fig trees of India anymore for the rest of their life.

Bobo Atzeni and Coccoreddu already traveled with some pitchers in shoulder up to the source of he/she Knows it will Lose. You/they would have filled her with some fresh water to destine to the mines. The workers of the shop of well San Antonio compensated them with a good tip. His/her children crossed barefoot the narrow path disseminated of lentischio and thorny broom. The scratches inflicted by the thorns of the brooms and the fingernails of the feet detached because of the stones constituted a real bulletin of war. The result of their joke you/they were deserved, some laughter that made to feel I lead the cramps to the stomach.

The miners took back the walk toward the shed, the break lunch lasted only a hour. Luigi gave an affectionate spallata to Emilio. «Thing you have? I see you thoughtful!»

Emilio. «I/you/they are worried for Franco. He/she has been crying for two days and even the doctor Saints you/he/she has succeeded in understanding what I/you/he/she have. When they are so small is it a country house, don't they speak and who understands them?»

Sandrinu Spada had one theory of his and exposed her/it. «According to me, your child Franco is victim de him ogu liau!»

Emilio launched him an occhiataccia. «I don't believe in the hex!»

Sandrinu tried to make sense of himself/herself/themselves. «You ogu liau is not really a hex. It is an intersection of looks, sometimes unintentional, among a child and some people that possess a particular energy in their eyes, and that they don't for the most part know even to have.»

The face of Emilio darkened him. «I don't believe in these superstitions however. Negromanti, wizard and wizards have never enchanted me.»

«It looks that many children are dead for him ogu liau. They start to cry and a febbriciattola grows more always. To try doesn't cost anything. If well it won't do, of certain even badly!»

Emilio stopped him in the middle of the avenue. «But to try to do what?»

«You could commission him àcua medal for Franco!» This time you/he/she had been the voice of Luigi to speak.

«I should make to raise the hex to my child from some witch?» Its tone was sarcastic.

Luigi seemed offended and lifted the voice. «You àcua at times medal works. I have seen with my eyes of his/her/their children stop crying instantly, after the rite.»

Emilio was about to tell Luigi to be marveled of him that he/she believed in those stronzates that tell him to frighten the bad children. Then it jammed, struck by the wave of bump of his/her thoughts. Every life, every episode, every gesture they were the fruit of a choice precedent, of a done thing or not sort what the existence of that person had misled in one determined direction. The last four years you/he/she had given to wonder what would have happened that day, if instead of waiting that the pitcher had been full you/he/she was turned first to look where his/her child was Giuseppino. You/he/she had wondered as you/he/she would have been Giuseppino now if that day had left him/it in the house with his/her/their grandmother rather than to bring him/it with itself. Emilio had destroyed his/her nights turning himself/herself/itself under the covers and asking himself/herself/itself because you/he/she had looked for his/her child in the middle of the wood, when instead it was fallen in the hole of a clearing. He/she didn't want to also spend the next years to wonder as you/he/she would have gone if you/he/she had made to make himself/herself/themselves àcua medal to Franco. «Who is that it completes the rite de him àcua medal?» it hastened to ask.

Sandrinu jammed. «There are some elderly ones that do him/it with the wheat or the salt, but I know that the more effectiveness it is tzia Mariuccia Onali, of that an ancient medal uses holy Barbaric. To me you/he/she has made to fall the leeks from the hands.»

Luigi credette to have misunderstood the words of Sandrinu. «How the leeks?»

«Yes, the leeks! Some years ago was filled me the hands of annoying leeks. I approached me from Mariuccia Onali that it tightened me around every bulge of the thread to sew. It gave then me the assignment to bury a bit of meat wound in a bundle of cloth for every leek that I had on the hands. It told me that when the meat would be putrefied the leeks you/they would have done him/it also wound in the thread by to sew. In a week my hands returned smooth as the oil of lentischio and the leeks you/they had decayed underground as the meat.»

Emilio twisted the mouth and made a doubtful verse. «You could bring me after the job from this Mariuccia?»

«I will bring you us me!» it promised Luigi. «It is all right?»

Smiled Emilio. «Is all right! It is all right!»

That same evening they came in front of the house of Mariuccia Onali. After the end of the turns you/they had employed a two weeks of minutes to arrive us. The residence was situated in one of the narrow and tortuous alleys that were detached by avenue Littorio. It was a stumpy cube of raw bricks, with a front door in wood that arranged him to egual distance from two finestrelles similar to the loopholes of a tower. Luigi knocked. Emilio held in hand a small photo of Franco in black and white. A few months had been gone off from the doctor Saints to try its multilith room of the thirties before: a photographic car, so much to change American, similar to an accordion. You/he/she had succeeded in adding the multilith to his/her collection thanks to the help of Cece Mastriu, one that would have succeeded in also retrieving the horns of the devil for two liras.

Luigi had told Emilio that Mariuccia Onali, to perform his/her rite, needed something that belonged to the person to recover. Emilio always brought with itself the photo of Franco and you/he/she had decided to use that.

From the front door a minuscule vecchina came and out completely dressed of black. It had the head hooded by a handkerchief from which it escaped some silvered ringlet; it was held standing with a baton of knotty wood.

«Good morning, lady!» they greeted her/it both.

«Oh, I have stopped being lady twenty-nine years ago, when my husband is dead. Call me pure tzia Mariuccia, so much I am the aunt of all to Montevecchio» it said the old one with an odd irony for a witch, he/she thought Emilio.

They followed the woman inside the residence and they were forced to stoop himself/herself/themselves not to beat the head in the lintel of the front door, as much it was his/her lowness. A thin faint light put them in subjection, almost as the objects that furnished that stay: fonts, rosaries in wood, pictures of the Madonna and suffering Jesus Cristo. Claudicando, the vecchina left the stay and entered the kitchen, a room of six meters squares with the belief, the table and the chairs paintings of celestial. The room was on the other façade of the house and leaned out on the courtyard. Luigi and Emilio entered leaving the dark as only guest of the stay. The new environment was decidedly more hospitable. A door and two great opened wide windows were puddles of light that extended him in the room and they dipped every thing in a silvered lavacro.

Tzia Mariuccia arranged him. «Then, thing has happened? »

Luigi took a seat. Emilio was standing. «My child Franco cries from two days and me with my wife we don't know thing anymore to do!»

«You have brought something of him? An object? Of the hair? Suits? In short, anything!»

«I have brought a photo!» Emilio responded, leaning her/it on the celestial table.

«Perfect!» tzia Mariuccia exclaimed. It briskly contemplated the photo tightening her/it with hands that trembled as leaves it shook from the wind. «Your child is very small!»

«Yes, it is only one year old!»

Luigi listened without interfering. Tzia Mariuccia stared at astute Emilio in the eyes. «Tell me a thing, it is not that Vitalia Mura has seen by chance your child?»

Emilio corrucciò the forehead. «Beh, Vitalia Mura works as grading machine with my wife Maria, you/he/she could be also that has seen Franco in these days.»

Tzia Mariuccia struck with a fist the table, letting Luigi that sat nearby her jolting. «I would have sworn there, there that has an unbelievable power in the eyes. To cross the look with her is as to do him/it with the devil!»

Emilio and Luigi listened abducted; they hung from the lips of the old one.

«You don't have idea of how much people come from me to make himself/herself/themselves get out of himself/herself/themselves ogu liau of Vitalia Mura. You won't believe it, but they say that when she appreciates some flowers, to the next day they are so dry to seem burnt. To house of my sister you/he/she has made to dry a splendid vase of tulips. Accursed is!» And with that malaugurios he/she closed the soliloquy to begin the rite de him àcua medal. He/she filled with water a cup of glass and it positioned her/it above the photo of the small Franco. From the small pocket of his/her black giacchetta it unthread a pendant with hung a medal raffigurante the face of holy Barbaric: it was an object that had been handed down her by generations, together with the ability to raise the hex. Emilio and Luigi saw her/it shake the pendant above the cup. With the movement of the medal it traced in continuation of the crosses and it recited is brebus, an intersection among prayers of church and macumbe from the incomprehensible meaning. When dipped the medal in the water of the glass, thousand of little bubbles were formed that they detached from the fund and they went to break himself/herself/themselves on the medal. It repeated the immersion some times, with a face that showed off a sample of scary grimaces similar to mamuthones masks of the carnivals barbaricini. «My Santa Barbara! Do you see all those little bubbles?»

Emilio and Luigi nodded overpowered by the amazement.

«More little bubbles are formed and more he is powerful ogu liau that has been launched!» he/she explained tzia Mariuccia.

It continued to dip to go-go the medal and in few minutes the little bubbles they started to decrease, up to that they didn't stop entirely. The rite de him àcua medal was concluded and him ogu liau, second tzia Mariuccia, was enfeebled.

When they went out of the house of the old one, Emilio looked at perplexed Luigi. «You say that it will work?»

Luigi widened the braccias. «Soon you will know him/it!»

Emilio made reentry to Guspini. It opened the door of house and brims the ear: it didn't feel anything. Alarmed, it entered the bedroom and he/she saw his/her wife that was slope with in arm the small Franco. The terror that something could have happened tightened him the throat as a snake. «Thing has happened?»

Maria turned. Flowed Emilio the smile in his/her sweet face. Franco didn't cry anymore. Emilio kissed him/it on the forehead before it fell asleep worn-out. «We still have that half form of pecorino?» it whispered then to Maria.

«Yes, certain, it is in the belief» she responded cradling the small one.

«Well! Then I pick her/it up, I have to make a gift to a person.»

# Tzia Mariuccia if the era earned all that cheese.

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# 13

The summer he was dissolving and it already welcomed the insistent court in the autumn. Pietro was extended in his/her bed. The hematoma was reabsorbed and the ribs didn't ache him anymore. In that days you/he/she had thought so much. If you/he/she had not been forced in bed you/he/she would have been easier to deceive his/her thoughts, but the loneliness of the room was as a trusted friend to which is decided to tell his/her own secret. A friend that doesn't need words, a friend that listens to the thoughts and he/she picks them up for what I/you/they am, without ever judging. Geneva had pretended to know what it was us his/her father next to the house of Lucio. There had been a power on clash. Pietro had put her in front of the truth and you/he/she had confessed her to know about his/her relationship with Lucio. Geneva was confined in his/her room for two days without giving explanations and Pietro you/he/she had considered per diem some official engagement between his/her daughter and Daniel Minghetti: the day of the pact with the engineer.

That morning of almost one year before, to midday in point, Pietro and Geneva you/they had crossed the spiazzo of levelling, an enormous expanse that was busy once from a hill in which his/her children went to play to hide-and-seek. The thirst of progress you/he/she had swept away that knoll as drought that putrefà a ceppaia of mushrooms. From the humus of that log an only great mushroom had been born: the building of the direction, that had risen since 1870 there, built on commission from Giovanni Anthony Sanna, the man that had started the extraction of the modern times in the mines.

The building already jumped from the road. The three floors the sopraelevavano in comparison to the rest of the inhabited area and the classical forms and neorinascimentali, typical of the end of the eight hundred, conferred him an authoritarian manner. Pietro had beaten twice the big lead ring on the leaf fixed to the front door. Geneva was dressed of white. It held the joined hands under the life because it felt him in embarrassment. A woman from the blonde hair and the green eyes had immediately opened. Pietro had thought that she was checking for a long time already them from the spioncino, otherwise rapidity would not be explained with which had opened the front door. You/he/she could not be said that it was very beautiful but under the maid apron it made a certain effect, and its smile was reassuring.

«I pray, marshal, the ingegner Minghetti and his/her family attend you in the room from lunch!» you/he/she had been the invitation of the woman.

You/they had followed her. Of side you/they were unthread to a vast cloister that seemed the courtyard of a monastery. A parvis with the decorated times surrounded him/it. The motives to grotesque some attics were sketches of mascheroni, hammers, weapons and lamps that melted beautifully him in without logic.

The woman had conducted them above a ramp of staircases. You/they had crossed a corridor that, giving on the cloister, from the ample windows it received the special light of the day. Then you/they had come in one of the so many stays that were untied to repetition for rooms and rooms, furnished in style liberty and revival from couples of tables to circle, slacker and couches in dark wood and reddish velvet, carpets of unimaginable dimensions, clocks to pendulum and splendid withdrawn by the gilded frames.

Geneva frantically looked around him. He/she wondered if you/he/she would ever have gotten used to belong to all that wealth. If to Pietro the guesthouse was seemed a distant place by the reality of Montevecchio, the building of the direction it owed for strength to be himself/herself/themselves to years light from the earth, on another planet, on Neptune.

From when the Montecatini. Montevecchio had taken possession of the mines, the building of the direction had exclusively been used for reunions of business and never as residence, thing that instead in past you/he/she had happened with the family of Giovanni Anthony Sanna. The ingegner Minghetti for that occasion had made a tear to the rule, recruiting a small army of cooks and waiters.

The great tavolata extended him along the whole room from lunch. Only two small spaces were clear of to the extremities, correct that few to be allowed the waiters to comfortably transit without risks. A splendid belief almost served as pedestal to a service of dishes in ceramics of end eight hundred that, with his shining white of blue, embellished in full a wall of the room. From the opposite part a stately clock to pendulum from the French intarsiatures projected its shade on the table, because of the great window that lay to its shoulders. To the left it jumped a fireplace in stone that served as base to a series of clocks and figurines.

In front of that shine that brought to the Fastis of the past, Pietro had been senseless. The ingegner Minghetti already sat to capotavola, to the extremity with the pendulum and the window to the shoulders. A tablecloth of white silk lined the table. Above of it they rested flat of ceramics and wine glasses of crystal. The silver silver wares almost shone as the chandelier that, amazing, spioveva from the ceiling in a cluster of diamonds.

Minghetti had gotten up. A belt from the buckle squares in steel it tightened his life. He/she wore a black uniform proper arrecante in correspondence of the heart the symbol of the bundle littorio. You/he/she was made meeting to Geneva moving his/her boots of black skin to half leg. After a half bow you/he/she had kissed her hand. «This is not really my house but it is as if the were. And my house is also your house, madams Geneva!»

Geneva had blushed and you/he/she had thanked with fear. The ingegner Minghetti was an introverted and gallant type with the women, different from what instead pretended the maximum one from his/her miners. Its exaggerated applications had done him/it hate from the totality of the maestranzes that you/they held him/it a despot. "Phillip", his/her name, every mule had been buckled to that transited in the mines, to mock him/it.

Phillip Minghetti had a myth: the Duce Benito Mussolini. He/she adored him/it to the point to idolize him/it. It tried to resemble him in everything and for everything, from the attire to the manias of greatness, and he/she dreamt to meet him/it. It used the stivalonis of heel skin stop to implore the defect of the stature that for a long time tormented him/it. Its hair was grizzled from the sideburns up to the height of the ears, then some sunny silvery hair appeared only in the black cuttlefish shiny of grease. It had the face of a beautiful man, with some thin but severe features; the light stempiatura, put back in evidence by the taut hair-style to the, it did him/it seem an officer of the army.

Pietro had greeted him/it shaking his hand. A vigorous hold, as it was used to do. In turn, Daniel had greeted Pietro and as you/he/she had been his/her father you/he/she was bent for kissing the hand in Geneva. Mrs Clotilde Minghetti had observed from an angle of the kitchen. Inside his/her blue suit all draperies it seemed a duchess of the London living rooms. His had been some glances draconiane, worried about everything except whether to pretend that that engagement was of his/her pleasure. Lengthening the arm granted the privilege to make the hand be kissed to the marshal. Its hair was curly and blonds, a lion mane. It was certainly taller than his/her husband and to file that discrepancy used only low heels. Also the face was beautiful. The eyes and the mouth were the portrait of Daniel. Clotilde smiled in Geneva in glacial way.

You revive from the red velvet of the stuffing, the chairs seemed so many real thrones. A waiter with an apron tied up vinaccio to the life had made to crawl back to the one of it, removing her/it from the table. Pietro was inserted in the empty space. The waiter had provveduto to again approach the chair allowing to take a seat him to capotavola, in front of the engineer. Repeating that same manoeuvre, other three waiters had made to arrange the rest of the presents. Nobody was risked to touch the chair of Phillip, he didn't appreciate too much the servility, even if well paid.

Now that could look the engineer in face, Pietro had almost labored to distinguish its lines of the face, as much you/he/she was the length of the tavolata. He/she thought that with all that waiters around in the room you/he/she would have had to howl for joining in conversation. You was wrong. They had to whether to do with personal qualified that would have been able to open some oysters or to uncork a bottle of good wine without making the least noise. The peak of the noise would have been the weak clatter of the ceramics dishes grazed by the silver silver wares.

«As he/she sees, Marshal, has decided today to exclusively deign me of your company, depriving me and depriving you of the presence of those that she defines" leccaculo." People that however it does him in four to maintain he/she lives the mines and to give job to almost quattromila people. But to her this escapes, it is not so?» Phillip had begun, instantly putting to uneasiness Pietro.

The temperature of the room had lowered of quite a lot degrees. The voices turned to the quick one to Montevecchio. Pietro had used that terms against August Taris, one of the executives of the mine, the same with the house that stinked of merda of dog. August Taris had made to crush to blood a miner found in possession of some silver gram that would have tried then to sell underhand.

«You/he/she has invited only me to take him his/her small personal revenge or is there also the desire to know his/her future daughter-in-law? However thanks for the immense moralism that you have just perpetuated in my conscience» Pietro had answered with a spoonful of caustic words.

Minghetti had frowned. You/he/she had not gotten used to be cross, yet once so much found him/it stimulating.

Geneva felt the hand of Daniel tighten his. Clotilde Minghetti was astounded from the arrogance of Pietro and didn't succeed in putting mouth in that discourse.

Phillip Minghetti smiled. «To his/her time, marshal. Let's enjoy now us this pranzetto, we will have the opportunity of knowing us and to make a long talk!» Producing a gun with the fingers had started the traffic of waiters and dishes.

The tavolata had been prepared with meats, olives and cheeses, over that with mussels and bottarga of mullet. Pietro rolled the eyes and he asked where the engineer had retrieved those delicacies. Him, that however was not a poor thing, to make himself/herself/themselves an only beefsteak had to also sell himself/herself/themselves the soul.

You/they had eaten in silence, having as only company the annoying sound of the them same to chew. Among the malloredduses to the campidanese and he/she knows cassopa of fish, Clotilde had lifted for the first time the look from his/her dish. «I know that his/her wife is dead of epilepsy!»

The silence had wound the room as a bench of fog. Pietro had struck by lightning Clotilde with the look. Daniel did the same. Geneva tightened strong his/her napkin and you/he/she had lowered the look to the feet of the table; a horrible question was seemed her by to do to a party of engagement.

The face of Pietro didn't show anger, only sadness. «Yes, Barbaric it is dead many years ago» you/he/she had confirmed.

Clotilde, after having frowning the forehead, had raged. «I have felt that this type of illness could be hereditary. Is it really this way?» His was the disdainful tone that is used for getting further an old drunkard, sordid and malodorous of stale alcohol and piss.

They seemed the premises for a morganatic marriage, even if in that bond sovereigns and thrones didn't exist to preserve. Daniel had lifted of release. Its chair staggered and there was missed little that fell to earth. «Mother, I don't allow you of.»

«Daniel, not to turn anymore with this tone to your mother!» you/he/she had howled the engineer lifting in turn himself/herself/itself and interrupting him/it.

Daniel was still standing. «But dad!»

To that point Pietro was inserted in the family diatribe. «Take a seat, Daniel, prays you. Your father is right, you should not use these tones with your mother. Seem me correct that meets as the things they are.»

Geneva would be liked to bury, it had there instead star to feel.

«You want to know if Geneva is epileptic? Do you want to know if you/he/she could have epileptic children?»

Even the waiters were stopped and it were enfeebled also the light tinkling of silver wares and glasses. Clotilde waited starving the answer.

«The epilepsy is still an illness all to discover, even if some scientists have advanced some theories. However I answer her, lady: Geneva is of certain epileptic and his/her mother was also it. This fact could humiliate the heredity and therefore you/he/she could conceive epileptic children. A care doesn't exist, it is not said that lives for a long time and I wonder me if now this fantastic party of engagement can be continued» you/he/she had said Pietro everything of a breath; it shaking the head.

Geneva smiled at him grille. The waiters had smelled the brackish odor of the storm and you/they were put again to replace the dishes from the table. Phillip had been stricken from the audacity of Pietro. Instead Clotilde had not said anything for the rest of the lunch.

In many aspects of their character, Pietro and Phillip they were resembled. One made the affairs of the mines, the other those of the law. They carried out at the most to their assignments some possibilities, without never sparing himself/herself/themselves. Phillip certainly appeared more cynic, but perhaps its way of respecting was alone the roles.

Clotilde at the end of the lunch was dispersed coldly greeting both Pietro and Geneva. Daniel had remained with Geneva in the room from lunch, to day-dream on their marriage. Instead Minghetti had insisted so that Pietro followed him/it in the room relaxation of the men. Pietro had sketched a minimum of resistance but at the end you/he/she had accepted, after all you/he/she dealt with a good occasion to know better the engineer.

Minghetti had plastered the point of a stick in wood and you/he/she had struck with violence the white little ball that rolled fast on the green carpet of the table from billiards. «If it gets by, marshal?»

Pietro had smiled while in turn you/he/she was unthreading a stick from the suspended rack to the wall. «It is from quite a lot that don't play, but I would say that something I still remember me.»

You/they had given life to a charming challenge, on the wool thread. «Et voilà!» you/he/she had been the exclamation of Pietro while the white little ball broke him on that yellow addressing her/it to a cannon on two banks destined to overwhelm all the ninepins systematized to the center of the green carpet. The ninepins were scattered and some had even trasvolato the table from billiards, skipping about on the floor and stopping himself/herself/itself to the feet of the engineer. Phillip had remained of plaster in front of that ability prorompente. The game was finished and that teacher hit had enacted the victory of the marshal.

«My goodness, marshal, is a phenomenon. It is the first time that someone succeeds in beating me from when they are here to Montevecchio!»

«Only fortune, engineer. But you don't worry him, I don't have intention to tell around it!» Pietro had goaded him/it.

Phillip had looked at him/it reflexive, not understanding if the marshal was joking or he wanted to rage. Pietro, seeing his/her perplexed look, you/he/she had smiled at him. Phillip if aware n'era and also in his/her face a giggle had risen.

After that instant of complicity, Pietro was estranged. Did it consider to the words that you/he/she had said towards the managerial category": you Believe that the life of that poor miner is worth less than that of you leccaculo that you crawl behind the ingegner Minghetti"?, and you/he/she was sorry him to have used that foolish tones. Reformed, you/he/she had chosen to bury the ax of war.

«Engineer, has to make her my excuses, with August Taris I have exaggerated but now I am clearly revaluing your person.»

Phillip had still smiled. You/he/she had drawn near to the marshal and a hand had placed on his shoulder. «Marshal, doesn't worry him, men as us owe every day to bear enormous pressures and to take some decisions that will go to weigh on the people that surround us, is normal that the stirrups are sometimes lost. Doesn't he/she believe?»

Pietro had not answered but you/he/she had nodded with the head gaining the truthfulness of those words. The engineer had rummaged then inside a cassette in wood rigorously dressed again with the drawn out zinc in the mines. «He/she drinks an I drip?»

Pietro, seeing the bottle of frozen brandy, you/he/she had almost surrendered to his/her rigid protocol. «No, thanks, I have not drunk for years, by now» you/he/she had answered with the saliva of the desire that the mouth flooded him.

Brandy was frozen thanks to the service of Tore Flore and Giaccio Caboni, two messengers that once a month they challenged the most impervious tops of the Linas mountain to extrapolate the ice and to destine him/it to the butchery and the more families in sight. Foods and drinks, thanks to the airtightness of the zinc, they succeeded in extending their expiration, luckily. Minghetti was poured one laced lecture of brandy in a glass of simple glass, as if he/she wanted to redeem him after the antecedent luxury.

«When it will end the war I will sign a contract with a society English that deals him with the refrigeration in the holds of the ships. Our zinc is perfect for that purpose.»

«You aim aloft always you, engineer!»

Phillip seemed pleased. «Follows me, marshal, brings her/it in a magic place!»

You/they had crossed a room that in past you/he/she was turned reading to room for the women. That room represented the only variegation of alburnum in a building turbidly furnished. The furniture that had before they were clear because toward the end of the eight hundred the English had stopped the importation of the elegant dark mahogany from Cuba, putting in cross the arredatoris that had been forced to refold on less regal lumbers and more lattescentis.

Opening the last door, Phillip had allowed Pietro to see the heaven. In front of him a spellbound room extended him: of blue with gilded decorations that covered the walls of it; with the time istoriata from a gallery that, thanks to a particular technique of painting, it gave a hallucinogenic effect in three-dimensional. It was unbelievable as that imaginary gallery it really seemed to lean out on the room. Princely curtains had been removed on the sides of an ample finestrata, allowing that the light infused the heat of the sparkling day.

Around one of the so many fireplaces of the house detached gilded mirrors. Pietro and Phillip were kept of eye from portraits of faces bewitched that they disseminated the walls. They were faces that had disavowed their talentuoso painter, modifying the original expression painted by his/her brush, bewitched by the wonder of slacker and nineteenth-century couches. It was the most beautiful and sparkling place that Pietro had ever seen, a place that even in the most secluded dreams you/he/she would have been able to believe that you/he/she existed.

Phillip is sat in front of a solemn tail piano and you/he/she had drunk a sip of brandy. You/he/she had abandoned the glass of glass in front of the lectern and you/he/she had started to play. Pietro had listened in silence that ethereal music that the situation made still more unreal. Then Phillip had embanked his/her melody, suddenly; the long evening with the marshal, until then redundant, it was about to reach the peak finally assuming a meaning. «Marshal, intends to safeguard in every way your daughter!»

The atmosphere fiabesca was drastically broken. The room was become a valley submerged by an unstoppable landslide. Pietro had started. «I listen to you, engineer!»

Phillip had made to play again an I give succession from a king and a me, notes that they announced his confessional. «My wife is not bad, his are the same worries of all the mothers. It seeks only the good of our child.»

The thoughts of Troise were hedged in in an orifice that blocked the light. «I don't follow you!»

Phillip had stared at him/it in the eyes as if he/she wanted to verify of his/her sincerity. «Daniel seems very in love of your daughter, I wish me that the thing is mutual. To me it is to heart the happiness of my child. I will try to make to take care of Geneva. If it is necessary I will make her turn the world to be visited by the best experts.»

Emotion and dismay had attacked Pietro, pursuing himself/herself/itself toward the exit of the orifice and simultaneously emerging to the light. «Holy Christ, if it will do what it says I will be forever her debtor.»

Phillip had widened the braccias. «I don't contemplate to his/her debt, marshal, me enough that his/her daughter marries my child. and is to good wife!» and you/he/she had turned the page of the divided that he/she sat on the lectern.

«A last thing I have to recommend her, the most important!»

Pietro had dilated the eyes unconsciously fearing that the engineer could change mind. «Also says!»

Phillip had still sat on the stool in front of the piano and you/he/she had put on the hands on the thighs, during to make sense of himself/herself/themselves. «I know that in few they know the illness in Geneva. Any other it will ever have to know besides those that you/they already know. To Pertzogiu (actual Fertilia), near Alghero, the Germans are putting on a concentration camp. It is only officially a space for the refuge of weapons and foods but, as I believe her knows more than me, when the army there is middle the things they are turbid as the oil of olive before the filtratura.»

Pietro listened to the new his/her factotum; he listened to him/it in silence, a silence that in his/her head you/he/she was a cackle that grew and you/he/she became noise: a noise of bombs, of rifles, of machine guns that you/they killed his/her daughter.

«I see from his/her expression that has already grabbed the concept, she is a perspicacious man marshal. The unofficial version says that behind the concentration camp hides him in reality a lager in which dissident Germans are suppressed, communist, homosexuals, children sloveni arrived inside container, elderly. and sick.»

"Sick" you/he/she had thought Pietro, just as his/her daughter.

«Believes me, marshal, thanks to the work that I develop I have so many sources, and I can tell her that they are reliable. That is people that don't joke. They kill and not to leave traces they loosen the dead bodies in the mortar. You says that close to the field quite a lot people have disappeared already. They won't put a lot us to draw from the whole Sardinia for their purposes. Nobody has to know that Geneva is sick. Has you/he/she understood?» Phillip had asked him showing him/it.

«Holy Christ, has understood very well engineer» Pietro had answered with the last breath of breath remained him.

«I can protect Geneva up to a certain point. Despite the great admiration that I nourish for the Duce, this time a wood puppet seems me moved by the threads of Hitler its puppeteer. If Germany had to overpower Italy, the same hell that you/they have created in Poland and in the European east will arrive here also and I don't intend to put again us of person, I will be forced to do aside me and Geneva would be sold. Its illness doesn't exist, you/he/she has never existed. Pertzogiu is the first circle of a hell that to brief it will set on fire the whole Sardinia.»

Pietro had bent the head the point of the boots looking himself/herself/itself. The ingegner Minghetti had just told him a horrible truth. Pietro had approached to the piano. «It is a pact what is proposing me?»

Phillip had taken a packet of cigarettes from the small pocket of his/her jacket. You/he/she had opened him/it and if put n'era one in mouth. With a tap of the finger index on the fund of the wrapping had made to go out part of another cigarette. Pietro had picked her up and if the era inserted in an angle of the lips.

«Marshal, will understand that in to keep my promises I will risk quite a lot, and all on my skin. If Geneva is really in love of my child you don't have anything to fear. It will be enough for her to follow the small shrewdness that I have given her.» With a match you/he/she had turned on first Pietro's cigarette and then his.

In the painting of the gallery the day seemed to withdraw himself/herself/themselves for the smoke of the tobacco that burned. You/they were looked in face with sincerity before squeezing together himself/herself/themselves the hand and to stipulate their famous pact. If Geneva had married Daniel, for her the doors of a new life would be opened wide. You/he/she would never have been to Pertzogiu and you/he/she would perhaps be recovered, but it had to marry him/it.

Footsteps inside the room. They were of Daniel and Geneva.

«I see that you have finally made friends!» Daniel had exclaimed with a sarcastic smile. The two looked at him/it in tralice.

Geneva thought about being in a fable and his/her bewitched face it scrutinized the time of the room as if it were the terrestrial heaven.

«Engineer, removes from me a curiosity. Are we alone of the three floors, that wonder contains the last per second?»

Phillip had sigh while with skilled fingers it played a symphony of Chopin. «Up there you won't find the heaven, madams Geneva, but only the old lodgings of the servitude that once raged in the building. A more modest environment decidedly!»

Geneva was seemed to be sorry himself/herself/themselves of that dry answer that didn't leave space to the poetry. You/he/she would be waited that in the last floor of that celestial building divine environments were concealed, more consistent to the angels that to the men. But, even if he/she didn't know him/it, her the heaven had already found him/it: it was the pact between his/her father and the ingegner Phillip Minghetti.

The remembrance brusquely broke him.

Pietro freed from the covers dashing her in the empty plaza of his/her matrimonial bed. You/he/she had always hoped that one day that plaza was still occupied by another woman. Despite the occasions they were not missed, the sense of betrayal had been stronger than him, you/he/she could not pretend in love of another because it still loved Barbaric, even if she there was not more.

Definite hurry what had never dared to do: to ask the truth to the colonel Basthuberr on the field of Pertzogiu. It got up standing and you/he/she suffered a dizziness. You sat an instant on the bed, to recompose him. The dizziness passed. You slowly dressed for avoiding painful sharp pains and he/she left his/her room; it crossed the corridor dragging himself/herself/itself as an Army veteran.

«Where he/she believes to go, her?» It was the voice of Mrs Loi.

Pietro knew that if you/he/she had given rope to the ruler the discussion you/he/she would be become pompous and endless. «Mrs. Loi, is paid to work as ruler or to make the places of my mother?»

Mrs Loi remained petrified, it was not waited for that demonstration of impoliteness, usually the marshal was amiable with everybody. Not that day. He/she remained behind Pietro. Worried, it observed him/it advance toward the door of entry. From the stay Geneva that he found again confrontation with Pietro came out. Its eyes darted on one side to the other. Father and daughter were reciprocally offended for the history of Lucio; heavy insults that nobody thought up to that day to be able to offer. Geneva seemed to want to tell something his/her father, perhaps a reproach to have lifted from the bed. You scratched the head and it lowered the look. It sent forth a puff making to wave the lips and it reentered in stay. That silence hurt Pietro more than all the insults that Geneva had cast him in precedence. "As it was able not to understand that he wanted only the good for her"?, he/she wondered. It intended to make to recover her/it and to grant her a normal life. "You could not throw away everything for Lucio", it was said.

An instant and Pietro it was in the street. He/she succeeded in turning on the motorbike after some attempts. Its guide was uncertain, the journey to be crossed brief: he/she knew whether to find the colonel Basthuberr.

Basthuberr was supported to the capotta of a jeep in the usual place, in proximity of the slant that conducted to Ingurtosu and the green coast. The branches of the trees started to stuff him of deciduous leaves that as every thing sooner or later they came at the end of their cycle. The colonel followed with the look the motorbike of Pietro that drew near. The soldiers were impassive. Pietro extinguished the motorbike and descents. «Hi, colonel!»

«Hi, marshal! I see with pleasure that are starting again in form after the accident. I have known about your fall and I am regretted a lot.»

«You don't worry him, colonel, has the hard skin me. Us casertani we are as the cats, we have seven lives,» and smiled.

«I/you/they have come because I have urgent necessity to speak to you» it continued, discovering the wonder in the face of the colonel.

«I listen to you marshal. Also says!»

Pietro looked around wary. «If you don't regret I would prefer to make this talk in private.»

«As he/she wants, marshal!» the colonel nodded. You turned and it gave some orders to his/her troop speaking in German. «We can now go, I have given the deliveries to my men.»

They set apart some hundred more meters before, to the shade of an oak. «Colonel, has had always the impression to be able to trust you, you/he/she is for this that I have decided to speak to you.»

Basthuberr listened to consenting with the head. The light that infiltrated him from the branches of the trees shone in the degrees of its grey uniform. «You also speak, marshal, can be entrusted!»

Pietro leaned on with the back to a trunk and. «He/she sees, colonel, my daughter is very sick. By now they know everybody that the Nazi regime tries to suppress this type of people.»

Basthuberr stiffened him, it was also an accusation for him. You allowed to go to a grimace of disappointment. «Unfortunately the things are so!»

Pietro got out of the feathered hat that you/he/she had taken the habit to wear. If it leaned him/it under the life, holding only it with a hand. It lowered the head and dams the eyes. «I understand that asking you what I am you to ask I will thrust you in an uncomfortable position, if you will decide to answer me. But, holy Christ, cannot do otherwise for protecting my daughter. I hope that I/you/he/she understand my feelings. Do you have children?»

The face of the colonel assumed a spellbound expression that Pietro had never seen in him. «Yes, I have three children. Hansel is eight years old, Bastian five and Sarah it has of it as soon as two, and they miss me to die.»

Pietro smiled. «Then I am certain that it will understand me, colonel.»

They heard the rhombus of an automobile that darted on the carriage one and they withdrew him behind the trees. It was better not to make to be seen set apart together in the country, there was the risk to have exchanged for homosexuals. Lisanziu Cireddu and Gamabedda, if you/they had exchanged in public their effusions, doesn't be live one hundred years.

The erbetta was tall and covered the boots of Pietro and the Colonel. It allowed however to glimpse some acorns demolished by the wind here and there. Pietro took one of them and her/it, chewing and the mouth mixing himself/herself/itself with that food for pigs; you/he/she didn't even acknowledge the taste. «Colonel, would like to know the truth on Pertzogiu. What type of nature does it have that field?»

Basthuberr grinded. It dealt with reserved information and above all delicate. If you reveal you/they would have been able to bring to his/her shooting. His/her children's image the glances in front of the eyes and it didn't dare to think about thing you/he/she would have done if something had happened to one of them. He/she saw the trembling marshal as if it were affection from the angioneurosi: the worn out face and the eyes that asked justice the justice of a father that could not lose a daughter for the farneticazionis of a Nazi crazy person. Also the marshal would be dead of it if something had happened to his/her daughter, he thought Basthuberr. It behaved from father leaving on one side his/her colonel degrees. «Ok, marshal, will help her/it. Do you ask me if it deals with a concentration camp or of a field of extermination?» it whispered Basthuberr, so weakly that the pulsation of the wings of a butterfly risked to cover those words.

Pietro frowned. «I don't grab the difference of it!»

Before answering, Basthuberr stuck out him from the oak that it concealed him/it to observe the road. He/she didn't see anybody and taken back courage. «Amiss people confuse the concentration camps with the fields of extermination. But they are totally two different fields. The first ones are alone of the spaces fenced special to the station of the soldiers with of the curtains and to the immagazzinamento of materials in great containers: food, water, clothing and also weapons. In the seconds, also called lager, you/they are exterminated all those that don't belong to the Aryan race, the so-called balls to the foot for the society.»

Pietro listened in trance those elucidations, nevertheless its question didn't have an answer yet.

Basthuberr crossed the braccias and still lowered the volume of voice. «Officially, the field of Pertzogiu is neither a concentration camp nor a field of extermination, it is only an airport port, just as that of Trunconi to Villacidro.»

Pietro knitted the forehead. «Therefore don't I have anything to fear for my daughter?»

Basthuberr twisted the face. «For what I am you to say I could also be shot. I expect me that as me I am helping her/it to save your daughter, you never speak of this, my children need their father.»

Pietro appropriated the heart. «You look me, colonel!»

Basthuberr observed him/it. «I swear her on my daughter and on the good soul of my wife that I will make me tear the heart before putting her/it in the middle of this history» it promised.

Basthuberr put on the finger index on the mouth summoning the silence. Pietro had lifted too much the voice. «Also I have always known to be able to trust her, marshal. To Pertzogiu, in reality, him stà putting on a lager. Pay me attention, you don't divulge with anybody the news of the illness of his/her daughter.»

Pietro was fossilized by those words and also the unintentional muscles of his/her body arrested him. It looked at Basthuberr but he/she didn't succeed in speaking. If his daughter had broken up the history with Daniel Minghetti, there would have been big probabilities to see to climb her/it in boat for a crossing without time, ferried by Caronte.

# 14

To Montevecchio the only fruits that it gave the earth had the ferrous taste of the lead and the zinc. The ground was hard as the life and as the heart of the men. You hoed, you hoed and you hoed anchor, but under the stone there was stone, and under of that other stone. As the reality: a stone is shunned and finds even more another big before. That metallic and annoying clangor of the pick that strikes the rock the same sound that produces the heart of the men picconato from the ferocity of the existence without never softening never disappears.

To Montevecchio they grew Mediterranean stain, firewood trees, some fruit tree, then nient'altro. To receive the gifts from the nature was necessary to go down downstream.

For the inhabitants of the zone September meant vintage. Not that year: the vineyards, had been tormenting for the uncertain time, you/they had actually procrastinated the maturation of their grapes at the end of October. The vintage of the few survived grapevines it happened in family way and, to rotation, the harvest of the grape effected him in all the belonging vineyards to the relative. They made exception the possessiones of Bastiano Sabiu, enormous expanses with endless file of grapevines. Vineyards whether to be worked, over that of brothers, uncles and cousins, they required the employment of a conspicuous number of workers to payment. The family of Bastiano from generations possessed the only sandy grounds of the zone. Of certain, for that vintage Meleddu Talloru had not been recruited, that before the year had passed halves the time to empty its bladder mysteriously become deep as a crevasse and the other half to eat more grape of how much it didn't bring in shoulder of it.

Sat on a trunk of eucalyptus to the base, Emilio amused him doing himself/herself/itself rotate the pruning scissors among the fingers. It brought her with itself every year, despite you/he/she had never used her. For the cut of the grape they were more proper and fast the small hands tapered of the women; the men were relegated to a more masculine job: the transport of the full baskets of grape.

The first lights of the morning dyed the sky of greyish. Maria walked among the rows of the vineyard to make himself/herself/themselves an idea of how much grape there was to pick up. The vineyards of Bastiano were found in the countries of Launaxis, in the outskirtses of Guspini. Emilio scrutinized about twenty people to invade the vineyard, there were also some children. It was all people that took advantage of the vintage for rimpinguare the wallet. To finish before evening be starts toward the six and thirty, there was to almost pick up grape for centocinquanta long rows two hundred meters each. A line of eucalyptuses confined with the stradina that flanked the vineyard and all the workers they deposed their lunch to the shade of that trees.

Bastiano arrived. Is sat above a cart that drove maneuvering the reins attached twos oxen united by the yoke. I approach to him other carts they arrived hauled by oxen and someone by the horses. They also made their appearance some motocarrozzettes. The most greater part of that means they were driven from his/her brothers, children and cousins, an army.

Luigi finally arrived also. It brought an old undershirt tied in head to serve as bandana. «We are ready?» churches skipping about and shaking the fists for air. It mimed his/her idol, the same of a whole nation: the boxer Primo Carnera, that in the trentatré first Italian champion of the world of the maximum weights was become, sweeping away the American Jack Sharkey.

Emilio inflated the cheeks and leaked the air. «I have never seen so so much grape all together. This year the base treatment of sulphur has limited the mildew and the sparrows you/they have combined less troubles of the usual one. We will have to sweat her to us all those twenty liras» it hissed seeing Bastiano that drew near.

Bastiano wore some short pantalonis and a shirt to pictures rolled up until above the elbows. It was seventy years old and his was everything anything else other than a lean body. He/she still worked as a mule and it had a strength spropositata. The elderly ones told that from young he/she succeeded in lifting some barrels of two hundred liters wine. His was the stumpy physiognomy of a fat man, with the face pienotto that succeeded in camouflaging the deep wrinkles. Its legs were trunks of tree, its forearms had the long and smooth hair as the mantle of a collie and they were so big that risked to overcome the circumference of the thighs of Emilio. «Hi, boys! You immediately departs, otherwise we risk of it stuffed to rub from the dark. The baskets are in my cart!» it said Bastiano with his/her ogre voice. It opened the last two buttons of the collar of the shirt putting in evidence a lock of hair salt and pepper.

The workers took the baskets that had been built weaving the reed as one spiked. You worked in couple. Emilio put on with his/her wife Maria, Luigi with a beautiful dark girl that wore a flowers negligee; its name was Graziella, but all called her/it Lella. The last two rows that preceded the vineyard of Peppe Sabiu the brother of Bastiano occupied.

Emilio inspected the ground and found the cippo that delimited the vineyard of Bastiano. Considering that Bastiano and Peppe were brothers, for scorporare the vineyards, that belonged to an only great vineyard before being inherited, had done to less less than sacrifice some rows of grapevines to erect a border of fig trees of India or brambles. That idiot of Concapeddi to divide his/her vineyards from those of his/her/their cousin Spolladeddu, was killed instead, for a whole winter hoeing two rows of grapevines. The fig trees of India had flourished in that empty space, but Concapeddi had not calculated that in the zone where its vineyard resided, when it blew the wind it did him/it of east. The thorns of the fig trees of India got up with the breeze and they struck its vineyard. Instead Spolladeddu was found again with the entire back and the well separated vineyard: to him the east brought at the most some drop of sweat. In the days that the vintage preceded, Concapeddi went to pray twice a day in the church. He/she asked to the Lord not to make to blow the east, not to be forced to vendemmiare covered by a sheet up to the hair, to protect himself/herself/themselves from the thorns.

After the descriptive stone, the rows were only loads of leaves. The rotation of the vintage had passed first from Peppe Sabiu that year.

Maria and Lella pruned some of the webbed leaves among the greatest and they stuffed the fund of the baskets. To the whistle of Bastiano the workers started to cut the full-bodied clusters of red grape. Emilio and Luigi went together unloading the grape in the carts parked behind the eucalyptuses. You crush from the weight of the grape and sticky surrenders from the must, the webbed leaves they remained you glue to the fund of the basket. They succeeded in bad way in limiting that the must drained from the intersections of the reed. The carriers held a rag on the shoulder on which the basket was loaded. The must strained on the neck and on the breast however, the suits and annoyingly making the sticky skin.

To regular intervals, among the rows they detached long reeds hammered to earth with the points that acted from crutches for the carcasses of the crows. «How come you hang the dead crows?» he/she asked incuriosita Lella to Bastiano, that was giving of there to verify that the carts of which it prepared were enough to contain that mountain of grape.

«First I used the scarecrows. The first day the crows are to the wide one. The second they draw near and they study him/it. The third one goes even more him near. The quarter they climb him on the braccias and the fifth one the cacanos on the straw hat.» For years the crows had destroyed his/her vineyards.

Lella and Maria laughed. «You have never thought about replacing the straw hat with a latrine?» Lella sneered.

Bastiano nicchiò, then an incipient laughter removed from him the breath.

«I have found a solution better than the latrine. I shoot to a pair of those bastard and I hang her to the reeds in beautiful sight. It will seem you strange but it works. I believe that also to them arouses fear to see that end can do coming to bleed my vineyard.» Lella made a disgusted grimace.

«And when they begin to stink they hold distant also the young thieves» it added Bastiano.

The workers proceeded without shifting the work. To approach the laboriousness of Bastiano was an illusion: the basket was filled and traveled up to the carts with the same speed with which the other ones completed that operation in couple. «Forces, snails! We are tomorrow also there night of this footstep» it teased them.

In past, once reaches the years" \- shutter", you/he/she had decided to give a lesson to the young fellow of the country. You/he/she had taken to enroll himself/herself/themselves every year in the games organized for the celebrations of holy Barbaric. You/he/she had won for nine consecutive years the first prize to the competition of the wheelbarrows, obviously serving him as conveyor and not from momentary, and saving so the back of his/her companion and the wheels of the utensil. When proud it showed the packages of eggs and the flour sacks received in prize, the youngest boys were bite the hands. They wondered where it found that whole agility a middle aged man with the belly of a pregnant woman a nine months and the big head as a barrel. Bastiano was not bald but the joining of its hair was very particular and departed from halves the skull. His/her brothers picked around it up. «Bastiano, you don't suffer from baldness! God has given you the correct hair to cover a head of normal dimensions. Where hair misses you it is because God had not foreseen that your head became as the watermelon that you/they grow to Mussolinia,» and in that zone of reclamations there were news that spoke of cinquantacinque fruits kilos.

Bastiano laughed us on and answered: «I will also Have the big head but starting today my dispensation is big even more, with fresh eggs and flour sacks. You retry next year. Rather, if you give in advance me the prize I don't enroll me, so you save the face» it gloated. It was still temutissimo to the games.

Lella made to circle with mastery the pruning scissors. With a dry hit chopped off the cluster that directly fell in the basket. «How come I see so a little around you to Montevecchio?» Luigi asked her with his/her scoundrel smile.

Lella blushed. Emilio and Maria looked at sottecchi and they snickered. Lella cut another cluster with malice. «Perhaps because don't open well the eyes. I am always there!»

Laughed Emilio the basket loading himself/herself/itself in shoulder. «One to zero for Lella and ball to the center!»

They transported the nth basket. Emilio unloaded him/it, instead Luigi remained with his leaned on the bank of the cart. «Lella is really beautiful! Ago also rhyme.»

Emilio gathered the occasion for a wisecrack. «Bella or ugly it doesn't do difference, so much your bird the eyes it doesn't have them.»

Luigi quadrated the fondoschiena of Lella that was bent for chopping off a cluster of grape from a low branch of the grapevine. «But the master of the bird the eyes it has them, and what you/they see is good stuff.»

Emilio provoked him/it. «You should try us Luigi. You are not tired to make the scapolone?»

Other unloaders came for emptying their baskets. Luigi unloaded leaving the passage free and preceding Emilio him still directed toward the rows. «You are right, Emilio, but with this history of the war. soon that letter of advice will become to certainty and The wills be sent to the front, The feels him/it to me!»

Emilio frowned him. «And with this? Lella would wait for your return as they will be all the other wives.»

«I don't want to make to suffer other women besides my mother.» It knelt and it wound with his/her hand a knotty trunk of life; the webbed leaves softly titillated him the face as it desired they made the hands of Lella. With a knife it cut a cluster devastated by the mildew and it threw him/it to earth, then it crushed him/it sinking him/it in the sand.

«I believe that you are afraid to build you instead a solid relationship» Emilio accused him/it.

Luigi, Lella that smiled reciprocating the look to distance looking. «You are perhaps right you. I am afraid to create me a family because I don't intend to force my wife and my children to a life of difficulties. Mistake?»

Emilio heard the rumor some children that helped his/her mothers to fill the baskets with the grape. It inhaled the odor of the vineyard and it was rubbed the fingers feeling the dust rough that dissaldava the must from the skin. After all to the rows it had the feeling to see Giuseppino that ran after him with the other children: how many times you/he/she had done him/it before falling in that meter of water. It bent the head and he/she answered: «I am not anybody to tell you if you are wrong or you do well not to make you a family. I tell however you that the joys and the pains when they are lived in company they have another taste. The family helps. When it is dead Giuseppino, if we were not helped to story with Maria there. and with you, that by now belong to the family, we would be dead from the pain. He/she anchors today it is so difficult.» And you/he/she was crushed by the emotions. Some tears ruled him the face and from the chin they dripped to earth the white-light of the sand darkening. Luigi put an arm around his neck. «Before, friend, not to think of us and let's enjoy us this beautiful day in calm. You/he/she has been a pleasure for me to know that you consider me one of your family!»

Emilio was rubbed the reddened eyes and dried the tears with the shirt. «Yes, Luigi, goes and let's not think not of us more.»

To half forenoon they stopped him all and they refreshed him with a cluster of grape Italy, nougat and good person, with the big and green grapes as sour medlars. Bastiano on purpose grafted her/it to eat her/it to meal and that type of grape it escaped to the spremitura for the wine. Bastiano made to taste to everybody as good that that had put under spirit the year before had come. Eccome to be good was him/it, but it was so soaked of grappa that could not be granted us more than two or three grapes, always that he/she was not wanted to slip to earth you intoxicate after being him sgolati to sing" hurray tziu Bastianu."

To midday, Maria and Lella they reached halves the their according to spin. For accustomed people to the sacrifice as Emilio and Luigi, to transport the baskets from the beginning of the rows had been a game. Now however work started to make himself/herself/themselves feel, because they had on the legs varied kilometers with thirty kilos in shoulder, I crossed in a sandy ground that swallowed the feet as mobile sands to every footstep. «Go to lunch! He/she eats!» it howled Bastiano. Its words gave relief to the carriers that were shaken of back the baskets almost throwing them to earth. Emilio arched him seeking relief for his/her back.

«We are to good point!» it exclaimed pleased Bastiano with the voice arrochita from the preceding cries.

They camped out under the trees of eucalyptus, in a carpet of oval leaves gilded by the time that crocchiavano when you stamp on. They dealt with the trunks and they systematized some square stones to form a circle. The lunch, was constituted as usual by a piece of stale bread dampened by the butter and some of the last slices of sausage. Prisms of light infiltrated him among the ample stramatures of the trees and they reflected him on the mantle of gilded leaves.

Luigi took a seat above a stone, of side to Lella, surrendering her trunk more comfort. «Thanks, Luigi, is very kind.»

Luigi the takings the hand and it drew near with the lips to his/her ear. «If will give the possibility of it, I intend to be kind more and more with you! Is it all right?»

Took Lella the dark red color of the bovale that Bastiano he was pouring in front of them. Finding an unusual courage for a woman, it drew near to the ear of Luigi and it whispered a half declaration. «You don't know from what aspect that you do him/it!»

Luigi had a wince of pleasure and smiled at her with sweetness, shaking the hand he anchors her.

It sing-songs her prolonged of a bird it broke the romantic atmosphere. They turned all to understand from where that obstinate song originated. It was a pubùsa or upupa for the continental ones: white, black, orange and with a beautiful crest in evidence.

«If Bastiano sees her/it it makes an ugly end!» it said Luigi observing the abdomen pronounced of the man.

Emilio confirmed. «You have reason, September and October they are dangerous months for upupe and foxes.»

The upupa was a very beautiful bird that in spite of its figure fatata stinked terribly, more than the quail: the dirtiest bird that could be found in the countries. Ache smelled the whole year but, as the fox, for one period of about two months that coincided with the vintage, this stench disappeared.

Luigi snickered. «There am many eaters of foxes and upupe and they don't live in the country of Quartu!»

«Then it is true that to Quartu they eat the dogs!» it said Emilio. «I don't know him/it, Emilio, but if I were you I would not go to be a dog-catcher there. I believe that you would not capture many of it!» ironizzò Luigi, making pivot on the gossip that in Sardinia the inhabitants of Quartu were devoured the dogs. But if someone was taken he/she intrigues her/it to analyze the boiled ones and the stew cooked to Montevecchio in the months of September and October, you/he/she would have found less dainty meats of those of the duck and the kidskin; types of meat that to do misses I he/she waits for him/it they stinked the whole less less year that in that two months.

Bastiano raised a cloth that protected a basket. «Before, you eat. If we want to end before evening it will be better that you are in strengths!» It tilted the basket toward the workers to show its content. There was bread done in house and cheese pecorino that its definite perfume emitted in the air. Bastiano cut the forms of cheese in equal portions; Luigi lent him a hand doing as many with the bread. It was everything offered by Bastiano and his/her wife Cinzia, good people.

Emilio observed his/her children that tasted the cheese licking himself/herself/itself the moustaches: as they were beautiful while they were appeasing their behind hunger of years. All proceeded for the best. It missed only a thing, and all waited for him. «Luigi, doesn't this year tell us any joke?» Bastiano pricked him/it.

Luigi picked up the challenge and got up standing tightening his/her portion of bread and cheese. «No, this year I have decided to tell you an episode that is really happened me.»

Lella withdrew him. It found strange that Luigi told to all of his/her things, you/he/she would have preferred that told only her to her, in private.

Luigi started to speak. «Before the war, two beautiful foreign they knocked to the door of my house, they were witnesses of Jehovah.»

Emilio had noticed Lella to shut the jaw as soon as Luigi had observed the two beauty foreign. It gave a push with the elbow to Maria that the mouth covered him not to let a giggle be escaped. Also Luigi furtively looked at the sulky face of Lella. You turned for not making to be seen by her snickering. «They told me to want to enter for speaking to me and to try to convert me to their religion» it continued, it intentionally coughed then for creating the correct atmosphere. «To that point you/he/she had come me a question spontaneous and definite to do him her": But is it true that you you testify of Jehovah you make the alone love on Thursdays"?»

Bastiano the face covered him with both the hands hello to scompisciarsi from the laughters. Instead Lella chewed bitter and inside of itself it was furious, Luigi's question at two o'clock foreign you/he/she had been impertinent.

Luigi continued had a good time by the situation. «They looked me you surprise, then one responded me": Sì, is true, we make once a week the alone love, the Thursday"» it Detached an edge of cheese for then to give a bite to the bread. «I looked her and did I ask both": That day is today?" Them, thinking that I was stupid, they made a grimace, then they answered": Today it is Monday"!» it made Luigi talking to the full mouth. It rotated with a turn, risking to make to be escaped bread and cheese, and its turn almost finished in knee with a tense hand for a bow. «Then overhauls Thursday that we speak of it, I told him.» His had been more than an allusion.

The laughters made to escape the upupa. The gilded sea of dry leaves roared crushed by feet shaken that they danced to suon of laughters. Bastiano, feeling the end of the story, bread and cheese you/he/she had spit for not suffocating him and he/she anchors he/she didn't succeed in abandoning the bent posture. «Too strongly, Luigi, really troppu togu. They make the alone love on Thursdays. And then overhauls Thursday!» it screamed gratified Bastiano.

Luigi felt the hair to throw to the shoulders. You/he/she had been Lella. «You have had really the courage to do what you have told?» it questioned him/it in accusatory tone. It had the drivel to the mouth.

Luigi challenged her/it. «Because? Don't you believe it?»

While it was being about to let loose himself/herself/themselves the first scene of jealousy among the two, Bastiano it intervened, that widened an arm to point out all the presents. «Lella, leaves alone, Luigi tells every year of these histories, but I derives only from his/her imagination. You see, it makes us laugh all and us we are happy.»

Lella still mortified Luigi with the look. «Tziu Bastiano says the truth?»

Luigi encircled her life. «Some that yes. beautiful my!»

The cheeks of Lella reddened him; laughed, embarrassing himself/herself/itself to have tried so so much jealousy for a man that was not even its. For Luigi it started to try a fiery passion and the release of anger after his/her story it was the test of it.

To the one and half they started over cutting the grape. Whitish wads were entangled in the tops of the Linas mountain, contaminating the blue of the clear day. They worked to maddish rhythms and the six in the evening they concluded the vintage. Bastiano settled his/her debt getting heavy of coins the tense hands. Emilio and Luigi, after having received the pay, they sprawled him on the cover of dry leaves. His/her children were already in underpantses and tzia Cinzia Sabiu it washed their feet with some contained fresh water in a pitcher. They howled happy and they got excited with impatience. They attended to jump above the full carts of grape for the operation de him accaccigatura. Bastiano inspected the carts to verify that the waxed cloths, set to line the fund and the banks, duty you/they were systematized to and they didn't allow the must to drain to earth. It lifted an arm. «You are ready?»

A yes periodic it emptied the bellows of his/her/their children.

Bastiano lowered the arm. «Then street!»

The bystanders saw his/her children compete for catapulting him on the carts. They jumped on the grape squirting juice red blood from all the parts. Their faces were mud's masks deformed by the happiness. You accaccigatura was not a symbolic phase merely used for making the babies you participate some vintage. That pressure of excited feet crushed the grapes of grape emitting the must. To bring to grind a quantity of grape as that of Bastiano cost almost as the same grape. The feet of his/her/their children had as only price instead the bread and cheese eaten to lunch.

Visible to the banks of the banks, where grape was less heaped up in comparison to the center of the cart, the must reached shortly the level of watch. It was necessary to stop the little one to avoid that the juice overflowed to earth. Between a complaint and the other his/her children were lowered one to one. His/her parents grabbed them under the armpits to bring them to earth. Luigi looked at those nice scoundrels and laughed together with Lella. From the feet to the navel they seemed to be fallen inside a pentolone of hot water. More on, some isolated stain gave the idea to be the result of a beating. Emilio didn't have anybody to make to go down from that carts. Franco was too much small and was home with his/her/their grandmother. Instead Giuseppino was dead: puddle of a liquid color must, very less dessert. A denser liquid: blood.

The disease of the evening infected the last cyclamens of light of the sunset weakening the country of Launaxis with a piressia of darkness. Oxen, horses and motocarrozzette shifted him greeting the estate of Bastiano Sabiu. The carts were full of grape and must. Now he/she didn't remain but to leave everything in the hands of the teachers of the wine, hereditary from centuries of a precious ability handed down of father in child. A part of the must would have been boiled and sacrificed for doing he/she knows sapa, the principal ingredient for the sweets of tzia Cinzia. On November eleven you/they would have ascertained the quality of the wine instead, because as it said the old proverb: to san Martin the whole must is wine.

Bastiano made to flow along the reins an arc of skin that broke him on the back of the oxen producing a gun. The animals lazily started to advance bringing himself/herself/itself behind their loaded cart of must and grape.

# 15

After the wars in Ethiopia and Spain, Italy was not ready to face a new conflict, besides planetary, and you/he/she had temporized. In an impetus of forwardness, Mussolini was gone out then of the state of not belligerency attaching the English in northern Africa. You/he/she had been as to send some livestock to the slaughter house, considering that the big part of the heavy artillery went up again even to the first world war. And now that Hitler had launched the attack against the Urss, starting the operation Barbarossa, you/he/she would not have accepted but the Italian allies they still prevaricated and you/he/she would have pretended military troops to his/her support. It intended to close with a war lightning of five weeks, avoiding so to risk the troops to the polar Soviet winter. But it was a folly, because the Russian army he was revealing a dangerous and astute adversary; the winter impended as an epitaph. In narrow times over halves the miners you/he/she was recalled to the front. The great affinity between some engineer of the direction and some among the most important fascist gerarchis did yes that at least the least number of essential workers he/she didn't leave the mine.

As you/he/she had foretold him same, Luigi it didn't show up in the middle of the immune ones. It had only trentadue years and during the military service you/he/she had been winning with various recognitions; its vigor was necessary to the front and you/he/she had been assigned in first line, the riskiest. You said that you/he/she would have departed for Russia, near Stalingrado: it was there that the Germans tried to give the decisive spallata to the red army of Stalin.

A military green jeep was parked to the mouth of avenue Empire, of side to the building of the direction. As another dozen of boys, Luigi attended to take that mean. You/they would have conducted him/it away from Montevecchio, toward a different life, where the difference among to become hero or dead body would have been imperceptible. But him perlomeno didn't have wife and children and to cry him/it there would have been alone the elderly mother.

The square was full of people. Emilio saw Luigi supported to the great awning that covered the large case of the jeep. You did wide between women and children that to a large extent you/they would never have seen his/her own husbands and fathers again. It came in front of his/her greatest friend. Luigi rose the beret from the forehead and stared at him/it in the eyes, scrutinizing his/her fears up to the soul. They remained to a meter of distance the one from the other without uttering word. Then Emilio drew near to Luigi and embraced him/it tightening so strongly it to get away for an instant the breath. «Then parts for Stalingrado?»

«So it is said!»

Emilio looking at the extended face of Luigi. He was young and he/she saw the war as a possibility of retaliation toward the world. It didn't have idea of thing it waited for him/it in battle during the rigid Russian winter; and it was better so, irresponsibility would have lent him a big hand to avoid to think that his would perhaps have been a trip of alone going.

Emilio tried the last paper. «You have not tried to address in direction to annul the call to the front?»

Luigi got out of the patched limp beret in more parts and you/he/she delivered him him among the hands. «The country calls because it needs me. When we will have won this war and I will have revealed a name, I will ask me the help of my country and I am sure that I will receive him/it. I want to depart, not to hide me as a coward!»

Emilio contemplated the figure of Luigi with admiration. You inserted on the head the limp beret that he had given him. «I have to hold him/it?»

Luigi gave a pacca on his shoulder in a comradely gesture. «Is not a gift! You will guard him/it to me up to when I won't have reentered from the war. Then, if I will have become important and I can purchase one of them new, I will decide whether give him/it or less.»

Emilio smiled at work, Luigi hastened and looked for of risollevargli the moral one. «You know her that about the Sardinian baker?»

Emilio slowly shook the head, you/he/she would have liked to smile, but he/she knew that that was the way that had chosen Luigi to greet him/it. It was a sad moment.

«A Sardinian baker holds the flour sacks on the back of his/her shop. A French arrives that if you/he/she is doing her/it I set, he/she sees the flour and it pisses us above. Does the Sardinian see him/it and shouts him": That cabbage you are doing?" French looks at him/it and answers": Je of it compris pas." To that point the Sardinian draws near him and says": you/he/she is alone because you don't want to buy bread you owe the flour to piss me"?»

The lips of Emilio drew a crescent just mentioned, he/she didn't succeed in doing more than that.

«You see, Emilio, us Sardinians we are stubborn and we make us to understand everywhere. I will also do him/it me in Russia. We have thousand resources. I will make to know to all of my trallalleroses!» Luigi was not afraid, rather. Radio and newspapers spoke of corpses and wounded but they didn't succeed in making a truthful idea of that that happened, especially in Sardinia, where the real war he still made to attend. Who didn't see with his/her own eyes the death it was not able to gain her/it through the written words or you speak of a journalist. The vision of the war from Luigi was exclusively tied up to a film that you/he/she had seen from few in the cinema theater of Montevecchio: red Coats with Gary Cooper. That evening the tickets for the duecentocinquantas set of the room everybody had been sold. People howled and were exalted during the film. Luigi had remained electrified by the battles among the troops English and the Indians. It imagined so the war: a great field where you/they could die only the appearances, not the principal actors, and him it was considered a Gary Cooper. And if it were also dead you/he/she would have earned d of it' image, was its conviction. To Montevecchio it still spoke of Grisello the brave one, a boy whether to save some companions of his had been killed in the fifteen war - eighteen. «Grisello yes that it had the square coglionis!» they told with adoration the circle of the dopolavoro. In the wall of side to the counter you/he/she had been suspended the portrait of a very beautiful youth, that heated the low abdomen of the females to the first glance. «As it was beautiful Grisello!» the women exclaimed being sorry himself/herself/itself not to be able to have him/it before in meat and bones there. Who had known Grisello personally he/she affirmed that that portrait didn't belong at all to him. «Does her of Grisello it was ugly as a culo stormed of hemorrhoids after a bellyful of quaglio of kidskin» it swore tziu Mallocci, a hand placing himself/herself/itself on the heart.

The myths must have remembered beautiful.

Behind Luigi and Emilio the atmosphere quickly saddened him. Severinu Mannai was serious, it attended to depart and it held in arm his/her two children. Casizolu and Gianbattista Fogheri were kissed with their wives and who knows if you/they would have heard again the sweet warmth of those lips.

A wagon hauled by the oxen, to be able to pass, broke the crowd in two. Mannoi Arannada, a bearded farmer of half age, lifted him above the wagon. It abandoned for an instant the reins and it was placed the right hand on the forehead emulating the military regard. Luigi immediately answered, Severinu Mannai and others less enthusiastic of the departure didn't imitate him/it.

The sudden starts of the temperature, over that to slow down the maturation of the grapes, had starato the biological clock of the animals. Anticipating the times, a voluminous flock of thrushes expanded him in the air. It drew the eccentric form of a race, that opened his/her immense wings in the abyss of the sky aquamarine; then he tightened and it became a sharp zagaglia, ready to pierce through the skeins of clouds that in distance they appeared on the surface behind the Linas mountain. Hundreds of eyes to the firmament they admired that amazing phenomenon that almost seemed to announce a premonition. Luigi hoped that you/he/she was good.

Some people removed him leaving a passage that brought up to the jeep. Caracollando, a conformation of elderly woman ingobbita appeared and wound by the mourning: it dealt with tzia Adelia Corona, the mother of Luigi. When he saw her/it he/she hardly succeeded in holding back the tears. His/her mother was old and sick and you/he/she would have found impassable difficulty to live without his/her benefit. Luigi tore off the back from the mean and him you/he/she made meeting to the woman. «Hi, mother, that you do us here? I had told you to be home. It is for this that I have greeted you first.»

The old one scrutinized him/it with worn out eyes and it tightened him both the hands. «Not to go, my child, prays you!» it implored him/it, trembling and allowing to shine through some tear.

Seeing the desperation of his/her mother, Luigi collapsed and cried. «You are calm, mother, doesn't have at all intention to leave you. I have to go, but you will see that I will return.»

A soldier went down from the place of guide of the jeep and leaked inside an I whistle metallic similar to that of the railroaders; the strident sound that produced attracted the attention. «Boys, are time to depart, you jump on the jeep!»

Luigi embraced his/her mother crying. «You will see that I will return, I promise him/it to you!»

The elderly woman, that from when you/he/she had lost his/her husband it entirely dressed of black, it extracted from a pocket the only fabric that it was not suitable him to a mourning: it was a white handkerchief. It dried the eyes hemmed of tears but the it you/he/she would be taken something of well greater to arrest that hemorrhage of sparkling droplets.

Don't make to feel her what you/he/she would have said, Luigi turned her back and whispered to the ear of Emilio. «Friend, owes a favor to ask you.»

Emilio started. The occasion of sdebitarsi had arrived for the whole help that Luigi had offered to his/her family after the death of Giuseppino. «What you want, brother!»

«He/she minds mine old. Anything happens, I pray you, he/she minds mine old. Do you promise him/it to me?»

Emilio fell in an unbearable melancholy. «I promise him/it to you as it is true that tomorrow the sun will rise, my friend.»

The new recruits climbed all on the large case of the jeep.

«Expected! Expected, I pray you!» It was the voice of Lella.

Luigi jumped down to the flight from the jeep landing genuflesso to reduce the hit. Lella beat the face on his breast and made him tighten from his/her strong braccias. «Oh, Luigi, when you will return you will find here me to wait you.»

Luigi saw Emilio make him the gesture of the lifted thumb. His/her friend was right that day of vintage, Lella you/he/she was a good girl and you/he/she would have waited for him with trepidation. It shook her the hands to the height of the basin and right-hand looked at her/it in the eyes. «Lella, will return and we will marry there, I promise him/it to you!»

Lella stuck out him in before and closed the eyes. Luigi kissed her/it on the lips, softly, without making himself/herself/themselves space with the language. Crowd didn't seem to acknowledge nothing, there was too much demolition to mind the new loves. That film kiss would be enfeebled in an instant. Luigi went up again on the jeep that stirred and slowly takings speed. It grabbed one of the pipes that sustained the skeleton of the awning of coverage and he stuck out. Emilio saw him/it and he launched to the pursuit of the vehicle racing as a madman; I approach to him so many wives, so many children and so many friends. Lella was immovable, stunned by the kiss of Luigi.

«Goodbye, friend!» it howled Luigi.

Emilio the footstep, shaken by that regard, then it still accelerated. «It is not a goodbye, Luigi, deals with a good-bye» you/he/she shouted with the whole breath that had in throat.

Luigi did just in time to hear that regard beneaugurante. The jeep took the steep descent that windingly you/he/she would have conducted them to Guspini. You sat in position from Indian. Close to him, Severinu Mannai cried. Casizolu for the time being he held back but its eyes were red and swollen as plums. They were in an about ten inside that large case and each he/she knew to be alone inside of itself. Luigi and the destroyed faces of its companions of trip almost infected him/it. He/she saw to get further the building of the direction and the hospital that it was of forehead. Only he realized now that was about to abandon all of this that up to few instants first would never be dreamt to leave. It was at that time that it contracted the infection of the sadness, to which until then you/he/she was escaped. Montevecchio, in his small, thanks to the great available workloads, for the inhabitants of the zone it represented the navel of the world.

They left well to the shoulders Sant'Antonio with his/her tower merlata in style neogotico. Well Piccalinna became more and more small, until when it disappeared entirely from the view of Luigi, and with it the last signal of his/her house faded away also. It considering to his/her mother and Emilio. They would be Them him missed to die, the job in mine some less. It supported the head to the awning that for the attrition with the air it rippled gone crazy. It scrutinized to quickly flow in front of his/her eyes an insane dance of colors. A whirlwind of pinete, woods, rocks and animals, that plain pians melted him in a psychedelic picture from the indistinguishable forms, painting with a mixture shades irriproducibile and sounds. Who knows if the war would have had the same vivacious colors, or to attend him/it in the icy winter of Stalingrado there would only have been one discolored fresco in black and white.

Emilio accompanied again tzia to house Adelia Corona, starting so to maintain faith to the promise sort to Luigi. They entered that bugigattolos that absurdly you/he/she had been able to have been keeping to himself/herself/themselves for the external summer and to maintain a rigid winter in his/her depth. The sixty centimeters of thickness of the carrying walls of that mousehole had worked as a customs that the sultry excitement had not succeeded in eluding. The residence was constituted from a single room in which the only clippings of furnishing were a crumbling table two chairs mended to the best and a heap of pagliericci abandoned on the floor. Three copper saucepans were suspended with some nails to the boundaries and a wake of ants it emerged from the ceiling of tables and it lost him in the joints of the raw bricks. The kitchen was a base of cement cover of cracks and sbeccata in the angles, greater than the fireplace, in which would not be been able not to even roast a quail. Of bathroom not even the shade of the shade, only the odor. During the winter, for the limbs shriveled of tzia Adelia to make the needs it had to represent every day a scourge. And Emilio was imagined the old one crouched under the tree of lemon, with the black suit lifted up to the navel, wound by the snow to try of cacare or to piss to the quick one not to die frostbitten. Now he/she explained him the fame of the lemons of tzia Adelia Corona, famous in all Montevecchio for as grapefruits to be big and. grown with natural fertilizer.

Emilio saw the body malridotto and sick of tzia Adelia and it heard again. To grow old was the destiny of every man and for Emilio old age was only a phase of the life. His/her grandfather had been a great impassioned of piano; to play had also entered him/it to belong to the choir of the church of san Nicolò to Guspini, even if its swearwords made to turn the corpses in the graves. «Grandfather, because he grows old? You are not sad with all those wrinkles?» Emilio had asked him, when it was more or less twelve years old.

«You don't have to be afraid of the old age Emilietto. I have gotten used to see her/it as one divided palindromo.»

«What one divided it is palindromo, grandfather?»

«It is a music that played indiscriminately departing from right or left always produces the same symphony» you/he/she had still replied the old one. «Old age is so: it doesn't have to frighten neither from young people neither from old. It owes to always be seen equally. Have you understood, Emilietto?»

Emilio had nodded happy. You/he/she had understood really: old age was always equal and he didn't have to be afraid of it. But growing had realized that his/her grandfather's look toward the senility had perhaps been distracted. He/she now thought that old age possessed a meaning instead bifronte. He from child had hurry to grow old. «I am ten years old» you/he/she had said proud to Archangel Peis. As soon as one day had passed from when you/he/she had completed only instead eight of it. From adult, instead, the desire to grow old had disappeared together with the first wrinkles, to the first stains on the skin, to the first brizzolatures; the lie had it starts to insinuate himself/herself/themselves with overbearance in the daily paper. His/her wife Maria, with the people that didn't have means of controprova, it was always attributed a few years less. The eccentric thing was that that lie had the expectation to convince herself to have a few years in less. That is the period in which the childish and adolescent memoirs start to make evil and they torment men that he/she anchors they find it hard to recognize himself/herself/themselves in a body rusted by the first afflictions. From old he becomes sincere and truth with pride is displayed for having sometimes reached an unexpected age. His/her great-grandfather was dead to novantaquattro years. Who would be able of to diminish a finishing line as the ninety years? Anybody of certain, he/she thought Emilio. But unfortunately the fear of the death didn't weaken of equal footstep with the age. Him, when it was twenty years old, it fell asleep thinking about thing you/he/she would have made the next day; it was certain that his/her great-grandfather, to novantaquattro years, it fell asleep thinking the same thing. To twenty or to one hundred the same desire is had to live, that disappears only in the forced patients to the suffering from too much time. Perhaps old age has only the power to make aware that death is a forced footstep but not for this welcomed without fear.

Anybody from young it was able to imagine him in the state of tzia Adelia Corona. You is born, he lives, he grows old. and then he dies. The humiliation of a departed old age under the conditions of that woman made to believe in Emilio that at least one of that four passages you/he/she could be eliminated: he is born, he lives. and he dies, without growing old, you/he/she would have been better.

But the saddest thing was that even his/her child Luigi had succeeded in improving the things. His/her job soddisfaceva as soon as the stomach with a' derisive daily refection, when it was all right.

Emilio arranged the elderly one on one of the chairs, helping to come down her/it while he sustained her back with an arm. For the time being his/her assignment he exhausted. Just before to leave it realized her/it that the woman didn't possess anything of his/her child. Luigi was brought away his thin and miserable personal effects. Emilio the limp beret raised him and placed him/it on the tired knees of Adelia. «Holds, lady, this is the hat of Luigi. It will make her company when it will feel him alone.» It was private hardly forever of the dearrest gift that had ever received. Yet you/he/she had done him/it with pleasure, that poor woman it had very more need in comparison to him of that ancient headgear.

The vecchina looked at him/it with adoration and tightened him to the breast the beret as if it were the body of his/her child. «Thanks for the gift that you have done to a poor old. You are a brav'uomo, Emilio!»

«I thank her, lady!» he responded embarrassed.

Few minutes later it put on in march to make reentry to Guspini.

# 16

Comforted by the certainty not to be seen, Geneva slunk away from the window of his/her room. Pietro would have spent the night in the barracks of Montevecchio. The ruler was fallen for a long time as usual already in a deep catalepsy.

You heard the yelp of Pipizziri originate from the back of the residence, then it stopped, delivering Geneva to the embrace of the wood. It didn't have appointment with Lucio, but he/she knew ch'egli it spent around his/her nights for the woods. You/he/she would have found her, it was sure of it. For a while the epileptic crises had weakened. Geneva had riassaporato the taste of an usual life, a taste that its gustatory papilles had even difficult to recognize, and it now started to think that it was the love of Lucio his/her medicine.

The red woodpeckers exhibited him in a concert barcamenante. Their tapping oscillated with the frinire of the crickets, that seemed the foundation of a falsetto of voice teacher represented by the screeching of an owl.

Geneva advanced in the night, beautiful and celestial as a warm light coming from another world; and in his/her comparisons they seemed to also feed respect the bugs that infested the wood; they wandered around her, humming, bombando, but without inflicting her an only puncture.

By now it was distant from house but not for this it had intention to stay himself/herself/themselves. That walk did her/it feel long live and integral part of what surrounded her/it a soul submerged in the lukewarm sea of the emotions.

The roar of a buck in the composition of the wood. Opposite, its figure was a rare joy for the eyes. Geneva was seduced by the loveliness with which that splendid animal was able to turn some simple movements into a physical poetry. The buck jammed, scrutinizing her/it without even not moving a muscle. It lifted a leg and, as if you/he/she had understood not to have to fear nothing, trotting left the scene.

To cross that line of wood during the night electrified Geneva. Who did in the daytime it it didn't receive the same feelings. And that was a place that in the daytime of people he/she saw so many of it: hungry people to the search of a help of mother nature to put something under the teeth. From when the war was instigated, on the mountain you/they had raided of everything. The healthy taste of mushrooms and spontaneous grasses you/he/she was become a fleeing baluginio. Even the berries of myrtle and corbezzoli had disappeared, and the absence of their vivacious colors impoverished the arboreal cloth.

Geneva sat him above a rocky spike had been smoothing for the time. He/she listened to the nature. Making echo to the acoustic effects of the fauna started to sing, and that voice had few to envy to its physical aspect. If Lucio had had some working eardrums, you/he/she would have believed to be behind the coasts of the island of the Procis, together with Ulisse, to listen to the seductive song and kidnapper of the sirens. «Oh partisan, hands me street, oh beautiful hi, beautiful hi, beautiful hi, hi, hi, oh partisan, hands me street, the invasor you/he/she has arrived.»

But Lucio was everything anything else other than a partisan and you/he/she would not have brought away her; it was not able. For him you/he/she had already been difficult to cut out him a space in the narrow world of Montevecchio, to escape and to face from the principle a new reality terrorized him/it. His/her immense shade emerged by the obscurity of an oak, projecting himself/herself/itself on the ground without you/he/she could be understood where it finished and where those started some trees instead.

Geneva smiled and kept on singing lifting himself/herself/itself from the boulder. It walked and it sang advancing verse of him. They met fifty-fifty road. They looked in the eyes and then they tightened him in an overwhelming embrace. Geneva the takings for a hand and it continued with to sing. They started to circle, dancing and dreaming to be elsewhere to the staircase in Milan. The public applauded skinning himself/herself/itself the hands and asking the encore: it was the crepitante ovation of the red woodpeckers. The song finally dissolved him, as if the head of the turntable was jumped. Geneva caressed with both the hands the graven breast of Lucio. It removed his long red hair that partly they covered him the defaced face. It didn't find him/it ugly, his/her eyes now they had the ability to go beyond the subject and to see the beauty of the feelings.

Realize to want to make the love. You unthread the thin negligee of celestial silk and it carefully deposited her/it above a bush of corbezzolo. Its firm and generous breast sparkled under the moon. Geneva folded up him, unthreading himself/herself/itself of the panties of black end, and it appeared in his/her nudity, of a dazzling beauty. This time you/he/she would not be denied as you/he/she had done with Daniel Minghetti in the kitchen of the guesthouse. Lucio witnessed unarmed that unreal creature. By instinct the malformation of the face was grazed and, despite it still brought the pantalonis, very more nude felt him him than Geneva was not him/it; naked inside, of a boundless nudity.

Perhaps, really for that internal contrition, when Geneva undressed him/it his/her punishments it was limp. You understood his/her embarrassment and it started to masturbate him/it. The first imperceptible contact would have been enough with only its fingers to do yes that the penis lifted him aiming the navel. Lucio was victim of a brutal erection; the feeling of void tried first had been replaced by the madness of the hormones.

Geneva already knew the sex. You/he/she was happened very soon, when the memoirs of his/her mother had started to fade. To the epoch it was only fourteen years old and unlike a lot of other girls he/she remembered with pleasure that first time. He/she remembered the excitement and the confusion of his/her thoughts, he/she remembered the feeling that had overwhelmed her as him same to commit something of profane. But what was stamped in his/her mind in indelible way it was the instant that had preceded the penetration: one brief period but along a life, where you/he/she had trembled believing to lose the only thing that nobody would ever have been able her to return. What every woman believes to be able to maintain for ever: the chastity.

You was invaghita of a young sottoufficiale from the kind ways and after a few times that you/they were frequented you/they had made the love. It called Giovanni and Geneva it didn't exaggerate at all saying that it was very beautiful. They seemed facts the one for the other, beautiful and young people. Geneva was sure that, if Pietro and she had not departed for Montevecchio, he would have him of certain gotten married. The night, it sometimes waked up again him petrified. He/she dreamt the moment in which you/he/she had waved a white handkerchief greeting forever Giovanni from the back seat of the auto of his/her father. You/he/she had been hard to forget him/it.

For Lucio instead it was everything different. The only contact with the skin of a woman had tried him with his/her mother, and even too often. For her, to reward with a caress that phenomenon from booth, had represented an effort spropositato from which to gradually recover himself/herself/themselves before granting him a new time.

Lucio had lived seeing his/her brothers to grow covered with hurries, the same hurries that for him they were dead with his/her father.

«Thing there is love?» Geneva whispered him arousing him/it from that memoirs scoundrels.

Lucio read the labial one and understood. It grinded. It had once at that time to think for to himself and the woman that it loved, fottendosene of what you/he/she had been and that you/he/she would have liked to scrape off up to the last leftover from his/her conscience.

Geneva scrutinized him/it deeply and it felt him fortunate to have found him/it that day of almost one year before. You/he/she had glimpse him/it to the dusk from the window of his/her room. In country you/he/she had felt to often talk of the enormous boy to the marked face and always with a little flattering tones. But she had never seen him/it before that night. You/he/she had spied him/it hiding himself/herself/itself behind the curtain. When you/he/she had finally succeeded in seeing his/her face, you/he/she had felt an instinctive repugnance and the mouth was covered for avoiding that its amazement wandered up to Lucio. From that night you/he/she had taken the habit to place himself/herself/themselves in front of the window and to spy him/it while with graced calm it lost him in the wood.

Tziu Prinzis, the barkeeper of the circle dopolavoro, prepared for the miners he/she knows bombetta: a gotten drink mixing three quarters of vermentino with a quarter of foam. Geneva hated the white wine but he/she adored the sweet taste of the foam and the little bubbles that tickled her the palate. For her to look at Lucio had been as to drink he/she knows bombetta of tziu Prinzis, increasing every day the dose of foam. More foam added to the white wine and I leads the taste it seemed her bad. The day when the quantity of foam had overhung the dry taste of the white wine had arrived. While it was staring at Lucio from behind the curtain, you/he/she had realized not to have made case to his/her horrible face, for the first time. Every night, in to see him/it, a small fragment of repugnance was dissolved, thin to water completely its image. Geneva had begun to make case to his/her perfect physicist, to his/her shiny hair and the great sad eyes. He/she wondered that heart could have that boy that sent away his similar and it was sheltered in the wood. Without not even knowing why, you/he/she had followed him/it to distance, surprising to deprive him/it him of his only piece of daily bread for sfamare a wounded small pup of fox. That gesture of generosity had made her stagger the heart to the point to appear. You/they were known and you/they had taken to almost all meet himself/herself/themselves the nights, bringing both to eat to the small fox. Once reestablished, the animal had abandoned forever them leaving in pawn a strong friendship.

Geneva had remained then distant from Lucio for quite a lot days. An unknown feeling had become entangled in her stomach as a snake and you/he/she had been afraid to admit that it dealt with nostalgia. Lucio didn't speak but its gestures did him/it for him, outlining a gentleness and a brittleness that Geneva had never found in a man.

You/he/she had decided to see him/it again. In front of him account was made that the time had sweetened the face of Lucio in its memoirs. Seeing started him/it, again projected in the reality. Few instants had been enough, some gesture, a smile, to do yes that the usual mask of gentleness slipped on the atrocious face of Lucio impeccably hiding him/it as an ideology pirandelliana. Daniel had never been so kind with Geneva. He thought first to himself, only later, if some small stayed of proper love, it spent him/it for her.

Before every nighttime meeting with Lucio, Geneva had taken to put make up on himself/herself/themselves. You said not to want to delude him/it; she is always liked to put make up on himself/herself/themselves, it didn't do him/it please he, repeated to herself. But the fear that was really this way instead it didn't allow her to be rational in his/her analyses.

While is being sat on the shores of the source of he/she Knows it will Lose, Lucio had mentioned to take her hand. You was instinctively withdrawn. Perhaps from another man you/he/she would be made to take the hands, but not from him, in that way from persons in love moreover. It didn't understand that feelings were those that it tried for him: compassion, friendship but not love, hoped. In the hardest enterprise was risked for a human being: to lie to a person that knows very well the truth. A called person" him same."

An evening, session traveled in the auto with Daniel. You/they had seen Lucio climb homeward in the hill his/her. Daniel had opened the car window and, cradled by the fact that Lucio could not feel, you/he/she had howled: «Lord and gentlemen, here to you the monster of Montevecchio!»

Those words had gotten an almost physical pain to Geneva, that had felt the sad eyes of Lucio place him on her. They implored her to defend him/it. You/he/she had been pervaded by a latent anger. «You are a stupid, Daniel!»

Daniel had looked at her surprised and you/he/she was tapped some times the finger index on the temple, in an eloquent gesture. «But are you crazy?»

The maternal protection for a defenseless mind like that of Lucio had swept away the last hesitations that held back Geneva to send Daniel in the same one set of which was gone out twenty-four years before. «Creeds that has chosen him to be this way? You are really a stupid. When with your friends are I am certain that you also laugh at me, of my illness» you/he/she had howled him in face. «Stopped!»

«It tries to calm you, Geneva.» Daniel had reproached her without tearing off the foot from the pedal of the accelerator.

Geneva had grabbed the steering wheel of release and there was missed little that the auto invaded an uliveto. «Stopped, I have told you!» you/he/she had howled with more vehemence. You/he/she had gone down from the auto beating him/it counter and leaving astounded Daniel. You/he/she had gotten further showing off a scurrilous language worthy of a brothel.

From child, when it attended the school, the epileptic crises often struck her/it in the classroom. You pissed completely I set. The other children, to the fear of it of the lessons, they put her/it to the center of a great girotondo and they sang together all: «Geneva the pisciona! Geneva the pisciona!» You threw him to earth crying; praying that the soul of his/her mother picked her/it up and brought her/it distant from that bad children. Now it was imagined that, to the center of that girotondos, a child as Lucio you/he/she had to be ends us every day of his/her life. All had sung him: «Lucio the monster! Lucio the sordomuto! Lucio the latrine!» And he was thrown to earth, without not even knowing what the other children howled him, crying and trembling while the vortex of the girotondo accelerated.

Stunned by that thoughts, Geneva perceived a salty taste to the angles of the mouth. It carelessly dried the tears, as if you/they had been cried from qualcun'altra. Lucio was silent.

After the quarrel with Daniel, the feeling of friendship that tried toward of Lucio was confined inside a chrysalis. That same day had been her to shake its hands in the wood, marveling himself/herself/itself of as they were warm and great normal hands, identical hands to those of Giovanni and Daniel. You/he/she had stared at him/it in his/her great sad eyes and a knot the you/he/she had become knotted in throat. Without realizing his/her lips of it you/they had gone to graze those of him. The tangle was loosened. The chrysalis had opened and from the caterpillar of the friendship you/he/she had taken life a fantastic butterfly of love, Argema and from the thousand colors.

The metamorphosis was finished.

The red woodpeckers remembered in Geneva that distant one year was found by that thoughts. It made to sit Lucio above a tender grassy carpet. He didn't oppose resistance and it slipped down clumsily. Geneva slowly forked his legs on the sides and descents with the basin, up to make to lean out the member among his/her great lips. When Lucio penetrated him to her it allowed to escape a moan of pleasure. It was beautiful to make the love in that position, thanks to which was possible to perceive in the eyes of the other the uncontrollable emotions and the fire of the passion.

Making strength on the legs, Geneva it undertook a latch, an erotic dance from the form accattivante. Lucio tightened her breasts with red-hot hands. In the transport from the excitement graced him movements they became soon an impetuous and uncontrollable fusion to which it was impossible to escape. Geneva forgot in that instant to be a woman of good family and on the thresholds of the sexual apogee it howled everything of his/her enjoyment. Lucio accompanied his/her swing with impetus. The violent orgasm arrived in simultaneous and it seemed to last an eternity. Their gasping moans overhung any other sound of the wood.

They slipped to earth exhausted, bathed by the seed of the passion. In the air an admixture of odors fluttered that to Geneva it still gave more magic of its first time. It climbed on the extended body of Lucio and it passionately looked at him/it; he/she kissed him/it.

The dawn brought with itself a sky lattiginoso able to create around them a bright aura. «I feel you mine, Lucio, as has ever felt mine any other.» The reflections feared by the marshal had a base and now also a certainty: also Lucio loved as Geneva you/he/she would have been able to do any other human being on the face of the Earth and perhaps of the universe.

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# 17

Oblong shades worried the walk of Pietro. The naked branches of the trees were bony hands of ready witches to grab him/it: Maria's Point Oru claws. Announced by a shiver, a feeling of uneasiness forced him/it to mind its threatening thoughts. Geneva was still betraying Daniel Minghetti, Pietro knew him/it. A look was enough for him to understand the thoughts of his/her daughter. It had to intervene in first person to put elegant to everything this, there were no other alternatives. It had only to contrive as.

Shaded by the trees of the park, in front of the building of the direction, the motocarrozzetta of Antioco Perra was surrounded by about ten people that you/they attended with the knives in hand. Nobody had intention to make him the party, they had the knives because Antioco was a knife sharpener. Pietro drew near and saw him/it rhythmically press the pedaliera of the car to sharpen the blades. The wheel of stone twirled clockwise emitting sparks to the contact with the steel. The practical hands of Antioco quickly rubbed on the wheel both the faces of the blade, producing an annoying screeching to listen. «You come, men, women and children, get thin here knives, cutlasses and coltellini» it sing-songed without dissuading the look from the rotations of the circular stone. Antioco had been one of the carters: workers that using some wagons hauled by oxen transported up to Cagliari the mineral extracts in the mines, for then to reenter loads of explosive. That trip massacrante of going and return it had the duration of six days and it exclusively foresaw two standstills. The animals finished the run exhausted, as Antioco and his/her companions, forced to crowd by hand the load in the holds of the next ships to ferry him/it in the peninsula. In 1932, with the birth of the foundry of St. Gavino and private the railway line of the mines, the carters had been forced to preoperating pension. Luckily, or for misfortune, according to the points of view. Antioco rather than to cry I am set you/he/she had spent all the savings of a life to purchase a motocarrozzetta and a car to sharpen the second-hand knives and you/he/she had put on in really to be a knife sharpener.

«Antioco I have to sharpen four knives!» a young mother exclaimed delivering him that small arsenal.

«It is all right, Giannina, makes you four knives for three liras. I discount quantity and greet me Gigio» Antioco responded.

The woman smiled and picked up the regards for his/her husband. Ginisceddu, the greatest child of Antioco, fumbled in the large case of the motocarrozzetta. It systematized in beautiful sight of the bottles of glass filled with the milk. Antioco instigated him/it to talk to a light push with the elbow. «Today for you fresh milk of sheep» it made to know in encumbered way the young one.

«You are sure that I/you/he/she am fresh?» he/she asked tzia Elvira Maccioni, one of those petulant vecchines that rummaged six of it or seven cassettes to the search of that good before purchasing a mandarin. Elvira had the face completely covered with brown stains.

Ginisceddu confirmed. «Certain, lady! This is milk of the pastures of Luiso Perra, dad's brother.» It raised the cork cork from one of the bottles to make to feel to the woman the perfume of the fresh milk. «Feels that they perfume and it will tell me!»

Elvira sniffed. «It seems good, I trust me. Give me of it a liter, I am tired of the usual milk of goat. There is not other here!»

Antioco inserted him. «Some that would be some difficulty to pasture in the steep costonis of this mountain for the sheep. Antioco is here for this and brings you genuine milk from the pastures of Guspini.»

Tinedda, a silfide of girl around twenty-five years of age, did him before. «You would not have any foremilk? My child is down of rope in this period, you/he/she seems a ranocchia with the eyes of out.»

«Today it is fortunate Mrs Tinedda. Antioco has thought about all.» It abandoned for an instant the knife that handled on the base of the car grinder and it pointed out a box of cardboard systematized to a side of the large case to Ginisceddu. The boy the takings and it threw out other bottles containing foremilk. They distinguished from those of milk for a cross engraved in the cork cork.

«Here to her, lady! Milked foremilk few minutes after the birth of the little lamb» it said Ginisceddu smiling.

The woman took the bottle and paid satisfied. September and October were fortunate months for his/her/their children. They ate the boiled of that strange minute duck with the thin bones and the roast one of a kidskin that had the sharp teeth as those of a wolf. But you/they could also feed with liters of foremilk: a tonic, to said of the elderly ones. In September and October the most greater number of the births of lambs was verified. The first milk milked after the birth it was so fat that once boiled it clotted him as the ricotta, and you/he/she could also be eaten with a fork. The foremilk boiled with sugar and lemon gave he/she knows casada. His/her children him strafogavano with that delicacy of which you/they were greedy, dealt after all with tonic.

Antioco was massaged the whirlbones. «Tomorrow it will rain. I feel the knees that he is numbing. My rheumatisms mark the time.»

Ginisceddu looked at him/it worried. «If it rains as we do, dad? They again touch tomorrow us Guspini and Marceddì!»

Antioco shook the shoulders. «And as you want that we do, my child, will do as they do to Bosa!»

«And as they do to Bosa?»

«They leave that it rains!»

Seeing him/it amazement of the boy the customers they tried to turn the laughters into a sudden attack of cough. His/her father had bewitched him with one of the so many Sardinian proverbs from the ambiguous meaning.

«But also in the other places they allow to rain when it rains» it protested Ginisceddu in abrupt way, feeling himself/herself/itself taken around.

«Note, therefore we will allow to also rain us!» it confirmed Antioco making him the occhiolino.

Shook Ginisceddu the head. His/her father was incorrigible in as for imbecilities. The turn of Pietro came.

«Good morning, marshal. What can I do for you?»

Pietro leaned a butcher rapier on the base of the car grinder. «Mrs Loi owes to badly have used him/it and the blade is hollowed out in some points.»

Took Antioco the rapier. «We see what I can do!» It inspected the blade as him same taking the aim with the reed of a rifle and it sent forth a toward of disappointment. «The blade is very damaged but I believes to succeed in putting again her/it in sixth. However you have to leave him/it to me for a few days. To house I have some special utensils to cut out her/it. It will return as it was, only slightly thinner.»

Pietro nodded. «Perfect! Of these times there is not then so so much meat to be butchered but it is better always to prevent a possible rain of heads of livestock.»

Laughed Antioco, without doing him/it for convenience of his/her business. «You are right marshal. It goes worse and worse. Yesterday the fishermen of Marceddì were in revolt against the Castoldis. It seems that half is not enough theirs fished for power usufruire of the lagoon anymore.»

With his/her motocarrozzetta Antioco made the spool among Montevecchio, Guspini, Ingurtosu and Marceddì, and he/she saw of it of all the colors.

«Poor thing!» Pietro exclaimed. If his father-in-law Bernardino had still been alive you/he/she would have tried to kill the Castoldis, the family owner of the lagoon.

"That Alberto is worse a leech of his/her father-in-law! Marceddì has paid her novantamila liras and he/she takes to draw it so many money how many the fishes that splash about you are. There that is one whom he/she knew well how much it was worth to get married among the thighs open of Zely Sanna, the daughter of the master of Montevecchio. When the old Giovanni has bursted, Alberto is not made to pray for jousting his/her fortunes" you/he/she said Bernardino of Alberto Castoldi son-in-law of the ex magnate of the mines.

Shook Antioco the head. «By now it is tried to impoverish only who doesn't even have the least necessary to be defined poor.»

Pietro made a face schifata. «It will change all this!»

Antioco scrutinized the sky as him same sifting the answer of the Lord to the forecast of the marshal. Then he/she still spoke. «Instead I was this morning to Ingurtosu. An American airplane has been dejected from the Germans and you/he/she is fallen on the beach of Piscinas. They say that there is inside still the dead body of the pilot and in country it doesn't speak of other. Here to thing it brings the war!»

Pietro started. You/he/she had not seen nearby never a military airplane destroyed from and its choice to be with Geneva had made him lose the possibility to make himself/herself/themselves be worth in battle. The clamor of the heroic enterprises completed by its colleagues policemen had also reached Montevecchio. In the battle of Culquaber, in Abyssinia, the first group mobilized of the Policemen, without ammunition and restocking from months, you/he/she was immolated fighting to the white weapon against the English. In the battle of Eluet el Asel instead, four hundred parachutists of the policemen, appiedati, had stopped the advance English giving the time to the italo-German army to retire himself/herself/themselves. When these news had reached him/it, Pietro had been proud to belong to the policemen and at the same time you/he/she had tried some you/he/she is ashamed. He was calm home with Geneva while his/her colleagues, to defend the country, battled without the fear to be killed.

Some pigeons raised him in flight from the trees making to fall one of the last rains of foliage, colored corianders that circled in the air.

Pietro left the rapier in the hands of Antioco and reentered to house.

The desire to see that dejected airplane became in a few hours uncontrollable. In the flash in which Pietro crossed again in motion to big speeds in front of the park, the bottles of milk had disappeared from the motocarrozzetta and the wheel of stone you/he/she still turned for the last knives.

The road that brought to Ingurtosu was a mulattiera disseminated by ditches that the fruit of exploded mines they seemed. The thin branches of heathers and filliree sbordavano on the road, making even more her hold. They noticed some brooks with the water from the garish colors. The drainages of the mines were tied up to the pestilences of fishes that increased of year in year. The fishermen that complained him were beaten out of the lagoon and you/they would not have fished anymore for how much you/they had lived. Also this would have made to burst the liver to Bernardino. The drainages of the laveries in some place also had to end. The little rivers color rust that, flowing among the stones, they ended up plunging himself/herself/themselves in the waters adjacent to the lagoon they confirmed the fears of the fishermen. On the banks of that orange rivulets they didn't even grow the thorns.

Montevecchio reigned the countries from the tall one, Ingurtosu contrarily it expanded him at the end of a steep descent. Villas, public buildings and structures of extraction could be individualized with some kilometer of advance. The motorbike Guzzi he left to the left the village and it continued right-hand for the sea of Piscinas. From the last tornante of the mountain the immense dunes were seen, that decreased up to disappear in the extended chilometrica of sand from the beaches of Pistis and Tower of the Pirates that from Gutturu and frumini it arrived until after Scivu. In distance people and jeeps were noticed close to the presumed heap of wrecks of the airplane. In front of the sea there was another sea, constituted by million of grains of sugar of reed that returned reflexes ambrati. It was the beach: a boundless arabesque created by the depths furrows left by wagons and a halves of curious. The sea was blue and calm as a cup of oil. You melted with the clear sky cancelling to the horizon the line that divided them.

Metallic rails crossed the beach. They mailed in the gallery of a well of extraction that defaced the uncontaminated loneliness of that place.

Pietro parked the motorbike just before the beach. It was better to proceed afoot. Holes surrounded by heaps of sand testified that someone had already run aground.

The pointed bushes of rush and sparto sprouted in the sand here and there. Tower of the Pirates was an open coffer that exhibited gold dust for beach and casting of fused silver for sea. The flowers of the ravastrello were small pink sapphires as grains of pomegranate and the white santolina it was like ivory and mother pearl.

The green jeeps belonged to the German army and colonel Basthuberr's greyish outline it was graven in the background of silvered reflexes.

The point of the airplane was planted in the sand and a shovel of the helix it sprouted from earth as the lopsided stem of a birch tree. The tail, without more rudder and fuselage, were broken and you/he/she had invaded the box of the pilot. A folded up wing was still hooked for three quarters to the aircraft: as a plow you/he/she had left behind of itself, for about ten meters, a furrow in the beach. The other wing floated in the waterline as a float. A green olive with darker stains reigned on the back of the I air. The visible parts of the abdomen approached more to a grey celestial.

Pietro scrutinized the carcass of the airplane with the hands leaned on the sides. Its shade was projected on the sand drawing an ancient pitcher. The German soldiers and some curious were immovable to few meters from the wrecks. It seemed that someone had implored the silence and you/he/she had been satisfied.

Basthuberr acknowledged Pietro but it kept on fixing the airplane. It had the joined hands. It seemed to pray in that desolate laying.

Pietro still advanced toward the airplane, you/he/she put on a hand in front of the mouth and you/he/she understood: Basthuberr was not fixing the wrecks of the airplane but the dead body that that steel coffin contained. A blackened arm, of certain burnt, it dangled along the side of the aircraft. The broken tail had invaded the box crushing the pilot up to the sternum. The overall of the dead body, a blood's soup by now clotted, was torn and it showed it lavishes wounds on the skin. You/they had been produced by the splinters of the aircraft or simply from the bomb that you/he/she had demolished him/it.

Pietro made small, small, as a little one to which is revealed that dad native and the Epiphany don't exist. "Then it was this the show that the policemen had seen in Africa"?, he/she thought. "A cemetery of wrecks and one of dead bodies!"

«Then the war is so: a place where the soldiers feel to sing and to dance the music of the death» it whispered. And pronouncing that zeugma it realized as the man was scanty. Of as he/she lived with the fixation that the only episteme was the search of the perfection: to eliminate the dregs to reach the perfect race the Aryan race.

Was its head a stray dog stung by a poisonous question as an invasion of thirsty mints: because the man ever had to go to the spasmodic search of his/her perfection? Possession of the defects was so beautiful and to show them. They made every unique person, they remembered every day the weakness of the men and they made to feel more alive. His/her wife for example had a big mole as soon as above the navel. After having made the love Pietro he/she was extended to observe that imperfection that only he knew and you/he/she could appreciate. Every defect cancelled the possibility to see one day for road the clone of him same. What horrendous world would have been if everybody had been beautiful, intelligent and healthy. There would not have been even the taste to choose him a companion. You/he/she would have been enough to close the eyes and to point out at random one of them.

Only the strongest had to survive, as in the savanna. But as the shoulders you/he/she could turn to the elderly ones that for a life you/they had thrown you on, or to kill a sick child as his/her daughter Geneva?

The scientists were trying to give to the man of the characteristics that you/they didn't belong him. Pietro had read from some part of a discovery folgorante, that had underlined a decrease of weight of twenty-one grams in the exact instant of the death of every examined individual. You told that that twenty-one grams that suddenly they escaped to the bodily weight they were not anything else other than the weight of the soul.

Pietro tightened the teeth that almost squirted from the gums. Those ideas could not sediment in its mind. You/he/she would have spit in front of whoever it sustained that his/her wife's souls, or of an innocent baby as Giuseppinos Masala, had the same weight of those of Hitler or Stalin. No! They didn't even have to try to thrust him in head certain minchiates. Hitler and Stalin had everything, less that a soul. And it didn't concern at all a political matter. You was exasperating some ideas. You tried to convince with the strength other men to favor those ideas without sharing her. Pietro was not a clairvoyant but he knew well that those same ideas could withstand until when you/he/she would have lasted the violence that sustained her. It is few that point would have cared you/he/she if the oppressors had been communist or fascist, republican or monarchic. The theater of their horrors would always have reserved an only end: elegiaco and predictable.

It had a shiver and been surprised of as all that discourses of liberty and tolerance they circled in his/her mind; really him that you/he/she had thought about killing a" different."

"And if Lucio deserved my daughter"?, he/she wondered, arburesa turning himself/herself/itself in the bloody wound.

You rubbed the hand some times on the chin, scraping off the fingernails against the prickly beard of one day. «Lucio, Lucio» it was said. «Thing I have to do with you?»

So many years before, when it lent service with the mobile battalions, to give a demonstration of their rebellion the communists you/they had seized a young fascist. The black shirts of the voluntary militia, for revenge, you/they had beaten up four boys of the near binges to the communists. Three of them were made two months of hospital, one had not been so fortunate and it were dead because of the lesions. That death had been the death sentence for the abducted youth. You/he/she had been found again after a few days, thrown in a channel of drainage. Pietro had seen the dead body of the boy with the face pulped by one shot. The father of that youth had gone then in barracks to sign a deposition. Before andar by you/he/she had looked at Pietro in the eyes and you/he/she had told him: «The man is the beast more beast that exists. It attacks and he/she kills his similar, without eating them for pure folly. At least the animals they kill for instinct to survive. And unlike the beasts that you/they quickly kill their prey and almost without bringing sufferings, the man is crueller, sadistic. It grants the hope, the deceptive hope to be able to survive between difficulties and atrocity, a hope that in reality there has not been never, since the principle. Does tell me her, that hope has my child now?»

Pietro to the epoch had the same age of the killed boy. You/he/she had not answered, some because he/she didn't know whether to answer and some because it didn't fully share that consideration. But today, in front of the schifezzes that were making the life a dump of frustration, you/he/she could say to have the well clear ideas on the nature of that twenty-one grams of soul. That physiological decrease had a less noble cause of that that was wanted to make to believe; it was something organic. That twenty-one grams were the weight of the last stupid given birth by the hole of the culo; of the last urination that squirted from the private bladder of every control. The man, and he didn't make exception, it had the same origins of the animals: of the dogs that crushed for road by the automobiles, in unison with the death, him cacavano and they pissed I set; of the rabbits, that drilled by the little balls of a cartridge, they forced the hunters to hold I hung them for the ears to lasciar to drain the merda and the piss for a few minutes.

The man was so, an animal, not a God. And the merda and the piss also had to have a weight. If a man was left naked to die only in a room, you/he/she would give the impression to be dead drowned in the puddle of his/her same physiological necessities. A last combination among piss and merda that it had a well precise weight: twenty-one grams.

«Marshal, has she come to also make himself/herself/themselves an idea of the war?» It was colonel Basthuberr's voice and it dragged Pietro away from thoughts that became more and more suffocating.

«Any communication of this demolition had not come me. I have known him from the knife sharpener!»

«Marshal, has told already her that the army treats the military matters with the maximum reserve.»

Pietro wrinkled the forehead. «I understand, but it is fallen in Italian territory and in my zone of competence!»

Basthuberr made spallucce. «It doesn't depend on me. The official communications depart from the field of Villacidro and I are competence of the captain.»

Pietro nodded with a grimace. «I know him/it, colonel, we am only the pedestrians of the chess.»

Basthuberr still looked at the body of the pilot. «You look as it is ended in this damned war!»

Pietro uttered a sigh. «Colonel, has novelty on Pertzogiu?»

The colonel stared at him/it severe. «What I have to say a novelty is not her: holds the illness of his/her daughter to the wide one from indiscreet ears. You remembers that the physicians of the Nazi army love to serve experiments on particular cases as the twins or people affette as rare and incomprehensible illnesses. The epilepsy reenters of certain among these.»

# Pietro imagined his/her daughter's image vivisected by a scalpel tightened by hands put on of gloves, under the cold light of lamps from clinic, and you/he/she shivered.

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# 18

They missed few days to Christmas. The icy air had an almost silky density. An imperceptible rain had concealed among the clouds, surrendering the stage to a storm of sleet that covered with a patina frozen all of this that incocciava. Emilio had abandoned the companions in the shed for the lunch. It had to hurry a matter for him superfluous but essential to said of his/her wife Maria. It estranged from the cardinal path inserting himself/herself/itself in the wood. The puddles of water were punctured by the bullets of sleet; they were produced small points that expanded him in you look for concentric becoming targets.

Pietro tried to shun the puddles. He/she wore a brown passamontagna from which the lips and the nose, that leaked its so consistent breath to seem solid stuck out only, crystallized. Its profile was a coffeepot that emitted hot vapor.

The grass burnt by the frosts in many points had taken the nuance giallorossa of the pistils of the saffron, that contained in their flowers violet they colonized hectares and hectares of the adjoining countries to the near country of St. Gavino. Some trees of rate shaded a strip of granite rock. It was to the shade of that trees that Emilio would have found what it looked for. It fished from the pocket of his/her overall a pezzuola of cloth. It knelt at the base of the trunk. Frozen water fell in more strong droplets from the branches of the trees and one of these it struck him/it on the naked skin, between the passamontagna and the collar of the jacket. It hollowed out the neck in the shoulders for the shiver. Waving the fingers caressed the dress of velvet color lawn that shade and damp you/they had plotted for the rock; it almost tried to like in the delicate contact with the dense layer of musk. Maria would have been satisfied: with that muscos you/he/she could put in scene the presepio. His/her presepio, not that of Emilio. He had stopped doing him/it when it was dead Giuseppino. With his/her ability in to work the wood, Emilio from a trunk of oak had carved Jesus child, the ox and the asinello. Maria and san Joseph they had a soul of beech tree. The kings magi and the pecorelles knew about eucalyptus. It was an ability that had painfully made a will manufacturing the coffin of his/her child. It hated the presepio and you/he/she had stopped attending the church. But every Christmas Maria kept on methodically systematizing those figurines. The happy moments perhaps remembered her in which together all discussed on as to prepare the statuettes. «Jesus child is better of here, the kings magi of there» you/he/she said Maria. And the contradiction of Giuseppino immediately arrived: «No, Jesus child is better of there, the kings magi of here!» Beautiful times that would not have returned anymore, he/she thought Emilio.

For two weeks, until over the Epiphany, it was forced to see him/it every day that presepios. Maria systematized him/it on the base of the belief in the stay, just as you/he/she loved to make Giuseppino. The morning, when it got up and the floor of compacted clay was cold and stung its feet as a brush with needles to the place of the bristles, it unthread in front of the presepio trying not to lift the look. He/she didn't succeed us and the gangrene of the cold from the feet salivates taking himself/herself/itself all the legs.

With a guspinesa it separated the patina of musk from the rock, bringing himself/herself/itself behind also a layer of dark soil that the thin roots not allascarono. It put back all in the pezzuola of cloth and it closed again her/it with a knot. Reentering to the well Amsicora wondered in heaven it made him the presepio; he/she wondered to Stalingrado his/her friend Luigi it had at least a fir to which to attach some colored little ball.

Be, hours later the capstan stopped puffing. Another day of job if gone n'era. They were you are almost her of evening and an obscurity compunta you/he/she had thrown Montevecchio in the abyss of the night. You/he/she had stopped raining water and sleet but the sky you/he/she was still mantled by clouds brumali that hid the stars.

Every Christmas proposed to Emilio the same anthology of circumstances. You/they would be dressed with the good suits of Sunday. You/he/she would have accompanied Maria to the mass in the chiesetta of Santa Barbara and him you/he/she would have remained to wait for her/it in the adjacent square. You/they would have exchanged fake wishes for the birth of a child that was not his: God's child, a God that instead you/he/she had been able to take him his of child. You/they would have had lunch in the saloon of house with the whole family of Maria, commenting the presepio, eating knows codra, pilloneddus to tacula and papassinus. His/her brother-in-law and he Michelleddu would be thrown on the codra, that being constituted by the interioras of the lamb it didn't like so much to the women. To say the truth, two native before, also to Emilio you/he/she had been disgusting ingest he/she knows codra. That time, rather than to prepare her/it in the house carefully washing and weaving the guts, for motives for time you/they had purchased her from Palmiru Loisi, a shepherd that to the light of the facts it had to consider the merda a prelibatezza. Emilio had bite a piece of codra perceiving a bitterish taste. Its language was become rough as if you/he/she had tasted an apple quince. You/he/she was raced to spit all in the courtyard. While the mouth freed him from that schifezza you/he/she had looked at earth, understanding instantly that that bitter taste as the poison was given by the grass of which the greenish merda of lamb was full that was about to swallow.

Of plucked starlings, boiled in salty water and served in a bed of leaves of myrtle it was greedy Maria. It was necessary not to mistake the time of cooking de is pilloneddus to tacula, if he/she was not wanted to end to look for his/her own teeth in the middle of the bonelets of the birds. Five minutes in more and they became so hard whether to eat was them necessary to crush them with a hammer to soften its meat. Is pabassinuses put all of accord. A person that ate unwillingly them didn't exist. Manufactured with almonds, sapa and raisin, they were the specialty of Maria. He/she succeeded in creating them with the geometric shape of a perfect rhombus. It covered them of icing and it dusted us sugar's little balls. Put inside the baskets they made a figurone as centrotavola, but they didn't last too much time in exposure, the hands came soon to ransack.

You/he/she would have been everything perfect if only you/they had not lived the Christmas pretending that the tragedy of Giuseppino was never happened and you/he/she had not grazed the integrity of the family.

Emilio was around still really to give succession to the traditions that his/her wife pretended as the sex of Sunday. The preceding day had passed to house of Bastiano Sabiu and you/he/she had asked some gram of the sulphur used for treating the vineyards against the illnesses. It systematized a terracotta bowl under a stately tree of oak, that seemed the representation of the bellows in the books of school. The bowl contained some gram of dust yellow: the sulphur of Bastiano Sabiu. Turned on a match rubbing him/it to earth and it set the sulphur that emitted a whitish haze from the odor frastornante on fire. The cloud of smoke saliva toward the leafy branches of the oak, floating in the air as a toy balloon inflated with the helium.

A deaf thud. Two deaf thuds. Three, four, five deaf thuds.

An endless sequence of deaf thuds that you/they gave the idea of balls of snow cast to earth by the tall one of the oak.

A decay of starlings, that you/they had believed to spend the night protected from the head of hair of the oak, lay to its feet. They beat for the last time the wings that, shake in a mute rattle, sparkled in front of the eyes of Emilio. And he for a throb didn't see dying birds but a crowd of butterflies that swarmed in the grass anymore before invading the air to the gun of his/her fingers. The smokes of the sulphur stunned the birds up to make to fall them unarmed from the tree. It was the good period for capture them because they started to stuff him of fat to face the long trip toward the countries of the European center-north. Emilio filled a whole knapsack of it. Together with the starlings there were also some pigeon and some sparrows. You/they would have been all right however: he/she knows Christmas tacula now there was. The tradition could continue.

The date that Emilio hated came: on December twenty-five.

The bells of the chiesetta of Santa Barbara played rejoicing the ten and half of the Christmas day. Emilio and Maria, that it held the small Franco in arm, exchanged wishes with other families of miners. The day had gone as Emilio if the prefigured era. You/he/she had gotten up soon and you/he/she had tried uneasiness in front of the presepio. Jesus child was in the cave, more next to the ox that to the asinello, as he preferred Giuseppino. You/they had discarded a small package gift for Franco: a dog of roll sewn in bad way that seemed to have hurt closed again by the points; but for Franco that was only one year old you/he/she had been a very beautiful gift. Emilio had looked at him/it touched while it was tightening him to the breast that horde of old rags. It intended to often make some gifts to Franco, not as to Giuseppino, that had received a solo of it in five years, a white coffin.

You/they had worn the good suits and you/they were made to give a passage in gig from Guspini to Montevecchio, from the brother-in-law of Maria. It was tradition that the families of miners listened to the mass in the chiesetta of Santa Barbara, a customary kind that he/she exorcized the accidents in mine during the following year.

Don Usa it opened her/it both the shutters of the front door of entry. The air took to circular inside the small church already overwhelmed of people. A violet stole surrounded its neck swollen from toad, that a thin nose made still less fluorescent adunco. The white and gilded casula was taut around the opulent life, certifying that sometimes the priests preached well and they rummaged badly. Way of living soberly in poverty it properly was not attached with a quintal of weight, arrived for qualcos'altro rather than to want divine or for the air introduced by a presser. Don Usa he/she saw her/it Emilio and it smiled at him; he/she invited him/it with a sign of the hand to enter church. Emilio made to hang to the left the right head. You/they had already discussed on the motive for which the church didn't belong to its priorities anymore: to beg his/her child would not have given back him and a best man would not even have made him/it. It didn't have any intention to pretend. That weekly time of sermons could not assuage sufferings that you/they would be dissolved only probably together with the ashes of its body. If then one day had seen its convictions on the church again, of certain you/he/she would not have submitted its soul in the hands of that fat person of Don Usa it. In front of the pecorelles of his/her flock, kind those with the big breasts, an eloquent protuberance leaned out on the before of the casula of Don Usa it. It was so fat that, if there had not been that pointed signal that disclosed everything, people would have had difficulty to understand if its culo was before or behind. Mr. Massorgiu, priest in the church of san Nicolò to Guspini, weighed less than the half and was dark very sympathetic nervous system; and it masturbated didn't him in the sacristy.

When it was dead Giuseppino, Emilio you/he/she was found to have to choose among to become still more Catholic or to stay in anger with God. You/he/she had chosen the second option that that didn't leave space to the faith of comfort. He would never have prayed for gracing him God, so that it treated well Giuseppino.

For thirty years of his/her life you/he/she had felt to go out of the mouth of his/her father curses for all the saints and also for their more remote generations. His/her grandfather had made school. Yet Greek grandmother told him that Tainei had made the chierichetto up to the ten years. To seventy, Tainei had been as illuminated and you/he/she had removed the swearwords from his/her dictionary. It went to mass every Sunday and it also prayed to house; his/her best friend was become Don Massorgiu. You/he/she had also participated in a pilgrimage in the country of Gesturi, place in which a some Giovanni Medda had lived that you/he/she made him call monk Nicola. With the war, monk Nicola was transferred to Cagliari to help the paupers and to Gesturi you/he/she was said that you/he/she made miracles and that one day would have become holy. Tainei was involved as the gesturesis, that made him the sign of the cross and they turned on a candle under every tree of fig trees or lemon where there pits the suspect that had cacato among Nicola. From the experience of his/her father, Emilio had found a conviction. Faith has only two ages: the infancy and the old age. When Emilio was child it associated the good God, the Madonna and Jesus with the saints to his/her own dad, to his/her mother and his/her brothers. It didn't understand the meaning of" abstract entity", the word that his/her grandfather often used for defining him God. For him, God was a tangible form that protected him/it from everything and from everybody. It begged him/it not to be afraid of the dark anymore, or to receive a beautiful gift to Christmas. It begged him/it with his/her boyfriend Dameddu Serrenti to do yes that their mothers didn't put as snack anymore the beets. Beginning from the adolescence you/he/she had stopped praying and to go to the church. You felt young and strong; he/she believed to be able to live without the protection of anybody and you/he/she was forgotten of God. You/he/she had stopped going to mass, convinced that a priest could not teach him nothing on the family, considering that a family all of them the priests have never had her. It was not still now elderly but the story of his/her father had convinced that the old age and the ugly illnesses helped to repurchase the faith. The to draw near some death wakes up again in the men that necessity of protection that was had by children. You has need to believe in something that the imponderable one makes later less scary of the. You has need not to imagine him dissolved forever, or worse, alone to wander in the dark of the endless one, he/she thought. The very maltreated old age, after all it was perhaps the most beautiful age,; where all are wise, sincere and also religious, Emilio was said.

«In the medioevo he/she believed him in the demon for ignorance, because it was easier to attribute to the malignant one the things that they didn't succeed in explaining!» it said Mr. Murgia his/her teacher of the elementary ones. Emilio agreed. But he/she wondered how come he/she anchors in that days, in which he/she believed him in God and they were attributed to him the good things of the life, and he never asked of whom the guilts were of those ugly, it reputed recovers us from that ignorance.

«Nobody in the medioevo has ever seen the demon, as today nobody to the world can boast the privilege to have known God. If faith is had and he believes, you/he/she should be kept on making to put aside him/it from everything. I don't evidently have faith!» you/he/she had been the sentence that had told Don Usa to remove from her/it him him of I return.

Don Usa it her/it, as if it heard again in that precise instant the same sentence of Emilio. It crossed the long central carpet that divided the two aisles and takings set on the altar. You made the sign of the cross. The mass started.

Emilio sat him above a fence that delimited the square of the church. The front door had been open and the voice Mr. It uses boomed her/it up to him. There were all to that mass, but the big part of the people was forced to follow the function from the square.

The sky was transparent and the sun embellished the day. The chirruping of the birds was mixed with the voice of Don Usa her, moulding

a sonorous cocktail that infused peace and it flattered the eyelids to let him go. Closed the eyes and he/she was dozed off to joined braccia and with the head leaned on the left shoulder.

After a hour, the ferment of the crowd aroused him/it, the mass was finished and tzia Adelia Corona exhibited him in front of him waving a letter as a fan. «Wishes, Emilio!»

Emilio, stunned still, it bent him toward the woman and he/she kissed her/it on the cheek. «Wishes also to her, Mrs Adelia.»

«I don't succeed almost anymore by now to move my old legs but the mass of Christmas in the chiesetta of Santa Barbara it is worth a few days of pain. And then I had to pray for Luigi.»

«Any news on the subject?» Emilio pursued her/it.

«I looked for you really for this. I have received an envelope from the mail carrier. I have opened her but I have not understood a lot there. You see, I am ashamed some to say him/it, but I don't know how to read.»

Emilio felt a perfume of dissolved candle and you/he/she was pervaded by an ugly presentiment. The goose bumps lined its body as a sheet of icy silk. It had adocchiato the symbol stamped to the center of the envelope: there was a red shield to the silver cross shorn by the real crown, two ribbons to the knot of Savoia, the collar of the order of the holy Announced, two bundles littori and, in point, a list rolled up with the witticism" fert" in gold repeated three times. It dealt with the symbol adopted by the Italian empire after the ascent of the fascism: a compromise between the real lineage of the Savoias and the Duce Benito Mussolini.

Emilio had already seen that type of envelopes recanti the coat of arms of the empire and it preserved an a little comforting memory of it. In the outskirtses of his/her house two are been delivered of it already. Vitalia Mocci, after having her/it open, you/he/she was not been able to exempt to howl and to throw himself/herself/themselves to earth tearing himself/herself/itself the hair; his/her child Mario would not have returned home with his/her legs, you/he/she would have done him/it inside a box of beech tree.

If from small Emilio had gone to school to heat the bench, from adult a resourceful type was become and you/he/she had followed some lessons deprived by Pine cone Fois, teacher of the elementary ones and friend of his/her wife. For this it distinguished him from the ninety percent of the maestranzes, that was illiterate and as cultural apex possessed a cross for signature. Who knows then as they did in direction to distinguish the contracts the one from the other when it saw us a cemetery of crosses.

«Gives to me, Mrs Adelia, will read her/it me for her.»

The old one, position of hope, cedette the envelope among his/her hands. The eyes of Emilio flashed fast. It scratched with the fingernails the wax it lacquers that sealed the envelope, it unthread the letter and it opened her/it as an accordion. Its heart rolled as the drums struck during the descent of the riders in the equestrian merry-go-round of the Sartiglia. The mind was in tumult and the eyes they implored pity. If you/he/she had been possible you/he/she would have braked the time allowing to fluctuate him/it in the weary one in which the benefit of the doubt would never be been able to transform in the detriment of the certainty. He/she read the first line and a broom of joy it exploded in his/her breast.

"Hi Emilios, are certain that you will be you to read this letter to my mother, because you always keep the promises and you will attend her/it as God it commands. To avoid equivocal I beg you not to directly read the letter to my mother. Read her/it you and skim her/it, I don't want to make to be her/it in punishment, so much won't acknowledge anything. As well you know, I am not cultured as you and to write would be me impossible, however I have known a nice journalist that writes for all the soldiers helping them to give news to his/her own darlings. It is not well seen from our German allies, perhaps because they tell me that he/she always writes the truth."

Emilio him made account only at that time that you/he/she was crying and the tears were last on the letter darkening the paper of it.

«Thing there is, Emilio, because you cry? Before, tell me him!» the woman implored him/it.

Emilio tightened strong the letter and it turned aloft the look. «Luigi is alive and flourishing!»

The old one the face covered him with the hands; then it also turned her the look to the sky and it lifted the braccias. «God you ringrazio!Oh, my Jesus Cristo of the cross expensive, dear!»

"Here it is terrible, I see to die about ten companions every day and every time I think that the neighbor I will be me. I have always believed that the hell was a place of flames but, believe me, the ice and the snow of Stalingrado they would be all right for confining us of the damned however. Of lice, fleas and crab lice we are covered in every part of the body that has two hair. During the night the temperature goes down of forty degrees under him zero and we pisses there I set for heating us, also because throwing out the bird there would be the risk that falls for earth as a cylinder of broken ice. This is the war but it is not our war, it is the war of the powerful persons, that of common people as us they highly beat the coglionis."

Luigi was alive, tired and tried but I live, and that was the only thing that you/he/she cared really. Emilio made a break and threw the breath. You felt an athlete dilettante after having raced the marathon. It was certain that now Luigi was not anymore so much fierce of his/her country.

"When there is not the possibility to recover the dead bodies in the immediate one, we are forced to burn them to avoid the to spread of epidemics. The other night I have given fire me to the corpse of Sasà, a Sicilian boy with which I had tied in morbid way, and you/he/she has been terrible to see his/her face become black and to disappear among the flames. You are be liked as boy, you/he/she was gotten married and you/he/she already had three children, he dreamt to come with all of his/her family in Sardinia to work in mine to Montevecchio. I have asked to the chaplain of the army where he goes when he dies and you/he/she has answered me that each goes where you/he/she has always desired to go. I hope that there am up there a mine and that Sasà is working us waiting for riabbracciare his/her darlings. Today I wake up and I have felt in guilt, I don't have wife and children, you/he/she was perhaps destined to me that pellet, you/he/she would have been more correct."

Emilio perceived in those words an increasing desperation, but they was not anything in comparison to the reality of the front and him it distantly was not able even to imagine that to which the soldiers were submitted.

"To eat gives us a spit of watery soup with a piece of stale bread; once every two weeks a small shred of meat in box. Now the mine seems me what I ate here there in one day I see him/it in a week. But not to tell my mother nothing of everything that that has told you, tell her that I am well and that soon I will return home.

When we make the turns of watch I close the eyes and I think about being with you in the shed for the lunch of midday. The chatters that we do among soldiers remember me that situation. To be awake and not to fall stunned for the cold we tell us jokes and histories of our countries. To a Milanese boy, naïvely I have said, that when it does I cool his/her nose it drains as the bird of the fishermen. You/he/she has not laughed at all and you/he/she is seemed me that it held the pout; I didn't understand because. After a few days you/he/she has asked me to face I last an explanation: it didn't go down him that people laughed thinking about his/her nose as to the cazzo of a fisherman. There I have understood that some of our adagios, out of Sardinia, they assume an offensive meaning, because people don't know their origin. I have told him that in the lagoon of Marceddì the fishermen enter naked to pick up the mussels in sea, and when they go out the part that finishes later to drip the water it is their bird. You/he/she has also laughed as a crazy person him and he/she didn't succeed in stopping. I would like to tell you one of my jokes on the Sardinians but I prefer to do him/it of person when there riabbracceremo. I now have to leave you because we are putting there in march. The Russian are of the big children of puttana, cunning and merciless, but I believe that they has the same idea of us and also between them there will be many fathers that won't return home. As I have told you before, it is the war of the powerful persons, of which you/they will go out defeated only the discards of the society as us. The only thing that makes me smile is the thought of Lella. Do they take me around here because I am always to speak of her and you/they have told me a strange thing": But do you know him/it that this Lella caca as all the other women?" I have thought there and I was never imagined me a woman that cacasse, it seemed me that you/they could not be able of it. Would you imagine her/it to you you, a beautiful girl as Lella that caca and fart? No! I don't believe it my friend. Lella caca butterflies and scoreggia aroma of incense.

A strong embrace, strong to mother and one special also for you.

Kiss me Lella, but without exaggerating; tell her that I always think her/it. I will hardly be able I will refer me alive, is well me, your Luigi."

Emilio expired, you/he/she had held back the breath for the whole final part of the letter. Tzia Adelia threw him an arm. «Then thing says my Luigi? Don't hold me on the thorns, Emilio.»

Emilio felt him light, that letter it was a beautiful gift of Christmas. Smiled. «It says that it is well and soon it will return home,» then he/she read the letter, but it did well attention to the recommendation served him as Luigi: the old one didn't deserve to be in punishment and it was correct to use with good intentions some small lie.

It told of a beautiful place where the war was made more to tavolino that on the field; a place where he/she ate in abundance and him he/she slept well; a place where the soldiers can live without the weapons and to confine himself/herself/themselves to of the sporadic turns of watch.

Tzia Adelia Crowns by now he/she saw little but its hearing was perfect. He/she listened to those words enchanted, imagining Luigi with a beautiful uniform to eat meat of calf up to burst and to fall asleep blessed during the turns of watch. Who knows as the old one you/he/she would have reacted if you/he/she had known what was passing his/her child. and thing anchors it had to pass.

Tzia Adelia dried the eyes with the white handkerchief, hoping for riabbracciare as soon as possible Luigi. «Emilio, thanks you for the joy that you have given me. I regret but I don't have anything to offer you for all of your favors.» And nothing had, considering that in two days you/he/she had eaten a thin fettina of stale bread with the butter and two roast faves that a neighbor had brought her.

«Mrs. Adelia, doesn't worry him, gives The seem her to type that doesn't hold up him standing?» the churches Emilio with a smile. «Rather he/she knows, what I tell her, now her salt with us in the gig and him it passes a beautiful Christmas guest to my house.»

«No, I cannot take advantage.»

«It is not an invitation, it is an order. I have promised to Luigi that I would be taken me care of her as a child and I intend to maintain my word.»

Taken back Tzia Adelia the handkerchief in hand and it still dried the eyes, then he blew the nose. «Thanks, Emilio, your wife is a fortunate woman!»

Smiled Emilio as soon as, he/she thought that his/her wife getting married had not been at all it fortunate.

They ate in stay. He/she knows codra, is pilloneddus to taccula and is papassinuses were fabulous. Together all commented the presepio. They spoke of Luigi. They laughed and they were well. And for once, after so many years, also Emilio appreciated the Christmas. The evening they brought tzia Adelia to house and they did it covers from Lella. They made her know that Luigi was alive and always thought about her.

# 19

The ingegner Phillip Minghetti exhibited him in the fascist regard. You/he/she had just finished the interview with a spokesman of the empire come from Rome. From one of the windows that studded the building of the direction it spied the auto of the man to fade away swallowed by the descent. You emphatically rubbed the hands. Its face shone of a new light. Daniel stormed excited in the room, he didn't know anything yet. «Dad, has to elaborate as soon as possible a project that succeeds in again increasing the levels of extraction. The war applications are increasing to excess.»

Phillip smiled and surrounded his shoulders with an arm. «He/she leaves alone for today, Daniel. We go to it stuffed a walk!»

Daniel nodded with acquiescence, you/he/she was a pleasure for him to spend some time with his/her father. They saw so few because of the mutual appointments.

They were the ten of the morning, the sky was clear and the air frizzantina. It was not the case to depose the heavy suits for the one who possessed them but it did yet less cold that in the departed days. The shade of the buildings divided fifty-fifty avenue Empire. You developed in a road twos passages it divided from a discordant cromatura: the white - the earth's light hurt by the sun and the black darkness that poisoned her/it. The good and the evil, thought Daniel.

Phillip didn't see the same conflicting image, it had other to which to mind. They walked in the strip of light. Daniel tried not to stamp on the wicked shade. They came near the barracks. «Where we go?»

«We are direct where he is building the hotel for the miners.»

«Thing goes there to do in that place?»

Phillip stopped him in the middle of avenue Empire and was rubbed the nearest borders of the eyes the nasal setto grazing himself/herself/itself. «Today it is a big day for me, Daniel. All of my studies, my sacrifices, the years passed away from you today have been compensated.»

Daniel had never seen his/her so touched father. «Tell me, dad, thing there is that it excites yourself so?»

The face of Phillip reverberated the wriggles of light that of rhyming from earth they struck him/it and its hair seemed I soaked with silver dust. A paresi had appropriated of its facial muscles stopping them in a perpetual smile. The skull was dressed again of rigid skin that gave the idea of a plating in platinum.

«On May 14, here to Montevecchio, we will be honorable from the visit of the Duce Benito Mussolini in meat and bones!» it proclaimed with a hiccup in tail to the last syllable.

Daniel made back some footstep overcoming the mezzeria of avenue Empire and invaded the shade. «I cannot believe there, dad, has succeeded there!» It still withdrew and then raced to embrace him/it.

They tightened strong. Daniel also succeeded in lifting Phillip of some earth centimeter. They detached and Phillip was readjusted the jacket of the black suit. «The Duce will inaugurate the hotel and the new well of extraction. I have decided to entitle them to the ingegner Francis Sartori, that with his/her great knowledges geologiche has made to grow so much Montevecchio.» It was fierce more and more.

Daniel observed his/her father with the admiration that you/they nourish the followers of a sect toward their priest. They passed in front of a painted niche of white that preserved a faucet. Phillip aimed us the finger. «To the moment it is useless but soon the pipelines will connect him/it with the source of he/she Knows it will Lose, saving to the inhabitants the drudgery to fill the water. All will change after the visit of the Duce!»

«Bushels thinking indeed about everything, dad!»

Phillip smiled. To his/her shoulders there was a muretto to dry along a two weeks of meters. It decreased in three meters height to a meter and it delimited the end of avenue Empire. Beyond that wall it opened the road for the hotel.

«How you have succeeded there, dad?»

«It was for a long time that I complained a visit of the Duce. The spokesman of the empire has communicated me that after the visit to Mussolinia to verify the result of the reclamations, the Duce will do it covers to Montevecchio. It will have to be everything perfect!»

«It will be him/it!»

«From this visit it will depend a lot of my future in politics. I have advanced some proposals of charge but, if I won't show to the Duce to firmly have the situation in the hands of Montevecchio, I will burn me with my same hands.» This time its tone was less enthusiastic, more next to the careful one.

Daniel looked even more at adorante his/her father. How much road had made that little one that in the cold in Turin it polished the shoes of the passer-bys to bring some small home. «You are calm, dad. You don't have anything to fear.»

«You are perhaps right but I am nervous however. The Duce has a particular conception of the family: it considers her/it at the base of the empire. If the families are united, accordingly the empire will be also it, it is this what he/she thinks. His/her mother and I will welcome him/it in front of the hotel and you with Geneva you won't have to miss. To show us a compact family is the first necessary footstep!» Those words played as an admonishment.

The acridity changed the violet one some tornasole in a power on red and Daniel it withdrew. «It seems me that we have always been him/it.»

Phillip was ahead some footstep to him and he turned. «Not to misunderstand me, meant that that day we will have to be him/it more other times. Of let's not tell however us lies, you know very well that between your mother and Geneva this great liking has not budded» it said Phillip lifting the eyes to look who knows at thing.

Daniel knitted the forehead. «Not certain for guilt in Geneva!»

Phillip jammed placing himself/herself/itself in front of him; it tightened his shoulders. «I, don't care Daniel who has done less than who for

to find a tuning. I have accepted your choice but I am asking you not to create me uneasiness in the most important day of my life. You will be to my side with your future wife. Do I ask you this only, can you do him/it?»

Daniel nodded. «Is all right, dad, promises him/it to you! But you will do well to also instruct his/her mother for that day!»

Phillip still smiled and embraced him/it stronger. «I will do him/it, Daniel, tells you thanks in advance.»

They sometimes passed some wagons, bicycles and also some automobiles. One of these squirted some drop of mud on the pantalonis of the engineer; that day you/they would have been able to unload I set him a cart of manure without upsetting his/her smile.

The hotel included five floors of open yard. Only the skeleton had been completed. The workers were completing the setup of the cork sheets in the attic and some benches of tiles you/they had abandoned in the part already dressed again. The scaffolding of easels and large tables it surrounded in way perimetrale the raw building. Daniel twisted the nose. «They are still busy of it quite a lot of stuff!»

Phillip ascertained that unfortunately his/her child was right. It tried not to let him take from the panic however. «They almost miss still five months. It will certainly be had to accelerate the footstep but I believe that at the end we will make her/it.»

They were immovable in front of the hotel, to observe the scaffolding that swarmed of busy workers. Some flake of stone bounced noisily from an element to the other of the scaffolding and ended to earth. Daniel observed that piece of stone and thought that beaten on the head you/he/she had to decidedly hurt of a caress. «Dad, is better if we move here there from under!»

«I have to give you anchor reason!»

Retrocessero. Of side to them, a laborer with a shovel in hand turned and turned some sand washed mixed to mortar and cement; you/he/she added some water holding the bucket for an extremity of the metallic handle. It dried the dripping forehead of sweat and it gave a look to the two intruders, then resumptions to mix.

Someone who was above the scaffolding acknowledged them. They heard heavy footsteps that got depressed on the uncertain large tables. A man on the about fifty, with a wool bonnet, gone down by the scaffolding serving the monkey as an element to the other. It was Efisiu Balloi the master builder. Phillip and Daniel observed him/it with execration. «Then, when the accidents happen, they complain him. To use the staircases was too much simple!» it commented Phillip.

The man walked verse of them with an apple in hand. It gave a bite and the group it abruptly played again; over halves the fruit if gone n'era. From his/her belt they dangled a bag of carpenter skin, a hammer and of the tronchesines inserted in a center of entangled metal as a rubber band. «Good morning engineer. How come from these parts?» he/she asked, showing shreds of pulp of apple among the teeth, and it bent the head with foresight. «Health also to her, Mr. Daniel.»

Thanks to his/her heel boots stop Phillip raised him in comparison to him of some centimeter. «We have come to check as the jobs they proceed!»

Ledger Efisiu turned him toward the hotel. «As it is able well to see we are traveling expeditious. For the next winter it will be ready!» it declared with evident pride.

«Not enough expeditious, to my parer!» it thundered Phillip.

The master builder felt him offended by that affirmation and you/he/she made a smile of circumstance. «Is joking, true?»

Phillip struck by lightning him/it with the answer. «I don't joke at all!»

Ledger Efisiu became serious. «But does idea of thing have mean to work during the war? Let's not have the proper scaffoldings! Let's not have I feed to sufficiency! Let's not have qualified personnel! The materials arrive with weeks of I delay! And these are alone some of the problem list!»

«If he treats only of this, I will serve in way of destining fresh strengths as the mines to the hotel. I will double the number of the workers: quite a lot miners also get by from carpenters and masons. I will give you double ration in cafeteria and I will employ me in first person to do yes that the materials come in the briefest possible time.»

The master builder trasecolò. The face betrayed all of its amazement. But that does satisfied it was stricken from a precise statement sferzante.

«. But the hotel must be completes within the first week of May!»

The euphoria of Efisiu Balloi got flabby as a civraxu raised ache. He/she the bit of apple remained him without minding the core that would be been able him to go on the wrong side. «Oh, certain, engineer, in less than five months we will develop a job that it requires ten of them. And even in the hotel we will also climb on there four big wheels and we will bring around it for Montevecchio throwing him/it with the oxen.» With that declaration exacerbated him you/he/she was playing the last remnants of trust that the engineer fed verse of him.

Daniel didn't comment. Phillip saw in the master builder the typical arrogance of whom believes to know how to develop his/her own job in sublime way but he/she overestimates his/her own powers and ability. It kept the calm however. «You believe that your thought on the impossibility to finish the hotel for May is ecumenical?»

To imagine himself/herself/themselves if Efisiu Balloi could understand the word ecumenical, he/she thought Daniel.

«You excuse? I don't understand what engineer you want to say.»

Daniel allowed to escape a giggle. Efisiu Balloi saw him/it and assumed a mortified face. He/she thought that you/he/she had perhaps exaggerated with the sarcasm toward the engineer. It felt that the space between the dismissal and he he was reducing to a brief cabotage.

Phillip, to be well clear, explained him with a plebeian language. «I ask you if you believe that your thought is universal, if you are certain that any other master builder would succeed in finishing the hotel for the first week of May!»

The man nicchiò, elaborated perhaps the answer that the engineer would have appreciated more. It was about to say to want to try us him to end that hotel; then he/she saw his/her boys that traveled for the scaffolding with the buckets of cement to four to four; he/she saw them divide in two the platforms of four quintals tiles; he/she saw them throw the plaster without not even staying himself/herself/themselves to shake the cement from the line of table, and if it imagined them to spit blood to end that hotel in few months and to reenter to house with the empty stomach to give to eat to their children. He/she knew what to answer. «I don't know him/it engineer. I found me on my experience trentennale and I believe that cannot be done, but if you know someone more able I, submit him the charge.»

It was a challenge. Phillip welcomed her/it. «I will do him/it. From this moment you are lifted from any charge. Tonight trails in the building of the direction to take you what we owe you!» it said with indifference.

The man was immovable, stiff, in a mixture of frustration for the received injustice and pride not to have lowered the head in front of the engineer. «So you resolve the problems engineer? By the tooth and street the pain!»

Phillip discharged his/her pragmatism. «It will also be worthwhile her that I don't have necessity of people that doubts to succeed in finishing the construction of the hotel for May. Your conviction could become carelessness for the alone desire to show that you were right.»

The master builder kept silent. It broke away the bag of skin and it did her/it slip to earth. The hammer and the tronchesines bumped him producing a sound similar to that of the suspended cowbells to the neck of the sheep. An uncontrollable anger ran over him/it causing him an I decant of bile. The livid face was the totemic peak of its anger. Now that didn't have a job anymore you/he/she could quietly take to kicks in the culo those two heads of cazzo that had always been him indigestible.

The workers had clogged the scaffolding. You/they were prepared in a position that he/she remembered a gigantic frieze carved of human forms. Their bodies and their faces seemed fossilized in a laying of dismay. Cenzu Simbua tried to make to reason Efisiu.

«Master builder, allows to lose!» it howled him.

Efisiu turned him. Its eyes were turgid of tears. The resignation pervaded him/it. «I have lost the job, I won't lose the dignity. They would laugh too much your faces in the being touched by my hands; they are not worthy of it!» and it spit for earth with contempt.

Phillip made back a release to the to avoid that the spit struck him the boots. From his/her face that arrogant expression had disappeared. Daniel was muter than the nights in winter. Efisiu still drew near and with a spallata it opened the passage among the two. It was not tall but of sure with the work that did it didn't have to have light hands, he/she thought Daniel. His/her father as two children and he threatened by a bullo, did aside him without even not sending forth a moan of disapproval. It was better that Efisiu sbollisse his/her anger elsewhere.

The master builder greeted his/her boys with a sign of the hand and got further, but you/he/she sometimes turned him to quadrate father and child. Of sure you/he/she was tried more than once to return back and to get out of himself/herself/themselves the satisfaction to feel broken culi that filled his/her feet.

Daniel not shared the exaggerated gesture of his/her father but it avoided to tell him him: you/he/she had promised not to create troubles.

That same evening, to village you Rule, Daniel informed Geneva and Pietro that Mussolini would have come to Montevecchio. Geneva had to be in the first row to welcome him/it, together with the whole family Minghetti. It is Pietro it prayed that an epileptic crisis didn't strike his/her daughter really in front of the Duce.

# 20

A wind sferzante got depressed on the tubs squirting water on the workers. They were rotten as if you/they were admiring the sea in storm from a bench of the I bring. The square of the well Amsicora was a continuous bustle. The sight of the grading machines stimulated the instincts of Ignazio Martis, the lance-corporal with the assignment to check the laveria. Ignazio believed in his/her cuor to be able to also trick the foxes, but of acute it didn't possess more even the penis, had been beveling for decades of five against one. When God had distributed the intelligence among the men, to Ignazio you/he/she had escaped of certain to piss. Once reentered, you/he/she had found the Lord that assigned the intelligence to the stones, and you/he/she had been forced to be satisfied with that. The icy wind had not even succeeded in the enterprise to calm its hot spirits. It was a clammy man that took advantage of his/her condition of power to palpate the workers in every possible occasion. The women, victims of his/her degrees, limited him to reproach him/it without being able to go over, not to put again us the job. The grading machines earned the exact half of the salary perceived by the miners, even if their job was as many hard: shabby and barefoot in the winter cold; shabby and barefoot to the forty degrees in the summer. Rita Pistis as quite a lot other women, widows, brought above all him I approach his/her daughter Belledda. The child didn't receive a pay, however you/he/she favored his/her mother in to bag a greater quantity of mineral. For two liras in more they were also exploited up to the bone his/her children, and there was no other solution. The lance-corporals, had then the liberty to distribute tickets of liking punishment, for any motive, also nonexistent. And the punishment consisted in a heavy fine to escape to the salary.

Lella was lowered in the tub. It was already nervous really because to her, those reductions without reason, in the last period you/they were almost cost the whole pay. For a little you/he/she had not been forced to pour some money rather than to receive of it, so many were the tickets of punishment that you/he/she had received from Ignazio Martis.

He/she wore a long skirt that ended inside the icy water for some centimeter. That continuous bagnomaria of the limbs had precociously caused her the first symptoms of the rheumatisms. Its feet were swollen and stormed of chilblains. With the tail of the eye he/she saw some bulky reflexes: they were heads covered by the handkerchiefs that they quickly disappeared from his/her view.

It perceived a hand truffaldina to slip himself/herself/themselves among his/her buttocks. You turned of release and it crushed with a scapaccione the hand of the lance-corporal.

«Now it is enough, ugly child of puttana!» it exclaimed losing every type of behavior.

Lella was unmarried. Certainly in Ignazio Martis, unmarried cinquantenne from the aspect everything anything else other than attractive, a nebulous thought was created: he arrogated the right, that wanted to be also a pretension to receive the attentions of the girl. «Before, Lella, goes to my office to it stuffed a beautiful talk. I can make to make you career, me.» A gust of wind shifted him the amount carried over of hair from a temple to the other.

Lella consulted the looks amused of the other grading machines, particularly that of Maria. «Certain, as no! You can make to give me from the separation of the mineral ones to that of your underpantses!» Those sharp words enclosed a seasoned exasperation and an anger brooded for years. Ignazio faked a reformed expression and smiled showing his/her chimpanzee face. It was so low that the grading machines snickered imagining that when the culo was washed to the source it had to be well careful not to strangle the water being swallowed.

With an arrogance out of the commune, Ignazio quickly inserted the hand inside the shirt of Lella, that didn't do in time to withdraw himself/herself/themselves. It tightened her with vigor one of the breasts and it threw out his/her lascivious language. «You/he/she is made to milk, that seems me a cow with these breasts.»

Lella succeeded in struggling him and surges of water they raised him from the tub. Its face was of a hyperbolic blush. «Bastard! Have not you understood that before giving her/it to you I do me her to peck at from the hens? What can do you as it does he/she knows fèurra to him egua!» it screamed approaching himself/herself/itself to the lance-corporal and adding a wake among the water's ripples maneuvered by the wind.

Despite the painted apprehension in face, Maria allowed to escape a grin for the special wish served as his/her companion to the lance-corporal.

«What you/he/she has said?» Cornelia Offuso pursued her/it a Calabrian woman that had followed her husband to the search of fortune in the mines. Cornelia had the white skin as the albinos.

Maria laughed anchor, this time in way more untied. «You/he/she has said to hope that to the lance-corporal does as ago the rod to the mare.»

«And would it be?»

«The rod is a grass that the horses don't digest. The pregnant mares, particularly, when they eat her/it they inflate him to the point that their stomach, already crushed by the colt, it surrenders bringing her to the death.»

«And then because they eat her/it?»

«Test you to be tied up for weeks in a field where it grows only of that. They had to tie the lance-corporal to a tree in that fields, not the horses.»

Youth Ignazio had paid for making sex with all the bagasses of Montevecchio. But now that you/he/she was growing old they didn't give more even her for him the goats. It walked lopsided because two ribs missed him. The doctor Saints you/he/she had been forced to remove her because they were so you smash that you/they would never be recovered. A three year-old night before, Ignazio had been found thrown for road deader than I live. You/he/she had told that to crush two hooded strangers you/they had been him/it that wanted to rob him/it. Of that two strangers, after the meeting with Ignazio, you/he/she was not known anything. For this tziu Didone Larrei had put around the voice that Ignazio was smashed alone the ribs striking himself/herself/itself to all strength with a stone. Without two ribs, Ignazio would have succeeded in doing that in which the he-goats succeed when they are isolated and they feel beside the odor of the females in heat in the stall: to arrive to auto to practise him some oral sex, considering that of women prepared to do him/it not us n'erano.

Lella was still in front of him with air of challenge. It threateningly showed him/it and its eyes displayed an incipient fire. «Anymore! Have you understood, ugly pervert? Anymore!»

The man stepped backwards of some footstep. You looked around wary and inclusive that the eyes of all were aimed at him, also those of the mechanics of the shop; this time you/he/she had combined her big. It tried to make up for. «Bushels calms, Lella! I was joking only. The fact is that I like a lot and I am timid, I never know as to take you and I wanted to make the sympathetic nervous system» it said convulsively gesticulating, while drops of cold sweat were formed in its forehead.

Lella made him a sberleffo that its thought summarized on the excuses just camped. «You would be timid?» The you you/he/she had disappeared for a long time. «It thanks God that this job serves me as the bread and I doesn't intend to put him/it to risk. And it thanks that Luigi Zedda has departed to the front. You/he/she would have made you become tall two fury meters of kicks in the culo.» It felt his/her stomach unload.

The man widened the braccias in sign of surrender. Before leaving her/it alone it drew near her and, careful to do yes that only she could feel, it whispered her: «instead You pray that your Luigi doesn't stay us I dry to the front.» It made her a malicious occhiolino.

Lella cursed as it you/he/she would have made Vitalia Mura that that the flowers dried with the look.

A fiat 621 grey with openable roof it was parked in the avenue that introduced to the laveria. It was a very spacious mean, so ample to be able to entertain well twelve passengers on board. The first one to come down was the driver, that hastened to open the counter of the reserved posting of side to the driver. Descents Phillip Minghetti. I approach to him they emerged from the auto all the most trusted component of his/her entourage. Daniel there was not.

The lance-corporal for a little it didn't faint. You forgot even to have feared the lynching from the mechanics of the shop. Shout her of Lella you/they had been dangerous for him; they knew all about his/her peccatuccis of hand, but nobody held him/it game to the point to push himself/herself/themselves over. You/he/she had risked that such conviction changed to the sudden one. «Before, put again you to the job, damned geese!» it whispered to hard face.

The engineer aimed straight toward of him. Lella crossed the braccias and Maria it followed her/it. To the lance-corporal blood came to the head. «I have said to put again to work you. Don't you see but the ingegner Minghetti you/he/she is arriving?»

Lella had already seen the engineer. «Stop to snarl her/it, that so much here the bone doesn't launch him/it to you anybody! I want to see that I/you/he/she do you will do when I will tell to the engineer what you make to us women, preventing us to produce how much we would be able.»

The lance-corporal quickly approached to the cordolo of the tub. Its hands rippled and its inquisitional eyes worked as a binoculars: they saw nearby more and more the engineer.

«Accursed! If they won't chase me after this history, prepare you because I will make you die in this laveria.»

Lella blackmailed him/it. «We want that I/you/he/she assign us a place in the shed, to the ribbons conveyors. We don't withstand with this cold anymore. To take or to leave, is your occasion not to let to the engineer that you are only a repugnant pervert to ever know.»

Ignazio Martis grabbed that that war was lost and consented to an armistice. It aimed with a release the finger toward the shed. «Have won! Strength, races immediately to the shed. I don't want to see out here you anymore!»

Lella and Maria squirted out of the water as fishes swallow; their bodies were flat stones that you cast with strength on the hair of the water they bounced you without letting him drag on the fund from the strength of gravity.

In the shed there was less cold. The ground was not paved but perlomeno earth didn't have the same muddy and damp consistence of the square. The structure was tall more than five meters; a space where you/they would hardly be been able to eliminate you blab him coming from the outside. Lella and Maria were standing the one in front of the other, separated by the ribbon conveyor that lazily traveled. It was stracolmo of stones already polished up by mud and dusts in the laveria, now ready to be selected. Lella chose galena and blenda; Maria discarded the sterile stones deposing her in the carts wagon used as I deposit. Along the ribbon, a chain of busy women.

«Some that you have really a beautiful caratterino, Lella. Luigi will have his/her beautiful cats to shave in to hold you/he/she makes a will you» you/he/she commented Maria keeping on dividing the stones not to make the turn of the ribbon be escaped conveyor.

Laughed Lella, fair to be him sort to be worth. It now had a roof on the head and it was happy to share him/it with Maria. «I was not able more than that repugnant man of it. It stinks to wind. Rather, the wind succeeds in saving him/it some because hands its odor toward the mountains. I would say more than it stinks as a he-goat in breeding season,» and the nose was covered. A stone passed fast and escaped her.

Maria fanned a hand under the nostrils. «It doesn't certainly perfume dewy of wood.»

«What odor it has the dew of wood?»

Maria shook the shoulders. «I don't know him/it, but it will be better certainly of the foul smell of the lance-corporal.»

They looked at an instant in the eyes; both him concessero a grimace; then they laughed at taste emitting rings of vapor.

«I have taken advantage of the arrival of the engineer to make cacare under Ignazio. Now we are us to have the knife from the part of the handle. If sgarra, this time I blab indeed all.»

Maria nodded. «You have been cunning!»

«But do you imagine him/it to you naked Ignazio Martis then? It goes around to proclaim his/her stallion dowries and at the most a meter and forty will be tall. What pistolino can you/he/she ever have?»

That consideration aroused the hilarity, over that of Maria, also of the new companions of duty. Rosina Collu put on a hand in front of the mouth to contain his/her vulgar laughs.

Maria looked at Lella as if this last had remained confined for years in the bronze bells of the chiesetta of Santa Barbara. «You are still Miss, Lella, true?»

Took back Lella the hyperbolic complexion that had assumed in the square. «Yes, but what does it enter it? Don't seem me a shame!» it whined lowering the tone of the voice. They escaped her others two or three stones of galena that reached end run of the ribbon and they fell to earth.

Maria the resumptions. «It is not at all a shame. I tell however you that the height of a man enters it few with the measures of its jewels of family.»

The companions laughed everybody. Lella was amazed. «You would like to make to believe me that a dwarf as Ignazio you/he/she could have. we say. in short, that there very big?»

Maria already laughed thinking about the answer that was about to return.

«You don't know what the Sardinians are famous for the disproportion between their low stature and the enormous dimensions. of their coso. Remembered that more Sardinian of Ignazio Martis there is not anybody!» With the hand it mimed the sign of the gun: lifting the thumb, small and stumpy, and stretching the index, long and tapered.

Lella remained shocked and looked for to speak but from his/her mouth it came only out a series of illegible stuttering.

«Bushels calm, Lella, is not at all for you the coso of Ignazio!» it announced Maria still instigating the laughters of the companions.

«From young the nickname of Ignazio was the boy father» it told Giuannicca Puddu, a woman from the scheming face that could have more or less the same age of the lance-corporal. Giuannicca, thanks to his/her past of bagassa, it knew at least halves the birds of Montevecchio, and they were not neither sparrows and neither thrushes.

Lella didn't understand. «The boy father? I have always known that Ignazio was unmarried and you/he/she had never had any children.»

Shook Giuannicca the head. «You mistake you Lella. Ignazio has had a child, only that instead of bringing him him to I walk, in arm as everybody, he took him/it around among the legs» you knew well it. The grading machines, strong of the absence of the lance-corporal, they allowed to go to the vulgar laughs that first you/they had succeeded in moderating.

Lella bent the head and it waited that the fun of its companions stopped. Exploded Giuannicca the last cartridge. «Believe me, that there is there it has him big as an understood of it. You pay attention to me that I have seen of it more self of someone that if he/she sees him/it every day to piss.»

Lella was imagined an enormous eel to go out of the braghetta of Ignazio and to pursue her/it. «Saint sky, ago impression, how disgusting!» it said throwing out the language. They still laughed and other stones fell.

Stopped the instant of relaxation, they started over working. They broke the stones selected for reducing her to a thin dust that would be ended in the chemical laboratories, for the separation of the mineral ones to base of cyanide.

Lella had not spoken anymore. He/she worked to lowered head without the courage to look in the eyes his/her companions.

«Thing there is, Lella? Have you been offended?» the churches been sorry Maria.

Lella stuck out him from the ribbon conveyor. You looked around and when it was certain that anybody the same ones listening, it whispered to Maria: «I have not been offended. But what you have said on the coso of the low men worries me some!»

Maria arched an eyebrow in interrogative way. «Oh, beautiful, and because you/he/she should ever worry you?»

Lella leaned the hands on the out ribbon and lengthened more than it was able for speaking to her in the ear. «It worries me because Luigi is tall more than a meter and eighty. It is not that I/you/he/she am contrarily a gun?»

Maria saw the suffering face of Lella and didn't make her/it to hold him inside the laughters. Laughed so much that the ache of belly came her.

«You are calm, it is only a motto. Then Luigi will be one of the exceptions that confirm the rule.» But Lella seemed to be himself/herself/themselves some residual worry.

Maria tried to change discourse to get away from the embarrassment. «The main point is that that scoundrel of the lance-corporal leaves yourself alone. The rest they are only imbecilities.»

Lella consented. «I would confine him/it in such a narrow cell to force to make him/it him the beard every day to be able to enter us. And then I would like to see where if it would thrust her his/her hands zozze.»

The sound of the siren suspended the chatters. The grading machines bursted out from the shed, uncertain whether to run away to the shelter of Gennas for a bombardment or to stay in the square to cry the nth victim of the mines. They stayed in the square but for all other motives.

The tops of the mountains were oppressed from a heavy blanket of clouds that pushed by the wind they continually changed of color. Shortly, the completeness of the miners clogged every recess left clear of by the grading machines. A recurrent buzz wound among the workers, a muttering in truth. The ingegner Minghetti and his/her men had already felt him/it in all the wells of extraction visited that morning and well Amsicora it was the last of the series.

Lella sgomitò on a side of Maria. «What he/she will want to tell us the engineer? We hope for not harbors bad news!»

Maria summoned the silence, Phillip Minghetti was starting to speak. You/he/she was systematized in front of the fiat 621, on a cucuzzolo of sand by the half mechanics. «First of all, good morning to all» it began.

The buzz became stronger; a beehive barricaded by million of bees workers.

«Thanks to your great massive structure of job, that you/he/she has made to know the mines in Europe, Montevecchio, next 14 May, you/he/she will be rewarded with a honor unprecedented for this earth.» His/her collaborators were him to the shoulders as watches of the body, ready to favor every application of his.

Lucio was immovable of side to Emilio. You/he/she was set apart after all to the flood not to erect a barrier with his/her gladiator massive structure. Reading the labial one of Minghetti tried to snatch more possible words to come to snatch the juice of that discourse. To over fifty meters distance it was difficult however.

The ingegner Minghetti seemed taller in the middle of his/her bunglers. Someone had advanced the possibility that chose not them for their competences in economic-financial field but only and exclusively for the stature: rigorously low and used by the engineer as placebo against his/her lowness. Of side to that corks, with the stivalonis of heel skin immoderate it detached fierce more aloft of everybody. But it was only perhaps an aleatory situation, of which it didn't have guilts.

Minghetti announced the event with resoluteness. «On May 14 we will inaugurate the hotel of the miners and a new well of extraction. Francis Sartori will be devoted to, engineer that has helped so much the mines. These baptisms will be effected by the Duce Benito Mussolini in person!»

Crowd went to confusion. The news was important indeed and anybody if it waited for him. It howls. Whistles. Cackles. Exultation.

«You have understood, Lucio?» Emilio asked him, spelling the words and shaking him/it for the braccias.

Lucio made sign of no. Emilio subsequently the scanning of the words. «It will come to it stuffed visit Benito Mussolini!»

This time Lucio nodded with a smile. The breeze wagged its reddish hair making them wave as the tentacles of an anemone whirled by the tide of the sea backdrop.

«We are becoming important to Montevecchio!» it added Emilio betraying something that was more than a pinch of pride.

Lucio still nodded; a mugugno came out of its mouth.

The engineer beat three times the hands. To that command the workers stopped doing noise. «It seems me useless to detain me on the importance of this event, for me, for you, for all in short. To make a good impression to the Duce will mean in expectancy usufruire of advantages.»

Ciu Spiga, esagitato of nature, tried to say his. «The engineer is right! We have to welcome the Duce as if it were the king person. He can help us and it will also employ our children if we will make us be worth.»

One after the other, the braccias of miners and grading machines got up in air as asparaguses grown in a night among the ashes of a burnt field. Theirs howls of hope, accompanied by the wind, you/they would have reached Ingurtosu before the hits of a gun.

The ingegner Minghetti him sollazzava in front of the energy of its miners and from the tall one of the cucuzzolo made the fascist regard. His/her men, cultured unprepared, they engaged a challenge to establish who pits the first one to imitate him/it. The workers followed them, some convinced ones, other distaccatamente, only because it was necessary to do him/it.

Phillip Minghetti was in ecstasy for a dream that was about to become reality. Apart the first years of youth, in which the perspective of an uncertain future had tormented him/it, the whole rest of its life had hinged to the pursuit of that day. You/he/she would be dissociated by the rest of the common men, walking of side to the Duce and illustrating him the conquests done to Montevecchio from when he had taken in hand the reins of the direction.

That night, challenging the wind and the cold, Lucio and Geneva him they still met in the wood, backed up by his/her loneliness. You/they were embraced, wound by a wool cover that Geneva was brought behind. The wind howled insolent, giving an anomalous motion to trees and bushes, to which the sentence of the nature had granted as only gesture to lengthen branches and roots for few centimeters a year, imprisoning them with chains of earth in the place of the birth.

«Mussolini will come!» Geneva exclaimed studying Lucio.

A mugugno announced her that he had understood.

«And I will have to be of side to Daniel Minghetti and his/her family, to welcome him/it. It will be a kind of announcement public of our future marriage.»

Lucio sadly smiled, even if Geneva had not expressed laughable words. You looked at him/it and he/she saw the friability of a safety that there had not been never. With Lucio it was not able and he/she didn't want to forget how much the wrap of its sensibility was fragile. That melancholy smile succeeded in reawakening in her the maternal instinct of a mother for a newborn. To Geneva his/her children aroused tenderness and protection. They were born with a minute body and covered with sore. Their faces were deformed by the birth. Their complexion was yellowish sometimes of jaundice or livid for the hold of the umbilical cord. The leaning eyes, ciechi and inscrutable. Nothing of them contained the unexceptionable meaning of the word beauty: a virtue that would have postponed his/her arrival at least for a few weeks. It was necessary of the time to do yes that all the effects of the birth, for degrees, they were extinguished. From few days the child of Teseo Murroni and Brunella Trudu you/he/she had been born, friends of family of Pietro. Geneva went with his/her father to make visit and you/he/she had assisted to a sample of fake compliments on the presumed beauty of the newborn. You would have covered him/it with kisses but that beauty he/she didn't succeed really to perceive her/it. Teseo and Brunella found him/it instead very beautiful; not because convinced by the flatteries of relatives and friends but because the mother being or father it is as to beware his/her own child with a pair of glasses of the lenses taroccate. Geneva, to the beginning, you/he/she had tried disgust toward Lucio, instead he/she now saw him/it with the same eyes of Teseo and Brunella, just as a mother that didn't succeed in perceiving the real aspect of his/her child. The harelip, the crushed nose and the slanting teeth were only small defects to the peer of an angioma or a mother's mark: negligible imperfections in an ampler complex.

In the three years that if n'era been closed in the house, Geneva had read day and night. You/he/she had been spellbound from the theories of Sigmund Freud. "The complex of Oedipus" it is the unconscious desire that a child test since the birth to lie with his/her mother. The confusion created by the conflicting feelings for Lucio and Daniel had created her an awful chaos in all the firm points of its life. It had even taken to wonder if the love that tried for his/her father had to whether to do with what said Freud. You stripped him without shame in front of Pietro. "Because it did him/it"?, you/he/she had been his/her question. It didn't desire at all to go in bed with his/her father but it didn't try disgust in to imagine him to do him/it. Did Freud speak of unconscious desire, therefore was it possible that she desired him/it but not if it realized of it? He/she didn't know him/it. It was also incuriosita to know if his/her fathers and his/her mothers tried the same unconscious desire. Did his/her father want to go in bed with her but that desire you/he/she escaped him? Perhaps the philosophers were only a flock of visionaries intoxicated by the them same surreal ideas. Could not Freud be right on the desires of his/her/their children but her it was able on that some parents? It felt a strong maternal protection for Lucio and you/he/she had gone in bed there also. Perhaps it was not the same thing, you/he/she had thought embarrassed.

More and more stunned by the past, it thundered his/her promise in the present. «I will never marry me Daniel Minghetti.»

Smiled Lucio her anchor, without unmasking if it dealt with happiness or pity for that last lie. It was not a lie. «I won't marry him/it but I cannot be here to Montevecchio. Lucio we have to go from this place. Hand me street!»

Under the cover, Lucio created a passage between his/her body and that of Geneva; it seemed terrorized.

Her eyes were shiny. Taken the hands of Lucio. «I pray you, I desire only to pass with you that that it stays me to live.»

Closed Lucio the eyes. The wind whistled even more strong; for him it had the same silence of the death, prodigal of suggestions that nobody has ever succeeded in exploiting. The trees folded up him in an oscillating bow, they were servants that bent him to the choice that Lucio was about to do. It got up allowing to fall on the shoulders in Geneva the whole cover. The takings the hand and it lifted her/it standing. He/she nodded moving on and down the head. It was afraid to undertake a new life, yet Geneva was worth more than what was built to Montevecchio. You touched the breast with the finger index and then it showed her/it: he/she wanted to be a" us." You made to twirl the hands in front of the breast, the dams one above the other with only the open indexes. «Us more before.» Geneva interpreted him/it looking for assent in the look of Lucio.

He still made sign of yes. It opened the left hand and the shake of knife to the insù, striking her/it some times with the open right hand and turns with the palm of under. «Us more before we will go? » he/she asked Geneva with excitement. Lucio embraced her/it with heat. The cover fell and pushed by the wind it fluttered far. Geneva didn't feel cold, that embrace was more heat of the fire. Soon you/he/she would be run away with the person that loved.

# 21

The dark of the night impended. Emilio accelerated his/her walk, it had intention to make visit to tzia Adelia Corona. It had to do to the quick one; if it didn't feel her/it to cross the wood in the obscurity and separated by the companions. You/he/she would have been this the fate that would be touched him if you/he/she was held back more than the due one by the old one. To make reentry to house, the miners that the fortune of a lodging didn't have to Montevecchio, they cut the road climbing himself/herself/itself on the mountain and unthreading of side to the village Rules. To observe their chain of lamps from the feet of the great mountain gave the impression to assist to a fiaccolata of conceited stars. They climbed toward the sky with the ambition to dethrone the most greater orsa and every other more famous celestial star. Emilio saw his/her companions advance along the walk and was sorry him not to be with them. The trip of reentry was more fatiguing in comparison to the going but decidedly more happy-go-lucky: the day of job was ended and you/he/she could be laughed and to joke. The morning, instead, the thoughts were turned to the twelve hours of job that waited as a creditor of long course. Anybody an absence could be allowed the wells, the waiting list to enter to belong to the mines overcame of big long the distance between house of Emilio and Montevecchio.

The ruinous abode of tzia Adelia Corona was already glimpse. To Emilio it still seemed more malridottas of the usual one, with the plaster of the walls that fell asunder and the tiles to Sardinian coppo that, because of the wind, you/they were detached by the roof and you shatter to the ground. Variegavano the distempering of the pebbles of mountain, designing the idea of a courtyard. It was evident that the hands of Luigi didn't take care of that slum anymore.

Emilio knocked twice. Nothing. Still two. Nothing. While it was being about to still strike the front door of fir, the old one opened sending to empty that last attempt of his of percussion.

«You are you, Emilio, enters also, I have attended you the whole day and by now I thought that you would not have come anymore.»

The odor prorompente of the elderly one stagnated in that hole. Old age had a puzzling ability: to make a first woman the memory of herself and subsequently the more appestantes rest of carcass of the world; and the expedient of tzia Adelia Corona to camouflage that torture had been making ineluctable for the time they grazed the absolute zero. It stinked as a sow confined in a neglected porcilaia. Who knows from how much time didn't make a bath, even from the departure of his/her child. Perhaps exhausted from the bustle forced for every necessity it had cacato and pissed in some angle of the room. Or suffered a sudden attack of dysentery you/he/she had not succeeded in arriving to the courtyard. It was Probable that tzia Adelia if it felt her/it all I set the frightening foul smell that emanated. The source of he/she Knows it will Lose distava some kilometers from his/her house, making the acquisition of the water a childish matter that didn't leave space to discourses for old. Emilio was promised to resolve to brief the matter.

«Emilio, the mail carrier has delivered me a letter and I believes both of my Luigi.»

Emilio jolted, almost not acknowledging himself/herself/itself the breathed sharp that tzia Adelia had projected him in concomitance with the words.

«Me the face to see, lady!»

The old takings an envelope that lay on the lunch table and it advanced toward Emilio. He/she staggered as a drunkard legionary from a night of carousals. Unfortunately for her, the afflictions would not be enfeebled to the awakening as after one drunk; the day when that pains would have passed, she would not have been able to enjoy himself/herself/themselves that moment, buried under meters of earth.

Emilio sighted the red shield shorn by the crown and rejected the last delays that orbitted around the universe of his/her thoughts: it was of certain an envelope coming from the front.

It opened her in agitated way and, when it a dissimilar calligraphy from the first letter sent by Luigi, dismal premonitions they took possession him some light. Little remained optimism was thrown him in the turbid waters of the lagoon.

The remnants that separated the elderly one from the blindness were enough to gather the sudden expressive change of Emilio.

«Thing there is, Emilio? Has anything happened of ugly to my Luigi?»

Emilio didn't respond and kept on fixing with immovable eyes that letter.

«Because you don't answer me, he/she speaks, I pray you!» tzia Adelia whined, starting to perceive the damp weeping on the cheeks.

The calligraphy didn't have anything to whether to see with that cleaning up and ordinate of the preceding letter. This introduced characters from the irregular forms, as if to write the words had been necessary to detach the quill from the sheet on every single letter of the alphabet. The writing didn't follow a horizontal line. The first line of reference departed from the tall angle of the sheet and finished few above the opposite half. If Emilio had not been sure that could not be as he/she thought, you/he/she would have believed that that letter had been written by a six year-old child.

"Hi Emmilio, cuesta and the first letera that I write with my hands. The gionalista and scatter-brain from the teddeschis and more nonpuo to help to write me but during her known to inseniato to me and my copagnis to write. Cualchecosa sela remembers one, cualchecosa laltro and so it conceals cavviamo."

Closed Emilio the shiny eyes thanking the sky. It supported a hand on the left shoulder of the old one, that assumed a dismayed expression. «It is Luigi, and it is alive!»

The old one bursted to cry and he/she embraced him/it. Emilio looked for with a hand to dry the eyes. It was touched and he/she didn't even remember that Adelia had that odor ammorbante.

"The rusis I uncover us schiaciando and my batalione ditruto he withdraws. There rubbed anus. Madavano the notris imprisoned copagni to serve as shield and nesuno dinoi had the coragio to shoot. Nesuno knows doveci manderano, but I am pasato in polonia and or seen the I live of cocetramento of auscviz, from them nesuno goes out and vegono toturate done and children. My God, the people and thin comme cheletri and them fano to wash in the gas that them amazza tuti. Them amuchiano with the shovels mecaniche, to miliaia and then they burn them after them baniano of bezina. I feel acora it shouts diperate that me to her scopiano the teta and not me fano domire of notes. Taken anus ache the capelano of my batalione and the anus closed again with them ebbrei, not credoche I will see anymore it again."

Adelia still waited for to have news of his/her child, but Emilio tightened the letter without tearing off her eyes of back and didn't absolutely say anything. It was elsewhere, in Poland.

"I hope that my mama and Lella are well and that ache you. Cueta guera sebra to never want finnire, is tanchi and we flies tornarre acasa. Or amazzatto a soldatto pearl primma turns and finirro allinfenno for cuesto. Who knows seaveva molie, who knows seaveva spins, I see me lasua facia in cotinuazione and cuando I die him me apetera for take revenge himself/herself/themselves. Now you salutto, ricordatti of nondire to my mama cuete things, abraciala and tell well her chele volio tato as ache to Lella and you emmilio. Preto tonero among divoi, a salutto votro Luigi."

Emilio would have meant him that they was well, that to Montevecchio life was hard and that of boys also died in mine of it. You/he/she would have told only it to encourage him/it, to make to understand him that sometimes life was merciless, so, with someone at random, choosing him/it without guilts or preferences. But Luigi distava thousand of kilometers from Montevecchio and to reassure only found him/it possible with his/her own imagination. Emptied by every energy, Emilio slipped going to take a seat on one of the two chairs approached to the table. The old one persistently frequented around him.

«How it is? Where is it found? When it returns home? Because you/he/she is done alive so late after the first letter?»

That wave of questions bothered Emilio, that he was taking back for degrees from the enormous emotion. «You sits, lady!»

Tzia Adelia made to slip back the chair to the with a screeching. You sat doing well attention not to load the weight of his/her body on the back, grungy and ready to feed the flames of the fireplace. Emilio stared at her/it in the eyes. It didn't sustain for a long time his/her look, he/she knew that what was about to read it didn't correspond to the reality. It feared that to fury to quadrate the woman you/he/she would have ended up unmasking alone his/her fallacious story.

It placed the eyes on the letter and it started the comedy pretending to read and without never lifting the look from that piece of made yellow paper. It told that Luigi was well and that you/he/she had been transferred elsewhere, away from the war. He/she now worked in a cafeteria for official, it made the help cook and the delicacies that the chef prepared sometimes pinched. Of four kilos you/he/she was fattened up. The evening went out with all the boys of its group and cannot wait to make to know them to everybody. It loved his/her mother and he/she cared for Emilio, he/she greeted all and soon you/he/she would have returned home.

Only Emilio found at that time the courage to still cross the trajectory traced by the look of tzia Adelia. Smiled. Adelia still cried. He/she cried of joy tightening the limp beret of Luigi. Emilio had been unexceptionable, its history had enchanted Adelia, that even for a meaningless according to you/he/she had doubted of its truthfulness. Emilio went out of the house of run. It raced happy and it didn't hear the work. Luigi was alive. To the feet of the path it intercepted the last gruppetto of miners that was held back to the wells for of the extraordinary. You felt fortunate. You/he/she could make reentry to house in company and Luigi it was well. If Giuseppino had still been alive, Emilio would have believed indeed to be fortunate.

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# 22

It was the eve of the great day. Pietro leaned out in the room in Geneva and saw the classical bed in bare cherry of the sheets. He/she remained in the porch and he/she saw Mrs Loi cross the corridor. It transported to work a basket of containing bamboo a big heap of dirty laundry to bring to the source of he/she Knows it will Lose.

«Gives to me Mrs Loi! I have a few times before meeting me with the militiamen to set the last matters on the safety of the Duce. Me ago pleasure to lend a hand.»

Mrs Loi suddenly became hard-working and accelerated the footstep tightening with heat the bamboo basket. «You don't worry him, is marshal, paid for this or no?»

Pietro was not waited for that demonstration of exaggerated laboriousness. It appreciated but insistette. «You put back, he never stops!» It tore her without overbearance the bamboo basket from the hands.

Mrs Loi didn't oppose further resistance. You/he/she would have liked to do him/it, because he/she knew that it was about to let loose himself/herself/themselves an uproar. It intended to be himself/herself/themselves the most distant possible when Geneva would have confessed to his/her father that that had announced already instead to her. The small basket seemed to small too Pietro to be able to contain that crowd of laundry. Mrs Loi saw him/it upset all inside a big terracotta basin, very heavier in comparison to the basket and clearly more capacious. Its strong shoulders would not have labored over the due one to conduct that load up to the source. He/she remained in equilibrium on an alone leg, the basin leaning himself/herself/itself on the lifted knee; it was in procinto to give him the definitive rush that would have brought him/it on his/her shoulders. «Dad, won't marry me Daniel Minghetti!» It was the voice in Geneva and it originated from his/her shoulders.

Pietro started and lost the balance. The basin fell for earth smashing himself/herself/itself in thousand sharp pieces. Mrs closed Loi the eyes and it was clogged the ears with the hands, as if a lightning were fallen to its feet. Pietro scrutinized the tangle of sheets combined with the so many terracotta pieces. It started to laugh without ratiocination. It approached that image of the basin in pieces to the future of his/her daughter, even if in his/her thoughts the chimera fluttered not to have heard well. «Geneva, not to say cazzate!» Taken to kicks the congeries of sheets and it made her fly in air as kites in a day of strong mistral.

The ruler was almost afraid of that inconsiderate gesture and huddled him in an angle. Geneva was immovable without answering; it imagined a reaction of that kind.

«I don't want to believe that my daughter is losing the reason to make to be swept by that prodigy of merda» you/he/she howled to squarciagola and the nerves of his/her neck they became big as the ropes of the capstan.

Geneva was astounded: never in his/her life you/he/she had believed that his/her father could use in his/her comparisons such a vulgar dictionary.

Mrs Loi, feeling the word" to sweep", it blushed. Before being a racchia in menopause you/he/she had been a desirous girl. He/she knew well that that term, said by a furious man, it extended him to all the present women, and it had an implied equality: equal woman bagassa. That was the sentence that you/they used all the men to saw the discussions and to never take him his/her own responsibilities.

«Dad, doesn't recognize you more» you/he/she whispered Geneva shaking the head.

Pietro didn't even feel her/it. «Now enough! I won't be here to attend to have a nephew sordomuto, repellent and perhaps epileptic!»

Mrs Loi, smelled the danger for Geneva, it held back the arm of Pietro. «Coop I calm, marshal, won't want at all.»

With a sharp tug Pietro wriggled him from the woman that you/he/she fell to the ground thunderously; at that time of she didn't care him a cazzo. Geneva provoked him/it. «What there is, does dad, want to beat me now?»

Pietro didn't succeed in having self-control himself/herself/themselves. It was the first time in twenty years. «You think about still continuing your relationship with that subspecies of animal? I want you to live!»

Geneva was crushed by thousand premature beat and the breath missed her. Taken to beat the eyelids and it opened the mouth as him same suffocating, then its bellows found again the oxygen and its heart he/she emigrated from the anomalous one. «I don't allow you to call this way Lucio. You cannot decide my life!» It made an instant of break to dry the tears and perhaps for catalizzare all of his/her strengths in the inhuman cry that was about to launch. «You have understood?» it shouted with a voice devastante.

That deafening clash escaped by the imprisonment of the house and it almost all reached the villas of village you Rule. Pietro made a rapid release and arranged a strong reverse on the right cheek in Geneva. A mixture of saliva and blood it escaped from his/her lips waving himself/herself/itself in the air. You/he/she had not been the pat that is given to a bad child, but rather the resonant schiaffò that would be given to a wife found in bed with his/her lover; the slap that would be given to a bagassa. «You won't see that piece of merda anymore! Have I/you/they been clear?» it ordered with still more vehemence than done first from his/her daughter.

«You have not understood anything dad. I don't know how much I will still live but I know that that that it stays me from way of living I want to pass him/it with Lucio, not with Daniel Minghetti. Don't you care this?» The cheek pulsated her and started to swell himself/herself/themselves. The taste of its same blood in mouth nauseated her/it.

Pietro began to cry. «Some that I care. But can the Minghettis make to recover you and you/they can avoid that you end in the field of Pertzogiu, you understand him/it?»

«Pertzogiu?»

Pietro lowered the look, reformed to have struck Geneva. «Yes, Geneva, has said Pertzogiu: soon a field that the Nazi will turn into a lager. A place where they will kill sick people as you.»

Geneva was placed a hand on the cheek and movements the jaw to verify its functionality. Smiled disorientating his/her father. «You are afraid that dies of epilepsy as his/her/their mother and you is afraid that is slaughtered to Pertzogiu? This, dad, is my life, and as brief as I intend to spend her/it with a person that I love. To thing it would serve me recover, or to escape to the lager, if then I will have to pass the whole existence with a man that I don't love, tormenting to have abandoned me instead what I wanted with every strength. Do tell me, you, that life would be?» Its face was serene.

Pietro chilled to those so wise words. It didn't intend to accept her however. It still kicked the laundry and some terracotta piece it broke him on the wall damaging the plaster. It didn't say anything anymore and it went out. It intended to resolve the matter without passing from third.

Mrs Loi had still sat to earth with the aching back. Geneva helped her/it to rise again himself/herself/themselves and embraced her/it, asking almost excuses her on behalf of his/her father, then it went to his/her room. You stretched prone on the bed the head covering himself/herself/itself with the pillow and he/she cried. It didn't recognize his/her father anymore, he had never touched her and you/he/she could not be turned him into that deprived ogre of feelings. Yet had happened.

Pietro had not appeased his/her anger yet. It climbed on the motorbike Guzzi and it made to roar the motor more times, to announce him. It departed as a lightning, feathering, with destination Montevecchio.

It parked the motorbike in front of the geologic office, of side to the hospital. This time doesn't be tumble in the climb, its fury would have worked from amorphous barrier preventing to fall downstream down him. An instant after it was already in front of the abject hovel of Lucio. With a calcione it opened the door and he/she saw him/it: immense and horrendous. Without minding his/her dimensions that in an instant you/they would have been able to overpower any malignant intention, showed him/it. «You, filthy, clammy worm, laws well mine labial» it said with an increasing tonality and with the finger staid index on the lips. «You won't have anymore to have nothing to that to do with my daughter there is understood?» it articulated, howling as if Lucio could gain that increase of volume in his/her words.

Shook Lucio the head and it drew near to Troise, perhaps to madly explain Geneva to his/her way of loving.

«Not to touch me, joke of the nature, you don't have the right to take advantage of you the illness in Geneva!»

Lucio grunted as a wild boar hurt by the hunters, you/he/she would have liked to explain every thing but it was him impossible.

«Creeds that everything is you due because of your aspect? I thank you to have saved me the life, but my daughter is another thing. You don't belong you.»

Lucio bent the head. When its squeezed nose raised again him/it it dripped and its eyes had taken to cry.

Pietro, seeing that giant in tears, it had a wince and it considered to the words in Geneva. "That life will be away from the person that I love?"

"That life will be instead mine without you, Geneva?" he/she wondered Pietro. It was what was doing but legitimate to save the life of his/her daughter, that one day would perhaps have understood.

«Not to approach anymore you to her, because with any pretext, in the best of the hypotheses that you/he/she could happen you, I will arrest you and threw the key. Understood?»

Lucio nodded, destroyed in the mind. Now, the application to run away far served him as Geneva was really the only way of continuing to love him.

# To house Troise, perhaps for the stress and the anger, Geneva was run over by a new crisis of epilepsy.

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# 23

The sky was of a blue fiabesco, turquoise as the mantle of the principles. The light of the sun gave a phosphorescent gradation to the green of the gardens. In the principal plaza of Mussolinia, the Duce came out of his/her absorbed residence in the green. A rejoicing crowd welcomed him/it with it howls warm. With his/her ordinate grey uniform, mantled by the long coat, he/she greeted the crowd with the lifted right arm and the open hand. The flood esagitata responded in chaotic way. The face of the Duce was serene. A steel eagle shone in his/her hat. Three small children, you dress with white suits similar to those of the first communion, they made him meeting to him. One for time the omaggiarono, giving him bunches of roses redheads, white and yellow. Mussolini took the flowers and delivered them among the hands of the fascist gerarchis, that followed him/it in every public exit. You bent on the children and he/she kissed on her forehead. The operators and photographers of the Light, the educational cinema union created by the fascist empire, didn't miss to immortalize that greedy moment, able to give life to short films and services photographic able to educate the masses to the greatness of the fascism and its greater exponent.

Crossed Mussolini a brief street line disseminated of agrarian fittingses. The incessant roar of the applauses was as a fall of foamy water. That was people that loved him/it really. People that, after the reclamation, from one day to the other one you/he/she was found again with farms and agricultural grounds in hand: the same grounds that up to little time before you/they had been marshes of mud impestati from ready mosquitos to infect with the malaria.

Mussolini walked discussing with the engineers of the reclamation. The men in black shirt of the voluntary militia appeared nervous. You/they had not foreseen that human wall and it was difficult to check him/it. Mussolini came in proximity of the popular houses: great quadrated buildings and entirely dressed again with pietrame by the red shades, black and grigie. An inactive housekeeper on the stipite of the door saw him/it. He/she invited him/it to enter and its eyes flashed as in the dreams. «You are really you, Duce?» he/she asked him with a voice broken by the weeping. Smiled Mussolini her and he/she embraced her/it. The woman tightened him/it strong, touched, as if you/he/she knew for a long time it.

The militiamen didn't move a finger. The housekeeper was Julia Puppin, that had been being prepared for days as every person to which would have been granted to approach the Duce. An invitation to enter, an embrace, a weeping and any abrupt movement, this would have had to make Julia Puppin and this did.

The procession of automobiles left the town submerged by a new wave of exultation. The auto of the Duce, a lance astura decapottabile, black and with the chromed inserts, it proceeded in the mezzeria of the procession. It was protected on all the sides from other lance driven from the voluntary militia and from balilla 508 Ms in military order. The autos darted among endless rows of poplars that shaded the mantle of the road, dappled from stains of sun. The chirruping of the sparrows and the clean air aroused a feeling of peace; the same one that is perceived walking in the avenues that introduce to the cemeteries. The Duce sat in the back seats, with the elbow leaned on the counter. The open canopy allowed the air to caress him the face. You raised the headgear of the uniform and dams the eyes, inhaling to full bellows the odor of his/her power, the perfume of his/her realized ideas.

Vineyards encircled by luxuriant fig trees of India. Expanses of wheat and cereals color honey. Cows in health to the pasture. Then Terralba.

Terralba was the country with more inhabitants of the district. The population was entirely lined up along the principal artery. Same Mussolini been surprised of how much people were that you/he/she interested for earning in the first row him a place. To be able him/it healthy, to see, or only to be us and taccheggiare a special moment, seen or imagined only by them, to exploit as corollary for the history that one day would have told to his/her own nephews of that time when Mussolini had been to Terralba.

«Duce, will win!» they howled the terralbesis to squarciagola.

Some children invaded the roadway arresting for an instant the advance of the automobiles. Four men and two women, dressed with suits that for them they were from party but that the fascist gerarchis would not even have worn if you/they had been forced to pick up the tomatoes for the preserve, they reached his/her children and they brought them out of the run. People howled as if those six people arrived from the cathedral of the cinema from Hollywood. You/he/she had been their small moment of glory and if you/they were taken him everything.

The Duce greeted his/her children with a radiant face. It was very good to dissimulate; a minimum of apprehension for the sudden stop had certainly grazed him/it. The militiamen came down from the autos and to work they succeeded in containing the heat of the immense crowd that trod in every direction. There was the necessity to show the hard fist to appease the most excited. Some gun in hand worked better than the camomile. The procession arrested him in front of an imposing building with an ample finestrata that leaned out on the road. "House of the Bundle" it recited the writing posted under the moulding that contained the building. The taxes of the finestrata were open. It leaned out the podestà; the lance astura of the Duce stopped really under of him. The man the voice cleared him. It trembled but not for the fear, for the emotion. There was the presentiment that the podestàs, set to replace the mayors with the ascent with the power of the fascism, they were not select at the king Vittorio Emanuele in person as they declared the official sources but that their position came in way piloted from the fascist gerarchis or of the same Duce. Those voices were more than a suspect but, if the podestà already knew Benito Mussolini, that day didn't give him/it to see.

«Terralba makes free to you, Duce, light of the empire!»

«Dux mea lux!» latinizzava departs some crowd.

Benito Mussolini lifted him standing on the lance astura, erect as the statue of Napoleone and it turned the fascist regard. A clamor rintronante responded to its regard. Placards that represented him/it with I wear the military helmet you/they were shaken in the various zones; they were so as that if combined you/they could constitute a drapery able to shade the vineyards of Bastiano Sabiu.

The coverage of a great lavatoio composed from tubs of cement had been conquered by people that they hoped to exploit that dominant point to see the Duce. They seemed some piled up starlings one on the other ready to migrate. Only God knew how you/he/she had made that slender coverage to sustain the exaggerated weight. A microscopic crack would have been enough for giving the street to I unswathe him/it complete of the roofing, and there would have been then quite a lot bones to put again to place.

The podestà continued its discourse made of decorums and certainties on the victorious result of the war. Mussolini didn't do anything else other than to smile and to nod; as him, also that black crows of the gerarchis.

The automobiles left again followed by the people that it raced. Regardless of the hot ground they scurried about naked afoot. Sharp stones were pierced in their heels, as clogs of horse made hard by the habit to do him/it.

The bells of the suggestive church of san Pietro they took to play. From the bell tower, perhaps the priest and the chierichettis or someone that in way truffaldino had succeeded up there in climbing until, they shook the hands sticking out himself/herself/itself from the parapet. Under of them the plaza was an ant hill gone crazy by the sight of crumbs of bread. The Duce he still lifted on the auto and he/she greeted for the nth time the people terralbese. Also to the prisoners of the jail, young thieves of hens, were granted moreover to see the Duce from the bars of the guardiola that it gave on the road.

They sat in four in the lance astura of the Duce. They turned all toward left when to the exit of the country they saw the wall of surrounded of the full cemetery of people, that you/they sat with the legs to three earth meters dangling. The whim to see Mussolini had demolished the wall of the respect for the peace of the gone souls. This time the Duce didn't get up on the auto, that proceeded too expeditious. It lifted the hand and he/she still greeted and for the last time the terralbesis.

Under the scorching sun, from the fields the farmers greeted the Duce shaking for air their straw hats. The autos responded making to play again the horns. In the country of St. Nicolò of Arcidano the parade of auto. They didn't stop him. Procedettero slowly to give the possibility to everybody to see Mussolini. The country was constituted by teams of houses leaned out along the cardinal road. There was everywhere people. The arcidanesis to the passage of the Duce made to rotate hundreds of strocci-ranas: a knickknack in wood that, thanks to a small mechanism, it produced a sound similar to the croaking of the frogs. Mussolini looked around him amazed, convinced to be himself/herself/themselves in the beautiful mean of a pond; noise was infernal and the cry always the same: «Duce, will win!»

Other crowd, other fields and other farmers. Mountain and trees. Finally Montevecchio.

Avenue Littorio seemed a box of sardines in which was tried to insert the meat of a whole whale. It was too much a small road to contain that wave of people. The women were together all, with the black skirt, the white shirt and the tied up black handkerchief on the head. The more youths dressed all with the uniform from" Young women", formation that wanted to be a sort of Balilla to the female one. Risking to be crushed against the villa of the chemistry they were stirred again between them excite, fighting for being immortalized by the photographers of the Light. Ciccitta Marongiu had left his small dormant in the house. You exhibited in a laying accattivante that, with a pinch of fortune, you/he/she would also be been able to appear in the first page of some newspaper. "The secret of the power is in the wish" it hymned a writing to characters cubitali that occupied a side of the villa. Meledda Tresca and Feffa Sanna had taken seriously indeed that writing, their wish was to make to be photographed, their power they were the shoves.

To the intersection among avenue Empire and avenue Littorio the miners quivered. Minghetti had stopped the production that day and there was really everybody. A mass of people had been instructing for weeks to welcome in memorable way the Duce. In the center and in the circle of the dopolavoro you/he/she had been done their a brainwashing: now all knew that the Duce was infallible and its fascist empire would have known centuries of longevity.

On I break down him/it some imposing Linas mountain, an enormous poster sustained by two bundles tall littori more than five meters it recited the writing": Italians and Italians once more standing we will win."

The Italian flag raised him on the crowd, accompanied to the sides by those of Nazi Germany and of Japan, the allies. Identical placards to those visas to Terralba, with the Duce provided of helmet, you/they were scattered in the hands of the miners. The autos of the fascist procession appeared on the surface from the last slope and the din of the miners it gave the idea of a volcanic eruption. Nobody dared to escape to the ritual of the fascist regard. Mussolini he raised upward still on the auto with the tense arm. Others give auto they were raised fierce braccia by the black sleeves. Long avenue Littorio, to the feet of the great rows of oaks, the children of the elementary ones and those were had the asilo,tutti adorned with the lupetti uniform; the handkerchiefs azzurrinis their faces and the muskets even though toys, they gave out a rudeness place on the shoulders of so small children. The autos were hedged in in front of them. A teacher lifted the arm: you/he/she was the signal. Every child cast frustrated his/her incensamento: «the Duce Lives and lives the king!» They were not able more than that sentence that you/they had been forced to have been repeating for the whole day for weeks of it, as if it were a poetry of Giovanni Pascoli.

«You see how they grow well!» he/she ascertained fierce the Duce, turning to the three gerarchis that sat in his/her auto.

Minghetti had succeeded in his/her intent. The hotel workers Francesco Sartori you/he/she had been finished and furnished with two weeks of advance. The Italian flag with the coat of arms of the empire to the center was hoisted of side to the entry and sfarfallava in the air. The engineer went on and back absorbed in his/her soliloquys. «Where you are you outcast, Daniel?» it kept on wondering uneasy.

Mrs Clotilde Minghetti scrutinized his/her husband distressed some that the absence of Daniel was caused from Geneva. «Phillip, tries to calm you!»

Phillip puffed. «Here I gamble away me all, as can I calm down?»

The clamor of the crowd reached them. Phillip was immovable.

«For the poverty, they have already arrived!»

Just in that instant the lance ardea of Daniel stormed in the avenue to big speeds. With a manoeuvre it breams the auto it inserted him in a free space of side to the hotel.

Phillip saw his/her child race the black tie of the suit holding himself/herself/itself, that tried to escape him of hand as a rattlesnakes. He/she didn't even greet him/it. «Where Geneva is?»

The face worn out of Daniel said everything. It bent the head. You/he/she had been with Geneva the evening before. You/they had planned everything, yet she was seemed him strange, almost absent. That morning, Daniel had uselessly attended that she went out. You/he/she had knocked without standstill on the front door, vainly. Resigned, you/he/she had looked for then her in the middle of the crowd. Among the miners, rather than she, had perceived the marshal Troise, that used him in to maintain the order.

«Marshal, is worried for Geneva. In your house nobody responds!»

The marshal was allowed to escape a grimace of suffering. «Geneva won't come to this parade! Daniel, from the time, it is very confused. But you will see that the thing will resolve him!» you/he/she had been his/her chilly declaration.

Daniel had been petrified. It was not a bad boy but its snob ways didn't probably coincide with the virtues that Geneva sought in a man. Was ended! And she had not found the courage to confess him/it to him the evening before, Daniel you/he/she was firmly convinced of it. It ignored however that the end of their history was to attribute to another man: a man of whom he had laughed in more than an occasion.

It was about to come less to his/her promise, invalidating the day attended for a whole life by his/her father. «Dad, is really for this that I have delayed. Geneva won't come» he/she confessed keeping on holding the lowered head.

Phillip did him/it to feel more still embittered. «Bushels agreeing with your mother, Daniel. It regrets me to tell you him, but Clotilde was right!»

Daniel began an attempt of explanation and Phillip you/he/she interrupted him/it. It was the least proper moment to slip himself/herself/themselves in a mordant discussion: the Duce was arriving.

Launch her they placed a little before and after the hotel, reserving the parking lot to the auto of the Duce in front of the entry. The balillas 508 Ms were parked in second line, to protection of the other autos stuffed of characters of I detach. The shield mask chromed of the lance astura sparkled as the quintessence. The you look for, the handles and the edgings of counters and lighthouses seemed electroplated with the silver of the mines. Mussolini came down from the auto. The colors of its grey uniform detached in the background shining of the dark body shop. If Phillip Minghetti had seen the Pope his/her expression you/he/she would have been less disorientated. You/he/she was dressed with the black uniform and the boots of skin. Clotilde wore a sober suit instead color it fishes and a toque that contained his/her thick blonde head of hair. Hardly behind, Daniel followed his/her parents, dressed with a black suit that showed off a pin with the bundle littorio. In front of the entry all the collaborators of the engineer were hedged in. To their shoulders a rampart of attendants, cooks and waiters of the hotel.

Phillip was the first one to offer the fascist regard, then it tightened the hand of the Duce and the quiver it became tachycardia: an infiltration of astute adrenaline to the heart.

«Well, well, ingegner Minghetti, has seen down in country that you bossily have the situation in fist!» it said the Duce.

It was a compliment. The pupils of Phillip dilated him and a shiver of pleasure sent away the nervousness. «I try to do better mine, Mr. Duce!»

Mussolini shook the hand of Clotilde. «I see with pleasure that you also have good taste in fact of women.»

Clotilde blushed and its cheeks seemed covered by the fard that instead they didn't have. Phillip hastened to introduce her/it. «You are Clotilde, my wife.»

«Onorato, Mrs Clotilde.»

Clotilde shook, the words didn't come her. «My honor, Mr. Duce» he/she answered stuttering.

«This elegant young fellow has to be his/her child!» Mussolini exclaimed; you/he/she had just perceived Daniel.

Phillip had a new shiver. «Yes, Mr. Duce, he is Daniel.»

They shook the hand. Mussolini assumed an austere frown.

«You don't have a companion, Daniel?»

The blood of Phillip chilled and takings to flow in sharp splinters that risked to chop off its veins from the inside.

«Yes, but it was not very well today!» almost annoyed Daniel answered.

«You are already in family age. If you intend to follow the tracks of your father you would do well to marry you to have some children. Today day a clean image cannot be maintained if a family is not had to the shoulders. An united family is the base for an united empire. Not you mind my reputation of seducer, from Ida Dalser in then so many errors of which I/you/they am reformed have committed. With Rachel then you/he/she has been a disastrous marriage. But beside a wife can give so many children. And to have so many children means to have a work force and a superior army. The appearance in front of the people counts more than the pride. Boy there are understood?»

Daniel nodded, scrutinizing the eyes of his/her father rather than those of the Duce. Phillip, after minutes of apnea, started over breathing. Its boat had perhaps shunned a dangerous iceberg.

They visited the hotel. It was a modern structure able to almost entertain four hundred workers. Vases of flowers refined the rudeness of the long corridors. The walls were disseminated of photo in black and white raffiguranti the Duce to half bust and the victorious soldiers in battle. The name of Francis Sartori was recurrent in the whole hotel, understood the entry, on which the insignia had been suspended

"Hotel workers Francesco Sartori."

The local cafeteria was an unadorned room, entirely constituted from long tavolate and chairs. The Duce and two gerarchis sat him. Phillip and Daniel made them company. «I have to say that it is really a beautiful hotel workers» it admitted Mussolini.

Phillip and Daniel exchanged a fleeting glance, they knew how much job was cost and how much to risk had been that visit. Phillip responded pleased. «I am happy also me of the result.» It avoided to make references to his/her expeditious letters to Rome.

From the kitchen the cooks came and out they served the same ration destined to the miners: watery soup of pasta and ceci with a piece of bread. Mussolini ate that frugal meal as him same tasting the savory food of the world. There were still the operators of the Light to take back him/it.

In the afternoon, from the balcony of the scholastic building, the secretary of the fascist party ordered the regard to the Duce; the acclamation was of an immense greatness. Mussolini plotted the praises of the workers remembering the utility of their job to the goals of the victory in the world conflict. The nth explosion of the miners was not for that encomiums but because you/he/she had just been orderly to double their rations cafeteria.

Before leaving Montevecchio for Guspini, Mussolini it stuck out him from the auto toward the ingegner Minghetti. «I have personally read all the letters that you have sent to Rome. Seem me an able and ambitious man; the empire has need proper of people as you. You attend my news, I wait you in brief times to Rome. We will systematize the matter and I will find you a charge of relief.»

Phillip had a wince. Clotilde was of side to him and tightened him strong the hand. Daniel contracted the fists and dams the eyes from the joy. His/her father had succeeded.

«I don't know whether to thank you Mr. Duce. Me.» he/she didn't know as continuous to anymore, as much it was his/her emotion. It shook the hand of the Duce and you/he/she would never have liked to leave her/it.

«Coop calm. To do won't owe to do him/it anything else other than to continue so and to bring tall the name of the empire. The secret of the power is in the wish» it proclaimed Mussolini, taking back the sentence written in the villa of the chemistry; a sentence coined by himself.

The autos crossed avenue Littorio among it shouts her some crowd and they were dissolved as fog in the last tornante. The life of Phillip Minghetti had been a walk acclive, the time you/he/she had come to take a steep slant. You turned toward Daniel and he/she embraced him/it. «Daniel, has succeeded! But you and I have a matter to immediately clarify.»

The warm atmosphere cooled him.

Daniel waited for that affirmation. «Tell me!»

«Your history with Geneva a weight will become. Today you/they have seen everybody that you/he/she has given you hole and his/her tantrums they will become of public dominion.»

Daniel felt impotent. «Dad, is right, but I care» he answered gesticulating.

«That to which you hold you now passes in second floor. You have to make you a family to the quick one, so I can push you toward important ranks, the time of bamboleggiare you/he/she is finished. I have always favored you, this time I am not able. System as soon as possible the matter with Geneva or I will have to live without you in my next future.» It was a threat spit without his/her usual liked ways.

Daniel; you/he/she grew loose the knot of the tie and without answering he wriggled. Phillip was sad for what you/he/she had said it was necessary. There were thousand of girls that would have paid for being with a beautiful boy of good family as Daniel. Girls without the epilepsy, girls that would have loved him/it really. You/he/she would be forgotten soon of Geneva, he/she thought Phillip.

The face of Clotilde was covered by a pleased sneer. Geneva soon an ugly memory would have been alone.

# 24

Some days were departed from the visit of the Duce. To Montevecchio the things were taking back their natural course. Ciccitta Marongiu had started over marking in his/her calendar the scorregges of the others, the lance-corporal Ignazio Martis touched the culo of the grading machines, Antioco Perra sharpened knives, his/her brothers Tuveris got drunk him to the circle of the dopolavoro and they looked for scabs for road. All as before.

Anguish held tightened the slipknot that that morning had wound the neck of Emilio. Maria was imposed, once so much. You/he/she had pretended that Emilio visited and put hand to the grave of his/her child, become by now a stone devoured by the musk. Maria visited every Saturday the grave of Giuseppino and deposed some fresh flowers withdrawing those wrinkled. With Emilio you/he/she had otherwise gone. From when it was dead Giuseppino it tried repulsion to the alone idea to visit him/it and to depose some flowers in his/her grave. Pushed by Maria, you/he/she had also tried to do him/it, more than once. It reached few meters from the great wall of surrounded that contained the cemetery and it jammed in front of the rugginoso gate. The memory of that Sunday of November cast him against him, preventing the last footstep to complete him.

To Giuseppino quite a lot things were allowed: to assist to the preamble of the greatest party that every family waited for one whole year you/he/she didn't show up among those. That fifteen November would be killed the sow.

In an angle of the courtyard, seminascostis from the tree of fig trees, four walls of raw bricks and two sheets of plate wanted to be a porcilaia. Giuseppino had climbed on a chair impagliata and from the window of the kitchen it watched the sow of over two hundred kilos. The animal rolled him in the mud of his/her enclosure, delaying with the belly to the insù as a pup waiting for little darlings. Emilio had thrown a bucket of acorns inside the porcilaia. Giuseppino had seen him, as before you/he/she had seen him follow the sow with a big club how first you/he/she was leaned to the tree of fig trees. The animal was penetrated in the hut shaking his/her curled tail; to his/her shoulders, the anxious shade of the jailer.

A low thud, dry.

Giuseppino was huddled hearing that noise and you/he/she had disappeared under the windowsill of the window.

A smothered grunt, mean in truth, a kind of hoarse moan interrupted by the blade of a knife.

Giuseppino had raised again the head and you/he/she had been petrified in front of the blood that from the hands of his/her father.

The evening you/they had butchered the beast separating the parts to preserve sottosale from those perishable that had to be consumed in few days. In a terracotta basin you/they had picked up some kilos of meat chopped mixed tattered of fat. Before proceeding with the butchery, Maria had prepared the supper frying the brain of the sow. The year before, the pig was male and you/he/she had been castrated for time, to avoid that the meat took taste of piss and foul smell of excited beast. Giuseppino had eaten the fried testicles of the pig believing they were flowers of pumpkin.

In the house it dominated the corpulent odor of the oil of lentischio. The oil of olive was stuff for rich. Maria picked up the black berries of the lentischio and made us the oil. A drop all it took is flooding every food with a resinous taste of it.

Giuseppino had remained apart during the first phases of the slaughter house. It observed in detached way those skilled hands to work the meat: to mince her/it, to crush her/it and to mix her/it with the fat. You/he/she was not even shifted when Maria had delivered among his hands two envelopes filled with the order: a piece of heart, one of lung, one of lard and some beefsteak. Giuseppino would have had to bring the order in the houses of Dino Pani and Luciano Madau, families that when they killed their sow they never missed to deliver theirs of order. The preceding year, Giuseppino had made the jumps of joy when his/her mother had delivered him the envelopes in hand. For a hour you/he/she had been free to turn alone for Guspini doing the great one. But that day had not even smiled. Emilio had noticed that something worried his/her child. In front of the fireplace you/he/she had deposed a crossroad of juniper on two chairs and you/he/she had put you to dry the thinnest guts of the sow. «From the one po'di seeds of anise to Giuseppino» you/he/she had told then Maria.

Giuseppino had strabuzzato the eyes and you/he/she was felt important; it was to have involved in the preparation of the better thing of the world: the sausage.

«I will put the garlic and the salt in the basin. You Giuseppino you will add a fist of seeds of anise and mother it will mix I mix him. Is it all right?» Emilio had asked him sketching a smile.

Giuseppino had tightened both the fists. It was enthusiastic and it skipped about. «Yes, dad!» Its eyes shone of happiness, it dealt with its first apprenticeship of the sausage.

Emilio threw the chopped garlic and the salt in the meat; Giuseppino added the seed of anise with excitement, fierce to be able to belong to the matters of the great ones. Maria soaked I mix him with a glass of white wine and you/he/she turned the meat to amalgamate her/it barehanded. To the next day, when the meat would have assimilated the tastes of the seasonings, the dry guts are have been filled giving form to the sausages.

Giuseppino had allowed to fall from his/her hand the seeds of anise. «Dad, has killed you the pig?» you/he/she had asked with a thread of voice.

Emilio and Maria had exchanged a surprised look. At the end, Emilio had responded with sincerity. «Yes, Giuseppino!»

Giuseppino had bent the head, shunning the face of his/her father; it contemplated the seeds of anise on the table, them you/they had not killed anybody. «To the mass, Mr. It uses you/he/she has told her/it that who kills it ends to the hell.» Its voice had a tone of resignation.

Emilio had included where you/he/she was going to protect the discourse of his/her child. Maria had smiled and had looked at the face worn out of Giuseppino.

Emilio had decided to explain the things with delicacy. «In the chiesetta of Santa Barbara Mr. It uses you/he/she has told her/it correct things but it didn't refer to this.»

Giuseppino had arched an eyebrow in inquisitional form, perhaps that discourse was too much great for its five years.

«You see, Giuseppino, God has created the gazelles to give to eat to the lions, you/he/she has created the bugs to give to eat to the birds, and you/he/she has created the hens, the rabbits and the pigs to give to eat to the men. Life goes so, the nature goes so, this calls food chain.»

«But Mr. It uses it tells her/it that also the animals macaws creatures of God!» you/he/she had beaten Giuseppino as a little fellow.

Emilio was become serious. «Really because the animals are a gift of God we don't throw away anything of it.»

Giuseppino had been doubtful on that answer. «Nothing, nothing?»

Emilio had added another pinch of garlic minced in the basin. «Nothing, nothing!»

«But I don't succeed in chewing the bones» the small one had whined.

Emilio and Maria had laughed at taste for that innocent verification. Emilio had taken in arm Giuseppino. «The bones we salt her and we use her for insaporire the pasta and beans that you like!»

The face of Giuseppino was deformed in a grimace schifata. «It is not true that the pasta and beans I like so much.»

Emilio if the era narrow strong and he/she believed to have shut the argument. You was wrong and the nth questioning had arrived. «But if everybody is born for giving to eat to somebody else, is the man born for giving to eat to whom?»

Emilio had prevaricated, attending that Maria came in his/her suffrage. You/he/she had been an attended useless. Maria had widened the braccias, you/he/she ignored whether to say and she preferred to continue the mixture of the seasoned meat, rather than to pronounce some idiocies.

Emilio had finally responded trying to be convincing. «The man is not born for giving to eat to someone. God has created him to his/her image and similarity and you/he/she has chosen to put him/it to head of everybody, to pact that behaves well.» In that instant you/he/she was seemed him the most correct answer. Hardly two months later, I approach to the death of Giuseppino, you/he/she had understood the deceptive nature of those words: the man was born for giving to eat to the worms and him you/he/she had chosen not to make visit to his/her child because every time that you/he/she had drawn near to the cemetery you/he/she would have had the impression to perceive the miasma of the death. Inside the white coffin putrefied by the damp earth there were the ossicinas of his/her child, spolpate from the worms.

You/he/she had also thought of him that same morning, but Maria was almost started crying for begging to give him/it one refreshed to the grave of Giuseppino. You/he/she had succeeded in winning the sense of nausea that oppressed him/it and you/he/she had crossed the gate. The shade of the cypresses made still that less hospitable place. File sghimbesces of graves pursued and then they overcame that of Giuseppino. Emilio there had been an only time in the last four years, for the funeral of his/her child, but he/she remembered well the exact point of the burial. Octave line to the left.

While it was proceeding, it scrutinized the heaps of earth that signalled the graves. A lot of they possessed only a wood cross without registrations, others they showed off headstones of marble with dedications in memory. You/he/she had wondered how come the men had decided to bury his/her own darlings. They perhaps believed that in the moment of the resurrezione for God it was directly simpler rimpastare their rests from the earth virgin.

To the funeral of Giuseppino you/he/she had participated an immense crowd: many miners, a lot of poor people, so many normal families, few aristocrats, any executive of the mines. But thing there was then of so strange. The poor men, the ignorant persons, in general common people were incapable to disguise the feelings behind a face of circumstance and you/he/she had chosen to greet a last time Giuseppino, portion of their existence.

The rich ones, the presumed intellectual, the people privileged by the life had concealed in the house instead and you/he/she had contrived some excuse to justify his/her own absence. Giuseppino Masala was extraneous to their clan and was worth less than a hour of time for his/her funeral.

You/he/she had come on the grave. A dollop of earth semidistrutto from tracks of shoes was appropriated to the feet of a headstone of stone. There, under, Giuseppino was buried. The epitaph engraved four years before it was very simple: aloft the writing Giuseppino Masala; as soon as below the dates of birth and death: 30/10/1931. 03/01/1937. Emilio and Maria would have liked to make to engrave a dedication for their child, something as" Giuseppino you will be always in our hearts", or" Wait us for angel of mother and dad." You/he/she had been impossible. The epitaphs were paid in base to the number of letters it engraved on the headstone, and not to leave a grave that had only the date of birth you/they had been forced to ask a loan between friends and relatives, to imagine himself/herself/themselves if you/they could afford a" In memory they set."

Now in that tomb registration overhung by the musk you/he/she could be read only halves the name": Giusep"., the rest of the incision had disappeared, as if, later as soon as four years, the world he was forgotten of Giuseppino and medium the musk you/he/she was trying to cancel the last traces of that brief existence. Emilio had been run over, almost senseless, from that sight that it gave him a feeling devastante, atrocious and painful.

"No, of you I have not forgotten, small my", you/he/she had thought. You/he/she had knelt and you/he/she had cried, asking for forgiveness Giuseppino for that four long years when you/they were not more visas. With a comb you/he/she had succeeded in sweeping away the musk. Only a small dark stain was escaped the purge, but with the rays of the sun you/he/she would have disappeared together with the damp. With the same care of a child intent on the beach to create a castle of sand, had given back vigor to the heap of earth that announced the grave. The hand was kissed and you/he/she had placed her on the name of his/her graven child on the headstone, then you/he/she had left the cemetery.

Now Emilio delayed in front of the building of the direction, in one of the few stains of sun that the great pines of the park granted in the shade. You systematized the collar of the job jacket, from which he was infiltrating one I blab in spring. In front of the entry of the hospital, a nurse of half age swept the dust from the staircases. Shifted Emilio him lazily from the sunny street handkerchief. To lowered head and with the hands inserted in the pockets of the jacket him it allowed to involve from the lukewarm shade of the pines. It crossed avenue Littorio. On the right they played again the bells of the chiesetta of Santa Barbara. They were you are her of the afternoon. He/she succeeded in perceiving the church for an instant, dominated to the shoulders from the building of the direction. It didn't dare to go over: that place his/her child remembered too much him and for that day you/he/she had exhausted the giacenzes of tears to pour to his/her sense of guilt.

«Emilio!»

Emilio stopped him. That thin voice was him family; it came from the inside of the church.

«Emilio!» He/she anchors that voice, this time less low.

It entered the church. You/he/she had forgotten the paintings that the walls with abstract images and figures of saints. Dipped the point of the fingers in the font of marble and it made him the sign of the cross. It was a gesture that had completed for more than twenty years, on Sundays. This time had completed only it for a revival of habit, he didn't want to have more nothing to whether to do with God and the church. You looked around but he/she saw only five wood benches ordered in line in front of the altar. The pavement to black and grey pictures seemed a chessboard of which Emilio made part: a pedestrian, at the most an infantryman, but not of some one king. The statue of holy Barbaric it aroused respect and signoreggiava to the center of the altar, as soon as behind a white baluster.

«Emilios, are here!»

Emilio followed the source of the voice and found again him in front of the tabernacle. A terrace of marble raised the niche to the same level of the altar and an outline of which you/he/she could glimpse only the shoulders it attended him/it sat in that point.

When Emilio resurfaced from the chiesetta of Santa Barbara his/her eyes they were possessed and they fixed the void. You/he/she had perhaps seen a ghost or worse: the devil.

# 25

The grass started to dry up him and the dust it got up in air as borotalco. The bugs made to noisily feel their goduria for the new season. Geneva is sat on the floor. The leccis and the Mediterranean stain hid its figure to the people that it had before. Eusebio Montixi, the stationmaster, wandered on the adjacent to gangway the platforms. Through the wide open door of the station it distractedly checked the suspended clock to the wall. The workers were busy in a braid of jute sacks. Their feet noisily stamped on the gravel, that served as bed to cross her of it of wood on which you/they sat the platforms. A locomotive idled about molt on the steel rails, he/she dozed before taking back its trip. Five wagons blackened by the soot completed that caterpillar mechanic. The workers crowded the wagons without killing him: there was still time before the train departed for the foundry of St. Gavino Monreale.

Geneva was immovable to few about ten meters from the railroad. It held hold among the legs a small suitcase of skin from the rectangular form. To the inside there were his/her suits and some lira. His/her legs, to contact with the suitcase, they were sweaty. From a few days you/he/she was insinuated with arrogance a sticky heat. Immovable, in that position privileged Geneva succeeded in aloft village you Rule. The most elevated plans in the villas sprouted in the mountain. Of the house Troises were distinguished only the chimney pot and the tiles of the roof. Geneva scrutinized with retrospective melancholy that only bit of his/her memoirs. You/he/she would have been the last time when you/he/she would have seen that house, the Linas mountain, Montevecchio, Mrs Loi and, perhaps, his/her father. From the preceding evening a knot had become knotted her in throat and anchor now it labored to melt himself/herself/themselves. For all of his/her life you/he/she had not passed only a day distant from Pietro. Now you/he/she would have abandoned him/it, so, to the sudden one, without not even having gotten used him to the idea to do him/it. Even if Pietro had struck her you/he/she was impossible to hate him/it. You/he/she was happened later for the first time twenty years and then it was his/her father.

The stomach in Geneva tightened him as a sponge squeezed by strong hands and its eyes a dike that labored to contain a thickened river, that kept on growing became. Before departing you/he/she would have liked to embrace him/it, to tighten him/it strong, to tell him that he/she loved him. Lucio had taught her that the words were not essential in the life of a man. You had understood him/it, you perhaps delay, but now the most beautiful memory that brought in the heart they were not caresses or words of affection, it was the low weeping and hidden of his/her father in the day when she had told him that soon you/he/she would be gotten married. Any word, only a weeping that expressed the pure feeling. Pietro would be him missed to be died. There would not have been any funeral but for Geneva it was as if it owed us to be. Within little his/her father would be dead, disappeared by his/her life, and you/he/she was worse still. After the loss of a dear person he atrociously suffers, then, with the time, pain is grown weak and leaves space to the memoirs. Beautiful memoirs for some, sad for others. But way of living knowing to ever have made the funeral to a father corpse is still a suffering more dilaniantes. Way of living knowing that from some part there is the person that is loved and to never be able her/it to see is worse whether to have murdered her/it.

Lucio was away from Geneva; it was still in mine. You/they had decided that not to arouse suspicions they were had to complete all the daily actions, since if Pietro had suspected something you/he/she would not have hesitated to send in smoke that loving escape. Geneva waited for Lucio; he would have reached her at the end of the job. They had in mind to hide himself/herself/themselves in the wagons of the train commodities, in the middle of the sacks of cloth jute. Once reaches St. Gavino you/they would be organized for reaching Cagliari. From there, in a way or in the other, they intended to embark himself/herself/themselves, covertly if necessary, to reach the peninsula and to start a new life.

From the day of the Duce, Geneva had concealed in the house. To Daniel you/he/she had not even granted an explanation, despite him you/he/she had obsessed her every day, knocking and howling in front of the front door of house. You felt that it was better to truncate the history of clean, the motivation it was superfluous. You/they were loved, but now you/he/she was ended. It was ready to run into his/her destiny. To die of epilepsy or to be confined to Pertzogiu it didn't frighten her/it. It was exhausted to run away from his/her illness that, contrarily he/she always knew, whether to find her/it; but it was tired even more to have to live secretly his/her love story, always careful not to let him escape too much a word of. "Enough with all this!" it was said. If death had arrived, you/he/she could be also at times gathering as a relief.

It contemplated his/her wrist clock. They were you are her less a quarter of the afternoon. It missed by now few. Its heart fibrillated and she was impatient to start the escape and it was still more impatient than to conclude her/it in the best of the ways.

The first miners left the well Amsicora. The square was clear of, the grading machines had abandoned from not too long it. From the shop the hits of hammer sferratis still felt him with ferocity on the anvil. The lampisteria was away prey of a you go of miners and the sun you/he/she was lowering.

Lucio trafficked in the magazzeno. It organized the positions for the next day, positions that would be exploded without him. The green pantalonis of its overall showed two big dark medals on the thighs. To do to the quick one, Lucio used to clean himself/herself/themselves the hands rubbing her in that point. The jacket was raised for also the warm one. The white undershirt, rotten of sweat and dust, you/he/she had clinged to his/her voluminous breast. Wet hair fell on his forehead in messy way. Before going out of the well you/he/she was made a long turn. You/he/she had caressed the armors of chestnut tree as if they were the legs of a beautiful woman. Is sat in front of the carts wagon and you/he/she had observed them in every littleness. Its chest was dilated and deflated in anomalous way, exaggerated. You/they had been of the long sighs. Sad sighs. The well Amsicora for him was special: you/he/she had represented the shell of a snail, the place whether to conceal and to feel himself/herself/themselves to his/her ease; a place where nobody could say to have given more than him. It was a mine that his/her father was picked up but that you/he/she had looked for in every way of sdebitarsi, giving him a job, allowing to eat him granting him the loneliness that had gone for a long time seeking because of his/her malformation.

By now the damp, the dust, the lead and the zinc belonged to him. In every region of the world in which would be run away, its bones would be numbed for the damp; dust would have reminded him that the bellows of a miner operate only for half; the lead would be last in its veins and the zinc you/he/she would have worked as a wrap preventing the other elements to leave its body.

While it was going down, the metallic cage had jammed in its level of competence. It had to dispatch a last matter before abandoning the well. The walk clearing himself/herself/itself with the white light of the lamp, you/he/she had reached the stall of the level Yosto. Four battered mules undulated on the straw bed and they didn't succeed in being firm on the limbs anymore. One of them had the folded up legs and it scraped off the knees for earth, that you/they showed the alive meat besieged by the flies. It was the mule that had been transporting the explosive positions of Lucio for years. The animal trembled and made to rotate the head as if you/he/she were risucchiato in a vortex of water. His/her eyes ciechis fixed the void without beating the eyelids. It rambled. Few stayed him to live, or to suffer. Lucio if n'era realized from some days and without making to be seen by anybody had pushed him the carts of explosive, extinguishing her last sufferings of the animal.

In silence you/he/she was bent on the mule and the neck had softly tightened him. The mule had stopped trembling, relaxed by the touch of hands friends, good hands. Lucio had kissed then it on the face, as soon as above the nostrils. The animal had perceived that you/he/she didn't deal with the kiss of Giuda. You/he/she was abandoned, clearing his/her nervous system. To his/her shoulders, Lucio had taken a big stone; with the tense braccias it perpendicularly held her/it to his/her body, above the head of the animal. You/he/she had looked upward, imagining to perceive the sky over the stone of the mine. You/he/she had asked forgiveness for what was to do and for what had already done: to exploit that animal poor man up to reduce him/it a heap of dead meat that dragged him staggering. With an abrupt hit you/he/she had smashed the skull of the animal killing him/it without making to suffer him/it. And if you/he/she had suffered, perlomeno had been the last time. His" Phillip" you/he/she would not have hauled carts anymore stracolmi and, if a reward existed for what you/he/she was done during a life, its eyes would have seen soon the light again.

That day, even the scrunches of the capstan to Lucio sugary harmonies were seemed. Everything of the mine was seemed him beautiful as you/he/she had never seen him/it. If you/they had been with him, you/he/she would also have embraced the lance-corporal Ignazio Martis and the meurreddu Savior Piras.

A lot of jute, filled helter-skelter with old pantaloni and some cotton sweater, attended him/it in the wood, camouflaged under the bushes of pungitopo. You/he/she had hidden him/it that same morning and before reaching Geneva you/he/she would have recovered him/it.

Closed again the railing of the magazzeno sealing her/it with a padlock. You mailed an instant in the room capstans, correct the time to systematize the key together with the others, in the wood glass showcase to form of cottage. The presser Sullivan still emanated warmth and the locomotive remembered him that would have taken soon. The adjacent room, that entertained the capstans, was tall and a shop in which he was manufacturing the wagon of Polifemo seemed. The gigantic wheels of the capstan were suitable to be climbed on on that wagon.

The last miners were climbed along the slope that brought to the road for Montevecchio. Lucio was really to the center of the square. Instead its thoughts had already reached Geneva. After having delayed for a long time, the threats of the marshal had forced him/it to take a decision. Now that you/he/she had picked her up, it didn't understand how come you/he/she had delayed so much. It loved Geneva and he/she didn't want nient'altro that her.

The imponderable one frightened him/it. "Where you/they would have gone? Where would you/they have lived? Would you/they have been happy?" they were all questions that didn't give him truce. The love in Geneva had given him the strength to look over an indefinite future, that you/he/she could take some dangerous lapels, but that you/he/she could also reserve the most grandiose happiness that a life was able to give.

Lucio took to walk, then smiled, projecting the face in Geneva in I break down him/it turquoise of the sky.

The din of a shot echoed in the rocky walls that the hollow of the well contained Amsicora; quivering from the room capstans to the laveria as a beam of light imprisoned inside a casket made of mirrors. Then the darkest silence.

The miners jammed along the slant. Someone an outline to earth. Some were immovable, petrified, paralysed by a remote fear. There was a man I pour again to the ground. It had the face crushed on the ground. The mouth was open, clogged of sand and dust. The language floated in an I mix reddish. Its blood had grooved the earth and you/he/she had succeeded in overflowing from the I get back principal that flowed sweeping away the dust; you/they were constituted hundreds of small rivulets that you/they flowed out with a contrary tide to some meters from him. That body was wound by a quiver, the same that had been a little before of the mule. A hole, big as the lemons of tzia Adelia Corona, made beautiful sight under the undershirt torn in the left shoulder blade.

That man was Lucio.

Some threatening ones fell him verse of him. Their breaths were troubled. Renzo Piredda stumbled in the anguish and ruinously fell, tumbling for about ten meters. Also the sky seemed to gain the gloomy aura that didn't shake him from their heads. The evening had brought a weak light and it gave to the miners of the lengthened shades, that reached before themselves the body of Lucio.

«You/they have shot him!» Gianni Ariu shouted putting himself/herself/itself the hands among the greasy hair of the fat of the shop.

«It has an enormous hole. You/he/she cannot have been a little balls cartridge to do this. You/they have shot him to lie soba, as if they had to shoot down a wild boar» it added Sandro Littera the miner that had addressed tzia Emilio Mariuccia Onali to make himself/herself/themselves àcua medal against him ogu liau of his/her child.

In the meantime, blood was expanded to excess and it bathed the barefoot feet of Gianni Ariu. He skipped about gone crazy out of the puddle producing some verses between the schifato and the terrorized one.

«You call the doctor!» it howled Sandro Littera, shaking rabbiosamente the hands toward those that if n'erano been fifty-fifty of the descent. «To your child had to touch, accursed cacasotto! Then yes that you would have moved!»

Hurt in the pride the miners they left the slope and they took to race toward the hospital.

The breath of Lucio was strangled, fragile and sfiancato, reduced to a rattle. Sandro dared turn the body to face insù, contradicting the rules of the first aid that categorically forbade to move the victims of serious accidents. «Porca bagassa!»

In the left pettorale there was an identical hole to that on the shoulder blade. The eyes of Lucio were blocked; lost in a void that he went riempiendo with a strong sound, a scalpiccio of clogs of horses, that the wagon of the death transported.

Sandro the mouth covered him to the sight of that face. It was ugly to say him/it but, with the deformed face and the language mixed of earth and blood, Lucio seemed a mythological creature that had just satiated his/her cannibal inclinations. «I believe that he/she knows lie soba has pierced through his heart and is gone out then of the shoulder blade.»

Gianni Ariu covered with sand his/her feet in the attempt to send away the blood crust. «But who devil could have made a similar thing?» Shook Sandro the head and it widened the braccias. «I don't know him/it and I believe that we will never know him/it. He/she knows lie soba, if shot by a hunter of good aim, you/he/she can center the target up to two hundred meters distance. The bastard will be far now already and only God perhaps knows how much you post there are to Montevecchio to hide a rifle. The wood is full of weapons that the poachers leave in custody to the bushes.»

Lucio was shaken more and more from strong tremors, similar to an epileptic crisis. Its breath became a hoarse foundation, light, next at the end.

The paramedics came with a lot of delay. There was the alpha black romeo with the you look for red of the doctor head Saints of the group of auto. The marshal Troise, with his/her motorbike Guzzi, tailed him/it. The sun was almost disappeared entirely but it tried not to abdicate to the moon. That evening the queen of the night had decided to contend him the sky before the due one, placing himself/herself/itself to his/her side waiting for to be revered by his/her shining subjects.

Sandro Littera and Gianni Ariu attended close to the body of Lucio and to slow down its progressive cooling you/they had covered him/it with some sack of cloth jute made up for to the laveria.

The doctor Saints it was the first one to reach them, risking to fall in the descent and to make the same end of Renzo Piredda. Pietro came I approach. «Saint sky!» the doctor exclaimed.

Pietro felt to pervade from a shiver. His/her daughter's lover, the man that risked to indirectly kill her/it, was extended to earth in a lake of blood. In his/her breast there was a big hole as an egg of goose that the heart had probably bursted him. An expressionless face didn't disclose if that image had upset him/it or spellbound.

Saints it turned toward Pietro. «It pours under desperate conditions!»

«I see well it!»

«I believe that has shot him. The heart beats anchor, but if I have not studied literature rather than medicine, is certain that it will still do him/it for few.»

«Thing can be made in a case as this?»

«You/he/she has lost a lot of blood. You/he/she cannot do her/it but I have the duty to try everything the possible to save his life. It needs to transport him/it in the hospital. I will submit him/it to a surgical intervention, if an only microscopic possibility exists, I have to try!»

Cackles and lights proruppero on the slant that lowered up to the well Amsicora. A squadron of miners advanced fast. The crackle of their footsteps was announced by the shine of the lamps. If you/they had also held some pitchforks, you/they would be been able to move to Transylvania and to chase the the count Dracula. They looked for the assassin or they had the pretension to do him/it. Naïve and unprovided. There was also Felicino Putzolu what had forged the nickname Gnagno. They went to the search of the revenge for a man that them for first you/they had always despised and never approved, to the point to fear only it because sordomuto had been born and horrible to look. "That beautiful reason to condemn even more who the true sentence had received her with the birth!" you/he/she would have said Geneva. For many, that wisecrack of hunting to the guilty one was the only way of washing his/her own conscience. Only in front of the finished facts his/her own errors were realized. The time to make up for to the grimaces of disgust, to the takings around, to the search to avoid him/it there was not anymore. The last possibility was that: to look for a guilty and to feel himself/herself/themselves in peace with him same to have found him/it. You/they would have gone to a possible funeral with the rigid neck that a head sustained from the destroyed face. With the hands in pocket you/they would have said: «Mischineddu, was a good boy. We loved him all.»

What an eccentric fact, of the corpses that cannot feel and to be offended himself/herself/themselves is had more respect that for the alive ones. When it speaks of a dead person, the impression is had not to refer to the same person from long live. Lucio from alive you/he/she had been so many things: monster, gnagno, joke of the nature, abortion and street talking. The alone perspective of death had transformed him/it in mixes, poor thing, unlucky. If it were dead really, it was probable that in the point in which you/they had shot him you/he/she would have been erect even a statue in his/her honor. Hypocrisy.

«Holy Christ! Let's load him/it on sergeant Podda's balilla» it said Pietro, with an out voice as the sun defeated by the moon.

They loaded him/it of weight, in four men. It was as to lift the bull hurt Achille. The mastodontic weight of the shot one had to have transfer from who had shot to whom had been stricken. The seats of the auto were of skin and they rejected the blood hijacking him/it on the carpet. The balilla driven by the sergeant jolted at the end of the slope and the miners they had to make aside himself/herself/themselves to the quick one not to be overwhelmed.

A stretcher provided of small wheels and two nurses with the mask they attended the arrival of Lucio in front of the hospital. They knew about the operation, Pietro had anticipated everybody. The sergeant nailed the auto in front of the staircases of the hospital and descents shaking himself/herself/itself as a crazy person. The body of Lucio was pushed to insane quickness by the nurses. A wake of blood followed the stretcher and traced the run. Perhaps it was Lucio that was leaving him/it of intention. A trace to be followed for finding again the exit from that hospital of death, that you/he/she had seen in his/her history more men to go out transported in shoulder by others that not from his/her own legs.

The door of the operating room been closed again with a scrunch. Now Lucio was in the hands of Christ. If you/he/she had been conscious you/he/she would have hoped that those of the doctor Saints had a crumb of the same powers. It was not necessary to wake up again a leper had been dying for days, you/he/she would have been enough to make to keep on beating his/her wounded heart.

Geneva was session in the kitchen of house nervously nibbling himself/herself/itself the fingernails of both the hands, with the elbows leaned on the thighs. When you/he/she had not seen to arrive Lucio you/he/she had gotten excited. Dark arrives then to its shoulders as cold hands that the eyes cover you to the sudden one. Geneva had started to look around at himself/herself/themselves. Every small rustle was seemed her provoked by Lucio. Then the siren of the locomotive had leaked producing an acute sound; slowly you/he/she had stirred and you/they had also stirred the wagons. You/he/she had gotten further, you/he/she had finally disappeared. Lucio had not arrived. In distance, the smoke of the unloadings had fluttered full-bodied in the air. It was the hope that burned, you/he/she had thought Geneva. You/he/she had reentered to house.

Now he/she heard the door of the porch that opened. It jumped standing and it recognized the shade of his/her father that directed him toward the bath. It followed him/it and he/she saw some blood on the parquet. The breath hid him in its bellows. «What this blood is?» it howled with a bewildered face. Pietro was immovable. Its uniform was dirtied of blood in the sleeves and in the breast, not to speak of the shoes. «You don't know anything of that that has happened?»

Geneva quickly shook the head, more times, giving the impression to want to send away some impertinent flies.

Pietro got out of the left shoe with the right foot. «Someone has shot to Lucio!»

Mrs Loi, that eavesdropped from the door and it spied from the hole of the lock of his/her room, had a wince and for a little it didn't make him discover.

The panic cut the tendons of the braccias in Geneva that collapsed along the sides and they dangled as suspended swings to a tree.

It slowly slipped up to find himself/herself/themselves knelt. You folded up in before and it rubbed the face and the hands in the blood left by his/her father. It was blood of Lucio. «It is dead?» It was extended to earth as a busy Moslem in the salàt of midday.

From when it was found to Montevecchio it was the second occasion in which Pietro felt him ask that question. The first time five years you/he/she was happened before, when Emilio Masala had asked him if his child Giuseppino was dead.

«I have asked you if it is dead!» Geneva barked, without not leaving even him the time to organize an answer. This time it looked at him/it in the eyes.

Pietro stared at her/it. Then it bent the head. «It is dying!»

Geneva jumped standing with a sprinter release and it was him I set. It started to hammer him the fists breast closed. «Because? Because? You have been you, you didn't want us to love each other. Because? Because?» it howled breaking himself/herself/itself the vocal chords.

Pietro was immovable with the wide braccias and him you/he/she allowed to strike from the fury of his/her daughter. The blood curdled that it had in the shirt, dampened by the tears in Geneva, he loosened and it seemed to start over flowing. Does her of Geneva it was the mask of a clown: I break down him/it white of his/her skin with nose and cheeks dyed of red blood. «Because? Because?» it kept on howling more and more with a voice arrochita from I strive him/it.

Pietro's braccias plain pians were shut verse of her, up to

to bandage her/it as a cover of orbace. A warm embrace, a father's embrace. Geneva sank his/her face on the breast of Pietro and stopped striking him/it.

«You cry, my daughter, discharged also, dad doesn't feel what you say, he knows that you/he/she is the anger to speak.» It is Geneva he/she cried and he/she still cried.

# 26

The night had painted a picture of black cloth squirted with a brush soaked in the gold. Emilio was set to the fence that contained the parking lot of the hotel Francis Sartori. A lodging had been destined him and it was usufruendo of it from the following day to the visit of the Duce. Maria and Franco were to Guspini; you/he/she would have seen not them as soon as you/he/she had been him possible. An African wind waved the Italian flag, that giving some sudden sharp tugs crackled in the air as firewood to the fire. From the room cafeteria the shouting of the miners proliferated in the air. Emilio had not dined that night. The sadness had occupied the encumbrance of its stomach that you/he/she was usually destined to the food, a very small space for the truth. The preceding evening you/they had shot to Lucio. You/he/she had remained eight hours under the irons; at the end the doctor Saints you/he/she had come out of the operating room shaking the head and throwing to earth latex gloves and mask. «I have done all the possible, but it won't make her/it. Its weakened heart won't hold up the posthumous ones any operation, I give him a couple of hours of life» you/he/she had said.

But Saints you/he/she had made his/her accounts without calculating the physicist of Lucio, that hopelessly it looked for anchor to stay seized to that slender thread of life hello to break himself/herself/themselves. In the room number twelve of the hospital its body valiantly fought and refused to follow the mind that already if gone n'era.

«Where you have put the beret that I have given you?»

Emilio, hearing that voice, it turned him electrified. «Luigi! Luigi!» it howled with a baritone voice.

From the angle of the hotel Luigi came out. You held the finger staid index on the mouth to summon the silence. «You are crazy? Do you want to make to melt by chance me in the jail?» it whispered.

Emilio the runs meeting and he/she embraced him/it in tears. Its braccias sank in the void. The abundant suits covered a Greek syringe of ribs, able to play only music of broken bones with the touch of a hand. Luigi was a skeleton. The put in a ditch eyes and hooped by livid occhiaie and the leaning cheekbones as spikes of rock they frightened. The cheeks for a little they didn't connect him among them.

«My friend, believed not to see again you more. We have not had your news anymore. But thing you/they have done you?» It kept on touching Luigi here and there.

«You have not had my news anymore because I/you/they have escaped. Now I am a deserter!»

«But how many kilos have you lost?»

Luigi labored even to speak. «Twenty-five, thirty, would not know perhaps of precise» he/she answered troubling. «But would not you have something to put under the teeth, by chance?» it added.

«Wait here me!» Emilio squirted toward the room cafeteria. It came out from there with a beautiful white bread and some dadinos of cheese. You/they had been given only him because you/he/she had not dined.

Luigi was a sewer. You hurled on the food greedily devouring him/it. Emilio looked at him/it happy. "As it was beautiful to find again a friend" he/she thought. «Then you have escaped?»

Luigi swallowed the bit. In his/her bristly short beard crumbs of bread and cheese were deposited. «I was not able of it more, Emilio. The Germans kill only the people because it is Jewish, or Pole, or of color. They kill her because it is sick, because he/she doesn't think her/it as them. Every motive is good. I have seen things that cannot be told things that I will bring me inside the grave. I have just had the possibility of it I/you/they are melted her/it to me and thanks to a friend that I have in the harbor I have succeeded to return here.» His were the eyes of whom had veduto the hell.

«And now thing you have intention to do? If you stay to Montevecchio they immediately will find you.»

A gust of wind swept away the crumbs from the pantalonis of Luigi that, for an instant, you/he/she was tried to pursue her. «I have everywhere friends in Sardinia. "They will entertain us." I will often change setup and I won't be anymore of a week in the same place. Sooner or later this damned war will have to end.»

«Because you have said" they will entertain us"?»

Luigi smiled. «I have followed your suggestion to make me a family. I intend to bring Lella with me. Before coming from you I was from her, we have already spoken of it and you/he/she is prepared to follow me.»

«And your mother?»

Luigi shook the hands of Emilio. «You represent the last favor that I ask you. Up to when I cannot be me to take he/she takes care of me of her, I ask you to keep on doing him/it you.» It was the search of a promise.

«As I would be able not to do him/it! But it gives at least to find her/it, you would make her an immense gift.»

Luigi, that overcame Emilio of quite a lot centimeters, made him shade kissing him/it on the forehead. «Already fact, my friend, and I also know why my beret is not in your head. Thanks indeed!»

Emilio felt him proud of himself, after so much time.

Luigi had lost so many kilos but his/her joy you/he/she had been such. «For sdebitarmi I tell you one of my jokes. Do you know her that about the Sardinian that reenters from the war?»

«No, I don't know her/it. It also tells.»

Luigi threw downward the collar of the shirt and takings to tell. «A Sardinian reenters dead of hunger from the war and you/he/she is entertained by a Genoese friend. The guy despite the resistance of the Sardinian succeeds in inviting him/it for supper. They sits and the wife of the Genoese puts in table a pentolone of minestrone. The Sardinian if you/he/she is devouring him/it with the eyes but he/she remains of plaster when the friend pours him an alone spoon of minestrone. It starts us a second eating him/it to him and then he/she remains to attend of it of the other, that nobody pours him. After the usual resistance, the Sardinian is convinced to also spend the night from the Genoese. All sleep in the same bed, understood the wife of the Genoese. When the Genoese falls asleep, his wife pinches the Sardinian and stripping himself/herself/itself tells him": you now Take advantage of it that my husband sleeps, you will have so much desire of it after such a long war." The Sardinian looks at her/it and answers": you are right lady, now I go to the kitchen and I eat me the whole minestrone"!»

Emilio tried to smile but it was not able of it.

«Thing there is, Emilio? I believed it made to laugh. Perhaps in war I have lost I enamel him/it» he afflicted Luigi.

Emilio connected the hands. «You are not you, it is that the history of Lucio has upset me.»

Luigi twisted the lips. «Yes, I have known him from Lella what has happened. Really now that the good Lucio started to spassarsela as it is owed.»

Emilio knitted the forehead. «Spassarsela in that sense?»

«Just before to depart for Stalingrado, while I was systematizing some traps for wild boars in the wood, I have caught him to kiss him with the daughter of the marshal. If the ingegner Minghetti knew that his/her child is a cuckold!»

You/he/she had been therefore Luigi to place the trap that for a little you/he/she had not shorn a foot to the marshal Troise.

Emilio took to rave and in his/her mind they perceived inverted images and molts: nurses that walked back to the, reloaded Lucio in the stretcher and they brought him/it out of the hospital, in the auto of the sergeant. The balilla traveled in reverse to a maddish speed; now it was firm in the square and the body of Lucio it lay to earth. A big puddle of blood was reabsorbed while the skin of the dying person repurchased color. A bullet to lie soba came out of its heart and lost him in the brushwood. The tense reed of a rifle swallowed the pellet and in the air the odor of shot dust dissolved him, that plain pian lost color and intensity. A finger loosened the pressure on the trigger and there was an obsessed face behind the target, and it was that of Emilio.

Luigi called Emilio that didn't answer. The takings for the shoulders and it shook him/it with strength. «But what do you have? Did you seem possessed? I was about to call Mr. It uses to I give her/it you an exorcism.»

Emilio returned in itself. «You had never spoken to me of the history between Lucio and the daughter of the marshal.»

Luigi. «I have always made my business in as for women. For my cause there are here more horns to Montevecchio that in a basket full of snails. As who has discovered sometimes me and you/he/she is made his/her business, I have done the same with Lucio. I have not even told never you how much bagasse has made among the wives of the fellow townsman, if it is for this!»

Emilio nodded. «I understand, not to worry you!»

Shortly after they were greeted with the promise of rincontrarsi in that same place after two days.

Emilio got back home in the hotel. To the entrance there was the porter in blue uniform that, to judge from the accent, had to originate from the north Sardinia. The man is sat in front of a desk you/he/she posts to the left in comparison to the entry. You/he/she was systematizing a faldone of scartoffie and it had the air of one that didn't find him/it very amusing. From under his/her beret it cast a furtive but inquiring glance. Emilio unthread him before and greeted him/it with a sign of the hand. «Night!» it added then, perhaps reputing himself/herself/itself ill-mannered.

«Good night!» the porter answered, reassured by the possession perceived in his/her face a known face. Only to the recipients of the lodgings it was granted to enter, not to find himself/herself/themselves with rooms crowded with seven or eight unauthorized miners that you/they shortly would have of certain damaged the structure. Everything had to be in order.

Six meters you square they formed the room. The walls were candid and the prickly odor of the limes it still infested the environment. A small locker in wood gave the side to the bed of empty metal. Emilio was thrown to dead weight, bouncing on the rigid mattress, better of the pagliericcis of his/her house. It put on the hands behind the nape and it went to abandon on the pillow. The window was closed, but the howl of the wind filtered however, sour, ficcante and sharp. It hissed in the brain as the cries of a burnt heretic long live in the purifying fire. To this he/she thought Emilio: to the purifying fire that, as for the witches, you/he/she could also destroy his/her guilts. The guilt to have shot to Lucio, a man that had always shown good; the guilt to have done by instinct it, perhaps being wrong. And there was only now the fear to be able to cause, after Giuseppino, another died to Montevecchio.

The morning when you/he/she had visited the grave of Giuseppino had been difficult. The emotions had him/it sfiancato; the contempt for himself, the remorse for a child that there was not more and the anguish not to want to forget him/it you/they had been terrible. Then you/he/she had heard that voice in the chiesetta of Santa Barbara. You/he/she had entered and you/he/she was found before Daniel Minghetti.

«Emilio, has been being for so much time that I wanted to tell you him: your child is not fallen in the precipice, Lucio Figus has thrown him/it» Daniel had confessed him.

The hands of Emilio had opened so much that the thumb and the little finger had grazed the wrist. Its nerves were become ropes of violin and its face an ancient portrait of damned in the hell dantesco. «How you say a thing of the kind?» you/he/she had pretended to know.

«I can tell only you that if you want the confirmation of that that I am telling you, you don't have to do anything else other than to enter house of Lucio. There you will find the answers that you look for.»

If that meeting had happened in one different day, Emilio would have succeeded in analyzing him/it in shinier way. But his/her child's headstone devoured by the musk and the impression that all of him was forgetting of him you/they had pushed him/it to the deepest hate.

Few hours later, sure that Lucio was around as every night for the woods, Emilio you/he/she had irrupted in his/her miserable cottage. You/he/she had been paralyzed, puzzled and sure to be able to kill instantly it. Above the lame table of the kitchen, close to a big crack that it almost centered him/it, a gold chain with hung the crucifix it extended him for all of his/her length. It was the baptismal chain of Giuseppino, is goes lost in the day of his/her recovery, the only precious object that his/her child had ever had. Emilio could not be wrong and to exchange her/it for another. Behind the crucifix of that original the initials of his/her/their child were engraved there. You/he/she had picked her up with a release and if the era placed to a centimeter by the nose": G M" you/he/she was written behind the crucifix there. Giuseppino Masala.

You/he/she had knelt with the tears that blinded him/it. You/he/she had tightened the chain with strength and if the era leaned on the heart. A desolating cry was him vigorous in throat. At that time you/he/she had understood what it had to do: to aim the rifle and to rouse that hog of Lucio.

From the wood that the well overhung Amsicora you/he/she had shot showing the teeth. Before disappearing you/he/she had remained there, immovable, to see Lucio that knocked down to the ground and it lifted a cloud of dust; to see the stain of blood that grew under of him; to see that bastard that suffered. You/he/she had punished him/it, without knowing well if you/he/she had done him/it to avenge his/her child or more to make to pay him that five atrocious years when you/he/she had not passed a second solo without cursing him to have caused its death.

Yet, now, an unpredictable reflection upset him/it: if it were true that Lucio if it did her/it with Geneva, Daniel Minghetti you/he/she could have told a lie to get away middle without getting dirty himself/herself/themselves the hands, sure that the frustration of Emilio would be turned into uncontrollable hate.

# 27

Bossy hits got depressed on the front door of the barracks. They were the four of the morning and the wind it kept on blowing transporting clouds able to withdraw even more the night. Pietro jolted on the chair, you/he/she was dozed off by a mezz'ora. It inspected the room: the sergeant Podda there was not, you/he/she was perhaps gone out to make himself/herself/themselves a turn. Shoots her inflicted to Lucio you/he/she had upset some all, gotten used to an almost improbable calm. It got up making to crawl the chair and it advanced recomposing himself/herself/itself. Closed an eye and with the other one it scrutinized from the spioncino of the front door. Instinctively he withdrew, there was Emilio Masala out of the barracks. The front door opened without noise; the hinges were well oiled.

«Marshal, has to speak to you!» it said Emilio. It had a dark face brim.

Pietro made aside freeing the entry. «I pray, settled Emilio.»

Pietro advanced toward his/her desk. Emilio followed him/it and its barefoot feet left imprints of dust on the taut floor to shiny, identical to you tread on a massetto of cement semifresco.

Pietro sat down to his/her desk and also invited Emilio to do him/it. In front of them, in a space drawn between the redemption of the entry and the staircases of the superior plan, there were another desk and some full shelves of issues the den of the sergeant.

After all to the stanzone, a gate rugginoso introduced to the cells; it squeaked and it continually trembled. The wind inserted him from the fissures that they gave to the outside and it benefited him some game between the lock and its meeting.

Emilio lengthened the look. It fixed that grille impestata from the rust and a cluster of grape seemed him devoured by the mildew. The shivers came him. That sound, that anxious clangor, made to think to of the chains beaten to earth by a ghost. It had a trembling and he/she thought that perhaps Lucio was dead and his/her raging spirit the same waiting inside that cell to do him her to pay.

«Thing upsets yourself, Emilio?»

Emilio. «Here, me.» it jammed. It was complicated to continue. You rubbed the hands and if it twisted her for the tension. It was about to confess condemning himself but also his/her wife and above all his small, that to eat would have had to attend that his/her mother made the alms house for house; the salary of grading machine was the first charity.

«Holy Christ, Emilio, tell me everything. I don't eat you of certain!»

Emilio shook the hands on the desk and made to hang back the chair to the. It lifted the look and he/she saw the power on lantern that, with some oil lamps systematized in strategic points, it gave an illumination to the room soffusa. It loosened the taking and he/she left that the chair reverted in before beating on the floor.

«I have shot me to Lucio Figus!» he/she confessed, without whispering, telling him/it dry and definite way that didn't leave space to equivocal of sort.

Pietro chilled, you/he/she slowly got up then and you/he/she stared at him/it in the eyes as if Emilio a lie had just told him. But Emilio was not type from nighttime jests, Pietro he/she knew him/it and he still abandoned on the chair sinking among the arms. It connected the hands and it seemed to pray.

The light that shone in the eyes of Emilio had cracked after the death of Giuseppino, now the last invisible sparkling was extinguished also. Pietro saw them and he thought that they were as those of Giuseppino when you/he/she had seen him/it for the last time, dead. They were black, dark, immovable and inscrutable. «As has happened?» he/she asked him with a resigned quiet.

Emilio melted him with an eloquent grimace. «I have attended him from the wood that it dominates the well Amsicora and I have shot him to lie soba, to be sure to kill him/it!»

Pietro turned back above with the braccias. «Yes, but because?» This time its tone had altered.

Emilio the face covered him with the hands. «Daniel Minghetti has told me that you/he/she has been Lucio to throw in the precipice my child. To house of Lucio I have found the baptismal chain of Giuseppino. I could not do anymore to less less than to believe him.»

«Emilio, knows that if Lucio had to die you would risk thirty years of jail? Have not you thought about your wife? To your child? To yourself?»

Emilio raised him the hands from the face and sustained the severe look of his/her interlocutor. «But I don't want that he dies, because I believe is innocent!»

Pietro wrinkled the forehead leaving half open an eye. «I don't follow you Emilio. Have you shot him to lie soba and do you believe him/it innocent now?»

Emilio got up from the chair and leaned the hands on the desk, lengthening himself/herself/itself toward the marshal. «Lucio was the lover of his/her daughter marshal. I fear that Daniel Minghetti has used me to eliminate his uncomfortable rival. If you didn't know anything I apologize you but I could not do to less less than tell you him» it revealed, letting some droplet of saliva be escaped for the impetus of his/her words

Pietro started. Its legs became stems of celery ammosciati from the sun. The hands him they benumbed him as if it had the carpal tunnel. It was not the solo anymore to know that his/her daughter if it did her/it with the sordomuto.

«Yes, Emilio, knew about the history between Geneva and Lucio» Pietro was confided, «And I was not particularly happy of it» you/he/she added with a veil of regret.

Emilio avoided to comment. You limited to attend a verdict. Pietro postponed him/it. «I ask you to be here in barracks and to attend calm my return. I intend to make a visit to house Minghetti and to clarify the matter. If he/she returns the sergeant not to say a word, limited to explain him that you are in the barracks because I have asked you to wait me for deprived matters.»

Emilio made to oscillate before and back the head. You/he/she had understood.

Raised on two pillars, small lions of marble piantonavano the entry that brought Minghetti to the villa. An enclosure constituted with miniatures of Roman columns surrounded the garden of the villa. Few about ten more meters before the building of the direction it was glimpse.

The lead ring broke him three times on the front door of thick chestnut tree. Pietro was immovable with the hands in pocket. The feathers of his/her hat, wagged by the wind, they tried to detach himself/herself/themselves and to run away free in the air. They heard the releases of the cylinders. A shutter of the front door opened. Timid and afraid to the sight of the policeman uniform, the blonde girl that had welcomed him/it in the building of the direction appeared. «Marshal, has thing happened?» churches worried the girl.

Pietro got out of the hat and if you/he/she systematized him/it in front of the abdomen. «I hope for nothing! I would like to talk to Mr. Daniel Minghetti.»

«He/she sleeps of certain but if it is so important I go to immediately call him/it. But arranged you pure, marshal.»

Pietro settled in the couch of skin of the stay, crossing the legs. Thousand thoughts were pursued in its head. The clock to suspended pendulum on the wall articulated the five the time of the truth. To the center of a table able to entertain the whole generation of the Minghettis, a ceramics vase showed a composition of dry stiance that you/they projected their chaotic shade on the centers embroidered. They were similar to the scuettuses that were shot in air the night of the party from the sporting field of holy Barbaric.

Daniel Minghetti come down from the superior plan sustaining himself/herself/itself to the handrail of beaten iron fixed to the wall with some grapevines. It was awake from quite a lot. Its hooped eyes didn't lie. He/she wore a pair of light pantalonis and a black sweater above a white shirt. Pietro almost it didn't recognize him/it, accustomed as it was to see him/it in jacket and tie. «Some lends for of the visits, doesn't marshal, believe?»

Pietro scavallò the legs. «You will understand that I could not attend a more decent schedule.»

«Miss Atza, brings us two beautiful cups of warm milk» it ordered Daniel to the ruler. «Then, thing has happened?»

«You/he/she is ended, Daniel. Emilio Masala has just come to constitute him in barracks. You/he/she has told of your meeting and of as you has instigated him/it to do what you/he/she has done.»

Daniel took a seat close to him. The reflex of the chandeliers gilded his hair as the patina of the fried bread in the egg. The eyes ambratis were precious drops to expose as piece appreciated in the cristalliera that was him of forehead, already silver position and luxurious services. «And can of thing accuse me?» churches become impatient, swinging before and back the closed hand to beak of bird.

«Already, of thing my child can be accused? To have said a lie?» he/she asked the voice of the ingegner Minghetti, that waited for on the gallery affacciante in the stay you/he/she had felt everything.

Pietro turned and saw him/it. «You also know you what has happened, engineer?»

Phillip Minghetti reached them. Inside his/her enormous night negligee color cremates it seemed even more low. «I know all, marshal, unfortunately. Daniel has immediately reported me that that" you have" combined!» You placed a hand on the forehead.

Miss Atza deposed a silver tray with two cups on the great table. The hot smoke was emitted by the milk darkening the light of the chandelier. «You also appreciate a cup of it you, engineer?» he/she asked him while with a teaspoon it threw the sugar in the cups.

«No, thanks Miss, I am well this way. Milk is the good ally for my problems of colitis.»

The girl smiled. «Two of sugar also for you, marshal?»

Pietro nodded. The girl poured the sugar and he dispersed.

Phillip Minghetti placed him in front of Pietro, to braccia conserte. «Marshal, if Daniel sinks you know well that will sink with him!»

"There is at the most here a meter of water!" they were the words that played again in the head of Pietro. The same words that you/he/she had pronounced the sergeant Podda five years before, while it was emerging from the precipice with the dead body of Giuseppino Masala in arm.

"There is at the most here a meter of water!" the first words had been that had returned him to the memory when Daniel Minghetti had confessed him that his/her father had intention to excommunicate him/it. If Daniel had disappeared from the graces of the Minghettis, for Geneva you/they would be closed with uproar all the doors.

Pietro had confessed the true motive for which Geneva didn't want to know more than him of it to Daniel, explaining her that he was invaghita of the sordomuto.

«Lucio?» you/he/she had asked Daniel with the disgust that he/she was read to clear letters in his eyes. Probably in that instant you/he/she had thought about being a manikin. If his/her woman had preferred to leave to put on him/it with a deformed ragamuffin, he had to be little thing. Then you/he/she was shaken by that feeling and you/he/she had said: «Marshal, I want to recover your daughter, in every way.» And they were those the words that Pietro dreamt to feel.

The memory of that fallen gold chain in the forgetfulness of the precipice was drizzled by the sky to the sudden one, in a sign of the destiny. Pietro was remembered some tinkling on the rocks, of the sparkling of that cross that turning himself/herself/itself in the void had pierced through his eyes. And you/he/she had hoped instantly that there pits still an only water's meter in that ditch. But God had given more him, because of water not us n'era a drop, dried not up more even by the drought. The gold chain was there, immovable, as a treasure of a well nuragico. Some opaque was alone, and it seemed same having been waiting for five years that Pietro returned in that accursed hole to take back her/it.

You/they had put on of accord, Daniel and he. One had instigated Emilio Masala, the other one was dealt with to put in beautiful sight the chain to house of Lucio, the intruder to be eliminated. "And had been all right!" he/she still thought Pietro.

«Marshal, beats this Emilio in a distant jail and you/he/she won't feel anymore him speak of him. You will save the life of my child, yours and, I guarantee you that if you will do him/it, you will bring in safe also that of Geneva» it promised the engineer.

«Is trying to buy the liberty of your child or do you try to avoid a scandal that damages you in the political scaling only?» Pietro goaded him/it.

Phillip drew a sigh and shook the head in a fierce denial. «I try only to make up for to the folly of an in love man and a desperate father.»

«I will think it, engineer, but I don't promise you nothing. This time I have touched perhaps the fund» it said Pietro starting to try repulsion for himself.

«A last thing, marshal. Geneva will have to disappear forever from the life of my child!»

«Oh, this I believe is the smaller problem, believes me, engineer.»

Angry, Daniel upset to earth the tray with the cups of milk. The din also woke up Clotilde to the superior plan.

«There are to decide my life of it as if it dealt with that of a pup of dog!» it howled.

Phillip tried to calm picking up him him an arm. Daniel shifted him/it and from the base of the belief he succeeded in grabbing the keys of his/her lance.

Phillip had shaken. «Fermo, done Daniel, calm, where do you go?»

Daniel didn't connect, you/he/she was furious. It climbed on the auto and it departed with the counter still opened. The counterblow of the push closed again him/it. Phillip remained leaned on the stipite of it brings her/it to observe I worry the auto of his/her child that the tornantis took for Ingurtosu.

«What has happened?» Clotilde asked him with a hand on the mouth and an amazed expression.

Phillip camouflaged his/her reality state of mind and answered her. «Nothing dear, returns to sleep. Tomorrow it will systematize him all!» But they were not the words that he/she thought.

Daniel pressed the foot on the accelerator, more than you/he/she was able. The auto wound agile on the tornantis; the rubbers screeched to every curve. It was tired to feel every time be said what it owed or it didn't have to do. The hand of the odometer touched the finecorsa and danced about as a compass in a magnetic field.

Daniel took to cry, without even not knowing him the why.

A sudden curve. Daniel didn't do in time to crush the brake. Its petrified eyes saw the road tighten himself/herself/themselves up to disappear from under the wheels of the auto. The fear, sottoforma of cry, accompanied the jump of the lance in the void. Daniel did only in time to leave the steering wheel and to huddle the bump being waited. If you/he/she had had some second in more, be pisses I set, even also cacato, to the face of the courage.

The lance ardea flew in the air. In the dark you/he/she could have exchanged for a muflone that jumped from a spike of rock to the other. You planted of face winds more meters under, then it tumbled turning upside-down himself/herself/itself about ten times. To every tumble, the auto played again of squeezed can of dishes beaten by the musical gang in the parades. When it jammed, a ball of plates was reduced to: the motor leaked a dense smoke, the glasses had bursted; the cabin had been broken in two from the trunk of a tree. Only the lighthouses were intact and they aimed creating a tunnel of light that salivates for then losing himself/herself/themselves in the sky to the insù. A tunnel from which the believers would have attended that the angels went down.

Daniel didn't go out of that car. A sepulchral silence was insinuated close to a decentralized wheel and he it finished in that instant to rotate.

It missed few to the six of the morning. Windows give they were infiltrated the only flashes of aurora that had succeeded in tricking the clouds full of rain. Emilio heard some footsteps in front of the barracks. He/she thought that you/he/she could treat him of the marshal as of the sergeant, that had not reentered yet. The door opened. When Emilio saw Pietro it got up from the chair and with the braccias the body it tightened him for a cold that only he felt. It had the hollow head among the shoulders and it seemed an old man at the end of his/her days. The swollen face, of one whom you/he/she had cried from when Pietro was gone out of the barracks, you/he/she screeched with the body dried up by the works.

«Then, as has marshal gone?» Emilio stammered, convinced that its blood was turning himself/herself/itself into frozen water of mountain.

Pietro scrutinized him/it sad. Emilio possessed the same aspect of when the wind had shown him the destroyed dead body of his/her child. Pietro remembered well his/her whimpers and anchors him to him accapponava the skin to consider us today. That man, from five years, it felt sufferings that a person should never try. You/he/she was accused for the death of his/her child, ungenerously, but you/he/she had been so, and you/he/she had not lived anymore. Now that it risked to also become an assassin be goes crazy and it was only guilt of Pietro.

«Where you will bring me I don't care, I desire only that the Lord comes soon to take me and allows me to see Giuseppino again. Also only for an instant, correct the time to ask forgives him to have deprived him/it some life to alone five years. I have need that forgives me more than the heaven!» Rivulets of tears bathed the dirty imprints left by its feet.

Pietro met again in Emilio. Also him, after the death of his/her Barbaric wife, you/he/she was accused for not having succeeded in making to recover her/it. Unconsciously, but too much you/he/she had looked for perhaps even in every way of finding a remedy for the illness in Geneva. It was the only system to feel himself/herself/themselves less guilty than the death of Barbaric. Now it had of forehead a honest man that the destiny had crucifix with the most painful nails, those dipped with the blood of a child. And it was not correct.

The life, often with whom deserves him/it less, it has a good time showing off his/her sibylline paradoxes and, sometimes, giving a child to a man, you/he/she is not giving his greatest joy, you/he/she is inserting only the first wedge of the most atrocious suffering: the moment in which that child, as you/he/she has been given him, you/he/she will be taken back him, forever.

Emilio cried and didn't have any type of defense anymore. You/he/she was ended, a man defeated by his/her remorses.

Pietro felt his/her own heart shatter himself/herself/themselves as a mirror. His/her mind it was a book had been closing for years that he was opening, showing the raw pages of his/her life. Pages straripanti of errors.

The fear as that Geneva could die Barbaric you/he/she had been a small black stain in the brain, become then a metastasi that had prevented him from seeing what wanted really his/her daughter. An anoressico was become that, rather than the food, had refused and vomited the desires of a daughter and the duties of a father. It was a bulimic that was gobbled up to burst of inciuci and greeds, that inhaled to protect Geneva from an executioner that she didn't fear and from which didn't desire to be protected. They were actions that Pietro believed to have completed for his/her daughter, but in his/her depth he knew to have done above all her for himself, to calm part of his/her senses of guilt. You/he/she had come even to plan the killing of a man that had saved his life. The same man that his/her daughter madly loved.

Now, Emilio was in front of him. Pietro attentively scrutinized him/it and you/he/she understood that that rickety miner deserved a lot more than him to be father. The destiny had perhaps done him it to meet of intention, five years before, already knowing that Emilio would have represented his/her float in the ocean: the way of redeeming him and to return in peace with himself. Pietro had to stop being father to give the possibility to Emilio to return to be after all it thin.

«Emilio, returns home from your child and your wife!» Pietro whispered him turning the contracted face into a smile.

Emilio was disoriented. «Marshal, but have you understood what I have done?» churches drying himself/herself/itself the tears.

«I have understood very well, Emilio. You have shot to a murderous bastard, doing a favor to the community.»

Pietro lied and you/he/she was covering with mud the name of Lucio. It was the smaller evil: once dead you/he/she would have had to make I count him of more terrible things of that.

«You want to say.» and Emilio jammed. A small clear reflex sprouted in the obscurity of its eyes.

«Yes, I want to say that Daniel Minghetti has not lied you. That bastard of Lucio has really thrown your child in the precipice. You would not have been able to do nothing, you/he/she would also have thrown you if I/you had discovered him/it!»

Emilio tottered. «But that day, in the wood, nobody saw Lucio close to the source!»

Absurdly, the words came out of the mouth of Pietro as if him if the it was prepared for a theatrical performance. «That day, Daniel has seen with his/her eyes Lucio to throw Giuseppino in the ditch. To the epoch it was only nineteen years old and it was around in the wood with some friends, to smoke and to drink alcoholic to insaputa of the engineer that would have become angry. You/he/she was moved for making himself/herself/themselves an urination and you/he/she had seen all.»

Emilio the mouth dismay covered him. «But because you/he/she has attended five years to tell what you/he/she has seen?»

«Because Lucio had seen him/it and it threatened him/it. Daniel has always been stopped by the fear of what he would have been able him to do!» concluded Pietro with the nth falsehood.

Emilio felt the chains of the torment that broke him. Nient'altro there was not more that wanted to know, it was enough for him not to be responsible for the death of Giuseppino. Its eyes returned some green emerald that you/they had been five years before. It and resumptions to cry. The tears perceived him on the angles of the mouth but this time it perceived a sweet taste as the honey.

You/he/she had not been him to cause the death of Giuseppino; you/he/she could start over living and it had to start to be his/her father that had been an evanescent presence in the life of the small Franco.

Pietro embraced him/it. «You go, Emilio, and not to turn anymore you to look. Now you can finally feel free. I know what you have tried for these long five years. Anything happens to never speak of what has happened with Lucio. Take your liberty, because it is up to by law you!»

Emilio dried the face with the sleeve of the shirt and his/her face it was abducted from a smile attended for endless once. «Thanks, marshal! If it were for you, now I would be confined by some.»

Pietro interrupted him/it showing him the palm open of the hand. «Enough, Emilio, goes' to house that your child waits yourself!»

When he/she remained only, Pietro started to think. He/she knew that Geneva would not have looked anymore at it in face for what had done, and it was correct this way. The main point was that she took back him its life; it realized its dreams, only he cared this. If the decision in Geneva were to die young, without looking for a care or ending confined in a field of extermination, Pietro didn't share her/it but you/he/she was his/her decision and you/he/she had to accept her/it.

The stanzone of the barracks welcomed the sergeant Podda. «Marshal, has made a turn in the woods.»

Pietro contemplated his/her colleague and he thought that you/he/she was ready to be a marshal. «Sergeant, arrests me!»

Podda started and made him fall the hat. «How it says?»

«You/he/she has understood well, you arrest me. I have shot me to Lucio Figus!» it exclaimed and its face was finally serene.

The sergeant would have liked to ask, to contradict, to make so many things, but the face of Pietro convinced him/it not to dwell. «If it is this that you want, marshal goes» you/he/she sadly said well. «But because?» it continued with the last attempt to understand.

«I have shot him because I didn't want how same more with my daughter. Worth to be punished, is this that I want!»

«I am certain that you are your rights. Give me the hands, I owe you him.»

Pietro handed his hands. The sergeant put us some before shutting the handcuffs. It seemed him so maddish to arrest his/her marshal his/her teacher.

Two hours later sat in the balilla behind the sergeant, Pietro had the free hands. Soon you/they would have stopped her to him anchor, to Cagliari, in the jail of Buoncammino. That day had been father for the last time, even if in his/her cuor he/she knew to have stopped being him/it when his/her daughter he was in love of Lucio.

Pietro was sad but he knew that from some part another man would have loved his/her child; a man that if you/he/she deserved him/it.

«Marshal, has arrived!» it announced the sergeant.

The gigantic front door of the jail opened threatening. Pietro closed the eyes and considered to when, in the house of Terralba, the midwife had come out of the room of Barbaric and you/he/she had shown him for the first time Geneva. «The birth has gone very well. Eccovi your daughter, is very beautiful!» you/he/she had told him. Pietro had picked her up in arm and cradled, crying from the happiness in front of the bed of Barbaric, that smiled beautiful as a queen. It was this the memory that gave him courage. Perhaps one day, certain far, Geneva would have acquitted him/it, and he is be returned to be a father.

# 28

When to Montevecchio it rained it did him/it to I hijack. It was the last downpour before three or four months of scorching sun that you/he/she would also have dried the fig trees of India. In the second floor of the hospital, Lucio was extended in the bunk of the room number twelve. Pipes, tubicini, mask, flebo and needles gave him an anxious aspect. It was attached to a marchingegno that, thanks to a box similar to the present television in the room of the mirrors in the guesthouse, traced a flat line. A crazy named Hans Berger, in 1924, you/he/she was gone out with an absurd history: the wetware had an electricity that could be recorded. At first all had derided him/it but now every hospital to the state-of-the-art one he was endowing with that amazing gadget the electroencephalogram. It is to Montevecchio he/she was wanted to be always the first ones in everything. A rhythmic sound articulated the heartbeats and a kind of knapsack of air he inflated and it deflated replacing its bellows: they were progress of the medicine. The body of Lucio he was preparing for following the flat line of electroencephalogram in the place in which was run away the mind, a mysterious place that, unlike all the other places of which nothing is not known, infuse trust rather than to arouse fear; a region of the sky that the men call heaven.

The environment lacked some usual odor of alcohol that impesta every hospital. The rain drummed on the glasses of the windows straining downward as snakes of crystal. The skin of Lucio was color spun sugar, sweet as its spirit. A long body that the bunk of the hospital strove him to contain; the its fifty of foot stuck out in full from the extremity. Red hair was a fall of petals on the pillow. The mask covered him both the harelip and the deformed nose. To look seemed him/it really an angel come by the sky, as if the era imagined in the wood the marshal. There were no traces of the monstrosity that had tortured him/it for the whole life.

The machinery that verified its heartbeats sent forth a strident sound. Then stronger and repetitive. The wagon of the death had come and the clogs of the horses crackled invisible as the rain that beat on the glasses of the windows. The scythe was about to reap to Montevecchio. Lucio was ready to die, without arousing the interest of anybody or almost. Because the men mind only the death when it touches who is nearby him or who has completed from alive something to remember. Lucio had not been born beautiful as a superstar, you/he/she had not been born rich and you/he/she had not been given him an intelligence out of the commune: as if whoever possessed these dowries you/he/she had made great things to deserve her to him. They always plots the praises of beautiful men or that you/they have effected great discoveries. He/she is not thought only even for an instant that, perhaps, with those dowries given by God you/they would have been able to still effect about ten of it of more sensational discoveries. The life of a man been born poor in reed, with the great brain as a walnut, that succeeds in honestly building him a family and way of living, it is worth how much that of a noble. A man the life if he/she builds alone her but always tied up to of the ties that have so many names: character, spirit, strength, intelligence, haughtiness, cruelty and street talking; its decisions will always be driven by these obligations that they are not chosen. Lucio had always thought her this way. He didn't have guilts neither for his/her aspect and neither for the poverty, yet if the you/he/she was felt I set for a long time. When you/they had shot his pain you/he/she had been less intense.

The life that you/he/she had always taken from Lucio, really now ch'egli was found at the last gasp, definite to give. The line traced on the box of the electroencephalogram started. It became the sketch of the mountains performed to pencil by a child.

«If it will get by?» he/she asked a voice that originated from the corridor.

«Yes, if it will get by, but I don't know it will be I satisfy» another voice responded.

«As it would be?» he/she decidedly asked the first voice in more marked tone.

«You will see, you will see and you will understand!» the second voice responded, now compunta.

The elderly ones sustained that the dying persons, just before to exhale the last breath, they repurchased an instant of revival and they felt well him how come before then, a song of the swan.

Another discharge on the line of the electroencephalogram. A sudden reflusso of life forced Lucio to open the eyes.

And he/she saw him/it. In the bunk opposite to his there was a man that once had had a face. Now it was a scribble of skin sewn by the points; the nose torn of clean; an empty orbit; the burnt scalp and the mouth crossed by a fissure that it reached the neck. Lucio scrutinized that destroyed face and perceived something that salivates from his stomach. It was what all to Montevecchio you/they had tried when they saw him: the reluctance.

The only remained eye set in that grotesque face opened. Lucio saw his/her unmistakable color and immediately recognized him/it. Only Daniel Minghetti possessed honey of acacia to the place of the eyes. The voices that first you/they were unraveled in the corridor they belonged to the ingegner Minghetti and to the doctor Saints, and they spoke of his terrible accident of auto.

Lucio succeeded in touching himself/herself/themselves the face and felt soft skin without seams. In comparison to the man that had of forehead, its deformities were meaningless. You/he/she was wound by the exciting feeling that had dreamt to try for the whole life: to feel himself/herself/themselves beautiful. Its face had a blessed but sharp expression. The same face what you/he/she had hired Daniel Minghetti when in car with Geneva you/he/she had seen him/it climb in the wood. A face that smiled, or it derided better.

The fantastic feeling, epic, dreamt since the birth to feel himself/herself/themselves attractive, it made to believe in Lucio to already have died. Perhaps its heaven was so: to be reputed beautiful with the same face what from alive you/they had considered all vomitevoles the revenge of its face. If Geneva had been able to see him/it in a world where all were reduced as the man that had of forehead, you/he/she would be embarrassed for being beside a very beautiful man. It was this the prize of Lucio, him that you/he/she had been condemned by the same men that had continually judged him/it.

A terrible sharp pain crossed his heart as the blade of an arburesa. The sound of the gadget became harassing. Now it was afraid not to know what you/he/she would have found. It was afraid to wander in the dark to the endless one, alone; it feared that in the day of the resurrezione you/he/she would not have been able to find again Geneva. It was simply fear to die. A white light dazzled him/it and a heat pervaded adorante its limbs. It was well, relaxed, and the fear had disappeared. Someone, beyond the light, you/he/she had told him that you/he/she would have gone to a place where there would have been no distinctions between Hebrews and Germans, among poor and rich, among ugly and beautiful. A place where aspect and the souls there was not you/they would have had the whole same diaphanous form.

The last image that flowed in front of its eyes was the face in Geneva. A frame that hoped accompanied him/it up to the day when riabbracciatis would be him. The machinery: pip-pip-pip-pip-pip!

The eyes didn't see light anymore but they were open. The last puff of life was emitted warm from its mouth, losing himself/herself/itself in the sky as one smoked of pure soul.

Its body was extinguished, forged with what you/he/she had made to turn its existence and that of all those people whom had to whether to do with the mines. His had been a thick physicist as the lead: a metal, whose name evokes hardness but that instead you/he/she can be grazed with one scraped off of fingernail or made a thin foil with an alone hit of hammer. It was dead with a physicist that seemed indestructible, only in appearance. Instead its soul was of zinc, and you/he/she had wound the heart with a hermetic wrap that had prevented the feelings, good and you win, to escape. You/they had always put him/it in front of the love and to the suffering. Lucio had a lead body and a soul of zinc, and you/he/she would have had forever them.

Daniel took back completely knowledge. You felt strange and he/she saw the things that surrounded him/it as if the same observing from a binoculars with the too narrow lenses. The legs ached him and in more it realized to have a plastered arm. With the healthy hand the sheet removed him and almost vomited. Its burnt legs were wound in impregnate bands of its malodorous blood. It contemplated the man that lay in front of him and it grinded. It was Lucio, the man that Geneva had brought away him, and he/she remembered him everything. The marshal had gone their home to tell the confession of Emilio Masala; his/her father had ordered him not to see Geneva anymore again; then the accident had arrived.

Lucio seemed to stare at him/it with a face covered by the mask of the oxygen. Its eyes had a pleased expression, satisfied. They were eyes that sneered.

There was at that time a lightning. A thunder devastante waved the glasses of the windows, that the rain of back was shaken. Another lightning and the light that invaded the room allowed Daniel of specchiarsi in the taxes. A spine-chilling cry reached the engineer and the doctor that fell him in the room.

Lucio was dead. Daniel is sat on the bed that tried to get out of himself/herself/themselves that mask of torn hide with the fingernails of the healthy hand. The engineer saw his/her child and the face covered him for the torment. Daniel be lives, without going crazy, aware every day of his/her repugnant and mindful aspect of the shining beauty that belongs him. The gold filaments that you/he/she had had for hair and the amber gems that had been its eyes had disappeared, stolen actually at the end of the days from its sloth. You/he/she would have lived melting himself/herself/itself in front of old photos. Envying Lucio that had ended to suffer while he had just started. With that thunder, the curse of the monster of Montevecchio had freed the one and you/he/she had taken possession some other.

Geneva walked fast toward Montevecchio. His/her father had disappeared and Lucio fought for living in a hospital bed, so he/she believed. You/he/she had stopped raining from few minutes and the clouds him you/they were opening, granting the twilight. When you/he/she was gone out it still rained and now its suit was rotten. It clinged her I set as a second skin. It emerged from the path that it brought to village you Rule and it was found in front of well San Antonio. It breathed to work and it was her impossible to break the breath. Filthy of mud up to the knees, it kept on walking without minding the puddles of water that it stamped on. It was afraid to find himself/herself/themselves in an alone hit without anybody to love and that it loved him. He/she didn't cry, anguish had crystallized her the tears, preventing that they went down. Its hair seemed feathers of bird drenched in the oil. He/she saw an auto that approached to her. It dealt with the alpha romeo of the doctor Saints. The doctor extinguished the motor and descents. Geneva saw his/her melancholy face and the words that the doctor said they were only the confirmation of what she already knew. «I come from the hospital. Lucio is dead! It turns the news that has been your father to shoot him and that has already arrested him/it!»

The eyes in Geneva saw the spirits. Its face could not be defined. You/he/she had imagined some death of Lucio but not that you/he/she had killed him/it really his/her father.

It collapsed with the earth knees, inside a puddle that squirted her the suit and the face of mud. You turned scrutinizing the horizon with the tears that loosened him. The tower merlata of the well seemed a face of stone. Its caditoies dashed away the water of the rain, and they were eyes that you/they cried; eyes that in the background crimson of the sunset they shedded tears blood.

The doctor gently threw on Geneva. «We go, Miss, I bring her/it to house.»

Geneva climbed in car without speaking, it limited him to dry the tears. Perhaps its life was lost.

# 29

The stream roared furious as that five year-old night before. This time it was day and the wood it didn't frighten anymore. Emilio crossed with two carboys in hand the last meters of path that separated him/it from the source of he/she Knows it will Lose. It laughed happy when it knelt close to the small fall of fresh water. «You come from dad, Franco!» it howled. The small Franco had just started to move the first footsteps. It advanced uncertain, staggering with the lengthened braccias. Some to hold the equilibrium and some to imitate his/her dad that extended him his. «Dad! Dad!» it chewed.

Emilio filled one with the carboys and if it leaned nearby her. «From the, small! Dad is here!»

Franco accelerated for that that you/he/she was able and you/he/she started to laugh the tutina slightly slobbering himself/herself/itself.

«You race from dad, that dad doesn't lose you sight!» it whispered Emilio.

Franco, with great work, he/she succeeded in reaching him/it. Emilio embraced him/it strong and kissed him/it on the forehead. «Small my!» It lifted him/it of weight and it tossed him/it for three times up in the air, taking back him/it without risking that it fell him. Franco rejoyced and sent forth some acute verses. «Now dad riempie the other pitcher and then brings yourself to eat the chocolate from his/her/their grandmother.»

# Franco tightened his neck and didn't want to leave him/it. Emilio looked at his/her radiant face and felt to again be a father. "Finally"!, he/she thought. You/he/she had reconciled with himself and also with God. He/she wondered because Troise was accused to his/her place of the crime. "To never speak of what you have done to Lucio, anything happens" Pietro had told him. With" anything happens", Pietro of certain it referred to its fake confession, credette Emilio. Perhaps the marshal had decided to make the accounts with his/her ghosts and if you/he/she was made to arrest, a motive owed us to be of certain, it was said. "Thanks, marshal" he/she thought looking at the sky and greeting Giuseppino.

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# 30

Geneva was dressed with a white suit that dragged on the floor of the church for some meters. It walked excited to braccetto with his/her father. You/they had chosen not to use the Sardinian customs. The gloves with muffs of silk wove him with the sleeves of the dark suit of Pietro. The chiesetta of Santa Barbara was full of people. Lucio was already in front of the altar and you/he/she was waiting for her/it. He/she wore a suit color bronze that tuned up him with the reddish hair, that sprouted from under the cylinder. It tightened in hand a shiny baton from lord English, with the knob of botryoid silver. Geneva felt him miss the breath, Lucio it was very beautiful. They were enfeebled also the imperfections of his/her face that on her, they didn't make anymore however some effect.

Don Usa it widened her/it the braccias to welcome the bridegrooms. When they exchanged the gold faiths, their hands trembled as the pulsation of the wings of a swallow. The eyes in Geneva sparkled, those of Lucio were damp of emotion.

«The bridegroom can kiss his/her bride!» it said Mr. It uses her after having officially married them.

Geneva crossed the smile of his/her father that he/she cried of joy. Winning for an instant the tension, it made him the occhiolino.

Geneva scrutinized Lucio in all of his/her grandeur. He slowly bent him approaching the mouth to his. Their lips were kissed and Geneva perceived a hot heat. Then more nothing.

You woke up suddenly, with the lips leaned on the car window of the car made red hot by the sun. You/he/she had dreamt: a very beautiful dream, unattainable. He/she knew that the dreams lasted at the most three seconds and he/she wondered as it was possible that that three seconds of dream could have been more intense than the whole rest of its life.

The automobile marched to rilento long avenue Littorio. Geneva banged the forehead in light way against the glass of the back car window. In front of the hospital he/she saw to walk a youth with in arm his/her little brother, it was too much small to be his/her mother. The small one seemed to acknowledge that look truffaldino and it bursted to laugh. Geneva responded with a smile.

The auto accelerated. You/he/she was conducted by uncle Ciro, the most greater brother of his/her father, gone down by Caserta to bring her/it in the country native of the family Troise. Geneva saw to get further the building of the direction and the bell tower of the church of Santa Barbara it became the point of a sting. You/he/she had decided to attend the end of the war distant from Montevecchio, distant from that place of mines in which you/they were him and thousand of life would have woven still. Existences it spent to the pursuit of happiness. You/they had grazed her, in some case touch, but ever grabbed concretely. Montevecchio was destined to leave an indelible furrow in the Sardinian culture. You/he/she would have occupied first the memory and during the years the myth.

But to Geneva it was not enough, she intended to also abandon forever his/her Sardinia. A remote earth as the time, lived by ancestral people knotted him with different and distant cultures. Earth so longeva to be contained inside of itself a lot of more histories to be told in comparison to other civilizations. Histories of life and death, histories of joy and suffering; simply men's histories. Histories that in the silence of the night you/they could be listened, bawls that originating from the obscurity tormented Geneva, recalling her every day thing had been his/her life.

Geneva came down from a human stock, it doesn't divine, and therefore you/he/she had been forced to accept his/her parents, the aspect, the social class and, in particolar way, the intensity with which to be loved by the people that you/they had surrounded her. But she had been fortunate, because if you/he/she had been able to choose, you/he/she would have opted for the same father and mother that the destiny had assigned her. You/he/she had been born very beautiful and in a good family. But the greatest fortune had been the love of his/her mother, that he/she hardly remembered, as the love of his/her father and that still more personnel of Lucio. They were people that had given her liberty not to feel himself/herself/themselves oppressed by his/her only unpaid customs the epilepsy.

You/he/she had paid Lucio and you/he/she had paid his/her father, while she was there, in trip, long live and free. You/they had paid the people that you/he/she more had loved and more you/they had loved her, and he/she thought that if she were dead everything that you/he/she would never be happened.

You caressed the abdomen and that idea him volatilizzò in the air. In womb it guarded his/her creature, fruit of the inconsiderate love with Lucio. It was the last gift that his beloved had done her before leaving her/it and it was the last confirmation that the doctor Saints you/he/she had given her before the departure for Caserta. Something that came her from inside it incontestably told her that it dealt with a female. Lucy would have called her in honor of the disappeared father.

His/her uncle Ciro scrutinized her/it from the small mirror retrovisore and saw a thoughtful face. Geneva was as Lucio: a very beautiful but fragile body as the lead. A soul of zinc, able to preserve inside his/her heart all the feelings. You/he/she would have been simpler if you/he/she had had a body of zinc, able to hold back the life and a lead soul that it allowed her to send away the sufferings that he brought behind. To Montevecchio all was made of lead and zinc, also the mountains, from the hard façade as the lead, but ready to crumble himself/herself/themselves under the strength of the downpours. Instead the sea was of zinc, icy the whole day and heat during the night, made hermetic by an invisible patina that held back the strength of the sun.

# Geneva wondered, after the past of his/her mother and his/her present, sooner or later the demon of the epilepsy would also have roused the hideaway of his/her daughter, removing her dreams of teen-ager and changing them in torments.

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# 31

Dear Lucy, who has written you it is Pietro Troise: your grandfather. I know from uncle Ciro that your mother has never spoken to you of me, rather you/he/she has always told you, that was dead as your father. Among few days you will perform eighteen years and my lawyer can finally deliver you this letter. In the preceding pages there was the book of my life. I have told you all of my history, that of your mother and of your father, putting us my emotions and imagining as has gone for the others. I have done him because you have the right to know the truth. You have the right to know why don't have a father and because you have never known your grandfather. I have written this history in third person, as if the Pietro Troise of these pages I was not me. I have done him because I tell you, in truth, to still be ashamed of that Pietro Troise blinded by the anger. That man perhaps I was not me holy Christ! You didn't know him/it but I/you/they have always been in contact with uncle Ciro. One recent photo of yours has sent me: you have the same red hair that it had your father and you are beautiful as your mother. You also resemble to the buonanima of Barbaric grandmother. Of me, uncle Ciro tells me, you have taken only the definite character. You don't know how many nights I have dreamt you to run after the butterflies in the green fields of the farm of Caserta. I still feel me with the sergeant Matteo Podda that it informs me on the facts of Montevecchio. The doctor Saints it is dead four years ago of heart attack. Luigi and Lella are married and now they have three children: Stephen, Gabriele and Adelia. Luigi's mother, tzia Adelia, is dead in the sleep after the war. Mrs Loi lives in our house; the care waiting for my reentry. That house one day will be yours. Phillip Minghetti alive to Rome and you/he/she has made road in politics. His/her wife is always the usual London duchess. Of Daniel Minghetti nobody has ever known void. There is who swears to have seen to wander him/it the night in the wood as it was Lucio and his/her children they tremble for the legend of the monster of Montevecchio. Emilio has become another person: now it always smiles and group leader has been named. His/her child Franco studies engineering with good results. From the evil that I have done, at least some good you/he/she has come.

Here in the jail I divide the cell with an intellectual that has unjustly been accused of homicide. Thanks to him I read so much and I have learned the value of the writing. But here I have also known people without scruples that you/he/she has been able to kill in cold blood his/her own children. Once, a prisoner, that I had made to arrest when I directed the barracks of Terralba, you/he/she has recognized me and you/he/she has tried to thrust me a spoon in throat. Luckily you/he/she has missed me. I have killed for not stopping loving and to be beloved holy Christ! That day was Emilio to shoot, but of he there was only the presence. The eyes that you/they took the aim and the finger that you/he/she has pressed the trigger were mine and of Daniel Minghetti. I wonder me every stramaledetto day if, when they will play the trumpets of the angels, God will reserve for me the same treatment of my companions of jail, that you/they have killed for pure to like to do him/it.

In two years I will end to discount my punishment and I will come to look for you, if you will want him/it. I would like to bring you to Montevecchio and to make to see you where your mother has lived, where your father has lived, where you have been conceived and where I have completed that misfortune. I would like that you felt that odors that noises, that I/you saw the marvelous colors of the sea and those rough some mountain. I would like that I belonged to that world. I would like that I saw the earth that the heart has bewitched me. I would like that I put a flower in the grave of your father. I have been wrong and your mother has cancelled me from your existence. I cannot blame her/it. You are my daughter and I would give the life to be able to still embrace her/it. I am afraid of the divine judgment, but I would swap gladly the certainty to be forgiven from you want with the possibility to be forgiven by God. Once dead I will have the whole time that I want for convincing the Lord to have been wrong only for love of my daughter.

Be maddish! I have never seen you but I feel me as if I knew for a long time yourself. Small my, this is your grandfather: a man that has killed your father and he/she now asks your forgiveness. When I will go out I will have made twenty years of jail. Now I almost have sessantacinque years, the white hair and so many wrinkles. But the thing most important it is that I/you/they are changed. The jail and its loneliness have taught me to listen to myself. You/they have taught me to reflect. You/they have taught me to take the correct decisions and to recognize my errors. Uncle Ciro tells that you are a convinced and practising believer. Christianity professes the pardon. After twenty years of jail you will be able of to forgive to have killed me your father?

I send you an enormous kiss and I would like to tighten you strong among my braccias. To dir the truth I would tighten strong also your mother if it were here with me. I wish me that you will be able of to accept the excuses of a grown foolish old man. The only idea that you can do him/it me riempie the heart of joy.

Talk to you soon my small nephew, grandfather there has been always and if you will want him/it there will be still. Grandfather Pietro Troise.

Geneva and Lucy cried with the leaned head the one on the other. They embraced. Lucy closed again the letter and inserted her/it in the envelope together with the other pages. Its red hair perfumed of lavender and it was false that it didn't resemble at all to Pietro: it had the same look. «Therefore is dad dead so?» churches, fixing the sad eyes of his/her mother.

Geneva was waited for that question. You/he/she was fought in the mind. «Yes! It is what there is written in the letter!»

«Because you have never told me this history? Because you have never told me that I had a grandfather?» There was no grudge in his/her eyes.

Geneva he allowed to escape a hiccup. Lucy saw his/her ready mother to collapse and regretted to have asked her those questions.

«You are calm, mother. I know that you have hidden only me everything for my his/her own good.»

Geneva smiled in turn. It was fierce to have such a thoughtful daughter, just as you/he/she had been Lucio.

Lucy serious ridivenne. «I can answer to his/her/their grandfather?»

Geneva started. From eighteen years it didn't have anything anymore to whether to do with his/her father. "You/he/she had done well"?, he/she wondered. «Some that you are able, Lucy. We will send together our letters» he/she answered sobbing. Lucy still embraced her/it.

# Geneva leaned out from the window and saw the wind that rippled the fields of wheat. It remembered the sea of yellow oil in the summer that the countries of Montevecchio had been. It saw the face of Lucio again. It saw his/her father that poured the warm water in the bathtub bleached by the foam again. You/he/she was crossed by a shiver and it felt him happy. Realize to have forgiven him/it.

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# Epilogue

Montevecchio, August 1963.

The red woodpeckers drummed the trees. The intoxicating scent of the rosemary had already overpowered brooms and mimosas.

The cypresses had a solemn air; they shaded almost in full the cemetery. Their sharp outlines were engraved on the dust whitish. It seemed you/they had left of intention a pezzuola of light in an only grave. A small lead sculpture had abandoned to the feet of the headstone: a rosebud canine worked by the hands of an artist. The rose, hurt by the sun, it bled reflexes of light. There was nearby a kept letter rolled up with a gilded ribbon, you/he/she was written by hand.

Dear dads, are your daughter Lucy. It is the first time that the possibility has to come to find you; excuse if I have not done before never him. I have known his/her grandfather and, despite what has done, a good person seems me that has paid for his/her error. I want you so much good dad, because his/her mother has told me that were a special person. A man with a great heart and always ready to help the others. I believe that you would not have appreciated any simple flowers or at least I believe that they were not your passion. I have chosen to give you a lead rose. You loved the mines! The gift is seemed me that could like more you. You know, Emilio has carved her to do a favor to grandfather Pietro. Caress her/it and he/she thinks that Emilio has killed because you/he/she has been deceived. Forgive him/it! Caress her/it and he/she thinks about his/her mother, that has never wanted to know of it of other men. Caress her/it and thinks about me dad! You always hold with you my rose and wait me, because it is the pawn of the promise that I am busy you: when we will meet there I will take the rose and from up there I will scatter in all Montevecchio his" lead petals."

Three people went out to braccetto of the cemetery. They were Pietro, Geneva and Lucy. They cried.

# Thanks

The people to be thanked after this first work of mine would be endless, I choose therefore to quote only those toward which I feel me debtor.

In primis, I thank my wife and my daughter, that have allowed me to write, to read and to wander for mines looking for sprouts without never making to weigh me the stolen time to them.

I thank my father and my mother, always ready to give me support and to concretely help me in all the aspects of the daily paper. I thank my family, all and anybody excluded.

I thank my agent literary David Roccetti, prodigal of suggestions and extraordinary expert of the publishing world.

I thank my friend and colleague Giampietro Ortu, a well without fund of knowledges on the Sardinian traditions, from which I have continually drawn for this novel.

I thank the tourist guides of the communes of Montevecchio, Guspini, Arbus, Carbonia and Iglesias for their great competence and availability. Thanks to them, you/he/she has been me permitted to also exploit some extra material in comparison to the usual standard of the driven visits.

I thank the teachers Anna Paola, Gianna, Angela and professor Luigi Perrotta, that since when I was child you/they have taught me to love the literature, encouraging me and pushing my great passion to cultivate me for the writing.

# For last, but not certain in order of importance, I thank the publisher Stefania Lovati and the whole Zerounoudici editions. Without their seriousness and shiny rashness in to bet on the authors debutantes," lead Petals" you/he/she would have remained to decay in the hard disk of my computer and, I wish me both the thought of many after having read this book, would have been a sin.

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The author

Giovanni David Piras was born in 1981 to Oristano.

Gotten married and father of a child, resides to Terralba. Graduated technician surveyor, university worker-student, currently busy in the field of the housebuilding. Great impassioned of literature, from years it participates in courses of creative writing, laboratories and seminars on the various aspects of the novel. Lead petals it is his/her novel of debut.

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