Wait a moment
While he was putting the greasy knife into the cutlery drawer, in the fork section, upside down, it had all already happened. At the junction with Via Torino, in a collision that ended in fire, seven hundred metres away. He would learn of it two hours later, or rather: they would make him understand. That was the time it took to free the bodies, to identify them, and to find someone willing to tell him that his wife Iris and his granddaughter Nina were dead, and that it was best he didn’t see them; there was little left of the bodies. Nurse Lorenzi, who had worked in the emergency department for twenty-eight years and happened to be on duty that day, would tell two colleagues from Paediatrics, taking a break at the coffee machine, that she had never seen such carnage on a body, poor old woman, and the little girl, ah, the little girl looked like an angel sleeping, but without legs. A porter waiting by the lift overheard and later told his wife, who worked part-time in the tobacconist’s and liked a good chat, so within a few days the whole town knew how badly mangled they were. Everyone except him: no one could ever bring themselves to tell him.
Satisfied, he looked at the pot of hot mash, ran his eyes over the potato peelings, the milk carton, the peeler, the pat of butter, jam, traces of flour: everything was strewn across the worktop and he didn’t feel like tidying it up. His mash would go nicely with the leftover meat from lunch, he thought. His daughter Amanda was supposed to be dropping by, and she would bring along whatever she had cooked at her cookery class. Just needs warming through, you can tell me if it turned out well, she would always say. And if Amanda forgot, at least something was ready for supper anyway.
“Not switching the light on? With this cloudy weather it already looks like evening.” Amanda had arrived. She never made a sound. She switched on the light and set her bag on the chair by the dresser. “Mum and Nina aren’t here yet?”
I don’t like the light on when it’s still day outside, he thought, without turning it off.
She took a small sealed pan from her rucksack, poured it into a saucepan, rummaged in the cutlery drawer, then began stirring with a wooden spoon.
“Haven’t you brought Nina?”
His daughter looked up from the pan. “Of course not, Nina should be coming with Mum. I’ve got the afternoon shift this week.”
The wind blew against the misted glass. Amanda put away the butter and the peeler, wiped the peelings and flour off the worktop. She took no notice of the mash. “What on earth did you use jam for, Dad?” she whispered. “Mum will pick up Nina. They’ll come running through the storm.”
He leaned over the pan, sniffed the pudding. It smelt of vanilla.
“I have to clock in in the next eleven minutes. Give Nina some of this pudding. Don’t forget, please! Shall I leave a note?” She kissed him on the forehead.
“A meeting. I don’t remember. She left, taking some keys. I thought she had the car,” he said, watching her walk down the corridor, waving goodbye. She said something as she shut the front door, but all that reached him were the words left, garage, you, brakes, and then there was nothing but Fox barking in the garden.
He went upstairs. On the bed, on Iris’s side, he stretched his legs, slid his feet into her slippers, folded his hands behind his head. As he rubbed the bedspread with his heel to ease the itch inside his slipper, a distant alarm went off, hypnotic. It was a sound Iris always found funny; she said it made her think of Africa, and would shake her curls to its monotone beat. He tried moving his feet in time, searching for a melody that wasn’t there. A gust of wind spattered heavy drops against the glass. He heard an ambulance. Or was it the fire brigade? He kept tapping for rhythm. There’s no melody to be made, he concluded. The alarm stopped.
On the chest at the foot of the bed, he noticed the red toolbox. He struggled to remember how it had got there. He had opened it in the garage to fix Amanda’s bike brakes; that girl wore them out, and the bike became dangerous. The front screw still needed tightening, and some oil added. He wanted to help her buy a car, even second-hand. She needed one, especially now she had a child. Giancarlo sold decent ones; he was honest, had been in the trade since they were both lads, after the war. She couldn’t go round with Nina always on the bike, and that partner of hers never let her use the car.
He got off the bed and picked up the toolbox. It was heavy. He must have brought it up to mend something. He looked around but couldn’t remember what.
When Officer Giordani arrived at the house and rang the bell, he was in the garage, sorting the recycling bins: paper, glass, plastic, food waste. He had found a pesto jar in with the plastics, and bread paper in the food waste. He didn’t even hear the fifth chime. Giordani had to hammer the door repeatedly with his forearm, irritated at being ignored, the pain in his elbow and wrist, and the fact that he hated this sort of mission. He’d have much preferred stadium duty; at least if he threw punches there, they landed.
At first, he didn’t understand; he only saw the pair of dripping shoes leaving prints on the parquet. He knew Giordani by sight, because it had been him who’d taken his report about the stolen wallet and driving licence, queueing at the INPS eight months earlier. And then he was the brother-in-law of a neighbour back when he’d lived in Via Deledda. Good people, Umbrians, always friendly. Whatever he was saying now didn’t sound logical. He kept pressing to know if he was alone in the house. Of course he was alone, wasn’t Iris still out?
He let Giordani help with the good overcoat hanging in the hall, and search for an umbrella behind the stair curtain. They found one, a folding one, behind a slipper with a frayed edge. “And it’s new,” he muttered, picking it up. “Things aren’t made like they used to be,” Giordani replied. He kept repeating something about Iris and Nina, his face serious under the carabiniere’s cap. But what could he know about Iris and Nina? He saw him lift the stair curtain again, peering among his shoes. He didn’t want to go out in slippers, did he? he was saying. But what he really wanted wasn’t clear. He seemed perfectly at ease. He was telling him to put on proper shoes if they were going out, to forget the slipper. He put on his usual pair, steadying himself on Giordani’s arm.
And so he found himself outside, still clinging to the arm Giordani held high, the umbrella sheltering them both but mostly himself, until they reached the patrol car. His shoes, trousers and left sleeve were wet, but not his head. Maybe he would dry off before Iris saw him. She was prone to getting annoyed at such things. He shoved his hands into his pockets to warm them, found a spare set of car keys.
So that’s what the toolbox had been for. He had checked the socket behind the bedside table and, while he was at it, opened and checked the car’s remote key that Iris had left on the chest of drawers. She had seen him, and told him “check the bike brakes as well,” only he hadn’t. He had only dreamt it. Yes, he had dreamt it the night before. It was something he still had to do.
He told Giordani all this, how memory and age betrayed him, but Giordani had started the engine, switched on the wipers, and paid him no mind, focused on the traffic. And so, quietly, he turned towards the window.
Elena Gottardello
Elena Gottardello was born in Padua, Italy. She graduated in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Padua, and studied storytelling at the Scuola Holden in Turin. She teaches English in a high school. Her short stories have appeared in Storie brevi, inutile, Carie, Lunario, just-an-outer-zine, L’Irrequieto and Diariopop.
In May 2021 her debut novel Fragile was published by Excogita Editore and presented at the XXXIII edition of the Turin International Book Fair.
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