Letter from Casablanca by Antonio Tabucchi Read Free Book Online

that she said, “Why, yes. Why is it so, Mama? I swear to you, he was on a bicycle. He had a knotted handkerchief on his head. He wanted something here at home. I understood him. I saw him very well. He saw me, too, but he went by as if he couldn’t stop. Please believe me, Mama.”
    I don’t know how that week went by. Fast, that’s it, it went by fast. I should have done a review exercise of all the exceptions, but I let it go. On my paper flourishes appeared, absurd scribbles behind which I lost myself, barbed wire with which I cancelled a statement that came to me obsessively, without stopping. Next week Nena will take a cap and a note from Mama. I even translated that sentence into Latin, and in that language it seemed even more bizarre, as if the strangeness of that language underlined the absurdity of its significance, and it frightened me.
    But I didn’t say anything to them nor let them know I understood. Apparently my behavior was the same. In the morning I watered Mama’s azaleas. The garden was pleasant then. It still smelled of the nighttime cool, the sparrows hopped from one branch of the oleanders to the other, and the cicadas had not yet begun their crying. You could see the city distinctly in the clear air, and all around there was something happy and light. After dinner I helped Mama clear up as usual, and when I had finished I said, “I’m going to do homework.” I went into my bedroom, closed the door of the anteroom, half-closed the shutters, stretched out on the bed,and looked at the ceiling, where the slats of the Venetian blinds drew a rainbow in light and shade. I had no desire to think. I closed my eyes but I did not sleep. Under my eyelids passed the most diverse images. I arrived in the port of Singapore. How curious! It was identical to the photograph in my book. The only difference was that I was in the photograph, too. And Saturday came very quickly.
    That morning I said nothing, did nothing, tried to let myself be seen as little as possible. Mama was in the kitchen and I was in the living room. She came into the living room and I went into the garden. Nena went out to the garden and I went into the bedroom. But they did so only to show that their behavior was normal, which complicated things terribly because they forced me to pretend that I didn’t notice anything. The worst moment of this game of hide-and-seek came when I suddenly went into the kitchen, thinking that both of them were outside, and surprised Mama while she was passing a note to Nena. That stupid thing turned all red and hid the note behind her back, but it was so obvious that I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t noticed it, otherwise they would really have become suspicious, so I had to resort to a shameful pretense and said carelessly, “It’s useless for you to hide the letters from Aunt Yvonne. I know she writes to you and not to me. You’ve always been her favorite.’’ And then Mama said, “Stop it! Don’t fight because of jealousy. It’s a mortal sin between brother and sister.’’ And I felt relieved, but my shirt was soaked with sweat.
    Immediately after dinner I said that I was going to take a nap, that I felt very lazy, it must be the humidity, and my declaration was received with much understanding. From my bed I heard them clattering around in the kitchen, but it was all a sham. In reality, they were talking very softly. I heard an indistinct chatter. Anyway, I was indifferent, I had no interest in deciphering what they were saying.
    Nena went out at precisely quarter to two, exactly as the clock was striking one and then the three little pings for the forty-five minutes. I heard the creaking of the back-kitchen screen door and the light shuffling that went away on the gravel toward the main gate. And this caused in me distressing anxiety because I realized that I, too, was waiting, and there was something both absurd and dreadful about it, like a sin. The clock struck twice and I began to count: