Rage by Sergio Bizzio Read Free Book Online Page A

again:
it wasn't three in the morning but half-past midnight.
He had spent fifteen minutes in the kitchen: the clock
must have been showing a quarter-past twelve rather
than three o'clock when he arrived. He was shocked: it
was too early to have come downstairs, someone in the house might still be awake. He left the kitchen, every
muscle tensed, more alert than ever, and mounted the
service stairs two or three steps at a time.

    He paused for breath on the first floor. He could feel
his heart pound beneath his hand. He needed to get to
the end of the corridor, to get to the other staircase and
climb the last two floors to reach the attic. He resumed
his steps, but halfway along he heard a faint and halfchoked sobbing in the dark. He paused, more than
anything afraid of suddenly bumping into the person
who was crying, then backed off a few paces, before
suddenly noticing that the sobbing came from the room
opposite where he had shrunk back, and he carefully
applied his ear to the door. It was Rosa. She cried with
her face buried in her pillow: a muffled weeping, heartrending but stifled, suddenly interrupted when Maria
leaned his ear on the keyhole.
    Two seconds later, Rosa put her head outside the
bedroom door and looked down the corridor. The
lamp on her bedside table outlined her like a silhouette.
There was nobody there. Rosa blew her nose and went
back into her room.
    At that precise moment Maria, his forehead on fire
and his feet freezing, was sidling up the staircase towards
the attic. Once back in his room and eating his food, he
thought - with a degree of logic - that Rosa was burying
her head in her pillow for fear of being heard. On top
of which, she had actually gone into a spare room to
have a cry. Or had she been there on some errand or
other, and suddenly found herself in floods of tears?
There was another question even more important than
this one: was Rosa's own room really so near to that of
the Blinders that she would need to muffle her tears
in a cushion? No. Rosa slept in the east wing and the Blinders in the north wing of the first floor. But Maria
wouldn't figure this out for another couple of days. For
the time being - and including the following day - he
would, unwittingly, be waiting to learn, and from the
lips of Senora Blinder herself, that the police had been
there looking for him.

    Next morning, he awoke feeling much better. His
meal had consisted of no more than a bread roll, five
olives, a slice of raw ham, half an onion (likewise raw)
and an apple. He was awoken by the street sounds outside, spreading like a mirage through the silence within
the house, or perhaps merging with it. However long
had he been there? Three days and two nights, he
estimated. Or maybe four days and three nights. Lying
still in a foetal position on the bed, he thought it must
be about time he left. Then, when he rose from the bed,
he entertained the possibility of staying a little longer,
perhaps one more day. Where could he go? There was
absolutely nowhere he could go and hide...
    He was no longer running a temperature, although
his bones and his joints were aching somewhat. He
observed the door to his room did not make the slightest
sound, even if he yanked it open to test it, just as he had
when he returned to his lair.
    He emerged onto a landing flooded with a dangerous
light, but for the first time he could at least get an
all-round view of where he was. He surveyed all of it
slowly, mentally noting the arrangement of rooms and
passageways, and the position of any object he might
have collided with on his previous ventures, or might
conceivably collide with on any future excursion.
    He descended a floor. If the attic looked uninhabited,
the third floor gave the impression of being a temporary dwelling; maybe this was where the Blinders accommodated their house guests, if they ever had
any. Every window was closed, but all the rooms had
the necessary