The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani Read Free Book Online Page B

I should never manage such a thing-I said to myself each time, as I watched them move away: filled with admiration, but with a powerful dose of the creeps as well.
    Well, I felt something similar now, as I faced the garden wall from the top of which Micol Finzi-Contini had invited me to climb. It certainly wasn’t as high as the bastions at the Montagnone. But it was smoother, much less corroded by time and weather; and the notches Micol had pointed out to me barely showed. And suppose-I thought-my head started spinning as I climbed and I came crashing down? I might be killed just the same.
    And yet this wasn’t really the reason why I still hesitated. What kept me back was a revulsion that differed from the purely physical one of dizziness: it was analogous, but different, and stronger. For a moment I managed to regret my recent despair, my silly childish tears at failing an old exam.
    “And I can’t quite see,” I said, “why I should start mountaineering right here. If you’re inviting me in, thanks very much, I’ll accept with pleasure ; but quite honestly, it seems very much more comfortable to go in through there” -and I raised my arm in the direction of corso Ercole 1-“through the gate. How long will it take? With my bike I’ll be there in a min ute. ’ ’
    I realized at once that my suggestion had not gone down too well.
    “Oh no, no ...” said Micol, twisting her face into an expression of intense annoyance. “If you go through there Perotti’s bound to see you, and then it’s good-bye to all the fun.”
    “Perotti? Who’s he?”
    “The porter. You know, you may have noticed him, heacts as our coachman and chauffeur as well. . . . Ifhe sees you-and he can’t help seeing you, because apart from the times he goes out with the carriage or the car, he’s always there on guard, the old pig-I’ll just have to take you to the house, afterwards. . . . And just tell me if . . . what d’you think?”
    She looked straight into my eyes: serious, now, although very calm.
    “Right,” I said, turning my head, and jerking my chin at the bank, “but where shall I leave my bike? I can’t possibly just leave it here abandoned! It’s new, a Wolsit: with an electric lamp, a tool-bag, a pump, just think ... if I let my bike be taken as well. . . .”
    I said no more, suffering again at the thought of the inevitable meeting with my father. That very evening, as late as possible, I’d have to go home. I had no choice.
    I turned to look at Micol again. Without a word, she had sat up on the wall as I was talking, with her back to me; and now she lifted a leg decisively and sat astride it.
    “What are you up to?” I said, surprised.
    “I’ve got an idea, about the bike. And at the same time I can show you the best places to put your feet. Watch where I put mine. Look.”
    She vaulted nimbly over the wall, up there on top of it, and then, grabbing the big rusty nail she had shown me before with her right hand, she started coming down. She came slowly but surely, looking for footholds with the toes of her tennis shoes, first one and then the other, and always finding them without too much trouble. She came down beautifully. But before touching the ground, she missed a foothold and slithered. Luckily she fell on her feet; but she had hurt her fingers; besides which, as it scraped against the wall, her pink linen dress, a kind of beach affair, had torn a bit at one of the armpits.
    “How stupid,” she grumbled, blowing on her hand. “It’s the first time that’s happened to me.”
    She had grazed her knee as well. She raised a piece ofher dress and showed an oddly white, strong thigh, already a woman’s, and leant over to examine the graze. Two long blonde locks, among the lightest of her hair, which had slipped out of the band that kept it in place, fell forward and hid her forehead and her eyes.
    “How stupid,” she repeated.
    “Needs surgical spirit,”