The Last Man Standing by Davide Longo Read Free Book Online

and his family had made no sound; the guest rooms, that was the name Leonardo used these days for the rooms above the store, seemed as empty as ever, apart from an orange towel spread over a windowsill.
    “Let’s go for a walk,” Leonardo said to the dog.
    He and Bauschan crossed the yard, but when they reached the vineyard the dog stopped. Turning to follow his gaze, Leonardo saw Lupu at the door of the store in shorts and work shoes.
    They descended the headland together and halfway down entered one of the rows of vines, following it until the vineyard ended in a field of parched grass. The vines were heavy with grapes, the bunches a powerful violet under a thick coating of dust. Lupu let a bunch slip into his hand as one might lift the breast of a woman who was no longer young, but to whom one feels an enormous debt of gratitude.
    “This winter at the workshop I worked nights so no one would know they’d taken me back. I’d go in through the back after dark and find a note telling me what needed to be done. For a while Tashmica was able to do a few hours cleaning there too, but then they did not ask for her again.”
    Lupu delicately picked a grape, dusted it on the sleeve of his shirt, and put it into his mouth.
    “No one even trusts official papers. The man who took us on for the peaches had problems and had to ask us to go. We’ve spent the last month near the mountains with a relative.”
    Bauschan was tormenting a large lizard. The reptile seemed stupefied by the sun and made no attempt to get away. Leonardo watched its tail, detached from its body, writhing on the ground.
    “What will you do after the grape harvest?”
    Lupu thrust his hands into his pockets and looked over to where the haze was growing denser and the sky was turning opaque with heat. He seemed to be listening for a far-off noise.
    “I don’t know whether to go back to the town. Mira’s afraid of going back to school. Before we left we took everything to my sister’s; it’s not safe to leave stuff in an empty home, those people come in and steal and smash everything.”
    “Who comes in?”
    Lupu shrugged.
    “Gangs. People say they’re searching for outsiders, that they’re everywhere and that it’s not true the army has dealt with them. I haven’t seen them. I did see two bodies on the pavement, but they weren’t outsiders.”
    Leonardo picked a ladybug from a leaf and watched it walk on his finger. It was a pale orange and extremely elegant. In the heavy midday silence he imagined the sound of its footsteps.
    “When you’ve finished, you can all stay on here,” he said.
    Lupu nodded without conviction. Bauschan, sitting in the shade, was watching the final twitches of the lizard’s tail. The main body of the reptile, a few centimeters away, was interested only in soaking up the heat it needed to keep its tiny heart beating.
    “How long do you think the harvesting will take?”
    Lupu looked at where the vineyard ended and the hillside began. A ditch had been dug and the strip of meadow beyond the ditch turned to forest farther up.
    “Four days. There’s two less of us than last year.”
    Leonardo removed a fragment of earth from one of his sandals.
    “Starting tomorrow?”
    “As soon as possible.” Lupu gave a half smile.
    “That can’t be too soon,” Leonardo said with the other half of the smile.
    At the end of the first day of the harvest they ate in the courtyard on a board propped on two trestles, after which the women carried the plates to the wash house behind the store while the men sat watching the smoke rise from their cigarettes and disperse before it could reach the starry sky.
    For a while Leonardo studied their gas-lit faces, unable to read either doubt or exhaustion on them, and then he wished them goodnight and went indoors to undress, brush his teeth, rub cream into his sunburned arms and neck, and get into bed.
    He would have liked to fall asleep instantly to wake again free of the constant pain in