The Last Man Standing by Davide Longo Read Free Book Online Page A

his arms, legs, back, ankles, and hands, as well as in the stomach muscles he had forgotten he had since the year before. That had been the last time he had found himself thinking the same thoughts in the same bed.
    Until he was twenty-five he had been a good long-distance runner and every evening, summer and winter, had covered a fifteen-kilometer course along the river and out of the city before returning to the old center. But after taking his doctorate he sacrificed sport to his university duties and work on his first novel. In a few years his longer muscles grew slack and the occasional outings he attempted in shorts after that led to cramps and a massively discouraging exhaustion.
    During the last thirty years his shoulders had curved and narrowed while his legs grew thin and his stomach got bigger even though he had always been a moderate eater and never drank alcohol. He now had the body of a man of fifty-two dedicated to books, intellectual speculation, and conversation. Not much use in the world now unfolding before his eyes.
    With these gloomy thoughts, Leonardo got out of bed and went into the kitchen in the dark. He poured a glass of water and went to the large window: there were no lights on in the guest rooms and the building was silent. Moonlight seemed to have covered the courtyard gravel with a thin layer of water.
    Seven years since I last made love, he thought.
    Bauschan had dirtied the parquet in two places and was now asleep on the carpet with his head between his paws, probably drunk. He had spent all day eating windfall grapes fermenting in the sun; seeing him stagger about, Leonardo had thought it best to put him indoors.
    He crouched down and stroked Bauschan’s neck. The dog seemed to smile in his sleep.
    Taking pen and paper from the drawer, he sat down at the table. When he had finished writing, he put the paper into a buff envelope, addressed it, and put it on the dresser, planning to mail it the next day when he went to get the money to pay Lupu. Going back to bed, he fell asleep immediately and dreamed about a hotel room he had known many years before.
    “You really want the money now?” the cashier asked, looking over her spectacles at him.
    “Yes,” Leonardo smiled. “Please.”
    The woman touched her breast. Clearly her mind was somewhere else.
    “I realize it’s not very professional of me to mention it, but you took out a considerable sum only last week. I have to say this because this new withdrawal could cause a problem of liquidity.”
    Leonardo understood from the woman’s expression that a tediously practical complication was about to come into his life.
    He had known for some time that most people had emptied their accounts down to the last cent, hiding the money in their homes or goodness knows where, so as not to have to worry that they might one day be told at the bank that their money was no longer there. He had also known that it had been devalued or burned, or simply that money transfers no longer existed so that it could not be moved from one place to another, but Leonardo had never been sufficiently interested to get the idea into his head that one day his money might simply disappear. His only shrewd move had been to choose that particular bank because it had its central office in A. and no apparent ties with the major banks that had in the past closed down because of scandals, the mortgage crisis, or the fall in exports. He had deliberately chosen this particular bank because it raised money locally, kept it in the form of cash in a safe, and redistributed it in the same area.
    “When will it be possible for me to withdraw my money without causing problems?”
    The woman pursed her lips to indicate that she could not answer that offhand. The two of them were alone. The bank’s gray marble walls dated from the Fascist era, erected like the rest of the building in the middle of the village a century earlier. Only one of the building’s three doors was open; the