The Sense of an Elephant by Marco Missiroli Read Free Book Online Page A

Riccardo held her back. They laughed.
    The lawyer flicked his cigarette butt down off the building.
    â€˜I’m the one who’s afraid of heights.’
    That night the witch threw a pebble at the young priest’s window.
    â€˜Father, I dreamt about my son and your cat. Father, wake up.’
    He was already awake. He turned over on his other side and closed his eyes.
    â€˜I dreamt about my son.’
    The young priest clutched the sheet, yanked it, then got out of bed and went to the window, cracked it open. The witch was wrapped in a headscarf, numb with cold.
    â€˜Can I come in?’
    â€˜Go home.’
    â€˜So it isn’t true that the house of the Lord is always open?’
    The young priest descended to the ground floor and went through a side entrance to the church. He did up the last button of his nightshirt and opened the front door.
    The witch came toward him.
    â€˜I dreamt of my son. He was playing with your cat.’ She laughed. ‘You look good in pyjamas.’ She removed her headscarf and let her hair down, took two steps which were one. Arrived at the votive altar and picked up a new candle.
    â€˜Tell the Lord why you killed your son.’
    â€˜It’s a secret.’
    â€˜He keeps everyone’s secrets.’
    The witch lit the candle and reserved the first bit of melting wax for herself, dripping it onto the back of her hand. ‘Because it was the son of my father.’ It burned.
    The young priest didn’t move.
    She looked at him.
    â€˜I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’
    â€˜You’re telling it to God.’
    â€˜I’m telling it to you.’

11
    The next morning the first to stop by the concierge’s lodge was Viola, holding four wrapped pastries and jingling the bracelets at her wrist.
    â€˜Now I’m spoiling you, Pietro,’ she said as she entered. ‘
Cornetti alla crema
.’
    â€˜I’ve already had breakfast, thank you.’
    She put the packets down on a wicker chair.
    â€˜Everything all right?’
    The concierge held out her post to her and checked a note that he had made in his diary.
    â€˜Nicolini the magician is coming to see the courtyard for the little girl’s birthday.’
    â€˜I was going to tell you. Luca has to leave for the hospital soon. He’ll talk to you about it when he comes down.’
    Viola looked at the Bianchi leaning against the wall behind them. It had been sanded down. Beside it were two open tins of paint, one red and one bottle green. She bent down and picked up a brush, dipped it into the red.
    â€˜I’ll just try.’
    She painted a bit of the top tube and nodded to herself, painted another bit and blew on it.
    â€˜Now get on.’
    Pietro kept his back to her.
    â€˜C’mon, it’ll suit you. Get on. Without getting wet paint on yourself.’
    The concierge hid his hands in his pockets. The sandpaper had abraded his palms and cut up his thumbs. When he had come down from the roof terrace he had begun to strip the Bianchi, in a fury. The front fork came first and then everything followed. He had stopped when the doctor had returned from the hospital, in the dead of night.
    â€˜It was just to see how you looked on it.’
    Pietro hesitated, then climbed on the Bianchi and grasped the handlebars.
    Viola smiled, like in the photograph of the lavender field, full of candour and sensuality.
    â€˜It’s official: red.’ She slipped her post into the pocket of her jeans and rested a hand on his back.
    â€˜And you’ll be sorry if you don’t let me know when you’ve finished painting it. We’ll have to have a test run.’
    â€˜Test run for what?’ A voice came from the entrance hall.
    Both of them turned around. Riccardo smiled at the lodge door. He was holding a backpack.
    Viola tightened the straps on her shiny high heels, clicked them against each other. Gathered up the pastries, no longer