The Silence of the Wave by Gianrico Carofiglio Read Free Book Online Page A

wine.
    A little wine, in moderation, was compatible with his medication. All the leaflets said that the effect of medicines could be exacerbated by being combined with alcohol, but the doctor said a glass of wine a day was allowed, although spirits could certainly wait until the therapy was complete.
    After dinner, he switched on the TV. Another rule was not to go channel-surfing. He needed to learn how to concentrate, even if it was just on watching a movie or television program from beginning to end. If there was nothing worth watching, it was better to switch the TV off and do something else. Actually, that was easier said than done when you had satellite TV. If there weren’t movies, if there weren’t any interestingprograms, at least there were always sports, especially basketball, the NBA. That evening the Los Angeles Lakers were playing the Minnesota Timberwolves. A boy growing up in southern California, providing he doesn’t hate basketball, is bound to root for the Lakers, at least a little. Basketball is perfect for killing time, for filling the space between dinner and the hour when the body starts to accept the idea of going to bed.
    More than two hours passed in this way. The familiar, overexcited voices of the presenters, the lightning-fast passes, the gold jerseys, and black muscles, the slam dunks, Jack Nicholson in his courtside seat as usual, the commercials for Taco Bell, Subway, Chrysler. The kiss cam conferring a few seconds of worldwide celebrity on couples kissing in the crowd.
    The Lakers won by twenty points. The Timberwolves weren’t exactly the most formidable opponents in the NBA, but the result still put him in what was almost a good mood.
    Time for bed. Time to brush his teeth, rinse his mouth, and wash his face, while avoiding looking in the mirror and seeing his lines and his extra pounds.
    Maybe five minutes on the computer, just to glance at the daily papers.
    His attention was drawn to news of an international anti-Mafia operation. Members of the Calabrian Mafia, the ’Ndrangheta, had been arrested in Australia, and the fact that Mafiosi from Calabria had becomefirmly established on the other side of the world was presented as a new and disturbing development.
    But wasn’t it common knowledge that the ’Ndrangheta was now in Australia, just as it was in many other places throughout the world?
    Maybe for those in his line of work; obviously not for journalists and everyone else. And anyway, he corrected himself, that was his
former
line of work.
    It was at that moment that he realized he was talking to himself out loud, asking himself questions and answering them. He wondered when he had started, but couldn’t find an answer to that one—“I really couldn’t say, my friend”—and concluded by telling himself it probably wasn’t anything serious, although he might tell the doctor about it the next time.
    When he had finished browsing the news, he did not switch off the computer. He went back to the home page and typed in the name of those condoms and the words
commercial
and
pharmacist
. The video came up immediately. She was visibly younger, her face was beautiful and funny, and the commercial still made him laugh.
    From there, it wasn’t difficult to click through to other sites and other videos. Roberto discovered that her name was Emma—he repeated the name a couple of times and decided that it suited her—and that she had done films and TV as well as a lot of commercials.
    He was wondering why none of the videos were recent when he came across a commercial for mineralwater. He had never seen it before. She was bathing in a pool of sparkling water, full of little bubbles. She was in a bathing suit and was pregnant, with a large taut belly on her girlish body.
    One of the things Roberto found impossible to do was look at the naked belly of a pregnant woman. Or rather, he found it impossible to look at a pregnant woman, whether naked or clothed.
    So he switched off the