The Missing Word by Concita De Gregorio

Author:Concita De Gregorio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2022-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

17.

DEAR VITTORIO

Vittorio,

Do you remember that night at the Cerreto house, in our room, when you came and sat on my bed and I didn’t want to talk to you? When I put my head under the blankets and I didn’t want to come out? I was six, I’m sure because it was the first day of summer vacation after first grade. We’d arrived at our grandparents’ place that afternoon. You were really young. I didn’t want to explain anything to you, I felt this terrible pain in my body, like a massive weight on my chest that stopped me from breathing. Maybe I was sick, maybe I would die suddenly like Adelina the egg lady, I thought. I remember to this day the smell of the sheets, the warm exhalations bouncing off the linen back onto my face. The strange smell of my breath. I remember worrying that if I died in the night, you would be the one to find me and you would be frightened, and Mamma would be angry with me—though I was dead—for scaring you. It may be the earliest memory I have of the two of us when we were young. Terror. I wasn’t ill, I was in love. But what did you know about love, how could I have explained it? I didn’t have the words for it, anyway. I didn’t even know them.

On the last day of school, Susanna showed me the ring. This is what happened. Before leaving for the summer, Marco had given a ring to Susanna. It was made out of chicken wire, and he’d strung some beads and a real leaf, a green leaf, onto it. So you won’t forget me, he’d said. At least, this is what Susanna told us girls at recess, puffed up with pride, obnoxious as ever: Marco has given me a ring for the summer, which means we’re engaged the whole time until we come back to school and I’m not supposed to take it off ever, he said, even when I have a bath, so I’ll remember we’re a couple. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, in her short sky-blue dress, I think, with those skinny little legs, she held her arm out in front of her and showed us the ring with the leaf. When I finally told you that night—“Leave me alone, Marco gave a ring to Susanna”, “Who’s Marco?”, “Leave me alone”, “Come on, who is it? And who’s Susanna?”, “Get off, you’re too heavy, go back to bed”—after a while, when I thought you’d gone back to sleep and I’d started feeling scared I was going to die again, after a while you said: Iri, I’ll give you a ring. Then I felt like crying. I don’t know why, you’d said something really sweet. Instead, I barked back at you from under the sheets. I said: shut up, you jerk, you’re my brother. Brothers and sisters don’t love each other and they don’t give rings. You’re so dumb.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.