The Last Man Standing by Davide Longo

Author:Davide Longo [Longo, Davide]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi, Dystopian
ISBN: 9781623650346
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

“But why?”

“Because I think it’s best.”

“So you’ve already said, but why?”

“We’ll have to go in a few days anyway. Better to keep the money. We may need it.”

“But we have nowhere to go.”

“We can go home.”

“But it’s not our home. And anyway, how long will it take us to get there? And we haven’t even got any food.”

“I’ve had a word with Barbero. They’ll sell us a little of their own supplies.”

“When did you speak to him?”

“After breakfast.”

“So you made up your mind before talking to me!”

Leonardo looked at the bottom of the basin Lucia was leaning against. The bathroom had seemed to him the only place private enough for this inevitable discussion. Bauschan watched with his head around the door. He knew he must not come in.

“Please trust me when I say it’s best for us to leave at once.”

“No, not unless you tell me why you’ve changed your mind.”

Lucia’s blue sweater neatly fit the outline of her shoulders and small breasts. She could have been an actress in a French film. Leonardo gave her a long look. He was afraid he could not find the words to tell her what he had seen the previous night, but nonetheless he did manage it, though in a partial and hesitant manner. Lucia listened in silence. As he went on her mouth took on an increasingly bitter twist, but her eyes never left his.

“You’ll never let anything like that happen to me, will you?” she said when he finished.

They packed the suitcase in a hurry and collected their things. They told Alberto they could not stay another night because their money was finished; he sat on his bed and followed their preparations without moving, after which Leonardo secretly got Lucia to pass him a banknote or two and went to join the Barberos outside the building.

When he told them they were about to leave, the woman said she was very sorry because she had grown so fond of the children. Leonardo explained the children wanted to get home because their mother could be there waiting for them, and Signor Barbero offered to sell them something to eat on the journey “at the same price they themselves had paid for it.” Leonardo accepted his offer and followed him into the warehouse, while his wife went to say good-bye to the children.

“Last night I saw a rape,” he said while Signor Barbero was extracting from under his bed the case in which he and his wife kept their canned food and biscuits.

The man looked at him with the half smile of someone who has not understood.

“That’s not possible,” he said, but something not quite frank distorted his mouth.

“Do things like that happen often?” Leonardo asked him.

Barbero looked down at the provisions, chose two cans of tuna and a packet of chickpeas and put them on the floor together with a box of grissini.

“We can’t give you more than this, I’m afraid,” he said. “We’ll need the rest for our journey to France.”

Leonardo stared at him.

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