Read Online Emmaus by Alessandro Baricco - Free Book Online Page A

told the story of the monk. More or less as we had heard it. Up to the point where Andre was his daughter.
    First Luca laughed, then he thought for a moment.
    It’s not true, he said, finally.
    She was bullshitting you, he said.
    I thought back to how the woman had said it, in search of some nuance that might explain. But it was like beating yourhead against a wall, nothing came of it. So there remained that hypothesis of a priest in hostile terrain—a low blow. It was better before, us here, them there, to each its own harvest. It was the type of field where we knew how to play. But now it was a different geometry, it was their wild geometry.
    Are you coming to the show? Bobby asked. He meant the thing with him and Andre.
    Luca had him explain, then said he’d rather kill himself.
    And you? Bobby asked, turning to me.
    Yes, I’m coming, keep three tickets for me.
    Three?
    I have two friends who are interested.
    The usual two shits?
    Them.
    OK, three, then.
    Thanks.
    The tram’s coming, said Luca.
    But since they had had that fight, they went together to the mountains, Bobby and the Saint. That’s what we do. When something breaks between us, we seek exertion and solitude. That is the spiritual luxury we live in—to save ourselves we choose what in a normal life would be punishment and penalty.
    We prefer to seek this exertion and solitude in nature. We favor the mountains, for obvious reasons. There the linkbetween effort and ascent is literal, and the straining of every form toward the height obsessive. As we walk amid the peaks, the silence becomes religious, and the surrounding purity is a promise kept—water, air, earth cleared of insects. Ultimately, if you believe in God, the mountains remain the easiest place to do so. The cold compels us to hide our bodies and fatigue disfigures them: thus our daily effort to censure the body is exalted, and after hours of walking we are reduced to steps and thoughts—the bare minimum needed, they taught us, to be ourselves.
    They went to the mountains and didn’t want anyone to go with them. A pup tent, a few supplies, not even a book or music. To do without is a thing that helps—there’s nothing like poverty to bring you close to the truth. They left because they intended to untangle a knot between them. Two days and they would be back.
    I knew where they planned to go. There was an exasperatingly long, stony ascent before the approach to the real summit. Walking on stony ground is a penance—I saw the Saint’s hand in it; it was his kind of thing. He wanted a penance. But also the light, probably—the light on stony ground is the true light of the earth. And he also wanted the strange sensation that we know up there, as of some soft thing that’s left, unmoving, saved from a spell, the last thing, floating.
    With some envy, I watched them leave. We know enough to observe the nuances. Bobby had a strange way of performing the small acts of departure—he always showed up with the wrong shoes, like one who doesn’t entirely wantto go. I asked if he was sure he wanted to go and he shrugged his shoulders. It didn’t seem to matter much to him.
    The first night they camped on the edge of the stony ground. They put up the tent when it was dark, and the Saint’s backpack, lying on a rock, rolled off. It was slightly open, and the few things for the journey slipped out. But, in the light of the gas lantern, there was also a metallic gleam that Bobby didn’t immediately recognize. The Saint went to put the things back in the pack, then returned to the tent.
    What are you doing with a gun, Bobby asked, but smiling.
    Nothing, said the Saint.
    It was partly that, but probably even more the words during the night. In the morning they started to climb among the rocks, without speaking, two strangers. The Saint has an implacable way of walking, climbing steadily, silently. Bobby stayed behind—the wrong shoes