Read Online Eva Sleeps by Francesca Melandri, Katherine Gregor - Free Book Online

away,” I say to her, “it’s something urgent.”
    I’ve never missed a festive meal with her. Therefore, this exception can only be something important. As a matter of fact she doesn’t demand an explanation. She simply asks, “Do I know him?”
    Does she have any doubts that this urgency might not be connected with a man? No, none whatsoever.
    I look at the glaciers in the distance, or at least at what global warming has left of them.
    â€œYou might do,” I say, and she doesn’t persist.
    Â 
    It’s impossible to find a plane to Calabria the day before Easter. I call all the airlines, and then the airports of Bolzano, Verona, Venice, Milan, Munich, Innsbruck and Brescia. I try for hours on the Internet. Nothing. The first seat on a flight to Reggio Calabria is in three days’ time, after Easter Monday. That could be too late for Vito. There’s just one other option: a sleeper train to Roma Termini, and from there another train to Calabria. It will take a long time. Italy is a long country. And so, here I am on the local train that’s taking me to Fortezza/Franzenfeste. High up at the other end of the carriage, there’s a poster of the
Deutsches Kultur-und Familienamt
, the local government’s family and culture department for the German-speaking population—strictly distinct and separate from its Italian counterpart. It’s publicizing training courses for adults in the Bolzano area. There’s a picture of a man in blue overalls sitting in what we imagine is his workshop. He must be a mechanic, an electrician or a welder. With his large worker’s hands and the expression of an attentive child, he’s folding a pink sheet of paper carefully and turning it into a delicate origami.
    There’s a caption at the bottom of the picture:
Wer Lebt, Lernt
. Those who live, learn.
    Did I ever think about Vito while I was growing up? I’m not sure. He exited our lives so suddenly. So unexpectedly, at least for me. Not for my mother, of course, but no one explained anything to me. Vito left just when I was thinking that he would now always be part of my world, and we of his. I was his daughter now, and Gerda Huber his woman. He was there. Then, suddenly, he was gone.
    No, I haven’t thought of Vito very much.
    Â 
    Fortezza/Franzenfeste is so narrow! The steep slopes of Val d’Isarco come so close together here that they barely leave room for the bottom of the valley, which they enclose like a bite. I always wonder how anyone can live here. What could the railroad men Mussolini brought here from Rovigo, Caserta, Bisceglie, Sulmona have thought when they saw that this valley is so narrow that to see the sky you don’t just have to look up but also bend your neck back? Rumor has it, when the Nazis were fleeing to Brenner, they hid the gold stolen from Italians in the dark fortress the town is named after, and, every so often, someone starts shifting a few stones and digging beneath the bastions. I suspect it’s just a legend invented to give a meaning, however absurd, to such a claustrophobic place.
    I’d better have dinner here. The connection to Bolzano is over an hour away.
    Â 
    The pizza restaurant next to the station doesn’t seem to have updated its menu for twenty years:
Knödel, Wiener Schnitzel
, steak, salad, spaghetti with tomato or meat sauce. There’s nothing else. The pizzas, though, include the Hawaiian, with pineapple, and the Treasure Hunt (
Schatzsuche
): cherry tomatoes, anchovies and olives stuffed with capers. Could they be the treasure?
    As I eat a cutlet that’s not particularly tender, I look around. In the bar mirror opposite my table I can see my head against the light. I immediately look away, startled. High up among the bottles of liquor no one ever orders, I’ve seen three of those damned targets. I really hate them.
    They’re hand-painted wooden circles. At the center of two of