Read Online The Purple Room by Mauro Casiraghi - Free Book Online Page A

and he wanted to come over. I convinced him
not to.
    We were on the phone for two hours. He kept telling me that I had to
stop looking back. No more brooding about the past. I had to look ahead, he
said. I told him that wasn’t my problem. I don’t miss my youth, when life was
full of promise. Who gives a damn about days that are long gone? No, what
bothers me is the power the past has over me now . I wasn’t going through Michela’s photos out of nostalgia. I
was trying to understand what’s happening between us today. If I cried, it was
only because I felt so helpless in the face of her pithy words of wisdom. It’s too late, Dad. You know that as well as
I do .
    Roberto doesn’t get it. He’s the kind of guy who thinks the past just
weighs you down and stops you from living life to the fullest. Weirdly enough,
he would welcome a memory loss like mine. We talked about the
accident and how he still feels guilty about it. He thinks about that dive
every day, and how he nearly got me killed. He keeps having a horrible dream
where he sees me floating underwater. Dead. Pulled down by my lead diving
weights, my body sinks deeper and deeper, and he can’t reach me. I joked that I
have actually been feeling a little like a zombie lately. Roberto didn’t laugh.
    After the phone call, I went out into the yard. The night was cool and windy.
I saw Nino and Sabrina close their bedroom windows and pull the curtains shut.
Their light stayed on for a long time. I wondered whether Alessandra was right.
Maybe the secret to their happiness was there, in that bedroom. Who knows? No
one can really say what goes on between a man and a woman when they’re alone.
How they touch each other. What words they whisper. Whether they caress or hurt
each other. For better or for worse, it’s a secret that stays hidden in the
tangled sheets of their nuptial bed.
    I stayed in the garden drinking until the sun started to rise. I slept
in the lounge chair on the patio for a while. Now the sun is high in the sky.
It’s very hot. Sitting in the shade of the porch, I notice something strange.
The light is constantly changing. It shifts from white to gold. The bright
green of the grass darkens. Colors all over the garden get a few shades warmer,
older, sadder, as if someone put a sepia filter in front of the sun. It looks
like the light of a sunset filtered through mist or a sandstorm, but there
isn’t a cloud in the sky.
    As soon as I smell it, I understand.
    I get out of the chair, my back aching, and walk to the gate. A dense
column of smoke is rising from the hillside nearby and blocking the sun over my
house.
    Nino and Sabrina have come out, too. They’re still in pajamas.
    “Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
    “No.”
    “I’ll go check.”
    “Wait,” says Nino. “Let me get dressed and I’ll come, too.”
    We walk down to the intersection with the road that leads into town.
From here we can see the whole Baccano Valley. On the left, there’s the ridge
where they’re building the new apartments, all the vegetation razed. Down on
the right, there’s nothing but underbrush and brambles. That’s where the
smoke’s coming from. It’s not just some farmer burning dry leaves, either. It’s
a real fire, and a big one at that. It looks like it’s getting out of hand.
    “Sons of bitches,” says Nino. “They set the hillside on fire to force
people to sell their land, so they can keep on building.”
    “We should call the fire department.”
    “I got it.”
    Nino runs to get his phone while I stay and watch the flames, not quite
sure what to do. Then I hear a dog barking. Climbing over the guardrail, I look
down the steep slope.
    A little white mutt is trapped between the fire and a briar bush.
There’s an opening it could get through, but the dog is terrified and doesn’t
move. I wonder how long it’s been there. I whistle to it. The dog sees me and
pricks up its ears.
    “Here, boy! Come here!” The dog whines but