Read Online The Sense of an Elephant by Marco Missiroli - Free Book Online

you known him long?’
    â€˜Riccardo? Yes, for a long time.’ Martini drove two blocks before opening his mouth again. ‘On the first day of school I found myself seated next to this curly-headed kid. “Pleased to meet you my name is Riccardo but you have to call me by my last name Lisi,” he says to me. A real scrapper. They separated us after fifteen minutes because we wouldn’t shut up. Same in middle school. Same in upper school.’ He smiled and now his eyes were visible. They gleamed. ‘At university it was medicine for both of us, and every lesson a cock-up. He stuck to me like a limpet.’
    The concierge rested his hands one in the other, paint from the Bianchi still stuck to one thumb.
    Martini slowed down.
    â€˜I was the only one he had left. He lost his parents when he was a boy. Now it’s me, Viola, and Sara.’
    In the middle of the boulevard a line of cars was forming. Just ahead a van was parking and blocking two lanes. They turned down a side street, circled the block and returned to the boulevard, entering ahead of the van. The doctor slipped his arms out of his coat, leaving it on his shoulders.
    â€˜I forgot to thank you. For the elephant.’
    â€˜I didn’t know what to get for him.’
    The doctor settled back on the seat.
    â€˜Lorenzo is partial to elephants.’ He nodded. ‘So am I. Ever since I read that they take care of the herd without regard to kinship.’ He was driving slowly now. ‘All for all. A kind of doctor of the savannah.’
    â€˜All for all.’
    The doctor slowed down again, arrived first at a traffic light and looked lost in thought. Then said, ‘I should try again.’
    â€˜What’s that, Doctor?’
    â€˜Do you have something to do right now, Pietro?
    â€˜No.’
    Dr Martini veered in the direction opposite to home. The checked blanket slipped off the back seat and he reached back to pick it up.
    â€˜My mother made it for Sara. She was very handy with knitting needles.’
    He put the checked blanket on the seat and added the document case. Skirted a piazza with a war memorial and continued along the road that led to the airport. Not much later he turned into a residential street, stopped before an art-nouveau villa with two olive trees in the front garden and putti decorating the balconies.
    â€˜This is Lorenzo’s house, I won’t be a minute.’ Then he stared at the steering wheel without moving. ‘Pietro …’ he said, ‘don’t you miss your job as a priest?’
    â€˜One can tire of a job.’
    The doctor got out and walked toward the villa. Pressedthe intercom button, pressed again and on the lower balcony appeared the woman Pietro had seen in the picture on Lorenzo’s night table. Beautiful like she was in the photograph, with a powdered face and bright red lipstick, she tossed her cigarette and went back inside. She soon emerged into the front garden in bare feet. Remained on her side of the gate.
    The concierge stretched out a hand to the stuffed animal, then to the blanket. The wool didn’t itch. He created a nest from small bits of fluff while continuing to watch the beautiful woman facing the doctor. She held her small, porcelain-like hands to her chest. Began to scratch the back of one hand as the doctor spoke, switched to the other hand and dug more intensely, bowed her doll’s head. Pietro brought the blanket to his nose: the past smelled of nothing. Replaced it carefully on the seat and picked up the document case, unzipped it. Inside were a piece of paper with the hospital logo showing the weekly shifts, a packet of sugarless chewing gum, two fountain pens and four keys on a cord. Also two smaller, identical keys. He held these in his palm, thought about the only locked drawer in the doctor’s study. Put everything back and looked at the beautiful woman again. She was speaking vehemently and her porcelain hands had