Read Online The Silence of the Wave by Gianrico Carofiglio - Free Book Online
Authors: Gianrico Carofiglio
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others. When they were at the door, saying good-bye, Carella told him, as he always did, that he was looking better. This time, though, he added something else.
“You know, Roberto, over these months I’ve always told you you were looking better, that you were making progress, and that everything would soon be back the way it was. Do you remember?”
“Of course.”
“Well, it wasn’t true. I said it to help you, to cheer you up, but I didn’t think you looked well at all. Not even a bit. You were always distracted. So distracted, I sometimes felt like asking you what I’d just said, and I was sure you wouldn’t have been able to tell me.”
Roberto looked at him with genuine curiosity.
“Tonight was different.”
“In what way?”
“You were here. Not always, of course. But at least there were times when you were here and your eyeswere the same as they used to be. In the past few months you seemed … well, you were different, but tonight I’m really pleased. I can tell you you’re looking better without telling a lie.”
Roberto did not know what to reply, nor did he really understand what his friend was referring to. The evening hadn’t seemed any different from the others. He gave a slight smile—which could mean anything—and Carella returned it. When things aren’t clear, it’s easier to get by without words.
He walked back on foot, as usual: walking quickly, it took about an hour to get from the Pigneto to his apartment.
As he was crossing the Piazza Vittorio he saw a young guy trying to open the door of a car that clearly wasn’t his. Fifty or sixty feet from Roberto, another young guy stood lookout. Without a second thought, Roberto walked to the car and the youngster playing with the lock.
“What are you doing?” he asked, immediately thinking he’d seldom asked a more stupid question in his life.
The young man looked at him in surprise. Clearly the question had struck him as strange, too. “I’m stealing,” he said at last, in the tone of someone who thinks everything is far too obvious to require further explanation. Roberto felt like laughing and had to make an effort to control himself.
In the meantime the lookout had also approached.
“I’m off duty and on my way home,” Roberto said. “Don’t force me to do my job. Just drop it and go.”
The two young men stared at each other for a moment, looked Roberto in the face, obviously decided it wasn’t worth taking the risk, and disappeared into the night.
The next day was sunny, and Roberto took a long walk as far as the Foro Italico. He ate in a trattoria somewhere and then returned home, still on foot. He told himself that he should measure the distances he covered—and then immediately wondered why on earth he would do that.
He remembered those words of Louis Armstrong.
If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know
.
Every now and again he glanced at the phone to see if by chance anyone had called him without his having noticed. It was an absurd thing to do, because people hardly ever tried to get in touch with him these days, and it certainly hadn’t happened this Sunday. And yet he had the feeling the impulse meant something. Figuring out what was quite another matter.
He spent half the afternoon and evening watching TV and the other half on the computer.
He looked again at some of the videos he had seen a few days earlier, although he avoided the commercial for mineral water. He found some new ones, including extracts from stage plays, in which Emma looked very different.
All of a sudden, he had the nasty feeling that he was using his computer as some kind of giant keyhole through which he could spy without being seen. It seemed to him that he was violating a space he could only legitimately enter with the permission of the person involved.
The thought made him feel uncomfortable, and so he abruptly cut off the connection, switched off the computer, took his medication, and went to bed.
9
The
“You know, Roberto, over these months I’ve always told you you were looking better, that you were making progress, and that everything would soon be back the way it was. Do you remember?”
“Of course.”
“Well, it wasn’t true. I said it to help you, to cheer you up, but I didn’t think you looked well at all. Not even a bit. You were always distracted. So distracted, I sometimes felt like asking you what I’d just said, and I was sure you wouldn’t have been able to tell me.”
Roberto looked at him with genuine curiosity.
“Tonight was different.”
“In what way?”
“You were here. Not always, of course. But at least there were times when you were here and your eyeswere the same as they used to be. In the past few months you seemed … well, you were different, but tonight I’m really pleased. I can tell you you’re looking better without telling a lie.”
Roberto did not know what to reply, nor did he really understand what his friend was referring to. The evening hadn’t seemed any different from the others. He gave a slight smile—which could mean anything—and Carella returned it. When things aren’t clear, it’s easier to get by without words.
He walked back on foot, as usual: walking quickly, it took about an hour to get from the Pigneto to his apartment.
As he was crossing the Piazza Vittorio he saw a young guy trying to open the door of a car that clearly wasn’t his. Fifty or sixty feet from Roberto, another young guy stood lookout. Without a second thought, Roberto walked to the car and the youngster playing with the lock.
“What are you doing?” he asked, immediately thinking he’d seldom asked a more stupid question in his life.
The young man looked at him in surprise. Clearly the question had struck him as strange, too. “I’m stealing,” he said at last, in the tone of someone who thinks everything is far too obvious to require further explanation. Roberto felt like laughing and had to make an effort to control himself.
In the meantime the lookout had also approached.
“I’m off duty and on my way home,” Roberto said. “Don’t force me to do my job. Just drop it and go.”
The two young men stared at each other for a moment, looked Roberto in the face, obviously decided it wasn’t worth taking the risk, and disappeared into the night.
The next day was sunny, and Roberto took a long walk as far as the Foro Italico. He ate in a trattoria somewhere and then returned home, still on foot. He told himself that he should measure the distances he covered—and then immediately wondered why on earth he would do that.
He remembered those words of Louis Armstrong.
If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know
.
Every now and again he glanced at the phone to see if by chance anyone had called him without his having noticed. It was an absurd thing to do, because people hardly ever tried to get in touch with him these days, and it certainly hadn’t happened this Sunday. And yet he had the feeling the impulse meant something. Figuring out what was quite another matter.
He spent half the afternoon and evening watching TV and the other half on the computer.
He looked again at some of the videos he had seen a few days earlier, although he avoided the commercial for mineral water. He found some new ones, including extracts from stage plays, in which Emma looked very different.
All of a sudden, he had the nasty feeling that he was using his computer as some kind of giant keyhole through which he could spy without being seen. It seemed to him that he was violating a space he could only legitimately enter with the permission of the person involved.
The thought made him feel uncomfortable, and so he abruptly cut off the connection, switched off the computer, took his medication, and went to bed.
9
The
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