The Case of Lisandra P. Read Online Free Page A

very fast. It was my girlfriend who saw her first. ‘Look, over there, on the sidewalk, it looks like a body.’ At first we thought it must be a tramp, but it’s not really that kind of neighborhood, and when we got closer we saw it was a woman, wearing a nice dress, and we saw the open window. We ran closer. Just then her husband appeared in the window and he shouted something. We didn’t dare go near the body; we didn’t even dare look at it too closely, or at least I didn’t. Her husband got there very quickly—he was screaming. He’s the one who actually saw that she was dead. Did she commit suicide?”
    The young man’s expression was distraught. Eva Maria could sense his distress. He needed to move beyond this horrible scene that life had thrust upon him without warning: death, there before his eyes. Eva Maria did not hesitate for a second. Even if it meant lying.
    â€œYes, you’re right. She committed suicide.”
    Eva Maria moved down the few steps between herself and the young man. She knew. In these conditions, concrete decisions were better than any emotional convolutions.
    â€œYou can leave the keys with me, if you like. I’ll give them back to Vittorio.”
    The young man did not hesitate for a second. He handed theset of keys to Eva Maria. And as if the fact of being free of them enabled him to relax at last, he sat with all his weight on one of the steps. He sighed. His body was relieved; his soul, not quite altogether.
    â€œI had never seen a dead body before.”
    Eva Maria would have liked to take his hand, but thought better of it.
    â€œMe neither. I’ve never seen a dead body.”
    â€œYou’re lucky.”
    â€œI wish I had.”
    The young man turned to her.
    â€œThat’s a really weird thing to say.”
    Eva Maria squeezed her hands together.
    â€œI had a daughter, her name was Stella. She was roughly your age. One morning I kissed her good-bye; she was on her way to class. I never saw her again. That was five years ago last week. So you see, I wish I could have seen her dead rather than just knowing she was dead.”
    The young man lowered his head.
    â€œI’m so sorry. They killed so many people.” *
    They both fell silent, staring into space. Eva Maria tried to laugh. She decided to change the subject.
    â€œJust between you and me, it could have been a very successful kiss . . .”
    The young man smiled, a smile of adolescence, but he was still thinking.
    â€œDid you know this woman?”
    â€œNo, but I know her husband.”
    The young man’s smile faded.
    â€œThe poor guy, he was circling around her like a crazy man, pounding against the wall with his fists and screaming. He was devastated.”
    â€œDid you tell that to the police?”
    The young man went tense.
    â€œThe police? What do the police have to do with this business? I don’t have anything to tell the police.”
    The young man panicked. He got to his feet. Rushed down the stairs. Eva Maria couldn’t stop him. She didn’t try to stop him. The young man fled the way any adolescent would flee from the word “police,” not as a murderer. If a murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, this boy was no murderer; he didn’t have what it takes. Eva Maria was convinced of that. Maybe he simply hadn’t told his parents that he was having dinner with his girlfriend—he would have had to explain everything to them, and at his age, confessing to his parents that he’d had dinner with a girl was unthinkable. “Like parents confessing to their children that they made love the night before,” as Vittorio might have said. Eva Maria shook her head. She could hear the young man disappearing down the stairway. In any case, the police would have brushed aside his testimony about Vittorio’s sorrow and distress. “Pretending, acting,” they would have said.