When the Night Read Online Free Page B

tanned. He must have walked up the mountain today. His face is covered with wrinkles, his eyes are pale and hard, and he speaks in a low voice.
    “He undid the straps. It’s dangerous to leave him like that, the street is right there.”
    The baby stares at him and holds his breath.
    I mutter, “Thank you. He was asleep so I decided to go up and make his lunch.” I pick up the baby.
    He turns away. “Good-bye.”
    He goes into his apartment. His boots are muddy and he smells of sweat and onion. The baby watches him until he disappears, then starts to whimper. I talk to him as we climb the stairs, to calm him.
    “Now we’ll eat our lunch. Let’s hope the soup didn’t spill out of the pot! First we’ll change and take a bath, and then we’ll eat. Are you hungry, my darling?”
    JUST LISTEN TO her talking to him on the stairs, the fool. “Are you hungry, darling? You took a nice nap, good for you …”
    What if he had gotten out of the stroller and walked out into the street? She was cooking his lunch! What a fool. Then if something bad happens, they cry.
    Luna used to do everything. Did she ever need help? And she never complained. If I were this woman’s husband I wouldn’t leave her alone with the baby. She’s not up to it, you can tell just from the way she holds him and talks to him. She’s really talking to herself, to keep herself calm. Well, it’s her husband’s problem. It’s no business of mine.
    I close the door and place my ice axe against the corner of the fireplace, and then take off my shoes.
    Tonight I’m going into town to visit my father. I won’t tell him, that way maybe the woman will be there and I’ll see who it is. We get soft in our old age and end up in some woman’s arms. He never needed one before.
    That woman upstairs is the type that grabs hold of you when you’re young and then you’re stuck with her for life. From agood family, raised to be idle. First you have to woo her, then you have to marry her. Now, with the kid, she’s stuck. Her husband sent her up here so he could have some peace, poor idiot. He should come and check on her on the weekends.
    No breasts, a child’s face. She looks at you and you think that it might be fun to take her to bed. You’d hold down her wrists and do whatever you wanted, and she’d like it too.
    If the woman from the wood shop isn’t willing, I’ll have to find someone else. Masturbating while I think about Luna’s breasts is enough for a while. But then you need a pussy; there’s no replacing it, and that’s the point, the crux of the problem.

4

    T HE PIAZZA IS filled with people and stands. The band plays rustic waltzes and mazurkas and the old people dance. The young people watch them, laughing. I bought a flowered dirndl with a white blouse and apron. And a pair of lederhosen for the boy. We look like two locals, even though I’m not blond with blue eyes and pale skin. I’m the only dark one in the family. My father says I look like his brother who died young.
    “MARINA’S EYES ARE just like Sandro’s, dark as coal.”
    Families always repeat the same words, even when it comes to describing who resembles whom. This uncle never married and constantly changed girlfriends. He was a builder and had more money than my father, who worked in a bank and had three daughters.
    He used to bring us expensive presents: watches, necklaces, bracelets, rings.
    My father scolded him. “You spend all your money … What will you do when business is down?”
    “Your daughters will help me, won’t you?”
    We all screamed “Yes!” in unison. I lived in constant hope that my mother would let us wear one of the necklaces or rings to school, to make our friends green with envy. But she would always put away his expensive presents, for “safekeeping.”
    “You can wear it when you’re older,” she’d say.
    “Can I wear the turquoise necklace, Mamma?”
    My uncle would hold it up to my neck.
    “You look like a gypsy,” he’d