Free Don't Move by Margaret Mazzantini, John Cullen Page A

regressing. I felt doubts; I felt internal struggles and rebellions. Feelings I’d avoided during my adolescence were emerging intact. Now she was my entire family, and I expected her to notice me. But your mother never did love weak people, Angela, and unfortunately, I knew that. That was the reason I’d chosen her.
    I stroked her legs, but there was no answering tremor. All I got was the sweetish scent of her sun lotion. I loved her, but I was no longer able to attract her attention. I loved her, and I had turned off into that suburb, into the bones of that other woman. She didn’t disappoint me; her flesh held no memories; I was screwing nobody. When I made those euphoric, pathetic detours, I became the reckless boy I’d always wanted to be but never was. I’d go down and play in the courtyard in spite of my mother, in spite of her pale hands resting on the piano keys. I’d tear frogs apart. I’d spit into the plates. And afterward, I was alone, just like before. But the fragrance of crime stayed with me, and now it was rising up from the darkness and keeping me company while a clump of reeds next to the garden began to move. Their rustling harmonized with the soft sound of the wind.
    “Do you remember that man at my father’s funeral?”
    Elsa was propped up on her elbows. She turned her head toward me a little. “Which one?”
    “The one who read.”
    “Yes, vaguely. . . .”
    “Did you think he was genuine?”
    “Well, some poor devils bluff their way into strangers’ funerals because they have nothing better to do.”
    “Right, but I don’t think he was one of those. He knew Dad’s nickname, and besides, he was crying.”
    “Everyone’s got plenty of reasons to cry. Funerals just provide a good excuse.”
    “So why were you crying?”
    “For your father.”
    “You hardly knew him.”
    “I was crying for you.”
    “But I wasn’t sad.”
    “Exactly.”
    She slid her legs out from under my hands and decided to laugh. “It’s late. I’m going to take a shower.”
    Right, go take a shower! I’ll stay here a little while longer.
I’m going to watch the sun lower itself into the sea from the purpleedge of a sky so beautiful, it makes a man believe in God—
and also in a world where his dead are waiting for him to tell him
that nothing will be lost. And all the while I’m thinking about my
father, there’s a burning sensation in the tip of my cock. I’ll tend
to it by myself (it seems only right) under this cardinal red sky.
And then maybe I’ll get one of the beers out of the refrigerator—
or get pissed off if I find them under the kitchen table, still warm.
    There was a whole raft of people at Gabry and Lodolo’s place, completely surrounded by a circle of torches whose flames stretched out in the wind. Suntanned faces came toward me; white teeth flashed in the dark. I was wearing my white linen suit but no tie. The hair on the back of my head was still wet, giving me a little chill, a shiver that slipped down under my shirt. As usual, I hadn’t shaved all weekend. With a glass in my hand, docile as an apostle, I said hello to people here and there. Over by the drinks table, talking to Manlio and his wife, Elsa was moving her hands, tossing her hair, smiling. Her full lips kept parting to reveal her slightly prominent upper teeth, as though she knew the powerful attraction of that small flaw. Her satin dress, the same crimson red as her lipstick, caressed the tremors of her full breasts as she laughed. At parties, we always went our separate ways; that’s the way we liked it. Every now and then, we’d brush past each other to make some whispered comment, but most of the time we waited until we got home, until after she kicked off her high heels and slipped into her espadrilles. Our friends made us laugh; the more tragic they were, the more they made us laugh. We spoke very badly of them, but with great affection, thus absolving ourselves. Elsa had a talent for getting to the kernel