The Prison

by Stefano Pastor

  MY FAMILY.

  In my family, we are four. Me, Dad, Mom, and Frog.

  Already I feel a rivalry. The fact that he calls the brother Frog, which consigns to the last position, putting herself first, it’s as if he’s crying to the world and to his family, “I’m better than Frog!”

  Dad is a taxi driver, and is almost always away from home. Mom stopped working when she got Frog. Mom says that he is a Prince, but it’s not true.

  I bend an eyebrow and reread the last sentence.

  Mum insists that he is so, that he is really a beautiful prince, and that a curse has reduced him so.

  At first I thought it was a joke, that she was making fun of me. Last year, when we went for a picnic down to the swamp, it was just the three of us, but when we returned, Frog was with us. When she told us that story, we all laughed about it.

  I thought she did that for me, that it was a game.

  Frog instead remained with us. Mom has prepared a room for him; he eats with us and never abandons us. That is, he never leaves mom; always around her.

  I read it once again, trying to figure out. She misrepresented the essay? Yet I felt like I was very clear. In the end, I draw a question mark next to that period.

  Alice has a great imagination, but in this context, it seems out of place.

  I don’t like Frog so much. Dad doesn’t like him either. Mom says dad is just jealous.

  Frog does not do anything: doesn’t speak, just jumps around.

  I can’t take home my friends, I am ashamed to introduce Frog like a prince. But mom doesn’t understand, she says that I am bad.

  I thought I’d kill him, or take him somewhere and leave him. Though I fear. I know it’s only a frog and cannot hurt me, but I’m afraid anyway. As if it wasn’t him. As if it were something else.

  I stopped smiling, it no longer seemed a joke. What meaning I have to attribute to an essay like this? Now the conflict is increasingly evident, but a conflict with whom? Who is actually what she calls Frog?

  Since I read that fable, I always think about it. And if mom was right? If a kiss was enough to get him back a prince?

  But just the idea of kissing Frog disgusts me! It’s creepy, it’s always wet!

  And if this doesn’t work? I’m not a princess, maybe you must be princesses in order to break the spell.

  Alice’s imagination is astounding. Her brilliant writing, above the average of the other pupils. The essay has a certain charm, I can’t deny it.

  Around the façade.

  Every day is worse. I have no longer friends. Mom only deals with Frog and ignores me. Dad is always working, and I know it is because of Frog…

  They fight all the time, he says mom is crazy and that I don’t have to listen to her.

  If Frog was a prince, he would go away, right? After that everything would be different.

  I must do something.

  The essay ends so suddenly that it almost seems incomplete. I re-read it again, more and more confused. I do not know which rating to assign: no doubt her fervid imagination deserves an award, even though he misrepresented completely the proposed topic.

  I put the maximum vote, but I’m not satisfied. I feel like I’m missing something, I’m worried. That argument needs to be clarified, understood.

  I plan to do a conversation face to face with this little girl.

  But the next morning, Alice is not at school. Her essay remained within my folder, abandoned, and as time goes by and my students are coming inside the class in a mechanical way, more and more it grows in me the desire to speak with her.

  I had a strange night with nightmares filled with frogs, and I feel confused. I can’t divert my mind from that ridiculous topic. So, when they finish the lessons, I’ll step in the secretary’s office and asks for the address of Alice.

  I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I’ve no idea how to justify this sudden visit. Maybe it’s just curiosity, maybe I want to meet the family of that child. Especially I want to find out who Frog actually is. Has she made it up completely, or her story has some truth? Not enchanted princes, maybe a little brother she hates, who stole the love of her mom?

  Alice’s home is in many ways similar to ours, a house, with a front lawn. But it seems to be in a state of neglect, the lawn has not been cut for months and there is not even a fence to cradle it.

  I knock at the door, then, receiving no answer, I also play the bell.

  “They are not there, I have not seen them this morning”, said a voice behind me.

  An elderly woman, with an apron and a mass of matted grey hair. She gave me her hand. “I am Rosa.” And showed me the house next door. “I live there.”

  I’m not sure what to do, nor how to justify my presence. “I am the teacher of Alice, the daughter…”

  The woman seemed worried, maybe not even listening to me. “It is strange”, she says, and repeats: “I have not yet seen them.”

  “They’re gone?” I ask. “Alice didn’t come to school today.”

  “And where?” snorts the woman. “The car is still there.”

  I also notice the front of an old taxi leaning on the side of the house.

  “We always meet every morning, we chat. I even knocked but nobody answered.”

  This woman is really agitated, and manages to infect me. “You fear that something could have happened?”

  The woman shudders. “It is not by Gabriella”, she says. “She never did anything like this.”

  “They also have a son, I think”, I ask pretending nonchalance.

  The woman shakes her head. “No, no children. Only the baby girl.”

  All this does nothing but whet my interest, and the woman notices it. “I have the key”, says, with an odd expression. “Gabriella left to me for all eventualities. Do you want to go inside and see?”

  I shake immediately my head. “I don’t even know them! I was just coming to see how it was Alice. You do it, you have more confidence.”

  The woman seems embarrassed. “I wouldn’t think they’re spying on us. Lately they are all so strange, in this family.”

  Every sentence that this woman says only increases my curiosity. “I can come too, if you wish.”

  “Oh yes”, the woman replies, happy, and immediately comes forward, with the key. “Nothing like that ever happened”, she repeats again.

  When we enter, I’m surprised to find all the lights on. The shutters are lowered, as if no one had yet turned up. The woman at my side perceives the strangeness of it. “Gabriella? Alice?” she calls with little enthusiasm.

  She comes forward, as if she knew the home very well, and led me into the kitchen. There is nothing strange in appearance: an ordinary house, well maintained with cheap furniture and too many dust catcher ornaments.

  “Look! Look!” exclaims Rosa, when she just walked in.

  There is a table set, right in the middle of the room: four chairs, four dishes, four glasses. Four, and I feel a chill.

  “They have dined here!”, Rosa says triumphantly. And then she adds: “Maybe they were expecting a guest.”

  There, the light is on, and everything indicates that they left the house in a hurry shortly before dinner. The burners are off, but pots and pans are still there.

  “What could have happened?” Rosa asked, without expecting an answer.

  She was very nervous, and she had every reason. In the next room, a lounge, we find confirmation of all her fears.

  The room is in turmoil: furniture moved, knickknacks scattered on the ground and broken, a chair knocked over. And then blood, so much blood. Sketches on the walls, on the couch.

  “Oh my God!” shouts Rosa. “My God! My God!”

  When the police arrive, Rosa has not yet recovered. They only sent two officers, a man and a woman, because they did not take the complaint with due severity.

  The agents give a quick look to the living room, then while the men raided the rest of the house, the woman questions us. I have very little to say,
Rosa instead speaks of the family of the problems of Gabriella frequent disputes with her husband.

  They begin a search in hospitals and among their relatives. We find ourselves sitting on a couch, forget. Rosa cries, a tissue clutched in her hand. “It was weird! Gabriella had become so strange, how I could imagine…”

  The scream comes suddenly, making us jump. I realize that comes from the living room, where cops went to look for clues. I run there.

  There is a female police officer to the ground, unconscious, and her companion who tries to revive her.

  As soon as she sees me enter, shouting: “Don’t get too close! Don’t touch anything!” And then: “Don’t look, is better. It’s terrible.”

  I realize that Rosa followed me. What shouldn’t we watch? The cop’s eyes are fixed on a piece of furniture, a large sideboard. Now I don’t see anything odd, but then I realize that he’s looking under the furniture.

  I lean slightly to get a better look. At the bottom, against the wall, there is something that I can’t identify, but I see the blood all around.

  I go closer and I realize it is a hand, a severed hand, a very small hand, the hand of a little girl.

  Rosa, behind me, she starts yelling.

  More policemen and forensic technicians. The severed hand is pulled out. Make us move, but nobody tries to send us away.

  We hear them talking to each other, as if we weren’t there. Was torn, not cut. The very idea that there is someone strong enough to rip your hand at a little girl terrorizes even them. An animal of some sort, they speculate, maybe a rabid dog, though they don’t find bite marks.

  Rosa is subjected to a tighter interrogation, but can’t add much, the night before she went to dinner by his daughter and he wasn’t there. Asked about the possibility that something has been taken away, she looks around and responds.

  “The carpet”, she indicates. “There was a rug there, sort of. The skin of an animal, a bear perhaps. The baby girl liked it, she always played with it.”

  I hear them whisper among themselves, because the discovery has unpleasant implications. He served to take away the bodies, they say, and I understand that they already suspect the husband.

  I avail myself of the fact that no one is interested in me to get out of the room.

  In the house, there are a dozen cops, but have invaded only the foreground, most located in the lounge. The whole house has already been carefully searched and has not found any signs of violence except in that room.

  I stop next to the staircase, with the heart in the throat, because I have the fear of getting caught. Yet the desire is strong, I can no longer resist. When I was certain there is no one nearby, I climb the stairs quickly, trying not to make noise.

  A hallway, three doors. The one on the end is open, I see a double bed. I open one of the other. Is Alice’s room, no doubt. The bed full of dolls, posters of singers hanging from the walls, drawings.

  I go to see better, and immediately is back the discomfort. They’re all the same, brightly painted. Represent a stylized girl probably herself, and a frog. And the little girl is kissing the frog. This was his obsession?

  I’m dropping upset because something terrible must have happened to that poor little girl, before I could know her.

  I get stuck in front of the other door. Basically, I just came for this. Mom has prepared a room all to himself, wrote Alice in its essay. It was fantasy, it was just her imagination?

  Within, with a strange feeling, almost went to meet my destiny. I feel that after everything will be different, that my life will change.

  It’s a small bedroom, green and white painted, and cramped. It is likely that it was once a closet. There is no bed, but kind of a cradle, then a mirror, very low, almost at ground level, and a small cupboard, which I hasten to open and found it empty.

  Carpets on the floor, and lots of pillows. And then an aquarium for goldfish, but no fish. I have no doubt that it is the room of Frog, but he isn’t here.

  I try everywhere, under furniture, among the cushions, in every possible hiding place, but I find no evidence that he ever existed.

  Eventually I give up and go away disappointed. I wonder what am I looking for? Really, I thought it was real?

  I rest a moment uncertain in the hallway, then I let myself be tempted by the last bedroom, the parents room.

  The bed stood, with a candid, fringed coverlet. Right in the middle there is a green stain.

  I freeze with my heart in the throat.

  Frog is there, in the middle of the bed, and he’s looking at me. It’s just a small frog, green glossy-skinned lit. Two big black eyes stare at me, as if they wanted to enter my mind.

  It’s so small, fragile, lost, I sense his sadness. He is left alone and scared.

  I step forward and murmured his name. “Frog.”

  He jumps to me, till the edge of the bed.

  At that time, I don’t ask questions, I don’t think, I just feel that he is in danger. I cannot remain there, I should put him in a safe place.

  I stretch my hand and he did not try to escape. I’m afraid to hurt him, so I open my palm in front of him. We rise above, clinging with its paws. I cover him with my other hand, so he cannot run away, and I raise him to my heart.

  I feel excited like never before. I also feel that I am doing something wrong, but I can’t help it.

  I run away from the room, still clasping my frog in my hands.

  Downstairs they try to stop me. “Ma’am, what have you got there? Let me see.”

  I show off a tense smile. “It’s nothing. It’s just a frog. It must have come from the open window.”

  Agent snorts. “In this house was committed a crime, you can’t take anything away, you should know better.”

  I assume the tone that I usually use with my students. “But officer, it’s a frog! It will die if you don’t put it in the water.”

  He mumbles something incomprehensible, and I take this opportunity to run away.

  I’m not talking about Alice, his family, their disappearance, police and interrogations. Present only frog, I tell them that he is a prince and a wicked spell turned him into a frog. I tell them he will come to live with us, and we must learn to treat him like one of the family.

  Mario is having a world of fun and does not intervene. He certainly thinks I’m kidding.

  Renzo, the smaller, takes this seriously, or pretends to do so. “A brother, I mean, it would be a sort of brother.” Then take a bow to the frog. “So, brother frog, let’s be clear, my toys are just mine, and you can’t touch them.” And finally spreads her arms in theatrical gesture. “How can I introduce you to my friends? I have to tell you that I have a frog for brother?”

  Mario bursts laughing and does not mention helping me.

  Claudio, the greatest, is twelve years old. He heard my explanation with a grimace of disgust on his face, and ignored the rumors of Renzo. He looks serious. “Are you kidding, mom? If you wanted an animal sufficed to say, although I believe that having Renzo in my way is quite enough. Of course, you could have chosen better, I would have preferred a dog.”

  Basically, it didn’t go too bad.

  Gets worse when I add a seat at the table. No chair for frog, the only place on the table. He is not very polite, and climbs directly to the pot.

  Renzo looks at him with disgust. “Does he eat salad?”

  I think that we should not say that frogs eat live insects. The only ones I’ve found are hidden among those salad leaves.

  Mario intervenes. “I have nothing against it. You can keep it, but bringing it to the table is a little extreme? You should put it in the bath tub, don’t you think?”

  Claudio is horrified. “In the bathroom? Where we’re going?”

  I feel disheartened. They don’t understand, they cannot understand. But I am sure that sooner or later they will.

  “It is here.”

  Don’t ask him even whoever, I keep getting naked and wearing the robe.

 
; Mario is already lying in bed and repeats, annoyed. “Did you hear me? Your frog is here! It jumped on the bed!”

  I know, I don’t need to watch: frog never leaves me. Follows me everywhere, all over the house. He jumps around quiet, heedless of the dangers, only control me, I never lost sight of.

  At the beginning I found it funny, but after a few hours, I was beginning to be stressed.

  “Where did you get it? Because you brought her home?”

  Slide inside the bed. Frog is at my feet, his eyes fixed on me, misses out on leave.

  “It was my student’s pet. She cannot hold it anymore.”

  “And she has given it to you? You should know that you can’t hold frogs at home. They need to be… in a pond. They are dirty animals that can carry diseases.”

  I almost snarled. “Do not take part in that.”

  He shuts off the light, swallowed. I remain motionless, afraid to stretch my legs, afraid to hurt my frog.

  I dress, I chatter, and he’s always there. He is sitting up in bed just redone, in the center of the bedspread. And he looks at me, of course.

  I have to go to school. I should, at least, but I do not feel like leaving it alone at home. And if anything should happen to him? The kids don’t like it, Mario the same, I am afraid that they will play some jokes.

  I take the folder, put it back, then take it again.

  Frog follows my every move.

  I sit on the bed, beside him, and pat his back. “I must go to work; can you be alone? Don’t worry, I’ll be right back. And then we’re going to be together all afternoon, I have not to go out.”

  He is silent, I haven’t heard croaking.

  “Are you a prince?” I ask him. “You’re really a Prince? My Prince?”

  Then shake my head because I realize that I was so absurd, almost I was myself in the grip of a spell.