Sanctuary
Page 29
But the breeze made him open his eyes again.
It was not the breeze, it was death. Death was kneeling next to him, close to him.
“What is this place?” he asked.
There was no answer.
With a caress, death closed his eyes. It put its hand on his heart and the beating grew fainter. And for this he was grateful.
The tree was an ash, proud and strong. Keller felt small beside it, which made him happy.
He approached, wanting to know who was hiding behind the trunk.
A voice called him.
Sim’l.
She had not changed despite all these years. He hugged her.
“Lissy,” Sim’l said, smelling the aroma of cut hay in the little girl’s hair.
She stood aside and handed him a little wooden pig. The pig was smiling. The little girl pointed at the light, and Simon wished he could go there.
“Push harder,” he told death.
Death did not obey. It withdrew.
Keller nodded and coughed. Death did not obey anybody. It was wilful. It would come before its time and then vanish if it was called.
He had to be patient.
The meadows. The trees.
The light.
Elisabeth took him by the hand and led him beyond the ash tree. Keller was sorry because he felt that the ash tree loved him. It had always loved him. All that light.
Then death disappeared, and Lissy vanished.
Keller was back in the pigsty.
And he was no longer alone.
116
“You scared her off,” Keller said in a tone of regret.
Holding the knife, the Trusted Man looked around. There was nobody there. “Who?” he asked.
“Lissy,” Keller replied with a sad smile. “You made her run away. But she’ll be back soon. She’s never left, you know. She’s always been here. With me.”
He let his eyes drift around the pigsty. Death was here somewhere. It was waiting for the stranger to leave so that it could come back and take him to Elisabeth. All Keller wanted was to see the meadows again. And the light. All that light.
All the Trusted Man could see were the carcasses of dead pigs, a wooden pen and a lantern hanging from a dark beam. The light from the lantern made his one good eye sting. He rubbed it. It hurt. The other one had gone. Nothing but quicklime.
He lowered the flick-knife and shook his head. “You’re mad.”
Keller focused on him, and the Trusted Man realised that death would soon take him.
“I used to think that, too,” Keller said, panting. “But Lissy’s not mean. She’s never lied to me. It’s not an illusion. Lissy is real. Lissy has always been with me. She’s never abandoned me. And she never will.”
With difficulty, he slipped his hand inside his waistcoat and pulled out a little bell, which he shook three times. He could not manage a fourth. Even that tiny little bell was too heavy for him. It slipped from his fingers and fell in the muck. The silvery jingling faded away.
Nothing happened. Nobody came. It was just the two of them. The Trusted Man remembered the words of one of the old men at the inn. He had said that Voter Luis’ son was a man of faith, just like the holy man who had taught him to see the world through eyes full of mercy. But they were both just men. And men wished for illusions.
Consolation.
And it was with eyes full of mercy that the Trusted Man went close to Keller, pointing the flick-knife, and whispered, “Do you want me to bring her to you? Is that what you want?”
Keller raised his arm with difficulty and pointed to a spot behind him, behind the ash tree, on the hill.
Lissy was beautiful. Barefoot in the meadow.
Lissy was holding out the little wooden pig. The little pig was smiling.
And the light. There was all that light.
The Trusted Man did not see the light, but he heard jingling. He turned abruptly.
She was there.
Up there on the threshold. Up there on the hill.
“Lissy,” Keller called.
Lissy, the Trusted Man thought. Lissy was a sow. A large, nasty black sow.
Lissy lowered her head and charged. She came down the steps like an avalanche and hurled herself at the Trusted Man. Before he was knocked down he instinctively struck out at her, plunging the knife into the thick layer of fat around her body, but it was as if she didn’t even feel it. The impact broke the Trusted Man’s femur. The blade stayed there, sticking out of the sow’s hide. Lissy raised her snout, and the Trusted Man felt himself being lifted, practically to the ceiling.
He remained suspended in mid-air for a few seconds, then fell to the floor, face down, screaming.
Lissy came crashing into his back, skewering him and making him roll against the male pigs’ pen. He turned and raised his hand to shield himself from a second attack. Lissy tore off three of his fingers with a single bite. The Trusted Man saw his blood spurt, watched it form a perfect arc then fall to the stone floor – and disappear.
The pigsty, the dead pigs, the wooden pen, the metal bars, the window, the shit, the dying Bau’r, everything was disappearing, erased like chalk on a blackboard. The Trusted Man looked into the sow’s eyes and saw a terrible, infinite hunger in them. What he did not see in them was his reflection. Or the world’s.
Only Lissy was real.
She lowered her head to split his stomach open with her sharp fangs, but Keller’s voice stopped her.
“Sweet Lissy, little Lissy.”
Lissy turned to the Bau’r, and the Trusted Man saw him ring the little bell. He saw Lissy approach the Bau’r. He saw her lower her head and lick his face. He saw him stroke the sow’s bloodied snout and heard him repeat these words: “Sweet Lissy.”
The sow rubbed her muzzle against the old man’s face.
“Little Lissy.”
The sow started to cry.
The Trusted Man opened his mouth, then closed it again. He started laughing. It was madness. Sheer madness. What he had seen in the sow’s eyes did not matter. She was just a sow. He was a weapon. He was the only solid thing in the world.
He was the world.
He crawled towards the steps. Towards the darkness outside. He dragged himself up the first step. His broken femur radiated unbearable pain as it hit the steps, much worse than his hand. But the Trusted Man blessed the pain. The pain allowed him to feel the steps, to see his own hands as he climbed. He kept telling himself he was a weapon. He looked at the world through eyes full of mercy. He must not forget that. No.
The second step. The third. The Trusted Man pressed his torn hand against the stone. He banged his femur. He wanted to feel pain.
He looked up. Not far to go. He had only to keep dragging himself. Get to the door. And overtake Marlene.
Even though she was translucent, the Trusted Man recognised her. The raven-black hair, the beauty spot, the eyes glowing like embers. Marlene pointed the old man’s rifle at him.
The Trusted Man raised his mutilated hand. “I . . . I beg you.”
Marlene took a deep breath and lowered the barrel of the rifle.
The Trusted Man took another step forward. The step was as soft as mud, but he was not. He was real. He was solid. The sow was an illusion, the Bau’r was an illusion, the girl was an illusion. Illusions that existed because he existed. That was why the void into which the world was rushing would never engulf him. That was why the girl would do whatever he asked her.
Without him everything would vanish.
“Drop the rifle,” the Trusted Man commanded.
Marlene let it drop.
Just three more steps.
Clear. Perfect.
Two.
“Now help me,” the Trusted Man said, reaching out to her with his good hand.
Marlene looked at him. She looked right through him. Her eyes were cold.
She closed the door and locked it.
The door vanished.
The Trusted Man was now float
ing in a void, distraught. He was no longer a weapon. He was a man again, the most frightened of men. His perfect world was a perfect fiction. The Trusted Man was frightened of everything.
He no longer had arms or legs. Or a head. All that was left was panic. And what would happen when panic, too, vanished?
In the void, the Trusted Man heard Keller’s voice and clung to it.
“Lissy. Sweet Lissy. Little . . .”
The pain returned. So did the door and the pigsty. Just a bare outline. Opaque. But solid, real.
He begged the old man to continue, he begged death to grant him just enough life to chant a little longer. To become solid again. But instead, death approached Simon Keller and took his heart in its hand. Gently. Like Voter Luis when he lifted him up to show him the nests on the branches of the trees. Death blew, and Simon Keller’s heart stopped beating.
The Bau’r breathed his last.
The Trusted Man heard that faint link disappear, and once again he was panting in the dark. Then, with what little strength he had left, he looked for a way to cheat death.
“Lissy,” he said. “Little Lissy.”
A sound emerged from the void. A little bell ringing.
“Sweet Lissy.”
And Lissy came.
117
1984
The sea’s undertow is a lullaby. The woman sitting on the shore is beautiful. She looks older than her thirty-two years, but she’s beautiful. Nobody can deny that.
She is especially beautiful as she watches the little girl building sandcastles. She taught her to. She’s her daughter and her whole world.
The little girl also has black hair and is also very beautiful. You can tell they are mother and daughter. They have the same smile.
The little girl speaks Spanish and knows only a few words of German. Mutti is her favourite. But she only uses it when they are alone together.
The little girl’s name is Astrid, but to everyone here she’s Estrella. Estrella is a beautiful name.
Marlene does not mind the fact that the little girl cannot speak German or Italian. Or that she has no interest in her mother’s country.
Estrella will never go back to those mountains.
She and Carlos have sworn that. Astrid must never know anything about her birth. About Herr Wegener, about Simon Keller. Nothing. Carlos knows the whole story. Marlene loves him and could never have lied to him. She really does love him. Carlos is a patient, gentle man. He met this stranger with a heavily scarred soul and made her laugh and fall in love. His love brought her back to life. Carlos also loves Estrella. He says she’s a gift. She truly is. For both of them.
There is only one thing Carlos does not know: a memory Marlene is trying to erase. She will finally manage it, a year or two from now. The moment when the midwife had placed the raven-haired baby in her lap and asked her what she wanted to call it. Klaus, Marlene had replied.
Klaus. But Klaus is a boy’s name.
The midwife had smiled. “It’s a girl. A lovely girl.”
Marlene had looked. Yes, a girl.
“I’ll call her Astrid. Like a star.”
She had said Astrid. But it was another name she had thought of.
118
1994
It was lovely off-piste. The fresh snow, the whole of nature just for them. That was how they met, in the mountains. Except that now she has a broken ankle (although he says it’s just a nasty sprain) and the idea of fresh snow and nature all for themselves is no longer so romantic.
Snow, nature. And no emergency services.
He is not discouraged, he’s not like that. He lifts her over his shoulder and starts retracing his steps, following the ski trail. She’s a heavy load, but he knows he can make it. He’s fit, and it’s just another adventure to tell your friends about, nothing more.
Except that then it starts to snow. Well, of course it does. They are in the mountains, and it is late November. The weather forecaster was not talking nonsense. And that is a problem. There’s too much snow. The tracks are like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs: they are disappearing.
The trees all look the same. The snowfall turns into a blizzard. Then it is dark. And cold. The cold bites at your muscles and your voice becomes hoarse. But there is nobody about. Only nature, just for them.
They do not realise how scared they are until a man emerges from out of the blizzard. He is blind in one eye, but he has a beautiful smile. Just like a Hollywood actor.
He looks like an old man, especially because of the greatcoat he is wearing, but he cannot be that old, judging from how easily he puts the girl over his shoulder.
Lucky for them, because the young man’s at the end of his tether.
The older man points to the top of the mountain. Up there is the house of Voter Simon, he says, a man of faith. They can wait there for the blizzard to pass, and in the meantime he will give them something warm.
I was hungry and you gave me food.
Thus it is written.
The young man can barely hear him; he walks right behind him and cannot stop thanking him.
In the wind, the older man walks and starts chanting.
119
“Sweet Lissy, little Lissy.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Piergiorgio Nicolazzini, tireless workaholic, and Luca Briasco, because unstoppable is the least one can say about him. To Francesco Colombo, who always knows the right word. To Severino Cesari, spiritual father of these pages, to Paolo Repetti, Rosella Postorino, Raffaella Baiocchi, and the entire Einaudi family. Thank you to the Kräutermandl, Voter and Bau’rn who have shared their knowledge with me without asking for anything in return, and to Aldo Gorfer, whose works are an unequalled source of inspiration. Thank you to Hermann Tamanini, gentleman and man of medicine. Thank you to Robert Gorreri for his record-breaking advice. Thank you to Luis for his patience, to Maurizio Girardi because the second one was better than the first, and to Michele Melani, sparring partner, talented man and friend.
Last but not least, thank you to Alessandra, steady at the helm when I go “to the other side.”
About the Authors
LUCA D’ANDREA was born in 1979 in Bolzano, Italy. Beneath the Mountain, his first novel, was translated into thirty-five languages and was a bestseller across Europe. Sanctuary was the winner of the 2017 Scerbanenco Award.
HOWARD CURTIS is an award-winning translator of Italian and French literature. His translations include works by Georges Simenon, Gianrico Carofiglio and Marco Malvaldi.
KATHERINE GREGOR is a literary translator and writer who has also been an EFL teacher, a theatrical agent, a press agent and a theatre director.
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Also by Luca D’Andrea
Beneath the Mountain
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Italian as Lissy by Einaudi/Stile Libero, Turin, 2017.
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by MacLehose Press, an imprint of Quercus, a Hachette UK Company.
SANCTUARY. Copyright © 2020 by Luca D’Andrea. English translation copyright © 2019 by Howard Curtis and Katherine Gregor. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design by Richard Jones
; Cover photographs © Shutterstock
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Digital Edition JANUARY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-289701-5
Version 12132019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-289700-8 (pbk.)
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-297212-5 (library edition)
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