Lead Petals

by Quelli di ZEd

  10

  To Montevecchio of true bandits not us n'erano; the sequestrations he/she brooded them the mine and the whole gold of the world could for the most part be paid as I ransom but his/her own darlings would not be more however him seen again.

  Other four miners were lost that evening, all inexperienced persons, among which Tonietto Cabua and Zoseppi Tuveri. Under the moon, the laveria and the room capstans shone of basaltic stone. The polar star intensely shone and seemed to judge all as the severe eye of a cyclops.

  Emilio observed the arc in aged mattoncini that delineated the railing of the gallery. He/she thought that a writing of the type" you Leave every hope or you ch'entrate" there would have been to wonder. That tunnels you/he/she had been being abandoned for years and it gave the impression of a gloomy place. Who knows if Dante for his/her trip in it inflicted him you/he/she had imagined something of the kind.

  Piccalinna was the most ancient well of everybody and from his/her entry they were untied the orifices that connected all the mines of Montevecchio. That gallery was the only way to find again that wretches. Luigi, Pinu Froi, Galeddu Zou and Mantrancheddu delayed behind the most experienced Emilio. They followed him/it with uncertain footsteps. Piccalinna was a kind of crypt in which to proceed him was forced to bend himself/herself/themselves in two: it was a burrow of red mattoncini and I cement sfalsati one after the other, to the endless one.

  «From here we will find them!» Emilio exclaimed, with a reasoning given birth in simultaneous from brains and vocal chords. Luigi nodded.

  The cave didn't overcome the meter and fifty of height and gave the impression to be able him to subsequently tighten from a moment to the other. Cold and dark, it seemed even more narrow. The crumbled walls slipped along the walk and there were flakes of mattoncini and cinders of blenda that the miners had been abandoning for decades. On the right side, coming from the attic, a dripping ticked articulating the time, precise as a clock to pendulum. The lamp to carbide of Emilio disclosed the meander hidden of the burrow. The desolation was for a long time that of a gallery dismessa. The compressed air pumped by the mighty pressers Sullivan there had been only a mirage. Picks and shovels had drummed without truce, killing of job first the prisoners of the Romans and then the miners, until when the seam of mineral you/he/she was exhausted. The imagination of Emilio projected for an instant the figure of the slaves that picconavano those walls and it seemed even him to hear the metallic sound of the picks that you/they struck the rock. Luckily, him the pick had used only him in case of breakdowns to its drill, but you/he/she had passed of of it however terrible. In youth you/he/she was pushed up to the eighth level of the well Amsicora, thirty meters under the quota of the sea. To that depth it was enough a collapse or a breakdown to the pomps to die as Raymond Spanu, drowned as mice of sewer. Emilio remembered well that period and remembered better still what its old man told him: «Emilio you are careful because God is anywhere, but there under you/he/she won't protect you, he in gallery there has not been never, that is the abode of the devil.» It is in that instant it saw the face tried of his/her father to make him that same recommendation again. In twenty years of mine Emilio had succeeded in climbing well four levels. It now was not able certain to say of spassarsela, but in comparison to the times of the eighth level it was found in heaven. Years back you/he/she had been involved in a collapse: they were dead in twelve on fifteen. That time the miners had understood the melody that announced the death. The siren had howled as the sad and puzzling complaint of a she-wolf siberiana, private forever of his/her pup from cruel hunters.

  Emilio was saved. After all that years he/she didn't know yet if you/he/she had survived because more deserving than the other miners or simply because it had an enormous patrimony: an impudent culo. When it was dead Giuseppino, the life you/he/she was taken back by Emilio that same patrimony and with saltier affairs of any bank.

  He/she showily limped now. The brawl with Savior Piras had marked both. If you/he/she had not been Anthony Secci, the most elderly group leader, to ask to use him his/her knowledges to find again the boys, would have left that to look for some other miner had been them. Also because the father of one of the fools that you/they were lost was Giuda Iscariota a kind of man that water didn't even deserve him that he/she drank. Spillu Tuveri, alias Giuda Iscariota, while his/her brother was dying for to have remained crushed by the weight of his/her inverted wagon, his/her sister-in-law you/he/she was beaten. To that time, Emilio and Spillu they were great friends. Strongly of this, Emilio was felt in right to bring him/it to the reason when by chance you/he/she had seen him/it confine him in the barn with Gelsomina, the wife of his/her/their brother Amilcare. "But are you of head out? It looks that Gelsomina for me is as a sister. Have you perhaps taken me for a maniac?" you/he/she had been the hypocritical explanation that was felt to return from Spillu. You/he/she had believed us attributing that clandestine meeting to the casualness that sometimes produced the job. But Spillu had a defect: he also liked the wine more than the women. Once drunk it told his/her facts and those some generation: in wine veritas. To know the truth, that child of good woman that was Costanzu Contini had offered him to drink up to empty the shelves of the circle dopolavoro. Do I tap Tuveri you/he/she had told him between a belch and the other, eating himself/herself/itself the words with the language that seemed mixed of mud, but the meaning you/they had understood him all however: you/he/she had made a pleasure to his/her/their brother his wife sweeping himself/herself/itself, of however it was not Amilcare that had told Gelsomina to refer himself/herself/themselves a life when he there would not be more state? And then you/he/she had been respectful Spillu, because you/he/she had been delicate, inserting only the beak of the bird and leaving the eggs out of the nest. In country all had laughed to crepapelle of those villainous affirmations, less that Emilio. He was felt to burn of anger to have believed in the bona fide of his/her friend Spillu. All had seized him/it for the fondellis, and you/they had sing-songed him the same sentence that he had used to the exhaustion to excuse the companion": bawls of the malelingues."

  The news had reached the ears of the other brothers of Giuda. To Montevecchio to his/her/their brothers the tied up quarrels to the inheritance were forgiven, even that usually besides the debts he/she understood a pair of saucepans in copper, an used chamberpot and a tavern which the hogs would not have entered even. The matters of horns, however, touched the honor. In love and in war everything is permitted but, when the women there were middle, the war did him with him arburesa: an attached moderate blade to the handle of bone. Spillu had caught at night it in his/her kitchen. Molenti and Chiccheddu had immobilized him/it; Zuanne had torn him the testicles and, before ricucire the scrotum with a cobbler awl and hemp string, the wound had disinfected him with some brandy. Spillu didn't have to die, because as you/he/she had enjoyed in the fottersi his/her sister-in-law, now it had to be good to veder to enjoy the others of the humiliation that were inflicting him. Before fainting you/he/she had done in time to feel the words of his/her/their brother Zuanne: «Now you can also continue her/it to you to fottere that dog. Anymore the honor of the family you won't ruin impregnating Gelsomina with a bastard.» Spillu was waked up again tied up in the large case of a motocarrozzetta that played the horn in continuation. In mouth it had his/her same balls, as it does him with the oranges for the wild boars to expose around as trophy for the country. «We see if anchor throws yourself Spillu. If it doesn't work you more you can always call that two frocis of Lisanzio Cireddu and Gamabedda, to give us inside of culo» Molenti had told him. People had come to knowledge of that that had happened and to the passage of the motocarrozzetta you/he/she had submerged Spillu of spits. With Gelsomina his/her brothers Tuveri had decided to use the indifference. The carnival had come to change that choice. To the cry of" the man is not man if after having vomited for a drunk you/he/she immediately doesn't take back the glass in hand" you/they had guzzled the whole evening. If that adagio had been true, tha
t day his/her brothers Tuveri would also have squirted testosterone from the ears. You/they had started to have been drinking soon brandy for the morning, devouring kilos of zeppole, parafritti and lies of lard that every family offered in beautiful sight in the banquets set in front of the entries. The men turned with the barritases in head; the white uniform white they sprouted under the bodices of black velvet and the pantalonis white ragas in flax they were narrow from the leggings; On leather collettu it acted from mantle and from the shoulders it fell opening himself/herself/itself on the before up to the knees. The parade of customs Sardinians it was about to finish when, under a white and red shawl with gilded ricamature, Gelsomina had appeared. It walked to tall head with a fierce walk and the puffs of the white shirt sbordavano with folklore from the black and gilded bodice; a long skirt fell her on the point of the barefoot feet.

  Zuanne had looked at her with contempt. «Look! That puttana also dares celebrate the carnival!»

  To their looks confused by liters of bovale and myrtle a solo intersection you/he/she had been enough for agreeing all on the to make himself/herself/themselves. They followed her behind the procession. While Gelsomina opened the door of house, Molenti had pushed within her with ferocity. You/they had not raped them to her, you/they had left the duty to one of those violet and enormous eggplants; you/they would have preferred to make himself/herself/themselves a sheep rather than to get dirty himself/herself/themselves with that baldracca. «Not to howl that you will also like!» you/they had shouted laughing to crepapelle. If n'erano goes staggering, you intoxicate rotten and excited to the improbable one by the sweet taste of the revenge. Gelsomina had remained session, to open legs on the eyelash of the bed, and from the bassoventre it dripped her a scarlet drizzle. The face was covered with the hands and you/he/she had cried tears that hurt some poisonous sting of the aragna. You/he/she had not even been crossed by the idea to report his/her brothers Tuveri; if you/he/she had done him/it, the next thing that you/they would have thrusted her in the middle of the thighs would have been a spit. And Emilio would have been sorry for her equally of as you/he/she was despaired for the novelty that you/they had torn the testicles from that carcass of Spillu.

  Emilio tried a sharp pain to the memory of Giuda, as if its bothers were not enough. The knee ached him terribly and it pulsated. «And now?» he/she asked Pinu Froi when they came in a branched interlacement of galleries. Emilio entirely stretched out the arm and went beyond with the lamp the threshold arcade of the gallery in which you/they were found. You/he/she had done him/it for habit, as it was used to do with the carbide to ascertain the levels of oxygen in the galleries. Without realizing you/he/she had imagined of it that the lamp was alive and that, going to reconnaissance, you/he/she could announce not to have seen him nothing of reality. In fact, Emilio had veduto something terrible.

  After all to the gallery that arrived from their right an indefinite form more similar to a tangle reflected the illumination of the lamp. Emilio swallowed the saliva and him it turned toward his/her companions. «There are perhaps!»

  Luigi remained the other three miners. Galeddu Zou trembled in front of his/her same shade, but perlomeno had never said to be brave. Mantrancheddu, made around contrarily the arrogant person, even if at the end it was everything chatters. Both remained to the shade of Luigi and Pinu Froi, that few was boasted and they acted so much. Emilio took the other gallery. Luigi and Pinu walked ingobbiti to his shoulders: of their happy character there was not more trace. There was more space in that tunnels, it was tall two meters and fifty around. A river bed coasted along the left wall.

  The image appeared in front of their eyes, clear and unequivocal. Huddled up on himself, the body of a youth was I pour again to the ground. Emilio opened wide the eyes and a shiver it crossed afoot afresh it. «Here is the first one!» It dealt with Tonietto Cabua, the boy that slips him I set in the cage of the mechanical capstan. Undecided whether to touch him/it or less, Emilio remained to contemplate him/it in silence. It hoped to perceive the rhythmic movement of the abdomen. «It is Tonietto Cabua!» it whispered. You bent and it premises two fingers on the neck of Tonietto. There was pulsation, the boy was still alive. "God in gallery there has not been never, that is the abode of the devil", he thought Emilio. Its old man was right: God had not been really able to protect Tonietto, but you/he/she could succeed us the doctor Saints. «Luigi, races to call the doctor Saints, I cannot race and I stay here.»

  Luigi stared at him/it surprised. «But.»

  «Race! We have made little road, there is not some risk that you lose you.» It touched the skin of Tonietto, it was lukewarm. «Hope that your physicist has at least some your same arrogance! I had warned you to be awake in mine. You have not listened to me. You withstand, boy, is so young!» it whispered Emilio. The companions looked at him/it incredulous, you/they had never seen him/it let him go to the feelings. Emilio realized that you/they were looking at him/it and it roughly reacted with his/her usual position of defense. «Race, Luigi! Pino, you instead brought behind these two cacasottos and you look for the others!»

  Pino made a sign of invitation with the head to Galeddu Zou and Mantrancheddu that unwillingly they followed him/it with the most narrow culo of the staves in oak of a barrel full of wine.

  Luigi went out of the gallery and uttered a cry. To brief half mine you/he/she would have been there. The residence of the doctor Saints alone distava some hundred meters from the well of Piccalinna and Luigi it reached her/it to long falcades. It arranged to the front door three fist closed stangate that gave life to an uproar. You heard some ferment inside the house, then the front door opened squeaking. It leaned out a woman of half age, with the chubby face oddly for the times that raced. It brought the short and hoary hair and he/she wore a beige negligee with the narrow belt above the navel that put in prominence some kilo of too much.

  "You/he/she can be the wife of the doctor", he/she thought Luigi. Of side to a separate and fascinating man as Saints you/he/she would be waited for to find a well more attractive woman, the lady evidently had other virtues.

  «You are you, Luigi!» it whispered the woman that, unlike what believed Luigi, it knew very well it. But as to give her blame: people it was very more feasible than cinquemila they remembered the face of a man, that a man the face of cinquemila people. Evidently Luigi's shows to Shangai had also received success and fame among the bourgeoises. «I immediately call you my husband. I pray, arrange you.» The lady Saints it made road toward the stay. In a cristalliera it appeared in beautiful sight a collection of photographic cars of every model and brand. The environment was orderly and perfumed of clean. The woman invited Luigi to take a seat on an armchair, but he declined the proposal. «There is a boy that is very bad!»

  The woman pointed out a ramp of staircases. «In such case you go down in directly the basement, you will do more in hurry of me. My husband is there.»

  Luigi launched on the steps.

  «In the meantime I prepare you a coffee of bowline!» it said the woman before entering kitchen.

  The doctor anatomized a dead body. The basement was cleared by the flames of a candelabrum to four arms and the air it was addicted from a prickly wax perfume typical of he/she asked her. A big pot sat on the fire. To his/her inside water and syringes boiled. The dead body that made company to the doctor had abandoned the earth of the alive ones and it traveled toward the world of the corpses. Luigi saw him/it and you/he/she hoped that the soul of Tonietto didn't undertake the same trip.

  The basement was a laboratory that the doctor had prepared with means of fortune and that you/he/she allowed him to also work with calm in particular schedules. Luigi noticed the seams of thread on the abdomen and on the skull of the body that you/they gave the first signals of stretch. The dead body started to swell himself/herself/themselves. It still contemplated that pumped body and you/he/she was crossed by a thought that it gave him the nausea. "Another po' and those seams will jump making to explode in air a
ll the inside organs."

  It curled the nose and he/she succeeded in taming the aggressive sense of disgust. «Hi, doctor!» he introduced.

  The doctor staggered and allowed to fall the scalpel that held in hand. «For the poverty, you want to make a heart attack come me. I already suffer from angina, me.»

  «You excuse me, you/he/she has made me go down his/her wife. It has to follow me to the well Piccalinna, a boy it is very bad,» then Luigi heard to his/her shoulders the voice of the lady Saints. «Eccoti the coffee of bowline, Luigi.»

  He/she saw to ripple the black fluid inside the cup and you/he/she was invested by the sweetish aroma of the bowline. Its look abandoned him on some droplets of dark liquid that slipped from the seam on the skull of the dead body. They traced a strip that ended up dirtying the beige color of the bunk of infirmary. "Is coffee of bowline!" a vocina exclaimed that only he could feel; and you/he/she was crushed by the disgust, imagining that the lady Saints you/he/she had filled the cups with that disgusting liquid. The voice made him still feel more stentorian. "He/she doesn't drink his/her coffee Luigi? To get has been squeezed him/it some good brain"!, and retchings impregnated its stomach. You covered the mouth tightening her/it with both the hands and it climbed the ramp of staircases racing madly. The lady Saints you have to make aside himself/herself/themselves; it bent his/her abundant abdomen and it lifted of release the tray until above the head: it was the only way to avoid to be overwhelmed. «But what is you/he/she taken him?»

  The doctor lifted the shoulders. «Not to offend you, dear, you/he/she has not escaped for your coffee, I undeniably believe that the sight of the dead body has slightly shaken him/it!»

  Saints it put us some before going up again from the basement. When it did him/it, crossed the steps sustaining himself/herself/itself to the wall. The senescenza advanced without knocking first to the door and the rheumatic pains they remembered him in every moment its sessantacinques years.

  Fissures give some basement they lengthened rectangles of light that made yellow the corvine road. On the avenue any alive soul. There was the curfew. Saints it turned on the motor of a grungy alpha 1920 romeo, black and with the you look for red. It was warm and the flexible canopy had been retired. Luigi took place. It had the reddened eyes and the bloodless face. To the doctor it seemed clear the destination of his/her run toward the untied air. They departed. The wind caressed the face of Luigi and succeeded in appeasing its sense of nausea. They put us few to reach the well, only a few minutes. They went down from the auto and Luigi it made road, well careful not to mistake run. «Follows me, doctor!»

  Saints it walked fast behind his" Cicero." In the gallery the echis of the voices overlapped, chaotically jumping on one side to the other. For Luigi it was difficult to understand from where they arrived. You/he/she could not even trust his/her memory: as a rule it also forgot him what you/he/she had eaten to lunch, despite the list of the dishes it had few some chilometrico. Some late, but at the end they came on the place. Besides Emilio, around the body there were Pinu Froi, Mantrancheddu and Galeddu Zou, but also Geggei Brau, Tinu Pancetta, Nasiseddu Mebi and Zoseppi Tuveri: the other miners that were lost.

  Emilio shook the cold hand of Tonietto. «I finally believed, you would not have arrived anymore!»

  The doctor Saints it sneezed. The dust and the odor of mold tickled his nose. It rummaged inside the handbag of skin that was brought I approach. It extracted a sfigmomanometro and it systematized him/it on the arm of the boy. It gave two pump: the pressure was low. «It has the low blood pressure, but if it will get by» it was unbalance.

  Emilio scrutinized the other miners. «Thing can have happened?»

  Saints it lifted from earth the head of the boy. «I believe that has had a collapse, even due to the united panic to the warm one, to the hunger and the thirst. Luckily it is young and you/he/she has overcome him/it.»

  Emilio barked against the inexperienced persons. «The neighbor turns you try to be more careful, you.»

  Luigi put a hand around his neck. «He/she leaves alone, I am alone of the boys!»

  Emilio brusquely wriggled him from the hold of the friend. «No that I don't leave alone. The mine is not a game. In mine he dies. This boy I had told before already him a few times. Do you have idea of what pain you/they would try your darlings if happened you something?»

  Nobody responded, all were looked at the shoes. The eyes of Emilio were injected of blood. «Before referring a cazzata not thought about yourselves! Think to whom loves you! Life is yours, but from you the happiness of so many other people depends!»

  They nodded. All to Montevecchio knew that Emilio had lost a child, nevertheless they were in few to know the true pain that had tried. A pain that tried to implore to the others in every occasion: a system to redeem him from the guilt to have lost sight his/her child. To save the other ones attenuated his/her sense of guilt.

  The doctor Saints it injected away endovena a some intruglios to Tonietto. You/he/she had used one of the syringes that first they boiled in the pentolone: a sure practice like the descent of the cage in the wells. In three years there had been two epidemics of hepatitis and four of various infectious illnesses. The first one had departed from the buttocks of tziu Zazà, that was become yellow of hit as the saffron for guilt of the liver. Then The illness had spread more with the boiled syringes, ideally you sterilize, that for a direct contagion with him. The second epidemic had been it will pass her/it of Luisica Paulis to spread her/it and the village was infected almost all. The others had brought her the sozzeria and the mice.

  Pinu Froi and Luigi burdened of weight Tonietto and they brought him/it out of the gallery. In front of the entry there were about ten people, among which Giuda Iscariota.

  «Thing you do us you, here?» Mantrancheddu asked him, that knew to be feared by him.

  Giuda got excited. «Aspect my child!»

  In that instant from the gallery it went out really Zoseppi Tuveri. Mantrancheddu spit for earth. «Pick up you your child and you disappear!»

  Giuda took by the hand Zoseppi and broke the lines. Bofonchiò something and it hastened to reenter to house; better not stopping himself/herself/themselves, to that time his/her brothers Molenti and Zuanne were already drunk and they turned for Montevecchio. In the car with the doctor it climbed Cesiro Cabua the father of Tonietto, that showed up in the middle of the people come in front of the gallery.

  «Thanks, doctor!» Emilio exclaimed, holding the hands supported on the anterior chest of the alpha romeo.

  «Of thing?»

  «Beh, to be always available. It serves so much patience in this village of wretches!»

  Saints it smiled but not what was about to answer came too much, him from inside. «Emilio, doesn't know what it is the first water that that bathes?»

  To Emilio further precise statements were not needed, you/he/she had understood the sense of that sentence. Also for the doctor, to the dawns of his/her profession, you/he/she had not been to practice effortless in a place where a physician didn't have an instant to devote to himself to his/her family. You/he/she had done only now probably us the habit but not for this it found him/it simple.