Phantom rain mixed with hail, crackles amplified from the cockpit, knocking on the roof, bonnet, glass of the Ford Transit. From time to time a hail as a burst of gunfire. Peace is not the time of a storm in autumn.
The wiper action to the whole, with a distant sound of sucked groaning, barely allowing the sight of a few meters of road flooded.
m'inquietai not, even in these circumstances, I relaxed.
travel for work every day, in those days. Representative of a firm of clothes. I made the rounds of clothing stores in the provinces of Palermo, Agrigento e Trapani. E in strada ne avevo viste di tutti i colori.
Rallentai sulla bretella che collega l’uscita autostradale di Alcamo-est alla provinciale Alcamo-Alcamo Marina.
Svoltai per Alcamo. I temporali mi erano sempre piaciuti.
Sembrava ieri. Pensai a quella volta che, bambino, mia madre mi sgridò solennemente perché ero rientrato a casa bagnato fradicio dalla testa ai piedi. Uscendo dalla scuola mentre imperversava un temporale con fulmini e boati mi ero incamminato senza meta nelle strade del paese deserto ed ero tornato solo a sera. Non saprei dire cosa avevo fatto per quelle ore: avevo vagato. Adoravo vedere le cose attraverso la pioggia. Ricordo solo che camminavo lentamente in una calma beata mentre mi penetrava una freschezza irresistible. In those moments I attacked a kind of heroic sadness, lonely, and everything seemed in its truth. But I can not explain. Words are useless if you've never tried. Sadness that I convey to you a secret inaccessible, in a land of freedom eternal melancholy. I was amazed of the past. Just a moment ago was this boy, and after this instant - millions of moments are identical then a moment - I was here to do my tour of the provinces. But who I really was? What was I doing driving?
Focalizzai still for a moment the sign Alcamo Alcamo Marina that says that instead of pointing to the right. Looking alternately at the side mirrors - the rear-view mirror inside I saw a row of hanging clothes on hangers aligned with a stick - I noticed that there was no one behind. Neither the front. I rocked the swing symphony of rain, a train of rhythmic hiccups with fleece wipers, cascades of water that rose from beneath the tire, the clink of iron hangers with clothes hanging. For at least an hour
not met a living soul. No machine. Besides, with the storm. Just a little 'before - a bit' what? I had lost the dimension of time - I had seen on the roadside, in a sloping vineyard, a shepherd with his flock. Vision of two seconds, a tall, almost monumental, with a long beard grigia, le pecore ferme, una verga in mano. Neanche a lui sembrava importare nulla del temporale. Mi fissò al passaggio. Mosè pascola le sue pecore. Pensai anche a un pastorello di terracotta del presepio di mia nonna.
Allungai il braccio destro e presi il pacchetto rosso e bianco con la scritta Marlboro. Associazione diretta con la Ferrari. Sfilai una sigaretta, l’annusai, me la misi in bocca senza accenderla. Gettai di nuovo sul sedile il pacchetto che fece un muto sobbalzo sulla stoffa blu e si riposizionò accanto a una penna Bic nera senza astuccio, a un’agenda con copertina di cuoio sciupato tutta gonfia di pizzini inseriti, all’accendino di metallo a petrolio – che era stato di mio padre –, agli occhiali alone, the bunch of keys amongst these is the green painted door of the house by the sea. I lived there alone for three years. The rooms mute - I thought - I waited in their inhuman stillness. I imagined, in fact I seemed to see, ornaments, curtains, door handles. The monotonous sound of the waves on the shore. Loneliness.
On the dashboard was attached yellow sheet with a orders from shops. Name, number, street, telephone, ordered in columns. From
bumps as two rivers overflowed muddy brown tint on the asphalt. The drops at the moment when slammed to the ground formed on the road flooded myriads of tiny shells. Individuai the lighter, the riallungai arm, took it, I made a right thumb pressure on the toothed wheel rubbed the flint, sparks, it generates too large a flame, a smoke and an acrid smell of oil. I lit a cigarette. Greedily breathed the smoke for a moment I had floated into his mouth half open. I held him long in the lungs, then exhale with a long directed him on a fly, trapped in the cockpit, tried a vain escape stubbornly banging his head on the glass. Failed passage. It was black with smoke, then he changed his flight out of sight. His wheezing stopped. We suffered at times, covered by machine-gunning of hail.
Classic time of the end of October. A non-consumptive
sun just could be the space behind the thick blanket of clouds. Although still
16:00 there was already a dark night.
I had not yet reached the big bend of the old cemetery - the habitants of Alcamo call it "the first cemetery" - I noticed a young woman just below the madness of the storm. Alone, he walked with a feline step. Apart from the wonder, the thing that attracted me the most was the attractiveness dell'incedere. The shape of the body under a white silk dress out of fashion, breaking sensual. The water attacked the thin fabric shapely thighs, buttocks serum tossed at every step, his ankles were safe on his heels. I noticed the helmet hair thirties, her purse tiny, the garter transparency. I turned off the cigarette. I slowed down, the affiancai, I lowered the window.
- Do you need anything?
The woman turned slowly as he walked. She was pale but his eyes were burning. Blond hair, wet, clinging to her cheeks. A mole in the center of the left cheek. Very nice. I would never forget those eyes burning direct to me and together towards the middle of nowhere. How to come out of other time-space coordinates. Heart sank.
proceed to his step.
- Next go up, do not be afraid.
She stretched her arm toward the door handle. A moment later she sat beside me, all wet looking straight ahead. The chest to breath le si alzava ed abbassava. Sotto il vestito di seta, reso trasparente dalla pioggia, ad ogni inspirazione affioravano le costole parallele. Un roseo seno prosperoso. I capezzoli induriti. I pori della pelle d’avorio. Pelle d’oca.
- Aspetti ancora, dissi.
Trangugiai saliva, il pomo d’Adamo salì e scese nel collo.
Con una torsione del tronco, il mio braccio teso raggiunse il sedile posteriore, sormontato dai vestiti dondolanti. Stirando l’indice al massimo agganciai la giacca dietro. La sistemai sulle spalle di lei.
- Se la metta, morirà dal freddo.
La donna rimase indifferente a fissare davanti un punto invisibile. Solo un angolo della sua bocca si mosse ad accennare un sorriso. Poi sembrò absorbed in itself. The contact with the humerus slender made me shudder. Mixed feeling of sensuality and distress. For a moment I suspected to be invaded within a dream and not in reality. It was as if I saw myself from outside, perceiving things in a state of greater emotional intensity. I had the feeling of having lived this scene. The deja vu I often. Once I talked with an uncle, a priest, Don Baldassare, very old and original readings. My uncle told me a antique dresser, of dubious origin, is esoterism Persian and Indian. That everything we do as we have already made, as a kind of circular time ever. And we go and do the same things and meet people. Solo che non ce ne ricordiamo perché il tempo della nostra anima non si misura con l’esistenza presente ma con tutto il ciclo delle nostre esistenze passate e future.
- Ma non diciamolo al Vescovo, altrimenti mi manda in mezzo alle vacche a dire messa! A Grisì, perlomeno mi manda! La battuta dello zio.
Eravamo seduti a un tavolino per la solita partita a scacchi del sabato mattina in sacrestia. Mi ricordo del bicchiere di vino rosso, della sua risata prolungata, degli occhi malinconici, profondi.
- Come si chiama signorina? Dissi con voce ferma.
- Anna.
- Io Giuseppe. Ma si può sapere che faceva sotto un temporale così? Dove andava, caspita?
- Mi sono persa.
- Meno male che ha incontrato me. If you can accompany her home.
- Thank you.
- you are trembling from the cold.
The woman smiled again, grating, and then went to look forward, absorbed in thought. It was a fatal beauty. As I drove I could not help occasionally dropping his gaze on the well-turned legs up to hem silk dress. Its attraction for me was both sensual and spiritual, the two planes coincide. I always seemed to know it. The deja vu continues: I had already experienced the scene. Was happening to me something that I was going to happen by fate. For a few seconds I was mesmerized. The wanted. I have wanted to possess her, there, at that time, under the storm.
- Anna lives in that neighborhood?
- Santu Vituzzu.
I knew him well. It was the ancient center of Alcamo. We were already inside. A sort of Medina with narrow streets, patios, balustrades on cliffs, stairs, crooked houses, dilapidated, abandoned for centuries. The old district that winds around the Arab biviratura. Here the Muslims built the first nucleus of the hamlet of Alqamah.
I turned left leaving behind the first mother church of Alcamo, Santa Maria della Stella - black oblivion of a centuries-old neglect - and a large rusty iron cross placed on a marble pedestal where is etched in an oval frame, the effigy of Our Lady Addolorata: “A Santa Cruci”. Salii per un budello lastricato in blocchi di travertino, scesi ancora a sinistra, costeggiai la Biviratura. Salii ancora e mi trovai dentro il dedalo labirintico di case in calce. Il quartiere era deserto. Sembrava che tutti fossero fuggiti in un tempo lontano. Le case basse, con archi di pietra a secco, chiuse o abbandonate, i portoni di legno rugoso con la vernice sbiadita, i canali, le tendine polverose, i muri inquacinati gibbosi e scrostati. In molti portoni era affisso – chissà da quanti decenni ormai – un rettangolo di stoffa nera obliqua, in segno di lutto. Negli anni Ottanta e negli anni Novanta due guerre di mafia avevano fatto fuori due generazioni di ragazzi proprio di questo quartiere. Un anziano poliomyelitis, deposited on land, with withered legs, crossed in front of a door, staring at him with expressionless eyes a crack, branched like a bolt in the wall opposite. An old woman, wrapped up in black robes and shawl on her shoulders, working in a frame on a cane chair, her face surrounded by black veil like a wrinkled mask like those in the Carnival stationers exhibit in the windows. A mule, with his saddle of wood and hay, pounding a hoof on the ground and moved his ears to ward off flies. Many roads were lost nothing in the courts or clay, without a break in the countryside. Sometimes the sun comes back and, with strong changes of light, shadow draw outlines of the houses on empty street. A strange silence enveloped all things. That district dragged his life in a long, enchanted euthanasia. The weather did not seem to touch him. The few who remained continued to live like fifty or sixty years before. Chickens roamed in a courtyard a few crumbs on the ground pecking with their feisty mother hen, the cicadas sang their monotonous prosody, you could hear the tinkle of bells on and off the neck by civilians not far away. An atmosphere of melancholy, as in all slums.
- I arrived.
He looked at me and smiled sweetly. I could not make me miss it. I had to stop her. His mere presence made me heart beat faster in her chest.
- Listening Anna, even taking my coat Now, she's still all cold. I usually do around the shops. I know that my work will take me three hours away. Finally, if you do not mind, I come to take his jacket, and so we have a chance to drink hot tea together and chat. The going?
- Okay, he smiled.
I saw her cross the street, slip down a side street and disappear into the shadow of a doorway.
The wrinkled old looked up from the frame and stared at me insistently. I ignored.
- then live there? I said again, raising a bit 'to make me hear the voice from inside the car.
-
Yes - I'll see you soon.
- the look.
Feci il mio lavoro con febbrile svogliatezza. In realtà pensai continuamente a lei. Ma non mi sentivo come avrei dovuto, anzi piuttosto depresso. Possibile che un incontro di cinque minuti mi poteva sconvolgere? Che fosse un colpo di fulmine? Sorrisi tra me alzando una spalla. Avevo già passato l’adolescenza da un pezzo e neanche allora ero così romantico da credere al colpo di fulmine. Eppure tornavo a pensare a lei. Qualcosa di inesplicabile mi legava a quella donna. E poi quella strana sensazione di averla già conosciuta. Ne ero del tutto sicuro, ma più cercavo di capire in che modo e più i pensieri si sfocavano. Ero ad un passo dal capire ma poi perdevo il bandolo. Come quando entri nella tua stanza e ti accorgi al volo che c’è something out of place but you can not locate it, escapes you, and then suddenly that was it! But in my case everything was resolved in fog, a feeling of attraction and mystery looming.
I completed my tour with the store of Santino. We always leave it for last because we were friends and I allowed myself a little chat with him at the end of the rite. We smoked a cigarette. Santino had a few years older than me, graying hair, lonely and elegant. As I was not married and had a shadow on the face, restlessness. I told him about my meeting with Anna. He scratched his head, he could not frame it and it seemed strange because that neighborhood knew everyone since childhood.
Nothing. I threw the butt on the ground, shook his hand, put into motion. I went up straight, I passed the road, Stella - lonely street full of ancient shrines, the fiureddi - I reached the Castle, a flash of blinding sun reviving dazzled the windshield for a moment, I turned from the Via Navarra Commander, went down from Piazza Bagolino and arrived back in the heart of Santu Vituzzu. I slammed the door, I looked around. So it was here that I had left and that is our home. The door led into a courtyard that was interrupted by a huge wall of square blocks of stone. It was a piece of the city's medieval walls, survived the centuries to injury and devastation. On it opened a vine hanging from the orange flowers called Sucameli children because sucking from below, gave a fresh flavor and sugar. And bumble bees buzzing as they mingled with the hissing of Tibetan mantra in the damp heat. A gate eaten by rust led into a religious silence of the gardens.
arrived at the gate I realized that there was no bell.
I knocked on wood and rusty iron knocker in the shape of lion's head.
whole house echoed the rumble from the ground up.
I was immediately sure that it was uninhabited. Disappointment. I looked around again. No soul alive. I came back to beat even stronger. I made three steps back. Squadrai all Home.
A geranium in a pot on the balcony was totally ripped half dry. There was no doubt: it was deserted, and even a long time.
disappointed I lit another cigarette.
The noise of the door had caught the old wrinkled face, which left the loom, stood up and openly giving themselves just a curious behavior with pretending to sweep the sidewalk.
seized the opportunity.
- so sorry, but Miss Anna do not live here? He looked at me
fools, then came up, supporting his steps unsteady with a broom.
- Community recycling? Ripitissi favurie more. He had watery blue eyes, one of which clouded by a cataract.
- Yes, I said this morning I left the Miss Anna to her house and now had to meet again. But do not live here?
- Nna nun's house there are jug nuddu for sixty years.
- But just three hours ago I gave a lift to a girl named Anna and I saw him come in the door with my own eyes!
I saw her as well, remember? She was sitting there in front of the frame and looked at us.
- Sintissi giuvini: Who is veru Stamatina taliavu quannu you sign the CCA, but lu sapi peak? Peaks me pariah - cu parrannu respectful - a fodd who parra sulu.
- But how would it be? I talked about? He has not seen the girl? Could it be that lives here and she does not know Anna? I was impatient with the old decrepit.
Per un attimo sembrò rianimarsi, scuotersi.
- Scusassi, ma comu rici chi si chiamava sta picciuttedda?
- Anna si chiama.
Il suo occhio limpido si fece più attento e fisso. Tornò a scrutarmi dalla testa ai piedi e poi all’inverso dai piedi alla testa. Mi dava ai nervi. Le mani ossute, piene di vene varicose le tremavano. Aveva il Parkinson.
- Attintassi: veru sessant’anni narré cca ci stava na signurina chi si chiamava Anna. Na bedda signurina: stavamu tuttu u jornu nsemula, aviamu crisciutu comu soru di quann’eramu picciriddi, chi ghiucavamu cu i bamboli ncapu stu scaluni; picchì la so casa era a tuccari cu chidda me. Ma poi idda murìu. Muriu di disgrazia: si lassò moriri nnu lettu p’amuri d’un picciottu.
Restai interdetto. Un brivido mi corse dietro la schiena. Non saprei dire perché. Forse per la situazione surreale, e forse perché la vecchia continuava a lanciarmi sguardi in modo morboso.
- Mi ricissi natra cosa picciottu, – la vecchia si appoggiò al mio braccio e, ingobbita, mi scrutò da sotto in su col suo occhio sano, azzurro più che mai, avvicinandosi in modo spaventoso – ma lei comu si chiama?
- Giuseppe.
- Ah mu mmagginavaa, ebbe come un sorrisetto d’oltretomba, ma era innocua. Poverina doveva essere mezza tocca per via del Parkinson.
- Ma perché mi continua a guardare così, signora? Che fa mi conosce?
- Certu ca canuscivu you! All'iniziu meravigghiavu me greatly, and taliannuti ritaliannuti, but now Sugnu naiu vistu too old and so still more meravigghiarimi. By now jug Haiui cunfirenza cu cu the dead who are alive. Aspettu sulu who u Signuri m'arricogghi Puru to mine.
accussi turnasti so! Ta vinisti to pigghiari?
Having said that there was the cross three times in a row. A tear slid on the cheek. It was quite obvious that I exchanged with someone else and that while it was completely gone with his head. Probably alternated moments of lucidity and moments of fainting. In our part of the common people is not so much for the subtle distinction in the elderly madness, extreme old age, loss memory, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease. They say that being eroded, which have the scurusi arteries, atherosclerosis, making the whole lump. That was so combined, no doubt. Nevertheless, hoping to give me a tip to find Anna gave her more rope.
- Yes, ma'am, I have come to take Anna. But I do not really live here? Or another door? Everything seems deserted courtyard ...
- Ca ca CERTU was cca. T'aspittà finu to the dead, t'aspittà. T'aspittà eternally.
- Tell me lady.
hung up talking to his melodic voice and almost falsetto.
- And who cuntari a tia? So patri era troppu tintu cu idda, ed eranu puru autri tempi. Quannu u patri ricìa no era no. Annuzza era però un ancilu e l’ancili arraggiunanu megghiu cu i cieli ca cu l’omini. Perciò quannu so patri la nchiusi a chiavi rintra a so stanza, idda si curcau e dissi chi si un putia avillu nta sta terra allura l’avissi avutu ntall’atra terra, ncelu. Si fici a cruci e dissi: sia fatta a volontà di Diu. Un vosi chiù manciari. Avogghia a matri di priarla: nun ci fu chiù nenti di fari. A picciuttedda si lassò moriri ricennu ca senza iddu nun putìa chiù campari e chi si so patri nun vulìa, macari c’era speranza ca vulìa u Patri eternu. Annuzza accussì iu narrè narrè comu u curdaru. Puru iu ci ia ogni ghiornu o capizzu du lettu a cunsularla, ma idda ripitìa sempri a stessa musica. Aspittava a iddu e dicìa ca u destinu era destinu. Doppu tri misi murìu. Era bedda di moriri puru nno lettu di morti.
- Ma il ragazzo non fece niente?
- U picciottu si scantau di minacci du patri chi era ntisu assai a u paisi d’Arcamu. E accussì pi scurdarisilla fici i valiggi e partiu a vuscarisi u pani dda ncapu. Poi urtimamenti ncuntrai a so soru o cimiteru e mi rissi ca muriu puru. Mancu iddu si maritau chiù; signali ca nun ci arriniscì a scurdarisilla, ma nun turnà chiù o paisi.
Ora ti ricanuscivu Giuseppi: tardu vinisti a pigghialla, un ci sta chiù nuddu cca. A casa però idda è, giustu ta ricordasti. But he knows or vo viriri agghiri primu cimiteru.
I was confused and upset. That crazy old woman touched my face, I shook hands. I got rid of the sick by foolish flattery. Retold a last look at house prices now abandoned and desolate in the car. My head was spinning. Fuck, I thought. I left that place quickly, such as running away, I do not even know from what. But the oppression had not abandoned me. It was not for the jacket, in the end I did not care a fig. I felt the anguish sternum. The road down below the clearing biviratura in which I had time to see two kids with muddy clothes that determination to sully a poor handicapped by the enormous head. Hydrocephalus. Accelerai. Basta. Tirai un lungo sospiro. Imboccai la strada di contrada San Gaetano e in breve mi ritrovai all’altezza del primo cimitero. Dopo la curva, lungo il rettilineo che porta al secondo cimitero, ero nel punto esatto dove avevo visto Anna la prima volta. Ebbi in un lampo un’ultima tentazione. Frenai. Un automobilista dietro – per poco non mi sbatteva – strombazzò il clacson stizzito e superandomi fece ripetutamente il gesto di toccarsi la tempia con un dito. Feci inversione e dopo cento metri posteggiai nella stradina laterale di ingresso al primo cimitero. Era l’antivigilia della festa dei morti. Entrai. Qui una pace assorta sommergeva ogni cosa. Il temporale aveva lavato le stradine interne e le lapidi. Ristagnava un odore penetrante of damp earth mixed with decaying flowers. Two old ladies tinkered with buckets and rags to clean a burial. A young widow in deep mourning, staring at the photo of her husband just died and imperceptibly rocked bust. Here is the caretaker of the cemetery next to the bee a motorcycle with three wheels. Down of wreaths and rested at the wall of the morgue where the last men in a funeral procession still lingered after the ceremony and the accompaniment of a deceased person. You could see the coffin inside the cramped room of polished wood with brass side handles and a large cross on top. The last remaining piece-meal, it did cross, saluted and went away. I did not know exactly what I tried, but I continued to wander for the cemetery was very large, old and outdated chapels, statues and monuments of every kind, even of fine workmanship. There were chapels in Arabic style, Norman, neoclassical. Stele of travertine marble crosses, saints, obelisks. I saw countless pictures of the dead, as I read many epitaphs and inscriptions devotional. Maybe I heard the bell announcing the imminent closure of the cemetery, but there I noticed and I hurried exit.
I continued to wander among the gravestones and monuments.
enter the church, passed in review the tombs, which fell at one point in the columbarium, which is in the underground catacombs of the dead poor, buried one above the other in the high walls of dark corridors and fetid. The reddish
candles cast shadows on the walls and the faces of the disturbing photos of the dancing flame seemed ominously revived.
lost track of time.
Now it was late at night. The sky was a cloudless blue and the vault of the stars was wonderful over my head.
the pale light of a full moon strangely close to the sound of crickets, the twinkle of fireflies and wisps coming out of the crevices of the oldest gravestones now grassy, \u200b\u200bwandered without thinking.
howling of dogs occasionally chased lost in the remoteness of districts in the country.
not know at what precise hour of the night was something that caught my attention, waking dal narcotizzante deambulare.
Mi sembrava una sagoma in piedi ed ebbi paura. Mi accorsi che invece era qualcosa di scuro che pendeva da una lapide. Mi avvicinai lentamente.
Con grande stupore notai che era la mia giacca.
La giacca che avevo usato per coprire le spalle tremanti di Anna.
Mi avvicinai ancora di più e guardai la tomba. Nella foto riconobbi Anna.
Era vestita esattamente come l’avevo vista poche ore prima. Riconobbi tutto, compreso il neo nella guancia. Rimasi stupefatto dalla rivelazione.
Avevo dunque incontrato un fantasma.
Ero impietrito, incapace di muovermi, di prendere qualsiasi decisione. Non riuscivo a capacitarmi di quello che mi era avvenuto.
Pensavo, cercavo di mettere in ordine my thoughts without success. They were a tangled skein. Why
the ghost had manifested to me? It was Anna that I was attracted to his grave secretly driving my thoughts? What did the ghost of me? The face of the photo seemed alive and smiling sweetly.
I was scared. Upset
turned away and walked resolutely to the search output.
Finally I had awakened from the slumber and I was winning the gloomy spell. Here there at the bottom of the main gate. Accelerated pace.
I had to climb over and save me from the atmosphere oppressive.
I reached the gate of the race. I started to climb but, my God, just grabbed the bars to give me the momentum and stand on it I realized that my body could go through the locked gate with no opposition.
I realized that I did not have a material body. I could enter and exit the gate is closed because I was made of spirit!
I realized then that I was dead and that the old district of Santu Vituzzu was not crazy.
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