‘Let’s get going,’ said his wife impatiently, as if to a child. Perhaps she could sense the waves of Anger emanating from me.
For a while he pretended not to hear, but then he went up to the car, removed all the tackle from his head, and set aside the shotgun.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked him, for nothing else occurred to me.
‘What about you?’ he said, without looking at me.
His wife was putting on her sandal and settling in the driver’s seat.
‘I live here,’ I replied coldly.
‘Ah, you’re the lady with those two dogs…We’ve told you before to keep them close to the house.’
‘They’re on private land…’ I began, but he interrupted me. The whites of his eyes gleamed ominously in his blackened face.
‘For us there’s no such thing as private land, madam.’
That was two years ago, when I was still finding things easier. I had forgotten about this encounter with Innerd. What did he matter? But later on, a fast-moving planet had suddenly crossed an invisible point and a change had occurred, one of the kind we’re not aware of down here. Perhaps tiny signs reveal this sort of cosmic event to us, but we don’t notice them either – someone has stepped on a twig lying on the path, a bottle of beer has cracked in the freezer when someone forgot to remove it in time, or two red fruits have fallen from a wild rose bush. How could we possibly understand it all?
It’s clear that the largest things are contained in the smallest. There can be no doubt about it. At this very moment, as I write, there’s a planetary configuration on this table, the entire Cosmos, if you like: a thermometer, a coin, an aluminium spoon and a porcelain cup. A key, a mobile phone, a piece of paper and a pen. And one of my grey hairs, whose atoms preserve the memory of the origins of life, of the cosmic Catastrophe that gave the world its beginning.
X
CUCUJUS HAEMATODES
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.
By early June the houses were inhabited, at the weekends at least, but I was still taking my duties quite seriously. For instance, at least once a day I’d go up the hill and conduct my usual surveillance through binoculars. First I’d monitor the houses, of course. In a sense, houses are living creatures that coexist with Man in exemplary symbiosis. My heart swelled with joy, for now it was plain to see that their symbionts had returned. They had filled the empty interiors with their comings and goings, the warmth of their own bodies, their thoughts. Their dainty hands were mending all the little cuts and bruises left by the winter, drying out the damp walls, washing the windows and fixing the ballcocks. Now the houses looked as if they had awoken from the deep sleep into which material sinks when it’s not disturbed. Plastic tables and chairs had already been carried into the front yards, the wooden shutters had been opened, and finally the Sunlight could get inside. At the weekends smoke rose from the chimneys. The Professor and his wife appeared more and more often, always in the company of friends. They’d walk along the road – they never ventured onto the field boundaries. They went on a daily post-prandial walk to the chapel and back, stopping on the road, deep in conversation. Occasionally, when the wind was blowing from their direction, the odd word would reach me: Canaletto, chiaroscuro, tenebrism.
Every Friday the Wellers started to show up too. In unison, they set about tearing up the plants that had been growing around their house until now, in order to plant others that they’d bought at a shop. It was hard to tell what logic was driving them, why they didn’t like elderberry, but preferred wisteria in its place. One time, standing on tiptoes to look at them over their enormous fence, I told them the wisteria probably wouldn’t survive the February frosts here, but they just smiled, nodded and went on doing their thing. They cut down a beautiful wild rose and ripped up some clumps of thyme. They arranged some stones to build a fanciful mound in front of the house, and planted it with conifers, as they put it: ornamental cedars, creeping pine, dwarf cypresses and firs. Utterly pointless, to my mind.
The Grey Lady was coming for longer stays by now, and I’d see her walking along the field boundaries at a slow pace, stiff as a post. One evening I went to her house with the keys and the repair bills. She offered me some herbal tea. To be polite, I drank it. Once we had finished settling the accounts, I dared to ask a question.
‘If I wanted to write my memoirs, how would I go about it?’ I said, sounding confused.
‘You must sit at the table and force yourself to write. It’ll come of its own accord. You mustn’t censor yourself. You must write down everything that comes into your head.’
Strange advice. I wouldn’t want to write down ‘everything’. I’d only like to write down the things that I find good and positive. I thought she was going to say more, but she didn’t. I felt disappointed.
‘Disappointed?’ she asked, as if she could read my thoughts.
‘Yes.’
‘When one can’t speak, one should write,’ she said. ‘It helps a lot,’ she added, and fell silent. The wind grew stronger, and now we could see the trees outside swaying steadily to the rhythm of inaudible music, like the audience at a concert in an amphitheatre. Upstairs a draught slammed a door shut. As if someone had fired a shot. The Grey Lady shuddered.
‘Those noises upset me – it’s as if everything here were alive!’
‘The wind always makes that noise. I’ve grown used to it,’ I said.
I asked her what sort of books she wrote, and she replied horror stories. That pleased me. I must definitely introduce her to Good News, they’re sure to find plenty to talk about. They’re links in the same chain. Anyone who’s capable of writing things like that must be a courageous Person.
‘And does evil always have to be punished at the end?’ I asked.
‘I don’t care about that. I’m not concerned with punishment. I just like to write about frightening things. Maybe because I’m so fearful myself. It does me good.’
‘What happened to you?’ I asked, emboldened by the falling Dusk, and pointed at the orthopaedic collar around her neck.
‘Degeneration of the cervical vertebrae,’ she said impassively, as if telling me about a broken domestic appliance. ‘Evidently my head is too heavy. That’s how it seems to me. My head’s too heavy. My vertebrae can’t hold up the weight of it, so crunch, crunch, they degenerate.’
She smiled and poured me some more of the awful tea.
‘Don’t you feel lonely here?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes.’
‘I admire you. I wish I were like you. You’re brave.’
‘Oh no, I’m not in the least brave. It’s a good thing I have something to do here.’
‘I feel uneasy without Agata too. The world here is so large, so impossible to take in,’ she said, fixing her gaze on me for a few seconds, testing me. ‘Agata is my wife.’
I blinked. I had never heard one woman referring to another as ‘my wife’ before. But I liked it.
‘You’re surprised, aren’t you?’
I thought for a while.
‘I could have a wife too,’ I said with conviction. ‘It’s better to live with someone than alone. It’s easier to go through life together than on one’s own.’