She turned her head, with a cold look, almost as if she was considering who to deal with first.
I contributed to her decision because I did not want to waste time and started running desperately. I was aiming for the fence, ready to climb it.
I was too agitated, I could not think. I ended up crashing against the fence and then I tried to rise, but I had no strength. I felt her grab my shoulder and rip it. I collapsed to the ground with a scream.
Again, I was overpowered, the spade ready to hit. “Cursed meddler!”
That was when he came. He came with a leap, just between us, growling. Furiously, with hair covering him entirely, it was almost like a fur. Upright on four legs.
The growl grew and it suddenly began to bark. The barks were so acute, so strong that they made her flinch.
It was agile, it was quick, it seemed impossible that it was born just a some few minutes earlier. As the spinster moved, he did so too, so that he would always be between us to protect me.
I do not know what I understood or how I did it. But it happened at that time, because there could be no other explanation. “Spike”, whispered.
The boy did not turn.
Spike was in there, I was sure. In that body. I did not understand how it was possible but I had no doubt about it.
The Spinster retreated again.
I sat down and tried to get up. I reached out and touched it. That fur was disgusting, uncrusted with blood and mud, but I felt the skin beneath it, hot as if it had a fever.
Yes, that body wanted to live. He always wanted it. He wanted to be born. He refused to accept death.
He made a rumbling more subdued as if he recognized me and then I caressed that fur, forgetting about every other thing. That empty newborn brain had welcomed my Spike, all his memories, his essence, as if it was a sponge. Spike was still there with me, protecting me.
“You cannot exist!” the spinster screamed desperately. “You can’t be born! I am not going to allow it!”
When she ran away, I clung to Spike, preventing him from following her, I knew it would not be necessary.
The spinster hung herself that night in her bedroom. It was not a good death.
I buried my dog, right in the hole of the plum tree, then I went home.
I washed Spike, I cut off that terrible hair as well as the nails of the hands and feet. He was very helpful, he let me go about it without complaining. There was love in his eyes as he looked at me.
When I finished, it was no longer a terrifying monster, but a boy of about fifteen years, very pale and a graceful appearance. That night I took him into my room and let him sleep on my bed. He clenched at my feet with great contentment and began to snore away.
I had no idea what I was going to do with him.
The presence of the new Spike went unnoticed. The entire country was in disarray after that inexplicable suicide and for a while they forgot about my existence.
Everyone had something to say and the gossips poured in, one more absurd reason after the other. No one knew how to explain the reasons for her death.
Until in the late afternoon, they remembered me.
Dad came to call me, but he did not see Spike because I had hidden him.
He took me to the living room, where there were many men waiting for me. I knew some of them: the doctor, the pharmacist, the local policeman, the mayor. Others were strangers.
“Tell the gentlemen what you found under the plum tree, Gigi.”
After what had happened, it was undeniable that I had something to do with that death. There was also the uprooted plum tree to prove it.
There, at that instant, I had been give the only opportunity to fix things. To save Spike and myself. I had to be smart, I had to be cunning. For him.
“Wait”, I said. And I ran away, fast, leaving them open-mouthed. I went back to my room to take Spike.
I had dressed him in daddy’s clothes, which were wide and unfortunately there was no way of making him walk like a man. So, I had no choice, I had to try.
When they saw us entering they all fell silent.
I led the boy as if he was a dog: Spike followed me into the room on four legs and curled at my feet.
Dad was the first to agitate. “What does this mean? Who is this? Where did you find him?”
“He is the son of the spinster”, I replied and I repeated the words of Mom: “Of the spinster and the man who had deceived her.”
I could see they were flush, a couple of men so serious men.
“It is not possible!”, Dad said.
“She did not want it. She was hiding it”, I continued. “I do not know why she did it, but she closed it in the house, inside a closet. He cannot speak, he never went to school. I think he never came out of that house. Before last night, probably.”
They were all open-mouthed now.
“He ran away and came and asked for my help. I took him home and hid him in my room. I saw the spinster looking for him in the garden, she looked desperate. She was crying. But I don’t think she loved him. She wasn’t like someone who was devastated. He was so scared, so I did not tell her, he was here. I was wrong?”
I put on my best innocent look, the one for special occasions. Now it was time for them to fill the holes in the story. It was amazing, yes, but there was Spike as evidence of good faith. All eyes were fixed on the little boy, who behaved like a beast.
I did not add anything else so as not to overdo it. I tried to raise Spike and force him to walk on two legs while leaning against me. I took him away and nobody dared say a word.
Dad came to my room two hours later. They had been talking about it all that time.
Spike was crouched at the foot of the bed and slept quietly.
There was a strange look in Dad’s eyes as he observed us.
He sat on the edge of the bed beside me. “You’ve become friends, I see.”
I nodded.
He was very awkward. “The doctor wants to visit him. I’m afraid that poor boy needs help, a lot of help. Specialized help. His life must have been horrible, so far.” There he lowered his head, distraught with remorse.
Such a tragedy had happened under their eyes without them realizing anything. A poor child forced to live like a beast, locked in that house. Yes, the remorse destroyed Dad, and the other inhabitants of the village.
“He has to leave now, he is waiting for him. They will take good care of him, I promise you.”
This time I shook my head, I opposed my father.
“I want him to stay with us”, I said.
“Gigi…”
“He can stay with us, Dad! He can sleep here with me. We can do it. It’s not right to take him away. It’s not right!”
Dad was confused, yet he was looking at me in a completely different way. The look a man gives another man, not a child.
“I can keep it, can’t I?” I continued. “I can adopt it? Will they permit me to do it?”
“Are you certain you want to?”
It was a useless question, and he knew it.
He did not promise me anything, he just went away silently and that night Spike slept with me.
Spike stayed with us.
I do not know how dad did it, whether he adopted him or any other arrangement, but since then he became my brother. Perhaps it was remorse, because all the inhabitants of the village, wanted to resolve the problem without asking for assistance from the authorities.
In the end, we were in a different time and ours was a small village. Maybe they needed to.
One day Spike’s father also came to see him. He remained silent, standing apart, almost invisible and then later he found out he was his father. But he did not want him, he already had his family. He rejected him and remained with us.
We taught him how to be a man. Dad, mom, educators coming from far, even me. And it was sad, because the more he became like us, the more Spike’s memory within him died within.
They also gave him another name, but I
kept calling him Spike when we were alone.
He changed, he became my brother and I loved him as a brother, his mind gradually absorbed what was stored in his memory, while the daily experiences created his new personality.
But the love that binded us was permanent. Absolute fidelity and trust. And while Spike, the true Spike, disappeared day by day from his eyes, something new was created between us.
The boy had wanted to live, he had so intensely wanted to refuse death, Spike wanted him to live and he had fought for that.
Their strength was the same, their tenacity, their courage. I’ve always been proud to have him by my side.
I still am today.
March 2011
FOULWOLFE
Translation by Alfio Loreti
I still remember how everything started, how our lives suddenly changed and we found you in a nightmare.
It was late, for me at least. I was in my room trying to do my homework, because during the day I’d rather forget them and eventually I was forced to give up on television.
I was not very cheerful, then, and inattentive. Although I had been there for more than an hour, I had almost nothing done, I was lost in other thoughts.
Terry came in like a fury through the door so forcefully, that it slammed against the wall. “I saw it!”, she yelled. “I saw it!”
There were some rules between us, even though she was my sister. One of these, perhaps the most important one, was just about my room. It was off limits to her. At that time, then, it was a thousand times more forbidden.
She did not even realize what she did. “I saw it, I tell you! There’s a wolf in the woods!”
She looked like Little Red Riding Hood. With that sweaty jacket and a hood, she was just like her. “Stop it!” I shouted. “Always lying!”
“It’s true, I tell you. It’s there indeed!”
I didn’t believe her. It became dark hours ago and my parents would never let her go out alone. She had ankle boots, though, and they were muddy; during the day, it was raining.
“There is a wolf! There is a wolf!”
“Leave me alone, idiot. What the hell do you want?”
She insisted. “I swear! The wolf is in the woods! The wolf!”
To be honest there was no woods, it was us, just the kids, to call it that way. It was just a thicket in the cultivated fields, probably planted by peasants themselves (God knows for what reason). But it was in a state of abandonment, and in the midst of the trees had grown lots of shrubs, and now had become a tangle of branches and yellow leaves. It was not easy to get in plus they forbidden it.
“Go and tell dad that the wolf is there. He will believe you and he’ll go and kill him.”
“No!”, Terry shouted. “Why kill? Foulwolfe is good, he’s a friend of mine.”
“Foulwolfe?” I repeated, then I could not hold back and laughed out loud.
Terry got angry. A lot. “You’re bad, bad! I tell Foulwolfe to eat you! You’re bad, I hate you!”
You have no idea how difficult it is to have a younger sister and have to tolerate her too!
“There are no wolves, Terry, and this is not a forest. Do you see a forest somewhere? We’re in town, almost. And it’s a lowland. There are no forests and there are no wolves.” Then I tried to be reasonable. “You’ve seen a dog, surely.”
“It’s there, I tell you. There!”
She dragged me against my will as soon as we left school, without even going home.
The thicket was dark, the sky was cloudy and threatened more rain. Terry struggled to get rid of the backpack, which remained hooked to her blouse. “What do you want to do?” I asked.
“I’ll introduce you to him, so you won’t say again that I’m a liar!”
I felt a bit of anxiety at the idea of getting in there. The trees were so dense that the sun could not even penetrate. It was a strip of green, about twenty meters wide and at least a hundred long, dividing two cultivated fields. There was not even a fence to protect it, because no one with a healthy mind would have ventured in there.
“I can’t step through”, I said, though it was clearly an excuse.
“Just be careful. I’m going in easily.”
“You are smaller.”
And it was true. Terry was only eight, and I was four years older. She was much smaller than me.
I helped her, though, because she was tearing off her dress, and I released her from the backpack she was carrying on her back. I put it on the ground next to mine.
“Then I go alone”, she told me, reasonably. “I tell him to come and meet you. But you don’t mess with me, don’t go away. Wait for me.”
“Terry…” I started, but I didn’t know what to say. Was it frightening to see her going in there? A little bit, but I didn’t want her to know. I had been there a lot of times, but early in the summer, before all those shrubs filled it. Sometimes it really looked like a forest.
“Foulwolfe!” Terry started to shout, disappearing into the vegetation. “Foulwolfe!”
I couldn’t see her anymore and I became afraid. Fear that it was true that she said the truth. Not that there was a wolf, of course, but a stray dog, perhaps angry.
“Terry, come back here, I believe you anyway. They are waiting for us to eat. They will get angry!”
I felt terribly uncomfortable, as if those trees were looking at me. I was even tempted to leave.
The road was a couple hundred meters away, and it was very busy. Not far from there was our house, a beautiful villa. There were not many homes nearby, we were already in the suburbs. In center town, we could not afford a home like that, dad always said it.
“He’s not there!”
I almost screamed. She approached me from behind, she froze me. As she picked up the backpack, she asked me candidly, “What do you think, will he go to school too?”
I swallowed an insult because I couldn’t wait to get out from there. I grabbed her hand and dragged her away as she complained.
I managed to never turn around.
“Foulwolfe doesn’t like cars, He hates them. He says they are dangerous.”
Two days were gone and we were having breakfast. We did, at least, Terry was just playing with cereals.
“Terry has a new friend”, I said to my father, trying to read the newspaper. “It’s a wolf.”
Mom giggled as she cooked the pancakes. That’s how I remember her, with her flowery apron, the perfect mother in a commercial. “There are no more wolves here, they have disappeared for over a century.”
“I told her! But she doesn’t want to believe me.”
Dad folded the newspaper and seemed to return to reality. “Who is your new friend, Teresa? Can we meet him?”
Terry was very serious, maybe she was considering whether we were making fun of her. “He doesn’t like you”, she mumbled.
Our parents exchanged a perplexed look.
Dad was immediately concerned. “He doesn’t like us? Why? Do we know him already? What’s he like?”
I snorted, because it seemed to me to be in a madhouse. “It’s a wolf, did you not hear me?” Then the common sense prevailed again. “There must be some dog that she hides. And in the evening, she brings him something to eat.”
I also considered the idea of talking to him about the woods, but then I changed my mind, because I could get myself in trouble for bringing her there.
Mom was also concerned. “A dog, Teresa? A stray dog? I told you so many times to stay away from it! You have no idea how many diseases they can carry!”
And Dad: “Where is he? Let me see where you hide it. I won’t do anything to him, I promise.”
Terry looked at me with hate, ascribing me the cause of all her troubles, as it was. Too bad, she should have remained silent.
“He has a house!” she shouted. “He comes here only because he’s my friend!”
It did not quiet anyone. Dad stood up. “I’m going to have a look around before I leave to work.”
&nbs
p; Mom opted for a more diplomatic solution: she sat next to Terry and found a melodious, silken voice.
“My little girl doesn’t need any dog, she already has us to love her so much. Would you like to have canaries? We can go together to buy them if you want. A couple, wouldn’t that be amazing? You could name them.”
I ran away before throwing up.
Foulwolfe did not come out. Dad didn’t find anything. He even went up to my room to have a conversation, man to man, as he said.
I could only tell him what I knew, and it was not much. Indeed, I had never seen any animal. I talked to him about the woods though, and that Saturday, his day off, he was wearing gloves and shears and went to slaughter the shrubs.
About Foulwolfe, still nothing.
It could have went back to normal, as Terry had stopped talking about it, if I hadn’t had an urgent need. That day it was hot again and I drunk a lot of frozen drinks. At midnight, therefore, I found myself with two choices: either wetting my bed or run to the bathroom. Obviously, I chose the second.
Passing in front of Terry’s room I heard her talking. The door was closed, so it was impossible to understand what she was saying, but she was talking to someone. At times, it seemed to me that the voices were more than one. And I was close to come back to the first choice: wet myself. Terry had been obsessed with her Foulwolfe story, so whoever her interlocutor was, he was a disturbing presence anyway.
In the bathroom, I clung to logic again. How stupid have I been! With Terry there could be none other than mom or dad. She probably woke up from a bad dream and went to call them.
Again, in front of her door, I did not dare lower the handle. Then I went to my parents’ room. I tried to make no noise as I looked into their bedroom.
Unfortunately, they were there, both of them, deep asleep.
I left the door wide open and ran away like a bolt. I slid into my room and even locked the key door (although I was forbidden from doing so).
Then it was a horrible night, filled with nightmares.
“I heard you tonight. Was it him?”
The Prison Page 16
