The legacy

by Quelli di ZEd

  "I have no idea, I never use it" confessed Bob.

  "I believe that the SIM will be deactivated," said Erika. He pulled his phone from her purse and copied the number from the phonebook of Cristina 3310. "I feel with my own."

  "What an idiot I am!" Roberto is autoaccusò. "Willy-nilly I realize that you can not live without mobile phone." He accelerated to go with the orange light and a stop to avoid inappropriate. "Respond?"

  Erika shook her head. "Rings, but does not respond. You may have left home, started the race ... "He hung up, disconsolate.

  "It would be the first time she goes out without a phone, but the situation justifies it," admitted Robert. "Nothing, then continue towards the campus and hopefully well. You know where exactly? "

  "No, not exactly, but ..."

  "We will follow the directions, ok." Roberto accelerated further: was it worth risking even a fine for speeding, just to reach Cristina. He only hoped not to find a patrol and having to stop. "Erika?"

  "Yes?" To counter the tension was rearranging the number of Cristina.

  "Thanks," murmured Roberto.

  "What?"

  "By being here. By contacting me. For making me discover this story, which is a terrible thing, but ... "

  "The honors" Erika finished for him. "At Simona, I mean."

  "Yes," he confirmed. "It would be better if he were still here, but ... died for a just cause, died as the winner. "

  "You said well, it would be better if he were still here," remarked Erika.

  "Undoubtedly. But at least ... "

  "Wait!" Erika suddenly interrupted him, making him jump. "Pull over!"

  "Why? What is it? We can not ... "but in the meantime, slammed on the brakes and was positioned at the roadside.

  "We must be mistaken," said Erika. "If I were Christine, in a situation so absurd, I would go by the only person who could maybe give me some more explanation and clear my head."

  Roberto lit in turn, wondering how they had not thought of right away. "Isa" he said.

  "Exactly. She told the truth to Simon and can confirm it to Cristina, who always ... "

  "Yeah, that always magically come back wanting to talk." But Roberto thought that probably already knew the real cause of the silence of his mother-in-law. "Come on!" He turned and began to travel towards Torvinaia.

  It did not take much more than a quarter of an hour, if they had not really met a patrol of Carabinieri, which made them slow. Roberto tried to explain its urgency but there was no listening. "They all say so," taunted the policeman, while calmly wrote down her license data, unaware that it was writing the fate of an unfortunate girl of nineteen.

  ***

  "Listen, I do not know what you have told your mother, but ..." Isa responded, visibly in distress.

  "Grandma, tell me what else are you afraid?" Urged the Cristina, again beside her. From the kitchen came the inviting smell of the sauce Olga, which caused a rumbling stomach. "I no longer have to fear anything, if I had not yet figured out I'm pregnant and games are made."

  "Oh yeah?" Said Isa, who evidently had not drawn the right conclusions. "And you have ..."

  "No, I have not told him to tell the truth I have not told anyone, not even Dad. I wanted him to be the first to know, before Daniel or whatever his name is ... but I had not yet found the courage and the right words. I have time, but ... "

  "What are you waiting to tell him? Run, grit your teeth and then it's all over! 'Isa had taken heart and finally was watching his grandson in the eye. He had feared that the story of Simona had come fast enough to stop his plans and that Cristina would have had to endure violence worse than those that normally would be allocated. Because if he had not obtained what he sought spontaneously, if they would be taken by force.

  "That's what I'm going to do," she lied Cristina, to play along and ride the wave of euphoria Isa. "But even before knowing the final aspect of the story. Tell me the truth, there is something that has to do with his grandfather? With ... our husbands? "

  Isa bowed his head. She folded her hands in her lap and inhaling it took courage. "Your mother probably told you, or always write my version of his name was Francis. It happened to me exactly what happened to Simon and you will only change the dynamics because they were different times, nothing ... "

  "I know, Grandma, but vai point."

  "I'm sorry. After ... after I had, say, duped and taken what was ... "

  "I know, Grandma, do not you look around the bush, I know it all."

  "Be patient, it is not easy. Anyway, so, when I returned from my mother in tears and told me what was behind I thought the worst was over. I should just live with the thought of having to tell the same things to my daughter one day, and especially with the idea that she would have to experience the same pain that I could not move a finger, but I thought the worst was the same as I had just experienced. "

  "But?"

  "But ..."

  ***

  If he had to find an exact date when the new part of the nightmare had begun, Isa would traced back to 1985, about a year after Simon had fallen victim to Fabrizio. And the triggering event was a terrible dream that would never be forgotten, if only for the tragic consequences it had.

  In that dream was walking with her husband, Aldo, which is already quite strange, because I often dreamed of. Hand in hand, traveling along a gravel path with trees on both sides, in a beautiful autumn day, dominated by the color yellow, which pervaded the atmosphere like a fairy dust that had settled everywhere. Isa had experienced the joy that came from that romantic moment and, at the height of happiness and love, she stopped to kiss Aldo. He turned and looked at her with love, but her face had changed.

  It was Francis. It was him .

  Isa had awakened with a start, scared, afraid for a moment to be back to live in the worst period of his life, one where he met Francis and was aware of the absurd where his family curse. Within seconds, in which he breathed heavily, his heart seemed to have come out from his chest, were sufficient to testimoniarle that it was all a dream. She turned to Aldo, who was fast asleep leaning on its side and had not noticed anything, and had bent forward to see that it was indeed him and that his face had not changed. She felt stupid to make sure that everything was OK and was put back to sleep.

  But there was only the beginning.

  A few weeks later, Aldo had gone home by yet another business trip. Isa had heard the car into the garage and called Simon at the table. She was happy and carefree that night: it was a Saturday and the next day they would all be together for the entire day. He had strange thoughts for the head and the episode of Simon and Fabrizio and remorse for not having ever told the truth, which often tormented her, it was oddly done by some time. Nothing, in short, would have justified a possible trick of his mind.

  Therefore almost gave a shriek when the kitchen window, he saw Francis. Although it is dark outside, the driveway leading from the garage to the front door was illuminated by a pair of lamps, so there was no doubt. With a thousand thoughts that were taking shape in his mind, he started to run upstairs and locked in a room with Simon, in an attempt to understand what he was doing and to seek a solution.

  But he had not had time to take a step that the door was open and Aldo was entered. "What has happened?" He had asked her husband, immediately noticing her shocked expression.

  "I ... I thought I saw someone outside ... "she stammered Isa, indicating the window.

  "I am" he assured Aldo, looking sideways. "I've just been there, have not you heard the garage?"

  "Oh," he concluded Isa. "How stupid of me ... I'll be confused ... "He smiled, then Simona was down from upstairs and threw her arms around the neck of Aldo and the tension was dissolved. But the soul of Isa had set in motion a mechanism that would turn its gears for years.

  Between 1985 and 1988 the occasions when Isa had the feeling to revise her husband Francis had multiplied alarmingly, reaching a peak of more frequently when they were already married Simon and Ro
berto and Cristina had almost a year. In some of these episodes, which did not affect the more his dreams at night, but took place in broad daylight, in different situations, Isa had found a step from lashing out against her husband, not recognizing it as such, and fearing that somehow him you were making fun of her.

  His mental stability had been severely tested. He spent whole nights awake wondering if the same time giving the brain or the psychological trauma he suffered as a girl was not only now showing its consequences. It had come to assume to be examined by a doctor, for fear of having a brain tumor that they cause hallucinations. He never thought of being a victim of yet another rule , because his mother had never mentioned anything.

  The story escalated in the summer of 1988. In July alone, Isa had identified with Francesco Aldo least once a day, often several times a day. His rationality was rapidly failing, and she became aware that it could not sustain much longer. She was convinced that someday he would feel an irresistible impulse to attack and then Aldo should have found a good explanation, though he did not want Aldo deem the dead or, worse, or he would be forced to also tell him the truth. Thing that would prompt you to contact Aldo on the spot the best psychiatrist in the area.

  Then, in the late afternoon of a day in early August, the worst happened. Aldo, who was on holiday, had made up his mind to climb on the roof of the house to clean up and fix the antenna, convinced he could get a better reception from local channels to follow in his spare time he loved. Isa did not agree, he would find more appropriate to contact an antenna and still did not see the need for this intervention. But Aldo knew and he knew that if you put something on his head there was no way to make him desist.

  So, worried, had followed him with his eyes as he climbed the high ladder that led up to her roof. Urging him countless times to be careful where he put his foot - at fifty years Aldo was still as good as a kid, but you could never rest easy - he had watched as he moved between the tiles. "There's everything up here," she commented.

  "Come on, do 'in a hurry," she cried Isa, apprehensive.

  "You should tell me when you see better, as you move the antenna" Francis had suggested.

  "Okay, but be careful where you step," she replied Isa, moving to go to the kitchen and turn on the TV monitor. But after a few steps she stopped. It happened again. Aldo had become Francis. A deep depression took hold of her immediately. And a great fear, too. He went back and looked up to the roof. The man who would have been her husband had his back. She called him.

  ***

  "Keith?"

  Isa is waiting at the foot of the ladder, his face turned toward the sky as if he were watching a fireworks display. But there is nothing so nice to see what he fears. He feels that the knees tremble and threaten to make her fall to the ground to the tension, but he should know, should occur.

  The man on the roof again. It is Francis. It's him . "What is it?" He mutters.

  Isa remains silent and inactive. Should say or do something, like he always does on these occasions, not to alarm Aldo, but fails. He feels that today is different, now that his mind is not to draw absurd hallucinations. What we face today has really Francis, as young as forty years ago, wearing the clothes of Aldo.

  "What do you want?" Shouts yet. "What the fuck you doing standing there? I asked you to go and turn on the television! Oh! You move? "

  That language and attitude are typical of Aldo but Isa did not fall into the trap. It's all part of his plan to put it into confusion. Probably it was so from the beginning: Aldo has never really existed, it was always just a cover with which Francis had brought out his diabolical plan. This explains how she manages to make sure that the elder women of the line is always a female, he is the father, he also said that these rules.

  But now he has reached the limit.

  Isa is off the scale and pretends to return home. The man on the roof of welcoming his decision with an exclamation satisfied and back to work on the antenna. Isa makes sure that is turning back and shoulders, with stealthy step, pervaded by a new force and a decision that has never experienced before, back at the foot of the ladder. Staring straight man, begins to rise, slowly, one rung after another, trying not to hear.

  After a few seconds on the roof. Remains standing straight, arms at his sides, staring at the figure before her china. From that sees the houses in the neighborhood, within which women they will be preparing dinner for their families. Isa envies, because right now it is convinced of not having a family, that they never had, to have been duped for years by a demonic being. A gust of air from the front of the fringe deviation, highlighting the curved eyebrows in an expression of pure hatred.

  "Where the fuck ..." the man mutters to himself. "So?" Shouts, raising his voice and turning slightly. Probably sees a shadow and frightened, because it spits a terrible blasphemy but has no time to say other words. Isa is beside him and with a force alien to her takes him by the shoulders and throws him violently over the edge of the roof. It is a moment. Aldo fell sprawling, without finding the strength to cry, so much has been taken by surprise. While copper disappears behind the gutter, her eyes meet those of Isa and seem to ask: "Why?".

  Isa takes a step forward. It protrudes from the roof and watch the body of Aldo lying in the garden, one leg bent in an unnatural way, and a puddle of blood that extends below the head. He smiles. He feels free now took its revenge for everything. He turns and begins to descend. When it reaches the earth, dedicates another look distracted her former husband, then back into the house and sits on the couch.

  ***

  "You ... you kill your grandfather? "Cristina said incredulously. He was sitting during the story, because he feared not to hold the excess of emotions that this day was the reserving.

  "Not really," he defended himself Isa. "It was not me, at that time. It was ... "He hesitated, because finding the right words to explain it was a business and in that case could not even refer to those used by his mother.

  "Even him?" Cristina shook her head. "I ... I begin not to understand, not to believe ... In short, it seems that he controls everything and everyone that comes into us, that decides our destiny, our actions. "

  "I do not know what to say," apologized Isa. "If there is an explanation for what I did, I can not give it to you, because my mother was already dead at the time and I had never mentioned anything before. What I know is that I remember now what happened, but in those moments I was absent, passive spectator of my actions. Only half an hour later I came back to me and I realized what had happened. "

  "And how did you not get caught?"

  "It was not difficult: I called an ambulance and told that his grandfather had fallen from the roof while trying to fix the antenna. I called your mother and told her the same thing. No one ever suspected a thing, there was no reason, and could in no way due to my involvement. I was desperate, but convinced her not to reveal the truth, because I was certain of not being guilty of being a pawn in the hands of a Higher Power. "

  "And who tells you that your mind was not to gamble away a bad joke?" Objected Cristina. "You yourself told me that he thought about the psychological consequences of trauma when you were nineteen and ..."

  "The fact is that a part of me had always expected it would happen sooner or later such a thing."

  "What do you mean?"

  Isa looked down. "As a child witnessed the murder of my grandfather at the hands of my grandmother."

  "Madam, is almost ready," announced Olga overlooking the entrance hall. He was holding a wooden spoon in one hand and was smiling, of course unaware of the speeches that were taking place between Isa and Cristina. "Will you stop for lunch, too?" He added, turning to the girl.

  "Olga, let alone a moment, when we're done I'll catch 'Isa dismissed her in no uncertain terms. "Thank you."

  Olga's eyes widened in an expression of pure wonder and his mouth widened into a smile so wide as to seem unnatural. "Speak again," he said. Then he turned to Cristina with a look full of gratitude and wit
h tears in his eyes. "Good girl, Christina. Riusita you're good. "Then he turned and returned to the kitchen.

  Isa began to establish his niece. "Your mother has never known anything of what I'm saying," he continued, softly. "Or rather, he knows a different version. In short, when I was a child and I lived with my parents and my grandparents, I had five years, I forget ... One afternoon I went into my grandfather's room to wake him from his nap. Usually you wake up alone, but that day was late. In order not to disturb him, slowly opened the door of his room and looked out, careful to be silent. What I saw shocked me so much that my mind drew him as a child in an imaginative way and only later realized the truth, as incredible. In the room there was also my grandmother and she was standing by the window, motionless, staring at my grandfather who was sleeping. I will never forget his face in those moments, an empty face, devoid of any feeling, that made her look like a totally different person from what I knew, who knew everyone. He wore a black dress that made her skin seem even whiter, like a specter. Something in his attitude caused me to not enter the room but I was watching curiously. Maybe I was out and I had come to play! Because ... "Her eyes grew bright. "... After a while 'grandmother arose and went to his side of the bed. He took a pillow. He walked around the bed and put her on the side of my grandfather and ... with a decision, a force and a frightening rage pushed the cushion against the face of his grandfather and incredibly managed not to throw himself off the bed when he began to squirm and throat, ... and ... "

  "I understand, my grandmother, I understand," he tried to stop and calm Cristina, who was sharing his pain as if for help on the first person to murder.

  "And in the end I saw the body of his grandfather and grandmother relax lift the pillow and throw him on his side of the bed. How to ... as having the feeling of being watched she turned and saw me, and my grandmother was still, the good, kind person I knew and was even crying. He called me by name and invited me to come in and when I reached it, I cried, I hugged her and said, 'My grandfather is dead, Isa, my grandfather is gone, he had a heart attack in his sleep' and I I said nothing for a long time that was also my truth and I was actually convinced of not having seen what I had seen but had had a hallucination. "