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Lead Petals

Page 12

by Quelli di ZEd


  13

  The summer he was dissolving and it already welcomed the insistent court in the autumn. Pietro was extended in his/her bed. The hematoma was reabsorbed and the ribs didn't ache him anymore. In that days you/he/she had thought so much. If you/he/she had not been forced in bed you/he/she would have been easier to deceive his/her thoughts, but the loneliness of the room was as a trusted friend to which is decided to tell his/her own secret. A friend that doesn't need words, a friend that listens to the thoughts and he/she picks them up for what I/you/they am, without ever judging. Geneva had pretended to know what it was us his/her father next to the house of Lucio. There had been a power on clash. Pietro had put her in front of the truth and you/he/she had confessed her to know about his/her relationship with Lucio. Geneva was confined in his/her room for two days without giving explanations and Pietro you/he/she had considered per diem some official engagement between his/her daughter and Daniel Minghetti: the day of the pact with the engineer.

  That morning of almost one year before, to midday in point, Pietro and Geneva you/they had crossed the spiazzo of levelling, an enormous expanse that was busy once from a hill in which his/her children went to play to hide-and-seek. The thirst of progress you/he/she had swept away that knoll as drought that putrefà a ceppaia of mushrooms. From the humus of that log an only great mushroom had been born: the building of the direction, that had risen since 1870 there, built on commission from Giovanni Anthony Sanna, the man that had started the extraction of the modern times in the mines.

  The building already jumped from the road. The three floors the sopraelevavano in comparison to the rest of the inhabited area and the classical forms and neorinascimentali, typical of the end of the eight hundred, conferred him an authoritarian manner. Pietro had beaten twice the big lead ring on the leaf fixed to the front door. Geneva was dressed of white. It held the joined hands under the life because it felt him in embarrassment. A woman from the blonde hair and the green eyes had immediately opened. Pietro had thought that she was checking for a long time already them from the spioncino, otherwise rapidity would not be explained with which had opened the front door. You/he/she could not be said that it was very beautiful but under the maid apron it made a certain effect, and its smile was reassuring.

  «I pray, marshal, the ingegner Minghetti and his/her family attend you in the room from lunch!» you/he/she had been the invitation of the woman.

  You/they had followed her. Of side you/they were unthread to a vast cloister that seemed the courtyard of a monastery. A parvis with the decorated times surrounded him/it. The motives to grotesque some attics were sketches of mascheroni, hammers, weapons and lamps that melted beautifully him in without logic.

  The woman had conducted them above a ramp of staircases. You/they had crossed a corridor that, giving on the cloister, from the ample windows it received the special light of the day. Then you/they had come in one of the so many stays that were untied to repetition for rooms and rooms, furnished in style liberty and revival from couples of tables to circle, slacker and couches in dark wood and reddish velvet, carpets of unimaginable dimensions, clocks to pendulum and splendid withdrawn by the gilded frames.

  Geneva frantically looked around him. He/she wondered if you/he/she would ever have gotten used to belong to all that wealth. If to Pietro the guesthouse was seemed a distant place by the reality of Montevecchio, the building of the direction it owed for strength to be himself/herself/themselves to years light from the earth, on another planet, on Neptune.

  From when the Montecatini. Montevecchio had taken possession of the mines, the building of the direction had exclusively been used for reunions of business and never as residence, thing that instead in past you/he/she had happened with the family of Giovanni Anthony Sanna. The ingegner Minghetti for that occasion had made a tear to the rule, recruiting a small army of cooks and waiters.

  The great tavolata extended him along the whole room from lunch. Only two small spaces were clear of to the extremities, correct that few to be allowed the waiters to comfortably transit without risks. A splendid belief almost served as pedestal to a service of dishes in ceramics of end eight hundred that, with his shining white of blue, embellished in full a wall of the room. From the opposite part a stately clock to pendulum from the French intarsiatures projected its shade on the table, because of the great window that lay to its shoulders. To the left it jumped a fireplace in stone that served as base to a series of clocks and figurines.

  In front of that shine that brought to the Fastis of the past, Pietro had been senseless. The ingegner Minghetti already sat to capotavola, to the extremity with the pendulum and the window to the shoulders. A tablecloth of white silk lined the table. Above of it they rested flat of ceramics and wine glasses of crystal. The silver silver wares almost shone as the chandelier that, amazing, spioveva from the ceiling in a cluster of diamonds.

  Minghetti had gotten up. A belt from the buckle squares in steel it tightened his life. He/she wore a black uniform proper arrecante in correspondence of the heart the symbol of the bundle littorio. You/he/she was made meeting to Geneva moving his/her boots of black skin to half leg. After a half bow you/he/she had kissed her hand. «This is not really my house but it is as if the were. And my house is also your house, madams Geneva!»

  Geneva had blushed and you/he/she had thanked with fear. The ingegner Minghetti was an introverted and gallant type with the women, different from what instead pretended the maximum one from his/her miners. Its exaggerated applications had done him/it hate from the totality of the maestranzes that you/they held him/it a despot. "Phillip", his/her name, every mule had been buckled to that transited in the mines, to mock him/it.

  Phillip Minghetti had a myth: the Duce Benito Mussolini. He/she adored him/it to the point to idolize him/it. It tried to resemble him in everything and for everything, from the attire to the manias of greatness, and he/she dreamt to meet him/it. It used the stivalonis of heel skin stop to implore the defect of the stature that for a long time tormented him/it. Its hair was grizzled from the sideburns up to the height of the ears, then some sunny silvery hair appeared only in the black cuttlefish shiny of grease. It had the face of a beautiful man, with some thin but severe features; the light stempiatura, put back in evidence by the taut hair-style to the, it did him/it seem an officer of the army.

  Pietro had greeted him/it shaking his hand. A vigorous hold, as it was used to do. In turn, Daniel had greeted Pietro and as you/he/she had been his/her father you/he/she was bent for kissing the hand in Geneva. Mrs Clotilde Minghetti had observed from an angle of the kitchen. Inside his/her blue suit all draperies it seemed a duchess of the London living rooms. His had been some glances draconiane, worried about everything except whether to pretend that that engagement was of his/her pleasure. Lengthening the arm granted the privilege to make the hand be kissed to the marshal. Its hair was curly and blonds, a lion mane. It was certainly taller than his/her husband and to file that discrepancy used only low heels. Also the face was beautiful. The eyes and the mouth were the portrait of Daniel. Clotilde smiled in Geneva in glacial way.

  You revive from the red velvet of the stuffing, the chairs seemed so many real thrones. A waiter with an apron tied up vinaccio to the life had made to crawl back to the one of it, removing her/it from the table. Pietro was inserted in the empty space. The waiter had provveduto to again approach the chair allowing to take a seat him to capotavola, in front of the engineer. Repeating that same manoeuvre, other three waiters had made to arrange the rest of the presents. Nobody was risked to touch the chair of Phillip, he didn't appreciate too much the servility, even if well paid.

  Now that could look the engineer in face, Pietro had almost labored to distinguish its lines of the face, as much you/he/she was the length of the tavolata. He/she thought that with all that waiters around in the room you/he/she would have had to howl for joining in conversation. You was wrong. They had to whether to do with personal qualified that would
have been able to open some oysters or to uncork a bottle of good wine without making the least noise. The peak of the noise would have been the weak clatter of the ceramics dishes grazed by the silver silver wares.

  «As he/she sees, Marshal, has decided today to exclusively deign me of your company, depriving me and depriving you of the presence of those that she defines" leccaculo." People that however it does him in four to maintain he/she lives the mines and to give job to almost quattromila people. But to her this escapes, it is not so?» Phillip had begun, instantly putting to uneasiness Pietro.

  The temperature of the room had lowered of quite a lot degrees. The voices turned to the quick one to Montevecchio. Pietro had used that terms against August Taris, one of the executives of the mine, the same with the house that stinked of merda of dog. August Taris had made to crush to blood a miner found in possession of some silver gram that would have tried then to sell underhand.

  «You/he/she has invited only me to take him his/her small personal revenge or is there also the desire to know his/her future daughter-in-law? However thanks for the immense moralism that you have just perpetuated in my conscience» Pietro had answered with a spoonful of caustic words.

  Minghetti had frowned. You/he/she had not gotten used to be cross, yet once so much found him/it stimulating.

  Geneva felt the hand of Daniel tighten his. Clotilde Minghetti was astounded from the arrogance of Pietro and didn't succeed in putting mouth in that discourse.

  Phillip Minghetti smiled. «To his/her time, marshal. Let's enjoy now us this pranzetto, we will have the opportunity of knowing us and to make a long talk!» Producing a gun with the fingers had started the traffic of waiters and dishes.

  The tavolata had been prepared with meats, olives and cheeses, over that with mussels and bottarga of mullet. Pietro rolled the eyes and he asked where the engineer had retrieved those delicacies. Him, that however was not a poor thing, to make himself/herself/themselves an only beefsteak had to also sell himself/herself/themselves the soul.

  You/they had eaten in silence, having as only company the annoying sound of the them same to chew. Among the malloredduses to the campidanese and he/she knows cassopa of fish, Clotilde had lifted for the first time the look from his/her dish. «I know that his/her wife is dead of epilepsy!»

  The silence had wound the room as a bench of fog. Pietro had struck by lightning Clotilde with the look. Daniel did the same. Geneva tightened strong his/her napkin and you/he/she had lowered the look to the feet of the table; a horrible question was seemed her by to do to a party of engagement.

  The face of Pietro didn't show anger, only sadness. «Yes, Barbaric it is dead many years ago» you/he/she had confirmed.

  Clotilde, after having frowning the forehead, had raged. «I have felt that this type of illness could be hereditary. Is it really this way?» His was the disdainful tone that is used for getting further an old drunkard, sordid and malodorous of stale alcohol and piss.

  They seemed the premises for a morganatic marriage, even if in that bond sovereigns and thrones didn't exist to preserve. Daniel had lifted of release. Its chair staggered and there was missed little that fell to earth. «Mother, I don't allow you of.»

  «Daniel, not to turn anymore with this tone to your mother!» you/he/she had howled the engineer lifting in turn himself/herself/itself and interrupting him/it.

  Daniel was still standing. «But dad!»

  To that point Pietro was inserted in the family diatribe. «Take a seat, Daniel, prays you. Your father is right, you should not use these tones with your mother. Seem me correct that meets as the things they are.»

  Geneva would be liked to bury, it had there instead star to feel.

  «You want to know if Geneva is epileptic? Do you want to know if you/he/she could have epileptic children?»

  Even the waiters were stopped and it were enfeebled also the light tinkling of silver wares and glasses. Clotilde waited starving the answer.

  «The epilepsy is still an illness all to discover, even if some scientists have advanced some theories. However I answer her, lady: Geneva is of certain epileptic and his/her mother was also it. This fact could humiliate the heredity and therefore you/he/she could conceive epileptic children. A care doesn't exist, it is not said that lives for a long time and I wonder me if now this fantastic party of engagement can be continued» you/he/she had said Pietro everything of a breath; it shaking the head.

  Geneva smiled at him grille. The waiters had smelled the brackish odor of the storm and you/they were put again to replace the dishes from the table. Phillip had been stricken from the audacity of Pietro. Instead Clotilde had not said anything for the rest of the lunch.

  In many aspects of their character, Pietro and Phillip they were resembled. One made the affairs of the mines, the other those of the law. They carried out at the most to their assignments some possibilities, without never sparing himself/herself/themselves. Phillip certainly appeared more cynic, but perhaps its way of respecting was alone the roles.

  Clotilde at the end of the lunch was dispersed coldly greeting both Pietro and Geneva. Daniel had remained with Geneva in the room from lunch, to day-dream on their marriage. Instead Minghetti had insisted so that Pietro followed him/it in the room relaxation of the men. Pietro had sketched a minimum of resistance but at the end you/he/she had accepted, after all you/he/she dealt with a good occasion to know better the engineer.

  Minghetti had plastered the point of a stick in wood and you/he/she had struck with violence the white little ball that rolled fast on the green carpet of the table from billiards. «If it gets by, marshal?»

  Pietro had smiled while in turn you/he/she was unthreading a stick from the suspended rack to the wall. «It is from quite a lot that don't play, but I would say that something I still remember me.»

  You/they had given life to a charming challenge, on the wool thread. «Et voilà!» you/he/she had been the exclamation of Pietro while the white little ball broke him on that yellow addressing her/it to a cannon on two banks destined to overwhelm all the ninepins systematized to the center of the green carpet. The ninepins were scattered and some had even trasvolato the table from billiards, skipping about on the floor and stopping himself/herself/itself to the feet of the engineer. Phillip had remained of plaster in front of that ability prorompente. The game was finished and that teacher hit had enacted the victory of the marshal.

  «My goodness, marshal, is a phenomenon. It is the first time that someone succeeds in beating me from when they are here to Montevecchio!»

  «Only fortune, engineer. But you don't worry him, I don't have intention to tell around it!» Pietro had goaded him/it.

  Phillip had looked at him/it reflexive, not understanding if the marshal was joking or he wanted to rage. Pietro, seeing his/her perplexed look, you/he/she had smiled at him. Phillip if aware n'era and also in his/her face a giggle had risen.

  After that instant of complicity, Pietro was estranged. Did it consider to the words that you/he/she had said towards the managerial category": you Believe that the life of that poor miner is worth less than that of you leccaculo that you crawl behind the ingegner Minghetti"?, and you/he/she was sorry him to have used that foolish tones. Reformed, you/he/she had chosen to bury the ax of war.

  «Engineer, has to make her my excuses, with August Taris I have exaggerated but now I am clearly revaluing your person.»

  Phillip had still smiled. You/he/she had drawn near to the marshal and a hand had placed on his shoulder. «Marshal, doesn't worry him, men as us owe every day to bear enormous pressures and to take some decisions that will go to weigh on the people that surround us, is normal that the stirrups are sometimes lost. Doesn't he/she believe?»

  Pietro had not answered but you/he/she had nodded with the head gaining the truthfulness of those words. The engineer had rummaged then inside a cassette in wood rigorously dressed again with the drawn out zinc in the mines. «He/she drinks an I drip?»

&
nbsp; Pietro, seeing the bottle of frozen brandy, you/he/she had almost surrendered to his/her rigid protocol. «No, thanks, I have not drunk for years, by now» you/he/she had answered with the saliva of the desire that the mouth flooded him.

  Brandy was frozen thanks to the service of Tore Flore and Giaccio Caboni, two messengers that once a month they challenged the most impervious tops of the Linas mountain to extrapolate the ice and to destine him/it to the butchery and the more families in sight. Foods and drinks, thanks to the airtightness of the zinc, they succeeded in extending their expiration, luckily. Minghetti was poured one laced lecture of brandy in a glass of simple glass, as if he/she wanted to redeem him after the antecedent luxury.

  «When it will end the war I will sign a contract with a society English that deals him with the refrigeration in the holds of the ships. Our zinc is perfect for that purpose.»

  «You aim aloft always you, engineer!»

  Phillip seemed pleased. «Follows me, marshal, brings her/it in a magic place!»

  You/they had crossed a room that in past you/he/she was turned reading to room for the women. That room represented the only variegation of alburnum in a building turbidly furnished. The furniture that had before they were clear because toward the end of the eight hundred the English had stopped the importation of the elegant dark mahogany from Cuba, putting in cross the arredatoris that had been forced to refold on less regal lumbers and more lattescentis.

  Opening the last door, Phillip had allowed Pietro to see the heaven. In front of him a spellbound room extended him: of blue with gilded decorations that covered the walls of it; with the time istoriata from a gallery that, thanks to a particular technique of painting, it gave a hallucinogenic effect in three-dimensional. It was unbelievable as that imaginary gallery it really seemed to lean out on the room. Princely curtains had been removed on the sides of an ample finestrata, allowing that the light infused the heat of the sparkling day.

  Around one of the so many fireplaces of the house detached gilded mirrors. Pietro and Phillip were kept of eye from portraits of faces bewitched that they disseminated the walls. They were faces that had disavowed their talentuoso painter, modifying the original expression painted by his/her brush, bewitched by the wonder of slacker and nineteenth-century couches. It was the most beautiful and sparkling place that Pietro had ever seen, a place that even in the most secluded dreams you/he/she would have been able to believe that you/he/she existed.

  Phillip is sat in front of a solemn tail piano and you/he/she had drunk a sip of brandy. You/he/she had abandoned the glass of glass in front of the lectern and you/he/she had started to play. Pietro had listened in silence that ethereal music that the situation made still more unreal. Then Phillip had embanked his/her melody, suddenly; the long evening with the marshal, until then redundant, it was about to reach the peak finally assuming a meaning. «Marshal, intends to safeguard in every way your daughter!»

  The atmosphere fiabesca was drastically broken. The room was become a valley submerged by an unstoppable landslide. Pietro had started. «I listen to you, engineer!»

  Phillip had made to play again an I give succession from a king and a me, notes that they announced his confessional. «My wife is not bad, his are the same worries of all the mothers. It seeks only the good of our child.»

  The thoughts of Troise were hedged in in an orifice that blocked the light. «I don't follow you!»

  Phillip had stared at him/it in the eyes as if he/she wanted to verify of his/her sincerity. «Daniel seems very in love of your daughter, I wish me that the thing is mutual. To me it is to heart the happiness of my child. I will try to make to take care of Geneva. If it is necessary I will make her turn the world to be visited by the best experts.»

  Emotion and dismay had attacked Pietro, pursuing himself/herself/itself toward the exit of the orifice and simultaneously emerging to the light. «Holy Christ, if it will do what it says I will be forever her debtor.»

  Phillip had widened the braccias. «I don't contemplate to his/her debt, marshal, me enough that his/her daughter marries my child. and is to good wife!» and you/he/she had turned the page of the divided that he/she sat on the lectern.

  «A last thing I have to recommend her, the most important!»

  Pietro had dilated the eyes unconsciously fearing that the engineer could change mind. «Also says!»

  Phillip had still sat on the stool in front of the piano and you/he/she had put on the hands on the thighs, during to make sense of himself/herself/themselves. «I know that in few they know the illness in Geneva. Any other it will ever have to know besides those that you/they already know. To Pertzogiu (actual Fertilia), near Alghero, the Germans are putting on a concentration camp. It is only officially a space for the refuge of weapons and foods but, as I believe her knows more than me, when the army there is middle the things they are turbid as the oil of olive before the filtratura.»

  Pietro listened to the new his/her factotum; he listened to him/it in silence, a silence that in his/her head you/he/she was a cackle that grew and you/he/she became noise: a noise of bombs, of rifles, of machine guns that you/they killed his/her daughter.

  «I see from his/her expression that has already grabbed the concept, she is a perspicacious man marshal. The unofficial version says that behind the concentration camp hides him in reality a lager in which dissident Germans are suppressed, communist, homosexuals, children sloveni arrived inside container, elderly. and sick.»

  "Sick" you/he/she had thought Pietro, just as his/her daughter.

  «Believes me, marshal, thanks to the work that I develop I have so many sources, and I can tell her that they are reliable. That is people that don't joke. They kill and not to leave traces they loosen the dead bodies in the mortar. You says that close to the field quite a lot people have disappeared already. They won't put a lot us to draw from the whole Sardinia for their purposes. Nobody has to know that Geneva is sick. Has you/he/she understood?» Phillip had asked him showing him/it.

  «Holy Christ, has understood very well engineer» Pietro had answered with the last breath of breath remained him.

  «I can protect Geneva up to a certain point. Despite the great admiration that I nourish for the Duce, this time a wood puppet seems me moved by the threads of Hitler its puppeteer. If Germany had to overpower Italy, the same hell that you/they have created in Poland and in the European east will arrive here also and I don't intend to put again us of person, I will be forced to do aside me and Geneva would be sold. Its illness doesn't exist, you/he/she has never existed. Pertzogiu is the first circle of a hell that to brief it will set on fire the whole Sardinia.»

  Pietro had bent the head the point of the boots looking himself/herself/itself. The ingegner Minghetti had just told him a horrible truth. Pietro had approached to the piano. «It is a pact what is proposing me?»

  Phillip had taken a packet of cigarettes from the small pocket of his/her jacket. You/he/she had opened him/it and if put n'era one in mouth. With a tap of the finger index on the fund of the wrapping had made to go out part of another cigarette. Pietro had picked her up and if the era inserted in an angle of the lips.

  «Marshal, will understand that in to keep my promises I will risk quite a lot, and all on my skin. If Geneva is really in love of my child you don't have anything to fear. It will be enough for her to follow the small shrewdness that I have given her.» With a match you/he/she had turned on first Pietro's cigarette and then his.

  In the painting of the gallery the day seemed to withdraw himself/herself/themselves for the smoke of the tobacco that burned. You/they were looked in face with sincerity before squeezing together himself/herself/themselves the hand and to stipulate their famous pact. If Geneva had married Daniel, for her the doors of a new life would be opened wide. You/he/she would never have been to Pertzogiu and you/he/she would perhaps be recovered, but it had to marry him/it.

  Footsteps inside the room. They were of Daniel and Geneva.

/>   «I see that you have finally made friends!» Daniel had exclaimed with a sarcastic smile. The two looked at him/it in tralice.

  Geneva thought about being in a fable and his/her bewitched face it scrutinized the time of the room as if it were the terrestrial heaven.

  «Engineer, removes from me a curiosity. Are we alone of the three floors, that wonder contains the last per second?»

  Phillip had sigh while with skilled fingers it played a symphony of Chopin. «Up there you won't find the heaven, madams Geneva, but only the old lodgings of the servitude that once raged in the building. A more modest environment decidedly!»

  Geneva was seemed to be sorry himself/herself/themselves of that dry answer that didn't leave space to the poetry. You/he/she would be waited that in the last floor of that celestial building divine environments were concealed, more consistent to the angels that to the men. But, even if he/she didn't know him/it, her the heaven had already found him/it: it was the pact between his/her father and the ingegner Phillip Minghetti.

  The remembrance brusquely broke him.

  Pietro freed from the covers dashing her in the empty plaza of his/her matrimonial bed. You/he/she had always hoped that one day that plaza was still occupied by another woman. Despite the occasions they were not missed, the sense of betrayal had been stronger than him, you/he/she could not pretend in love of another because it still loved Barbaric, even if she there was not more.

  Definite hurry what had never dared to do: to ask the truth to the colonel Basthuberr on the field of Pertzogiu. It got up standing and you/he/she suffered a dizziness. You sat an instant on the bed, to recompose him. The dizziness passed. You slowly dressed for avoiding painful sharp pains and he/she left his/her room; it crossed the corridor dragging himself/herself/itself as an Army veteran.

  «Where he/she believes to go, her?» It was the voice of Mrs Loi.

  Pietro knew that if you/he/she had given rope to the ruler the discussion you/he/she would be become pompous and endless. «Mrs. Loi, is paid to work as ruler or to make the places of my mother?»

  Mrs Loi remained petrified, it was not waited for that demonstration of impoliteness, usually the marshal was amiable with everybody. Not that day. He/she remained behind Pietro. Worried, it observed him/it advance toward the door of entry. From the stay Geneva that he found again confrontation with Pietro came out. Its eyes darted on one side to the other. Father and daughter were reciprocally offended for the history of Lucio; heavy insults that nobody thought up to that day to be able to offer. Geneva seemed to want to tell something his/her father, perhaps a reproach to have lifted from the bed. You scratched the head and it lowered the look. It sent forth a puff making to wave the lips and it reentered in stay. That silence hurt Pietro more than all the insults that Geneva had cast him in precedence. "As it was able not to understand that he wanted only the good for her"?, he/she wondered. It intended to make to recover her/it and to grant her a normal life. "You could not throw away everything for Lucio", it was said.

  An instant and Pietro it was in the street. He/she succeeded in turning on the motorbike after some attempts. Its guide was uncertain, the journey to be crossed brief: he/she knew whether to find the colonel Basthuberr.

  Basthuberr was supported to the capotta of a jeep in the usual place, in proximity of the slant that conducted to Ingurtosu and the green coast. The branches of the trees started to stuff him of deciduous leaves that as every thing sooner or later they came at the end of their cycle. The colonel followed with the look the motorbike of Pietro that drew near. The soldiers were impassive. Pietro extinguished the motorbike and descents. «Hi, colonel!»

  «Hi, marshal! I see with pleasure that are starting again in form after the accident. I have known about your fall and I am regretted a lot.»

  «You don't worry him, colonel, has the hard skin me. Us casertani we are as the cats, we have seven lives,» and smiled.

  «I/you/they have come because I have urgent necessity to speak to you» it continued, discovering the wonder in the face of the colonel.

  «I listen to you marshal. Also says!»

  Pietro looked around wary. «If you don't regret I would prefer to make this talk in private.»

  «As he/she wants, marshal!» the colonel nodded. You turned and it gave some orders to his/her troop speaking in German. «We can now go, I have given the deliveries to my men.»

  They set apart some hundred more meters before, to the shade of an oak. «Colonel, has had always the impression to be able to trust you, you/he/she is for this that I have decided to speak to you.»

  Basthuberr listened to consenting with the head. The light that infiltrated him from the branches of the trees shone in the degrees of its grey uniform. «You also speak, marshal, can be entrusted!»

  Pietro leaned on with the back to a trunk and. «He/she sees, colonel, my daughter is very sick. By now they know everybody that the Nazi regime tries to suppress this type of people.»

  Basthuberr stiffened him, it was also an accusation for him. You allowed to go to a grimace of disappointment. «Unfortunately the things are so!»

  Pietro got out of the feathered hat that you/he/she had taken the habit to wear. If it leaned him/it under the life, holding only it with a hand. It lowered the head and dams the eyes. «I understand that asking you what I am you to ask I will thrust you in an uncomfortable position, if you will decide to answer me. But, holy Christ, cannot do otherwise for protecting my daughter. I hope that I/you/he/she understand my feelings. Do you have children?»

  The face of the colonel assumed a spellbound expression that Pietro had never seen in him. «Yes, I have three children. Hansel is eight years old, Bastian five and Sarah it has of it as soon as two, and they miss me to die.»

  Pietro smiled. «Then I am certain that it will understand me, colonel.»

  They heard the rhombus of an automobile that darted on the carriage one and they withdrew him behind the trees. It was better not to make to be seen set apart together in the country, there was the risk to have exchanged for homosexuals. Lisanziu Cireddu and Gamabedda, if you/they had exchanged in public their effusions, doesn't be live one hundred years.

  The erbetta was tall and covered the boots of Pietro and the Colonel. It allowed however to glimpse some acorns demolished by the wind here and there. Pietro took one of them and her/it, chewing and the mouth mixing himself/herself/itself with that food for pigs; you/he/she didn't even acknowledge the taste. «Colonel, would like to know the truth on Pertzogiu. What type of nature does it have that field?»

  Basthuberr grinded. It dealt with reserved information and above all delicate. If you reveal you/they would have been able to bring to his/her shooting. His/her children's image the glances in front of the eyes and it didn't dare to think about thing you/he/she would have done if something had happened to one of them. He/she saw the trembling marshal as if it were affection from the angioneurosi: the worn out face and the eyes that asked justice the justice of a father that could not lose a daughter for the farneticazionis of a Nazi crazy person. Also the marshal would be dead of it if something had happened to his/her daughter, he thought Basthuberr. It behaved from father leaving on one side his/her colonel degrees. «Ok, marshal, will help her/it. Do you ask me if it deals with a concentration camp or of a field of extermination?» it whispered Basthuberr, so weakly that the pulsation of the wings of a butterfly risked to cover those words.

  Pietro frowned. «I don't grab the difference of it!»

  Before answering, Basthuberr stuck out him from the oak that it concealed him/it to observe the road. He/she didn't see anybody and taken back courage. «Amiss people confuse the concentration camps with the fields of extermination. But they are totally two different fields. The first ones are alone of the spaces fenced special to the station of the soldiers with of the curtains and to the immagazzinamento of materials in great containers: food, water, clothing and also weapons. In the seconds, also called lager, you/they are exterm
inated all those that don't belong to the Aryan race, the so-called balls to the foot for the society.»

  Pietro listened in trance those elucidations, nevertheless its question didn't have an answer yet.

  Basthuberr crossed the braccias and still lowered the volume of voice. «Officially, the field of Pertzogiu is neither a concentration camp nor a field of extermination, it is only an airport port, just as that of Trunconi to Villacidro.»

  Pietro knitted the forehead. «Therefore don't I have anything to fear for my daughter?»

  Basthuberr twisted the face. «For what I am you to say I could also be shot. I expect me that as me I am helping her/it to save your daughter, you never speak of this, my children need their father.»

  Pietro appropriated the heart. «You look me, colonel!»

  Basthuberr observed him/it. «I swear her on my daughter and on the good soul of my wife that I will make me tear the heart before putting her/it in the middle of this history» it promised.

  Basthuberr put on the finger index on the mouth summoning the silence. Pietro had lifted too much the voice. «Also I have always known to be able to trust her, marshal. To Pertzogiu, in reality, him stà putting on a lager. Pay me attention, you don't divulge with anybody the news of the illness of his/her daughter.»

  Pietro was fossilized by those words and also the unintentional muscles of his/her body arrested him. It looked at Basthuberr but he/she didn't succeed in speaking. If his daughter had broken up the history with Daniel Minghetti, there would have been big probabilities to see to climb her/it in boat for a crossing without time, ferried by Caronte.

 

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