Lead Petals

by Quelli di ZEd

  19

  The ingegner Phillip Minghetti exhibited him in the fascist regard. You/he/she had just finished the interview with a spokesman of the empire come from Rome. From one of the windows that studded the building of the direction it spied the auto of the man to fade away swallowed by the descent. You emphatically rubbed the hands. Its face shone of a new light. Daniel stormed excited in the room, he didn't know anything yet. «Dad, has to elaborate as soon as possible a project that succeeds in again increasing the levels of extraction. The war applications are increasing to excess.»

  Phillip smiled and surrounded his shoulders with an arm. «He/she leaves alone for today, Daniel. We go to it stuffed a walk!»

  Daniel nodded with acquiescence, you/he/she was a pleasure for him to spend some time with his/her father. They saw so few because of the mutual appointments.

  They were the ten of the morning, the sky was clear and the air frizzantina. It was not the case to depose the heavy suits for the one who possessed them but it did yet less cold that in the departed days. The shade of the buildings divided fifty-fifty avenue Empire. You developed in a road twos passages it divided from a discordant cromatura: the white - the earth's light hurt by the sun and the black darkness that poisoned her/it. The good and the evil, thought Daniel.

  Phillip didn't see the same conflicting image, it had other to which to mind. They walked in the strip of light. Daniel tried not to stamp on the wicked shade. They came near the barracks. «Where we go?»

  «We are direct where he is building the hotel for the miners.»

  «Thing goes there to do in that place?»

  Phillip stopped him in the middle of avenue Empire and was rubbed the nearest borders of the eyes the nasal setto grazing himself/herself/itself. «Today it is a big day for me, Daniel. All of my studies, my sacrifices, the years passed away from you today have been compensated.»

  Daniel had never seen his/her so touched father. «Tell me, dad, thing there is that it excites yourself so?»

  The face of Phillip reverberated the wriggles of light that of rhyming from earth they struck him/it and its hair seemed I soaked with silver dust. A paresi had appropriated of its facial muscles stopping them in a perpetual smile. The skull was dressed again of rigid skin that gave the idea of a plating in platinum.

  «On May 14, here to Montevecchio, we will be honorable from the visit of the Duce Benito Mussolini in meat and bones!» it proclaimed with a hiccup in tail to the last syllable.

  Daniel made back some footstep overcoming the mezzeria of avenue Empire and invaded the shade. «I cannot believe there, dad, has succeeded there!» It still withdrew and then raced to embrace him/it.

  They tightened strong. Daniel also succeeded in lifting Phillip of some earth centimeter. They detached and Phillip was readjusted the jacket of the black suit. «The Duce will inaugurate the hotel and the new well of extraction. I have decided to entitle them to the ingegner Francis Sartori, that with his/her great knowledges geologiche has made to grow so much Montevecchio.» It was fierce more and more.

  Daniel observed his/her father with the admiration that you/they nourish the followers of a sect toward their priest. They passed in front of a painted niche of white that preserved a faucet. Phillip aimed us the finger. «To the moment it is useless but soon the pipelines will connect him/it with the source of he/she Knows it will Lose, saving to the inhabitants the drudgery to fill the water. All will change after the visit of the Duce!»

  «Bushels thinking indeed about everything, dad!»

  Phillip smiled. To his/her shoulders there was a muretto to dry along a two weeks of meters. It decreased in three meters height to a meter and it delimited the end of avenue Empire. Beyond that wall it opened the road for the hotel.

  «How you have succeeded there, dad?»

  «It was for a long time that I complained a visit of the Duce. The spokesman of the empire has communicated me that after the visit to Mussolinia to verify the result of the reclamations, the Duce will do it covers to Montevecchio. It will have to be everything perfect!»

  «It will be him/it!»

  «From this visit it will depend a lot of my future in politics. I have advanced some proposals of charge but, if I won't show to the Duce to firmly have the situation in the hands of Montevecchio, I will burn me with my same hands.» This time its tone was less enthusiastic, more next to the careful one.

  Daniel looked even more at adorante his/her father. How much road had made that little one that in the cold in Turin it polished the shoes of the passer-bys to bring some small home. «You are calm, dad. You don't have anything to fear.»

  «You are perhaps right but I am nervous however. The Duce has a particular conception of the family: it considers her/it at the base of the empire. If the families are united, accordingly the empire will be also it, it is this what he/she thinks. His/her mother and I will welcome him/it in front of the hotel and you with Geneva you won't have to miss. To show us a compact family is the first necessary footstep!» Those words played as an admonishment.

  The acridity changed the violet one some tornasole in a power on red and Daniel it withdrew. «It seems me that we have always been him/it.»

  Phillip was ahead some footstep to him and he turned. «Not to misunderstand me, meant that that day we will have to be him/it more other times. Of let's not tell however us lies, you know very well that between your mother and Geneva this great liking has not budded» it said Phillip lifting the eyes to look who knows at thing.

  Daniel knitted the forehead. «Not certain for guilt in Geneva!»

  Phillip jammed placing himself/herself/itself in front of him; it tightened his shoulders. «I, don't care Daniel who has done less than who for

  to find a tuning. I have accepted your choice but I am asking you not to create me uneasiness in the most important day of my life. You will be to my side with your future wife. Do I ask you this only, can you do him/it?»

  Daniel nodded. «Is all right, dad, promises him/it to you! But you will do well to also instruct his/her mother for that day!»

  Phillip still smiled and embraced him/it stronger. «I will do him/it, Daniel, tells you thanks in advance.»

  They sometimes passed some wagons, bicycles and also some automobiles. One of these squirted some drop of mud on the pantalonis of the engineer; that day you/they would have been able to unload I set him a cart of manure without upsetting his/her smile.

  The hotel included five floors of open yard. Only the skeleton had been completed. The workers were completing the setup of the cork sheets in the attic and some benches of tiles you/they had abandoned in the part already dressed again. The scaffolding of easels and large tables it surrounded in way perimetrale the raw building. Daniel twisted the nose. «They are still busy of it quite a lot of stuff!»

  Phillip ascertained that unfortunately his/her child was right. It tried not to let him take from the panic however. «They almost miss still five months. It will certainly be had to accelerate the footstep but I believe that at the end we will make her/it.»

  They were immovable in front of the hotel, to observe the scaffolding that swarmed of busy workers. Some flake of stone bounced noisily from an element to the other of the scaffolding and ended to earth. Daniel observed that piece of stone and thought that beaten on the head you/he/she had to decidedly hurt of a caress. «Dad, is better if we move here there from under!»

  «I have to give you anchor reason!»

  Retrocessero. Of side to them, a laborer with a shovel in hand turned and turned some sand washed mixed to mortar and cement; you/he/she added some water holding the bucket for an extremity of the metallic handle. It dried the dripping forehead of sweat and it gave a look to the two intruders, then resumptions to mix.

  Someone who was above the scaffolding acknowledged them. They heard heavy footsteps that got depressed on the uncertain large tables. A man on the about fifty, with a wool bonnet, gone down by the scaffolding serving the m
onkey as an element to the other. It was Efisiu Balloi the master builder. Phillip and Daniel observed him/it with execration. «Then, when the accidents happen, they complain him. To use the staircases was too much simple!» it commented Phillip.

  The man walked verse of them with an apple in hand. It gave a bite and the group it abruptly played again; over halves the fruit if gone n'era. From his/her belt they dangled a bag of carpenter skin, a hammer and of the tronchesines inserted in a center of entangled metal as a rubber band. «Good morning engineer. How come from these parts?» he/she asked, showing shreds of pulp of apple among the teeth, and it bent the head with foresight. «Health also to her, Mr. Daniel.»

  Thanks to his/her heel boots stop Phillip raised him in comparison to him of some centimeter. «We have come to check as the jobs they proceed!»

  Ledger Efisiu turned him toward the hotel. «As it is able well to see we are traveling expeditious. For the next winter it will be ready!» it declared with evident pride.

  «Not enough expeditious, to my parer!» it thundered Phillip.

  The master builder felt him offended by that affirmation and you/he/she made a smile of circumstance. «Is joking, true?»

  Phillip struck by lightning him/it with the answer. «I don't joke at all!»

  Ledger Efisiu became serious. «But does idea of thing have mean to work during the war? Let's not have the proper scaffoldings! Let's not have I feed to sufficiency! Let's not have qualified personnel! The materials arrive with weeks of I delay! And these are alone some of the problem list!»

  «If he treats only of this, I will serve in way of destining fresh strengths as the mines to the hotel. I will double the number of the workers: quite a lot miners also get by from carpenters and masons. I will give you double ration in cafeteria and I will employ me in first person to do yes that the materials come in the briefest possible time.»

  The master builder trasecolò. The face betrayed all of its amazement. But that does satisfied it was stricken from a precise statement sferzante.

  «. But the hotel must be completes within the first week of May!»

  The euphoria of Efisiu Balloi got flabby as a civraxu raised ache. He/she the bit of apple remained him without minding the core that would be been able him to go on the wrong side. «Oh, certain, engineer, in less than five months we will develop a job that it requires ten of them. And even in the hotel we will also climb on there four big wheels and we will bring around it for Montevecchio throwing him/it with the oxen.» With that declaration exacerbated him you/he/she was playing the last remnants of trust that the engineer fed verse of him.

  Daniel didn't comment. Phillip saw in the master builder the typical arrogance of whom believes to know how to develop his/her own job in sublime way but he/she overestimates his/her own powers and ability. It kept the calm however. «You believe that your thought on the impossibility to finish the hotel for May is ecumenical?»

  To imagine himself/herself/themselves if Efisiu Balloi could understand the word ecumenical, he/she thought Daniel.

  «You excuse? I don't understand what engineer you want to say.»

  Daniel allowed to escape a giggle. Efisiu Balloi saw him/it and assumed a mortified face. He/she thought that you/he/she had perhaps exaggerated with the sarcasm toward the engineer. It felt that the space between the dismissal and he he was reducing to a brief cabotage.

  Phillip, to be well clear, explained him with a plebeian language. «I ask you if you believe that your thought is universal, if you are certain that any other master builder would succeed in finishing the hotel for the first week of May!»

  The man nicchiò, elaborated perhaps the answer that the engineer would have appreciated more. It was about to say to want to try us him to end that hotel; then he/she saw his/her boys that traveled for the scaffolding with the buckets of cement to four to four; he/she saw them divide in two the platforms of four quintals tiles; he/she saw them throw the plaster without not even staying himself/herself/themselves to shake the cement from the line of table, and if it imagined them to spit blood to end that hotel in few months and to reenter to house with the empty stomach to give to eat to their children. He/she knew what to answer. «I don't know him/it engineer. I found me on my experience trentennale and I believe that cannot be done, but if you know someone more able I, submit him the charge.»

  It was a challenge. Phillip welcomed her/it. «I will do him/it. From this moment you are lifted from any charge. Tonight trails in the building of the direction to take you what we owe you!» it said with indifference.

  The man was immovable, stiff, in a mixture of frustration for the received injustice and pride not to have lowered the head in front of the engineer. «So you resolve the problems engineer? By the tooth and street the pain!»

  Phillip discharged his/her pragmatism. «It will also be worthwhile her that I don't have necessity of people that doubts to succeed in finishing the construction of the hotel for May. Your conviction could become carelessness for the alone desire to show that you were right.»

  The master builder kept silent. It broke away the bag of skin and it did her/it slip to earth. The hammer and the tronchesines bumped him producing a sound similar to that of the suspended cowbells to the neck of the sheep. An uncontrollable anger ran over him/it causing him an I decant of bile. The livid face was the totemic peak of its anger. Now that didn't have a job anymore you/he/she could quietly take to kicks in the culo those two heads of cazzo that had always been him indigestible.

  The workers had clogged the scaffolding. You/they were prepared in a position that he/she remembered a gigantic frieze carved of human forms. Their bodies and their faces seemed fossilized in a laying of dismay. Cenzu Simbua tried to make to reason Efisiu.

  «Master builder, allows to lose!» it howled him.

  Efisiu turned him. Its eyes were turgid of tears. The resignation pervaded him/it. «I have lost the job, I won't lose the dignity. They would laugh too much your faces in the being touched by my hands; they are not worthy of it!» and it spit for earth with contempt.

  Phillip made back a release to the to avoid that the spit struck him the boots. From his/her face that arrogant expression had disappeared. Daniel was muter than the nights in winter. Efisiu still drew near and with a spallata it opened the passage among the two. It was not tall but of sure with the work that did it didn't have to have light hands, he/she thought Daniel. His/her father as two children and he threatened by a bullo, did aside him without even not sending forth a moan of disapproval. It was better that Efisiu sbollisse his/her anger elsewhere.

  The master builder greeted his/her boys with a sign of the hand and got further, but you/he/she sometimes turned him to quadrate father and child. Of sure you/he/she was tried more than once to return back and to get out of himself/herself/themselves the satisfaction to feel broken culi that filled his/her feet.

  Daniel not shared the exaggerated gesture of his/her father but it avoided to tell him him: you/he/she had promised not to create troubles.

  That same evening, to village you Rule, Daniel informed Geneva and Pietro that Mussolini would have come to Montevecchio. Geneva had to be in the first row to welcome him/it, together with the whole family Minghetti. It is Pietro it prayed that an epileptic crisis didn't strike his/her daughter really in front of the Duce.