Beatrice opens her eyes, red from crying, and slips away from my embrace.
“Thank you for coming. Today, by myself, I wouldn’t have made it. … ”
“What do you mean?”
“I am afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of losing everything, of ending up in the void, in the silence, of disappearing and that’s it, of never seeing the people I love again.”
There are no lines, no words acceptable in my head. The only thing I get out is the only truth that is remaining, like those trees you see all alone in an immense field of green. “I am here.”
I hold her hands tightly as if I could tear her from the emptiness of fear, like a trapeze artist who has been entrusted with the life of his partner suspended in emptiness, without a net below.
“Write … ”
Her whispering is confused, and I have to bend my ear to her lips to understand. Her breath is hot and rough like a piece of iron dragged on stone. I write down the words that Beatrice is whispering in a sigh. When she has finished dictating, she hands over her diary to me. “Take it. Keep it. As of today, I’ve stopped writing. I am giving it to you.”
I can’t do it: I shake my head and place it near her.
“I believed I was writing it for myself. Then, I understood I was writing it for you. It’s what I can and want to give to you, Leo.”
I don’t fight her.
“Beatrice, one day we’ll read it together.”
She smiles.
“Yes. Now go. It’s getting late. I’m tired.”
I also wanted to give her a gift, but I hadn’t brought anything. I couldn’t leave like this. I fumbled in my pockets. Nothing, except … the stone with a thousand shades of blue I had taken in her living room. How embarrassing! But it’s the only thing I have. I place it in the palm of her hand, as if it were a diamond. “My lucky charm, I want you to keep it.”
Beatrice smiles with heaven in her eyes.
“Thank you.”
I give her a kiss on her red hair, and in one second, my life fills up with her blood.
“Until next time.”
I hug Beatrice’s diary tightly to my chest, as if it were my skin. I think again about the fact that the only thing I could give her was something I had stolen from her home. I have nothing to give, if not the love that I receive or steal. Before leaving Beatrice’s home, I take another blue stone. I can’t go wandering around without my lucky charm. …