12.

I don’t remember much talk about the death of the girl from Milan, I only remember what Lello said, nothing else, not before or after. Sometimes I heard her calling out short phrases to me in her pretty way and I’d go to the window, but no one ever appeared on that third-floor balcony.

It started to rain, I remember that. I had always liked rain. It fell heavily on the balcony, now black with grime, and the wind blew away all the white, red, and pink flower petals. Rain dripped from windowsills and flowed down sidewalks, carrying leaves and litter into the street drains. I was mesmerized by the drops that formed on my grandmother’s laundry line, each one so pure, and I observed them as they slowly detached, gripping the line to the bitter end with their liquid hands.

I entirely forgot my plan to go and retrieve the girl, should she die, from the great beyond. It wasn’t that I didn’t care or because I was insensitive, but due to poor health. After receiving the news from Lello and then fainting, I had a run of fevers that my grandmother claimed were related to growing. I recall nightmares in which I killed black-feathered angels, deftly wielding my grandfather’s sword. Often, while delirious, I watched in ecstasy as the girl from Milan drank from the fountain, but suddenly the water would transform into stormy seas with huge, yellowish waves that came crashing down under a sand-colored sky. I grew especially disturbed when I saw that she had become as diaphanous as certain clouds. Seeing her like that crushed me so hard that I, myself, felt practically transparent, and this scared me.

The growing fevers went on for months. I’d get better, go back to school, and then get sick again, but mostly I was always irritable and distracted. Every so often I’d look out at the balcony and notice that something was gone: the old fruit crates, the cleaning tools, a yellow cabinet. Eventually that empty space, which had once been filled with gracious movements and dance steps, although exposed and uncovered, seemed to be bleaker and more frightening than the pit of the dead. In much the same way, the stone slab in the courtyard gradually stopped scaring me. The last time I went to examine it, something slammed up against the rock from deep down inside. A violent blow caused the chain to reverberate, but I wasn’t the slightest bit spooked. I waited to see if anything else happened, it didn’t, and so I went back inside.

This was followed by an incredibly long period during which, one day, I’d remember the box underneath my grandmother’s bed; another day, I’d remember not only my grandfather’s walking stick but everything about his clothes, his short tie, shirt, breast pocket handkerchief; yet another day and with no apparent link, I’d recall a white dress that the girl from Milan wore in the sunshine, or a delicate chain I noticed around her neck while she was drinking from the fountain.

Once, I asked my grandmother to show me everything she had saved that had belonged to her husband. Because the fevers were making me grow so tall—soon I’d reach the ceiling, she said—she didn’t refuse, and showed me everything immediately. That’s how I discovered that there was nothing particularly memorable inside the box, only some old photographs of her sisters, a few documents of little interest to me, and the tiepin that my grandfather was wearing in the single brownish photograph they had together, which wasn’t even gold. I asked her about Nonno’s things: his trousers, jacket, shirt, shoes, socks, underwear, his mason’s tools, the walking stick. Where were they all now? She got flustered and thought I was accusing her of some crime that was inconceivable to both her and me. She went pale and didn’t reply, I got angry at her for not caring about the things he had possessed and which, in some way, possessed him, the man standing next to her, before ending up deep underground, exposed to the wind and rain in the pit of the dead. Did you throw them out? Did you give them away? Did you sell them? I asked in rising hostility. I know now that I caused her great suffering, but back then I didn’t care. For a long time, I was filled only with rage. I thought about the girl’s balcony and her dolls, her closed shoes and open-toed sandals, her dresses and camisoles and the ribbons she’d used to tie her braids, all those belongings that had been left empty, or devoid of her touch and scent, and which had probably all been given away.

I decided then that for as long as I lived, I would never again buy a single thing, even if I outgrew my clothes. My coat had become tight at the shoulders and my sleeves were ever shorter, but I didn’t care, I’d wear out my clothes until they were tattered shreds. After all, what was the point of washing, putting on fancy clothes, getting all dressed up if one day you go off to do your job as a mason and fall to your death, or you go on vacation one summer and drown? I wanted to devote my life to deterioration, but my grandmother, in her annoying way, kept ignoring my brothers and favoring me in everything. She’d say to my mother and father, but more as a general statement: chistuguagliónenunpoghíascòlaccussí. She wanted them to buy me new shoes or take me to the barber because my hair was too long, too messy. My parents pretended not to hear, they didn’t have enough money, and I was fine with wearing out my clothes. I wanted everything to unravel and fray, including my body.