To play with Cleliuccia… it was all very easy to say. And it would have been easy enough during the unusual days that followed, after the wind from the African desert had damaged the roof, carrying sand even into the drawing room, through the hole made by a flower pot which had rolled against the glass door onto the terrace. But one day it was The Mystery of the Yellow Room and another Carmilla, Queen of the Witches’ Sabbath, and all those dolls lined up on the bookshelves and the half-dark room… I didn’t know what games to suggest; my stock was exhausted. Aunt Esther’s eyes were always shiny, and she had a vaguely absent air. After lunch she went to her room and stayed there the whole afternoon until she came out, wandered desolately about the house, and finally sat down at the spinet and stumbled through Chopin’s Polonaises. I could only tiptoe from one room to another, trying to think up something to do and keeping out of range of the severe eyes of Flora, who would have looked at me reproachfully because my aunt needed to rest and I was doing everything possible to disturb her: Why didn’t I go and snatch a breath of fresh air in the garden?
It was a revelation. Anything else I could have imagined, but not that. At first I couldn’t believe it but on second thoughts it was quite credible: I remembered how my Aunt Esther had been two years before, a witty, energetic woman. She used to take Clelia and myself to the beach on the luggage rack of her bicycle, arriving hot and red in the face, with her eyes gleaming and, in a second she was out of the cabin, in her bathing suit and into the water, where she swam like a fish. Something important and incredible must have happened to reduce her to this condition. This is what happened, said Clelia; did I understand? I understood, yes, but who had done it? Clelia’s eye rolled wildly, a sign of extreme nervousness, but her mouth remained shut, as if she were afraid to pronounce the name. Never mind; I understood. And bewitched wasn’t the word; better possessed, since the sorcery was the work of a diabolical being. I could almost have laughed at the idea of Uncle Tullio as Satan, with his bow tie and pomaded hair, his formal and considerate ways. I felt sure, if she wanted to know a secret, that my father thought he was ridiculous. Well then, if that was the way I saw it, did I want her to tell me the whole truth, did I want to know what this fellow with the pomaded hair and the diabolical smile had been capable of doing? That handsome Tullio with his bow tie had killed her father, yes he had; he was at the root of all the trouble. No, he hadn’t exactly killed him with his own hands, of course, but it came to the same thing. He’d turned him in to the Germans, and she had proof, in the form of a certain letter, of which she’d make a copy to show me. And why, did I know why? Simply in order to cast a spell over that stupid mother of hers, to possess her money and her life, that was why. This seemed to me exaggerated, unthinkable, but I didn’t argue about it, because Aunt Esther had told me not to contradict Clelia; it was bad for her health and brought on an attack. But that night I couldn’t sleep. I dreamed of Uncle Tullio, wearing a trench coat, in command of a firing squad, with his bow tie sticking out from the trench coat collar. The man sentenced to death was Uncle Andrea, whom I had never known and whom I couldn’t see because he was too far away, standing with his back to the wall. I knew he was Uncle Andrea because he called out: I’m Clelia’s daddy! That cry woke me up in the middle of the night; the garden was full of crickets and the beach was empty. I stayed awake, listening to the roar of the sea for I don’t know how long, perhaps until daybreak. But in the morning everything was just as usual, and the idea of writing to my father seemed absurd. The house was so beautiful, so bright, Aunt Esther had suggested that I go with her to do the weekend shopping, Clelia was working with wax and Uncle Tullio would be arriving the next day. He’d take us to the cafe and on Sunday evening we might go to see Son of Tarzan at the open-air cinema. Besides, a promise is a promise and I’d promised Clelia loyalty and silence.