LITMIR.BIZ

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      Anna produced a jar of beans. ‘Like some?’

      A sideways wag of his forefinger said no.

      She raised a suspicious eyebrow. ‘What have you been eating?’

      ‘Nothing. I’ve got the shakes.’

      She put her hand on his forehead. ‘You’re boiling hot.’ It couldn’t be Red Fever – he was too young – but she was still worried. ‘Put some clothes on.’

      ‘I don’t want to.’

      ‘Go and get dressed.’ She took a big white tube out of the rucksack. ‘Otherwise, no present.’

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘Off you go.’

      He kept jumping up, trying to grab the tube.

      ‘Off you go!’ Anna went outside, sat down on the bench and opened the jar of beans with a knife.

      Two minutes later Astor turned up in a dirty jacket that reached down to his knees. ‘Where’s my present?’

      She handed it over. ‘I think you’ll like it.’

      He eyed her curiously, unscrewed the top and started sucking.

      Anna snatched it out of his hand and pushed him down onto the ground. ‘What have I told you a thousand times?’ He tried to get up, but she put her foot on his chest, pinning him down. ‘What have I told you?’

      ‘Always read and smell before putting things in your mouth.’

      ‘So?’

      Astor grabbed hold of her foot, trying to free himself. ‘You said I’d like it. So it must be all right.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter. You must always read.’ She gave him the tube again. ‘Come on.’

      He puffed out his cheeks in exasperation and rubbed his eye. ‘Ne . . . Nes . . . Nest—’ He broke off and pointed to a letter: ‘What’s this?’

      ‘An accent.’

      ‘What’s it for?’

      ‘It’s not important.’

      ‘Nestle. Co . . . con . . . den . . . condensed mil . . . milk.’

      He went on sucking in silence, holding his ear with his hand.

      *

      Anna spent the afternoon sleeping on the bench in the yard. The knocks she’d taken in the fight with the dog were beginning to hurt. A bruise had formed on the hip she’d hit against the car and her knuckles were swollen.

      Astor lay beside her, under a blanket. She touched his forehead; it was very warm.

      She went back into the house, fetched the torch, climbed the stairs and walked along the corridor until she came to a closed door. Taking her shoes off and switching on the torch, she took a key out of her trouser pocket and turned it in the lock.

      The beam of the torch lit up a carpet with a coloured check pattern and a dusty writing desk with a laptop in the middle. The walls were covered with childish drawings – of houses, animals, flowers, mountains, rivers and a huge red sun. The beam fell on a bedside table made of dark wood, a pile of books, a radio alarm and a bedside lamp, then on a double bed with a brass headboard. On the red and blue bedspread there was a skeleton with its arms crossed. All the two hundred and six bones that made it up, from the phalanges of the feet to the skull, were decorated with intricate geometrical patterns traced by a black felt-tip pen. The forehead and cheekbones were adorned with rings and earrings, the eye sockets covered by birds’ nests full of speckled eggs. The vertebrae of the neck and the ribs were twined around with strings of pearls, thin golden chains, amethyst necklaces and coloured stones. Curled up beside the feet lay the skeleton of a cat.

      Anna sat down at the desk, rested the torch on it and opened a well-worn exercise book. The hard brown cover bore the words: THE IMPORTANT THINGS.

      Silently moving her lips, she read the rounded, careful handwriting that filled the first page.

      My dearest children, I love you so much. Soon your mama won’t be here any more and you’ll have to fend for yourselves. Be good and intelligent and I’m sure you’ll manage.

      I’m leaving you in this exercise book some instructions that will help you to cope with life and avoid danger. Look after it carefully and whenever you have a doubt open it and read. Anna, you must teach Astor to read, so that he can consult it too. You’ll find that some of the advice won’t be useful in the world you’re living in. The rules will change and I can only imagine them. You’ll have to correct them and learn from your mistakes. The important thing is that you always use your heads.

      Mama is going away because of a virus that has spread all over the world.

      These are the things I know about the virus. I’ll tell you them as they are, without any lies. Because it wouldn’t be fair to deceive you.

      THE VIRUS

      1) Everybody has the virus. Males and females. Little children and grown-ups. But in children it sleeps and has no effect.

      2) The virus will wake up only when you reach maturity. Anna, you’ll reach maturity when dark blood comes out of your vagina. Astor, you’ll reach maturity when your willy goes hard, and sperm, a white liquid, comes out of it.

      3) If a person has the virus, they can’t have children.

      4) When you reach maturity, red blotches start to appear on your skin. Sometimes they appear straight away, sometimes it takes longer. When the virus grows in your body you start to cough, you find it hard to breathe, all your muscles ache, and scabs form in your nostrils and on your hands. Then you die.

      5) This point is very important and you must never forget it. Somewhere in the world there are grown-ups who have survived and they’re preparing a medicine that will save all children. They’ll reach you soon and cure you. You must be certain of that, you must believe it.

      Mama will always love you, even though she isn’t with you. Wherever she is, she’ll love you. So will Papa. You must love each other too, and never part. You’re brother and sister.

      She knew this part off by heart, but always re-read it. She turned to another page in the middle of the book.

      HAVING A TEMPERATURE

      The normal temperature of the human body is 36.5. If it’s higher than that, you have a fever. If it’s 37 or 38 it’s not serious. If it’s higher than that you must take medicine. To measure your temperature, use a thermometer. There’s one in the second drawer in the kitchen. It’s made of glass, so mind you don’t drop it or it’ll break. (There’s a plastic one too, but that one has a battery and I don’t know how long it will go on working.) You have to put it under your arm and wait for five minutes. If you don’t have a clock, count very slowly up to 500 and see where the silver strip stops. If it’s more than 38 you must take medicines called antibiotics. You must take them for at least a week, twice a day. There are lots of antibiotics. Augmentin, Aziclav, Cefepime. I’ve put them with the other medicines in the green cupboard. When you run out of them, you’ll have to go and look for them in chemists’ shops or houses. If you can’t find these ones, look at the leaflet inside the box; it will tell you the active ingredient; if it’s a word that ends in ‘ina’ it’s all right. Amoxicillina, cefazolina, things like that. And you must drink a lot.

      Anna tucked her hair behind her ears and closed the book.

      The glass thermometer had been broken. The plastic one had stopped working. The antibiotics Mama had left in the cupboard had been eaten by mice. Minerva, the chemist’s shop in Castellammare, had burnt down along with the rest of the village.

      A thermometer wasn’t essential in this case. Astor was boiling hot; there was no doubt his temperature was over 38 degrees. But it was too late to go looking for medicines; that would have to wait till the next day.

      She

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