LITMIR.BIZ

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      Outside, the sun had gone down behind the wood and the air was still.

      ‘Come on, Astor, bedtime.’

      He followed her sleepily upstairs.

      Their bedroom wasn’t much tidier than the rest of the house. No remnants of food, but heaps of clothes, toys, bottles of all shapes and sizes. Two chests of drawers were covered by streams of melted wax from hundreds of candles. The wall behind had been blackened by their smoke.

      Anna covered her brother up and gave him a drink of water, but he was promptly sick.

      She went back downstairs. In the green cupboard, she remembered, there was nothing left but mouse droppings. She imagined rows of mice with temperatures, gnawing pills and feeling better.

      In the sitting room she found a box of Crescina. The name ended in ‘-ina’, but she wasn’t sure it was an antibiotic. The leaflet said it was a food supplement suitable for men and women of all ages and recommended for hair loss. Her brother wasn’t losing hair, but it wouldn’t do him any harm. She also found some Dafalgan suppositories. Good for high temperatures and headaches.

      She made Astor swallow the Crescina and took out a suppository. ‘This goes up your bum.’

      He eyed her dubiously. ‘I put a felt-tip pen up my bum once, and I didn’t like it. Can I eat it instead?’

      Anna shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose it won’t make much difference.’

      He chewed the suppository with a grimace, then turned on his side, shivering.

      His sister lit a candle, lay down beside her brother and put her arms round him, trying to warm him up. ‘Would you like me to tell you a story?’

      ‘Okay.’

      ‘Which one?’

      ‘Any one, as long as it’s good.’

      Anna remembered the book of fairy tales her mother had given her. Her favourite was the one about poor Cola the Fish. ‘This story’s about the time when there was a king and the Outside didn’t exist and there were still Grown-ups. In those days there was a boy in Sicily called Cola who could swim underwater, just like a fish.’

      Astor squeezed her hand. ‘Is the sea made of nothing but water?’

      ‘Yes, salt water – you can’t drink it. Cola the Fish was such a good swimmer he could go right down to the sea bed, where it’s dark and you can’t see a thing. And while he was down there, he would take treasure out of sunken ships and bring it up to the surface. He had become so famous that the king decided to set him a challenge.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because that’s what kings do: decide things. He threw a gold cup into the water and Cola the Fish brought it straight back up again. Then the king ordered his men to sail further out to sea, then he took off his crown and threw it into the water. “Let’s see if you can do it out here,” he said. Cola dived in and stayed underwater a very long time. Just when everyone on board had started drinking a toast . . .’

      ‘What does that mean, drinking a toast?’ mumbled Astor, with his thumb in his mouth.

      ‘Clinking bottles together. While the people on the ship were drinking a toast, the boy came back up with the crown. But still the king wasn’t satisfied. He took off the precious ring he wore on his finger and threw it into the sea where it was so deep anchors ran out of rope before they could touch the bottom. “Have you got the courage, Nicola?” the king asked, with a sneer. “Certainly, Your Majesty,” said Cola the Fish. He took a deep breath and jumped in. Everyone on the ship stared at the dark blue sea. They didn’t know their ship was floating like a cork over a ditch so deep that if you threw a stone in it wouldn’t reach the bottom till the next day. There were creatures living in that eternal darkness that no human being had ever seen or imagined. Long transparent snakes, luminous soles as wide as pumpkin fields, octopuses so huge they could crush a house with their tentacles. They stayed there two days waiting for him. Then the king yawned and ordered his sailors: “Back to the palace. He’s dead.” Just at that moment Cola the Fish emerged from the sea, looking very pale and holding the king’s ring. “Your Majesty, I have something important to tell you. I went right down to the bottom and saw that Sicily is supported by three columns. But one of them is badly damaged and on the point of collapsing . . . ”’

      Anna glanced at her brother, who was breathing deeply, still sucking his thumb. ‘“Sicily will sink into the sea.” The king thought for a moment. “In that case, do you know what my orders for you are, Nicola? Go back down there at once and hold up our island.” The boy looked at the sun, the sky, the coast of the land that he would never see again and said: “Yes, Your Majesty.” He took a breath so deep it sucked in the air, the clouds and the dry seaweed on the beach, and dived down. Since that day he has never come up again. There. That’s the end of the story.’

      Astor was sleeping with his head bent over on one side.

      Anna thought of that poor boy standing there all alone at the bottom of the sea, holding up the island. She imagined swimming down to him like a deep-sea diver and telling him that his king and all his court were dead, and that Sicily was entirely inhabited by children.

      She ate some beans, then picked up the bottle of Amaro she’d found in the garden centre and held it close to the candle’s flame. The label showed an angry peasant woman standing with one hand on her waist and the other holding a basket full of herbs.

      Looks just like Signorina Rigoni. She used to stand like that when the class was being too noisy.

      Anna took a swig of Amaro. It was so sweet it made her curl up her toes.

      There were some things about Grown-ups she just couldn’t understand. Why did they call it ‘Amaro’ – bitter – if it was sweet?

      After a few more swigs, her eyelids grew heavy. Outside the window millions of stars dotted the sky like a sprinkling of white paint, and cicadas were singing. When the cold weather came they would disappear. She’d never seen any cicadas, but they must be really big creatures to make all that noise.

      *

      When Anna woke up, her arms were wrapped round her brother, and the mattress was soaked in sweat. Turning on the torch, she played it over Astor. His face was buried in the pillow, and he was grinding his teeth.

      She picked up the bottle of water from the floor and drank her fill. Outside, everything was quiet, the silence broken only by the hoots of an owl and Astor’s heavy breathing.

      Getting out of bed, she went out onto the balcony and sat down to enjoy the cool air. Beyond the rusty railing and the black shapes of the trees lay the burnt, noiseless expanse of the plain.

      The bird was hooting from the fig tree behind the tool shed. The tree had always been small, but in the last two years it had grown so much its branches reached down to the ground.

      She remembered Mama once tying the ropes of the swing to it, and Papa objecting that the fig was a treacherous tree, likely to break.

      But thinking about it again, she wasn’t so sure. Perhaps she’d read about the treacherous fig tree in some book, or dreamed of it. Memories often mingled with written stories and dreams, and in time even the clearest ones faded, like watercolours in a glass of water.

      She remembered Palermo. Their flat, from where you could see an office full of people sitting in front of monitors. She recalled trivial things. The black and white chessboard of the floor tiles in the sitting room. The kitchen table with a slot for a roller that was used for making pasta. The clothes drying rack with its rusty corners. But she could no longer summon up the faces of Grandpa Vito and Grandma Mena. In fact, all the Grown-ups’ faces were disappearing, suppressed by the passing days. The old people had white hair, some men grew beards, the women dyed their hair, painted their skin and put on perfume. In the evenings they sat in bars and drank wine in glasses. There were lots of waiters. In the restaurants of Palermo they brought you parmigiana di melanzane

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