Klaus Zambiasi - The Smile Of The Moon

But on the other hand my sense of adventure incites me to go see for myself what happened, if the cows and the sheep are still in one piece or if they’ve been roasted as in a country fair.

As I cautiously get nearer, Oswald comes towards me, I give him the newspapers and the food, he must be hungry.

I still haven’t understood what the newspapers are for, actually they don’t look like newspapers, they’re more like magazines I think.

I look up towards the roof which doesn’t exist anymore, there’s nothing left but the skeleton of the larger wooden beams, pitch-black and eaten-up, looking like a coal structure made by an eccentric and misunderstood artist.

Waterdrops are still hanging here and there, undecided whether to fall to their doom or not, as if afraid of heights. The acrid smell of varnished, burnt, wet wood’s still very much present in the air, it’s a smell I’ll remember forever.

This has certainly been the most shocking event of my short life, it’s waken us in the middle of the night. Days go slowly by, I don’t know what they’ve decided to do, whether they want to build a new barn, or if they have another solution. Next time grandma comes I’ll surely have something to talk about.

It’s been two weeks already since grandma Anna’s last visit, but now she’s probably slightly postponed her next trip because of the fire.

Days and weeks pass, but no news from grandma yet, and this worries me, so I ask mamma Barbara:

‘When will grandma come? She hasn’t come in a long while.’

‘I really don’t know, I haven’t heard from her yet, we

happened to have a chat some time ago, but she couldn’t

tell me when she was going to come.’

‘I hope nothing bad happened in the meanwhile.’

‘As soon as I hear something I’ll let you know, don’t worry,

she must’ve been busy with the fields, the crop.’

The kids that were with us in the summer have all left, as usual they’ve only stayed for two or three weeks at most, Oswald and Waltraud are at school from morning till early afternoon. Karl’s busy the whole day with the stable, in the afternoon he takes a nap for a few hours on the sofa.

So in the morning it’s always just me and Barbara, either at home or, when she’s got work to do, in the garden. The sunflowers’ heads are down now, the seeds are all ripe in their circles, embedded within the pale-yellow petals.

I often go play outside in the morning, sometimes I go snooping around our house. One of our neighbours has a beautiful garden, where I enjoy going for walks and smelling the scents of the various plants and flowers that grow there.

The owner lets me in whenever I like, the entrance is a black wrought-iron gate, full of strange ornaments, spirals, roses and other flowers.

A narrow pathway marked by thousands of white pebbles leads me around, there are iron arcs all along the way, covered by vines and big roses of many different colours, red, pink, white, yellow. As I pass by them they give off an inebriating scent, it’s like a journey across various fragrances, there are also exotic plants and palms.

On the sides, every now and then, I encounter tiny statues, cheerful dwarves, chalk fawns, little fountains and water features. I feel like in a fairy tale, I wish I could stay here forever, I sit on a bench swinging my legs for a bit, and I think again about the possible reasons why grandma hasn’t come yet.

Usually, Saturday’s the day Barbara gives me a full bath, in a plastic tub on the kitchen table.

Today’s Monday, and it’s morning, I know we don’t have to go anywhere in particular. I leave the fairy garden, I try to shut the gate but the handle doesn’t work well.

Maybe it’s because the owner has put too much varnish on it, so it gets stuck a little and can’t go all the way, so I simply push it back against the frame and leave it unlocked.

I’ve even managed not to get dirty, I’ve only gone for a walk and I’ve sat on the clean bench for a while, so I don’t even need to wash.

I call Barbara to tell her I’ve arrived:

‘Mum, I’m coming, is lunch ready?’

I can’t hear her reply, I enter by the gate, I close it calmly, it too doesn’t shut too well, it’s a little rusty. I open the front door and I get in, I take off my shoes, mamma Barbara comes towards me from the kitchen, she kneels down and hugs me.

She takes me in her arms and kisses me again and again:

‘I know you love me, but is something wrong?’

‘I’m just happy to hug you, I’ll always love you.’

It has kind of taken me by surprise, I’ve gone out in the courtyard to play for a while, I could feel in her hug that something was off.

In her cheeks I can see a concern for something sad and melancholy, she can hardly hold her tears, she smiles at me:

‘Now, let’s eat something, then we’ll get dressed. You must

go with Karl, he’ll drive you to a place.’

‘And where is that, I want to stay here, I don’t have to go

anywhere, are we driving to the ice-cream shop?’

‘Yes, you could get an ice-cream, but I don’t know about

later.’

I don’t eat much and neither does she, we aren’t hungry anymore, she clears the table and gets the bath tub.

Things are getting serious, it’s not even Saturday, I’m not dirty, and she’s preparing the tub on the table for a bath.

I’m scared, it’s fishy to put it mildly, I try to act normal and say to her:

Mum, I’m going out to play again, I’m not hungry anymore.’

Everything starts looking misty and blurry, no, it’s not raining outside, it’s raining on my face, big, warm teardrops as big as peanuts.

I can hardly speak among sobs, she replies:

‘No, you can’t go out now, you’ll be late, I’ve got to wash you and dress you up now, Karl’s going to take you to Bolzano.’

We hug tightly without letting go, her tears are wetting my shoulders, they’re getting soaked with a mother’s love.

Sitting in the yellow tub, Barbara scrubs my shoulders with a sponge. She takes it on my face and on my eyes too, to clear the tears away, she manages to smile at me, her every move over me is a caress saying goodbye.

I can’t understand what’s in store for me yet, but I’m sure it’s nothing good, I think that sad moment I never wanted to face has finally arrived.

I must leave what for me is my family, my whole world.

It’s clear to me that, like the other small children, I’ve been here in their foster care for almost five years, and now the time has come to go to Bolzano or who knows where.

We leave home with a bag that Karl puts on the backseat, the bag’s not too big and this makes me hope I’ll be back soon, it’s a slight chance but I gladly cling on it. We say goodbye to mum among tears, when I get in the car, I can’t look at our little house anymore.

I spend the entire trip to Bolzano harbouring the wish I can stay away only for the day and come back home with Karl in the evening.

During the trip, both I and Karl stay mostly silent, some sparse words every now and then, he’s not a chatterer but I know he too isn’t in the mood to talk much.

When I manage to catch some breath, I ask him some explanations:

‘Where are we going in Bolzano? Are we going to grandma’s

place?’

‘We’re going to Bolzano, you’ll have to stay there now, your

father’s waiting for you.’