Roberta Mezzabarba - Ties

This is a work of fantasy. Names, characters, places and events are imaginary or used in a fictitious key and any reference to people, living or dead, to facts or to truly existing places is purely random

Original title of the work: Legàmi

First edition

november 2018

IL PORTO

© 2018 La Caravella Editrice

Second edition in Spanish

Publicado por ©Tektime

may 2020

Third edition

Publicado por ©Tektime

june 2020

www.traduzionelibri.it

Roberta Mezzabarba

Ties

Thriller novel

Translator: Emanuela Paganucci

To the movements of the soul

that give meaning to everything.

New Year’s Eve 1979

The day was coming to an end. The cold winter lights were fading away in a peaceful and clear twilight. A woman was about to give birth, she was panting heavily through her pale lips. She was lying on creased bed sheets, she was dishevelled and overcome with fatigue. Another woman was waiting in fear, she was also expecting. Her screams echoed like moths flying maniacally around, trapped within the rough walls of that big room with high, dark ceilings. The only sunlight shining into that poky room, was peeping through the iron bars on a big glass window. From there, the skyline in the distance was stretching out as far as the fields in the dark, slashing the blue sky with its sharp blade. For one moment, the two women were doing the exact same thing: four eyes were looking in the same direction, four eyes were opened wide in amazement at the scene that lasted just for a few seconds, slightly distorted by the rough centuries-old glass.

At sunset, two bright spheres were facing each other : one was at the end of its journey , while the other one was just beginning it. At that sight, random thoughts came into the mind of the young woman lying on the bed: she could see great grief, questions as old as the universe, scars caused by hurt and melancholy, morbid desire for that encounter to happen again…. In the darkness a man with thin lips was smiling: his first flower was about to blossom. In a second, the sun disappeared from the sight of the two women. At that very moment they were given a sample of the poison that could have driven mankind to complete madness, with no return. Without any warning, the contractions came on again, just like the currents suddenly burst the banks of a river stopping its regular peaceful flow. She felt that she could hardly breathe with the pain and she was in great distress. Silene roared with the last pain and she was finally relieved from all that suffering. The cry of the baby filled the air, who had just survived the great test of childbirth. He was squirming around, still feeling terrified for having been pushed out of that safe and warm place that had sheltered and fed him up to that moment. Silene relaxed all the muscles in her body, exhausted. She was looking at her baby, his umbilical cord had not been cut yet and he was so tiny..

She knew he was a boy since the very moment she felt him in her womb. In a faint voice, she called him by the name that she had thought for him over those long months of her pregnancy… Guglielmo, this will be your name, my darling. She had carefully picked it among a thousand names because she wanted a name that could protect him (strange idea) and eventually she had chosen one that was not so common, probably a little old-fashioned. It means “strong-willed man who faces the great challenges of life with determination”. She had experienced loneliness, alienation, grief, violence… and she wished her son, conceived in violence, could have a different life. Deep in those thoughts, Silene felt a mild pain in her chest but did not take any notice of it. She thought that the happiness she was feeling was pressing hard against her breastbone, it was hard to hold it all. Her little baby and herself managed to survive childbirth, despite all the nightmares that had haunted her. Lately in her dreams she would see somebody dying and the onset of a period full of darkness and suffering.

At the top of that short-lived happiness, her heart stopped beating shortly after.

Silene died bearing in her mind the image of her son Guglielmo. She had passed away without realising it, without feeling any concern for the end that was about to come her way and for her little baby…What happened during that strange night could be considered absurd by anyone, however later on it would be like a premonition recounted by old storytellers on stormy nights… once upon a time , a young woman was taken the day that she would give birth to her baby…

In the background, a man enjoyed every single groan of pain that Silene endured. He was now running away: he was quite sure that everything was going to fall into place.. if one of the two women died, it would not mattered much: he would just have to adjust his plans slightly.

The moon was high in the pitch black sky.

Lina, the woman who stayed back in the darkness, was in shock, terrified.

When she eventually came over to Silene, her fears materialized… she was dead and the moon was already high in the sky. It was just then that, for a quick moment, she pictured again the sun and the moon going along the skyline simultaneously. Their destinies crossed just for a few seconds … She did not know, and neither did Silene, that what they saw was not just a simple coincidence. She was not too sure how to interpret what she had witnessed.

The sun went down, Silene had slipped into the darkness with a broken heart… all that was left were little Guglielmo and a large moon the colour of blood, up in the sky.

That thought brought her back to reality, she had a task to fulfil. The man had not probably expected Silene to die and at that point, she did not know exactly what to do with the baby.

She made a quick decision: she would never tell anyone what had happened. The baby would be raised by a normal family, which had nothing to do with that horrific night. After all, unless that man was crazy, he would never look for her again: the risk would be too high for him.

It was all over.

A shiver went down her kidneys and a sharp pain crept all over her belly.

Without thinking, she wrapped the sleeping baby around the nightgown Silene was wearing when she was kidnapped. She left those rough and creepy walls to go into the fresh air of the night. She left behind Silene’s dead body, which was still warm. She was determined to leave the baby at the first beautiful home she would come across on her way.

Destiny was fulfilled.

I am on my own then. Only

sweet bright lies

keep me company.

Sandro Penna

December 1999

A blend of smells filled the air of the gym, pungent smells of sweaty bodies pushing their physical activity to the limit.

Guglielmo was holding a shiny barbell, his fingers clenched it tightly, showing all the muscles flexed in his biceps, his skin was slightly tanned and glistening with sweat…

He loved the carefree afternoons that he could spend in that environment, where he could work off the worse side of his personality.

He could watch unnoticed those bodies all wrapped up in tight, brightly coloured sports gear.

He was avidly sizing up the bodies and souls of those girls in the backlight, he followed their movements, their facial expressions, their hair fluttering in the air. There were billions of them, like countless fragments of lives that he would never get to know.

Meanwhile, Claudio, one of his university classmates, was sitting on a bench beside him, the two of them would meet up often at the gym too.