Elena Ferrante - The Days of Abandonment

At that point I felt a tickle in my nostrils, I thought that my nose was bleeding again. I soon realized that I had taken for a tactile impression what was an olfactory wound. A thick poisonous odor was spreading through the house. I thought that Gianni must be really sick, I pulled myself together, went back to his room. But the child was still sleeping, in spite of his sister’s assiduous changing of the coins on his forehead. Then I moved slowly through the hall, cautiously, toward Mario’s study. The door was half open, I entered.

The bad smell was coming from there, the air was unbreatheable. Otto was lying on his side, under his master’s desk. When I approached him, he shuddered through his whole body. Saliva dripped from his jaws but his eyes were those of a good dog, even though they looked white, as if bleached. A blackish stain was spreading next to him, dark mud veined with blood.

At first I thought of backing off, leaving the room, closing the door. For a long time I hesitated, taking in that new strange creeping of the illness through my house, what was happening. In the end I decided to stay. The dog was lying mutely, no spasm shook him, his eyelids were lowered now. He seemed to be immobilized in a final contraction, as if he were wound tight, like one of those metal toys of long ago, ready to start up suddenly, as soon as you lowered a little lever with your finger.

Very slowly I got used to the room’s offensive odor, I accepted it to the point where, after a few seconds, its surface was torn in several places and another odor began to seep through, for me even more offensive, the odor that Mario hadn’t taken away and which was stationed there, in his study. How long since I had entered that room? As soon as possible, I thought angrily, I had to make him take everything out of the apartment, clear himself out of every corner. He couldn’t decide to leave me and yet store in the house the perspiration from his pores, the aura of his body, so strong that it broke even the poisonous seal of Otto. Besides — I realized — it was that odor which had given the dog the energy to lower the door handle with his paw and, similarly dissatisfied with me, drag himself under the desk, in that room where the traces of his master were more intense and promised him relief.

I felt humiliated, even more humiliated than I had felt in all these months. A dog without gratitude, I had taken care of him, I had stayed without abandoning him, I had taken him outside for his needs, and he, now that he was becoming a terrain of sores and sweat, went to find comfort among the scents of my husband, the untrustable, the traitor, the deserter. Stay here by yourself, I thought, you deserve it. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, it didn’t even matter to me, he, too, was a flaw in my awakening, an incongruous event in a day that I was unable to put in order. I backed up angrily toward the door, in time to hear Ilaria behind me asking:

“What stinks?”

Then she glimpsed Otto lying under the desk and she asked:

“Is he sick, too? Did he eat poison?”

“What poison?” I asked as I closed the door.

“The poisoned dog biscuits. Daddy always says you have to be careful. The man downstairs who hates dogs puts them in the park.”

She tried to reopen the door, fearful for Otto, but I prevented her.

“He’s fine,” I said. “He just has a little stomachache.”

She looked at me very closely, so that I thought she wanted to figure out if I was telling her the truth. Instead she asked:

“Can I make myself up like you?”

“No. Take care of your brother.”

“You take care of him,” she retorted in irritation and went toward the bathroom.

“Ilaria, don’t touch my makeup.”

She didn’t answer and I let her go, I let her go, that is, beyond the corner of my eye, I didn’t even turn, I went dragging my feet to Gianni’s room. I felt exhausted, even my voice seemed to me more a sound in my mind than a reality. I took Ilaria’s coins off his forehead, I ran my hand over his dry skin. It was burning.

“Gianni,” I called, but he continued to sleep or pretend to sleep. His mouth was half open, his lips inflamed like a fiery red wound in the middle of which shone his teeth. I didn’t know whether to touch him again, kiss his forehead, shake him lightly to try to wake him. I repressed also the question of the gravity of his illness: food poisoning, a summer flu, the effect of a frozen drink, meningitis. Everything seemed possible, or impossible, and yet I had trouble forming hypotheses, I was unable to establish hierarchies, above all I couldn’t get alarmed. Now, instead, thoughts in themselves frightened me, I would have liked not to have any more, I felt they were infected. After seeing Otto’s condition, I was even more afraid of being the channel of every evil, better to avoid contacts, Ilaria, I mustn’t touch her. The best thing was to call the doctor, an old pediatrician, and the vet. Had I already done it? Had I thought of doing it and then forgotten? Call them right away, that was the rule, respect it. Even though it annoyed me to act as Mario had always acted. Hypochondriac. He got worried, he called the doctor for a trifle. Dad knows — the children, besides, had always pointed out to me — he knows that the man downstairs puts poisoned dog biscuits in the park; he knows what to do about a high fever, about a headache, about symptoms of poison; he knows that you need a doctor, he knows you need the vet. If he had been present — I sobbed — he would have called a doctor for me above all. But I immediately removed that idea of solicitude attributed to a man from whom I solicited nothing anymore. I was an obsolete wife, a cast-off body, my illness is only female life that has outlived its usefulness. I headed decisively toward the telephone. Call the vet, call the doctor. I picked up the receiver.

I put it down immediately in anger.

Where was I with my head?

Collect myself, take hold of myself.

The receiver gave the usual stormy whistle, no line. I knew it and pretended not to know it. Or I didn’t know it, my memory had lost its ability to grip, I was no longer capable of learning, of retaining what I had learned, and yet I pretended that I was still capable, I pretended and I avoided responsibility for the children, the dog, with the cold pantomime of one who knows and does.

I picked up the receiver, dialed the number of the pediatrician. Nothing, the whistling continued. I got down on my knees, I looked for the plug under the table, I unplugged it, plugged it back in. I tried the telephone again: the whistling. I dialed the number: the whistling. Then I began to blow into the receiver myself, stubbornly, as if with my breath I could chase away that wind that was canceling my line. No success. I gave up on the telephone, returned idly to the hall. Maybe I hadn’t understood, I had to make an effort to concentrate, I had to take in the fact that Gianni was ill, that Otto, too, was ill, I had to find a way of feeling alarm for their condition, grasp what it meant. I counted on the tips of my fingers, diligently. One, there was the telephone not working in the living room; two, there was a child with a high fever and vomiting in his room; three, there was a German shepherd in bad shape in Mario’s study. But without getting agitated, Olga, without rushing. Pay attention, in the excitement you might forget your arm, your voice, a thought. Or tear the floor, permanently separate the living room from the children’s room. I asked Gianni, perhaps shaking him too hard:

“How are you feeling?”

The child opened his eyes.

“Call Daddy.”

Enough of your useless father.

“I’m here, don’t worry.”

“Yes, but call Daddy.”