Davide Longo - The Last Man Standing

“Now go,” he said.

We stood looking at him in uncertainty.

“Which way?”

“Leave the path and go down to the road,” he said, indicating the way for us with his rifle, “It’s not far to G.”

We began going down through the forest. Brambles and brushwood sometimes forced us to change direction and climb back up. On one of these occasions I looked up and saw the man still standing where we’d left him. He had lowered his gun but was still watching us, as though pondering what he might have done but hadn’t done, or the other way around.

Once we reached the road we walked on in silence until the trees behind us formed a thick curtain. Then I announced that we could stop. I pulled out one of the two bottles of water we carry and passed it to the children. They drank, their eyes still on the forest. I told them that if that man meant us any harm he would already have done it. Lucia nodded, but just as she did so I saw him reappear among the acacias at the end of the field.

We stayed sitting motionless on the safety barrier, staring at him as he approached. When he was about ten meters away he stopped, put his rifle over his shoulder, and looked toward the sun, which was disappearing behind the hills. I noticed his face was sunburned and clean-shaven. His eyes were a peaceful hazel color.

“I can offer you food and shelter for tonight,” he said.

During the half hour we walked behind him he never spoke or turned to check if we were following. When he got to the top of the hill he went down the other side, crossed a stream, and made his way to a house in the middle of a small clearing. A woman was waiting on the terrace. When she saw us she lifted her hand to her brow as though the sun was in her eyes. The man greeted her. She did not respond but went back into the house.

“That’s Manon,” the man said.

“I’m Leonardo.”

“I know.”

Manon had cooked a piece of deer and greens for supper. These seemed to be the herbs we had seen her washing earlier in the sink. There was homemade bread, too, and a dessert made with milk and cocoa. Manon’s fair hair had been given a basic cut. She is of Dutch origin and at first sight her beauty looks banally Nordic, but once you take in the exact color of her eyes and their almond shape one feels one is in the presence of something religious. She and Sergio live in this house with their two sons. The elder, Salomon, is eight and has his mother’s fair hair and his father’s taciturn nature. The younger is named Paul, but he is out of sight upstairs with a fever.

Their house is half Alpine hut and half farm. Its walls are stone and the lintels of the doors and windows are made of wood, but the rooms have high ceilings and are well lit. The house uses solar panels to produce electricity and has a wood-burning boiler, and the rooms are well heated. Before supper we were able to take a shower and rest in the room where we will spend the night.

In the bathroom I was afflicted by another fit of weeping. I had not seen myself naked in a mirror for a long time: in the last few weeks my body has become leaner, my shoulders broader and my back straighter. My leg muscles are again like when I used to run ten kilometers or so every day as a student. The whole effect is of a tired man who has grown several years younger. A tense, nervous man, such as I have never been before. Lucia heard me sobbing from our room and asked if I was all right; I said fine, I’m just singing.

When they came to call us for supper I woke Alberto and Sebastiano, who had fallen asleep on mattresses on the floor. Sergio waited at the door for us to put on our shoes; then asked if we were doing anything for Alberto’s conjunctivitis. I said we had some eye drops and asked if he was a doctor. A vet, he said.

During supper no one said very much. Sergio and Manon do not want to know where we have come from or where we are going and why. Nor did they ask us about the world around us in general, nor talk about what life was like before and what the future may hold now. Clearly, having guests is a new experience for them. This was obvious from the way Salomon studied the children during supper, as though until yesterday he had thought himself the last child left on earth.

While Manon was washing up, Sergio whispered something in her ear to which she replied in the same manner, then he told me he wanted to talk to me and we went out on the pretext of taking something to eat to Bauschan. I had realized at once that they preferred to have the dog left outside, so this is what I had done. They keep no animals in their house or yard. Not far from the main building is a wooden shed that I think Sergio must have built. As we walked around it I noticed the humming of a freezer coming from it. I think it must be their larder. Its door is secured with two large locks.

We sat down on the terrace steps. The air felt very cold, and one or two stars could be seen in the sky. It was only then that I noticed the windows were sealed so that no light filtered out from the inside. If I had moved a few meters away the only way I could have found the house again would have been by bumping into it. Hearing our footsteps, Bauschan came up to us. Sergio offered him the piece of meat we had saved for him.

“Are you still teaching?” Sergio asked.

“No, I left my job eight years ago.”

“To concentrate on writing?”

“Not entirely. I got caught up in something disagreeable. You probably heard about it.”

“I’ve been living here for ten years. We have no television or radio and don’t read the papers, so I’ve no idea what you might have been up to.”

“Were you one of my students?”

“I was.”

“What course were you on?”

“The one specializing in Leopardi.”

“But then you became a vet.”

“It was the exam at the end of that course that made me want to change. Until then I saw myself as having a brilliant mind.”

“I’m sure that was true. Exams can always get things wrong.”

“No, no. The only reason I chose Leopardi was to annoy my father, who was a vet. Changing over was the best thing I ever did. Otherwise I’d never have met Manon.”

I realized from the smell of tobacco that he must have lit a cigarette, but I could see no red glow. He was holding it in the hollow of his hand like soldiers and sailors do.

“I’ve been trying to think of a polite way to say it but I couldn’t find one, so I’ll say it straight out: tomorrow you must continue your journey. We can’t keep four extra people.”

“Of course. It’s been extremely kind of you to look after us this evening.”

“It has nothing to do with kindness. When I let you go today I was afraid you might come back with someone else to rediscover the path and find our house. So I either had to shoot you or put you in our debt. At the university you seemed to me a decent sort of person. So I chose the second alternative.”

“Are you always so honest?”

“We have no choice. The only reason we’re still alive is that everyone else around here has either gone away or is dead, and no one even knows this house exists. If some stray person or one of the gangs were to find us, we’d be finished.”

“Gangs of outsiders?”

He shook his head and for an instant I caught a glimpse of the red glow of the cigarette.

“Youngsters. A hundred, two hundred of them. Some my age, but younger too. With cars and trucks. I don’t know where they get the gas. Luckily they always play loud music and never leave the main road. If you hear them coming, keep clear.”

“We will.”

“Tomorrow I’ll give you some salted meat for the journey and some coffee that you’ll be able to reheat.”

“Thanks. We do have a little money.”