Davide Longo - The Last Man Standing

Leonardo examined the half-open door of the house, took off his shoes, and, after placing them neatly on the bottom step, limped toward the door.

They spent the morning on the terrace, faces turned to a weak spring sun that had risen uncertainly as if seeing the world for the first time.

No one, since they left the camp the previous evening, had asked where they were going and when they would find food. Salomon had been the only one to talk during the night. Walking beside Leonardo, he had expounded all he knew about creatures that could see in the dark, explaining how certain deep-sea fish were able to see by polarized light and so could detect their prey even in the darkness of the depths. Now and then Leonardo had turned toward Lucia, but his daughter’s eyes remained remote and blank. The bald woman, whenever she met his gaze, looked down. The doctor, at the back of the procession, contributed only a labored panting.

“They won’t escape, will they?” Salomon asked.

David and Circe were wandering around the field below the house eating the bark of several cherry trees.

“No, they won’t,” Leonardo said.

“Because they’re fond of us?”

“Exactly.”

Salomon looked at the girls and the doctor sleeping on the disjointed boards of the balcony, their hands red and swollen with warmth after the night’s frost. Then he stared at the mountain facing them and the leafless trees punctuating the brilliant white of the snow.

“Yesterday evening I was scared.”

“I know, but that’s over now.”

“Doesn’t it feel sore?”

“No. Are you hungry?”

“A bit.”

“Only a bit?”

“Very hungry.”

Leonardo woke the doctor and together they went down into the field where he showed the doctor how to milk Circe, then they went back and warmed the pot of milk on the stove. The house had been uninhabited for many years, but it was in good shape and despite the fact that others had been there before them, some dishes and cutlery had survived; also a table, a kitchen range, three beds with mattresses and blankets, a sofa, a wardrobe with men’s clothes in it, and a cellar containing a lot of tools. Leonardo and the doctor inspected the house from top to bottom without finding anything to eat, but in the attic they found some firewood and a few bales of hay that would be useful for the animals.

The doctor told Leonardo to sit down, and he began unwrapping his bandage.

“Don’t rest it on the table,” he said when the wound was revealed. Leonardo studied the dark flesh and white bone. His arm felt cold, light, and incomplete, but it was not painful. It just felt as though the limb was filling with air and sooner or later would fly away, detaching itself from his body.

“What’s that?”

The doctor was spreading on the wound a yellow cream from a jar.

“An ointment I’ve made from tobacco. Very basic, but it’ll prevent infection. The best I can do.”

The doctor went to wash his hands at the sink; then he sat down to bind up the stump.

“You’ll have to dress it morning and evening. This is the only bandage I’ve got so try to keep it clean. If it does get dirty, you can make another by cutting up a piece of clothing or a towel, but make sure it’s cotton and that you boil it before use. If there’s no infection, your temperature should return to normal in a couple of days and the wound will begin to heal.”

Leonardo looked out the window. He could see the river and part of the bottom of the valley. The sun, beating all morning on the road, had revealed a few patches of asphalt.

“Do you really want to go back to them?”

The doctor looked at him as though the question was entirely meaningless.

“You only have one hand and no weapons,” he said, knotting the bandage. “The child and the girls can only get in your way. If you’re lucky, someone will kill you all; failing that, you’ll die of hunger.”

The milk began hissing. Leonardo got up and took the pot off the stove using an old towel with a printed picture of Mickey Mouse dressed as a chef, and poured the milk into some containers he had found. There were two cups and a glass, and two metal containers intended for salt and coffee. He offered one to the doctor, who accepted it and put it on the table.

“I don’t care what you think of me,” he said.

Leonardo stared at him for a moment, his eyes calm and lacking in resentment; then he took one of the containers out to the balcony. When he got back to collect the rest and take them to the girls, the man had vanished.

Before dark Leonardo and Salomon checked the houses in the village, gleaning a local map, a parka, some sunflower seeds, a pencil, a little seed oil, a piece of soap, a pack of cards, an old snare, and a handful of sowing potatoes.

On their return, they found the stove had gone out; the house was dark and the girls were asleep in the bed behind the wooden partition. Leonardo and Salomon went down to the cellar, where Leonardo showed the boy how to make an oil lamp using an empty drinks bottle, a piece of rag, and the oil they had found. The boy followed the instructions carefully without getting impatient even when he had difficulty rolling the wick in the right way, and he was finally able to watch the lamp with pride as it lit the low ceiling of the room. Leonardo pocketed the lighter the doctor had left with the ointment.

“Now I feel calm.”

“Why?”

“Because I know when I ask you to do something I can’t do myself, you’ll do it well.”

Salomon looked down. Leonardo placed his hand on the boy’s head. His fair hair was smooth and shone like new grass. His blue eyes collected light, absorbing something from inside himself and releasing it again very slowly.

“I have to ask you one more favor.”

The child looked up.

“Let’s keep to ourselves what we saw in that house.”

“You mean the skeletons?”

“Yes, better not tell the girls about that.”

“I only cried out because it was such a surprise.”

“I know, but it would frighten them.”

Salomon stared at the flame.

“What happened to those people?”

Leonardo had found tufts of hair; the man and woman had died of hunger or cold, and dogs and wolves must have found some way of getting into the house.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but best keep it to ourselves.”

“I’d already decided not to say anything.”

“I can believe that.”

Salomon looked at the refrigerator and the washing machine against the wall. Apart from a pile of planks thrown down in the middle of the room, the cellar was in perfect order. There was a well-stocked tool shelf, a rack for garden tools, and a workbench with a vice and grindstone for working with metals. When he had come in there that morning and seen that equipment and the planks, he had imagined someone dreaming of an imminent flood and seized by the urge to build a barge. Someone who after buying the wood had suddenly become less confident about trusting his dreams.

“I wish Lucia and the other lady would say something,” Salomon said.

Leonardo slid his hand down his face.

“Sometimes people are happier keeping silent.”

“But they will talk in the end, won’t they?”

“It may take time. We must be patient, OK?”

“OK. Will they be happy we found the potatoes?”

“Yes, they’ll be very happy about that.”

They lit the stove and put a pan of water on to boil, then they prepared one of the beds in the upstairs room and left the door open for the heat to rise and warm it. They washed plates and cutlery and cleaned the surface of the dresser; then they put everything they had found on it, which at the moment was their whole fortune.

When the potatoes had boiled, Leonardo went into the bedroom next door and touched the bald woman’s shoulder to wake her. She opened her eyes at once, as if she had only been pretending to be asleep. She looked serious, attentive, and confident, with no trace of the terrified girl Leonardo had led out of the hotel by the hand.