Davide Longo - The Last Man Standing

“When I see minds that have no pride,” he said, “no anger, no passion, finding nothing to give them pleasure; when the absentminded and careworn never venture under the sign of fire; when I see sluggish brows, empty spirits, and promises of love weakly sustained, and voices and eyes that hold nothing of the universe in them; then what good fortune that I have made all of you, who have known me, a present of the whole world including the stars, just because you have known me!”

“That’s so beautiful. Who wrote it?”

“A woman,” Leonardo said. “A century and a half ago.”

“Say it again slowly, I want to learn it by heart.”

Leonardo recited it again more slowly.

“Thank you,” Clarisse said. Then she got up and moved toward the stairs. At that moment the lamp went out.

“I’ve got some food ready for your journey and a couple of dresses for Lucia,” she said. “Soon the one she’s wearing won’t fit anymore.”

The beach, at the point where they reached the sea, consisted of gray, blue, and white pebbles the size of eggs, but the winter storms had swallowed most of it, only stopping a few meters short of the embankment that carried the Aurelia autostrada .

They walked a little way along the deserted path that skirted the road. It was a stretch of coast in between two built-up areas and there were few buildings, only wooden structures facing the sea that had once been bars and bathing establishments. There were still a few abandoned deckchairs on the beach, among abraded pieces of wood and flotsam.

When they found a place with no steps to the water, they led the animals down. Faced by such a huge expanse of water David stopped dead, and they had to wait for many minutes for him to take in what he was seeing. The donkey on the other hand went off at once to nibble at the woodwork of a fence.

“Can I go in the water?” the child asked.

Leonardo looked at the deserted beach and a distant village.

“Can you swim?”

“Yes,” said the boy.

“All right then, but keep close to the shore.”

“OK,” the child said, taking off his pants.

Leonardo watched him go into the water. The elephant had followed him as far as the edge of the surf and stayed there to watch over him with his large feet immersed in the foam. Salomon splashed him and cried out with joy. Lucia, at Leonardo’s side, watched the sun sink beyond the promontory to the west.

“Let’s go and have a look inside there,” Leonardo said.

The restaurant had a large terrace, a kitchen, a bathroom with running water, and a storeroom whose shelves had been emptied and tipped over. There were no beds or electricity, but in a hut next to it Leonardo found a few lounge chairs and a solar-powered battery. He carried the chairs up one at a time then remembered Salomon.

By the time Leonardo got him out of the water, the boy was shivering. Leonardo wrapped him in the towel and took him in his arms. Salomon leaned his head on Leonardo’s shoulder and put his arms around his neck.

“Please can we stay here forever,” he said.

Sitting on the terrace they dined on Clarisse’s rice and carrots. The restaurant’s windows were still unbroken and even though they found nothing to eat in the place, no one else seemed to have stayed there before them. Salomon, what with all the excitement and exhaustion, ate little and asked Leonardo endless questions about the origin of waves, the depths of the sea, and how they could be reached. The lamp spread a labored, leaden light over the table, but the sky was clear and a fragment of moon lit the coast, sharply defining sea, beach, sky, and rocks.

It was very late when the child finally fell asleep; Leonardo crossed the road to cut some branches and grass for the animals and carry them back to the beach because he did not want to spend much time away from the restaurant; then he filled a bucket with water and gave it to them to drink while Lucia sat on a deckchair on the terrace.

“Do you like it here?” he asked, taking off one of her shoes. Her ankles were swollen and her skin had a new smell. He remembered how when she had come to him only a few months earlier she had smelled of new paper whereas now she smelled of milk and blood.

He answered his own question. “It’s a nice place,” he said, starting the massage.

Two days later, having finished the food Clarisse had given them, they set the snare in bushes by the road.

It was not necessary to go very far because hares, foxes, and badgers came near the road fearlessly. Usually in not more than half an hour Leonardo would hear the trap spring and the brief cries of the animal would fill the night. Then, to prevent dogs or other predators stripping it clean, he would get up and go and remove it from the metal jaws. In the morning, as soon as he woke, he would light a fire on the beach and cook the meat to prevent it from spoiling.

He and Salomon would spend all day in their underpants. Leonardo had persuaded the boy to stay on the veranda out of the sun during the hottest part of the day, but the skin of both had become tanned and their hair lighter, making them look like Nordic adventurers.

The boy spent a lot of time in the water throwing stones and retrieving them and trying unsuccessfully to get David to follow him. The elephant would watch over him from the beach like a timid granny, and when the waves threatened he would take a few clumsy steps backward but without turning away for fear of losing sight of the boy. Circe, in contrast, free of her large panniers, would spend the day sheltering in the shade between the thick concrete posts that supported the restaurant terrace.

In the evening Leonardo and the child would lead the animals over the main road to where there were plenty of bushes, and afterward they would have supper with Lucia before throwing the leftovers in the sea so as not to attract dogs.

One morning, after a couple of hours away, Leonardo brought back a fishing line and several hooks. Now that there were no bathers anymore, the fish had come back near the shore and could easily be enticed to take a bait of little bits of meat or small bones. As dusk fell, Leonardo and Salomon would sit on the beach near the fire while the child recounted his dreams, which were populated by the animals and fish he had killed, creatures who knew he had only killed them out of necessity.

“Sometimes I feel we must be waiting for someone,” he said one evening.

His hair reflected the yellow of the fire, like a crocus in the night.

Leonardo stroked his hair.

“If we do leave here,” he said, “it will be to go somewhere better.”

“There can’t be a better place than this,” Salomon said.

“Then we stay here.”

Next morning, while cooking an octopus, Leonardo saw the far-off figure of a very tall man coming along the beach with a dog, his silhouette vibrating in the heat of the air.

He took the octopus off the fire, put it on a plate so it would not get too hard, and knelt down and waited for the dog to run into his arms.

When he felt Bauschan’s hot body against his chest, he buried his face and fingers in the dog’s hair while the animal licked his ears and face and whimpered with joy. His scent had become that of an adult dog and his physique more compact, but with his long legs and patchy coat there was still something of the puppy about him. Then Leonardo stood up to meet Sebastiano.

During the last months his head had grown a covering of light-colored hair, making him look like a folksinger-songwriter from the 1930s. His body was still slender though his shoulders and arms had grown more substantial. The two men embraced the way children do, turning their heads to one side with their eyes open, their hips apart, hardly hugging at all. Even so, Leonardo could feel the man’s great heart beating against his own in the same rhythm as the surf. A slow and profound but weightless rhythm. The beat of a light heart.