Davide Longo - The Last Man Standing

After supper Lucia would withdraw to her bedroom, while Salomon stayed up to play with Bauschan. When the boy said goodnight, the two men were left together. Leonardo would then put out the lamp and set two chairs on the little open space in front of the house, where they would sit in the dark, breathing the smell of smoke that came from the citadel walls where fires would burn all night.

They were good, controlled fires, but even so neither of them wanted to find out who was living there. They felt no unease and no desire to make discoveries, and even if Sebastiano had decided to speak, they would have had nothing to say to each other. In the dark they could hear Circe walking around the house, the gentle motion of the sea and the cries of gulls among the rocks. It was all they had and all they needed.

Before going to bed Leonardo would go to Lucia to massage her feet and place his hand on her belly to feel the movements of the creature she had been carrying so long inside her and which was now almost ready to come out.

If she was not asleep, the girl would keep her eyes fixed on her father in silence, as though the warmth of his hand was a long speech full of good sense she must not lose.

Coming out of Lucia’s bedroom Leonardo would find Sebastiano sitting at the table, busy writing in a narrow script, like oblique rainfall, in the brown exercise book he had given him during the first days.

Hearing him come in, Sebastiano would raise his head.

They would look at each other for a few moments in silence, both nod in greeting, and then Leonardo would go to lie down on his bed next to the boy and the dog.

He had no idea what Sebastiano was writing and he did not want to know. He no longer felt any desire for that act once so familiar to him, in which he had invested so much of himself and which had caused him such agonies in the long years after he had abandoned it. Whatever the reason that had driven him to try to compose what could not be composed, it had gone. The stories inside him would not outlive the beating of his heart. He knew that and it was how he wanted it, and this sense of impermanence would never disturb his sleep.

Two days before the boat was finished, he saw them.

There were three of them, watching from the bridge that linked the two banks of the stream, about a hundred meters up the hillside from the pool. One was a tall man, one a man with red hair, and the third was in shadow.

“There’s someone there,” Leonardo said.

Sebastiano looked up at the bridge, but from the way he quickly looked down again and went on filling the cans, Leonardo realized this could not be the first time he had seen them.

“We have to go,” Leonardo told Salomon, who was swimming with the elephant in the lowest of the pools.

“But it’s early!” the child objected.

“I know, but we must get back to the beach.”

Lucia had gone upstream to bathe in a more secluded and shaded pool. When Leonardo reached her, she was standing on a great rock in the middle of the stream, staring at the men who were watching her from some fifty meters further up. Her face showed no distress. Apart from the milky whiteness of her full breasts and belly, her body was slender and suntanned, and her hair now reached down to her buttocks.

Leonardo called her. She walked to meet him and let him help her on with her dress over her wet skin; then, with the others, and moving more quickly than usual, they set out down the path to the beach.

Halfway there Salomon turned off toward a path leading to an old house with a garden where they had found two peach trees and a fig tree heavy with fruit. Leonardo told him they could not go there today.

“Why not?” the child asked.

“I’ll tell you later, now go with Sebastiano. I have to stop for a moment.”

The child realized this was no time for arguing and ran to join Sebastiano.

Leonardo, left on his own, took the dog under his arm and hid behind a low stone wall from where he could watch the path above. The three men appeared soon afterward, walking unhurriedly in single file. One had white hair; the others were younger but were not boys. They were wearing T-shirts and overalls and knee-length shorts. They had short hair and did not have beards.

When they disappeared behind the trees, Leonardo went back onto the road and quickly reached the beach. When the three men emerged from the tunnel, the boat was already about a hundred meters offshore. Salomon, not yet understanding what had happened, ran to the stern when he saw them; one of the men had gone up to David.

“Leave him alone!” the child shouted.

The man, who was about to stroke the elephant, pulled his hand back. The one with white hair and the other one watched the boat moving away.

“Don’t worry,” Leonardo said. “They won’t hurt him.”

The boy went on staring at them, with big tears running down his cheeks. Sebastiano was rowing for all he was worth. The island was getting nearer. It was a sunny day, but white cumulus clouds were forming above the coast.

As soon as they landed, Salomon ran to the ruins of the tower from where he could see the beach. Leonardo helped Sebastiano carry the water cans to the house, then he joined the boy, who was inspecting the coast with his hand shading his eyes. Leonardo sat down beside him on the stones that had once been the foundation of the tower.

“I don’t want them to take him away!”

Leonardo reassured him: “They won’t.”

He could only see one man; the others had either gone away or were sheltering in the vegetation on the far side of the road. David was standing still, like a huge sandcastle.

“But if they are good people, why did we have to run away?”

Leonardo could think of nothing to say to that.

“Let’s do some fishing,” he said. “Then we’ll come back and see if they’ve gone.”

That evening the child did not ask him to continue the story he had started the day before and sat with his eyes fixed on the point where the fishing line disappeared into the dark water, agitated by the coming storm.

They caught a bass and two bream, which Sebastiano garnished with rosemary and set to boil in a little seawater. While they were eating, it began to rain. Sebastiano put out the basin and several cups to catch the water, then he came back in and they continued to eat in silence. No one said anything about what had happened during the afternoon or what might happen the next day.

When he had finished his supper, Salomon went out.

Leonardo caught up with him halfway up the hill and the two climbed the last bit together. The bones covering the ground seemed to be gradually releasing the light they had stored up during the day. In contrast, once they reached the top the coast seemed black and dense as if molded in wrought iron. Amid the gloom, the fire lit by the three men on the beach shone like a beacon. Even at that distance they could distinguish the figures sitting around the flames. They could imagine David not far off.

“They’re still there,” the boy confirmed.

Leonardo put his hand on Bauschan’s head and stroked it. The wind was driving the clouds inland and, in the half of the sky reflected by the sea, the first stars had appeared.

“David’s fine,” he said. “They’ll be gone tomorrow, you’ll see.”

They went back to the house. Lucia was in bed and Sebastiano was washing up. Leonardo went into the room with the boy.

“Do those men want to hurt us?” Salomon asked as he lay down on his bed.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why are they staying there, then?”

“I don’t know, but tomorrow we’ll bring David here with us,” Leonardo said.

The child stared at him in the dark.

“You’re not telling me lies, are you?”