If she hadn’t already been on the verge of dropping off into slumber, if she hadn’t already had one foot inside the dark room of the deepest sleep, the sleep without images and without dreams, without memories or consciousness, then Lara would have remembered the baby girl.
For the whole time she’d had the little one inside her, she’d never given her a name, in view of what would be coming later. She hadn’t even wanted to know whether it was a boy or a girl, to avoid giving it an identity. Now, though, one of those flashes of her reason as it lost contact with reality was a glimpse of that flesh, red and wrinkled but new like nothing else could ever hope to be.
Sense of touch. Memory. Even her sense of hearing brought her something, like the sucking sound of the sea washing out, the sea sleeping at night outside a half-open window. The voice of Signora Cristina, as she patiently explained the workings of the half stitch. The insistent voice of Signor Sergio, in the half-light. The voice of the priest, behind the red curtain, in gentle supplication.
How strange, Lara’s brain thought with some difficulty, by now almost entirely sedated. A priest supplicating a woman in confession. What do you have to beg for, priest? Shouldn’t it be me, begging you? But by now the time separating waking moments from sleep was about to run out, and it was too late to ask questions. Too late for answers, too.
As if flying through the air, Lara’s thoughts flew to Nazar’s funny face, his figure, chest thrust out, tie knotted at his neck, awkward and smiling. To the clothes that she had embroidered. To the immense sea that never once stops moving and yet which seems utterly immobile. To the heat, to the cold.
The dog was still running through the snow, following mysterious trajectories. Donato was sitting motionless in front of the screen. The skin of the baby girl was moving gently under her hand.
But by now, she really had run out of time.
The cord tightened one last time around Lara’s neck.
And at last she died.
And stopped remembering.
II
But what if nobody shows up? What if nobody stops, what if no one . . . ” “Cut it out. Stop it, I tell you. Someone’ll come.”
“Maybe so, maybe not, it’s really early, and there’s still a chill in the air, the night was damp. Maybe we shouldn’t have put her there. Maybe we’re killing her, too, and . . . ”
“Her, too? Her, TOO? Don’t you ever dare to say that again, you hear me? Never again! You shouldn’t even think such a thing, because . . . ”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, I just . . . ”
“You just what? You just fucking WHAT? You this, you that. Even when it’s just the two of us talking, you can’t ever say what just . . . ”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry, it’s just that . . . ”
“ . . . what just happened, understood? You never can tell who might be listening, and how, and why. I mean, there might be a tiny recording device, a bug for . . . ”
“I know.”
“ . . . for tax reasons, for instance. You never know what they’ll do, for tax reasons. And there you are, caught with your hand in the cookie jar, just because you spoke a word that . . . ”
“I get it. Now just please calm down. It’s just that, seeing her there . . . I mean, what if, say, a dog went by . . . ”
“What dog are you talking about! And after all, we’re right here, aren’t we? We can keep an eye on her from here. There’s no dog. Any minute now someone will come along and . . . ”
“Don’t you think we should have taken her to the hospital?”
“Are you joking? To the hospital? Like, how? Wrapped in a blanket, dropped at the front desk, with a note pinned to the . . . ”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Of course, that’s not what I’m talking about. I know perfectly well that . . . ”
“You know perfectly well that what? That they’d ask us for our first and last names and our phone numbers? And most of all, they’d ask why we’re in possession of . . . ”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Nobody’s that dumb. I’m not saying to leave her inside the hospital, but, you know, outside.”
“Listen, we’ve already talked about this. Hospitals are jam-packed with security cameras. They’re worse than banks, hospitals. A couple of cameras at the front gate, another couple of them in the lobby, the courtyard. And that’s not counting . . . ”
“Yeah, you told me that, yeah. But still, maybe someone . . . ”
“ . . . that’s not counting the guards at the entrance, twenty-four hours a day. Sure, sometimes they nod off, but you can’t count on that.”
“Still, there we could have been certain. She’s sick . . . ”
“You really are a piece of work. With everything that’s going on, you worry about . . . ”
“There, you see? This time it’s you. First you tell me never to mention it, not even when we’re alone, because of the damned bugs and recording devices, and . . . ”
“Sure, sure. You have a point. It’s just that it strikes me as ridiculous to worry about certain things, don’t you think? Plus, we aren’t even sure that she’s really all that sick, maybe it’s just something physiological.”
“With a fever? And she never cries? Plus the way she’s been whining . . . She won’t even eat.”
“Right, I see your point. Let’s say she’s not well. That’s why we left her in the first place, right? You’ll see, someone will find her and take her in and make sure she gets the medical care she needs.”
“But what if . . . God, I don’t even want to say it . . . but what if she doesn’t pull through?”
“First of all, she’ll make it. But listen, if it went, you know, the other way, all it would mean is that it was meant to happen.”
“It was meant to happen, right. Blame it all on fate. Let’s just curse fate, because that’s so easy.”
“Oh, listen, don’t come preaching to me, okay? You of all people, don’t come preaching to me!”
“All right. Let’s not argue about it. That’s pointless, isn’t it? You said yourself that it was pointless. What I don’t understand, though, is why we chose this place. Frankly . . . ”
“Okay, I explained it to you once and I’ll explain it again. Do you see any security cameras? Tell me if you see any.”
“No, I don’t think so. Also because we’re . . . ”
“Exactly, we’re set back from the front entrance. The gate’s right there, the space for the garbage cans and dumpsters is across the way from us. In fact, there would have been two security cameras, one outside the gate where the bank used to be and another one next to the apartment house entrance across the street, but the first is focused down and doesn’t capture a view of the street, while the other one was torn down and stolen by vandals. Now it’s probably mounted in the courtyard of the villa of some fool around here. In other words, there’s no security footage.”