QWhen the little boy arrived, Ada was in the garden. The bluebells had clung to the tomato stalks overnight; they had the wild smell of the predator. His parents dropped him off after a quick lunch, called back to the city by emergencies that seemed more like pretexts. StHer nephew would share the middle summer of the foothills with hera jolt of sun, rain and wind, with a prophetic scent of stalks.
“I’ll give you back your heartbeat” by Ilaria Tuti
Ada and Luca spent the first few days exchanging fleeting glances, broken words. Luca was the host, but without courtesy. The window of his little room overlooked the fragrant garden, the most beautiful sunset, but Luca had never looked out.He spent his days sitting up in bed, his cell phone between his knees and his expressionless face.
Ada had thought it was a way to stay close to friends, but, look after look, she realized that what was scrolling on the screen was the only life his nephew knew, without smell or taste, without risks, without heartbeat. Meanwhile, the two of them could not bond. With his temper, made more of silences and hands at work than of words, Ada was not a welcoming grandmother. They had never really met and the sudden coexistence wasn’t a good starting point: it was a punishment, Luca had been rejected.
Grandmother and silent granddaughter
Everything changed one stormy evening, with the north wind howling. Luca was crying, sobs alternating with thunder. Ada listened to him with a hand on her heart. She waited for the sky to clear before going out. Mosquitoes bit her skin, but lime trees perfumed the night.
She had made up her mind to find friends for the boy, he remembered where the groups of teenagers met in the sweetest hours of the summer. She reached the fountain in the square, crossed the whole town, up to the esplanade of the cathedral, but she didn’t meet a soul.
Where were the young and where was the madness of youth? The insomnia of tender anguish? The courtyards were deserted, the streets vibrated with the hum of the air conditioners on. They were behind the closed shutters, she told herself, behind the locked doors.
Audrey Hepburn in a scene from the film “Roman Holiday”. ANSA / PIAGGIO PRESS OFFICE
At home, closed inside her nest too, she realized she was no different from them. He had only old photos for company. One portrayed she and her best friend riding a Vespa. It was the summer of 1968 and they were twenty years old. Carmen had been gone for some time. Ada looked at the calendar hanging on the wall. What had she been doing all those years?
Find happiness again
He went to the shed. The Vespa seemed to look at her with a dull eye. Ada picked up a stone and threw it against the first floor window. Luca looked out. “Grandma, are you crazy?” «I want the heartbeat back. And you?”. Down the slopes, diving. Up the hills, the Vespa snorting. With legs stretched out, or curled up, the wind in your eyes and midges in your mouth.
Luca squeezed her at belly level, under her sagging breasts, and squeezed her tightly, laughing. Ada was no longer the girl in the photo, but her heart was the same, and it was beating wildly.
The author
Ilaria Tuti made her debut with Flowers above hell, the protagonist is the profiler Teresa Battaglia (also TV series). With Rock flower And Like wind sewn to the earth successfully tackles the historical novel. Publish with Longanesi, now it’s in the bookstore with Mother of bones: Teresa Battaglia is still here.
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