The Dawn Of Sin. Valentino Grassetti

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СКАЧАТЬ all, I didn't want to be accused of murder."

      "You are aware that when the medium was found on the ground with a broken skull, there was an inscription on the wall marked with a piece of coal: 'Decus et Damnationisʹ. Beauty and Damnation. What do you think that means?"

      "I… I don't know. I swear I don't know."

      (Crying)

      "Thank you for your testimony. I have no further questions."

      "Just one last thing: the coal… the house was full of coal. Has anyone seen it?"

      "No. They didn't find anything."

      End of recording.

      3

      Professor Marzioli was a stiff and dusty guy, with his goggles hovering on the tip of his aquiline nose, with his jacket and a bow tie worn to give him the appearance of an intellectual.

      Torquato Tasso had a Catholic upbringing. The influence of Petrarch's poetry can be recognized in the Rhymes of Love…'.

      As usual, Marzioli would explain the lesson with the enthusiasm of a gravedigger who was measuring a deceased. Guido noticed that Daisy was not taking notes. She was nervously drumming her pen on the counter, the air of those chasing distant thoughts.

      When the badger lesson was over, a collective sigh of relief rose up. The professor had managed to make even the scholar's restless life surprisingly boring. Lorena said goodbye to Daisy and left in a hurry. Her father waited for her at the entrance in overalls, sitting in the van loaded with boiler tubes. He was supposed to take her to the Leopardians' high school team match. Lorraine didn't like football, but she had a crush on Christian Skendery, a full-back with solid shoulders and a fiery gaze.

      Daisy greeted her friend and crossed the dark avenue in the face. Guido hurried to catch up with her.

      "Daisy, can I talk to you?" he asked nervously, hoping she would not tell him to go to hell. She stopped. She looked at the boy arching her eyebrows, abandoning her thoughts and concentrating on his contrite face.

      "I'm sorry about the picture" he exclaimed with a shrug of his shoulders, as if to say that the damage was done and could no longer be repaired.

      "It's not that important" Daisy dismissed, noting how nervous the boy was. She, the grumpy air of those she hadn't completely forgiven, walked down the avenue, assuming he would follow her.

      Guido took courage and hastened to catch up with her. They walked side by side through the row of plane trees that led to the exit. Autumn spread the first leaves on the pavement. Two boys would pass each other a joint sitting under a sycamore tree with an imposing bark, the sunlight slipping through the branches and breaking into many small, glistening rays. ‘Apart from that, it's a very romantic picture’ Daisy thought. Guido tried to have a little conversation. She replied in monosyllable, single-syllable fashion, because she was thinking about the comment posted on You Tube again.

      Adriano must stop looking for me. Or he'll come to a bad end.

      She found it a horrible joke. All his friends knew he was sick. What was the point of hurting a disabled person?

      "Daisy, are you all right? You've got a strange face" Guido worried.

      "No, it's nothing. It's just that I'm lost behind certain thoughts” she replied by having her lower lip sticking out to blow on her bangs. Sandra waited for her in the car while a traffic policeman watched the four lighted arrows without patience.

      Guido watched Daisy turn the corner. Although he didn't see him raise his hand to greet her, his gaze was captivated by her curves moving seductively under her grey coat. She walked with the certainty that her eyes were on her.

      ʺShit. Guido Gobbi… Shitʺ thought, but she could no longer deceive herself, or deny that her feelings could change just because she tried so hard to avoid it. She realized it was time to face reality. She turned to Guido with a careless

      expression. "Ah… I forgot” she said. She hadn't really forgotten anything.

      She had imagined an infinity of times.

      ʺOk. I'll have to pretend it's nothing. It has to give me an idea that it's not that important to me. It's nothing… Be brave and keep calm… ʺ.

      Daisy told him at the drop of a hat.

      Guido faded from surprise. He thought he didn't quite understand.

      "S… Sorry, can you repeat that?" he asked.

      She huffed and puffed. "But if you don't want to, I can't make you."

      "Of course I want to. Saturday's perfect” he said, his ears lit up with a red steal.

      Guido couldn't focus on the magnitude of it.

      Daisy had invited him to go out with her.

      "So I'll see you Saturday” said the girl with a pout, as if she had a hard time with fate, guilty of setting her on the path she had tried so hard to avoid.

      He saw her get into her mother's Cherokee. She did not turn around to greet him.

      Guido walked down the road without really knowing where he was going.

      ʺI have an appointmentʺ repeatedʺ. The grey patina of his life was as if it had been blown away suddenly, and now everything around him shone with colour. A rainbow of emotions that he could grasp without feeling it slipping through his fingers. He felt so happy and so in tune with the world that he wanted to embrace everyone he met on the way home: a mother pushing a stroller, a child enchanted by a balloon vendor, an old man sitting on a bench, a gentleman in a suit looking for a taxi, a tramp lying on the sidewalk resting between the folds of a cardboard box…

      Yes, he would have wanted to embrace the whole world.

      He and Daisy would have seen each other on the weekend.

      He began counting the hours that separated him from her, the clock hands that suddenly became unbearably large, heavy, and slow.

      The low pressure weighed down the sky with grey, threatening clouds. Leponex's tablet was on the medicine drawer, put there to remind Daisy's mother how tragic and complicated her life still was.

      Adriano, with his face emaciated and tired, his black hair crushed on his forehead, his gaze wandering about without ever deciding where to settle, had not attended school since the age of twelve. The disease was cruel, the support teachers non-existent, beheaded by linear government cuts.

      Adriano was followed by a teacher who constantly visited him once a week. Forty-five thousand euros spent in four years. The doctors said that his father's suicide had awakened an evil already written in his genes.

      The first symptoms appeared when he was twelve, a surprisingly early age for the disease. Sandra began to suspect that something was wrong when Adriano, who was round and rosy, suddenly began to lose weight. She washed lightly, refused to study, slept on the carpet, and when she went to the bathroom she got dirty everywhere.

      One day he started lowering the shutters on all the windows in the house.

      He said he was being spied on by someone. Evidence of a dark evil that had begun to seriously worry his mother. СКАЧАТЬ