Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions by Mario Giordano Page B

tower, and the Masonic conspiracy that lay (in Mimì’s view) at the root of this.
    â€œI can prove, Donna Isolde, that Hölderlin’s poems reveal arcane knowledge of great antiquity. Encoded, of course. Hölderlin was not only the greatest German poet, but also a cryptological genius. I’m on the verge of deciphering his code and thus of revealing a truth that will shake the world to its foundations.”
    â€œIs there any more wine anywhere?” Poldi cried out in despair, wondering what the hell she was doing there. Mimì continued to blather incessantly. The other guests looked relieved to be able to concentrate entirely on their dinner. Beside her, Valérie merely picked at her food for form’s sake and did her best to ignore Russo, who spent the whole time eyeing her across the table. Unable to get properly drunk on such a paucity of wine, Poldi couldn’t help wondering what, if anything, had gone on between them. Patanè, who never took his eyes off Russo for a moment, munched, chewed, grunted, sighed and belched without a break, spoke to nobody else, and took not the slightest trouble to feign polite interest in the other guests.
    When inebriation simply refused to supervene for lack of wine, my aunt became first sentimental and then melancholy. A familiar shadow descended on her soul like a heavy velvet curtain beneath which one could sleep or suffocate. Preferably both. Poldi thought of her Peppe, of John, of the house in Tanzania, of all the people, things and hopes she had lost. Of the countless times she had stuck in her oar and ruined everything. She thought of Valentino, who was very probably in bed with some girl, and it seemed to her that today had been nothing but a bloody awful, shitty waste of time. She heard Mimì’s voice beside her. He had risen to his feet and was declaiming a Hölderlin poem, first in German and then in his own Italian translation. It ended: “ Nought am I now, my love of life is gone .”
    The words pierced Poldi to the core. Direct hit; sunk. She felt Valérie’s hand on her arm.
    â€œPoldi? Everything all right?”
    â€œOf course. Why shouldn’t it be?”
    â€œYou’re crying.”
    â€œNo I’m not.”
    â€œYou most certainly are. You’re trembling.”
    Poldi noticed only then that everyone was staring at her and that Valérie was holding out a handkerchief.
    â€œThanks,” she sniffed. She blew her nose and promptly felt a trifle better. She turned to Valérie. “Would you mind driving me home, please?”
    So much for that evening. In order to draw a line under it, Poldi spent the whole of the following day lying in her darkened bedroom in the Via Baronessa with a bottle of vodka, drinking and wallowing in self-pity. She heard children romping around and neighbours chatting, heard laughter and squabbles, the blatting of Vespas and the babble of quiz shows, heard the sea murmur and the day expire with a long, exhausted sigh. She didn’t go out, didn’t answer the door, didn’t answer the phone; she just drank, hoping that her liver and heart would soon give out and finally shut up shop.
    But they didn’t. They simply soldiered on. They knew better.
    Having boozed for a day and a night, my Auntie Poldi was promptly afflicted with insomnia because her liver was working overtime to metabolize all the alcohol. Thanks to that and a full bladder, she was roused between three and four in the morning by a recurrence of thirst, which assailed her like an angry, neglected lover. Poldi would normally have taken half a diazepam and slept till noon, but this morning she didn’t. She’d been woken by a dream accompanied by an ugly metallic noise, but she couldn’t remember what it was about, only that a heavy, immovable shadow had been resting on her chest. Restlessly, she tossed and turned in her bed but drank only water and took two aspirin, then got up