The Last Man Standing by Davide Longo Page A

his bathroom.
    Even so he asked, “Which book?”
    “The one about the dog.”
    Around the corner they could see the gate. And among the rows of vines the straw hats of the grape pickers.
    He wondered if he should tell Lupu what had happened. And whether he would do this for the good of the boy or only in the secret hope of having him punished.
    Adrian kicked a stone into the dead grass at the edge of the asphalt.
    “What’s the use of a book like that these days?” he said.
    “Books are always useless,” Leonardo said to close the subject, “even when what’s happening now isn’t happening.”
    The boy sighed and Leonardo believed he had given him something to think about but soon noticed they were no longer together and turned. Adrian had stopped and blood was pouring from his nose down his chin and soaking his shirt.
    “Lift your right arm,” Leonardo said, searching in his pocket for a handkerchief.
    The boy gave a broad smile, his perfect teeth stained with blood.
    “I really believe you won’t survive,” Adrian said, and leaped away into the hazel grove at the side of the road.
    The store caught fire that night and burned completely in less than an hour, giving off huge spirals of gray smoke.
    Leonardo had stayed up late in the book room and once in bed had not been able to get to sleep. At two o’clock he became aware of variations in the light between the shutters on his window. At first he thought it was the moon, but when the glare began dancing and turned a magnificent shade of ocher, he ran from his room, his throat tight with bitter foreboding.
    On the veranda, he was assailed by cold smoky air; the flames lighting up the yard like daytime had already eaten the left side of the building. Lupu and the others, lined up at the edge of the vineyard, were watching the blaze without moving. He counted them; all were there. Their faces were entirely calm, as if what was burning was not the beds where they would have woken the next morning if the fire had not consumed them.
    “Anyone hurt?” he asked, walking toward them.
    Lupu shook his head. The little child was sleeping on his mother’s shoulder. On the ground were the few bags they had managed to bring out.
    “We realized in time,” he said, still staring at the building.
    Like the other men he had nothing on but his underpants. The women, on the other hand, were fully dressed. Only the daughter was weeping, tears pouring down her sunburned cheeks like drops of brass.
    Leonardo had never been so close to a fire before. Contrasting with the moving light, smoke and heat was an extraordinary silence. The fierce flames were stretching toward the rafters of the roof like the fingers of a rock climber reaching for a higher hold. The almost imperceptible sound of the flames was reminiscent of teeth being ground in moments of extreme effort. He wondered if the flames might attack the house, but seeing how calm the others were and judging that they must know the ways of fire better than he did, he stopped worrying about it.
    When the glass in the windows shattered, everyone took a step back and the little child raised his head: he glanced at the vineyard where the light was projecting the long shadows of his family, then buried his face in his mother’s shoulder again and closed his eyes. Columns of black smoke were issuing from the windows of the store: the plastic baskets used for the harvest were burning.
    “Tonight you’ll sleep in the house,” Leonardo said. “Tomorrow we’ll sort things out.”
    Lupu looked at him without expression.
    “We’re leaving,” he said.
    Then Leonardo read in his eyes something that must have been clear to everyone from the start and had nothing to do with the question he did not ask himself.
    “They poured gasoline under the door,” Lupu said. “Luckily my brother was on guard, or we’d all be dead.”
    In that moment Leonardo understood the edgy expression in their eyes the day they came into his courtyard.