The doubt, in short, was the following: that she, Ada, had forgotten to take the child to her aunt and absentmindedly, on leaving, had shut her in the flat instead. It was an absurd thought; but imagination can weave strange webs. Absurd, unheard of, yet the thought was enough to freeze the blood in her veins. The rest of the company looked up surprised when she rose suddenly and walked away. One said to Imbastaro, “Excuse me, but did you say something to upset her?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, ha ha, can’t understand it.”
Ada went indoors and straight to the telephone, without telling anyone. She put through an urgent call to Milan, giving her home number. She waited, twisting her hands.
She was connected almost immediately. “Hello, hello? Is it you calling Milan 40079277?” “Yes, yes,” she said. “Go right ahead then.”
And talk to whom? She had rung assuming that there would be no reply. The house was empty and locked up, surely? If someone did answer, it would mean that her first fear was founded and that Luisella was locked in (she was only four, but she was quite capable of answering the telephone). But that was ten days ago. It was murderously hot and she hadn’t left a bite to eat in the house. The heat! During heat waves furniture was said to combust spontaneously in empty houses, and human beings, if there were any, to die of suffocation. Ada felt death upon her. Trembling, she said “Hello.”
“Hello,” a man’s voice replied from Milan. In a flash, Ada pictured what had happened: Luisella alone and locked in, unable to open the door, her shouts, the immediate neighborhood alerted, the police, the door broken down, the child half-crazed with fear. “Hello, who is that?” asked the man’s voice.
“It’s me, the mother. But who are you?”
“What mother? I know no mothers.” And he put down the receiver.
Ada immediately called Milan again (although her first moment of terror had already passed). She got the right number, heard the ringing tone and got no answer this time.
She sighed with relief: thank goodness. What an absurd thought to have had in the first place. She powdered her nose in the mirror and went back into the garden. The assembled company glanced at her, but said nothing.
But as soon as she was in bed, and the heavy silence had fallen upon the big country house and the only sound that could be heard, from time to time, was the crickets through her half-open window, then she felt another burst of fear. Amid all that silence she began to imagine the child, by now half-dead with heat and hunger, eyes wide with terror, on her knees and clutching the padlock, sobbing her last. It was no use her telling herself that, if it came to it, someone would have heard her shouts. Another treacherous voice objected: if someone had heard her, they would have let her out by now; you left home ten days ago, they would have contacted you already. And perhaps all the nearby flats were empty too, now that it’s the holidays. The portress, five floors below, would hardly be likely to hear.
She looked at her watch—four o’clock. There was a train at six. Ada leaped out of bed, dressed, packed her case. Perhaps this way madness lies, she said to herself. But she couldn’t resist any longer.
She left a note of apology, crept down the stairs, went through the door to the garden and set off toward the station, three miles away.
As the train neared Milan, her panic increased. It arrived at about three in the afternoon. The city sizzled under a layer of hot, damp dust. Stammering with emotion, she gave her address to the taxi driver.
There, at last, was the house. Nothing seemed to be wrong. The blinds of the flat were all down, just as she had left them, eleven days ago.
She rushed past the porter’s lodge; the portress nodded to her as usual. Thank goodness, thought Ada, it’s been a nightmare, nothing more.
Great peace and quiet on the fifth-floor landing. Yet her hands trembled as she put the key in the lock. The padlock sprang open. As the door opened she felt a breath of warm heavy air.
Suddenly, as she opened the inside door, Ada felt a movement of pain within her; just above her head, as if anxious to escape her, there floated a small inexplicable plume of smoke, a tiny pale oblong cloud with no smell at all.
She ran to the hall window, opened the shutters and turned around.
Two yards away from her, on the parquet flooring, was what appeared to be a large indented stain though, unlike most stains, it had a certain depth to it. She went up to it and touched it with her foot. Ashes. Spread out so as to form a particular pattern. The feeling of pain within her became fire, torment. The ashes were the exact shape of Luisella.
The Monster
AT THE TOP OF THE HOUSE WHERE THE GOGGI FAMILY lived there was an attic where the tenants’ maids normally put unwanted articles and objects too large for the dustbin; one afternoon in June, in the farthest and darkest recess of this attic a certain Ghitta Freilaber, governess and help to the Goggi (who had gone up there to throw away a pile of old papers which were taking up space in her room), came across a most hideous monster. It was oblong, roughly club-shaped and without any
