Accabadora by Michela Murgia Page A

All along the streets the house doors were open in spite of the cold, as if every family in Soreni had run away so quickly that they had forgotten to close their front door. More in her element on this night than any other in the year, the tall woman close to the wall walked down the street with the step of one who knew exactly where she was going. She moved quickly, wrapped in a dark shawl, until her skirts touched the threshold of the Bastíu house. Then she slipped soundlessly down the corridor leaving no memory of herself in the street. In that house she moved even at night with the confident step of a member of the family, passing the rooms to reach the only door she knew would not be shut, the one behind which Nicola Bastíu, stupefied by pain and expectation, was stealing a moment of sleep.
    Nicola was dreaming of the sea, the sea he had known for twenty years, the only sea he had ever seen. Eight years earlier he had rolled up his trousers and immersed himself in it up tohis chest, letting the hard salt water strike him. His cousins were surfing the waves and hurling the water-melon as if they were back home in the hay. But Nicola had stared wide-eyed at the horizon where the sea ended, and the more he gazed at it, the more he wanted to retreat slowly backwards to the shore, without running or turning round, as one does when faced with certain snakes. Now in his dream it was as if he were back on that Easter Monday, but the sand on the sea bottom was much stickier, a boneless monster that would not let him walk. If only he could have died like this, drowning in the water of his dreams, it would have been better for everyone. But he suddenly opened his eyes, groping in his crippled state among the sheets. It took him a few moments to remember who he was and what was happening, since the more deeply you sleep the more difficult it is to wake. It was some time before he became aware of the thin figure impinging on the air of the room, motionless by the wall at the foot of his bed. Nicola had never been a man of many words, but in that moment not even silence seemed appropriate.
    â€œYou’ve come . . .” he whispered, hoarse and pale.
    The woman approached the bed, but it was only when she came close that Nicola was reminded that she seemed to bring with her the bitter smell of the old. When she spoke, he knew he was fully awake.
    â€œI’ve come, but I can also go away again. Tell me you’ve changed your mind and I’ll go and not look back. I swear we’ll never speak of it again, as if nothing had ever happened.”
    Nicola answered rather too quickly, as if afraid to allow time for doubts.
    â€œI haven’t changed my mind. I’m already dead, and you know it.”
    She looked straight into his eyes, moving her head to force him to hold her gaze. She found what she did not want to find and said in a tired voice:
    â€œNo, Nicola, I don’t know it. Only you can know that. I’ve come as I promised, but pray to the Lord to grant you what you are asking of me, because it is unholy and not even necessary.”
    â€œIt is necessary for me,” said Nicola, acknowledging the curse with a slight movement of his head.
    The accabadora reached out from under her shawl, her hands holding tightly a small earthenware pot with a wide opening. When she lifted its lid a thread of smoke rose from the pot. Nicola became aware of an acrid smell, not that he expected anything different, took a deep breath and murmured words the old woman showed no sign of having heard. He held the poisonous fumes in his lungs and closed his eyes, anaesthetized for the last time. He may have already been asleep when the pillow was pressed down on his face, because he did not move or struggle. Perhaps he would not have fought back in any case, since for him it would have only made sense to die in the same way as he had lived: breathlessly.
    Andría Bastíu, cold with terror and watching through the