Rage by Sergio Bizzio

matter..."
    "I'm really not, I'm here."
    "Here, where?"
    "Free... here... here at large..."
    "I don't believe you. I know these things, Maria.
Doesn't matter. Tell me where you are and I'll come and
see you. It doesn't matter if you're a prisoner, I swear by
my children. I don't have any children, but all the same,
I swear by all I hold most dear. To me, you..."
    "Rosa..." said Maria.
    And hung up.
    He couldn't bear it. He was convinced that she had
again managed to put her inclination to surrender to
her new caller on ice, whoever he might be. What he
could least bear was to hear her without seeing her, and
to see her without being seen. He set down the phone
and approached Rosa's room.
    Rosa had just come in. Maria could hear her sobbing
and hugged himself as if he were hugging her. He
bore her in his heart, as if he had truly embraced and
enfolded her.
    11
    One night he helped himself to a book by Dr Wayne W.
Dyer entitled YourErroneous Zones from the library. It was
a revelation. He felt the book spoke to him (something which had never occurred with the novels, which merely
kept him occupied).

    Given that at least for the time being he no longer
needed to concern himself with phone calls from his
rival, since his own most recent call to Rosa had caused
a further cooling between her and him, he devoted
himself to reading. He read with a dedication and a
concentration hitherto unknown to him.
    It was all true. There was no phrase or idea, or
statistic, or commentary, or fact, which did not resonate
with a note of truth in his conscience. Every time he
opened the book (something he would do only very
infrequently in the course of a day, since he almost
never closed it) he had a light-bulb moment. A light
went on in his brain and he was dazzled. And at the
same time the book left him feeling utterly stupid: he
could scarcely believe he had never previously noticed
that things were like that, or that they functioned in
this particular manner.
    The application with which he had pursued his
domination of the house (so that he now knew it right
down to its trivial details, including all about the bidet
in one of the second-floor bathrooms, a bidet somehow
designed in such a way that it was impossible to sit on
the rim and dry your feet with a towel, or to engage in
any other activity which failed to conform to its principal
function, for fear of falling in, as though the bidet were
inclined to swallow you up) was now directed towards
his own internal world, where the revelations provided
in the sugared pills proffered by the book affected him
in a particular fashion. His desire to derive benefit from
everything he read meant that his reading became
tortuous. He would read phrases like: "there are men
who manipulate forgetfulness with malice, much as if they were dealing punches", asking himself what to
"manipulate forgetfulness with malice" actually meant,
what was Doctor Dyer alluding to with "manipulate
forgetfulness" and even questioning the meaning of the
word "manipulate".

    Using a few blank sheets of paper he had previously
taken from the desk, he jotted down the most important
sentences. He went back over it, rereading passages; he
paused, but he also progressed. Ten days later, when
he had finished the book, he felt different, enriched,
vindicated.
    That night he undertook his most daring action since
moving into the villa: he went out of the kitchen...
out into the open air... The excursion hardly lasted
more than a moment, just enough to cast a glance over
his surroundings. But on seeing the street (and the
starless sky above) for the first time in a long while with
his feet on the ground, an idea arose which doubled
his daring: to exit through the barred gate, make
a hurried copy of the key; return and ring the bell,
embrace Rosa, make love with her, bid her farewell;
all before returning indoors... He knew the house by
touch, including its sounds, its