The Young Bride by Alessandro Baricco, Ann Goldstein Page A

often—it was our secret world. But we went too far, or, I don’t know, following something, I don’t remember—maybe an illusion, or a presentiment. Darkness fell, and with the darkness the fog. We realized it too late, there was no way to recognize anything and the road back had been swallowed up by a wall we didn’t know. The Son was afraid, and so was I. We walked for a long time, trying to keep going in the same direction. We were both crying, but silently. Then we seemed to hear a sound that pierced the fog; the Son stopped crying, his voice became firm again, he said, Let’s go there. We couldn’t even see where we put our feet, sometimes it was hard, icy earth, sometimes a ditch, or mud, but we went on, we followed the sound, we heard it getting closer. It turned out to be a mill wheel, its blades turning in a kind of canal, the mill dilapidated, the wheel straining, rattling all over the place, and that was the sound. Stopped in front of it was an automobile. We hadn’t seen many in our lives, but our father had one, we knew what it was. Sitting at the wheel was a man, and he was sleeping. I said something, the Son didn’t know what to do, we approached, I started to say we’d better go, and the Son said be quiet, then he said We’ll never find the way home, the man was sleeping. We spoke softly, so as not to wake him, but still raising our voices a little, every so often, because we were arguing, and were afraid. The man opened his eyes, looked at us, and then said: Get in, I’ll take you home.
    When they opened the door at home, the Mother started shrieking something silly but very joyful. The Father approached the man and asked him to explain. At the end he shook his hand, or hugged him, I don’t remember, and asked if we could do something for him. Yes, he said, I’m very tired, would you mind if I sit down here for a moment to sleep? Then I’ll go. He lay down on the sofa, without even waiting for the answer. And he fell asleep. He hasn’t left since, because he’s still sleeping, and because it would be tremendously sad to see him leave. It was the Son who first called him “Uncle,” a few days later. He remained “Uncle,” forever.
    The young Bride thought for a while.
    You don’t even know who he is, she said.
    No. But when I marry him he’ll tell me everything.
    Wouldn’t it be right to have him tell first and then, eventually, marry him?
    I tried.
    And he?
    He went on sleeping.
    And it is what I more or less continued to do when the Doctor, in an intolerable outburst of the obvious, told me that the heart of the problem lay in my inability to understand who I am. When I remained silent, the Doctor repeated the obvious, maybe expecting that in some way I would react, for example by explaining who I was, or by admitting, instead, that I didn’t have the slightest idea about it. But in reality what I did was continue to nap for a while. Then I got up and wearily headed toward the door, saying that our collaboration ended there. I recall using exactly those words, even if they now seem to me excessively formal. He burst out laughing, but it was a forced laugh, probably called for by the books, something studied, something that seemed to me so intolerable that it goaded me to an unexpected action—as much for the Doctor as for me. That is to say, I grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a table clock of moderate dimensions but with sharp edges, and solid—and hurled it at the Doctor, hitting him right in the shoulder, not in the head as the newspapers erroneously reported, with the result that he fainted, it’s not clear if out of pain or out of surprise. Nor is it true that later I kicked him savagely, as one newspaper, which has hated me for years, claimed—or at least I don’t remember having done that. Some extremely unpleasant days followed, in which I refused to release any