IM10 August Heat (2008) Read Free Page B

began their descent, however, Laura looked around and said:
    “Where’s Bruno?”
    “Maybe he started going down by himself,” said Livia.
    “Oh my God, Bruno can’t make it down by himself! I always have to hold his hand!” Laura said, looking a little worried.
    They leaned out and looked down. From their vantage, they could see some twenty or so steps before the staircase turned. No sign of Bruno.
    “He can’t possibly have gone any farther down,” said Guido.
    “Go down and look, for heaven’s sake! He may have fallen!” said Laura, who was beginning to get upset.
    Guido rushed down the stairs with Laura’s and Livia’s eyes following him and disappeared around the turn. Not five minutes later, he reappeared round the curve.
    “I went all the way down. He’s not there. Go back and check the house.We may have locked him inside,” he said in a high voice, panting hard.
    “How will we do that?” said Laura.“You have the keys!”
    Having hoped to spare himself the climb, Guido clambered up, cursing, opened the gate and then the French door. Then, all in chorus, they called:
    “Bruno! Bruno!”
    “That stupid kid is capable of lying hidden under a bed for a whole day just to spite us,” said Guido, who was beginning to lose patience.
    They searched for him all through the house, under the beds, inside the armoire, on top of the armoire, under the armoire, in the broom closet. Nothing doing.At a certain point, Livia said:
    “But there’s no sign of Ruggero, either . . .”
    It was true. The cat, who was always getting tangled between one’s feet—as Guido knew all too well—seemed to have disappeared, too.
    “Usually he comes when we call him, or at least he meows. Let’s try calling him,” Guido suggested.
    It was a logical idea. Since the kid couldn’t talk, the only one who could respond in some way was the cat.
    “Ruggero! Ruggero!”
    No feline response.
    “So Bruno must be outside,” Laura surmised.
    They all went out and searched around the house, even checking inside the two parked cars. Nothing.
    “Bruno! Ruggero! Bruno! Ruggero!”
    “Maybe he went walking down the little road that leads to the main one,” Livia suggested.
    Laura’s reaction was immediate:
    “But if he got that far . . . oh God, the traffic on that road is so awful!”
    So Guido got into the car and drove very slowly down the dirt path leading to the main road, searching left and right. When he reached the end, he turned around and noticed that in front of the rustic cottage there now was a peasant of about fifty, poorly dressed, a dirty beret on his head, staring at the ground so intently that he seemed to be counting the ants.
    Guido stopped and stuck his head out the window.
    “Excuse me . . .”
    “Eh?” said the man, raising his head and batting his eyelids like someone who had just woken up.
    “Did you by any chance see a little boy pass this way?”
    “Who?”
    “A little three-year-old boy.”
    “Why?”
    What kind of a question was that? wondered Guido, whose nerves by this point were on edge. But he answered:
    “Because we can’t find him.”
    “Ohh no!” said the fifty-year-old man, looking suddenly concerned and turning three-quarters away, towards his house.
    Guido balked.
    “What’s that supposed to mean: ‘Ohh no’?”
    “ ‘Ohh no’ means ‘ohh no,’ no? I never seen this little kid and anyhow I don’t know nothing about ’im and I don’t wanna know nothing ’bout none o’ this business,” he said firmly, then went into the house and closed the door behind him.
    “Oh, no you don’t! Hey, you!” said Guido, enraged. “That’s no way to talk to people! Where are your manners?”
    Spoiling for a fight and needing to let off some steam, he got out of the car, went and knocked on the door, even started kicking it. But it was hopeless. The door remained closed. Cursing to himself, he got back in the car, drove off, and passed by the other house, the one that looked a bit