The Manuscript I the Secret Read Free Page B

scared to go in. I have never been brave, and facing death was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment, or ever. Yet I knew there was no getting around it. I whiffed my mother’s signature perfume and knew I would be making this transition toward death with her. The click of her heels was as unmistakable as her fragrance. She sidled up to me and rested her head on my shoulder. And thus, like two individuals thrust together in a painful embrace, we encountered the cadaver of Uncle Claudio.
    For a moment it felt like looking at myself as an old man. Everyone said I was his spitting image. I guess my dad looked a lot like him, too. But Uncle Claudio had been the one to inherit my grandfather’s title and fortune, a fact which became the bone of contention between them until my father’s death, three years after I was born. Thus I looked to Uncle Claudio as a father figure, even after he stopped coming by the house.
    I studied his peaceful face and simply could not believe he was dead. Suddenly I was lost in a memory from a few years prior when he had said, “Dante, my son, one day all this will be yours.”
    At the time it meant nothing to me since I had grown up in his world.
    I answered, “I’d rather it just stay yours, uncle, because then it means you’ll still be alive.”
    “ Mio caro bambino , you need to be making preparations. Finish your economics degree. It’s of vital importance.”
    “Why do I need to study?”
    “To defend yourself. Being rich isn’t easy. You’ll face situations that demand wise decisions. I want you to come to the Business and soak it all up, everything you see.”
    “Uncle, seriously, it’s okay; please don’t leave anything to me. I appreciate it; I really do. But I don’t deserve it.”
    Uncle Claudio shook his head as if refusing to accept that I did not have his entrepreneurial spirit. I wondered if I seemed to him like my father.
    “Poor Dante, you have no choice. This is just the way things are.”
    “Couldn’t one of your partners take over?”
    “The Business has to stay in the family. Sure, I have partners, but each of them only has a minute share in all that I do.”
    “Uncle Claudio, I’d really just like to go to America. Give me a couple years to study and get trained. I need some time alone, away from all this.”
    “Done. You have my blessing. I hope that by the time you return you will have doubled the capital I’ll entrust to you. And promise me you won’t abandon your international business studies.”
    “Don’t you see, uncle? I want to go with no strings attached. I don’t want your money. I have no clue how to double it...”
    Probably in response to the pain on my face, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “All right. Just promise you won’t get into any trouble. The family name is at stake. Go, study, have a good time, and come back. Someday you will have to understand that work is another kind of fun.”
     
    And here I was, back without a dime and with no one to have to explain anything to, deep in debt and weighed down by being the head of a family over a financial emporium I had zero interest in running. And Uncle Claudio was not here to train me. I had lost the opportunity to learn from him directly. I remembered the times I had gone with him to board meetings and watched him in awe. He was like a fish in water. His word always ended up being the final decision, and everyone seemed relieved to follow his suggestions since he always knew just what to do or what decision to make. Yet I knew I needed his money. I could not leave my debts unpaid. How short-sighted I was at the time!
     
    Uncle Claudio seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
    “Mother, death smoothes out the wrinkles,” I murmured.
    She pulled away brusquely. The reproach in her eyes told me she had taken it as a back-handed critique.
    I noticed a slight movement in one corner of the room. A man in a cassock sat as if in a trance. His eyes were lowered though I had the