Italian Shoes Read Online Free PDF

done, I had changed with the passing years. I flatter myself that I looked pretty good when I was young. I certainly attracted a lot of interest from the girls in those days. Until the events that put an end to my career as a surgeon, I was very particular about what I looked like and how I dressed. It was when I moved out here to the island that deterioration set in. For several years, I removed the three mirrors that had been hanging in the house. I didn’t want to see myself. Six months could pass without my going to the mainland for a haircut.
    I stroked my hair with my fingers, and went into the kitchen.
    The sofa was bare. Harriet wasn’t there. The door to the living room was ajar, but the room was empty. The only thing in there was the gigantic anthill. Then I heard the toilet flushing. Harriet returned to the kitchen, and sat down on the sofa again.
    Once again, I could see from the way she moved that she was in pain but I couldn’t work out where.
    She had sat down on the sofa so that the light from the window fell over her face. She seemed to look just the same as she’d done when we used to wander around Stockholm in the spring evenings, when I was planning to flee without taking leave of her. The closer the day came, the more often I would assure her that I loved her. I was afraid that she would see through me, and discover my carefully planned treachery. But she believed me.
    She was staring out of the window.
    â€˜There’s a crow on the lump of meat hanging in your tree.’
    â€˜Bacon rind,’ I said. ‘Not a lump of meat. The small birds vanished when the gale blew up, before it became storm force and brought the blizzard with it. They always hide away when there’s a strong wind. I don’t know where they go.’
    She turned to face me.
    â€˜You look terrible. Are you ill?’
    â€˜I look like I always look. If you’d come tomorrow afternoon, I’d have been clean-shaven.’
    â€˜I don’t recognise you.’
    â€˜You’re the same as ever.’
    â€˜Why do you have an anthill in your living room?’
    The question was direct, without hesitation.
    â€˜If you hadn’t opened the door, you wouldn’t have seen it.’
    â€˜I didn’t mean to go snooping around your house. I was looking for the bathroom.’
    Harriet transfixed me with her clear eyes.
    â€˜I have a question to ask you,’ she said. ‘Obviously, I ought to have been in touch before coming. But I didn’t want to risk you vanishing again.’
    â€˜I have nowhere to run away to.’
    â€˜Everybody has somewhere. But I want you to be here. I want to talk to you.’
    â€˜So I understand.’
    â€˜You understand nothing at all. But I need to stay here for a few days, and I have difficulty in walking up and down stairs. May I sleep on this sofa?’
    Harriet wasn’t going to reproach me. So I was prepared to agree to anything. I told her that of course she could sleep on my sofa, if that’s what she wanted. As an alternative I had a collapsible camp bed that I could set up in the living room. Assuming she had no objection to sleeping in the same room as an anthill. She said she didn’t. I fetched the camp bed and erected it as far away from the anthill as possible. In the middle of the room was a table with a white cloth, and next to it was the anthill. It was almost as high as the table. Part of the cloth hanging down over the edge had been swallowed up by the anthill.
    I made the bed, and supplied an extra pillow as Iremembered that Harriet always liked to have her head comparatively high when she slept.
    But not only then.
    Also when she made love. I soon learned that she liked to have several pillows underneath the back of her head. Had I ever asked her why that was so important? I couldn’t remember.
    I laid out the quilt, then looked out through the half-open door. Harriet was watching me. I switched on the two