The Case of Lisandra P. Read Online Free PDF

figures, but it stops there. Why can’t we do the same with individuals? Simply because we identify with individuals; investigators, judges and jurors, and Sunday commentators do nothing more than project who they are onto the accused; from that point on, error is completely free to interfere. One should not identify with another man any more than one identifies with a volcano. And yet it’s not hard to see that this man loved his wife. Eva Maria puts her glass down. The cigarette breaks in two; the long tube of ash has fallen. Eva Maria sighs. She has to get him out of there. She’ll have to struggle on her own,in a place where there is no room for numbers, where only intuition can hold sway, because before we are logical we are pure instinct, and she can tell Vittorio couldn’t have killed his wife. It’s like with volcanoes: every day you have to conduct a new investigation; every day when you have some new elements you have to make them speak, and you have to trust them, you have to try to interpret them. A man is like a volcano: you wait for him to reveal a bit more of himself each day. Eva Maria reaches for her eyeglasses. She opens a little black leather notebook. Hardbound. She looks for a blank page. She writes quickly.
    door to the apartment open
    loud music in the living room
    window open in living room
    chairs on the floor
    lamp overturned
    vase on the floor, broken
    water spilled
    figurine broken (porcelain cat)
    wine bottle
    two broken glasses
    lying on her back
    head to one side
    icy forehead, trickle of blood
    eyes open, puffy
    Eva Maria closes her little black notebook. She stands up. Puts the keys in the pocket of her slacks. She’s made up her mind. She will do what Vittorio asked. She shivers. With a touch of fear.

“Estéban? Estéban?”
    Eva Maria opens the door to the bedroom. Estéban has already left. The hook where he hangs his bicycle is empty. He has taken his bandoneon. In the corridor, she calls out again. No one. Eva Maria shrugs. Out again, until the crack of dawn. She puts on her black coat. Wraps her scarf around her neck. The white stands out against the black. Her gaze lands on the kitchen table. Her dinner is waiting for her. She adjusts her gloves. Black, too. Estéban prepared a plate for her. He covered it, to keep it from getting cold. Even covered, the plate must be cold by now. Everything eventually goes cold, even volcanoes. Eva Maria goes into the kitchen. She opens the cupboard. Pours herself a glass of wine. She drinks it down in one go. Switches the lights off behind her. It’s cold out. Eva Maria lifts her white scarf to cover her hair. She hasn’t been out at night for months. She takes the bus. She watches the lights go by through the window; it’s pretty in its way, the lights at night, so quiet. She feels the keys in the pocket of her pants. She thinks about the young man, pictures him again gesturing briefly, there, to his adolescent lips. She wonders if he finally found the resolve to kiss his girlfriend, she wonders if it went well. Her gaze lingers on each passing lamppost. Sheremembers her first kiss. It did not go well. She smiles all the same. You always smile when you remember your first kiss—when it was granted willingly. The movement of her lips creases a few wrinkles around her eyes. Her white scarf brushes against her cheeks. A neon light flashes. What a shock it must have been for those two, after all, seeing that body, when they were still children, thinking about nothing more than the possibility of a kiss. “And when we got closer we saw it was a woman, wearing a nice dress.” Vittorio hadn’t mentioned it. Eva Maria takes out her little notebook. To her previous notes she adds,
    wearing a nice dress
    The bus stops. Eva Maria is startled. Two more stops. She draws nearer to the door. She thinks about Vittorio. It must be completely dark in his cell, and there is no way to break that