The Combover Read Online Free PDF Page B

sweetish taste of hair lacquer dribbling down my cheeks. It disappeared under the neck of my shirt and continued down without stopping. My hair was disheveled, and some of it was clinging to the back of my head and around my neck. When I found a place to shelter, I stopped, pulled it back up, and smoothed it over my scalp.
    Everything was going wrong. I felt so far away from the time when I was Arduino, or
Arduí
as my father used to call me, when he entered the study and came up from behind as I was sitting at my desk, bent over a Latin composition and he, not noticing what I was doing, would stroke my head and pull back my hair before he left. "Be careful about your back, Arduí," he would say before he closed the door, and I would glance up from my exercise book, just long enough to smile, before carrying on with my composition, but from deep inside I answered, "Yes, Dad, I will." And those times now came back to mind. Even they have betrayed me (even my father, who had been my best friend)—they have all vanished to some place far away, without me, leaving me alone to face forty insolent students who laughed at me and packed me off home in the pouring rain, with my bags in my hand, to a depressed wife who spends her time cowering under the bed sheets or cleaning the house or moving the furniture from one room to another, which for her was all just the same.
    "OK, alright, if that's how you want it," I said to those times that had gone forever, "do as you want."
    When the rain stopped, I carried on walking home. I was confused, upset; I felt a tingling sensation in my head, as if a whole army of dwarves kept ruffling my hair while I was trying to protect myself, covering myself as best I could, with no hope. Then there was a gust of wind. The water streamed along the gutters, carrying leaves, cigarette ends, and everything else with it.
    The house in which we lived was as big as my wife's dreams—though jobless, she still had great ambitions: a room with sofas for watching the television, another with a treadmill and a Pilates machine (which so far as I know she has never used, or if she has, they've had no effect). It had a pointed roof with wooden beams, a bathroom with a bathtub, doors with brass handles, and a view of the sea. I had my own room, a sort of cubbyhole with a desk. For what I had to do, it was more than sufficient. On certain days, when I was there studying bibliographic data exchange formats and heard her moving around in the other room, I stopped and listened in silence and thought perhaps she couldn't wait for me to pack my bags and go back to my mother, to return to the jungle of unmarried men and find another woman, someone less bothered about treadmills and more interested in understanding bibliographic data exchange formats. At other times I didn't think like that and told myself everything was fine: "We balance each other out," I used to say.
    When I got home and opened the front door, I called out: "Teresa! Teresa, are you there?"
    But she wasn't, nor was her mother, who always came to keep her company when I was away. There was just Cosino, the cat. When he saw me, he came straight up and rubbed against me, looking to be stroked. I took him in my arm and he began to purr, as he usually did before I stroked him. Then I opened the window, looked down, and saw Teresa's car parked below. So I thought she'd be back soon, seeing that she rarely went anywhere without the car, but above all I thought that if she wasn't at home, she almost certainly wasn't depressed, otherwise I'd have found her in bed or cleaning or moving furniture. And as she wasn't there I was saved from having to give any explanations, since I hated having to give explanations, and I thought it was the right moment to get away, even though it was raining. Leave everything and go forever. Go anywhere, but get away. After all, what did I have to lose? It made no sense continuing to live there or going to Bari to teach and