The Other Language Read Online Free PDF

asked you a question,” the father prompted them.
    They kept a stubborn silence.
    The father raised his voice.
    “I said answer the question!”
    “It’s all right, leave it … if they don’t feel like—” Mirella reached for his arm but he shook her hand away.
    The kids stared at the father, mute. Emma felt his fury, like a heat wave slapping her face. It was the first time he was siding with a stranger, on the opposite side, leaving them alone.
    Iorgo appeared at the table with their dinner. There was more silence while each one of them got their plate. Then the father turned to Mirella.
    “Then the two of us will go. They can stay behind. I’m happier that way.”
    And almost before he had finished that sentence Monica started crying.
    “Stop it,” her father snapped.
    It was incredible, Emma thought, how she could turn her tears on without warning, just like opening a faucet.
    “Monica, you can get up from the table if you are going to behave like this,” he said.
    She left the table, sniffing. This was pretty bad; he had never been this angry with them. Luca looked at Emma, searching for her complicity, but she was hating him now and wouldn’t give in. Mirella motioned as if to go after Monica, but the father pinned her wrist down to the table.
    “Nobody moves,” he said. “Just eat your dinner.”
    So they did, and nobody said another word.

    The father and Mirella left early the next morning and the kids took the first solo breakfast of their life. They were euphoric: they drank coffee instead of tea, had cake instead of bread and butter and forgot entirely the previous night’s drama. They couldn’t wait for lunch to come to repeat the experience: playing the capableand independent orphans, traveling and dining out on their own. Emma for a moment thought it was uncanny, this sudden desire she had to see both of their parents dead and out of their lives.
    “What should we do now?” Monica asked, eagerly.
    “You do whatever you want. I’m going to go swimming in a little while,” Luca said, looking around for a sign of Nadia, although she never emerged before eleven.
    “You can read a book on the beach. Get your towel and go over there,” Emma told her, slipping away from the table. “I’m going for a walk.”
    “Can I come with you?”
    “No, you stay here.”
    “I don’t want to.”
    “You are going to be fine. Just stay here and read until I come back.”
    Monica gave her a sullen look, but Emma didn’t relent.
    “If you need anything just go into the kitchen and ask Maria, okay?”
    When Emma turned around she saw that Luca had left as well and Monica was sitting alone, elbows on the table, holding her round face between her hands. Luca had Nadia, their father had Mirella, and Emma had the English boy as a distraction to cling to. But Monica was still too much of a child to be interested in anybody outside her own family. Emma knew her little sister was probably on the verge of tears again and she felt a pang of guilt for leaving her behind. But she didn’t turn back. She had only a few hours of freedom and knew she needed to take advantage of them.

    The door to the villa was open, so Emma peeked inside. The kitchen was silent, on the big table the usual array of rusty spanners and bolts next to half-eaten plates of congealed scrambled eggs, magazines and sandy towels strewn over chairs. Then sheheard footsteps and Penny appeared, a towel wrapped around her head, wearing nothing but a tiny acid green bikini bottom with two minuscule strings tied on the hip bone. Her small breasts were just as tanned as the rest of her slim body. She welcomed Emma.
    “Hallo, darling!”
    She didn’t bother to cover her breasts but grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the table and lit one.
    “Are you looking for the boys? Sorry for the clutter, dear, we are terribly disorganized, as you can see.”
    Penny sat down at the kitchen table, crossed her legs and blew out the smoke. She looked around