the Solitude Of Prime Numbers (2010) Read Online Free PDF

plate and into her napkin.
    Over the course of a dinner she made at least three full napkins disappear into the pockets of her sweatpants. Before brushing her teeth she emptied them into the toilet and watched the little pieces of food disappear down the drain. With satisfaction she ran a hand over her stomach and imagined it as empty and clean as a crystal vase.
    "Sol, damn it, you put cream in the sauce again," her mother complained. "How many times do I have to tell you that I can't digest it?"
    Alice's mother pushed her plate away in disgust.
    Alice had come to the table with a towel wrapped like a turban around her head in order to justify all the time she had spent locked away in the bathroom.
    She had thought for a long time whether to ask them for it. But she'd do it anyway. She wanted it too much.
    "I'd like to get a tattoo on my belly," she began.
    Her father pulled his glass away from his mouth.
    "Excuse me?"
    "You heard," said Alice, defying him with her eyes. "I want to get a tattoo."
    Alice's father ran his napkin over his mouth and eyes, as if to erase an ugly image that had run through his mind. Then he carefully refolded it and put it back on his knees. He picked up his fork again, trying to put on all his irritating self-control.
    "I don't even know how you get these ideas into your head," he said.
    "And what kind of tattoo would you like? Let's hear," her mother broke in, the irritable expression on her face probably due more to the cream in the sauce than to her daughter's request.
    "A rose. Tiny. Viola's got one."
    "Forgive me, but who might Viola be?" her father asked with a bit too much irony.
    Alice shook her head, stared at the middle of the table, and felt insignificant.
    "Viola's a classmate of hers," Fernanda replied emphatically. "She must have mentioned her a million times. You're not really with it, are you?"
    Mr. Della Rocca looked disdainfully at his wife, as if to say no one asked you.
    "Well, pardon me, but I don't think I'm all that interested in what Alice's classmates get tattooed on them," he pronounced at last. "At any rate you're not getting a tattoo."
    Alice pushed another forkful of spaghetti into her napkin.
    "It's not like you can stop me," she ventured, still staring at the vacant center of the table. Her voice cracked with a hint of insecurity.
    "Could you repeat that?" her father asked, without altering the volume and calm of his own voice.
    "Could you repeat that?" he asked more slowly.
    "I said you can't stop me," replied Alice, looking up, but she was unable to endure her father's deep, chilly eyes for more than half a second.
    "Is that so? As far as I know, you're fifteen years old and this binds you to the decisions of your parents for--the calculation is a very simple one--another three years," the lawyer intoned. "At the end of which you will be free to, how shall I put it, adorn your skin with flowers, skulls, or whatever you so desire."
    The lawyer smiled at his plate and slipped a carefully rolled forkful of spaghetti into his mouth.
    There was a long silence. Alice ran her thumb and forefinger along the edge of the tablecloth. Her mother nibbled on a bread stick and allowed her eyes to wander around the dining room. Her father pretended to eat heartily. He chewed with rolling motions of his jaw, and at the first two seconds of each mouthful he kept his eyes closed, in ecstasy.
    Alice chose to deliver the blow because she really detested him, and seeing him eat like that made even her good leg go stiff.
    "You don't give a damn if no one likes me," she said. "If no one will ever like me."
    Her father looked at her quizzically, then returned to his dinner, as if no one had spoken.
    "You don't care if you've ruined me forever."
    Mr. Della Rocca's fork froze in midair. He looked at his daughter for a few seconds, seemingly distressed.
    "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, a slight quaver to his voice.
    "You know perfectly well," Alice said. "You know it'll be