Read Traitors to All for Free Online

father, with all the instruments a doctor needed, and a section for emergency medicines – and took out a couple of tubes and a small box,things he had bought as soon as it had been decided that he would do this prenuptial procedure.
    ‘Another cigarette and another drink,’ she said querulously. ‘It’s passed, I feel fine, but you must teach me what blow you used.’ She sounded like a sportswoman in the gym, eager to learn.

5
    The packet of Parisiennes was finished, but she had two more in her handbag. He passed her an unopened packet, along with the lighter, and another glass of whisky, then, instead of getting ready, took a chair and sat down in front of her. ‘I’d like to know if it’s really necessary for you to have this procedure.’
    She looked at him in astonishment, almost as she had when he had hit her, but immediately recovered. ‘Just do it.’ There was no warmth in her expression now, only hostility.
    It was better that way, he preferred enemies. ‘All right. Lie down.’
    ‘Will it hurt?’
    He put on the gloves and again sprayed Citrosil on them. ‘No.’
    ‘I’m sorry for the way I answered you.’
    Without replying, he transferred the anaesthetic from the phial into the syringe, disinfected her side with alcohol, and massaged it.
    ‘If you only knew what I’ve been thinking about all evening,’ she said.
    Still not replying, he sunk the needle into her young skin. It was in a sensitive spot, and she gave a little start. ‘That’s the worst it’ll hurt,’ he said: that was another reason he wasn’t a good doctor, he felt too much pity for his patients, he really wanted to take care of them, to cure them, to help them even when, as in this case, it was a murky anddangerous piece of nonsense, and he actually felt their pain: someone like that shouldn’t be a doctor, they should go to the park and read the newspaper.
    ‘All evening, even before coming here, I’ve been thinking of running away with Silvano, he’s thinking of it, too, I don’t want to marry that man, and I didn’t even want to have myself sewn up again, it’s nonsense, but he believes in it, if I’m not a virgin he’ll take one of the knives he has in the shop and cut me, he’s told me that more than once, and I don’t want to marry someone as stupid as that, I want to be with Silvano, but I can’t.’ She cursed, using a very vulgar swear word. ‘You can never do what you like in life.’ She cursed again, and now she was talking almost in dialect. ‘So tomorrow morning I’ll put on a white dress, what do think of that? Doesn’t that take the biscuit, me in a white dress? Her laughter made her jump a little on the couch. He opened the tube containing the local anaesthetic. ‘Keep still.’
    ‘I’d like a drink.’
    All right, let her drink, the booze plus the anaesthetic would send her to sleep. He gave her the glass, waited until she had had enough, even gave her another cigarette, then bent down again to finish the local anaesthetic.
    ‘And you know what’s even worse? The village. It’s one thing to leave someone you like and marry someone you find ridiculous. But then I have to go and live there, in his village, the village I ran away from as a child, because I couldn’t stand it, and it isn’t even a real village, it’s just a group of four houses, they don’t even have the courage to call it a hamlet, they say Ca’ Torino di Romano Banco a Buccinasco, by the time you’ve finished writing it your pen has run out of ink. Have you ever been over that way?’
    With the tweezers he took the instruments from the bowl. ‘If I hurt you, tell me.’ He checked her sensitivity bytouching her: she did not react, the anaesthetic had taken effect. ‘Where exactly is it?’ he asked. He could start now, and he did.
    ‘What? You mean you’ve never heard of Ca’ Tarino, or Buccinasco, or Romano Banco?’ She was calm, motionless, only her voice was increasingly vulgar and tinged with dialect, and