Читать онлайн
Voices To Images

FILIPPO SCALISE

VOICES TO IMAGES

Translated by Maria Burnett

Copyright © 2020 – Filippo Scalise

CHAPTER I

An impressive neo-Baroque palace in the Montjuic district of Barcelona. A mountain in the middle of the city. Hills covered with flowers, exotic trees and large cacti, right next to the luminous fountains of Gaieta Buigas.

From the very elegant and imposing entrance, graced by a small flowered garden, the large waiting room of Deis Frémont’s notary office was accessed through a large staircase of cold gray-pink marble.

Crossing a long corridor, subdivided in sequence by three very modern crystal and steel doors, was an imposing meeting room with warm and lived ancient bookcases that filled the walls, seeming to be at odds with the remaining modern furniture pieces.

The body of an elegantly dressed man lay on his back, on a huge red and blue Persian carpet. A large amount of blood, partly clotted, soaked the carpet just behind the nape of the man.

His name was Alberto Meriva. In Barcelona he was well known, since, three years earlier, he had made headlines as the “photographer of the voices."

As many young people of his age, Alberto also led a monotonous and futile life of the small town of Torredembarra, on Costa Daurada.

Many small low houses in colored plaster piled up untidily along a narrow coastal road, which seemed to border the fine pink sand of the beach.

Hours and hours spent under the scorching summer sun, hoping to sell fresh drinks to thirsty tourists, with no desire to better himself.

At twenty-five, fed up with days that were always the same, Alberto accepted his uncle Lorente's invitation to join him in Barcelona to work at the country's Telephone Company. Neither the father nor the mother opposed that choice. Perhaps their son would have had the chance to do what they could no longer even dream of. A long embrace with the father sealed a pact of trust and love through physical contact. During the train journey from the station of Tarragona to Barcelona, Garraf Natural Park and the Hospitalet de Llobregat passed quickly before his eyes and, during those few hours of travel, he became convinced that he himself would change his own existence. Arrived at the station of Sant Estacio, he remained motionless, without speaking a word, for quite a while, mesmerized by the architectural beauties of this new city. He did not think of anything specifically, merely enjoying this new freedom while taking deep breaths.