The Beach at Night Page 2

  Right off, in a trice

  The names I seize

  With the greatest of ease

  Together we sing

  Treasure for a king

  For affection I pine

  On delight I dine

  Your heart I’ll shred

  Until it’s dead.

  The disgusting thread of saliva stretches thinner and thinner, until there’s a last tug that spits me out of the water along with the screaming chain of Words.

  The night is ending.

  I fly through the orange air of Dawn, my teeth clenched around the “MA” of mamma. And I’m about to drop onto the sand when a Dark Animal runs by. He grabs me in his teeth and keeps on running.

  The Hook shoots off, the thread of saliva breaks. The words return to my mouth with a snap, like an elastic band.

  The Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset loses his balance and falls on the sharp iron teeth of the Big Rake.

  The Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset cries “Ow-ow-ow,” and he is still crying.

  But the teeth of the Dark Animal are gentle.

  The Dark Animal hardly bites at all, he warms me with his breath.

  We run over the beach, which is all wet because of the Rough Sea and the Night Storm.

  Luckily the sun is rising and everything will dry off.

  The Dark Animal has long whiskers that tickle me.

  We are running through the pinewoods.

  I hear the birds singing, the faint thump of the pinecones falling on the dry needles. I also hear the desperate crying of a little girl.

  I know that cry.

  The Dark Animal’s breath gets warmer and warmer. He leaves the path, climbs up the trunk of a big cluster pine, flies along a branch, and jumps right through an open window.

  Here’s the little girl who’s crying.

  She cried all night, her face is red and bathed in tears. Neither her mother nor her father nor her brother could console her.

  The little girl is Mati, my Mati.

  She calms down only when the Dark Animal lays me carefully on her bed.

  “Celina!” she cries, and hugs and kisses me.

  Oh joy!

  Mati’s parents go back to sleep.

  Even her brother, who is always so grouchy, lies down on his bed and falls asleep. Now he’s snoring.

  “I’m so glad you came back,” Mati says to me.

  “Me, too,” I say, and right away I tell her: “Do you know I was almost killed by the Big Rake and the Mean Beach Attendant of Sunset?”

  “I know,” says Mati, who always knows everything, like a perfect mamma.

  Then she turns to the Dark Animal with whiskers and, full of emotion, says:

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he says. He smiles at me, and holds out a paw.

  “A pleasure: Minù the cat.”

  “I’m Celina,” I say.

  “What a pretty name!” says the cat.

  “Minù isn’t bad, either,” I say.

  I’m so happy to have found my name again I can even be happy about his.

  To Matilde… to Bagni Elsa in the eighties

  M.C.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008) and the four installments of My Brilliant Friend, known in English as the Neapolitan Quartet (Europa, 2012-2015).