Train to Budapest (48 page)

It’s like being on one of her father’s model trains. In a perfect miniature reproduction of a carriage, travelling round and round on perfect imitation railway lines. But there is no one on board
and the engine is pulling its coaches on tiny rails that come and go inside a single room. No stations of arrival or departure. Only a perverse racing towards something unknown, make-believe and unreal.

The absence of Hans, the man with the gazelles, torments her. Why could she not respond to his plea for love? Why did she not tell him to come with her? That was what had been expected. A generous, patient, good-hearted man. I’ll write to him as soon as I arrive, she tells herself, and for a moment her heart shouts for joy. But something has been broken, has been spoilt. After the companionship of Budapest and their journeys together, the discovery of Emanuele hit her like an explosion. Causing another explosion inside herself. She can think of nothing else.

The future opens before her like a precocious flower touched by the first ray of the sun but still frozen on the branch. Because the spring is not yet here and the sun has deceived her.

About the Author

One of Italy’s foremost women writers,
DACIA MARAINI
is the author of more than fifty books, including novels, plays, collections of poetry and critical essays. Her second novel,
The Age of
Discontent
, won the international Prix Formentor, and she has been the recipient of two of Italy’s highest literary honours, the Premio Campiello and the Premio Strega. Her novel
The Silent
Duchess
, an international bestseller, was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

SILVESTER MAZZARELLA
has been translating Italian and Swedish prose, poetry and drama professionally since 1997. He learned English from his mother, Italian from his father and his love of Italian opera, and Swedish in Finland, where he taught English for many years at Helsinki University.

Copyright

First published in the United Kingdon in 2010
by Arcadia Books Books,
15-16 Nassau Street,
London, W1W 7AB

This ebook edition first published in 2011

All rights reserved

Originally published by RCS Libri SpA, Milano
Copyright Dacia Maraini © 2008
English language translation copyright © Silvester Mazzarella 2010

The right of Dacia Maraini to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

ISBN 978–1–90812–908–6