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Chelsea Handler Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (epub
Brit Brinson [Dia of the Dead Dia of the Dead (epub)
Cody Goodfellow [Radiant Dawn Radiant Dawn (epub)
Cate Tiernan [Immortal Belove Immortal Beloved (epub)
Carl Ashmore [Time Hunters 01 The Time Hunters (epub)
Drew Hayes [Super Powereds 02 Super Powereds Year 2 (epub) i
Beth Harbison [Shoe Addict 02 Secrets of a Shoe Addict (epub)
Buck Rogers 01 Buck Rogers in Addison E Steele (v1.0) (epub)
C M Kars [Never Been Kissed Never Been Kissed (epub)
Berzeretka bez przepisu Krystyna Smigielska

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.” Betta gave him a closed-lip smile, discreet.“But we know our people have made that since the start of time.As common as fried squid.” Her hand swept the area.“Over here, tiny lamb meatballs.A recipe from Palermo Jews.” With a sigh, she locked her hands, the fingers of one slipping under the fingers of the other, in front of her chest.Elbows pointed down, like broken wings.She was a waiting bird.“A proper table for our grand Sicilian don.”Don Giovanni flinched at her last words.He narrowed his eyes.But Betta fussed with the decorative pine needles and holly boughs full of dried red berries.She stepped back for an admiring assessment, then hurried off.There was nothing suspect in what she’d said.It was truth: Don Giovanni was a man of great spirit, who welcomed people of every faith into his home.In Sicily’s past, nasty things had happened: Muslim shops were pillaged, Jews driven from their homes.But nothing like that would happen these days, not anywhere near Don Giovanni’s castle.So Betta’s words were sincere—and no one had witnessed the earlier maidservant’s insolence.He glanced out the window over the strait.The sea lay flat.Dead.Well, what a strange way to think of it.It was calm, peaceful.A good sea.His sea, by God.He blinked.A lone figure walked the beach.A woman.She looked back, upward toward Don Giovanni’s castle.A woman alone in the evening? Maybe he knew her.Don Giovanni had already enjoyed the company of many women, the kind who might walk alone at night, but not for long.They flocked to him because he was the most handsome youth of Messina, everyone agreed.Don Giovanni’s prowess as a lover was growing legendary.He might even adopt Muslim ways and take a harem, like in the royal palace in Palermo.Hmmm.Forget that beach walker.She could be a mirage, after all.The Strait of Messina was famous for the Fata Morgana, a mirage of men, horses, ships, all kinds of things.This could easily be a new trick of the waters.Don Giovanni reached out to close the shutters.But, wait, what was the woman doing now? Shedding an outer garment.Now her dress.Her undershift.The woman stood naked in this February chill.Exposed and vulnerable, like an opened oyster.Don Giovanni swallowed the saliva that gathered under his tongue.Her abundance impressed him.She waded into the water.His heart went quiet.His arms fell to his sides.His breath came sour.Night swimming was dangerous, especially in the cold.He should stop her.But the sea was calm.And he was host; already the clomp of hooves came, the clack of wooden wheels on stone.How strangely this evening was beginning: three women, each capturing his attentions in her own way, each unreachable in her own way.Like a curse.Nonsense.He was irresistible to women.With the tip of a knife he popped a slice of orange into his mouth—refreshingly sour winter fruit—and went to the entrance hall to greet his guests.His parties were known for elaborate banquets and dramatic spectacles.They rivaled the king’s in Palermo.Don Giovanni knew this, for he had been a guest at the palace twice in the past year.King William II was himself just a boy, two and a half years younger than Don Giovanni.But the king gave sumptuous parties.Yet still Don Giovanni outdid him.Tonight would be magnificent.Festivities until dawn.Don Giovanni heard his heels click on the stone floors.Clomp and clack outside; click inside.All was fine.But a gray form seemed to accompany him, at the very periphery of his vision.When he turned quickly to catch a full view, it disappeared.Nevertheless, he knew: it was the outline of the woman entering the water.A suicide?But surely she wasn’t dead yet.He could run down to the beach and call out.He could send a servant in a boat.Or do it himself.A Catholic soul that died by her own hand would be condemned forever.He owed it to her.These things clattered through his head, like birds caught in a closed room, all the while his guests arriving.Their cheeks brushed both of his as they kissed the air beside him.Ladies in brightly colored satins, damasks, brocades, silks, all with many buttons; gentlemen in breeches and tight linen hose, with jewels embellishing their shirts—they filed in noisily.Gaily colored birds.The mistress of the servants was a bird.Don Giovanni’s thoughts were birds.The nobles of Messina were birds.What was happening that he kept seeing the same images? Common people said birds in a house were bad luck—and though Don Giovanni was far from common, the images still annoyed him.And three again.Woozy once more, he leaned against the wall.Throughout the evening Don Giovanni raised his hands to clap when others did.During the comedians’ acts he laughed when others did.But he didn’t hear a single thing.The clomps, clacks, clicks of earlier were gone.It was as though his ears had filled with oil, as though the oil overflowed down chest and back, as though he swam in oil.Was the naked woman swimming?Several times he passed the open window.The wooly bodies of sheep formed slate-gray ground clouds on the hillside.Beyond them the woman’s clothes remained in a charcoal-gray heap on the beach.And there were so many stars.Billions of stars.Over a dead sea.Until one time, close to morning, the sea wasn’t dead.It trembled.Rain fell in sudden, heavy slaps.Lightning cut the clouds.Thunder drummed, waking Don Giovanni’s sense of hearing.And then the earth itself trembled.Faintly, but he felt it for sure.He cried out.Gentlemen and ladies rushed to the seaside windows and threw open the shutters, jabbering.Roofs shook, walls fell, stones on the pathways bounced.The sea pulled away from the shore, as though sucked into a monstrous mouth.In an instant the sea bottom lay exposed as far as Don Giovanni could see.The rain ceased; the new sun’s fingers grasped at the world.Marine creatures glistened in the slime that moved with their struggles.Fish flopped in the open air.Skeletons of wrecked boats stuck up obscenely.Cries of pain, wails of grief threaded the air.City people picked their way through rubble, calling out to loved ones.Don Giovanni’s guests rushed to their homes.He watched the shore from his window as people pointed to the fish gasping.Groups hurried to gather them, reap the easy harvest.Children and fishermen and old people and women in rags.They cluttered the seabed.He strained to see through the early light.He looked for a woman’s body.His sea was gone.He felt bereft.What a stupid thought.It would return.And in a flash he understood.Oh, God in Heaven.He shouted warning.Already he saw the colossal wave coming.Taller than any Don Giovanni had ever seen, taller than any anyone had ever seen.And coming faster, too.DisasterEARTHQUAKES WERE ENDEMIC TO SICILIAN HISTORY.PHOENIcians, Greeks, Romans, Barbarians, Byzantines, Saracens, Vikings—all came and went, but earthquakes were constant.Everyone had lived through recent small ones and everyone had heard tales about past big ones.This one was different, though.It had to be.Past earthquakes couldn’t have brought waves like that, or the people of Messina would have known better.Some ancient knowledge lodged in their brains would have sent them scrambling up the mounts instead of rushing to the seabed.Don Giovanni couldn’t be sure how many were swept away over the city walls.Hundreds, maybe [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]