Augliera The Bad Bear Tavern

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-88-354-7557-6
Verlag: Tektime
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

This is the story of Marco, a journalist who has lost his way after his wife was raped and then her suicide. Desperation and the desire for change take him to environments far from his world. He finds himself, almost unwittingly, frequenting the slums of his city and a low-class dive, The Bad Bear Tavern, where he meets a neglected humanity living on the edge of legality, made up largely of non-EU citizens. Among them, one person stands out: Igor, a cultured Hungarian who has experienced terrible events in the Middle East, where he fought as a contractor and as a volunteer alongside the Kurds against ISIS. Marco is fascinated by his personality, but he will discover something that will unsettle him and worsen his existential crisis.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Augliera, Leo

Weitere Mitwirkende

Maher, Barbara

Leseproben

2

When I opened my eyes again, I was in bed in a hospital room. A severe pain in my head prevented me from moving it. From the corner of my eye I noted the immaculate white that reigned in the room: the ceiling, the walls, the sheets and even the few pieces of furniture that filled it were white. I thought I must have spent a long time in a state of semi-unconsciousness, immersed in that aseptic squalor and this gave me a sense of deep uneasiness. Unexpectedly I felt a strange life force rising from the bottom of my stomach. With difficulty I turned my head towards the window and, although I could only see the half-light of nightfall, my heart opened all the same. The joy did not last long, a strong pain in my side forced me to rest my head on the pillow, returning me again to the white squalor of the room.

The annoying sound of hurried footsteps coming nearer caught my attention. A few moments later, two doctors and a nurse entered the room; they proceeded quickly, distracted, with the air of people who were repeating those gestures for the umpteenth time. They stood at the foot of the bed and stared at me in silence, as if they were trying to study my appearance from that distance. I thought it wouldn't go further than that fleeting glance, but I had to change my mind; the older doctor moved away from the group and came and stood next to me. At that distance I saw him clearly: he was a handsome man now at the end of his career, with a beard and shiny hair, looked after very carefully. He seemed rather tall, and in fact he was several centimetres taller than the colleague who was with him. He displayed a bearing full of confidence, almost arrogance, typical of those who are used to managing the precarious lives of others. He took the medical record with authority and stared at it for a very long moment. Annoyed, he looked at his watch as if he had remembered an appointment, grimaced with disappointment, and stared back at the report. I had the impression that, while he was making these brusque and determined gestures, he was thinking of something that did not concern me. The other doctor, a bony man about fifty, with glasses and a bald and shiny skull, was looking at me distractedly. The nurse who accompanied them, a colourless girl with blond hair and eyelashes, stared at the head physician in silence, with an expression that I judged far too obsequious. Unnerved by their silence, I managed to let out a faint moan that was enough to attract their attention. The senior doctor looked up from the medical report and began to scrutinize me with interest. His eyes pierced me, searching my face for a sign that I, exhausted, was unable to give him.

"Doctor, he's woken up."

After so much silence, the nurse's voice boomed in my head like the sound of a hundred bells.

The man slowly put down the clipboard and lowered his head to within a few centimetres of my ear. "Try not to tire yourself talking, it's still too soon."

He whispered the words with such kindness that they sounded sinister to me, identical to the comforting things, full of pity, that people say to a dying man with no hope. Just as kindly he took my wrist with his slender hand and his full lips parted in a dazzling smile. It was clear that he wanted to reassure me, as if that were the mission to be completed at all costs.

"Fortunately you have nothing broken. You have suffered severe shock, bruises and grazes in all parts of your body. In a few days, I promise, you will be out." My gaze, fixed on him without much conviction, made him want to continue in the same sugary tone as if my troubles, after all, were only the consequence of a trivial incident of no importance. "Your wife is fine. The external signs of the attack and the state of shock are regressing quickly, but I fear it will take a long time to erase the memory of what happened to her, if she is able. As for the thugs who attacked you, unfortunately the Police are still looking for them." He didn't say anything else, he just gave me another tight smile and left the room, followed by the other doctor and the nurse.

The days that followed passed in almost total solitude. The visits of friends, my newspaper colleagues and, after a few days, Mascia’s could not dissolve the pall that had imprisoned me. As my physical conditions improved, I felt the need to find some sort of occupation that would defeat the boredom that risked becoming more dangerous than the wounds themselves. Not being able to read yet because of the severe headaches, I looked curiously at everything around me, seeking something interesting to hold onto. The desolation I saw did not offer me many opportunities, so I found nothing better to do than to try to become friends with the nurse I had met on the first day.

As I recovered she had become the person I saw most frequently and I was so good at convincing her that I was a patient different from all the others that she capitulated almost immediately, putting aside her natural distrust. When the night shift forced her to stay in that impossible place Lara, my indulgent nurse, in contravention of professional duties and hospital regulations, sat next to the bed and talked as one does with an old friend she has always known, telling me an infinity of things about herself, her family, and the man she lived with.

She told me that she was born and raised in a village not too far from the city. As an only child, she spent the early years of her life serenely. Her father was employed by the municipality, while her mother did small tailoring jobs at home. Everything became complicated by her mother's illness, when she was just six years old. The diagnosis of a devastating tumour convinced her parents to embark on those journeys of hope which, in most cases, only serve to prolong the agony; and in the meantime she was placed, in turn, with more or less close relatives. It was a terrible year that ended with the poor woman’s death. The bereavement affected the whole family. The father was forced to take an old spinster aunt into the house to look after his daughter and keep things going as best she could in a situation otherwise destined to deteriorate; while he found nothing better to do than to start drinking in an excessive way. The little girl, on the other hand, became more and more taciturn, closing herself in a world of her own that she did not allow anyone to disturb. She went on like this until she was eighteen, when she took a diploma in accounting. During her entire adolescence she had neither girlfriend nor boyfriend. Her life was all school and home where, as she grew up, the roles with her old aunt were reversed; it got to the point where she was the one looking after her aunt and father. Filippo, this was the father’s name, was a very good-looking man: tall, blond, with blue eyes, a large guy with an athletic physique that aroused hidden desires in almost all the women who met him, married or not.

Despite all this interest from the opposite sex, he had not wanted to marry again, saying that his daughter Lara was the only woman in his life and he did not want some hypothetical stepmother, in the long run, to end up mistreating her.

But he lied shamelessly. The newfound freedom, after the death of his wife, became the pretext to give vent to his true nature, until then barely repressed, of the unrepentant womanizer finally free to approach, without any problem now, every woman he came across. But the only real passion he had in an excessive way and which, as time passed, he could no longer do without was the bottle. Lara never knew if that love was prior to her mother's illness, she was too young to remember, or if it had been a consequence of her death. The strong attraction to alcohol made Filippo return home in the evening more and more often drunk, but the tipsy condition did not make him violent, on the contrary, as if he were ashamed of the pitiful state he was in, he came home trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake his daughter and old aunt.

Taking advantage of the situation and plagued by nightmares, Lara was able, almost every evening and without too much insistence, to go to her aunt who, willingly and with a sweet benevolent smile, spread her huge arms to welcome her into her bed. The child's nightmares, full of witches and repellent monsters that were always one step away from eating her in a single bite, subsided only when her father came home; the joy when she heard him close the door carefully so as not to make a sound was immense. The man walked slowly in the dark so as not to wake her, clumsily and desperately trying to reach his bedroom; but, despite being fully concentrated on accomplishing that titanic undertaking, either because of the darkness or because of the very scarce lucidity, arriving at the goal meant bumping into all the furniture he encountered. The bad luck that haunted him and the bruises he got made him swear, but strictly in a low voice so as not to be heard. Her father's nocturnal vicissitudes made Lara smile, finally allowing herself a little good humor. With all fears disappearing as if by magic with witches and monsters attached, she wished him a loud good night that echoed throughout the house. After a few moments of embarrassed silence, an incomprehensible grunt came from Filippo's room that was intended as his goodnight to his daughter.

After graduating, Lara thought of going to university. She liked the idea of medical studies, but did not pursue them because she believed that a career as a doctor was too long and difficult. In the end, to remain in the health sector, she chose the nursing course. After passing the admission test, she began her life as a commuter between the village and...