As tears go by

// 24 California

She slowed down. "California" read the road sign. The old drunk in Igne told her the truth. She opened the throttle and in a moment she was in the main square.

That place got that name, because there was a tavern whose sign read CALIFORNIA. It looks like the owner spent some years as a gold digger at the time of Gold Rush, Svagna explained her. The tavern had disappeared long ago, the name dwelt, so a cluster of houses and shops spread around in the forest.

The Post Office was beside a Chinese bar which sold cigarettes, newspapers, clothes, ski and mountain gear. She parked the motorbike on the other side of the street and entered the Post Office. She pushed the door and time-travelled fifty years back. There was no bright yellow and blue colours of the new Poste Italiane corporate identity. In the middle of the grey room, there was a wooden table covered with heaps of archaic paper telephone books stacked one above the other. Yellow and white pages from all over. Past the table, there was a counter. Behind it one employer was sitting and doing nothing. At first he looked like a part of the furniture. He was fat with a pockmarked face, big glasses and crow's eyes. From his expression she had a hint that he was not pleased she entered five minutes before the end of his day work. Simultaneously, he saw a pretty girl so she could charm her way in at least for the next five minutes. She asked mellowly.

The Post Office man knew nothing. "This is my first day here. Until yesterday I was in Belluno, Central Post Office. I managed many employees." He told her to boast about himself. She didn't ask him what wrong-doing confined him here. He bit his lips and sagged back. "Before me, there was a woman operating the office. I guess her surname was Cecchi or Checchi, something like that. I know she lives around here, nothing else. Sorry, but now I have to close. Ask around. I am sure everybody knows her around here. They are just a bunch of people." He blinked at her. She thanked him politely.

Two minutes later she was back on the street and stopped short. Two Carabinieri were checking her motorbike. One of them bent over, straightening back, scratched his neck, whipped around. Didn't see her because she stepped aside and backed, turned around, pushed the door of the bar-pizzeria and eyed on them using the mirroring effect of the window panes door. They did not notice her at all. She was safe so far. She sat at a table near the window, put in front of her the mobile, the fags and a fifty euros note. She waited, watching the Carabinieri. They walked back to their patrol car and left without checking the plates. She breathed again. They probably just liked it and had a look. In any case, she decided she had to move it and get rid of it as soon as possible. A Chinese young woman come up smiling.

"A cappuccino, and I need information about the woman who worked at the Post Office," she asked and shoved to her the fifty note.

The Chinese waitress nodded. "Mariangela?"

She drove the Guzzi down a snow-covered turn-off and left it on the back of a rundown tabia, as they called there a shed.

She put on the skis the Chinese sold her. She climbed up the snow- covered side of the ridge, the sour and fresh scent of the pine trees filled the air and her nostrils. Arrived at the top, she slid downhill, zigzagged among the trunks of the pine trees. At the bottom of the hill she had to climb up another slope. She had to climb up and down steep hills for four or five times. It was a time-consuming activity but going through the woods avoided her to walk on the streets and be seen from prying eyes.

Mariangela Cecchi lived in Zavat, a nearby district of four houses with barns. They were spread in a clearing hemmed by bushy pine thickets on the side of a mountain. She skied down the final slope. She avoided a cluster of trees, jumped from a bump, landed on the side of the sheer slope. Pushed down, cut fast through the snow-covered field and stopped a hundred meters away, behind the trunk of a huge pine tree. The house was hemmed by the woods and deep in the snow. Nice place, but she would not consider living there. She liked the forest, the sea, the Nature, but she was an asphalt animal. She liked cities, motorways. She pushed forward and halted in front of her door. She clicked off her ski. There was no door ring. She knocked.