Third Party
Marco Costa A good deal of effort to curb the enthusiasm of Dagmar after their first meeting. She was demanding, stubborn and temperamental as a young girl to his first love. Marco could not afford to leave for one hour, he must always pass in the vicinity of his cage because she saw him and could send its messages. Beware if delayed: she filled with menacing growls Zoo entire run and did the visitors. By now all staff understood the feeling that existed between the young and the young female tiger, and Mark did not try to deny it even more, leaving his colleagues to have some fun 'behind him, as long as anyone could think to check where he spent his evenings once the service. He did not give the eye, went out with other good good, went home, prepared some food and after twenty-one now at the stables last inspection by the night watchmen, entered through a side entrance of the Zoo using His pass-par-tout, went to the stables and was putting in to Dagmar. Now he trusted, he let her lick the hand, arm, neck, played together and talked as they do any two lovers.
Mark did not think to fall for a tiger had to face certain problems. What problems? By now he was in love and nothing else, and just the fact that it was a tiger gave him a feeling of power and happiness, even more than it would have happened if he had won and made him fall in love with the most beautiful woman in the world. But what was going on? She would go forward in some way, in any way, who cares, now that was fine, now Mark was happy and in love, to hell with everything else.
When he went, almost always after midnight, he had the impression that some animals, such as the panther, envied their relationship.
not always go that their love and harmony, like two sweethearts quarreled sometimes capricious and Mark went off hitting the gate, while Dagmar looked ostentatiously in the opposite direction and show the butt. But it lasted much: the next morning she asked him to do it again peace.
But once they had quarreled bad because of a poor bird that she had made out. Marco was mending the fence around the grave security that surrounded the cage Dagmar. He had seen the corner of the bird hovering on the face of the tiger stretching the neck in its jaws to tear off the scraps of food left between his teeth, setting up a typical symbiotic relationship. Mark was distracted to collect something from the ground and a moment later he saw her chew: the bird was gone but a pen lying on the floor of the tail and a few drops of blood. Marco was immediately called Dagmar in thought once or twice, but she pretended not going to lie down sleepy on the far side of the cage. That evening there had been no caresses, licking or because he had attacked immediately with malice.
-You're such an animal without a soul! You ate the bird that I was cleaning my teeth.
"But it was not my fault, I swear. I just yawned and that idiot has stuck in my jaw. When I closed my mouth he was still there. Bad luck for him. I'm so sorry "
-Ti is so sorry that you suffered so are jelly. You wanted to make the perfect crime?
" What do you mean perfect crime? "
-Lo and kill him do disappear, so nobody saw and nobody knows. But there is no perfect crime, he learns.
"It was already dead, might as well swallow it. And then I did not want you to think I saw you and what you thought, which are a killer and ungrateful "
-licking good, however you forgot the two drops of blood on the ground and get rid of that pen tail.
"The perfect murder does not exist. You said you"
-I also get around now?
"What do you think I should do, put me to scream in pain?"
-you bad, you're a poor beast, I know. You have no heart, only my stomach.
"You're bad to tell me these things. Now go away, I want to stay"
had not said anything for three days. Marco had avoided passing in the vicinity of the tiger cage, and she was always asleep. But the third night, when Mark came back in the locker room and was more than fifty meters from his cage he was weak, the voice of Dagmar as a sigh
"Come to me tonight, I can not live without seeing"
And he was gone, although he had promised not to.
"We should not fight anymore," said Dagmar. "You are my love, I will not bother you anymore"
And so it was by that time.
A few days ago a strange man with a sketch pad in hand would go walking every afternoon between the cages drawing animals, birds, wolves, bears, leopards. He drew all animals, but also drew the tiger, increasingly, each time pausing longer in front of his cage, and after a while 'Marco was now certain that Dagmar had as one subject for his sketches.
He was tall and thin with a bushy black beard, wearing a dark coat on large pants and a large clear blue silk turban on his head. All staff respectfully called him Mister Kaleb, Kaleb Doktor, or because he was a computer engineer from India. He had been hired by the administration of the Zoo to install and program a new digital computer. Once you have completed all his work would be planned and activated by a single operations center, while each employee services would receive a plastic card with magnetic and inserted a chip containing personal data and those relating to the area of \u200b\u200brelevance, for opening and closing doors, gates and doors of the cages and stalls, and for the transition through secondary entrances and exits. A Mark was given a yellow card on the department only cats, which fortunately was just what he needed.
bother him but the diligence with which the Indian Dagmar attended the cage. When Marco was near him he could not even communicate with the tiger, as if they bring him discomfort and interference prevented him from tune mental frequency of his beloved. Dagmar Do not take that much.
"It's where I turn around and shows me" reassured him in the evening, "she is always smiling, but you leave him alone. How bad do you want me to do? He can only get near the cage and the window like so many other people. Leave him alone, so you just come in here "
The sad day came suddenly one morning quite early. While Marco was preparing to watering a lawn, he saw that the background Dagmar stirred angrily in his cage. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction and she could not feel it in the air, so Mark moved forward in the driveway for ten meters so that she saw him, and just then came across the Indian engineer, still in front of the cage. He had anticipated his daily visit of several hours, but he was not withdrawing it: he was standing there with his arms at his sides and appeared to lose sight of one movement of the tiger. But what most worried Mark was the unusual nervousness Dagmar.
"What is it?" transmitted them. "What are you afraid?" What that guy doing there? "
perceived as a turbulent fluid in the brain, then her voice got very agitated, broken, like someone who is in terror.
"Go away here! Get away! Do not try to talk to me! "
That's when the Indian turned to him and stared a long time, Mark did not react until the last words of Dagmar.
" Do as I told you. Please, do as I told you "
Marco went bad mood. What could this mean? That Indian was able to intercept their conversations? Was it possible that someone else could speak with a tiger ? What a fool I was, thought Mark, to believe that the privileged, the only one in the world capable of doing so. But maybe not, he tried to convince, perhaps that Indian issues a fluid evil, like a snake charmer, so Dagmar so afraid. But suddenly remembered that she had forbidden him to speak, and that India had turned to look at just the two of them had begun to communicate. Mark did not make any reference to the Indian voice and could not have heard the sound of his feet because they were distant from each other almost forty meters. Was he managed to intercept his thoughts? The thought of Dagmar, or rather to both?
Fortunately for him that day were assigned to all work assignments away from the cage of Dagmar, so it fell to him to see her, but the headaches that came in the morning increased during the day until it became unbearable in the late evening, when he returned with extreme caution in the Zoo from the usual back door and slipped quietly in their stalls.
"He's a magician!"
Dagmar he was crouching in the darkest corner and out of his stall and not the effusions did when Mark squatted beside her. Stare continually through the gate to the dimly lit corridor of stalls like a frightened child.
-How did you realize that is a wizard? He asked, stroking his head.
"He told me himself. Do you hear what I think, and compels me to hear what he thinks, even if I do not want. He listened to everything that we said you and me, knows all of our clandestine meetings and said he could get kicked out "
-will? Churches Marco anxiously.
She did not answer.
-Dagmar, will he?
"He said no"
-What do you want in return from you?
"But nothing ... I ... did not ask me anything in return. "Suddenly she had become reluctant.
-Listen, Dagmar: that's a bad man and you do not have never met, do not know them, I do, unfortunately, and I tell you that people always want something in return, never does anything for nothing.
"I was not asked anything. Do not worry, my love, did not ask me anything"
-What is this magic?
"I do not know. He told me he can do miracles, and that nobody in the world is as good as him. He told me that this night will come and I will see what it is capable of"
- Tonight? Then I'll hide in here and will help her show.
"I'll get you instead. He knows and sees everything, will not do anything if you'll be close, very bad indeed become e farà del male a me e agli altri animali delle stalle"
-Te lo ha detto lui?
"Sì. Voleva che tu lo sapessi e che fossi io a dirtelo"
-E tu? Non vuoi che io resti?
"Questa volta no: voglio vedere che cosa farà il mago"
Marco non provò nemmeno a farle cambiare idea; si era da tempo reso conto di quanto Dagmar fosse cocciuta e ostinata e che era impossibile smuoverla quando si era fatta venire qualcosa in testa. Tornò a casa ma non chiuse occhio per tutta la notte.
Il mattino seguente, percorrendo i viali dello Zoo, Marco non vide traccia Mister Kaleb. None of my colleagues had met him or seen, and only later Mary told him that the Indian engineer had taken a day off.
was exploded while a violent storm and it poured with thunder and lightning. The cats had not been dumped in the cages, but left the windows closed in the rooms. At that time there were no visitors at the Zoo and the gallery was empty.
They feel-bad weather, too, said Maria watching the wild animals behind the glass.
They were all unusually squat belly on the ground away from windows, and seemed waiting for some kind of event, even the lion had cocked his head and he was huddled near the gate, as if to put in a gallop down the corridor that led to his stall.
Panther, wedged between the wall and the crib, sticking out just a little piece of the tail.
-They are afraid of thunder, "said Mary.
Mark had read in my eyes wide open, however, a fear of Dagmar different, much more intense. The penetrated wave of terror in the ways of the animal before him came the voice:
"Do not go away. Please, please stay here with me"
If he had not known that it was the voice of a Siberian tiger would have thought Marco it was that of a child who was crying.
-I remain here to wash those glasses, "said Mary hoping to leave him alone.
-If you need me are the aquarium, "replied the woman.
"What happened last night? Immediately asked to Dagmar.
"Open the door, come in and come near me"
"We can not: it is now days, someone could come at any moment. Tell me what you did last night, and the magician because you have all scared.
Dagmar went to the window crawling on his belly.
"He threatened to turn into a chicken", whispered very quietly.
-And you believe him?
"Of course I believe him, because he can do it"
-Are you crazy? You are a Siberian tiger two hundred pounds. Have you ever seen how small a chicken?
"And you've never seen how small a mouse? Last night the magician has turned the black panther in a rat, leaving long tails that hang up everywhere soon as she fled because he could no longer keep it under control. Then the magician has grabbed the tail, has raised and holding it upside down threatened to drop it in the middle of the pythons that if the jelly would be a breeze. See a bit 'now if you can make her come out of hiding poor panther
Marco looked at the terrified tiger.
-I can not believe it.
"Go and look like they are terrified giraffes. The magician has transformed the old boy into a frog: the poor fellow croaking mad with fear; leap tall which was not used and always came back to earth on his back. You must be all in pieces today, "
Marco continued to doubt, but the panther did not show up all day and did not come out from his hiding even to eat.
-Is that what you want in exchange for his silence about our relationship, is not it? The churches in the evening when they were alone in the barn. Wants you to pay for his experiments.
"No. He wants me to flee with him," replied Dagmar.
-Transformed into a chicken?
"In a bird in a cage, she said"
-Who put in your place inside the cage?
Dagmar did not answer.
-takes a rat in the park? Or grab a bird while flying on your head?
"We joke all the above" interrupted Dagmar. "He told me that you turn into a tiger"
Marco gasped and swallowed a couple of times before you can utter a word.
Damn-Indian is a monster! I'll have to kill him, otherwise we will destroy.
"Thou shalt not do anything. Do not forget that he is a magician and you have no power. I'll think about it.
-What would you do, kill him? You could not swallow it like you did with that ' bird, this is too big and it would still be some trace.
"The perfect murder does not exist", he cited Dagmar.
-Exactly. Would the police then a veterinarian and I would inject a deadly poison. Die, Dagmar.
"Why?"
"Why would a wild beast that killed a man. You need to be eliminated: this is the law of men, but I will not let you die, Dagmar.
"Now try to calm down and leave it to me: I have a plan"
-What plan?
"Better not to reveal anything, but I have an idea and I am convinced it will work. You must have confidence in me e andartene a casa subito, perché il mago stasera ritornerà"
-Viene per fare nuovi esperimenti? Per terrorizzarvi ancora un po'?
"Viene per avere la mia risposta"
Marco la guardò allibito.
-Succede tutto così in fretta, lui ha già deciso?
"Il suo lavoro è quasi finito, mi ha detto; fra pochi giorni se ne andrà via"
-Con un bel passerotto in una gabbietta e un povero disgraziato nella gabbia della tigre. Ha deciso così Mister Kaleb?
"Lui pensa che andrà così"
-But you have a plan.
"I have a plan"
-While I do not have to do anything, I trust you,
"Yes, blindly"
-you tell me why?
"Because I love you and will never leave you in a cage, and then only because I can combine to solve the situation without permanent damage, but you will get in big trouble"
Even This time Mark had to go really angry and blood pounding. He spent all night sitting up in bed with his head in his hands, drenched in sweat.
The day after stubbornly avoided approaching the cage Dagmar. Intended to punish her for having passed a bad night, especially because he had confided his intentions left in the dark about things that concern her fate: if that magician could do what Dagmar had told him would certainly not have been happy his future in the body of a tiger. The wisest thing would be to plant all there and very far away on the first train, but he never abandoned Dagmar in the hands of that con man in coat.
He was doing his job reluctantly troubled by distressing thoughts, when he arrived faint as a whisper in the ears of the call Dagmar.
"Come to me, Marco! Come at once. It is important to what I have to say"
He stopped with a rake in his hand to a hundred feet from the cage. He would not give it completely defeated, not yet.
"What's so important?"
"When you come tonight bring a pair of pants and a jacket
" What for? "
"serve me"
"To you?"
"wear them when I have turned into the magician a woman "
" And I'm supposed to help him escape? "
" Do not run away with him, you fool, I'll come with you "
" Dagmar, what a mess you've done? "
"I made a deal with him"
"An alliance?"
"No, only one condition. I asked him to turn me into a woman to make love to you, before you go with him "
" Kaleb has agreed? "
" agreed "
" But after have been with me you gonna leave with to him, right? And I stay in the cage for you? This is the deal? "
" That's what made me swear, but you and I'll run and when the magician will notice the two of us we will be away, safe from him "
" You think Kaleb has not already know? "
" I was very good and convincing for a moment I have not even thought about things other than what I said. I did not even let slip a little thought small. You tell me how could you understand? "
" That's smarter than you and me, will not fall into a trap so naive "
" Then triggered the second part of my plan "
" What's that? "
" This will not tell you, but it will be a surprise for you and for him, you see, especially for him. You bring me clothes tonight "
" Dagmar, I have a great fear "
" will be all right, my love "
Marco spent the whole day with the jitters on . Lunch took only a little food. Back home, drank a glass of water and lay down on the bed dressed, looking at his watch every five minutes. Just before the twenty-one had a shower because it was soaked with sweat; wore jeans and a crew neck sweater, took the closet a pair of pants new seeds, a shirt and a jacket. He put everything in a plastic bag that he threw up a rear seat of his car, and drove off. He found a parking space near his favorite entry; introduced its plastic card into the slot of the door and entered. He arrived in a flash to the stables, they ran through the main corridor and introduced its card in the slot bright yellow gate Dagmar.
She was at the center of the stable, immobile.
-Good evening.
Mister Kaleb emerged from a dark corner.
-Come ha fatto a entrare qui dentro? Gli chiese Marco, ma istintivamente guardò il cartoncino magnetico che aveva ancora in mano e gli fu tutto chiaro prima che l'indiano rispondesse.
-Il mio non apre soltanto un reparto, bensì tutti, caro amico: apre tutte le porte e le richiude tutte.
Un chiaro avvertimento, pensò Marco ma subito si morse un labbro: non doveva pensare a niente in presenza di quell'uomo che intendeva anche il pensiero. Guardò un attimo Dagmar e gli sembrò minuta, quell'enorme animale gli sembrò fragile: teneva gli occhi fissi sul mago e Marco sentì dentro di sé vibrare i battiti veloci del cuore della tigre. Dagmar aveva paura, una paura folle, ma era pronta a sfidare il mago.
-Brava! Così si comporta una vera tigre nella giungla, disse Kaleb.
Aveva capito tutto, naturalmente.
-Più la tigre ha paura, aggiunse, e più è pronta a battersi; più è in preda al terrore e più la tigre è pericolosa, come te in questo momento, vero Dagmar?
Si avvicinò alla tigre. Marco vide un guizzo negli occhi gialli.
-Vorresti uccidermi, non è così? Sibilò Kaleb. Ma non lo farai, altrimenti non conoscerai mai l'ebbrezza di stringere tra le tue braccia il tuo amore. No, tu non lo farai. You have all night for you, then come back here, he concluded, turning to the magician Marco. I'll wait here.
Kaleb went to Dagmar and touched her head with her hands outstretched. Dagmar went away quickly from him crouching in a corner, trembling all over the body by emitting a muffled gasp, it seemed a prey to severe pain. Did not last long, then lay motionless, as exhausted. In the gloom of the angle where he had taken refuge seemed to Mark that something was moving, smaller than a tiger. When that something was erected towards the center and was better lit stall Marco mouth wide open he saw that she was a young woman, naked and beautiful, as beautiful as ever he had seen. The tiger had disappeared, and Dagmar was there before him in flesh and blood.
-Preview Kaleb asked him, and laughed. From a beautiful tiger a beautiful girl.
Marco poses the bag and began to dress Dagmar, with some embarrassment.
-This magic is not eternal, it lasts only six hours, "said Kaleb, then returned to be a tiger, wherever you are, and exploded in laughter.
-back within six hours, said Mark opening the gate.
-He cheated, Dagmar, said they were in the car.
-He thinks of us cheated, she said, but now I think only two of us, he'll think about later.
*
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