The Purple Room

by Mauro Casiraghi

  I sit staring at the streetlights reflected on the windshield. In the rearview mirror, the words Wash me asshole! look like they’ve been carved into the back window. I’m thinking that tomorrow I could take the car to be washed, when the first drops start falling. They get heavier and heavier until, after five minutes, it’s raining really hard. The writing on the rear window disappears little by little, washed away by the water streaming down the glass. I recline my seat and stay there listening to the rain drumming on the metal roof. Now I won’t have to wash the car. What will I do tomorrow? And the day after? I can’t imagine. I can’t even imagine going home this evening. All I want to do is stay here in the car until it stops raining––with the hope that it never stops.

  Someone taps on my window.

  I sit up straight with a start. It’s Jenny again. She’s crouched under a tiny umbrella. She motions for me to roll down the window.

  “What is it?” I ask, feeling the cold air on my face.

  “Now I remember,” she says. Her eyes seem to see me now. “We were at the hotel. Two months ago.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “You just wanted to take pictures.”

  “What pictures?”

  “Standing up. By the window. Like you said before.”

  “And then?”

  “That’s it. You left.”

  “Did I tell you why I was taking the pictures?”

  “No.”

  “Did I talk about myself? Did I tell you anything?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anything about a purple room?”

  “No.”

  I can’t think of anything else to ask. In the silent pause, her phone starts ringing again.

  “Thanks,” I say, but it doesn’t matter. Jenny’s already left, phone to her ear, in the rain.

  I drive home as fast as I can and rush down to the bunker. The photos in my files are in chronological order. I carefully look through the folder for April-May.

  Nothing.

  I check in another file where I collect odd photos I use for my job. I pull out all the prints and check every negative.

  Nothing. No photos of Jenny.

  I turn on the computer and open folders containing images. I might have used the digital camera and uploaded them without printing them. There are hundreds and hundreds of images saved on the hard disk and looking through them all takes me until late at night. I go over them again and again, and have nothing to show for it.

  Yet, the more I think about it, the more I’m certain that I really did take those photos. I feel like I can remember taking them, but then, where are they?

  Exhausted, I drop onto the sofa. Outside, the sky is beginning to lighten. The sun’s about to rise. I pull the sheet up over my head, like a vampire, trying to keep the light away.

  It’s the beginning of a bright new summer’s day, and I feel lonelier and more lost than ever.

  12

  By the time I come out of the bunker, it’s late in the afternoon. I wipe off the stone table in the garden with a damp cloth, then sit down and eat a grilled cheese sandwich. While I chew, I turn on the phone. There are a couple of calls from Roberto. I call him back at the office.

  “Hey Rob. How’s it going?”

  “I’m working on a brochure for a real estate company––so boring. What’re you up to?”

  “Eating a grilled cheese sandwich.”

  “Tell me about the other night. How did it go?”

  “How did what go?”

  “With the entomologist.”

  “Silvia. A very nice person.”

  “She seemed pretty dull to me.”

  “She knows lots of interesting things.”

  “Well? What did you do?”

  “I drove her home.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I’m sorry for you and Franco. It didn’t turn out like you hoped it would.”

  “Look, it was his idea. I only told him that I thought you sounded a little down in the dumps. He said ‘I’ve got a friend with a friend who’s kind of a loser. Let’s put them together and see what happens. Two losers might click!’”

  “Nice friends.”

  “I’m kidding. The truth is that it’s all Loredana’s fault.”

  “Why?”

  “When she heard that the three of us were going out, she started busting my balls. ‘Why do the three of you always go out alone? You never want to go out with me!’ It went on and on. In the end I had to bring her, too, so Franco invited Petra and her friend to even things up.”

  “It was a pretty memorable evening for me.”

  “Tell me about it. Loredana made a scene on the way home. According to her, I did nothing but watch some chick on the dance floor all night. When I told her she was wrong, she called me a liar. ‘I saw you,’ she said. ‘We women have peripheral vision.’”

  “Was it true?”

  “What?”

  “That you were watching some chick.”

  “Sure, but that’s not the point. If Loredana keeps this up, I’m going to pack my bags and leave.”

  Roberto goes on for a while, telling me about his problems with Loredana. Then he asks me to meet him for a drink.

  “I don’t feel like it, Rob. I’d rather stay at home.”

  “Just for happy hour, close by, as soon as I finish work. Come on, Sergio. I can’t deal with going home to Loredana right away. I just want to hang out and talk with you for a while.”

  In the end we agree to meet at seven.

  I’m already on my way when I realize I’ve left home too early. I was afraid of being at home alone, with nothing to do, so I just got into the car without thinking. Now I’m going to get there a couple of hours too early.

  I leave the car in an underground parking garage near the office and go for a walk. Outside the Rinascente department store, I think that I could buy some clothes, just to kill time. I make the rounds of all the floors, riding up and down the escalators, enjoying the cool air conditioning. In the men’s department I look at a few shirts, pants and t-shirts. I can’t find anything to buy. A girl in a red dress wants me to try some cologne. I hate cologne and after-shave lotions. I tell her I’m not interested.

  “Try it. It’s really very nice.”

  She grabs my wrist and sprays on the cologne. I sniff at it. It’s sickly sweet, with the scent of alcohol underneath. It makes me feel nauseated.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Very nice,” I say. I don’t know why. “What brand is it?”

  The girl tells me the name.

  “Follow me. I’ll show you to the perfume counter.”

  Her hair is tied up and fastened on the top of her head with a barrette. The nape of her neck is covered with fuzzy blond hair, like on a baby’s head. It makes me think that she was once a child of two, like my daughter, scampering around the house in her mother’s shoes, eating dirt out of the flower pots and sticking her hands in the toilet bowl to play with the water. The thought makes me smile.

  The girl notices and smiles back. There’s some lipstick on her teeth.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Elisabetta. But I prefer Betti.”

  “You’ve got some lipstick on your teeth, Betti.”

  “Ah… Thanks.”

  She runs her tongue over her teeth rapidly.

  As we go down on the escalator I continue imagining Betti as a little girl. Bits of her childhood run through my head like a movie. I see her coming out of school wearing a pink smock, her hands all spotted with paint. I can smell the pencils in her school bag. I wonder if Betti ever remembers that smell, if she misses it, or if working with all these lotions and perfumes has erased that memory forever. I think of Michela and the days of her childhood, now gone forever, and all of a sudden I realize that my eyes are full of tears. There’s a lump in my throat and I feel like I’m about to burst out crying.

 
; Betti gives me a sympathetic look. “I’m allergic to pollen too,” she says. “You should get the vaccine.”

  I take three, four deep breaths and regain some control.

  “You’re right,” I say, drying my eyes with my handkerchief. “A vaccine is just what I need.”

  Betti walks me to the perfume counter, says goodbye and wishes me a nice day. I watch her as she rides back up the escalator, the image of her as a child still in my mind, and wonder what is happening to me. Maybe I should get some help, before I go completely crazy.

  The shop assistant wraps up the box of cologne. I pay at the register and finally I can get out of there. After the air conditioning, the impact with the wall of hot air staggers me. I still have the sickly smell of the cologne on my hands. I walk up and down the sidewalk looking for a trash can. As soon as I find one, I stuff the package of cologne in it. I walk until I come to a little fountain. I put my wrist under the cool water and scrub at it vigorously. When I’ve finished, I straighten up, pulling my handkerchief out of my trouser pocket to dry my hands.

  It’s at that moment that I look up and see her.

  The vision lasts only an instant. A bus pulls up to the sidewalk, hiding her from sight. Am I hallucinating? My heart beats wildly. I don’t have the strength to move, to check if it’s really her on the other side of the street. I wait there, frozen, until all the passengers have gotten off and on. When the bus doors close, I hold my breath. It pulls away. I look again––and again, I see her. It’s not a hallucination. She’s there, right in front of me. A billboard, twenty feet by ten. On the top right there’s the name of a clothing brand, Elixir, and, in small print, the name of our advertising company. The model is wearing a lavender set of lingerie, bra and panties. She’s leaning on the sill of a window framed by a purple wall. The shutters are open, letting in a soft light. Outside, the sun is setting on the horizon of a green countryside. The girl is half turned towards the inside of the room. Her expression is both innocent and coquettish, as though she’s been caught off guard in a private moment.

  I feel dizzy. I have the sensation that all the blood is flowing out of my body through an open faucet. I lean against a lamppost to keep from falling down and stand there staring at the poster. I’m beginning to understand. This is the project I was working on before the accident. Now I seem to remember something about the meeting we had at the office. The people from marketing wanted an image for a new line of lingerie, something intimate and seductive. I got it for them.

  “Sergio!” Susi throws her arms around my neck. “How wonderful to see you again. Why didn’t you call?”

  “I was in the neighborhood. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “What a shame! Roberto and the others have already left… You’re looking great, you know!”

  “Yes, I’m better now,” I say. “Seeing as I’m here, can I check something on my computer?”

  “As if you have to ask! I’ll be in there making a call if you need anything.”

  Everything in my office is as I left it. The calendar is still turned to the month of April. I sit down at my desk. There’s a note with the address in Livorno where my cousin Andrea had his wedding. I find a file labeled “Elixir” in the desk drawer. Inside it are the sketches I drew for the poster. Sketches of the woman in the purple room, all variations on the original idea. There are some pictures downloaded from the Internet, too. Photos of women, standing silhouetted in front of all kinds of windows. Photos of bedrooms taken from indoor shots of hotels or vacation homes. Views to be inserted as background panels into the window frame. The sea, mountains, lakes, countryside. Blue skies, cloudy skies, night skies or skies the red of a romantic sunset. Also in the file are the pictures I’ve been looking for, of Jenny in room 106 at the Park Hotel. She’s standing there in panties and a bra, looking bored. I photographed her from behind, from the front, in profile in front of the window with the shutter down. The lighting is awful, but when all’s said and done, they’re not bad pictures. There’s something hard about them, something private and inaccessible.

  I turn on my computer. I find a file labeled “Purple Room.” In it are all the versions of the images I put together using the editing program. First I did a series of tests with the photo of the hotel room, without Jenny. I colored the walls purple then tried out various backgrounds in the window frame. In the end I chose the sunset over the green countryside, making the bleakness of the Park Hotel disappear completely. Against this background I added Jenny in different poses, increasing and lowering the contrast with the light from the window. In a separate folder I put six versions that I thought were pretty good. While I was recovering from the accident, Roberto and the others took these mock-ups to a photographer’s studio. There, using a professional model wearing our client’s lingerie, they put together the finished advertisement.

  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The image that has been haunting me all this time, the precious memory that stayed with me when I came back to life after three days in a coma, is nothing but an ad for a pair of underwear. All this time I’ve been obsessed by a woman who doesn’t even exist, except in an advertisement.

  The pain behind my ear comes back, sharper than ever. I go into the bathroom and stick my head under the cold water. I stay there until the nape of my neck starts to go numb. I hadn’t imagined I’d react this way. I’d thought that, whatever answer I found, it would have freed me from a burden. I’d asked myself if there was anything worse than not knowing. The answer is yes. What’s worse is knowing that I was only chasing after a mirage.

  There’s a knock on the door.

  “Sergio? Are you in there?”

  I look in the mirror. I look terrible. I dry myself with a piece of paper and straighten up my hair. I take a deep breath and open the door.

  “Sorry,” says Susi, “but I’ve got a date with my boyfriend, and I have to lock up the office.”

  “I have to go, too.”

  “Everything okay? You look pale.”

  “Just a little headache. It happens every now and then.”

  “I’ve got some aspirin if you like.”

  “No, thanks. It’ll pass as soon as I eat something. I’ll just go shut down my computer.”

  I go back to my office and turn everything off. I’m about to put the folder back in the drawer when I notice a yellow Post-it caught in a corner. I hadn’t noticed it before.

  All it says is, “Photos G.D.”

  I don’t remember writing that. But the handwriting is mine. What does it mean?

  I look at the sketches of the purple room again. The woman I drew at the window is very young. She’s not even a woman, she’s an adolescent. A girl of about sixteen.

  G.D.

  I know these initials. They belong to a time so far in my past that it’s hard to believe it could be the same person. And yet, if I think of her, I feel that same pang in my chest, a warmth in the blood, that same mad desire I’ve been feeling all this time.

  The woman in the purple room isn’t a ghost or a product of my imagination. She’s a real person, made of flesh and blood.

  G.D.

  Gloria Decesaris.

  Now I know who you are.

  13

  When he sees me arrive, Roberto gets up from the table and comes towards me, concerned.

  “What happened? You look like you’re in shock.”

  We order a couple of Negronis and I start telling him the story of my amnesia, up to the moment when I found the initials G.D.

  “The first time I saw her I was in eleventh grade. I’d just turned sixteen and all my best friends had already lost their virginity. The only one in the group who hadn’t even gotten close was me.”

  “Yeah,” says Roberto, chewing on an olive, “I remember that feeling. Such awful anxiety.”

  I tell him how I went through mountains of porn magazines back then, just like all the other kids our age, but that I spent as much time looking at the naked women in my father’s art books. I
liked the small breasts, the pale skin, the bends and curves of the bellies of Titians’ and Botticelli’s Venuses.

  “I used to whack off thinking about Dr. Russell in Space: 1999,” says Roberto, “but what’s this have to do with your amnesia?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  The waiter brings two more Negronis. I take a of couple sips, then keep on telling him about Gloria Decesaris. She had come to our class from another school, and she lived outside Milan, in Pantigliate. She sat in the back, by herself, didn’t talk much, and blushed whenever anyone spoke to her. I sat in the front, to be near this girl Stefania who, back then, I thought was beauty personified. In the springtime we went on a class trip to Florence. It rained for three days in a row. I was dragging myself along the corridors of the Uffizi Museum with the rest of the class, hoping the visit would end as quickly as possible, when we stopped in front Caravaggio’s painting of the Medusa. We listened to what our teacher had to say, then we all moved on. But Gloria stayed there, staring at it. She was just standing there, looking up at that painting, completely rapt. I went back and asked her what she was doing. “The resemblance is striking,” she said. “It’s the same face my mother makes when she screams. The spitting image, identical.” She opened her eyes wide, imitating the gorgon, and shouted at the top of her lungs, “GO TO YOUR ROOOOOM!”

  I didn’t talk to her for the rest of the trip.

  On the way back to Milan, I ran into her on the train, at the end of the carriage. She was smoking. She asked me if I wanted a cigarette. I replied that I didn’t smoke. “Neither do I,” she said. “I bought them at the station just to try it.”

  We started chatting. Gloria told me that her folks were separated. Her dad was a doctor. Her mother never left the house and spent all day yelling at her and her older sister Ursula. “She’s crazy,” she said, talking about her mother, “but not enough to have her put away. My dad couldn’t take it anymore, so he got out.”