The Purple Room

by Mauro Casiraghi

  “I’m asking you in earnest to come away with me,” I said, “and you have to give me an answer now. Yes or no?”

  Federica shivered. She was naked under her dressing gown and it was cold in the garage. She snuggled up and started to kiss me. She slid on top of me with her legs apart, moving her pelvis back and forth, gripping the back of the seat to push harder. It was her way of answering, I sensed, but I wanted her to look me in the eye and say it. I took her by the wrists and forced her to look at me.

  “Yes or no?” I repeated harshly.

  She gritted her teeth, gasping, and tried to pull free. I tightened my grip.

  “Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes or no?” I shouted.

  She stopped struggling. She threw back her head to get her hair off her face and looked at me. She wasn’t thinking over what to say, she had already decided before I asked her the question. She was simply weighing the consequences of her reply. She was wondering if she would lose me. Little by little, I loosened my grip. Federica let her arms fall into her lap. She let herself go completely limp against me. Then she brushed my cheek with her lips and whispered, “I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow, Sergio.”

  She got up, tightened the belt of her dressing gown and left the garage.

  I stayed there sitting in the Bugatti. I didn’t know what would have happened if Federica had said yes. I only knew I was prepared to go through with it to find out. Now, however, my little surge of rebellion was subsiding, turning as cold as the car’s engine. We wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not me and not the Bugatti. I tried to tell myself it took more courage to stay and witness the slow disintegration of my marriage than to run away like a coward, just before Christmas. A captain must never abandon his ship. He has to do his utmost to ensure that all the others jump into the life boats and are saved. He has to face up to disaster like a man. Still, a part of me continued to feel that I’d missed a chance. We’d both missed it, Federica and I.

  It was then that I wondered if I knew any woman who would have had the courage to give me a different answer. My wife, I was sure, would have acted the same way Federica had. I thought back to the women I’d known before. There was Viviana, the editor of a Roman magazine to which I’d tried to sell some photos. She had been engaged to her boss. We had gone to bed together for a couple of months, until she got married. Before her, there was Ludovica, a waitress in Piazza Navona, whom I met while I was sketching portraits for tourists there. She lived in a tiny garret that got hot as an oven in summertime. After we made love, she’d always offer me a glass of milk with mint. Before that, there was Olga, an Austrian student I had met on the train to Siena. The hotel had been packed for the Palio horserace, so we had shared a single bed. I was much thinner then… I kept going further back in my memories, to my years at art school in Milan, to the relationships I’d had with fellow students, then way back, to the first girlfriends I’d had in high school. I tried to picture what each of those women might be like now, at the age of forty. I envisioned them with lawyer husbands and children in elementary school. I made them sit down with me in the Bugatti and I asked them all the same question I’d asked Federica. They all said no, just like she had.

  Gloria was the last one I thought of. It surprised me that I couldn’t imagine her as a forty-year-old. I was incapable of projecting the image of maturity onto her, as I had onto the others. I kept on seeing her as she was at sixteen. I was certain that if I’d asked her to leave with me, she’d have looked at me with that wry little smile of hers and said, “Yes.”

  Even so, the idea of trying to find her never crossed my mind. Our afternoon together in her purple room had become a distant memory from my teenage years, so long-ago it could be mistaken for a dream.

  “I had a feeling you were coming,” my mother says, opening the door. She’s holding the remote. The TV is on at full volume. “I made vegetable soup. Do you want me to heat some up?”

  “No,” I say. “I’ll be leaving in a minute. I just want to get something from out of the basement.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Just a book.”

  She studies me like as if she doesn’t recognize me. I’ve been telling her for years to get rid of the stuff piled up in the basement, starting with my old school books. How come I’m here now, asking her for one of those, specifically? As long as it was the exercise bike or Dad’s old pajamas, she was glad to have proved to me that it’s best not to throw anything away. Now, she’s starting to suspect that there’s something else going on.

  “What book is it?”

  “It’s from high school.”

  “What’s the title?”

  “It’s an art history book. I know which box it’s in. I just need the key to the basement.”

  “I can look for the book.”

  “You don’t have to go down there.”

  “You think I’m paralyzed or something?”

  “I’d prefer to do it myself.”

  “You’ll make a mess. I know you.”

  “Just give me the key, mom.”

  “I can’t remember where I put it.”

  “Give it to me!”

  I don’t know why I shouted. My mother stares at me in silence, shocked and stubborn.

  “Fine,” I say, “I’ll get it myself.”

  I go back by the front door, where the wooden key rack is. Every key is meticulously labeled. I check them all. The one to the basement isn’t there. I go back to my mother. She’s pretending to watch TV. Is it my imagination or is she snickering?

  “Where’s the key ?” I ask, clenching my fists.

  Instead of answering, she disappears into the kitchen. I can hear her rummaging around in a drawer. I rush to the doorway and block her exit. She’s holding something in her fist.

  “Move out of the way,” she says.

  “Give me the key.”

  “No.”

  She tries to dodge sideways. She may be seventy-two, but she’s quick for her age, I think, as I grab her hand and try to pry it open.

  “Stop it. What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Let it go, mother.”

  “I’ll go down to the basement myself!”

  “Stop acting like a child.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Open your hand.”

  “No.”

  “Open it!”

  “No.”

  I press hard against her knobby fingers. My mother screams. Her hand opens and lets the key fall to the floor. I pick it up. On its label is written, “Basement.”

  My mother stares at me in disbelief.

  “You’re out of your mind… Sergio… you hurt me.”

  She sits down on the sofa, cradling her wrist in her left hand. She’s acting like I broke her fingers.

  “Show me,” I say.

  “What’s gotten into you? Doing something like that to your mother.”

  “Let me see your hand.”

  I slowly move her fingers.

  “Ah! Stop!” she says. She’s laying it on thick.

  “It’s nothing, Mom.”

  “Nothing? It hurts like hell! You’d better take me to the hospital.”

  “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Then I’ll call a cab.”

  She stands up and gets the telephone directory.

  “Come on, Mom, don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t hurt you.”

  She starts dialing the number. She’s doing everything using only one hand. The other she’s holding pressed against her chest.

  “If you want, I’ll go get you something at the drugstore, but there’s no need to go to the hospital.”

  “That’s what you think. At the very least you’ve broken a finger.”

  “You’re blowing this out of proportion.”

  “Hello? Taxi?”

  “Fine, all right,” I say with a snort. “I’ll take you.”

  She hangs up and says, “Then get me my bag.”

  At the emergency room they make us wait for hours.
My mother sits, pouting, holding onto her hand as if it might fall off at any moment. People who have really injured themselves keep on rolling into the waiting room. A boy wearing a soccer uniform comes in with his parents, his knee the size of a melon. A woman wearing an apron has her finger wrapped in a napkin that’s dripping blood. A guy in a suit and tie, his Vespa helmet still on his head and a cell phone tucked in next to his ear, is shouting as they carry him in on a stretcher: “My Guccis! Where are my Gucci shoes?”

  They’re on his feet.

  “Let’s go home,” I say to my mother.

  She shakes her head. “You go if you want to.”

  Another hour of waiting. Finally they call her.

  “I’ll wait here,” I say, as the nurse accompanies her into the emergency ward.

  I go have a look around the hospital bar. I drink a couple of beers and eat a bag of chips. Then I go back to the waiting room.

  I must have fallen asleep, because when I reopen my eyes my mother is standing in front of me. I check the time. It’s twenty past midnight.

  “You see?” she says, showing me her hand. It’s in a cast. “A fractured metacarpus. I told you that you’d hurt me.” Then she adds, in a low voice: “I told the doctor I fell. I couldn’t tell him my son did something like that.”

  I feel like a worm. I can’t believe it. I broke my mother’s hand––my mother, the woman who brought me into the world. I broke her hand and I didn’t even notice.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I say, mortified. “I didn’t realize what I was doing…”

  “Let’s forget about it,” she says. “My hand makes a pair with your arm, the one I broke when you were six months old. Now we’re even.”

  We travel home from the hospital in silence. Only near the end my mother says: “I called the guest house in the mountains. They have a room there for you, too. What should I tell them? That you’ll come?”

  “I can’t, I have stuff to do in Rome.”

  “What do you have to do?”

  “Nothing. Just some things.”

  “It’s cool up there, you know. It’s nice.”

  “I know, but I can’t come.”

  “If you change your mind, you might not find a room.”

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  “Sure, you won’t change your mind. It would be just like you to call me up tomorrow and say, ‘Mom, I want to come to the mountains’.”

  “It won’t happen.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Once home, I help her out of the car and walk her upstairs.

  “Do you want me to stay overnight?” I ask, standing on the landing. “In case your hand hurts?”

  “No, just go home. I’ll take a pain killer. If I need anything, I’ll call Lina.”

  “All right, Mom. Good night, and sorry, again.”

  “Drive slowly,” she says, then closes the door.

  I walk down the stairs. When I get to the lobby, I realize I still have the basement key in my pocket. I turn around and head back, down into the tenants’ storage area.

  On one of the metal doors there’s a label with my mother’s name on it. I open it and go in. It’s all in scrupulous order. She’s labeled everything. There, on a metal shelf, are the fifty-two big boxes, lined up year by year. Below that, there’s my stuff. Bags full of shoes, clothes and old toys. The boxes labeled sergio’s school books are in a corner. I open one and dig until I find my junior year art history book. On the last page is the message that Gloria wrote to me thirty years ago. “Today, after three, at my house. I’ll be waiting for you. G.” Then her address and directions to get there. Her hand writing is just as I remembered it––round, open, all curves.

  15

  This morning I woke up early. I went into town to buy milk, croissants and a newspaper, then I sat out in the garden to have breakfast. The air was cool and the grass was sparkling with dew.

  After breakfast I went down to the bunker to do what I had probably already done two months earlier––look for a picture of Gloria. It was useless. The photos from 1975 that I have on file are all family pictures: my dad smiling beside his brand new Alfa Romeo; my mom and I on a mountain path, carrying backpacks, walking sticks and canteens; my mother’s birthday celebration, at a restaurant with her sister, nieces and nephews (there’s my cousin Andrea, looking like a good little boy). The only photo of my classmates is from our graduation. By then, Gloria had been gone for over a year. I’m in the second row, beside that girl Stefania, as pretty as she was insipid. From the way I’m holding her, you can tell I’ve recovered splendidly from Gloria’s disappearance. Maybe, on the other hand, I’d forced myself to forget her.

  While I’m looking at the photos, the phone rings. It’s Franco.

  “How’s it going, buddy?”

  “Doing all right. And you?”

  “I’m sweating like a pig and can’t wait to go on vacation. Listen, I talked to a friend of mine, a neurologist. He thinks it would be a good idea for you to get that amnesia thing of yours checked out. His name’s Sormani. His office is up on Fleming Hill. He’ll be expecting you this afternoon.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need help anymore. My memory’s come back.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine now.”

  “Um… good,” he says. “So, now you remember about the thousand euros I lent you two months ago, too, right?”

  A thousand euros? Why would I ever have asked him? He’s so tightfisted. I don’t get it. I can feel my headache about to come on again.

  “Of course,” I say. “I’ll pay you back the next time I see you.”

  Franco bursts out laughing. “I could have asked you for ten thousand! You totally fell for it. As if I’d ever lend you a thousand euros! Can’t you see that everything’s not all right? Listen to me and let my friend take a look at you.”

  A minute later I get a message on my phone with the name and address of the neurologist.

  I delete it and forget about it.

  At lunch time I go upstairs to fix myself something to eat. I put half a dozen frozen fish-sticks in the oven and pour myself a glass of wine. While they’re baking, I pick up the phone and call information. A young woman answers. I tell her that I want to trace a phone number and I give her Gloria’s address in Pantigliate, the one she wrote in the book.

  “Do you want me to connect you directly?” the woman asks.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Stay on the line, please, and have a nice day.”

  A voice recording reads back the Pantigliate number. Then the phone starts ringing. Once, twice, three times. Someone lifts up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  It’s a woman’s voice. She’s chewing something.

  “Gloria?” I say, more softly than I intended.

  “Hello?” she repeats. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Sergio. Sergio Monti.” Silence. “Do you remember me?”

  “No.”

  “We were classmates in high school, junior year.”

  “Sorry, who exactly are you looking for?”

  “Gloria. Gloria Decesaris.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “I have no idea. Look, you’ve got the wrong number.”

  “Isn’t this Via Monte Bianco number eleven? In Pantigliate?

  “Yes.”

  “A white house with green shutters?”

  “Yes…”

  “And you don’t know the Decesaris family?”

  “No.”

  “You live in their house.”

  “This is my house.”

  “When did you buy it, and from whom?”

  “Who are you, anyway? What do you want?”

  “I want to speak with Gloria.”

  “I’ve already told you that she’s not here.”

  “Tell me where she is, t
hen.”

  “Oh, go to hell!”

  She hangs up on me.

  It’s stupid, I know, but I’d become attached to the idea that Gloria still lived in the same house, and that her bedroom walls were still purple.

  I call information again. This time a man answers. I give him Gloria’s first and last names.

  “There are two, sir. Which one do you want?”

  “What? Two?”

  “Decesaris, Gloria, Montemori, province of Siena, and Decesaris, Gloria, Anzio, province of Rome. Which one?”

  “Both,” I say.

  I take down the two numbers and sit there staring at them like an idiot. It’s unnerving to think of there being two Gloria Decesarises. Well, it isn’t that strange. Most of us share our names with at least one other person. There are dozens of Sergio Montis in Italy. Luckily for me, there are only two Gloria Decesarises. All I have to do is discover which of them is my Gloria.

  I call the Anzio number first. On the fourth ring, an answering machine picks up and an automated voice kicks in, “The person you have dialed is unavailable. Please leave your––”

  I hang up. I don’t want to leave a message.

  I try the number in the province of Siena. It just rings and rings. I let it ring until the connection drops. I try again two or three times, with the same result.

  After lunch, I go back down into the bunker and try an online search. A lot of useless information pops up on the screen. Provincial soccer players named Decesaris going after the goal that will give them “glory,” and stuff like that. There is one item that catches my eye. The Policlinico Hospital in Rome has a list of its staff doctors up on its website. Among these there’s a doctor Gloria Decesaris. I expand the window and three columns appear. The first one gives the doctors’ names, the second lists the residents, and in the third the days and times of their shifts. I check the list of doctors and there she is: Doctor Gloria Decesaris, General Medicine. She has three rotating shifts per week––morning, afternoon and night. She’s already done her afternoon shift this week. The next one is tonight, starting at midnight.