I try to imagine her life as it is today. If she works in Rome, then her address must be the one in Anzio, so Gloria has a house by the sea and works at the hospital in Rome. She opted for her father’s job and became a doctor. She takes care of the sick, of people who are suffering. Maybe her mother’s health problems led her to choose that path. The incredible thing is that the Policlinico is just a short distance from my office. We’ve been so close and we’ve never known it. Who can say how often we’ve walked along the same sidewalk or bought a newspaper from the same newsstand, brushed past each other in the street or in a cafe? How many times have we been a hair’s breadth away from recognizing each other?
In the afternoon I shower and shave carefully. I iron a shirt and polish my shoes. I pull a suit out of the closet, one that I haven’t worn in a long time. The last time must have been three years ago, when I went to court with Alessandra for our divorce. The trousers are tight on me. I have to leave the top button undone and hide it under my belt.
I get to the city around nine at night. I want to drop by and say goodbye to Michela before I go to see Gloria. Lots of things may have changed by the time she gets back from Paris––for her and me both.
I park in front of their building, get out and look up. The windows on the fourth floor are lit up. Alessandra and Michela must be having supper. I look back down and see Daniel parking his microcar in the loading zone. The kid gets out and comes towards me, head down, hands thrust into his jacket pockets. He stops in front of the building door and waits for me to either ring a bell or go in. He’s hopping from one foot to the other like he has to go to the bathroom. I look at his ridiculous hairdo, his smooth cheeks, the mouth that has kissed my daughter’s mouth. I wonder how he feels about her. Has he told her he loves her? Has he sworn it?
“Are you going in?” he asks.
“No,” I say, “I’m waiting for someone.”
Daniel goes over in front of the buzzers and starts scanning through all the names. I have to stop myself from pointing to the second-to-last button on the left. He finds it by himself and presses it. After a few seconds, Alessandra answers.
“Who is it?”
“I’m a friend of Michela’s from school. Is she at home?”
“She’s having supper.”
“Well, could you get her for a minute?”
An annoyed silence from Alessandra. “Just a moment,” she says through her teeth.
Daniel glances at me. I glance at my watch and grumble, pretending the person I’m waiting for is late. The kid’s anxious. He pats his hair, kicks at the sidewalk, throws little punches at the wall.
There’s some static from the buzzer, then Michela says “Hey.”
“Why’s your phone off?” Daniel asks tersely.
“I didn’t feel like talking.”
Her tone of voice is firm.
“Well, I do. Come down a minute.”
“I can’t right now. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“It’s important, Micky...”
He calls her Micky too.
“I told you I can’t.”
“Alright, I’ll call later when the old lady’s sleeping.”
The old lady?
“Listen, I waited for you for an hour and a half today. You didn’t even call. I’m not in the mood to talk to you right now, all right?”
Good on you, Micky. You’ve got him where you want him.
Daniel sighs and bites at a nail.
“Ok,” he says, “can we meet tomorrow morning? In the square, at ten.”
Michela gives a huff. “Fine… but if you’re even a minute late, I’m leaving, I swear.”
The conversation’s over. It doesn’t seem to have made Daniel feel any better. He looks up in search of Michela’s window. It’s obvious he has no idea which one it is. He sighs and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket.
“Do you have a light?”
“I don’t smoke.”
Daniel shrugs, pulls out his phone and starts dialing as he heads back towards his car. As he walks, he says: “Hi, Bea… what’s up? Can I come by and pick you up?”
He gets in the car, starts the engine and pulls out. He speeds by me with the unlit cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, his arm out the window, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. A James Dean from Parioli, who somehow ended up in Donald Duck’s car.
If Michela’s in a bad mood, I don’t want to bother her. I’ll come back tomorrow.
I get to the neighborhood by the Policlinico and go for a walk to kill some time. Every now and then I stop in a bar for a beer. I think about Gloria. I try to imagine her in a doctor’s white coat. Will her hair be long or short? How will she be dressed? I look at every woman I see on the street. Until I see them up close, for a second I think they’re each Gloria. None of them really looks like her, though.
It’s ridiculous, but I start feeling the same way I did that day, when I was waiting for Gloria at my place. My hands are sweaty and my stomach’s tied in a knot. I go into a bar and order something stronger than a beer––a grappa. Maybe Doctor Decesaris would say I drink too much. I imagine she keeps to a healthy diet: fruit and vegetables, no alcohol, cigarettes or coffee. She might even be a sports fanatic. What about me? The only sport I ever did, except for scuba diving, was soccer with the guys on the weekends. I’ve put on quite a paunch since I got out of the hospital.
I tell the barman I’ve changed my mind. I’ll just have some fruit juice.
“What kind?”
“Pear.”
Now that I think about it, though, doctors are the often the first to indulge in bad habits. I know a couple who smoke a pack a day. Franco goes out to eat every night, eats and drinks like a pig. Gloria could be an inveterate smoker, maybe ever since that time she bought her first pack at the station in Florence. With the shifts she does at the hospital, she might be forced to live off of cafe sandwiches, and coffee to help her stay awake all night. Maybe she loves chocolate, good wine and evenings spent lying on the sofa in front of the TV. One thing’s for sure. This time I won’t make the mistake of trying to show myself in a better light. Gloria has to see me exactly as I am.
I tell the barman I’ve changed my mind again. Now I want a grappa. He gives me a nasty look and sets my glass on the counter with a grunt that sounds like, “Jerk”.
“If you have something to say, say it out loud,” I tell him.
He looks at me, nonplussed. “Say what?”
“I don’t know. Is it a problem if I want a grappa?”
“No, man. Just make up your mind.”
“I just did. First the fruit juice, then the grappa. I’ll pay for both.”
“So?”
“There’s no need to mouth off at me.”
“Mouth off? I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, right,” I say, putting the money on the counter. “You didn’t say anything.”
The barman turns to his older colleague, who’s stacking up the plastic chairs. “What’s this guy’s problem?”
The elderly barman keeps on stacking chairs. He couldn’t care less.
I get to the hospital complex at ten past midnight. As soon as I step through the gate, the security guard sitting in his guard shack stops me. “Yes?”
“I have an appointment in General Medicine.”
“An appointment? With who?”
“The doctor on shift.”
“The doctor’s name?”
“I’d like to surprise her, so I’d rather not tell anyone I’m coming.”
“You can’t just go in like that.”
“I only need a few minutes. I’ll just go and say hello and then leave.”
“No way. Come back tomorrow, during visiting hours.”
“But I don’t have to visit a patient. I want to speak to the doctor.”
“You can’t. It’s against regulations.”
This must be the evening for tough guys. First the barman. Now this one with his uniform and a gun on his belt.
He’s positioned himself in front of the entrance now, legs wide apart and hands on his hips. A little Fascist boss.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“That’s more like it. You do that.”
“There’s no need to take that tone, you know.”
“What tone?”
“Like a Fascist.”
“What?”
“You should listen to yourself when you talk. You sound like something out one of Mussolini’s propaganda newsreels.”
“How dare you?”
“How dare you use that tone with me?”
“Listen, you’d better get going or I’m gonna call the cops.”
“Call them. Call your friends, too. Call whomever you like.”
I turn around and walk back out. The little Fascist follows me out of the gate to check where I’m going.
I go around the corner of the hospital complex and keep on walking, right around the block until I get back to the entrance. The security guard is inside his little shack watching TV. Every now and then he glances towards the street, then goes back to watching TV. I can’t get through this way. There must be another entrance. The complex is enormous. I think about it and I get an idea. I should have thought of it before.
I go to the emergency room. At the reception I tell them that I’ve got a pain in my ear. They’ll think it’s just an ordinary earache and put me at the bottom of the priority list. Waiting time: at least an hour. I stay there for a while, watching the comings and goings of the injured, the sick, the old people who feel lonely and come here looking for company, pretending to have some ailment or other. Then, while the nurse is busy filling out a form, I sneak out of the emergency room and climb over a hedge. I’m in. I wander around for a while until I find the right building. The corridors are deserted, ghostly. The hospital at night is disquieting. It feels like a spaceship gone adrift. I wander through the halls, feeling lost. I see a doctor smoking next to a coffee machine.
“General Medicine?”
He lifts up four fingers.
I take the elevator to the fourth floor. I go into the ward. The rooms are dark. The patients are sleeping. There’s no sound but for the occasional cough.
At the end of the hall there’s an office with a glass door. A blue light shines from inside. I knock softly.
“Come in,” says a female voice.
There’s a nurse sitting at a desk.
“I’m looking for doctor Decesaris.”
“Down the other hall, at the end, on the right.”
I go back and turn down the second corridor. At the end there’s an office like the other. As I walk towards the backlit door, I feel my knees turn into butter. I stand there with my hand on the knob, and I tell myself that behind that door is Gloria, thirty years on. A stab of terror, brief and intense, flashes through me from head to foot. It’s the feeling you get just before you dive off a cliff into the sea. Your instinct of self-preservation tells you not to do it. Your body pulls back, afraid of being injured or killed. You know from experience, however, that nothing bad will happen to you, as long as the water is deep enough. So you close your eyes. You jump.
Now it’s the same thing, but the other way around. My common sense tells me I’m doing something foolish, that I’m heading straight into pain and suffering. My instinct, on the other hand, wants me to open the door. My eyes want to see Gloria again. My hands want to touch her, at least once.
I enter without knocking. The office is dark. Only the computer screen gives off a little light. There’s no one at the desk. I look around and then I see her. She’s standing by the window, looking out. She’s wearing a white doctor’s coat and holding a cigarette. I was right. She’s a smoker. I gather all my courage and I say, very softly, so as not to startle her, “Gloria.”
She turns her head and looks at me. Even in the dim light, I can see she wears glasses.
“It’s me, Sergio,” I say, nervous and excited. “Sergio Monti. Do you remember? In high school? I know it’s strange, we haven’t seen each other for years. I’ve got so much to tell you... You know that I work nearby? It was destiny for us to meet up again.”
Gloria takes a step forward into the light shining from the monitor. The cigarette smoke wraps her in a blue coil.
“Do we know each other?” she asks, in a voice I don’t recognize.
I look at her more closely. She has gray hair, thick glasses and a neck covered in wrinkles. This woman is much older than Gloria. Twenty years older, at least.
“I’m sorry,” I say, backing towards the door. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“Nothing… There’s been a terrible mistake…”
I’m almost out the door, but the doctor follows me, pressing me with questions.
“What are you doing here? Who let you in?” She calls out down the corridor. “Fausto! Come here a moment.”
Fausto’s a male nurse. Pretty tough-looking, too. He comes out of a nearby room with a sleepy face. “What’s wrong, doctor?”
“This man here––”
I don’t give her time to finish. I spin around and start running. I leave the ward and dash down the stairs. In a moment I’m out of the building. I sprint towards the exit, turning to see if Fausto is chasing me. The hospital paths are dark and no one is following.
When I get to the main gate, I remember the security guard. He’s sitting in his shack, eyes fixed on his TV. I speed up, hoping to pass unnoticed, but he raises his eyes just as I’m about to go through the gate.
“Hey, you!” he says, jumping up from his chair. “How did you get in?”
“I flew,” I say.
“You’re a funny guy, huh?”
He positions himself in front of the gate, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Let me through.”
“Oh, no you don’t. I’m going to have some fun now, too.”
“Come on. I was only joking,” I say, trying to diffuse the situation.
The guard shakes his head. “You’re not going anywhere until the cops get here.” He points to his shack. “Just sit in there quietly while I call the them.”
I bow my head, obedient. Maybe it’s the shock of meeting the other Gloria, or maybe it’s the shame at finding myself in this situation. Whatever the case, I feel a lump rising in my throat, and all of a sudden I’m crying like a baby.
The security guard gapes at me. “What... what are you doing?”
I bury my face in my hands and cry harder. Sobs shake my shoulders and chest. Big tears flow down between my fingers and fall onto my shoes. The guard stares at me, embarrassed. It’s just the two of us. He must feel kind of sorry for me. He comes closer, saying, “Come on, now. Don’t cry like that…” He stands there with his arms hanging at his sides, biting his lip, not sure what to do.
I don’t know what comes over me. All of a sudden, I shove the guard backwards with all my might. He staggers, collides with the door of the shack and falls inside, pulling the chair over on top of himself. He stays there on the floor, waving his legs in the air like an overturned crab. Before he can get up, I rush out of the gate and down to the corner where I parked my car. I get in, turn the key with trembling fingers and pull out as fast as I can. Only when I’m far away do I put down the window and let the cool night air in.
Who knows why, but in that moment I think of Daniel. I think about him, just sixteen years old, driving round the city looking for adventure. Then I think about me, forty-five years old and running away like an idiot. My face out the window, my mouth dry, my eyes fixed on a road full of potholes. I feel like Sergio Monti in Sergio Monti’s car.
It’s not a nice feeling.
16
“Hi, Dad?”
“Micky… How are you?”
“Awful.”
She sniffs, as though she’s been crying.
“What’s wrong? Have you been arguing with your mother?”
/> “Will you come and get me?”
“Why, where are you?”
“I’m in front of the tobacconist’s, in town. I caught the bus.”
“Don’t move. I’ll be right there.”
I was going to stay holed up in the bunker for a good while. I’d taken stuff down to drink and covered up the windows so the light couldn’t get in. Just the thought of going out in the sun makes me feel sick. If Michela has come this far, though, she must have a good reason. I put on a clean T-shirt, pick up my sunglasses and an old straw hat that Alessandra used to wear for gardening. I go out and get in the car. I left it out in the sun. It must be at least a hundred and twenty degrees inside.
Michela’s there waiting in front of the tobacconist’s in the main square. Army pants, tank top, backpack. She’s not wearing the silver necklace anymore.
I open the car door. “Come on. Get in.”
She gets in the car without a word. Her hair is hiding her face, but you can see just the same that she’s been crying. Her black eye liner has dribbled right down to her chin.
We pull up in front of the house. Before getting out she turns to look at me.
“You look terrible,” she says. “What happened to you?”
“You should see yourself. Did someone give you two black eyes?”
“Anything’s better than your ugly grizzly-bear mug,” she replies, without smiling.
I open the gate and let her in.
I stay behind to watch her walking through the garden. It’s been six years since she last set foot in this house. When I got out of the hospital, Alessandra and Michela came to pick me up. They brought me home, but they didn’t want to come in. We said goodbye out on the street. “Look after yourself,” Alessandra said, and off they went, leaving me there with my bag, my medical records, and the feeling I’d been a weight they’d managed to free themselves of.
Michela walks right past her old swing without even glancing at it, heading straight for the front door.
“Well? Are you going to let me in?”
Just as we walk inside, her phone rings. She rolls her eyes and answers.
The Purple Room Page 13