by Fabio Volo
“Can we walk in the snow?”
“No, sorry, impossible, you shouldn’t be standing here either.”
Then we heard a voice on a megaphone, “Rooooll!”
“You have to leave.”
We left. They were making a movie. A passerby said he had seen Vincent Gallo.
“Too bad they didn’t let us through, otherwise I would have made a snow angel for you on the sidewalk,” I told her.
“Yes, but I would have had to help you get up to do it properly, without leaving hand prints.”
I was amazed by her words. At that moment I would have married her, if I hadn’t done so already. We stopped for coffee at Joe the Art of Coffee, a nice café with wooden benches outside, on Waverly Place, at the corner of Gay Street. The coffee was excellent and the hazelnut cookies were to die for.
There were a few days left before the end of our story.
“Give me something exclusive as a gift,” Michela told me.
“Like what?”
“Tell me something you’ve done and that you’ve never told anyone about.”
“I don’t know… Let me think about it.”
“It’s important that you’ve never told anyone about it…”
After I thought about it for a while I decided to tell her. Meaning, I had already thought about it, but it seemed like a stupid thing to say. “It’s something I’ve been ashamed of for years. I could never confess it to anyone, not even to a priest. It happened when I was about nine years old…”
“What in the world could you have done at that age? I had something spicier in mind but if you haven’t told anyone about it before, it will do, I want to free the little boy inside you. Come on, let’s hear it.”
“One day the father of a friend of mine came up to us as we were playing and gave his son a beautiful new remote-control car. My friend was very happy. They hugged and began to play together. I was looking at them, jealous and envious. Of both the car and the father. I’ll never forget that hug. Then the father left and my friend and I went on playing together, but he wouldn’t let me try the car. Only for a moment, for a few seconds, certainly less than a minute. He would let me push the button, but he would hang onto the controller. He wouldn’t give it up. That car had become the center of everything. Even more importantly, it symbolized the gap between us, our difference. He always went around carrying his remote control car; he and his new toy were inseparable. One day, as I walked into the courtyard of his building, I found the car and the remote in front of his door. I don’t know what came over me, but I grabbed it and ran away. I took it to an empty lot nearby, and I smashed it with a rock and threw the pieces in the weeds, near the lamppost. When I went back, my friend was in the courtyard crying. I looked at him and I felt happy. I was happy to see him suffer. I’m still ashamed of it now, as I’m telling you about it. At a certain point we locked eyes: his were swollen, full of tears, and I had the impression that he knew I was the one who did it, and most of all, that I was happy to see him suffer. A few days later, as we were fighting, he told me: ‘I know you’re the one who stole my car. Thief.’ That was the first time we beat each other up. We remained friends, but we never talked about it ever again, not even as adults. You see, it’s just bullshit. And yet even now, as I think about it, I feel hurt.”
“Poor thing,” she told me, and then she kissed me.
“How about you, have you ever done something you’re ashamed of and that you’ve never told anyone?”
“If you want I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone, but it’s not like I’m very ashamed of it, actually I’m not ashamed at all. But nobody knows about it besides me and the other person involved.”
“If you haven’t told anyone, it’s good enough.”
“When I was twenty, my boyfriend at the time, his friend, his girlfriend, and I went on vacation together. We had rented a house by the sea in Sardinia for twenty days. From the third day, and for the rest of the vacation, I cheated on my boyfriend with his friend’s girlfriend.”
“What do you mean with his girlfriend… Veronica?”
“You remember her name?”
“You told me you were kidding!”
“Well, I didn’t want to tell you then. Anyway, neither of us had had other experiences of that kind, she wasn’t a lesbian, but there was something that attracted us to each other. She was very beautiful and until then, besides the silly kisses exchanged with my girlfriends in high school, I had never thought of making love to a woman. One evening, as we were in the bedroom getting ready to go out, while we were putting lotion on each other and helping each other to get dressed, we kissed. We immediately realized there was something between us. I had seen her a few times before that vacation, but only briefly, and nothing had happened, not even in my thoughts; during the vacation, however, as soon as we touched we felt a strange spark. After the kiss in the bedroom, that evening we also kissed in the bathroom at the restaurant and at the club. Starting the following day we kept finding excuses so we could be alone. Nobody could have suspected us. We were two women on vacation, it seemed as if we always had to buy clothes or try them on. At night we would lock ourselves in the bedroom, like when we kissed for the first time, and we would put lotion on each other. I have beautiful images of her naked, in front of the mirror, and me kneeling and kissing her. I remember that our gazes would meet in the reflection of the mirror. It was a lot of fun. We didn’t see it as cheating; it was an exciting game. It had nothing to do with our love stories. I certainly never told my boyfriend about it. Anyway, on that vacation, I made love with her more than I did with him. After that, we saw each other a few times with other people around but nothing happened.”
As she was telling me this story, I was trying to imagine two naked tanned women in a room in a house by the sea. Those rooms where there’s an open suitcase filled with shoes, high heels, sandals, lotion, belts, scarves, and clothes. Those suitcases that look like they belong to strippers were enough to turn me on. Her tale turned me on. That evening, while we made love, I was under the spell of those images. I was thinking about them kissing, touching, and everything else. Those thoughts drove me crazy. Plus, I could imagine Veronica however I wanted, while Michela was right there.
“Have you seen Veronica lately?”
“No. I know what you’re thinking. No! You men are obsessed with this idea. How about your friend with the remote-control car, have you seen him lately? What was his name?”
“Andrea. Let’s say that I stole his toy and he, some years later, stole my girlfriend. We haven’t spoken in a while.”
“Oh well, at least you guys are even.”
“I’m not sure. A toy is not exactly like a girlfriend.”
“At that age it is. Plus, it’s not about the girlfriend or the car. It’s about betrayal. It’s an issue of trust.”
I don’t know if Michela had convinced me at that moment, but she could have been right. Now I tend to agree with her.
“At your age, how many people are there to whom you don’t speak anymore, besides Andrea?”
“There are a couple of offended women.”
“Well, that’s not too long of a list.”
“How about you?”
“My almost ex-husband and his entire family.”
“Oh well, that’s not too bad, after all it’s just a few dead and wounded.”
After our chat about the past she went to work and I went walking around New York as always. I ended up having lunch at the Chelsea Market, on 9th Avenue between West 14th Street and West 16th Street. It’s a wonderful place: you feel like buying everything you see and eating in all the restaurants and bars. There’s a butcher shop/restaurant called Frank’s Fine Meats, or you can have a soup at Hale and Hearty Soups, or go to the Thai restaurant Chelsea Thai. And then there’s Amy’s Bread and the Fat Witch Bakery, where once I had an excellent brownie. There’s also a store that sells Italian products and in the back, on the left, there’s the T Salon, a
teahouse with aromas from all over the world.
I went to Lobster Place where you can order fish to go or eat there at the counter. Baskets of shrimp, sushi, fish soup, tuna or salmon salad. For those who love fish like me, it’s heaven. Chelsea Market is one of those places where I’d like to live. They also have art shows. I had sushi and a massive portion of prawns.
I called Michela because I saw that the New York Philharmonic was having a concert that evening with music by Rachmaninov and Schumann.
“Would you like to go?”
“I’d love to.”
“Do you think I need to buy some fancy clothes?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Too bad, I would have liked going out with you, the both of us elegantly dressed, you wearing a evening gown.”
“Well… If you want to dress up I already have some fancy clothes and you don’t necessarily have to buy new ones. You can rent some for tonight.”
“Right, I hadn’t thought about that. So would you like to dress up?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll come pick you up around eight. I will look handsome.”
And that’s exactly what we did. I rented a black suit and when I went to pick her up in a cab, she was beautiful. A red evening gown, open in the back, and a very thin necklace. After she got in the cab I wanted to get out immediately and go straight back to her place, to her bedroom. The curve of her breasts, accentuated by her dress, was as inviting as the road home, and her face as beautiful as waking up in a place where you belong.
One of the things I liked most about Michela was that you could go anywhere with her, to divey, sketchy places, as well as elegant ones, without any problem. She could put on high heels or take them off. She could put on dresses or jeans without ever changing. She was herself no matter what. She seemed like the right woman for me, at least in those days.
The concert was great. When they played Symphony N.2, Michela grabbed my hand and, for a moment, I had the feeling that we were holding onto each other the way women do when they watch horror movies. Maybe because that’s what we were feeling. Everything was so delicate, powerful, and beautiful that we were scared.
After the concert we went home and I made love to her in the hallway as soon as we walked in. Naturally, I didn’t take her clothes off.
22
The Bathroom
There were two days left before my departure. It was Friday morning. My flight was scheduled to leave on Sunday. I had slept at her place, and when I woke up she had already gone to work. A found a note on the nightstand: “Imagine what we would have missed if we hadn’t had the courage to bet on us. You are more beautiful than what I had imagined. See you later. Your wife. PS: When you sleep you like look a baby.”
Something had been erased on the note. I kept holding the paper against the light in order to understand what it was.
To me what has been erased is more interesting than what is there. That’s because I don’t see them as orthographic mistakes, but rather as a change of heart about a confession that is later judged too intimate. I’ve always been that way; I wonder if I’ll ever change.
I stayed in bed for at least a couple of hours. I didn’t feel like going out. The weather wasn’t nice. It changes very rapidly in that city. It might be rainy or cloudy and then a few seconds later the sun will come out. In Manhattan it’s usually the wind that makes all the difference: if it’s cold and there’s no wind it’s a beautiful kind of cold, it lets you breathe, it wakes you up, it gives you strength, but if it’s windy, it will cut your face and it’s as if you were at war. I wonder how my grandma would have managed in a city like New York, with those meteorological legs of hers.
The previous night, before waking up, I had the usual dream. Ever since I was little my recurring dream has been set in the churchyard. In that dream I’m a kid and have to shoot a penalty kick. The goal is empty, without a keeper, but my dad is looking at me from behind the net. I am afraid of missing. I often wake up before shooting it but sometimes I manage to do it. I’ve been shooting that penalty kick for over twenty years and I’ve never scored a goal. I shoot and I miss, sometimes the ball rolls a few yards and then stops. But my dad leaves every time I miss.
That morning, while I was still in bed, I turned on the TV. The prices of all the objects advertised ended in 99. Six dollars and 99 cents, nine dollars and 99 cents, nineteen dollars and 99 cents…
The only errand I had to run that day was returning the suit. Then I had an idea and I sent Michela a message, “Can you come to my hotel after work tonight?”
After five minutes she sent her answer, “Okay… I’ll call you later. I can be there by seven. No lunch break today. I’m in the most boring meeting ever. Even though you can’t see me, you should know that I wore this dress just for you.”
Later I went to return the rented suit and then I went to eat. I ate at Paprika, on St. Mark’s Place, between 1st and Avenue A. After lunch I went to buy some candles, a sponge, and some Fischer-screws. Then I went back to Michela’s. Since we got married she had given me her keys. I went to her place because when I showered there I noticed she had all the bottles of shampoo, soap, and all the rest on the ground. I borrowed a drill from the doorman and I hung a rack in the shower so she could put all her things in it. That way I was finally able to pee in the shower without having to do it on the bottles, which, on top of everything else, are also noisy and can give you away. In the houses of certain women, you never know what to use to soap up. They have lotions and conditioners everywhere. Once I wasn’t paying attention and I kept using conditioner as if it were soap. I came out of the shower and I looked like a stuffed animal. My pubic hair could have easily been mistaken for a sparrow’s nest.
After I performed my do-it-yourself husband task, I left. As I was walking around however, I started thinking that I might have been intruding on her. “What if she gets mad because I did something without asking? What if she sees that as an intrusion, rather than a nice gesture? What if she wants to end the game early because of it. Oh well, fuck it, who cares.”
As I was walking around Manhattan I would often come across places or streets that I had visited with Michela. In the middle of that new and unknown territory, they seemed like familiar places. Emotional points of reference that structured my touristy strolls. In fact, I was a tourist from the emotional point of view as well, since I was visiting that love zone for the first time. New York had become a metaphor for what I was experiencing inside. I knew it a little bit, the way I knew my emotional side, but for the first time, I had ventured further in it and it had become more mysterious, unknown, new, and visceral. When I happened to run into places I knew, places I had seen with Michela, it was as if I was renewing the “us.” She and I.
I even went back to the place where we kissed for the first time. I sent her a message, “I went back to Minetta Street, I found a couple of kisses on the ground that belong to us. I picked them up and put them in my jacket pocket. Remind me to give them back to you tonight.”
I went to a café near my hotel. I ordered a coffee and worked a bit on my computer. They had wireless internet.
Michela called me and told me she was going to be there in half an hour. I ran to my room and got everything ready: I drew a bath, added the bubbles, took out the sponge, and, on the mirror, I wrote Enjoy your bath. I lit a few candles around the bathtub and then I left, leaving the door ajar.
I hid in the hallway of the hotel and waited for her to arrive.
I liked the idea that, after a long day at work, she could relax a bit. Plus, taking a bath was something she had wanted to do since that night I cooked dinner for us.
I wanted her to be alone at first, in silence. I knew she would understand and that she wouldn’t wait for me. Twenty minutes after her arrival I went to the room. We looked at each other, she smiled, and said only, “Thank you.” Then she added, “Will you join me?”
I got undressed and got in.
&nb
sp; As soon as I was in, my telephone rang.
“If it wasn’t you here with me I would have gone to see who it is…”
“You can get it, I don’t mind.”
“I meant that if you weren’t here with me I would go check to make sure it wasn’t you calling.”
I liked joking and being romantic with her. She knew when I was kidding and we got a kick out of it.
We stayed in the water for a while. Every now and then we would drain it and add more hot water. But as soon as you open the faucet you will always have cold water instead of hot. This is why, when I lived with my mother, I would always turn on the hot water in the bidet and wait until it got warm before running the faucet in my bath.
As I was in the water with Michela, I remembered that the last time I took a bath with a woman was with Monica. It was during that weekend, the one of the erotic games. In my mind I saw all the images from that weekend. Unforgettable.
I must have had a funny expression on my face, or maybe it was pure coincidence; in any case, Michela got up, came closer to me, slid her legs around my hips, and sat on my lap. After a few moments I was inside her and we made love. She moved slowly. I could see small waves forming on the surface. I took the sponge and squeezed warm water on her back. The water from the sponge would run down her shoulders, her breasts, her arms. She embraced me and rested her head on my shoulder. Her breath, her panting, the delicate sound of water: everything was an enormous, invisible caress. I was crazy about Michela. Everything was too beautiful and I felt like I was about to explode. I lifted her head. I wanted to look at her and I wanted to kiss her. I realized she was crying in silence. I kissed her and we embraced again.