“You’re not just saying that to make me happy?” Milena Migliari scrutinizes her, searching for signs of amazement and joy, but doesn’t see any.
“Of course not. It’s really good. I swear.” Guadalupe is undoubtedly sincere. It isn’t like her to pay empty compliments, but she doesn’t seem particularly grabbed or moved, pervaded by relentless sensations, mental images blossoming one after another.
“Really?” Milena Migliari continues studying her with an expression that she knows is far too anxious.
“Most definitely, Milena.” Guadalupe doesn’t know how to convince her: she nods showily, moving her whole body, even her hands, to reinforce her words. “It’s perfect.”
“But perfect doesn’t mean anything!” Instead of calming down, Milena Migliari becomes more and more agitated, gesturing convulsively toward the front window. “Haven’t you noticed the name of this gelateria?!”
“Sorry, I just meant that it’s really good.” Guadalupe is starting to worry again. “I meant that it doesn’t have any flaws.”
“Not having any flaws is hardly a merit!” Milena Migliari raises her voice without intending to, but her anxiety is turning into panic. “Not having any flaws is the worst possible flaw! It means not having any character, nothing that’s capable of touching someone’s heart!”
Guadalupe takes a step back, looks at her with a light of concern in her eyes.
Milena Migliari neither wants nor has the time to understand why she feels this way; she only knows that her urgent need for answers is transforming into a wave that’s threatening to sweep her away. She paces back and forth between the lab and the shop, her breathing labored and her heart racing, her hands sweaty. She feels trapped, with no way out, no escape.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Milena?” Guadalupe is now officially worried: in the two years she’s worked with her she’s seen her in various states of agitation, but always for identifiable reasons, and never like this.
“What’s wrong is that I have to get out of here!” Milena Migliari is absolutely incapable of standing still: she takes a one-pound Styrofoam container off the shelf, takes the covers off the fior di latte and persimmon behind the counter, goes to work with the spatula. Despite her extreme agitation, her gestures are quite precise, though more frenetic than usual: she’s able to transfer the right amounts without leaving gaps or having to force it down. When the container is full she sticks it in the blast chiller, waits a few minutes, puts a sheet of wax paper and the cover on top, tapes it shut, puts it in a soft-edged cooler. She rummages through the basket with the little pieces of paper with the sayings on them ready to be rolled up and tied with red string, but she can’t find any that seem appropriate, so she does without. She puts a small selection of cups, waffle cones, and plastic spoons in three small cardboard boxes, sticks those too in the cooler, along with a spatula; she takes off her plastic hairnet and overshoes, puts on her jacket and cap.
“Where are you going?” Guadalupe doesn’t know what to think anymore.
“I’ll tell you after.” Milena Migliari is already outside the gelateria, walking quickly toward her van.
TWENTY-SIX
NICK CRUICKSHANK THINKS that his house certainly doesn’t feel much like a home anymore, if it ever has, among people coming and people going, people opening and closing doors, moving furniture, walking through hallways, laughing, flushing toilets, calling to each other, walking, running, talking mindlessly, or making very specific requests.
The Thompsons’ room would be calmer, if not for the fact that Dr. Angénieux is now there, having arrived with surprising speed from Draguignan along with his assistant and the mobile X-ray and ultrasound machines, seeing as bringing Wally to the hospital probably wouldn’t have been a good idea, with all the jackals already infesting the area in view of tomorrow and Sunday.
Wally is sitting on the edge of the bed in his room, in pain and deeply disappointed at the diagnosis.
The doctor is showing him yet again the X-rays of his right shoulder, clavicle, humerus, and wrist taken by the Fujifilm digital viewer, shaking his head. “Pas de fractures.”
“No fractures.” Nick Cruickshank translates maybe for the third time, in an intonation in which impatience has now entirely supplanted the initial relief.
“And why is it then that it hurts so fucking much?!” Wally can see for himself that there are no fractures, but he doesn’t accept the idea, because it ruins the self-portrait as victim he’d like to paint for himself at any cost. “I know I’ve broken something!”
Aileen comes back into the room, followed by Tricia and Fiona, the holistic consultant, and insists on looking at the X-rays and ultrasounds herself. She studies them attentively, observes Wally; asks Dr. Angénieux whether by chance it could be a tear of the coiffe des rotateurs.
Dr. Angénieux can’t believe she knows the precise anatomical term, and in French, no less; he observes her with a mix of suspicion and admiration.
Aileen explains that her brother had that type of injury while he was playing ice hockey in the Canadian Second Division, in Montreal.
Nick Cruickshank is almost as amazed as the doctor, though by now he ought to be used to the fact that Aileen has an almost inexhaustible stratification of experiences and knowledge, made even more impressive by her ability to make super-fast connections, in different languages, at any moment, in the midst of any activity, without ever stumbling into inaccuracies or slipping into the generic. She was the one who took command of the situation when he and Aldino brought Wally back to the house in the Defender, screaming and moaning like he was on death’s doorstep. And she was the one who managed to calm things down a bit despite having a thousand other things to do, identified the mobile radiology center in Draguignan, and convinced Dr. Angénieux that it was an emergency that simply couldn’t wait.
“Non, madame.” Dr. Angénieux probably continues to find her eccentric, but he knows very well that rich and eccentric foreigners are the best clients to be found in this department, so he treats her with the greatest possible deference. He nods at his assistant sitting at the monitor, points at two or three specific places on the ultrasound images, and presses two fingers on the corresponding points of Wally’s shoulder, moving Wally’s arm vigorously. “Vous voyez? Pas de rupture.”
“Ahia! Get your hands off me! I’m not a fucking lab rat!” Wally doesn’t at all enjoy being handled for demonstration’s sake, let alone hearing the seriousness of his injuries denied once more.
Aileen is relieved to think that the emergency is in large part resolved; her thoughts are already shifting elsewhere. She smiles affably at Angénieux and his assistant. “Merci infiniment, Docteur.” She begins to leave, followed by Tricia and Fiona, but turns to look at Nick Cruickshank. “I really need to talk to you about a few matters.”
“Sure, when I’m done here.” Nick Cruickshank immediately feels boxed in, points to Wally as the living proof that he certainly can’t leave, not now.
Aileen looks quite unconvinced, but nods; she leaves, followed by her assistant and her consultant.
Partly to demonstrate that his presence is actually necessary, Nick Cruickshank asks Dr. Angénieux what can be done for the pain in Wally’s shoulder.
The doctor quickly fills out a prescription, not realizing that Wally’s intimacy with opiates and their derivatives makes him nearly immune to the normal doses of the great majority of painkillers.
“But is he going to be able to play Sunday?” Nick mimes the stance of an electric bass player, the fingers of his left hand pressing on the strings, those of the right hand strumming away.
The doctor opens his arms out wide: he seems not to want to express an opinion one way or the other, since he also probably doesn’t have the slightest clue what it takes to play the electric bass.
“Of course I won’t be fucking able!” Wally bursts into another frenzy of recriminations. “I won’t even be able to move, for fuck’s sake.”
“Look, I’m not t
he one who knocked you off the horse, okay?” Cracks continue to reveal themselves in Nick Cruickshank’s façade of self-control. “You’re the one who decided to be an arrogant grandstanding idiot!”
“Me, an idiot?!” Wally turns red in the face, almost neglecting his victim’s pose to adopt a more threatening one. “Me, an idiot?!”
“Go on playing the invalid, you’re better off!” Yes, no doubt about it: Nick Cruickshank has exhausted his already short supply of patience.
“Asshole! I’m going to sue you!” The fact is that Wally has accumulated entire decades of rancor: for every bad song futilely proposed to the Bebonkers, for every bad arrangement idea refused, for every rigorous limitation of the stupid remarks he was permitted to make in a group interview, for every photo of the band in which he appears in the background.
“For what? For showing you how stupid you are?” Nick Cruickshank knows he’s only making the situation worse, but how the hell is it possible to remain diplomatic with someone like this? “You know, being stupid isn’t just a flaw, it’s a fault! It’s the world that should sue you, for having contributed to making it worse, even if only by very little!”
“Bastard! Son of a bitch!” Wally is livid, spraying saliva. “You were the one who suggested the idea of the horseback ride the other day!”
“I only suggested it because you were so lazy!” Now it’s Nick Cruickshank’s turn to raise his voice to a quasi-concert level, now that the vast majority of his Zen filters have failed. “So totally lacking in motivation!”
Dr. Angénieux looks embarrassingly around the room; it’s clear at this point that he wants nothing more than to get out of there, return to the calm of his office and more serene and normal patients. He opens his arms. “You could attempt one or two sessions of massage therapy.”
“When? Where?” Wally barks like a bulldog, quivering with rage, clasping the side of the bed with his left hand.
“There’s a very good therapist whom we recommend in these cases.” The doctor takes off the white smock that he slipped on like a stage prop at his arrival, folds it up, takes his cell phone out of his jacket. “If you want I can call her, explain to her that it’s urgent.”
“I don’t want anyone else laying their fucking hands on me!” Wally brays, horribly congested. “I don’t want any fucking massage therapist!”
Nick Cruickshank turns his back to exclude him from his visual field, nods at the doctor to call.
TWENTY-SEVEN
JUST WHEN MILENA Migliari reaches the second-to-last curve in the road, the perplexity comes rushing at her from out of nowhere: with each passing second it dampens the urgency with which she left the gelateria and drove up to this point. An idea that until a moment before seemed good and natural now suddenly seems terribly wrong. She can’t understand how she failed to realize that there are simply no grounds for a surprise visit like this; that Nick’s turning up at the gelateria yesterday morning and the hug last night in the square not only haven’t established any real familiarity between them, but to the contrary have left her feeling bewildered, deeply uncomfortable.
Her not being 100 percent lucid lately only partly justifies the foolishness of throwing herself into such a muddled enterprise, without even reflecting for a second: How could she fail to imagine what it would really be like to come back here? After the embarrassment of the other day, when she had at least come to deliver an order? Sure, last night’s hug was strangely intense, an unfiltered exchange of emotions that moved her to tears. It even seemed like it was the same for him, judging by his breathing, by the strength with which he held her. But immediately after, the emotion was transformed into pure incomprehension, and both of them went their separate ways without even saying good-bye, without even a wave. And what were they supposed to have said or done, given that the hug didn’t stem from their own initiative but was part of the small ceremony of those wacky huggers from Digne-les-Bains? A hug between a woman not interested in men and a man interested in a totally different type of woman? What the heck came over her roughly twenty minutes ago? What mental and emotional state is she in, really? Maybe Viviane is right, she should take some sedatives.
Now the large gate is right there, about twenty yards in front of her: Milena Migliari feels her stomach tighten. She slows down, stops the van. It seems very clear that the only thing to do is turn around and go back, forget about ever having had such a stupid idea, let alone coming so close to putting it into effect. And it would be better to turn around right away, before coming into view of the security camera on top of the gate, before the man in jacket and tie with the look of a bodyguard there at the start of the driveway takes down her license plate and notifies the authorities, asks them to run a check on a crazy gelato chef/stalker.
But the road at this point is so narrow, between the little stone wall on the right and the ditch and the trees on the left, that turning around is impossible. Milena Migliari tries to plan out the turn in her head: no, there’s no way. She puts it in reverse, turns her head to back up several dozen yards to where the road first widens, but she sees a white van coming up quickly behind her. Two vans, in fact, one after the other, and so large that they certainly can’t get by with her in the way. She pulls over to the side as far as she can, at the risk of scratching the side of the van against the stone wall, but she can’t free up more than five feet of space on her left; there’s no way they can pass. She lowers her window, leans out, gestures desperately to explain that she needs to back up, that they need to do so too, if they’d be so kind. But the white van flashes its headlights, without the slightest trace of comprehension. She feels trapped: she looks in anguish at the gate ahead of her and sees it opening. The bodyguard in the driveway makes hand gestures to say come on forward, come on forward. Seeing as she doesn’t move, his gestures grow more energetic, with two hands: let’s go, move it.
Again Milena Migliari leans out to look at the two vans behind, but the first one’s bumper is now almost touching hers; the guy at the wheel is flashing his headlights again; he even honks at her once. She’s startled: she has no choice but to put it in first, go slowly toward the now-open gate, as if toward the jaws of some voracious monster. She can’t believe that she’s put herself in a situation like this and it’s all her fault, that she didn’t stop to consider what she was doing for the entire seven and a half miles of road between Fayence and here, that she only began thinking again in the past few feet. She goes forward, urged on by the other two vans, feeling as agitated and embarrassed as she ever has in her life. As soon as she’s past the gate she lowers her passenger-side window as well, leaning over to tell the stocky man in jacket and tie that she’s come in merely to avoid blocking the vehicles behind her, that she’ll leave just as soon as she’s able to turn, to leave it open for her.
But the man barely looks at her: slits for eyes, hair shaved at the back of his neck and on the sides, completely in character. He reads the name of the gelateria on the side of the van and nods at her to move forward, switches his attention to the two vans behind her. Milena Migliari waits for him to come back so she can explain, but when he sees her still sitting there he gestures at her furiously. “Allez! Allez! Dépêchez-vous!”
So she drives on up the access road, followed closely by the other van, which has also passed through the check. Right away, she feels incredibly stupid. What could she say if she found herself face-to-face again with the enormous Italian bodyguard from two days ago, already so suspicious when she came to make her delivery: that she was forced inside against her will?
The two big vans stay right on her tail, all the way to the parking area behind the house. Compared to the other day there are a lot more cars, several vans, a truck; and a steady stream of men unloading and transporting posts and wooden tables, lamps, chairs, benches, lemon trees, whole boxes of cyclamens in bloom. She doesn’t know whether to feel slightly less conspicuous thanks to all the commotion, or that much more recognizable as an intruder; she immediately
begins the process of turning around and driving away, leaving as quickly as she can. She forces herself not to look at anyone, fearful they might ask her what the heck she’s doing here. But the more she tries not to look, the more she looks; and just when she’s finished turning around and is about to pass in front of the main body of the house, the door opens, and a young guy with glasses comes out pushing a machine on wheels that’s similar to a mix between a vacuum and a photocopier. Right after him comes an older guy with a gray beard, and after him comes Nick Cruickshank.
Milena Migliari feels her heart jump into her throat; she brakes, even if it’s the last thing she would have wanted. For a second she hopes to be able to accelerate smoothly and get back to the access road, not give him time to recognize her; but in that very same instant he recognizes her, or at least the van. He lowers his head, to look in through the open window. “Hey!”
Milena Migliari feels like a thief, caught just when she was about to get away scot-free: paralyzed.
Nick Cruickshank leans in, smiles at her. “What are you doing here?”
Milena Migliari has no idea what to reply, or what expression to adopt. She gives a vague nod, utterly devoid of significance.
“Did Aileen order more gelato?” In this light Nick Cruickshank has decidedly more lines on his face than he did last night; he’s more colorful as well, with the bracelets and silver rings, the gold earring, the blue handkerchief around his neck, orange shirt, red jacket with purple stripes. He looks more like an actor from the sixteenth century than one from the eighteenth century, with no troupe and no stage, catapulted into an alien world where he’s able to get along pretty well but only up to a certain point.
“No.” Milena Migliari tries again to think of another plausible reason for coming here, but she draws a blank.
“Eh bien, nous allons, monsieur.” The bearded guy gets Nick Cruickshank’s attention, points to the younger guy who’s loading the strange piece of equipment into a blue van with the white wording Diagnostics Mobiles.
Imperfect Delight Page 20