Don't Move

by Margaret Mazzantini

  “We’re starting,” she says. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “No.”

  She nods and tries to smile.

  “Listen, Ada,” I say as she moves away.

  She turns toward me again. “Yes, Doctor?”

  “If the worst should happen, ask everyone to leave. Then, before you come to call me, before I see her, disconnect the respirator, remove all the needles and all the tubes, clean up everything, and cover up the—well, just try to give her back some dignity.”

  Now Alfredo has finished scrubbing, and he enters the operating room with his hands in the air. The assistant surgeon approaches him and slips on his gloves. You’re lying under the OR lamp. I’ve got one thing left to do, the most terrible of all: I’ve got to notify your mother. You remember, she left for London this morning. She was supposed to interview somebody, a cabinet minister, I think. She was very excited. Her cab drove away from the house just before you left. Earlier, I heard the two of you talking in the bathroom. You came home at 12:15 Saturday night, fifteen minutes later than the time you’d agreed to, and she was very upset. In certain areas, she’s not at all indulgent. She can’t stand when you break the rules; she takes it as a personal attack on her serenity. Generally, though, she’s an easygoing mother; when she’s inflexible, it’s a kind of self-defense, sure, but believe me, it oppresses her, too. I know you’re not doing anything wrong. You meet your friends after school and talk in the twilight, in the cold, you pull the sleeves of your sweaters over your hands and shiver under all that graffiti. I’ve never been strict with you. I trust you; I even trust your mistakes. I know you from the way you are at home and from the rare moments we spend together, but I don’t know you as you are with other people. I know you have a good heart, and I know you give it all to your great friendships. And so you should; it’s wonderful to have that sparkle in your life. But your mother doesn’t see it that way. She thinks you don’t study enough, that you waste your energy, and she’s afraid you’ll fall behind in school.

  Sometimes you and your friends walk down the block and descend into that subterranean saloon on the corner, that smoke-filled underground cavern. I looked down in there once. I was standing outside, peering through the sidewalk-level windows. I saw you all laughing, kissing one another, stubbing out cigarettes. There I was, an elegant fifty-five-year-old gentleman out for a nocturnal stroll, and there you were, sitting on the other side of one of those little grated windows the passing dogs like to mark. You were all so young; you were sitting so close together. And you’re all so beautiful, Angela, you and all your friends. Beautiful. I’ve been meaning to tell you that. I was almost ashamed to be spying on you, watching you all so curiously, like an old man watching a child unwrapping a gift. But so I did, and I saw you down there, unwrapping your life in that smoky bar.

  I just spoke to my secretary. She’s managed to get word to the people at Heathrow Airport. They’ll meet Elsa as soon as she gets off the plane, take her to a private room, and explain the situation. It’s terrible to think about her sitting up there in the sky with a lapful of newspapers and no clue at all. She thinks we’re safe down here, my poor daughter, and I wish her flight would never end—I wish her plane would go around the world indefinitely. Maybe she’s looking at a cloud right now, one of those clouds that hide the sun almost but not completely, and a golden beam is passing through the little window and lighting up her face. She’s probably reading an article written by some colleague and reviewing it by adjusting the contours of her mouth. I know all her involuntary expressions; it’s as if every emotion has a tiny indicator on her face. I’ve sat next to her on many airplane flights. I know the creases in her neck, that little pouch that forms under her chin when she lowers her head to read; I know the fatigue in her eyes when she takes off her glasses and lays her head back against the seat. Now the flight attendant’s offering her a meal on a tray and she’s refusing in perfect English and asking for “Just a black coffee” and waiting for the smell of prepackaged food to go away. Your mother always has her feet on the ground, even when she’s in the air. Now she’s probably sitting back with her face turned toward the window; maybe she’s pulled down the stiff little shade for her half hour of rest. She’s thinking about all the things she has to do today, and, on top of that, I’m sure she’s determined to go downtown and buy you something. The last time she came back from a trip, she brought you that great-looking poncho, remember? But no, maybe she won’t buy you anything; maybe she’s still angry with you. . . . What’s she going to think when the people from the airline meet her on the ground? Will her knees give way? What will be the look on her face as she stands there in the midst of all that international coming and going? How much terror will be in her eyes? This is going to age her, you know, Angela; this is going to age her a lot. She loves you so much. She’s a liberated, highly civilized woman, she’s a model of social grace, she’s extremely knowledgeable, but she knows nothing about grief. She thinks she knows, but she doesn’t. She’s up there in the sky, and she doesn’t yet know what grief is like down here on earth. It’s an atrocious wound, a hole in the heart, and it’s sucking in everything at top speed, like a whirlpool: cassettes, clothes, photographs, tampons, marking pens, compact discs, smells, birthdays, nannies, water wings, diapers. Everything’s gone. She’ll need all her strength in that airport. Maybe she’ll run to the window overlooking the runway and fling herself against that transparent wall like an animal swept away in a flood.

  My secretary spoke with one of the airport managers, who assured her that they’ll proceed with extreme caution; they’ll try their best not to alarm your mother too much. Everything’s been arranged: She’ll be on the next plane home. There’s a British Airways flight that leaves London shortly after her arrival. Everything’s been arranged: They’ll give her a seat in some quiet corner, they’ll bring her some tea, they’ll offer her a telephone. I’ve got my cell phone in my pocket, turned on and ready for her call. I’ve checked it; it’s got good reception and good signal strength. I’m going to lie; I’m going to try to tell her you’re not in critical condition. Naturally, she won’t believe me, she’ll think you’re dead. I’m going to be as convincing as I can.

  You were wearing a ring on your thumb. I’d never noticed that before. Ada managed to get it off—it’s here in my pocket. I try to put it on my own thumb, but the ring’s too small. Maybe it’ll fit on my middle finger. Ah, don’t die, Angela, don’t die before your mother’s plane lands. Don’t let your soul fly up to the clouds she’s looking at so calmly. Don’t cross her flight path, dearest daughter. Stay where you are. Don’t move.

  I’m cold. I’m still in my scrubs; maybe I should change. My street clothes are in the metal locker with my name on it. I carefully put my sport jacket on the hanger over my shirt, I left my wallet and my car keys in the upper compartment, and I closed the little padlock. When was that? Only three hours ago, perhaps even less. Three hours ago, I was a man like any other. How devious grief is, how quickly it sets in. It’s like a corrosive acid, deep down inside, eating away. I’m leaning over, resting my arms on my knees. On the other side of the accordion curtain, I can see a portion of the oncology wing. I’ve never spent any time in this room before; I’ve only walked in and out of it. I’m sitting on an imitation-leather sofa. In front of me, there’s a low table and two empty chairs. The green floor is covered with small dark spots that move frenetically before my eyes, like microbes under a microscope. Because now it seems to me that I’ve been expecting this tragedy to happen.

  We’re separated by one corridor, two doors, and a coma. The distance between us is like a prison, but I’m wondering if it might be possible to break free of it, to imagine it as a kind of confessional, and to request an audience with you right here, my child, right on this floor with the dancing spots.

  I’m a surgeon, a man who has learned to divide things, to separate h
ealthy parts from diseased ones. I’ve saved many lives, but not my own, Angela.

  We’ve lived in the same house for fifteen years. You can recognize my smell, my footstep. You know how I touch things; you know the even sound of my voice. You know both sides of my character, the gentle side and the irritating, indefensible, hostile side. I don’t really know what you think of me, but I can imagine. You think I’m a responsible father, not without a certain sardonic sense of humor, but too aloof. You and your mother have a solid bond; sometimes your relationship is stormy, but it’s always very much alive. I’ve hung around in the background, like an empty suit in a wardrobe. You’ve learned more about me from my absences, my books, my raincoat in the hall, than you have from my flesh-and-blood self. And I don’t know that other story, the one you and your mother have written about me with the help of the clues I’ve left here and there. Like your mother, you’ve come to prefer missing me, because having me around requires too much effort. Many a morning, I’ve left the house with the sensation that the two of you, bursting with all that energy, were pushing me toward the door to get me out of the way. I love the natural rapport between you and your mother, it brings a smile to my face; to some degree, you two have protected me from myself. For my part, I’ve never felt “natural.” I’ve tried hard to be—I’ve made some pretty drastic attempts—but when you have to try to be natural, you’re already defeated. So I’ve long since accepted the blueprint you made for me, the carbon copy that responded to your needs. I’ve been a regular guest in my own house. I’ve never got angry, not even when it’s rained on my day off and the maid has spread out the drying rack with your clothes on it, yours and your mother’s, next to the radiator in my study. I’ve grown accustomed to these damp intrusions; I never complain. I remain in my armchair, unable to stretch my legs out completely, I place the book in my lap, and I stare at your laundry. I’ve found company in those wet clothes, perhaps more so than with the two of you in person, because I could catch in their thin, gleaming fabrics the brotherly fragrance of nostalgia. I’ve thought of you two, of course, but I’ve felt nostalgia principally for myself, for the days when I was a fugitive from justice. Angela, I know that my hugs and kisses have been stilted and awkward for too many years. Every time I’ve put my arms around you, I’ve felt your body quivering with impatience, if not downright discomfort. You could never feel at ease with me, that’s all. It was enough for you to know that I was there, to look at me from a distance, as though I were a traveler on another train, standing at the window, with his face blurred by the glass. You’re a sensitive, sunny girl, but your mood can change in a second; you often fly into a blind fury. I’ve always suspected that that mysterious rage, which leaves you baffled and a little sad, has grown inside you because of me.

  Angela, there’s an empty chair right behind you, behind your innocent back. And there’s an empty chair inside of me. I look at it, at its back and its legs, I wait, and I seem to hear something. It’s the sound of hope. I know about hope. I’ve heard it busily throbbing in dying bodies, I’ve seen it dawn in the eyes of a thousand patients, I’ve felt it sputter and stall every time I’ve moved my hands and decided the course of someone’s life. I know exactly how I’m deluding myself. I stare at the dark flecks on this floor—they’re moving slowly now, like soot—and I delude myself into thinking that I see a woman in that empty chair, even if only for a moment, filling it not with her body, no, but with her pity. I see two low-cut wine-colored shoes, two bare legs, a forehead that’s too high. And already she’s there in front of me, come to remind me that I’m a plague-spreader, a man who marks others for misfortune, carelessly including those who love him. You don’t know her—she passed through my life before you were born, but her passage left an indelible imprint, like a fossil. I want to reach out to you, Angela; I want to join you in that tangle of tubes where you’re lying, where the craniotome is about to break your head open, and tell you the story of that woman.

  2

  I met her in a bar, one of those bars you find on the outskirts of big cities. The coffee was as bad as the smell coming from the half-open door of the toilet, which was located behind an old Foosball table whose players had been decapitated by the competitive zeal of the bar’s patrons. The heat was suffocating. As I did every Friday, I had been driving to join your mother at the beach house we rented on the seashore south of the city. On the way, without so much as a tremor, my car had died; it had gone out like a match on the deserted highway that ran between some parched, dirty-looking fields and a few industrial sheds. I was on the outer fringe of the outskirts, and the only buildings I could see were off in the distance. I had to walk to them in the broiling sun. It was early in July, sixteen years ago.

  By the time I got to the bar, I was quite sweaty and unhappy. I ordered a coffee and a glass of water and asked where I might find an automobile mechanic. She was off to one side, bent over and rummaging in the cooler. “There’s no whole milk?” were the first words I ever heard her say. They were addressed to the boy behind the bar, a boy with a pimply face and a small discolored apron tied tightly around his waist. “Dunno,” he said, serving me my water with one hand and carefully sliding a dripping pewter saucer under the glass with the other. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, and she placed a carton of skim milk an inch or so away from me on the bar. She slipped her hand into a tiny coin purse, a child’s purse made of flowered plastic and closed with a catch. She took out some money and put it down next to the milk. “There’s a mechanic,” she said, picking up her change, “but I don’t know if he’s open.” I turned around at the sound of that voice, as toneless as the mew of a cat. Our eyes met for the first time. She was neither beautiful nor very young, with badly bleached hair and a thin but strong-boned face. She was wearing too much makeup, which made her bright eyes look sad. She left the milk on the bar and walked over to the jukebox. Despite all the sun outside, the place was dark, it smelled like a backed-up sewer, and soon it was filled with the tedious sounds of an English rock group that was very much in vogue in those days. She stood against the jukebox, practically clutching it, closed her eyes, and began to move her head slowly from side to side. She stayed like that, a quivering shape in the shadows in the back of the room. The bartender glided out from behind the bar and stood at the door to give me directions. I went all the way around the block, but I couldn’t find the mechanic’s shop. The streets were empty of people. Up above my head, an old man on a balcony was shaking out a tablecloth. I went into the bar again, sweatier than before.

  “I couldn’t find it,” I said. I took some paper napkins out of a metal container and dried my forehead.

  The jukebox had fallen silent, but she was still there. She was sitting on a chair, a dazed expression on her face, staring into space and chewing a piece of gum. She got up, took her carton of milk from the bar, and bid the bartender good-bye. When she reached the door, she stopped. “I’m passing right in front of the shop. If you want . . .”

  I followed behind her in the scorching sun. She was wearing a purple T-shirt and a short lizard-green skirt, and on her feet she had a pair of high-heeled sandals, narrow strips of multicolored leather, above which her thin legs exerted themselves clumsily. She carried her milk in a patchwork purse with an extremely long shoulder strap, which almost reached her knee. She walked quickly, paying no attention to me, never turning around, dragging her feet along the uneven pavement, hugging the walls.

  She stopped in front of a rolling shutter pulled all the way down. According to a small piece of yellowed paper taped to the metal, the shop was closed and would reopen in a couple of hours. I thought about your mother; I had to call her and tell her of my plight. Perspiration was running from my head, behind my ears, along my shirt collar. We stopped in the middle of the street. She turned toward me, just her head, and looked at me. Her eyes were half-closed because of the sultry air and the bright sun. “You have a bit of paper on your forehead.”

  I felt around on my sweaty
skin for the remnant of that bar napkin. I asked her, “Is there a telephone booth around here?”

  “You have to go back, it’s in the other direction. I don’t know if it works. They break everything here.”

  Still chewing her gum, working her jaws vigorously, she kept one hand raised to ward off the sun. Her eyes, which turned out to be pale gray now that we were out in the open, ran over me swiftly, taking me in. She didn’t look like a person who was afraid of strangers, but perhaps my tie and the wedding ring on my finger reassured her.

  “If you want, you can use my telephone. I live back there,” she said, stretching her neck out toward an unspecified location on the other side of the street. She crossed over without looking. I followed her along a dirt path leading downhill, then through a labyrinth of increasingly spectral edifices, until we came to an apartment building that was still under construction, though some of its apartments were already occupied. There were naked steel girders where terraces should have been and gaping holes that opened onto the void and were blocked by upended bedsprings.

  “We’ll take the shortcut,” she said, heading for the unfinished building.

  We walked among the concrete pillars of what seemed to be an enormous abandoned parking garage, where we finally found some respite from the sun. Then we stepped into a dark lobby covered with spray-painted graffiti. It stank like a public urinal, and the stench was mingled with a fried-food smell coming from who knew where. The elevator door was wide open. The panel with the buttons was uncovered, the wires exposed.

  “We’ll walk up,” she said. I followed her up several flights of stairs. Sudden screams occasionally pierced the silence, and the light of television sets flickered in the darkness like signal flashes from hellish lives. The filthy stairs were littered with used hypodermic needles. She stepped over them casually, lifting her bare feet in their flimsy sandals. I wanted to go back, Angela. I whirled around at every noise, expecting someone to jump me from behind, someone who would rob me or maybe even kill me, some accomplice of the vulgar woman who was leading me on. Her purse thudded against the stairs, raising a cloud of dust, and from time to time her smell, a warm, stale mixture of makeup and perspiration, reached my nostrils. I heard her murmur, “It’s disgusting, but it’s the fastest way,” as though she had read my fearful thoughts. She spoke with a slight southern accent, lingering gloomily on some syllables and aborting others.