And I slipped away from the dance floor.
The garden, laid out over a broad terrace, was filled with exotic, fearful-looking plants. Some of them were very tall, with abnormal excrescences on their stalks and stiff, pointed leaves; others were studded with needles, each of them culminating in a dusty little flower cluster. The moon drenched them in whitish light and made their anemic pigment look even paler. I walked through the garden, and it seemed that I was strolling among a colony of ghosts. When I came to the wooden fence, I stopped and looked out. The water was deep blue and utterly calm. I fixed my eyes on the bottom of the horizon, watching the consternation of the sea in the darkness. My father was dead, gone away forever. He had a heart attack, and he fell over in the street. And I wasn’t a son anymore. Wearing my white linen suit, staring into the dark, I was a specter now, too. I turned and faced the direction of the party, spying on my friends through the curtain of that ghostly garden. We’d known one another for a long time, since the fragile days when we had ideals and little goatees. What had changed? The space around us, the wind that flung us about everywhere, as though our lives were exposed to the elements. One morning, we closed the windows; spring was coming to an end, and a dead sparrow was floating in the roof gutter. All of a sudden, we withdrew into ourselves. When we shaved, we looked into the mirror and saw our father’s face, the face we used to make fun of. Out in the world, we were neckties, honored professionals, business consultants, and disjointed conversations. Up until that evening last winter, on the sofa—a fine long designer sofa—in Manlio’s new house. I started estimating its size, and I realized that his house was twice as big as ours—or was it Elsa who pointed that out to me? I joined in the conversation, tossed back a few drinks. Appetizers were passed around. I kept talking, and I glanced at Elsa out of the corner of my eye. Sitting on one arm of the sofa with her legs crossed, my wife was looking outside. Not at the sky, no; there was a terrace overlooking the river, and she was estimating that terrace’s square footage. Without realizing it, I started talking too loud; I became aggressive. Manlio was staring at me in astonishment; his red cashmere tie hung down into his crystal wine-glass. In the car on the way home, without taking her eyes off the street—it had just rained—your mother asked, “How much money do you suppose someone like Manlio makes?” I mumbled some figure. Later, after we got home, I was pissing in the bathroom, and as I stood there holding my dick, I cried, because all at once I understood: We had grown old.
But back then, back at the party, I was clinging to the wooden fence at the far end of that hellish garden and laughing, laughing like a madman, all by myself. Down below, half-hidden by a rock on the shore, little Martine, blissfully drunk, was nibbling something.
I wake up in the middle of the night and look out the wide-open window to where the palm tree is rustling its dark leaves. Your mother’s asleep; her crimson dress lies across a chair. A knot of tension clamps my arm, then penetrates my back, deep down between my shoulder blades. I stick one elbow under the pillow, raise myself a little, and kick my legs out. Elsa turns around in the darkness. “What’s wrong?”
Her voice is breathy, weary, but considerate. I’ve lost the feeling in my arm. I’m afraid I’m having a heart attack. I feel around for her hand and clutch it. She’s wearing her silk undershirt with the shoulder straps like shiny little ribbons. She’s lying on her side, facing me. One of her breasts leans gently on the other. I move closer to her. I bury myself in her perfume. Slowly, I pull the sheet away from her body. A stripe of light runs along her legs. “You can’t sleep?” she asks.
I don’t answer her; my lips are already on her legs. Without saying anything else, she thrusts a hand into my hair and strokes my head. She understands; she knows me; she knows how I make love. She doesn’t know that I do it when I’m afraid. I know I can’t surprise her, but that doesn’t seem so terrible. The absence of surprise reassures us, and we progress together toward an evenly distributed sense of well-being. Our movement is an adagio, precise as the ticking of the clock on the chest of drawers. Our bodies are warm; our genitalia throb moderately, like well-bred muscles. But I think there’s a false note in this score, my love. Your hair’s in my mouth as I think that, and I squeeze you tight, because tonight I’m afraid. We reach our climaxes with our eyes closed, crouched like punished children inside our sexual organs.
Afterward, your mother gets up because she’s thirsty. She crosses the room in the darkness, and I hear her go downstairs to the kitchen. I think about her naked body, dimly lit by the refrigerator light, and I wonder if she still loves me. Then she comes back, carrying a Coke. “Do you want a sip?”
She climbs up onto the windowsill; she wants to look out as she drinks her soda. Now she’s perched there, framed against the palm tree’s dark leaves, with her back against the wall and her legs slightly bent. Her naked body against the night, against my ghosts. She’s higher than I am, still and gleaming, like a bronze statue. And the thought that comes to me seems to be the only one possible. “Let’s have a baby.”
I’ve taken her by surprise. She smiles, snorts through her nose, lifts an eyebrow, scratches a leg: a series of small manifestations of discomfort.
“Have your IUD taken out,” I say.
“Are you joking?”
“No.”
I can feel that she doesn’t want to understand. We’ve been together, man and wife, for twelve years, and we’ve never felt the need of any addition.
“You know, I don’t believe in it.”
“Don’t believe in what?”
“I don’t believe in the world.”
What are you saying, Elsa? What do I care about the world, about all that anonymous flesh? I’m talking about us. About my little thing and your little thing. I’m talking about a speck, a fireflyin the darkness.
“I wouldn’t feel right about bringing a child into this world. . . .”
You press your legs together; you make yourself small. You’d like to metamorphose into a cockroach and scurry away along the wall. Where will you run to? You don’t want to have children becausethe world is violent, polluted, trivial? Come back here; get down and come lie next to me. I’m naked on this bed, waiting for you. Give me a better answer.
“Besides, I don’t think I’d be able to hold an infant in my arms. I’d be afraid.”
Or are you afraid of giving up the woman you’re holding on to? The one you like? I know, my love, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Egoism consoles us; it keeps us company. You’re already tired of feeling that you’re under scrutiny, and maybe now you’re cold, too. You’re fidgeting; you’re worrying. You’re afraid you’re no longer enough for me.
“How about you? Why do you want to have a child?”
I could tell you it’s because I need a cord to bind up the strange thoughts I have, to hold them together. Or because I’m losing pieces, and I’d like to see a new little piece in front of me. Or I could tell you it’s because I’m an orphan.
“Because I’d like to see a kite flying,” I say, and I don’t know what I’ve said.
But at last, the tension slackens. It was a game, a joke. Your mother once again looks on me without suspicion. “Jack-ass, ” she says, laughing, and tosses back a slug of Coca-Cola. “We’re fine just as we are, don’t you think?”
But I’m thinking of a length of cord vibrating in the wind, of a little wrist keeping me attached to the earth. It’s me, Elsa, I’m the kite, I’m flying in the sky: a trapezoid of rags up here, down below its big shadow, and chasing them my kid, my missing piece.
8
Why didn’t I drive you to school? It was raining, and I often give you a ride when it rains. My first operation was scheduled for nine o’clock, but I could have made it. I could have dropped you off a little early. You would have stayed under the portico, chatting with your friends and waiting for the bell to ring. You like getting to school early, and I like having you next to me in the car when it’s raining outside. Our breath fogs the w
indows, and you stretch out an arm and wipe the glass with your hand. You’re never drowsy in the morning. You’re always awake and alert; you check out everything that moves. We don’t talk much. I look at the ends of your fingers. They’re barely sticking out of your sleeves, which are too long. You’re constantly pulling them down even farther. You wear those strange tops, short in the waist but extremely long in the sleeves. Isn’t your stomach cold, Angela? No, it’s your hands that are cold; it wouldn’t be cool to have a cold midriff. You’re all bundled up in your heavy jacket, but underneath, you really don’t have enough clothes on. For you and your friends, summer and winter are the same thing. You don’t adjust to the change of seasons; that’s not done anymore.
“How are things going at school?”
“Fine.”
You always say things are going fine. Your mother says you’re not doing as well as you should, so she goes to your school and talks with your teachers. You study with the radio on. I used to study with the radio on, too; I never told you that. Your behavior’s normal. Kids today all have the same problem; you don’t know how to concentrate. But your mother says I’m too lenient with you. It’s true; I’ve left the job of your upbringing to her. She’s the one who insists that you make your bed; she’s the one who requires you to leave the bathroom in order after you take a shower. I, on the other hand, indulge your disorder without reproaching you. This morning, you left a used tampon on the bathroom sink; I threw it away for you.
“So long, Daddy.”
I like it when you call me that. You’re a good girl. You’ve got an amusing face, full of irony. I watch you getting out of the car and running through the rain. Maybe you’ll flunk your courses; who gives a damn? You’re my hook in the world, Angelina, in this world that turns and turns without changing seasons.
It’s only recently that we’ve begun sniffing around each other, you and I, since about the time when you and your mother started squabbling. You know, I’d been waiting a long time for that to happen, standing on the sidelines and waiting with folded arms for so many years. I smiled at you through the bathroom door—the bathroom, where you two do most of your quarreling, both of you in your underwear, the eye shadow spilled in the sink—I smiled at you, and you saw me. So you smiled back, and your mother got annoyed. “At last,” she said. “You’re both the same age!”
She didn’t want me to buy you that scooter. I didn’t want to, either, but I didn’t want to tell you no. You’d been lobbying for that thing for so long. You were determined, methodical, indefatigable. So I said to Elsa, “She’ll just jump on someone else’s motorbike. She won’t have a helmet, and she’ll probably climb on behind someone who goes too fast.” Your mother said, “I don’t even want to talk about it.” I kept quiet after that, and she left the house without telling me good-bye. But the truth is, I wanted to see your eyes shine; I wanted to feel you throw your arms around my neck and say, “Thanks, Daddy.” I wanted it like a little boy. And when it happened, the person who got most emotional was me. But your mother and I both knew that we’d already lost. We can’t tell you no. We can’t tell ourselves no. She caved in faster than you thought she would. Then came the exchange of warnings and promises. I leaned on the counter at the motorcycle shop and wrote out a check. We picked the most expensive helmet. Your mother rapped it with her knuckles, testing its hardness in a final, futile defensive gesture. Then she felt the padding that was going to protect your head. Her head.
“It’ll keep you warm, too,” she said, and she gave you a sad smile. You grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her, assaulted her like a gentle storm. Your happiness drove away her gloom.
And for the first time, we went back home without you. You were behind us on your new scooter, following our car, which was moving very, very slowly. I saw your red helmet in the rearview mirror. I remember saying, “We can’t live in fear for her. We have to let her grow up.” And I was afraid of thinking, We have to let her die.
9
I threw the keys on the hall table and immediately took off my shoes. I’d been seeing patients in my office all afternoon. The last one was a woman, obviously a well-to-do person. Her eyes seemed to be molded into one single expression, much like the buttons on her tailored outfit. The designer’s initials stamped on those buttons—the final vexation of the day—were still floating in front of my eyes. I started undressing on my way to the bathroom. I stepped into the shower, and the telephone rang. It was your mother, punctual as always. “Did you get yourself some groceries?”
“Sure.” Naturally, I was lying. That summer, I lived on arancini, balls of fried white rice, stuffed and tasty. I used to eat them in a specialty shop that’s gone now. There was a big marble counter, and a skinny man who served me my portion in silence. Three arancini on a heavy crockery plate, the kind they use in pubs. You know, sweetheart, life’s like a big roll of adhesive paper. It fools you; the glue looks strong, looks as though everything will stick to it, but when you unroll it, you see that a whole lot of stuff is missing, and there are just four things left. Four crappy little things. Well, in my case, one of those crappy little things is a thick pub plate with three arancini on it.
When I stayed in the city, I missed your mother’s dinners. At the same time, I liked the feeling of absence as I stood there naked in my own little puddle. I savored the taste of solitude, the touch of a familiar hand in my crotch. Walking from one room to another, I realized that nostalgia’s a very elastic sentiment; you can fit into it anything you want. I turned on the television set. There was a summer program, so attuned to the season that the master of ceremonies was in a swimming pool, floating on a polystyrene island and accompanied by a black Siren. I muted the volume and let the artificial light from the screen reverberate around me. I went into the bedroom, took the book I was reading from the nightstand, went back to the living room, and sprawled out naked on the sofa, just as I used to do sometimes when I was a boy. Some summers, when my parents went away for their vacation, I stayed home to study. I’d help my father load the last suitcase into the inaccessible trunk of his Lancia coupe, then pass my days throwing the house into disorder. I scattered books, underwear, and leftover food everywhere, including the carpets. I liked to desecrate the modest rooms my mother kept tidy all winter long. And at the end of the holiday, when my parents returned and everything resumed its normal order, I found I was better able to endure our home life by conjuring up the memory of my summer transgressions. I think I felt the very same pleasure a degenerate waiter feels when he spits clandestinely into an overly demanding customer’s plate.
A dull, distant rumbling came in through the window of the apartment and penetrated the silence. Maybe the weather was changing. I’d left a chair out on the terrace the previous evening; slipping on my bathrobe, I went outside to retrieve it. A bird of passage had apparently gone off course and flown into the courtyard. Now it was terrified, fluttering among the plants down in the garden and looking for a way out. I watched it stop and hover, as though it had to struggle against the weight of the sultry air. Darkness had fallen all of a sudden, and soon it would start raining. I stayed outside, waiting for the cooling breeze I thought might be on the way. Despite its padded surfaces, the chair wasn’t comfortable at all. A black sound of beating wings passed over my head; the bird had finally succeeded in making good its escape. The air in the courtyard was as inert and heavy as before. The storm must have stayed away. I went back inside and brushed my teeth.
My dear wife, what can I do? I feel like inserting myself into the body of a certain little woman tonight. I feel like rubbing her raffia-basket head against me. I want to feel hot breath on my body. I want a dog to lick my hand in the dark. I swear an oath to you while you sleep: This is the last time. I was about to betray her again, but it didn’t seem right to spoil my evening. Little by little, as I drove out of the city and into that shanty-town, I became more and more euphoric, because it was like entering another world, a city across the sea, a collection of
huts built on piles, a little Saigon. And all that unsightliness I was approaching, all those trembling lights, leapt out to meet me as though they were part of an amusement park that was being kept open for me alone.
It was the first time I went to her house at night. I liked recognizing things, fingering them in the dark, like a thief. The unhealthy odor of those surroundings seemed familiar, and once again I sucked it into my lungs like a perfume. The part of me that I feared was there; I had invoked it. The dubious stairs, the filth under my shoes, the long shadows on each floor—everything was silent, except my wolfish heart. The iron spiral of the exterior staircase was like a perpendicular black shaft engulfed in night. I rushed down those stairs, spinning faster and faster, more and more excited. I reached the final stage, the embankment under the viaduct. The ground was hard and dry, like the bottom of a vanished sea. I took the final steps toward her pile dwelling, toward the little madam of my Saigon.
There was no light coming from the window on the other side of the porch. I made a fist and knocked on the green door. I had tripped on the stairs, and my ankle was hurting me. I rolled my fist sideways and hammered on the door insistently. Where could she be at this hour? Out with her friends? Why shouldn’t she have friends? Maybe she was in one of those nightclubs that look like industrial warehouses, with a searchlight outside pointed at the sky. She was in the midst of the throng, dancing with her eyes closed, as she was when I first saw her leaning on the jukebox. Why shouldn’t she dance? Maybe she had a man, a sloven like herself, a man who was holding her close right now, and I didn’t exist for her, even in her thoughts. Maybe she was a prostitute; after all, she’d accepted my money, it didn’t seem to offend her. At that very moment, her skeletal legs were pounding the dark sidewalk somewhere, pacing up and down some remote avenue on the fringe of the city. Leaning on a car and talking to the driver through his window, she negotiated the price of herself, with her sickly face, her sunken eyes, her smeared makeup. Maybe Manlio was inside that car. Every now and then, he liked to dredge up some creature of the night, so why not her? No, not her. I stopped knocking; I’d exhausted my arm so much, it was trembling. She wasn’t good-looking. She was pallid, depressing. Her meagerness struck me as a form of protection; no one could possibly imagine how she behaved when her torpid body caught fire and she became another person. But maybe she was that way with all of them. Who was I to deserve anything more? I lifted my aching arm and knocked again. She wasn’t home. The whore wasn’t home. Defeated, I turned around, leaned back against the door, and looked at the night. The deserted viaduct, and below it the shacks, from which there came a few faint signs of life. Maybe that’s where she goes. She goes to the Gypsies. She gets drunk in their trailers, and then she gets her raggedy fortune told.
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