Don't Move

by Margaret Mazzantini

  She wasn’t there; even at night, she wasn’t there. I put down the receiver, put down the solitude that I felt everywhere—in my heavy hand, in my ear, in the silence of my study. I was sitting in the dark, and Nora’s shape appeared in the mirror on the door. She looked like a crow. The light from the hall barely illuminated her as she looked at me in the darkness of the room. It didn’t last long, but in that brief space of time, I had the feeling that she’d grasped something. It wasn’t so much the fact that I was sitting in the dark alone with the telephone in my hand that gave her the intuition about my double life. No, it was my body, so different from what she’d seen at the table. My shoulders were slumped, collapsed; my eyes were shiny and wet. I was too far from my usual self. And so an unexpected intimacy, precipitated by coincidence (she’d been on her way to get her cigarettes, which she’d left in her purse on the hall table), was established between my mother-in-law and me. It’s remarkable, Angela, that sometimes the least likely people are the ones who manage to see through us. She took a step toward me in the dark and said, “Timo?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got a mole on my back that’s a lot bigger than it used to be. Would you mind looking at it?”

  It’s three o’clock in the morning. Once again, your mother is asleep. Her body is a mountain at sunset, a dark, impenetrable shape. Maybe leaving her is less difficult than I think; it’s just a question of getting dressed and going away. All of them—Elsa, her family, our friends—will form a united front against me, like a wall. And eventually, everyone will be resigned to the wall. In my place she wouldn’t hesitate, she wouldn’t be afraid; she’d leave me out on the rear balcony, just as I did a little while ago with the garbage bag.

  A rain as fine as face powder was falling. Damp but not drenched, I wrapped myself more tightly in my overcoat as I walked. I had no destination—I just wanted to keep the night from turning on me. I wasn’t tired. My legs felt light. I’d eaten very little, and that little had already been digested. The streets were deserted and silent. It took a little while for me to notice that the silence wasn’t total; the asphalt was emitting its own peculiar groan. At night, the city is like an empty world, abandoned by people, yet imbued with their presence. Someone is being loved, someone else is being left, a dog is barking on somebody’s terrace, a priest is getting to his feet. An ambulance takes a sick person to my hospital, far from his warm bed. A whore with legs as black as the darkness makes her way home; a man who isn’t waiting for her sleeps like a mountain, secure and appalling. Exactly like Elsa. When you can’t sleep and you know sleep won’t come, all sleeping people are the same. They all look alike.

  As I walked, every form I saw seemed to be Italia: the trees, which were giving off an odd phosphorescence; the metallic shapes of the parked cars; the streetlamps, bending down into their own light; and even the terraces and the cornices of tall buildings. It was as if her body were everywhere, dominating the city.

  I put my arms around a tree. That’s right; I suddenly found myself pressing my body against a large wet trunk. And as I hugged it, I realized that I’d wanted to do that many times before. This was news to me. Maybe she’s killed herself and that’s why she’s not answering the phone. Her gray hand is hanging down from her gray arm, which is dangling over the edge of her rusty bathtub. With her last gasp, she ripped down the plastic shower curtain. She died thinking about me, trying one last time to embrace me in her thoughts or drive my image from her mind. It’s the middle of the night—the water must be cold by now. When she filled the tub, she made the water scalding hot so that the blood would flow more easily from her slashed wrists. Did she use her little penknife, or perhaps a razor blade I left there? The instrument one chooses for suicide is important; it’s already a kind of testament.

  A cry comes out of the darkness. I’ve tripped and fallen onto a mound of rags, under which a man was sleeping on the ground. He sticks his head out of his filthy nest and cries, “I don’t have anything!”

  He clamors, he bawls, he thinks I want to rob him. Of what? His toxic bedclothes? His teeth, perhaps? But no, I see he doesn’t have any when he opens his mouth to utter his hoarse lamentations. I say, “Excuse me, I fell.”

  What have I touched? What emanations have entered my lungs? The man’s stench is loathsome; he smells like a disemboweled dog on the shoulder of the road. Italia stank, too, when her tragedy came round again, when she understood that I was leaving her, that I wasn’t going to keep her or her baby, and that, once again, I was going to offer her money. I want to run away, but instead I hold on to the man with all my strength. I lay my head against his filthy neck, my nose in his congealed hair, stiff as fur, and I breathe. I breathe in his odor of unburied dog.

  Angela, I was looking for the contagion that would push me irretrievably to the other side, to that swamp between the city and the sea, where the only person I ever truly loved made her home. The plague-bearer, my new nocturnal companion, did not recoil from me. Rather, he put an arm around me and turned his face (deeply creased, with dirt in the creases) toward me, searching for me in the cavern where I was hiding. He found me and stroked my head, as merciful as a priest absolving a murderer. Did I deserve so much compassion, daughter of mine? In that dark corner of the world, a miserable wretch welcomed me, guided me. On the wet street where he lay dreaming, now I was dreaming, too, embracing the stinking accoutrements of a life of total destitution, far from my home, far from my parquet floors and my whiskey. For me, this was love: love orphaned and shriveled, love in extremity, when fate takes pity on us and gives us a pacifier.

  “You want a drink?”

  From under some cardboard, he pulled a bottle of wine and offered it to me. I drank without thinking about the mouth that had touched the chipped rim of that bottle before mine; I drank because I was thinking about my father. My father, who died on the street, who fell against the rolling shutter of a closed shop and then slid to the ground with one hand around his throat, where life was leaving his body.

  Before I went away, I gave the man some money, all I had on me, in fact. I thrust my fingers into the recesses of my wallet and pulled out everything that was there. He accepted the money like any ordinary bum, hiding it in his rags, obviously terrified at the possibility that I might change my mind. Then he watched me with incredulous eyes as I made my way to the intersection, where I disappeared from his view.

  The darkness was beginning to fade, washed by the rain that had not ceased to fall, gently but relentlessly. I drove through the hesitant light; every now and then the headlights of an oncoming car struck me in the eyes. Two Philippine nuns, standing under two little umbrellas, were waiting at a bus stop. A bar was opening. A soaking bundle of newspapers lay beside a newsstand that was still locked up. I was weary when I stopped the car, done in by my dense, sleepless night. Now I could go to sleep in her arms, and only later would we gather our future together. I had already fought my battle over the course of that long night. There was nothing to say; all that remained for me to do was to embrace her in silence. When I got out of the car, my cheeks were flushed from the heated air inside. The streets were dry in the growing gray light, and now I could distinguish every object; maybe it hadn’t rained there. The absence of that rain, which had hounded me all night long, seemed a sign that the struggle was indeed over. Italia had waited for me, safe and dry.

  I was halfway up the second flight of stairs when I heard the thud of the elevator arriving below me, followed by the clicking of a woman’s high-heeled shoes, the echo fading as she crossed the lobby. I ran down the stairs and saw her back as she left the building.

  “Italia!”

  I caught up with her just as she was turning around. I didn’t look at her; I simply embraced her. She went limp, allowing herself to be squeezed, not even raising an arm; she remained exactly as she was. Holding her head against my shoulder, I saw her hand dangling loosely at her side. Now she’s going to raise her hands and put them on me. She’s going to respo
ndto my embrace. Then she’ll collapse, and I’ll hold her up. But in fact, she didn’t move. She remained motionless until my breath stabilized and I could feel the beating of her heart, calm and deep. She was warm; she was alive. Nothing else mattered. A few caresses would have sufficed to restore her to me. I knew her; she’d let herself be loved without useless displays of pride. I let her go and backed away to get a look at her. I asked, “Where are you going?”

  “To the flower market.”

  “Where?”

  “I work there.”

  “Since when?”

  “Not long.”

  In the half shadow, her gray eyes seemed set, like stones, and there was something more adult about the expression on her face. I, on the other hand, had come armed only with my need for her. I said, “How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  I put a hand on her stomach. “How about him? How’s he doing?”

  She didn’t reply, Angela. I caught up her hands and held them against her stomach. I felt her breathing. The weather was already cool, and she was dressed too lightly for the season, for that sunless dawn. I felt the weight of that empty lobby behind us, and the cold penetrating my body through my damp clothes. She let me move her hands about without opposition, without will, like two leaves in the mud. I remembered the red leaf, the first of the autumn, that fell on my windshield when I was parked outside the clinic.

  “I had an abortion.”

  I looked into her light, impassive eyes and shook my head. With my heart in my throat, I said, “That can’t be true.” I was holding her by the arms, jerking her around, ready to do her harm. I asked, “When did you do it?”

  “I did it, that’s all.”

  She didn’t seem sad, but I thought I saw pity for me in her stony eyes. I said, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you try to reach me? I wanted it, really. I wanted it. . . .”

  “Tomorrow you would have changed your mind.”

  Now she was going to leave me. Now that my multiplied life was no longer growing inside of her, I’d lost her. Desperate, I started to cover her with little kisses that fell like hail on her rigid face. It doesn’t matter—we’ll have other children. Let’s start tomorrow; let’s start now. Let’s go make love, now, on that chenille bedspread. I’ll hold you close, and you’ll be pregnant again. We’ll go to Somalia, and our house will be filled with children: children in cribs, children in hammocks, children in shawls. . . .

  But we were already an old photograph, Angela, one of those photographs ripped down the middle, where two lovers lost to each other forever are separated at the shoulder. Now she would go and clip stems and sell flowers to anyone who came along: to a lover, to someone on his way to the cemetery, to someone who’s just had a child.

  “Where did you have the abortion?”

  “I went to the Gypsies.”

  “You’re crazy! You have to go to the hospital for a checkup.”

  “I don’t like hospitals.”

  You don’t like surgeons, I thought, and I grabbed one of her wrists. “You have to come with me!”

  “I’m all right. Leave me alone!”

  She threw off my hand. I wasn’t her man anymore. My hand was the hand of no one in particular. Her face had returned to immobility and emptiness; I caught no glimpse of any of the countless expressions I knew so well. The ashes of dawn entered her ears and slid down her cheeks, which were painted to simulate good health. She was standing in front of me, but she’d already disappeared into her own life, distracted and anonymous, like one of those wet hands that passes you your change in the market. “I have to go,” she said.

  “I’ll give you a ride.”

  “It’s no use.”

  I sat down on the curb while she walked away. I didn’t look at her; I had my head in my hands. And I stayed like that until the sound of her footsteps faded to nothing, and even afterward, when nothing remained but silence. The telephone in her house had rung and rung while she was inside a flimsy trailer just a few yards away, letting some hag, perhaps the same person who taught her fortune-telling, thrust a hook inside her. That was how it had ended, that was what she had come to, with her teeth clamped on a rag to keep from screaming.

  29

  Why am I telling you all this? I don’t have an answer to that question. I can’t give you one of my brief, precise “surgical responses,” as you call them. I think it’s because life is hemorrhaging and pounding in my temples like the hematoma in your skull. I see it now, Angela: You’re operating on me.

  I’m not asking your forgiveness, and I’m not taking advantage of your absence. Believe me, I passed judgment on myself many years ago, sitting on that curb. The verdict was irreversible, fixed for all time, like a tombstone. I’m guilty; my hands know it.

  But if you only knew how many times I’ve tried to imagine that lost child. I watched it grow up at your side like an unfortunate twin. I tried to bury it, but in vain. It came back whenever it wanted to, fell in with my steps, slipped into my aging bones. It came back in every defenseless creature I saw, in the hairless children in Pediatric Oncology; it came back in a porcupine I ran over on a country road. It came back in the damage I did to you.

  Do you remember judo classes? You didn’t want to go, but I forced you to in my own way—with silence, with those mute reproaches that made you feel bad before you caved in. I drove around that old gym, which featured old equipment, old teachers, a punching bag, and unglued linoleum. I got out of the car and went in. The air was dank with perspiration as I considered the faces of the combatants. I took a flyer with the class schedules. What can I tell you, Angela? It’s a familiar tale. When I was a boy, I would have liked to be a martial arts champion and visit a gym at night, a gym like that one, filled with sleeveless workout shirts and real muscles and tough faces, and there arm myself with an invisible, unfailing strength, which I would dissemble under my well-mannered jacket and eyeglasses. Two moves and your opponent is down; a colleague, perhaps—say that nurse who’s so heavyset it’s scary to look at him. The dreams of a cowardly man, of a feeble little boy. That’s what I could tell you, and it would be true; there was that little boy, that little clump of feelings, some praiseworthy, some contemptible. But there was also something else, something unconfessed: the desire to subdue you, to play a crooked trick on you, because my crooked life was falling on your shoulders. The conditions necessary for getting away with it were in place. It was a good sport, for one thing. Your mother was unable to find any contraindications in my paternal face. Of course, you wanted to take dancing lessons, and you bounced around the house on the tips of your toes, with one of your mother’s scarves tied around your waist. You wanted to be a dancer, Angela, but you were too tall for ballet. By contrast, you were just right for judo. It’s a good sport, as I said; it disciplines the spirit. You have to be fair; you have to have respect for the movements and for your comrades, male and female alike. I took you by your little hand, bought you a pair of judo slippers, and took you to that basement gym.

  And there you were, with your judogi on and the belt wound around your waist. You fought joylessly, doggedly, resisting only because you hated being thrown. You fought for my sake, because I was watching you. You fought so you wouldn’t land on the mat, so you wouldn’t get kicked in the behind, so you wouldn’t hear the instructor’s heavy voice shouting at you to get up. You fought with tears in your eyes. You didn’t like the judogi—it was stiff; it was a sack. You wanted a nice filmy tutu and some little shoes with plaster tips. You wanted to feel light. And instead, there you were, matched against that classmate they were always saddling you with, the big strong one with the ponytail that snapped like a whip. Big, strong, and agile, whereas you were thin and wooden. I gave you advice: “You have to be smoother in the exchange of techniques.” But you couldn’t be smooth. You were fighting too many battles.

  I sat down on one of those little chairs they had—they looked as though they belonged in a kindergarten—and watched the belt p
romotion ceremony with the other parents. You were sitting huddled in a corner of the blue rubber mat with your legs crossed and your feet bare, waiting your turn. You flashed me a lame smile. You were afraid: of the instructor, of those movements that you didn’t have under control, of the little girls who were more nimble and less damaged than you. When your turn came, you got up and bowed in salute. The instructor called out the movements, and you executed them nervously and uncertainly. Your cheeks were blotchy; you kept biting your lip. When you were the holder, you looked at your opponent and seemed to implore her not to resist, to just let herself go. When you were the receiver, you let yourself go completely, like an empty sack. You took a lot of hard knocks. Sweaty, defeated, with your judogi askew, you made your bow and got your promotion.

  “Are you happy?” I asked you in the car. You weren’t happy; you were exhausted. I tried again. “When you fall on a tatami, it doesn’t hurt you, right?” Wrong; it hurt you a lot. You looked at me. Your face was flushed, you were close to tears, and you asked me with your eyes, Why?

  Good question. We were at peace—why start a useless war? To make you stronger, to teach you some discipline. But I didn’t make you stronger. I did you harm; I robbed you of strength. I took your gaiety and built a wall around it. Forgive me.

  And then one day, you stopped. It was in September, we had just come back from the seashore, and your belt rank was orange-green. You said, “I don’t want to do it anymore. Period. ” I didn’t insist; I let you alone. I was tired, too. I frequently passed that gym, but it no longer interested me. The thrill, the obsession, my unborn son—all that was dead and buried. And all of it fucked-up nonsense, Angelina, the madness of fathers and rapists who don’t know how to grow up. Period.

  30

  It was just a matter of time. Time would perform its corrosive task and eat away at my remorse until it was reduced to powder. All things considered, Italia had done me a favor, removing a messy complication from my life. She hadn’t wanted to go to the clinic a second time; as far as she was concerned, it was a sham hotel, and its elegance filled her with scorn. I was only partly to blame, having limited myself to leaving her on her own. That abandonment was the beginning of the process whereby I became inured to my own vileness.