Don't Move

by Margaret Mazzantini

  Raffaella crosses the garden in her acid green jacket. She was here earlier this afternoon, taking a lot of pictures. For one of them, she set the timer on the camera and flung herself heavily onto the bed next to Elsa; the bed buckled and swayed under the sudden weight. She said she’d come back later, after work, and now it’s a mild, mild evening and she’s tripping past the flower beds with a package in her hand: little pastries for her best friend to eat. Raffaella pokes her head in the door, smiling her ineluctable smile. Elsa sits up and they kiss each other again. Raffaella asks, “Where’s Angela?”

  “In the nursery.”

  “That means I can smoke.” She sticks one of her brown cigarettes in her mouth, opens the package of pastries, and places them on Elsa’s stomach. It’s excessively hot in the room, so I take advantage of this moment to get some fresh air. I take a little walk in the fog, not going very far. Then I enter the clinic cafeteria and join several other men, all brand-new fathers like myself. Poor jerks with waterproof jackets, shadows under their eyes, and trays in their hands. The place is dark, like its stone floor, its low ceiling, and its dismal yellowish glazed light fixtures. Daddies in the dining hall, like grammar school kids at lunch. The food, naturally, is repulsive. But it’s nice to be tucked away like this in the back of the clinic; it’s like camping out, or being punished. As it’s a little late, the pasta is soft and puffy, and the scaloppini al limone has dark edges and a sauce whose principal ingredient seems to be wallpaper glue. But nobody complains. Voices are kept low, as in a sacristy; upended glasses and sets of silverware rest on sheets of paper and tinkle a little as they’re transferred to the trays. A few men stop and search among the bottles of mineral water for some of those screw-top bottles of wine. They pause for a bit, but then they take one, because they think, What the hell? Tonight’s a night for celebration. Tonight my dick has given the world a gift, and I deserve a little drink.

  Then we sit down and eat as men do when there aren’t any women around. Quickly and a little crudely, holding a piece of bread always at the ready. We eat the way we masturbate, going faster and faster toward the end. I’m at a corner table, drinking a beer, using my fingers to pull apart a couple of pieces of cheese, and eating them without bread. I’ve got my elbows on the Formica tabletop, which bears the marks of a recent sponging. I look into those opaque depths, staring at the backs of men like me.

  I spend the whole night in Elsa’s room. The imitation-leather couch under the television set turns into a short, narrow bed. But I don’t lie on it; I sit in the armchair and put the cool, immaculate pillow behind me, between my head and the wall. I close my eyes and doze. It’s not particularly noisy, but it’s not silent, either. Around two o’clock, Elsa asks me for a drink of water. I hold the glass to her lips, which are dry and nearly split. She says, “Come lie down next to me.”

  I stretch out on the big broad articulated bed with all the pillows. Elsa’s breasts are large under her nightshirt, and she smells of stale perspiration and medicine. “I can’t sleep,” she says. “It’s as if they threw me into a washing machine.”

  After a while, she falls silent, as silent as her hair. Maybe she’s sleeping now. I open the door, slip into the darkened corridor, and go to the nursery. Its window is covered for the night by a gauze curtain, through which one gets a hint of hulking shapes—the cribs and their shadows. I put a hand on the pane of glass; my daughter’s asleep there on the other side. Her little hands are blotchy, her closed eyes like seashells on her face.

  At dawn, Kentu comes in carrying you. Warm from sleep and red from your recent bath, you’re wearing a new little outfit, white, with pink embroidery, and your face seems more relaxed, but your mother’s face has faded into a yellowish pallor. She’s leaning over you, looking at you, and you look back at her with your misty eyes, staring at her breast like a needy animal.

  “I’m going.”

  She barely raises her head. I’m standing at her bedside, holding my wrinkled jacket over my shoulder with a tired hand. My unshaven face is the face of a man who hasn’t slept. The look she gives me is gentle but anxious, as though a suspicion has crossed her mind. I move toward the door like a moth that’s been trapped in a room all night long, and now its wings are heavy as cork.

  “When are you coming back?”

  37

  I heard a noise, and I felt a sudden blow, a thud inside my chest, as when you fall in your sleep. Maybe it was nothing, a purely internal landslide, the remnants of a thought. But no, something must have fallen in there. Although muffled by a wall, it was a sharp, heavy sound, like metal hurled against a hard surface. It was a gurney—that’s what it was—a gurney rolling across the floor at high speed and crashing into a wall. Maybe you’re dead, and Alfredo’s causing that commotion. Just when he thought he’d pulled you through, you died under his hands, without warning and without a sound, like a flame. Alfredo turned around, saw the gurney they brought you in on, and struck it. With an arm, with a foot. The sound was like a scream; I know I heard it. I must have heard it. I can’t move; I can only wait for a door to open. I’m waiting for two elegant, merciful legs. I hear the muted steps of Ada’s rubber-soled clogs. She’s coming to tell me, as I requested. She’s walking over to me, and she doesn’t realize you’ve just been born. You’re only a few hours old, and you’re suckling at your mother’s breast. As she walks, Ada’s hands are sweaty and chilled from the fear she’s been confronting and will continue to confront when she meets my eyes. She takes the last few steps, and I listen to the faint sounds those hands make as she gently smoothes her smock. Now she’s here. I see her reflection in the door, but I don’t look at her face. I look only at her legs, and I wait. Don’t speak, Ada. Don’t say anything. A bit of your skirt is showing under your smock—gray, like the two of us. Thirty years ago, I could have married you. You were the youngest anesthesiologist in the hospital, and the best. I sweet-talked you a little, and you remained silent. Until that afternoon—when was it? You were waiting for the bus. I stopped and gave you a ride, and once you were in the car, all of a sudden you started talking. I’d never seen you without a hospital uniform on. You had a narrow waist and full hips, which spread out on the car seat. The memory of your knee, which you were stroking with one hand, has stayed in my mind. But by then, it was too late; you had passed me by, and I hadn’t really noticed. Ah well, let it go, it’s better this way. Life is a storeroom filled with boxes, some empty, some misplaced forever. We’re what remains, what we’ve grabbed hold of. What’s your life like now? Do you eat your dinners standing up? Why didn’t you get married? Are your breasts very old? Do you smoke? Have men treated you well? Which side do you sleep on? Is my daughter dead?

  38

  I come charging up like a bear, like a buffalo with dirty fur. Her front door’s ajar. When I push it, it resists; there’s something behind it, keeping it from opening all the way. It’s dark inside— the shutters are closed—but it’s a daytime darkness, the kind with hints of light. I can make out what’s blocking the door: two big travel bags and a few boxes. There’s a strange disorder in the room, many objects are missing from the shelves, and the place smells of coffee and displaced dust. I take a few silent steps into what looks like an abandoned house. I glance into the deserted kitchen, where a single cup is standing upside down on the counter next to the sink.

  “I’m in here.”

  Italia’s lying on the bed, propped up on her elbows and peering at me through the plastic strips of the bedroom curtain. “I woke you,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you didn’t. I was awake.”

  I cross the room and sit down next to her. There are no sheets on the bed, and she’s fully clothed. She’s wearing a high-necked blue dress that doesn’t even seem to be hers—it looks more like one of Elsa’s. She hasn’t taken off her shoes; they’re still on her feet, resting on the bare mattress. Two low-cut wine-colored shoes. Her uncomfortable position makes her shoulders look tiny. Her neck, taut and muscular, str
ains between them. She says, “I was on my way out.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the train station. I’m moving away; I told you I was.”

  Her neck is as white as light, and around it she’s wearing a flowered scarf. One end lies across her chest, while the other trails on the mattress. Her face looks rachitic, held together by makeup, and she has the disoriented air of someone in transit. I say, “It’s a girl.”

  “Is she beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Angela.”

  “Are you happy?”

  I pick up one end of her scarf, then the other, and I hold them in my hands, loosely, gently, and then suddenly I pull the ends tight, clench my fists, and yank her head. “How could I be happy? How could I?”

  Without any warning, I start to cry. Big heavy tears, slowly making their way down my unshaven cheeks. “I can’t live without you,” I groan. “I can’t. . . .”

  “Sure you can.”

  And there’s a gleam in her eye, like an unspoken challenge, visible against that perpetual backdrop of pity for herself and for whoever’s close to her. She says, “I have to go or I’ll miss my train.”

  I relax my grip, spring to my feet, dry my eyes with a couple of rough swipes.

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “Why?”

  She stands up, thinner than ever, her dark dress clinging to her skinny body. Her breasts seem to have disappeared; all that’s left of them is a little ridge below her sternum that shudders as she breathes. She’s wearing a hair clip in her extremely short hair, a totally useless hair clip, which gleams in the semi-darkness. The mirror is still in the room. Italia turns around, steps to the mirror, and looks at herself. She brushes her eyebrows with a fingertip. That’s all she does, just makes this one unfamiliar little gesture: the final, unnecessary adjustment to her appearance, or perhaps just a salute to herself: Good luck in your new life.

  I stoop and pick up her luggage. She lets me take the bags, murmurs, “Thanks,” and walks to the sofa to get her mucilage jacket, which is lying with its sleeves spread out, like a crucifix waiting for her arms.

  On the threshold, she turns around and takes a last look at her house, her humble house. I don’t sense that she’s feeling anything like nostalgia—she’s just in a hurry, and at the same time vaguely anxious, as though she’s afraid she’s forgetting something. Maybe I’m sadder than she is. I’ve loved her in this house. I’ve loved her on the sandstone floor, on the sofa, on the tobacco-colored chenille bedspread, against the wall, in the bathroom, in the kitchen; I’ve loved her by the dawn’s early light and in the depths of moonless nights. And suddenly I realize how much I love this house, which now trembles once again as an automobile passes over the viaduct.

  Italia’s shifting eyes come to rest on the bottom of the sofa. The flowered cloth is gone, revealing velvet upholstery, ocher in color, dirty and torn.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Nothing,” she says, but something’s narrowing her eyes.

  Then I remember the dog, with his nose always sticking out from under that crippled sofa. “Where’s Heartbreaker?”

  “I gave him away.”

  “To whom?”

  “To the Gypsies.”

  The poster, by contrast, is still where it always was; the monkey with the baby’s bottle has not moved from the wall.

  Once we were on the street, I noticed that Italia was lurching more than usual on her high heels. Her weakness seemed to radiate out from her center. Her back was curved, and she bent forward as she walked; her upper body leaned away from its proper axis, as if she were trying to anticipate something. Some fear, perhaps. I put her bags in the trunk and turned to her. She was standing on the other side of the street. I picked up the suitcase she’d insisted on carrying, which was now on the ground at her feet.

  She didn’t move; she let me do it all and watched me as I closed the trunk. When she got into the car, when she crouched to take her seat, I saw her face contort in vexation, as though she’d been dealt some underserved pain. I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  A short time later, while I was driving, she put both hands on her stomach and let them slide slowly down into her lap, as though she was trying to be inconspicuous.

  I didn’t drive to the station; I didn’t even pretend I was going to drive across the city. I got on the ring road and headed for the autostrada. She asked, “Where are we going?”

  “South. I’m giving you a ride.”

  By this time, we were already on the autostrada. Italia shook her head weakly, then assented and slouched back into her seat without offering further resistance. “How long will it take?” she asked.

  “Less time than the train. Lie back and enjoy it.”

  She closed her eyelids, but they continued to quiver, as though the eyes beneath them could find no peace. She opened them again, turned her head toward me, stretched out her hand, and stroked my leg. This caress sent a tremor of pleasure and happiness through me, and I had a sudden urge to pull over, park the car next to the guardrail, and make love to her then and there, to slip inside that scrawny little jewel box of hers. “Come here. Sit closer to me.”

  She obeyed, laying her head on my shoulder—her small, bony, trembling head—and remained still, watching the road with me. As I drove, all I had to do was move my jaw slightly and I could find an ear or some other part of her to kiss. She was breathing softly, and little by little a feeling of great peace took possession of us. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant day; the sun, when it shone, gave little warmth, and we even went through some patches of fog. The traffic flowed along in a thick stream. Every now and then, a tractor-trailer pulled out into the fast lane, its driver signaling his intentions a few seconds after beginning to carry them out. It was an ordinary day, Angela; there was really nothing very special about it. And yet that was the loveliest trip I ever took. If I think back on my life, if I think about a supreme moment, I relive that drive, the two of us speeding through the landscape outside the car, while inside it everything is still and we’re caught up, without injury and without travail, in something like an enchantment—a deep, unhoped-for joy, built out of nothing. It was as if heaven, from behind those anonymous gray clouds, were offering us some compensation.

  I don’t remember ever having felt so in harmony with myself: my chest under my shirt, my forehead, my eyes, my hands on the steering wheel, the light burden of her head on my shoulder. Italia had fallen asleep. So as not to wake her up, I tried not to move. I changed gears only when I had to, and then softly, gently, because one of her legs was resting on the shift. I had worked hard to love her; I’d rejected her, pushed her away; she’d had an abortion because of me. And now all that was in the past. I was going to keep her by my side forever, and that flight to the south felt to me like my first real step in her direction. Yes, that trip back into the places of her past was going to give us a chance to start everything over, to begin again. Now I was in a hurry to get there; I longed to see her climbing out of the car in her rumpled dress. I pictured her gesturing to me with one white hand behind her back, behind her windblown scarf, asking me not to follow her, to let her take the first few daunting steps into her remembered world alone. Maybe there, I thought, on her native soil, outside some small, crumbling stone church, I’ll kneel at her feet and hug her legs and beg her pardon for the last time. Then I won’t have to do it anymore. From now on, I’ll love her without causing her pain.

  That’s what I was thinking about, Angela. I wasn’t thinking about you. You were a healthy baby; your mother was doing fine. I decided to write her a letter, a brief letter, telling her the whole story without attempting to justify myself in any way: the facts, and nothing but the facts, in a few lines. The rest was all mine. There’s no explaining love. It stands by itself; it makes mistakes and struggles on its own.

  I intended to arrange everything a
s quickly as possible, without needlessly wasting time. I’d call our lawyer friend, Rodolfo, in the morning and tell him to come to terms with Elsa. I’d give her carte blanche—she could have everything. The only thing I wanted was the creature whose heart was beating against my side. And now I was carrying her off with me, and we were hurtling down the autostrada. The land had become flatter, and clumps of dusty oleander bushes grew beside the guardrail. The light had changed. The day was collapsing into night; contrasts were becoming less sharp but perhaps deeper, and Italia’s face seemed almost purple. Below the steering wheel, one of her hands fell, half-open, between my leg and her seat. I grabbed up that hand and held it tight. It’s mine, I thought. Woe to anyone else who touches it, woe to him.