I bow my head, to show how contrite I am.
“Listen to me,” he says, in a more conciliatory tone. “Take that holiday, and the old Romano will soon be back in action. Don’t forget the eohippus. You don’t want to end up like the pterodactyl, do you?”
I still can’t believe he hasn’t thrown me out on my ear. I was expecting a firing squad, instead of which he’s been almost too lenient.
I’m alone again. Elena puts her heads in round the door. “May I?”
“Of course, Elena, what is it?”
She advances uncertainly to the desk, her anxiety clear in every gesture. “I’d like to apologize for this morning,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m your secretary. When you left the office yesterday, I should have reminded you of the appointment.”
I give her an affectionate smile. “It’s not your fault.”
Elena nods. Only now do I realize that her watch, unlike mine, is still five minutes ahead. A sense of inadequacy overcomes me. As she’s about to leave the room, I ask her to stop for another moment.
“Should I sit down?”
“Sit in the armchair, I need to talk to you.”
She seems hesitant, she doesn’t know where to look, but I know that by this point nothing could surprise her any more, and I need to clarify things, to talk to somebody.
“I feel like someone who doesn’t have time on his side,” I confess to her, after a long sigh. “But you must have guessed that by now, it’s never pursued me the way it has lately.”
This kind of confidence makes her feel uncomfortable. “It’s not a problem,” she says quickly, “it’s my job.”
“No. It’s never been your job to pick up after me when I miss meetings and lunches. And I want to thank you for doing it. You’ve always organized my life efficiently and it’s not your fault I’ve gone off the rails.”
Her face relaxes, and she smiles at me.
“I’m going through a strange phase,” I continue. “I’m finding even the simplest things really difficult. You’re trying to limit the damage and I’d like you to continue doing that.”
“Of course. You don’t even have to ask. I’m sorry you’re having problems and I hope you manage to solve them.”
“Everything passes in the end, Elena. This’ll pass, too.”
I fall silent and she glances at her watch. I know I’m taking up much more of her time than I think I am. I tell her she can go.
“Don’t worry,” she says encouragingly as she gets to the door, “you know you can count on me.”
Once she’s gone, I turn to look at the window.
What I see is a grim view of a city driven mad by the frenzied pace of its inhabitants. A poisonous curtain of smog lies over the streets, the parks, the buildings. I feel I can almost hear them, all those impatient car horns, like flocks of birds in a poisoned jungle, I can see the pale, exasperated faces of the drivers trapped behind their wheels. They’re all running, thinking they can’t afford to waste a single second of their lives, when in fact they’re already wasting most of them.
Elena reappears at the door. “Signor Romano, I forgot to tell you that your father has been trying to get hold of you again.”
I take my eyes from the street, ready to ask her to make up an excuse, but when I turn to her I’m struck dumb. Instead of young Elena, a little old lady is standing in the doorway, back stooped, watching me in silence. She’s dressed the same way, she’s holding the same sheets of paper, but her skin is all wrinkled, and instead of the usual dark bob, there’s a diaphanous halo of white hair. Her eyes have lost their light, they’re buried in the thin, dark folds of her eyelids, and the way she’s staring at me is disturbing.
“Please…” I implore her.
“What’s the matter?” this old woman asks me in a cavernous voice, advancing slowly towards me, reaching out a pair of limp, shrivelled arms.
I’m shaking, I can’t even cry for help. Her yellowed, hooklike fingers are coming closer, they’re only a few centimetres from my hands.
“Leave me alone, please!” I scream, turning to face the window.
Now I can hear her heavy breathing behind me. She doesn’t say anything, just breathes, then, suddenly, silence.
“Have I done something I shouldn’t?”
It sounds like Elena’s voice again. Maybe she’s gone back to normal. I’m too scared to find out.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I’m terrified, I don’t want to turn and find that she’s a hundred years old. I don’t want to go beyond that threshold and discover a decaying world, devoured by the destructive fury of time.
“Please answer me, Signor Romano. Aren’t you feeling well?”
One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. I need to convince myself that, when I turn, that repugnant old monster will have disappeared, and in her place I’ll find Elena again.
One, two, three, four, five.
Elena, my young Elena, looks really worried. The last thing she expected was to see me bathed in tears and sweat. “What’s happening to you?”
I feel my heart pumping at an unsustainable speed and my breath becoming ever heavier. “I’m scared,” I confess, scrunching up my face in a childish grimace of complaint.
“Scared of what?”
“Of time,” I say with tears in my eyes, unafraid now to seem ridiculous. “Time passing.”
Then I collapse exhausted into the armchair.
Elena is really dismayed by now. “Would you like me to fetch you some water?”
“No. Call an ambulance, I need to see a doctor.”
By the time the paramedics arrive, the office is in turmoil. The high-flying Signor Romano says he feels as if he’s paralysed from head to foot and refuses to leave his chair.
It isn’t easy to move me, because I’m completely stiff. The only thing I seem to be able to move is my mouth, I keep shouting at the paramedic, “Be careful! What’s happening to me? Somebody explain what’s happening to me!”
It’s so embarrassing. I hear Elena stammering something about my being taken ill. “He was perfectly normal, then suddenly he became someone else. I can’t explain it to you, he scared me.”
Even the director has come running to help me, if his indignant air could be called helpful. Maybe he’s only trying to imagine the consequences for our business of my being paralysed. “I have to go, keep me up to date with his condition,” he says quickly before turning his back on me.
Barbara’s here, too. She doesn’t seem upset, only curious. She asks the paramedic for more information, then starts looking me up and down. Every time I give a spasm of pain, she just curls her lips and raises her eyebrows. “My God,” she comments at a certain point, “if it was only stress it’d be worrying.”
Elena has joined Paola, the switchboard operator, in the reception area and they’ve started chatting, I recognize their voices as I’m taken outside on a stretcher.
“You know you’ve lost weight,” Elena is saying to her in a decidedly more relaxed tone.
“And you’ve done something to your face, you look better. Come on, tell me the truth, you know you can tell me… Oh my God, poor man. Let’s hope he gets better soon.”
In the ambulance, I gradually recover my strength: the pain wears off, leaving me with a slight feeling of pins and needles.
“It’s passed,” I tell the paramedic, making an attempt to stand up. I can’t bear the thought of ending up in hospital.
“Calm down now… In a few minutes you’ll be seeing a doctor.”
“Maybe you didn’t understand what I said, I feel much better, I don’t want to see a doctor, I don’t want to go to hospital. I’ll contact my GP, you just have to take me home now.”
I grab him by his coat, but he pulls my hand away and tries to keep me on the bed. It’s one against two, and they’re a lot stronger than I am.
“Just calm down,” he says
again, “there’s no reason for you to get excited now.”
“Listen, I’m telling you for the last time: let me out of here!”
“It’s not as simple as that. Once we’ve got to the emergency department you can talk to whoever you need to, I’m not authorized to let you out of this vehicle.”
With a final effort, I manage to grab him by the collar and scream, “Let me out, you son of a bitch!” My rage is uncontrollable, and this time the paramedic doesn’t just hold me down on the bed, he gets his colleague to inject something into my veins, maybe a sedative.
“It’s against the law…” I mutter, then I go completely limp and subside into a confused state.
I could never have imagined that this new accelerated perception of time might actually be a good thing. But the nightmare I’m living through seems to burn itself out quickly, and in no time at all I find myself lying on a bed in the emergency ward, while a bespectacled young doctor shines a light in my eyes and asks me to open my mouth wide.
“Can you speak?”
“I think so…” I reply, trying to move my sore tongue.
“What’s your name?”
“Svevo. Svevo Romano.”
“Good evening Svevo, I’m Dr Paoli. You were brought in because you weren’t feeling at all well. Can you describe what happened?”
“What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock in the evening. Why are you so concerned with the subject of time? When you were semi-conscious, you kept saying over and over that you didn’t have time. Are you afraid of being late for something?”
I don’t trust this fellow. He’s probably only just graduated.
“Just forget it.”
“I’d really like you to tell me,” he insists. “You’ll feel better, you’ll see.”
I give him a hesitant glance, then decide to try to trust him. “I don’t have any more time to live,” I confess. “I have the sensation that everything is going too fast. It’s time that’s going too fast. Is that possible?”
The doctor raises his eyebrows, and a disorientated expression comes into his eyes. “We’ll do a few tests, but in my opinion you had a panic attack. Brought on by stress, I’d say. What kind of work do you do?”
I shake my head, disappointed. “I’m an executive, but that’s not the point.”
“And how many hours a day do you work?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, I have no idea.”
He does the textbook thing and advises rest.
“I can go to my GP to have the tests done,” I tell him as I get dressed. “Just tell me where I have to sign to get out of here.”
“Are you in a hurry to get home?”
“Believe me, you would be, too, if you were in my position.”
“And what is your position?”
“I told you, I’m someone who doesn’t have any more time.” I doubt I’ll ever see him again. I don’t want ever to come back here. It’s a purgatory, with a smell of medicine impregnating your clothes and a line of white coats parading back and forth along antiseptic corridors. They look like angels, but they’re cold, distant, always ready to announce some dreadful news.
Through my exhausted body, time is merely a rapid, meaningless ticking. The end is knocking at the door, I haven’t been able to handle it, it’s brought me to my knees. Like a deadly cancer, You’ve taken possession of every cell of my existence. All I can do is surrender. And yet I feel an odd kind of strength growing inside me. The strength to say I’ve had enough, I need to get away from the office for a while. I have to take charge of what remains of my life.
9
ON THE FIRST DAY of my forced holiday, I thought I could do at least a few of the things I’d been putting off for more than a month. I wanted to go to the barber and then do a bit of shopping, but in the end I couldn’t help putting everything off again. I need another coffee, it’s my fourth today, I never even used to like it, but in the end I put that off, too, I’m just too exhausted and spend all day sprawled on the sofa, wearing only my pants.
Six hours fly by even more quickly when you just sit there in front of the television, not even managing to follow the plot of the film you’re watching. The end credits arrive and I can’t even remember the name of the main character. I have no idea when I’ll get back to the office, the director asked Elena to persuade me to extend my leave indefinitely. I’m not bothered, the thing uppermost in my thoughts is the hallucinations. That old lady who looked like my secretary, my car in ruins: they were both so real.
I’ve made an appointment with De Santis, my GP. He’s expecting me tomorrow morning, he told me over the phone that he’d like to do an EEG, possibly a scan. He wouldn’t commit himself to a premature diagnosis, though he did say it might be a brain problem, perhaps a lesion. I assume my dissolute style of life has something to do with it, I shouldn’t have overindulged in alcohol and drugs the way I have. I’m starting to see a lot of things in a new light. This apartment, for example, my beautiful penthouse of which I’ve always been so proud, courtesy of a top designer: I used to be crazy about all these weird things I spent a fortune on, but now these paintings and sculptures with their twisted shapes disturb me. They all seem like the decor for a nightmare.
At the end of the day, habit gets the better of me and I switch my mobile phone on again.
Predictably, it immediately starts ringing.
It’s a withheld number. If I knew who was calling, I might not reply.
“Yes?”
“Svevo, it’s Federico.”
A brief silence follows. “Why are you withholding your number?”
“At least you replied. What’s going on with you? You don’t pick up your phone, you don’t answer my messages. You’ve dropped out of sight. You don’t even go to the gym any more. They told me you almost died in the Turkish bath. Should I be worried?”
“Goodbye, Federico.”
“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Well, for a start, how are you?”
It’s incredible how many how are yous I’ve heard over the past month, all uttered in the same indifferent tone. But Federico’s how are you is by far the most irritating.
“I’ve had a lot of work to do, we’re about to finalize an important contract.”
“Gaëlle has been trying to call you, too, she says you never answer, not even at work.”
What do they still want from me? Are they hoping I’ll give them my blessing? Or now that I’m out of the running, is everything too open and above board and therefore less exciting?
“Why, has she phoned you?”
Federico is good at evading the question. “She’s coming to Italy next weekend. She called me to find out if I’d heard from you. We want to organize something, Claude Reinardt is DJ’ing at the Premium on Friday. How about dinner? Matteo and the others want to see you, too.”
I feel like telling him to go to hell, but I hold back, I have to conserve my energy for more important battles. “I doubt I can make it, I’m otherwise engaged. A work commitment.”
“Aren’t you getting too stressed out with your work? What should I tell Gaëlle if she calls me? Maybe we can go and then you can join us later, if that’s OK with you…”
If we were actors, this dialogue alone would deserve an Oscar nomination. “OK with me? Why shouldn’t it be? Yes, I’ll join you later if I can.”
Someone has knocked at my door, what impeccable timing.
“I really have to go now.”
“OK, bye. Hope to see you Friday.”
What I hope is never to have anything to do with him again. I quickly slip on a dressing gown and go to open the door. I recognize her from her ponytail. She’s put dark lipstick on and is wearing a pair of white patent-leather boots that make me think of a Japanese manga character, one of those porno nurses ready to take off their clothes at the drop of a hat. It’s Donatella, my masseuse.
“Oh
my God, am I disturbing you? Don’t you remember? We were supposed to be having dinner together tonight.”
With everything that’s happened, I’d completely forgotten. “Of course,” I say, trying to hide my embarrassment. “But… didn’t we say nine o’clock?”
“I know, you’re right, I’m a little bit late. But to say sorry I’ve brought a bottle of wine, it’s the kind you really like.”
I have nothing to eat in the apartment and it’s already 9.30. I should never have invited her to dinner. It was my cock speaking.
“I’m afraid I’m a bit unprepared… You know, I haven’t been well. I fell asleep a few hours ago and there’s nothing ready. Shall we go to a restaurant?”
“No, what’s the big deal, I’ll make us a little something, you know I like cooking.”
“Are you sure?”
Her smile tells me that for her, the question of food is of secondary importance tonight.
“You know what we’ll do, then? I’ll go and take a shower and leave you completely free in the kitchen, what do you think?”
“I don’t think I can wait to have you taste a little delicacy of mine.”
I’m still in the shower when Donatella comes and knocks at the door of the bathroom. “Everything OK, Svevo?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, I’ll be right there.”
“All I found in the cupboard was a tin of tomatoes,” she tells me through the door. “I’ve made you some spaghetti.”
“Good for you.”
I haven’t even managed to wash the shampoo out of my hair.
We finish eating, me as quickly as I can, and I barely have time to put my fork down on the plate when I find myself swept up by her enthusiasm. She’s even more exciting naked than clothed. Soft and scented, she’s dying to have me inside her. It strikes me that a bit of healthy sex might help to distract me.
We collapse onto the sofa. She loosens her hair, laughing as happily as a child, but when she sits astride me she reminds me of one of those calendar pin-ups and I get very hard. I enter her with the haste of an animal, I move back and forth in a wild, primitive rhythm, desperate to come as quickly as possible, to empty myself of my anxieties, but I can’t do it, because she gets tired almost immediately, she becomes passive and yielding, and makes me feel like a rapist. “No, no more,” she begs me, wriggling out of my arms. “Are you on something tonight?”
About Time Page 7