This sleeping together, what a mistake: a habit that casts out the foundations of solitude and prepares one for the chill of when the other opens the door and leaves.
I remained in the dark all night, in the bed, besieged by a parade of pale shades. Mario talking, Mario laughing, Mario in each of his charming gestures. My sisters and my mother had immediately liked him. My father hadn’t, my father merely said a few cold words. For a while I was afraid that he was really hostile, but he was only timidly aloof, then he seemed to get used to him, as if to an annoying obstacle that you automatically avoid in order not to bump your forehead.
I wasn’t sorry about that indifference; I didn’t much love my father, ever since I was a child I had felt him as an intruder who gave off a heavy odor of the fish market, sordidly alien to the good smells of the family. Better that he should have little to do with Mario. Better, in fact, that Mario should have nothing to do with any of my relatives. I didn’t like that my mother, in emotional tones, often praised his blue-green eyes, and she began to talk about the identical color of her father’s eyes, her older brother’s, her grandfather’s. I liked Mario’s eyes a lot, but it irritated me that she brought them back to herself, to her own family. I had hazel eyes and sometimes, when I saw Mario coddled by all the women in the house, I felt excluded, I feared that, starting with my eyes, he, too, would feel that I was repulsively alien to my mother’s attractive lineage. I decided to keep him away from my house, in fact I planned to leave it soon; it was a plan I had harbored for a long time, ever since I’d dreamed of abandoning the whole family one night and going to live with the dark-eyed Gypsies.
We had our first sexual relations at his parents’ house, in silence, in his room, which in its disorder resembled a storeroom. We were both inexperienced. He couldn’t penetrate me, I pretended it was nothing but I felt only that it hurt. At a certain point he knelt on the bed, gently spread my legs, and examined my sex like an engineer, as if he were making calculations. Afterward he lay down again and began to push the tip of his sex against mine, helping with his hand and asking, in an always polite whisper: Am I hurting you? I said no and suffered. When finally he entered me, I hugged him hard so that he would feel my gratitude. He never got angry, he didn’t blame me, and for that, I realized, I truly loved him and would love him my whole life.
We married two years later, and in time we gained sufficient experience with our genitals. I taught him to caress me for a long time, he was patient and skillful. Reflecting on it now, I loved—more than his thin, adolescent body with its pale skin, more than his slender sex, elegantly erect—his obedient willingness, the domestic flavor he had, the odor. I yielded to his arms as if they were a garment of early childhood and I had become a girl again while remaining miraculously adult, without even the annoying obligation to act like a child. I contributed diligently to his pleasure, I welcomed him inside me, I let him heave with his unexpectedly fierce thrusts. But what truly bound me to that tense body, eagerly desiring me, was the impression of sweet drowning that it gave me, as if his thrusts had propelled me into the hot blood inside my own veins.
For three years I took little notice of the attentions of men of any age, they were like the indecipherable gestures of shadows on walls, there was only Mario. Then I met the brother of a woman I knew, someone who worked at a newspaper. He generally expressed himself with a cultured sarcasm, but in my presence he became abruptly distracted. Knowing he liked me made me like him, yet I never thought of him as a possible lover. Still, I began to want him to want me. I made no effort to see him more often, but when I knew I might see him I took special pains with my appearance, and to run into him, to feel his silent passion, provoked in me an ill-contained joy. I had coffee with him and noticed his unease if he barely grazed me or his pleasure if he made me laugh. Once he tried to kiss me, I pushed him away with disgust. He said he loved me, he seemed to have understood that I felt something for him. I answered that I felt nothing, and he became depressed, he mumbled that I had led him on. For a while he continued to insist, I continued to dress up for him; I didn’t like giving up that game. Then he got tired of it, he made a point of not running into me, I forgot his existence. Sometimes, however, I went back to the café where that attempt at a kiss had taken place, tasting a melancholy residue of emotion.
In bed now, in the vast marriage bed, I said to myself that if I wanted to understand why Mario had left me I should think back to the pleasure of slight flirtations like that, with no consequences, a harmless, frivolous pleasure that lightened the days. Maybe for him, too, it had begun like that, I should accept the fact, understand the normality of his betrayal from the norm of my games of seduction. But why had he crossed the line whereas I hadn’t? I reflected. There are those who stop and those who don’t, and we can’t understand what sets us off down the slope and what blocks us. Over the years my occasions for little flirtations multiplied, and they became a secret vice, I knowingly sought them in order to repeat the sensation they gave me of a full life. When they began, I got from them greater consideration for myself, I suffered less from my duties as a wife and mother who no longer worked, they made me feel like reading, studying, writing again. Above all, I suddenly marveled at what I looked like, my mouth, eyes, breasts; I went to the hairdresser more often, bought new underwear and clothes. Time was marked by occasional encounters with my current admirer, men who were charming and so charmed me, never sought out, at most encouraged by the sum of circumstances—the presentation of a book, a party I decided to go to only because I knew he would be there. In those circumstances even sensitivity was as if heightened. If in the course of a walk or a drive a passionate phrase crossed the smell of burned stubble or simply of gas in the traffic, the burning, the gas that ran from the pump to fill up the tank began to excite me even when the possible lover had ended in nothing, without real events.
Once only I let myself be kissed and during the kiss I didn’t push away the hand that pressed on my shirt, sought me under my skirt. I crossed that threshold not out of desire but because I felt sorry for the man. He was the owner of a big bookstore in the center. He had the sly, complacent eyes of one who is always joking with the clerks, and it was clear that he considered them happy recipients of his good humor as the boss. But in a short time his passion for me made him serious, he was constantly trying to achieve a depth of feeling and thought for which he had no aptitude. That evening he seemed worn out by the unfulfilled desire that I roused in him. We were in the car, on a street not far from my house, and I was afraid that Mario would come back from work, that some neighbor might see me. I didn’t feel well, I had a sore throat, maybe the flu. His rough tongue in my mouth disgusted me, it seemed salty, acid with tobacco. I asked myself why I was with him, a stranger, why what was happening was happening, my whole body felt empty, empty of words and feelings. Yet, incongruously, in perceiving that dispiriting emptiness, I felt a pleasant excitement that embarrassed me. I said in a hurry that I had to go, I opened the door and ran off. When I came in Mario was already home, dinner wasn’t ready, I began cooking. I had in my mouth the repulsive taste of that man, in my nostrils his odor of tobacco, and I was angry because the revulsion clashed with a lasting sexual excitement. As soon as I could I went to the bathroom to wash off the nicotine, Mario didn’t smoke, nor did I. I rubbed my teeth with a lot of toothpaste, over and over. I took a shower, I went to bed, but the excitement didn’t pass. I wasn’t even lying down when Mario put his hand under my nightgown to touch my sex. I had a rash reaction, I jumped up, I began attacking him with harsh words of disdain for that lack of respect. I stared into his blue-green eyes, which usually filled me with emotion. Instead I felt a sudden revulsion for that family color, as if he belonged to the genealogy of my blood and that made him repugnant. Mario was stunned, he didn’t understand, I didn’t understand, either. I was wrong, I knew it, and yet I felt absolutely certain that I was right. I felt a fierce rage at his attempt to touch me with
that invasive gesture, and the fact that it was a long-standing habit, that he did it every night before going to sleep, like a kind of good night, made me even angrier. I had no privacy, then, I was exposed to a sort of permanent control of emotions. It was intolerable, I couldn’t calm down. It seemed to me that he had no right to intrude, I was sure in that moment that it was right to defend the secrecy of the body’s reactions, my life was my life.
Mario said nothing, he withdrew in confusion. I went furiously into the kitchen to make a tisane. The next day the bookseller looked for me, he was no longer on the verge of profound thoughts, he joked and laughed lightheartedly, he seemed sure that after that kiss, after his hands on my shirt, under my skirt, everything was clear between us, now he had only to find a way of giving a satisfying outlet to our passion. He was amazed, he smiled, incredulous, when I told him that I didn’t feel that need and coldly said that I hadn’t liked his kiss, I didn’t really like anything about him. He didn’t believe me, he harassed me for days, for months. I stopped seeking opportunities to meet, and finally he resigned himself. I didn’t see him again.
But the yearning to be courted soon returned. The darkest story was recent, it had involved the husband of a colleague of Mario’s. It happened a year after our first marital crisis. I was depressed, I despised my mediocrity, the children especially were exhausting. Since I went around the house with a mournful air that was unbearable to me especially, Mario, maybe to distract me, maybe to avoid staying alone with me, began a crowded program of dinners to which he invited methodically all his colleagues at the university. He cooked, he had the children help him, making it a game, I confined myself to the role of mistress of the house and at most I cleared the table with an empty head, reluctantly putting pots and plates in the dishwasher late at night.
Everything changed the night Cecilia came. She was a very cultured, stylish woman in her fifties, she wore beautiful lapis-lazuli earrings, and had deep eyes, a woman for whom Mario had so much respect that he became tongue-tied. I didn’t know her except through the devoted stories of my husband, but just seeing her I felt a great emotion. I liked everything about her, I was moved that she immediately talked to me in a tone of genuine interest, so that, surprised at myself, I began to talk to her easily about the work I had done in the past, the book I had written, how I felt trapped, hopeless.
Her husband arrived later. He was an architect from Ferrara transplanted to Turin and worn down by endless obligations. The same age as Cecilia, he was tall and very thin, with a thick blond beard that must once have been red, brusque manners, words that verged on the offensive. Ernesto—his wife said in a low tone as soon as he began to laugh too loudly—the children are sleeping. And he recomposed himself immediately, turned to me as if he suddenly really saw me, gave me the look of someone thinking, Who gives a damn about the children, smiled and apologized with a hint of mockery—just enough to let me imagine a phantom showing the false respect of a male who is amused by feigning women’s gestures.
For a little while, the evening progressed haltingly. Mario in Cecilia’s presence lost his brilliance, and everything he said sounded stupid or ingenuous, becoming an occasion for Ernesto’s teasing. As for me, encouraged by Cecilia’s serene indulgence, and perhaps to make a good impression on her and feel her approval, I began to express opinions that I didn’t even know I had but that her engaging manner drew gently to the surface. A sentence, two, three, and the climate changed. Ernesto began to be interested in everything I said, he laughed, shaking his narrow chest, he was moved to tears if an idea seemed clever to him, he kept repeating to Mario, with the clear intention of humiliating him: You don’t know what you’re saying, your wife has a fine mind, you don’t. Cecilia smiled and murmured, Ernesto.
Our dinner was followed by a dinner at their house. I had no desire to go, I was afraid that Ernesto with his exaggerated compliments would make fun of me. But that evening I took a long shower, and under the thick, aggressive needles of water I found that I wanted to put an end to the mysterious melancholy I had been feeling. As I dried my hair I felt again the sudden desire to choose a dress, a pair of shoes, a new way of doing my makeup. Ernesto paid little attention to my beauty, but his wife was full of compliments, and I discovered that I had dressed up just for that praise, the praise of a refined woman, whose sparely furnished house was utterly suited to her cultivated taste.
All evening I talked only to her, in a low voice. Her husband persisted in humiliating Mario, fiercely, tactlessly; then, abruptly, he offered him well-paying work as a consultant on a job he was doing. We toasted it. I noticed for the first time Ernesto’s figure next to Cecilia’s. It seemed to me that that closeness cast him in the proper light, as it did the clothes she wore, the furniture she surrounded herself with, the books she talked about. Suddenly I found myself thinking that if Cecilia had been with that man for so many years, that man must possess a hidden refinement, a way of being that fit hers. I observed him more closely, secretly. He had a naturally elegant bearing, long hands, his lean face had managed to hold off the years. As a couple they seemed like the pair of pans on an old scale: he very lively and aggressive, always up, she tolerant, maternally watchful, pushing down.
From then on the two appeared more frequently at our house; Ernesto always had something about the job to discuss with Mario. He would come in and immediately start shouting something derisory at him, he kissed me on the cheeks, sometimes on the neck, as if because of a poorly controlled movement of the lips, then he paid no attention to me and instead angrily, bitterly quarreled with my husband. I willingly talked to Cecilia, but I soon felt that Ernesto’s lack of attention, and the fact that, even in the middle of the most heated discussion, he was quick to pick up the slightest signal given by his wife, irritated me, wounded me, made me feel insignificant. I came to hate that indifference, I was afraid that it undermined me in the eyes of that serene woman I wanted to please, whose respect I sought. I felt better only when he took up something I had said and, interrupting his discussion with Mario, looked at me with curiosity, exclaiming: Here is a beautiful woman who knows how to think.
I decided to react. I began to look through the papers to find public occasions at which Ernesto and his wife might possibly be present. Suddenly it became indispensable to me that that man should notice me, be aware of my virtues, realize that I had interests and thoughts no different from those of him and his wife. Gradually, following a practice that was by now familiar, I began to go to the places where I might meet them, taking great care with how I looked, in case of that eventuality. Sometimes they were there, sometimes not. When they were, he greeted me with an ostentatious gesture, pointed to where his wife was seated, shouted my name in the midst of a speech by one of the presenters without caring that he embarrassed me. If, instead, they weren’t there, I sat down, listened to boring programs, scanned the entrance and the audience, left in disappointment.
Then Mario had to go to a conference on Lake Garda with Cecilia. He asked halfheartedly if I would go with him, and I decided to only when he said that Cecilia hoped I would, that Ernesto was busy, and couldn’t come. I was flattered by that request, we made an arrangement for the children, we left. But soon that decision seemed a mistake. Mario and Cecilia were full of engagements, surrounded as they were by an aura of admiration. Cecilia especially was constantly the center of attention, she spoke in calm authoritative tones, always winning approval. I soon felt like a shadow, a houseplant.
The second day, to our surprise, Ernesto appeared; he was very cheerful, and his good humor made him seem younger. He had gotten rid of his obligations, he declared that he would not spend a single minute in the conference hall, not even to listen to Cecilia’s report or Mario’s speech, and he carried me off, to the café, the restaurant, insisting: the two of us are not made for that foolishness. Unlike Mario, he was curious about everything, entertained by opposition, the enemy of silence and dead time. I felt in the two day
s that followed an intense pleasure in dressing and making myself up for him, crossing my legs under his gaze, feeling his arm under my arm. I quickly saw that he liked me, that he had come not for his wife but purposely for me. I got a sensation of power, more violent than in those paltry previous affairs.
After that our relations intensified. When we were with people we knew and went for a walk or to the movies or a restaurant, I always managed to place myself next to Ernesto, worrying every time that I would end up walking with Cecilia and see him talking to other women; often I grabbed Mario by the arm and, without him noticing it, pushed him toward Ernesto so that he would see me and remember me. I maneuvered, in short, to attract his attention, to meet his gaze, to sit next to him, and the fact that he never visibly did the same, that in fact he often indulged in raucous laughter with very complacent women, made me suffer. Then I was excessively attentive to how I looked, sometimes I forced myself to be brazen. Mario never noticed anything. Only at a certain point Cecilia began to treat me with polite coolness and that grieved me, as if there had been a misunderstanding. Once she seemed to look at me even when her gaze was turned elsewhere, not with her eyes but with her earrings, pupils under the fleshy lobes of her ears. She’s jealous, I said to myself with sincere regret and an embarrassing hint of satisfaction, is it possible that a woman experienced in the world, so refined, could be jealous of me?
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