Don't Move (10 page)

I had forgotten the joy of satiety. Forkful after forkful, I could feel that food doing me a world of good. The beer was almost out of my reach, and as I stretched out my arm for it, Italia moved her arm, too, maybe in an effort to help me. I touched the glass bottle, which was still cold from the refrigerator, and part of her hand, which was surprisingly warm and vibrant. It was an effort to move my hand away from hers. I would have liked to maintain that contact, and not just with her fingers. For a fraction of a second, I was seized by the desire to lay my forehead in that hand, so that it might help sustain the burden of my head. I poured myself some beer, clumsily, without paying attention to what I was doing, and it foamed up and overflowed.

Italia looked at the little puddle of foam spreading under my glass. There was a special light in her eyes; it suffused her skin and surrounded her face with a certain aura, quite delicate and deeply intimate. It seemed to me that she had grown suddenly sad. I followed that sadness past the shadows around her neck and down to her ribs, where I could glimpse her breasts. She saw what I was doing, grabbed the two sides of her robe, and held them together in front of her chest. Now she was in the light, in the dim light of the candle, and she watched me eat. She sat with folded arms, like a Cupid watching in the night.

I pulled over and stopped in front of the row of oleander bushes. The asphalt was sprinkled with sand. Through the bars of the entrance gate, which was standing ajar, I looked at the house, at its slate roof and its bright white walls, phosphorescent in the splendor of the newborn daylight. I didn’t go into the house at once; I stayed in the car and let the dampness penetrate me. Some time passed—I don’t know how much—maybe I dozed off. Elsa’s little runabout was parked under the thatched carport. Her body lay still on the bed, heedless of me. I gazed at things revealed by the dawn—the empty clothesline, our bicycles leaning on the wall.

As the light from the first rays of the sun intensified, so did the deep blue of the sky. In that polished air, everything was extremely visible. If the night had protected me, the daylight, in returning me to everyday things, restored me to myself. I stretched my neck, looked in the little rectangular mirror, and found my old face again. I needed a shave; the stubble of my beard had grown without my noticing it.

I got out of the car, followed along the fence, slipped into the canebrake, and came out on the beach. Nobody there; only the sea. I walked across the sand to the shoreline and sat down a few steps from the water on the last dry strip. The house was behind me. If Elsa had opened the bedroom window, she would have seen the back of me, a little dot on the beach. However, she was asleep. She may, perhaps, have been dreaming, searching for a different destiny, plunging into her dreams as precisely as when she dived into the ocean and disappeared, without so much as a splash, through a hole in the water.

Can the body love what the mind despises, Angela? That’s what I was thinking about as I drove back to the city. Once, I was in a peasant’s wine cellar. Because it would have been discourteous to refuse, I tried some of his special cheese, a
formaggio
di fossa
with a discolored, moldy rind and a cadaverous smell. Inside, to my great surprise, I discovered a flavor both violent and mild; and the aftertaste—the taste of a well, of great depth—caused me to feel longing and disgust, in equal measure, for that cheese and its sharpness.

It was six o’clock in the morning; I had a good while before I had to be back at work. I stopped for a coffee in the usual bar. I thought, This is going to be like returning to a brothel early in the morning to pick up your forgotten umbrella and discovering, instead of the prostitute who satisfied your desires last night, a woman wearing slippers, half-asleep and unattractive in every way.

She was surprised to see me. She stood in the doorway, stunned and smiling, and she didn’t even invite me inside before asking me, “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“This.”

“Come on in,” she said, taking one of my hands and pulling me into the house.

She’d stopped being afraid of me. All it took was a plate of spaghetti. She’d already absorbed me into her trashy normality, like the monkey in the poster, like the blind dog. The shutters on the window were open, so the morning light filtered into the room. The chairs were turned upside down on the table. Parts of the floor were still shiny and wet; Italia had already performed her housekeeping chores. She glowed with pride in a job well done; her eyes had the same luster as the floor. As for me, I was worn-out and discontented.

“Let me turn off the iron.” She walked over to the ironing board, which was standing open in a corner. A strip of sky blue cotton, perhaps part of an apron, hung down from the board. She was already dressed to go out, but she hadn’t yet put on her makeup. Her pale eyes caressed me. She could tell by my stubble, by my wrinkled jacket, that I hadn’t slept in a bed.

“Do you want to take a shower?”

“No.”

“Do you want some coffee?”

“I already had some at the bar.”

I sank down into the usual sofa. She started taking the chairs down from the table. Her hair was pulled back in a short, frazzled ponytail that bared her convex forehead. I searched my mind for the only image of her I wanted to conserve: her befuddled, submissive body. But there was too much distance between that image and the woman in front of me. Without makeup, the skin of Italia’s face was the color of dusty alabaster, reddening at the nose and under the eyes. And the black canvas sneakers she was wearing made her shorter than usual.

She came and sat down across from me. Maybe she was ashamed that I was seeing her unadorned, in her everyday housekeeping normality. She tried to hide her red hands, clutching one of them with the other. I thought she was much more attractive like this, much more dangerous. She was of an indefinite age, like a nun. And now her house put me in mind of one of those churches you find in seaside resorts: modern churches, without frescoes, with a plaster Jesus over the altar and artificial flowers standing in a vase without water. “Is this house yours?” I asked her.

“It was my grandfather’s, but he sold it before he died. I had come up here to give him a hand—he had a broken femur—and afterward I stayed on. But I have to get out soon.”

“Where are you from?”

“From down south. The Cilento.”

The dog crossed the room and lay down at Italia’s feet. She bent forward and stroked the fur on his head. “He was sick last night. Maybe he ate a mouse. . . .”

I approached the animal. When I palpated him, he didn’t resist; in fact, he stretched out on his back and spread his paws wide. And when my fingers pressed a painful area, he barely whimpered. “It’s nothing. All you need is some disinfectant.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“A surgeon.”

Her legs were there, just a few inches from me. I had to tug to spread them apart. I kissed her thighs, so white, they were almost blue. I shoved my head in the space between them. They were cold, despite their sweating. Italia bent over me. I could smell her breath; the back of my neck was wet from her mouth. I stood up suddenly, striking her face with my head, and sat down again on the sofa. I brought my hands together and squeezed one with the other, staring all the while at my knotty fingers. “I’m married,” I said.

I didn’t look at her. I sensed her over there, out of focus, at the very edge of my vision. “I won’t be coming here anymore. I came back to tell you that.” Her head was bent forward, and she had one hand on her nose. It occurred to me that I might have hurt her. “And also to apologize.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not the kind of man who goes around cheating on his wife.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

A stream of blood was flowing out of her nose. I stepped over to her and lifted her chin. “Hold your head back.”

“Don’t worry about it. Why do you worry so much?”

An inexpressive smile softened her face. So much indulgence made me feel as though I’d suffered a defeat. I thrust her chin away. I wanted to win; I wanted to beat her.

“Do you often screw people you don’t know?”

She didn’t get upset, but she’d received a blow. She began staring into space, placing her thoughts somewhere far away. Her eyes seemed to be made of paste, like the dog’s eyes. No, I didn’t have any right to insult her. I opened my hands and hid my face in them.
Tell me it’s not true. Tell me you writhe like
that only with me, only with me do you become gray and old, like
a dying snake. Only with me do you have the courage to die.
Heartbreaker had stolen one of her fuchsia slippers, and now he was holding it in his mouth without biting it. I said, “I’m sorry.”

But she wasn’t listening to me anymore.
Maybe she’ll kill
herself someday. Maybe she’ll remove herself from the world, not
for me, but for someone like me, for a predator that will swoop
down on her body with the same voraciousness, the same indifference.

“You have to leave,” she said. “I have to go to work.”

“What sort of work do you do?”

“I’m a whore.”

And now she was as empty as a sloughed-off snakeskin.

11

I’m thinking about that iridescent purple scarf you wind around your neck, Angela, the one you steal from your mother. It’s older than you are—the wool it’s made of resists the passage of time. We bought it in Norway.

When we took the ferry to the Lofoten Islands, she stayed inside, sipping her tea, her hands glued to the steaming cup, while I stayed outside on the deck, in spite of the frigid gusts of wind that were whipping up imposing waves. The ferry, which was cracked and chipped like the fjords disappearing from sight behind us, carried no tourists but ourselves. But it was packed with rough local people, fishermen and fish merchants. The air was white and windy; when I peered through it, I could make out nothing but the tumultuous sea. The change of colors and climate, the two sweaters I had on, and the odor of salted fish that rose up from the hold encouraged me to feel that I was a different man, as often happens when one is on vacation. I was happy to be alone, happy that the bad weather was keeping your mother inside. A sailor wearing an oilskin raincoat struggled past me along the rail. Shouting something incomprehensible, he pointed at the door to make me understand that I had better go back in. With water dripping into the neck of my sweater, I shook my head and smiled. “It’s okay,” I shouted in English.

He smiled, too. He was young, but his face already bore the marks of his windy profession. He stank of alcohol. Raising his arms to the sky, he cried out, “God! God!” and moved away toward the bow.

A bird lands next to me. It takes me by surprise—I didn’t see it coming. Its plumage is a dirty-looking color between gray and green; its webbed feet grip the iron rail like little hands, while its breast steadily rises and falls. It must have braved the rigors of a difficult flight to reach this floating perch. It looks like a strange cross between a kingfisher and a black swan, and there’s nothing gentle about it; in fact, it’s almost scary. It scrutinizes the sea with rapacious red-rimmed eyes, as though choosing a location for its next flight. It’s got a beak like a mythical bird, and there’s something human about those staring eyes. It sets me thinking: How is it that such a small creature accepts the unremitting challenge imposed on it by nature, while we retreat before a spray of seawater, we with our shoes and our sweaters? Why do we have so little courage?

I think your mother must have noticed something during that trip. I was silent and withdrawn on our long walks, and I could feel her eyes on my back as I moved a few steps ahead of her along one of the cliff-hanging paths overlooking the sea. But she never said anything. In the evenings, we sat close together, crowded by our fellow diners, at a single oblong table in a restaurant constructed of wood and red bricks. We ate fish and potatoes, washed down by a mug of beer. She would reach out her hand, place it on mine, and offer me one of her smiles, overflowing with warmth and grace. I let her gaiety capture me. I hugged her in the midst of those strangers, in that restaurant full of smoke and music.

And later, when I put my hands on her body again, I did it with absolute devotion; my lovemaking was uncharacteristically generous, and Elsa noticed. She repeated “I love you” again and again as she stroked my hair in the darkness. (Maybe she’d been frightened a few days earlier, when I’d insisted on taking her away from the beach house: frightened at the prospect of the two of us alone together.) Now I gently accompanied her, all the way to the last tremor, and then stretched out beside her. Gratified desire glazed her eyes like a resin. She reached for me with a nerveless arm. “How about you?”

I caught her hand and grazed her wedding ring with my lips. “I’m fine as I am.”

My member was already tiny, hidden between my thighs, useless as a little boy’s. She looked at me; the glaze on her eyes was thicker than before. Now I was expecting her to ask me something. She passed a reproving hand over my face, trying to alter my intense, needy stare. No, she had no desire to complicate that moment of total abandon, and shortly afterward, she fell asleep. I lay awake, staring at the wooden ceiling, with no regrets. I had led my wife over the rapids, down through the waterfall of my ghosts, and onto the warm sand, where pleasure flooded her. Now that she was at rest, I went for a walk along the cliffs. The next day, in a crystal morning, we went to a shop where a little woman stood in front of a big loom. Your mother chose violet and purple yarns and watched as the woman wrapped the strands around the beam of her loom. Elsa wore that scarf for the rest of our holiday, and she was fascinated night and day by its changing colors. That scarf became a part of our lives, forgotten for a while, then taken up again, until the day, Angela, when you wrapped it around your neck and permeated it with your fragrance.

At the end of our return trip, as soon as we landed, we found ourselves back in the blazing heat. Elsa left her suitcase in the living room, put on her bathing suit, and swam out to Raffaella. In those crucial August days, our seacoast town filled up indiscriminately, convulsively, with crowds of people, and everybody, including the grocer and the news dealer, was a little short on patience. There was only one bar that stayed practically empty, a shed with a jute roof and a few tables scattered on the sand. This place was on the mouth of the river, where the sea stank, so the beach was deserted—no swimmers, no sunbathers. The proprietor was one Gae, or so he called himself, an old boy with a body like the crucified Christ, wearing only a faded loincloth.

This bar was one of the casual discoveries of that summer. We’d walked along the seashore all the way to the mouth of the river. The shed was actually attached to a shop where boats were laid up and repaired—two oil-stained Poles were busy dismantling motors—and beyond that, the beach ended. Elsa found the shed depressing and not particularly clean; I agreed with her, but then I formed a habit of walking over there almost every day. If it was morning, I ordered a coffee and read the newspaper. If it was evening, Gae indulged himself in the preparation of thick, highly alcoholic aperitifs, which left you dazed after a few sips. There were never many people in the bar. The Poles would get drunk and talk too loud; Gae would sit at my table and offer me a joint, which I’d refuse. For some reason, I liked this place. The sea took on different colors there, maybe because of the seaweed growing on the bottom.

One afternoon, I found myself surrounded by a group of handicapped persons—some supported by crutches, some pushed in wheelchairs—who had appeared on the beach, their arduous progress marked by deep furrows behind them in the sand. They occupied the few tables in the little bar and ordered drinks. One of their minders pulled a radio out of a knapsack, and in the course of a few minutes, the place acquired the atmosphere of a rustic festival. An old woman with a possum’s face and fat sunburned shoulders began dancing on the sand.

I felt uneasy, so I got up and walked into the shed, intending to pay for my drink and leave. But then my eyes fell on a young man. He had the look of a half-wit, his exceedingly thin limbs were frozen in a spasm, and his fingers were spread apart like prongs. He was moving his head, insofar as he could, to the rhythm of the music, all the while gazing at his companion, who sat in her wheelchair and smiled at him with sharp, widely spaced teeth like those of a fish. She was a young woman; her face bore the signs of an obtuse, slow-moving life, and she was wearing a pair of plastic earrings. She stared back at her friend the spastic, returning his gaze so lovingly, it took my breath away. She paid no attention to his jerking movements; she looked him in the eyes. She loved him, she simply loved him. I had to hurry. The sun had already gone down, and Elsa was expecting me for dinner. I’d drunk at least half a glass of one of Gae’s deadly aperitifs, and I hoped to walk off its effects on the way home. But, with my elbow on the bar and a ten-thousand-lire bill in my hand, I thought that I would gladly leave my post in the ranks of the sound and the healthy to be looked at like that, the way that poor, damaged girl was looking at that spastic, at least once in my life. And it was then, my dear daughter, that Italia made a brief foray into my belly, traversing it like a submarine.