I Was Waiting For You (19 page)

In the small of her back, there was the tattoo of a Chinese ideogram, which Cornelia was unable to recognise. She should have asked her, but she didn't.

She still had a million questions for Sarah, but none could travel the tortuous journey from her brain cells to her lips.

“Touch me,” Sarah pleaded.

It was her turn to give orders.Topping from below?

Hesitantly, Cornelia moved an arm forward, brushed her fingers against one of the younger girl's shoulders. Her skin felt damp. But electric. She slowly moved upwards, sliding her fingers through the short ash blonde hair. Like a journey through silk.

She noted one of the more prominent bruises on Sarah's body, a soiled few square inches of skin between her navel and her cunt where the skin had almost broken and still waltzed between dark tones of black and a borderline crater of yellow. She tenderly touched her there. The softness was divine. She perversely pressed harder.

“Does it hurt?” Cornelia asked.

“No,” she replied.

Her fingers lingered over the flatness of Sarah's lower stomach, bathing in the nearby heat emanating in concentric circles from her sexual opening outwards. The pink gash was short and as straight as a ruler, highlighted by her depilation. Cornelia had witnessed a variety of shaven cunts in the clubs where she had worked, but it was the first time she had been allowed to look at one so close, so long. Is that what I look like, she wondered?

“Not him,” Sarah said. “Others.”

“More than one?”

“Yes.”

“I see,” that was all Cornelia could prosaically say in the circumstance.

“I don't mind,” Sarah said.

“Really?”

“You can, too, if you so wish.” Sarah was inviting her to hurt her, defile her, mistaking the confused signals Cornelia was putting out.

“I'm not that sort of girl, you know.”

“How do you know?” she responded, with the bare hint of a smile on her lips, as she glanced over at the dead body by the door.

“I just know,” Cornelia answered.

“Anything you wish to do,” Sarah suggested. “I'm available, I'm here, I'm yours for the taking, any way you wish. I won't scream.”

As she said that, all Cornelia's imagination could conjure was the image of the young girl willingly being punched and whipped by other men, while she carefully kept silent and tears rolled down her cheeks.

How could she enjoy it, she wondered?

“You know I can't,” Cornelia finally said. Then added “But you are indeed very beautiful. Really.”

The nude girl sighed.

“Do it now, then.”

But Cornelia knew she couldn't shoot her. Not like this. Not after seeing the wonder and questions of her nude body, feeling the tremor of life and softness coursing through her skin, the unknown history buried inside her soft southern voice.

If she shot her, it would be showing her total disrespect, assimilating her to that piece of shit now dripping dark blood over there by the door across the hotel room flooring. And whose bowels had undignifyingly now opened.

She deserved better.

Cornelia nodded to her, indicating the window that opened onto South Figueroa Boulevard. Sarah's eyes questioned her silently. Cornelia blinked once and she understood.

The flight of her naked body through the air was not unlike the dance of a butterfly in the summer breeze, weightless and beautiful, as she swam towards the ground in seemingly slow motion, fluttering her invisible wings, the bruises like a kaleidoscope of colours inked across her white skin, floating, smiling.

Cornelia looked away before she hit the ground.

She was now waiting for the long Californian night to end so she could catch the first flight back, wasting the remaining hours of darkness in an almost empty bar called Phillies. The couple across from here were still communicating in total silence.

Not long to go.

She had a bit of a cramp, a muscle giving her grief in her right shoulder, maybe caused by the recoil of the gun earlier. She must be getting older, no longer properly absorbing the reverse shock wave in her gun arm. She shifted imperceptibly in the high stall and across her shoulder she saw a man outside in the street sketching on a pad. For him, she guessed, we must be bathed in an eerie pool of light and an image worth remembering, just anonymous shapes in a composition of light and darkness. Not unlike an Edward Hopper painting. He was quite tall and balding, an imposing man with a Patrician allure.

As Cornelia turned around a bit more to look into his eyes, the sketch artist drew a final flourish on his pad and, satisfied, closed it and began to walk away, almost immediately melting into the night's surroundings.

Cornelia adjusted her position on the bar stool, took another sip from her now lukewarm glass of water.

When morning came, she left the all-night bar and walked up the Boulevard in search of a cab, like a night ghost fading into day.

J
ACK'S BUDGET FLIGHT LANDED
at Fiumicino. It was a hot, humid summer day.

Even though he held a CEE passport, the uniformed border officer at immigration control looked up and actually asked him whether he was visiting Rome for business or pleasure. As inquisitive as an American airport official.

“Sentimental reasons,” he answered, and was then allowed through with no further comment.  

Maybe the border guard had been bored or something, as he had never been asked any such question on the occasion of his previous, numerous visits.

He had only hand luggage so went straight through into the main terminal's arrivals hall and made a beeline for the car-hire desks. He had no need for anything fast or fancy in the way of transport, but he still had to convince the rental clerk that he actually did prefer a car with manual gearshift rather than an automatic. Habits die hard. After filling in the necessary forms and signing in all the dotted places, Jack was handed the keys to a dark blue Fiat and given the directions to the parking lot where it was kept.

He walked out into the midday sun and looked around. On his last time here, Giulia had been waiting, with her usual both wanton and joyfully innocent smile, wearing a white skirt and carrying a huge canvas bag embroidered with sunflowers, an accessory she'd bought six months earlier in Barcelona and which made her look like a schoolgirl rather than a full-grown woman. Three years ago already.

He settled into the driver's seat, keeping the door open for a few minutes to allow the heat to escape from the car's interior before the air-conditioning kicked in, while his feet got the measure of the pedals, getting himself accustomed again to driving a car on the opposite side of the road, and having the steering wheel on the left-hand side of the car. It always took a little acclimatisation, however many times he had to rent cars abroad.

And finally, he drove off towards the city. Considering it was the main road connecting Rome to one of its major airports, there was something old-fashioned and narrow about this road which made him think of all the legions of Caesar and past emperors and despots who'd in all likelihood marched down these avenues upon returning or departing for battle many centuries before. No modern highway this, more of a cobblestone alley in places, with twin ramparts of trees on either side and occasional low stone walls pouring with ivy, possibly erected long before even the Mussolini era.

It was as if the twenty-first century hadn't yet broken through here despite the gleaming modern cars racing up and down the road, all splendidly oblivious to any hint of a speed limit. Jack was in no real hurry and, irritated by his leisurely pace, some of the other drivers would hoot at him repeatedly.

He'd found a room on the Internet in a small residential hotel close to Piazza Vittorio Emmanuelle II. It was a quiet side street and easy to park, even though he wasn't sure if the parking space he had chosen was illegal or not. At any rate, he couldn't be bothered about parking tickets and was confident the Fiat wouldn't be towed away since it wasn't blocking anyone, and many other local vehicles were lined up on the same side of the street. The hotel was situated on the fourth floor of a massive apartment building and suited him fine: a clean, spacious if somewhat Spartan place, just a reception desk manned by a young student busy revising her exams, she informed him, and a small breakfast salon at the other end of the corridor. Jack didn't require anything more. There were bars all across the city, and anyway he wasn't much of a drinker. Never had been. More taste than principle, even if he found that some people gossiped behind his back back in London, and he was often suspected of being an ex-alcoholic. Print the legend, he thought; it's miles more glamorous than the truth.

He changed into a clean shirt and walked toward Via Cavour and Stazione Termini. Here, the parcel he had ordered waspresent, as promised by Timbers, who had set it all up back in London when Jack had phoned him with his unusual request, left in the luggage locker he had been posted a key for the week before. The transaction had not proven cheap, but then again, money was now the least of his worries. The gun had been left at the bottom of a plastic Rinascente bag in which the seller had buried it, with no sense of irony, under a crumpled mess of seemingly used women's silk lingerie. This was not the ideal place to check the weapon out, but it appeared in good shape, and should contain six bullets. He would not require more. He treated himself to an espresso at one of the station's countless cafeteria counters and watched with melancholy how the two spoons of sugar drifted slowly towards the bottom of the small cup. Just the way espresso coffee should behave, he recalled her teaching him when they were still together. He sketched a wry smile for any curious onlookers. The coffee and sugar boost gave him a new sense of purpose, renewed his determination to see this all through.

He walked away from the bar and the busy train station and took the direction of the Campo dei Fiori, past the inescapable ancient monuments surrounded by wide-eyed tourists. Shortly after crossing the Piazza Vidoni, the Roman streets became quieter again, as if foreigners no longer ventured this far, beyond their self-circumscribed tourist enclave and he made his way down Corso Vittorio Emmanuelle II until he reached the Feltrinelli bookshop. He walked upstairs and ordered his second espresso of the day and a panini and sat at the edge of the shop's balcony watching the customers mill below as they picked up random books and browsed at their leisure. She had once written to him, a long time ago before they had even slept together and were still enjoying a mildly flirtful stream of e-mail communications, that this was her favourite spot in all of Rome to waste time, meditate, observe others, casually do her homework. On his fateful initial visit here, this was also the first place she'd taken him and they had spent an hour here, nervously silent most of the time, knowing that a few hours later they would be in bed together for the first time. He remembered every single moment – the perfume she had worn, the heat radiating from her white skin as their knees brushed against each other and she contrived to make her cappuccino last forever as if scared to move on to the next, concrete and physical stage in their affair.

He didn't expect to find her here today. She was now studying in a different area of the city, he'd found out,but still he had to come and visit the place again. Just in case. To commune with the past. To reopen old wounds. To feel the hurt inside. It was foolish, he knew, but if he had to march down this Calvary road of his own making, the Feltrinelli bookshop could not be avoided. The latest novel by Walter Veltroni and the Italian edition of the final Harry Potter book were piled high by the cash registers and staff kept on replenishing the displays on a steady basis. He'd sent her the English-language edition of the Rowling when it had appeared but by then they were no longer on speaking terms and she had not even thanked him or acknowledged the gift, one of many over the months they had known each other. The first book she had sent him as a gift was a collection of stories by Italo Calvino. Strange how he remembered every single, irrelevant detail.

Finally, his stomach reminded him he hadn't had a real meal since a dim sum in London's Chinatown the day before, so he left the bookshop and headed across the CorsoVittorio Emmanuelle II towards the Campo dei Fiori and the Pollarolla Restaurante where he had a pleasant memory of
fragole di bosco
with a fine dusting of sugar. Of course, he had also taken her there, once upon a time. Because of a stomach condition, she was not allowed to eat any spicy food, which Jack had always considered something of a tragedy. But the meal today,
insalata verde
and
risotto ai funghi
, could not feed the pain inside and later, as he walked back to his hotel, he made a detour by Stazione Termini and under cover of darkness surrounded by rushing commuters and loitering teenagers he slipped his left hand deep into the plastic bag he had now been carrying for half of the day and felt the hard grip of the gun down there. It felt real. By Stazione Termini Jack sat down and wept.

He woke up early.

Escaping the inevitable dreams of her, of them. The sheer epiphany of her body, the ever so subtle and patently unique colour of her nipples, the broadness of her smile, the terrible harshness of her words on the phone the last time he had called her, the luscious sound of her sigh every time he had penetrated her. The places they'd been, the things they'd said.

He always woke up early these days, maybe as an automatic reaction to the sleeping memories of her and the abominable pain they invariably inflicted on his soul.

He adjusted his eyes, wiped the night away and moved his right leg.

Yes, he was back in Rome.

Alone.

He passed on breakfast, picked up a map of the city from an older woman now manning the hotel's reception desk and, avoiding the lift and its ornate metal grille, walked down the stairs to the street and found his rental car. He hadn't been ticketed, after all. Small mercies.

Jack pulled the gun from the depths of the Rinascente plastic bag and moved it to the glove compartment. Not an ideal place to keep it, but there were few possible hiding places in the hotel room. He would just have to drive carefully and not attract undue police attention. The busy Roman traffic would help.

Before driving off, he phoned Alessandra, Giorgio and Marina and made appointments to see them separately throughout the day. They were all surprised to find out he was in Rome, but sounded happy enough to meet him.

With the festival organisers he gossiped freely about books and movies and cultural politics. As they always did when they met at events. It was amazing how buoyant they remained every single year in the face of mounting difficulties in obtaining funding, grants and sponsorship. Of course, they asked him why he was in Rome. “Just passing through”, he would answer, with a fake smile and this seemed to satisfy them. They embraced and made a vow to see each other again at the next festival and went their separate ways.

Alessandra knew a small
trattoria
in the Trastevere, concealed in a labyrinth of cobbled streets and small churches only a local could navigate with impunity and find a way out of again. Jack meekly followed her. Night was falling. Inside, he felt ever so empty. Following the break up with Giulia, he had almost once fallen into bed with Alessandra as both had been on the rebound from heart-shattering affairs. But it hadn't happened. They knew each other professionally, and she had also been aware of his relationship with Giulia, as they both freelanced for the same magazine. Maybe it was because neither Jack or Ale were sufficiently head over heels over the other, or maybe lacked the energy for purely recreational sex. Sometimes you want the tenderness and the feelings, and the physicality wasn't enough to conquer the inner thirst. At any rate, after a failed attempt at meeting up in Paris for a tryst, they'd both drifted apart, either to other adventures or, in Jack's case, his desert of loneliness. He expected nothing of tonight either. It was just a way of saying farewell to a friend. No less, no more.

The cuisine was Sicilian and for the first time ever he tried pasta with sardines, followed by great bowls of steamed shellfish, with a succulent sauce they both soaked up with freshly-baked local bread. The small piazza outside the restaurant was shrouded in darkness as he looked out of the windows of the restaurant, somehow expecting Giulia to walk by at any moment, like a revenant straight out of the past.

“Still thinking about her?” Alessandra asked. He had sometimes used her as a confidant .

“Yes,” he answered. “It's a sickness. I know. Don't tell me.”

“There's a character in Marquez's
Love in the Time of Cholera
who tries to cure himself of a case of unrequited love by later bedding 622 women,” she remarked, as if proposing a cure.

“It would feel too much like revenge,” Jack pointed out. “Anyway, it wasn't unrequited. I have pages and pages of e-mails, text messages and letters to prove it. And I know every square inch of her body at rest and play, every obscene crease and every single silky surface, intimately,” he said.

“You always had a wonderful way with words …” Alessandra sighed.

“But now, words are insufficient,” he answered. “Powerless. She no longer answers my messages, won't ever listen to me, answer the telephone. She probably thinks I've gone mad. And she's probably right.”

“Did you come to Rome to try and see her?” Alessandra asked.

“No,” Jack said. “Oh, I don't know any more. Maybe I just came for myself …”

He offered to drive her back to her apartment on the other side of the river.

The car moved along the Tiberon the Lungotevere heading north. Even at this time of night, the traffic was thick. Alessandra insisted on smoking a cigarette. He opened his window and looked out. Across the river was an old-fashioned building, white and functional under the light of a three-quarter moon: the San Filippo Neri Hospital. A knot twisted inside his stomach – wasn't this where she had been born or where her father, the surgeon, worked? Or both?

Alessandra invited him up for a final coffee, but he declined.

“I have to get up early in the morning,” he said. It would have been pointless.

Back on his hotel bed, Jack prayed for sleep. When it finally came, hours later – the sounds of the Roman night punctuated by sirens and the odd boisterous laugh of passers-by in the street outside – it carried an ocean of despair and memories he just couldn't banish. It was a warm night and he kept on wiping away the sweat between his legs and under his chin, as he thrashed around feverishly between the crisp white sheets.

Even sleep was no longer a refuge.

Giulia lived in the hills behind the Stadio Olimpico.

He painfully managed to find his way there, manoeuvring the car with difficulty with an unfolded map on his knees and dodging cars that sped past him. She had pointed out the area to him when they had driven nearby on the way to secret places where they could fuck, but he had a hell of a time today finding his way past the Stadio Olimpico. Once in the hills, it was no better and he arrived at the top by mistake, enjoying a view of both central Rome and all the neighbouring hills he remembered from his history and Latin lessons all those years past. Oh, there was the Vatican. And there was the road that led out of town to the lake and Calcata, past the neglected area whose name he couldn't recall where, she had told him, prostitutes and low-life came out at night, then further down the road the RAI buildings. She had confessed to an unholy fascination with the whores there when she had been a troubled teenager and how she had always imagined what they were doing or how she would act if she were one.