Involuntary Witness (2 page)

She was telling me that I had become a mediocrity and may have been one all along. And she had no wish to live with a mediocrity. Not any longer.

Like a real mediocrity, I found nothing better to do than ask her if there was someone else. She simply said no and that in any case, from that moment on, it was no business of mine.

Quite.

This conversation didn’t last long after that, and ten days later I was out of the house.

So, I was – politely – given the push, and my life changed. Not for the better either, though I didn’t realize this at once.

On the contrary, for the first few months I had a feeling of relief and, towards Sara, one that almost amounted to gratitude. For the courage that she had shown and I had always lacked.

In short, she had pulled my chestnuts out of the fire, as the saying goes.

I had so often thought that we couldn’t go on in that situation, that I ought to do something. I ought to take the initiative, find a solution, speak out honestly. Do something.

However, being a coward, I had done nothing, apart from grasping whatever clandestine chances had come my way.

Thinking it over, of course, the things she had said that morning stung me badly. She had treated me as a mediocrity and, like a little coward, I had taken it all lying down.

Actually, in the days that followed that Saturday, and in fact when I had already gone to live in my new home, I thought more than once of what I might have answered, just to keep some shred of dignity.

I thought of things such as “I don’t wish to deny my responsibility, but remember that the blame is never all on one side.” Things like that.

Luckily this happened only, as I say, some days later.
That Saturday morning I kept my mouth shut and at least avoided making myself ridiculous.

In any case, after a while I dropped all that and was left only with a few pangs, inside. Whenever I wondered where Sara might be at that moment, what she was doing and with
whom
she was doing it.

I was very good at anaesthetizing these pangs, quelling them quickly. I forced them back inside where they had come from, pushing them down, hiding them deeper.

For several months I lived a wild life, that of a born-again single. What they call life in the fast lane.

I kept outlandish company, went to fatuous parties, drank too much, smoked too much and all that.

I went out every evening. The idea of staying at home alone was intolerable.

Naturally, I had a few girlfriends.

I don’t remember a single conversation I had with any one of those girls.

In the midst of all this came the hearing to legalize our separation by mutual consent. There were no problems. Sara had stayed on in the flat, which was hers. I had tried to maintain a dignified attitude by refusing to remove any furniture, household appliances, and in fact anything except my books, and not all of those.

We met in the anteroom of the judge appointed by the court dealing with separations. It was the first time I had seen her since leaving home. She had cut her hair and had a slight tan, and I wondered where she might have gone to acquire her tan and with
whom
she might have gone to acquire it.

These weren’t pleasant thoughts.

Before I could say a word she came up and gave me a peck on the cheek. This, more than anything else, gave
me a sense of the irremediable. Just after my thirty-eighth birthday I was discovering for the first time that things really do come to an end.

The judge tried to persuade us to make it up, as he is obliged to by law. We were extremely polite and civil. Only Sara spoke, and even then very little. We had made up our minds, she said. It was a step we were taking calmly and with mutual respect.

I kept silent, nodded, and felt I was definitely playing a supporting role in the movie. It was all over very quickly, since there were no problems with money, property or children.

As soon as we left the judge’s room she gave me another kiss, this time almost at the corner of my mouth. “Ciao,” she said.

“Ciao,” said I, when she had already turned and was walking away.

“Ciao,” I said again to the air, after smoking a cigarette while slouching against the wall.

I left the law courts when I noticed the looks I was getting from passing clerks.

Outside it was spring.

Spring rapidly turned to summer, but the days still ran by all exactly the same.

The nights too were all the same. Dark.

Until one morning in June.

I was in the lift, just back from the law courts and on my way up to my office on the eighth floor when suddenly, and for no reason, I was seized by panic.

Once out of the lift I stood on the landing for God knows how long, panting, in a cold sweat, feeling sick, eyes riveted on a fire extinguisher. And full of terror.

“Are you all right, Avvocato?” The voice of Signor Strisciuglio, a former clerk in the Inland Revenue and tenant of the other apartment on my floor, was a little puzzled, a little worried.

“I’m all right, thank you. I’m completely out of my mind, but I don’t think this is a problem. And how are you?”

That’s a lie. I said I’d had a slight dizzy spell but that now everything was fine, thank you, good day.

Naturally, everything was not fine, as I would come to realize all too well in the days and months that followed.

In the first place, not knowing what had happened to me that morning in the lift, I began to be obsessed with the idea that it might happen again.

So I stopped using the lift. It was a stupid decision that only made matters worse.

A few days later, instead of recovering, I began to fear that I might be seized by panic anywhere, at any time.

When I had worried myself enough, I managed to bring on another attack, this time in the street. It was less violent than the first but the after-effects were even more devastating.

For at least a month I lived in constant terror of a fresh panic attack. It’s laughable, looking back on it now. I lived in terror of being assailed by terror.

I thought that when it happened again, I might go mad and perhaps even die. Die mad.

This led me, with superstitious dismay, to remember an occurrence of many years before.

I was at university and had received a letter, written on squared paper in a loopy, almost childish hand.

 

 

I read the letter to my friends, who found it highly diverting. When they had got over laughing they asked me if I intended to tear it up and die mad. Or else sit down and diligently make ten copies in elegant handwriting, something that they would not fail to keep reminding me of – rather rudely, I presume – for at least the next ten years.

This got on my nerves. I thought they wouldn’t have been such Children of the Enlightenment if they had received the letter themselves, but told them that of course I’d tear it up. They insisted that I do it in front of them. They insinuated that I might have had second thoughts and, once safe from prying eyes, might make the famous ten copies etc.

In short, I was forced to tear it up, and when I’d done so the biggest joker of the three of them said that, whatever happened, I needn’t worry: when the time came, they would see to it that I was admitted to a comfortable loony-bin.

Some eighteen years later I found myself thinking – seriously – that the prophecy was coming true.

In any case, the fear of having another panic attack and going mad was not my only problem.

I began to suffer from insomnia. I lay awake almost all night every night, falling asleep only just before dawn.

Rarely did I get to sleep at a more normal time, but even then I unfailingly woke two hours later and was unable to stay in bed. If I tried to, I was assailed by
the saddest, most unbearable thoughts. About how I had wasted my life, about my childhood. And about Sara.

So I was forced to get up and wander about the apartment. I smoked, drank, watched television, turned on my mobile in the absurd hope that someone might call me in the middle of the night.

I began to be worried that people might notice the condition I was in.

Above all, I began to worry that I might totally lose control of my actions, and in such a state I spent the entire summer.

When August came, I didn’t find anyone to go on holiday with – to tell the truth, I didn’t try to – and I wasn’t brave enough to go off alone. So I mooned about, parking myself in the holiday homes and the
trulli
of friends, either at the sea or in the country. I’m sure I didn’t make myself very popular during these peregrinations.

People would ask me if I was a bit under the weather, and I would say, yes, a little, and as a rule we didn’t pursue the matter. After a very few days I’d realize it was time to pack my bags and find another bolt hole, trying as far as possible to put off going back to town.

In September, as things got no better, and especially as I couldn’t bear the sleepless nights, I went to my doctor, who was also a friend of mine. I wanted something to help me sleep.

He examined me, asked me to describe my symptoms, took my blood pressure, shone a torch in my eyes, made me do slightly demented exercises to test my balance, and at the end said that I’d do well to see a
specialist
.

“Eh? What do you mean? What kind of specialist?”

“Well ... a specialist in these problems.”

“
What
problems? Give me something to make me sleep and let’s have done with it.”

“Listen, Guido, the situation is a bit more complicated than that. You have a very strained look. I don’t like the way you keep glancing around. I don’t like the way you move. I don’t like the way you’re breathing. I have to tell you, you are not a well man. You must consult a specialist.”

“You mean a ...” My mouth was dry. A thousand incoherent thoughts went through my head. Perhaps he means I should go and see a consultant. Or a homeopath. Or a masseur. Even an Ayurvedic practitioner.

Oh, that’s fine if I have to go to a consultant, masseur, Ayurvedic practitioner, homeopath. To hell with it, that’s no problem, I’ll go. I’m not one to shirk treatment, not I.

I’m not a bit scared because ...
a psychiatrist
? Did you say a PSYCHIATRIST?

I wanted to cry. I’d gone mad and now even a doctor said so. The prophecy was coming true.

I said, all right, all right, and now could he give me that damned sleeping pill, and I’d think about it. Yes, all right, I had no intention of underestimating the problem, see you soon, no no, there’s no need to give me the name of a – mouth very dry indeed – of one of those. I’ll call you and you can tell me then.

And I ran for it, steering clear of the lift.

My doctor had agreed to prescribe something to help me sleep, and with those pills the situation seemed to improve. A little.

My mood was still mouse-grey but at least I wasn’t dragging myself around like a ghost, dead of insomnia.

All the same, my output of work and my professional reliability were dangerously below safety level. There were a number of people whose freedom depended on my work and my powers of concentration. I imagine they would have been interested to learn that I spent the afternoons absent-mindedly leafing through their files, that I couldn’t care less about them and the contents of their files, that I went into court totally unprepared, that the outcome of the trials was to all intents and purposes left to chance and that, in a word, their destiny lay in the hands of an irresponsible nutcase.

When I was obliged to receive clients the situation was surreal.

The clients talked. I paid no attention whatever, but I nodded. They talked on, reassured. At the end I shook them by the hand with an understanding smile.

They seemed pleased that their lawyer had given them their head in that way, without interrupting. He had evidently understood their problem and requirements.

I was a really decent sort, was the opinion confided to my secretary by a pensioner who wanted to sue her neighbour for putting obscene notes in her letter box. I didn’t even seem to be a lawyer at all, she said. How true.

The clients were satisfied and I, at the best of times, had only a vague notion of the problem. Together we proceeded on our way towards catastrophe.

It was during this phase – after I had managed to get some sleep for a few nights running – that a new factor intervened. I began to burst into tears. At first it happened at home, in the evening as soon as I got back or when I first got up in the morning. Later, it happened outside as well. As I was walking along the street, my thoughts went berserk and I began to cry. I did, however, manage to control the situation, both at home and – more important – in the street, even if each time it was a little more difficult. I concentrated all my attention on my shoes or on the number plates of cars, and, above all, avoided looking into the faces of the passers-by, who, I was convinced, would be aware of what was happening to me.