Three Light-Years: A Novel (11 page)

Can anyone see
him
on the balcony? Someone from the windows across the way? Someone who, like him, has lived in the same house for forty years and noticed his inconsequential move upstairs, who has realized that the boy on the second floor who was once locked out on the balcony has become the solitary adult on the fifth.

He’s angry, he feels let down. He’s only forty-three years old, but he feels Cecilia was his last chance to be happy with a woman, and, besides that, his last chance to have a child. He feels his loneliness will have to be filled by friends and other people’s families and by his work. He feels he’s always known this, that he’s always imagined he’d grow old alone and self-sufficient. He feels he will never make love with Cecilia.

The phone rings, it’s her. She tells him she was at a pizzeria with some colleagues a few nights ago, the children are away at summer camp, and she felt bad about never wanting to go out with him and she’d like to make up for it and invite him to a restaurant on the river. “All right,” Viberti says.

*   *   *

At a restaurant for the first time, sitting across from each other at a candlelit table. There’s a gentle sound of flowing water, creating silvery eddies along the riverbank. There are mosquitoes that bite only the feet, like fetishists. There is the clink of silverware against plates, the buzz of conversation. It’s very hot, but Cecilia is in a good mood and Viberti can’t keep up with her stories. She teases him because he’s eating normally: “I think I’ve only seen you with boiled zucchini, potatoes, and spinach.” She calls him Dr. Anorexic and Mr. Bulimic. “That’s not exactly true,” Viberti says defensively, flushing. He’d like to explain his nutritional approach to her, but she’s already moved on to something else.

Two nights ago she’d gone out with some colleagues and they’d ended up in a horrible pizzeria near the hospital. Not to celebrate the start of vacation, since, as the chief surgeon pointed out with a wistful expression, “The days when everyone took vacation at the same time are over.” When he was young, the city emptied out in August, there were no sick people anymore and legendary soccer tournaments were organized at the hospital. “Good times,” a nurse whispered in Cecilia’s ear, “when we were in short pants.” Cecilia does a perfect imitation of both the pompous head doctor and the Neapolitan nurse and Viberti laughs.

But it’s true, only a third of them will start vacation the following Monday, cities don’t empty out anymore. So how come they all went out for pizza, then? To say goodbye to a nurse who is leaving: she’s taking a year’s leave of absence to go work in a village in Mali. At the end the young woman made a short speech with tears in her eyes, and despite the lousy pizza, the subzero air-conditioning, and the unrelenting neon lights, everyone was glad they’d gone to send her off. The chief surgeon hugged her and made a silly joke, loudly, so everyone could hear. The doctors and nurses, exhausted, laughed in unison with a strange sense of liberation.

Viberti, too, keeps laughing; Cecilia’s high spirits are contagious. Under the trees, along the river, the heat is almost bearable. But after dinner, when they get to the street, the asphalt is scorching and steamy.

“If this keeps up, all my little old folks will die of dehydration,” Viberti says. He’s thinking about the death of letting her leave by herself, the death that is life without her.

He thinks Cecilia is about to say good night and he’s prepared for a disappointing kiss on the cheek. He offers to take her to her car.

“I didn’t come by car,” Cecilia tells him.

“You seem angry,” Viberti says, “is it my fault?”

“It’s always your fault.” She shakes her head with a sad smile.

They get into the Passat without another word, Viberti crosses the bridge and turns left onto the broad, tree-lined drive that runs along the river. He drives in silence, he doesn’t exceed thirty miles an hour, Cecilia has her seat belt on and has leaned her head back, closing her eyes. Five traffic lights, red, green, red; at the second-to-last intersection Viberti slows down, hoping the light will turn yellow; at the last he actually stops at a green light. The giant trees form a dark curtain that hides the river and the sweltering city beyond it. Cecilia hasn’t opened her eyes, but when they reach the piazza surrounding the large circular church she takes Viberti’s hand, resting on the gearshift, and asks him to go back. “Back where,” he asks, “to the restaurant?”

She asks him to drive back along the riverfront the way they’ve come. They cover the same route back and forth twice, as if they’ve decided to spend the night driving, in the air-conditioned car.

After the third lap, Cecilia opens her eyes, turns to Viberti, and looks at him.

Viberti doesn’t ask her to go with him to his apartment, he knows she wouldn’t agree. He drives in silence along the broad avenue that runs along the river, until he finds a dark, secluded spot.

READMITTED TO HUMAN SOCIETY

Memory is unfair. The person remembering is now older. She was no longer able to feel what she had once felt for Luca. She remembered clearly the sensation of something that was fading and then the sensation of no longer feeling anything, and later still the anger and regret; she’d lost him forever. She remembered how she’d felt, having loved him in a hazy former time, and realizing that she didn’t love him anymore, not at all, at that moment, an instant before, discovering that she hadn’t loved him for who knows how long. She’d begun to stop loving him without being aware of it, maybe because it wasn’t possible to know it before being ready to admit it and by that time it was too late. And besides, the person remembering is now older and more disillusioned and forgetful than the young, deluded, determined protagonist of her memories. That’s why memory is unfair.

*   *   *

She had loved him. It wasn’t true that she didn’t remember. She’d loved him and she had proof of it. There had been gestures, places, words; they acted as clues, memories that she guarded closely, at times loathing or feeling ashamed of them. Every now and then smiling over them. She’d loved him, a long time ago. Only if she’d loved him could she have done and said and thought certain things. She had told at least two girlfriends that she was completely
infatuated
with him. She’d written “I love you” on a bus ticket and put it in his coat pocket so he’d read the message when he stamped the ticket in the machine (only now did the sexual innuendo of the act occur to her). She didn’t know how to iron but sometimes she had to iron a shirt of his, and as she ironed it she thought he’d notice how badly it was ironed and he’d feel the wrinkles on his skin and he’d think of her.

Motionless in bed, sleepless nights. She didn’t want to take sleeping pills every night, maybe she should have. But she was so tired that deep down she liked the simple fact of lying there in bed, motionless. And also knowing it. As if knowing that she still had four hours of dark immobility ahead of her were more restful than spending that time unconscious in sleep. She didn’t move, didn’t turn over, didn’t straighten her legs or hug her knees. She lay motionless in one position, facedown on her stomach. And her thoughts weren’t necessarily unpleasant thoughts. Her mother’s words, after-school arrangements, incidents from the ER. Calm, slow processions, each thought leading another by the hand, or one hand on the shoulder of the thought ahead of it, like the Beagle Boys. Anxious thoughts arose every now and then out of fear and fueled it, but they too moved along unhurriedly.

The first thought always concerned her child. Let the boy be all right, let him continue to eat, let him become more cheerful and spirited, let him grow stronger, let his arms and legs grow sturdier, especially his legs: the thought of her son’s scrawny legs was the advance guard sent out by anxiety to reconnoiter. After which she thought and thought about his meals, comparing them, recalling them, summoning up details from recent days, as well as times from previous weeks that had signaled some progress (when he’d asked for a second helping, even a small one, when he’d shown a liking for a certain dish—and then she’d remember, make a mental note of that dish, create variations, use it as a staple to make him eat more) or a minor setback (decipher the cause without him noticing, figure out if he’d eaten too many snacks or heavy foods at school, or if he had any allergies, find out if something had upset him). Overcoming her anxiety, making his terribly skinny figure seem innocuous, driving back the bleakest thoughts by making a list of things to do. First, don’t make him feel like he’s under observation. Second, forestall his refusals. Third, take your time planning dinners. Fourth, engage him by appearing distracted. Fifth, let him help you set the table. Sixth, don’t overdo it when filling his plate. Seventh, don’t rush him (don’t watch him out of the corner of your eye, don’t check on him, don’t touch his plate, don’t correct his posture or the way he holds his knife and fork). Eighth, let him have a choice. Ninth, accept it when he leaves something, but remember how much he left. Tenth, if he’s happy he’ll feel hungry. The Ten Commandments, the Covenant of the Dinner Table.

*   *   *

Before and after the first separation, the sleepless nights weren’t at all restful. Back then her thoughts raced along swiftly, rising in intensity and then suddenly plummeting in twisted downhill spirals, against a backdrop of catastrophic scenarios.

When she and Luca had shared that bed, she would toss and turn to wake him, irritated that he went on sleeping, unaware, or seemingly unaware, of the intensity of her anger. Angry that he woke up rested and better equipped than she was to face another day of fighting. When he finally left and she had the double bed to herself, she’d tossed about in all directions, kicking and getting it out of her system as she’d never been able to before. But there was no longer anyone to awaken. Those had been nights of nervous gymnastics, of anxiety and fear. Then she’d given in to a sleeping pill.

Mattia had been ill; Luca came back home for a few months and then left again. Now she saw him once or twice a week, depending on her shifts. Peaceful meetings on the landing, the children entering the house, passed from one warden to another (they had stopped calling it a “prisoner exchange,” sarcasm had lost much of its appeal), and him lingering for five minutes of very civil conversation, encouraging and comforting. Whatever the topic of their talk, his words said that they could do it, lots of couples were in their situation, there was nothing dramatic about it. That’s what the words said, and she submitted to them without putting up any resistance, neither curbing nor encouraging it, accepting each conversation for what it was. But meanwhile she kept thinking—and it had come to her often, recently, like the refrain of a song—she kept thinking: How strange, I loved this man.

The second time he left, there was no violent wrench. Maybe there’d been no wrench at all, ever. He hadn’t been the only one who’d gone, maybe. Both of them had agreed to leave the past behind. If they hadn’t gotten back together for those few months, following Mattia’s hospitalization that winter, she might not have mislaid the memory of her love. But she wasn’t even sure of that. A year ago: How could she remember what she’d been capable of feeling a year ago? A year ago she still felt an attraction. Though she hated him more, she felt a serious sexual attraction toward her future ex-husband. She hated him and she wanted to fuck him. Many nights, during the prisoner exchange, she felt like grabbing him by the tie, pulling him into the house, and taking him to bed. And then throwing him out again. But it was difficult to explain the real difference between sex and love to a man (men were sure they knew it, they thought they knew it). Then, too, what
was
the difference?

A moment ago it had seemed quite clear to her. Maybe she was getting sleepy. When her thoughts became confused and contradictory it meant that she was getting sleepy (thoughts that the next day would seem confused and contradictory). But she wasn’t getting sleepy. She was just confused. What she meant was, if they hadn’t gotten back together, she would have always nurtured in some corner of her mind the idea that she still loved him or that she could go back to loving him. Instead they’d gotten back together and she’d suddenly lost the impetus of hostility she had toward him. They had an emergency to deal with, their child needed them. She’d begun to see Luca as an old friend who could help her.

She could gladly see that new old friend of hers a couple of times a week without missing him. But when he came back home for a time, they’d again made love as husband and wife. Luca no longer seemed horrified by her, as he’d claimed to be a few months before. When he couldn’t touch her. When he said he no longer recognized her. He’d come back home because their child was ill and they’d made love again to conceive him a second time, to have him be reborn with a new, normal appetite. After a while, they’d no longer felt like it. The expression “once the novelty wears off…” came to mind. More appropriate in their case was “once the novelty wears off
again
…” And instead of feeling angry or bitter over the burst of sarcasm, she laughed alone during her sleepless nights, her face pressed against the pillow.

Luca was trying to take it slow, he was afraid of wounding the child. But she was afraid that if they took their time, he’d never leave again. She felt panicky at the thought that he might want to stay. She spoke to him and suggested they take it step by step, according to a plan. Conspire to avert the children’s suspicions, get them used to it little by little, immunize them. She was so worried he might not want to leave again that she’d have been willing to let him have all the furniture—like the sacrifice a lizard makes, leaving its tail behind for its pursuer—all the books, the CDs and DVDs. Luca began to sleep out “for work” a couple of nights a week. By January, the nights away became four, there was a new apartment and the children went there every so often. Everything was going well. Without having to explain (they weren’t good at explaining, and in any case there was no need for explanations), it was all working out.