Training in Love (31 page)

Andrea
crosses his arms on his chest without speaking.

Tiziana
laughs again, an empty laugh to make you shudder. “Your charity case? Seriously
Andrea?” She turns to me, still immobile at the door, and looks me over from
top to bottom with two malevolent eyes. “Will you put tonight in your thesis
too?” She asks him, but she’s looking at me with a nasty smile on her lips.

I
am unable to resist lifting my eyebrows and turning to Andrea with a stunned
look.

Tiziana
laughs. “You didn’t tell her?” I hear her voice, but I’m not looking at her, I’m
looking at him avoiding my eyes.

“If
you’ve finished now, Tiziana,” says Andrea calmly, but with a frowning look,
“you know where the door is. As I told you before, I’m busy this evening.”

Tiziana
laughs. “Yes, I can see that. Well, have a good evening with your guinea pig
then. When you get tired of studying, Andrea, you know where to find me.”

I
move without meeting her eyes when she comes towards me. I wait until she’s
gone out completely before speaking. I come towards him only when I hear the
click of the front door latch. “What… what did she mean?”

He’s
still not looking at me. His head is bent over his chest and his arms straight
out, resting on the counter of the island.

I
stay stopped on the other side, waiting for an answer that doesn’t arrive. “Andrea?”
I raise my voice. “What did she mean? What thesis?”

He
scratches his head. I see his chest rise and fall more quickly.

“What
have I got to do with your thesis?” I ask with exasperation, and my tone must
have shaken him, because he finally looks up. I don’t like what I’m reading in
his eyes of ice, I don’t like it at all.

He
shrugs his shoulders. “Nothing, I… only gathered some data…”

I
cross my arms. “Let me see it.”

He
takes a breath. “Olly… It’s nothing, I just…”

“If
it’s nothing, there won’t be any problem showing it to me.”

He
puffs. “Let’s not talk about my thesis now! You got here really late. I want to
be with you tonight… like before… let’s talk about my thesis tomorrow.”

He’s
trying to get out of it.

“No,
we’ll speak about it now. Let me see it or I’m leaving right now.”

He
huffs again, passes a hand through his hair and goes to get it. He climbs the
stairs two by two. I can see he’s going to his room, but I don’t follow him. I
sit on one of the stools attached to the island and wait for him.

He
sets it in front of me without saying anything and remains standing by my side.

I
begin to read it and almost immediately I cover my mouth. Andrea has built his
thesis on our work. There are all my weight measurements up until the end of
July. There are all my physical information, a table of my workouts from the beginning
until the end of July. A little at a time I run through the pages more quickly,
dogged by a feeling that I don’t immediately recognize. I read randomly,
jumping here and there. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Nowhere
is it written that it’s you.”

“Why
didn’t you tell me?”

“There’s
nothing wrong with it.”

“If
nothing’s wrong with it, why didn’t you tell me?”

He
doesn’t answer. I swallow, continuing to leaf through it because, with a new
thought, I realized that it’s a bound copy… “You studied me like… an insect… in
a laboratory!”

“No!”
He answers, trying to take it from my hands. “It’s not like that at all! It’s
just my work, and I thought… that it was interesting…”

I
hold onto it tightly, looking at him with disdain, “I-have-not-finished!”

He
concedes and lets me have it, because if he had really wanted to pull it away
from me he obviously could have.

Silence
falls while I read and leaf through, forward and backward, randomly, filled
with anxiety and a sense of betrayal and disappointment. And disgust towards
myself, because I believed it. For a few hours, I believed it.

“You
put…” I murmur breathlessly when I arrive at a particularly painful point. “You
put the evening at the lake… between the lines but… you put it in!” At this
point I close it and set it on the counter. I don’t think I want to continue.

I
get off the stool without looking at him. I slowly go towards the door.

“Where
are you going?”

“I’m
leaving you,” I answer without turning. “That way you’ll have time to write
something about this evening too.”

He
stops me taking my left wrist before I get to the door handle. “Don’t be
stupid, you know very well that this evening has nothing to do-”

He
doesn’t finish the sentence because I, for the absolute first time faster than
him, silence him with a slap in the face. A slap that makes his face turn and
his cheek red. He looks at me without saying anything, without reacting. When I
take my wrist from his hand with a jerk and leave, he lets me go.

24.

When I
exit Andrea’s house I realize from the clock in the car that reading that
wonderful thesis has taken a lot of time. It’s almost two.

I
drive normally, without speeding or breaking suddenly or running any red
lights. Externally I’m very calm.

I’m
going to the main highway. I’m going to do something that I’ve only done once
before, when I got my license at age eighteen, but this energy field is too
heavy, too much… It resembles despair.

When
I get to the highway rest stop, the only place that sells food at this time of
night, I look around, hoping I don’t meet anyone I know. When I enter I notice
with pleasure that there isn’t anyone, only two girls behind the counter. One
small and thin with black makeup around her eyes which must have lost its
initial luster after hours of work, and another tall and heavy who goes back
and forth, cleaning the coffee machine. I hope she’ll be at the cash register
when I have to pay.

I
do my circuit cool and collected – externally - trying to seem indifferent,
like a robot. And I know I can do it because I’ve already done it lots of times
before. In reality, however, inside I’m filled with a series of tumultuous
feelings and thoughts, that unfortunately I am very familiar with. I know what
I’m about to do. I know everything - consequences and motivations – and yet I
want to do it anyway. Nothing will prevent me from doing it, and if I’m not
able to manage it here, now, I will find another way to get there. I’m also
nervous because I’m thinking about how the waitresses in this rest stop will
judge me. What will they think of me? What will they think of someone who shows
up in the middle of the night and buys a ton of junk food, too much for one
person, and most of all, things that one could easily buy in the morning when
any supermarket opens? They’ll know. They’ll put two and two together and they’ll
understand and they’ll judge me as a loser, weak, without backbone. What I am. But
this won’t stop me, it won’t stop me… The demon has taken over… I’m not here
anymore… There’s only him, only him…

I
buy two packages of all the things that attract me most, quickly. I move rapidly.
I get to the cash register and the heavy girl is there. I don’t look her in the
face anyway. I look at the register display, waiting for the total to take out
the money as quickly as possible while she packs up my shopping with enervating
slowness. I almost feel like she’s doing it on purpose.

The
bright lights in the rest stop restaurant and the odor of coffee are weighing
me down. I hear the door open behind me and two male voices chatting. Out of
the corner of my eye, I see them go to the counter and order two cups of
coffee. I don’t turn to look at them, I don’t look up towards the waitress, I
don’t meet anyone’s gaze. I place the money on the plate beside the cash
register, take the two bags which are finally ready and leave without even
saying good evening.

I’m
still in time to stop myself, but I won’t do it. I am familiar with the state
I’m in. I know that I’ll do it and I’m already, in part, beginning to detest
myself starting now, but even this doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. The demon
doesn’t care.

I
arrive home and enter as silently as possible. Fortunately, my mother is
sleeping.

I
close myself in my room and begin to empty the bags quietly. Even if she’s
sleeping I don’t want to take chances.

I
sit on the floor and look at all there is. I just have to decide what to start
with. And when I actually begin, the demon exults, happily. Kept at bay for
months, almost defeated to the point that it was ages that I hadn’t felt him,
that hadn’t heard his voice anymore, now he roars almost deafeningly with
pleasure. For a second I had thought that he had gone forever…

And
instead, no. He’s here, here with me now and he’s making me stuff myself, he’s
making me fill myself with snack cakes, one after another, and then cookies,
and chocolates and then another kind of snack.

The
problem, or the lucky thing, is that my body is no longer what it was before
and I’ve stuffed myself to the point of bursting a lot sooner than usual, a lot
sooner than the last time. The demon isn’t even satisfied, but my body can’t
keep up, can’t keep up with his fury…

I
feel my stomach stretch and begin to feel sick. I move all the left-over food,
which is a lot, and the empty wrappers, all colorful, as though taunting me
with a fictitious glee – temptresses and traitors immediately afterwards -
under the bed.

I
begin to feel sick and throw myself on the bed, waiting for it to pass, for
time to pass and my stomach to slowly empty. Almost immediately, looking at the
ceiling and holding my stomach, I feel sick inside too, on a non-physical
level. The demon is departing and only I remain now, alone to pick up the pieces
of the destruction that he’s brought into my life once again. I begin to cry
silently and I regret it, just like every other time. I feel weak and ugly and
unworthy of anything. Just like every other time.

I
get up because this time the physical pain is too great. I’m not able to wait
for it to pass. I decide to do something that I haven’t done since the third year
of junior high.

I
open the door of my room and, with a damp stare, glance down the corridor, just
to assure myself one-hundred percent that I won’t meet my mother right now.
Obviously, the corridor is dark and a sleepy silence reigns.

I
go to the bathroom, close the door softly behind me and, silently weeping,
kneel in front of the toilet. Like a penitent before her confessor. A white and
cold confessor. It’s degrading.

I
poke two fingers in my throat and throw up immediately, while tears of pain run
down my cheeks. It is a physical, tangible pain, because food just eaten hurts
when it takes the return route, scratching everything with its passage as
though to remind me that this isn’t what you do - It’s not something that
works, nature doesn’t want this - and an invisible pain, in the mind and in the
heart.

When
I’ve finished, I close it up and pull the flush, resting in a cold embrace on
my confessor, a futile embrace that brings no comfort.

In
the quiet of my misery I hear a noise and the fear of being discovered like
this by my mother makes me jump up, dry my eyes and open the bathroom window.
With the night breeze on my face I stand listening for a second, but I don’t
hear anything more. To avoid any more risk, I exit quickly and return to my
room where I throw myself on my bed and stay there staring at the ceiling for
hours, hating myself without crying anymore.

When
my eyelids start to get heavy, the alarm rings.

***

At the
cafè I don’t speak with anyone. Madame Barbieri tries to draw a few words out
of me, but is unable to do so, and after a while she gives up, maybe also
because of my swollen eyes which shamelessly betray a night of tears. They are
also burning because of a total lack of sleep.

It’s
about nine when Andrea comes into the cafè. Since by now he’s more than
familiar with the rhythms of the place, he knows very well that I’m less busy
at this hour and it’s for this reason that he’s making his completely futile
appearance now. I’m at the counter and it’s enough to perceive him coming
towards me to enable me to not meet his eyes voluntarily again. I immediately
go in the kitchen, but I can’t stay there all morning… When I return to the
dining room, I see, out of the corner of my eye, that he’s seated near Madame
Barbieri, but he stands up as soon as he sees me.

I
quickly distance myself from them, but he follows me. “Olly, I have to talk to
you.”

“I
don’t,” I reply tersely.

“Please,
listen to me just for a moment and then I’ll go.”

I
don’t answer. I busy myself picking up the dirty trays from a couple of tables
that Rosy has left for me.

“I
didn’t do it with malice…” He begins undeterred.

At
this point I look up. “I don’t care Andrea! I don’t want to listen to you! Go
away!”

“Listen
to me!” He exclaims with heat and a look of pity in his eyes.

Anything
would be okay, but pity no! “No!” And even if I didn’t want to yell, I must
have inadvertently raised my voice because I see a few heads turn towards us.
“I’m also working, in case you haven’t noticed,” I say, notably lowering my
voice.

“I
have a right to say my part… You can’t do this… It’s not fair…”

“I’m
free to do what I want. That’s what free, adult beings do. They do what they
want… and now I don’t want to listen to you because I’m not interested in what
you have to say. It wouldn’t make any difference.”

“You
can’t know that it wouldn’t make any difference or not before listening…”

I
cross my arms on my chest. “You can leave now, let me work and don’t come
around anymore. You’re free. Be grateful. You’re free to look for a new
laboratory guinea-pig. Perhaps that way you can prepare your thesis for a
specialization, or a doctorate…” I stop for a second, hesitating at the last
phrase that I have on the tip of my tongue because maybe it’s too harsh, but
then I say it because tonight has been just too hard for me, “And then at the
end maybe you can take her to bed as well.”

He
almost takes a step back, with his mouth open, as though I had given him
another slap. Then he sighs with frustration and runs a hand through his hair.
“No… you aren’t like this. The Olly that I know isn’t like this… closed and
unreasonable. And she doesn’t think so badly…”

“You
don’t know any Olly!” I answer, senselessly furious, seeking only to hurt him
in some way, just to contradict him.

 I
go back to the kitchen and wait, with Leo who doesn’t say anything, doesn’t
chide me. I wait until Rosy calls me saying that he’s gone and that there are
people who would like to be served and that she isn’t paid to do double the
work.

When
I come back to the dining room he’s gone. I take a breath of relief, but my
shoulders droop and my eyes fill with tears.

I
quickly busy myself to take the orders of people waiting at the counter and do
what they ask, meeting the gazes of the customers as little as possible.

After
a while, once everyone has been served, I hear Madame Barbieri’s calm voice,
“Olivia dear…”

I
shake my head and cry, “No!”, without even looking at her.

***

The
Thursday of the following week I’m terrified that Andrea will appear with Nic
as though nothing was wrong. But he doesn’t come, thank heavens. Right, thank
heavens that I haven’t seen or heard from him since that day I told him to get
lost.

Instead,
strangely, Nic arrives with Linda. They greet me and I smile at them as though
I were fine, as if an invisible truck had not run me over, as though my heart
weren’t in pieces and as if I didn’t struggle every night for the last week
with my demon. Sometimes I win, sometimes he wins, but despite who wins, the
result is that I’m exhausted in the morning.

“You
look a little tired…” Linda says, scrutinizing me closely when I bring them
their breakfast at table.

“No,
I’m fine,” I lie, and Nic laughs.

I
roll my eyes and leave them.

Linda
picks the right moment to come up behind me and ask me to talk, because all the
tables have been served and no-one is calling me. I turn with an empty tray in
my hands, which I hold against my stomach. “What is it.”

Linda
touches her hair, plays with it. “I only wanted to ask… is everything alright?”

I
look at her with an air of fatigue, cocking my head. “Spit it out.”

Linda
sighs, hesitating just an instant. “We know that you’ve argued with Andrea
because he came to cry to the twins the other evening.”

I
straighten up instantly, raising my eyebrows.

“To
cry in the figurative sense, not in the sense of tears…” Linda quickly corrects
herself, gesturing and immediately understanding the expression on my face.

“Of
course.”

“We
know about the thesis… And even though it’s not a nice thing, isn’t it a little
excessive to burn your bridges with him like this, without even giving him the
chance to explain himself?”

I
open my mouth in astonishment. “Oh poor him! And he’s such a man that he came
to ask you two to put in a good word, right?”

“He
said that he tried to talk to you right away and that he came here too, but you
didn’t want to know about it.”

It’s
true, but I don’t feel like saying he’s right in any case. “That doesn’t mean
that he has to put you in the middle…”

Linda
sighs, “Come on Olly… At least listen to him, he seemed really sorry.”

“Really?”
I ask, lowering my voice and coming a lot closer to her, so I’m almost speaking
in her ear. “And tell me, did he tell you that I discovered that I was his lab
rat from the lips of Tiziana? You remember Tiziana? The dark-haired lovely he
brought to the twins’ birthday?” I gesture as I speak. “And did he tell you
that she told me when I found her at his house after he and I had done it three
times just a few hours before? The first of which was my first time ever, as
you well know?”