By now I’m not the only one on the beach. A number of the kids have also fled from that glass cube. They run along the shore, shouting out and throwing stones. They hide in the grottoes, among the enduring traces of an uninhabited villa.
Outside, there’s a ferocious noise coming from the crashing of the waves and the roar of the wind: a perpetual agitation, a thundering boom that devours everything. I wonder why we find it so reassuring.
At the Coffee Bar
Never married, but like all women, I’ve had my share of married men. Today I think of one I met here, in this bar on the other side of the river where I now happen to be, on my own. That day I’d had a coffee and I was about to head out. He’d followed me, he’d stopped me on the sidewalk. He’d run like a lunatic behind me.
It was the first time a man had pursued me so vehemently. I’m attractive enough, but not the kind of beauty to make heads turn. And yet he’d said, panting for breath, “Sorry to bother you, but I’d like to get to know you.”
That was the gist of it. He was about fifty years old and I was in my twenties. He’d looked at me, fixing me with pale, anxious eyes, not saying anything else. His gaze was kind, also insistent. My impulse was to brush him off and yet I was flattered, he didn’t strike me as the type who does nothing but chase after women.
“Just a coffee,” he’d added.
“I just had one, I’ve got some things to do.”
“Later on then, around five? I’ll wait for you here.”
That afternoon I met up with a girlfriend. I told her what had happened.
“What was he like? Were you into him?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Good-looking? Well-dressed?”
“I’d say so.”
“Well then?”
At five-twenty I went back to the bar. He was seated at a small table, waiting, as if he were expecting someone at the airport, waiting and doing nothing else. I’ll never forget the warmth in his eyes when he saw me walk in. He was unhappily, permanently married. We had a fling. He lived in another city, and he would come down from time to time, for the day, for work. What else is there to say?
A few faltering memories. Some trips outside the city at lunchtime, in his car. He liked to drive, take a random exit and find a tiny place in the countryside to have a good meal. A series of empty trattorie come to mind. One time it was just the two of us, the waiter, the padrone, the cook who remained behind the scenes. We’d lingered all afternoon, talking. I don’t remember what we ate, just the abundance and variety of the food that surrounded us, as if it were a lavish wedding.
They’d let him smoke at the table. I had no idea where he lived with his wife, I never asked which city he returned to. He never came to my place. I waited for his phone call and showed up for every date. It was an incendiary time, a momentary surge that has nothing to do with me anymore.
At the Villa
There’s a villa near my house that once belonged to a wealthy family, with grounds that attract children and dogs. I like to go in the late morning to walk along the shaded paths. I pass a giant birdcage, as large as a two-story house, with a lovely cupola at the top. It no longer contains birds. Pigeons, filthy and fierce, arrange themselves on the cupola like barbs on a wire. Parrots with their bright-green feathers flit from tree to tree, landing briefly on the grass. The fountain inside the birdcage is covered with moss that’s the same green as the parrot feathers. The water from the fountain never ceases to flow.
The path is lined with other fountains, as well as statues of unsettling creatures that don’t exist: female forms with four breasts, a woman who turns into a lion from the stomach down. Satyrs, hairy below the waist, with goat hooves, carry urns on their shoulders. The women all pose like beasts, languid and provocative. Ecstatic children with fishtails blow into conches.
The villa itself is always closed, but through beautiful windows I see dark wooden tables, chairs, shelves full of books. It looks like a library, or an institute of some kind, but there’s no sign outside, it’s got a secretive air. I bet it’s nice to sit inside and read a book. But I’ve never seen a soul.
Today as I’m walking I come across two people, a man and a woman. I’m guessing they’re in their seventies. They step down together, gingerly, in a spot where the path is rather uneven, the ground furrowed as if by a stream. They’re clearly well-acquainted, but they don’t strike me as husband and wife. Something tells me they are brother and sister, with a childhood in common, an intimacy that was imposed and indisputable.
As I approach them I realize that every step the woman takes is an effort. Then I notice a draining mechanism that emerges from her belly. Two tubes, two plastic sacks. One is full of blood and the other holds a liquid, relatively clear but viscous. She’s wearing sunglasses with oversized, rectangular black lenses; I can’t make out her expression. Nevertheless, she seems incredibly powerful. She was probably operated on a few days ago. There’s a hospital behind the villa, maybe she’s still a patient there, or maybe she’s just been discharged, and is feeling reassured but also dazed by the outside world.
The man, let’s call him her brother, walks beside her and supports her. Their bodies are almost attached. He holds the tubes, long and thin, in his hand; they’re like leashes for the dogs that run free at this time of day.
The elderly woman looks more alive to me than the children shouting and playing on the grass. I’m moved by the sight of these two people, literally tied to one another. It’s astonishing. It speaks of the devotion, the vital connection between them. I think about the substances that flow inside our bodies, which need to circulate, which need to be eliminated at intervals. All those hidden functions, ugly and essential.
They don’t speak, they just walk, carefully. I think of her regaining consciousness in the recovery room after the anesthesia wore off, after a grueling procedure. She’d slept through it, stretched out on the table, feeling none of it, someplace else.
In the Country
I decide to spend a few days in the country house of my friend, the one who’s always traveling. She noticed that I was feeling down one day and said, “It’s free, there’s nothing to stress you out there, it will do you good.” And given that I’m going through a hard patch right now, I accepted her invitation. I pack a bag and catch a train from the central station. I stare up at all the destinations one might go, listed on the big board, and I think of all the places I might still visit, and how arbitrary one’s own path is. It’s a short trip. I get off before reaching the end of the newspaper. A car’s been left for me in the parking lot, by the gardener.
This landscape, these hills dotted with castles, must be a dream in summer. It’s been a while since I’ve driven, but I’m comfortable behind the wheel. It’s a small, sturdy car. The road keeps taking me uphill. I follow my friend’s advice and stop in town to buy food for three days so that I don’t need to go out again. When I tell the shopkeepers that I’m staying at my friend’s place they grow friendly, letting me taste the cheeses before I buy. They all say it’s about to turn brutally cold: three days in a row of low temperatures, fierce winds, maybe even a little snow.