There’s a group of elderly people behind me now. They want to visit the theater, there’s a guided tour in fifteen minutes. I’ve always found those tours silly, but it’s pouring outside, so I, too, ask for a ticket. It’s a minor expense. I join the group and for the first time I learn the history of the place that reminds me of my father. The guide talks to us about the shape of the theater, the style of the curtains, the fact that there’s a huge void above the lovely fresco on the ceiling. He tells us the name of the king who commissioned the structure two centuries ago, and the date of the fire that destroyed an entire section.
The people I’m with admire the theater as if it were a famous cathedral. They ask questions: Where were the original plans kept? After the fire, did they reconstruct it in the same style? There are quite a few of us because of the rain. The stage, expansive and messy, is in the midst of being set up for something. A few workmen are hammering nails into the floor.
We gather in the royal box, the highlight of the tour. How depressing. I feel trapped with all those tourists, what was I thinking? A few people strike poses in the royal box. Once it was an exclusive space, off-limits to people like us. But now, as long as we pay a little money, we’re welcome to enjoy it for a few minutes. A man takes a picture of his wife, as if she were the queen. I try to step out of the way but we’re crammed together, it’s too late. I’m caught in the charade, I play a part in it, albeit as an extra.
In the Sun
Today there are protests downtown, and the helicopters have been circling the city all morning. But it’s the sun that wakes me up, and it beckons me to my desk, where I write, wrapped in my robe, and then it draws me down to the piazza, where I’m greeted by the contained mayhem of my neighborhood.
It’s a splendid Saturday, the first warm day. Only a few people are still wearing boots, I see jackets unzipped and the blistered heels of girls in flip-flops who can’t stand their punishing leather ballerina flats anymore. Even though it’s Saturday there’s still a dash of elegance to how people are dressed: the bold shade of a jacket, a bright scarf, the tight lines of a dress. It feels like a party effortlessly organized at the last minute. The piazza becomes a beach on days like this, and a sense of well-being, of euphoria, permeates the air. All the stores are full of people, long lines at the bank machine, the butcher, the bakery, but no one’s complaining. If anything they enjoy the wait. While I’m in line for a sandwich a woman says, “What a spectacular day.” And the man behind her says, “This neighborhood is always spectacular.”
It’s my turn for the sandwich.
“Just wait and see how delicious this one’s going to be,” the man behind the counter says. He’s known me forever and makes me the same sandwich at least three times a week. “Today it’s going to be the best ever.”
He dips a ladle into a bucket on the counter. He weighs two slices of fresh cheese on the scale, arranges them on a roll, wraps the sandwich in paper, and gives me the bill. “Here you go, my dear.”
It hardly costs anything. I look for a place to sit and find a spot in the playground where they deal drugs at night, but at this time of day it’s bursting with kids, parents, dogs, also a few people on their own like me. But today I don’t feel even slightly alone. I hear the babble of people as they chatter, on and on. I’m amazed at our impulse to express ourselves, explain ourselves, tell stories to one another. The simple sandwich I always get amazes me, too. As I eat it, as my body bakes in the sun that pours down on my neighborhood, each bite, feeling sacred, reminds me that I’m not forsaken.
At My House
An old friend comes to visit; we haven’t seen each other in ages. I’ve known her since I was a child. We went to the same school, then the same high school in the center, then the same university, but after that she went to live abroad and doesn’t return too often. She got married a few years ago, after a long period of living on her own. She had a daughter. She got in touch recently, saying she’d be back for a week of vacation. She’d like me to meet her family.
They come by for tea. I’ve placed a tray on the dining table with pastries I went out to buy this morning. The little girl is two years old. She goes into the living area and amuses herself quietly while the adults have their tea. My friend sets her up on the couch, handing her some books and toys, saying, “Don’t touch anything, my love.”
The husband, a skinny guy who looks a few years younger than she is, talks about their busy schedule. Museum exhibits and monuments they want to see, people to meet up with.
“My wife was heart-set on fitting in time to visit you,” he tells me.
He’s an academic who writes books. It’s easy to see him standing at the lectern, even though, to tell the truth, he feels more like one of my precocious students. He mentions that his father was a diplomat and that he was raised all over the world. He strikes me as a pompous man. He’s not even attractive. His eyes are small and his lips look tight. The city doesn’t enchant him, after just two days he’s complaining about our haphazard way of life. He says, “The amount of garbage is insane. The streets are complete chaos. How do people live here?” And I wonder, what exactly did he learn about the world after living in all those different countries?
He eats almost all the pastries I’d bought with the little girl in mind. The child prefers dry, tasteless biscuits transported from abroad, stored in her knapsack. “We always keep a packet in there, that way she feels at home wherever we go,” my friend explains.
The husband selects the creamiest, stickiest pastries, the ones with jam on the inside or chocolate on the outside. “We’re skipping dinner tonight and taking a long walk, instead. I need to work off all this heavy food.”
Maybe he doesn’t like me, either. He probably can’t figure out why his wife, who’s such a sweet and cheerful woman, ever became friends with someone moody like me. Not quite what you made her out to be, he’ll remark later on. What was she like when you knew her? he’ll ask. But I, on my end, also feel sorry for my friend for marrying such an ill-mannered man. On the other hand, they’ve produced a well-behaved child.
Out of the blue he gets up and starts studying my bookshelves, scrutinizing all my books. What he’s really doing is studying me. I don’t like the way he’s looking at those books, it gets on my nerves. He pulls one out and opens it, he reads a bit while his wife takes the little girl to the bathroom. It’s a book of poems, an out-of-print volume that I’d picked up one Sunday at a flea market. I’d haggled long and hard on the price.
“Any good?”
“I think so, yes.”
“I tried to read him years ago and I quit after two pages, I couldn’t get through it.”
“I like him. I think he’s a great writer.”