And they were laughing.
* * *
Ottavia knew, of course. But her strategy so far had been to pretend she didn’t.
She was born into a family where certain things weren’t ever questioned. Her mother had been a stoic example, a tall, severe ash-blonde who’d lived all her life with a serial philanderer. Husband and wife stay together no matter what, was her credo; there was too much at stake in a good marriage. Too much shared history: children, of course, but also money and properties, plus certain privileges and connections that being a couple provided, all of which would be utterly foolish to give up. It was only a matter of waiting: after all, men fell in lust and, with time, lust evaporated. The secret was to be patient till the crush wore out. Meanwhile, it was crucial to avoid any confrontation. Eventually they all came back home.
“You don’t want to find out her name, where she lives, what she does,” her mother lectured her, glancing at the menu.
They were having lunch at their favorite Japanese restaurant near the Pantheon and Ottavia had just mentioned her suspicion that Sandro might be having an affair. He was distracted, vague about his movements, too often away or late at work.
“It’s toxic.” Her mother sipped her jasmine tea from a tiny handmade ceramic cup. “The minute you know who she is, it all becomes real and the obsession takes hold of you. Once the monster is out of the box, you won’t be able to get rid of it. You will start stalking her, checking his messages and turn into a policeman, which is the worst thing you can do to your marriage. Better to just sit in a limbo, the foggier the better, and be as nice as possible. I promise you, it’s like a fever that has to run its course.”
Ottavia wasn’t convinced.
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s probably some young sexy intern at the office,” her mother said with a disparaging tone.
“They’re not his type. He’s not that kind.”
“Don’t be so sure,” the mother said, turning her ring around her finger. “It’s typical of a midlife crisis. He’s what now, forty-one, forty-two?”
Ottavia raised her eyebrow. “Okay, can we please change the subject now?” Ottavia said. “I can’t be hearing any more about this from you, okay?”
Ottavia was good-looking and still in perfect shape at thirty-five. She had sworn she would try to age gracefully and not do anything to her face. She had a master’s in medieval history, was a successful art dealer who was well known internationally, came from money and was making quite a bit on her own. She was considered engaging and intelligent. The idea that her husband was cheating on her seemed inexplicable. What did this other woman have that she didn’t?
She had inherited some of the cynical wisdom of the rich—not to the extent her mother would’ve liked—but she was more vulnerable, less of a hypocrite than her parents. Yet she was terrified at the idea of losing her husband. Perhaps her mother was right. It’s lust, it’s like a fever, it will pass, it will pass, she tried to persuade herself.
So she braved it out, and did her best to turn her feigned indifference into a Zen practice.
* * *
But it wasn’t just lust; Sandro was in love.
For more than a year he had been taking the same early-morning yoga class in a small studio in Monti, not far from the Colosseum. He and three other guys were the only men among a large group of women who ranged from their twenties to seventy-four. He envied how all their bodies easily flexed, and realized how much more rigid the men seemed to be.
One day Emilia appeared as a substitute for Maura, their usual teacher. Maura had had an accident on her bike and Emilia was to take over the class for two months. Her tiny body was strong yet curvy and perfectly proportioned, but her bob of dark hair gained her a sort of boyish allure. The guys exchanged a glance among themselves as though they didn’t trust that she would have enough experience, but right away she proved to be a much more adroit instructor. Soon the whole class was panting and huffing in the attempt to replicate the sequences she demonstrated, curling and uncurling, twisting her torso right and left with geometric precision, in seemingly effortless, fluid movements. She encouraged the students to try more challenging poses—“You can do it as long as you keep breathing!”—but at the same time she warned them not to push themselves over the limit—“Don’t let your ego take over!”—so that within a couple of weeks everyone felt in their stretches the unexpected progress they’d made. Emilia would walk around the class as the students were holding their asanas and lightly touch their bodies, adjusting them into the right position. A tiny rotation of the hip or a light pressure on a shoulder with the tip of her fingertips was enough to put a body in place so that the prana was magically released and the movements became sweet and painless rather than arduous. She would whisper in the students’ ears, words that made them proud of themselves.
“Open your heart—yeah, like this. Aaah, that’s it, here you go—that’s beautiful!”
Sandro sensed that her touch on him wasn’t completely neutral. At first he thought he must be imagining this, that it must be a classic projection, a kind of yogic transference. It was hard to decipher, but he was convinced that something akin to an erotic current flowed from her fingertips to his core. He tried to send back the same message, concentrating on the parts of his body that she touched, and charging them with an equivalent amount of electricity. He also increased his attendance in class from twice a week to three. By then the other men in the class had become respectful of and almost intimidated by her. After class, before getting into the shower, they would linger around the herbal tea corner, where Emilia would sit with her legs crossed on the wooden bench, holding her tiny cup in her palm as the aroma of licorice and mint filled the small space.
Sandro didn’t take part in the tea-break ritual. He wanted to have a moment with Emilia without the others watching. One day, feeling bold, he waited for her outside the yoga studio. She was intent on unlocking her bicycle when he approached her.
“Emilia? I have a question for you.”
She turned. Her short hair was damp from the shower, and when she turned he saw she’d put on dark-red lipstick. She looked sexy, like a strong and petite French movie star from the sixties.
“Oh, hi. I almost didn’t recognize you in your…I mean, with clothes on.”
She pointed at the fresco di lana tailored suit he wore to work.
“Yeah, right….I’m afraid I look different in this. A bit too stiff, is it?”
Emilia laughed, then blushed. She was wearing a faded Indian camisole underneath a vintage jeans jacket and cargo pants. He thought she looked lovely in such a casual, simple outfit. He felt a wave of tenderness.