the Solitude Of Prime Numbers (2010) (25 page)

He gulped and reached around for the letter opener, which was in its place in the second drawer down. He turned it nervously around in his fingers and slipped it into the flap of the envelope. His hands were trembling and he gripped harder on the handle to control himself.

Alberto watched him from the other side of the desk, pretending to be unable to find the papers that were already sitting in front of him. The trembling of Mattia's fingers was apparent even from that distance, but the piece of paper was hidden in the palm of his hand.

He watched his colleague close his eyes and stay like that for a good few seconds, before opening them again and looking around, as if lost and suddenly far away.

"Who's it from?" Alberto ventured.

Mattia looked at him with a kind of resentment, as if he didn't even recognize him. Then he got up, ignoring the question.

"I've got to go," he said.

"What?"

"I've got to go. I think . . . to Italy."

Alberto got up as well, as if to stop him.

"What are you talking about? What's happened?"

He instinctively walked over to him and tried once more to peer at the piece of paper, but Mattia kept it hidden between his hand and the rough fabric of his sweater, pressed against his stomach, like something secret. Three of the four white corners stuck out beyond his fingers, giving a clue to its rectangular shape and nothing more.

"Nothing. I don't know," Mattia shot back, with one arm already in the sleeve of his Windbreaker. "But I've got to go."

"And what about the article?"

"I'll look at it when I get back. You just go ahead."

Then he left, without giving Alberto time to protest.

40

T
he day Alice went back to work she turned up almost an hour late. She had switched off the alarm without even waking up and as she got ready to go out she had had to stop often, because every movement put an unbearable strain on her body.

Crozza didn't tell her off. He needed only to look at her face to understand. Alice's cheeks were hollow and her eyes, even though they seemed to pop too far out of her head, looked absent, veiled by an ominous sense of indifference.

"Sorry I'm late," she said as she walked in, without really meaning it.

Crozza turned the page of his newspaper and couldn't help glancing at the clock.

"There are some pictures to be printed by eleven," he said. "The usual crap."

He cleared his throat and lifted the newspaper higher. He followed Alice's movements from the corner of his eye. He watched her putting her bag in the usual place, taking off her jacket, and sitting down at the machine. She moved slowly and with excessive precision, which betrayed her efforts to make everything seem all right. Crozza watched her sitting lost in thought for a few seconds, with her chin resting on her hand, and at last, after brushing her hair back behind her ears, deciding to begin.

He calmly assessed her excessive thinness, hidden beneath her high-collared cotton sweater and in her far-from-skintight trousers, but apparent in her hands and even more in the outline of her face. He felt a furious sense of powerlessness, because he played no part in Alice's life, but by God she did in his, like a daughter whose name he hadn't been able to choose.

They worked until lunchtime without speaking. They exchanged only indispensable nods of the head. After all the years they had spent in there, every gesture seemed automatic and they moved with agility, sharing the space fairly. The old Nikon was in its place under the counter, in its black case, and they both sometimes wondered if it still worked.

"Lunch. Let's go--" the photographer said hesitantly.

"I've got something to do at lunchtime," Alice interrupted. "Sorry."

He nodded thoughtfully.

"If you don't feel well, you can go home for the afternoon," he said. "There isn't much to do, as you can see."

Alice looked at him in alarm. She pretended to rearrange the things on the counter: a pair of scissors, an envelope for photographs, a pen, and a roll of film cut into four equal segments. All she was doing was swapping them around.

"No, why? I--"

"How long is it since you've seen each other?" the photographer interrupted.

Alice gave a slight jump. She stuck one hand into her bag, as if to protect it.

"Three weeks. More or less."

Crozza nodded, then shrugged.

"Let's go," he said.

"But . . ."

"Come on, let's go," he repeated, more firmly.

Alice thought for a moment. Then she decided to follow him. They locked up the shop. The bell hanging from the door jangled in the shadow and then stopped. Alice and Crozza set off toward the photographer's car. He walked slowly, without showing it, out of respect for her laborious gait.

The old Lancia started only at the second attempt and Crozza muttered a curse between his teeth.

They drove down the avenue almost as far as the bridge, and then the photographer took a right and followed the road that ran along the river. When he changed lanes and switched on the right blinker to turn again, this time in the direction of the hospital, Alice suddenly froze.

"But where . . . ?" she tried to say.

He pulled up outside a shop with its security gate half closed, across from the entrance to the emergency room.

"It's none of my business," he said, without looking at Alice, "but you've got to go in there. To Fabio, or some other doctor."

Alice stared at him. Her initial puzzlement gave way to fury. The road was silent. Everyone was tucked away at home or in a restaurant for lunch. The leaves of the plane trees fluttered soundlessly.

"I haven't seen you like this since . . ." The photographer hesitated. "Since I've known you."

Alice considered that
like this
in her head. It sounded ominous and she glanced at herself in the mirror, but it showed only the side of the car. She shook her head, then unlocked the door and got out of the car. She slammed the door and without turning around she resolutely walked in the opposite direction of the hospital.

She walked quickly, more quickly than she really could, to get away from that place and Crozza's damned insolence, but after about a hundred meters she had to stop. She was out of breath and with each step she took her leg hurt more and more, pulsating as if asking her for mercy. The bone seemed to penetrate the living flesh, as if it had come out of joint again. Alice moved all her weight to the right and just managed to keep her balance, leaning one hand against the rough wall beside her.

She waited for the pain to pass, for her leg once more to become inert as usual and her breathing to become an unconscious action again. Her heart pumped blood slowly, without conviction, but she could hear it even in her ears.

You've got to go in there. To Fabio, or some other doctor,
Crozza's voice echoed in her head.

And then? she thought.

She turned back, toward the hospital, walking with difficulty and without any precise intention. Her body chose the way as if by instinct and the passersby she met on the sidewalk stepped aside, because Alice was staggering a little, although she wasn't aware of it. Some of them stopped, unsure whether to offer to help, but then walked on.

Alice stepped into the courtyard of Our Lady's Hospital and didn't think back to the time when she had walked along the same little avenue with Fabio. She felt as if she didn't have a past, as if she had found herself in that place without knowing where she had come from. She was tired, with that tiredness that only emptiness brings.

She climbed the steps holding on to the handrail and stopped in front of the doorway. She wanted only to get there, to activate the sliding doors and wait for a few minutes, just long enough to collect her strength and leave. It was a way of giving chance a little push, nothing more, to find herself where Fabio was and see what happened. She wouldn't do what Crozza said, she wouldn't listen to anyone, and she wouldn't admit even to herself that she really hoped to find him.

Nothing happened. The automatic doors opened and when Alice took a step back they closed again.

What did you expect? she wondered.

She thought about sitting down for a few seconds, hoping it would pass. Her body was asking her something, every nerve was screaming it, but she didn't want to listen.

She was about to turn around, when she heard the electric swish of the doors again. She looked up at the sound, convinced that this time she would really find her husband standing in front of her.

The door was wide open, but Fabio wasn't there. Instead, on the other side of the doorway, a girl was standing. It was she who had activated the sensor, but she didn't come out. She stood right where she was, smoothing her skirt with her hands. At last she imitated Alice: she took a step back and the door closed again.

Alice studied her, curious about that gesture. She noticed that she wasn't all that young. She might have been the same age as Alice, more or less. She kept her torso bent slightly forward and her shoulders tightly curved, as if there wasn't enough room for them.

Alice thought there was something familiar about her, perhaps in her facial expression, but she couldn't place her. Her thoughts closed in on themselves; they spun in the void.

Then the girl did it again. She stepped forward, put her feet together, and a few seconds later stepped back.

It was then that she looked up and smiled at Alice from the other side of the glass.

A shiver ran down Alice's spine, vertebra by vertebra, before losing itself in her blind leg. She held her breath.

She knew someone else who smiled like that, merely arching her upper lip, barely revealing the two incisors, and leaving the rest of the mouth motionless.

It can't be, she thought.

She stepped forward to see better and the doors remained wide open. The girl looked disappointed and stared quizzically at her. Alice understood and stepped back to let her go on with her game. The other girl continued as if nothing was wrong.

She had the same dark hair, thick and wavy at the bottom, that Alice had managed to touch only a very few times. Her cheekbones protruded slightly and hid her black eyes, but as she looked at her Alice recognized the same expression that had kept her up till late so many nights: the same opaque gleam as she had seen in Mattia's eyes.

It's her, she thought, and a feeling very like terror gripped her throat.

She instinctively fumbled for the camera in her bag, but she hadn't brought so much as a stupid Instamatic.

She went on looking at the girl, not knowing what else to do. She turned her head toward her and her vision dimmed from time to time, as if her crystalline lens couldn't find the right curvature. With her dry lips she pronounced the word
Michela,
but not enough air came from her mouth.

The girl didn't seem to tire of this. She played with the automatic door like a child. Now she was taking small jumps, back and forth, as if to catch the doors out.

An old lady walked over from inside the building. A big rectangular yellow envelope protruded from her bag, X-rays perhaps. Without saying a word, she took the girl by the arm and led her outside.

The girl didn't resist. When she passed by Alice, she turned for a moment to look at the sliding doors, as if to thank them for amusing her. She was so close that Alice was aware of the displacement of air produced by her body. By holding out a hand she could have touched her, but it was as though she were paralyzed.

She watched the two women as they walked slowly away.

Now people were coming in and out. The doors were constantly opening and closing, in a hypnotic rhythm that filled Alice's head.

As if suddenly coming to, she called Michela, this time out loud.

The girl didn't turn around and neither did the old lady who was with her. They didn't alter their pace by one iota, as if the name meant nothing to them.

Alice thought she should follow them, look at the girl from closer up, talk to her, understand. She put her right foot on the first step and drew her other leg forward, but it remained frozen where it was, fast asleep. She found herself toppling backward. With her hand she sought the handrail, but didn't find it.

She collapsed like a broken branch and slid down the two remaining steps.

From the ground she just had time to see the women disappearing around the corner. Then she felt the air becoming saturated with moisture and the sounds growing rounder and farther away.

41

M
attia had taken the three flights of stairs at a run. Between the second and the first he had bumped into one of his students, who had tried to stop him to ask something. He had brushed past him saying sorry, I've got to go, and in trying to avoid him he had almost stumbled. When he reached the entrance hall he had suddenly slowed down, to compose himself, but still walked quickly. The dark marble of the floor gleamed, reflecting things and people like a stretch of water. Mattia had given a nod of greeting to the doorman and gone outside.

The cold air had taken him by surprise and he had wondered what are you doing?

Now he was sitting on the low wall in front of the entrance and wondering why on earth he had reacted like that, as if all he had been doing all those years was waiting for a signal to go back.

He looked again at the photograph that Alice had sent him. It was of the two of them, by her parents' bed, dressed up as a bride and groom with those clothes that smelled of mothballs. Mattia looked resigned, while she was smiling. One of her arms was around his waist. The other held the camera and was partially out of the frame, as if she were now holding it toward him, as an adult, to caress him.

On the back Alice had written only one line and below it her signature:

You've got to come here.
Alice

Mattia tried to find an explanation for the message and, even more, for his own peculiar reaction. He imagined coming out of the arrivals zone of the airport and finding Alice and Fabio waiting for him on the other side of the barrier. He imagined greeting her, kissing her on the cheeks, and then shaking her husband's hand by way of introduction. They would pretend to argue about who should carry the suitcase to the car and on the way they would try in vain to tell each other how life had been, as if it could really be summed up. Mattia in the backseat, them in the front: three strangers pretending to have something in common and scratching the surface of things, just to avoid silence.