The Young Bride (19 page)

What age am I?

A young age.

Does it make a difference?

Yes.

Explain it to me.

You'll find out, one day.

I want to know now.

It would be of no use.

Still with that story?

Which?

That it's all pointless.

I didn't say that.

You said it's useless to fulfill one's dreams.

That, yes.

Why?

For me it was pointless.

Tell me.

No.

Do it.

Signorina, I must really ask you . . .

And he closed his eyes, letting his head fall back, against the chair. It seemed drawn by an invisible force.

Ah no, I said.

I put down my glass, I got up, and stood over him, my legs spread. I found myself with my sex on his, it wasn't what I wanted. But I began to sway. I stood with my back straight, I swayed slowly over him, I placed my hands on his shoulders, I looked at him.

He opened his eyes.

Please, he repeated.

You owe me something. Your story will be enough, I said.

I don't believe I owe you anything.

Oh, yes.

Really?

You weren't the one who was supposed to return, it was the Son.

I'm sorry.

Don't think you can get out of it like that.

No?

You've ruined everything for me, now I want at least your true story in exchange.

He looked at the exact point where I was swaying.

It's a story like so many others, he said.

It doesn't matter, I want it.

I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Begin at the end. The moment you started sleeping and stopped living.

I was at a table in a Café.

Was there someone with you?

No longer.

You were alone.

Yes. I fell asleep without even nodding my head. Sleeping, I finished my pastis, and that was the first time. When I woke up and saw the empty glass, I knew it would be like that forever.

I wonder about the people around.

In what sense?

Well, the waiters, didn't they come and wake you?

It was a somewhat rundown Café, with very old waiters. At that age you understand many things.

They let you sleep.

Yes.

What time was it?

I don't know, afternoon.

How did you end up in that Café?

I told you it's a long story, I don't know if I want to tell it, and besides you're swaying against me and I don't know why.

To keep you from going back to your world.

Ah.

The story.

If I tell you will you sit on the floor again?

I wouldn't think of it, I like it. You don't like it?

I beg your pardon?

I asked if you like it.

What?

This, my legs spread, my sex rubbing against yours?

He closed his eyes, his head slid back a little, I tightened my fingers on his shoulders, he opened his eyes again, he looked at me.

There was a woman I loved very much, he said.

 

There was a woman I loved very much. She had a beautiful way of doing everything. There is no one in the world like her.

One day she arrived with a small book, used, the cover was a very elegant blue. The great thing was that she had crossed the city to bring it to me, she had seen it in an old bookstore, and had dropped everything to bring it to me immediately, she found it so irresistible, and precious. The book had a magnificent title:
How to Abandon Ship
. It was a handbook. The letters on the cover were clear, perfect. The illustrations inside laid out with infinite care. Can you understand that a book like that is worth more than a lot of literature?

Maybe.

You don't find at least the title irresistible?

Maybe.

It doesn't matter. What matters is that she arrived with that book. For a long time I carried it with me, I loved it so much. It was small, it fit in my pocket. I went to teach, I put it on the desk, then I put it back in my pocket. I must have read maybe a couple of pages, it was fairly boring, but that wasn't the point. It was good to hold it in your hand, leaf through it. It was good to think that however disgusting life might be, I had that book in my pocket and next to me a woman who had given it to me. Can you understand that?

Of course, I'm not an idiot.

Ah, I forgot the best part. On the first page, which was blank, there was a rather poignant dedication. It was a used book, as I said, and on the first page there was this dedication:
To Terry after the first month of his stay in St. Thomas's Hospital. Papa and Mamma
. Your imagination can wander for days on a dedication like that. It was that type of beauty that I found heartrending. And that the woman I loved so much could understand. Why am I telling you all this? Ah, yes, the Café. Are you sure you want to go on?

Of course.

Time passed, and in that time I lost the woman I loved so much, for reasons that here don't interest us. Moreover, I'm not sure I understood them. Anyway, I continued to carry with me . . .

Wait a minute. Who said it doesn't interest us?

Me.

Speak for yourself.

No, I'm speaking for both of us, if you don't like it get down from there and have the Son tell you the story, when he arrives.

All right, all right, there's no need to . . .

So it was a strange time, for me, it seemed a little like being a widower, I walked the way widowers do, you know, a little stunned, with eyes like a bird that doesn't get it. You know what I mean?

Yes, I think so.

But always with my little book in my pocket. It was idiotic, I should have thrown away everything that the woman I loved so much had left behind, but how do you do it, it's like a shipwreck, a lot of things, of all kinds, remain floating on the surface, in these cases. You can't, really, clean up. And you have to hold on to something, when you can't swim anymore. So I had that book in my pocket, that day, at the Café, and, look, by now months had passed, since it had ended. But I had the book in my pocket. I had a date with a woman, nothing very important, she wasn't a special woman, I scarcely knew her. I liked how she dressed. She had a lovely laugh, that's it. She didn't talk much, and, there in the Café that day, she spoke so little that it all seemed to me tremendously depressing. So I pulled out that book and began to talk to her about it, telling her that I had just bought it. She found the story strange, but in some way curious, she relaxed a little, she began to ask me about myself, we started to talk, I said something that made her laugh. It was all simple, even pleasant. She seemed to me more beautiful, every so often we leaned toward each other, we forgot the people at the other tables, it was just the two of us, delightful. Then she had to go, and it seemed natural to kiss. I saw her disappear around a corner, with a very attractive walk. Then I lowered my gaze. On the table were our two glasses of pastis, half full, and the blue book. I placed a hand on the book and I was struck by its infinite neutrality. So much love and time and devotion had been deposited in it, from Terry's time to mine, and so much life, and of the best kind: and yet it was nothing, it hadn't put up the least resistance to my little infamy, hadn't rebelled, had merely sat there, available to any other adventure, utterly without a permanent meaning, light and empty as an object that had been born right then, rather than one that had grown up in the heart of so many lives. So I came to understand our defeat, in all its tragic import, and I felt vanquished by an unspeakable and final weariness. Maybe I realized that something had broken, forever, inside me. I felt that I was slipping some distance away from things, and that I would never be able to retrace that path. I let myself go. It was splendid. I felt any anguish dissolve, and disappear. I found myself in a luminous serenity, lightly veined with sadness, and I recognized the land that I had always sought. The people around saw that I was sleeping. That's the whole story.

You can't think I'll believe that you've been sleeping for years because of a silly thing like that . . .

It was only the last in an impressive series of silly things like that.

Like?

The treachery of things. You know what I'm talking about?

No.

It's very instructive: to see how objects contain nothing of the meaning we give them. All it takes is an oblique circumstance, a tiny adjustment to the trajectory, and in an instant they are part of a completely different story. Do you think that this chair will be different for having listened to my words or having held your body and mine? Maybe, months from now, someone will
die
in this chair, and, no matter what we do tonight that is unforgettable, it will accommodate that death and that's it. It will do it as well as possible, and as if it had been constructed for that purpose. Nor will it react when, maybe just an hour later, someone will drop into it, and laugh at a vulgar joke, or tell a story in which the dead man plays the role of the perfect idiot. You see it, the infinite neutrality?

Is it so important?

Of course. In the behavior of objects one learns a phenomenon that is to some extent true for everything. Believe me, it's the same for places, people, even feelings, ideas, too.

What is it?

We have an incredible force with which we give meaning to things, to places, to everything: and yet we can't secure anything, it all goes back to neutral right away—borrowed objects, fleeting ideas, feelings as fragile as crystal. Even bodies, the desire of bodies: unpredictable. We can bombard any piece of the world with all the intensity we're capable of and, an hour later, it's newly reborn. You can understand something, know it thoroughly, and it has already shifted, it knows nothing of you, it has its own mysterious life, which takes no account of what you've made of it. Those who love us betray us, and we betray those we love. We can't secure anything, believe me. When I was young, trying to explain to myself the mute sorrow that clung to me, I was convinced that the problem lay in my incapacity to find my path: but you see, in reality we walk a lot, with courage, intuition, passion, each of us on our own just path, without errors. But we leave no traces. I don't know why. Our footsteps leave no imprint. Maybe we are astute, swift, mean animals, but incapable of marking the earth. I don't know. But, believe me, we don't leave traces even in ourselves. Thus there is nothing that survives our intention, and what we construct is never built.

You really believe that?

Yes.

Maybe it's something that concerns only you.

I don't think so.

It concerns me, too?

I imagine so, yes.

In what way?

In many ways.

Tell me one.

Those who love us betray us, and we betray those we love.

What do I have to do with that?

It's what's happening to you.

I'm not betraying anyone.

No? What do you call this?

This what?

You know very well.

This has nothing to do with it.

Precisely. It has nothing to do with your great love, it has nothing to do with the Son, it has nothing to do with the idea you have of yourself. There is no trace of all that in the actions you are performing at this moment. Doesn't it seem odd to you? No trace.

I stayed here to wait for him, doesn't that mean something?

I don't know. You tell me.

I never stopped loving him, I'm here for him, and he's always with me.

You're convinced of it?

Of course. We never stopped being together.

Yet I don't see him here.

He's coming.

It's what they all believe.

And so?

Maybe the truth would interest you.

The truth is that the Son is arriving.

I'm afraid not, signorina.

What do you know about it?

I know that the last time they saw him was a year ago. He was embarking on a cutter, a small sailboat. Since then no one has heard anything about him.

What the hell are you talking about?

Naturally it wasn't something that could be communicated to the Father, so crudely, and abruptly. So we preferred first to put it off and then to manage it in a, let's say, more gradual manner. It couldn't be ruled out, moreover, that the Son would reappear out of nothing, one day or other. You've stopped swaying, signorina.

But you haven't.

I no, it's true.

Why are you telling me these lies? Do you want to hurt me?

I don't know.

Are they lies?

No.

Tell me the truth.

It's the truth: the Son disappeared.

When?

A year ago.

And who told you?

It was Comandini who took care of things.

Him.

He was the only one who knew, until a few days ago. Then he came to tell me, shortly before we left. He wanted some advice.

And all that stuff?

The two rams and the rest?

Yes.

Well, the affair became complicated when you arrived. It was hard to keep dragging things out. So to Comandini it seemed that a very lengthy, endless relocation could gain some time.

Comandini sent those things?

Yes.

I can't believe it.

It was a form of courtesy toward the Father.

Nonsense . . .

I'm sorry, signorina.

I will hate you all, with all my soul, forever, until the day the Son returns.

The Uncle closed his eyes, I felt his shoulders under my hands change their weight.

I tightened my grip.

Don't do it, I said. Don't go.

He reopened his eyes, his gaze empty.

Now let me go, signorina, please.

I won't even think of it.

Please.

I won't stay here alone.

Please.

He closed his eyes again, he was leaving, to return to his spell.

Did you hear me? I won't stay here alone.

I have to go, really.

He was already talking in his sleep.