Gang of Lovers (7 page)

“You slept in, didn't you? Because you had too much to drink last night.”

“That's my business.”

“It's my business too, since I'm about to reveal the details of a rather delicate matter.”

“Cut it out. Either you trust me or you might as well pick your ass up off that chair and hightail it back to Lugano.”

“Don't be vulgar,” she scolded me; but she remained in her seat. And she told me a story that was decidedly out of the ordinary. Even for an unlicensed private detective like yours truly.

 

 

Guido was running late. It was the first time, but I couldn't help my irritation. I made a mental note to upbraid him, even if it meant ruining the tryst that I'd yearned for and planned with such meticulous care. I have never been able to stand it when other people waste my time. Especially when it comes to sex. Absolutely unacceptable. The time that belongs to lovers is always stolen from lives built on other affections, passions, and routines. Structures that are at once exceedingly complex and yet so delicate that a clandestine affair can destroy them merely by announcing its existence.

I know a lot about this sort of thing. That's why I have caged my love for Guido, cordoned it off with a series of strict rules governing behavior and security. Foolproof. Because this is true love, and for that reason it deserves to live on in secret in our hearts. And yet, at the same time, we can hardly afford to lay waste our official lives. Guido has been engaged to Enrica forever and he loves her deeply. He never pretended for even an instant that I, his mistress, could hope to be the sole and single recipient of his love. Guido loves us in two completely different ways, but nothing on earth could persuade him to leave Enrica.

I, on the other hand, fell out of love with my husband a long time ago, but that's just the luck of the draw in married life. Ugo is a mediocre man in terms of human qualities, but he's a genius at business. I only realized that after the birth of Ilaria, too late to retrace my steps and give up a quiet, comfortable life in the midst of Massagno, just outside of Lugano.

Ilaria resembled her father more and more as she grew up, but at least she had the delicacy to pretend she cared about the feelings of others, especially those of her mother. Duty and decency require that she not ignore me entirely.

I can't say that I've been unhappy all my life. I was born and raised in a setting where relations between people aren't necessarily governed by feeling. The important thing is to maintain a state of harmony based on a healthy hypocrisy and intelligently calibrated lies. I assure you that the quality of life remains intact all the same. Money is an extraordinary resource when it comes to ensuring that everything is reasonably pleasant. I've never believed in the fairy tale of the wealthy young woman who abandons her family to live happily ever after with a woodsman or a worker on the assembly line. In boarding school, we used to tell those stories as if they were hilarious jokes, and none of the girls laughed harder than I did.

Believe me, it's no easy matter to be wealthy while keeping your emotions at bay. It takes an inner discipline that springs from steely daily practice, because at times you're tempted to believe that money is powerful enough to allow you to operate outside the bounds of social mores and customs. And that's a fatal error, one that can lead you to lose everything. When I say everything, I mean money.

I was certain that I was safe from all temptation until the day I met Guido. I'd boarded a train in Bologna and he was sitting in the seat across from me. We were both going to Venice. I had an appointment with an art dealer who wanted me to purchase several portraits from the 1930s. Guido, on the other hand, was going to the university to deliver a lecture. He's an assistant professor, an expert on literature. I'd pulled a novel out of my bag and, suddenly, he took it gently from my hands, begging my forgiveness and hastening to explain that he didn't want to bother me, but that he felt duty-bound to explain the reasons why he felt I should immediately stop reading that book.

At first I was almost put out by his intrusion, but then I'd never met a man like him before and I was immediately intrigued. A refined intellectual, with the exquisite manners of the nineteenth century, amiable and ironic. A good man. Harmless. Which men so rarely are.

It was an agreeable trip. I enjoyed his presence as an unexpected gift, a breath of fresh air. And I imagined nothing more, it didn't move beyond the bounds of fantasy. Not merely because that wasn't something I was accustomed to do, but especially because he was younger than me. By ten years, I later learned. Guido was born in 1975. And I was certain that only men found it natural to dedicate themselves to younger women without a twinge of shame. I've always chosen my lovers from among men of my own age and have always felt contempt for women who take men young enough to be their sons, or just slightly older, to bed.

I soon learned that Guido was a connoisseur of painting as well. He gave me some advice about the artists I'd mentioned to him when I explained the reason for my Venetian interlude.

We said farewell at the station with a handshake and a friendly smile. But by the time I'd turned and taken ten steps, he was already just a memory.

A few hours later I chanced to see him again. I was chatting with the art dealer when I glimpsed him peeking through one of the gallery windows. He smiled when he caught my eye. I thought it would be nice to invite him in. He immediately confessed that he hadn't happened on me by chance. His curiosity had been piqued by my mention of the paintings and he wanted to see a few of them. The proprietor introduced himself and that was when I heard his name for the very first time. Guido Di Lello. He turned toward me with an outstretched hand and apologized for failing to introduce himself earlier on the train. “Oriana Pozzi Vitali,” I said, enunciating clearly, as my family's prominence demanded.

Usually people immediately connect the double surname to my husband's companies. But he didn't. His world had nothing in common with mine.

I was uneasy. I'd never have expected him to come after me. Guido immediately hit it off with the art dealer, praising the selection of paintings that he was proposing I purchase.

I wanted to close the deal that same evening, but his presence was keeping me from doing so. I tactfully tried to make him understand that I would have preferred for him to leave. Never discuss money in front of strangers. Not only is it in poor taste, but it would have obliged me to show an aspect of my personality that I preferred to keep hidden because money should be spent, not wasted. Investing in art means paying as little as possible, especially when the economy is flagging. The dealer knew that I was going to drive a hard bargain and, when it became clear that the stranger wasn't going to get out from underfoot, he spared me any further embarrassment by suggesting we talk again the next day by phone.

Guido, who at that point was still just Professor Di Lello to me, asked whether I was headed for the station or whether I was planning to stay the night, in which case he would be exceptionally pleased to invite me to dinner.

I replied that we weren't sufficiently close for him to dare ask me such questions. He said that he agreed. He muttered an embarrassed farewell and turned to go, but before he'd taken three steps he turned back to ask my forgiveness. I've never met anyone as talented as he when it comes to slipping talk of unrelated matters between an excuse and an apology. He freely ransacked the archives of literature, proving to me with a slew of poetic citations that there was absolutely no harm in his desire to get to know me better. He anticipated every objection I might have raised, first and foremost the question of whether or not I might be interested in him as a person.

Five minutes. Not a minute more. And I surrendered. I was flattered that a professor in his mid-thirties, instead of chasing after co-eds, promising them good grades, should choose to court me. But I was also uncomfortable because I'd never before had a relationship with a man who lacked all familiarity with those material considerations against which I measured my very existence.

He insisted we go to a restaurant that a couple of his colleagues had recommended to him. I was sufficiently familiar with Venice to know that the place was nothing special. The chef was a trattoria cook who had renovated the place and then started wearing an immaculate chef's uniform, and the wine list was frankly abysmal. But I thought it would be tactless for me to point this out and I told him I would be delighted to go.

Guido had understood me to be a woman who cares about tradition, etiquette, and that old-fashioned formality that is nothing other than a shell of armor that protects you from other people. He forced me to yield by making me laugh. Jokes, anecdotes, funny stories. Refined ones, obviously, nothing vulgar. I never heard a dirty word slip out of Guido's lips, not even one of those that has by now entered the common parlance.

When I realized that I desired him, a sense of fair play and sound reason demanded that I point out that I was older than him. That was an unpleasant interlude that dissolved in a split second the amusing atmosphere that had prevailed all evening.

Guido took my hand and confessed with disarming sincerity that I represented the pinnacle of his fantasies. That I was perfect.

I suddenly leapt to my feet and rushed to the restroom. And not out of embarrassment, but because of the excitement that those words had triggered in my mind. And in my body.

When I returned to the table I energetically played the part of the matron with a good head on her shoulders, pointing out that we had barely just met, hoping with all my heart that his answers to my objections would be persuasive enough to leave me with no avenue of escape.

All he had to do was reference a couple of novels. At that point I reasoned that even if we wanted to, and the desire was all too evident, we wouldn't be able to spend the night together because we certainly couldn't register together in a hotel. Certainly not in mine, where I was a familiar guest.

Guido suggested we go to his, which wasn't much more than a glorified pensione. At night there was no desk clerk and therefore the guests were simply given keys to the front door.

I hesitated for a moment. I wasn't all that certain that I wanted to go to bed with a man in a dump. Sex, no matter what people say, isn't something you can just do any old place. But then and there I couldn't seem to find a way to bring this up and so, as silently as a pair of cat burglars, we slipped into an unspeakably bleak hotel room that was, fortunately, quite clean.

Guido was delicate and careful. I found myself nude, in his arms, and it was as if he'd known me forever. He knew how, he knew where . . .

When I fled at five in the morning, he was fast asleep. I didn't want to be found out and treated like a stowaway. I hurried back to my hotel and slipped into bed. Happily topsy-turvy. Guido phoned at nine. I thought I was going to faint when the reception desk called to say that a certain Di Lello wanted to speak to me on the phone. I treated him sternly and arranged to meet him in a café.

I told him in no uncertain terms that if he ever hoped to see me again he was going to have to learn some basic rules of secrecy. While I laid out the ground rules, the astonishment on his face shifted into a smirk that turned him a little ugly.

He nibbled at a croissant and sipped his cappuccino in absolute silence.

Finally he said that he understood my need for secrecy, but that what he wanted to talk about just then was us. An urgent need dictated by the sheer beauty of the night before. He sang the praises of my body and said a thousand other things, each of which left indelible traces deep in my heart.

My husband and the few lovers I'd allowed myself over the years seemed like mere primates compared with him. That morning, in that café, I fell in love. Love. True love.

In a couple of months I had set up our parallel lives as a pair of clandestine lovers. I chose the Veneto because we both had interests in Venice so our travels were amply justified. But we couldn't be seen together in that city because the risk of being noticed was too great. And so, making use of a rather complicated series of financial machinations, I bought an apartment in the center of Padua.

One year, six months, and eleven days of happiness. Until the day that Guido failed to keep an appointment. It was the very first time. The cell phone with a Swiss service provider that he'd given me for our communications was turned off.

Disappointed, wounded, and terribly annoyed, I decided to leave, but while I was waiting for my train, my cell phone rang. I recognized the number. It was Guido.

The voice, however, belonged to a stranger, who informed me that my lover was in their hands and that unless I “coughed up” three hundred thousand euros inside of a week, they were going to kill him.

He put Guido on the line; sobbing, Guido begged me to pay.

The situation was too absurd to be real. It had to be a prank in very poor taste, and I hung up.

The stranger called right back. He told me that he knew that I couldn't lay my hands on that kind of money in cash, otherwise my husband would find out about it. He'd be willing to settle for some portion of my jewelry. He described the items and I realized that he must have seen them in photographs published in newspapers and magazines. A ribbon-cutting at a shopping mall, a few weddings, art openings, and the usual social occasions where people put themselves on display.

I objected that Ugo would find out anyway. The man shot back that I'd have plenty of time to dream up an appropriate excuse and what mattered most was that I'd have Guido back. He ordered me to keep my phone turned on and said that he'd call back in a couple of days with the details of the exchange.