The Purple Room (19 page)

“So what do
you think I should do? Let’s hear it.”

“Tell her everything.
Tell her about how you nearly died, how alone you are, that you came here on
purpose to find her… whatever… but you have to tell her how you feel.”

“My daughter’s
giving me advice about my love life. It’s weird.”

“I have a
feeling I understand these things better than you do, Dad.”

“Maybe you’re
right. After all, I have one broken marriage behind me. You don’t.”

The train’s
about to leave. Michela strokes Lucky. Then she throws her arms around my neck
and gives me a kiss.

“Do the right
thing, okay, Dad?”

She gets on
board, then turns around to wave at Lucky and me. The doors close and the train
pulls away. The dog barks until the last carriage has disappeared down the
track.

21

When I get to
Gloria’s, the sun is at its peak. Getting out of the car, I regret leaving my
sun glasses at home. Squinting, I make my way towards the house. The dog
follows along with its tongue hanging out.

Mrs. Decesaris
is sitting under the portico, cooling herself with a fan. As I get closer, her
eye hones in on me. It’s not easy to guess what’s going through her mind. She
doesn’t seem to know who I am. It’s as if she suffers from some sort of
amnesia, too, that makes her forget things from one day to the next.

“Hello, Mrs.
Decesaris. Hot today, isn’t it?”

The old woman
rocks her head backwards and forwards in a nod. She fans herself faster.

“Is Gloria
home?”

“There,” she
says, pointing to the path that leads to the olive grove.

I find Gloria
behind the old olive press, hoeing a strip of earth. She’s wearing a sun hat.
Her T-shirt is sweaty and sticks to her back. She’s not wearing a bra. A dozen
lavender plants are lined up beside her, along with a wheelbarrow of soil.

“Hi!” I say,
trying to sound cheerful. “You’re hard at work, I see.”

Gloria takes
off her hat and dries the sweat with her arm.

“Weren’t you
going to the caves?”

“Michela
caught a train back to Rome. She’s got a boyfriend. You know how that is.”

“What about
you? How come you didn’t go back with her?”

“That was the
plan, but then I decided to stick around. I want to enjoy my vacation, take a
few pictures.”

“Are you a
photographer?”

“It’s just a
hobby. I’m a graphic artist. Advertisements, posters, things like that.”

“That’s
interesting,” says Gloria. She puts her hat back on and picks up the hoe.
“Sorry, but I have to finish this before lunch.”

“Can I give
you a hand? You know, I live in the country, too.”

“Really? I had
you pegged for a city guy.”

“I don’t grow vegetables
like you, but I do have quite a big garden.”

“You’ll get
dirty.”

“It doesn’t
matter. Tell me what you want me to do.”

“If you really
want to help, you take over on hoeing.”

I take off my
shirt, pick up the hoe and get to work. I try to suck in my gut every time I
bend over.

“Go easy,”
says Gloria. “The holes don’t have to be that deep. A few inches are enough.”

“Sorry, I have
to get a feel for it.”

I start again,
trying to be less zealous and more precise. I have this feeling that my future
with Gloria depends on how I handle the hoe.

“That’s
better. You see, the idea is to make a border along the path.”

“Yes, ma’am.
One border, coming up.”

I throw myself
into the work, hoeing as carefully as I can. Gloria follows me as I go along.
She puts the lavender plants in the turned earth and fills the holes back in
with soil from the wheelbarrow. Lucky sniffs at every clod of dirt. Whenever the
dog finds an insect, it whisks it into its mouth, chews on it, then spits it
back out.

When I get to
the end of the path, I’m bathed in sweat. My back hurts and my hands are
covered in blisters. I’m so tired I can’t hold my stomach in any longer. I
relax my muscles and let my belly hang over my belt.

“Good,” Gloria
says. She hasn’t quite caught up with me yet. “Now, you can help me finish the
planting.”

I like this
part of the work better. Gloria shows me the right way to lay the roots in the earth
and how much soil to cover them with. We’re very close. We brush up against
each other. I can smell her skin. I want to kiss her.

When we
finish, we step back to admire our handiwork. The plants are all in a row,
straight and well-spaced. The smell of the lavender is heady.

“I think we
deserve something to drink,” says Gloria, satisfied.

We go back
towards the house. I push the wheelbarrow with the gardening tools, while
Gloria fans herself with her hat.

“You can put
everything in there.”

I put the
wheelbarrow in the old shed housing the olive press, which Gloria uses to store
tools, then I join her under the portico. Mrs. Decesaris is still there,
fanning herself.

“I want the
electric fan,” she says to Gloria. “I want to go upstairs.”

“All right,
Mom, I’ll take you up now.” Gloria turns to me. “There’s a wash basin out here.
I’ll be right back.”

She helps her
mother to stand. She supports her with an arm around the waist as they go up
the staircase, one step at a time.

Behind the
house I find one of those wide and shallow wash basins, with a sloping surface
for washing clothes. I fill up a bowl of water for Lucky. Then I scrub myself
with Castile soap, using a brush to get the earth out from under my nails. I
rinse off with cold water. Dripping, I go and sit in the sun. In this heat, it
won’t take a moment to dry.

I wonder what
it would be like to live here. First of all, I’d have to change jobs. But that
wouldn’t be a problem. I wouldn’t miss what I’m doing now. The point is, would
I know how to do anything else? Gloria could teach me how to look after the
vegetable garden. I could pick olives, give a hand during the grape harvest, do
the heavy work. Or I could become a real photographer. I could put together
websites for local organic products or old farm houses that are up for rent.
It’s not a bad idea at all.

I’m thirsty. I
put my shirt back on and go into the kitchen. I pour myself a glass of water
instead of wine and gulp it down. I pour another one and drink that, too, then I
go back out and move the chair under the trellis. Lucky stretches out next to
me, as eager for shade as I am. It shifts, looking for a comfortable position
for a nap. The air has become so hot it’s suffocating. The cicadas drone on
without a pause. The trees are motionless, like they’re carved out of marble.

The blinding
white light of the sun turns everything to stone.

I don’t know how
long it’s been. It seems like only a moment, but I must have gotten lost in my
thoughts, because when Gloria comes down, she’s washed and changed. She comes
outside and sits down across the table from me. I can smell the scent of soap
again. She’s wearing a tank top and shorts that show her thighs. I watch her as
she gathers her hair up and secures it at the nape of her neck with a pencil. A
shiver runs through me, in spite of the heat.

“It’s stifling
today,” she says. “There’s some cool wine in there if you want some.”

“I’m fine,
thanks.”

“I still
haven’t thanked you. It would have taken much longer without your help.”

“It was useful
for me, too. Now I know how to plant lavender in my garden.”

“What’s it
like where you live?”

“I’ve got a
house in the hills north of Rome. Instead of vineyards, there are sheep and
horses. Mostly sheep. Not that I know much about animals.”

“You’ve got a
dog.”

“Lucky? It’s
Michela’s.”

“So, what do
you do when you’re not working?”

“I lie on the
sofa and brood. Don’t laugh, Gloria. It’s tougher than you might think.”

We sit in
silence for a little while. We glance at each other every now and then, as if
we each have something to say, but don’t dare do it before the other. Then I
see her smile again.

“What are you
thinking about?”

“I was
thinking about what you said yesterday evening. It’s funny, you know.”

“What?”

“You seemed so
sure of yourself when you said my room was purple. I tried to think back.
That’s something I haven’t done in a long time, actually––think
about the past, I mean. In the end, I understood what you were talking about.”

“Well, please
let me in on it, because I was up all night wondering.”

“Do you
remember when I took you up to my room that afternoon?”

“Of course I
remember.”

“You were so
nervous. You went around touching everything. The pillows, the knick-knacks,
the records. I told you to leave my sister’s stuff alone. She was the kind to
make a terrible scene if she found the slightest thing out of place. But did
you listen to me? Oh, no. You looked in her drawers on purpose and tried on her
things. Then you found a pair of glasses. My father had brought them back from
a trip to America. They were the kind Elvis used to wear. Do you remember
them?”

“No… I don’t
think so.”

“You put on
the glasses and started dancing like Elvis. You were so funny with those huge
things on your face.”

“It’s strange.
I don’t remember that at all.”

“Do you
remember when we got undressed?”

“Yes. I
haven’t forgotten that part.”

“And do you
remember you took everything off, except for the glasses? You lay down
completely naked on my bed, wearing those huge glasses. Do you understand now?”

“No.”

“The lenses,
Sergio. The lenses in the glasses were purple––as purple as purple
can be. The room looked that color to you because you saw it through tinted
glasses.”

I stare at
her, speechless. Then I burst out laughing like crazy. I laugh so hard that
Lucky jumps up and starts barking.

Gloria watches
me, bewildered. “Are you all right?”

“Yes! I’m
great! You’ve just taken such a weight off my shoulders. This is going to sound
silly to you, but because of that one little detail––the color of
your room––I’d started doubting everything.”

“Everything?”

“If you only
knew what this means to me. In the last three months so many strange things
have happened to me. Some good, some not so much, but they’ve all made me think
things over. I’ve been thinking about when we were together. I know, we were
only sixteen, but a little piece of those days is still there, deep inside me.
It’s survived all the changes, the mistakes, the disasters of the past few
years. It’s this tiny core, but it’s tough and strong, and it doesn’t want to
die. Don’t think it didn’t surprise me, too, to find it was still there. That’s
the reason I came here. It’s wasn’t a coincidence, Gloria. I wanted to tell you
that I haven’t forgotten you.”

Gloria scrapes
some flakes of paint from the table with her fingernails. She lifts one, as
thin as paper, and holds it between her fingertips. Then she blows it into the
air with a puff.

“If I were to
say that I’d thought about you even once in all this time, it would be a lie.
Still, lots of memories have come back to me just hearing you talk. That trip
to Florence, with the rain that never stopped. The kiss on the train, as we
were pulling into the station. The first time I saw you in class. You were
sitting in the front, talking to a blonde girl. I blushed every time our eyes
met, because I already liked you.”

“I didn’t know
that.”

“There’s
another thing you don’t know. On that day in my room, I didn’t fall asleep. I
was pretending. I kept my eyes closed because I was embarrassed. I liked the
way you were touching me. I hoped you’d take the initiative and go through with
it. I was dying to make love to you.”

“Instead I
just left you there and went home. Now I understand why you didn’t want to see
me again.”

“No, you’re
wrong. I wanted to be your girlfriend. I dreamed about you all the time, but
the day after you came over, I didn’t feel well. I used to faint sometimes. My
mother thought I was skipping meals and tried to solve the problem by forcing
me to eat. That time, though, was worse than the others. I had to go to the
hospital, and from the tests it turned out I had diabetes. My father got really
worried and decided that my mother wasn’t capable of looking after me. He took
me with him to Lugano. I stayed with him for a year. He taught me how to give
myself injections and keep to a strict diet. When I went back to Milan, my
mother and sister had moved again, so I was enrolled in a different high
school. I could have called you to explain everything. I don’t know why I
didn’t. Maybe I felt like I had to start over, with a clean slate. The same way
I did four years ago.”

Gloria looks
over at the hills in front of us. Her eyes take on a stony look. “Do you have
any idea how hard it is to isolate yourself from the rest of the world? You can
go to the middle of nowhere, far away from everybody, cut off all your ties,
and still keep on feeling like you’re in the middle of a crowd. Sometimes all
it takes is memories to keep you tied down. Chained. What’s in your head is
enough to trap you. I sought out my solitude. It was hard, but I did it. Now
I’m free. I don’t need anyone. I don’t
want
to need anyone.”

We sit there
in silence, looking at each other. I would like to ask her what she came here
to forget, but I know it’s no use asking questions. Gloria studies me to see
how I’m taking it. I lower my head, hoping she won’t see the chaos that’s
exploding in my brain. I stroke Lucky, glad to feel the dog’s little heart
beating beneath its fur, and I wait. I wait for this moment to dissolve, to pass
and become the next moment, the afterwards––but the afterwards
doesn’t seem to want to arrive. I try desperately to send my other self on
ahead of me, the one who is in complete control of himself and his actions, who
calls up women and invites them out for a drink, who goes to meetings at work
and says sensible things, who carries on a normal conversation over dinner. That
one goes out into the trenches while I huddle up under the covers, like a
coward. Only I can’t find him. That other self has gone.