The Purple Room (21 page)

23

The path led
me back to the main entrance to the cave. I saw Ettore there. I stayed hidden
among the trees, watching him. He’d lost his beautiful hat. He kept on looking
down the tunnel, calling my name. He seemed to want to go back into the cave
and look for me, but in the end he changed his mind. He hurried back to his
jeep. I waited to hear the sound of the engine fade, then I came out from
behind the trees. I went over to Lucky, still tied to the bush. As soon as it
saw me, the dog started straining against its leash so hard I thought it would
strangle itself. I freed it and let it jump into my arms. I didn’t let it lick
my face, though.

We go back on
foot, the dog and I. The sun beats down savagely on my head. After the darkness
in the cave, it’s almost impossible to keep my eyes open. I take off my shirt
and tie it around my head like a turban.

When we come
in sight of Gloria’s house, Lucky bounds ahead in search of water. I check to
make sure Ettore’s jeep isn’t there, then I follow. I find the dog with its
front paws up on the sink out back. It’s trying to lick a few drops from around
the lip of the basin. I fill a bowl and set it down for the dog. Then I put my
mouth up to the tap and drink until my belly’s swollen. I thrust my head under
the cold water and stay there for a long time.

The house is
silent. Gloria and her mother must be upstairs, sleeping. It’s the only way to
wait out such a hot afternoon. I would like to lie down and rest, too. I’m
exhausted. But I can’t. I made a promise to Gloria. I have to get out of here.
Take Lucky, get in the car and leave. I said I would, and I intend to keep my
word. It’s just that it’s so peaceful here, with Gloria sleeping upstairs.

I go into the
kitchen. I look up at the beamed ceiling. I can almost hear her steady
breathing, the rustle of her foot moving over the sheet. While I’m thinking
that I should leave, my feet start climbing the stairs. Step by step, I arrive
on the second floor. It’s then that I stop repeating to myself that I shouldn’t
be here. I’m sure that I’m not doing anything wrong. I only want to see Gloria
one last time. A farewell is worth all the time in the world.

Gloria’s
mother is sleeping on the sofa in the sitting room. The electric fan is on. It
rotates, stirring the warm air just a few inches from where she lies. Her
staring eye is closed. On no account must it open. I have to be careful of the
wooden floorboards. They creak so easily. First of all, I take off my shoes.
Then I test the boards one by one with my hands before putting my weight on
them. It takes a full minute to inspect each plank, then another minute to slip
silently over it. It takes a long time to cover the distance that separates me
from the second staircase, the one leading to the loft. There are nine steps. I
grasp the railing with one hand and place my foot on the first stair. Despite
my best efforts to place my foot lightly, the wood settles under my weight with
a sharp crack. In this hush, it sounds like a plate smashing.

I look towards
the sofa. Mrs. Decesaris gives a start. Her eyelids tremble like butterfly
wings, her eye opens halfway. I hold my breath and wait. After a moment of
uncertainty, the eye closes once more and the old woman goes back to sleep. The
figure she saw at the foot of the stairs will only be a play of shadows to her,
a fragment from an interrupted dream, glimpsed and then forgotten.

The loft has a
low sloping ceiling. A mosquito net hangs over the bed, enveloping it like a
cocoon. Gloria is lying on her side, on top of the sheets. Her clothes are
sitting on top of a linen chest. She has taken off everything but her panties.

In the corner
there’s an easel holding a half finished portrait. It’s of a little girl, about
eight or nine years old, with big melancholy eyes and Gloria’s mouth. I stand
there looking at it, wondering why she has left this portrait of herself as a
child unfinished. It was turning out well.

Then I see the
big box filled with dolls, toys and brightly colored books. I see the childish
drawings done in felt-tipped pens collected in a clear plastic folder. I see a
pair of red patent leather shoes, the toes slightly scuffed. They peep out from
beneath a first-communion dress displayed on a hanger.

Now I
understand why Gloria wanted to isolate herself from the world. I understand
that the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
It was hard but I did it. Now I’m free.
That’s not true, Gloria.
Look around you. Look at your bedroom. You’re imprisoned by the memory of your
pain. You, like me, are clinging desperately to what you have lost, to what you
cannot forget.

Moving ever so
slowly, I lift up the mosquito netting. I slip onto the bed as delicately as I
am able. I lie down next to her. The tip of her nose is less than an inch from
mine. I can smell the saltiness of her breath. On her upper lip there are
miniscule droplets of perspiration that I’d like to lick off with my tongue.
The curves of her hips and stomach are even softer than they were long ago. The
desire to touch her, to place my fingers in the folds of her skin, to sink my
face into her, is overwhelming. Gloria. I wish I could hold you close and cry
with you, then fall asleep beside you. But I don’t do it. I don’t do anything.
I can’t offer you my consolation. All we have been granted is this one moment
in time, suspended in the stifling afternoon air. We’ll have to be content with
that.

There’s a
noise from below. Someone’s coming up the stairs, then moving around beneath
us, in the sitting room. Then the quick little footsteps, closer and closer,
are coming up the steps to the loft. I lift up my head and look towards the
staircase. A fuzzy white face pops up from the floor. It sniffs at the air. It
recognizes my scent and comes towards the bed, tail wagging. Good Lucky, good
dog. Don’t make a noise. Don’t bark. Can’t you see that Gloria’s sleeping? We
mustn’t wake her. Five minutes is all I ask. Five minutes lying here beside
her. It’s so simple, in the end. No complications. No need to talk or argue.
Just this, lying here beside each other. Like the first time.

24

Lucky is
curled up asleep on the seat next to me, its muzzle resting on its paws. Every
now and again, the dog gives a sigh that sounds like a whimper. My lip has
swollen up. I can feel it pulsing in time with the beat of my heart. With the
tip of my tongue I touch the place where Gloria bit me. I’m happy to have the
mark of her teeth on me. Perhaps it’s the best gift she could have given me.

I don’t have
the slightest idea where I’m going. I only know that I’m not going home. As I
drive, I think back to the day of the divorce ruling. Alessandra had gotten her
hair cut and was wearing a new pair of shoes with high heels. At first glance,
she looked younger, but a closer look revealed that her skin was tired and
drawn. Her freckles were covered with a coat of foundation and a deep line dug
a furrow between her eyebrows, like a scar. The judge asked us the ritual
question: were we sure we wanted this separation?

 
Alessandra was the first to reply. Yes,
she was sure.

The judge
repeated the same question to me. I looked at Alessandra, expecting her to meet
my eye. Ten seconds went by. Twenty seconds. Half a minute. She could feel me
looking at her, but she didn’t move a muscle. She kept staring at the judge’s
desk. Her gaze was focused on a marble paperweight as though it were a
lifeline. Almost a minute of silence went by. The judge coughed and repeated
the question, articulating every word. Was I certain I wanted to go forward
with the divorce by mutual consent? Without taking my eyes off Alessandra, I
said yes. Whatever my wife wanted would suit me, too.

We left the
courtroom in silence. Without saying a word, we each knew what was going
through the other’s mind. Every moment of our life together, from the day we
first met, until the exact moment when it all ended. It was the inventory of
our successes and failures, many of which weren’t the same. I had mine, she had
hers. Standing there, on the stone steps of the courthouse, the moment had come
to leave each other for good. To go our separate ways. It was then that we felt
the elation of failure. A weight had fallen from our shoulders. At long last we
could abandon the struggle to love and respect each other until death do us
part. We could stop feeling incompetent and guilty. We had been relieved of our
duty. We were fleeing from the battlefield like two deserters. It didn’t really
matter that I’d been the first to start running. Now we were the same. Alone
again, face to face, just like the day we met.

“I’ll walk you
to your car,” Alessandra said. There was something strange in her voice. “I’ve
got an umbrella.”

I looked up at
the sky. “It’s not raining anymore.”

She ignored my
objection. We walked off together towards the parking lot. When we reached my
car I slowed down, but Alessandra looped her arm through mine and propelled me
onward. Now she was looking at the toes of her shoes the same way she’d stared
at the marble paperweight before. She sank them into the puddles without
worrying about wetting her feet.

On the other
side of the road, not far from the courthouse, shone the green sign of a
Holiday Inn. Without needing to say a word, we stepped down off the sidewalk
and ran across the road through the traffic. We arrived in the hotel lobby
breathless. We rushed through the formalities at the reception desk. I grabbed
the keys and we raced up the stairs without waiting for an elevator. We flung
ourselves into the room, clutching at each other the moment we were through the
door. I lifted up her dress, pulled down her stockings, and we did it right
there, up against the door, clinging to each other in a desperate frenzy.
Alessandra was hanging on to my neck, balanced precariously on one high-heel.
Her other leg was wrapped around my waist, while I propped us up by pressing my
forehead against the doorframe. There was nothing familiar or recognizable
about the way our bodies came together. It was nothing like going back in time.
We were two different people, strangers, saying goodbye without ever having
really known each other.

Afterwards,
while she was smoothing out her wrinkled dress, Alessandra burst out laughing.
It was a slightly hysterical sound.

“What’s so
funny?” I asked.

“Nothing. I’m
just thinking that we’re ridiculous. Isn’t it ridiculous? I mean, doing it
today, of all days?”

My head
started spinning. All the pent up feelings of guilt from the years of our
marriage pounced on me all at once.

“Why don’t we
try again, Alessandra? You and Michela could come home for a while. A month or
two, until the holidays. We could try it out. Do you want to?”

Even while I
was talking, I knew perfectly well that what I was saying was idiotic. I knew
it, and so did she. Still, Alessandra let me finish what I had to say, and when
I’d spoken the last word of it there was no need to respond or comment. She
gazed at me with the look of someone who can understand such moments of
weakness and, even if she disapproves of them, for once she doesn’t want to rub
it in. I envied her that serious look. It was enough to forever cancel out the
foolish words I had said.

“Goodbye,
Sergio,” she said, adjusting the lapels on my jacket. She picked her purse up
off the floor, opened the door and left.

I sat there in
the room at the Holiday Inn, wondering obtusely why my marriage had failed.
What had gone wrong? Apart from the cheating, I mean. Where and when had the
end of it all begun? I just couldn’t understand it. I only knew that at that
moment, as the sensation of Alessandra’s body was already beginning to vanish,
I could not stop feeling, alongside the deep sadness and melancholy, an equally
strong sense of relief.

It was as if
the state of being separated––a state I’d only officially entered
into that day––had always been my destiny. It felt right that I not
try to escape that solitude any longer. This was my life now, and that was how
it had to stay. If I could accept that state as my new identity, I sensed that I
would gain quite a few advantages. There was something comforting in viewing my
status as a divorcé as a point of arrival. No risks. No feelings. No commitment.
I was free to love nobody––and it had been like that for years,
until the day of my brush with death.

That was when
I had begun searching for a happiness from a time much further in the past, a
more innocent happiness. In my attempt to find it, I had discovered that
Gloria, like me, had hidden herself away in a solitude of her own construction,
as a way to escape her pain. Hers was a greater grief, more tragic, but equally
private and inaccessible.

I recall what Michela
said about Gloria’s house.
You’d have to
go live on a rock in the middle of the sea to be more isolated than this
.

Right. The
sea.

When I get to
Siena I take the highway in the direction of Grosseto. I get off at Albinia and
take the coast road towards Porto Santo Stefano. I drive past camp grounds,
people riding bikes in their swimsuits, families crossing the road loaded down
with sun umbrellas and air mattresses, until I come to the small side road I’ve
been looking for. I turn onto a gravel lane that runs past little houses hidden
in the pine wood. Then the road ends. Beyond that there’s the beach, full of
people soaking up the last of the afternoon sun. I leave the car and walk the
rest of the way.

Roberto’s
vacation house looks right out over the water. The gate is closed. I climb up
onto the fence and look in. His car isn’t here. Roberto and Loredana must have
stayed in Rome this weekend. To make babies, I guess.

I go back to
the car, get the dog and lift it over the fence. Then I climb over into the
garden. Roberto’s rubber dinghy is in the shed. It’s abandoned, covered in sand
and pine needles. No one has used it since the day of the accident.

I take out one
of the lounge chairs and pull it out into the shade of a pine tree. I’m
exhausted. Lucky goes off chasing butterflies, while I, in an instant, have already
fallen asleep.

It’s the sound
of the waves that wakes me. I can hear them booming as they break on the shore,
on the other side of the fence. I have no idea what time it is. It’s gotten
dark. I get up and take a walk around the house to look for the dog. I call for
it over and over, but it’s nowhere to be seen. I open the gate and walk out
onto the beach. There’s not a soul in sight.

The sea’s
rough. It swells in the moonlight, then dashes its waves all the way up to my
feet. The warm sirocco wind blows the spray into my face.

Further down
the beach there’s a pack of stray dogs. They’re trotting away from me, sniffing
at the sand. They move in single file, close up against the fences of the beach
houses, so as not to wet their paws. I can’t tell whether Lucky is with them.
Their thin silhouettes trot further and further away, until they disappear into
the mist of spray rising from the surging sea. In the distance I see the lights
of Porto Santo Stefano and the dark mass of Mount Argentario. That’s where it
happened. I keep wondering why I’m not still down there, below.

Once, when I
was complaining that I couldn’t find a job, my father said to me, “In this
life, Sergio, one day to be born and another to die are all we get for free.
All the rest we have to earn for ourselves.” Maybe old Gigi Monti had it wrong.
Maybe we have to work to win the day we die, too. Just like everything else.

Slowly, I
unbutton my shirt. I toss it away. The wind catches it, filling it up like a
sail, pushing it up in the air before letting it fall at the water’s edge. I
take off the rest of my clothes, dropping them on the sand. Then I walk into
the sea. I battle against the waves that assail me, beating against my chest,
pushing me back. The water comes up to my chin. I stay like that for a moment,
positioned precariously, moving with the waves that lift me up, then set me
down where I can still touch the bottom. The sea, black and steel gray, merges
with the sky. You can’t see where it ends, as if the water has risen up above
the horizon to form a lid over the earth. Then I empty my lungs and dive forward.
I plunge straight into a wave bigger than the others. It submerges me. I go
under, where I roll over and over until the undertow flips me over, propels me
upwards. I resurface. I breathe. Beneath my feet now there’s nothing but
emptiness. I stay afloat, treading water. I can feel the force of the sea,
taking me and dragging me away from the shore. My heart’s pounding in my chest.
I’m afraid. I let the current pull me out to sea like an empty bottle.

As I drift
further out I think of my mother. I imagine her with tears in her eyes,
clipping the little article out of the paper: “Disappears in an Etruscan tomb.
Body mysteriously found at sea.” I think of the anguish of whoever will have to
identify my body, all swollen and disfigured with fish bites. I think of
Alessandra, a widow at last, and Michela, who will never understand and will
never forgive me. And I think of Gloria. The memory that I have of her, in the
purple room, will disappear with me. There will be nothing left. What’s been
the point of getting this far? I’d like to be able to ask those who are still
pushing on, driven by some incomprehensible force. Roberto and Loredana,
clinging to each other in the hope of a child. Nino and Sabrina, wrapped in
each other’s arms in a hotel room in Majorca. Franco seeking comfort in Petra’s
young bosom. Silvia, in love with her insects. Simonetta, with her lovely
voice, full of regrets. Luisa and everyone who frequents her dating agency.
Marilena. Antonella. Even Jenny and her twenty customers per night. All willing
to pay in the hope of finding something that might not even exist. Trying so
hard to love and be loved. Only to lose it all, end up alone, cry, suffer. Then
start all over again, driven on by the hope that this time it will be better
or, maybe, convinced that it will be worse, but determined to plunge right back
in, up to their necks. Maybe to end up like me––staggering towards
the memory of a state of grace, of a purple room on a sunny afternoon that no
one will ever be able to give back to me.

I glance
towards the retreating shore. Lucky reappears on the beach. When it sees me,
the dog lunges forward as if it wants to come and save me. The waves force it
back, but it doesn’t give up. It barks louder, challenging the breakers. Then
it throws itself into the water. I can see its little white head bobbing like a
cork, appearing and disappearing amidst the waves. It’s trying to swim towards
me, so I try to take a few strokes towards it. The current is very strong. I
swim with more energy, propelling myself as hard as I can with my arms and
legs. I take at least fifty strokes against the current, giving it everything I
have.

When I lift my
head, I find Lucky floating right in front of me. It takes advantage of its
position to lick me on the face. The dog’s happy. It doesn’t realize that we’re
both at the mercy of the waves now, or that I’ve started to feel tired. I raise
my legs up and float on my back. Lucky’s exhausted, too. The dog can’t keep
swimming any longer. I grab it by the scruff of the neck and lay it on my
chest, as though I were a raft. I try to stay afloat with little movements of
my arms, letting the current carry me along.

I feel like
laughing. It’s all so absurd, and yet, isn’t this what I’ve been doing all my
life? Haven’t I been floating for all these years? Haven’t I struggled against
a force greater than myself every day, with no hope of ever winning, but
managing to survive? I can do that now, too. I just have to let the current
transport me, and not panic. Yard by yard, a few short strokes at a time.