The Purple Room (7 page)

It’s true. The line she’s talking about just stops suddenly, about three
quarters of the way across my palm. I’d never noticed.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s the Great Love that Ended Badly. A classic. Hard to forget. You
subconsciously compare every woman you meet to the one that broke your heart.
Obviously, no one ever measures up.”

She looks at me like I have some kind of sickness, and adds, “Plenty of
men spend their whole lives searching in vain.”

“I think you’re wrong. I’m not like that.”

I try to pull my hand out of hers. She holds on tightly.

“I know I’m right on this one,” she presses. “Who is it? Your ex-wife?”

“Not a chance.”

“Did she leave you?”

“Yes. It was hard at first, but then I realized it was for the best.
It’s water under the bridge now.”

“If not your wife, it must be some other woman. Who is she?”

“No one. Really. My heart couldn’t be more free if I were a teenager on
my first date.”

Antonella looks into my eyes, skeptical. She slowly releases my hand,
brushing delicately against my fingers as she does so.

“You’re a liar,” she says, “but it doesn’t matter. I want to help you
anyway. Whoever your Great Love that Ended Badly is, I’ll make you forget about
her.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

Antonella flashes her big white teeth at me.

“I’m going to
take you to my place.”

8

From her
living room windows, you can see the statues adorning the church of San
Giovanni in Laterano, all lit up. They look like they’re waving at me. The
apartment is small and tidy. Above the stereo is a shelf full of trophies,
plaques and medals. There’s also a recent photo of Antonella in a bikini, lying
out on some rocks by the sea. A good tan. A damned good figure.

“Oh no!” she
says from the kitchen. “The fridge is broken again. The beer’s warm. There’s
whisky if you like, but no ice.”

“Whisky’s fine.”

I hear her
opening and closing cupboards. She comes back to the living room carrying a
tray with two glasses and a bottle of whisky. She sets it on the coffee table
in front of the TV.

“Don’t just
stand there. Sit down.”

I sit on the
couch and pour for both of us. She puts on some music, then sits down next to
me. I pass her a glass.

“I don’t like
toasts. They create too many expectations. And I don’t expect anything –
not from you or anyone else. You know what I mean?”

“So, let’s
toast to nothing,” I say, lifting up my glass.

“OK. To
nothing. I like that.”

The glasses
clink. Antonella downs her whisky in one gulp. A shiver runs down my spine as I
empty my glass too, not to be outdone. We look at each other. All evening she’s
been giving me this look, a challenge, like a soccer player about to take a
penalty shot. This time, though, she’s the first one to look away. I pour us
both more whisky and we drink that, too. The tall, slender glass in my hand
makes me think of a gear shift. I watch my hand put the car in neutral. In my
head, the gesture repeats itself in slow motion, six or seven times. Imitating
that vision, which came from who knows where, I rest my empty glass on the
table. I feel like I’m gliding away, just like a car in neutral.

Before I
realize it, I’ve glided over to Antonella and I’m kissing her. We kiss for a
long time, there on the couch. Even her way of kissing is athletic. She presses
her mouth against mine, toned and vigorous. Her tongue darts around like it’s
running an obstacle course. I do my best to keep up, but I’m afraid I’m making
a poor showing. I’m busy giving it my all when Antonella grabs my tongue
between her teeth and starts to suck it. She sucks it into her mouth with such
force that it’s like she wants to tear it out. I try to pull it back, but I
can’t. The harder I resist, the more she sucks it back into her mouth. It
hurts, but I can’t say anything. The moan that rises from my throat sounds like
a groan of pleasure, so I surrender, imagining my tongue, with my whole brain
attached behind it, being sucked into that vortex.

Antonella
breaks away from me with a
pop
.

“Come with
me,” she murmurs.

I follow her,
dazed by the kiss and the whisky on an empty stomach. She leads me by the hand
into her bedroom. In the dark, we move forward until we reach the bed.

“Lie down.”

I fall back
onto the bed. She lights a couple of candles that are sitting on a chest of
drawers. She undresses, then comes and kneels over me. I like Antonella.
Usually in these situations the autopilot takes over. There’s no need to think.
Everyone does what they should and that’s all there is to it. This time,
though, my autopilot doesn’t work. I feel guilty being here, on this bed, like
someone about to cheat on his wife. Antonella refuses to be discouraged. Her
autopilot works extremely well and is enough for both of us. She takes care of
everything. She unbuttons, undresses, strokes, kisses, licks, sucks, mounts,
gasps, accelerates, slows down, accelerates, slows down again, breaths in and
out, in and out, backs up, starts again, goes, goes, goes, gallops faster and
faster until she reaches the finish line with a wild cry of, “UAAAHHH!”

Then she
collapses on top of me. She kisses my ear. She slips under the sheets. And goes
to sleep. I lie there, stunned, watching the light cast by the candles on the
chest of drawers, relieved that I managed to get there. That, at least, is one
thing I haven’t forgotten.

 
The scratch on my hand is bleeding. I
must have scraped it against the sheets while I was sleeping. It’s a red line
running across my palm, cutting all the other lines in half: Life, Luck, Love.

Antonella’s in
the bathroom. It was the shower running that woke me. At first I felt a little
disoriented, not sure where I was. Then I saw the denim shirt thrown over the
back of the chair and I remembered. I didn’t get an urge to run away, like I
had other times. What I’d like to do is roll over and go back to sleep, but
instead I sit up and try to fix my hair.

Antonella
comes out of the bathroom wearing a robe. Something about her is different from
yesterday but I can’t put my finger on what.

“Good
morning,” she says, seeing me awake. She sits on the edge of the bed, smelling
of coconut
hair conditioner.

“Did you sleep
well?”

“Yes. What
time is it?”

“Almost
eleven. I have a class at school in ten minutes and I’m still like this!”

She jumps up,
takes off her bathrobe and starts fishing around in the closet.

“What about
you?” she asks. “Don’t you have to go to the office or something?”

“I’m on vacation.”

“Lucky you.”
She pulls out a bra and squints at it. “I can’t see a thing. Do you mind if I
turn on the light?”

“Open the
shutters if you want to.”

Antonella,
naked, crosses the room. She moves around the bed on her way to the window.
Blades of sunlight filter through the shutters, capturing particles of dust and
cutting her body into slices of light and shade. It is in the instant that she
places her hands against the shutters and pushes to open them that it happens.
It’s the feeling you get when your heart misses a beat. A sudden void in the
center of my chest. I lean towards the image before me: the woman, opening the
shutters, letting the light in. I hold my breath, staring at her figure
silhouetted in the bright rectangle of the window frame. Her hair, falling
loose down her back, the outline of her shoulders, her breasts against the
light. Everything is suspended. I feel certain that something magic is about to
happen. If she turned into a dove and flew away, it would seem like nothing out
of the ordinary. I close my eyes, blinded by the sun, and convince myself that
in a moment I’ll witness a miracle.

When I open my
eyes, the light framed by the window is empty. She hasn’t flown away. She’s
back by the closet, slipping into her underwear.

“I mean it,
Sergio,” she’s saying. “You can stay here if you want. I only have two classes.
I’ll be home by one. We can have lunch together or go out somewhere. What do
you think?”

I open my
mouth to answer, but I don’t know what to say. I’ve heard the words and I’ve
understood their meaning, and yet I can’t seem to reply. My brain’s gone off on
its own again. My thoughts dart all over the place.

“Hey, is
everything all right?” she asks.

“What?”

“What’s wrong,
Sergio?”

“Why?”

“You have this
look on your face... Did I say something wrong?”

“No.”

“Look, it was
just an idea. If you want to go back to your place, I’ll understand.”

“Maybe that’s
better.”

She eyes me
gravely. I try to smile. I don’t know how it turns out but, judging by the way
she’s looking at me, it isn’t very convincing. She finishes pulling on her
sweats and sneakers. She ties her hair back, threading the pony tail through
the gap in her baseball cap. She grabs the keys for her scooter and for a
moment I think she’s going to leave without saying good-bye. Instead she
approaches the bed.

“I think I’ve
made things clear. I don’t expect anything from you. Last night was nice. It’s
been a long time since I felt like that. I’d like to see you again. If you feel
the same, give me a call. If not, do what you want.”

Then she
leaves.

I don’t know
how long I stay in bed listening to the noises in the building. A neighbor’s
television. The elevator running up and down. The traffic down on the street.
On the chest of drawers there’s a photo of two guys in their twenties,
identical and muscular, lifting Antonella off the ground as if she were a
little girl. Her twin boys, I guess.

The sun is
falling onto the bed and it’s starting to get hot. I throw off the sheet and
watch the ray of sun creeping up my legs. When the heat becomes unbearable, I
get up. I gather up my scattered clothes, pulling them on haphazardly, and drag
myself to the door.

On the way
home, I stop at the local supermarket. I fill my shopping cart with frozen
goods. While I’m loading the bags into the trunk, I hear a voice behind me:

“Do you want
your pants back or what?”

She rests her
hands on her wide hips, a frown on her face. The woman points to a sign hanging
on the door of the dry cleaner’s.

“It says so
right there. We’re not responsible for anything after thirty days. I was about
to give them away to the poor, you know.”

“You’re right,
ma’am. Sorry, but I’ve been in the hospital and it completely slipped my mind.”

The woman puts
her hands on her cheeks.

“Good
gracious… What happened?”

“I had an
accident.”

“Mother of
God! I’m always telling my son to drive slowly! How are you now? You look so
pale…”

“The worst is
over.”

“Thank God.
Well, come on and get your pants.”

I walk into
the shop. The woman scrolls through the clothes in their plastic covers until
she finds my pants. I recognize them. I hadn’t noticed they were missing from
my closet because they’re made of heavy material. I haven’t looked for them
since the hot weather arrived.

“I would have
been sorry to give them away,” she said. “See what a good job I did? Not even the
shadow of a spot.”

“Were they
badly stained?” I ask, just to give her some satisfaction.

“What? You
don’t remember? That purple blotch on the leg. You don’t wear pants like these
to paint a house! I told you, that’s my son-in-law’s job. Ask him to do it next
time.”

“You’re right.
I’m just wondering, do you remember when I brought them in?”

“We can check
the receipt. Here it is. Friday, the twenty-fourth of April. So much for thirty
days! It’s been two months.”

Back home, I
put the frozen food away and hurry to the garage. I look everywhere, but
there’s no can of paint. I strain to remember. I rack my brains, but all I
manage to do is give myself another headache.

I go out to
the garden to calm down. I water the plants and clear the dead leaves from the
porch. I sweep the path right down to the gate. I hear a yelp and turn to find
the little white mutt in the laurel bushes, its nose pushing through the bars.
It looks at me and wags its tail. It stands up on its hind legs, sniffing the
air to catch my scent. For years Michela begged me to get her a puppy. I always
said no. Perhaps this time I would have made an exception.

I lift up my
eyes to the first floor of my house, where the shutters are always closed.
“That’s the bedroom window,” I think to myself. As soon as I’ve thought it, the
images of the stained pants and the bedroom go
click
, coming together in a perfect fit. I rush upstairs, turn the
key and dash into the room. Right away I smell the paint. Then I see the wall
– the one at the end, where the window is. It’s been painted purple.
Sheets of newspaper are spread at the base of the wall to protect the wood
floor. There’s a paint roller, a brand new ladder, and a can of paint. I step
closer, feeling more and more confused. I brush my fingers gently over the
wall, as if it might not be real. The color is very similar to the purple of
the room in my mind. Is this the window she was looking out of? I look around
for clues. The double mattress is covered with a plastic sheet I put over it
some time ago, to keep the dust off. The closet is empty, as are the night
tables and the chest of drawers. I comb every inch of the floor for a hair, a
bobby pin, a dropped earring – anything to confirm that I’ve been here with
a woman – but I find nothing.

“Hi,
Antonella. It’s Sergio.”

“Well, hey.
This is a surprise.”

“Why a
surprise?”

“I didn’t
think you’d call me so soon. You seemed pretty freaked out this morning.”

“I was
terrified. But that doesn’t mean I have to be rude.”

“You’re
calling me just to be polite?”

“Kind of, I
guess.”

Silence. I’d
like to hang up and disappear forever.

“Antonella,
are you still there?”