eyes. Then he sank down behind me. I supported myself on one side. I saw the whitish stain of semen against the wall of the condom.
“Never mind,” I said with a dry explosion of laughter in my throat, and I tore the rubber off his already limp penis, threw it away, it stained the floor with a viscid yellow stripe. “You missed the target.”
I put on my clothes, went to the door, he followed me, pulling his bathrobe tight around him. I was disgusted with myself. I murmured before I left:
“It’s my fault, I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m the one…”
I shook my head, forced a smile, falsely conciliating:
“Putting my ass in your face so boldly: Mario’s lover certainly doesn’t do that.”
I went up the stairs slowly. Crouching in a corner, beside the banister, I saw the poverella of so long ago, who said to me in a weary but very serious tone: “I am clean I am true I play with my cards on the table.”
In front of the door with its metal plates I kept getting the order of the keys wrong, it was a while before I opened it. When I went inside, I wasted more time locking it. Otto ran up to me cheerfully, I paid no attention, I went to take a shower. I deserved everything that had happened to me, even the harsh words with which I mentally insulted myself, rigid under the spray of the water. I managed to calm myself only by saying aloud: “I love my husband and so all this has meaning.” I looked at the clock, it was ten after two, I went to bed and turned out the light. I fell asleep immediately, unexpectedly. I slept with that sentence in my head.
18.
W hen I opened my eyes again, five hours later, at seven o’clock on Saturday August 4th, I had trouble getting my bearings. The hardest day of the ordeal of my abandonment was about to begin, but I didn’t know it yet.
I reached out a hand toward Mario, I was sure he was sleeping beside me, but beside me there was nothing, not even his pillow, or mine, either. It seemed to me that the bed had grown wider and at the same time shorter. Maybe I’ve gotten taller, I said to myself, maybe thinner.
I felt sluggish, as if from a circulatory problem, my fingers were swollen. I saw that I hadn’t taken off my rings before falling asleep, I hadn’t put them on the night table with my habitual gesture. I felt them in the flesh of my ring finger, a chokehold that seemed to me at the origin of the illness in my whole body. With cautious gestures I tried to take them off, I wet my finger with saliva, I couldn’t do it. I seemed to have the taste of gold in my mouth.
I was staring at an unfamiliar portion of the ceiling, in front of me was a white wall, not the big closet that I saw every morning. My feet looked out on a void, there was no headboard behind my head. My senses were dulled, between my eardrums and the world, between fingertips and sheets perhaps there was some padding, felt or velvet.
I tried to gather my strength, I raised myself up on my elbows cautiously, in order not to tear the bed, the room, with the movement, or tear myself, like a label torn from a bottle. With an effort I realized that I must have tossed and turned in my sleep, that I had left my usual corner, that with my absent body I had crawled or rolled through sheets that were wet with sweat. This had never happened before, in general I slept curled up on my side, without changing position. But I couldn’t find any other explanation, there were two pillows on my right side and the closet on my left. I fell back exhausted onto the sheets.
At that moment there was a knock at the door. It was Ilaria, she came in with her dress rumpled and a sleepy look, and said:
“Gianni threw up on my bed.”
I looked at her obliquely, listlessly, without raising my head. I imagined her old, her features deformed, near death or already dead, and yet a piece of me, the apparition of the child I had been, that I would have been, why that “would have been”? I had swift and faded images in my head,
“Never mind,” I said with a dry explosion of laughter in my throat, and I tore the rubber off his already limp penis, threw it away, it stained the floor with a viscid yellow stripe. “You missed the target.”
I put on my clothes, went to the door, he followed me, pulling his bathrobe tight around him. I was disgusted with myself. I murmured before I left:
“It’s my fault, I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m the one…”
I shook my head, forced a smile, falsely conciliating:
“Putting my ass in your face so boldly: Mario’s lover certainly doesn’t do that.”
I went up the stairs slowly. Crouching in a corner, beside the banister, I saw the poverella of so long ago, who said to me in a weary but very serious tone: “I am clean I am true I play with my cards on the table.”
In front of the door with its metal plates I kept getting the order of the keys wrong, it was a while before I opened it. When I went inside, I wasted more time locking it. Otto ran up to me cheerfully, I paid no attention, I went to take a shower. I deserved everything that had happened to me, even the harsh words with which I mentally insulted myself, rigid under the spray of the water. I managed to calm myself only by saying aloud: “I love my husband and so all this has meaning.” I looked at the clock, it was ten after two, I went to bed and turned out the light. I fell asleep immediately, unexpectedly. I slept with that sentence in my head.
18.
W hen I opened my eyes again, five hours later, at seven o’clock on Saturday August 4th, I had trouble getting my bearings. The hardest day of the ordeal of my abandonment was about to begin, but I didn’t know it yet.
I reached out a hand toward Mario, I was sure he was sleeping beside me, but beside me there was nothing, not even his pillow, or mine, either. It seemed to me that the bed had grown wider and at the same time shorter. Maybe I’ve gotten taller, I said to myself, maybe thinner.
I felt sluggish, as if from a circulatory problem, my fingers were swollen. I saw that I hadn’t taken off my rings before falling asleep, I hadn’t put them on the night table with my habitual gesture. I felt them in the flesh of my ring finger, a chokehold that seemed to me at the origin of the illness in my whole body. With cautious gestures I tried to take them off, I wet my finger with saliva, I couldn’t do it. I seemed to have the taste of gold in my mouth.
I was staring at an unfamiliar portion of the ceiling, in front of me was a white wall, not the big closet that I saw every morning. My feet looked out on a void, there was no headboard behind my head. My senses were dulled, between my eardrums and the world, between fingertips and sheets perhaps there was some padding, felt or velvet.
I tried to gather my strength, I raised myself up on my elbows cautiously, in order not to tear the bed, the room, with the movement, or tear myself, like a label torn from a bottle. With an effort I realized that I must have tossed and turned in my sleep, that I had left my usual corner, that with my absent body I had crawled or rolled through sheets that were wet with sweat. This had never happened before, in general I slept curled up on my side, without changing position. But I couldn’t find any other explanation, there were two pillows on my right side and the closet on my left. I fell back exhausted onto the sheets.
At that moment there was a knock at the door. It was Ilaria, she came in with her dress rumpled and a sleepy look, and said:
“Gianni threw up on my bed.”
I looked at her obliquely, listlessly, without raising my head. I imagined her old, her features deformed, near death or already dead, and yet a piece of me, the apparition of the child I had been, that I would have been, why that “would have been”? I had swift and faded images in my head,
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