About Time (4 page)

I
CAN’T MEASURE THE TIME
it takes us to get off the plane, reclaim our luggage and take a taxi. To me it’s like a few minutes, rushing past like mice running from a flood.

I watch in dismay as the road speeds past the window. I wish the asphalt didn’t look that way. Like the surface of a disc, a stream of grey lines without end. Maybe that’s how it would seem to a racing driver if he was able to turn and look at it for a moment in the middle of a race, and yet according to the speedometer we aren’t going fast at all, in fact we’re going even slower than the permitted limit.

I keep telling myself it’s just tiredness, I try to console myself with the thought that a comfortable suite awaits me at the hotel and I’ll soon be sinking into a hot bath. The bellboy will be impeccable, as always, and as soon as he’s wished me a good stay, this horrible feeling will immediately disappear.

We’ve arrived.

Again that thump in the chest. The journey only lasted a few minutes. I don’t dare look at my watch, it was seven o’clock a moment ago, I have no desire to discover that it’s already nine.

I give five little knocks on the door, lick my lips five times, count five steps and start again. 

One, two, three, four, five.

One, two, three, four, five.

A way for me to catch my breath.

Federico and the others don’t seem to be paying any attention to my difficulties, maybe they think I’m still trying to work off my fear of flying. He knows I don’t like talking about my phobias, he’d never guess I’d actually like to be up there still, on that plane.
Still
, because it’s not normal that we’re already at the hotel.

With every step I take, I feel myself getting out of breath. I’d like to scream to everyone to stop. Slow down, why are you rushing like that? When did the porter take our luggage? And now where’s he going so quickly? The concierge didn’t even welcome us, he’s like a broker spewing out numbers in the middle of the afternoon. The lift zooms up to the top floor, the doors open wide, am I the only one who feels as if they’re throwing us out into the corridor? Before I set off towards my room I throw a last glance at Federico, my friend Federico, hoping he can see the panic in my eyes and decipher the messages I’m sending him. Try to help me, Fede, if you can.

“Go ahead, we’ll catch you up,” Federico says to the others, then takes me by the arm and draws me aside into a little sitting area off the corridor.

“Svevo, what’s happening to you?”

I open my mouth to reply, but he interrupts me as if he’s been waiting too long.

“Are you going to tell me what’s happening? Don’t you feel well? Is there anything we can do?”

I try to think up some explanation, but he’s impatient. “If this is some kind of panic attack, I have tranquillizers.”

“It’s all right.” I give up and let him walk me to the door of my room, letting him believe that the thought that I could take a tranquillizer if I wanted one has managed to relax me. 

The room is as I expected to find it, which ought to reassure me: the blue carpet, an infinity of mirrors, everything perfect down to the smallest detail. Gaëlle and I will have a good time here tonight. I try to abandon myself to thoughts of that. The bed looks
incredibly
comfortable. I love pillows and there are as many as I want. It’s still too early to get ready, so I can just collapse in the middle of these pillows and wait for everything to return to normal. Everything’s under control, I keep telling myself, I’m just a bit tired.

There’s a knock at the door. The porter must have forgotten an item of luggage.

I go to open it, and there’s Federico, already dressed for the evening, staring at me with a puzzled look on his face.

“Haven’t you changed yet? It’s nearly ten. Gaëlle will be here any minute now. She said not to keep her waiting.”

Again that thump in the chest. I run my hand through my hair.

“Are you tired? Did you fall asleep?”

How can I tell him I thought I’d only come into this room a few minutes ago? How can I explain that I wanted to take a bath more than anything else in the world and thought I had at least two hours to spare? There’s no way, I can’t even explain it to myself.

“Well, you might as well go like that. You don’t look too bad, though you could comb your hair a bit… Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

Oh, yes, I’m all right. Yes, I’m perfectly all right. Apart from the fact that I have the impression I’m about to die at any moment. And apart from the fact that ever since I got on that damned plane my perception of time has turned upside down, I feel dirty and sweaty, and I have a premonition that I won’t even have time to wash my hands. Maybe it’s the drugs, Fede, we’ve taken too many of them over the past few years, there’s no getting away from that, and now I’m paying for it, I’m paying the full price. 
Or maybe this is the end, maybe I’m dying and before you die time goes faster to tell you that if there’s anything you wanted to do in your life you’d better hurry up about it. But how can I tell you all this, my friend? Stop, at least give me time to try.

All at once I find myself in the car with Gaëlle, without having been able to do anything to prevent it. She’s quite excited, happy to see me, and a wave of nausea takes me by the throat.

“Well, guys, how was the flight?” she asks, as she puts her foot down on the accelerator of her brand-new Mercedes.

I’d like to scream at her to let me out, but my mouth stays tightly shut.

“Everything was fine,” Federico replies.

Gaëlle lightly touches my knee with one hand and looks at me hesitantly. “And you, darling? You look so pale.”

All I can do is downplay the whole thing. “Everything’s fine,” I assure her.

She’s wearing a draped black dress with a silver belt worn low on the waist, she looks like a Greek heroine, or rather a goddess, with her feet well planted on the ground in a pair of sandals with dizzyingly high heels. She’s also wearing a weird little hat: a bouquet of feathers, like a coloured breath that has come to rest on her black hair, held in one of her most sophisticated hairdos. At any other time, I’d just have to look at her to regain my balance. Help me, Gaëlle, if your beauty can’t do it, I really don’t see what else can get me out of this nightmare.

“Everyone’s there tonight, Svevo. You can’t imagine the people who phoned me to ask for an invitation!”

I nod, feigning enthusiasm, and now we’re already slowing down to look for a parking space.

The restaurant is packed, as usual. Everybody who matters in Paris is here, and many of them are desperate to say hello 
to us. And yet I feel like a goldfish in a bowl, with these people gawping at me through the glass like wide-eyed children. The world is all distorted, but I can’t let this madness get the better of me, I can’t allow it.

“
Alors, ça va, Svevo?
” It’s Matthieu, a crazy painter in a gaudy striped jacket who probably thinks he’s original. He calls himself the last of the abstract painters, he’s actually just as much of an idiot as anyone else.

“You’re here, too…
C’est magnifique!
”

And here’s his muse, Charlotte, five foot three of femininity. On any other occasion I would have rattled off one of my usual compliments, but not tonight, tonight I don’t feel like talking. Wherever I turn there’s someone smiling, expecting something, a greeting, a joke. There are quite a few people here who might be useful to me in my business, but I can’t say anything, I seem to have left all my enthusiasm on that plane.

I feel embalmed, the city is moving around me unaware of my anguish. Meanwhile, Matthieu is deafening me with his
observations
, which don’t seem to follow any logical thread. Gaëlle has ordered for the two of us, and a second later she tells me my filet has already—
already
—arrived.

From the little I’m able to understand, I get the impression they’re all talking rubbish. I must have involuntarily raised my eyes to heaven, because Gaëlle throws me a reproving look, she can’t stand my impatience, tonight of all nights she really wants everything to be perfect.

As I eat I have the feeling my perception of time is going back to normal, but it’s a false feeling, because when I look up from my plate, I realize that everybody has already finished, whereas I’ve barely touched my filet. To reassure everyone, Federico makes an ironic comment on how slow I am. 

“Svevo, what’s happening to you? Do you need someone to feed you?”

The table explodes in one of those laughs that echo, and I make an effort to smile, though what I’d really like to do is kill the lot of them.

Yet another panic attack. I don’t know if I can control it this time, I’m being sucked into a vortex of anxiety. What’s
happening
to me? What if it isn’t time that’s going faster but me who’s slowed down? Do these people think I’m coming down from a bad trip? Who would take me seriously if I tried to explain what I’m experiencing? What if I really am coming down from a bad trip? The drugs last night. Maybe they were badly cut. Or maybe I’ve simply gone mad. Maybe that’s the way it happens, suddenly, without anybody being able to do anything about it.

Absorbed by my paranoia, I still don’t see You for what You are: not an abstract entity, but a living being, who has me by the balls. I’m champing at the bit, but You won’t let go. Maybe You’re trying to teach me a lesson and You won’t stop until You’ve brought me to my knees.

“I’m fine, I don’t want any more.” I refuse to order a sweet. I pass, as if I’m playing poker, even though my stomach is twisted with cramp and I don’t have an iota of energy left in my body.

“Shall we go?”

Gaëlle says this to Federico, not me. I guess she’s alienated by the way I’m behaving and is intent on making me pay for it. And Federico plays along with her. If he wasn’t my best friend, I’d have already given him a kick up the backside.

In the car I sit in the back, in order not to hinder their
brilliant
conversation. God, how I wish I was in Rome right now, independent, driving my baby, on my way home to do my own thing. But Gaëlle drives quickly, she’s in a hurry to get to her 
party, she’s hungry for adulation, she wants everyone clinging to her like insects to flypaper.

Forced smiles, laughing, overexcited faces. I can’t stand anybody tonight. Their snobbish, cursory nodding, their longing to be admired. There they are, those four famous faces that come to life only under the spotlights, their thoughts on the people who’ll be reading the gossip columns tomorrow, lingering over the most trivial details. The place is chaotic, people are
pushing
and shoving to get in through the doors. Reluctantly, they move aside to let us pass. On other occasions this triumphal entry would have amused me, especially on an evening when the flashbulbs are going off like crazy, but not tonight, I’m anxious and silent, I look like someone who’s just survived a plane crash.

At a certain point I look at Gaëlle, who’s going to want to sleep with me tonight, and panic takes hold of me again. I try to convince myself that my night with her won’t just flash by, but will actually help me to find myself again.

“You look rough,” she says, just inside the door. She’s
deliberately
harsh, she wants to hurt me. She thinks she looks better than me, but I’m sober enough to notice her reddened nostrils, her slightly blackened teeth, her wild eyes circled in red. I don’t have time to answer her, though, before she’s already away, somewhere in the club, where all that matters is the music which everyone except me thinks is so infectious.

A friend of Gaëlle’s I haven’t seen in a while approaches me, says hello in an ingratiating tone, and immediately launches into a rapid monologue, the subject of which seems to be the boob job she had last week. Then she stops, presumably to give me time to say something, but I don’t know for how long, the minutes flash past. 

“
Tout va bien?
”

Her voice is so urgent, it’s almost orgasmic.

“
Quelles nouvelles?
”

I’m about to make a superhuman effort to answer her, but luckily another orgasmic yelp tells me she’s just caught sight of her next victim.

“Oh, Paul! So nice to see you!
Ça vaaa?
”

I lean over the balcony and look down. Two white marble staircases lead to the dance floor, where everyone’s going wild to the feverish rhythm of unlistenable music. On a big block in the middle, two female dancers dressed as devils are jigging about, with pink feathers cascading down from the tops of their heads. At the far end of the room, mounted like a precious stone, is an impressive rocky fountain, on which a fire-eater is blowing flames over the heads of the crowd like an angry dragon. A club worthy of this city, and at any other time I might even have reflected on how thin and insubstantial the nightlife of Rome seems in comparison.

When I turn to say goodbye to Gaëlle’s friend and leave her in the company of her new interlocutor, I realize that not only has she already sneaked away, but she’s got as far as the fountain and is dancing next to the fire-eater.

I don’t know if she told Paul about her boob job, but she must at least have said a few words to him, then gone down to the lower floor, made her way through the crowd to the fountain, jumped on one of the rocks and started to dance, all in what I perceived as a fraction of a minute at the most. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have superpowers.

I lean on the rail, I must look unsteady on my feet, I keep feeling I’m about to drown. I’m sweating, and my smell makes me feel nauseous, but so does everyone’s smell. A fetid mixture 
of alcohol, smoke, heavy food and chewing gum. I have to get out of here.

I see Gaëlle dancing with Federico at the far end of the dance floor, next to the private area. Now she’s getting up on the table they’ve reserved for us in the front row. Federico gives her a hand because she’s had too much vodka and she could easily lose her balance. With her arse out and her head back, she’s more provocative than usual. She needs to attract attention and she can do that better on a table. From up here they all seem so tiny, a colony of frenzied ants, and in the middle of them, there she is, Gaëlle, the queen. So proud of her little throne, a glass table, fragile and transparent.