Authors: Simona Sparaco
I need to rinse my face with cold water. The toilets are behind me. Outside the Ladies, there’s an interminable queue of
miniskirts
and high heels.
Once in the toilet, I wipe my face with a handkerchief, then lean on the wall with a sigh. I start to feel a little bit better.
When I look up and peer into the semi-darkness of the
washroom
, I make out the figure of a man who’s just pinned a woman against the wall.
He’s holding her wrists above her head to keep her still. She isn’t putting up much of a struggle, her tapering fingers just seem a little slack. She’s wearing a flashy-looking ring, like the one I gave Gaëlle last year. My Gaëlle.
She bends her long leg, letting him get in where nobody can see him. They sway back and forth a bit, slowly, and I notice that the woman has a silver belt, worn low on the waist, and metal sandals with dizzyingly high heels. Just like Gaëlle. My Gaëlle.
The man’s hand moves down her bare thin arm, until it reaches her shoulder, and then again down, to her breasts. Against the
blood-red wall, I now see the bouquet of feathers the woman is wearing as a hat, just like Gaëlle. My Gaëlle.
I have a better view of the man now, too. Dark jeans, white shirt, curly, unkempt hair. Just like Federico. My friend Federico.
His bum sticking out, his feet splayed, his handmade leather moccasins. Again, just like Federico. My friend Federico.
I keep telling myself it can’t be them, I saw them dancing in the private area downstairs only a moment ago. I flatten myself against the wall and creep towards the door, as if moving along a ledge. I’m dazed, I feel as if I’ve just been knocked on the head. At last I can hear what they’re saying to each other.
“Don’t be so impatient.”
It’s Gaëlle’s voice, there’s no mistaking it.
Knowing she’s in a clinch with another man wipes me out. But what’s even more disturbing is the thought that one second ago they were dancing on the other side of the club. They can’t have flown here.
“Please, Federico, not now. Not with Svevo around.”
“I beg you, I’m going crazy. Can’t you see what you’ve done to me?”
Gaëlle smiles. A man who wants her, who’d do anything to have her, even betray his best friend: it’s music to her ears.
“Just calm down now,” she insists, affectionately, reassuringly. “I want you as much as you want me, but here and now it’s crazy… You should have come without him, I told you. You knew this was going to happen…”
However unacceptable all this might be, I have no intention of walking away, or of intervening. I need to know.
“What would I have told Svevo? That I was going to Paris without him? To do what?”
“To be with me, if that isn’t too ridiculous.”
“Do you think I wouldn’t like that, don’t be absurd, it’s just that I’m afraid he suspects… Ever since we arrived he’s been very strange.”
“It’s impossible, trust me. Let me go, he could come in at any moment.”
“You’re killing me, don’t you realize that?”
From Gaëlle’s sighs, I deduce that they’re rubbing themselves against each other again, and that Federico is at the stage when you start to lose control. Anger now gives way to pain.
“You’re going to sleep with me tonight. That’s not up for discussion.” There’s an authority in his voice I hardly recognize.
“I’ll make up an excuse… Tell me your room number, and I’ll come to you.”
Now he’s the one who’s smiling. Just the thought of it makes him as excited as a little boy. There’s no woman as good at exciting men as Gaëlle.
“I’m in Room 510, don’t forget it. Five, like the happiest months of my life, the months I’ve known you. One, because I want to be the only man for you, and zero, because that’s the number of seconds I’m prepared to wait.”
Gaëlle laughs, and the sound echoes in my head like the laughter of witches in fairy stories when you’re a child. I’d like to warn Federico, I’d like to tell him just how pathetic she is, and then kick him in the balls, so I leap forward and grab the doorpost with all the strength left in me, but when I thrust myself outside the toilet, there’s nobody in the washroom. Gaëlle and Federico have vanished.
Again that feeling that my chest is in a vice, the ever more alarming sensation that I can’t control what’s happening. Time is
crushing me like an insect. Maybe I’m the only ant in this crowd, the only one who doesn’t know where he’s going.
The entrance, where people were crowding in earlier, has suddenly emptied. The lights come on again, the music is over. Once again I refuse to look at my watch.
“Svevo!”
Gaëlle’s voice surprises me. She’s behind me.
“Where have you been?” Federico asks me as he helps her on with her coat. “We’ve been looking for you all evening. We thought you’d left.”
How different it all seems now, the way they talk to me and look at each other.
“Where did you get to? Do you think it’s right to behave the way you have?”
Gaëlle is in an argumentative mood, she’s even more aggressive now than she was at dinner. She takes me aside. “Answer me, don’t stand there like an idiot! Do you know it was Federico who paid the bill? I hope you’ll pay him back. I don’t understand you, you’re a different person tonight. You should take a look in the mirror, you’re behaving like a moron. Not to mention the way you made me look at dinner… I really don’t know what’s going through your head.”
Her tone is unpleasant, to say the least. I look at her, and for the first time I’m indifferent to her beauty. I’ve never seen her looking so drawn, she doesn’t even seem like the same person any more. She’s a talking, moving shadow, a nasty thought that’s best forgotten. Like the fear of time, of death, and of this night that’s so fast and yet never seems to end.
I want to go back to the hotel, I don’t care if she sleeps in the room next to mine or goes to bed with my best friend. I only want to get out of this hell.
Before getting in the car, I look Federico straight in the eyes. How dare he smile at me? But when I hear him ask me yet again, in that apprehensive, suspicious tone of his, if I’m sure I’m feeling all right, I realize I’m completely indifferent. Let him fuck her, I don’t care. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if something was really wrong?” He comes even closer, as if he’s about to rugby-tackle me, I think he’s asking me to confirm his suspicions.
“Of course I’d tell you, I’m much better now. What about you, though?” I give him a sidelong glance. “What’s the matter? You look tired. I imagine you can’t wait to get back to the hotel, can you?”
He can’t sustain my gaze any more, he doesn’t have the balls. But I don’t say anything more.
Gaëlle is more irritable than ever. “Well? Are we going?”
In this final lightning ride, all I have time to do is ruin the rest of the night for her. “Gaëlle, I’m tired. I hope you don’t mind if we see you home, then take the car.”
“Svevo, what’s got into you tonight?”
I know her, she’s on the verge of a scene.
“I’m sorry, I have a bad headache.”
This certainly wasn’t how she’d imagined our farewell. She was expecting to complain of a headache when we got to the door of my room, and to say something like, “Don’t worry, it’s all right, I’ll call a taxi.” Instead of which, I’m saying loud and clear that I don’t want her tonight. She wasn’t expecting anything as outrageous as that.
“Svevo, I swear I don’t understand you! Do you want to take me home? Do you want my car? What is it you want?”
She’s making an effort to keep calm.
“I’ve just explained, I’m very tired and I’d like to sleep alone. Let’s not make a big song and dance about it, we’ll see you home
and for the sake of convenience we’ll keep the car. Tomorrow morning I’ll come and pick you up as soon as I’m awake.”
She doesn’t reply. I know her, she’s angry and she feels
humiliated
by the thoughtless way I’m treating her. Even supposing she did decide to come back to our hotel, I think I’ve taken away any desire she may have had to sleep with another man. What was that ridiculous business with the room numbers? I’d like to see you knock at his door now, Gaëlle, in the mood you’re in. When a woman like her is rejected, she can’t just shrug it off straight away. I’m not exactly consoled by this, but it was all I could do. When we pull up outside her building, her dismayed expression as she watches us drive away and the image of Federico angrily pressing his foot on the accelerator have a liberating effect on me, and for a moment all my anguish seems to fade.
Once I’m alone in my room, though, it comes back, more insistent than ever, and won’t leave me in peace. I take off my shirt and shoes, then collapse on the bed still wearing my jeans. I try to let my head sink into the pillow, but now that there are no more voices and noises around me, the thoughts come rushing into my mind. All I can do is start counting again: those five words I still have a little trust in.
One, two—
I’m interrupted by a loud knock at the door that makes me jump. Then another one, and yet another, like a violent
hammering
on my temples.
“Svevo, it’s Federico!”
What does he want at this hour of the night? I don’t have time for belated confessions or requests for forgiveness, I only want to try and relax.
“What’s the matter, Federico?”
The door is flung open and daylight floods the room.
Federico is standing there in front of me, washed and dressed and rested. Once again he stares at me, he wasn’t expecting to find me like this, a soaking wet rag drenched in tiredness.
“I’ve been knocking at your door for ages,” he says. “I was about to call the bellboy. I came to tell you we’re ready to go to lunch.”
It’s day. The light proves it.
I’m mad. The light proves it.
T
WO NIGHTMARISH DAYS
have passed. Paris, my Paris, the most beautiful city in the world, with all its elegant buildings, suffocated me. All I ever did there was run. Run to dinner, run for coffee, run to talk to people and pretend to be cheerful and relaxed, even when I was making an effort to look at Gaëlle and Federico as if they were still my friends.
Maybe I’m at the peak of a particularly stressful period. Whatever it is, my life just isn’t the same any more, I’ve been flung into a new dimension, a reality where there only seem to be half the number of hours in the day as there were before, where, if I’m lucky, I have to be content with sleeping two or three hours a night, and my appointments and deadlines are so close together I can’t handle them.
It should be seven o’clock on Monday morning, and I’m in bed, clinging to the last moments of sleep, knowing the alarm clock will go off very soon.
Instead of which, it’s the entryphone that buzzes, insistently, as if saying, “Hurry up, Svevo, hurry up!”
I leap out of bed and stagger to the door, my eyes still half-closed. I’d turned off the heating before leaving for Paris, and this morning it’s freezing cold, the parquet floor seems
like a sheet of ice, and with every step I take a shiver runs down my spine.
“Who is it?”
“It’s the doorman, Signor Romano. The driver’s here asking if you need him.”
“Of course I need him. What the hell is the time?”
“It’s ten past nine. We were wondering if everything was all right.”
I’m almost used by now to the pain I feel in my chest every time I’m told the time.
I’ve started to imagine You. I’ve given You human form, because I need a face to direct my anger at. I think of You as busy keeping things moving, making sure nothing ever stops. Father Time and his everlasting work. You’ve decided to make me skip a few stages, You’ve suddenly gone all frantic, full of fits and starts. What are You trying to do? Declare war on me? I have to tell You, I’m not someone who gives up easily. I won’t submit to this madness, I won’t screw up the things I’ve built up with so much effort over the past few years, even if I have to do without sleep, food or sex. I have no intention of throwing in the towel.
I’m outside the building in half an hour, real time, which in my time is only fifteen minutes, more or less. Antonio is waiting for me at the wheel, surprised that I kept him waiting so long and that I’m in such a tearing hurry now. I have to control myself, the situation is critical, but I can do it, I keep telling myself.
My diary is chock-a-block with appointments I can’t afford to miss. I have to keep everything in order, I mustn’t get all the
documents
mixed up. I have to run, yes, but I have to do it intelligently. I have to be faster than You, I tell myself, but at the same time try to keep control. During the ride I count to five—one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five—never taking my eyes off the street, because if I get distracted, You’ll swallow the ride. But then I
take a second glance at my diary and when I look up I see Antonio looking at me uneasily, wondering why I’m waiting to get out of the car. We’ve already pulled up outside the office and according to my watch it’s 10.30.
Once inside, too, I’m greeted by puzzled faces. Starting with Paola, the switchboard operator, whom in my hurry I barely acknowledge. Running to my office, I almost collide with Elena and all her papers.
“Good morning,” she says, with a sigh.
“I’m sorry… Good morning, Elena,” I reply, breathlessly.
“Did you forget?”
“What?”
“That you had an appointment with Righini at nine this morning. We tried to call you, but your phone was off.”
I take it out of my pocket and realize I haven’t recharged it. I haven’t had time.
“Shit!” I cry, which isn’t my style at all. How could I have
forgotten
? Then I try to regain my composure. “I guess the director’s been looking for me, too.”
“Yes, I had to tell him that Righini was waiting for you, and he asked me to take him to his office.”
“Has he already left?”
“They talked for about an hour, no more than that. Then they stopped waiting for you, I don’t know if they rescheduled the meeting.”
I grab my papers, trying not just to stuff them in my briefcase, then leave my office and rush to the director’s office as quickly as I can.
Things are at a delicate stage, the director warned me not to miss that appointment. It was a false move, and it’s unforgivable. I hope it isn’t the first in a long series.
“Good morning, Caterina,” I stammer to the director’s secretary. “Can you tell him I’m here?”
“Of course, Signor Romano.”
She opens the door and motions me to go in.
“Please, sit down.”
I feel the blood freeze in my veins, I haven’t yet thought of a plausible excuse for my behaviour.
“Romano, Romano… I can’t believe what happened this morning! Not even a phone call to warn me…”
That’s how he begins as he comes towards me, breathing hard, his voice booming. Then he stops and just stands there, looking at me solemnly.
He isn’t tall, but with his bullet-like head and sparse,
well-groomed
grey hair, he conveys a powerful sense of authority and always carries himself like someone who expects to be treated with the greatest deference. “I’m not interested in your excuses,” he says, although I haven’t even had time to breathe. “Do we at least have a draft contract?”
“I have it with me,” I try to say, but he silences me with a stern look.
“You know how important this acquisition is for us. We could probably have closed the deal today. You know as well as I do, time is money.”
“You’re right, I have no excuse.”
By the time he sits down at his desk he’s calmed down a bit. He looks at me again, almost regretfully, but I don’t think I’ve really disappointed him, because he assumes there are valid reasons for my behaviour. Except that he’s not interested in hearing them. “Time is money, old friend,” he repeats.
“I know, I know that better than you think.”
He opens the silver box where he keeps his cigars, and takes
one out. “The one unfailing duty we have to ourselves, Svevo, is never to forget who we are and where we’re going.”
All at once, from behind a cloud of smoke, he calls his secretary and orders her to come and take away a glass. It’s a crystal glass, perfectly clean, but he sees a smudge on it and it bothers him. He instructs Caterina to check them carefully, one by one, nobody must be allowed to use his glasses. When Caterina leaves the room, he takes a disinfectant wipe from his drawer, rubs his hands with it and says, “You can go now. Keep me up to date with developments. Remember I gave you this
assignment
, knowing how delicate it was, and I don’t like regretting the decisions I make.”
Once I’m out in the corridor, I’m tormented by a new anxiety: what if I’ve lost his trust? I wouldn’t like to be forced to hand in my resignation before the end of the year.
“I’m going to lunch, Signor Romano,” Elena tells me when I get back to my office. “I left a list of telephone numbers on your desk, it’s been impossible to get hold of you today.”
“What do you mean, lunch? What time is it?”
“1.30. Do you mind if I go now?”
I think I must have turned pale, because Elena continues to stare at me questioningly.
“No… no, I don’t mind,” I say, making an effort to seem convincing. “I’ll see you in half an hour, not a minute more, we have a lot to do this afternoon.”
Elena walks away, deeply puzzled. I think she’s guessed that something isn’t right, all this urgency isn’t like me, but there’s no way she can imagine the kind of absurdity that has me in its grip, or how much I need her on my side.
“Oh, I forgot,” she says as she’s about to leave the room. “Your father phoned, it sounded important.”
That’s the last thing I need right now. “If he calls again, tell him I don’t have time.”
When I sit down at the desk, the running starts again. The desk is overflowing with sheets, documents, deadlines, I have to check my calls, the appointments I’ve missed, and as if that wasn’t enough my mobile phone doesn’t stop ringing. I need to exploit every minute, even invent others if necessary, but I have to get back on the rails as soon as possible.
If there’s one thing I’m not good at, it’s apologizing. Especially when I’ve kept Engineer Baldi, a well-known entrepreneur, waiting for twenty minutes in the café of a hotel. It’s hardly surprising that he goes off the deep end when I phone him. As he’s giving me a dressing down, I check my e-mails. If I don’t want to be overtaken by events, I have to learn to do two or three things at the same time.
We fix another appointment for tomorrow morning at nine. “Don’t mess me about,” Baldi says threateningly before hanging up. And as if that wasn’t enough, almost simultaneously, a text message comes from Federico:
What are we doing tonight?
I don’t have time for his bullshit, not even to tell him to fuck off, which is what I ought to do. I’m in a car that’s travelling at three hundred kilometres an hour, I can’t allow myself any distraction, if I even just touch the wheel distractedly the race will be over. It’s pointless to mull over the past, or the feeling of disappointment it’s left me with, the bitter taste that’s gradually fading. Right now I have more important things to think about.
“Signor Romano, Righini on the phone.”
It’s Elena on speakerphone.
“You were quick.”
“I’m really sorry I was late, but it isn’t easy to eat in less than half an hour.”
My God, I’d meant it as a joke, and it wasn’t.
“Put him through, thanks. Righini, hello.”
“Hello, Romano, you pulled a nasty stunt on me this morning.”
“I tried to call you earlier to apologize. I’m really, really sorry.”
“I know, your secretary updated me. Unfortunately I don’t have much time now, I’m in the middle of a working lunch. I just called to tell you I’m leaving for Hong Kong on Thursday and I’ll be there for about three weeks, I think I told you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, of course… But weren’t you supposed to leave about the end of the month?”
“I had to bring it forward.”
“So I suppose fixing another meeting in three days’ time is out of the question?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I couldn’t tell your director about it this morning, because I only heard about it at midday myself. As soon as I get back I’ll be sure to phone you.”
“In that case, all I can do is wish you a safe journey.”
“Thank you, we’ll speak when I get back.”
I shouldn’t have missed that appointment this morning, it’s obvious Righini is only trying to gain time, maybe he’s
rethinking
the conditions of the sale, maybe he’s under pressure from another buyer. The deal might go belly up, and all because of what? Because one morning I opened my eyes and before I could even get out of bed an hour had already passed. Now the problem will be to tell the director. Shit, shit, shit.
“Try to find out what’s going on,” the director tells me. “Do some research, talk to people, and pray to the Lord that Righini doesn’t have second thoughts.”
His message is unambiguous: the consequences of this mess are all on my shoulders.
“Signor Romano?”
Elena has put her head in through the door.
“Yes?”
“Is it all right if I go?”
“Where?”
“What do you mean, where?” Her eyes open wide in surprise. “It’s nearly eight, we always go home now. Usually even earlier when you go to the gym. Not going today? Tired after your weekend?”
I’m more scared than I was this morning. You don’t get used to a thing like this.
No gym, no lunch, no phone calls or any of the many other things I should have done. I have to go home and get something in my belly as soon as possible.
I’ve never before skipped gym on a Monday, or got back earlier than nine. Antonio hasn’t asked any questions, but I know he doesn’t like sudden changes in the programme, and we’re going to end up paying him a fortune in overtime. I only hope this condition isn’t degenerative and that tomorrow won’t be worse than today.
I get back very late. I drop my things on the sofa and glance at the dinner my housekeeper always leaves me on the kitchen table. Usually it’s warm, tonight it’s cold.
I stick it in the microwave and set the timer for one minute, keeping my eyes fixed on the control panel.
There it is, that minute, one second after the other. This way it won’t escape me. The trick is not to be distracted, you just have
to turn your head for a moment and the clock runs ahead. That means I have to live without ever taking my eyes off a watch or clock of some kind. It doesn’t strike me as a very reasonable solution.
Instead of relaxing on the sofa, as I would have done any other evening I spent at home, I try to get ahead of myself, organizing my diary, setting the alarm on my mobile phone for my nine o’clock appointment with Baldi—making sure I increase the volume so that I don’t miss its ringing—preparing my papers, getting my clothes ready for tomorrow. Finally, I collapse onto the bed without even looking at my watch. There’s no point knowing how much time I have left to sleep, I just have to sleep and that’s it.