“No, not about the letter itself, about the fact of receiving it.”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember, if I got one it was a long time ago, maybe when I was a kid.”
“Right, but if you got a letter now? If you arrived home tonight and when you went to look in your mailbox you found a letter. With your name on it, your address, a stamp, a postmark, or without a postmark, that doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t know. It would depend on the letter, what it said.”
“A love letter, say.”
“A love letter, oh, I’d think that was romantic.”
“Would you fall in love?”
“I don’t know, but I imagine that if it’s a love letter, I would be in love already, wouldn’t I?”
“Not necessarily, Daniela, let’s say it was a love letter from someone you knew only superficially, would you fall in love?”
“I don’t know, it would depend on the person, on what the letter said . . . oh, I don’t know, so many things.”
“But you’d think it was romantic.”
“Yes.”
“Would you think it was beautiful?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And the person, what would you think of them?”
“I don’t know, it would depend on the person.”
“Would you find them interesting?”
“Yes, maybe.”
“And would you think they were different from other people?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“Thank you, Daniela, that was all I wanted to know.”
The intern followed him with her gaze until he entered his office. She flicked her hair back several times, cracked her knuckles several times. She opened her drawer, took out a notepad, only to put it straight back in again. She closed the drawer and tried to focus back on her computer.
In his office, he was working on a report that he should have been finishing, he made a few phone calls, replied to e-mails, tidied some of the mess on his desk and went out for lunch. He got a roasted chicken from the bakery. It had been years since he’d eaten a roasted chicken. He sat on one of the stools at the counter. Rice, beans, and French fries on the side. He thought he could eat that forever, without any trouble at all. He was a man of simple tastes, none of this luxury restaurant business, women’s luxuries, like his ex-wife, Fabiane and every woman he knew, the women who would never be satisfied with a chicken from the bakery, to whom a bakery chicken would even be an insult, a mark of disrespect. Even Daniela, the intern who couldn’t say how she’d feel if she received a letter, would have looked at his plate scornfully. Maybe even Manuela, his three-year-old daughter.
The world of women is a closed-off world, he thought, a world apart. And he was surrounded by women on all sides; unlike certain men who felt more at ease with them, he didn’t, and it bothered him, that sense that nothing he was or did would be enough. The truth was, women scared him, and at the same time, led him to experience feelings that were confusing and contradictory.
Instead of going back to work after lunch, he took his car and drove around and around the city, giving no thought to whether or not he should be doing this, just the idea that he needed to get far away, to leave, without really leaving. He called his assistant and notified her that something unexpected had come up, that he’d be back later. He was in the car now, closed off, hermetic, safe in the city. After a while, he parked close to a little square, got out of the car, considered sitting on a bench or playing checkers with the retirees, waiting there for the day to go by. He considered returning home, or even going back to the office. But he ended up going into a snack bar, ordering a random soda; the guy behind the counter looked at him with a smile. He was opposite a post office, he noticed with some surprise. He leaned on the snack bar counter and stayed there, just watching the people going in and out of the post office. He was seeing a lot of retirees, he thought, only retirees write letters, have time to go to the post office, retirees, students, maybe someone looking for work, for an internship. He was imagining a young woman, attractive, well dressed—is that what she’d be like? Like all women. He was imagining his ex-wife. For some reason whenever he imagined a woman it was always the same woman, but not this time, she was somebody different this time, she wasn’t Fabiane, or his ex, or any of the girls he kept at a prudent distance; he realized how hard it was to imagine a different somebody. Maybe the woman from the movie he’d seen the other day, just one of the five he’d rented, in a red dress, a folder under her arm, the noise of her heels on the little sidewalk paving stones, a woman who fixes her hair before walking into the post office.
The post office is a small one, and from where he’s sitting in the snack bar, it’s possible to see the people standing in line, it would be possible to see a woman who is well dressed but different from the others, inside her folder a blue envelope, the careful rounded hand, her long black hair tied at the nape of her neck; she looks from side to side, perhaps knowing that she’s being watched, perhaps looking for somebody, a certain ambiguity about her, she looks one way as though looking the other, her slim fingers holding the envelope—a whole scene that he has imagined. Watching from the snack bar, his soda untouched on the counter, he imagines that the woman would wear a tight skirt, a silk blouse and high-heeled sandals. She might be a secretary on her lunch break: the woman wears glasses with heavy black frames, she looks serious, unattainable, but her body has a certain voluptuousness that gives her away. She walks into the post office, waits in line. When she reaches the counter, she takes the blue envelope out of the folder, hands it to the clerk. The clerk remarks that the sender’s name is missing. The woman is giving off a slight sense of concern, but only to anybody looking very closely. Her reply to the clerk is confident:
“No, it’s right the way it is.”
The clerk doesn’t seem very convinced. She’s young and uncertain, she thinks maybe it’s illegal to send a letter without a named sender, she’s uncertain.
“I think that’s not allowed, not having a sender.”
“What do you mean, ‘not allowed’? Since when?”
“It is not permitted,” replies the clerk, somewhat intimidated by the woman’s self-assurance.
“Of course it is. I come here every day. Call your superior over, I’d like to speak to him.”
The woman looks even more beautiful at this moment, he thinks. And he thinks that the woman has started going back to resembling his ex-wife, or Fabiane. That arrogant, almost insolent manner, the energy that used to intimidate him. When all he wanted was a certain something in their eyes, someone who has nothing to lose, someone who has lost her fear. That’s what they’re like, people who have lost their fear, sharp and sweet at the same time. Maybe that was what attracted him in those letters, this woman who was sharp and sweet. The presence he tried to imagine, without success. The clerk might have thought or felt something similar; she told herself it was best not to seek out trouble on her very first week at work. She thought it best to give in.
“All right, that won’t be necessary.” The clerk took the letter and franked it, a mark that was rather faded but on which it was possible to see the location of the post office.
The woman said nothing, she didn’t thank the clerk, didn’t complain. She just opened her bag, took out a small leather purse and paid the amount due. Then she left the post office, he imagined, walking down the street in the haughty manner of someone who is fearless. Then he tried not to think about her anymore, about what might have been an explanation, even if he ruined it at every moment; he went back to thinking about his ex-wife and Fabiane. His ex-wife and Fabiane, as though they were one and the same person, so alike, deep down, the same braveries and cowardices. Maybe we always choose the same person, he thought, looking at the glass of soda.
He thought Manuela was just like his ex-wife, who was just like Fabiane, who was just li
ke all the possible women in his imagination, and Manuela was only three years old. At fifteen she would be called Manu for good, she would have an unacceptable boyfriend and she’d constantly be hooking her red hair behind her ear. At fifteen she would display evident indifference toward him. And he would see her all ready to go out, would ask, Manuela, where are you going? and she’d reply, a note of boredom in her voice, You know, out, her eyes always looking off somewhere, and chewing gum. He’d ask with whom, she’d say, Some friends; he’d insist, Which friends? and she would say, with a mixture of boredom and impatience, You know, some friends of mine, her eyes always looking off somewhere, and chewing gum, the noise of the gum being chewed bothering him more and more; he’d tell her to throw the gum away, she’d throw it on the floor, and he’d want to whack her and would regret never having given her a whack. But at fifteen he would already have given up. And what was more, she was only a three-year-old girl. He preferred not to think about Manuela.
He felt uneasy. He paid for the soda, for the parking spot, got back into the car. He spent the rest of the afternoon driving around the city with no fixed route, just this, the closed-off car and the city out there. He thought he would arrive home, but kept putting it off and at the same time he was anxious to get home, because he’d been feeling that anxiety for days, a difficulty in focusing.
Even at work he had been making plans, that as soon as he got home he’d talk to the doorman, he’d get the address of the former tenant and at last he’d return the letters, he’d say he opened them just in case, all of them, trying to find his name, a new address, or he’d just say he had opened them and that was that, not explaining too much. He’d arrive home, talk to the doorman and then, feeling calmer, free, revived, he’d call Fabiane, apologize, invite her for dinner, to go for a drive, whatever she wanted. He would say that he had been confused, some trouble at the office, but that he wasn’t confused anymore. Anxiety, he thought, would get him to call Fabiane. Even while knowing that, no, he would arrive home without speaking to anyone, he’d open the door, deposit the correspondence on the table and turn on the TV; he’d put a movie in the DVD player and let his thoughts be extinguished before they even took shape.
JANUARY 24
My darling,
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t talk about that day anymore, about the rental place, the movie, the actor so like you, the character. I’d promised. You complain I’m always repeating myself, and with good reason. Why keep going back to the same subjects, to the same things that have been laid bare, pored over so many times, the rental place, the actor, the movie, that day.
You must be wondering, with good reason. And you must be thinking I never keep my promises. But it’s not true. In my defense I can argue that the rental place today is never the same as yesterday’s, that between one and the other, time goes by. Our time, ours, do you understand? The time that gets itself in between the words and all your turns and returns. Between this letter and the first there is a whole unraveling of facts and consequences and memories, between this and the first reading, a whole unfolding, filling up, distorting what I so fervently wanted to say since the beginning, remember? Because, however much I want to repeat myself, again and again, what I have said to you is never what I say to you now.
And if, at that first moment when you sat in your living room, on the sofa, the chair, in an armchair, with the first letter in your hands, if at that moment you felt rage or curiosity or any other feeling, now, the same words, the chair, the armchair, now, even if we try to reproduce every detail, like in the theater, in a play, you forever receiving the first letter, me forever repeating the same words, the result would be different each time, even if it’s once again the old rage or curiosity or some other feeling. Like in the theater. Or in a movie or a book to which you return from time to time like someone returning to a place they do not know. And you’re surprised to find that what is unknown is not the place, the furniture and shadows and colors, all of it so familiar, what’s unknown is you, however hard you try and however often you keep reciting the old words and old verses by heart. However great the effort and the intention and the will, there is always something to surprise and alarm you.
But perhaps you think everything I’m telling you now I’m only saying in order to justify myself, to justify this insistence, this monotony of mine. Perhaps that’s what you think, you think me capable of constructing the most varied plots, the most complex theories, even a reader for these letters, isn’t that it? A character to receive these letters in your place. Someone to read for you and guide you and say to you, Yes, there’s something very beautiful, isn’t there? There’s nothing I could not do just to convince you to, maybe, who knows, go back to the very beginning. All this, then, just to be able to go back now, once again, to the precise moment of beginning. The two of us walking, the rental place, the movie, that actor or character so like you. Your fingers on my arm. Except that the beginning is never the same.
That day, after the rental place, we arrived home in silence, both of us. I put my fingers to my arm, where yours had been earlier, as though protecting myself, grieving for myself. I thought something would happen. I always thought something would happen. Often I would kid myself and a day would go by with no harm done, and then on other days, the most astonishing things would happen.
We arrived home and I opened the front door to the house, my door, my house. You went in, threw the bag of bread onto the table, sat down on the sofa, opened the newspaper and started reading. I just stood there for a few moments, considering saying something, anything, something that would drive us apart, something that would unite us. But there was nothing to say. I hung my bag on the chair and went into the kitchen to make the coffee.
The coffee grinder was the first and only gift you gave me. That’s just how you were when it came to coffee, you were crazy about it. A whole series of minutely detailed rules for preparing it. A particular kind of bean, roasted in some certain way or other, kept in the fridge in a sealed container. You didn’t trust me and you came over yourself to check the sealed container. You showed up one day with that coffee grinder package, really it wasn’t even a present for me, but I wanted it to be and acted as though it was. You showed up saying, I’ve brought you a present, but it wasn’t, I thought, you put the package down on the table and turned on the TV. I didn’t move, just looked at the package, and you were looking for some program or other on the TV. Aren’t you going to open it, you asked as you channel surfed. And because I really wanted it to be a present, I approached the package and opened it.
The paper was ordinary wrapping paper, I remember, then I finally opened it and out came the coffee grinder. It’s imported, you said. It was automatic, I read on the box. “Automatic coffee-grinding machine,” or something like that, in Italian. I thanked you and just sat there, sitting, really wanting it to be a gift. Later you explained to me how it worked, So easy, just press a button, you said, and I agreed, and we set the machine up just below the microwave. Coffee should always be ground at the time you want to make it, you said. But why, I asked, what difference does it make, and my question was the trigger you needed to give me an explanation of all the subtleties between normal coffee powder and the freshly ground kind. But that wasn’t all, there was also the water and the temperature of the water and the pressure and the milk, absolutely no milk under any circumstances, you said, nobody who really knows their coffee would ruin it by adding milk, much less sugar. And to please you, I followed every one of your whims, the cup of perfect bitter coffee on the table. I did so many things just to please you, I think now, just to please you.
I made the coffee, put the just-bought bread on top of the fridge. I wasn’t hungry and you were never hungry; Only the coffee, you’d say. I put the cup down on the little side table next to you as you read your newspaper. I said: Here’s the coffee. Said it as though it was necessary to make an announcement. You said nothing, I stood there, rig
ht in front of you, waiting for an answer. Anything. You said nothing.
I sat down far away, at the dining table, stayed there, examining the little scratches in the wood that I hadn’t noticed before. I tried to think about the rental place, to understand what had just happened to us, but I couldn’t do it, my thoughts got themselves all tangled, in the scratches in the wood, in the cup of coffee.
Could it be that I realized, as I ask myself now, could it be that I realized something had changed, do we really realize when things happen, right at the moment when things happen? Or do we maybe only realize later? Hours, days, years later, when we think about these moments, when we feel them, when we recount them. Or are they happening perpetually in another moment? An unreachable moment. Because they are happening now, once again, as I write to you, and once again I feel the same distress, the same fear: you sitting there, just reading. You sitting there now, reading silently. Once again I feel the distress and the sense that something’s happened, something unspeakable. Once again the coffee and the table and the movie and your hands. Will things really never stop happening?
You didn’t say a word that afternoon. I even asked, as a way of reaching a hand out toward you, You want a glass of water? You want more coffee? But you didn’t answer. You went on reading your newspaper, a whole heap of paper that was scattered across the furniture, across the living room, and when that was over and you were finished, you turned on the television, you changed channels every two minutes, then picked up a book, then a magazine, then watched the television again; time refused to pass, as you sat there, motionless.
And as it got dark, I came apart, something was dissolving away in me. At first, sitting at that table, still, as though hypnotized, watching the newspaper, the book, hearing the noise from the television, as though I wasn’t there. Then the thoughts came and went, always the same images: the rental place, the movie, the actor or character who was so like you or wasn’t, could that really be so important, a secret that got in between us, a betrayal, something appalling I’d hidden, was there something, was there something appalling I didn’t know about but which was mine? From one moment to the next, somebody was losing their memory, the memory of a whole series of another person’s treacheries, so different in reality, perhaps an actor, a character, and I think, maybe that’s really what it’s like, one day the movements that aren’t mine, those same movements, the gap between them, something in which I recognize myself, at last I recognize myself, something mean and unpredictable, the greatest betrayals, as the world went on, still you sat there, a newspaper, a book, and still I sat there silently before you, the greatest betrayals.
Blue Flowers Page 7
