When she got to the motorcycle, Babi looked at it curiously. “Where are we going?”
“That’s a surprise.” Step walked around behind her, bracing her shoulders, and pulled out the green bandanna he’d brought in his pocket to cover her eyes. “No cheating now, eh…You’re not supposed to see.”
Laughing, she adjusted the blindfold. “Hey, I think I know this handkerchief…” Then she gave him an earphone from her Sony Walkman, and they listened to a song by Phil Collins while they rode.
Yes, an hour or so must have passed…“How much longer?”
“We’re almost there. You’re not peeking, are you?”
“No.” Babi smiled and laid her head on his shoulder again, holding on tight. Deeply in love.
Step felt that embrace and experienced a strange sense of tenderness and happiness. Then he gently downshifted and veered off to the right and then up the hill, wondering whether she’d guessed.
Step slowed down and then turned right. “Here we are, safe and sound.” He switched off the motorcycle and leaped off. “No, don’t take off the bandanna. Just wait for me here.”
He helped Babi off the motorcycle and left her standing next to it. Babi stayed there, obediently, with the bandanna over her eyes. She turned off her Sony Walkman and took out the headphones. She rolled up Step’s earphone, which was dangling loose, with hers. As she gathered up the cable, she tried to figure out where she was.
It was afternoon by now. The wind, softer now, caressed her face, and the strong scent of nature surrounded her. She could hear a faraway sound, muffled and repetitive, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Suddenly, she heard a louder noise, as if something had just been broken. It reminded her of the sound of a tree branch snapping. She listened closely.
“Here I am.” It was Step, and he took her by the hand.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Follow me.”
Apprehensively, Babi let herself be led. She took great care where she put her feet, fearful she might trip and fall. Now that noise could no longer be heard. Her leg hit something. “Ouch.”
“It’s nothing.”
“What do you mean, it’s nothing? It’s my leg!”
Step started laughing. “And you never stop complaining, do you? Stay right here.”
Step abandoned her for a minute. Babi’s hand hung, all alone, dangling in the void. “Don’t leave me…”
“I’m right here, close to you.”
Then there was a loud, continuous, mechanical, wooden noise. Blinds were being cranked open. Then Step gently took off the bandanna blindfold. Babi opened her eyes, and suddenly she saw it all.
The sunset over the sea was glowing before her. A warm, red sun seemed to be grinning at her. She was in a house.
She walked out onto the terrace, passing under a wooden roller shutter pulled all the way up. Down to the right lay the beach where they’d first kissed. Far off, her favorite hills, her sea, the familiar rocky shore, and Porto Ercole. A seagull soared past, calling out a greeting.
Babi looked around, deeply moved. That silvery sea, the yellow sprays of broom plants, the dark green bushes, that house standing solitary on the rocks. Her house—her dream house. And she was there, with him, and she wasn’t dreaming.
Step hugged her. “Are you happy?”
She nodded her head. Her eyes were wet with tiny transparent tears, glistening with love, beautiful.
He looked at her. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” he asked.
“That I’ll never again be as happy as I am right now…”
Then, crazed with love, Babi kissed him again, luxuriating in the warmth of that sunset.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
They started wandering through that unfamiliar house, opening unknown rooms, inventing histories for each bedroom, imagining the owners, blithely unaware of their presence.
They pulled up all the shutters, found a big stereo, and turned it on. “You can get Tele Radio Stereo here too.” They laughed.
They wandered through that house, opening its drawers, uncovering its secrets, enjoying themselves enormously. When separated, they’d call out to each other now and again to show off even stupid little discoveries, and everything seemed magical, important, unbelievable.
Step went outside, took off the motorcycle’s storage box, and brought it inside. A little while later, he called to her. Babi entered the bedroom. The big picture window overlooked the sea. Now the sun seemed to be winking at them. It was vanishing in silence behind the distant horizon. That last polite sliver of sunlight was tingeing the soft clouds with pink high in the sky. Its sleepy reflection was running along a golden wake in the sea. It crossed the salt water to fade and die on the walls of that bedroom, in her hair, on the new sheets, across the freshly made bed.
“I bought them myself. Do you like them?”
Babi said nothing as she looked around. A small bouquet of red roses stood in a vase next to the bed.
Step tried to make light of it now. “I swear I didn’t buy them at a traffic light…”
He opened the motorcycle’s storage box. “Et voilà!”
Inside the box was a slush of melted ice cubes, with a few cubes still bobbing in the cold water. Step pulled out a bottle of champagne and retrieved two glasses wrapped in newspaper. “To make sure they don’t break,” he explained.
Then he pulled a small radio out of his jacket pocket. “I didn’t know if there would be one here.” He turned it on, tuned it to the same frequency as the stereo in the house, and set it down on the nightstand. A faint echo of “Stay” reverberated in the room.
“It almost seems as if it was chosen on purpose.”
Step stepped closer, took her in his arms, and kissed her. That instant seemed so wonderful that Babi forgot everything, her resolutions, her fears, her scruples. She even forgot that she’d entered a house that didn’t belong to her, where she had no right to be, that they’d smashed open a door, that she was lying there on a bed that also wasn’t hers, drinking champagne.
Slowly, she allowed him to take her clothes off, and in turn took off his. She found herself in his arms completely naked for the very first time while a magical light, shimmering over the sea, faintly illuminated their bodies. A curious young star glittered high above in the sky. Then—amid a sea of caresses, the sound of distant waves, the cry of a cheerful seagull, and the perfume of the flowers—it happened.
Babi opened her eyes. Step looked down at her. He gave her a small smile and ran his fingers through her hair, reassuring her. At that moment, from the little radio nearby and throughout the house, Spandau Ballet struck up, innocently enough, “Through the Barricades,” but neither of them even noticed. They didn’t know that it was going to become “their song.”
Babi shut her eyes and held her breath, suddenly swept away by that incredible excitement, that magical feeling of becoming her own person for the first time in her life. She turned her face to the sky, sighing, clutching Step’s shoulders, embracing him with all her might.
Then she let go, relaxing. She was his. She opened her eyes, and there he was, on top of her. That soft smile swam lovingly over her face, kissing her from time to time. But she wasn’t there anymore. That young woman with scared blue eyes, filled with doubts and fears, had vanished.
She thought back to when she was little and how stories about butterflies had fascinated her. That cocoon, that tiny caterpillar that suddenly becomes tinged with a thousand splendid colors and then learns to fly. Again, she saw herself, a fresh, delicate butterfly, newly born in Step’s arms.
She smiled at him and hugged him as she gazed into his eyes. Then she gave him a kiss, a soft, new, impassioned kiss. Her first kiss as a woman.
Later, stretched out under the covers, he was stroking her hair while she held him tight, her head resting on his chest. Then Babi lifted her head and gazed at him, with a smile. “I’m not very good,
am I?”
“You’re very, very good.”
“No, I feel kind of klutzy. I need you to teach me how.”
“You’re perfect. Come on.”
They got out of bed, Step took her by the hand, and they went into the other room. Between the flowered sheets, a little red rose, newly bloomed, stood out from the others, the purest and most innocent of them all.
Soon Babi and Step were once again intertwined in the bathtub. They were drinking champagne, chatting cheerfully, slightly tipsy and in love. Soon, drunk with passion, they were again in the throes of lovemaking. This time, without fear, with more impetus and greater desire.
Now it seemed even nicer to her, easier to move her wings, now that she was no longer afraid to fly. Suddenly she understood the beauty of being a young butterfly.
Then they took the bathrobes hanging on the door and went down to their private inlet. They amused themselves by dreaming up names that could go with the two unknown sets of initials stitched on their chests. After competing to come up with the strangest ones, they abandoned the bathrobes on the rocks.
Babi dove in second. They swam like that, in the cool, salty water, in the wake of the moon, pushed along by small gentle waves, embracing from time to time, splashing each other, swimming away only to turn around and catch each other for another taste of those lips that smacked of maritime champagne.
Later, sitting on a rock—wrapped in the bathrobes of Amarildo and Sigfrida, they guessed—they gazed dreamily up at the thousand stars overhead, at the moon, the night, and the dark and peaceful sea.
“It’s beautiful here.”
“This is your home, isn’t it?”
Babi shook her head. “You’re crazy! But I’m so happy. I’ve never felt so happy in my whole life. How are you?”
“Me?” Step wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight. “I’m great.”
“So great that you could reach up and touch the sky?”
Step smiled at her and shook his head. “No, not like that.”
“What do you mean, not like that?”
“Much, much more than that. At least three meters higher than the sky.”
* * *
The next day, Babi woke up at home at the usual time. As she rinsed the last traces of salt water from her hair in the shower, she thought back with fondness to the night before.
She ate breakfast, said goodbye to her mother, and climbed into the car with Daniela, ready to go to school like any other morning. Her father stopped at the traffic light before the Corso di Francia bridge.
Babi was still sleepy and distracted when it suddenly caught her eye. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at. High up, well above all the other graffiti, on the bridge’s white column, was a string of words that dominated all the others, indelible. There it was, on the cold marble, as blue as her eyes, and as beautiful as she’d always dreamed it would be.
Her heart started racing. For an instant, she thought that everyone else could hear it, that everyone could read those words, just as she was reading them at that moment.
They rose high, unattainably so. Up there, where only lovers can reach: You and me, three meters above the sky.
Chapter 34
Step was awake. Actually, he’d never gone to sleep at all. The radio was playing, tuned to Rock Dimension. His head hurt, and his eyes were tired. He turned over in bed.
Sounds were coming from the kitchen. His brother was making breakfast. He looked at the clock. It was nine in the morning. Who could guess where Paolo was going at that hour of the morning on Christmas Eve.
He heard the door slam. Paolo had left. He felt a sense of relief because he needed to be alone. Then a strange feeling of suffering swept over him. He didn’t need to be alone. He was alone.
At that idea, he felt even worse. He wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t sleepy, he didn’t feel anything at all. He lay there like that on his belly. He couldn’t say how much time had passed. Little by little, he glimpsed that room in happier times. How often had he awakened in the morning and found Babi’s earrings on his nightstand, how many times had he found her watch, how many times had they been there, together on that bed, embracing in love, lusting for each other?
He smiled. He remembered her icy feet, those frozen little toes that Babi laughingly wedged under and between his much warmer legs. After they’d made love, when they were just lying there, talking, looking at the moon out the window, or else the rain or the stars, equally happy whatever the case. Caressing her hair, whatever might be happening outside, in spite of the problems of the world.
He had watched Babi head for his bathroom, and deeply in love, he admired the light patches on her skin, the shade of a swimsuit just removed or a bra undone. He had heard her laugh through that shut door, saw her walk in that funny way of hers, her hair hanging down, running embarrassed to his bed, diving onto him, still cool from the water, from shy washings, still scented with love and passion.
Step turned over again on his bed, looking up at the ceiling. How many times, reluctantly, had he seen the time arrive to get dressed again, to take her back home. And then, silent and close together, they’d sit on that bed and start to get dressed again, slowly, occasionally one handing the other something that belonged to them. Exchanging a smile, a kiss, slipping on a skirt, chatting as they bent over tying shoes, leaving the radio on, just for a few minutes, just the time to run her home.
He wondered where Babi was at that moment. He wondered why. He felt a stab of pain to his heart, knowing all the answers already.
* * *
During the holidays, people feel either sadder or happier than usual. And people don’t know what to do with certain thoughts.
“Dani, do you want this? If not, I’m getting rid of it.”
Daniela looked at her sister. Babi was standing in the door to her room with a dark blue jacket in her hand.
“No, leave it here. I’ll wear it.”
“But it’s coming all unstitched.”
“I’ll have it mended.”
“If you want it.” Babi left it on the bed, and Daniela watched as she left the room. Given all the times that she and Babi had fought over that jacket, it never would have occurred to her that Babi might just toss it out one day. Her sister certainly had changed. Then she dismissed that thought and started packing the last few gifts.
Babi was almost done clearing out her closet when her mother came in.
“Good girl. You’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff.”
“Yes, here, take this. It’s all the stuff I’m throwing out. Even Dani doesn’t want it.”
Raffaella took a few outfits that were lying on the table. “I’ll make a package for the poor. The charity should be coming around later today for a pickup. Shall we go out together later on?”
“I don’t know, Mamma.” Babi blushed slightly.
“Whatever you prefer. Don’t worry about me.” Raffaella smiled and left the room.
Babi opened a few more drawers. She was happy. She’d really been getting along well with her mother recently. How strange, she thought to herself. Just six months ago they couldn’t look at each other without fighting.
She remembered the end of the trial, when she had left the courthouse and her mother had come running after her, catching up with her outside. “Have you lost your mind? Why didn’t you tell them what really happened? Why didn’t you tell them that that juvenile delinquent beat up Accado without any justification?”
“As far as I’m concerned, things went exactly the way I said they did. Step is innocent. He had nothing to do with any of it. How do you know what he’s been through? What he felt at that moment? You don’t know how to justify, you don’t know how to forgive. The only thing you’re capable of doing is judging others.
“For you, life is like playing a game of gin. Everything you don’t know is just an inconvenient card that you wish you’d never drawn. You don’t know what to do with it; it’s burning a hole in your hands. But you don�
��t stop to ask why someone is violent, why someone does drugs. What do you care?” Babi asked. “Instead, this time it does mean something to you, Mamma. This time your daughter is dating a guy who has some real problems, who isn’t only interested in driving a sixteen-valve VW Golf GTI, wearing a Rolex Daytona, or vacationing in Sardinia. He’s violent, that’s true, but maybe it’s just because he can’t figure out so many things in this life, because he’s been told so many lies, because that’s the only way he has of reacting.”
“What are you saying? This is all nonsense…Plus, can you just imagine? What are people going to think? You’re a liar. You lied in front of everyone,” Raffaella said.
“I don’t give a damn about your friends, about what they might think or how they judge me. You always say that they’re all self-made men, people who have achieved something. What have they achieved? What have they done with their lives? Made money and spent it. They don’t talk to their children. They really don’t give a damn about what they do or how much they’re suffering. You don’t give a fuck about us.”
That’s when Raffaella hauled off and slapped her right in the face. Babi put one hand to her face and then smiled.
“I said it intentionally, you know? Now that you’ve given me a slap in the face, your conscience is at rest. Now you can go back and chat with your girlfriends and sit playing cards with them. Your daughter has been brought up right. She knows right from wrong. She understands that you shouldn’t say bad words and you should always try to use good manners. Don’t you see how ridiculous you are, how laughable?”
Babi turned and left. Then she climbed onto Step’s motorcycle and rode away with him.
How long ago had that been? How many things had changed? Babi sighed and opened another drawer.
Poor Mamma, the things I put her through. In the end, she was right. Maybe I only realize that now. But there are more important things in life. But she couldn’t actually think of a single one of those things, so much more important, maybe because she preferred not to think about it, because it was just easier this way. Perhaps it was because there really aren’t that many things that matter.
One Step to You Page 25
