by Fabio Volo
The girl on the tram was better than I. She would bring her bag to work.
One morning, I remember I got on and I saw her for the first time with her hair in a ponytail. High above her shoulders: the most feminine thing in the world, it makes me crazy. You could clearly see her neck, her ears, her jaw line. I remember thinking, “I'm going to go over there and stare at her until she gets up and we start looking into each other’s eyes silently. We'll tell each other everything we feel without saying a word. A deep look, one of those that jars your soul. Then we'll kiss. Then we'll take a break and I'll give her little kisses on her eyes, her nose, her cheeks and her forehead, and then finally back to her lips. All the people on the tram will be looking at us and suddenly they'll start clapping. Music will play, the tram will stop and we'll get off and walk into the city. End credits. The lights will come on and people will leave the theatre in tears.”
Instead, nothing. I kept my distance, as always. No music, no clapping, just the tram’s foggy windows.
For her I’ve done a lot of things that don’t make any sense. One day, after she got off, I waited a few seconds and then I got up. I went to where she was standing and I put my hand where hers had been just moments before. I could still feel her warmth. I needed something more.That day, just looking at her wasn’t enough. My sense of touch demanded the same privileges afforded to my vision. That’s why I was looking for a trace of her. Her warmth was something intimate, I wanted to caress a small part of the world she had already touched; I wanted to be the first to touch it after her. At times I pushed the button, calling for a stop, for the same reason. As I felt her warmth I wondered, “What are we? Friends, acquaintances, playmates, platonic lovers, perfect strangers?”
One morning, as she ran off the tram, she dropped a glove right in front of me. There weren’t that many people and, as usual, almost everybody was half asleep. Nobody noticed it, nobody saw me when I picked it up. I should have given it back, but the tram doors had already closed and then, I don’t know why, something stopped me in my tracks. Perhaps by calling her I would have broken the silence in which I was basking, perhaps I just didn’t manage to find the courage. I kept the glove. It was wool, cherry colored. I was lucky; if it were made of leather it wouldn’t have retained her smell as much. I sniffed it all day. I was afraid that if somebody noticed, they would have taken me for a maniac. I realized I was doing crazy things, things I would have never thought I could do. If a friend told me he did stuff like that, I would have thought he was crazy and I don’t think I would have understood. The thing was, it was happening to me and I couldn’t do anything about it. The girl on the tram had escaped the strict control I kept over my relationships. When I told Silvia, she laughed but she didn’t think I was crazy.
Silvia is my best friend. She knows everything about me. The girl on the tram was often the topic of conversation during our evenings together. She objected only to the fact that I kept her glove in a re-sealable bag, like the ones on CSI: I did it to preserve her smell longer.
As I sniffed the glove I’d wonder, “What are you doing?” Then I would put it down, but I would keep thinking about it, and as I walked by, I would give in to the temptation once again. Like someone who’s trying to quit smoking. Perhaps on the bag I should have written, “Surgeon general’s warning: sniffing is harmful to your … mental health!”
In the end I gave it up. Not the sniffing, but rather the feeling stupid. I wanted to do it and I did it. I enjoyed it. Period. The day after I picked it up I took it with me to give it back to her. Clearly I had let my imagination run wild. Destiny had given me the chance to break the silence with a legitimate and beautiful excuse. And with that glove I would have entered her life giving her some joy, “Hi… I’m the guy who found your glove.”
That morning, as the tram pulled up, I saw her. I got on and sat down. As I was building the courage to approach her, I thought that the glove was the only thing of hers I had, and that I could have kept it for a few more days. And that’s what I did.
I also remember that during the commute she smiled at me.
At one point she went missing for about two weeks. I didn’t know whether she was sick or on vacation, I only knew that I was afraid she had changed jobs, or decided to drive. I was inconsolable. The separation unnerved me, the feeling of impotence unnerved me: I had no way of seeing her or tracking her down, I didn’t know anything about her.
I don’t want to talk about those sad mornings. One day, she was back at her seat on the tram. I think I was unable to hide my joy. I was as excited as a newborn that tries to catch the butterflies hanging above his crib. I didn’t know anything about her, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was back. I didn’t know her name, where she worked, how old she was, if she was engaged or if she simply lived with someone. I didn’t even know her sign. A person’s sign never interested me, but with her it was different: in the morning, at the bus stop, I would always get one of those free newspapers and I would go straight to the horoscopes; I wanted to read hers as well, so I knew when it was the right morning to talk to her. I knew only two things about her: that, without knowing it, she made my day exciting, and that perhaps she lived a few stops before mine, other than in my thoughts.
One morning, after she finished writing, she got up, she came to the exit, ready to get off, and for the first time she didn’t smile at me. She behaved as if I wasn’t there. That hurt me. I, the king of the guilty conscience, became paranoid.Maybe someone had told her they saw me taking her glove.Maybe I’d stared at her too much and she was getting tired of it, or maybe she thought that the day we almost touched I did it on purpose. That I’d taken advantage of the situation.
She must have felt all my desire from that little touch. You know how women are: if you want them, they immediately know it. Maybe she got scared.
It’s a good thing I never talked to her. And to think of how many times I nearly did. How many times I felt a force pushing me toward her. But I resisted. It wasn’t easy because she was attractive in the truest sense of the word. Certain mornings when I looked at her, deep down my soul was swinging back and forth.. Heel – toe – heel – toe – heel – toe: go – don’t go – go – don’t go – go – don’t go.
Good thing I didn’t go.
As I was looking for an explanation for her behavior, she turned toward me and broke the silence.
“Do you have time for a coffee?”
“Pardon?”
“Would you like to grab a coffee before work? Do you have time?”
“Yes, yes… I’d love to. I’ll get off with you.”
The doors of the tram opened and we got off together.
“There’s a café right here… Michela. Nice to meet you.”
“Giacomo.”
As I was walking I thought she possessed two more qualities I liked: her name and her voice.
I like women who take the initiative, the ones who take the first step—even though they always catch me off guard—because I am always the one approaching them. They make me feel threatened; they take away my primordial role as a hunter.
As we reached the café I held the door open and let an old lady go first. “Here you go, ma’am, bundle up it’s really cold.”
“Thanks, thanks, how kind of you.”
That’s because you’re nicer to people when you’re happy.
We sat down for a coffee. Sitting across from each other made us feel a bit embarrassed. I was more embarrassed than she was.
“I asked you to join me for a coffee because I consider you a fellow traveler on my morning commute, and since my life will change over the next few days I gathered the courage to ask you.”
Fuck, she’s getting married. And this is her bachelorette coffee. She must have talked about it with her girlfriends and they must have told her, “come on, why not? Ask him out for coffee.” Terrified, I said, “I’m glad you asked, I would have done it myself, but I was afraid of annoying you, since the other
day when I touched your coat I thought you got mad at me.”
“I didn’t even notice.”
“What do you mean your life will change? Are you getting married?”
“No, I’m not getting married, I’m moving to New York. I changed jobs.”
“What do you mean you’re moving to New York?”
“Yes, I just received a confirmation letter from the American firm I work for with an answer about my request to transfer to New York.”
As she spoke, she pulled out the letter.
“About a month ago I went to their office for an interview and they told me that I was a good fit for the job. A few days ago I received the final confirmation. You know, I thought they weren’t going to take me because of my age. I’m thirty-six and it wasn’t easy, but I made it.”
“I see, so you’ll never take the tram again… you’re done with the number 30. Won’t you miss it?”
“I think I will, but maybe not. I’m excited at the idea of making some radical changes in my life, and I had been trying to move there for a while.This wasn’t my first attempt.”
“Are you moving there for good?”
“I don’t know. I only know that I’m leaving, and then we’ll see. Maybe after a month I won’t be able to stand it anymore, and I’ll move back. I don’t have any set plan. I try to do what feels right at that moment, and I make all my decisions consequently.”
“Just my luck. I finally get to meet you and you’re leaving! Does it mean that this is our goodbye coffee?”
“More or less… Sorry, I have to use the restroom. I’ll be right back.”
I was hurt. I already missed her, and I could already picture the tram without Michela.
I didn’t say much as I sat at the table with her. Not even that I had her glove at home. I wanted to ask for her number, her email, but I didn’t have the courage. She asked me to coffee as if she wanted to close a chapter in her life. It's always too late when you realize you’d do anything to make up for lost time. To be honest, I’m always afraid of bothering people. Like when I was little, and I was at someone’s house, and they asked me if I wanted a glass of water, I would answer “No, thanks,” even if I was thirsty. When someone offered me anything I’d say no before they even finished the sentence. My whole life I’ve always been afraid of imposing on other people, of being a nuisance. It has always been a problem. Even as an adult, I'm still that way. The first time I hired a cleaning lady I did something really crazy. The day she was supposed to start, before walking out the door, I tried to tidy up the place. I would clean up a bit before she could do it. Just so she wouldn’t find a mess in the apartment, just to be considerate.
I didn’t ask Michela for her number because I didn’t want to impose, or put her in the situation of having to give it to me out of courtesy instead of really wanting to. After all, it was a coffee that wasn’t supposed to lead anywhere. I was part of her old life, the life she was escaping. Why should I ask for her contact information? We weren’t friends and, since she was leaving, it wasn’t the best time to begin a relationship. That coffee wasn’t the beginning of something; it was rather the end. I couldn’t bring myself to ask her anything, but as I was sitting there, waiting for her to come back, I noticed the letter from the American firm was lying there on the table where she had left it. The address was on it. I thought about jotting it down. Why? Because it was really a shame to let her go like that, without knowing anything about her. “Take down her address,” a voice inside me kept saying. “Or at least read it!”
“Shut up! I’m a civilized person.” But I did it. Quickly. I read it and said it over and over again in my head to memorize it. Then I got up and went to pay the cashier.
“Excuse me, could I borrow a pen and paper, please?” The girl at the counter gave me everything, but as I was about to write, I saw Michela coming back and said: “Never mind, thanks anyway.” I went back to the table and we sat down again, then I looked at her and said, “You know, I was thinking that I’m sorry you’re leaving. I know it doesn’t make much sense, since I barely know you, but it’s true.”
The words came out naturally as soon as she sat down. I didn’t even have to find the courage to say them; I didn’t even prepare them beforehand. I heard them as I said them. She looked straight into my eyes and she stared at me silently for a few moments. She seemed moved by my words; she must have been flattered because her face opened up into a smile that gave me goose bumps. But it could have been the cold, too: a gentleman had entered the bar and left the door open.
“So, when are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. My flight leaves at four.”
“Are you done packing?”
“Almost. I’ll finish up tonight and tomorrow morning before I leave. My girlfriends and a few colleagues organized a farewell party for me, and I hope I won’t get home in too bad a shape to finish packing. Would you like to come? It’s nothing special, there’ll be about fifteen of us.”
“No, thank you, I have other plans… Does this mean you won’t be on the tram tomorrow?
“No, today was the last day.”
“I see…”
“Well, thanks for the coffee. I have to go now… you too, I imagine.”
We said goodbye and exchanged a very formal kiss on the cheek. “What a nice smell,” I thought.
“Goodbye, then, and have a safe trip.”
“Thanks. Bye.”
As I walked away I repeated her address like a mantra. Rounding the corner I bumped into Dante. He was a friend of mine from high school whom I hadn’t seen in years. He started asking a ton of questions about me, about the friends we had in common. Then he started talking about himself. He had just gotten separated and he told me he had a kid. He told me all the things his child was learning.
As he crammed his life into a few seconds, I chanted the address like a Buddhist monk. Then he gave me his phone number and asked, “Did you notice it?”
“What?”
“Look at my number… you don’t see it?”
“No.”
“It’s a palindrome.”
“What?”
“It’s a palindrome. My number is a palindrome. You can read it backwards. Like Adda, Anna, or Otto. You see, so it’s easier to remember. You just have to memorize the first five numbers. And as you can see, those are easy too, you can’t forget them.”
I gave him my number, a normal one, and we said goodbye.
Since I had my phone out, I thought I’d write Michela’s address on it. I typed it up and I sent it to Silvia. I could have put it in the “saved messages” folder. Instead I thought I would send it to her. After a couple of minutes Silvia called.
“What kind of a message was that?”
“The girl on the tram. I talked to her today. We had coffee.”
“You finally found the courage to ask her.”
“Actually… I did muster the courage to ask her, but I found out she is moving to New York tomorrow. What I sent you is the address of her new office. I didn’t know where else to write it. Could you write it down somewhere and give it to me later? Are you free tonight?”
“Today’s that day, so tonight I can’t. How about tomorrow?
“Tomorrow then.”
I went to work. As I was walking, Silvia sent me a message.
She sent me the address I just sent her. She’s really smart. I’m the one who’s dumb.
In any case, I would have written it down somewhere as soon as I got to work… and so I did.
2
“Un-shopping”
That evening Michela was having her farewell party and Silvia wasn’t there to cheer me up. “Today is that day,” she told me. ‘That day’ was the first day of her menstrual cycle, and since Silvia had a retroverted uterus, she often had to stay in bed because of the pain.
At that point, my affair with the intriguing girl on the tram was already over. I did steal the address of her new office in New York, but I already knew how
that would go. That address would become less and less interesting with every day, and that affair would end the same way as my all my other fantasies.
Before that coffee she had been on my mind for days, and I had imagined her the way I wanted. She grew in my head, and although the idea I had of her was different from the reality, I liked her very much. During our brief encounter at the bar she didn’t disappoint me, she didn’t destroy my fantasies either; actually, when she looked at me with those profound eyes I felt a strong emotion.
I liked Michela. I liked her more than before. Too bad.
Who knows why I didn’t accept her invitation to the party. It wasn’t true I had another engagement. I even thought of going back there and telling her I changed my mind, that I would go to the party, but it was too late. Dante held me up.
The thought of her haunted me the entire day. The fact that she was leaving, that she invited me to the party, the expressions on her face as she talked to me, the sound of her voice.
That evening after work, I went shopping. When things are hard or I need to think, there are two things I usually do. One is taking a walk around the city, the other is going to a supermarket, the biggest one there is, to do some “un-shopping.” I fill the cart with things I like or want. It makes me feel good. I go around the supermarket with my cart and I fill it: wood, circular saws, fishing rods, bicycle tires, camping tents, appliances, cans of paint, food, cycling clothes, rollerblades. When I’m satisfied, I leave everything there and walk out. I really enjoy filling my cart with all those beautiful, shiny things, with their new smell. The stationeries: erasers, notebooks, pencils, markers, cases, remind me of the last days of summer before school started.
I feel like I own them, at least until I get to the cashier, like they belong to me. It’s a real thrill. I enjoy it. It relaxes me to no end. Then, after the joy of ownership, comes the happiness of having saved so much money, since I didn’t buy any of it.
That evening I “un-bought” a couple of scooter tires, a tennis rack, two tubes of tennis balls and a child’s bike with training wheels.
