‘I hate you! I hate you! I never want to see you again!’
The man lost his balance and, although he tried to take a step back, he didn’t manage to find any footing and slipped in the air, landing two feet from the door. Sal ran into a big, bony, asymmetric face. The mouth was cut into the thin beard. When the man opened his eyes, Sal gasped and dashed away, frightened, back down the aisle that was now full of white coats and slippers shuffling on the linoleum.
* * *
There was no point anymore in going to Toma’s. He had to retrace yesterday’s steps, to take Emi with him and to start looking for the two grown-ups together with her. He stopped. Sunday, before lunch: not a living creature was to be seen on the streets, only the odd group of pensioners chattering on their way back from church. From the houses wafted the odour of stew, steak and meat pies. Sal sniffed, feeling hungry. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to return home and grab a bite before starting his quest, or to go to Emi’s and be stuffed by her mother, who had started to effuse waves of excessive affection over any male, child or grown-up, who set foot in her house ever since the departure of the one she had loved and whose name, after he had disappeared from her house, she had never mentioned again. Whatever delicacy Sal wished for, he could find it there; he only needed to utter its name, or just to hint at it, and it would materialise. Why not go there? Why not rest afterward, with a full belly and a drowsy mind, in his beloved Emi’s slender lap, with his torpid legs resting upon the ancient phonograph that was still warming their afternoons with music from vinyl records as old as grandmother Meri?
Summer is a bothersome season. To be unhappy, you need concentration. And in summer unhappiness is disrupted, especially when all the birds are chirping at your window, in your mind, in your garden until dusk, and until night creeps in with its warmth, kicking you out of bed. Impossible when, the following day, the sun beats down on you with limitless enthusiasm, stripping off your clothes, and when light engulfs everyone and everything like a pest of eagerness to live. Impossible when people dress merrily and girls pluck up their courage and wear sheer dresses beneath which their legs, calves to thighs, quiver with pleasure; when lust blooms and spare time calls for idling and wantonness. How could you possibly be unhappy? How could anything rub you, of all people, the wrong way?
The background of your life is stronger than your true self; sickness is improper, and the sick have to be immediately banished from the small, cheerful sense of self that is threatened by sadness and commiseration. If one dies in summer, they’re all gone. Tears and sorrow fade away more easily and are promptly appeased with cold drinks out of the fridge and homemade ice-cream. Delights lay scattered everywhere: in the sweet shop windows, in the markets full of coloured fruit and vegetables, in the fridges packed with oily beer bottles, in the promise of holidays. Sal smiled, imagining that the woman in Harry’s basement had been abandoned because it was summer. Just another month and all the pickles and relishes would be gone, so there was no time for mourning.
No sooner had he finished his thought than he found himself in front of Emi’s building. How he had arrived there so quickly he had no idea. He had walked at a slow pace, even allowing himself a few reflections on life and death and stopping once to tie his laces, and there he was, in front of the street lined by fluffy poplars. It usually took him ten minutes to walk the distance, timed on his digital watch, the screen of which he could light by pressing a minuscule button on the right: the watch his father had given him as a gift for his birthday a month before.
Sal was born on the fifteenth of June, on the exact day school ended, so the exhilaration of the holidays was always lost among presents and special treats. Moreover, his father liked to organise surprise parties, which unfailingly turned out to be fancy-dress events, year after year. Due to the repeated formula, these parties had lost both their surprise and their originality and now weighed him down like the blade of a hatchet shining merrily in the sun. At the parties held to celebrate their son’s birth, his father and mother would only invite neighbourhood children they thought worthy of crossing their threshold. Emi had never been invited, especially because of his mother, who disapproved of her brilliant son’s association with a girl from a broken family with a somewhat dubious history. Her father’s much-questioned disappearance and the bitterness and mistrust of a mother left alone, as well as the girl’s wildness, were not the best recommendations. That was why, for the past two years, Sal had disappeared after the first hour of fun – taking with him the cake from the fridge, neatly wrapped in cellophane – and would only return home late in the evening, looking happy and without giving any explanation to his parents who were left standing in the middle of the living room. This year he had done the same, and when he returned and found them hollow-eyed, his mother with obvious traces of tears on her face and his father shaking a belt in his hand like a hangman disappointed that his victim shed no tears before the execution, he calmly asked them:
‘Anything left to eat?’
The belt fell noisily, flapping in the air, and his mother sighed just once. Then it was quiet, and since then no one in their house had ever mentioned parties or clowns again – aside from when his mother, three days later, asked him casually to bring back the cake tray as she had no platters left in the house. Sal put on his wrist the watch he had found that evening on his bedside table, wrapped in coloured paper with a blue ribbon in the middle. Now Emi would never again need to complain about his being late.
‘Emi, stop yielding to doubt and jump into the torrential river that carries you to your lover… Don’t comb your hair with your fingers, just blink those shady eyelashes and look at the sky, Emi, have you ever seen a sun so red, red as my lover’s lips, sha-la-la…’ Sal climbed the steps two at a time and pressed his finger to the round bell. ‘Emi, fly next to me, let us seek love together, my love, if you pay attention, love has just walked by you, it looks like a beautiful woman with her silky dress flowing, Emi, my beloved, when I think of you I get dizzy–’ and so on, till he entered her room and saw her leaning over her varnished wooden desk, looking at a stamp in an album full of valuable items.
Emi hit the ceiling. ‘Why are you showing up now? Do you know what time it is?’
Sal threw himself on the narrow bed, placed in a corner of the room. He sniffed, trying to trace the smell of her sleepy body.
‘Did you have another fight with your folks?’
Sal shook his head.
‘Come here…’ said Sal, beckoning her to sit on the bed next to him.
It was the only pleasant thing in the world to sit together like that, idling their time away.
‘Listen, do you feel like going out? I need to look for somebody – I’ll tell you what it’s about – and I don’t want to go alone.’
‘Where? Who do you need to look for?’
Just like all the other times, Emi was sounding him out. And Sal, more often than not, pretended not to hear. Then again, what could he have answered? Where were they actually going? Who were they looking for? Wasn’t it, after all, the ghosts in his mind that were groping around in the blinding light of the summer sun, searching for a dark recess under which to shelter until the heat subsided?
‘Do you want us to go back there?’
‘Sal, if you want to be a hero, follow me…’
But Sal wanted to stay there, lying on the bed, to hear the leaves rustling outside and Emi breathing next to him. He drew her to him and made her rest her head on his chest as he had seen in films. But this time reality seemed better, because his body, too, ached to draw near the girl’s body. He could smell all her juices and secretions; he could smell the fever of their heated organs and their thin blood through which tiny goldfish were swimming. She had resisted in the beginning, but now she lay tamely over him, with the hot crown of her head resting against his chin. Sal’s nose could detect a hint of nettle shampoo and something else very subtle, a whiff of summer sweat that stirred him. Emi was excited: he could feel
her body tremble like jelly freshly removed from the mould. Her strength was located exactly in that superior coldness of a girl who knew her body so well, down to the remotest corners. That was the limit drawn between them in red marker, which only she – the girl – had crossed now and then, while he had this inner voice singing to him that he should stay away from the forbidden things, stay within the lines, keep his partner upon a pedestal and behold her in her dizzying height.
But now his inner voice had started to hum its warning too late. Now Emi lay limp on him and, instead of the usual thoughts, Sal heard a mermaid song alluring him to ransack corners, to trickle under the transparent clothes, to put his head between the straight, thin thighs on which the flesh stood pink and proud. His body had changed its controls as well, and at that moment it was driving toward what had been locked and unknown for so long, wanting to smell, to glide across Emi. Sal took the girl’s sweaty hand and, although she resisted, forced it inside his linen pants. At the same time he discovered, with the same satisfied wonder as always, the outgrowth throbbing with blood. He called her name, so that she understood that on the road they had now both taken – both, Sal emphasised – they were past the point of no return, and they had to soar together, blush together, and hide under the blanket at the end together. Upon hearing the name, the inert hand suddenly found its will and gently grasped the flesh undulating between its fingers.
Emi sighed. A few drops fell from her eyes, wetting Sal’s T-shirt. But he didn’t notice. With his other hand, he was stroking the crown of her head, her silken black hair, which he barely saw shining through his half-open eyes. What a dream! The girl in his arms wasn’t the same girl he had played with for the last three years. The blooming breasts of the girl in his arms bulged through the linen dress, and everything about her was enticing him to discover more. There they were: round, with hardened nipples that prodded the tips of his fingers, almost wet with pleasure, almost speaking, although it was her mouth that uttered sounds, glued to his T-shirt like a suction valve. With her head buried in the soft cotton, Emi had no face anymore; the boy was left with nothing but a name he mechanically repeated and, the more it rang in his ears, the more aroused he felt and the greater his furious desire to turn her inside out… Not only did she no longer have a face, but the little girl had also grown curly hair hanging down to her shoulders and the pores of her skin had gaped and deepened, so now she was a giant embracing him and kissing his cheeks.
He pushed her away and struggled to take off her dress with a jerk that ripped it up the middle and left it in shreds on the floor. Emi was left in her white underpants, with a red print of cherries in a bunch. She was sitting in front of him with her round eyes gazing ahead, huddled up as if with cold though around them the air was burning. Her name reverberated mechanically another couple of times in the neatly ordered room her mother had taught her to keep clean and tidy. The hand was completely inside now, and in its palm laid the boy’s penis, swollen and pulsating like a heart just removed from the chest: a vivid, outlandish piece of flesh. He grabbed her hand that was now stuck inertly to the fine skin and, with his own hand, guided it downward in a circular motion while releasing muffled sounds from his throat. His eyes were closed and his whole body had become an accordion.
Emi abandoned herself, curling around that unidentified sexual object that had seized all her boyfriend’s power. It was growing huge and pulsating, and the girl’s hand was led by the other hand that was in turn led by a will coming from another planet, from planet Radias! The hand was moving with so much strength now, nourished by the boy’s sighs, that now the joints sent out a sharp pain to the torpid brain. She had to stop. Sal let out such a terrible grunt this time that it made even the lifeless things shake.
What was she doing? She wasn’t allowed to stop now. With his free hand, he stroked her bare back on which the fuzz stood up rebelliously. Emi’s wet hair had stuck to her temples; she looked at the disheartened boy. Before closing his eyes again he caught a glimpse of the bunch of red cherries, shining in the summer sun. Neither of them uttered a word, not even a sound, as his moans echoed in both their heads and her reluctance stood crushed between her will to break off and the the courage that had seized them to try it all at once, to go all the way with their exploration.
Sal put his penis between her legs and waited. He could hear her breathing heavily; she clung to him and gently rubbed her pelvis against him. He knew they were very close but, after a quarter of an hour, nothing else happened although they stayed in the same position.
Sal rolled over to one side and pulled on his shorts. He remained doubled up on the bed with his knees to his mouth. Emi was sitting on the floor, naked, with her tiny breasts breathing for her. It seemed to her that she was seeing the room for the first time, the room in which she had been living since she was born. The tidiness and the harmony surprised her: the books with Ageless Stories arranged soldierly on the shelf, the dolls sorted according to size and hair colour, the clock on the wall with its deafening ticking. But it was the linen dress, in the end, that made her come to her senses. She picked it up in a hurry and stuffed it in the wardrobe. Then she pulled her panties on and grabbed a Smurf T-shirt and a cotton skirt.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting dressed. What if my mother comes in and finds us like this?’
Sal stood up, hesitating. She wasn’t looking at him anymore, and her coarse voice sounded scared. She didn’t dare look at him again for fear that she would see, in his place, the shiny, pinkish penis prodding the air. Her body was struggling to recover its previous motions, its ease and its confidence.
Within seconds after they managed to get dressed, her mother’s head, prim and fresh as for a festal occasion, peeked inquiringly through the half-open door. Why hurry away when they could first eat, drink lemonade, taste the apple cake in the fridge and only afterward plunge into the heat outside? The kids consented compliantly, and the mother left satisfied with her small victory, heading for the kitchen to set the table. Soon they could hear the clatter of dishes and the mother’s voice, talking to the spices and dictating orders like an officer. Emi and Sal finally looked at each other, and Emi started to chatter serenely about insignificant things around them and make plans for the day ahead.
Sal stopped her before leaving the room. ‘Nothing has changed between us, right?’
‘Well, no, nothing really has. Nothing has changed at all, Sal – you are the same for me. And I hope this goes for you as well.’
Emi had one hand on the door handle and the other akimbo.
‘What do you mean by the same? Does that mean we are still friends?’
‘Exactly.’
‘As in, we’ll still tell each other our secrets? You’ll come with me to Harry’s basement and I’ll show you what I found, and you’ll call me up to the roof to spy next to you from now on? We’ll laugh at the same jokes, and we’ll keep hanging around in the afternoons starting at four? Is that what you mean by the same, Emi?’
‘Exactly!’
‘We will keep our habits and our places?’
Emi was frowning and looking away, chewing at her thoughts. ‘What is that, our places? It sounds so metaphorical and pretentious. If someone overheard us, they would think we weren’t speaking like children do. Especially you, Sal – you always speak like a grown-up. And you make me do the same. Listen to you! Our places…’
‘Yes, the places we hide in, where everything is possible.’
His voice was trembling. He slid toward her like a snake, toward the girl leaning against the door who was careworn and petulant.
‘And if you wish strongly enough for things to happen, despite all the hazards – actually, along with all the hazards in the world, with all the lies and deceptions – they will happen without you feeling any regret, although what they move in your world shall irretrievably ruin the equilibrium. Because your world is…’
Sal stared at her, touched by the way Emi was yielding to hi
m and by the self-abnegation she showed in following him. Her mind was now troubled by doubt, by desire and by newly experienced sensations. She seemed to have stooped, trying to conceal the breasts showing through her T-shirt, to hide her boyish hips and straight, curveless legs beneath the inadequate clothes. Sex still fluttered its wings around them, and the boy’s proximity made her retreat to her tiniest inner chamber, step by step, locking her padlocks.
‘Your world is blind, just like love, and it’s unaware,’ he murmured with poetic intonation.
‘And you are just the same,’ she chimed in. ‘I just warn you, Sal, do not change. That’s all I’m going to say. Don’t change and don’t put on airs, for I will leave and you will never see me again.’
Sal burst into laughter. ‘And you tell me I’m absurd! You’re not going anywhere, because you love me and, even if you don’t realise it, you will realise it very soon anyway.’
But he frowned the instant he spoke the words. A wave of coldness had risen ahead of him, freezing his very thoughts. Emi started to gesture and commanded him to get lost with a frosty voice that was incongruous with the situation. All of a sudden he threw himself at her feet, hugging them tight and imploring her not to send him away.
‘Forgive me, forgive me, please. Actually, I should have told you that I love you and that I can’t live without you. You are my Isolde.’
Emi relaxed. ‘My God, Sal, the things you can make up! You spoil everything with a word and then say a lot of nonsense to fix what you’ve spoiled.’
They huddled, tired as after a very long day – although it was actually only beginning. Outside the door, the table had been laid with delicacies, and the caring woman who would watch them with wide eyes was waiting.
Before leaving the room, Sal cast a last nostalgic and regretful look at the small, hard bed, upon which he had lain with the singular thought of having a rest before setting out to search for the two strangers who seemed so unhappy. He beheld the room as an ultimate lost haven, the freshness and security of which he could never regain, for he would always be burdened by that memory that had nestled in their heads, and would remain there for so long.
Sun Alley Page 8
