by Fabio Volo
Paolo looked at me, completely dumbfounded. My words were like a cold and unexpected shower, even for me. They had come out of my mouth without me having had the time to think about them.
“Elena, have you gone crazy? I don’t know who you are anymore. What’s happening to you? All I did was ask you to have lunch with my mother …”
“What’s happening is that you refuse to understand that it’s over between us, you don’t want to see how things really are, you’re pretending we still love each other. Haven’t you noticed that I don’t seek out or want your attention anymore? That if you come close I move somewhere else? That every time you try to kiss me I turn my head? What kind of man are you that when a woman behaves likes this, you pretend nothing’s the matter? Paolo, I don’t love you anymore, I haven’t loved you for months, and I’ve tried to make you understand it any way I could. Stop telling me it’s normal, that it’s just a phase, or like last time when you told me that these things are ‘physiological’ in a couple’s life.”
I couldn’t contain my anger or my words any longer. He tried to defend himself as well as he could.
“Look, it’s your fault we’ve come to this point. You’ve always tried to make things difficult, you always lose control, like now—you complain, you create problems. Certainly it’s not my fault.”
His words added fuel to the fire. “Fuck you, Paolo. Fuck you. I put my whole life into this marriage, I believed in it more than you did, I gave it all I had and all I could. I stepped back when it was right to do so, trying not to ask you for what I wanted and what you couldn’t give me. Then I stepped forward to make you feel I was still there for you. I put your needs before mine. I lived at your pace, your way, in your space, the way you wanted, thinking that at some point it was finally going to be my turn. I kept telling myself I shouldn’t expect anything and that I should learn to be more independent. But I was wrong. God knows how wrong I was, because my turn never came. You haven’t lifted a finger to save this marriage, you let it go down the drain, pretending everything was fine. And now you tell me it’s my fault? Fuck you, Paolo. Really.”
“Fuck you, Elena. Nothing’s ever good enough for you, I never did you any wrong, or any harm. You’re a fucking spoiled brat and after all these years together you’re the one who’s ruining everything.”
“Paolo, I’ve been gone for months now and you haven’t even noticed it.”
“I’m the one who’s going away—I don’t want to listen to your bullshit. If you don’t want to come to my mother’s tomorrow, don’t come. I’m going out for a walk.”
He slammed the door. When he came back late that evening I was already in bed, doing my usual impression of Sleeping Beauty. I didn’t sleep a wink all night, and at seven I got up and left. After a long walk and breakfast in a café, I called Carla. I needed to talk to a real friend. But she stopped me immediately: “If you’re going to meet him now, you’ll screw things up. Trust me.”
“I don’t know. He’s been acting weird on the phone and I feel like I need to go.”
“But you just said he asked you not to.”
“He told me that he wants to see me, that he misses me, and that he doesn’t want me to drive all the way there because he’s busy and he doesn’t have time.”
“He said you’d see each other on Thursday.”
“That’s true, he told me not to go because he didn’t want me to drive all that way. If I go we can have dinner in a restaurant and then we can sleep together. I never go out to dinner with him.”
“How do you know he feels like going to a restaurant or spending the whole night with you? That’s what you feel like doing.”
“Why wouldn’t he want to?”
“Because maybe he likes things the way they are now.”
“It seems that you’re bothered by the possibility I could be happy with him.”
“I’m not bothered. I’m only saying that maybe this is all in your head, and I’m trying to remind you about what he told you. The point is that you’re rushing into this story, moving beyond what the relationship started as.”
“Yes, but stories evolve, relationships grow.”
“And that’s my point: You don’t need this now. You have to settle things with Paolo before you jump into a new story.”
“I’ll settle everything with Paolo very soon.”
“Elena, you don’t need another man right now, trust me.”
“I’m afraid I’ll lose him, Carla. I’m afraid that if I don’t go there and make him understand that I’m there for him, that I care about him, it will be over.”
“Wait, there’s no rush.”
“Then you don’t understand, or you’re choosing not to: He has a thousand women buzzing around him, I’ve seen how they look at him. I can’t give up now. If I wait too long I’ll lose him.”
“If you lose him because he chooses another woman, then you would lose him anyway, sooner or later. Don’t go. If you go, you’ll lose him. He doesn’t want you there, he made that much clear.”
“Carla, if I wait, I’ll end up like you did with Alberto. Are you telling me I should make your same mistake? You waited and you lost your man.”
“What does my story with Alberto have to do with this? That was completely different.”
“Yes, but you lost him because you didn’t act. When you found out he was exchanging emails with that whore he moved in with, you didn’t say anything. You preferred to wait and see how far he would go and in the end you lost him.”
“The moment I found out I had already lost him. He was already light-years beyond us. There was nothing I could do.”
“Maybe you made a mistake, too.”
“I don’t want to talk about Alberto and me right now.”
“Why can’t you understand? You’ve always supported me in this thing—you were the one who told me to go for it, who told me I should take a chance. I went for it and now you’re telling me step back?”
“Of course I supported you, but the premises were different then. They weren’t as they are now.”
“But what can I do now that I have these feelings for him?”
“Wait, don’t rush.”
“Carla, I think I’m in love.”
“That’s a load of crap.”
“What do you know about my feelings?”
“What do you want from this man, Elena? Do you even know? Do you want a relationship? Do you want to leave Paolo and be with him? Get married and have kids? Did you talk about this with him? Maybe it’s not love.”
“I think it is.”
“You’re coming out of a marriage in which you hadn’t had sex for months. You were with a man who didn’t see you anymore, who didn’t appreciate you any longer, a man for whom you didn’t even exist. It’s natural that you think you love the first man who gives you a little attention.”
“Things are more complicated than that.”
“I understand that with him you can finally make love the way you want to, that you’re wanted, that he listens to you, looks at you, sees you, understands you, but stop there for now, don’t look for more. Don’t make this mistake. Ask yourself what you really want, what you really need, who you are at this point in your life. Don’t hide again in a story, for once try not to envision yourself depending on a man, but as an independent being—think of your own needs.”
“I know exactly who I am and what I want, I’ve never been this sure of anything in all my life. I don’t understand why you insist on saying these meaningless things.”
“Did you call me to ask my opinion or to hear me say what you want to hear? I’m telling you what I think is right and what I think you should do, but you’re old enough and you can judge your situation better than I can. What I know is that you don’t need another man now. I think he’s a truly beautiful thing in your life: He helped you see many things about yourself, he connected you with a deeper part of yourself. And this is a rare, beautiful thing. Take advantage of it. Don’t spoil this
gift out of fear of losing it. Don’t use this possibility to tie yourself to him. Use it to free yourself. You don’t even know if he wants the same things you do. Don’t be in a hurry.”
“You want me to suffer like you do, you want me to be as lonely as you are, so we can keep each other company as we cry on the couch.”
“Elena …”
“No, Carla, you’re being ridiculous. It was stupid of me to ask your advice on something like this. I don’t want to end up like you one day. You let yourself go, and you stay there in the country with a cat, crying over your life, your past. I’m sorry, but this is where we’re different. I don’t want to have any regrets in a few years because I couldn’t hang on to the man I want.”
“Elena, I have nothing more to say to you. Bye.”
July 19th
Paolo and Carla don’t understand. Only he does.
My stomach is in knots; not even writing makes me feel better. Without thinking about it I packed a bag and write a note to Paolo: “I decided to leave. I can’t live like this anymore. You are the last person I wanted to hurt, but I need to get away in order to figure out what’s happening. I’ll be at Carla’s for a few days.”
I got on the freeway and drove the entire way in the fast lane. When I got to the main square of the town, I didn’t even know where to go. I called him but he didn’t pick up. I walked into a café and ordered an espresso. I sent him a text: “I’m here.”
In less than five minutes he called me: “Here where?”
“Here, at the Roma Café. I’m having an espresso.”
Silence.
“Did I surprise you?”
“You did. I’m coming to pick you up, give me five minutes.”
I went to the bathroom for a moment, freshened up, and went back to the car to wait for him. I didn’t even know what kind of car he drove. I could feel my anxiety mounting: Maybe I really had screwed things up, I shouldn’t have come, maybe Carla was right.
A car pulled up and honked. I was about to get out, but he signaled for me to follow him and then took off. I had imagined a different welcome, I thought I would hug him and kiss him, our first kiss out in the open. I followed him through the countryside. I would never have found the house on my own. We were there in fifteen minutes. We drove through an open gate and went up a gravel driveway to the house. He got out of the car and walked toward me.
I got out of my car, smiling. “Is the restoration over? I don’t see any workers.”
“My brother went back to Bologna, to his children, and the workers don’t come on Sundays.”
We stood one in front of the other, looking at each other in silence. His face showed a detached expression I had never seen before. I looked around to hide my uneasiness.
“Why don’t you show me how the house is coming along?”
He kept looking at me with that same expression, then he said: “Why did you come?”
The question felt like a blow to the chest. I decided to tell him the truth: “I wanted to see you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
We stood there silently. I would have liked to disappear. I should never have gone there; all I wanted to do was get back in the car and drive away.
“Look, I don’t want it to be a problem, I can leave immediately.”
“I’m not asking you to leave.”
“What are you saying then?”
“I’m trying to understand why you came.”
“I wanted to see you, that’s all. What’s there to understand?”
“Nothing. I’m just not sure that’s the truth.”
“What do you mean? What else could it be, then?”
“The truth is that you’ve been acting strange lately.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You can’t see the context anymore.”
“What does that mean? What context?”
“If you show up in my life all of a sudden, without any warning, outside of the context in which we’ve always seen each other, you’re moving the boundaries of our encounters.”
“I’m sorry, what boundaries? What are you talking about? Maybe I’m not as smart as you and I don’t understand.”
“What I trying to say is that your decision to come here changes things.”
“What change is that? The fact that I see you in the light of day?”
“It breaks the rules.”
“I’m sorry, what rules are those? That I can only see you when I come to your place to fuck?”
“Come on, stop it, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“No, I don’t understand.”
“Other rules imply a different game and I’m not sure I want that.”
“You’re completely crazy, what game are you talking about? I’m not suggesting any game—I just felt like seeing you and I thought you felt the same way.”
“Try to understand.”
“No, I can’t understand. You keep talking about games, rules, boundaries, contexts … Was it just a game for you?” Now I was the one staring at him. He looked away and I realized he was looking for something to hold on to. “What are you scared of?” I asked him.
“I’m afraid that you want to turn this relationship into something different and I don’t know if I want it.”
“So, if it were up to you we would go on like this forever? I come to you place, we fuck, and then I go home? Is that what you want?”
“You know very well that it has never been just about fucking.”
“What is it about, then?”
“I don’t have a name for it. What we experienced, we experienced it together, and you know as well as I do what it was.”
“So tell me: What do you want now?”
“Nothing different from what we’ve experienced until now.”
I felt as if somebody had stabbed me in the chest. “Things change, they evolve. I think it’s only natural.”
“It’s not just that I don’t know if I really want it, it’s also that I don’t think I’m cut out for it. Certainly not now.” His expression had changed. After a silence that seemed to last forever, he added: “What you’re looking for, I cannot give you. In that apartment, in that space, I know how to operate, I know what I want, I know how to give myself, I know how to take. Outside of that dimension, I’m lost. Maybe I’ll learn one day, but there’s also a chance I never will.”
I could feel the anger rising inside me. “So you decide to hide behind these words, you’re saying that you’re incapable of loving and that’s that. ‘That’s the way I am, take it or leave it …’ ”
He didn’t answer.
“Why don’t you tell me instead that I’m not good enough for you, that I’m not good enough to make you change!” He looked at me silently for a moment. I was afraid of his answer.
“The problem isn’t you. I know my limits. Everyone lives the way they can, according to their skills and their limits.”
“It’s one thing to say, ‘I can’t,’ and something completely different to say, ‘I want to, but I need time.’ ”
“I’m not ready now—maybe I never will be.”
“How will you ever know if you don’t try? You’re hung up on an idea that you have of yourself, and you don’t allow yourself any possibility to change, to live something different.”
“I’m not ready yet.”
My entire world came crashing down, but I was still standing on my feet. I tried to play my last card. “Well, let’s pretend we never had this conversation, then.”
I tried to get close and kiss him, but he stopped me.
“Wait, let’s finish this. I don’t want to leave it undone, because I don’t want to go through this again.”
We were silent a little longer. He looked at me, and I looked away and started to stare at the house.
“Elena, now that we’ve discussed these things it will be hard to go back to how they were before.�
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I stopped looking at the house and looked straight into his eyes. I was scared.
“What do you mean?”
“Things have changed, the cards are on the table.”
“Do you want me to go away?”
He wouldn’t answer; he kept growing more and more distant, and he had an empty expression on his face.
“I never asked you to come. Don’t ask me to send you away.”
He said the words as he stared off into the distance. I couldn’t contain my anger any longer. “You’re an asshole. I’m a dumb-shit. Who the fuck do you think you are treating people like this?”
“I’m not treating you wrongly; I’m just telling you what I think.”
“Fuck you, what the fuck am I to you, an experiment? Did you feel sorry for me? The poor married woman who’s going through a crisis—let’s see what she does when I screw her a few times … Let’s see if she falls in love … What did you want to find out? What did you want to prove? What did you want to get out of it?”
“Stop it, Elena.”
He hugged me.
“Don’t touch me, keep your hands off me.”
“Don’t shout, calm down.”
“No, I won’t clam down—you’re an asshole.”
Suddenly the anger turned into tears and I started to cry. He hugged me and I tried to break free, but then I gave up. I stopped crying and we were silent.
“Come on, let’s go inside … I’ll get you some water.”
We walked into the kitchen. I drank sitting on a chair. My face was red and my eyes were swollen. He was standing next to the sink. I was looking out the window and thinking about many things: Paolo, the fact that he had no idea where I was and what I was going through. I was thinking about what Carla was going to say. I was thinking about my grandmother … Maybe the smell of that kitchen was similar to the one in hers, or maybe the past was the only place where I could find refuge and feel safe at a moment like that. I remembered when I was a child and I used to sit on her lap in the kitchen, as we were trimming string beans, throwing the ends on a sheet of newspaper at the center of the table. Then my mind returned to that kitchen and I realized I didn’t want to lose him. I apologized to him.
