The Eternal Moment

by DEMETRIO VERBARO

The JFK airport was swarming with people. People leaving or arriving were running fast.

  Jessica was rather slow and walked with measured steps.

  She felt empty. She felt that she was collapsing under the weight of the life she had chosen. She felt detached from her true self. They were just feelings, she vaguely noticed. Suddenly she was overcome with a strange restlessness and started to run like everyone else. She arrived panting at the ticket office.

  She had to get away from that place, away from New York, away from her job at Ralph Lauren, away from Giuseppe, away from Sidney, away from everyone.

  An employee with puffed and a bit unkempt hair asked:

  «Where to Miss? »

  Jessica replied dreamily:

  «Give me a ticket to ... » she thought for a moment, then exclaimed excitedly:

  «Where is the first international flight going to? »

  The woman typed a few keys on the computer then muttered with a mellow voice:

  «Paris.»

  Jessica pulled out the credit card.

  «So, Paris it is. »

  «And your suitcase? »

  «I don’t have a suitcase.»

  The employee gave her an evil look.

  «Are you going to Paris without a suitcase?»

  Jessica smiled. «Yeah, and I feel very light. »

  As the plane took off Jessica closed her eyes and sighed:

  «Paris. »

  She had not decided with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life, between Sidney and Giuseppe. But before deciding she wanted to spend a bit of time alone.

  She had never done it. She had gone from her parents' home to live directly with Giuseppe in New York. The time to not to waste any more time had arrived. It was time to do the things that made her happy.

  She looked out the window and she understood immediately that she would have the best possible companion for her journey: the sky. That blue was so intense, and how beautiful was the horizon, without boundaries, where one could only see freedom and opportunity.

  *********************

  Giuseppe went to give the lecture to his class. His eyes were puffy because he hadn’t slept. His tie was badly knotted. His shirt was untucked.

  The tone of his voice was hoarse:

  «Today I would like to talk about love. How many of you are in love or have been in love or hope to be in love? How many of you think that love raises the spirit and elevates the soul? »

  Everyone in the class raised their hand.

  Giuseppe screamed ecstatically:

  «You are a bunch of idiots. Love is a rip off. It is an ideal based on the principle that human beings are good and honest by nature ... well then it is a wrong ideal because human beings are bastards and evil by nature. Even the person who you believe to be wonderful and that you called best friend, in the end, he will prove to be just a stupid selfish.»

  The class was filled with grunts, but the professor went on:

  «The only love that there is in life is love itself. At the exact moment when you identify this love in a person, the moment in which love takes a human face, a name, well then love ceases to exist.

  Only the love, about which I speak, cannot betray you, or leave you, or hurt you. This love is desire but not expression. It is expectation but not creation. It is a dream and not reality. It is illusion and not truth. It is freedom and not possession.

  I tell you fall in love with love, and not with the person to whom you have given its name.»

  A female student in the front row, with dark hair and eyes, raised her hand and spoke up:

  «But Professor, excuse me, so should we exclude family, marriage?»

  Giuseppe approached her and breathed in her face with his voice with powerful tone:

  «If you love love, then you will have a life full of events, you'll travel, see places and beautiful people, but, on the other hand, if you give a name to a love ..." he looked into her eyes, «What is your boyfriend’s name? »

  The girl had her hair in a big bun and the tapered neck of a swan that served as a contrast to her voluptuous body. «Jim.»

  "If, on the other hand, you give love the name of Jim, after getting married nothing interesting will happen to you. Your only thoughts will be about what you will cook for lunch, to which pool you’ll send your kids who in thirty years will send you to the retirement home. Your days will fly away as slow as a turtle, until death comes to free you.»

  «But I love Jeff. We're soul mates. »

  «Where did you meet him? »

  «We went to the same high school?»

  Giuseppe’s look was almost threatening. His tone was aggressive. «So, do you mean to tell me that you had the good fortune, out of seven billion people, that your soul mate not only lived in your same age, but he also lived in your own continent, in your own state, in your own town, he even attended your same high school.» He put his hand over his mouth, as if to hold back, but continued with a hysterical voice:

  «That is just bullshit beautiful lady. Maybe your true soul mate was a Hong Kong trader, who lived in the past century. The only thing for certain is that if you marry Jeff, you will not feel again the feeling of a first kiss, of a new love, of missing each other, the beauty of the first time when you make love with him. If you marry him you'll never again feel the magic of the first times.

  You should not you give love a face because in doing you put a limit on him. You limit him. But love to be truly such, can have no limits or boundaries. »

  The girl burst into tears and ran out of the classroom, while the male students rose to their feet and applauded the professor.

  Giuseppe 's voice softened, his eyes brightened:

  «That’s how I think about love. There are those who think that love is a look with a stranger, unexpected and stealthy, that fades slowly. Others think that you have to fall in love with a person's mind and not with their appearance. Everyone has a different concept of love but whatever is your concept always remember one thing: never be afraid of love, its fragility, the possibility of being hurt, the only thing you need to fear is a life without love, you do not need love forever, you only need to love and we human beings have a great gift: to love even when we know we are not loved.» Then he said in a low voice, out of his students’ earshot:

  «And I have loved.»

  *****************************

  Sidney came out from the hotel. He was tired. He walked hunched because of the sadness. With a bored wave of his hand, he stopped a taxi.

  «Take me to 34 Alvarado Street.»

  The taxi driver, a middle-aged man with an unruly beard and silver-haired, said with a grin:

  «Yes, sir. I know what's there. You feel like going with a whore.»

  "But where are your manners? Have some respect for women. Remember that your mother was a woman.»

  The man had an unkempt appearance. His tank top was full of holes made by cigarettes. His voice was harsh and rude. «My mother was a coward and was a slave to my father, and if she didn’t obey, she would get what she deserved from the great man that was my old man.»

  Sidney was annoyed. His voice exuded dismay. «Women are the most courageous people in the world. If children come out from the body of men, humanity would be extinct. And talking to you, I’m starting to think that maybe it would be better. Pull over and let me down, I’ll continue on foot. »

  He arrived to a large place with two floors, with a hushed and refined atmosphere.

  He sat down on a sofa, next to a twentysomething guy. The latter was nervous. He was constantly passing his hand through his gelled-back hair. He was taking off and putting back on a pair of large glasses.

  Sidney smiled at him and asked in a friendly voice:

  «Are you scared? Is this the first time that you come here? »

  His breathing was slightly asthmatic. «I did not want to come, it was my mother who forced me. She wants me to have some experience before going to college. I am, you know ... I’ve nev
er ... I am.» He could not pronounce the word virgin, but Sidney had understood. He patted him on the shoulders and sighed amused:

  «Of course we, Americans, are plain weird. I can’t imagine an Italian woman forcing her son to go to a brothel.»

  The boy stopped moving his hands and relaxed. «My mother thinks that sex is the medicine for all illness. If she sees an unhappy man, she thinks that he should find a lover and if she sees an unhappy woman ... well, she thinks that she should find a lover.»

  Sidney said without a pretended shyness:

  «Your mother is fucking right. »

  The boy shook his head with conviction:

  «I love myself too much to be with the first woman that passes by. »

  "Dear friend, I, on the other hand, hate myself too much to not to be with the first woman that passes by. In any case, you will like the sex. »

  «I just hope that tonight is over as soon as possible. »

  "Cheer up my friend. Tomorrow you will not bore your friends talking about how many kilometers your car runs with one liter, or how many home runs Sanchez did, but now you'll have a much more interesting topic.»

  The owner came over to Sidney. She was a tall, slim blonde woman. Her manners were elegant and her voice gentle:

  «Welcome.»

  With a resolute and extroverted look, she put ten girls in front of him, each had a name tag.

  «Pick your favorite.»

  Sidney took a good look at them, one by one.

  A thought crossed his mind: he imagined the scene where one of them was going to have breakfast in a fancy table, without any make-up and dressed in a sober manner. The waitress served them some coffee with kindness and with a broad smile. Then a colleague of hers whispered in her ear:

  «That's a whore.»

  So, going back to serving the omelet. On his fictional face he opened a grin, and for her there was only a disgusted look left, with an air of superiority.

  Sidney felt a sense of dreariness towards those people and he immediately shook off those bad thoughts, focusing on the last girl in front of him: Jasmine.

  The woman winked at him with her right eye, and then adjusted her black hair behind her ear. She was the ugliest, short, weirdly-shaped, and dull. She was chosen by the customers rarely and only when all the others were already taken. She seemed to have arrived there by chance.

  Sidney said with force:

  «I choose you. »

  Then he turned towards Kimberly, the most beautiful woman among the ten of them. Long blond hair hung to her shoulders, covered by a vintage jacket, and a red top with lace details emphasized two shapely breasts.

  «You come too. »

  They entered a room with a bed in the shape of heart. Sidney ordered with decision:

  «Jasmine you come into bed with me. Kimberly you strip and stay here by the door. You will only watch. »

  He had chosen to only have sex with Jasmine because he wanted to make fun of love. He wanted the ugly to enjoy it and the beautiful to want for it without the chance to have it.

  Kimberly stood in silence, trying to smile from time to time, but she could not mask the envious look that appeared in her surprised face.

  When Sidney was at the point of orgasm, as always happened when he was having sex with a woman, the eternal moment happened to him, that instant when you meet with the gods, when your heart ignites, your soul soars to infinity and soon after, when the mind and the soul drained from the union, asks you: "Is that all? Love, sex, the human being, is that all?” Arrives the perfect laughter of the happy woman lying dreamily, lying on the bed like a bird on a cloud, and then to the question if that's all you answer: "the search for the eternal moment is the only battle that deserves to be fought."

  Sidney went back to the main room and with a glass of liquor in his hand, looked at the customers arrive with extinguished faces and go out with radiant ones. They had found happiness, at least for a short time.

  He stayed until closing time, drinking, chatting and dancing with the owner. He also caught a glimpse of the twenty year old boy, who greeted him with a broad smile:

  «My mother was fucking right. »

  Then, when the sun awoke, the establishment closed and Sidney returned to the hotel to sleep.

  CHAPTER 21

  Giuseppe bent a red shirt, "the last one" he thought. To close the large suitcase, filled to the brim, he had to sit on it and jump.

  He had finished all the preparations to depart, so he had the rest of the afternoon and the evening free.

  Sidney rang the doorbell.

  «Hey I have come to bring you a present. »

  «It is a framed picture of me, you and Jessica. »

  «It is the first picture that we got together. »

  Giuseppe felt wistful for his imminent departure, sat by the fireplace and sighed with a broken voice:

  «I will miss this house » He caressed the red bricks of the chimney. «When I was eight my father dressed as Santa Claus and jumped from the chimney of the roof with a rope. He wanted it to be realistic. He said that for a child it is important to believe in magic, in illusions. »

  «He must have been a good father. »

  «He taught me how to ride a bike, to swim, to kick a ball and always gave me good advice. »

  Sidney saw the happiness in the eyes of his friend and continued on the subject:

  «Tell me some of those advices.»

  Giuseppe imitated the deep voice of his father:

  «Son, people just want to learn how to win, if you want to get ahead, you must first learn how to lose. » He cleared his voice strained from the imitation and continued:

  «One day you'll have your own ideas about life, but remember to be consistent with them, because having ideals is much easier than actually following them. » I also enjoyed it when he used to take me to the barber to get my hair cut. He sat in sofas and patiently waited for me. Everyone that entered greeted him and treated him with great respect and I felt so proud to be his son. He was a special man, with great attention to the little things: always gave me a goodnight kiss and cuddled me when I was sad. »

  Giuseppe walked to the marble table in the living room and told his friend:

  «This is where I was born. My mother did not have time to get to the hospital, so a midwife came to the house. I am the only child of my generation that was born in Mosorrofa instead of the ‘Ospedali Riuniti’ hospital in Reggio. » Then he lifted the blanket that covered the table, showing a long fracture in the middle. «I broke it myself, while I was playing with my dinosaurs. When my mother saw it, she was very angry because I could have hurt myself really badly, so because of that fear she threw at me the wooden shoes that she was wearing in her feet, luckily missing me, and then she chased me barefoot throughout the house with a wooden spoon. »

  Sidney tried to encourage his friend:

  «You know sometimes we love so much the past that we remain anchored to it, rejecting a priori the present, and not giving a chance to the future. A bright future is waiting for you, face it with joy. »

  Giuseppe's jaw opened into a reassuring expression. His voice sounded tender:

  "I'd like to gift this house to you. In New York, I will make good money, so I do not need to sell it. It is the house where I grew up, and I want you to live here, who, along with Jessica, are the only family I have left. »

  Sidney sighed uncertainly:

  «I wouldn’t dare to accept.»

  Giuseppe led him into the broom closet and sighed in a hoarse, slow voice:

  «Remember when as children, playing hide and seek, we found this place? »

  «Of course. We emptied two boxes of blankets and we hid inside. Jessica looked for us for almost an hour without any luck. She was so angry that she didn’t talk to us for two days. »

  «And look at the door, look how it is damaged here ... »

  Sidney said with a smile:

  «A mouse had entered and I and you were chasing it with two broo
ms. I missed it and hit the door here making a hole. »

  «And my mother chased after you with a wooden spoon. »

  «Yeah, thank goodness it wasn’t summer or she would have thrown her wooden shoes at me. »

  Giuseppe's voice was emotional. «This house is yours too. So take these keys and don’t make a fuss. »

  Sidney hugged him and whispered fondly:

  «Friends forever. »

  «Friends Forever» said Giuseppe.

  Later that same evening, Giuseppe went to say hello to Jessica.

  They were strolling in the garden, talking quietly, but suddenly, Giuseppe pleaded with his heart in his hand, «Come to New York with me! »

  Jessica jumped puzzled.

  The man continued:

  «I love you. I have loved you since I saw you the first time. I love the way you walk. I love how you get your nose dirty with fior di latte when you eat your cone. I love the way you cry when you see “The Notebook". I love your smile. »

  The woman murmured weakly:

  «I admit that I also have feelings for you, but New York is so far away. »

  «Don’t you want to get out of Mosorrofa? Travel the world?»

  «Why would I? I'm happy here. »

  The boy took her hands. «New York is the capital of the world. »

  «Yes, but you see, I'm not the kind of woman who likes to walk by fashionable streets with long and elegant clothes. I prefer to run barefoot on the beach. »

  «You could make all your dreams come true, while here there is no chance, there is no future. »

  The woman's voice was soothing. «That goes for you because you have big dreams. You would arrive to the top of the Everest because you know that only from there you would see the most beautiful view of all, the clouds beneath you and the sky at your fingertips, but I’m made differently. I would only arrive to mid-climb. I would plant a tent and I would say: okay, I’m stopping. The view that I’ll enjoy from here is very beautiful too. » Then she took him in front of a cherry tree. «Look at this tree. My father planted it with my mother when they married. Me and the twins have always played here. We saw it become bush, shrub and finally a tree.

  I also want my children to grow up watching the seed of the tree that I will plant here grow.