Roberta Mezzabarba - The Confessions Of A Concubine

The teachers pushed everyone so that I could continue to study but my family did not sponsor this initiative, and it was taken for granted that I should look for a job.

So, from the bright future that I imagined in the evening while reading my books, I found myself accepting a position as a stock clerk in a supermarket in my city, and dating a guy that I wasn’t even sure I liked or not.

Filippo came into my life at a time when all my peers had been engaged for a long time, and my mother was continually asking questions about why I still didn't have a boyfriend.

I had not chosen him, in fact I had never even considered him before, and I had no comparisons to make.

One day at the public garden where we met on summer afternoons, with the cicadas singing their chant, Filippo proposed to me and I accepted.

I ran home, and out of breath, dragged my grandmother into her little bedroom: I told her what had happened to me and her soft cheeks went red and she gave me the sweetest smile.

"Mysia, be careful, the world is not good, but you are so dear that you deserve all the good of this world and what sparkling eyes you have!"

So I asked her, "How do you figure out who is the right person? And above all, where to find him and how?"

Then she patiently told me how she had met my grandfather, that I barely remembered.

"We didn't know each other, and I must say, my little one, that I was very lucky to meet him. But I was also good at bowing my head when the situation required it and teaching him to do the same. There is not the right person, Mysia. Two people must become right for one another, together."

A few days later, my grandmother had a stroke

that deprived her of speech, and of a good part of her body. My father's friends brought her home with her knees grazed and her glasses broken. She had collapsed and fallen down in the square in front of the parish church.

She looked at me with huge eyes, as if trying to tell me something. When we were alone, I put a hand between the bars of her cot and she squeezed it tight. From that moment I began to understand what it meant to feel helpless and alone.

I had a thousand questions in my head and no courage to ask anyone, so I never got answers.

My grandmother passed away one autumn

morning, silently, and her Argentinian laughter no longer resonated within the walls of the house, leaving an immense void inside me.

Life had snatched an important piece from me, the only person who had ever believed in me, who loved me completely, just as I was.

"You are imperfect and beautiful" my

grandmother used to tell me.

From the day she died I only felt imperfect.

3.

And feel that I am transparent

There are days when I feel beautiful, shining.

I look in the mirror and see my face reflected, turquoise eyes, small slightly full lips, freckles that sully the skin around my nose just a little.

I run my hands through my red, silky hair, dissolving thoughts with my fingers.

In those days, to see my husband ignoring me, hurts me so much I could die: he seems to give no importance to what belongs to him by right, by contract, and like a short-sighted person does not perceive what is close to him.

I have never made myself beautiful for others, but to be ignored in this way, to be transparent, irrelevant, less than an annoying fly, is

demoralizing, and you never get used to it.

Angrily I grab the usual clasp, discolored from all the times I have used it, and imprison my hair, and with the bite of those plastic teeth I wound my heart, my soul, my pride, my self-love.

And he doesn't even understand my angry gesture.

He gives me a quick glance, as if he can’t really bring the whole situation into focus, and as always I drown in this incomprehension, and suffocate tears that want to be freed, swallowing the bitterness and that lump in my throat that does not want to go down.

Tomorrow it will change, or rather, I hope that I will change tomorrow.

***

"This haircut really suits you, Mysia!"

Pietro’s voice spoke those words, boiling oil to my

ears.

I felt my cheeks and neck flush and instinctively lowered my gaze, not knowing exactly how to reply.

I wasn't used to receiving compliments, it had been so long that... I had wanted to hear those words from my husband's mouth, I had longed for this to happen in too many dreams, and instead here is that man who did not belong to me making my skin ripple with a shiver, making the longing for pleasure that hides inside every human being come true.

Pietro was a colleague who worked in

administration at the supermarket, always smiling, with slightly long dark hair, expertly disheveled.

To tell the truth I hadn't noticed him until his gaze had begun to lock onto mine, insistently. He had started saying hello to me, looking for opportunities to start a conversation with me. And

that’s where the first comments, the first veiled compliments began to arrive.

I listened, unaware, eager, pitifully in need of appreciation.

Strange, I must say, because my upbringing always prevented me from enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of being appreciated.

In my family compliments were a rare

commodity, then marrying Filippo had not changed the situation: he was such closed man that I often had the feeling that he didn’t even notice me.

But I had married him.

And now there was nothing to do, other than accept what the meal in front of me contains, without dreaming of other dishes.

Paying attention to Pietro's words was playing with disaster, I am aware of that, but as I listen to his words, every shadow inside my heart disappears in a flash.

But it doesn't last long: as the echo of those words fades away, as Pietro disappears from my sight, my heart freezes.

4.

The search for a life

Work, home, home, work.

That’s the life of a thirty-year-old.

My life.

As a girl I could never allow myself much entertainment, because it was not right to go out alone, much less in the company of my boyfriend.

Now because my husband prefers to doze in the armchair in the living room, instead of living.

Of course, this has not always been the case.

We wanted a child, only God knows how much I desired it.

Before the wedding it was almost as if I were fleeing from the idea of such a huge commitment, then as the months passed a space had formed

between us, a void I’d dare to say, that I thought I could fill with a child.

Filippo did not seem to have the same needs as I did, his job as a security guard was enough for him.

My husband was a good man, he made sure I had everything I wanted, but I was dismaye by his lack of sensitivity and his aloofness.

The menstrual cycle arrived inexorably at the end of each month to destroy my dreams, fostered in those three, four days it was late.

Two, three, four times.

It was too much.

Too many hopes shattered...

We each thought that there was probably something wrong with the other, a mechanism that did not work properly, a spark that did not fire at the right time.

Then once I was ten days late: I did not talk about it, as if this could make my dream

unbreakable, but it was nothing more than a soap bubble, beautiful, iridescent, carried on the wings of the wind, but destined to vanish in a plof .

Silently I let the minutes flow by, and the days and weeks became months.

For almost two months I cradled the idea of a baby in my thoughts, a grain of life that could give meaning to mine, that illuminated the darkness of my existence.

For quite some time, after that night, I had no more tears to cry.