Eva Mikula - Loose End

Why didn't I feel Biagio's love? In my imagination I wore the white coat and the cap with the red cross and became the nurse of the cohabitation relationship and of the family. I was naively convinced that if I had understood the problem of him, of Biagio, I would have given a boost to our relationship and I would have made sure that the child saw harmony between the parents in love.

I was naive indeed, because thinking of being able to solve our problem only with this type of attitude and without the collaboration of the other party, was a mission lost from the start.

So, after yet another fight, as always for a trivial reason, I asked myself: “What is the use of being a Red Cross nurse? I'm just sick. With him or without him, what would change in my life? Surely it could change for our son who would no longer hear the screams of arguing parents”. We women, faced with strong motivations, know how to be determined: when we close, we hardly retrace our steps. I did so.

Our friends were amazed and obviously harshly criticized me. I can't blame them completely, Biagio, in fact, had a double face. Away from the family context, from the private, he was the most adorable, most communicative, most distinguished, most elegant and expansive person. He was able to make everyone love him, a great merit of him.

With me at home he was a completely different person, and no one believed me. Even a friend of mine said that I was lying, that it was impossible that Biagio was the one I described to her during our friendly conversations, in an attempt to explain the reasons for our separation.

To make her understand what I was talking about, I secretly recorded what Biagio said about her and made her listen to it “So now do you believe me?” She nodded.

I did not wage war on anyone; I did not sue, I did not appeal to the court to have the custody of our son, I maintained relationships suited to the situation and open dialogue, which still work very well now, even if Biagio tried to do everything to change my mind and stay with him. He spoiled our son in an ever more blatant way. He knew that by doing so he would distance him from me and that, for this very reason, perhaps I would take a step back.Biagio was well aware of the fact that for me having a family had been the culmination of a great dream. It bothered me not having had the empathic certainty of being loved. Even in small gestures.

Sometimes a word said with admiration would have been enough: “Brava!”. It is not trivial: the desire for a sincere compliment has always been missing. Since I was a child. I needed it and right.

The hugs of the heart. Strangely, green no longer gave Biagio a headache and he didn't miss the stench of the asphalt in the center of Rome that much. He left very reluctantly.

I was suffering in silence when Biagio came to pick up the child ahead of schedule. My heart wept if he asked to leave earlier or when he did not have the pleasure of coming to me on the appointed days. As a mother I could have hired a lawyer to claim my rights. But it would have been frustrating for a seven-year-old: I continued to shed bitter tears, taking advantage of every little moment allowed to be with him and pass on my love to him, avoiding quarrels with his father as much as possible. I said to myself: Eva, the years pass and when Francesco grows up, he will understand that I suffered to let him live a peaceful childhood.

Time has proved me right.

1.

2.

3.

4.

1. Eva Mikula at Ai Piani restaurant, Rome 2004

2. Eva Mikula photo shoot, 2002

3 and 4. Eva Mikula when she started the restaurant business, 2002

Fear, disappointment, insecurities. The end of the story with a person I had discovered terribly different from the idea I had of him, when for love I left Budapest to follow him to Italy. In reality he was a robber, a murderer. The arrest, the interrogations, the trials, the police escort to the hearings, the secret hiding places reserved for witnesses under protection. I was very young, bewildered and fragile. Then, the flow of life turned the pages of my existence. The episodes, the stories settled on each other and, finally, a coexistence that lasted years and a desired but absent child arrived. I don't know what I would have given for a hug, for a little love, if it had happened to me I would have melted. It was as if I had called it.

Thus, an evening happened in which I tried to distract myself by going out with a friend. I was in need of affection, hugs, consolation and approval. But, without too many words, I made a big “bullshit”. I tied myself to the most different person of how, in reality, should have been the man with whom to have a relationship in that particular period of inner fragility. He was a man of few scruples, cynical, apparently adorable. A sentimental scammer who managed to land a blow against me, taking advantage of my emotional situation. Indeed, precisely because he had noticed the condition in which I was, he only pretended to love me and I fell completely.

In four months he took away all my savings, a sum that corresponded to about seventy thousand euros. I was so foggy that I didn't notice anything, until one day two agents of the finance police in civilian clothes showed up at the house: a man and a woman. They exhibited the badges and showed me a photo of a man: “Do you know this person?” It was him, he had left my house two hours earlier. I made them sit down and we sat down in the living room.

My legs were shaking, they explained that his real name was different from the one I knew him by. He actually wasn't called as he had always told me: Roberto Marzotto. “Mrs. Mikula” they told me, “this is a swindler by trade, he is a hunter of women who find themselves in a situation of emotional weakness. With the unfortunate he passes himself off as an entrepreneur well positioned in the upper middle class, and plucks them”. I understood the whole situation on the fly and denounced him immediately. I told the two agents about the trap I had been living in during those months; the world collapsed on me, a bolt from the blue.

I called myself stupid, I even felt guilty. I couldn't get over the fact that I had been so inexperienced. After a life spent without receiving a hug from the heart, authentic, it was hard to discover how a despicable individual had used my need for love to cheat me. It seemed incredible: a brutal and inhuman behavior because it was not carried out by a stranger, but by a person with whom there was an emotional involvement, at least on my part.

If I had suffered a scam at work, maybe a bad deal, a failed investment, anything else, it wouldn't have weighed on me that much. But he frequented my house, he had stroked my son's head and touched my body. No, I couldn't think about it, at least not rationally. I still feel the deep pain and existential discouragement: an incredible discomfort, which was mounting while the two financiers were talking to me. They also suffered for me. I came out, metaphorically speaking, with bruises and broken bones from that story too.