Simona Sparaco - About Time

In the middle of this tranquil oblivion, all at once she breaks the silence: “I have to call Giulia’s father, I’m an awful mother.”

“You’re wonderful,” I reassure her. And I really do think that as she talks on the telephone to her little girl, whispering tender promises to her.

“I have to pick her up tomorrow morning at eight,” she says after hanging up. “Do you realize how much time we’ve spent here? It’s Sunday.”

The first reference to time since we sank onto this bed. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t even know what time it is, which month we’re in, and I don’t even care.

“I’m hungry, and we’ve emptied the fridge.”

“Do you want to go out?”

“No…” she moans, stretching. “I’d be fine with a pizza.”

“There’s a place just near here, I can go down and get something. Will you wait for me here?”

I grab a tracksuit from the wardrobe. I feel completely devoid of strength, I’d never go out if it wasn’t a matter of life and death.

She laughs and sticks her head under the pillow. “Let’s enjoy this last night,” she says, her voice muffled. I leave the room, thinking I don’t like the word last .

As I go down in the lift, then walk along the street, then go into the restaurant and order the pizzas, then sit at a table waiting for them, all I keep doing is smelling my hands, lingering over her perfume to convince myself she exists. She’s waiting for me in my apartment, I tell myself.

When I get back, noisily closing the door behind me, the first thing that surprises me is the unnatural silence of the apartment, then the distinct thought that I’ll go into the bedroom and realize she isn’t there, that she’s melted like a vision.

What I can’t imagine is that, beyond that door, something even worse is waiting for me.

The shelf under the bedside table has been raised. I suddenly realize that I never got rid of that bag of cocaine. Isabelle has it in her hands now. She’s standing there, completely naked, but she looks distracted, as if her mind is suddenly miles away.

“I can explain—”

Her eyes stop me dead. She drops the cocaine on the ground. I do the same with the pizzas.

“You’re an addict,” she says, looking at me in dismay.

“It isn’t mine.”

“You’re an addict,” she repeats. “No, you’re more than that… Nobody keeps a quantity like that in their home if they’re not…”

“Are you joking? Don’t even think it.”

“What is it, then?”

“I told you, it isn’t mine.”

She looks me straight in the eyes. She’s weighing up my lie, and she’s doing it with a surgical coldness.

Then she looks away and starts searching for her clothes. “I have a little child,” she says as she puts her skirt on. “As long as she’s with me she’ll never know that stuff like this even exists.”

I stand there without saying a word, crushed by the weight of my own weakness, gathered there in that plastic bag.

I know that something irreparable has just happened. Isabelle is walking out of my life and I don’t open my mouth, I don’t lift a finger to stop her. When she finishes dressing, she picks up her handbag and walks past me without even looking me in the face. At the noise of the door closing, I feel anxiety growing inside me.

I know, You’ve started racing again.

I clench my fists in order not to scream, I restrain myself from destroying everything within reach. What I do attack is that plastic bag, that insignificant relic of a distant life. I never had the courage to show myself to Isabelle for what I am: another relic, like everything around me.

The powder flies up when I hit the bag. I blow it, angrily. The world can’t go any faster than this. The only thing worse than this is death.

But then I’m forced to change my mind. I turn to the window and see the sun, looking as if it’s wrapped in ash-grey steam, emerging from between the buildings at breakneck speed. I collapse on the bed, devoid of strength. I think of the length of my existence, the way my heart thumps when she takes my face in her hands, our breathing, so deep that it seems to fill the entire space, then I think of the age of the sun and stars, and suddenly I see them shrink in a flash, just a fluttering of wings in the immensity of the universe, and almost involuntarily I find myself bowing my head before Your omnipotence.

I DON’T GET OUT OF BED for two days. She hasn’t been in touch, and when I call her she doesn’t answer the phone. The only person still looking for me is Elena, my secretary, and she’s paid to do it. On the screen of my mobile I even find a call from my father, from a few days ago. He’s left me a message saying that he’s tried to contact me several times and that we have to speak, if he could he’d even come and see me himself, but he’s been saying that more or less since he brought me into the world. Then again that silence, I can sense the pride in it, even over the phone. “End of messages,” the electronic voice informs me. I can still remember when my voicemail was overflowing with requests, appointments, greetings. You just have to remove yourself from the flow to realize you’re not indispensable, quite the contrary. I have to find my way again, think up a plan to raise myself out of this abyss.

I get up. I don’t even look at myself in the mirror. I put on a pair of trousers, a jacket, and go out. I have to find her again, and discover what the hell I can do to slow down my life.

I go back to the Campo de’ Fiori. The market seems more chaotic than when I saw it with her. I rush through it to her front door. I press the button by the entryphone. I don’t know how long I stand there waiting for an answer, a woman’s voice saying “Come up”. But there’s nothing.

Elena keeps calling me on my mobile, the way my time is racing makes her seem even more persistent. I have to switch the phone off before the ringing perforates my brain.

It’s colder today than it was a few days ago. Clouds heavy with rain are moving quickly to obscure the last slivers of sky. They’re racing, but not a breath of wind is blowing.

Maybe Isabelle is here somewhere, hidden amid the crowd in the market. She may even have passed close to me, with Giulia in her arms, and in the speed of the moment I didn’t even notice. With every step I take to look for her, another few minutes go by, flying up like splinters out of control. The confusion sets my heart pounding. I can hear my heartbeats everywhere, in my ears, my muscles, my bones. The voices merge in my head, until they become ever more cacophonous and incomprehensible. “That street there. What size? The biggest, thanks. Was it really the day before yesterday? Ten, thanks. There aren’t any cherry tomatoes… Which pasta? No, the pizza. How many kilometres? I told him I… My father would like to see… How old? I haven’t set foot… There must be one… In what context?… To lunch. I’m not there. I wouldn’t be able… How many? That moon. A piano. A pound of bananas… Onion. There are ten… Here. Pasta. Butter. Kitchen… I’m…” Enough! I put my hands over my ears, I can’t stand it any more. I can’t stand the noise of the crowd when time is racing like this.

I’d like to get down on my knees, to surrender, to beg for mercy, to know what I’ve done to deserve all this. But I stand there, stiff-backed, my feet solidly planted on the paving stones. You’ll never destroy me.

I don’t know what time it is, but I know it’s late, because suddenly the crowd disperses, the van doors are closed, the square empties.

The sky has grown darker. Soon, in fact very soon, it’ll start to rain. I zip up my jacket and raise the collar. It’s damp, and the cold penetrates my bones like the sharp nails of an old witch. Then the first drops of rain start to fall, heavy and fast. The black sky, shaken by constant rumbling, is stormy and fascinating. For a few minutes the rain comes down with unusual intensity. And I stand alone in the middle of the square and raise my face to the sky in an act of defiance. I want to feel the force of that rain on my face, I want to be struck and scarred by Your anger.