Andrea Canobbio - Three Light-Years

One day, instead of lurking around to spy on her, he stopped under the trees where they’d kissed for the first time that late afternoon in June, and another evening he looked for the exact spot where he had parked when they made love in the car. He stayed there thinking for an hour; that, too, was a way of spying on her; that, too, was a pathetic way to spend his time. He thought of all the times he had masturbated thinking about making love with Cecilia in the car. Their relationship was still in transit, maybe it would never reach port, and he couldn’t allow himself to think beyond fantasies of car sex. At most, he imagined doing it in the comfort of the backseat.

He stationed himself one last time and saw Cecilia take the child to someone, maybe his father. All the boy had with him was his schoolbag. Was it his father’s house or that of a classmate? He stood waiting for Cecilia to come back down, imagining her with her ex-husband. And there, in that place that told him nothing, in that neighborhood that wasn’t his, at that address which he’d never wanted to know, he thought that maybe he didn’t care about Cecilia anymore; maybe he wasn’t just fed up with that strange friendship-with-relapses, maybe he didn’t love her as he thought he did, maybe he no longer loved her or maybe he had never loved her, and it was just the fear that she might be his last chance playing a nasty trick on him.

He started the Passat and drove away, instantly feeling a sense of relief. Enough is enough. He was letting go, he had let go. The moment when you can finally say it’s over comes just like that, out of the blue. Even with relationships that seem never to end (maybe because they never began).

* * *

Nevertheless, he continues to see her. For two years, lunch has been their time together and it’s difficult to end the habit overnight. It’s equally difficult to come up with credible excuses when Viberti decides not to show up one day and the next day Cecilia asks why he didn’t come. Then again he has to eat in any case and he might easily be spotted if he went to one of the other cafés across from the hospital, so all through the month of March Viberti sometimes uses the side door and goes to eat his boiled vegetables in the café that he’s renamed “the urologist’s.” But he’s not at ease as he eats, he feels like she’s going to surprise him at any moment.

One day, coming around the column that conceals their table, for a moment he thinks Cecilia has brought her thirteen-year-old daughter to lunch. The young woman sitting with her looks familiar, even though Viberti is certain he’s never seen her before. He would remember the wide black headband in her hair and her intimidating look. Too late to retreat: Cecilia invites him to sit with them: “This is Silvia, my sister.”

Viberti sits down and says hello. “You never told me you had a sister,” he murmurs, gets up again, starts to sit down a second time, and then decides to get up and go order the plate of boiled vegetables and a glass of mineral water. All he has to do is go around the column, lean over the counter, and order his plate from the barista, but what he’d like to do is leave, go out the door, and eat by himself at another café. He mistook her for Cecilia’s daughter because the idea of meeting the young girl frightens him.

He returns to his seat. He’s petrified, like marble, and he thinks it shows, as if blue veins had appeared on his skin. He has no desire to make conversation; he hadn’t wanted to have lunch with Cecilia, let alone with Cecilia and her sister. This Silvia seems less interesting than Cecilia, not as tall, less attractive. He doesn’t know how it could have happened — in two years not a hint about the existence of a sister. He’d like to insist and say again “You never told me you had a sister,” to punish Cecilia, but it wouldn’t be polite. He feels rigid, like the column behind him. In fact, he is the column, he’s turned into a column so he can stay in that café forever, ignored by everyone, in mute adoration of the woman sitting at the table.

“Claudio always eats boiled vegetables for lunch,” Cecilia says. If she’d wanted to put him at ease she could have come up with a different opening. He feels like refusing to speak for the entire lunch so that Cecilia will realize how offended he is. But it’s hard to say absolutely nothing. If you don’t talk, you’re saying you don’t want to talk. Instead you have to be able to talk without saying anything: his mother was a master at this.

Cecilia persists: “Silvia, too, used to eat boiled vegetables for lunch and dinner … years ago. Remember, Silvia?”

“Were you on a diet?” Viberti asks.

Silvia is painstakingly chewing a bite of her sandwich and can’t answer, she taps her lips delicately with her fingertips, a gesture that Cecilia often makes, as if to say, “Wait, I’ll tell you.”

But Viberti can’t wait, he’s embarrassed at having put her on the spot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. You liked boiled vegetables, that’s reason enough for me.”

Silvia finally swallows. “I’ve never been on a diet in my life.”

It’s strange being a threesome for the first time, as if the last time for the two of them alone had already passed. And it’s strange that it’s never happened before; could it be that in two years not one coworker or friend had come into that café? And could it be that no one, seeing them, sat down at their table? The table is hidden away, that’s why Viberti had chosen it. And he certainly wouldn’t bring a friend or a coworker there on his own; he has no brothers or sisters, and he never wanted to share Cecilia with anyone. Nor has Cecilia ever done so before today. There must be a reason for it.

“I like boiled vegetables,” Sylvia adds, “but back then I ate them because I had a plan.”

Cecilia nods. “A plan … of course, it was a plan .”

“I had to eat the same dish for a whole week. One dish a week for four weeks and then I would decide what made me feel best.”

Viberti smiles. He was supposed to be irritated and offended throughout lunch and instead he finds the story amusing. He asks what the dishes were.

“I remember the first one was boiled potatoes and boiled fish. Another was poached eggs, carrots, and zucchini. Then rice, peas, and chicken. I don’t remember the fourth. Midway through the rice, peas, and chicken I got fed up and dropped it all. Still, I should remember the fourth. Mozzarella, tomatoes, and figs? What do you think, Ceci? It seems to me there were figs and also asparagus. No, that’s impossible, they’re not in season at the same time. I remember artichokes, too, but I could be wrong about the artichokes, I’ve never been a fan of artichokes. Once I pricked myself with an artichoke. No — there was mozzarella in the fourth dish, there was tomato, but I don’t remember the third ingredient.”

“And you didn’t eat anything else?”

“Ah, I knew this story would intrigue you,” Cecilia says, her sarcasm plain. She’s edgy, he hadn’t noticed. He’d been so irritated about the fact that she’d kept the existence of her sister hidden from him that he hadn’t detected the dark look on her face. She’s upset or angry, or very tired. Something must have happened in the ER, or to the child.

“In the morning I had yogurt and cereal for breakfast,” Sylvia says, “and in the evening I also ate fruit. Not just any kind of fruit. Bananas, for instance, are disgusting. Our mother always told us not to say that a food was disgusting, but there’s no better way to describe bananas. Remember, Ceci? No bananas. And mind you, bananas are very good for you. The potassium. Take allergies, for example. I read somewhere that bananas are great for allergies. Pears, apples, plums. I ate them all. But not bananas. But then again, who knows if these things you read are true? You doctors, when you read these things, do you believe them? I always suspect it’s the banana growers who pay the journalists.”