Paolo Giordano - The Solitude of Prime Numbers

"There's something else I want to show you," Alice said.

She tossed the camera onto the bed, like a little girl who's grown tired of a toy because she's spotted another, more inviting one, and left the room.

She was gone for a good ten minutes. Mattia started reading the titles of the books leaning crookedly on the shelf above the desk. Always the same ones. He combined the first letters of all the titles, but couldn't come up with a sensible word. He would have liked to identify a logical order in the sequence. He would probably have arranged them according to the color of their spines, copying the electromagnetic spectrum maybe, from red to violet, or according to height, in decreasing order.

"Ta-daaaa." Alice's voice distracted him.

Mattia turned and saw her standing in the doorway, gripping the frame as if afraid she might fall. She was wearing a wedding dress, which must have been dazzlingly white once, but which time had turned yellow at the hem, as if some disease were slowly devouring it. The years spent in a box had made it dry and stiff. The bodice fell limply over Alice's nonexistent bosom. It wasn't especially low-cut, just enough for one of the straps to slip a few inches down her arm. In that position Alice's collarbone looked more pronounced; it broke the soft line of her neck and formed a little hollow, like the basin of a dried-up lake. Mattia wondered what it might be like, eyes closed, to trace its outline with the tip of his finger. The lace at the end of the sleeves was crumpled and on the left arm it stood up slightly. The long train continued out of sight down the hall. Alice was still wearing her red slippers, which peeked out from under the full skirt, creating a curious dissonance.

"Well? Aren't you going to say something?" she said without looking at him. She smoothed the outer layer of tulle on the skirt. It felt cheap, synthetic.

"Whose is it?" asked Mattia.

"Mine, obviously."

"Come on, seriously."

"Whose do you think it is? It's my mother's."

Mattia nodded and imagined Fernanda in that dress. He pictured her wearing the only expression she ever gave him when, before going home, he would stick his head in the living room where she'd be watching television: an expression of tenderness and profound commiseration, like the one usually bestowed upon the sick when people visit them in the hospital. A ridiculous expression, as she was the sick one, sick with an illness that was slowly crumbling her whole body.

"Don't stand there gawking like that. Come on, take a picture of me."

Mattia picked the camera off the bed. He turned it around in his hands to work out which button to press. Alice rocked from side to side in the doorway, as if moved by a breeze that only she could feel. When Mattia brought the camera to his eye, she stiffened her back and assumed a serious, almost provocative expression.

"There," said Mattia.

"Now one of us together."

He shook his head.

"Come on, don't be your usual pain in the ass. And for once I want to see you dressed properly. Not in that mangy sweatshirt that you've been wearing for a month."

Mattia looked down. The wrists of his blue sweater looked as if they'd been devoured by moths. He had a habit of rubbing them with his thumbnail to keep his fingers busy and to keep from scratching the hollow between his index and middle fingers.

"And besides, you wouldn't want to ruin my wedding day, would you?" added Alice with a pout.

She knew it was only a joke, a silly game to pass the time, just a bit of nonsense like so many other things they did. And yet, when she opened the closet door and the mirror inside framed her in that white dress next to Mattia, for a moment the panic took her breath away.

"Nothing in here will work," she said hastily. "Come with me."

Resigned, Mattia followed her. When Alice got like this his legs would itch and he was seized by a desire to leave. There was something in her way of behaving, something in the violence with which his friend satisfied her childish whims, that he found unbearable. It felt as if she had tied him to a chair and then called hundreds of people, showing him off like a possession of hers, some kind of funny pet. Most of the time he said nothing and allowed his impatience to emerge through gestures, until Alice tired of his apathy and gave up, saying you always make me feel like an idiot.

Mattia followed the train of Alice's dress all the way to her parents' room. He had never been in there before. The blinds were down almost entirely and the light entered in parallel lines, so clearly that they seemed drawn on the wooden floor. The air was more dense and tired here than in the rest of the house. Against the wall was a double bed, much higher than the one that belonged to Mattia's parents, and two matching bedside tables.

Alice opened the closet and ran her finger along her father's suits, all hanging in an orderly fashion, each one protected by its cellophane covering. She took out a black one and threw it on the bed.

"Put that one on," she ordered Mattia.

"Have you gone mad? Your father will notice, you know."

"My father never notices anything."

For a moment Alice seemed absorbed in thought, as if reflecting on the words that she had just spoken, or looking at something through that wall of dark clothes.

"Now I'm going to find you a shirt and tie," she added.

Mattia stood still, uncertain what to do. She noticed.

"Will you get a move on? Don't tell me you're ashamed to get changed here!"

As she said that her empty stomach flipped over. For a second she felt dishonest. Her words had been a subtle form of blackmail.

Mattia huffed, then sat down on the bed and started untying his shoes.

Alice kept her back turned, pretending to choose a shirt that she had already chosen. When she heard the metallic jingle of his belt buckle, she counted to three and then turned around. Mattia was taking off his jeans. Underneath he had on a pair of soft gray boxers, not the close-fitting ones she had imagined.

Alice thought that she'd already seen him in shorts dozens of times, it's not like there was much of a difference with underwear, and yet she still felt herself tremble slightly under the four white layers of her wedding dress. He tugged at the bottom of his undershirt to cover himself better and quickly slipped on the elegant trousers. The fabric was soft and light. As it ran over the hairs of his legs it gave them an electric charge, making them stand up like cat's fur.

Alice came over and handed him the shirt. He took it without looking up. He was annoyed and fed up with this pointless playacting. He was ashamed of showing his thin legs and the sparse hairs on his chest and around his navel. Alice thought he was doing everything possible to make the scene embarrassing, as usual. Then she thought that, for him, she was the one to blame, and she felt her throat tighten. Even though she didn't want to, she looked away and let him take off his undershirt without her watching him.

"And now?" Mattia called to her.

She turned around. Seeing him in her father's clothes, she had trouble breathing. The jacket was a little big, his shoulders weren't quite wide enough to fill it out, but she couldn't help thinking that he was incredibly handsome.

"All you need is the tie," she said to him after a moment.

Mattia took the bordeaux-colored tie from Alice's hands and instinctively ran a thumb over the shiny fabric. A shiver ran down his arm and spine. He felt that the palm of his hand was as dry as sand. He quickly brought it to his mouth and breathed on it, to moisten it with his breath. He couldn't resist the temptation to bite one of the joints of his fingers, trying not to be seen by Alice, who noticed anyway.

"I don't know how to tie it," he said, dragging out his words.