Paolo Giordano - The Solitude of Prime Numbers

He looked at the degree that he held rolled up in his hand, on which was written in beautiful cursive script that Mattia Balossino was a graduate, a professional, an adult, that it was time for Mr. Balossino, B.Sc., to face up to life, and that this meant he had reached the end of the track that he had blindly followed from the first year of primary school to graduation. He was still only half breathing, as if the air didn't have enough momentum to accomplish the complete cycle.

What now? he wondered out loud.

A short, panting woman said excuse me, please, and he stepped aside to let her in. He followed her inside, not even she could lead him to the right answer, and walked reluctantly down the corridor and climbed the stairs to the second floor. He stepped into the library and went and sat down at his usual place, beside the window. He set his degree down on the empty seat beside him and stretched his hands out on the table. He concentrated on his own breathing, which was still stuck in some backwash between his throat and the bottom of his lungs. It had happened to him before, but never for such a long time.

You can't forget how to do it, he said to himself. It's something you simply can't forget and that's that.

He exhaled all the air and was in a state of apnea for several seconds. Then he opened his mouth wide and inhaled as hard as he could, so much that the muscles in his chest hurt. This time his breath went all the way to the bottom of his lungs and Mattia thought he could see the molecules of oxygen, round and white, scattering around his arteries and beginning to swirl toward his heart once more.

He stayed in the same position for an indefinite amount of time, without thinking, without noticing the students coming in and out, in an absentminded state of numbness and agitation.

Then something flashed in front of his eyes, a red patch, and Mattia gave a start. He focused his eyes upon a rose wrapped in cellophane, which someone had slapped rudely onto the desk. Following the stem he recognized Alice's hand with its protruding knuckles, slightly reddened compared to her white fingers, and rounded nails cut down to the edge of the fingertip.

"You're a real jerk."

Mattia looked at her as one looks at a hallucination. He felt as if he were approaching the scene from a long way away, from a blurry place that he was already unable to remember well. When he was close enough, he made out on Alice's face a deep and unfamiliar sadness.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she went on. "You should have told me. You should have."

Alice slipped into the seat opposite Mattia, exhausted. She looked outside, toward the street, shaking her head.

"How did you…?" Mattia began.

"Your parents. I found out from your parents." Alice turned and stared at him, her blue eyes boiling with rage. "Do you think that's right?"

Mattia hesitated and then shook his head, a dim and distorted outline moving with him over the wrinkled surface of the cellophane.

"I'd always imagined being there. I'd imagined it so many times. While you…"

Alice paused, the rest of the sentence trapped between her teeth. Mattia reflected once more on how that moment had suddenly become so real. He tried to remember where he had been until a few seconds before, but couldn't.

"You never did," Alice finished. "Never."

He felt his head sinking between his shoulders, felt the moths swarming inside his skull again.

"It wasn't important," he whispered. "I didn't want-"

"Shut up," she interrupted him abruptly. Someone at another desk said shhh and the silence of the next few seconds preserved the memory of that hiss.

"You're pale," said Alice. She looked at Mattia suspiciously. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know. I feel a bit dizzy."

Alice got to her feet. She brushed her hair from her forehead, along with a tangle of unpleasant thoughts. Then she bent over Mattia and gave him a kiss on the cheek, silent and light, which in a breath swept away all the insects.

"I'm sure you did brilliantly," she whispered into his ear. "I know you did."

Mattia felt her hair tickling his neck. He felt the soft hollow of air that separated them filling with her warmth and pressing lightly on his skin, like cotton wool. He became aware of an urge to pull her to him, but his hands remained motionless, as if asleep.

Alice straightened up, then she picked up his diploma from the chair, unrolled it, and smiled, reading it under her breath.

"Wow," she said at last. Her voice assumed a radiant tone. "We've got to celebrate. Come on, Mr. B.Sc., on your feet," she commanded.

She held out her hand to Mattia. He took it, rather uncertainly at first. He allowed himself to be led out of the library, with the same disarmed trust with which years before he had been dragged into the girls' bathroom. Over time the proportions between their hands had changed. Now his fingers wrapped completely around Alice's, like the rough halves of a seashell.

"Where are we going?" he asked her.

"For a drive. The sun's out. And you need to get some sun."

They left the building and this time Mattia wasn't afraid of the light, the traffic, and the people gathered around the entrance.

In the car they kept the windows lowered. Alice drove with both hands on the wheel and sang to "Pictures of You," imitating the sound of the words that she didn't know. Mattia felt his muscles gradually relaxing, adapting to the shape of the seat. He felt as if the car were leaving a dark and sticky trail in its wake, a trail of his past and all his worries. He gradually began to feel lighter, like a jar being emptied. He closed his eyes, and for a few seconds floated on the air that fanned his face, and on Alice's voice.

When he opened them again they were on the road leading to his house. He wondered if they might have organized a surprise party for him and prayed that it wasn't so.

"Come on, where are we going?" he asked again.

"Don't you worry," murmured Alice. "If you ever take me for a drive you'll have the right to choose."

For the first time Mattia was ashamed to be twenty-two and not have gotten his driver's license. It was another of the things he had left behind, another obvious step in a boy's life that he had decided not to take, so as to stay as far as possible from the machinery of life. Like eating popcorn at the movies, like sitting on the back of a bench, like not respecting your parents' curfew, like playing football with a ball of tinfoil, like standing naked in front of a girl. He thought that from this precise moment things would be different. He decided he would get his license as soon as possible. He would do it for her, to take her for a drive. Even though he was afraid to admit it, when he was with her it seemed it was worth doing all those normal things that normal people do.

Now that they were close to Mattia's house, Alice turned in another direction. She pulled onto the main road and parked the car a hundred yards down, opposite the park.

"Voila," she said. She unfastened her seat belt and got out of the car.

Mattia stayed frozen in his seat, his eyes fixed on the park.

"Well? Are you getting out?"

"Not here," he said.

"Come on, don't be stupid."

Mattia shook his head.

"Let's go somewhere else," he said.

Alice looked around.

"What's the problem?" she insisted. "We're just going to take a walk."

She came over to the window on Mattia's side. He was stiff, as if someone were sticking a knife in his back. His hand gripped the handle of the door, which was half open. He stared at the trees a hundred yards away. The wide, green leaves covered their knotty skeletons and the fractal structure of the branches, hiding their horrible secret.

He had never been back here. The last time was with the police, that day that his father had told him give your mother your hand and she had pulled hers away and stuck it in her pocket. That day he had still had both his arms bandaged, from his fingers to his elbow, with a thick dressing rolled in so many layers that it took a saw blade to remove it. He had shown the policemen where Michela had been sitting. They had wanted to know the exact spot and had taken pictures, first from far away and then from close up.