Paolo Giordano - The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Alice rummaged among the sheets of paper stacked under the counter, more to fill the time while waiting than out of genuine interest. She found the envelope with the invitation, stiff and imposingly large. She opened it and the name leaped off the page in a gilded cursive, full of flourishes.

Ferruccio Carlo Bai and Maria Luisa Bai are delighted to announce the marriage of their daughter Viola…

Her eyes darkened before she went any further. A metallic taste flooded her mouth. She swallowed and it was like gulping down that fruit candy from the locker room all over again. She closed the envelope and waved it in the air for a moment, thinking.

"Can I go alone?" she ventured at last, her back still turned to Crozza.

He shut the drawer of the cash register with a rattle and a ding.

"What?" he asked.

Alice turned around and her eyes were wide open and bright with something and Crozza couldn't help smiling, they were so beautiful.

"I've learned how by now, haven't I?" said Alice, walking over to him. "I can do it. Otherwise I'll never be able to manage on my own."

Crozza looked at her suspiciously. She rested her elbows on the desk, right in front of him, and leaned toward him. She was only a few inches from his nose and that gleam in her eyes begged him to say yes and not to ask for explanations.

"I don't know if-"

"Please," Alice broke in.

Crozza stroked his earlobe and was forced to look away.

"All right, then," he gave in. He didn't understand why he was whispering. "But don't screw it up."

"I promise," Alice said, making her translucent lips disappear into a smile.

Then she pushed herself forward on her elbows and gave him a kiss, which tickled Crozza's three-day beard.

"Go on, go on," he said, dismissing her with his hand.

Alice laughed and the sound of it scattered through the air as she left with that sinuous, rhythmic gait of hers.

That evening Crozza stayed a little longer than usual in the shop, doing nothing. He looked at the things around him and noticed that they had more presence, as they had many years before when they seemed to be asking him to take their picture.

He took the camera out of the bag, where Alice always put it back after giving all the lenses and mechanisms a good clean. He screwed on the lens and aimed it at the first object that came into view, the umbrella stand by the entrance. He enlarged part of the rounded edge until it looked like something else, like the crater of an extinct volcano. But then he didn't take the picture.

He put the camera away, picked up his jacket, turned out the lights, and left. He closed the security gate with the padlock and headed in the opposite direction from his usual one. He couldn't seem to wipe the stupid smile from his face and he really had no desire to go home.

The church was decorated with two enormous bouquets of lilies and daisies, arranged on either side of the altar, and with dozens of miniature copies of the same bouquet at the end of each pew. Alice set up the lights and arranged the reflector panel. Then she sat in the first row and waited. A lady was running the vacuum cleaner over the red carpet that Viola would walk down in an hour. Alice thought about when she and Viola used to sit on the railings and talk. She couldn't remember what they had talked about, only that she had looked at her rapt from a place just behind her eyes, a place full of jumbled thoughts that she had kept to herself even then.

Over the next half hour all the pews filled up and people accumulated at the back, where they stood fanning themselves with the order of service.

Alice went outside and waited on the cobblestones for the bride's car to arrive. High in the sky the sun warmed her hands and its rays seemed to pass right through them. As a little girl she had liked looking at her palms against the light, the red peeking through her closed fingers. Once she had shown it to her father and he had kissed her fingertips, pretending to eat them.

Viola arrived in a gleaming gray Porsche, and the driver had to help her out and pick up her cumbersome train. Alice madly snapped away, more to hide her face behind the camera than anything else. Then, when the bride passed by, she lowered it deliberately and smiled at her.

They looked at each other for only a moment and Viola caught her breath. Alice couldn't study her expression, because the bride had already passed her and was entering the church on her father's arm. For some reason Alice had always imagined him taller.

She was careful not to lose so much as a moment. She took various close-ups of the happy couple and their families. She immortalized the exchange of rings, the reading of the promises, the communion, the kiss, and the signing of the register. She was the only one moving in the whole church. It seemed to Alice that Viola's shoulders stiffened slightly when she was near her. She increased the exposure time still further, to obtain the blurry quality that, according to Crozza, suggested eternity.

As the couple left the church, Alice walked ahead of them, limping backward, bending slightly so as not to alter her height with a low perspective. Through the lens she became aware that Viola was looking at her with a frightened half-smile, as if she were the only one who could see a ghost. Alice exploded the flash in her face at regular intervals, about fifteen times, until the bride was forced to narrow her eyes.

She watched them get into the car and Viola darted her a glance from behind the window. She was sure she would immediately start talking to her husband about her, about how strange it was to have come across her there. She would describe her as the class anorexic, the cripple, someone she had never hung out with. She wouldn't mention the candy or the party or all the rest. Alice smiled at the thought that it might be their first half-truth as a married couple, the first of the tiny cracks that would eventually converge into a gaping hole.

"Miss, the bride and groom are waiting on the riverbank for you to photograph them," said a voice behind her.

Alice turned around and recognized one of the witnesses.

"Certainly. I'll be right there," she replied.

She quickly went into the church to dismantle her equipment. She was still putting the various pieces of the camera in the rectangular case when she heard someone calling to her.

"Alice?"

She turned around, already sure who had been speaking.

"Yes?"

Standing in front of her were Giada Savarino and Giulia Mirandi.

"Hi," said Giada ostentatiously, approaching Alice to kiss her on both cheeks.

Giulia stayed where she was, staring at her feet as she had done at school.

Alice barely brushed Giada's cheek with her own pursed lips.

"What on earth are you doing here?" shrieked Giada.

Alice thought it was a stupid question and couldn't help smiling.

"I'm taking photographs," she replied.

Giada responded with a smile, showing the same dimples she had had at seventeen.

It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing.

"Hi, Giulia," Alice forced herself to say.

Giulia smiled at her and struggled to speak.

"We heard about your mother," she said. "We're really sorry."

Giada nodded repeatedly, to show her agreement.

"Yeah," replied Alice. "Thanks."

She started hastily putting things away. Giada and Giulia looked at each other.

"We'll let you get on with your work," Giada said, touching her shoulder. "You're very busy."

"Okay."

They turned around and walked toward the exit, the crisp click of their heels echoing off the walls of the now empty church.

The couple was waiting in the shade of a big tree standing some feet apart. Alice parked next to their Porsche and got out with the shoulder bag. It was hot and she felt her hair sticking to the back of her neck.