Alessandro Baricco - The Young Bride

To restore order to the world, he answered.

The next day, he instructed that the mourning should last for nine days from the day of the burial. On the tenth day he announced his marriage to the girl, and on the first day of summer it was celebrated with unforgettable joy. Three months later the girl gave birth, without dying, to a son, whom you will soon marry: since then, we’ve all called her the Mother . In the house you know, she became a woman, diligently, and she is the light who allows that man whom we all now call the Father to live in shadow, while he fiercely keeps the world in order. There is something that binds them, but obviously the word love , in this case, explains nothing. The secret they share is stronger, and the task they have chosen. One day, when they had been living together for a year, without ever sharing a bed, they felt strong enough to challenge together the two fears they were accustomed to associating with sex: he of dying, she of killing. They locked themselves in a room and didn’t come out before they were sure that if a spell had been cast on them, they had broken it. That’s why the Daughter, who was conceived during those nights, exists: if fate wanted her crippled and very beautiful, it’s no doubt in order to write a coded message that no one has yet been able to understand. But it’s only a matter of time, sooner or later it will be known. When you put the world in order, the Father says, you can’t decide the speed at which it will let you do so. He wanted me to tell you this story, I don’t know why. I’ve done it. Now don’t look at me like that, and finish your wine, girl.

But the young Bride sat motionless, her gaze fixed on the elegant Woman. She seemed to listen, with absorption, to words that had been delayed along the way and now were piling up, stragglers, soundless. Instinctively she greeted them with annoyance. She wondered what had happened to that day to make it so weak that it released every secret and shattered the gift of ignorance. She didn’t understand what these people wanted from her, so suddenly avid and generous with truths that seemed dangerous to her. Without thinking about it, she threw out a question, biting into the words.

If the story is secret, how do you know it?

The elegant Woman didn’t lose her lightness.

I was born in Portugal, I teach sex to society girls, she said.

You.

Do you need some lessons?

I don’t need anything.

You don’t need anything, no.

Or maybe one thing.

Tell me.

Would you mind leaving me alone for a little?

The elegant Woman didn’t answer. She merely raised her eyes toward the room, but as if she had lowered them onto a chessboard where someone had started a game whose outcome she was able to foresee, with no uncertainty. Then what she did was to take off, very slowly, the splendid red silk gloves she wore, which went up to her elbow, and place them on the young Bride’s lap.

You want to be alone, she said.

Yes.

All right.

The elegant Woman rose, not disappointed, not hurried, not anything. She must have risen like that from many couches, many beds, many bedrooms, many lives.

L., too, got up, but not with the same tranquility, she wasn’t familiar with tranquility, as far as I knew. She got up and looked at the time.

Fuck.

You have to leave?

I had to leave a long time ago.

You did leave a long time ago.

Not in that sense, idiot.

When you left you forgot a pack of cigarettes on the bed, half empty. I carried them around for months. Every so often I smoked one. Then they were gone.

Don’t try anything.

I’m not trying anything.

And stop killing yourself in this shitty place that seems like a maniac’s lair.

Shall I call you a taxi?

No, I have the car.

She put on her jacket, and in the reflection of a window smoothed her hair. Then she stood for a moment, looking at me, I thought she was deciding whether to leave with a kiss, but in fact she was thinking about something else.

Why all that sex?

In what sense?

In the book, all that sex.

There’s almost always sex in my books.

Yes, but here it’s an obsession.

You think?

You know.

Obsession seems to me a little much.

Maybe. But evidently there is something that attracts you, in writing the sex.

Yes.

What?

That it’s difficult.

L. began to laugh.

You never change, eh?

It’s the last thing she said. She left without even turning or saying goodbye, it was a thing she used to do then, too. I liked it.

She left beautifully, without even turning or saying goodbye, thought the young Bride as she watched the elegant Woman cross the room. I like it. Who knows how many nights it takes to become like that. And wasted days, she thought. Years. She poured herself some more wine. Might as well. The strange solitude of one who is alone in the middle of a party like that one. My solitude, she said to herself in a low voice. She straightened her spine, pulled her shoulders back. Now I’ll put my thoughts in place and my fears in alphabetical order, she thought. But then her mind was immobile, incapable of setting off on the narrow pathway of thoughts: empty. She would have liked to ask what still belonged to her after that day of stories. She tried. The first thing is that I no longer have anyone. I’ve never had anyone, so it changes nothing. But then her mind became empty again, immobile. A lazy animal. Better for everyone to know, I can finally be myself, better also for me to know, he would have remained a father stuck in my throat all my life, better that he’s dead, better now. One day I’ll understand if I killed him, now I’m too young, I have to be careful not to kill myself. Farewell, father, brothers farewell. But then the emptiness again, not even painful, only uncorrectable. She looked up at the party that was crackling around her, and felt she was a shadow, in her unsuitable dress, an indecipherable move on the sidelines of the game. Nothing mattered to her. She lowered her eyes and stared at the long, red silk gloves she was holding in her lap. Hard to say if they had meaning. She took off her jacket, so she was just in her plain dress, which left her arms bare. She took the gloves and put them on, with care but without purpose, or just glimpsing consequences that were unknown to her. She liked finding a soft seat for each finger, and then pulling the red silk up over her skin, up to the elbow. It did her good to apply herself to a pointless gesture. I could learn a lot of things here, she said to herself. I’d like to return, I have to dress differently, maybe the Father will let me return. Who knows if the Daughter has ever been here. And the Mother, here, as a girl, what a sight it must have been. Glorious. She looked at her hands, they seemed like hands she had lost and that someone had now given back to her. They must be grotesque, with this dress, she thought. It didn’t matter to her. She asked herself what mattered to her, at that moment. Nothing. Then she realized that a man had stopped, and was standing in front of her. She looked up: he was young, he seemed polite, and he was saying something to her, probably something brilliant — he was smiling. I’m not listening to you, thought the young Bride. But the man didn’t go away. I’m not listening to you but it’s true, you’re young, you’re not drunk, you have a nice jacket. He continued to smile at her. Then he bowed gracefully and asked, nicely, if he could sit down next to her. The young Bride looked at him for a long time, as if she had to summarize a whole story without which she would be unable to give an answer. Finally she let him sit down, without a smile. The man began to speak again, and the young Bride remained staring at him without listening to a single word: but when he offered her the glass of champagne he was holding she brought it to her lips, without hesitation. He stared at her, with the air of studying a puzzle.