Alessandro Baricco - The Young Bride

You can’t think I’ll believe that you’ve been sleeping for years because of a silly thing like that…

It was only the last in an impressive series of silly things like that.

Like?

The treachery of things. You know what I’m talking about?

No.

It’s very instructive: to see how objects contain nothing of the meaning we give them. All it takes is an oblique circumstance, a tiny adjustment to the trajectory, and in an instant they are part of a completely different story. Do you think that this chair will be different for having listened to my words or having held your body and mine? Maybe, months from now, someone will die in this chair, and, no matter what we do tonight that is unforgettable, it will accommodate that death and that’s it. It will do it as well as possible, and as if it had been constructed for that purpose. Nor will it react when, maybe just an hour later, someone will drop into it, and laugh at a vulgar joke, or tell a story in which the dead man plays the role of the perfect idiot. You see it, the infinite neutrality?

Is it so important?

Of course. In the behavior of objects one learns a phenomenon that is to some extent true for everything. Believe me, it’s the same for places, people, even feelings, ideas, too.

What is it?

We have an incredible force with which we give meaning to things, to places, to everything: and yet we can’t secure anything, it all goes back to neutral right away — borrowed objects, fleeting ideas, feelings as fragile as crystal. Even bodies, the desire of bodies: unpredictable. We can bombard any piece of the world with all the intensity we’re capable of and, an hour later, it’s newly reborn. You can understand something, know it thoroughly, and it has already shifted, it knows nothing of you, it has its own mysterious life, which takes no account of what you’ve made of it. Those who love us betray us, and we betray those we love. We can’t secure anything, believe me. When I was young, trying to explain to myself the mute sorrow that clung to me, I was convinced that the problem lay in my incapacity to find my path: but you see, in reality we walk a lot, with courage, intuition, passion, each of us on our own just path, without errors. But we leave no traces. I don’t know why. Our footsteps leave no imprint. Maybe we are astute, swift, mean animals, but incapable of marking the earth. I don’t know. But, believe me, we don’t leave traces even in ourselves. Thus there is nothing that survives our intention, and what we construct is never built.

You really believe that?

Yes.

Maybe it’s something that concerns only you.

I don’t think so.

It concerns me, too?

I imagine so, yes.

In what way?

In many ways.

Tell me one.

Those who love us betray us, and we betray those we love.

What do I have to do with that?

It’s what’s happening to you.

I’m not betraying anyone.

No? What do you call this?

This what?

You know very well.

This has nothing to do with it.

Precisely. It has nothing to do with your great love, it has nothing to do with the Son, it has nothing to do with the idea you have of yourself. There is no trace of all that in the actions you are performing at this moment. Doesn’t it seem odd to you? No trace.

I stayed here to wait for him, doesn’t that mean something?

I don’t know. You tell me.

I never stopped loving him, I’m here for him, and he’s always with me.

You’re convinced of it?

Of course. We never stopped being together.

Yet I don’t see him here.

He’s coming.

It’s what they all believe.

And so?

Maybe the truth would interest you.

The truth is that the Son is arriving.

I’m afraid not, signorina.

What do you know about it?

I know that the last time they saw him was a year ago. He was embarking on a cutter, a small sailboat. Since then no one has heard anything about him.

What the hell are you talking about?

Naturally it wasn’t something that could be communicated to the Father, so crudely, and abruptly. So we preferred first to put it off and then to manage it in a, let’s say, more gradual manner. It couldn’t be ruled out, moreover, that the Son would reappear out of nothing, one day or other. You’ve stopped swaying, signorina.

But you haven’t.

I no, it’s true.

Why are you telling me these lies? Do you want to hurt me?

I don’t know.

Are they lies?

No.

Tell me the truth.

It’s the truth: the Son disappeared.

When?

A year ago.

And who told you?

It was Comandini who took care of things.

Him.

He was the only one who knew, until a few days ago. Then he came to tell me, shortly before we left. He wanted some advice.

And all that stuff?

The two rams and the rest?

Yes.

Well, the affair became complicated when you arrived. It was hard to keep dragging things out. So to Comandini it seemed that a very lengthy, endless relocation could gain some time.

Comandini sent those things?

Yes.

I can’t believe it.

It was a form of courtesy toward the Father.

Nonsense…

I’m sorry, signorina.

I will hate you all, with all my soul, forever, until the day the Son returns.

The Uncle closed his eyes, I felt his shoulders under my hands change their weight.

I tightened my grip.

Don’t do it, I said. Don’t go.

He reopened his eyes, his gaze empty.

Now let me go, signorina, please.

I won’t even think of it.

Please.

I won’t stay here alone.

Please.

He closed his eyes again, he was leaving, to return to his spell.

Did you hear me? I won’t stay here alone.

I have to go, really.

He was already talking in his sleep.

So I tightened one hand around his throat. He opened his eyes, astonished. I stared at him, and this time it was a firm look, maybe mean.

Where the hell do you think you’re going? I said.

The Uncle looked around, more than anything to avoid my eyes. Or to look for an answer, in things.

I won’t stay here alone, I said. You come away with me.

I saw his eyelids descend, while he drew a long breath. But I knew that I wouldn’t let him go. I could still feel his sex, under mine, I hadn’t stopped dancing for a moment. I took my dress off, over my head, with a movement that couldn’t frighten him. He opened his eyes again and looked at me. I took my hands off his shoulders and began to unbutton his shirt, because the Mother had taught me that it was my right. I didn’t lean over to kiss him, I didn’t caress him, ever. With a single movement of my neck, in an instant, I loosened my hair. I got down to the last button of the shirt and I didn’t stop there. I kept my gaze on the Uncle’s eyes, I wouldn’t let him return to his spell. He looked at my hands, then he looked into my eyes, then he looked at my hands again. He didn’t seem to be afraid, or to have questions, or curiosity. I took his sex in my hand and for a while I held it firmly, tight in my palm, like something that I had returned from a distance to retrieve. I moved my spread legs forward, and I remembered my grandmother’s lovely expression: a skillful belly. I was about to understand its meaning.

Don’t do it with hatred, said the Uncle.

I came down on him and took him inside me.

I don’t do it out of love, I said — and I remember all the rest but I’ll keep it for myself, about that strange night, spent in a crack in the world, not to be found in the ledger of the living, stolen for hours from defeat, and given back at dawn, when the first light filtered through the blind, and I, holding that man in my arms, let him fall asleep, this time for real, and restored him to his dreams.