Certain strange alliances.
She sits on the edge of her chair, placing her champagne-colored Gucci handbag on the sideboard. I notice that the shelf is not very clean, there is a bit of dust. She looks around with the air of thinking that yes, maybe you can live like this, with the checked curtains trimmed with lace on the windows and the flowered plastic oilcloth on the kitchen table.
Can I offer you something?
She accepts a coffee. While I prepare it she continues to stare at my laddered socks.
Can I call you by your name, instead of "miss"? I say, handing her the sugar.
As you prefer, ma'am, but I'm not used to calling people older than me by their first names; please excuse me, it is nothing personal: I just can’t do it.
I nod in agreement. I don't help her find inspiration and let her drink the coffee. She puts too much sugar in it.
You will imagine, she says, putting down her cup, why I am here. I am sorry to disturb you, and if I didn't think it was more than necessary...
I interrupt the preambles with a wave of my hand as if to say you're excused.
Besides, if it is possible to meet each other halfway, the disturbance will be reduced to the bare minimum.
I'm listening to you.
You know what I'm referring to.
Where did you hear that from?
Mutual friends: rumors are spreading. But they shouldn't spread too much, you understand; at least not all the way to Tuscany.
I nod.
Forgive me for asking you point-blank: are you sure it's Emmanuel's?
I'm absolutely sure of it.
I imagined it. After all, it was the only hypothesis that held up amidst the sea of nonsense I've heard about your separation.
Who did you hear it from?
I told you, rumors are spreading. Friends of friends: my parents are old friends of the Kellermanns and so on, from rumor to rumor.
She anticipates my question, reading it in my eyes.
No, don't worry: Emmanuel doesn't know anything about it. To return to the hypotheses about the separation, people are stupid and believe nonsense, but someone like Michael, from what little I understood from Emmanuel's words, would never have left his wife if she was expecting a child from him.
I'm the one who left him: Michael would have been willing to take charge of his brother's son.
Sorry, I didn't mean to be offensive.
No problem. We still see each other, we've remained on excellent terms.
This is none of my business. The only thing I need to know is this: are you planning to involve Emmanuel in this matter?
"This matter" is not exactly the most appropriate term to define his paternity. I give her a firm and stern look.
No, I have no intention of involving him.
She sighs with relief.
Thank goodness. I feared the opposite.
I turn to pet Gino the cat, who arches his back and raises his tail.
Strange that you got this idea: is he the one who speaks so badly of me?
No, he never talks about his past.
His past. That is, "me".
He knows nothing and it is better that he remains in the dark about everything: he would be upset for nothing. As for the child, it would be absurd and cruel to tell him the news: he is not ready to be a father.
I smile.
No, he definitely isn't.
But he is a good-natured boy: if he knew how things are, he would probably develop a misunderstood sense of duty. Well, this must not happen.
I nod again. She continues:
I realize that you are in a very delicate situation, but you in turn will realize that it would be inhumane to put him in front of such a difficult choice: it would mean forcing him to take on responsibilities for which he is completely unprepared or to torture himself with remorse. I beg you not to ruin his life more than you have already done, unintentionally of course. Really, I beg you.
There are a few obvious turns of phrase in her speech, but overall it is well-crafted and the tone of voice in which it is delivered is quite touching. It is strange to think that she will be Emmanuel's future, to imagine them exchanging a morning kiss in front of the table set for breakfast, with two blond children beside them and the backdrop of an English lawn behind them. From sex to the rhythm of music in a psychedelic barn to the repetition of daily rituals and conventions: how much must my boy have changed? Arianna is the materialization of Emmanuel's nightmare, the white mill. Maybe this is the price to pay for salvation, even if it is someone else who is saved, someone who is no longer you. But right now it seems like a miracle to me just the fact that Emmanuel's adorable exterior shell has been saved.
You can rest assured, I tell her., As I repeat, I have no intention of involving him in this story. He will not know anything about the child. Even if one day he finds out that I have a child, we will tell him that I had it from a stranger.
She sighs deeply and smiles for the first time. She has a beautiful smile.
Thank you, very much.
She relaxes and leans back.
How is Emmanuel? I ask her.
Thank God he's better now, she replies, emphasizing that "now".
I smile in turn.
I'm happy to know that.
His desperation still resonates in my mind, tell me at least why, why. But what should I tell you? If at least you weren't so beautiful, if at least I didn't desire you so much? Marry me Antonia. Me marrying you, child, what madness, a long tunnel of incestuous intoxication and then the inevitable crash against the wall at the exit. A kick in the face, there's no room for two on the raft: horrible the discovery of my cowardice, not having been able to give my life for you. I wasn't ready for the supreme sacrifice. Now yes I am ready, now yes I would tell him louder harder go harder, I would crash laughing in the darkness of his dilated pupils. Now yes, I would do it. But now it's too late.
She doesn't say anything. I watch her to understand what kind of person is the girl who will recive my inheritance.
You must love him very much, since you have come this far, I tell her at the end.
She lowers her blue eyes for a moment, a blue so different from that of Emmanuel's eyes, and raises them very steadily:
Very much, yes, even if he says mine is not true love.
Does he really say this?
He's used to a different kind of love; every now and then he brings up Eros and Philìa, things like that. In my opinion, classical studies are not good for boys like him.
I've always thought so too.
Weren't you the one who taught him those things?
Yes, at his parents' request. He didn't study anything alone, he almost always went to the river with Saucepan, his dog.
Did he have a dog? He never told me about it.
He died a few years ago: it was a very hard blow for Emmanuel, he never recovered from the sense of guilt.
Guilt why?
At the time he was neglecting him: he forgot him in the garden and the neighbor's dog mauled him.
I understand.
As she pronounces this word with a composed air, I realize that no, she doesn't understand at all. I really don't think that this Arianna is capable of understanding the depth of my boy's spiritual ailments: the essential part of Emmanuel escapes her.
Perhaps, she resumes, putting aside the "dog" topic, it would have been better to leave him in his ignorance: if someone feels that he doesn't want to study certain things, it's probably because he shouldn't.
That's what I believe too, in all honesty. I'm glad you think so: it means you're made for each other.
I'm lying through my teeth, but I see no alternative to lying.
I really hope so.
I realize that, despite everything, I feel relief: Emmanuel is not alone, he can count on the support of this strong, courageous girl, whose superficiality is probably an advantage at this moment. And she is also pretty: beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, beautiful legs.
I watch her as she casts her gaze over the modest furnishings of my home and I clearly read a question in her eyes: how could it happen that a person accustomed to such squalor could win Emmanuel's love? Why didn't you stay in your place among your daily miseries, little social climber?
How can I explain to you, little girl, that man, not just you rich people but every man, needs beauty to live, even those who confuse it with kitsch and buy paintings of the laughing drunk old man and the glass bowls with colored water and fake snow and the imitation ivory towers of Pisa? But not me, I have been able to grasp something that escapes the parvenus of beauty and that also escapes you: profound beauty, the kind in front of which you can only bow your head and say yes. Emmanuel unconsciously knows he is this, even if he is terrified of it and doesn't know what to do with all this beauty that he can't dominate and that he continually loses control of, like a child driving a Ferrari; he is scared of what he is, but he knows it, and it is in this tremendous contradiction that the game is played: he, to be happy, needs to feel adored in every square inch of his splendid being; be careful, little girl. That's why me and no one else: because Emmanuel won't find in anyone else what I saw in him. He can only try to forget about it.
I stare at her. She feels the weight of my gaze. She looks away and I wonder how many more seconds she will tolerate my presence. A large bug buzzes against the glass, searching for the pale sun. Gino the cat has curled up in front of the fireplace and is pretending to sleep, with that relaxed mastery of the situation that is typical of cats.
She checks the time on her slim and elegant Cartier.
It's getting late: I have to go, I've already stolen too much of your time.
She gets up, straightens her skirt, takes her purse and holds out her hand to me.
Remain seated.
Sitting too much is not good for me.
I get up to lead the way. Gino the cat follows us and runs out, slipping into the brush of the fields.
On the threshold I tell her:
I guess we won't see each other again.
She looks at me with mild amazement, as if to say it's obvious, but she expresses herself more formally:
I think it's best to avoid it.
So goodbye.
Goodbye, and thank you.
She heads to her blue Peugeot, walking with the lightness of a sparrow. As she leaves she waves to me from the window, smiling imperceptibly.
It's cold. I close the door, leaning my shoulders against it. Crucify me.