No Pain

It’s scary how a person comes out of your heart. You look at him and understand that you have given up hope. He will never be the way you want him to be. There is a bridge between you, which you struggle to cross every day, but he never leans towards you. The emptiness grows inside you, you see the abyss that is being dug, and you feel helpless.

Sure, lawyer, sure, I know I digress, I know I have to be precise. I well remember when Francesco came to pick me up at work.

We stopped at the Primavera ice cream parlor. While I was ordering two cookies, he started reading the Gazzetta dello Sport.

“I have to tell you something,” I began. I turned the analysis over in my fingers, under the table, my voice trembled.

“Um,” he said, without looking up from the newspaper. That’s what he says when he’s not listening to me.

“Fuck you, France”.

“Eh, what were you saying?”

“Anything.”

At that moment his cell phone rang. He responded by just tilting his head to the side, like he does when he’s telling me a lie. “Yes, yes”, he said, “we’ll talk about it calmly tomorrow”, then he shut down.

I looked at him without saying anything and he lowered his eyes. “Who was it?” I asked at the end.

“None, the usual work problems.”

I observed his figure, which I know in every detail, so much so that I could draw it with my eyes closed. The beautiful black hair, the long and almost feminine eyelashes, the elegant and distracted air. “Let’s go home,” I said, “I feel cold.”

At home we talked about the dentist, the clogged sink and the vet for Bingo, then, on the sly, I took his cell phone from his pocket and pressed last call.

A woman’s voice, sleepy and hoarse. It was the banality of that voice that offended me.

And then I also remember that evening, months later, that I returned home and the bed was loose in the room, in the bathroom my bathrobe was not where I usually leave it. She had played with my makeup, she had opened it, moved it, sprayed my perfume to have fun or maybe to hide her smell. I found Bingo holed up under the bed, I picked him up, “mami is here, everything is fine.” But it wasn’t all right, no, not at all.

Still the phone, still the fucking phone. “What’s going on, France?”

“Nothing, go in the other room, leave me alone.”

I went to the kitchen and started washing the salad. I could hear him walking up and down the living room, I could hear his muffled curses. “You can not do this to me”.

“Any problems?” I asked. “Nothing that cannot be resolved, Chiara. Leave that stuff alone, I’ll take you out to dinner. “

We went to the usual place, he ordered the fish but then left it on his plate. He spoke little, kept his head down. His cell phone rang again and I recognized that woman’s altered voice. I clearly heard the words “pregnant” and “divorce”.

“Won’t she even let us have dinner anymore?” I asked. Oddly, he didn’t deny it. He lowered his head into the plate, sighed. “Chiara, I’ll fix things, give me some time.”

There is a time for everything, Francesco, I wanted to tell him, and that time has passed for us. But I have learned that keeping quiet is the best way, which is how you survive.

At home I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself, from head to toe, as if to realize that I was still there. I smoothed my belly which was starting to choke me. “Try to be happy, Chiara”, I said to myself, “do it for yourself and for the baby.”

You see, lawyer, I can’t feel tenderness for my son, I’m emptied of all feelings. The only thing I really want is to go home. If they let me in, I’d fix everything, wash those stains away. I left too many things unfinished, there are still Francesco’s shirts to iron, the pants to take to the dry cleaners. I need something of him to touch, to smell.

I take a photo of him out of my pocket and smooth it out. He is younger, thinner, with more hair, he smiles at me as I frame him. Maybe when they did the autopsy, he called me, maybe he was afraid. I pass the photo on my cheek and it is cold.

Why the fuck can’t you mourn a dead man alone?

The dead must be plunged into the coffers, filed quickly, so that life continues, so that we can go back to work, to school, to the stadium.

You know, at the funeral, people passed by, placed flowers at the foot of the coffin, shook my hands. “Be strong, Chiara.” But they didn’t look me in the eye. Someone kissed me, leaving a trail of saliva on my cheek that I immediately wiped off, secretly, with the back of my hand.

My mother talked to people. “We hired the best lawyer, this didn’t have to happen to me, I can’t manage at my age.” My mother always puts herself at the center, as if Francesco had died to give her sorrow, as if the pain was not mine but hers.

I stared at Francesco, the half-open lids, the sunken cheeks, the beard that continued to grow even in the coffin. What did he have to do with the guy who sent me bouquets of roses to be forgiven, who left me tender notes around the house?

But will it be true that the dead are at peace?

I was talking to him. You know, France, I said, I’ve been to her shop. She said you wanted to leave me after the baby was born. I didn’t believe her.

Yes, just her, leaning against the counter, busy with the end-of-season sales, she stretched her swollen lips, squinted her painted eyes, said you weren’t happy with me.

They say the baby needs to feel my affection, but I don’t have to get too attached to him because they will take him away from me. I wish he was always inside me.

I have read articles about children who grew up in prison, who call the house a cell, who are terrified of the world beyond the bars, who are snatched from their mothers at a given time and day set by law. Insecure, traumatized, scarred for life children. I’ll spare this to my son, I’ll let him go. I won’t even give him a name.

Francesco and I loved each other, lawyer, the beautiful memories are all there, if I were not convinced of it, I would go crazy.

Now I would like to be in his place, no more thoughts under the fresh earth, only the smell of still water in the vases and, all around, the forgetful dead, without memories, without useless hopes.

But, in the end, it’s just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, in the confined space of this cell, to let time pass. I even have the luxury of being able to cry alone, when the others are out for an hour of air. I cry just a little, I secretly cry and then go on. I bend but I don’t break, lawyer, you know it too, now there is nothing more to break.

I hear the women screaming, despairing. I never scream, I always shut up, I listen to the voices in my head. “Francesco, Francesco, Francesco”.

Francesco should also be my son’s name, but I bite my lip so as not to say it aloud, so as not to call a child who does not belong to me, that another will raise.

Beyond these bars, I hear the whistle of the swallows that lower themselves to chase the midges. I am alone, at the mercy of myself. It is a fact, lawyer, there is nothing wrong with that. No pain, indeed, almost a sense of triumph.