“What time is it?”
“A quarter past nine.”
Shit! The appointment with Baldi.
“I’ll be down in a quarter of an hour, tell him to wait.”
If I was able to get dressed in five minutes, I’d get to the front door in a fraction of real time, but that doesn’t take unexpected factors into account, like the fact that they forgot to close the lift door and as I’m running down the stairs my briefcase opens and a myriad of papers spills onto the steps. Then in the hall I knock straight into the doorman’s wife, who’s cleaning the floor, and she ends up practically in my arms. More time wasted apologizing and saying goodbye.
At last I get to the car. Impatiently, I order Antonio to drive as fast as he can, and he obeys, with the same grimace of disgust he had last night. I’m indecently late, and I’m trying to find an excuse to give Baldi, but I barely have time to go through all the possible justifications, because we’ve already arrived at the hotel. Baldi is on his second espresso, and he’s crimson with rage.
“I really don’t know how to apologize.”
“Another minute and I’d have gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you think you can just keep people waiting like this?”
“Please forget this unfortunate incident.”
“And the one yesterday? Should I forget yesterday’s incident, too?”
A moment’s silence, then, fortunately, his face again takes on a more natural colour, and a more indulgent expression. He signals to the waiter. “Let’s get down to business,” he says. “I have a lot of work to get on with this afternoon.”
“Of course,” I reply, taking out the papers. “In the meantime can I offer you something to drink?”
“Another espresso would do me fine.”
“Good. Two espressos please, and make mine a double.”
Baldi immediately gets to the point, but I have difficulty following him. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate any more, my mind seems to be elsewhere. I’m sure the things he’s saying — the figures, the names, the projections — are perfectly clear and logical, he’s a highly competent businessman after all, and yet more than once I ask him to repeat what he just said. Trying to stay calm, he does as I ask. I discover that if I keep my eyes firmly on my watch it’s easier to follow what he’s saying, but eventually he loses patience. “Do you want me to explain it again? Do you think I’m wasting your time? Do you think your behaviour is acceptable?” Now he’s the one glancing at his watch. “I have to go,” he says irritably. “Have your director call me.”
It hits below the belt, but in his place I’d have done the same. He says goodbye coldly and goes.
No sooner have I switched my mobile on again than it starts ringing.
It’s Elena. “It’s nearly midday,” she says. “Signora Campi is waiting for you in the meeting, don’t you remember?”
I feel a sharp pain in my spleen, and my face twists into a grimace. The waiter is looking at me. “Are you all right?”
I leave the money on the table and run away.
Barbara Campi is waiting for me in the doorway of the conference room with her arms crossed. “Six people from the marketing department have been waiting for you for an hour and a half.”
“I’m sorry…” That seems to be the only thing I can say today.
She raises her eyebrows, then gives a sardonic sneer. No, I’m not mistaken, it really is a sneer. It’s almost as if she’s saying, “You see, you male chauvinist, you’re not so infallible. And you still have the nerve to attack us for our miniskirts, our laddered stockings, and the children always waiting for us to pick them up from school.”
I rub my face with my hands, I must look terrible.
“Do you have any idea of the time you’ve made us waste?”
“Believe me,” I reply with a bitter smile, “nobody knows that more than I do.”
She stares at me. “Are you kidding me?” she says. “You never even answered my e-mail, I have to know what you think about the plans for the new promotional campaign…”
I have no intention of putting up with another incomprehensible monologue. “Barbara, please…”
Her eyes open wide. I can’t bear that expression of hers, she’s like the class swot, if we were at school she’d raise her hand to tell the teacher I’d made lots of mistakes. “Are you feeling all right? I just found out you missed the appointment with Righini. God knows when you’ll be able to see him again. You look distracted, I’m worried about you.”
I’ve always had the feeling that when somebody’s worried about you, it’s more a matter of form, or even of self-interest, than because they really care. That’s definitely the case with Barbara. The health of one of the company’s executives is certainly not high on her list of priorities, especially when the executive in question is a cynical, selfish bachelor, and not exactly a friend of hers.
“I’m just tired. It happens to all of us sometimes, doesn’t it?”
“Of course it happens,” she says in a reassuring voice, but with a hypocritical gleam in her eyes. Then she smiles, and advises me to look after myself. “And don’t get too thin. You know, don’t you, that eighty per cent of the women in this office think you’re some kind of Greek god?”
“And are you in that eighty per cent?”
She smiles again. “No, I’m in the hundred per cent that basically hates you.”
Beaming with amusement, she walks away along the corridor. A moment later, Elena joins me.
“I just can’t keep up with you today,” she says, and I assume that having constantly to follow me around is starting to get on her nerves. “You were supposed to be having lunch with the director and Deputy Incerti.”
“Yes, I know. Why? What time is it?”
“2.30,” she says, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head. “I got back from my lunch hour and came to find you. You left your mobile in your office.”
Barbara again appears in the corridor. “You haven’t eaten either,” I say to her, trying to conceal my dismay, but she smiles, taking my statement as a joke.
“Actually, I had a big plate of noodles. What about you? Didn’t you go with the director? I told you only an hour ago, make sure you don’t get too thin.”
7
I NEVER KNEW this condition existed, I never knew there was a mental disorder that could catapult a person into a reality like this. Somehow I’ve managed to get through a month of this, and I’m still alive. And I still don’t consider myself completely mad, schizophrenic or a would-be suicide.
In these thirty long and very short days, I’ve avoided any kind of serious conversation, I haven’t been to the gym or gone out in the evening. At weekends I’ve shut myself up in my apartment to recover all the hours of sleep I’d lost during the week, though I have the feeling that doing nothing only makes time go even faster. I ignore the phone calls from friends. The only stable relationship I have is with the message service of my mobile phone. I’ve never talked so much to anyone in all my life, although all I do is record trivial things to remind myself that I have to remember them. I’m struggling to keep my head above water, to save face and my career, but today I really think I touched bottom, and if I don’t make an effort to come back up I’ll soon be forced to ask for help.
It was about lunchtime and I was in my office, I felt as if I was suffocating, the air was becoming unbreathable. After a while, I started to lose concentration, my eyes were smarting with tiredness. Elena kept throwing me sympathetic glances, as if to say, “Go home, please, I can’t bear to see you in this state.” Over the past month, everybody at work has started looking at me the same way. And the director is unrecognizable, he’s like someone in mourning: from a work point of view, I’m the equivalent of a son to him.