I decided to follow Elena’s tacit advice, I said goodbye to those I needed to say goodbye to and left, switching off my mobile. I asked Antonio to take me to the gym. He seemed happy to know that at least for one evening he’d get back home and see his wife earlier than he’d thought.
I wasn’t in the mood to start lifting weights, all I wanted was a massage from Donatella, my favourite therapist, and a quick sauna.
“Where have you been keeping yourself, Svevo?” she asked, greeting me with one of her big smiles.
“I’ve been working too hard, I need one of your massages to feel human again.”
She kept smiling at me all the way to her room. Once inside, I tried to undress as quickly as possible, she switched off the light slightly impatiently and then whispered excitedly in my ear, “At last, Svevo. I was afraid you wouldn’t come any more.”
I touched her lips with my finger and begged her to give me the kind of massage that makes you lose all sense of time.
She nodded, and started with my feet, as sensually as ever. Little undulating circles, which in less than no time reached my buttocks, where she lingered only for a few seconds, before climbing gently, but quickly, to my shoulders.
I’d hoped, in closing my eyes, that at least this massage would last long enough to relax me, but after not even twenty minutes — of my time — Donatella had already finished.
“How about a nice Turkish bath?” she whispered in her friendliest Roman accent.
She’s beautiful, Mediterranean, sensuality personified. A pity about her heavy make-up, which makes her look vulgar, and about that black ponytail that’s pulled back so tightly it makes her look as if she’s had a facelift. I’ve only slept with her a couple of times, and in normal circumstances would gladly have repeated the experience now.
She kissed me on the lips. “If I could, I’d keep you company,” she said, putting her ointments away.
With an instinctive gesture I grabbed her by the ponytail and kissed her roughly. She pulled back. “I can’t, I’m at work. Why don’t you invite me over for a little supper sometime? I’ve almost forgotten where you live.”
I noticed I was getting an erection. It was a relief to know I still could.
“What do you say, Svevo? How about the day after tomorrow?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Don’t stand me up…”
“I’m not that mad.”
Then she walked me to the Turkish bath, arranged the towels next to the washbasin and said goodbye. “You know what you have to do. Ten minutes, then take a cold shower, and if you want to, repeat three or four times. See you the day after tomorrow, darling!”
So I made my way through the steam and lay down on one of the marble steps. As soon as the heat enveloped me, I started to feel pleasantly relaxed.
Immediately afterwards I lost consciousness.
When I came to, three or four pairs of eyes were looking anxiously at me. My legs were being lifted in the air by the secretary, Donatella was pressing a cold cloth on my forehead and the bodybuilding instructor was ordering a young boy to bring some water and sugar.
“How do you feel? Donatella asked, anxiously.
“Fine, what happened?”
“You collapsed,” the instructor said, with a frown. “It’s lucky we noticed in time. You spent fifty minutes inside a Turkish bath… It could have killed you.”
Fifty minutes. My heart started pounding. I had to get dressed and go home.
Fifty minutes. I kept thinking about the tragedy I’d narrowly avoided, at the same time as insisting that I wanted to go and assuring everybody that I felt better. “Are you sure you feel all right?” Donatella asked, still pestering me with her cold cloth.
“Perfectly all right.” A few minutes more and I’d have died in the corner of a Turkish bath. And all because fifty minutes for my body no longer correspond to fifty minutes in my mind. What a stupid end.
I got home at ten, but for once You weren’t what was uppermost in my thoughts. I have the impression I’m doomed to remain motionless, like a disenchanted spectator, while my life is going downhill and no one can do anything to stop it. When the spotlights are turned off, darkness will invade everything. The mere thought of the negation of ourselves is chilling.
First, an infinity of emotions, life in all its overwhelming intensity, then suddenly nothingness. A body huddled in a corner, hidden by the steam of a Turkish bath, and someone picking it up, almost with horror, and stuffing it in a big plastic bag like any other piece of rubbish. The end of everything. And not even knowing how the people who gather for your funeral will behave. The fear that nobody might be experiencing genuine grief, nobody will have the feeling as they make their way home that part of them has died along with you, that nobody will think you’re irreplaceable. And it can happen just like that, in an instant. You look around and thirty years are nothing but a handful of memories, and the other thirty to come, even assuming there are thirty, look set to go by even faster. Tomorrow, I could wake up already old. I wonder if my last thought will be of You. Deep down there’s only oblivion, and it’s never before seemed so overwhelming tome. It’s poked its head out, and however absurd it may seem, nobody can hope to escape it.
Drring, drring.
It’s the penetrating ring of my new alarm clock, the one I bought when I realized I couldn’t keep letting the doorman wake me.
It’s 6.30, and my race is about to start.
My meeting with Righini, who’s just got back from Hong Kong, has been fixed for midday, so I can at least find a few seconds to devote to the mirror.
It turns out not to be such a good idea. I look like a mess, my face is pale and emaciated. I must have lost a few kilos, which doesn’t cheer me up at all.
As I comb my hair, I think again about my Aston Martin, I haven’t seen her since before Paris and I’m starting to miss her. She represents everything my life was until not so long ago: an unconscious race. Always a few friends or a pretty woman on board, me throwing the keys to a valet outside some exclusive club or other, a crowd of people stopping to watch us. It’s in homage to these memories that I decide I’ll steal a few seconds today to drop by the garage and say hello to my baby.
The garage is dark, especially early in the morning when the shutters haven’t been completely raised and the light gives out before it gets to the far end. I step carefully, searching for her among the many parked cars, and my mounting sense of expectation makes me want to take her away, to go for a ride in her.
There she is, a black shadow calling to me through the air damp with the smell of tyres and fuel. I keep walking, admiring her from a distance, but then stop abruptly when I realize that where my baby should be there’s nothing but a heap of dusty scrap metal.
There must be some mistake.
No mistake, that’s my number plate.
What the hell kind of joke is this? I feel faint. I take a step forward, then another one, five very slow steps that take me into her decaying presence.
Not even a fire or an act of vandalism could have reduced her to that state. She seems to have aged a thousand years, as if she’d been abandoned in some remote part of the world. She’s in pieces, completely covered in dust, her wheels askew, her bodywork dented, her leather interior torn to shreds: who could have done something like this?
“Stefano!”
The garage owner comes out of his lodge, almost scared. “Signor Romano, what is it?”
“My Aston Martin! What the hell happened to her?”
Stefano turns pale. “Nothing, Signor Romano, absolutely nothing.”
Like hell, nothing. “Come and see!”
We hurry through the garage, me in a panic and Stefano worried about an incident he can’t even explain.