“For what?”
“For showing me Rome from here.”
I wasn’t expecting that. I never thought the view of the Castel Sant’Angelo could cast such a spell on her. I’m about to reply, to start a conversation, but she turns and asks me, “Are you renting, or do you own this gem?”
That seems harsh. I tell her I got a good deal on it, get proudly up off the bed and walk to the kitchen stark naked. I’m ready to open the Dom Pérignon I keep chilled for difficult cases like her. I come back to the bedroom and uncork it behind her. She turns, a bit startled, then smiles.
“When it’s like this, Rome deserves a toast, don’t you think?” I say, shaking the bottle over her.
I slide my fingers over her silky skin, now wet with champagne, until I get to her breasts. She has had them done, as I guessed, but they’re just as exciting as if they were real. A grin, the grin of someone savouring victory, comes to life on my face. She must wish I was more passionate, she must wish she could measure my desire by the insistent touch of my fingers, but I continue to keep my distance, touching her lightly with only one hand, exploring hesitantly, and I know that very soon, in a very few seconds, she’ll be the one to sweep me off my feet, and I’ll find myself thrown down on the bed, intoxicated with her scent, panting, beneath a wild riot of curly hair.
When it’s over I turn into a different man.
I’ve been living with my mood swings since I was a little boy, since before all the nights spent in clubs and the binges and the after-effects of coke, since before I became successful. Once my testosterone has exploded in orgasm, my mind makes room for accounts and work projects and next day’s schedule, and in all this rapid channel-flicking there’s no place for a woman’s reflections.
She’s lit a cigarette and from her sighs I sense she’d really like to chat. Which is what she does, starting with her work, then the fog in Milan. She tells me she’d like to move. Doesn’t she know that’s the kind of talk that scares a man off? Then she compliments me on my apartment, she says she’s never seen so many gadgets in one place. “It must have cost you a fortune,” she says. “Why do you need a TV in the bathroom?”
With some women it’s actually too easy, a few special effects and you get the same respect from them that you get when you shake someone’s hand with a couple of banknotes rolled up in yours. They open all doors.
She loses a few more points when she starts walking naked around the outside of the bed, still holding her cigarette, and peers at my things. My clothes will all be smelling of smoke soon. The last straw is when she presses a button and activates the shelf under the bedside table, which rises hydraulically to reveal some spirits and a little cocaine. I always keep some there to liven up those evenings that finish in this apartment, and activating that mechanism is something that always strikes them dumb with amazement.
“What’s this?” she says with a laugh. “Is this where you hide the entertainment?”
“Put it back the way it was.”
“I’d like to try some,” she says, although from the way she handles it I know this certainly isn’t her first time, and besides, I’ve never found initiations exciting.
“Look, it’s late. Come back to bed.”
Luckily, she likes playing the role of the obedient child. At last she stops messing about with my things. “Aren’t you afraid the police will raid this place?” she asks as she waits for the shelf to descend and everything to go back into position.
“Why should they?”
She lies down again on the bed and lights another cigarette. Again that bit of ash about to fall, which really annoys me.
When, between one drag and another, she asks me to tell her something about my life, I pretend I’ve fallen asleep and reply with an irritated mutter. Finding ways to avoid conversation is a trick I inherited from my father, and all at once, in the half-light of the room, his image appears in front of me like a faded slide. His unmistakable sulk reminds me of our dinners together, when I would nod wearily as I looked at the worn-out kitchen utensils, the untidy dining table, where he kept his papers, and the dismal dried flowers in the yellow earthenware vases and thought about the Futurist paintings I was studying at school, the speed of a brand-new sports car, the exalting of pleasure and youth in Oscar Wilde. I couldn’t wait for him to let me go so that I could get back to the stern, irreproachable rhythms of the teachers he’d entrusted me to after throwing in the towel. I much preferred the sanitized corridors during those interminably slow, mind-numbingly boring hours of punishment to the airless atmosphere of home. I wanted to knock down those four walls, turn my life upside down, and I was sure that sooner or later I would: one day I’d leave school, along with all the other wild kids, and find my own path, I’d become master of my own time and invest it in the race to succeed.
These are the thoughts that fill the muffled silence of the room, the conviction that his inability to love me was lucky for me, because if I hadn’t taken that course, I wouldn’t be the kind of man I am today. I’d probably still be living in Turin, trying to drum up business for his cash-strapped legal practice. We weren’t meant to live together. Our relationship has always been precariously balanced, a matter of cautious, moderate gestures, as if our worlds, so remote one from the other, have to be kept at a distance, under strict control, to avoid collapse. I’m still convinced that the key to everything is control, control of every moment, even the most unpredictable, and that it was control that stopped me going mad, stopped me being swallowed up by the emptiness that swallowed up my father in the end.
Order is the basis of my work. Order is mathematics, and numbers never let you down, it’s not in their nature. You just have to see me to understand: I’m at the top of an investment company, calculations and opportunities are inextricably entwined if you want to be part of that narrow circle of people who hold the right cards in their hands. I can’t help being pleased with the aces I’ve been dealt lately, and the gorgeous girl who’s now asleep beside me is a consequence of them. When the desire for sex returns, I don’t have to do anything but start kissing her again, allowing myself to get excited by her ready responses, by the fact that she offers no resistance, and at the same time the thought makes its way inside me that she’ll soon be gone, and that in my bedroom, as in my life, order will eventually be restored.
As for You, Father Time, You’re watching me all the while, as discreet as a guardian angel. You let me carry on, You let me believe that You’re mine to command, whereas in fact You’re eating away at me every day, almost imperceptibly, and I’m sure You can’t wait to enjoy the spectacle of my defeat.
2
A STEAMING CUP OF COFFEE and a telephone number, written on what looks like a pair of knickers: that’s the visiting card I find next to my empty bed the following morning.
It’s seven o’clock, although my watch says 7.05. I always put it forward by five minutes to make sure I arrive on time, or even in advance. I’ve always been particular about getting ready in the morning, that’s why I wake up two hours before I start work. There are things I like to do calmly: choosing my clothes and making sure the colours match, having my breakfast, reading the newspapers.
By 8.30, according to my watch, my driver, Antonio, is waiting for me outside my building. My baby, a dark-grey Aston Martin Vanquish, is in the garage, I’ll be using it tonight. It’d be too restless for the morning traffic — and besides, with Antonio driving, I can get stuff done on the way to the office: organizing my day, checking my e-mails, looking through a few documents.
Our company’s head office is in a period building overlooking the Tiber. Paola, the switchboard operator, greets me at the door, a bit embarrassed as she furtively closes the fashion magazine she’s been leafing through. I remember she was planning to start a diet, so I tell her she must have lost a few kilos because she’s looking really good. Predictably, she reacts with a big smile.