So Luca just made me waste more time, the last thing I needed in this situation.
No sooner does Isabelle drive away than my mobile phone starts ringing, in that rapid, insistent way that makes me think of a firing squad, and an anxious shudder shakes my chest. I can’t afford another leap forward in time.
“Romano, it’s Righini.”
His tone is the reasonably impatient one I’ve learnt to recognize, and can mean only one thing: I’m late for our appointment again.
Resigned, I wait for his outburst of temper, instead of which he surprises me by saying, “I’ll be ten minutes late. I wanted to tell you well in advance, though I’m usually the one who has to wait for you.”
“Why, what time is it?”
“11.30. There’s time, Romano, there’s time.”
13
IN THE CAR, on the way to the restaurant, all I could do was think again about Isabelle and the incredible feelings she arouses in me. But it was no good, because You started racing again, faster than ever.
Once again I arrived late, I practically didn’t touch any of the food or follow a word of what Righini and the director were saying. All the way through lunch, they kept glancing at me uneasily. My nervous state, my inability to handle the situation, was all too obvious.
Before going back to the office, the director, who’s managed, without my help, to arrange a meeting to sign the contract next week, is forthright in his criticism of my undignified behaviour. “We can talk about it more calmly once we’re back in the office.” I try to make him understand that I don’t have time for his lectures, that over the past few months I’ve lost the ability to do things calmly, and that I have a councillor waiting for me in a bar in little more than an hour. “You can keep him waiting,” he retorts, “it’s what you do to everyone else. Maybe I haven’t made myself clear: I’m losing patience with you.”
The thought of being reprimanded again makes me want to drop everything, to run to the sea and walk on the beach with Isabelle waiting for the sunset. With her beside me, I could once again see it the way normal people do, watch the sun slowly melting into the waves, the way it does in my sweetest memories. I never thought that one day I’d feel nostalgic for a sunset, just as I never thought I’d get to the point of hating my work and everything it represents, but, despite everything, the ambition that has led me all these years still burns inside me and tells me I mustn’t give up, I must do whatever the director asks, once again, as I’ve always done, until I follow him into his office.
First, it’s just an awkward exchange of opinions. Mine don’t stand up, any more than anything else that’s left of my life. The director, on the other hand, is shrewd, he doesn’t hesitate to put the knife in, and he’s impatient, the way everyone is now towards me. At the umpteenth question to which he doesn’t obtain a prompt response, he throws me a look full of contempt and starts shouting, “This isn’t a game here! Don’t you realize you owe everything to my support? I trusted you, I treated you like a son! And now I find myself dealing with a completely different man. You don’t seem to give a damn about anything any more. Congratulations, you’re throwing your future away!”
This time I react as if it isn’t the director talking tome, but You, Father Time: “You have no idea of the sacrifices I’m making so as not to throw my future away!”
The director’s eyes widen. “Sacrifices? Do you actually have the nerve to call them sacrifices? You don’t even realize what you’re saying any more. And that’s no surprise, given that you can’t even seem to think clearly! Just look at your office, it’s become a pigsty. And as I always say, someone who can’t keep his things tidy can’t keep his thoughts tidy.”
I can’t bear this onslaught any more, it’ll end up consuming me. So I decide to turn things round the other way. “It’s never happened to you, has it?” I reply. “You’ve never been in a situation you didn’t understand. You’re far-sighted, you always see everything with extreme clarity. Even when it’s something that reduces a man to having no more time left, like a terminal illness, and yet that same man decides to waste what little time he does have, continuing to work in the same company, the company that’s been his whole life.”
He turns pale. He’s speechless. All at once, he can’t think of any more reprimands to fling at me. He takes a few steps back, I think he’s suffering from the pathological phobia he has towards any kind of illness. From the way he looks at me, I can guess what illness has just flashed through his mind: Svevo Romano is a womanizer, and he’s irresponsible, he probably doesn’t take any kind of precautions. Svevo Romano must have AIDS. I can almost see it, that whole tangle of thoughts, that obsession that insinuates itself into the bigoted mechanisms of his mind. He must be wondering if the virus is already everywhere, if I’ve spread it around the room with my hands. It might be anywhere, lying in wait, ready to get in through the myriad of tiny wounds on his skin. It’s on the chair, on his clothes, on the pen he has in his hand, which he immediately puts down on the desk. Everything is contaminated. And his greatest anxiety is: “What’s to become of all this? The investments, the worldwide properties? Who’ll take care of my empire?” Two ex-wives and a daughter who only calls him to ask for money. I can’t see anything else in his mind. How could I ever have wanted to take his place? The master of my life obsessed with the fear of death. The pterodactyl, who moves shrewdly in the circles that matter, surrounded by a herd of eohippuses without prospects, suddenly trapped by his own hang-ups, a mental disorder fed by fear and ignorance.
He keeps his distance. “Svevo,” he says, “what’s happened to you?”
“Nothing,” I reply, going to the door.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“Not today, I have no time to lose.” And it’s true, Father Time: while You’re racing like this, I have no intention of wasting what little time I have left being dependent on him. “I won’t be in tomorrow,” I inform him, coolly. “I’ll see you next week, for the signing of the contract. For anything else, ask Elena.”
He’s staring at me with revulsion, but I surprise him by retracing my steps, giving him a vigorous handshake and bidding him a formal farewell.
Once out of his office, my time, with its leaps and gaps, again overwhelms me: it’s after four, and I’m a quarter of an hour late for my appointment with the councillor.
I get to the restaurant nearly half an hour later.
I ask a waiter, who’s busy clearing a table, for information.
“He ordered two coffees and left a while ago. He looked a bit impatient.”
What an incredible relief, discovering that for the first time it’s a matter of complete indifference to me.
14
MY APARTMENT ISN’T FAR from the Campo de’ Fiori, but I don’t know how many hours of common time it would take me to get there on foot. I give the driver a day off and about nine in the morning call a taxi.
I’m in a hurry, but I’m consoled by the thought of seeing her and the magical possibility that everything might slow down again. The closer I get, the tighter the childish knot in my stomach. I glance at my watch: another half-hour has flown by, as imperceptibly as ever. At the end of the Via del Pellegrino, the noisy market appears before me: first of all, the stalls selling fabrics and kitchen utensils. At this hour of the morning it’s at its most crowded. It’s a hot June day, and the old square, tolerating the stallholders’ din, seems to be bursting with life. The smells of the market mingle together: the blasts of hot air from the rotisserie, the odour of newly cooked pizza, the sharp aroma of dripping olives and the sickly scent of the crates of fruit. They wash away my anxiety, and everything gradually returns to its natural rhythm.