There’s a certain freedom in the way our lives are so different, but at the same time Isabelle makes me want to start all over again, to wipe out my errors, to ignore my sins. It’s easier to hide with people we care about. We’re capable of telling the darkest aspects of our existence to a perfect stranger but when we’re with people who mean a lot to us we keep our secrets, we don’t want even to imagine what they might think of us if they discovered them.
We both want to make love, the desire for it fairly oozes from our eyes, but for the first time I know what it means to want to wait, to be afraid that I’m not ready.
After dinner we say goodbye at the door. Once again her kisses and hugs tell me: Stay, I want you inside me, all night long. But I’m afraid that part of her may feel uncomfortable in the cold light of day, and I’m trying to respect her.
“Tomorrow Giulia’s daddy is coming to pick her up to spend the weekend with her,” she says, holding me tightly in her arms.
I invite her to have dinner out. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” I add, knowing that as soon as I’ve walked out through the door of this apartment, my time, inexplicably, will start racing again.
15
WHEN I’M NOT WITH HER You sweep me away. I have to be firm, keep my thoughts at bay, the anxiety which again envelops everything like a thick icy fog. Like a scene from a bad film, I constantly replay the image of the director, looking at me with that scared expression, as if I was a plague victim to be kept at a distance. As soon as I move away from that oasis of peace which is her life, my responsibilities, my conditioning, everything to do with my life as I’ve thought of it up until now, begins to tire me. I’m screwing everything up, and I still can’t quite accept the idea of throwing away years of sacrifice.
Luckily there are the messages, the phone calls, all those words that fill the time until dinner. Words coloured with enthusiasm, with the desire to seduce. Words that bring relief.
I pick her up in my car. I arrive a few minutes late, but she’s waiting for me outside her building with an indulgent smile. At last I can catch my breath.
I’ve booked a table in a top-class restaurant. I know the owner, and he greets us at the door with a great deal of flattery. Isabelle moves casually through the beautifully furnished room, defusing all my usual weapons of seduction: she doesn’t seem the slightest bit impressed by the surroundings, any more than she was impressed earlier, in the car, when I pressed my foot on the accelerator with my usual smugness. From time to time I get the feeling she’s tense. Even when we toast, with a vintage champagne that’ll cost me a fortune, she seems uneasy. And when she places a hand on my arm, with an almost childlike gentleness, I suddenly understand. I’m the one who’s tense and unnatural. I’m expecting the most from all this impeccable elegance without it really being necessary, and my anxiety has spread throughout the restaurant, affecting the other customers and the waiters. I realize that it’s the first time in I don’t know how long that I’ve come to a place like this without any cocaine in my system. But then she strokes my wrist, and I relax, like a child. I look deep into her eyes, and the rest ceases to matter.
I’d like to be able to tell her about my life, the things I’m not proud about, my weaknesses, especially the incredible adventure I’m living through. But I fear her judgement, I’m afraid of losing her. Can you tell a woman, especially on a first date, that your own time has gone mad? That you’ve been flung into a new dimension, where things and people sometimes get distorted, get old in front of your eyes, due to some kind of hallucination, and that perhaps part of the blame is down to the drugs you’ve overindulged in and all the other uninhibited aspects of a modern lifestyle? All-encompassing though her smile may be, I doubt there is room in it for all that.
I’m a bit less evasive about my childhood and my strange relationship with my family. I tell her about my mother’s death, and for the first time I manage to talk about it openly, without filters imposed by circumstances, like a child free to draw on a blank sheet. I’m encouraged by the totally natural empathy in her eyes when I describe my claustrophobic years at boarding school and the more carefree ones at university in England, or when I tell her how impossible it is for me to go back to my roots.
“I certainly would never have guessed you’re Piedmontese,” she says at a certain point. “You don’t have a trace of an accent.”
“To be honest, I’ve never felt Roman either.”
“But there must be somewhere in the world where you feel at home.”
“Nowhere in particular,” I confess. “Though last year I went to Tuscany, a really beautiful spot in Tuscany, where the countryside has something magical about it, and I suddenly decided to buy a house in the area. I’m currently renovating it. It used to be a monastery, and it’s really lovely. That’s somewhere I think I might actually feel at home.”
As I talk to Isabelle, not far from our table I spot my old friend the Deputy, having dinner with his wife. Our eyes meet and I feel myself turn pale. The last time we saw each other, we were cocooned in the pleasant atmosphere of an evening he thought was private, an evening full of slaps on the back, confidences, friendly smiles, which the director then used for his own ends, and now his eyes are burning with fear and resentment and he looks as if he’d like to beat me to a pulp.
When I pay the bill and we get up from the table to leave the restaurant, the Deputy approaches me. Addressing a forced smile to Isabelle, he takes me to one side. “You should be ashamed of what you stand for,” he says in a voice that’s barely audible but as taut as a violin string, discreetly sinking his nails into my arm. “You think you have me by the balls. I may have some weaknesses, but I’d never be capable of stooping to your level.”
Then he turns away and walks back to his table.
Isabelle is looking at me. “He’s a politician, isn’t he? I’ve seen him on television.”
I nod, taking her by the hand and leaving the restaurant with her. I can’t hide the sense of unease his words have left me with. In the car, she strokes my forehead, and gives me what’s intended to be a reassuring smile.
The unease grows even more once we’ve entered my apartment. Isabelle looks around, but without the amazed reaction the women who’ve set foot in here before her have accustomed me to. No ecstatic smile, no open-mouthed gaping at all the hi-tech gadgetry. The only thing that seems to delight her is the view from the window of the living room, though she does glance briefly at the Bonalumi in the dining room, though not so much as to make it seem like one of the more interesting paintings.
I’m sure she recognizes the uniqueness of the apartment in itself, but I fear that the cold, minimalist style of decoration makes her uncomfortable.
And the fact that there are no books is hardly a point in my favour either. My designer hadn’t seen the need for a bookcase, and what space there is contains just a handful of rather bulky photographic books, and a few others about interior design and the world’s top hotels. When Isabelle starts leafing through one of them, with a slightly wary look in her eyes, I go to her and kiss her on the mouth. And suddenly there are no more deputies or architects or not-very-complimentary thoughts about my life. There is only her body, which I carry in my arms to the bedroom and undress with a hitherto concealed urgency, as if it was a secret, a priceless pearl. There are her hands, modestly covering her maternal breasts, and mine, which have only one purpose: to give her pleasure. She is the centre of my interest, the receptacle of everything good. This bed has seen perfect, gorgeous women, but with her, for the first time, I’m surprised by a sense of inadequacy, which I overcome only by giving myself completely, with a dedication I’ve never known before, until I disappear. I no longer exist. I let myself be annihilated by her slow dance above me, while time dissolves. I am her breath, her moods, her pleasure. As I’m about to come, I withdraw, even though she moans to have me back inside her. And I do it so that I can have my excitement at my disposal for as long as I need. We are like two orphans in an air raid, defenceless and at the same time indestructible. Held tight in her arms, wretched as I am in comparison with Your disarming power, I’m not afraid of You any more. All this might come to an end, there might be nothing but oblivion awaiting me beyond this bed, but I’m inside her, I’m part of her, and not even oblivion scares me any more.