"And you, like a pea-brain, you kept it secret in the depths of your heart. In my opinion, it was partly because you had an insane fear of approaching her. But the depths of your heart werent enough, so you came and told me everything, and I even had to be your accomplice."
"Why, if I never approached her?"
"The situation was that you lived right behind the school. When you got out all you had to do was turn the corner and you were home. The girls, one of the principals rules, were let out after the boys. So there was no way you could ever see her, unless you planted yourself like dumb-ass in front of the high school steps. Basically, both us and the girls had to cross the grounds, which let out into a square, Largo Minghetti, and from there we all went our separate ways. She lived right on Largo Minghetti. So you would come out, pretend to accompany me to the edge of the grounds, all the while waiting for the girls to come out, then you would go back and pass her as she was coming down the stairs with her friends. You would pass her, look at her, and thats it. Every damn day."
"And I was satisfied."
"Oh no you werent. Then you began to get up to all kinds of mischief. You got involved with charity drives so the principal would let you go from class to class selling tickets of some kind, and in her class you would somehow contrive to spend an extra half-minute at her desk, perhaps trying to find the right change. You managed to bring on a toothache, because your parents dentist was also on Largo Minghetti and his windows faced the balcony of her house. You would complain of terrible pains, and the dentist wouldnt know what else to do, so just to be safe hed start drilling. You got yourself drilled a bunch of times for nothing, but you would arrive a half-hour early so you could stay in the waiting room and peep out the window at her balcony. Of course, did she ever come out-not once. One evening it was snowing and a group of us went to the cinema, also on Largo Minghetti, and you started a snowball fight and started screaming like a wild man, we thought you were drunk. You were hoping she would hear the ruckus and come to the window, and just think what a fine figure youd have cut. Some old hag came to the window instead, shouted that she was calling the police. And then, your stroke of genius. You organized the revue, the extravaganza, the high schools big show. You risked failing your exams that year because you were thinking of nothing but the revue, the script, the musical numbers, the stage design. And finally the great occasion: three shows so that the entire school, families included, could come to the main hall and see the greatest show on earth. She came two nights in a row. The pice de rsistance was Signora Marini. Signora Marini was the natural sciences teacher, skinny as a rail, flat as a board, kept her hair in a bun and always wore big tortoiseshell glasses and a black smock. You were as skinny as she was, and it was easy for you to dress up as her. In profile, you were her spitting image. As soon as you walked out on stage, they started clapping like Caruso never heard. Now, during class Signora Marini was always taking cough drops out of her handbag and shed slide them from one cheek to the other for half an hour. When you opened your handbag, you pretended to put a lozenge in your mouth and then you stuck your tongue in your cheek, well, let me tell you, it brought the house down, a single roar that lasted a good five minutes. With a flick of your tongue you had hundreds of people in spasms. You had become a star. But it was clear that what excited you was that she was there and had seen you."
"Didnt I think at that point that I could make a move?"
"Sure, and your promise to Don Renato?"
"So except when I was selling her tickets, I never spoke to her?"
"A few times. For instance, they used to take the whole school to Asti to see Alfieris tragedies, the matinee was just for us, and four of us managed to commandeer a box. You looked for her in the other boxes and in the orchestra, and you saw that she had ended up in overflow seating in the back, where she couldnt see anything. So during the intermission you contrived to cross her path, said hi, asked her if she liked the play, and when she lamented that she couldnt see very well, you told her that we had a lovely box with one seat still empty, if she wanted to join us. She did, and she watched the remaining acts leaning forward, while you sat behind her on one of those little sofas. You couldnt see the stage anymore, but you stared at the back of her neck for two hours. Almost an orgasm."
"And then?"
"And then she thanked you and rejoined her friends. You had been nice and she was thanking you. As I said, they were already women, they didnt give a crap about us."
"Even though I had been the star of the big show at school?"
"Right, and do you think women fell in love with Jerry Lewis? They thought he was clever, and thats it."
Okay, Gianni was telling me the banal story of a high school romance. But it was in telling me the rest of the story that he helped me understand something. I had spent my third year of high school in a state of delirium. Then summer vacation came, and I suffered like a dog because I did not know where she was. When she returned in the fall, I continued my silent rituals of adoration (and meanwhile, as I now knew and Gianni did not, I continued to write my poems). It was like being with her day by day, and by night, too, I would guess.
But in the middle of our second year Lila Saba vanished. She left the school and, as I later learned from Ninetta Foppa, the city too, with her whole family. It was a murky affair, even Ninetta knew little about it, just scraps of gossip. Her father was in some trouble, fraudulent bankruptcy or something. He had left everything in the lawyers hands, and while waiting for things to get straightened out had taken a job overseas-and things never got straightened out, because the family never came back.
No one knew where they had fetched up, some said Argentina, some Brazil. South America, in a period when for us Lugano was the ultima Thule. Gianni made an effort: it seemed that Lilas best friend was a certain Sandrina, but this Sandrina, out of loyalty, was not talking. We were sure she was in correspondence with Lila, but she was a tomb-and after all, who were we that she should tell us anything.
I spent the year and a half before graduation constantly on edge- and sad-I was a mess. I thought only about Lila Saba, and where she might be.
Then, Gianni said, I seemed to forget about it completely when I went off to college; between my freshman year and the time I finished my degree I had two girlfriends, and after that I met Paola. Lila should have remained a nice adolescent memory, the sort everyone has. Instead, I had looked for her the rest of my life. I even thought of going to South America, hoping to meet her on the streets of, who knows, Tierra del Fuego or Pernambuco. In a moment of weakness I had confessed to Gianni that in every woman I had an affair with I was always looking for Lilas face. I wanted to see her again at least once before I died, no matter how she had turned out. You would spoil your memories, Gianni would say. That did not matter, I was unable to leave that account unsettled.
"You spent your life looking for Lila Saba. I used to say it was just an excuse to meet other women. I didnt take you very seriously. I realized it was serious only in April."
"What happened in April?"
"Yambo, thats what I dont want to tell you, because thats what I told you a few days before your incident. Im not saying there was any direct connection, but just to be on the safe side lets drop it, besides, I dont think its a big deal"
"No, now you have to tell me everything, otherwise my blood pressure will go up. Spit it out."
"Well, I went back home at the beginning of April, to take flowers to the cemetery, as I sometimes do, and because I felt a little nostalgic for our old city. Nothing has changed since we left it, so it makes me feel young to go back. While there I ran into Sandrina, like us shes pushing sixty, but she hasnt really changed much. We went for a coffee and talked about the old days. We talked and talked, and I asked her about Lila Saba. Didnt you know, she said-and how the hell could I have known?-didnt you know Lila died right after we graduated? Dont ask how or why, she said, I sent letters to her in Brazil, and her mother sent them back and told me what had happened, imagine, the poor thing, dead at eighteen. And that was it. Basically, even for Sandrina it was ancient history."