Two

Therefore, we met really often indeed and the time we spend together

is definitely funnier than it was before.

We got rid of the heaviness of a relationship that wasn’t tailor-made for any of us to discover ourselves under a new light more suitable for the two of us together. The first thing that comes to my mind is that I need to call him as soon as I got to the office in order to tell him about Camilla and her new love. Luckily, we have been smart enough not to be carried away by the events, being able to stop in time.

We even thought about getting married, getting until the choice of the Church to find ourselves in the main aisle, into the silence of this little but massive house of God with the scent of the incense floating into your bones with a stranger by our side. Both of us had this feeling. Ten years together to find ourselves strangers inside a Church, finally realising that we were going on only because of the habit and to simplify our life. All we had to do was looking ourselves in the eyes to burst out laughing and then like two children in tears we ended our story saying goodbye on the stairs where usually you would prefer to be thrown some rice on the wedding dress instead of receiving an embrace that dissolves everything for good. The first night in a now empty home was not easy and for the first time for me a sleepless night had a totally different meaning from the usual one. As I always say, sleeping steals time to life, but that night staying awake without sleeping a wink helped only to come to terms with myself, finding myself alone again but stronger than before. I came to terms with a ten years more mature woman, a baggage on the shoulders made of beautiful things but also of empty and wasted moments, finding myself with a few sand grains between the hands that was gradually vanishing between half-closed fingers. After a first period of solitude sought with

all my strength, here comes Camilla, who was able to bring me back to life… The social one, and in a little time I recovered what I had lost during the years spent with Carlo. In the meantime, he found a girlfriend and he is about to get married and this new affair allowed us to become great friends, abandoning the memories of a relationship built in the wrong way. In this latest period, changing the job, finding new friends, started a series of changes that made me discover myself as a person and not only as Carlo’s fiancé, his addendum.

I changed my haircut, I am more careful about my outfits, and I try to be always cleaned up even if I am going to do the shopping down the street. In other words, I love myself more than ever. I do it for me and now also for that morning look that waits for me in order to start the day together. Then we immediately separate to leave room for the mystery of such a special ‘non-affair’. Between me and my mysterious he it is the opposite. After the first eye contact and the awareness of a mutual interest, it all stopped to ‘nothing has to develop’. It almost seems to me that I am always going through the same day and on one side this gives me a great safety and peace of mind. I know that sooner or later it must stop and maybe it will also disappear the interest in a look that doesn’t lead to anything. But now I don’t want to think about that and I enjoy that something that gives me a thrill that gets me through my day with a smile on my face. Today we are leaving the café more charged than ever and tomorrow is going to be another morning full of tells to hear and of looks to wait for. Our day starts that way, even if all the enthusiasm for the good sunny day ends up in the usual cold and musty counselling centre room that we manage to get after many efforts, to be able to work on our laptops having at least a

chair and a table to lean on. Today is the birthing classes day, so at 9.00 AM the hallway is already crowded with women with gymnastic outfits and marked baby bumps. There are women who caress their belly and other who are looking for a place to sit down and relax after the first backpains. Most of them are handing a bottle of water in one hand and a towel in the other. Many of them already know each other and so there is a whisper made of tips and opinions, who is living more or less the same moments that are going to result in their biggest change, giving birth to a brand-new creature who will reflect them at least partly. Many of them have seen their body change, letting themselves go, while other seem ready to a maternity runaway with the latest fashion clothes and hair and nails always perfectly done. We get always across the room with a bit of distress, almost trying not to disturb the big group of pregnant women ready to listen to the midwifes who are there for them. Finally in our room, we close the door behind us with a sigh of relief, even if with a bit of bitterness and desire of staying in that room one day. It would be nice to have a baby simultaneously in order to face it all together. We hope so, even if it is not the most probable and easy thing of the world. Our office is gloomy and I miss that beam of sun that I left at the entrance. Every season is the same here and except for the great winter cold and the warmth of the summer, we could easily not be able to distinguish which period of the year it is. When we come out at 6.00 PM, it is terrible to enter with the light and then step outside when the dark has already set in. It almost seems like having lost a part of our lives between paperwork and statistics not so useful to our existence. After a while after our arrival, the silence falls on all the counselling centre: as

soon as the class begins, the future mums are completely taken by breathing exercises and birthing gymnastic in the room next to the entrance and in the distance you can overhear the dim voice of Anna, our favourite midwife who leads women in the most beautiful moment of their lives with her soft and gentle voice. Therefore, we can start to turn our laptops on and try to get some work done, as tomorrow there is going to be the meeting with the delegate of all the counselling centres of the area who wants to have all the login information completed with demographic statistics and names of who performed services in the last months. As soon as the laptop is turned on, the image on the desktop leads me inevitably to dream for a few minutes.

Out of the blue, any noise that adorn my life disappear and I only live in my mind with the memories relating to that picture. I took it, any character is on the scene, but I know who is behind the camera and this makes it even more special and unique, with a meaning that will be well-rounded only for me. You can see a beautiful valley almost as endless that its termination blends with the sky at twilight. Red leaves of trees and the meadow that starts to turn golden until that night light that shows the red sun and the moon on one side, which shyly embraces his hours of the day. Anyone, any animal, any noise, but a sense of peace and calmness that only such kind of pictures can give. I still feel my hands on the camera and the look lost in the lens for then going back to the other side and getting lost in the endless nature. The door that suddenly opens brings me brutally back to real life: a new face looks out and for a second we ask ourselves who could it be, until we discern a conspicuous belly and we understand that it was a straggler who entered the wrong room. I accompany her and I take the

opportunity to get some fresh air (I don’t know why, but today it feels like I can’t breathe) and to call Carlo, since in our room there’s no signal and make a call becomes an unedifying undertaking. A few minutes and I go back to the room, I want to have the job done to avoid being trapped here until late.

CHAPTER 3:

The daisy of Villa Borghese

Tired from the beautiful outdoor trip, I finally decide to come back home and work a little bit in the calmness of my four walls. I’ve got an awful number of emails in arrears and I want to work on the last photos shot for too long. I must also submit the work done a few weeks ago: collecting in a few shots the sea life after summer holydays. I’ve decided to develop all the pictures in black and white, colours that reflect a lot the mood you can be in when you find yourself in the sight of a big expanse of salt water when the good weather has stopped. Yet it gives me a lot of power to go to the seaside in wintertime. I’ve been there alone, leaving at early morning, catching the first lights of the day sneaking up on the sea. Armed with a blanket and a wool hat, I settled on the still wet sand that was creaking under my weight. I was the only one on the whole shore, me and it, in front of me so gigantic with its soft noise and its going back and forth on the shore. Therefore, I waited for the sun to rise, an unbelievable show that I would see more often if only I was leaving closer to the seaside. Sitting on my blanket with glows to avoid the risk of frozen hands at the moment of taking the first pictures, coldness on my cheeks, and red nose. In these moments you feel so little and at the same time the ruler of the world.

Then comes the sun in front of your eyes with all his beauty and the sea starts to colour and shine as ever, and the crispy air slowly goes out on the skin. In these moments me and the camera make a whole and I become eager to take pictures as I freeze every single instant because I know that anything can be repeated in the same way. While I was busy

with the first pictures, a medium-sized dog came forward. It came to the beach with an old man who stopped just at the beginning of the sand focused on the see with a grin that indicated a careless and peaceful mood. In the meantime, the dog ran wildly, always coming back to his feet, for then going back again to an excited run towards the tiny waves that were consuming the sand. In order to break the solitude that must have been his daily situation, the man slowly came closer to check on what I was doing. After the first polite words of welcome, we started to talk about that charming place and about the beauty that can be discerned only during winter. Left alone again, I started to appreciate that spot, a little melancholic but full of hues. The scents of trees started to be more distinct and, if you close your eyes, they can take you back in time in other places and situations. Sand, still cold between my hands, with which it fiddles without leaving any trace. The sea is always there with its constant pace and allows you to see some shells beneath and it seems to invite you to go through it to get in it and swim until the horizon. I am rattled only by the smell of the near restaurant that is starting to prepare lunch well in advance, probably because of some party or special event. All emotions that I rediscover a week later looking at my pictures, hoping that the commissioner of this job could deeply understand their value.

Browsing them on the computer just make me want to go back there and for the first time my desire is to go there with my mysterious coffee partner, without talking, tasting the same emotions together, maybe hand in hand, a contact between the two of us that we have never tried for now. I finish my work and I send it all via e-mail, then I close it quickly before throwing myself in the shower and preparing to

dine with Lucia. As usual, I reach the place of the appointment far in advance, so I step aside and enjoy looking at people passing by and hearing their little stories made of few stolen instants. A family with two little children passes by, everyone in a rush, looking forward to coming back home after a long day that everyone spent doing their own commitments. The mother tenderly embraces the youngest child, tired and sleepy between her arms, while the eldest is telling his father about the afternoon spent practicing who knows which sport. After a while, it comes the lady on a bicycle, all dressed up and with her purse placed behind in order not to lose her balance. No shortage of the boy who goes by totally immersed into his favourite music and the man who talks on the phone about his plans for the evening with fast pace.

Finally, she shows up. My dear friend pops up from behind the corner, always more beautiful and radiant. We haven’t seen each other in months but as soon as I found her in front of me it looks like we didn’t ever said goodbye at the airport, both hiding a tear and then losing ourselves in our daily life in two different countries.

A long embrace brings us back to the present and we immediately start to compete to see who starts first to tell the latest news while we are heading to our favourite restaurant in which you can have only pizza and arrosticini. It’s an informal place, wooden tables with paper tablecloths with white and red squares, typical Roman trattoria chairs, and the warm welcome of the historical owners who know us well by now. Facing a good brick-oven pizza and a pint of beer, Lucia’s face fell in prey of excitement. She longs to be the first to tell her news and I am there ready to celebrate her homecoming. When she starts to speak, I realise that my hopes are completely wrong. She met a man in

France, they fell in love at first sight, and now she is pregnant. So, out of the blue, I see my hope of having my friend back for good falling apart and I see her going away again, this time for good. She is in fact back to Rome to organize the moving out of her stuff and she is going to settle down in his place, a beautiful palace in the centre of Paris. It will be a good chance for me to go back to visit the most romantic capital of the world, but with a different mood, when the baby is born.

We celebrate the good news of the new life that is about to come, and Lucia keeps telling me about her beautiful French months between her rewarding job, her first photographic exhibition, and her edifying love story that galloped fast down to the unexpected but immediately well received pregnancy. All these tells make me realise that my life has stopped, I stand still and this concerns only me and annoys me a little.

I start to get lost in my thoughts and I don’t listen to anything that surrounds me, including Lucia, who is so focused on her life that doesn’t even feel the desire to know what’s happening to mine. I take my mind back to that morning, so peaceful and full of colours, and now I would only like to run away from the chaos of the now crowded restaurant soaked in the noise of people speaking and voraciously eating. Thinking about the fact that in a few hours I’ll be back to my café to reload myself with her smile gives me a way out and the restaurant goes back to the familiar features of when we have arrived, and the noise becomes a normal din made of laughs and chat between friends. Lucia is still talking when she takes out from her massive bag a tablet to show me the pictures of her exposition. This is one of my biggest dreams, to be able to expose in my own way the best picture taken in all these years. Even if it is not even remotely planned, I’ve

already started to choose a topic and to decide which photos are worthier of being printed in large size to catch the eye of the visitors. I already picture them, looking up, caught up in my shots and in my same emotions too, but related to their own lives. Because photography, just like poetry or even songs, can be wear like it was a dress. The same identical words conceal a lot of meanings and everyone can make them his own. In the same way, one photo can convey a lot of different sensations and what can be sad for someone can give strength and energy to someone else. I think back to the sea in winter: so sad and melancholic for the ones who loves it crowded and appreciate it more under the blazing sun; and healing in winter for who like me loves lonely places that show features outside conventional rules. Lucia’s exposition had been organized very well and in great details, in an open space with tall and candidly white walls. No furniture to break the pace of her photos, all exposed at the same height and in the same size along the three walls. A single table welcomed visitors with drinks and appetizers as a refreshment during the visit. The photos were all in black and white, with details in colour and the common thread was the presence of watercourses: angles of rivers, fountains with children who drink, details of different fountains, a lake at twilight… Water in all its dimensions, until it closes with a beautiful picture of a washtub where the women of the village go to do the laundry, showing all the taste of something old that still lasts in the present. Even one of the main Parisian journals wrote about her exposition, reserving her a good blurb that brought her a higher number of visitors after its publication. It seems that Lucia’s new man is a big shot who allowed her to emerge in the right manner and in the

way she deserves. I am happy for her, a lot… A little less for me, who will be back to hole up to send e-mails and messages at long distance with a friend who for me is like an actual sister, the one I’ve never had.

Her house is not far from the restaurant and therefore after dinner I accompany her until her old doorway. Now she shall sell the house and therefore another piece of my past is closing to make room for future news. It always feels a little weird to me when someone is moving, just like when I see shops close, especially if they are the historic ones of my childhood. Grown up always in the same district, I know everyone by now, or at least everyone who has not moved. The unfortunate period almost for everyone led to drastic choices whether the older traders, already tired of fighting against all the changes and the career crisis, whether families that look for cheapest houses and are turning away from the centre. After years spent always surrounded by the same people, I experienced these changes as an abandonment. Starting with my mother who decided to sell her house in the city centre to settle down in the village where she is reborn resuming possession of herself and of what she has always loved to do. As long as my father was alive, he worked in a public office here in Rome, running away from the city in every little occasion to head to their beloved little village where they break free from all the fatigue stored during the week. My mother never really loved the city life, she felt a little bit lost even if, despite herself, she has always been taking care of everything as a perfect housewife of a good neighbourhood. A fine lady, always dressed up and with an unfailing string of pearls on her neck. The same pearls she still wears, even if she prefers more comfortable outfits without caring about brands or fine fabrics. Under the big wooden

doorway, I say goodbye to my dear friend with the promise of seeing each other again before her final departure. I wait for her to enter and I walk towards my house caught up in a thousand thoughts and with the desire to go immediately to bed. I’m in such a great mood for the morning to come that I move the hands of the alarm clock one hour earlier and I run under the blankets. At the first ring I am on my feet, now I want to take a stroll down Villa Borghese before the usual morning ritual at the café, so I dress up quickly and I exit perkily the building heading to the park.

The Villa in the morning is enchanting: few people walking around, mainly old people during their healthy stroll and, given the possible insomnia, take advantage of the first hours of the day, when all is still closed and there is not much to do around the city. I found a message from Lucia on my phone, she is thanking me for the dinner and tells me that if her child is a boy, he will have my name. This way she manages to steal the first smile of the day from me while I am already immersed in trees and in their shadow. In this time, you can come into squirrels too, big and chubby, the only masters of the nature that expands under their stealthy hops almost careless of your presence. I arrive until the Pincio and there is where the city appears in all its majesty. Monuments, buildings, churches… All there, peacefully dozing while everyone is looking at them and both with sun and rain they don’t budge and nothing changes them. I pick up a daisy survived to the coldness and I bring it to the café with me. Today I feel different and I want to break the ritual of our meetings with a little gesture and therefore I lay the flower on the table where in a few minutes she is going to sit to have breakfast, hoping that anyone arrives before and

gets his hands on that gesture directed to her.

I quickly go to the counter and order my usual coffee, reversing the order of arrival and without looking at the entrance. After a few minutes I hear her coming. I recognize her voice by now and I also feel that, realising that I am already there (this is the first time since we ‘know’ each other, given that I always arrive when they have already started their breakfast), she stops for a few instants and then restarts approaching the table. I don’t have the courage to look at her face when she’ll find the flower and on the other side I don’t even want her to be certain that I’ve been the one who put it on her table. So I finish my coffee faster than the usual and going out I give her a look and she promptly looks right back, but this time hiding the doubt about that little flower that now she holds in her hand almost if she was waiting an additional step that I am not doing though. It all must stay this way and I walk away as fast as I can.

Chapter 4

Memories

A home night all for me is all I need. I return after a brief shopping and my home welcomes me with the warmth of the heating that is still turned on. I take off my coat and scarf, I take off my shoes that I remove while I am approaching the kitchen to put down the milk that I’ve just bought. Without even turning a light on, I reach the big bathroom and I turn on the hot water tap of the bath. There’s nothing else I would like to do in this moment except a good hot bath that gets out any spleen, any piece of tiredness left on me by this day. Before I enter the bath, I pour myself a glass of semi-sparkling wine, just the right amount of coldness, and I lay it on the sink while I take off my clothes before soaking in the foam. I tie my hair up, I pick up the glass, and I enter the bath now full and so hot that makes my skin turning red at the first impact. To be the perfect bath it only misses candlelight and background music, but this is fair enough for today. Closing my eyes with my head laid on the edge I start to think of a series of things conspiring in my mind. This year I would like to do so many things that at the end I’ll be barely up on anything. A trip abroad, join the gym, find the time to go to the library at least once a week… And go back to do jogging at Villa Borghese when you still overhear only the tiny steps of squirrels upon the gravel and the city seems an enchanted and surreal place, light years away from chaotic and busy streets. The kitchen clock rings the eight and so, a little reluctantly, I start to take the foam off my body opening the shower. The immediate cold water makes a shiver run over my back for then cuddling me again with the

hot water that comes out a little later. I would like to stay like this for hours. Wrapped up in the soft bathrobe, I finish the glass of wine and I start to think about what to cook for dinner. I quickly find some leftovers from last night’s dinner that I warm in the microwave and I eat in the living room while I’m watching a good movie in the dark of a room that is entirely for me.

When I’m home alone, I am not in the mood for cooking, so I sort it out with few simple things just for not going to bed on an empty stomach. I am so tired that I don’t even feel like getting lunch ready for the day after and so I promptly text my colleague to ask her to go out for lunch together tomorrow. From the outside I only overhear a car passing by every once in a while, the city is resting and recharging for the new day to come. An atmosphere so relaxed that when the phone emits a beep, I flinch. The message has been sent by Camilla who grabbed my proposal suggesting me to leave earlier in order to go shopping in the afternoon. With a quick ‘ok’ I settle the issue, now sunken in the couch with the blanket on my bare legs. A gunfight woke me up: it’s 2 a.m. I must have fallen asleep on the couch, and also pretty early since I don’t even remember the film I’ve chosen to watch.