The Other Language (11 page)

The rock star, his beautiful garden, his lovely songs, the pale blue room at the Biennale and the stark, pristine feeling it inspired,
the Turner brume over the Venetian canals in the evening—it all came tumbling back like an ache. Caterina was surprised to realize that all the beauty she’d been exposed to in the last forty-eight hours had piled up inside her and had turned itself into a burden that now was weighing on her chest. Something began to give deep inside, like a building crumbling in slow motion, folding gently onto itself. Pascal had almost reached the cashier.

“Do you want prosciutto and Brie or tomatoes and mozzarella?” he asked her.

“Prosciutto and Brie, thank you. Oh, and a Diet Coke.”

True beauty eluded her and made her feel lonelier because she knew she would never be able to access it or grasp its fabric. It wasn’t something one could either pull apart like a doll, or study its components and reproduce. You couldn’t just learn it. The dying man had always had this gift and he had been able to pass it on to others, in different forms, throughout his life. This was probably why—though he had only a few months left to live—he was able to stare straight into the camera. He had given all that he had taken, his accounts were even.

Pascal placed the rubbery sandwich in front of her, tightly sealed in its plastic wrap.

“My gluten-free regime has gone out the window.” He sighed as he bit into his sandwich. “I feel so bloated already.”

Her short film was a laughable attempt at creating something poetic. She had been nominated, but what did it mean? Wasn’t it all a farce? A mediocre, worthless farce?

Right there and then, as her heart sank even deeper, her gaze landed on a handsome face. A young man holding a glass of Champagne standing at the counter next to a couple of interesting-looking women who spoke Italian with a heavy French accent smiled at her. Thick dark hair tied in a short ponytail, impeccable gray suit over a black T-shirt, round glasses with a thick frame. A studied Johnny Depp look. He excused
himself, moved away from the women and maneuvered through the crowd toward her.

“Caterina!”

“Hey!” she waved joyfully. She had no idea who he was, though she had a feeling she ought to.

“Congratulations. I’m really happy you made it with the nominees.”

“Thank you, thank you so much. Yeah, that was a big surprise …,” she said shyly, her brain still in a blank.

“I just wanted to say that I loved your short and that I voted for you.”

“Oh my God! Did you? I’m so …,” she gasped, wishing his name would pop up any second, so she could relax. Was he on the jury panel for the awards? His face was vaguely familiar; she frantically scrolled an invisible contact list but nothing showed.

“God, thank you so much. Wow. Really. I mean … what can I say? That’s so generous of you.”

The handsome man smiled, leaned a tiny bit closer and Caterina was enveloped in an expensive aroma of leather, cedar, musk.

“You have an unusual eye. Your short reminded me of Jane Campion’s early films.”

“Oh my God! That’s like … Jane Campion? … She’s my favorite director ever. That’s the biggest compliment. Thank you so, so much.”

She could feel Pascal staring at her with reproach. Surely he meant to flag that something in her demeanor was bothering him. She had a feeling it must be the way she kept wriggling and squealing. She was aware of doing something funny with her feet, pointing them inward and twisting her ankles, an annoying reflex that came up whenever she was anxious.

“I’d love to talk to you about something. Which hotel are you staying at?” the man asked.

“Hmm … we are staying at the … at the …” She turned to
Pascal for help but he signaled a nearly imperceptible no with his head.

An ascending cymbal ringtone floated between her and the man. He took out the phone from his pocket and glanced at the display.

“Sorry, I have to take this. I’ll tell you what, just give me a call at the office when you come back, that’ll be easier … It was really lovely to see you, Caterina.”

He turned around and walked toward the exit.

Pascal shook his head, frowning.

“Why do you start every phrase with
Oh my God
? You sound like a twelve-year-old. You’ve got to stop doing that. It’s really bad.”

“Who is he?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? Giovanni Balti.”

“Oh my God!”

“You see? It’s like a tic. And stop acting like you are an impostor. It’s so irritating. He voted for you because you are good at what you do.”

“I was confused, I kept thinking who the hell is this guy? I just couldn’t concentrate. Balti? I wish I had remembered. I had no idea he was so attractive.”

Balti’s aroma had made her dizzy. The reflective, elusive, desirable producer so many people she knew, including herself, dreamed of working with. Somehow, in that crowded café, among the tinkling sounds of cups and spoons and the hissing of the espresso machine, she felt a gentle shift take place under her feet. It was a physical sensation, like the harbinger of a fault running horizontally, severing her from the life she had been living till then. Caterina felt a combination of panic and exhilaration.

Yes, her new life must be waiting just around the corner from that crowded café, ready for her to slip into it. There was nothing to fear, all major changes tend to come in a flash, unannounced—like floods and fires.

So there they were the following day, their last in Venice, divining their future over iced cappuccinos, basking in the tepid September sun. The waiter brought the check on a plate.

“Fifteen euros,” noted Pascal, arching an eyebrow.

“I’ll get this,” she said, feeling famous and beautiful again. She picked up the check and left a five-euro tip. She stood up, triumphant.

“What shall we do now? No more art, please. I’d say we’ve seen enough,” she said, excavating some authority over Pascal from the depths of her soul.

“Fine. Let’s go try on some clothes, then,” Pascal suggested.

Pascal loved fashion in the same way he loved art. He thought of clothes as beautiful objects to be looked at, sampled, felt, experienced. Designer shops to him were the equals of galleries. One should walk in and try on whatever one wanted, just to enjoy the tactile experience.

It was a game they’d played before and there were rules that had been established. Pascal had mastered the technique to the point of perfection. Caterina had watched him walk with a confident stride into Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Hermès on the Via Condotti in Rome and ask for a jacket, a pair of trousers, a coat. Salesmen flocked because of his confidence and good looks, certain he must be a celebrity. The way he went straight to the rack, testing the fabric, shaking his head—at times even grimacing—as if nothing truly convinced him, was admirable. He would then ask for something
more
formal, with less of this and more of that. Money clearly wasn’t the issue, he was careful never to ask the price.

Once, at Gucci, he had tried a black evening coat lined in wolf fur. He looked fabulous and impossibly dramatic. The salesmen surrounded him while he studied himself in the mirror showing the usual dissatisfaction. Caterina had kept quietly in the background
(she was always nervous whenever they played the game) but that once, taken by a sudden inspiration, she felt confident enough herself and had stepped in closer.

“This would be perfect for the St. Petersburg concert,” she had said out loud, looking straight at him through the mirror with an amused expression. She expected a sign of recognition or gratitude from Pascal for her brilliant idea (an orchestra conductor, of course! Who else would need a wolf-lined evening coat?). Instead he had glanced at her with an icy frown—as if to say, “That was ruinous, why did you have to do that”—and immediately took the coat off.

“I don’t like anything in this shop,” he declared and dropped the coat in the hands of a young man with a perfectly shaped goatee and a diamond earring.

For her part Caterina never possessed the guts to look sufficiently dissatisfied with the clothes so that she and Pascal could leave a shop making the salespeople feel inadequate and not the other way round. So, whenever it was her turn to try on something, Pascal would have to support the act by playing the irritable costume designer, the fussy buyer, the purist. He knew exactly when it was time to end the game and had his own exit strategy figured out. He would look at each dress with an air of exasperation that bordered on disdain, to show how unimpressed he was to begin with. If he felt the salesgirls were getting in any way pushy by praising the dress too much, or saying how becoming it looked on Caterina, how it perfectly fit her svelte figure, he would stare thoughtfully at her reflection in the mirror, incline his head to the side, tapping his chin with a finger, and say nothing for what felt like a long time. Then he’d turn away.

“Sorry, darling, but it just isn’t you. And I’m afraid we are running late for our next appointment.”

Caterina would have to change back into her clothes and he would lead her outside the shop in a rush, as if they’d wasted another hour of their precious time.

“Your turn,” Pascal said, stopping in front of the window of the Chanel boutique in a corner right behind Piazza San Marco.

Caterina laughed. Sure, why not. On a day like this even she could brave Chanel. To her it spoke of
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
, of the impossible dream of the penniless but eternally chic girl.

The shop was empty. Thick carpet, soft lighting. Sweetly scented. Pascal had sunk onto a white armchair and leaned back like a director before an audition he doesn’t believe in. Someone had brought him an espresso in a tiny porcelain cup with pebbles of brown sugar in a silver bowl. Two salesgirls in shiny ballet pumps and little black dresses with golden chains, hair tied back in chignons, presented themselves. How could they help?

“We are looking for evening wear. Something soft, chiffony. It has to be luscious and light,” Pascal said in his husky voice.

“Of course, sir. Black?”

“Yes, but not just. Surprise me!” He winked at them.

The salesgirls beamed, enraptured. They loved a whiff of petulance, it was so Chanel. They scuttled off.

The dressing room was like a private boudoir, with enough space for lounging and even taking a nap on the velvety couch if one felt like it. Soon it filled up with organza, feathers, sequins. Clouds of silk and tulle, in black, peach, cream, azure and jade green, hung on the walls. Caterina slipped out of her skinny jeans and T-shirt. She stood in front of the mirror in her bra and panties, slackened from too many harsh detergents, and looked at her pale, unmade face, her red tousled hair pinched on the tip of her head with a plastic hairclip. She regretted not having done her face up a bit that morning, and wished she’d remember to always have at least her Rouge Noir lipstick handy.

One of the girls in black knocked lightly at the door and slid inside, holding two boxes. She pulled out two different pairs of shoes from the crinkly paper. A shiny black patent leather sandal
with a five-inch heel and a powdery pink one with a grosgrain bow on the tip.

“This one for the black and the other for the pastel colors.”

Caterina nodded and took the shoes, one pair in each hand. They were truly exquisite objects.

“These are the sandals from our cruise collection,” the girl said with a solemn expression.

“Please, let me help you with the dress. Shall we start with black?” suggested the other one.

Getting inside the first dress was like diving through a shimmering substance, each molecule of the fabric caressing her skin. She felt fresh, exuberant, feminine. Her skin flushed.

The two girls in black zipped her up, fastened hooks and buttons, fluffed the fabric, tucked the silk, slid her unpedicured feet into the shiny shoes and sent her out with moans of approval. Each time she wobbled out in front of Pascal (sprawled on the candid armchair, now munching a tiny buttery croissant), she attempted to do an ironic pirouette and in doing so caught a fleeting reflection of herself in the multiple mirrors.