The Purple Room (10 page)

“No,” she
says, without hesitation.

“Are you
sure?”

“Yes.”

“It was two
months ago. We went to the hotel. Room 106.”

“What do I
know about it?”

“I might have
told you something about myself. My name’s Sergio. I’m a graphic artist.
Advertising.”

Jenny chews on
her gum. Deadpan.

“Maybe we went
somewhere else,” I press. “Another room. Painted purple. There was a window.
You opened it and the sun shone in. You were looking out and…”

Jenny shakes
her head.

“I work at
night. No sun. No window. Get it?”

I’m beating my
head against a brick wall. Why do I keep doing it? It’s clear now that it was
all a hallucination, or else I’m going mad and just haven’t realized it yet.

“Well?” asks
Jenny, impatient. “What do you want to do?”

“Nothing.”

I open the
door to let her out. She hesitates, like she’s expecting some sort of trick.

“Go on out.
I’m not in the mood anymore.”

She shrugs her
shoulders and gets out. Right away she starts talking on her phone again, as if
the person on the other end has been on hold all this time.

I sit staring
at the streetlights reflected on the windshield. In the rearview mirror, the
words
Wash me asshole!
look like
they’ve been carved into the back window. I’m thinking that tomorrow I could
take the car to be washed, when the first drops start falling. They get heavier
and heavier until, after five minutes, it’s raining really hard. The writing on
the rear window disappears little by little, washed away by the water streaming
down the glass. I recline my seat and stay there listening to the rain drumming
on the metal roof. Now I won’t have to wash the car. What will I do tomorrow?
And the day after? I can’t imagine. I can’t even imagine going home this
evening. All I want to do is stay here in the car until it stops
raining––with the hope that it never stops.

Someone taps
on my window.

I sit up
straight with a start. It’s Jenny again. She’s crouched under a tiny umbrella.
She motions for me to roll down the window.

“What is it?”
I ask, feeling the cold air on my face.

“Now I
remember,” she says. Her eyes seem to
see
me
now. “We were at the hotel. Two months ago.”

“And what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“You just
wanted to take pictures.”

“What
pictures?”

“Standing up.
By the window. Like you said before.”

“And then?”

“That’s it.
You left.”

“Did I tell
you why I was taking the pictures?”

“No.”

“Did I talk
about myself? Did I tell you anything?”

“No.”

“Do you know
anything about a purple room?”

“No.”

I can’t think
of anything else to ask. In the silent pause, her phone starts ringing again.

“Thanks,” I
say, but it doesn’t matter. Jenny’s already left, phone to her ear, in the
rain.

I drive home
as fast as I can and rush down to the bunker. The photos in my files are in
chronological order. I carefully look through the folder for April-May.

Nothing.

I check in
another file where I collect odd photos I use for my job. I pull out all the
prints and check every negative.

Nothing. No
photos of Jenny.

I turn on the
computer and open folders containing images. I might have used the digital
camera and uploaded them without printing them. There are hundreds and hundreds
of images saved on the hard disk and looking through them all takes me until
late at night. I go over them again and again, and have nothing to show for it.

Yet, the more
I think about it, the more I’m certain that I really did take those photos. I
feel like I can
remember
taking them,
but then, where are they?

Exhausted, I
drop onto the sofa. Outside, the sky is beginning to lighten. The sun’s about
to rise. I pull the sheet up over my head, like a vampire, trying to keep the
light away.

It’s the
beginning of a bright new summer’s day, and I feel lonelier and more lost than
ever.

12

By the time I
come out of the bunker, it’s late in the afternoon. I wipe off the stone table
in the garden with a damp cloth, then sit down and eat a grilled cheese
sandwich. While I chew, I turn on the phone. There are a couple of calls from
Roberto. I call him back at the office.

“Hey Rob. How’s
it going?”

“I’m working
on a brochure for a real estate company––so boring. What’re you up
to?”

“Eating a
grilled cheese sandwich.”

“Tell me about
the other night. How did it go?”

“How did what
go?”

“With the
entomologist.”

“Silvia. A
very nice person.”

“She seemed
pretty dull to me.”

“She knows
lots of interesting things.”

“Well? What
did you do?”

“I drove her
home.”

“That’s all?”

“I’m sorry for
you and Franco. It didn’t turn out like you hoped it would.”

“Look, it was
his idea. I only told him that I thought you sounded a little down in the
dumps. He said ‘I’ve got a friend with a friend who’s kind of a loser. Let’s
put them together and see what happens. Two losers might click!’”

“Nice
friends.”

“I’m kidding.
The truth is that it’s all Loredana’s fault.”

“Why?”

“When she
heard that the three of us were going out, she started busting my balls. ‘Why
do the three of you always go out alone? You never want to go out with me!’ It
went on and on. In the end I had to bring her, too, so Franco invited Petra and
her friend to even things up.”

“It was a
pretty memorable evening for me.”

“Tell me about
it. Loredana made a scene on the way home. According to her, I did nothing but
watch some chick on the dance floor all night. When I told her she was wrong,
she called me a liar. ‘I saw you,’ she said. ‘We women have peripheral vision.’”

“Was it true?”

“What?”

“That you were
watching some chick.”

“Sure, but
that’s not the point. If Loredana keeps this up, I’m going to pack my bags and
leave.”

Roberto goes
on for a while, telling me about his problems with Loredana. Then he asks me to
meet him for a drink.

“I don’t feel
like it, Rob. I’d rather stay at home.”

“Just for
happy hour, close by, as soon as I finish work. Come on, Sergio. I can’t deal
with going home to Loredana right away. I just want to hang out and talk with
you for a while.”

In the end we
agree to meet at seven.

I’m already on
my way when I realize I’ve left home too early. I was afraid of being at home
alone, with nothing to do, so I just got into the car without thinking. Now I’m
going to get there a couple of hours too early.

I leave the
car in an underground parking garage near the office and go for a walk. Outside
the Rinascente department store, I think that I could buy some clothes, just to
kill time. I make the rounds of all the floors, riding up and down the
escalators, enjoying the cool air conditioning. In the men’s department I look
at a few shirts, pants and t-shirts. I can’t find anything to buy. A girl in a
red dress wants me to try some cologne. I hate cologne and after-shave lotions.
I tell her I’m not interested.

“Try it. It’s
really very nice.”

She grabs my
wrist and sprays on the cologne. I sniff at it. It’s sickly sweet, with the
scent of alcohol underneath. It makes me feel nauseated.

“Do you like
it?”

“Very nice,” I
say. I don’t know why. “What brand is it?”

The girl tells
me the name.

“Follow me.
I’ll show you to the perfume counter.”

Her hair is
tied up and fastened on the top of her head with a barrette. The nape of her
neck is covered with fuzzy blond hair, like on a baby’s head. It makes me think
that she was once a child of two, like my daughter, scampering around the house
in her mother’s shoes, eating dirt out of the flower pots and sticking her
hands in the toilet bowl to play with the water. The thought makes me smile.

The girl
notices and smiles back. There’s some lipstick on her teeth.

“What’s your
name?” I ask.

“Elisabetta.
But I prefer Betti.”

“You’ve got
some lipstick on your teeth, Betti.”

“Ah… Thanks.”

She runs her
tongue over her teeth rapidly.

As we go down
on the escalator I continue imagining Betti as a little girl. Bits of her
childhood run through my head like a movie. I see her coming out of school
wearing a pink smock, her hands all spotted with paint. I can smell the pencils
in her school bag. I wonder if Betti ever remembers that smell, if she misses
it, or if working with all these lotions and perfumes has erased that memory
forever. I think of Michela and the days of her childhood, now gone forever,
and all of a sudden I realize that my eyes are full of tears. There’s a lump in
my throat and I feel like I’m about to burst out crying.

Betti gives me
a sympathetic look. “I’m allergic to pollen too,” she says. “You should get the
vaccine.”

I take three,
four deep breaths and regain some control.

“You’re
right,” I say, drying my eyes with my handkerchief. “A vaccine is just what I
need.”

Betti walks me
to the perfume counter, says goodbye and wishes me a nice day. I watch her as
she rides back up the escalator, the image of her as a child still in my mind,
and wonder what is happening to me. Maybe I should get some help, before I go
completely crazy.

The shop
assistant wraps up the box of cologne. I pay at the register and finally I can
get out of there. After the air conditioning, the impact with the wall of hot
air staggers me. I still have the sickly smell of the cologne on my hands. I walk
up and down the sidewalk looking for a trash can. As soon as I find one, I
stuff the package of cologne in it. I walk until I come to a little fountain. I
put my wrist under the cool water and scrub at it vigorously. When I’ve
finished, I straighten up, pulling my handkerchief out of my trouser pocket to
dry my hands.

It’s at that
moment that I look up and see her.

The vision
lasts only an instant. A bus pulls up to the sidewalk, hiding her from sight.
Am I hallucinating? My heart beats wildly. I don’t have the strength to move,
to check if it’s really her on the other side of the street. I wait there,
frozen, until all the passengers have gotten off and on. When the bus doors
close, I hold my breath. It pulls away. I look again––and again, I
see her. It’s not a hallucination.
She’s
there, right in front of me. A billboard, twenty feet by ten. On the top right
there’s the name of a clothing brand, Elixir, and, in small print, the name of
our advertising company. The model is wearing a lavender set of lingerie, bra
and panties. She’s leaning on the sill of a window framed by a purple wall. The
shutters are open, letting in a soft light. Outside, the sun is setting on the
horizon of a green countryside. The girl is half turned towards the inside of
the room. Her expression is both innocent and coquettish, as though she’s been
caught off guard in a private moment.

I feel dizzy.
I have the sensation that all the blood is flowing out of my body through an
open faucet. I lean against a lamppost to keep from falling down and stand
there staring at the poster. I’m beginning to understand. This is the project I
was working on before the accident. Now I seem to remember something about the
meeting we had at the office. The people from marketing wanted an image for a
new line of lingerie, something intimate and seductive. I got it for them.

“Sergio!” Susi
throws her arms around my neck. “How wonderful to see you again. Why didn’t you
call?”

“I was in the
neighborhood. I wanted to surprise you.”

“What a shame!
Roberto and the others have already left… You’re looking great, you know!”

“Yes, I’m
better now,” I say. “Seeing as I’m here, can I check something on my computer?”

“As if you
have to ask! I’ll be in there making a call if you need anything.”

Everything in
my office is as I left it. The calendar is still turned to the month of April.
I sit down at my desk. There’s a note with the address in Livorno where my
cousin Andrea had his wedding. I find a file labeled “Elixir” in the desk
drawer. Inside it are the sketches I drew for the poster. Sketches of the woman
in the purple room, all variations on the original idea. There are some
pictures downloaded from the Internet, too. Photos of women, standing
silhouetted in front of all kinds of windows. Photos of bedrooms taken from
indoor shots of hotels or vacation homes. Views to be inserted as background
panels into the window frame. The sea, mountains, lakes, countryside. Blue
skies, cloudy skies, night skies or skies the red of a romantic sunset. Also in
the file are the pictures I’ve been looking for, of Jenny in room 106 at the
Park Hotel. She’s standing there in panties and a bra, looking bored. I
photographed her from behind, from the front, in profile in front of the window
with the shutter down. The lighting is awful, but when all’s said and done,
they’re not bad pictures. There’s something hard about them, something private
and inaccessible.

I turn on my
computer. I find a file labeled “Purple Room.” In it are all the versions of
the images I put together using the editing program. First I did a series of
tests with the photo of the hotel room, without Jenny. I colored the walls
purple then tried out various backgrounds in the window frame. In the end I
chose the sunset over the green countryside, making the bleakness of the Park
Hotel disappear completely. Against this background I added Jenny in different
poses, increasing and lowering the contrast with the light from the window. In
a separate folder I put six versions that I thought were pretty good. While I was
recovering from the accident, Roberto and the others took these mock-ups to a
photographer’s studio. There, using a professional model wearing our client’s lingerie,
they put together the finished advertisement.

I don’t know
whether to laugh or cry. The image that has been haunting me all this time, the
precious memory that stayed with me when I came back to life after three days
in a coma, is nothing but an ad for a pair of underwear. All this time I’ve
been obsessed by a woman who doesn’t even exist, except in an advertisement.

The pain
behind my ear comes back, sharper than ever. I go into the bathroom and stick
my head under the cold water. I stay there until the nape of my neck starts to
go numb. I hadn’t imagined I’d react this way. I’d thought that, whatever
answer I found, it would have freed me from a burden. I’d asked myself if there
was anything worse than not knowing. The answer is yes. What’s worse is knowing
that I was only chasing after a mirage.

There’s a
knock on the door.

“Sergio? Are
you in there?”

I look in the
mirror. I look terrible. I dry myself with a piece of paper and straighten up
my hair. I take a deep breath and open the door.

“Sorry,” says
Susi, “but I’ve got a date with my boyfriend, and I have to lock up the
office.”

“I have to go,
too.”

“Everything okay?
You look pale.”

“Just a little
headache. It happens every now and then.”

“I’ve got some
aspirin if you like.”

“No, thanks.
It’ll pass as soon as I eat something. I’ll just go shut down my computer.”

 
I go back to my office and turn
everything off. I’m about to put the folder back in the drawer when I notice a
yellow Post-it caught in a corner. I hadn’t noticed it before.

All it says
is, “Photos G.D.”

I don’t
remember writing that. But the handwriting is mine. What does it mean?

I look at the
sketches of the purple room again. The woman I drew at the window is very
young. She’s not even a woman, she’s an adolescent. A girl of about sixteen.

G.D.

I know these
initials. They belong to a time so far in my past that it’s hard to believe it
could be the same person. And yet, if I think of her, I feel that same pang in
my chest, a warmth in the blood, that same mad desire I’ve been feeling all
this time.

The woman in
the purple room isn’t a ghost or a product of my imagination. She’s a real
person, made of flesh and blood.

G.D.

Gloria
Decesaris.

Now I know who you are
.