The Purple Room (13 page)

 
She tries to dodge sideways. She may be
seventy-two, but she’s quick for her age, I think, as I grab her hand and try
to pry it open.

“Stop it. What
do you think you’re doing?”

“Let it go,
mother.”

“I’ll go down
to the basement myself!”

“Stop acting
like a child.”

“Let me go.”

“Open your
hand.”

“No.”

“Open it!”

“No.”

I press hard
against her knobby fingers. My mother screams. Her hand opens and lets the key
fall to the floor. I pick it up. On its label is written, “Basement.”

My mother
stares at me in disbelief.

“You’re out of
your mind… Sergio… you hurt me.”

She sits down
on the sofa, cradling her wrist in her left hand. She’s acting like I broke her
fingers.

“Show me,” I
say.

“What’s gotten
into you? Doing something like that to your mother.”

“Let me see
your hand.”

I slowly move
her fingers.

“Ah! Stop!”
she says. She’s laying it on thick.

“It’s nothing,
Mom.”

“Nothing? It
hurts like hell! You’d better take me to the hospital.”

“Don’t make me
laugh.”

“Then I’ll
call a cab.”

She stands up
and gets the telephone directory.

“Come on, Mom,
don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t hurt you.”

She starts
dialing the number. She’s doing everything using only one hand. The other she’s
holding pressed against her chest.

“If you want,
I’ll go get you something at the drugstore, but there’s no need to go to the
hospital.”

“That’s what
you think. At the very least you’ve broken a finger.”

“You’re
blowing this out of proportion.”

“Hello? Taxi?”

“Fine, all
right,” I say with a snort. “I’ll take you.”

She hangs up
and says, “Then get me my bag.”

At the
emergency room they make us wait for hours. My mother sits, pouting, holding
onto her hand as if it might fall off at any moment. People who have really
injured themselves keep on rolling into the waiting room. A boy wearing a
soccer uniform comes in with his parents, his knee the size of a melon. A woman
wearing an apron has her finger wrapped in a napkin that’s dripping blood. A
guy in a suit and tie, his Vespa helmet still on his head and a cell phone
tucked in next to his ear, is shouting as they carry him in on a stretcher: “My
Guccis! Where are my Gucci shoes?”

They’re on his
feet.

“Let’s go
home,” I say to my mother.

She shakes her
head. “You go if you want to.”

Another hour
of waiting. Finally they call her.

“I’ll wait
here,” I say, as the nurse accompanies her into the emergency ward.

I go have a
look around the hospital bar. I drink a couple of beers and eat a bag of chips.
Then I go back to the waiting room.

I must have
fallen asleep, because when I reopen my eyes my mother is standing in front of
me. I check the time. It’s twenty past midnight.

“You see?” she
says, showing me her hand. It’s in a cast. “A fractured metacarpus. I told you that
you’d hurt me.” Then she adds, in a low voice: “I told the doctor I fell. I
couldn’t tell him my son did something like that.”

I feel like a
worm. I can’t believe it. I broke my mother’s hand––my mother, the
woman who brought me into the world. I broke her hand and I didn’t even notice.

“I’m sorry, Mom,”
I say, mortified. “I didn’t realize what I was doing…”

“Let’s forget
about it,” she says. “My hand makes a pair with your arm, the one I broke when
you were six months old. Now we’re even.”

We travel home
from the hospital in silence. Only near the end my mother says: “I called the
guest house in the mountains. They have a room there for you, too. What should
I tell them? That you’ll come?”

“I can’t, I
have stuff to do in Rome.”

“What do you
have to do?”

“Nothing. Just
some things.”

“It’s cool up
there, you know. It’s nice.”

“I know, but I
can’t come.”

“If you change
your mind, you might not find a room.”

“I won’t change
my mind.”

“Sure, you
won’t change your mind. It would be just like you to call me up tomorrow and
say, ‘Mom, I want to come to the mountains’.”

“It won’t
happen.”

“We’ll see.”

Once home, I
help her out of the car and walk her upstairs.

“Do you want me
to stay overnight?” I ask, standing on the landing. “In case your hand hurts?”

“No, just go
home. I’ll take a pain killer. If I need anything, I’ll call Lina.”

“All right,
Mom. Good night, and sorry, again.”

“Drive
slowly,” she says, then closes the door.

I walk down
the stairs. When I get to the lobby, I realize I still have the basement key in
my pocket. I turn around and head back, down into the tenants’ storage area.

On one of the
metal doors there’s a label with my mother’s name on it. I open it and go in. It’s
all in scrupulous order. She’s labeled everything. There, on a metal shelf, are
the fifty-two big boxes, lined up year by year. Below that, there’s my stuff.
Bags full of shoes, clothes and old toys. The boxes labeled
sergio’s school books
are in a corner. I
open one and dig until I find my junior year art history book. On the last page
is the message that Gloria wrote to me thirty years ago. “Today, after three,
at my house. I’ll be waiting for you. G.” Then her address and directions to
get there. Her hand writing is just as I remembered it––round,
open, all curves.

15

This morning I
woke up early. I went into town to buy milk, croissants and a newspaper, then I
sat out in the garden to have breakfast. The air was cool and the grass was
sparkling with dew.

After
breakfast I went down to the bunker to do what I had probably already done two
months earlier––look for a picture of Gloria. It was useless. The
photos from 1975 that I have on file are all family pictures: my dad smiling
beside his brand new Alfa Romeo; my mom and I on a mountain path, carrying
backpacks, walking sticks and canteens; my mother’s birthday celebration, at a
restaurant with her sister, nieces and nephews (there’s my cousin Andrea,
looking like a good little boy). The only photo of my classmates is from our
graduation. By then, Gloria had been gone for over a year. I’m in the second
row, beside that girl Stefania, as pretty as she was insipid. From the way I’m
holding her, you can tell I’ve recovered splendidly from Gloria’s
disappearance. Maybe, on the other hand, I’d forced myself to forget her.

While I’m
looking at the photos, the phone rings. It’s Franco.

“How’s it
going, buddy?”

“Doing all
right. And you?”

“I’m sweating
like a pig and can’t wait to go on vacation. Listen, I talked to a friend of
mine, a neurologist. He thinks it would be a good idea for you to get that
amnesia thing of yours checked out. His name’s Sormani. His office is up on
Fleming Hill. He’ll be expecting you this afternoon.”

“Thanks, but I
don’t need help anymore. My memory’s come back.”

“When did that
happen?”

“Yesterday.”

“Are you
sure?”

“Yeah.
Everything’s fine now.”

“Um… good,” he
says. “So, now you remember about the thousand euros I lent you two months ago,
too, right?”

A thousand
euros? Why would I ever have asked him? He’s so tightfisted. I don’t get it. I
can feel my headache about to come on again.

“Of course,” I
say. “I’ll pay you back the next time I see you.”

Franco bursts
out laughing. “I could have asked you for ten thousand! You totally fell for
it. As if I’d ever lend you a thousand euros! Can’t you see that everything’s
not all right? Listen to me and let my friend take a look at you.”

A minute later
I get a message on my phone with the name and address of the neurologist.

I delete it
and forget about it.

At lunch time
I go upstairs to fix myself something to eat. I put half a dozen frozen
fish-sticks in the oven and pour myself a glass of wine. While they’re baking,
I pick up the phone and call information. A young woman answers. I tell her
that I want to trace a phone number and I give her Gloria’s address in
Pantigliate, the one she wrote in the book.

“Do you want
me to connect you directly?” the woman asks.

“Yes, thanks.”

“Stay on the
line, please, and have a nice day.”

A voice
recording reads back the Pantigliate number. Then the phone starts ringing.
Once, twice, three times. Someone lifts up the receiver.

“Hello?”

It’s a woman’s
voice. She’s chewing something.

“Gloria?” I
say, more softly than I intended.

“Hello?” she
repeats. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Sergio.
Sergio Monti.” Silence. “Do you remember me?”
 

“No.”

“We were
classmates in high school, junior year.”

“Sorry, who
exactly are you looking for?”

“Gloria.
Gloria Decesaris.”

“She’s not
here.”

“Do you know
where I can find her?”

“I have no
idea. Look, you’ve got the wrong number.”

“Isn’t this
Via Monte Bianco number eleven? In Pantigliate?

“Yes.”

“A white house
with green shutters?”

“Yes…”

“And you don’t
know the Decesaris family?”

“No.”

“You live in their
house.”

“This is my
house.”

“When did you
buy it, and from whom?”

“Who are you,
anyway? What do you want?”

“I want to
speak with Gloria.”

“I’ve already
told you that she’s not here.”

“Tell me where
she is, then.”

“Oh, go to
hell!”

She hangs up
on me.

It’s stupid, I
know, but I’d become attached to the idea that Gloria still lived in the same
house, and that her bedroom walls were still purple.

I call
information again. This time a man answers. I give him Gloria’s first and last
names.

“There are two,
sir. Which one do you want?”

“What? Two?”

“
Decesaris, Gloria
, Montemori, province
of Siena, and
Decesaris, Gloria
,
Anzio, province of Rome. Which one?”

“Both,” I say.

I take down the
two numbers and sit there staring at them like an idiot. It’s unnerving to
think of there being
two
Gloria
Decesarises. Well, it isn’t that strange. Most of us share our names with at
least one other person. There are dozens of Sergio Montis in Italy. Luckily for
me, there are only two Gloria Decesarises. All I have to do is discover which
of them is my Gloria.

I call the
Anzio number first. On the fourth ring, an answering machine picks up and an
automated voice kicks in, “The person you have dialed is unavailable. Please
leave your––”

I hang up. I
don’t want to leave a message.

I try the
number in the province of Siena. It just rings and rings. I let it ring until
the connection drops. I try again two or three times, with the same result.

After lunch, I
go back down into the bunker and try an online search. A lot of useless
information pops up on the screen. Provincial soccer players named Decesaris
going after the goal that will give them “glory,” and stuff like that. There is
one item that catches my eye. The Policlinico Hospital in Rome has a list of
its staff doctors up on its website. Among these there’s a doctor Gloria
Decesaris. I expand the window and three columns appear. The first one gives
the doctors’ names, the second lists the residents, and in the third the days
and times of their shifts. I check the list of doctors and there she is:
Doctor Gloria Decesaris, General Medicine
.
She has three rotating shifts per week––morning, afternoon and
night. She’s already done her afternoon shift this week. The next one is
tonight, starting at midnight.

I try to
imagine her life as it is today. If she works in Rome, then her address must be
the one in Anzio, so Gloria has a house by the sea and works at the hospital in
Rome. She opted for her father’s job and became a doctor. She takes care of the
sick, of people who are suffering. Maybe her mother’s health problems led her
to choose that path. The incredible thing is that the Policlinico is just a
short distance from my office. We’ve been so close and we’ve never known it.
Who can say how often we’ve walked along the same sidewalk or bought a
newspaper from the same newsstand, brushed past each other in the street or in
a cafe? How many times have we been a hair’s breadth away from recognizing each
other?

In the
afternoon I shower and shave carefully. I iron a shirt and polish my shoes. I
pull a suit out of the closet, one that I haven’t worn in a long time. The last
time must have been three years ago, when I went to court with Alessandra for our
divorce. The trousers are tight on me. I have to leave the top button undone and
hide it under my belt.

I get to the
city around nine at night. I want to drop by and say goodbye to Michela before
I go to see Gloria. Lots of things may have changed by the time she gets back
from Paris––for her and me both.

I park in
front of their building, get out and look up. The windows on the fourth floor
are lit up. Alessandra and Michela must be having supper. I look back down and
see Daniel parking his microcar in the loading zone. The kid gets out and comes
towards me, head down, hands thrust into his jacket pockets. He stops in front
of the building door and waits for me to either ring a bell or go in. He’s
hopping from one foot to the other like he has to go to the bathroom. I look at
his ridiculous hairdo, his smooth cheeks, the mouth that has kissed my
daughter’s mouth. I wonder how he feels about her. Has he told her he loves
her? Has he sworn it?

“Are you going
in?” he asks.

“No,” I say,
“I’m waiting for someone.”

Daniel goes
over in front of the buzzers and starts scanning through all the names. I have
to stop myself from pointing to the second-to-last button on the left. He finds
it by himself and presses it. After a few seconds, Alessandra answers.

“Who is it?”

“I’m a friend
of Michela’s from school. Is she at home?”

“She’s having
supper.”

“Well, could
you get her for a minute?”

An annoyed
silence from Alessandra. “Just a moment,” she says through her teeth.

Daniel glances
at me. I glance at my watch and grumble, pretending the person I’m waiting for
is late. The kid’s anxious. He pats his hair, kicks at the sidewalk, throws
little punches at the wall.

There’s some
static from the buzzer, then Michela says “Hey.”

“Why’s your
phone off?” Daniel asks tersely.

“I didn’t feel
like talking.”

Her tone of
voice is firm.

“Well, I do.
Come down a minute.”

“I can’t right
now. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“It’s
important, Micky...”

He calls her
Micky
too.

“I told you I
can’t.”

“Alright, I’ll
call later when the old lady’s sleeping.”

The old lady?

“Listen, I
waited for you for an hour and a half today. You didn’t even call. I’m not in
the mood to talk to you right now, all right?”

Good on you,
Micky. You’ve got him where you want him.

Daniel sighs
and bites at a nail.

“Ok,” he says,
“can we meet tomorrow morning? In the square, at ten.”

Michela gives
a huff. “Fine… but if you’re even a minute late, I’m leaving, I swear.”

The
conversation’s over. It doesn’t seem to have made Daniel feel any better. He
looks up in search of Michela’s window. It’s obvious he has no idea which one
it is. He sighs and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket.

“Do you have a
light?”

“I don’t
smoke.”

Daniel shrugs,
pulls out his phone and starts dialing as he heads back towards his car. As he
walks, he says: “Hi, Bea… what’s up? Can I come by and pick you up?”

He gets in the
car, starts the engine and pulls out. He speeds by me with the unlit cigarette
hanging out of the corner of his mouth, his arm out the window, his gaze fixed
on the road ahead. A James Dean from Parioli, who somehow ended up in Donald
Duck’s car.

If Michela’s
in a bad mood, I don’t want to bother her. I’ll come back tomorrow.

I get to the
neighborhood by the Policlinico and go for a walk to kill some time. Every now
and then I stop in a bar for a beer. I think about Gloria. I try to imagine her
in a doctor’s white coat. Will her hair be long or short? How will she be
dressed? I look at every woman I see on the street. Until I see them up close,
for a second I think they’re each Gloria. None of them really looks like her,
though.

It’s
ridiculous, but I start feeling the same way I did that day, when I was waiting
for Gloria at my place. My hands are sweaty and my stomach’s tied in a knot. I
go into a bar and order something stronger than a beer––a grappa. Maybe
Doctor Decesaris would say I drink too much. I imagine she keeps to a healthy
diet: fruit and vegetables, no alcohol, cigarettes or coffee. She might even be
a sports fanatic. What about me? The only sport I ever did, except for scuba
diving, was soccer with the guys on the weekends. I’ve put on quite a paunch
since I got out of the hospital.

I tell the
barman I’ve changed my mind. I’ll just have some fruit juice.

“What kind?”

“Pear.”

Now that I
think about it, though, doctors are the often the first to indulge in bad
habits. I know a couple who smoke a pack a day. Franco goes out to eat every
night, eats and drinks like a pig. Gloria could be an inveterate smoker, maybe
ever since that time she bought her first pack at the station in Florence. With
the shifts she does at the hospital, she might be forced to live off of cafe
sandwiches, and coffee to help her stay awake all night. Maybe she loves
chocolate, good wine and evenings spent lying on the sofa in front of the TV.
One thing’s for sure. This time I won’t make the mistake of trying to show
myself in a better light. Gloria has to see me exactly as I am.