The Purple Room (20 page)

Now I’m the
one in the trenches. I know what I should say. “
You’ve been honest and I appreciate that. You’ve helped me understand a
lot of things, and now I can go home feeling more at peace and get on with my
life, look for what I really need. I still hope that we’ll be able to be
friends, because you’re a very special person, Gloria
.”

What comes out
of my mouth instead is, “Can I kiss you?”

The words just
come out, like the most natural thing in the world. Then, again, why shouldn’t
I ask her? Shouldn’t I be honest to the bitter end? What have I got to lose?
Gloria’s already answered yes to this question once. She’s my girl, the one who
always says yes.

I lean across
the table, clasp her around the nape of her neck and pull her face towards
mine. I close my eyes and press my lips to hers. When our mouths touch, the
thirty years that have separated us vanish in an instant. They don’t exist
anymore. Gloria and I aren’t two forty-year-olds kissing under a trellis in
Tuscany anymore. Neither are we two sixteen-year-olds making out in the
library. Our past experiences don’t matter anymore. We are two innocents, free
of the constraints of time and memory, linked by a kiss that cancels out
everything else.

Still, there’s
something that isn’t right. A sharp pain, then a pulsing one, pulls me back. I
can taste blood in my mouth.
My
blood.

Gloria is
sinking her teeth into my lip. Why?

“Let me go,
you asshole!” she screams into my face.

I open my eyes
and realize I’m holding her by the hair. I let her go instantly, then stare
around, confused. What happened?

We’re back
under the portico. Gloria is glaring at me with hatred.

“What did you
do that for? Are you deaf? I said no!”

My lip keeps
bleeding. I have to spit the blood out.

“Shit! Look at
you. Look what I’ve done!”

“It’s
nothing,” I say in a faint voice. The blood runs down my chin on to my shirt. I
wipe at it with my fingers, but only end up making it worse. It’s all over both
my hands.

“Keep still.
Don’t touch it.”

Gloria runs
into the kitchen, opens the freezer and comes back with a tray of ice-cubes and
some paper napkins.

“Use these.”

I take some
napkins and dab at the cut. Then I put some ice in my mouth and hold it there.
As it melts, it mixes with the blood. I feel like vomiting, but I swallow it
anyway. Gloria is furious. She’s saying things I don’t really understand. I
pick up a handful of ice cubes and rub them over my neck and forehead. I close
my eyes, hoping everything will stop spinning. When I open them again, I see
Lucky running to meet Ettore. He’s walking towards us in his linen suit and
white hat with a black band. I’d like to have a hat like that.

“Hello,
everyone,” he says cheerfully.

“Hi, Ettore,”
Gloria says, without smiling.

“ello” I
mumble around the ice in my mouth.

Ettore looks
at my face, my stained shirt and the bloody napkins. He looks at Gloria, then
back at me. He’s about to say something, but she shakes her head. He says
nothing.

“Would you
like a drink?” Gloria asks him. “I need one.”

She goes into
the kitchen and comes back with the white wine. She pours for all three of us.
She and Ettore drink. I don’t.

“I was looking
for you this morning,” Ettore says to me, “to take you to the caves.”

“Ah ‘eah,” I
say, my tongue numb. “Mi’ee wen’ ‘agh ‘ome. ‘oyfend. Oou noh ow i’ iz.”

Ettore and
Gloria exchange looks. Then Ettore says, “If you like, the two of us can go.
With my car. It’s not far.”

“That’s a good
idea,” says Gloria. “Sergio, go with Ettore. I have to get lunch ready for my
mother.”

“Oh, sure,” I
say, spitting the ice out onto the ground. “I’d really like to see those caves.
Come on, Lucky. Let’s go.”

The three of
us walk out into the sun and towards the road.

When we get to
the jeep, Ettore opens the back. “All aboard,” he says to the dog. Lucky hops
in. Ettore gets in the driver’s seat, starts the car and begins maneuvering the
vehicle into the right direction.

Gloria and I
stand there, face to face, without looking at each other. It’s time to say
goodbye.

“Forgive me,
Gloria. I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s
nothing else to say. I just have a favor to ask.”

“Anything you
want.”

“When you come
back to pick up your car, don’t come in to say goodbye. All right?”

“Gloria,
I––”

“I don’t want
to see you or hear from you ever again, Sergio. I know you’re a good person and
you’ll do as I ask. You will do as I ask, won’t you?”

“Yes,” I say,
“I will.”

I look at her
for the last time, trying to fix the image of her face in my mind. Then I say,
“Bye, Gloria. Take care of yourself.”

I climb into
the jeep next to Ettore. We pull out.

In the side
mirror, I watch Gloria walk away without looking back. She becomes smaller and smaller,
until she disappears in a cloud of dust.

22

“Not many
people have seen this place. I never bring tourists here.”

“Why not?”

“Too
dangerous.”

Ettore stops
the jeep in front of a gate closed with a padlock. He gets out with a bunch of
keys and unlocks it. Then he gets back in and parks in a clearing between the
trees. He takes a flashlight out of the trunk.

“From here we
go on foot.”

We start off
along a path through the underbrush. Lucky runs ahead. Every now and then the
dog makes a sortie into the woods, then comes back to the path and resumes
trotting along at our side.

We come out
into a narrow valley sandwiched between two hills.

“It’s down
there.”

Ettore leads
me towards a rock wall covered in creepers. As we approach, I can feel a current
of damp air.

“That’s it.”

Amongst the
creepers there’s an opening carved into the tufa stone. It’s a passageway as
wide as the doorway of a house, but slightly lower.

“I forgot to
ask. You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

“No.”

“The first
stretch is very narrow. Then it widens out and becomes a real cave. All the
unexplored tunnels lead off from there.”

“Aren’t you
curious to know where they lead?”

“They probably
don’t lead anywhere. They’re just traps for people who are too greedy or too
curious.” He switches on the flashlight. “Shall we?”

I’m about to
follow Ettore into the tunnel, but the dog stops at the entrance and refuses to
budge.

“What’s the
matter, Lucky?”

It whines and
sniffs at the air from the cave. It’s frightened.

“I don’t think
your dog likes Etruscan tombs,” says Ettore.

I attach the
leash to the dog’s collar, then I tie it to the branch of a bush.

“Good boy,
wait here.”

I give it a
quick pat and leave it outside. As soon as I set foot in the passageway, Lucky
starts barking.

The space is
very narrow. I have to walk with my head bent down and my arms pressed tight
against my sides. Ettore lights our way.

“Look how they
tunneled into the tufa stone. You can still see the signs of their chisels.
These holes in the wall, every two or three yards, are where they set their oil
lamps. It makes sense. After all, no one could dig in the dark.”

I don’t know
how far we’ve come, but the light from the entrance has disappeared. Lucky’s
barking has become a faraway sound. The further in we go, the narrower the
tunnel seems to become. I realize that I’m short of breath.

“Can you feel
how heavy the air is in here?” Ettore says. “Not much oxygen gets in this far,
but we can go as far as the main cave without a problem. I tried to bring
Gloria once. She was all excited at first, playing at being an explorer. Then,
when we got up to about here, she stopped and said, ‘I heard a noise down
there.’

“I told her it
was probably moisture dripping in the cave.

“‘No, no,’ she
said. ‘It sounds like something scratching against the wall.

“‘Oh, right,’
I said. ‘I forgot to tell you that there’s still an Etruscan in here tunneling.
Nobody’s told him that he’s been dead for centuries!’

“As soon as I
said it, I wished I could take it back. Gloria wanted to go straight home and
I’ve never managed to get her back here again.”

In the silence
that follows, I hear it––a scratching noise. It’s obvious that
Ettore told his little story knowing that the sound would come to lend it
credence. He expects me to say something. Instead, I don’t say a word, but just
keep on walking along behind him. About ten steps later we come out into the
cave.

“What do you
think of this?”

He shines his
flashlight up towards the ceiling. It must be at least twenty feet high. All
around us there are the entrances to tunnels like the one we came from. Without
the flashlight, the darkness would be absolute.

Ettore grasps
my arm.

“Be careful,”
he says, pointing to the ground in front of me. In the center of the cave,
there’s a hole covered by a rusty grate. It’s a pit. The beam of light is lost
in the darkness. It’s impossible to say how deep it is.

“Come on. I’ll
show you something.”

Ettore leads
me to the entrance of one of the tunnels. You can’t see the end here, either.
“Go in and tell me what you feel.”

I lower my
head and step into the tunnel. It seems exactly the same as the one we’ve just
come from, but here something is different. It’s as if the air from the cave
were being sucked
into
the tunnel. I
can feel it on my skin and in my hair. It’s a cold damp draft that draws me in.
The effort of staring into the darkness deep in the tunnel is making me feel
dizzy. It’s like I’m falling forward, being pulled in. Instinctively, I take
two steps back.

“Strange,
isn’t it?” Ettore says.

“What is it?”

Ettore pulls a
glass marble out of the pocket of his jacket. “Shine the light here.”

He hands me
the flashlight and sets the marble on the ground. As soon as he lets it go, the
marble starts to move, first slowly, then faster and faster. It rolls into the
tunnel as if a mysterious force were sucking it in. I follow it with the beam
of the flashlight as far as I can. Then it disappears without a sound,
swallowed up by the darkness.

“It’s an
inclined plane,” I say.

“Exactly. It
doesn’t seem so to the naked eye, but there’s a steep slope. This could be the
passage that leads to the main tomb.”

“Shall we go
down and take a look?” I say boldly.

“I wouldn’t
recommend it. In spite of the air you feel, there probably isn’t enough oxygen.
Can you imagine if one of us lost consciousness down there? You could call for
help until you were blue in the face. No one would hear you.”

Ettore speaks
those last words without his usual friendly smile. Is he trying to let me know
that he’s the stronger one? That he could go and leave me here to rot? That if
I don’t stay away from Gloria, I’ll have to deal with him? That’s fine with me.
He can ditch me here, go back to Gloria and tell her she’ll never have to hear
another word about me. I couldn’t care less about dying and being forgotten.
I’m already dead. Dead and buried at the bottom of the sea.

“Sergio? What’s
wrong?”

I open my
mouth to breathe, but no air enters my lungs. I’m suffocating. I try to shout.
Not even a moan passes through my lips. Only bubbles. I can feel Ettore’s hand
on my shoulder. He grabs me, shakes me. Then I can’t see anything anymore. Where
am I? Have I fallen into the pit? There’s water in it. The water’s freezing.
I’m so heavy. My lead weights are pulling me down. I’m going to the bottom.
It’s dark and cold and I’m sinking deeper and deeper.

“Sergio!”

Ettore grabs
my arm and pulls. He wants to take me back to the surface. He wants to save me.
I push him away and he falls to the ground. The light goes out.

“Where are you
going? Stop!” Ettore shouts.

I run, head
down. I scrape my hands and shoulders on the stone walls, but I keep on running
through the dark. I race along the tunnel, crouched low to the ground, like an
animal fleeing in the throes of terror.

I don’t know
how long I’ve been walking in the dark. I keep expecting to come up against the
end of the passageway at any moment, or to not be able to breathe for lack of
oxygen, but I’m calm.

I remember a
dive I went on with Roberto a long time ago. We went one night to explore the
seabed off the coast of Mount Argentario, a place called The Coral Shoal. At
one point I saw a big brown grouper slip into a gap between the rocks. I
followed it to take a photo. I found myself all alone inside a cavern. The
grouper had disappeared somewhere I couldn’t see. I stayed floating there,
gazing at the rock ceiling above me. It was like being inside the belly of some
huge animal. I turned off my lamp and stayed there in the total darkness. I’d
never before been in a place so isolated, so hidden from the world. I thought
back to when I was a child and would hide under my parents’ bed, sure they’d
never find me. I’d stay there for hours, fantasizing, imagining that soon
they’d give up the search. They would resign themselves to living without me.
My parents, my classmates, my friends––they’d all give me up for
dead and, little by little, they would forget about me. After the funeral, they
would all go back to their day-to-day activities. Not me. I’d opted out. I would
be free to exist without the others knowing. It made me feel light and
powerful. It was the elation of the Invisible Man.

The happiness
of those escapes under my parents’ bed, of that excursion into the underwater
cave––it’s the same feeling I have now, lost in the Etruscan tomb.
I’m not afraid. On the contrary, I feel calm, at peace with myself.

I sit down on
the tunnel floor and think of Gloria. I wonder if the last memory I’ll have of
her will be of her teeth sinking into my lip, and the image of her seen through
the dust, walking away without looking back.

I shiver. A
breath of air brushes against the hairs on my arm. I stand up and resume
walking, following the direction of the draft. After about twenty steps, I see
a pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel. I keep on, and suddenly I come out
into the open, in the middle of the woods. I don’t know where I am, although I
do realize that the entrance Ettore showed me isn’t the only way into the cave.
I squint in the bright light, experiencing the same feeling I used to get when
I came up to the surface after a dive. A sense of disorientation, as if the
reality of the world above were too stark and intense, so much so that I would
feel a pang of nostalgia for the darkness below that I had only just abandoned.

It only lasts
a moment. Then I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with clean air, and set
off down the slope through the woods.