When the Night (17 page)

You’re an idiot, you’re crazy. You just told the police to call his brother. They’ll call Manfred, and he’s probably in bed with a woman or somewhere else. When he returns tomorrow, I won’t be able to look him in the face. He’ll think I missed him, that I was worried about him. As soon as he sees me he’ll start laughing. The whole town will laugh: Bianca, his brothers, his father.

I toss and turn in bed as I talk to myself. Then, in the middle of the night, I hear an ambulance siren. I get up, go to the kitchen, and open the window. The siren wails in the distance; I can hear the hum of a helicopter in the mountains. It barely occurs to me that it might be for him. In the dark sky the helicopter circles above the gondola station. The town begins to awaken and lights come on in the windows. The telephone rings.

“They found him at the bottom of a crevasse. They’re taking him to the hospital.”

I tell myself: you saved him. But I don’t believe it.

This morning, Bianca left the kids with me and went to the hospital with Albert. She says they will have to put a metal plate on his spine, at chest height.

How will he work with a metal plate on his spine? Better not to think about it. Maybe his wife will come and take care of him.

I feel a strange calm. Marco runs in the park, followed by Gabriel. He looks bigger; soon he’ll be a boy like those two. Mario will find him changed; will he see something new in me as well?

In a week I’ll be at the beach, and I’ll forget Manfred. I could have invited him into my bed, just once, before Mario and Manfred’s wife arrived. Who would have known? What would it have changed? For the others, nothing. For us it would have been something different, something crazy. We’re already crazy. Why am I thinking about this while he’s in the operating room and they’re putting a metal plate on his spine? I should be hoping that the operation goes well and that his wife will take him back.

THIS IS ALL I want: to spend a single night with him. Even if he’s brutal, rushed, or who knows what else, I want to try. Then everything can begin again: Mario, Marco, my sisters, the sea. He can go back to his wife, and everybody will be happy. Once, just once, I want to feel those hands—the hands that picked up Marco, put him in the backpack—pulling down my trousers, undoing my bra. I want to feel goose bumps where he touches me, and to kiss him.

Afterward I’ll dance slowly in front of you, naked, in silence. You can whisper in my ear, even terrible things, tell me what you think, everything. And I won’t be tender. We’ll
tell each other the truth. Finally, someone to whom we can tell the truth.

I want to hear about your mother, Manfred, or if you prefer, I can tell you a story. The American arrives one day; he’s handsome, different, and talks more than your father does. Before his arrival, she didn’t know how much she hated you. Don’t get angry, wait, be calm. She loved you, but at the end of the day, when she put you to bed and the sun set, and she had finished everything, she would undress, and your father would look at her. “Are you happy?”

And then she would hate you. Happiness, despair, it means nothing, Manfred. You kicked me when I was sitting behind the door, to make me get up. That’s how it is when you have a child; life kicks you in the gut. You try to shield yourself, you think you can avoid it. But if you know that’s how it is, you just take it, you put on a brave face, you love and you hate, because that’s what you have to do. You just have to know. Now I know, because I met you.

We make love again. We call it that, but between us, it’s not love, it’s something else.

MY EYELIDS ARE heavy. I open my eyes, then close them again. There is a tube in my mouth. I can’t move my head, so I move my eyes instead. There is a blurry face nearby, something near my ear. A metallic voice speaks slowly, clearly pronouncing each syllable.

“How do you feel? It’s me, Luna. Your father is here, and your brothers, and the kids. Soon you’ll be back home. Stay
calm. You fell, and the woman living in the apartment upstairs called the police. They found you and operated on you. Everything will be all right. We’re here.”

The blurry face moves away.

I think about the words she said, one by one.

Luna, the kids; I’ve fallen; I’ve been operated on. The woman upstairs called the police.

Marina. Of course. Falling, rocks, pain. I feel nothing. My thoughts begin to come back to me. The distant rage, like the thunder after an avalanche.

Marina called the police. Where is she? No, she’s not here. She’s at home with the baby. Her husband is coming to get her. She saved herself from me, she raised the alarm, she saved me.

Marina.

I articulate her name. She’s clever; now she’ll take advantage of what’s happened and leave all this behind. I have to be thankful. Just wait till I’m better, I won’t give up; she’ll tell the truth. I have the proof on the tablecloth. Where did I put it? In my trouser pocket. It won’t end here. She’s much cleverer than Luna; she shoved the story of my mother in my face.

Luna never mentioned her; she was too afraid of my reaction. She would tell the kids that Grandma lived far away and that one day they would go see her. Clara told me.

Simon and Clara are here; it must be serious.

“Everything will be all right.”

That’s what they always say. I should consider this: I was operated on, maybe I’ll die, or I won’t be able to move, or I’ll be a vegetable. And her? She’ll get away with it and go off with her husband. Maybe I’m already a vegetable and I don’t even know
it. Someone who is about to die and can only think about how to make trouble for that woman has a few screws loose.

I think about her husband loading up the car, kissing her. “How have you been? And the baby?”

She pretends to be an angel, a sweet little mamma. I can’t stand the idea, even if I’m half dead. Manfred, you’re cooked, full of pills, and not making any sense. Once you’re dead, what do you care? No, I want to see her cry, plead, apologize, throw herself on the floor, kiss my hands, beg me. Maybe I’m already dead, these are the thoughts of a dead man. Who says dead men are at peace?

On the contrary, they can finally give free rein to their rage, say everything, curse whomever they please.

I’ll make you come here, Marina.

Climb up on the bed, come closer or I can’t see you. I’m shortsighted, as you know. Look at me now. You feel sorry for me, don’t you? You can remove the tube from my mouth. Do I disgust you? That way I can tell you what you are. Come close, and I’ll run my fingers through your hair. You washed it, you put on makeup; whom were you trying to seduce? Everyone; the first man who comes along can take you. I don’t want you. I don’t care if you dance and try to impress me. I saw you on your knees behind the door; I kicked you because you wouldn’t get up and go to him. You want to leave but you can’t; stay here until I wake up, while I still want you, until you’ve done your time. Stay here, I’ll fuck you and you’ll see, I won’t die.

M
AY I COME in?”

“Yes, of course.”

She holds out her hand.

“I’m Luna, Manfred’s wife.”

“Marina.”

“The kids are sleeping. Yours too?”

I nod. She looks around at the apartment. She’s a beautiful woman, large, tall, with broad shoulders, large breasts, a wide face, and light almond-shaped eyes. She doesn’t look terribly young, around forty I would say, like Manfred.

“I haven’t been in here for years. I decorated this apartment. A carpenter used to live here, and it looked like a toolshed. Everything was old, and it was full of stuff; he never got rid of anything. My father-in-law bought the house, both apartments, and when we got married he gave them to us.”

“It’s comfortable, we’ve been happy here. Would you like to sit in the kitchen? I was having a tisane; would you like one? Or would you prefer a glass of wine?”

“A tisane would be lovely, thank you.”

She sits down at the table and looks around with a proprietary air, as if checking to see whether everything is as she left it. Luckily I’ve done the dishes. I take a cup and pour the tea. It’s strange, serving this woman in her own house.

“I wanted to thank you for making the call.”

I sit across from her. She has strong, rough hands. Her face looks tired, like Bianca’s. Heavy work and cold air, and they don’t do much to protect their skin.

“I don’t know how I got up the nerve to call. He could have been out somewhere.”

She smiles stiffly. “Manfred hardly ever goes out. At least that’s how it was when we were together. He goes to bed early.”

“At one in the morning I looked out and the car still wasn’t there.”

She stares at me. There is something she wants to know. I blush and look down, like an idiot.

“Do you usually go to bed late?”

“No, not usually.” Marina, be careful, don’t say anything stupid. “But ever since the accident, and our time up at the lodge, the baby has been sleeping more soundly and I’ve been going to bed later.”

“The accident?”

What does that have to do with anything? Why did I bring it up?

“He fell off the table.”

She listens, staring at me all the while.

“Your husband … Manfred … drove us to the hospital.”

There you go, you’ve told her everything, as if you needed to justify yourself.

She smiles, but there is still something hard about her. I smile too, as I used to do in school, hoping she’ll like me. After all, she’s a teacher.

“Are you from around here? A teacher?”

“Yes, I teach in the city. Did Manfred tell you?”

She’s diffident.

“No, Bianca told me.”

That’s better: short answers. Don’t embellish. Do as she does. She drinks her tea. Now she has a vague look on her face. I don’t want to ask her how he is; Bianca already told me.

“The rehabilitation will take a long time, but he’ll be all right, though not like before. He’ll need help; he’ll have to live with someone.”

Silence. Tears stream down his wife’s face. She cries openly, without moving. Maybe he is in trouble.

My voice trembles. “Please don’t cry … Bianca told me that he’ll be able to walk, and do almost everything he does now.”

She wipes her tears away with her hand. What drama this kitchen has seen!

Dishes decorated with little trees; cups decorated with squirrels, all chosen by her; edelweiss on the potholders, embroidered place mats, doilies, curtains, a perfect setting for a tragedy. I’d like to tell her that we should destroy everything and begin again.

She speaks slowly. Her strength, the accumulated effort, everything disappears. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage.”

I think she means the effort of coming back, taking care of him.

“He could go live with one of his brothers. You have your life, and the accident is a separate matter, isn’t it?”

Perhaps it’s better if they don’t get back together. I prefer to think of him alone than with her.

“No other man moves me the way he does.”

I’d like to go back to the way we were before the tears. She is a strong woman; why has she decided to confide in me? I don’t want to hear about the two of them.

“I would have stayed with him. He’s a difficult man; when he is convinced of something there is no way to make him change his mind.”

“I’ve noticed.”

She looks up at me, but it’s not me she’s interested in; she wants to empty herself in front of this woman she doesn’t know, who saved her ex-husband’s life.

“I don’t care about that, about his difficult personality, or the kids who don’t want to be with him. He is their father, and they must come to terms with him. In our house, they have a picture of him in their room. The boy, the one who didn’t get along with him, put it there. Clara talks about him less. But Simon is obsessed with his father.”

She shakes her head and looks at me. “I didn’t leave because of them, because of the violent scenes, and I wouldn’t go back to him just because of the children.”

I interrupt her; I don’t want to create an intimacy with this woman. “I barely know Manfred … he seems like a difficult man. I understand that he must be hard to live with.”

“Is there a man who is not difficult to live with?”

I don’t know what to say, or where this conversation is heading. “It all depends. Everything was easy with my husband until the baby was born; then things became more complicated. Maybe it was my fault, who knows.”

She sighs. “The first few years, we were happy, even after Simon was born. But after Clara was born, he became touchy and impatient. Clara’s birth changed everything.”

“In what way?”

“Clara reminded me of my mother, even as a little girl. I spent days with her in my arms, and I felt more vulnerable.”

She plays with the spoon in the empty cup. “I wanted to be with him, but I couldn’t be as I had been before.”

She stops speaking and looks at me. “I don’t want to bore you.”

“Don’t worry, I like listening to you talk.”

I don’t know if this is really true, but I do feel sorry for her.

“I felt so alone downstairs just now, with the children asleep. I started to think about so many things. Everything looks so neglected, uncared for. He threw away every single object I had bought; every single one. It’s almost as if a woman had never lived there. I’ve been erased.”