When the Night (26 page)

“Wouldn’t you like to know how to make good coffee?”

“No.”

I stir it, hoping that the sugar at the bottom will give it some taste. I say, “A little dirt, the acrid tang of fried food, and a nice strong coffee. Just imagine what life could be!”

He goes on cleaning the machine.

“You know, it doesn’t spout shit, only steam.”

He turns around, red in the face, with angry eyes. He looks almost handsome; I’d like to take a picture and give it to his wife.

“Have you ever thought of going away, Manfred, and leaving us alone?”

I HELP HER with her leotard as she pulls tights over her skinny legs. I twist her hair and try to smooth it down with bobby pins, but the net keeps slipping through my fingers. Her hair is long, and I’m rushing, anxious.

“Mamma!”

“There’s time. They haven’t called you yet.”

There are lots of mothers and daughters around us. Her hair must stay in place when she jumps. I see the other mothers’ hands, fumbling like mine.

“Would you lend me some hairspray?”

We nurture their bodies, their spirits. They’re strong, soft, light. They dance without boys, a kind of rehearsal. A mother near me says to her daughter, “Don’t think too much. Just treat it like a lesson. Don’t look at the audience.”

I turn Silvia around and try to plaster down her rebellious curls. She stares at me with her dark eyes; she’s scared. I bend down and whisper a secret into her ear; no one else must hear it: “Dance for him.”

She laughs—she understands. She jumps in order to reach him, and thinks of nothing else. The boy sitting in the third row will never know, but it doesn’t matter.

I kiss her. She runs off with the others. The mothers leave the dressing room, pushing to get a seat. I sit on a bench. There are girls’ clothes everywhere: shoes, stockings, purses. All the preparations and expectations lead to this one moment that you will never forget.

I walk toward my seat and I feel him near me. It’s always like that, a sudden pang, but it happens less often now. Sometimes a week will go by, once a whole month. I feel like I am walking toward him, not to the office or back home, but to the station to take a train. I bring my darkness and my icy cold; he can see them. He is the only one I haven’t lied to.

The cold of the hotel room. One night together. We alone are warm; we never let go, even for an instant. What I’m doing
here is also for you, even if you don’t know it. Even if you’ve forgotten, even if you never come for me, if it was all a fantasy.

In the darkened theater, I go to my seat next to Mario. I’ll stay there as long as I can. But even if I die without seeing you again, Manfred, I won’t go to you; you must come to me.

The girls take their places onstage, trembling, arms extended. Mine is in the middle, waiting for the music to begin.

Do you really not feel me standing here, with my arms open wide? I’ve been waiting two years and thirteen days.

I LEAVE THE bar without answering.

Bastard, if he only knew how often I’ve dreamed of going away and leaving everyone alone.

I walk past the cemetery where my father is buried. The rage doesn’t melt, like the snow on the tombstones. I imagine them together, my mother and my father, now that they’re both dead and buried, one here, the other in America. I see them in front of the lodge, butting horns like two goats. It would have been better to have it out when they were alive.

I can’t imagine staying here until the day they lay me down next to him. But if I go to her, what will I find?