Paola looked at me. «What’s the fastest you think a car can go?»
«Oh,» I said, «up to eighty kilometers per hour…» Apparently they go quite a bit faster now. My ideas on the subject seemed to come from the period when I got my license.
I was astonished that, as we made our way across Largo Cairoli, every few steps we passed a Negro who wanted to sell me a lighter. Paola brought me for a bike ride in the park (I have no trouble riding a bike), and I was astonished again to see a group of Negroes playing drums around a pond. «Where are we,» I said, «New York? Since when have there been so many Negroes in Milan?»
«For some time now,» Paola replied. «But we don’t say Negroes anymore, we say blacks.»
«What difference does it make? They sell lighters, they come here to play their drums because they probably don’t have a lira to go to a café, or maybe they’re not wanted there. It looks to me as if these blacks are as badly off as the Negroes.»
«Still, that’s what one says now. You did, too.»
Paola observed that when I try to speak English I make mistakes, but I do not when I speak German or French. «That doesn’t surprise me,» she said. «You must have absorbed French as a child, and it’s still in your tongue the way bicycles are still in your legs. You learned German from textbooks in college, and you remember everything from books. But English, on the other hand, you learned during your travels, later. It belongs to your personal experiences of the past thirty years, and only bits of it have stuck to your tongue.
I still feel a little weak. I can focus on something for half an hour, an hour at the most; then I go lie down for a while. Paola takes me to the pharmacist every day to have my blood pressure checked. And I have to pay attention to my diet, avoid salt.
I have begun watching television; it is the thing that tires me least. I see unfamiliar gentlemen who are called president and prime minister. I see the king of Spain (was it not Franco?) and ex-terrorists (terrorists?) who have repented. I do not always understand what they are talking about, but I learn a great deal. I remember Aldo Moro, the parallel convergences, but who killed him? Or was he in the plane that crashed into the Banca dell’Agricoltura in Ustica?
I see some singers with rings through their earlobes. And they are male. I like the TV series about family tragedies in Texas, the old films of John Wayne. Action movies upset me, because with one blast of their tommy guns they blow up rooms, they make cars flip over and explode, a guy in an undershirt throws a punch and another guy smashes through a plate-glass window and plummets into the sea-all of it, the room, the car, the window, in a few seconds. Too fast, my head spins. And why so much noise?
The other night Paola took me to a restaurant. «Don’t worry, they know you. Just ask for the usual.» Much ado: How are you Dottore Bodoni, we haven’t seen you for a long time, what will we be having this evening? The usual. There’s a man who knows what he likes, the owner crooned. Spaghetti with clam sauce, grilled seafood plate, Sauvignon Blanc, then an apple tart.
Paola had to intervene to prevent me from asking for seconds on the fish. «Why not, if I like it?» I asked. «I think we can afford it, it doesn’t cost a fortune.» Paola looked at me abstractedly for a few seconds, then took my hand and said: «Listen, Yambo, you’ve retained all your automatisms, and you have no problems using a knife and fork or filling a glass. But there’s something we acquire through personal experience, gradually, as we become adults. A child wants to eat everything that tastes good, even if it will give him a stomachache later.
His mother explains over time that he must control his impulses, just as he must when he needs to pee. And so the child, who if it were left up to him would continue to poop in his diapers and to eat enough Nutella to land him in the hospital, learns to recognize the moment when, even if he doesn’t feel full, he should stop eating. As we become adults, we learn to stop, for example, after the second or third glass of wine, because we remember that when we drank a whole bottle we didn’t sleep well. What you have to do, then, is reestablish a proper relationship with food. If you give it some thought, you’ll figure it out in a few days. In short, no seconds.»
«And a calvados, I presume,» said the owner as he brought the tart. I waited for a nod from Paola, then replied, «Calva sans dire.» I could tell he was familiar with my wordplay, because he repeated, «Calva sans dire.» Paola asked me what calvados called to mind, and I replied that it was good, but that was all I knew.
«And yet you got drunk on it during that Normandy trip… Don’t worry, it takes time. In any case, the usual is a good phrase, and there are lots of places around here where you can go in and say the usual, and that should help you feel comfortable.»
«It’s clear by now that you know how to deal with traffic lights,» Paola said, «and you’ve learned how fast cars go. You should try taking a walk by yourself, around the Castello and then into Largo Cairoli. There’s a gelateria on the corner; you love gelato and they practically live off you. Try asking for the usual.»
I did not even have to say it-the man behind the counter immediately filled a cone with stracciatella: Here’s your usual, Dottore. If stracciatella was my favorite, I can see why: it is excellent. Discovering stracciatella at sixty is quite pleasant. What was that joke Gianni told me about Alzheimer’s? The great thing about it is that you’re always getting to meet new people.
New people. I had just finished the gelato, throwing away the last part of the cone without eating it-why? Paola later explained that it was an old habit; my mother had taught me as a child that you shouldn’t eat the tip because that’s where the vendor, back in the days when they sold gelato from carts, held it with his dirty fingers-when I saw a woman approaching. She was elegant, around forty or so, with a slightly brazen demeanor. The Lady with an Ermine came to mind. She was already smiling at me from a distance, and I got a nice smile ready too, since Paola had told me my smile was irresistible.
She came up to me and took hold of both my arms: «Yambo, what a surprise!» But she must have noticed something vague in my expression; the smile was not enough. «Yambo, don’t you recognize me? Do I look that much older? Vanna, Vanna…»
«Vanna! You’re more beautiful than ever. It’s only that I’ve just been to the eye doctor, and he put something in my eyes to dilate my pupils. My vision will be blurry for a few hours. How are you, Lady with an Ermine?» I must have said that to her before, because I had the impression that she got a little misty-eyed.
«Yambo, Yambo,» she whispered, caressing my face. I could smell her perfume. «Yambo, we lost touch. I always wanted to see you again, to tell you that it might have been brief-perhaps that was my fault- but I’ll always have the fondest memories. It was… lovely.»
«It was beautiful,» I said, with some feeling, with the air of a man recalling his garden of delights. Superb acting. She kissed me on the cheek, whispered that her number had not changed, and left. Vanna. Apparently a temptation I had been unable to resist. What scoundrels men are! With De Sica. But goddamn, what good is it to have had an affair if later you cannot even-I am not talking about telling your friends, but should you not at least be able to savor it now and then, as you lie snug beneath your covers on a stormy night?
Since the first night, as we lay beneath the covers, Paola had lulled me to sleep by stroking my hair. I liked feeling her beside me. Was that desire? Eventually I overcame my embarrassment and asked her if we still made love. «In moderation, mostly out of habit,» she said. «Do you feel the urge?»
«I don’t know. As you know, I still don’t have many urges. But I wonder…»
«Don’t wonder, try to get some sleep. You’re still weak. And besides, I
certainly don’t want you making love with a woman you’ve just met.»
«Affair on the Orient Express.»
«Yikes, this isn’t a Dekobra novel.»
- Someone May Pluck Your Flower
I know how to get around outside, have even learned how to act when people greet me: you gauge your smile, your gestures of surprise, your delight or courtesy by observing the other person’s smiles, gestures, and courtesies. I tried it out on neighbors, in the elevator. Which proves that social life is mere fiction, I said to Carla when she congratulated me. She said
