19
That’s gross,” said Ilaria, and cringed with exaggerated disgust, as I went by with the rag to wash it in the bathroom. I said to myself that if I devoted myself immediately to the usual domestic activities I would be better off. Do the laundry. Separate the white clothes from the dark. Start the washing machine. I had only to quiet the view inside, the thoughts. They got mixed up, they crowded in on one another, shreds of words and images, buzzing frantically, like a swarm of wasps, they gave to my gestures a brute capacity to do harm. I washed the rag carefully, then soaped around the rings, the wedding ring and an aquamarine that had been my mother’s. Very slowly I managed to get them off, but it didn’t do me any good, my body remained obstructed, the knots in the veins didn’t loosen. Mechanically I placed the rings on the edge of the sink.
When I returned to the children’s room, I leaned absently over Gianni to feel his forehead with my lips. He groaned and said:
“My head feels terrible.”
“Get up,” I ordered, unsympathetically, and he, staring at me in wonder because of my scant attention to his complaints, struggled to get up. I stripped the bed with false calm, I remade it, I put the sheets and pillowcases in the dirty-laundry basket. Only then did I remember to say to him:
“Get in bed, I’ll bring the thermometer.”
Ilaria insisted:
“You have to slap him.”
When I began to search for the thermometer without satisfying her request, she punished me with a sudden pinch, observed me closely to see if it hurt.
I didn’t react, it didn’t matter to me, I felt nothing. She persisted, red in the face from effort and concentration. When I found the thermometer, I pushed her away with a slight shove of the elbow and went back to Gianni. I stuck the thermometer under his armpit.
“Tight,” I said, and indicated the clock on the wall. “Take it out in ten minutes.”
“You put it in wrong,” said Ilaria in a provocative tone.
I didn’t pay any attention to her, but Gianni checked and with a look of reproof showed me that I had put the side without the mercury under his armpit. Attention: attention alone could help me. I put it in correctly, Ilaria appeared satisfied, she said: I noticed it. I nodded yes, good, I made a mistake. Why — I thought — must I do a thousand things at once, for almost ten years you’ve been forcing me to live like this, and I’m not completely awake yet, I haven’t had my coffee, I haven’t made breakfast.
I wanted to put the coffee in the pot and get it on the stove, I wanted to warm milk for Ilaria, I wanted to start the washing machine. But suddenly I noticed Otto’s barking again, he hadn’t stopped and was scratching. I had removed those sounds from my ears in order to concentrate on the condition of my son, but now the dog seemed to be producing not sounds but electric shocks.
“I’m coming,” I cried.
The evening before — I realized — I hadn’t taken him out, I had forgotten, and the dog must have been yelping all night, now he was wild, he had his needs to take care of. And I did, too. I was a sack of living flesh, packed with waste, bladder bursting, stomach aching. I thought it without a shadow of self-pity, as a cold statement. The chaotic sounds in my head struck decisive blows on the sack that I was: he vomited, I have a headache, where is the thermometer, bowwowwow, react.
“I’m taking the dog out,” I said loudly to myself.
I put the collar on Otto, I turned the key, I struggled to get it out of the lock. Only on the stairs did I realize that I was in my nightgown and slippers. I realized it as I passed Carrano’s door, I grimaced with a laugh of disgust, surely he was sleeping, recovering from the night’s exertions. What did he matter to me, he had seen me in my true self, my body of a nearly forty-year-old, we were very intimate. As for the other neighbors, they had been on vacation for a while already or had left Friday afternoon for a weekend in the mountains, at the sea. The three of us, too, would have been settled at least a month earlier at some seaside vacation place, as we were every year, if Mario hadn’t left. The lech. Empty building, August was like that. I felt like guffawing at every door, sticking out my tongue, thumbing my nose. I didn’t give a shit about them. Happy little families, good money from professions, comfort constructed by selling at a high price services that should be free. Like Mario, who allowed us to live well by selling his ideas, his intelligence, the persuasive tones of his voice when he taught. Ilaria called to me from the landing:
“I don’t want to stay with the vomit stink.”
When I didn’t answer, she went back inside, I heard the door slam furiously. But good Lord, if someone was pulling me from one side I couldn’t be pulled from the other, too, what’s here isn’t there. In fact, Otto, panting, was dragging me rapidly from one flight of stairs to the next, connecting them, while I tried to hold him back. I didn’t want to run, if I ran I would break, every step left behind disintegrated immediately afterward, even in memory, and the banister, the yellow wall rushed by me fluidly, cascading. I saw only the flights of stairs, with their clear segments, behind me was a gassy wake, I was a comet. Oh what a terrible day, too hot already at seven in the morning, not a car in sight except Carrano’s and mine. Maybe I was too tired to maintain the usual order of the world. I shouldn’t have gone out. What had I done? Had I put the coffeepot on the stove? Had I put in the coffee, filled it with water? Had I screwed it tight so that it wouldn’t explode? And the milk for the child? Were they actions that I had completed or had I only suggested to myself that I complete them? Open the refrigerator, get out the carton of milk, close the refrigerator, fill the pan, don’t leave the carton on the table, put it back in the fridge, light the gas, put the pot on the fire. Had I correctly carried out all those operations?
Otto pulled me along the path, through the tunnel with its obscene graffiti. The park was deserted, the river seemed of blue plastic, the hills on the other bank were of a diluted green, no noise of traffic, only the song of the birds could be heard. I had left the coffee on the stove, and the milk, it would all be burned. The milk, boiling up, would overflow the pot and put out the flame, gas would spread through the house. Still the obsession with gas. I hadn’t opened the windows. Or had I done it automatically, without thinking? Habitual acts, they are performed in the head even when you don’t perform them. Or you perform them in reality, even when the head out of habit has stopped taking account of them. I listed possibilities, distractedly. Better if I had locked myself in the bathroom, my stomach was bursting, I felt a painful pressure. The sun outlined the leaves of the trees minutely, even the needles of the pines, in a maniacal work of the light, I could count them one by one. No, I hadn’t put either the coffee or the milk on the stove. Now I was sure of it. Preserve that certainty. Good, Otto.