I go to see Beatrice, who is writing in her diary, just like Silvia. She greets me with a smile and asks me to help her write. No one is allowed to read her diary, but she would give me permission, provided I write for her.
“If you help me write, I’ll let you read it,” she tells me, and it seems to me that I’m entering a room that contains all the secrets of the world.
It has a red cover, and the pages are white. White unlined pages. The worst thing that could happen to me. …
“Beatrice, I don’t know how to write on white pages. I’ll ruin everything.”
I say this while staring at the perfect order of Beatrice’s handwriting. The date is in the upper right-hand corner, and then her thoughts come together in a light, elegant, delicate handwriting. It resembles a white dress on a windy day in spring. I read the paragraph that she’s writing: “Dear God … ” What does she mean, ‘Dear God’?! Yes: ‘Dear God … ’ Beatrice is writing a letter to God. Her whole diary is composed of brief letters to God in which she recounts her days and confides in Him her fears, joys, sadness, hopes. I reread the last part of the letter of that day out loud, because she asks me to, in order to pick up from where she has left off.
“ … Today I am really tired. It takes a lot out of me to write to you. And yet, I have so many things to say, but I console myself with the fact that you already know everything. Nonetheless, I like to talk to you about these things, as it helps me to understand them better. I wonder if in heaven I will have my red hair again … if you have made my hair red because you like it that way, full of life. Then maybe I will get it all back.”
While I am reading, my voice is about to crack, but I manage to hold it back.
“Now, you continue writing. Today, writing has truly been wearing me out; my hand was hurting.
“Fortunately, you have sent me Leo, one of your guardian angels … ”
I’ve never thought of myself as a guardian, let alone an angel, but I don’t dislike the idea. Leo, a guardian angel. It sounds good. Meanwhile, Beatrice has stopped to think. Her green eyes stare off into some forgotten place from which they are about to emerge any minute now with an ancient treasure. I interrupt that look, “Are you happy, Beatrice?”
She keeps staring off into space, and after a pause she says, “Yes, I am.”
When I lift my eyes from her diary, she has drifted off to sleep. I caress her, and it feels to me like I am caressing her weakness. She doesn’t feel me. She is sleeping. I stay there looking at her for half an hour without saying anything. Looking at her, I see beyond, I perceive something that frightens me because I am not able to give it a name. I reread what we have written. This time I have rendered someone’s soul visible. The soul of Beatrice, with my crooked, slanted handwriting … I’ve written every line downhill. I only realize that now. I don’t know how to write on a white page, a blank page. It seems like all the words are tumbling down a cliff until they shatter. …
Then her mother enters and I leave. Her mother kisses my forehead and I, not knowing what to do, hug her. By the way she thanks me, I understand that I have done the right thing. Since I have been trying to live for Beatrice, I have come up with a whole lot of right things to do. This, too, is love, I believe, because afterward I am happy: the secret to happiness is a heart full of love. Today I am taking Terminator out to pee. I might have to do it for the rest of my life. Beatrice can’t, but I can. This too is life.
If Beatrice is writing to Him, then surely God exists.