As far back as I could remember I’d never liked myself, not as a child, not as an adult. But that afternoon I started to think, as I returned to Montesacro on the bus, that the conjunction of diverse circumstances—the breakup with Teresa, the painful aftermath at the end of a love affair that I’d survived by writing a brief, well-received essay, the marriage to Nadia, Emma’s birth, and now that book, along with the warm welcome of a person as highly regarded as Itrò and a woman as competent as Tilde—meant that I was taking a turn for the better. There was one thing, however, that I didn’t care for in that list. The bus was moving down the shadowy stretch of Via Nomentana beneath pellets of rain that were shearing the long leaves of the plane trees, blackened with smog, when I realized that among the positive events that had taken place in my life in recent years, I’d included the breakup with Teresa. In that moment it seemed mean of me. The worst of our relationship had by now turned to ashes that, observed from a distance, revealed a faint design on the surface, bearable on the whole. And since it had been a while that we no longer tormented each other, the time we’d spent enjoying one another felt marvelously rich and intense. As I was walking home from the bus stop, battling with the umbrella that the wind, with sudden gusts mixed with rain, kept shifting from a cupola into a cup—how easy it is for words to change the shape of things—I thought: who knows where she ended up, what she does, I must look her up, write to her, tell her the great news about the book, and about how things were changing for me.
But when I got home Teresa slipped from my mind. I found the apartment in disarray, Emma crying, Nadia on edge. I set myself at once to reassuring my wife, trying to make her laugh and to calm Emma at the same time, giving her the baby food she didn’t want from her mother, making little jokes and funny faces all the while. Finally, we had dinner, and I washed up the dishes while entertaining Emma, who drooled in her highchair. I wanted to put her to bed, even though she never wanted to go to sleep with me because I liked to see her happy and kept playing with her. After that I went to Nadia, who had begun, sullenly, to study. I told her about the afternoon at the publishers and that the book would go to press soon. I kissed her neck and whispered:
—Let’s go to bed, Nigritella.
—You go. I have work to do, and if you keep talking to me about your day, I’ll be up all night long.
—Can’t you work tomorrow morning and be in my arms for a while?
—If I keep procrastinating, I’ll never do any work.
I realized she was about to burst into tears and said quickly:
—I really have finished working on the book. From now on I’ll take care of everything.
—There you go again.
—You know I will. And I have to introduce you to Itrò, and also to Tilde Pacini. They’re wonderful people.
She swallowed her tears.
—Lovers?
—Of course not. He’s married with four kids. And Tilde’s married, too. Her husband’s a great guy, I knew him at university. They have two children, an eight-year-old and a twelve-year-old.
—Let’s have them over to dinner.
—Yes, I’d like to invite both Tilde and Itrò. He’d like to have you write a book along the same lines as mine but focused on the sciences.
I thought the idea would please her, but instead Nadia turned suddenly sullen again. This time, dry-eyed, she said:
—You know that I’ve been working for years on something that will determine my future at the university?
I nodded without replying. I left her to her work and went to bed.