It’s so hard to have truly clear communication when you’re in a couple. I loved Nadia, I wanted to help her, but I didn’t love her to the point of forcing her to tell me what had happened at the university, what had distanced her forever from algebraic surfaces. My questions had always been meek, because I sensed that if she were to uncork her rage and dismay and disgust and who knows what else that, with admirable self-control, she’d shoved into some recess of her brain, we’d be at it for a while. It would have lasted from day into night and into the day after that: quarrels, fights, migraines, tears, soul searching, childhood memories, adolescence, adult frailties, advice to carry on, in short, an ongoing wave that would have crashed over me. I’d no longer be able to honor the thousands of commitments I’d taken on: teaching, public talks, travels, reflections, my studies, the obligatory hours with Emma, the walks with the stroller but also without, given that our daughter now walked on her own, and also ran, and no longer babbled but spoke in sentences.
Clearing the air when you’re in a couple, well, whatever that means. Perhaps it’s necessary, but perhaps it’s also a dangerous indulgence. Doing so might have upset both Nadia and me a great deal, and I was in a phase of enjoying life like never before, especially when I hopped on a train and arrived in a city I’d never been in and talked to people I’d never meet again. Meanwhile, the press’s publicity department had started to ramp up its efforts; they’d moved on to a prudent handling of the invitations and now aimed at occasions that would raise my profile. At times Itrò would accompany me, and he and I would speak to a tightly packed, discerning audience, given that his authority radiated automatically toward me and my book, and the evening would conclude with dinner with a group of stuffy and influential people. On other occasions, Tilde would go with me, and I’d have to give it my all—she communicated in brief sentences, fussing with her hands, her fingers stacked with rings—the thin wedding band and a few others with precious stones—and after five minutes she finished and it would be my turn to talk. On those trips, I was struck by the amount of luggage she carried: elegant travel clothes, elegant presentation clothes, elegant clothes for going out to dinner with the people who’d organized the event. The dinners were as boring as the ones with Itrò’s distinguished friends, but Tilde insisted on good wine, and we made it a rule to order different dishes so that we could trade halfway through, and we spoke often just the two of us, ignoring our hosts and continuing to talk even after they’d peeled off. What we said to one another until late at night is useless for me to summarize here; they were complicated conversations but there was also some random chitchat. The point being that we laughed a lot, for no particular reason, and that I’d let her taste the calamari, extending my fork to her, and she’d give me a taste of her soup, directing the spoon toward me as if I were an invalid.
Since the age of seventeen, I knew that the exchange of those words, foods, and bits of spittle paved the way for exchanges of another variety, but in that particular case I was certain: ours was a sibling-like bond, and if perhaps there was some incestuous element, it would never go beyond an educated, metaphorical exercise.
Except that one morning, in a hotel in Florence, before heading back by car to Rome, at the end of a breakfast that was already in and of itself excessive, I was about to dig into yet another generous slice of a buttery chocolate concoction that I’d snatched from the buffet table.
—Should we split it? I asked Tilde.
—No way, I’m about to burst.
—Me too. But it’s a pity. I’ll just have a bite.
The fork was sullied by an excellent cheese, and the spoon had traces of fig jam. Without thinking, I stuck my thumb, pointer, and middle finger into the slice of cake, pried off big chunk, and raised it toward my mouth. There was just a bit of it left between my fingers. Delicious, I said, and was about to eat that, too, when Tilde, laughing, grabbed my wrist and said: I’ve changed my mind, give me a bite. And I extended my arm, she leaned forward, and her mouth welcomed not only the piece of cake but my fingers as well, which she squeezed between her lips for a fraction of a second, grazing them with her tongue. I got my lipstick on you, she said after that, and I looked at my fingers and told her she hadn’t.
In the past, before meeting Nadia and marrying her, an encounter like that, early in the morning, would have set flame to the fantasy, and I’d have schemed to get Tilde up to my room straightaway, into the bed where I’d just woken. Whereas now I noticed that her eyes were red from too little sleep, and that her complexion was a bit sallow, her nose shiny with perspiration, and it occurred to me that she was making an effort—at ten minutes to eight, before getting into the car to drive back down to Rome—simply to be pleasant company. The night before, we’d stayed up late, she’d told me that she was worried about her daughters, who were left to their own devices, that she and her husband both worked too much and spent too little time together, that it was a pity one’s energy dwindled, because it was really when you started to get closer to your forties that life turned clamorous, that it darted from one thing to the next, that it started to covet all that could be coveted. But she—mostly she, her husband less—was too tired to covet anything, tired in her thoughts, and at times—at this point her eyes suddenly gleamed with tears—she wished she could sleep for a whole year. Fat chance she’s in the mood for sex, I thought. All I need now is to make the wrong move and ruin her opinion of me. And so each of us returned to our separate rooms, and ten minutes after that we met downstairs with our suitcases, and left. As she drove toward Rome, she made a point, more than once, of talking about my candor. I want to be your friend, she said. You’re subversive but candid, you’re smart but transparent. Oh, how those definitions thrilled me; I’d always wanted people to describe me in those terms. I returned home burnt out from the trip, but happy.
—Maybe—Nadia said—I can’t remember if it was that same night or the next one—you need to spend a little more time dealing with Emma.
—Sure.
—Enough, then, with all this coming and going.
—I’m in demand, the book’s doing really well.
—But you don’t always have to say yes. Are you a pedagogue? Are you a sociologist who’s made a formal investigation of some kind? Have you written a history of Italian schools? No. You’re the author of a single, short essay that you yourself—I’ll remind you—called a trifle, ever since it was first published in a little magazine, and you even told me to not waste my time reading it. So why are you pouring so much time and energy into this foolish endeavor, and hardly any to our daughter?
At this point I must pause for a moment to draw attention to the fact that, in that moment, I totally gave in to the truth of a cliché. I thought: we fall in love with people who seem real, but don’t really exist. We invent them. I don’t know this self-assured woman, who speaks to me in such clipped sentences, this fearless, scathing woman. She’s not Nadia. There’s the person we love and then there’s the real person, but as long as we love the person, we never see the real person underneath. We inevitably waste so much time, I said to myself, loving people. These past few years, I happily invented a person. I’ve taken great pleasure entering into the body of a pale watercolor of my own making, and in the other room, I have a real daughter that my own invention gave birth to. Thinking along those lines, I felt tragically solemn, in keeping with my ideas of a man who views life with clarity. Those words of Nadia’s had been so incredibly harsh. I felt my blood surge, and everything inside me started to roil like an earthquake. The words rattled in my head, first in whispers, then shouting, and they assumed a speed that shredded them, that reduced them to separate syllables, then to an animal that snarls: Nadia, I’m a cultured man, I read, I study, I don’t need a university title to express ideas that—and listen up here—only I can call a trifle with intentional modesty, you, no, you have to study them the way you studied—obtusely, in vain—your algebraic surfaces; quite to the contrary, you have to study them better, and above all, you need to talk about them with respect, without ever daring to tell me when and how I should spend my time, where and when I should be with my daughter, when and how I need to feed her and give her the pacifier and her grated apple along with the banana, because I’m not one to be bossed around by anyone, especially someone who talks to her daughter sounding like a complete idiot: Emma is a normal kid, and it’s useless and damaging that, instead of saying, Emma, would you like a drink, you ask her, in that chirpy voice, what does this little girl want from mommy, does she want a drinky-winky? Because, and I’ll say this just once, if you keep talking like that, I’ll kick you out of my life, just like they kicked you out of the math department, got that?
But while that monologue was shrieking inside my head, something evidently must have been shrieking outside, too—shards, fragments, who knows what—I hoped little or nothing—because, as usual, Nadia started to cry, mumbling: let go of my arm, you’re hurting me. And I was scared, I couldn’t bear the idea of hurting anyone. I apologized, dried her tears with kisses, called her Nigritella Rubra. I had to resort to every jest in my repertoire. She withdrew, sent me away, then surrendered to my embraces as she sobbed. She was worn out, depressed. Before she fell asleep, she asked quietly:
—Have you gotten back in touch with your ex?
In touch? Ex?
—Sleep, I whispered.
She sank into sleep, then shuddered awake, turning her shoulders to me and muttering:
—I put the letter on your desk.
So Teresa had written back. I waited for Nadia to fall asleep, I got up, praying the bed wouldn’t creak, and I went to my study. So, she’d finally deigned to get in touch. But on the sheet of paper, there were only a few letters of the alphabet, and they ended with a question mark: You’re scared, huh?