Things aren’t going as they should. Emma arrived right on time, as did Nadia. I’d never seen her apart from once, from far away, back when I was still jealous. I’d thought she was gorgeous, and it had made me suffer. Now, with a certain satisfaction, I saw that she was overweight, and that she’d aged badly, even though she surely has fewer ailments than I do. I pretended not to notice that she was quite disgruntled and intimidated. It’s natural: I’m the center of attention, the president treated me like a monument that deserves a laurel crown, and I’ve influenced the lives of countless people, her husband’s above all; she’s a retired high school teacher, she lived pent up, begrudgingly, in her own dejection and, above all, was never able to govern the man she loved, not even a little bit.
—Pietro—she said—sent me away so that he could practice his thank you speech in peace.
It’s old age—I replied—I’ve never seen Pietro at a loss for words.
Mother and, above all, daughter did not appreciate that display of familiarity, and maybe I didn’t appreciate it myself, either. We always end up showing a bit of the worst of us, buried deep down.
An hour has gone by, and Pietro hasn’t turned up. The two women, now one, now the other, have started calling him at brief intervals, but he hasn’t picked up once. Nadia said: I hope he hasn’t decided not to come at the last minute. He hates this government; he watches the politicians on TV and says: I might have taught this riffraff. I couldn’t hold back a chuckle, and said, if he picks up, I’ll talk to him. There was a flicker of anger in her eyes, and she murmured, as if speaking to herself: I’ll go home and drag him here by force, and then she headed toward the exit, tailed by a few people who were asking: has the professore arrived? Before following her mother, Emma, who had turned extremely pale, told me: you and Papà should have worked out your problems beforehand. Again, I felt like laughing—on certain occasions all I do is laugh, it’s a laughter of intolerance that seeps into my words, even when there’s nothing to laugh at—and I replied: we resolved all that there was to resolve long before you were born.
Now I’m here, seated in the front row, next to the frowning president. It’s obvious that Pietro isn’t turning up, and that I’ll never see him again. What a pity. I finally knew what I’d say, and in this sickly-hued hall, in the presence of my former teacher, I’d have gladly spoken. I was, and am, far more dangerous than he.