I phoned Ivana Stella. Her daughter told me she’d gone to a prison with the other volunteers. I asked her to do me the favor of returning my call.
I stretched out on the couch to review my little speech for the bleeding heart of the prisons. After a short while, I dozed off. I dreamt of Clara. We were talking to Enrico’s teacher. He was saying the boy was the best in the class, but he was so sick. The phone woke me up.
“I wanted to hear your voice. And see you.” I went on the offensive.
“Me too.”
“But maybe that isn’t true.”
“Why?” she asked, alarmed.
“Can I be frank and direct?”
“Please.”
“I feel attracted to you, but I don’t want to make you uneasy. You’re a very beautiful woman, refined, intelligent, sensitive. But I’m just Signor Heels in a Jiffy. Once I was successful, but then tragedy—”
“Silvano, I too feel a strong attraction towards you, and what you do doesn’t matter to me because you’re a special man.”
“You’re special too. When can I see you again?”
“You could come over now, but some friends of Vera’s are here. Is lunch tomorrow O.K.?”
An invitation to lunch, so the daughter won’t be there. And at lunch she can drink a little more because Vera mustn’t be real happy that mamma hits the bottle. I was put off by Ivana Stella’s affected ways, the “you’re a special man” crap. I was special, but not in the sense she imagined. I was finally exercising my right to justice. The judges had also invested me with this power by treating my statement on the theme of forgiveness as a decisive factor. But I didn’t forgive anybody. Not Beggiato, Siviero, Daniela, Ivana Stella. Certainly not her. No “volunteer” had shown up to help me when I was groping blindly, engulfed by the darkness. Much less Signora Tessitore who came to the aid of poor inmates. And now she found me special.
Life is weird. For fifteen years I waited for something to happen, something that might give meaning to my pain, and now I was acting completely within my rights. And God was definitely not pulling the strings. God doesn’t exist, I’m sure of it. Beyond life there’s nothing but death’s dark abyss.
Late in the afternoon I was laying low near the cleaners. Shortly before closing Siviero headed downtown on foot. He went into a bar and started shooting pool with some other mugs of his ilk. That night he wasn’t going home for dinner. I retraced my steps, got into the car, and passed by Ivana Stella’s house, then Daniela’s. I finally went to a place that was deserted at that hour of the night. I walked for a long time between mounds of loose earth. The silence gave me a feeling of peacefulness. Only the howl smothered in my chest produced a muffled, broken noise like the planks on a storm-tossed ship.
The prospect of another meeting had gotten Ivana Stella all worked up. And she must’ve drunk at least two Negroni. When I slipped my tongue in her mouth, it felt like I was licking the bottom of the glass. She answered the kiss like a house on fire. I could’ve taken her to bed right then, but with a woman like her it would’ve been a mistake. Everything in its time. Now was the moment for words.
“Life is really extraordinary,” I said. “I would’ve never imagined that I could fall in love again.”
“I’ve thought about it ever since the first time you came over.”
“I would like to devote my life to your happiness.”
“Oh, Silvano, hug me again, please.”
For a good hour, we kept saying the kind of stupid stuff kids say to each another, trading kisses and caresses. Ivana Stella started to get bolder. She wanted to make love. It was then that I gently pried myself loose from her embrace.
“Not now, my love.”
“But why?”
“I want to be sure about your feelings. In a few days I’ll phone you again, and you can tell me if you truly want to continue seeing me.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I was right. You really are special.”
I pulled into a service area on the highway to eat a sandwich. Then I proceeded to the shopping mall just past the toll booth. I carefully chose the things I had to buy and stood in line at the cash register. I didn’t have enough money on me, so I paid with a debit card.
That night at home I received a phone call from Don Silvio, the prison chaplain.
“I wanted to inform you that Raffaello Beggiato will be released tomorrow morning,” he announced solemnly.
“I am pleased.”
“God will reward you for what you have done.”
I hung up, embarrassed by the man’s gullibility. He had dedicated his entire life to an illusion.
The next morning I waited for Siviero outside the usual bar. “He gets out today,” I told him. “I’ll phone every two hours to see if he’s contacted you. When you hear from him, tell him to keep his eyes peeled. Superintendent Valiani will have him tailed.”