arrives before and
gets his hands on that gesture directed to her.
I quickly go to the counter and order my usual coffee, reversing the order of arrival and without looking at the entrance. After a few minutes I hear her coming. I recognize her voice by now and I also feel that, realising that I am already there (this is the first time since we ‘know’ each other, given that I always arrive when they have already started their breakfast), she stops for a few instants and then restarts approaching the table. I don’t have the courage to look at her face when she’ll find the flower and on the other side I don’t even want her to be certain that I’ve been the one who put it on her table. So I finish my coffee faster than the usual and going out I give her a look and she promptly looks right back, but this time hiding the doubt about that little flower that now she holds in her hand almost if she was waiting an additional step that I am not doing though. It all must stay this way and I walk away as fast as I can.
Chapter 4
Memories
A home night all for me is all I need. I return after a brief shopping and my home welcomes me with the warmth of the heating that is still turned on. I take off my coat and scarf, I take off my shoes that I remove while I am approaching the kitchen to put down the milk that I’ve just bought. Without even turning a light on, I reach the big bathroom and I turn on the hot water tap of the bath. There’s nothing else I would like to do in this moment except a good hot bath that gets out any spleen, any piece of tiredness left on me by this day. Before I enter the bath, I pour myself a glass of semi-sparkling wine, just the right amount of coldness, and I lay it on the sink while I take off my clothes before soaking in the foam. I tie my hair up, I pick up the glass, and I enter the bath now full and so hot that makes my skin turning red at the first impact. To be the perfect bath it only misses candlelight and background music, but this is fair enough for today. Closing my eyes with my head laid on the edge I start to think of a series of things conspiring in my mind. This year I would like to do so many things that at the end I’ll be barely up on anything. A trip abroad, join the gym, find the time to go to the library at least once a week… And go back to do jogging at Villa Borghese when you still overhear only the tiny steps of squirrels upon the gravel and the city seems an enchanted and surreal place, light years away from chaotic and busy streets. The kitchen clock rings the eight and so, a little reluctantly, I start to take the foam off my body opening the shower. The immediate cold water makes a shiver run over my back for then cuddling me again with the
hot water that comes out a little later. I would like to stay like this for hours. Wrapped up in the soft bathrobe, I finish the glass of wine and I start to think about what to cook for dinner. I quickly find some leftovers from last night’s dinner that I warm in the microwave and I eat in the living room while I’m watching a good movie in the dark of a room that is entirely for me.
When I’m home alone, I am not in the mood for cooking, so I sort it out with few simple things just for not going to bed on an empty stomach. I am so tired that I don’t even feel like getting lunch ready for the day after and so I promptly text my colleague to ask her to go out for lunch together tomorrow. From the outside I only overhear a car passing by every once in a while, the city is resting and recharging for the new day to come. An atmosphere so relaxed that when the phone emits a beep, I flinch. The message has been sent by Camilla who grabbed my proposal suggesting me to leave earlier in order to go shopping in the afternoon. With a quick ‘ok’ I settle the issue, now sunken in the couch with the blanket on my bare legs. A gunfight woke me up: it’s 2 a.m. I must have fallen asleep on the couch, and also pretty early since I don’t even remember the film I’ve chosen to watch.
Now on the TV there’s a cop movie, outside it’s pouring rain.
I turn off the TV and off to bed, but now I am awake and so I decide to listen to some music to help me fall asleep. The first song on my playlist is ‘Adagio’ by Lara Fabian. Every time I listen to that song, my heart skips a beat and I think back to my grandfather and to the strong bond I had with him. I’m an orphan since I was little and thus he took care of me, and so he did until a cancer took him away last year, leaving me with the house I’m actually living in and with a
big hole in my heart. It comes immediately to my mind his place in the mountains near Rome and the beautiful summer days spent together the meadows or taking care of his little orchard, or winter Sundays spent in front of the fire listening to his stories about war and ancient times. I own him most of my memories on my family, I remember so little about my mother and my father other than through his tales.
Therefore, I picture the dark room full of the objects collected through the years. The glass cabinet with the ceramics that belonged to my grandmother, the pictures of all my family on the hutch at the bottom of the room. The two of us used to sit on the old rocking chairs with the big red cushions and the soft carpet between us. The only light was coming from the burning fireplace, between the crackling of the wood and the warmth on the legs that was waning rising towards the face.
His voice will always be burnt in my memory, so powerful and so gravelly, telling for hours anecdotes and real stories in a hushed and velvety tone. I used to lose myself in his words, and I wandered in far and familiar places as if I was the one who had experienced those adventures that by now I knew by heart, but that I wanted to listen to as if it was the first time. I was often the one who requested this or that story, while other times we were led to them through the events that happened to us during the day, and that brought back past-life memories. I would like to remember him always this way, forgetting about the last months spent in the hospital where he went back to be as helpless as a child, but always strong and proud of his life. Even when he was there, he didn’t lose the wish to tell and to give me strength, until the day we both fell asleep in that cold room where he has been hospitalized for a really long time: the night before, he wanted to talk
to me, to tell me things that wanted to burn in my memory forever.
Despite the fatigue of a man who was old by then, we spent the whole night chatting until late. This time I told a lot about me too, and he gave me big suggestions from a man who learnt how to live thanks to all the experiences that leads our way. His eyes weighted down by medicines, but always with a smile on his face that was marked by the disease. A neat white beard and big hands laid on sheets. I woke up on the armchair next to him, but from that night he has never opened his eyes anymore.
The song is over, and I found myself with bulgy eyes full of tears that try to overcome his absence. I turn everything off, I remove my headphones, and I let the storm cradle me while it’s still raging outside the window blowing on the shutters howling at the wind. When I woke up I am still a little shocked, so I decided to stay in bed a little while, wallowing in the warmth of the night that has already gone. The only thing that gets me out of bed is thinking that I am going to see him again.
When we arrive at the bar, the first time I notice when I enter is that he is already there, and this surprises me a lot. For the first time he arrives before me and he doesn’t even turn to look at me, even if I am sure that he is aware of our loud arrival. I stop at the door, a little annoyed from the fact that he’s not noticing me, but when the barman welcomes me and asks if we’ll have “the usual”, we answer in the affirmative and we head to our table. I am about to sit when I see a little daisy just in front of my place and for the second time in a few minutes I stop perplexed and a little bewildered for a gesture that changed the normal way things are processing. That was definitely
him, but this must not happen. Why is he looking for a different approach from our every morning usual mysterious look? I found myself sitting down with that little flower between my fingers looking at his back while he is at the counter, when he whips around, gives me a look, and furtively runs away from the bar. Yes, it was definitely him the one who laid that flower on the table… On my table.
It leaves me speechless and excited at the same time, but also a little confused and not so sure he was the one who made it. My friend looks at me and starts giggling, being a witness of that childish scene of two adults lost in such an absurd story that it makes no sense to the rest of the world. I look at