Viewing Thread:
"The appartment"

Part 1

1. New York.

It’s December, you are leaning on a balustrade onto New York bay, with the only company - about a hundred metres away - of a woman and a girl concealed by awkward garnet red winter jackets, while the cold wind that seems to originate from the Hudson River leads your sleepy incredulous eyes towards the sea, the Statue of Liberty, and the island of selections.
"Am I really in this place?"
The question is going round in your head, unexpectedly. You do not know how to answer, so you repress it, smiling at the clear sky and the group of bronze sailors corroded by the salt deposits, towards which you have just turned your attention: one is observing, one is calling, one is leaning beyond the rock and stretching out to grasp the greenish motionless hand of a drowned person, fossilised in the instant between a life and a death both imaginary and possible.
The wind becomes continuous and noisy, revealing every detail of what surrounds you.
You are happy, maybe awake enough to turn your back and face Manhattan. You think you are ready, yet the visual impact with the inexplicable mass of skyscrapers, sculptured by warm bright light, is appalling. Hell, this is unbelievable.
You delight in the scenery, inhale the icy air several times with determination, and let your eyes run along the steel, glass and concrete masses as if it was an immense work of art.
You wait for long minutes, you are cold, but cannot adapt to it, your awe remains and grows stronger.
You must move, pull away from the balustrade without turning. You go and annoy the two women, who are concentrating upon preparing a little show of objects for tourists.
"This is not the time, it’s early" the woman repeats twice, her raven-black hair ruffled by dust whirlwinds.
"Just a couple of postcards, please. I don’t think I’ll be able to come back here later, I have very little time. Just a couple of postcards" you reply in a humble tone.
The girl comes to your aid; her hair held back by a headband, she has regular features, and a stern air.
You can pick what you were looking for: you put the photos in an envelope, after a quick check. "These ones, please. And that little metal plate of Fifth Avenue."
You bear the woman’s angry glance and the girl’s shrug of the shoulders, then you pay, do not claim your change, their cash desk is closed, and walk away waving, a greeting not reciprocated.
In the middle of Castle Clinton , you feel like a bull sprung out onto an empty and silent bull-ring; you cross the open space quickly, looking around without understanding the purpose of that low outdated blockhouse; the towering buildings become pressing, they impend brightly and lose their boundaries.
You resort to a map, choose a familiar name, to begin with: you turn into Broadway and cautiously walk along it, until you turn into Wall Street.
You are in the street of a black and white film, everything matches and enlarges, there is art, there are monumental façades, and there are people carrying briefcases, yet you are struck by the stall of a hot-dog and bun seller, and by the enchanted smoke exhaling from manholes, in an air without sun nor shadows.

*

Giulia stares at the scenery in front of her, she is drowsy, a cup of hot coffee in her hands, her head still full of the echoes of last night’s incredible Pink Floyd concert; her eyes are caught by the sight of the dawn in that city which is apparently clashing yet coordinated by a mysterious background tone.
The dense night mist is wrapping Manhattan up like a soft quilt out of which the island, still asleep, seems not to be willing to get out.
Looking at the horizon, she tries to take her mind off that strange mixture of anxiety and excitement she is seized by whenever she is nearly ready to get on a plane and cross the ocean.
As the brightness grows, the sea changes, turning from an opaque iron-grey expanse into an endless liquid carpet, changing its blue and green shades because of the clouds, which are only partially chased away by the pressing warmth of the sun and the slashes of the wind, unusually aggressive on that December morning.
The thought suddenly flashes into her mind: December. My goodness, Christmas will be here shortly. Another year ends. She shivers as if she were outside, at the mercy of that wind: unconsciously, her gaze sets on her diary, open to show a red note ‘library, development of reference software, multi-media base’.
She has gathered the data. She is satisfied.
A quick shower, a trace of makeup; she gives up the idea of trying to give her hair some decent shape and ties it up in a long tail.
Now she is in the square of the World Trade Center. She turns around several times slowly. She manages to intercept a taxi.
She needs a starting point, a positive image, before she approaches the plane which will take her back to Italy. She gets out of the taxi and pays.
She is in the hall of the Empire State Building. The skyscraper’s giant model, a tall Christmas tree with everything in the right place and a suitable light; the ticket office, a short queue, a fast lift, feeling of falling and loss of weight, air.
She can see Fifth Avenue lengthways and the twin towers far off, silhouetted against the Hudson’s and the bay’s sparkling surface, and the amazing shadow of the skyscraper where she is, comprising the tiny shadow of her own body, lost in some atom of that mother darkness which prints itself onto the buildings below, the less spectacular skyscrapers.
She feels her shadow is safe, there in the matterless, quiet, clear, wavy veil above the watery brightness of Fifth Avenue, which is plunged between the walls of that artificial canyon, so upsetting and marvellous.

*

You feel dizzy from the icy air and the continuously getting in and out of lit up shops, welcomed and rejected by piano, bells and flute sounds.
You have not seen enough of New York but the order on the phone, a little while ago, was peremptory: your boss demands the films and the article about a characteristic Christmas in which you do not feel involved, which leaves you with only tiny flashes, some indefinite perfumes, and a sort of panic.
You did what you had to do, took photos and caught sounds, you are going to look at and listen to every single thing; but you have not lived in it, you have walked in a huge three-dimensional plastic model which barred you every chance of tuning in.
You pack, then shave, now you are dressed, you are in a taxi, you run along the shunting tunnels, find yourself in a waiting lounge of JFK Airport, hoping it is the right one, the screens show snowy landscapes and a shooting brawl in Queens.
When you sit down on the seat inside the plane you feel exhausted, and let the warmth and a glass of wine daze you; you drop against the back of your seat, surrounded by the muffled noise of passengers passing on towards the tail, by the buzzing of requests and soft calls.
"Hello" you hear, together with a light and pleasant scent.
"Oh, hello" you answer the figure rustling nearby, the blurred oval of her face, her only part showing out of a kind of wide duffel-coat which seems to swallow her up every time she moves.
The seats are comfortable, you can remain in your daze, exempted from involving gestures, you have no contacts with that stranger. While she sorts her coat and hand luggage, you heedlessly catch a glimpse of a slender body and smell a light scent again. You need at least half an hour sound sleep, a deep breath, your calves and neck are cold, you have not got out of uneasiness.

*

"You are talented, you know, hell, you know it; but you waste it, you squander it. You enjoy throwing everything to the weeds." The Editor had reproached you in mid-November, and not for the first time. At the same time, as usual, he was giving you another chance, another try, as he smiled at you shaking hands. He was waiting for that.
You had not been able to smile back.
"Go away, go abroad for a week, choose a city and write a proper article on the holidays, the preparations, the lights, and how to spend one’s savings on useless things, throw in nice feelings and snow, or cold: choose Germany, Austria, whatever…."
"New York?" you threw out, with detachment, almost defiantly.
"Why New York?"
"The air is good, for Christmas; it’s a good place" you had said looking out of the window, the sky so clear, and that hell of a sun that had no intention of going away. "Christmas does not belong here anymore."
"Good title, go on like this!" the Editor had shouted, annoyed.
"Pardon?" You did not understand, you missed the links, including yours.
The fact is, you went on the trip and are now going to finish it.
What had pushed you? Right, that November without snow, those two days in the mountains, seeking inspiration.
God, what a mess!
Books, upon sheets, upon cuttings, upon diskettes. And notes, Post-it notes everywhere, even on the floor - detached, dangerous -, and the diary (there it was!).
You were supposed to tidy everything up before leaving, but there had been no time, nor the willingness, nor the need for it. What an entangled flat. What an entangled life.
You had thought it would be nice to do like in school, when the blackboard was used too much, and the chalk screeched on a sort of very thin white sludge without forming visual contrasts: the teacher pointed at you, you were the tallest and could reach up to it, he begged you to go out, a wet cloth, a couple of wipes, leave to dry.
But wiping out a flat was not as easy.
You had found your wind-cheater, the only thing that you deemed necessary for a weekend in the mountains, searching for some cold and snow, just enough to carry on until Christmas, until the reaching of the atmosphere you have managed to lose, together with the other thousand things you have lost.
Before leaving to America, you had wished for a last walk, meant to avoid worrying about the flight, the noise of the plane, the landscapes you would see run away and grow smaller.
Every event leaves a trace, which dissolves slowly.
Wearing your well-stuffed wind-cheater, then, a scarf and gloves, you had ventured towards the valley bottom, although the sun had already brought the mountain peaks closer and was to be absorbed into them.
The cold was bearable, there was no wind and the air was clear and dry.
The little snow you were treading upon creaked under your soles. You had bumped into only a couple of people going back to the village, you had realised you did not feel tired at all as you climbed, and you had a definitely good pace.
To hell with the magazine and work. You said to yourself: "Why don’t you settle down here, and just merely walk and breathe? Why do you have to leave without a reason? What a silly idea."

You could have resigned, the paper had been printed, it just wanted a signature, a large farewell sheet of paper, a gesture worthy of times of old. A sheet drawn up and checked with diligence, impeccable, concrete, and redeeming.
Instead, you had bartered it for a trip across the ocean.

You delighted in the regular breathing and the unhurried rhythm of your heart-beats, you took deep breaths when you felt the need for it, which relaxed your mind, offering you certainties: to an action corresponded a positive reaction, everything was working properly.
You had decided to deviate, to walk along a closed cattle-shed and two little buildings with renovated roofs, a solid look, and no windows; along the other side of the path ran an electricity line supported by rough poles. You had imagined to open a window and build a fireplace in one of the buildings, and to connect it to the electric grid: it was isolated, far enough from the village, and well set in that foreshortening with mountains, wood, and stream. A place where one could work or rest in peace.
You had to settle down in that place, and there wring life’s secrets, ponder, and maybe paint, play, think, write something important; who could know?
You had walked on, passing by the last farmers’ houses, small, low, isolated, abandoned, lifeless houses.
Your eyes had perceived the narrow hollow of the valley bottom underneath you: the mountains on the left - undulated and regular - and those on the right - high, uneven, and with rocky tops - and the rocky wall in front, its stony top, and the hardly visible path running through it.
You had lowered your eyes onto the frozen stream, the little bridge made with shifted wood, the stretch of solid water spreading out like a big translucent stain, rose coloured by the late afternoon light.
You were a child, in that total and enclosing silence.
You had tested the resistance of the frozen surface, which had revealed itself to be compact and even, you had made as if to slide slightly, and, finally reassured and balanced by your arms held open, you had tried to make your slides longer, along the sloping stream bed, paying attention to the few rocks and stones.
You had succeeded in sliding fairly well, nobody had watched you, even when you had fallen, using your hands to protect you, and had found yourself sliding on your back, watching the sky running above and the mountain peaks slowly spinning.
It could have been a way of living.
To slide on the ice, get cold, then warm up, get changed, put on soft and warm clothes, eat, sleep, wake up.
You had decided to walk across the ice and continue for a little longer, up to where the climb to the shelter begins. You had then walked up for about thirty steep metres, in order to reach a point above the valley, which you then would have stopped to look at, sitting on a large stone with rounded corners, to the point when you had realised that darkness was softened only by the gradual adapting of your eyes, which had never ceased to investigate among the rocks and thorns, among the bushes and the frozen patches.
To be honest, that was a rather dangerous situation.
The time to get down had come inexorably, so as not to be caught in the darkness, the cold, the possibility of a bad fall. In any case, you had realised not to fear any of these hypotheses, and this observation had filled you with satisfaction and amazement.
Actually, the only problem had been crossing the path’s frozen part, which, as you went downhill, had offered a couple of doubts to resolve and a couple of choices to determine.
To resolve and to determine is a gift of yours: you had done it easily, finding yourself getting across the frozen little lake, with caution but without fears.
Once you had reached the earthy road, marks and footsteps were solid and dry, and the darkness seemed nearly impenetrable: few stars, the soft fluorescence of the snow patches and strips.
You had got down at a quick pace, breathing deeply and slowly through the nose, until your eyes had caught sight of the tiny lights of an ancient custom house: hundreds of white light bulbs traced the outline of roof and chimneys; next to the barred entrance, a lit up tree.
That was some of the atmosphere you were looking for.
On seeing the village lights, you had deviated to the right, descending to the stream, in spite of the dark, and had entered the narrow path next to it, a path whose every unevenness and bush you had known since you were a child.
You had caught a glimpse of the water, detected nearly imperceptible reflections, and heard the icy current flow, the ice dripping, and the rustle underneath the little snow caves.
No problems had showed up. You had walked across the garden of the first house - its windows lit up and silent - had found yourself again on the empty asphalt road, and had reached in a few minutes the Christmas lights of the centre, where few wrapped up people went in and out of the grocer’s and the newsagent’s.
Safe again.
The following day, at nine, a Jumbo was awaiting you.

*

"Did you sleep well?"
Abruptly awoken from her dream, at first Giulia does not understand what the man sitting in the next seat is asking her. "Yes" she answers somewhat surprised, "…what time is it?"
"In New York or in Italy?" you ask smiling. "We have been flying for nearly two hours."
It is dark out of the window.
"I am sorry I woke you up, but the stewardess thought we were flying together, she probably thought that among Italians everybody knows everybody … and she wanted me to order your dinner. I would have been pleased to do it, so as not to wake you up, but did not know what to order, of course."
She focalises you with a quick glance; she had not paid much attention to that not very talkative passenger who, after distractedly answering her greeting, had abruptly fallen back into a pensive silence, not to say a sound sleep. However, as soon as the decisive take-off phase was over, Giulia herself had slipped into quite a similar, equally invincible sleep.
"Coffee, please.…and a European breakfast" she orders. "I am sorry you were disturbed because of me."
"No problem. Breakfast for dinner? That’s original!"
You make as if to stand up when your bag, left open, falls pouring all its contents onto the mat.
Quite embarrassed, you begin to pick up the objects scattered on the floor; she bends, picks up a pipe lighter, your passport, a music tape, and a book, and hands them over with a smile.
"It seems we have likings in common, as to books. My name is Giulia, what is yours?"
"Davide. Thank you, you didn’t need to…What book?"
"The one that fell out of the bag: ‘Movable Feast’."
"I often re-read it; at regular intervals, I would say. The title is ill translated, too literal, but I have become fond of it. So you like Hemingway."
" ‘The Sun Also Rises’ in particular. In the original version."
"That’s ‘Fiesta’ in the Italian version. Don’t you think these books are very similar?"
"Not at all."
"To me, they seem to be similar."
"Really? Only in the translated titles. Two languages, two ages, two epochs."
"What is your job?"
"What do you think?"
"Teacher?"
"I am in charge of my town’s Library. I’m working on a project with the aim of making the use of texts, tables, and pictures pleasant" Giulia answers, smiling and turning the pages of the thick diary she is holding on her lap.
"Interesting. Is this the purpose of your trip to New York?"
"I find it unbearable that an institution keeps so much material, but that it is impossible to gather, manipulate, develop, and pleasantly use it."
"We have the same taste as to books and documentation."
"Why do you say this?"
" ‘Fiesta’ and ‘Movable Feast’."
"Totally different books."
"Why do you insist?"
"The one I like was written by a twenty-seven-year-old, more or less. Your movable feast is the brooding and regretting of an old man."
"But you are always talking about Hemingway."
"I am talking about a young man and a sixty-year-old."
"Your young man had quite a problem, if I remember well."
"The wound you refer to is his strength. The basis for Pamplona, Brett’s frenzy of living, alcohol in leather flasks, the sun, the risk of death and life."
"It is just right that you should like the young."
"Look, I am only eight years younger than you."
"How do you know?" you ask staring at her eyes.
"I took a fast glance in your passport, as I picked it up."
"But did you read it well…."
" ‘A Movable Feast’? Certainly. I translated and analysed it with a friend, at university, and he made it into his final dissertation."
"It gives me positive sensations and instants of true happiness" you reply. "Time and again, I envied the atmosphere of a poor and happy life, the pleasure to go out, in Paris, after having worked well; milk, bread, horse races, and the exchange of ideas between uncommon people."
"In that book you also find alcohol, opium, smoke, and a smelly atmosphere."
"I’m afraid I will not follow what you say. I love the first part and the happy long-lost days."
"I understand you; but he is already thinking of committing suicide when he decides to involve the naive ones in his vortex. You have let yourself be bewitched."
"It’s the same person who won you."
"That person’s grandfather. His decadent part. His illness. When he was young, he was bored by the Montparnasse he idealised at sixty."
The stewardess, with a snow-white apron, is discreet and kind. She apologises and announces the meal. She helps to adjust the trays and cutlery. She offers cold dry white wine.
"Have you made the right choice?" Giulia asks smiling.
"I couldn’t have done better" you answer, happy with the starter you are being served.
"You just asked to bring you everything!" the stewardess specifies with a smile.
"Bon appetit. To the good health of our favourite author."
"Cheers."

The dinner is excellent. Giulia finishes your dessert.
A film is about to be shown. The plane has not the least of jerks, the background noise is soft and uniform.
The images on the screen insert two hours of simulated reality in the thoughts of the occasional travel mates, enchanting them above the hostile far off ocean.
"A good film. Nothing is better than a good film. I mean, except a good book. It takes your mind off bad thoughts, don’t you think?"
"In this case, I had better subscribe with the nearest film club" you answer.
Maybe a funny remark, but her head is lowered now.
"Any problems?"
"Do you mind if I talk a bit about my troubles?" Giulia asks with the tone - nearly a sigh - allowed by the final scene and the fading music.
"Troubles at your age? Are you joking?" but she has a serious look. "Sorry, I did not mean to go back to the birthday problem…. What happened?"
"Earthly things. While I was in New York, my lease has expired" she answers.
"Really!"
"I don’t think they had the courage to force me out."
"Don’t you?"
"No. That nuisance of a landlord cannot have gone that far. Ex landlord, rather."
"And now, is there a place where you can stay?"
"I have just confided that my lease has expired while I was away. While. Do you understand?"
"I am doing my best not to understand. What if you find the lock changed? Such people do exist!"
"What people?"
"Tough guys."
"Ha! I don’t think so. We have argued often, that is true, a couple of times I even yelled at him that he was a shark, that is true. The most he could have done is slip a fiery letter under my door. At the most."
"I hope so, for your own sake. What are your prospects?"
"This is the point. I think I will have to look for another flat very soon. On a high floor. With a dormer window. I love dormer windows."
"If you put it this way, it looks like a positive fact. Almost exciting. Maybe a flat with enough room for a studio, for a music room."
"Do you live in a flat?"
"Me? I have lived in one for years. Renting. A bit small. A bit too small, sometimes. It hasn’t got a nice view. It is somewhat messy. To tell you the truth, I could not describe it."
"You feel comfortable there. One understands it by the way you talk about it."
"Yes, maybe I feel well there. It’s a bit small, though."
"Ever thought of changing?"
"No."
"Do you know any reliable agency?"
"No. Not very reliable."
"Better than no agency at all."
"I agree. Would you like a fruit juice?"
"Pear, if possible."
There is some turbulence now. Some short vibrations of the aircraft structure.
You go back to your seat, handing her the glass. You load and light your pipe, with a concentrated air. Good, aromatic, light, coarse-grained tobacco.
"Shall I help you look for a flat?"
"You can read my thoughts."
"I have never taken into consideration a practical idea like looking for a flat. This one where I live now, I had from a colleague who left the magazine. Yet, a dormer window, on a rainy day, or under a snowfall….."
"Isn’t it?"

The plane lowers its height, entering the mysterious stratum of clouds, everything outside disappears.
Only a slight friction against something immaterial.
The height continues to decrease, at times considerably, the aeroplane makes fairly strange turns, the clouds are not being pierced.
The intercom invites to extinguish cigarettes and fasten seat belts.
"Were you serious when you said you would help me?"
"I am always serious when an attractive girl asks me to find her a place to stay."
"Come on, stop joking! The problem is complex. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to get in the flat, tonight." She smiles, then attacks again: "So? Can I count on that?"
"All right. Will you give me your number?"
She fumbles in her jacket, writes a number on a pink piece of paper, and signs it with her name.
"Here you are. May I have yours? If that does not bother you, of course."
Bother? No, you realise that you do not feel absolutely bothered. That girl has pulled you away from your gloomy thoughts for a few hours, you cannot understand how, but you certainly do not feel bothered.
You write your number on the inside cover of ‘Movable Feast’ and hands her the book, with a studied gesture.
"Aren’t you going to finish re-reading it?"
"I will when you give it back to me. The book is left as a hostage with you."
"Hostage? For what?"
"Well… your address and telephone number, of course. In case I make no good use of them."
You keep surprising yourself with your own words, you scarcely recognise yourself, yet it is you who seems to have gone back to your better days, when facing a brilliant dialogue with a girl was your favourite sport. Your better days.
She repeats your last sentence ironically: "A book as a hostage for my telephone number?…What is this nonsense of hostage addresses?"
"In the sense that if you want yours back and I refuse to do so….you will not give mine back!"
"What inhuman blackmailing this is!"
"Isn’t it the way it usually goes?"
"Well…hostage addresses….where have you heard such things? It’s incredible."
"I improvise them…I don’t hear them!" you explain in a final way.
"The best use you can make of it is to give me a good piece of news. Who knows, an attic in the centre….not too modern a place, though….maybe with that dormer window….and a spiral staircase" she ends, with the air of having asked for the vital minimum.
"And a full moon every night from the windows?"
You burst into laughter simultaneously. You feel well, as if that shared laughter had swept away your worries, pushing them back across the ocean, leaving them forever in the hall of JFK, by now light years behind you.
"Do you think the weather is bad?" Giulia asks looking at the service light and betraying a tiny hint of fear.
"It does not seem to, it hasn’t been announced" you answer, only a little tenser than it is necessary.
The aeroplane lowers its height and continues to right its course. No messages from the cabin.
The stewardess smiles reassuringly.
"My Goodness! They should be giving us some piece of news!" Giulia cries.
The stewardess smiles at her. Maybe with a slightly quizzical look. Maybe.
Giulia responds with a little grimace. She looks at you and raises her eyebrows twice, opening her arms.
The plane goes down and turns.
"Well, that’s strange…probably, there is some unannounced disturbance" you agree, and continue: "I would suggest to let the pilot solve this little problem."
"What airline is this?"
"TWA…Are you all right?"
Giulia has turned pale. "TWA…TWA….Those at TWA are among the most reckless pilots, if I remember well. Yes. Together with Lufthansa’s!"
"So what?"
"It cannot be fog, can it? They aren’t looking for the landing strip….by rule of thumb, are they?"
"With a radar, at worst. And radio signalling" you reassure her, smiling. You begin to feel strange, the girl’s anxiety maybe has infected you. Nonsense, you conclude.
The stewardess announces there is fog at Malpensa airport.
"You see? You see?" Giulia says in agitation, seeking refuge in a smile of self-pity.
"They will take us to Genoa, I’m afraid. It’s a shame: such a smooth flight, without delays."
"In my opinion, the turns the plane has made are too few….and it has lost height a lot. Good Heavens!"
"Any solutions? Shall we get off?"
"Please, go ahead." Giulia smiles in amusement. You managed to distract her, for now.
The plane lowers its height and turns once again.
"I am a bit scared. It’s official." Giulia says in a low voice.
"Any suggestions?" you ask, fairly relaxed, and continue: "Shall I tell the pilot to step aside?" winking at her.
Giulia is not smiling. "May…may I hold your arm?" she asks, dramatically, with clasped hands.
"I have a better idea!"
"That is?" all of a sudden Giulia lifts her eyes, she is puzzled.
"Maybe you should be aware that when I was at high school…"
"What’s the point?"
"Wait."
The plane turns and loses height.
"Hurry up!" Giulia asks, still managing to smile. She is visibly tense.
"There were three girls in my class, two of them very good students…"
"So what?"
"…who were terrified by oral tests. So…"
"So?" Giulia looks out of the window, watching that steam getting thicker and thicker, and the light getting dimmer and dimmer.
"So they sat next to me: I was to hold the hand of the one supposed to be tested, to the moment when she would be called out."
"Where is the problem?"
"No problem. They felt at ease. I liked to hold their hands."
"I don’t understand you. What has this got to do with…..with all this?" she embraces, in a large circle, the cabin, the stewardess, the other passengers, the unintelligible window.
"Want to try?"
"Try what?" Giulia’s eyes have acquired the indefinite tone of the whitish thickness running dizzily outside the plane.
"To hold my hand" you suggest, after getting over the feeling of void in the stomach, caused by the last balancing of the plane.
"Good God!" says Giulia aloud, as the plane lowers height again. Her little cry joins that of the passengers.
"He won’t land with such a visibility, will he?" she manages to whisper in your direction, and immediately goes on: "OK, agreed!"
"What?"
"My hand. It’s OK. Hold it!"
You smile at her. The dialogue stops.
The aeroplane goes down without turning any further. A milky mass flows out of the windows at an incredible speed. There is a hollow background noise, a conforming one, without any other superimposing sound.
The breathing has stopped.
Giulia keeps her eyes closed, her lips locked. You clasp her fingers. A few seconds.
You cannot be left cold by that kind of contact, you have always deemed it noble, high, decisive: an inexhaustible exchange of information with the other person, a sort of privileged telematic stream, a greater exchange of data than through a thousand words or glances. The problem has always been to withhold those data, to keep them, not to scatter them.
Giulia’s hand is warm, it does not betray the emotion of the body it belongs to, and conveys signals, however fast and crowded they are. You are busy giving a reason for that steamy thickness which is not convincing. Your stomach is contracting in an unusual way, slightly but annoyingly.
"How long will these clouds go on for?" Giulia notes, almost sadly.
"I don’t know…it should stop… soon we should be seeing….oh hell! O Jesus!"
An unexpected jerk. Not powerful. Unexpected.
The plane touches the ground fairly gently, and what is now running underneath it is the asphalt of the airport’s strip.
"But, hell, he has landed in the fog! That’s unbelievable!" Giulia is appalled.
"Didn’t you say that those at TWA do so?" you remind her, smiling. You relax.
Giulia is laughing, she’s happy. She is breathing deeply. She is very beautiful at that moment.
There is no time to record this datum, as her hand escapes from yours. It’s just an instant, and you are left with the unpleasant feeling of a halved conversation, as if an invisible link had suddenly broken.
Giulia jumps to her feet. She collects her hand luggage and puts her duffel-coat on. She leaves, almost without saying good-bye, among the first passengers. She turns and says: "I believe we will have a hard time getting to the terminal by bus. You can’t see a thing!"
You say good-bye again in the muddle near the taxis.
She reminds you of the flat. You smile at her and wave good-bye.
The taxis are being engulfed by an incredible fog. The driver, concisely, comments: "These people are crazy. Believe me!"
You are by yourself.


2. The Eviction.

Giulia, now that she is sitting in the taxi, has the impression of hearing her mother’s voice, and pieces of her speeches on having a man near you at all costs, in life. The only right aspiration: to marry and raise a family.
She challenged her mother and that old-fashioned mentality. She followed her own inclinations, studying passionately, understanding, sharing, questioning doctrines, in search of order and clarity.
After a degree in letters, she had had to give up, against her will, her dream of becoming an archaeologist. Her adolescence had been a tissue of fancies about incredible travels and great discoveries from the most remote antiquity; she had surprised all her teachers in high school with her mastery of classical languages, and even of the Egyptian alphabet (which she maliciously used to write disrespectful anonymous sentences on the blackboard, among the amused comments of her class mates). The time at university had been spent in the passing, one after the other, of exams, apparently with no effort, with enthusiasm.
The hard crash against the insurmountable obstacle of her father’s death. The financial straits, the need to find herself a job, forgetting about her dreams.
The evolution of computer science had burst out just in the last university years and, despite her classical education, her inborn curiosity had drawn her close to this new world; she had become familiar with computers, witnessing with fascination the fast overpowering development of the apparently endless applications of this thinking machine, which seemed to materialize the dreams of her favourite science-fiction novels.
She had seized her job at the Library with determination, with the precise aim of reorganising ideas and of finally being able to have easy access to them, in order to elaborate them, above all to overtake them thanks to new thoughts and horizons.
Funny that in that period she let Marco enter her life. Afterwards, she had told herself it must have been a moment of absent-mindedness, or maybe he had had the peculiar capacity to point out the gaps in her ideological construction, being a constant spur for discussions, overcoming her sound defences with his shy behaviour and his sardonic remarks, catching, thanks to unexpected accurate intuitions, her real nature, her silences, her hidden tears, her poems, her unyielding will-power, and her fear of the world, hidden behind a rather deterrent behaviour. A period of passion, creativity, an anarchic relationship with no apparent rules.
The possibility to direct their relationship towards more traditional norms had led her to stop brusquely the uncontrolled flowing of feelings and irrational, precise and involving sensations, to the point of sending away the figure that had now become dangerous for a balance and a clear-sightedness she had attained with great effort.
They had broken up all of a sudden, or rather, she had looked for a suitable excuse at all costs in order to elude that unconscious power. She had left him without mercy, with the firm intention not to fall into that again.
There were times, however, when the crystal and steel building where she had voluntarily exiled herself showed the unfixable cracks of loneliness and dismay. Ancient fears, never completely appeased, had emerged like red-hot cinders unveiled by a blast of wind on the ash.
The apprenticeship had turned out to be precious, obliging her to acquire an analytical attitude, to systematically classify everything, to almost develop a philosophy for approaching the books’ ideas and contents.
The possibility of a multimedia access to the books kept in the Library, an idea she conceived on a foggy afternoon in front of the television, had made the Director enthusiastic, who had encouraged her to develop that computerisation project. He was an elderly man, an evanescent figure, a rare specimen of a gentleman in love with learning and the free and widespread diffusion of it: "You have had a charming idea. I do trust your proposal and I know how much enthusiasm you put in your work. On my part, my dear, I give you ‘carte blanche’: I am sure you will succeed in doing a very fine thing."
The project’s development had required co-operation with other Centres interested in multimedia culture; Cornell University had said they would be available for a short refresher course, a week in New York.

*

The taxi ends its ride. Giulia has arrived home.
She puts down her suitcase and bag, and opens her overfull letter box.
Bills, the usual advertisements, a couple of postcards, a letter.
She goes up to the third floor; the building is anonymous, quiet, along the stairs there is a smell of freshly baked pie (the lady downstairs must have guests for dinner tonight).
The lift door opens in front of a little man with a nice moustache, intent on watering the plants placed on the landing.
"Miss Giulia! Welcome back!" the porter greets her, running to her help.
"Thank you, Rinaldo, how are you? And your wife?"
"Her usual pains in the bones, especially in this weather!…but, what about you? I’m glad you are back! We had no idea where to find you."
"What’s the matter?"
"Mr De Bellis….your landlord… he was here the day before yesterday. He collected the rent from the other two tenants and he was looking for you. He even asked me if I knew where you had gone! What a person… He looked rather annoyed. I think he left a letter for you."
Ah, that’s the one who writes to me, she thinks somewhat worried as she manoeuvres with her key-ring which, as usual, slips out of her hand.
The little man bends nimbly, picks up the object, an old gift from Marco, and hands it to her.
"I’m afraid he wants the flat back, Miss Giulia. I heard he wants to let it to an embassy… My Goodness! Can you imagine the mess, all these foreigners around…"
By now Giulia has opened the door. The air in the flat is stale, after fifteen days absence. The lights of the automated aquarium are on; the flat looks a bit ghastly, but maybe it is just the water’s reflections on the walls. She says good bye to Rinaldo, who goes back to his plants, and closes the door behind her, leaves her luggage there and sits down on her favourite sofa.
She rips the envelope open with impatience, and begins to read the letter. Rinaldo was right, her landlord demands that the flat be left free in no later than two months, ‘no respites’. That word weighs heavily on her like a final judgment, especially because Giulia knows how unpleasant Mr De Bellis can become when he wants.
"God-damn shark, to hell with him!" she says aloud, throwing the letter away as if it burnt her hands.
She feels confused, a sense of emptiness pervades her while she tries, in spite of everything, to analyse the situation coldly.
Don’t panic. Think.
She stands up, beginning to open wide the windows. The biting air spreads in the flat, oxygenating it: the cold shakes her as she unpacks, mechanically putting her clothes in the wardrobe. "Think" she repeats to herself. Her brain is on fire. She realises she has just got out of a plane after a flight of nine hours, tiredness is upon her in an instant; a nice bath, that’s what she needs.
The flat is not big, but has got positive sides to it. One of these, which had finally convinced Giulia to accept a not quite convenient rent, is a Jacuzzi which has become her secret refuge. A bit snobbish, perhaps; but in stressful times, or whenever the number of thoughts requiring her attention is beyond her powers of endurance, she fills the tub with hot water, scents it with foam, puts on some music and tries to remain with her eyes closed, as the submerged jets pleasantly caress her. "It has always worked, come on, you’ll feel better afterwards" she says to herself, while rummaging in her bag in search of her cigarettes. The noise of the water in the background hurries her; where are those damn cigarettes? She finds them at last, on the bottom of her bag, of course, half hidden by a book.
It is the book that strange guy on the plane gave her. Hemingway. No, she smiles to herself, his name was …. Daniele? Dario? …Oh, yes: Davide. She walks towards the bathroom, the book in one hand and the lit-up cigarette in the other. She turns on the stereo, putting on some Chopin.
The sparkling and pleasantly warm water receives her. She allows herself a sigh of relief and closes her eyes. Time seems to slow down, then stopping completely, while she lets the notes of the Nocturnes lull her. The record ends, she remains there listening to the water rustle and her own breath, by now calm and regular.
The telephone brings her back to reality. She dashes out of the tub, swearing at the unknown killjoy, puts on her bathrobe and runs to the devilish crying device.
"Hello?" she asks, in a slightly altered voice.
"Hello? Miss Petri?" replies a heavy, disagreeable voice. De Bellis, her landlord. ‘Maybe he saw me coming back?’
"De Bellis here, good evening. You’re back, at last."
"Just arrived from New York."
"Did you receive my letter?"
"Certainly."
"I need the flat. Urgently. I hope it will not be necessary to resort to legal proceedings, you see. It would be….unpleasant."
‘As if an eviction were funny’, she would like to reply. But she restrains herself; the bath has had some effect, she feels more relaxed and self-controlled.
"You needn’t worry. I’ll give your keys back in two months."
"I’ll count on that. Good bye."
Giulia brusquely hangs up. She goes back into the bathroom to dry her hair, throws her head forwards in order to comb her hair, when her eyes fall upon the book by Hemingway. A sentence comes back to her memory, mixed with strange sensations and a confused recollection of a blind landing, holding a stranger’s hand like a terrified child.
‘What a fool I am…yet…what an original chap! Davide. I believe I must have assailed him, with that story of him feeling older than he is, and also regarding Hem…but, at the end of the day, he promised to help me’.
It is dinner time, the fridge is empty, and she begins to browse through the telephone directory in search of a take-away, maybe a Chinese one, or a pizza….a real pizza!
She has caught sight of a couple of take-aways which seem to be fairly near her place, when the telephone starts ringing again.
She is astonished. How can it be that everybody is informed about her return? She does not answer.

She devours her pizza to the last bit: excellent, after all that strange food she had to eat in New York.
On principle, every novelty attracts her and makes her curious, so she allowed herself several food explorations during her stay in the Big Apple. A proper pizza, however, there really is no comparison!
She lights up the umpteenth cigarette and lays herself down on the sofa, savouring the pleasant sensation of finally being home. The echo of De Bellis’s phone call and its disagreeable content, however, abruptly bring her to face the new situation: a predictable (menaces of eviction had already begun before her departure to the States, but she was too busy getting ready to give much heed) and at the same time unexpected one.
She looks at the rocking-chair in the corner, a Christmas present from Marco a few years before. Marco.
Maybe he was right, she says to herself.
Had she married him, she would not be a refugee, at the mercy of people without many scruples, without a man to defend and advise her.
She banishes such thoughts angrily, like annoying stubborn insects.

*

Now nothing can stop you from writing the article; you even have the photos on your desk. Well, this is not exactly the kind of report the big boss will appreciate.
Hell, what a mess of a flat this is! And since when has it become so small? And why does it feel like there is no air? And what about all this hell of junk scattered on the desk? And where has the computer keyboard gone?
And this heat.
What would crown all would be the telephone ringing or some alien sound. Or that the light went out, or that there were no hot water this evening.
The telephone rings, inexorably. In such a situation, it takes courage.
You do not have it. You answer. Annoyed.
The boss speaks in an imperious tone, assailing you with words and proposals. He threatens you. He wants the photographs, the article, and wants it long, full-bodied, original, many-coloured, phantasmagorical, wants it to be published in three instalments in the magazine, so as to reach Christmas eve. He wants a sort of short novel and the readers to be fascinated, he wants to lift up the magazine’s destiny only through that series of articles and images from New York of yours.
At least, that is how you understand it. You bang the receiver down on the telephone, without succeeding in disconnecting the line, you heat up, your hands tremble disproportionately to the facts taking place, you hear his voice, cannot deal the apparatus another blow, lift it level with your eyes, staring at it wickedly, but you also hear "Do you really not care at all about being fired?" flung in the ether with a tone you have very rarely heard.
You reply: "Not at all!"
"You always say that, you fool me each time, nothing scares you, you’re a damn son of…"
"Don’t you dare say that!" you hiss in the receiver.
His sentence remains cut to pieces in the air.
"The article will come out as it will come out, nothing more and nothing less. I do not compose what you like, I do not alter things, I wait for words to follow one after the other by themselves, and for the mind and the senses to dictate and compel" you explain in a low voice.
Meanwhile, the impression that everything around has become more oppressive and tighter becomes unbearable.
"Must go out now!" you yell at your boss, who does not reply anymore, being probably paying attention to something else, some other matter. Your time is up.
Even this time, he has not fired you.
You put on your jacket, looking for your keys and wallet. But this is the day of unpleasant sounds. And the telephone rings again.
"What more now? All right, all right…I’ll consider myself fired! OK! But now I have to go out" you say impetuously.
"You have been fired?" says Enrico’s voice.
"What…what…what do you want? Hi. Sorry. I wasn’t…"
"You weren’t talking to me, were you? Obviously. Well…if you are about to be fired I am afraid that what I was going to tell you will be of no interest to you! I am sorry."
"Come on, you. Look, this is not the right moment. All right….to hell with you! See you soon!"
"Wait…it’s my parents’ flat…it…"
You should have hung up earlier on. You had had the occasion.
You still manage to disconnect.
What ‘parents’ flat’? The attic? What on earth is happening? What does the world want from you, and what’s more, all at once?
You cannot go out.
You are dialling your friend’s number.
Engaged. He must be calling you again. You wait. No, what if he is calling up somebody else? What occasion was he gabbing about? You dial a nasty 197…and wait.

"Yes?"
"Enrico?"
"Yes?"
"Wait."
"Yes?"
"Are you stuck?" you cannot help smiling. Your hands, slightly shaking, estrange your look and voice.
"I was calling again" says Enrico in an assertive tone.
Good old adorable Enrico. He was calling you again.
"So, you are not interested?" he says almost worried.
"Make yourself clear. I swear I’ll listen without interrupting."
"My parents’ attic. Do you want it at a good price? They are not coming back from Brazil anymore. They said to keep it for myself. I hate it, you know. Do you want it? Straight away, though. Straight away."
"How good a price? Why do you always need money?"
While your ears listen to figures and proposals, your mind wanders above the roofs and takes possession of that wonderful place, with the same sight that Hemingway had had at the time of his hospitalisation, of his affair with the nurse, of your most romantic fantasies, and you can see the dormer window, the little balcony, the garret, and all that you have always envied. The spires of the cathedral. How can it be possible? What have you got to do with it? What will you do with it? You feel fine here.
Why does it feel like stifling this evening? Why is there all that mess? Why do you answer "Yes, agreed" when you know perfectly well that, even on those conditions, the sum is too high for you?
"It’s full-furnished, you can enter it immediately, within two weeks. It’s a sort of sine qua non condition. You know what my parents are like."
"I know what you are like!" you feel as if you could see Enrico winking. You are dizzy, the air is wanting, you want to go out. You confirm: yes, all right, settled.
You will find the money. Why don’t you go out now?
Because it already worries you that you must get into debt. Ah, right, your grandfather coming back, looking at you from the grand pastures, reminding you something about bites and chewing, amounts and proportions.
Why do you hold a pink piece of paper now? Where on earth has it come out of?
Do you intend to call her up? You’ve got the flat! Call her! Make a good impression, the best ever! You give her the address and take back the hostage book!
You smile. It helps you to wet your face with ice-cold water and stare at yourself in the mirror: you are too foolish when you behave like this, you cannot miss the show.
You dial the number. What the hell was her name? No idea! You’ll bluff at the right time.
But, what time is it? Midnight. Who cares. It is ringing already. What if you wake her up? What if she is with someone?
The thought annoys you. A voice.
"Yes?"
"Er…this is Davide."
"Fine. Anything I can do for you?" a very young and ironical woman’s voice.
"I mean, do you remember me?"
"Should I?" her tone is unconventional. People around are giggling.
"But…" God, now her name must come to my mind, otherwise…What was her name? Giulia! That’s it, Giulia.
"Giulia?" you almost whisper.
"Oh…I see…that silly sister of mine. One moment…Giulia!"
The sounds and noises correspond to those of a family party. Family party? Are they still called so?
The waiting time is probably proportionate to Giulia’s effort to associate his name to an event: "Davide?"
"Hallo. Excuse me. Sorry…Yes, it’s me. I have got some news!"
Now she remembers you. The plane, the fog, your promise to help her: "Don’t tell me you have some idea about the flat?"
"I have the flat" you answer impetuously.
"No way!"
"I have it." You feel important. You feel satisfied. The "coup de théâtre" was fast but effective. The nth and not the last one in your life. You delight in the solution of the problem and the good impression you have made.
"Maybe it is going to be expensive?"
"No."
"Sure? Do you realise you are fantastic? I knew I was doing well to trust you and give you my number."
"Well…not exactly cheap….well…there is a balcony…a dormer window…it is quite big…"
"How big?"
"Two hundred square metres, as far as one can judge."
"OK, what’s the sum? Shoot!"
You say it, almost with pride.
"My goodness. A real bargain! Really. Thank you for thinking about me. End of the dream."
"Too much?"
"Not for that type of flat. It’s a special cheap price."
Right, your most special friend.
"I am sorry" you say to her in a comforting tone.
"We should get down to half the price, to make it reasonable. Never mind."
"Half…that’s what I think, too."
"Anyone you know who can…." You say together with her, exactly the same instant. You smile. She laughs.
"No." You reply, again at the same time as her.
"All right, let’s define turns!" Giulia’s voice is lovely, she sounds nearly happy. Maybe her friends are amusing her. Maybe it’s the rhythmical music you hear in the background.
"Go!" you suggest.
"I am by myself. I have nobody to share with" she says quickly.
"Same with me. Besides, I do not have to relocate." But as you talk, you still have that stifling feeling, and objects look to be in an unbearable mess. And books appear to be scattered everywhere, and the ceiling lower than usual, and the house opposite too close. You suddenly feel the absence of the sky.
"It’s a pity" she says in an almost sad tone.
At least so it seems to you.
And where is Don Quixote? Here he comes!
"I might…" slips out of your mouth.
"You might?"
"I might find someone who …" you go on, not so convinced.
"Someone who paid half the money?" she suggests, very ironically.
"No, right?"
"No! Absolutely not!…unless…" now her tone is amused again. She laughs. Friends around are suggesting something to her.

You have been playing the guitar for half an hour, ill-treating that poor soft plectrum in unlikely rhythms and hard arpeggios. You have wandered among Queen, Venditti, the Beatles, and Dylan. Sound waves invade the room and bounce and intertwine and merge with the pain in the digital pulps and with the desire to have a cold sweet drink. You have managed to reach the point when the brain moves the hand without intermediation, when the oscillations of neurones coincide with those of the strings and the case.
How the hell could you accept? What is the matter with you? How could it happen?
Good God! Trapped like a schoolboy. Now you call her up. Now you tell her it was a joke.
Now you explain to her that no, it is impossible to live in a flat together, even if sharing it properly, even if following some rules, even on the understanding that the other person’s freedom is not to be bound.
Now you look for the number, now you find that hell of a pink piece of paper. Now you ask to talk about it calmly, without the effects of the festive atmosphere, the music and the lack of air.
Now you tell her it was a joke.
Now you are trapped.
Now you have a new flat, you have ten days to move in. If you call Enrico, it is done.
Here. You have a way out. If. If you call him. If you call Enrico.
While you are thinking thus, you are already listening to the TUT TUT of the free line, you are hearing a click, your friend’s voice: "So, everything’s fine? You do make me happy! And you make my parents happy, too! I knew I could count upon you. Thank you. And let me remind you: before Christmas!"
"Thank you."
Thank this day. Before Christmas? When is Christmas? In a year’s time?
This Christmas?
You must go out.
You can hardly walk in all that confusion.
And the oxygen’s finished!


3.The Flat and The Mountains.

Only the snow is missing to make the whole thing perfect.
The light of the shining moon, however, restores specially charmed spires and roofs if only you half-close your eyes and blur images, and, all things considered, what comes out is something whitely magical and clean.
"Beautiful, isn’t it?" you ask Giulia, who is working hard with her computer.
"Pardon?" she answers without taking her eyes off the luminescent screen.
"Nothing. Nothing. I was talking about moonshine."
"Ah, good. Moonshine. Good."

In the new flat, there is so much to put in order that any decision has been put off until after the holidays. The relocated stuff is heaped up in one of the rooms; the rest is just a little bare. Just a little.

*

"What are you doing for Christmas?" you pour yourself another cup of tea.
"What do you reckon? Who knows...I’ve got to work, I think I will stay at home, you know the cold makes me languish" Giulia replies massaging her eyes and breathing deeply.
"You don’t know what cold, real cold, is in the mountains. It cannot make you languish, you don’t even feel it, if you are in the right mood, and among the right people. These are all city dweller excuses.... and not that good, either."
She looks at you, at last, through the flickering caused by the pressure just put on her eyeballs:
"Now listen to him, the snow-man! You were born in the city, too....so don’t play the ‘Marlboro Country Man’ now, you and your elks in the snows of Kilimanjaro.…just because you told me you have been to Tibet. What’s more, just once....and it still needs proving, too...."
You both burst into laughter.
"Would you like to see that I am right? It takes courage, though. You must promise to take back everything, if things are as I say" you suggest.
"A challenge? This is foul play.…I never draw back....besides, if it is about toning you down, I absolutely must accept! Speak out."
"One week, in the mountains, at Christmas. I had a little cottage fixed. It certainly is not the Plaza....but I know you can adapt, when you want."
"Well, I have adapted to all this...!" with a wide gesture, she embraces the entire flat, ".…what else could shock me, by now? All right. Let’s make it Christmas week then, I have some holidays still outstanding. And maybe it will do me good to get away… for a while."
"You are strange. You say you are tough and suspicious, you swear now and then, you have angry and wrathful movements, but as a matter of fact you are always sweet in your thoughts, incredible in your sounds, and alive in your mess. You gratify yourself about being scared by praises, but at the same time you move and act in the right direction and drag behind you interest and praises, you drag them behind and around. I have the feeling you haven’t succeeded in fooling me, no, you haven’t been able to disguise yourself at all!"
"I did not intend to fool anybody, my defensive barrier serves as a filter; superficial, common people let themselves be intimidated, but now and again someone remains who will not be confused, and at that point they find me nearly defenceless."
"You haven’t been able to confuse me. There are no half-contacts with people who arouse your interest: a contact or no contact. You cannot hide behind a mask."
"Masks? Me?"
"I did not mean anything negative about you."
"You are right" Giulia replies looking at the sky through the shut window. "It is a kind of camouflage....yet, the idea of the mask is not new, in my cogitations....I have always thought that everyone of us can wear a different mask in each situation, or occasion, or mood, at a particular moment... those, however, are just the endless faces of the same precious stone that each of us is... then, there are masks coming from outside, judgments, reductive criticism, and these are masks that we find too tight, they are not ours... but wearing a mask may simply mean, if it is us choosing, emphasizing a certain way of being or feeling at that moment... it is a symbol, non-verbal communication... a bit like when you choose what to wear according to where you are going, with whom you are going out, how you feel on that day, and so on."
"There is a problem there. Sometimes the dress, being excessive in some detail, or the make-up, or the hairstyle, have an opposite effect, pushing away and making the true appearance, the real one, uniform, as well as the one which usually is appreciated and attracts other peoples’ interest. Or rather, two problems here: the second is, that the mask which you unintentionally happen to wear is immediately changed into transparent crystal: therefore, I can see you anyhow. Sorry, but I feel I am not that cold myself. What was I saying... indeed, to emphasize what was meant to remain hidden. If I make too big a mess, fire one of your invectives!"
"No invectives. Only a superficial or not very...dedicated....analysis will be fooled by appearances. That’s the beauty of masks, it’s a game of ability and intelligence: succeeding in understanding the meaning and in seizing what lies behind. As you said ‘transparent’ I felt shocked because I was having the same thought. Who said you are cold?"

*

"Here we are. Come on, get out and help me carry our luggage. From here we have to walk for a short distance."
"What? But…on foot? With our suitcases?"
"What were you expecting, a liveried butler waiting for us with a luggage-carrier? Come on, city dweller….walk! After all, didn’t I tell you it was not the Plaza?"
You pick up the suitcases and start walking along the short path leading out of the village, towards the valley bottom. Giulia is struggling a bit, but the obstinate expression on her face dissuades you from asking her if she needs a hand. When she wears that expression you know it is better not to get too close….she might snarl. You smile, slightly surprised at how much you can already grasp from her grimaces, looks, and gestures; you wonder whether she, too, can catch your moods, wrinkles, and little tics just as easily. Maybe you understand each other using this unspoken language better than through your speeches, broken off for fear of going as far as to squabble too much, or of God knows what else.
Twenty days ago you had not met her yet. This is an incomprehensible matter.
You wake up from such a useless disquisition, after all she is only a stranger who, for a series of rather peculiar circumstances, has entered your life unexpectedly, sure, it could have been worse, but you have grown fond of her (this is perhaps a bit compromising, isn’t it?… well, these commonplaces lose their meaning with her….she would laugh at you if she could hear this).
"We are nearly there now. A few more steps and….there, you can see it from here already. See that chimney?"
"Thank God, a little bit more and you would have had to carry yet another load: myself! Wow… a real mountain hut! Or a hermitage, if you like…"
You hear her interrupt her speech all of a sudden, as she comes out of the last thick group of trees, and you imagine the reason why. For those not accustomed to it, the sight of the stream, the snow, the little bridge, and the towering mountains, can provoke a moment of bewilderment. It happened to you, too, when you first passed through these parts, do you remember?
You turn, and see her rapt, suitcases abandoned at her feet, her look lost in the solemn and quiet landscape, and decide you will run the risk: you will save her from the shock.
You enjoy playing the part of the good mountaineer with this sort of Gretel lost in the woods. Gretel? I am afraid all this oxygen is getting to your head, too, old chap.
You snap your fingers, she seems to emerge suddenly from a dream.
"Hey, are you all right?"
"What?…ah, yes, I….sure, sure I am. What a fantastic place. It’s…..incredible! It looks like another planet."
"Maybe it is. And maybe I am an extraterrestrial in disguise."
"A Martian who kidnapped me to vivisect me! At least we could exchange some information of interplanetary interest beforehand, don’t you agree? Let me see, grandma’s mushroom risotto recipe, for example. You would make quite an impression on your return to Mars!"
You laugh, like two teenagers at a boy scouts’ camp. Good. Good. This place has always given you very special sensations, you are happy to see that she is in a good mood, too. You feel it is going to be a fine Christmas. After all, you deserved it, didn’t you?
The little hut is in good conditions. The finely-built door is locked, all windows intact. You look for the keys, open the door, show her in with a theatrical gesture.
"My Lady, would you be so kind as to honour my humble dwelling with your bright presence?"
"In the sense that there is no electricity in this house, Master Davide?" Giulia readily replies as she makes to bend before getting in. "My God, this is … cool! It looks like an elf’s house! Look at this…."
Elves? You had bought it thinking it would be nice to spend your darkest moments there on your own, seeking some comfort in silent solitude, in order to read, paint, play, think… well…. in fact, what is the difference between that and the life of a creature of the woods?
You get in, hang up your coats on a bizarre clothes-hook you made out of an old wooden rake. Giulia looks around. She looks like a girl at a fun-fair, everything arouses wonder, amazement, comments, and questions. The house overflows with her presence and vitality.
"A fireplace!" you hear her howling. "You have a real fireplace! How groovy! Does it work? Really….and what about this furniture? It wasn’t you who made it, was it? And where do you take water from? Is there really no electricity here?"
You can hardly give her an answer to each question, when she flies off

Part 1

1. New York.

It’s December, you are leaning on a balustrade onto New York bay, with the only company - about a hundred metres away - of a woman and a girl concealed by awkward garnet red winter jackets, while the cold wind that seems to originate from the Hudson River leads your sleepy incredulous eyes towards the sea, the Statue of Liberty, and the island of selections.
"Am I really in this place?"
The question is going round in your head, unexpectedly. You do not know how to answer, so you repress it, smiling at the clear sky and the group of bronze sailors corroded by the salt deposits, towards which you have just turned your attention: one is observing, one is calling, one is leaning beyond the rock and stretching out to grasp the greenish motionless hand of a drowned person, fossilised in the instant between a life and a death both imaginary and possible.
The wind becomes continuous and noisy, revealing every detail of what surrounds you.
You are happy, maybe awake enough to turn your back and face Manhattan. You think you are ready, yet the visual impact with the inexplicable mass of skyscrapers, sculptured by warm bright light, is appalling. Hell, this is unbelievable.
You delight in the scenery, inhale the icy air several times with determination, and let your eyes run along the steel, glass and concrete masses as if it was an immense work of art.
You wait for long minutes, you are cold, but cannot adapt to it, your awe remains and grows stronger.
You must move, pull away from the balustrade without turning. You go and annoy the two women, who are concentrating upon preparing a little show of objects for tourists.
"This is not the time, it’s early" the woman repeats twice, her raven-black hair ruffled by dust whirlwinds.
"Just a couple of postcards, please. I don’t think I’ll be able to come back here later, I have very little time. Just a couple of postcards" you reply in a humble tone.
The girl comes to your aid; her hair held back by a headband, she has regular features, and a stern air.
You can pick what you were looking for: you put the photos in an envelope, after a quick check. "These ones, please. And that little metal plate of Fifth Avenue."
You bear the woman’s angry glance and the girl’s shrug of the shoulders, then you pay, do not claim your change, their cash desk is closed, and walk away waving, a greeting not reciprocated.
In the middle of Castle Clinton , you feel like a bull sprung out onto an empty and silent bull-ring; you cross the open space quickly, looking around without understanding the purpose of that low outdated blockhouse; the towering buildings become pressing, they impend brightly and lose their boundaries.
You resort to a map, choose a familiar name, to begin with: you turn into Broadway and cautiously walk along it, until you turn into Wall Street.
You are in the street of a black and white film, everything matches and enlarges, there is art, there are monumental façades, and there are people carrying briefcases, yet you are struck by the stall of a hot-dog and bun seller, and by the enchanted smoke exhaling from manholes, in an air without sun nor shadows.

*

Giulia stares at the scenery in front of her, she is drowsy, a cup of hot coffee in her hands, her head still full of the echoes of last night’s incredible Pink Floyd concert; her eyes are caught by the sight of the dawn in that city which is apparently clashing yet coordinated by a mysterious background tone.
The dense night mist is wrapping Manhattan up like a soft quilt out of which the island, still asleep, seems not to be willing to get out.
Looking at the horizon, she tries to take her mind off that strange mixture of anxiety and excitement she is seized by whenever she is nearly ready to get on a plane and cross the ocean.
As the brightness grows, the sea changes, turning from an opaque iron-grey expanse into an endless liquid carpet, changing its blue and green shades because of the clouds, which are only partially chased away by the pressing warmth of the sun and the slashes of the wind, unusually aggressive on that December morning.
The thought suddenly flashes into her mind: December. My goodness, Christmas will be here shortly. Another year ends. She shivers as if she were outside, at the mercy of that wind: unconsciously, her gaze sets on her diary, open to show a red note ‘library, development of reference software, multi-media base’.
She has gathered the data. She is satisfied.
A quick shower, a trace of makeup; she gives up the idea of trying to give her hair some decent shape and ties it up in a long tail.
Now she is in the square of the World Trade Center. She turns around several times slowly. She manages to intercept a taxi.
She needs a starting point, a positive image, before she approaches the plane which will take her back to Italy. She gets out of the taxi and pays.
She is in the hall of the Empire State Building. The skyscraper’s giant model, a tall Christmas tree with everything in the right place and a suitable light; the ticket office, a short queue, a fast lift, feeling of falling and loss of weight, air.
She can see Fifth Avenue lengthways and the twin towers far off, silhouetted against the Hudson’s and the bay’s sparkling surface, and the amazing shadow of the skyscraper where she is, comprising the tiny shadow of her own body, lost in some atom of that mother darkness which prints itself onto the buildings below, the less spectacular skyscrapers.
She feels her shadow is safe, there in the matterless, quiet, clear, wavy veil above the watery brightness of Fifth Avenue, which is plunged between the walls of that artificial canyon, so upsetting and marvellous.

*

You feel dizzy from the icy air and the continuously getting in and out of lit up shops, welcomed and rejected by piano, bells and flute sounds.
You have not seen enough of New York but the order on the phone, a little while ago, was peremptory: your boss demands the films and the article about a characteristic Christmas in which you do not feel involved, which leaves you with only tiny flashes, some indefinite perfumes, and a sort of panic.
You did what you had to do, took photos and caught sounds, you are going to look at and listen to every single thing; but you have not lived in it, you have walked in a huge three-dimensional plastic model which barred you every chance of tuning in.
You pack, then shave, now you are dressed, you are in a taxi, you run along the shunting tunnels, find yourself in a waiting lounge of JFK Airport, hoping it is the right one, the screens show snowy landscapes and a shooting brawl in Queens.
When you sit down on the seat inside the plane you feel exhausted, and let the warmth and a glass of wine daze you; you drop against the back of your seat, surrounded by the muffled noise of passengers passing on towards the tail, by the buzzing of requests and soft calls.
"Hello" you hear, together with a light and pleasant scent.
"Oh, hello" you answer the figure rustling nearby, the blurred oval of her face, her only part showing out of a kind of wide duffel-coat which seems to swallow her up every time she moves.
The seats are comfortable, you can remain in your daze, exempted from involving gestures, you have no contacts with that stranger. While she sorts her coat and hand luggage, you heedlessly catch a glimpse of a slender body and smell a light scent again. You need at least half an hour sound sleep, a deep breath, your calves and neck are cold, you have not got out of uneasiness.

*

"You are talented, you know, hell, you know it; but you waste it, you squander it. You enjoy throwing everything to the weeds." The Editor had reproached you in mid-November, and not for the first time. At the same time, as usual, he was giving you another chance, another try, as he smiled at you shaking hands. He was waiting for that.
You had not been able to smile back.
"Go away, go abroad for a week, choose a city and write a proper article on the holidays, the preparations, the lights, and how to spend one’s savings on useless things, throw in nice feelings and snow, or cold: choose Germany, Austria, whatever…."
"New York?" you threw out, with detachment, almost defiantly.
"Why New York?"
"The air is good, for Christmas; it’s a good place" you had said looking out of the window, the sky so clear, and that hell of a sun that had no intention of going away. "Christmas does not belong here anymore."
"Good title, go on like this!" the Editor had shouted, annoyed.
"Pardon?" You did not understand, you missed the links, including yours.
The fact is, you went on the trip and are now going to finish it.
What had pushed you? Right, that November without snow, those two days in the mountains, seeking inspiration.
God, what a mess!
Books, upon sheets, upon cuttings, upon diskettes. And notes, Post-it notes everywhere, even on the floor - detached, dangerous -, and the diary (there it was!).
You were supposed to tidy everything up before leaving, but there had been no time, nor the willingness, nor the need for it. What an entangled flat. What an entangled life.
You had thought it would be nice to do like in school, when the blackboard was used too much, and the chalk screeched on a sort of very thin white sludge without forming visual contrasts: the teacher pointed at you, you were the tallest and could reach up to it, he begged you to go out, a wet cloth, a couple of wipes, leave to dry.
But wiping out a flat was not as easy.
You had found your wind-cheater, the only thing that you deemed necessary for a weekend in the mountains, searching for some cold and snow, just enough to carry on until Christmas, until the reaching of the atmosphere you have managed to lose, together with the other thousand things you have lost.
Before leaving to America, you had wished for a last walk, meant to avoid worrying about the flight, the noise of the plane, the landscapes you would see run away and grow smaller.
Every event leaves a trace, which dissolves slowly.
Wearing your well-stuffed wind-cheater, then, a scarf and gloves, you had ventured towards the valley bottom, although the sun had already brought the mountain peaks closer and was to be absorbed into them.
The cold was bearable, there was no wind and the air was clear and dry.
The little snow you were treading upon creaked under your soles. You had bumped into only a couple of people going back to the village, you had realised you did not feel tired at all as you climbed, and you had a definitely good pace.
To hell with the magazine and work. You said to yourself: "Why don’t you settle down here, and just merely walk and breathe? Why do you have to leave without a reason? What a silly idea."

You could have resigned, the paper had been printed, it just wanted a signature, a large farewell sheet of paper, a gesture worthy of times of old. A sheet drawn up and checked with diligence, impeccable, concrete, and redeeming.
Instead, you had bartered it for a trip across the ocean.

You delighted in the regular breathing and the unhurried rhythm of your heart-beats, you took deep breaths when you felt the need for it, which relaxed your mind, offering you certainties: to an action corresponded a positive reaction, everything was working properly.
You had decided to deviate, to walk along a closed cattle-shed and two little buildings with renovated roofs, a solid look, and no windows; along the other side of the path ran an electricity line supported by rough poles. You had imagined to open a window and build a fireplace in one of the buildings, and to connect it to the electric grid: it was isolated, far enough from the village, and well set in that foreshortening with mountains, wood, and stream. A place where one could work or rest in peace.
You had to settle down in that place, and there wring life’s secrets, ponder, and maybe paint, play, think, write something important; who could know?
You had walked on, passing by the last farmers’ houses, small, low, isolated, abandoned, lifeless houses.
Your eyes had perceived the narrow hollow of the valley bottom underneath you: the mountains on the left - undulated and regular - and those on the right - high, uneven, and with rocky tops - and the rocky wall in front, its stony top, and the hardly visible path running through it.
You had lowered your eyes onto the frozen stream, the little bridge made with shifted wood, the stretch of solid water spreading out like a big translucent stain, rose coloured by the late afternoon light.
You were a child, in that total and enclosing silence.
You had tested the resistance of the frozen surface, which had revealed itself to be compact and even, you had made as if to slide slightly, and, finally reassured and balanced by your arms held open, you had tried to make your slides longer, along the sloping stream bed, paying attention to the few rocks and stones.
You had succeeded in sliding fairly well, nobody had watched you, even when you had fallen, using your hands to protect you, and had found yourself sliding on your back, watching the sky running above and the mountain peaks slowly spinning.
It could have been a way of living.
To slide on the ice, get cold, then warm up, get changed, put on soft and warm clothes, eat, sleep, wake up.
You had decided to walk across the ice and continue for a little longer, up to where the climb to the shelter begins. You had then walked up for about thirty steep metres, in order to reach a point above the valley, which you then would have stopped to look at, sitting on a large stone with rounded corners, to the point when you had realised that darkness was softened only by the gradual adapting of your eyes, which had never ceased to investigate among the rocks and thorns, among the bushes and the frozen patches.
To be honest, that was a rather dangerous situation.
The time to get down had come inexorably, so as not to be caught in the darkness, the cold, the possibility of a bad fall. In any case, you had realised not to fear any of these hypotheses, and this observation had filled you with satisfaction and amazement.
Actually, the only problem had been crossing the path’s frozen part, which, as you went downhill, had offered a couple of doubts to resolve and a couple of choices to determine.
To resolve and to determine is a gift of yours: you had done it easily, finding yourself getting across the frozen little lake, with caution but without fears.
Once you had reached the earthy road, marks and footsteps were solid and dry, and the darkness seemed nearly impenetrable: few stars, the soft fluorescence of the snow patches and strips.
You had got down at a quick pace, breathing deeply and slowly through the nose, until your eyes had caught sight of the tiny lights of an ancient custom house: hundreds of white light bulbs traced the outline of roof and chimneys; next to the barred entrance, a lit up tree.
That was some of the atmosphere you were looking for.
On seeing the village lights, you had deviated to the right, descending to the stream, in spite of the dark, and had entered the narrow path next to it, a path whose every unevenness and bush you had known since you were a child.
You had caught a glimpse of the water, detected nearly imperceptible reflections, and heard the icy current flow, the ice dripping, and the rustle underneath the little snow caves.
No problems had showed up. You had walked across the garden of the first house - its windows lit up and silent - had found yourself again on the empty asphalt road, and had reached in a few minutes the Christmas lights of the centre, where few wrapped up people went in and out of the grocer’s and the newsagent’s.
Safe again.
The following day, at nine, a Jumbo was awaiting you.

*

"Did you sleep well?"
Abruptly awoken from her dream, at first Giulia does not understand what the man sitting in the next seat is asking her. "Yes" she answers somewhat surprised, "…what time is it?"
"In New York or in Italy?" you ask smiling. "We have been flying for nearly two hours."
It is dark out of the window.
"I am sorry I woke you up, but the stewardess thought we were flying together, she probably thought that among Italians everybody knows everybody … and she wanted me to order your dinner. I would have been pleased to do it, so as not to wake you up, but did not know what to order, of course."
She focalises you with a quick glance; she had not paid much attention to that not very talkative passenger who, after distractedly answering her greeting, had abruptly fallen back into a pensive silence, not to say a sound sleep. However, as soon as the decisive take-off phase was over, Giulia herself had slipped into quite a similar, equally invincible sleep.
"Coffee, please.…and a European breakfast" she orders. "I am sorry you were disturbed because of me."
"No problem. Breakfast for dinner? That’s original!"
You make as if to stand up when your bag, left open, falls pouring all its contents onto the mat.
Quite embarrassed, you begin to pick up the objects scattered on the floor; she bends, picks up a pipe lighter, your passport, a music tape, and a book, and hands them over with a smile.
"It seems we have likings in common, as to books. My name is Giulia, what is yours?"
"Davide. Thank you, you didn’t need to…What book?"
"The one that fell out of the bag: ‘Movable Feast’."
"I often re-read it; at regular intervals, I would say. The title is ill translated, too literal, but I have become fond of it. So you like Hemingway."
" ‘The Sun Also Rises’ in particular. In the original version."
"That’s ‘Fiesta’ in the Italian version. Don’t you think these books are very similar?"
"Not at all."
"To me, they seem to be similar."
"Really? Only in the translated titles. Two languages, two ages, two epochs."
"What is your job?"
"What do you think?"
"Teacher?"
"I am in charge of my town’s Library. I’m working on a project with the aim of making the use of texts, tables, and pictures pleasant" Giulia answers, smiling and turning the pages of the thick diary she is holding on her lap.
"Interesting. Is this the purpose of your trip to New York?"
"I find it unbearable that an institution keeps so much material, but that it is impossible to gather, manipulate, develop, and pleasantly use it."
"We have the same taste as to books and documentation."
"Why do you say this?"
" ‘Fiesta’ and ‘Movable Feast’."
"Totally different books."
"Why do you insist?"
"The one I like was written by a twenty-seven-year-old, more or less. Your movable feast is the brooding and regretting of an old man."
"But you are always talking about Hemingway."
"I am talking about a young man and a sixty-year-old."
"Your young man had quite a problem, if I remember well."
"The wound you refer to is his strength. The basis for Pamplona, Brett’s frenzy of living, alcohol in leather flasks, the sun, the risk of death and life."
"It is just right that you should like the young."
"Look, I am only eight years younger than you."
"How do you know?" you ask staring at her eyes.
"I took a fast glance in your passport, as I picked it up."
"But did you read it well…."
" ‘A Movable Feast’? Certainly. I translated and analysed it with a friend, at university, and he made it into his final dissertation."
"It gives me positive sensations and instants of true happiness" you reply. "Time and again, I envied the atmosphere of a poor and happy life, the pleasure to go out, in Paris, after having worked well; milk, bread, horse races, and the exchange of ideas between uncommon people."
"In that book you also find alcohol, opium, smoke, and a smelly atmosphere."
"I’m afraid I will not follow what you say. I love the first part and the happy long-lost days."
"I understand you; but he is already thinking of committing suicide when he decides to involve the naive ones in his vortex. You have let yourself be bewitched."
"It’s the same person who won you."
"That person’s grandfather. His decadent part. His illness. When he was young, he was bored by the Montparnasse he idealised at sixty."
The stewardess, with a snow-white apron, is discreet and kind. She apologises and announces the meal. She helps to adjust the trays and cutlery. She offers cold dry white wine.
"Have you made the right choice?" Giulia asks smiling.
"I couldn’t have done better" you answer, happy with the starter you are being served.
"You just asked to bring you everything!" the stewardess specifies with a smile.
"Bon appetit. To the good health of our favourite author."
"Cheers."

The dinner is excellent. Giulia finishes your dessert.
A film is about to be shown. The plane has not the least of jerks, the background noise is soft and uniform.
The images on the screen insert two hours of simulated reality in the thoughts of the occasional travel mates, enchanting them above the hostile far off ocean.
"A good film. Nothing is better than a good film. I mean, except a good book. It takes your mind off bad thoughts, don’t you think?"
"In this case, I had better subscribe with the nearest film club" you answer.
Maybe a funny remark, but her head is lowered now.
"Any problems?"
"Do you mind if I talk a bit about my troubles?" Giulia asks with the tone - nearly a sigh - allowed by the final scene and the fading music.
"Troubles at your age? Are you joking?" but she has a serious look. "Sorry, I did not mean to go back to the birthday problem…. What happened?"
"Earthly things. While I was in New York, my lease has expired" she answers.
"Really!"
"I don’t think they had the courage to force me out."
"Don’t you?"
"No. That nuisance of a landlord cannot have gone that far. Ex landlord, rather."
"And now, is there a place where you can stay?"
"I have just confided that my lease has expired while I was away. While. Do you understand?"
"I am doing my best not to understand. What if you find the lock changed? Such people do exist!"
"What people?"
"Tough guys."
"Ha! I don’t think so. We have argued often, that is true, a couple of times I even yelled at him that he was a shark, that is true. The most he could have done is slip a fiery letter under my door. At the most."
"I hope so, for your own sake. What are your prospects?"
"This is the point. I think I will have to look for another flat very soon. On a high floor. With a dormer window. I love dormer windows."
"If you put it this way, it looks like a positive fact. Almost exciting. Maybe a flat with enough room for a studio, for a music room."
"Do you live in a flat?"
"Me? I have lived in one for years. Renting. A bit small. A bit too small, sometimes. It hasn’t got a nice view. It is somewhat messy. To tell you the truth, I could not describe it."
"You feel comfortable there. One understands it by the way you talk about it."
"Yes, maybe I feel well there. It’s a bit small, though."
"Ever thought of changing?"
"No."
"Do you know any reliable agency?"
"No. Not very reliable."
"Better than no agency at all."
"I agree. Would you like a fruit juice?"
"Pear, if possible."
There is some turbulence now. Some short vibrations of the aircraft structure.
You go back to your seat, handing her the glass. You load and light your pipe, with a concentrated air. Good, aromatic, light, coarse-grained tobacco.
"Shall I help you look for a flat?"
"You can read my thoughts."
"I have never taken into consideration a practical idea like looking for a flat. This one where I live now, I had from a colleague who left the magazine. Yet, a dormer window, on a rainy day, or under a snowfall….."
"Isn’t it?"

The plane lowers its height, entering the mysterious stratum of clouds, everything outside disappears.
Only a slight friction against something immaterial.
The height continues to decrease, at times considerably, the aeroplane makes fairly strange turns, the clouds are not being pierced.
The intercom invites to extinguish cigarettes and fasten seat belts.
"Were you serious when you said you would help me?"
"I am always serious when an attractive girl asks me to find her a place to stay."
"Come on, stop joking! The problem is complex. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to get in the flat, tonight." She smiles, then attacks again: "So? Can I count on that?"
"All right. Will you give me your number?"
She fumbles in her jacket, writes a number on a pink piece of paper, and signs it with her name.
"Here you are. May I have yours? If that does not bother you, of course."
Bother? No, you realise that you do not feel absolutely bothered. That girl has pulled you away from your gloomy thoughts for a few hours, you cannot understand how, but you certainly do not feel bothered.
You write your number on the inside cover of ‘Movable Feast’ and hands her the book, with a studied gesture.
"Aren’t you going to finish re-reading it?"
"I will when you give it back to me. The book is left as a hostage with you."
"Hostage? For what?"
"Well… your address and telephone number, of course. In case I make no good use of them."
You keep surprising yourself with your own words, you scarcely recognise yourself, yet it is you who seems to have gone back to your better days, when facing a brilliant dialogue with a girl was your favourite sport. Your better days.
She repeats your last sentence ironically: "A book as a hostage for my telephone number?…What is this nonsense of hostage addresses?"
"In the sense that if you want yours back and I refuse to do so….you will not give mine back!"
"What inhuman blackmailing this is!"
"Isn’t it the way it usually goes?"
"Well…hostage addresses….where have you heard such things? It’s incredible."
"I improvise them…I don’t hear them!" you explain in a final way.
"The best use you can make of it is to give me a good piece of news. Who knows, an attic in the centre….not too modern a place, though….maybe with that dormer window….and a spiral staircase" she ends, with the air of having asked for the vital minimum.
"And a full moon every night from the windows?"
You burst into laughter simultaneously. You feel well, as if that shared laughter had swept away your worries, pushing them back across the ocean, leaving them forever in the hall of JFK, by now light years behind you.
"Do you think the weather is bad?" Giulia asks looking at the service light and betraying a tiny hint of fear.
"It does not seem to, it hasn’t been announced" you answer, only a little tenser than it is necessary.
The aeroplane lowers its height and continues to right its course. No messages from the cabin.
The stewardess smiles reassuringly.
"My Goodness! They should be giving us some piece of news!" Giulia cries.
The stewardess smiles at her. Maybe with a slightly quizzical look. Maybe.
Giulia responds with a little grimace. She looks at you and raises her eyebrows twice, opening her arms.
The plane goes down and turns.
"Well, that’s strange…probably, there is some unannounced disturbance" you agree, and continue: "I would suggest to let the pilot solve this little problem."
"What airline is this?"
"TWA…Are you all right?"
Giulia has turned pale. "TWA…TWA….Those at TWA are among the most reckless pilots, if I remember well. Yes. Together with Lufthansa’s!"
"So what?"
"It cannot be fog, can it? They aren’t looking for the landing strip….by rule of thumb, are they?"
"With a radar, at worst. And radio signalling" you reassure her, smiling. You begin to feel strange, the girl’s anxiety maybe has infected you. Nonsense, you conclude.
The stewardess announces there is fog at Malpensa airport.
"You see? You see?" Giulia says in agitation, seeking refuge in a smile of self-pity.
"They will take us to Genoa, I’m afraid. It’s a shame: such a smooth flight, without delays."
"In my opinion, the turns the plane has made are too few….and it has lost height a lot. Good Heavens!"
"Any solutions? Shall we get off?"
"Please, go ahead." Giulia smiles in amusement. You managed to distract her, for now.
The plane lowers its height and turns once again.
"I am a bit scared. It’s official." Giulia says in a low voice.
"Any suggestions?" you ask, fairly relaxed, and continue: "Shall I tell the pilot to step aside?" winking at her.
Giulia is not smiling. "May…may I hold your arm?" she asks, dramatically, with clasped hands.
"I have a better idea!"
"That is?" all of a sudden Giulia lifts her eyes, she is puzzled.
"Maybe you should be aware that when I was at high school…"
"What’s the point?"
"Wait."
The plane turns and loses height.
"Hurry up!" Giulia asks, still managing to smile. She is visibly tense.
"There were three girls in my class, two of them very good students…"
"So what?"
"…who were terrified by oral tests. So…"
"So?" Giulia looks out of the window, watching that steam getting thicker and thicker, and the light getting dimmer and dimmer.
"So they sat next to me: I was to hold the hand of the one supposed to be tested, to the moment when she would be called out."
"Where is the problem?"
"No problem. They felt at ease. I liked to hold their hands."
"I don’t understand you. What has this got to do with…..with all this?" she embraces, in a large circle, the cabin, the stewardess, the other passengers, the unintelligible window.
"Want to try?"
"Try what?" Giulia’s eyes have acquired the indefinite tone of the whitish thickness running dizzily outside the plane.
"To hold my hand" you suggest, after getting over the feeling of void in the stomach, caused by the last balancing of the plane.
"Good God!" says Giulia aloud, as the plane lowers height again. Her little cry joins that of the passengers.
"He won’t land with such a visibility, will he?" she manages to whisper in your direction, and immediately goes on: "OK, agreed!"
"What?"
"My hand. It’s OK. Hold it!"
You smile at her. The dialogue stops.
The aeroplane goes down without turning any further. A milky mass flows out of the windows at an incredible speed. There is a hollow background noise, a conforming one, without any other superimposing sound.
The breathing has stopped.
Giulia keeps her eyes closed, her lips locked. You clasp her fingers. A few seconds.
You cannot be left cold by that kind of contact, you have always deemed it noble, high, decisive: an inexhaustible exchange of information with the other person, a sort of privileged telematic stream, a greater exchange of data than through a thousand words or glances. The problem has always been to withhold those data, to keep them, not to scatter them.
Giulia’s hand is warm, it does not betray the emotion of the body it belongs to, and conveys signals, however fast and crowded they are. You are busy giving a reason for that steamy thickness which is not convincing. Your stomach is contracting in an unusual way, slightly but annoyingly.
"How long will these clouds go on for?" Giulia notes, almost sadly.
"I don’t know…it should stop… soon we should be seeing….oh hell! O Jesus!"
An unexpected jerk. Not powerful. Unexpected.
The plane touches the ground fairly gently, and what is now running underneath it is the asphalt of the airport’s strip.
"But, hell, he has landed in the fog! That’s unbelievable!" Giulia is appalled.
"Didn’t you say that those at TWA do so?" you remind her, smiling. You relax.
Giulia is laughing, she’s happy. She is breathing deeply. She is very beautiful at that moment.
There is no time to record this datum, as her hand escapes from yours. It’s just an instant, and you are left with the unpleasant feeling of a halved conversation, as if an invisible link had suddenly broken.
Giulia jumps to her feet. She collects her hand luggage and puts her duffel-coat on. She leaves, almost without saying good-bye, among the first passengers. She turns and says: "I believe we will have a hard time getting to the terminal by bus. You can’t see a thing!"
You say good-bye again in the muddle near the taxis.
She reminds you of the flat. You smile at her and wave good-bye.
The taxis are being engulfed by an incredible fog. The driver, concisely, comments: "These people are crazy. Believe me!"
You are by yourself.


2. The Eviction.

Giulia, now that she is sitting in the taxi, has the impression of hearing her mother’s voice, and pieces of her speeches on having a man near you at all costs, in life. The only right aspiration: to marry and raise a family.
She challenged her mother and that old-fashioned mentality. She followed her own inclinations, studying passionately, understanding, sharing, questioning doctrines, in search of order and clarity.
After a degree in letters, she had had to give up, against her will, her dream of becoming an archaeologist. Her adolescence had been a tissue of fancies about incredible travels and great discoveries from the most remote antiquity; she had surprised all her teachers in high school with her mastery of classical languages, and even of the Egyptian alphabet (which she maliciously used to write disrespectful anonymous sentences on the blackboard, among the amused comments of her class mates). The time at university had been spent in the passing, one after the other, of exams, apparently with no effort, with enthusiasm.
The hard crash against the insurmountable obstacle of her father’s death. The financial straits, the need to find herself a job, forgetting about her dreams.
The evolution of computer science had burst out just in the last university years and, despite her classical education, her inborn curiosity had drawn her close to this new world; she had become familiar with computers, witnessing with fascination the fast overpowering development of the apparently endless applications of this thinking machine, which seemed to materialize the dreams of her favourite science-fiction novels.
She had seized her job at the Library with determination, with the precise aim of reorganising ideas and of finally being able to have easy access to them, in order to elaborate them, above all to overtake them thanks to new thoughts and horizons.
Funny that in that period she let Marco enter her life. Afterwards, she had told herself it must have been a moment of absent-mindedness, or maybe he had had the peculiar capacity to point out the gaps in her ideological construction, being a constant spur for discussions, overcoming her sound defences with his shy behaviour and his sardonic remarks, catching, thanks to unexpected accurate intuitions, her real nature, her silences, her hidden tears, her poems, her unyielding will-power, and her fear of the world, hidden behind a rather deterrent behaviour. A period of passion, creativity, an anarchic relationship with no apparent rules.
The possibility to direct their relationship towards more traditional norms had led her to stop brusquely the uncontrolled flowing of feelings and irrational, precise and involving sensations, to the point of sending away the figure that had now become dangerous for a balance and a clear-sightedness she had attained with great effort.
They had broken up all of a sudden, or rather, she had looked for a suitable excuse at all costs in order to elude that unconscious power. She had left him without mercy, with the firm intention not to fall into that again.
There were times, however, when the crystal and steel building where she had voluntarily exiled herself showed the unfixable cracks of loneliness and dismay. Ancient fears, never completely appeased, had emerged like red-hot cinders unveiled by a blast of wind on the ash.
The apprenticeship had turned out to be precious, obliging her to acquire an analytical attitude, to systematically classify everything, to almost develop a philosophy for approaching the books’ ideas and contents.
The possibility of a multimedia access to the books kept in the Library, an idea she conceived on a foggy afternoon in front of the television, had made the Director enthusiastic, who had encouraged her to develop that computerisation project. He was an elderly man, an evanescent figure, a rare specimen of a gentleman in love with learning and the free and widespread diffusion of it: "You have had a charming idea. I do trust your proposal and I know how much enthusiasm you put in your work. On my part, my dear, I give you ‘carte blanche’: I am sure you will succeed in doing a very fine thing."
The project’s development had required co-operation with other Centres interested in multimedia culture; Cornell University had said they would be available for a short refresher course, a week in New York.

*

The taxi ends its ride. Giulia has arrived home.
She puts down her suitcase and bag, and opens her overfull letter box.
Bills, the usual advertisements, a couple of postcards, a letter.
She goes up to the third floor; the building is anonymous, quiet, along the stairs there is a smell of freshly baked pie (the lady downstairs must have guests for dinner tonight).
The lift door opens in front of a little man with a nice moustache, intent on watering the plants placed on the landing.
"Miss Giulia! Welcome back!" the porter greets her, running to her help.
"Thank you, Rinaldo, how are you? And your wife?"
"Her usual pains in the bones, especially in this weather!…but, what about you? I’m glad you are back! We had no idea where to find you."
"What’s the matter?"
"Mr De Bellis….your landlord… he was here the day before yesterday. He collected the rent from the other two tenants and he was looking for you. He even asked me if I knew where you had gone! What a person… He looked rather annoyed. I think he left a letter for you."
Ah, that’s the one who writes to me, she thinks somewhat worried as she manoeuvres with her key-ring which, as usual, slips out of her hand.
The little man bends nimbly, picks up the object, an old gift from Marco, and hands it to her.
"I’m afraid he wants the flat back, Miss Giulia. I heard he wants to let it to an embassy… My Goodness! Can you imagine the mess, all these foreigners around…"
By now Giulia has opened the door. The air in the flat is stale, after fifteen days absence. The lights of the automated aquarium are on; the flat looks a bit ghastly, but maybe it is just the water’s reflections on the walls. She says good bye to Rinaldo, who goes back to his plants, and closes the door behind her, leaves her luggage there and sits down on her favourite sofa.
She rips the envelope open with impatience, and begins to read the letter. Rinaldo was right, her landlord demands that the flat be left free in no later than two months, ‘no respites’. That word weighs heavily on her like a final judgment, especially because Giulia knows how unpleasant Mr De Bellis can become when he wants.
"God-damn shark, to hell with him!" she says aloud, throwing the letter away as if it burnt her hands.
She feels confused, a sense of emptiness pervades her while she tries, in spite of everything, to analyse the situation coldly.
Don’t panic. Think.
She stands up, beginning to open wide the windows. The biting air spreads in the flat, oxygenating it: the cold shakes her as she unpacks, mechanically putting her clothes in the wardrobe. "Think" she repeats to herself. Her brain is on fire. She realises she has just got out of a plane after a flight of nine hours, tiredness is upon her in an instant; a nice bath, that’s what she needs.
The flat is not big, but has got positive sides to it. One of these, which had finally convinced Giulia to accept a not quite convenient rent, is a Jacuzzi which has become her secret refuge. A bit snobbish, perhaps; but in stressful times, or whenever the number of thoughts requiring her attention is beyond her powers of endurance, she fills the tub with hot water, scents it with foam, puts on some music and tries to remain with her eyes closed, as the submerged jets pleasantly caress her. "It has always worked, come on, you’ll feel better afterwards" she says to herself, while rummaging in her bag in search of her cigarettes. The noise of the water in the background hurries her; where are those damn cigarettes? She finds them at last, on the bottom of her bag, of course, half hidden by a book.
It is the book that strange guy on the plane gave her. Hemingway. No, she smiles to herself, his name was …. Daniele? Dario? …Oh, yes: Davide. She walks towards the bathroom, the book in one hand and the lit-up cigarette in the other. She turns on the stereo, putting on some Chopin.
The sparkling and pleasantly warm water receives her. She allows herself a sigh of relief and closes her eyes. Time seems to slow down, then stopping completely, while she lets the notes of the Nocturnes lull her. The record ends, she remains there listening to the water rustle and her own breath, by now calm and regular.
The telephone brings her back to reality. She dashes out of the tub, swearing at the unknown killjoy, puts on her bathrobe and runs to the devilish crying device.
"Hello?" she asks, in a slightly altered voice.
"Hello? Miss Petri?" replies a heavy, disagreeable voice. De Bellis, her landlord. ‘Maybe he saw me coming back?’
"De Bellis here, good evening. You’re back, at last."
"Just arrived from New York."
"Did you receive my letter?"
"Certainly."
"I need the flat. Urgently. I hope it will not be necessary to resort to legal proceedings, you see. It would be….unpleasant."
‘As if an eviction were funny’, she would like to reply. But she restrains herself; the bath has had some effect, she feels more relaxed and self-controlled.
"You needn’t worry. I’ll give your keys back in two months."
"I’ll count on that. Good bye."
Giulia brusquely hangs up. She goes back into the bathroom to dry her hair, throws her head forwards in order to comb her hair, when her eyes fall upon the book by Hemingway. A sentence comes back to her memory, mixed with strange sensations and a confused recollection of a blind landing, holding a stranger’s hand like a terrified child.
‘What a fool I am…yet…what an original chap! Davide. I believe I must have assailed him, with that story of him feeling older than he is, and also regarding Hem…but, at the end of the day, he promised to help me’.
It is dinner time, the fridge is empty, and she begins to browse through the telephone directory in search of a take-away, maybe a Chinese one, or a pizza….a real pizza!
She has caught sight of a couple of take-aways which seem to be fairly near her place, when the telephone starts ringing again.
She is astonished. How can it be that everybody is informed about her return? She does not answer.

She devours her pizza to the last bit: excellent, after all that strange food she had to eat in New York.
On principle, every novelty attracts her and makes her curious, so she allowed herself several food explorations during her stay in the Big Apple. A proper pizza, however, there really is no comparison!
She lights up the umpteenth cigarette and lays herself down on the sofa, savouring the pleasant sensation of finally being home. The echo of De Bellis’s phone call and its disagreeable content, however, abruptly bring her to face the new situation: a predictable (menaces of eviction had already begun before her departure to the States, but she was too busy getting ready to give much heed) and at the same time unexpected one.
She looks at the rocking-chair in the corner, a Christmas present from Marco a few years before. Marco.
Maybe he was right, she says to herself.
Had she married him, she would not be a refugee, at the mercy of people without many scruples, without a man to defend and advise her.
She banishes such thoughts angrily, like annoying stubborn insects.

*

Now nothing can stop you from writing the article; you even have the photos on your desk. Well, this is not exactly the kind of report the big boss will appreciate.
Hell, what a mess of a flat this is! And since when has it become so small? And why does it feel like there is no air? And what about all this hell of junk scattered on the desk? And where has the computer keyboard gone?
And this heat.
What would crown all would be the telephone ringing or some alien sound. Or that the light went out, or that there were no hot water this evening.
The telephone rings, inexorably. In such a situation, it takes courage.
You do not have it. You answer. Annoyed.
The boss speaks in an imperious tone, assailing you with words and proposals. He threatens you. He wants the photographs, the article, and wants it long, full-bodied, original, many-coloured, phantasmagorical, wants it to be published in three instalments in the magazine, so as to reach Christmas eve. He wants a sort of short novel and the readers to be fascinated, he wants to lift up the magazine’s destiny only through that series of articles and images from New York of yours.
At least, that is how you understand it. You bang the receiver down on the telephone, without succeeding in disconnecting the line, you heat up, your hands tremble disproportionately to the facts taking place, you hear his voice, cannot deal the apparatus another blow, lift it level with your eyes, staring at it wickedly, but you also hear "Do you really not care at all about being fired?" flung in the ether with a tone you have very rarely heard.
You reply: "Not at all!"
"You always say that, you fool me each time, nothing scares you, you’re a damn son of…"
"Don’t you dare say that!" you hiss in the receiver.
His sentence remains cut to pieces in the air.
"The article will come out as it will come out, nothing more and nothing less. I do not compose what you like, I do not alter things, I wait for words to follow one after the other by themselves, and for the mind and the senses to dictate and compel" you explain in a low voice.
Meanwhile, the impression that everything around has become more oppressive and tighter becomes unbearable.
"Must go out now!" you yell at your boss, who does not reply anymore, being probably paying attention to something else, some other matter. Your time is up.
Even this time, he has not fired you.
You put on your jacket, looking for your keys and wallet. But this is the day of unpleasant sounds. And the telephone rings again.
"What more now? All right, all right…I’ll consider myself fired! OK! But now I have to go out" you say impetuously.
"You have been fired?" says Enrico’s voice.
"What…what…what do you want? Hi. Sorry. I wasn’t…"
"You weren’t talking to me, were you? Obviously. Well…if you are about to be fired I am afraid that what I was going to tell you will be of no interest to you! I am sorry."
"Come on, you. Look, this is not the right moment. All right….to hell with you! See you soon!"
"Wait…it’s my parents’ flat…it…"
You should have hung up earlier on. You had had the occasion.
You still manage to disconnect.
What ‘parents’ flat’? The attic? What on earth is happening? What does the world want from you, and what’s more, all at once?
You cannot go out.
You are dialling your friend’s number.
Engaged. He must be calling you again. You wait. No, what if he is calling up somebody else? What occasion was he gabbing about? You dial a nasty 197…and wait.

"Yes?"
"Enrico?"
"Yes?"
"Wait."
"Yes?"
"Are you stuck?" you cannot help smiling. Your hands, slightly shaking, estrange your look and voice.
"I was calling again" says Enrico in an assertive tone.
Good old adorable Enrico. He was calling you again.
"So, you are not interested?" he says almost worried.
"Make yourself clear. I swear I’ll listen without interrupting."
"My parents’ attic. Do you want it at a good price? They are not coming back from Brazil anymore. They said to keep it for myself. I hate it, you know. Do you want it? Straight away, though. Straight away."
"How good a price? Why do you always need money?"
While your ears listen to figures and proposals, your mind wanders above the roofs and takes possession of that wonderful place, with the same sight that Hemingway had had at the time of his hospitalisation, of his affair with the nurse, of your most romantic fantasies, and you can see the dormer window, the little balcony, the garret, and all that you have always envied. The spires of the cathedral. How can it be possible? What have you got to do with it? What will you do with it? You feel fine here.
Why does it feel like stifling this evening? Why is there all that mess? Why do you answer "Yes, agreed" when you know perfectly well that, even on those conditions, the sum is too high for you?
"It’s full-furnished, you can enter it immediately, within two weeks. It’s a sort of sine qua non condition. You know what my parents are like."
"I know what you are like!" you feel as if you could see Enrico winking. You are dizzy, the air is wanting, you want to go out. You confirm: yes, all right, settled.
You will find the money. Why don’t you go out now?
Because it already worries you that you must get into debt. Ah, right, your grandfather coming back, looking at you from the grand pastures, reminding you something about bites and chewing, amounts and proportions.
Why do you hold a pink piece of paper now? Where on earth has it come out of?
Do you intend to call her up? You’ve got the flat! Call her! Make a good impression, the best ever! You give her the address and take back the hostage book!
You smile. It helps you to wet your face with ice-cold water and stare at yourself in the mirror: you are too foolish when you behave like this, you cannot miss the show.
You dial the number. What the hell was her name? No idea! You’ll bluff at the right time.
But, what time is it? Midnight. Who cares. It is ringing already. What if you wake her up? What if she is with someone?
The thought annoys you. A voice.
"Yes?"
"Er…this is Davide."
"Fine. Anything I can do for you?" a very young and ironical woman’s voice.
"I mean, do you remember me?"
"Should I?" her tone is unconventional. People around are giggling.
"But…" God, now her name must come to my mind, otherwise…What was her name? Giulia! That’s it, Giulia.
"Giulia?" you almost whisper.
"Oh…I see…that silly sister of mine. One moment…Giulia!"
The sounds and noises correspond to those of a family party. Family party? Are they still called so?
The waiting time is probably proportionate to Giulia’s effort to associate his name to an event: "Davide?"
"Hallo. Excuse me. Sorry…Yes, it’s me. I have got some news!"
Now she remembers you. The plane, the fog, your promise to help her: "Don’t tell me you have some idea about the flat?"
"I have the flat" you answer impetuously.
"No way!"
"I have it." You feel important. You feel satisfied. The "coup de théâtre" was fast but effective. The nth and not the last one in your life. You delight in the solution of the problem and the good impression you have made.
"Maybe it is going to be expensive?"
"No."
"Sure? Do you realise you are fantastic? I knew I was doing well to trust you and give you my number."
"Well…not exactly cheap….well…there is a balcony…a dormer window…it is quite big…"
"How big?"
"Two hundred square metres, as far as one can judge."
"OK, what’s the sum? Shoot!"
You say it, almost with pride.
"My goodness. A real bargain! Really. Thank you for thinking about me. End of the dream."
"Too much?"
"Not for that type of flat. It’s a special cheap price."
Right, your most special friend.
"I am sorry" you say to her in a comforting tone.
"We should get down to half the price, to make it reasonable. Never mind."
"Half…that’s what I think, too."
"Anyone you know who can…." You say together with her, exactly the same instant. You smile. She laughs.
"No." You reply, again at the same time as her.
"All right, let’s define turns!" Giulia’s voice is lovely, she sounds nearly happy. Maybe her friends are amusing her. Maybe it’s the rhythmical music you hear in the background.
"Go!" you suggest.
"I am by myself. I have nobody to share with" she says quickly.
"Same with me. Besides, I do not have to relocate." But as you talk, you still have that stifling feeling, and objects look to be in an unbearable mess. And books appear to be scattered everywhere, and the ceiling lower than usual, and the house opposite too close. You suddenly feel the absence of the sky.
"It’s a pity" she says in an almost sad tone.
At least so it seems to you.
And where is Don Quixote? Here he comes!
"I might…" slips out of your mouth.
"You might?"
"I might find someone who …" you go on, not so convinced.
"Someone who paid half the money?" she suggests, very ironically.
"No, right?"
"No! Absolutely not!…unless…" now her tone is amused again. She laughs. Friends around are suggesting something to her.

You have been playing the guitar for half an hour, ill-treating that poor soft plectrum in unlikely rhythms and hard arpeggios. You have wandered among Queen, Venditti, the Beatles, and Dylan. Sound waves invade the room and bounce and intertwine and merge with the pain in the digital pulps and with the desire to have a cold sweet drink. You have managed to reach the point when the brain moves the hand without intermediation, when the oscillations of neurones coincide with those of the strings and the case.
How the hell could you accept? What is the matter with you? How could it happen?
Good God! Trapped like a schoolboy. Now you call her up. Now you tell her it was a joke.
Now you explain to her that no, it is impossible to live in a flat together, even if sharing it properly, even if following some rules, even on the understanding that the other person’s freedom is not to be bound.
Now you look for the number, now you find that hell of a pink piece of paper. Now you ask to talk about it calmly, without the effects of the festive atmosphere, the music and the lack of air.
Now you tell her it was a joke.
Now you are trapped.
Now you have a new flat, you have ten days to move in. If you call Enrico, it is done.
Here. You have a way out. If. If you call him. If you call Enrico.
While you are thinking thus, you are already listening to the TUT TUT of the free line, you are hearing a click, your friend’s voice: "So, everything’s fine? You do make me happy! And you make my parents happy, too! I knew I could count upon you. Thank you. And let me remind you: before Christmas!"
"Thank you."
Thank this day. Before Christmas? When is Christmas? In a year’s time?
This Christmas?
You must go out.
You can hardly walk in all that confusion.
And the oxygen’s finished!


3.The Flat and The Mountains.

Only the snow is missing to make the whole thing perfect.
The light of the shining moon, however, restores specially charmed spires and roofs if only you half-close your eyes and blur images, and, all things considered, what comes out is something whitely magical and clean.
"Beautiful, isn’t it?" you ask Giulia, who is working hard with her computer.
"Pardon?" she answers without taking her eyes off the luminescent screen.
"Nothing. Nothing. I was talking about moonshine."
"Ah, good. Moonshine. Good."

In the new flat, there is so much to put in order that any decision has been put off until after the holidays. The relocated stuff is heaped up in one of the rooms; the rest is just a little bare. Just a little.

*

"What are you doing for Christmas?" you pour yourself another cup of tea.
"What do you reckon? Who knows...I’ve got to work, I think I will stay at home, you know the cold makes me languish" Giulia replies massaging her eyes and breathing deeply.
"You don’t know what cold, real cold, is in the mountains. It cannot make you languish, you don’t even feel it, if you are in the right mood, and among the right people. These are all city dweller excuses.... and not that good, either."
She looks at you, at last, through the flickering caused by the pressure just put on her eyeballs:
"Now listen to him, the snow-man! You were born in the city, too....so don’t play the ‘Marlboro Country Man’ now, you and your elks in the snows of Kilimanjaro.…just because you told me you have been to Tibet. What’s more, just once....and it still needs proving, too...."
You both burst into laughter.
"Would you like to see that I am right? It takes courage, though. You must promise to take back everything, if things are as I say" you suggest.
"A challenge? This is foul play.…I never draw back....besides, if it is about toning you down, I absolutely must accept! Speak out."
"One week, in the mountains, at Christmas. I had a little cottage fixed. It certainly is not the Plaza....but I know you can adapt, when you want."
"Well, I have adapted to all this...!" with a wide gesture, she embraces the entire flat, ".…what else could shock me, by now? All right. Let’s make it Christmas week then, I have some holidays still outstanding. And maybe it will do me good to get away… for a while."
"You are strange. You say you are tough and suspicious, you swear now and then, you have angry and wrathful movements, but as a matter of fact you are always sweet in your thoughts, incredible in your sounds, and alive in your mess. You gratify yourself about being scared by praises, but at the same time you move and act in the right direction and drag behind you interest and praises, you drag them behind and around. I have the feeling you haven’t succeeded in fooling me, no, you haven’t been able to disguise yourself at all!"
"I did not intend to fool anybody, my defensive barrier serves as a filter; superficial, common people let themselves be intimidated, but now and again someone remains who will not be confused, and at that point they find me nearly defenceless."
"You haven’t been able to confuse me. There are no half-contacts with people who arouse your interest: a contact or no contact. You cannot hide behind a mask."
"Masks? Me?"
"I did not mean anything negative about you."
"You are right" Giulia replies looking at the sky through the shut window. "It is a kind of camouflage....yet, the idea of the mask is not new, in my cogitations....I have always thought that everyone of us can wear a different mask in each situation, or occasion, or mood, at a particular moment... those, however, are just the endless faces of the same precious stone that each of us is... then, there are masks coming from outside, judgments, reductive criticism, and these are masks that we find too tight, they are not ours... but wearing a mask may simply mean, if it is us choosing, emphasizing a certain way of being or feeling at that moment... it is a symbol, non-verbal communication... a bit like when you choose what to wear according to where you are going, with whom you are going out, how you feel on that day, and so on."
"There is a problem there. Sometimes the dress, being excessive in some detail, or the make-up, or the hairstyle, have an opposite effect, pushing away and making the true appearance, the real one, uniform, as well as the one which usually is appreciated and attracts other peoples’ interest. Or rather, two problems here: the second is, that the mask which you unintentionally happen to wear is immediately changed into transparent crystal: therefore, I can see you anyhow. Sorry, but I feel I am not that cold myself. What was I saying... indeed, to emphasize what was meant to remain hidden. If I make too big a mess, fire one of your invectives!"
"No invectives. Only a superficial or not very...dedicated....analysis will be fooled by appearances. That’s the beauty of masks, it’s a game of ability and intelligence: succeeding in understanding the meaning and in seizing what lies behind. As you said ‘transparent’ I felt shocked because I was having the same thought. Who said you are cold?"

*

"Here we are. Come on, get out and help me carry our luggage. From here we have to walk for a short distance."
"What? But…on foot? With our suitcases?"
"What were you expecting, a liveried butler waiting for us with a luggage-carrier? Come on, city dweller….walk! After all, didn’t I tell you it was not the Plaza?"
You pick up the suitcases and start walking along the short path leading out of the village, towards the valley bottom. Giulia is struggling a bit, but the obstinate expression on her face dissuades you from asking her if she needs a hand. When she wears that expression you know it is better not to get too close….she might snarl. You smile, slightly surprised at how much you can already grasp from her grimaces, looks, and gestures; you wonder whether she, too, can catch your moods, wrinkles, and little tics just as easily. Maybe you understand each other using this unspoken language better than through your speeches, broken off for fear of going as far as to squabble too much, or of God knows what else.
Twenty days ago you had not met her yet. This is an incomprehensible matter.
You wake up from such a useless disquisition, after all she is only a stranger who, for a series of rather peculiar circumstances, has entered your life unexpectedly, sure, it could have been worse, but you have grown fond of her (this is perhaps a bit compromising, isn’t it?… well, these commonplaces lose their meaning with her….she would laugh at you if she could hear this).
"We are nearly there now. A few more steps and….there, you can see it from here already. See that chimney?"
"Thank God, a little bit more and you would have had to carry yet another load: myself! Wow… a real mountain hut! Or a hermitage, if you like…"
You hear her interrupt her speech all of a sudden, as she comes out of the last thick group of trees, and you imagine the reason why. For those not accustomed to it, the sight of the stream, the snow, the little bridge, and the towering mountains, can provoke a moment of bewilderment. It happened to you, too, when you first passed through these parts, do you remember?
You turn, and see her rapt, suitcases abandoned at her feet, her look lost in the solemn and quiet landscape, and decide you will run the risk: you will save her from the shock.
You enjoy playing the part of the good mountaineer with this sort of Gretel lost in the woods. Gretel? I am afraid all this oxygen is getting to your head, too, old chap.
You snap your fingers, she seems to emerge suddenly from a dream.
"Hey, are you all right?"
"What?…ah, yes, I….sure, sure I am. What a fantastic place. It’s…..incredible! It looks like another planet."
"Maybe it is. And maybe I am an extraterrestrial in disguise."
"A Martian who kidnapped me to vivisect me! At least we could exchange some information of interplanetary interest beforehand, don’t you agree? Let me see, grandma’s mushroom risotto recipe, for example. You would make quite an impression on your return to Mars!"
You laugh, like two teenagers at a boy scouts’ camp. Good. Good. This place has always given you very special sensations, you are happy to see that she is in a good mood, too. You feel it is going to be a fine Christmas. After all, you deserved it, didn’t you?
The little hut is in good conditions. The finely-built door is locked, all windows intact. You look for the keys, open the door, show her in with a theatrical gesture.
"My Lady, would you be so kind as to honour my humble dwelling with your bright presence?"
"In the sense that there is no electricity in this house, Master Davide?" Giulia readily replies as she makes to bend before getting in. "My God, this is … cool! It looks like an elf’s house! Look at this…."
Elves? You had bought it thinking it would be nice to spend your darkest moments there on your own, seeking some comfort in silent solitude, in order to read, paint, play, think… well…. in fact, what is the difference between that and the life of a creature of the woods?
You get in, hang up your coats on a bizarre clothes-hook you made out of an old wooden rake. Giulia looks around. She looks like a girl at a fun-fair, everything arouses wonder, amazement, comments, and questions. The house overflows with her presence and vitality.
"A fireplace!" you hear her howling. "You have a real fireplace! How groovy! Does it work? Really….and what about this furniture? It wasn’t you who made it, was it? And where do you take water from? Is there really no electricity here?"
You can hardly give her an answer to each question, when she flies off