The immaculate - 10

We had been neighbors for three years yet had hardly spoken to each other. After that, she had gone far off with her husband, and only later did we meet a couple of times by chance. The two of us - at an esplanade, the cinema-house, the mall. Today we happened to meet in front of the hairdresser’s, so close to the taste of roses, the smell of lavender and still-virgin touch. Everything was left unsaid, in a kind of suspended relief, an indescribable joy. Our encounters were a breed of temptation and confession, with definite risk crossing between our eyes. A risk with no name. A mutinous torrent looking for a name; and looking for itself.

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(to be continued)

The immaculate - 9

The greyhound ran round the house, in a rage. Then a car suddenly turned on its headlights and sped off, in a flash. Who was that? The dog went on yelping and running round in the yard, into the bushes, by the swimming pool. I thought about going down but honestly, I was scared. The shutters remained ajar and the curtains had returned to the stillness of life’s anchors: rigidly slow and quiet under the spell of the night breeze, like open sails on mellow sea. There was an apparent calm, tarnished solely by the greyhound’s frenzy, which after some twenty minutes went to sit next to the cypress by the gate.

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The immaculate - 8

Sure, but what if life ended tomorrow, what would we do? When? Now? And I found myself sputtering out nonsense. That they wanted us guzzling inertia, our ability to act and state ourselves, don’t you reckon? And she agreed, nodding her head in the distance (this Christmas spirit thing really works). A faint wink in her eye, the wonder of her hands and the way they opened out on the table top. And then, without notice, but in a liquid, slow voice, she twice repeated that we would sleep our just reward away until it was daytime once again, until it was nothingness all over again and we could simply skip the phrase, imagination, world, whatever. What would this lifeless world be, after all, tomorrow morning? But would we really sleep? How, I asked myself. And no one else.

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The immaculate - 7

The huge greyhound was as still as a sphinx, staring at the shutters of that quivering window. The curtain shook in rare turbulence and after the flash – was it a photograph, a lantern, a fire extinguisher? – there was only a speedy commotion of tones on the faint curtain cloth, and it looked as if a giant TV screen was on in a suddenly darkened room. The poor dog yelped and yelped, head high and with pointy ears. I stayed on the balcony, wary, restless, trying to unravel movement in the neighbor’s front door, in the backyard, the other windows, even in the narrow marquise - but saw nothing, nothing at all. For a moment I forgot the hills, lost as they were in that obscure outline where darkness dilutes darkness.

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The immaculate - 6

We reached the coffee shop, sat in a kind of lobby and, maybe out of casual passion, I ended up asking her: what if life ended tomorrow, what would we do, now? And I can see her laughing and laughing without being able to discard an old bashfulness which consumed some of the fire in her gestures; laughing and somehow offering in that secret-sealed laugh the near sum of total surrender. It was barely a contention, more like an acrobatics of the inaccessible, a secret fearless art. She was herself in a way I had never seen before. And yet, very slowly, the meat-pie cracked in her mouth, invisible teeth chewed at the dough, lips dragging themselves with a fervent ardor that seemed to turn this Christmas Eve into a kind of D-Day. Some sort of challenge.

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The immaculate - 5

When the greyhound ran out into the middle of the deserted street, I thought its owner must be near. But no, it broke into a whirl, with its huge Persian paws spread out in a tight ring of a race until a dog-sigh broke its stride and night’s calm wonder was able to creep in undisturbed. Out in the distance, the obscure and by now invisible hills; next to it, the eggy streetlight, wrapped up in mosquitoes and bizarre webs. And I remained stoically on the balcony, waiting for the phone call from America, standing guard on memories beyond confession, silent and prostrated under a moment of stillness. But in the house across the street, a blast of light went on and off between the shutters, in a close to nothing second. More a space between nothings, a now that flew by and back just like that. I looked again and the curtains were moving, as if someone were causing them to move. What the hell was going on?

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The immaculate - 4

She had slow, pilgrim eyes, whirling doom. She pretty much hovered in front of me, warning me about the cold - the cause of her shaking, she said - passing her fingers over her waist as if to pale out distance, fear, any forgetful languor. She remained before me so, leaning against the steps, maybe so as not to interrupt the human blob carrying itself along the shop windows and the sidewalk, and the swirl which seemed to surround the birth of baby Jesus - or was it the mythical baby of golden ages? I could hardly answer, I seemed hypnotized, crystallized in some unaccountable manner, yet ended up following her, step by step, to the nearest coffee shop.

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The immaculate - 3

Above the streetlamp facing me, somebody opened the shutters. I saw a silhouette leaning briefly on the window frame, which then proceeded to dart to and fro, jumping about in strange eerie motions. The curtains heaved under a seesaw of air and blows, while shadows wandered from side to side in the sudden scenography, without pause or explanation. Further out the blurred hilly outline was increasingly darkened out by some calm, quiet night ink. What on earth was going on?

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(to be continued)

The immaculate - 2

It happened on Christmas Eve, late afternoon. There was a stir of rubber reindeers and goofy lanterns flitting in harmonious chants. Lights arched out throughout the streets and hobos glided down the sidewalks, their foreheads reeking of stale cheese, while cabs honked behind the parade float on which a man with a red hood waved his arms about. Once again we met out of the blue. She was coming out of the hairdresser’s and there I stood in delight, enjoying my first end-of-year afternoon-off. I had thought on buying gifts, some pampering by the fire-place, of performing a sorcery of origins maybe, or just on enjoying my unexpectedly short holidays. She took off her glasses, shaking. Dressed in black and talking in perfect pitch, she was spellbinding and had a sense of provocation she probably was not even aware of.

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The immaculate - 1

I reached the balcony and looked out into the hills. It was a dark blur, pretty much lost in the clouds and aural distance. A vision dilated with hazy contours which made me think of some imperiled animal, an abyss, a relentlessly pulling pit. Then the first streetlight went on up ahead, touching the air with a pale violet light. A few seconds later it stabilized in its oval yellow shape, levitating on the post. Yet, oblivious to those minute everyday metamorphoses, I could not stop looking at those small hills, that thin line which stood out in the distance, lying on the horizon and bouncing back echoes of old shapeless things.

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(to be continued)