...And Dreams Are Dreams

This question — how much longer would I live?—

occurred to me the day I finished the first draft. I was a wreck. I had been working fourteen hours a day, without stopping, without rereading what I wrote, advancing blindly, for I was being swept away by my passion for Rosa. I was Don Pacifico. But as soon as I finished, out of breath, I began to fear that with an artificial heart I would not be able to live much longer.

After all, most transplant recipients don’t live long. Six month to two years, maximum. And for the first time in my life, I was worried. How much longer do I have left then? And what does it mean to live with somebody else’s heart?

I called her up, intending to tell her how happy I had been, deep down, to see her, but how a sadness deeper than the joy darkened the sun inside me.

Something indistinct, something vague that I did not understand yet. I would ask her if this was perhaps the beginning of real love, and if she was experiencing the same feeling. Liberated after having written my book in one stretch, I would even invite her to come and join me for a while if she could. A man’s voice spoke:

“Who’s calling?”

“Have I got the right number?” I asked.

“Yes,” he snapped, when I told him the number.

“What do you want?”

“I’d like to speak to Rosa.”

“Who’s calling?”

“A friend.”

“She isn’t here.”

“Oh, all right. Please tell her I called.”

“Your name?”

“Irineos.”

“Which Irineos? The bishop?”

“No. Just tell her Irineos. She’ll know.”

“Hang on a minute….”

There was a silence. Rosa was there; he must have covered the mouthpiece with his hand while he told her my name. I waited, feeling confused, until I heard the happy, well-meaning sound of Rosa’s voice on the line.

“Hello, my dear Reno. Are you back?”

“No, I’m still here in Rome.”

“How’s the writing going?”

“Fine. It’s going fine. I’m not doing too well, though.”

“But why, what’s wrong?”

“Rosa… but what’s the point of telling you? What do you care?”

“I always care about you, my dear.”

But the way she said it sounded so distant, so indifferent, that I hastened to end the conversation.

“The one who answered the phone,” Rosa said,

“was Elias. A friend of mine. You don’t know him. I just met him a few days ago. He knows you.”

“But he thought I was the bishop….”

“He didn’t make the connection…. Yes, I’m

doing fine.

I’ve found my balance again.”

I understood. I had to hang up.

“I only called,” I said, “to ask if you were planning to come again. That is, I’m inviting you to come again if….”

“I can’t see it happening at the moment, my dear Reno.

They’re showing the Armani collection next month and….”

“Okay, okay, it was only an idea.”

“Well, I can’t see it happening. When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got to go. Bye.”

Her revenge was now complete, I thought to myself. We were even. How many times during our relationship had she stumbled upon female voices when calling my number? And she had pretended not to care. But deep down it had killed her. Just as she had killed me now. Still, I had the satisfaction of telling myself that this was the only way to achieve equality between the sexes, rather than sitting around and talking about it all day.

So here I am again, stranded just as I was before I started writing. Now that I’ve finished — although there’s still a lot to be done — I’m searching for something to lean on in the outside world, an existence to hang onto. You do not eat at this abysmal solitude; it eats at you. Rosa had taken her revenge, and yet I knew she was sad, deep down. And that also ate at me.

She came to me now like an ethereal memory.

Her melancholy eyes that gazed at me. Her hair, which, when she loved me, wrapped around me like a scarf. Her insistence that we must remain together, because our meeting was not a chance one. All this tormented me now, it tortured me terribly. Memories came to me of our life together, when we were living intensely, under the sword of separation, moments filled by her, tender moments, moments of total abandonment, moments when she confessed the fullness she had known with me and that would mark her for the rest of her life, so much so that she would never be able to enjoy anything else, moments of absolute sensual exaltation, and yet what had always moved me was her deep sorrow. This sadness came over me too, like self-pity, and I couldn’t get out of its vicious circle. Could it be that my sadness for Rosa was pity for myself? It was only when I came to this that I began to truly understand our relationship in its entirety. I wasn’t jealous that she was with another man — what was his name? — this Elias. I was glad.

After having cleared things up with me, she was taking the decisive step that I had always told her she should take. But what about me? What was going to happen to me? How much longer did I have to live?