I went straight from the prison to my office, where I had an appointment with Natsu. I told her more or less the same things I’d told her husband, about what would happen in court, how she should conduct herself, and so on.
Before going to the prison, before talking to Paolicelli, I’d thought of asking Natsu if we could see each other that evening. But after that conversation, I didn’t feel like saying anything.
I felt a mixture of tenderness, shame and nostalgia. I thought how nice it would be if that hard lump of pain deep inside me over Margherita disappeared as if by magic, and how nice it would be if I could just fall in love with Natsu without having to worry about anything. I thought how nice it would be to make plans in my mind for the future, for all the days and nights we could spend together. For many things. It was probably nothing to do with her; it was about the idea of being in love, of playing the game, the idea of a life that wasn’t one of resignation.
But it wasn’t possible.
So, when we’d finished talking about the case, I simply told her that she was more beautiful than ever, walked around to the front of my desk, kissed her on the cheek, and told her I’d be working late.
She looked at me for a long time, as if she hadn’t quite understood. Who could blame her? Then she also kissed me on the cheek and left.
The usual routine followed, just a little more melancholy than usual. Coming back from the office, punchball, shower, roll, beer.
It wasn’t a good evening to stay indoors, so I decided to go to the cinema. At an old cinema called the Esedra they were showing Altman’s The Long Goodbye. It took me twenty minutes to get there, walking quickly through streets so deserted and windswept they were almost scary.
The man in the box office wasn’t pleased to see me and made no attempt to conceal the fact. He even hesitated for a few moments to take the banknote I had placed in front of him. I had the impression he was begging me to leave. I must have been the only person there. Without me they could close up early. In the end, he took the money, tore off the ticket and handed it to me, bad-temperedly, along with the change.
I entered the completely empty auditorium. I don’t know if the total absence of human sensory stimuli sharpened my sense of smell or if the cinema needed a good cleaning, but I could distinctly smell the upholstery on the seats and the dust that permeated them.
I sat down and looked around. The place was a perfect setting for an episode of The Twilight Zone. Indeed, for a few seconds I had to resist the impulse to go and make sure the man in the box office hadn’t turned into a giant man-eating crustacean and that the emergency exits hadn’t become portals into another dimension.
Then a woman came in. She sat down close to the exit, some ten rows behind me. If I wanted to look at her I had to make a deliberate effort to turn round, which could seem dodgy if I overdid it. So I managed to get only a vague idea of her before the lights went out and the film started. She was of medium height, was wrapped in a large shawl, or maybe a poncho, had very short hair, and seemed to be more or less my age.
During the first half, I didn’t pay much attention to the film – I’d already seen it twice anyway. I was thinking I’d like to start up a conversation with that girl, or woman, or whatever she was. I’d like to talk to her in the interval and then, when the film was over, invite her for a drink. As long as she hadn’t left during the first half, driven out by the weird atmosphere of that deserted cinema. And by the fear that the only other person there – who had turned round to look at her rather too many times – might be some kind of pervert.
But she was still there in the interval. She had taken off her poncho or shawl and seemed completely at ease, but of course I didn’t have the courage to start up a conversation.
During the second half, I thought of a good opening gambit: the presence of the young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film. Look, there’s Schwarzenegger as a young man. Hard to believe he’s now the governor of California. All right, it’s pretty weak, but for a film buff – and damn it, a woman who goes on her own to see The Long Goodbye at that hour of the night must be a film buff – the gambit marked “first appearances of then unknown actors who later became famous” isn’t a bad one.
When the lights went on – the projectionist cutting off the end titles abruptly-I stood up, determined to approach her. I had never approached a woman like that in my life, but I was a grown-up now – so to speak – and it was worth a try. Anyway, what was the worst that could happen?
But this time she was gone. The cinema was empty again.
I hurried to the exit, thinking she’d stood up just before the lights went on. But there was no one in the street.
The wind was even stronger now than when I’d arrived, creating eddies of dust. As if in a dream or an apparition, five stray dogs crossed the road in single file and vanished behind a corner.
I turned up my coat collar, stuck my hands in my pockets and went home.