Once, while we were in bed in Via Eritrea, she asked me:

“Would it be a problem for you if I was also seeing another man?”

I replied something I don’t remember, putting on a show of nonchalance while a spasm of jealousy tore right through me. A little while later, I asked her if there really was someone else, and who it was. She changed the subject with her usual, unbearable vagueness, which she handled like a weapon.

One evening, she came to pick me up with a girlfriend of hers. We went to the Taverna del Maltese, had a few sandwiches, drank rum and various beers, and as the evening wore on the conversation became full of hints and insinuations. I became convinced that they’d decided to have a threesome, that this had been their aim from the beginning of the evening. But as soon as we left the place they walked me home. 168They had another appointment, Lorenza told me almost chirpily as they waved goodbye and I stood there like an idiot.

One afternoon, I spotted her in a blue Audi with a man in his forties: they’d pulled up at a traffic light on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. He exuded wealth, power and virility. I felt stupid, inferior, humiliated, but when I saw her again, maybe two days later, I didn’t have the guts to ask her any questions.

Only on a few occasions did she seem to forget about the character she was playing. When we chatted about books, for example. Then a fierce, genuine, even touching passion emerged. It was she who introduced me to Yasunari Kawabata, Sylvia Plath, Fernando Pessoa, Luciano Bianciardi, Anna Akhmatova and others.

She’d talk to me about a writer and I’d immediately go and buy one of their books because, even though I would never have admitted it, I wanted her to think well of me. But then I’d really read them, and my eyes would be opened to worlds and stories and ideas I hadn’t even known existed before.

Of all our conversations about books there’s one I’ve never forgotten. The subject was fairy tales.