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Chapters (45)
  1. Cover Page
  2. The Scent of Your Breath
  3. Dedication
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

His lips trembled and he went on, more violently than before. “You’re a little girl, and there are some things you can’t understand. You don’t know what it feels like to be deprived of yourself, to see your own dreams carried away by rational, conscious, adult people! I was like you: I didn’t want to grow up, I felt free. But someone ripped me off. And they’ll rip you off, too,” he said, clenching his teeth.

“That’s one point of view,” I replied.

“You don’t know a thing, you haven’t a clue how I feel.”

No, and I don’t want to know.

“I do know, Claudio. But please, don’t keep going on at me about this.”

“What do you want to hear? That life is beautiful, that people love you, that it’s all one long funfair?”

I smiled broadly and exclaimed, “Why not?”

He started to cry, his voice growing muffled. Tears spilled from his eyes and trickled down the rough skin of his face.

I looked at him compassionately and whispered, “Everything will be fine. We should go home—you’ve got to calm down.”

He nodded and moved away from the table without saying good-bye.

Left on my own, I went into the café and smiled as the music bounced off the walls.

A hundred times good night.

SIX

His eyes were unsteady; they looked as though they were drenched with tears, they looked stunned, fragile, malleable. And yet they raped, they crushed, they pleaded, they reproached.

The parked car in a country lane at the feet of Etna, the rain that had finally stopped crashing against the windshield, the smell of rotten earth, my panties and stockings scattered around inside the car, my hair heavy with damp, his penetrating breath, and the smell of his aftershave. The tissues on top of the glove compartment, the purple, yellow, and red colors of the flowers, the trucks passing behind our heads, the bee convulsively striking the window. Sweat, saliva, and humors, the stench of damp fabric, the clink of his belt, the sun timidly reappearing, passion, haste, anxiety, jealousy, impotence, inconsistency, illusion, lies, indifference to the point of grief.

Everything was there, everything but love.

SEVEN