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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

We were at Cosenza in Calabria, and the university where I was staying had put two rooms at my disposal, one for me and the other for my companion.

“It’s horrible sleeping on your own …,” I went on, plunging further and further into my embarrassment.

“OK,” he replied, his cheeks growing fiery.

The smell of his neck was intoxicating, he was young, he was a child. He was everything I wanted.

“The scent of your breath …,” he whispered suddenly in the night, “I love the scent of your breath.”

I clutched his T-shirt with my fingers and closed my eyes.

He imprisoned my breath in a glass jar, and he sniffs it every time he makes love with me.

SEVENTEEN

The train’s progress accompanies our movements, our sighs creating a light and liquid countermelody with sudden surges of emotion, our lips brushing, a race to kiss each other’s bodies, tongues darting disturbingly, imperiously, the night’s darkness, broken here and there by street lamps scattered along country roads, reconciling troubled fantasies and provocative imaginings, my thighs gripping his body, pressing him tightly, as I cried out to him, “You’ll never want to go! Why are you getting away? Why won’t you come back? Why won’t you suck my breath?”

My palms against his warm, maternal body, my neck thrown back, my eyes holding back their tears, perhaps tears of blood.

The echo has started whispering in my head again, too faint to be properly understood, but loud enough for me to perceive a breath of wind, the north wind. All of a sudden I came, giving off so much energy that he too felt an electric shock in his belly. Blood, blood everywhere. Blood in my head, blood in my eyes. Empty, my veins.

Then I trace a line with the fountain pen my father gave me, the one I use to write with; I want to work out whether I’ve still got any blood inside me. Empty, completely empty.

I just remember him going back to his cabin and shouting. I remember his dirty fingers and his forlorn and distant eyes.

Distance, one day, will take him to the very rim of the segment of our life; he will go far from me and end up in her arms. When he is with her, mists will rise up and thicken, and keep him from remembering. While he is with her, I will die slowly, allowing myself to be dragged along with those mists. That way at least I’ll see him from close-up.

A poisonous tapeworm nests in our bellies; the slides of our life are printed on its body. Each time the tapeworm moves, a slide settles underneath our navel, and the light projected outside enchants us. We stand and stare at it; then we burst into tears.