I Hadn't Understood (9781609458980) Page 2

  I went downstairs to wander aimlessly past the offices of the clerk of the civil court, just to get a better sense of how I was feeling, and a short while later Alessandra Persiano caught up with me. She had been present in the Court of Appeals when I’d blurted out the incriminating phrase.

  “Are you feeling all right?” she asked me.

  She seemed worried.

  “Yeah, I think,” I said.

  She was wearing boots and a close-fitting T-shirt under her jacket and she wore her hair loose. Women who wear their hair loose—even if it seems like there’s nothing odd about wearing your hair loose—are never the same when their hair is pulled back in a bun or a ponytail. It has something to do with the fact that they undo their hair when they have sex, because that way they can caress you with their hair too, spill it all over you, and most important of all, make sure that you find strands of their hair in your sheets after they’ve left, and so you, even though you don’t realize it, whenever you see a woman with her hair down, you just immediately have that association of ideas.

  At the end of the hallway, two fellow lawyers who were walking downstairs (and one of them was none other than Ivo Frasca, ha ha) froze in unison, slackjawed at the sight of me in the company of Alessandra Persiano.

  Now it’s not like there aren’t plenty of cute women lawyers. But Alessandra Persiano is a celebrity. The whole courthouse pants and drools when she walks by, and she is well aware of it. She doesn’t give any of them a hint of encouragement.

  It must have been that long-range ballistic envy that made me feel better. I was swept with a frenzy, a desire to fight, to take back my wife and pack the car and load the kids in back and head for the beach—gangway!

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Alessandra Persiano asked me once again.

  Those two assholes were still at the far end of the corridor all agog.

  “I’m fine,” I told her, and at that very moment it occurred to me that maybe she liked me a little, because this singular thought popped into my head like a contact (in the sense of electricity, just like in a movie when a car thief touches the ignition wires together under the steering wheel and makes the engine turn over). And just to make the two guys at the end of the hallway eat their hearts out, I reached out and stroked her lovely hair, though in gratitude.

  So then Alessandra Persiano told me that if I could wait she’d be happy to give me a ride, but I told her that I had something fairly urgent to do (in fact, I couldn’t wait to do that one thing, the one thing that had just flashed into my mind) and so I thanked her for her concern and told her some other time, without a doubt.

  So then she told me that she had to head back upstairs to the Court of Appeals, but that if I needed anything I just needed to let her know.

  “That’s very kind of you,” I replied.

  She turned around and walked away, but almost immediately turned on her heel.

  “Do you have my cell phone?” was her question.

  When I walked out of the court house, I was basically roller-skating.

  And then, the way I do, I immediately tried to take advantage of the situation. Which is to say that I called up my wife and said to her, in the voice of someone who’s just survived a plane crash, that I didn’t know what the hell had just happened to me at the Court of Appeals, but that it was almost certainly her fault.

  Whereupon she asked me what was wrong and why I was so worked up.

  The last thing I felt like at that point was telling her the whole story (I’d called her up to make accusations, not for her professional advice), so I remained speechless on my end of the call.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Eh,” I replied.

  “Well?” she asked, justifiably.

  “Well what?” I replied.

  So I handed her a silver platter on which she could serve up the little sermon that she immediately delivered with all the enthusiasm of a star student who has just been asked the exact question she was hoping for. That my aggression, whatever might have provoked it—though at this point the matter became a corollary (that’s exactly what she said: corollary), since I had no intention of talking to her about it—was, in her point of view, quite easy to explain, because when something happens to you that you can’t understand, the first thing you do is to seek the cause outside of yourself, and immediately afterward you seek out a mastermind (that’s exactly what she said, a mastermind, that is to say, a “guilty party,” but decaffeinated; she is always very careful to use words that involve the least possible risk of potential responsibility), and it was therefore absolutely consequential (that’s exactly what she said: consequential, an adjective that should never be used between two people who have ever been a couple, as far as I’m concerned) that I would try to pick a fight with her, since we had only decided to separate (Ah! Not so, my dear: it was you who decided to leave me) less than two years ago. But that I shouldn’t worry about it.

  “Oh, thanks,” I replied.

  And I hung up on her, obviously coming off looking like an idiot.

  The problem with my wife is that she takes everything down to the level of explanation. It’s because she’s a psychologist. Either she says nothing (a well-tested technique for inducing exasperation) or else she insists on telling you what you did, when you did it, and why. Let’s be clear: without any authentic expectation of getting any of these things right (which is the diabolical initial pact that is underwritten by anyone who enters analysis).

  Up to a certain point, the thing works pretty well. It’s sort of like reading your horoscope. You listen because you have the impression that she’s talking about you; then the narrative falters on an adjective, an adverb, or a transition that is so blatantly generic, contrived, and unisex that you wind up saying, “Okay, whatever.”

  And this is where the devil bursts onto the stage with a flash-bang and a cloud of brimstone, because even though every time my wife delivers one of her perorations (Oops, is that Freudian?), I wind up thinking, “Okay, whatever,” but I can’t seem to interrupt her. There’s something in me (something I find profoundly disgusting) that drives me to act as her sidekick no matter how much I hate it.

  It’s not like I turn into a poodle, it’s not like I give her the satisfaction that she’s looking for. I might raise my voice, I might slam around, I might break something (something of mine, usually), but I remain thematically correct, I never put it in general terms, I’m not sure if you understand, while it’s in general terms (not in personal terms) that you have to work when you’re having a fight. If you really want to hit home, you can’t talk in absolute terms, you have to focus on categories. What offends people is being common. If you call someone a crook, that’s one thing. But if, say, you tell someone they’re a crook just like all real estate agents are crooks, then watch them lose their temper. If you want to offend someone, then you have to make them look like a fool in front of their friends, in a certain sense. Try telling your wife that she’s a bitch just like her mother was, and then just wait to see what she answers back.

  For instance, I would very much like to tell my wife the following.

  Sometimes, at home (in the early afternoon, ideally), I put on exhaustive rehearsals, fine-tuning the tone and diction of the harangue that sooner or later I will deliver to her.

  I make her sit in the Tullsta armchair at the end of the hallway, so that I can walk up and down while I talk, and then I get started.

  I tell her that she’d better not try to get up until I’m done.

  And sure enough, she stays put.

  I tell her to pay close attention, because I’m not going to do her the favor of saying this twice.

  And even though by this point she really feels like saying, “You’re scaring me,” she keeps her mouth shut because she’s afraid she’ll only make things worse.

  I tell her that for fifteen years now I’ve pretended to agree with everything she said.

  That all this time I’ve been humoring h
er as if she were crazy.

  I tell her that what she foists off on an unsuspecting audience as scientific introspection is just the kind of common sense you hear at an academic cocktail party.

  I tell her that the professor who acted as her graduate adviser is a big fat zero, moreover with a weakness for horses (racehorses, that is, to bet on).

  I tell her that she’s been putting on airs as if she were a militant psychologist since the morning of the day after she passed her final exams, just like southerners who adopt the local accent—Anvedi questo and Aoh, che stai a fà—two days after they arrive in Rome.

  I tell her that her intelligence is a feat of prestidigitation, an only moderately successful sleight of hand, and it’s only because of her attractive appearance that her audience pretends they haven’t seen through the illusion.

  I tell her that she’s overvalued, and so she hasn’t got the slightest idea of what it is to really earn a living. That she’s a mediocrity just like everyone else (including me). But while the rest of us are barely scraping by, she has a waiting room crowded with people, and she can earn all the money she wants.

  And it just isn’t right for her to get by that easy.

  I tell her that her groundless professional success is nothing more than tangible evidence of how low we’ve all fallen.

  I tell her that her patients, except for the bloodsuckers (my term for the ones who only want to get her into bed, and at least they have a reasonable motive), are just a bunch of nouveau-riche bumpkins who use analysis to take the place of all the books they’ve never read.

  Because it’s obviously much harder work to read a book than it is to be interviewed by a good-looking woman who listens to you speak in respectful silence; plus she even takes notes.

  I tell her, just to remain on the general subject of privilege, that she has always enjoyed complete emotional immunity.

  Whereupon she asks me what emotional immunity is.

  And I explain that it’s a prerogative accorded to certain bitches, allowing them to suck up the love of others while giving little more than nothing in exchange. And that we’re fed up with seeing women like her surviving with impunity. That it’s time for them to stop exploiting people, that it’s time for them to get a real job.

  And I tell her to wipe that expression off her face, like a mistreated dog, straight out of Lady and the Tramp. And it’s useless for her to bite her upper lip and stroke her left elbow, because it’s just not going to work on me anymore.

  Whereupon she grips her knees together, brings both fists to her lips, and in a rasping voice tells me that I’ve never spoken to her like that before.

  So I tell her that it was high time I started.

  And she bursts into tears.

  So at this point, quivering at the idea of delivering the final blow, I tell her that I don’t give a damn if she starts crying, because sobbing isn’t the way to win my respect (which is a completely bullshit line, I’ll admit it, but I’ve just been waiting for so long to say it to her).

  And she rubs her nose with the cuff of her sleeve and says nothing.

  And as long as we’re at it I take advantage of the opportunity to rebuke her for the macrobiotic phase she put us through from 1996 to 1998 (with a partial relapse in the second half of 1999), and I tell her that during all that time I was secretly taking the kids to McDonald’s twice a week. That we had always lied to her about the spelt soup, the razor clams with shallots, and the tofu with a double helping of curses on the name of the guy who ever invented it.

  Believe it or not, at this point, she even starts nodding her head a little.

  And now, even though it has nothing to do with anything, I tell her that her mother is a locust. That for years I’ve put up with her walking into the apartment unannounced with the keys in her hand, and now that we’ve separated, I wish I could go back in time just for the satisfaction of walking out of the shower with my junk in plain view, so that I’d send her mother into a state of panic and break her of that bad habit once and for all.

  And I keep hammering at her until, exhausted, she falls to her knees from the Tullsta in desperation and, crawling on all fours, she comes over to me and clutches at my trousers, and so we wind up fucking and getting back together forever.

  Then I return to reality, the place I inhabit, the place where I’ll never be able to do the things that pass through my mind.

  And after all, who even knows if that’s what I really think?

  The truth is that there are people, and no one knows how it happens, but they have the gift of always catching you at your most insipid and inane, of bringing out the very least you have to offer. I mean to say: each of us has a behavioral standard, each of us relies upon a mass-produced series of platitudes, thinking and saying the things that everyone thinks and says. Then, at rare intervals, we come up with a funny line or a brilliant observation. That’s how a normal relationship works. We consist of banality and intelligence, and we shuttle from one to the other quite calmly.

  Yeah, that is, we shuttle from one shore to the other quite naturally.

  But then there are relationships in which, oddly enough, this relaxation, this indifference to what you’re going to say, the way that you walk, how you sit in a chair or what you do with your hands, just vanishes. Relationships in which, without even realizing it, you decide how to put yourself across. And the fact that you’re putting yourself across begins to condition everything you say. And that’s when truly unpleasant things start to happen, like losing your balance when standing still, or hearing phrases like this issue mysteriously from your mouth: “My, what delicious frozen foods they sell at that supermarket across the street from your apartment.”

  It’s a little bit like waiting for a camera shutter to click in the certainty that you’re about to look like an idiot. The harder you try to relax, the more tightly you can feel the iron coils of insecurity wrapping around you.

  These people that I’m talking about, the ones who, without even meaning to (because the incredible thing is that it comes naturally to them), hold their finger on the shutter release, regularly manage, through some incomprehensible magic, to catch you in the most embarrassing situation, a contingency that indicts you even if you’re guiltless. The kind of situation in which appearance counts more than the truth. In the sense that the search for truth would necessarily entail a reverse reconstruction of the scene in order to uncover the mechanism that made you look like an idiot. The only problem is that in practical terms, this replay is impossible. You can never explain the way things really went. Because if you try to do it, you look like twice the idiot. Words lose their relevance as you utter them, they break away from the concept as if they were less convinced than anyone else of what they ought to be saying. You have to catch the truth red-handed.

  Which is why in cases like this you start to just give in and fold your cards. Obviously, you have to limit the damages. It’s just that you start racking up negative points. You run into debt. And the person who puts you into this disgraceful condition starts to accumulate an enormous privilege with respect to you. Every time you interact with her, she has this huge head start. You feel awkward and out of place; you perceive her as rock solid, unburdened by the obligation to prove anything. She is. Each time, you have to become.

  The oiliest aspect of this matter is that it needn’t even be someone you admire or like. It can be someone you despise personally or (what’s worse) politically. Someone whose worst song-and-dance routines you know by heart. And still they may have this power over you. They might even have that power over many people.

  It happens, it happens.

  For instance, let’s take the day my wife gave me the happy news. We were at the train station, but downstairs, on the subway platform (which, from the get-go, shows poor taste as a choice of a setting for a breakup).

  The finale of the little sermon in verse ran like this: We aren’t bed sheets / that come clean / after a last laundry cycle (in response
to my understated attempt to recoup: it was clear that she’d prepared that line).

  If I’d had even a smidgeon of self-respect left, at least in response to this shameful piece of hip-hop (which even now—like any bad piece of music—will surface in my mind ten times a day, renewing the humiliation every time), I should at the very least have issued a Bronx cheer. Instead, silence. As if I were experiencing a perverse enjoyment in sitting there seeing how far I would let her go on indulging in that ridiculous language stuffed with television metaphors that she popped into every second or third sentence, as if she were addressing a meeting of the Rotary Club, not me.

  But I interrupted her before she could finish (I wonder what other masterpieces she had in store). I gave her a childish kiss on the cheek so I could whisper into her ear, in a cringe-inducing falsetto: “I’m leaving now. Ciao.”

  She was clearly disgruntled (which is probably the effect I was aiming to achieve), neutralized by that premature denouement, as if I’d interrupted the punch line, and she just stood there while I rode away up the escalator, a pathetic pantomime of a break-up, the conveyor belt of life carrying you away without the slightest personal involvement (she standing motionless, you moving off into the distance).

  If I had turned around just then—truth be told—I would have burst into tears the way my own children did the day I left them with the teacher on the first day of school. But I toughed it out. I don’t know who I was trying to impress with all this spiritual fortitude. There was nobody watching me. Not even my wife, who was definitively out of focal range.

  I blame the movies. It’s inconceivable that all the thousands of movies that we’ve seen have failed to influence our behavior, in ways we don’t even realize. Over the course of a typical day, if you stop to think about it, more than once you’ll find yourself doing things—usually related to sports or leisure activities, things with a vague aesthetic overtone—as if twenty feet away there was a full camera crew filming you. Things like deactivating your car alarm with a decisive thrust of the remote control and then darting into the driver’s seat (maybe slipping off your jacket as you slide behind the steering wheel), or else staring intensely into the middle distance, as if you were being swept by some stirringly profound thought. This unasked-for performance, this illusion of an audience waiting to enjoy our finest moments while we pretend we don’t know we’re being watched, is our meager revenge for the mediocrity of the lives we lead, an opportunity that the popular arts have always provided (and the reason that, when all is said and done, we refuse to let the popular arts die).