Читать книгу Small Narratives - Anna Ferrari - Страница 6

The little girl on the bus

A sunny and lazy spring Sunday. We sit at the breakfast table trying to slow down any activity that takes us out of this stupor: washing, dressing, looking good, going out. If we could, we would slow down time, but that flows, inexorably, independently of us.

I surf the Internet with my tablet, Elias is dedicated to general cleaning in the shower. I like looking for new books, finding interesting articles. I have developed a list of volumes, as usual the expense is considerable, at least for my possibilities, but I can never reduce the sorting. With great effort I remove two, of low cost, just to feel less guilty, but the situation does not change much.

EBooks would be cheaper, but I need paper, and I want to see the bookcase shelves, already full, become overcrowded, with the aim of making piles on the floor as well. It is an accumulation drive, and I understand that I like to see its fruit. The amount of digital books is not calculable, and I do not like that. If you love, you want to be able to touch.

Of course they criticize me, about the accumulation, let's take some away, they whisper as if to themselves (they no longer dare to pronounce the word "let's throw"), but I do not listen to them, at most I try not to enter the bookstores, or not to attend the Internet. But then it always happens that, almost by chance, I come across an intriguing title, a compelling plot, a familiar character and so my list is still extended by several units, which will soon pass from the state of desire to that of possession.

I just closed the Safari window, which gives me another appetite: sweets. Sweets to create. I take my cell phone and ask my cooking app, many tempting proposals, but with ingredients that are too sophisticated. In the end I opt for the classic tart. I do not do anything with my hands, and if I really have to, I wear latex gloves, I can not bear to feel them smeared. With the mixer I prepare the dough, then I spread it in the terracotta pan and cover it abundantly with voluptuous strawberry jam homemade by my mother, finally I make the toppings with the shapes of the biscuits, the moon, the heart, the star, the bell. The appearance is really nice. I bake, the recipe says 40 minutes at 180 °, in static mode. I sit and wait. Meanwhile, it occurs to me that I could also make a blancmange: the tart for breakfast, the blancmange as dessert. Why not? I check and I realize that I am missing the main ingredient: almond milk. Patience, for this I am willing to make a derogation from Sunday laziness and I will go to the supermarket nearby to buy it. The exception to myself is not so difficult, what weighs me the most is to fail to speak. My husband and I have promised ourselves not to go to the large distribution on Sunday, because working conditions seem unacceptable. While I am here I doze, waste time, spend money, linger, there are people who work, people who still have their own home, some loved ones, but have to sell their time to their employer.

It seems that centuries have passed since the trade union conquests. There are few holidays in which large-scale distribution remains closed (perhaps for a minimum of moral decency), and so these people, many women, little by little lose the sense of the regular passage of time, with its rituals, which give meaning to the actions of life. Perhaps they feel like their real home the workplace, the desk, the cash desk, there they have photographs, plans, puppets, a blanket for when it's cold, a sweater for air conditioning, a fan for how hot it gets. Their house is less rich in objects, rather spartan, on the other hand where is the time? Either you are not there, or you are too tired.

“I can't stand them for more than two days at home, I don't change, I don't go out, I don't wear makeup, can you think about it? A few months like this and you let yourself go completely. What do I do all day at home? At work it's sometimes hard, but at least I do something, I'm bored here. "

When I hear these speeches I think that today we are as alienated as our early twentieth century ancestors, or even more. We are alienated from our affections, from our free time, from contact with ourselves, from the ability to be alone, from the void created by the absence of occupations, which frightens us.

Our little protest will not even be noticed, the supermarkets on Sunday are always full of people .

Anyway, I brought the milk home and started the second dessert.

«Did you go to the stove?» asks my husband who is now entering the kitchen wearing a bathrobe.

«Yes, and you? Did you do the cleaning?»

«Beard, mustache, various hairs, hair, shower, and I feel new, the last touch, perfume on the skin.»

«It feels up to here, or maybe it's because it's always the same and seeing you is like hearing its scent!»

«It is strange, however, to see you cooking for so long, you always say that your maximum tolerance time is half an hour.»

«But I don't cook! I make desserts, and I enjoy playing with the saucepans.»

«Then I'll leave you to your games, get dressed and go out. Come Willy!»

Elias goes out, Willy barks, I go on with my business.

How many years have gone by? Many, of course, I must have been six, seven years old. More or less, but it is one of the strongest memories I have of me and my mother, I still feel its intensity.

I am sitting on the bus, near the window, my mom is a few seats ahead. I hold a thin, long and wide rectangular package tightly on my legs. My knuckles are white from how I squeeze it. And I smile. It is a gift from my mother, a woman who never buys anything unless it is planned and who considers gifts suitable only for Christmas, Epiphany, birthdays and the name day. Or for special celebrations, such as First Communion. That day, it must have been winter, because it is gray outside the bus, and it rains too, that day she let herself go and she bought me these pots, these beautiful, extraordinary pots, unsurpassed by any other package. I love them, I love them I would dare to say, I hold them close to me so that they transmit to me all the love that I feel enclosed within them, the love of my mother, so frugal, so regulated, so arid.

The weather is gloomy, people yawn, they are indifferent, they read, there is nothing beautiful around me, not even my mother who sitting there does not turn to see what I do, but I feel surrounded by an intense light, I even get tears in my eyes, I am so happy. Then I am not really wrong if she gave me a gift. My mom. My mom!

In my thoughts I tell her that I love her, that she is everything to me, and my happiness grows.

Even today I feel that feeling alive inside me, more than the faces, the outlines of things, which are now blurred and confused, the colors and the feelings are clear, clear, so much so that I cling to them when I want to forgive my mom, when I want accept her as she is, without expecting anything else from her.

In life there has never been a similar closeness. She shuns too close contacts, even with her daughter. There is a photo of her that portrays her a few days after giving birth, she holds her baby in her arms, embarrassed, she would like to hide it, it is the clear proof of her that she made love .

She is a complicated woman, prey to impulses that she does not even recognize, authoritarian, with herself and with the world. She lasts, bordering on antipathy. Yet in my child's eyes she was The Perfection, and she wanted to be perfect, the best of anyone, in anything, but she was not, she is not capable of loving. Unknowingly, she loves cooking very much, and through that she appeases her thirst for love, to give and to receive.

The blancmange is ready, I wash the saucepans and put them back in the box, I keep them carefully because I know that I will not have others for a long time, at least until my birthday.

I know this since I sat on that bus .