Читать книгу Ties - Roberta Mezzabarba - Страница 6

December 1999

A blend of smells filled the air of the gym, pungent smells of sweaty bodies pushing their physical activity to the limit.

Guglielmo was holding a shiny barbell, his fingers clenched it tightly, showing all the muscles flexed in his biceps, his skin was slightly tanned and glistening with sweat…

He loved the carefree afternoons that he could spend in that environment, where he could work off the worse side of his personality.

He could watch unnoticed those bodies all wrapped up in tight, brightly coloured sports gear.

He was avidly sizing up the bodies and souls of those girls in the backlight, he followed their movements, their facial expressions, their hair fluttering in the air. There were billions of them, like countless fragments of lives that he would never get to know.

Meanwhile, Claudio, one of his university classmates, was sitting on a bench beside him, the two of them would meet up often at the gym too.

«What are you doing? Always chasing girls, huh?»

As he was speaking, Claudio was making eye contact with a voluptuous girl who perfectly fitted her aquamarine leggings.

«Well, you are quite right! Despite the fact that I do not believe in God, I must admit that there must be something good and merciful able to create such beautiful and perfect creatures…»

Claudio had a great interest in women.

As he was lifting the barbell over his head, Guglielmo was looking at a group of five girls who were all involved in a friendly chat, slightly moving their hands as they were speaking.

«You know, when I was a little boy, I really loved staying in the same room with my mother when she was having her friends over. I liked the way they would talk freely about men, forgetting that I was there, with no reserves, without any shame. They would say how predictable they were and how easy it was to fool them. I was really fascinated by those conversations. Every time I would swear to myself that, growing up, I would not become like one of those men they were talking about. It seemed fair to me not to disappoint women because they had allowed me to get to know them deep down. Over time I learned that a woman likes a man also for all the things that she can’t understand about him, for their lack of communication. Men look at women drooling as if they were cakes displayed on the window of a bakery shop.»

«Guglielmo… are you telling me that you are so sentimental and philosophical that you just look at all these gorgeous women with a clinical eye, just to find out more about the female world? »

Claudio was trying hard to keep a straight face: it was quite hard for him, if not impossible, to have an interest in a woman that was not merely sexual. A thunderous laughter explained to Guglielmo once again what Claudio’s point of view was on the matter.

«You are always the same: you would do anything to become a gynaecologist, just to… I like everything about women: what they think, and most of all I do not like to disappoint them, I like to give them what they want off me».

Guglielmo was a promising young man. He was tall, his hair was black and a little wavy, his complexion was slightly tanned, his legs were long and slender but he had a lean body, not skinny. His fingers were slender and had big and smooth nails resembling hulled almonds. There was one time when a gypsy read his hand and was fascinated by this particular feature that he had. She told him that people who have such big nails have engaged in great battles with life and against death.

Guglielmo did not think much of the tales told by a woman who was used to make up stories to make a living. He could not recount any struggle carried out for his survival. Before leaving, that gypsy made a statement that he could still remember clearly: «Nobody remembers such grief; it just flows in your bloodstream, otherwise everybody would go mental or would be doomed…»