liked him to look at me from the first moment that I saw him. He moves aside and points to the table. I turn my eyes and see that it’s laid for two, with a white linen tablecloth and china plates and silverware and a lighted candle in the middle.
‘I did promise you dinner, remember?’
Maybe he doesn’t know he’s already won. Or else he does know and just wants to drive home his advantage. Either way, I have no intention of running away. I don’t know what kind of expression I have on my face but, confused as I am, I still think it’s a crime not to have a photograph of it.
Russell approaches the table and points to the food. ‘Here it is. Prepared by my father’s favourite chef. We have lobster, oysters, caviar and a whole lot of other things whose names I can’t remember.’ With an elegant gesture he indicates a bottle cooling in an ice bucket. ‘For the fish course, we have the best champagne.’ Then he picks up a bottle of red wine with a colourful label. ‘And for the rest, Il Matto, a magnificent Italian wine.’
I go to him and throw my arms around his neck.
While I kiss him, I feel that everything is passing and everything is arriving at the same moment. That everything exists and nothing exists only because I’m kissing him. And when I feel him return my kiss, I think I would die without him.
I free myself for a moment. Only for a moment because that’s all I can bear. ‘Let’s go to bed.’
‘What about dinner?’
‘To hell with dinner.’
He smiles. He smiles against my lips. ‘The door’s still open.’
‘To hell with the door.’
We get to the bedroom and for a time that seems infinite I feel foolish and stupid and sluttish and beautiful and loved and adored and I command and implore and obey. At last his body is lying next to mine and there’s a soft light beyond the curtains and his breathing is calm as he sleeps. Then I get out of bed, put on my bathrobe and go to the window. I let my gaze, at last without anxiety and without fear, move beyond the barrier of the glass.
Outside, heedless of the lights, heedless of human beings, a light wind is blowing upriver.
Maybe it’s pursuing something or maybe it’s being pursued by something.
But it’s pleasant to stand here for a few moments and listen to it passing, rustling in the trees. It’s a cool breeze, the kind that dries the tears of men and stops the angels from crying.
And at last I can sleep.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Reaching the end of a novel is like saying goodbye to a friend: it always leaves you feeling a bit empty. Fortunately, along the way you get a chance to see old friends again and make new ones. So I would like to thank:
– Dr Mary Elacqua of Rensselaer, along with Wonder Janet and Super Tony, her delightful parents, for welcoming me at Christmas as if I was family
– Pietro Bartocci, her inimitable husband, the only person in the world who can snore even when he’s awake and conduct business at the same time
– Rosanna Capurso, the brilliant New York architect, with her fiery red hair and her equally warm sense of friendship
– Franco di Mare, almost a brother to me, whose suggestions were crucial in drawing a portrait of a war reporter. If the portrait was convincing, the merit is obviously all mine. If it wasn’t, the fault is all his
– Ernest Amabile, who conveyed to me as a man the things he saw and experienced in Vietnam as a boy
– Antonio Monda for making me feel like an Italian intellectual in New York
– Antonio Carlucci for sharing his experience with me and helping me discover a fantastic restaurant
– Claudio Nobis and Elena Croce, for offering me hospitality and books
– Ivan Genasi and Silvia Dell’Orto, for sharing with me the arrival of a stork from the Ikea store in Brooklyn
– Rosaria Carnevale, who apart from supplying me with fresh bread during my stay in New York, really is an excellent bank president
– Zef, who apart from being a friend really is the manager of a building on 29th Street
– Claudia Peterson, who really is a vet, and her husband Roby Facini, for lending me the story of Waltz, their unusual three-legged cat
– Carlo Medori, who has made cynicism his pastime and affection his essence
– Detective Michael Medina of the 13th Precinct of the New York Police Department, for his kind assistance at a difficult moment
– Don Antonio Mazzi, for his advice on matters relating to the priesthood. And for being in a way, with his rehabilitation communities, the inspiration for part of this story and the chief character in a wonderful adventure
– Dr Elda Feyles, anatomopathologist at the Civic Hospital of Asti and Doctor Vittorio Montano, neurologist at the same institution, for their scientific advice during the writing of this novel.
Last but not least I am obliged, though with infinite pleasure, to return yet again to my little work team, composed of people who, after all this time, face me with an alternative:
either they’re not yet fed up with me
or if they are, they’re amazingly good at pretending they aren’t.
In both cases they deserve your applause:
– the buccaneering Alessandro Dalai, to make him understand that there’s a difference between grapnel and grappa
– the crystalline Cristina Dalai, to make her continue undaunted to replace the glasses I regularly break
– the encyclopaedic Francesco Colombo, my incomparable editor, because, luckily for him and for me, he has one more brain and one fewer Bentley
– the Cheguevaristic Stefano Travagli who, like Oscar Wilde, knows the importance of being Ernest
– the elegiac Mara Scanavino, a sublime art director, so that, in her highly creative way, she can succeed in putting everything through the mill of colour
– the Pythagorean Antonella Fassi, because he dances in the hearts of us authors with the same lightfootedness as he dances on our writings
– the glittering Alessandra Santangelo and Chiara Codeluppi, my invaluable Press Sisters, who can turn their chests into shields and ramparts.
And along with them all the guys at the Baldini Castoldi Dalai publishing house, who always make me feel like a great writer, even though the jury is still out on that one.
To them I add my agent, the science-fictional Piergiorgio Nicolazzini, because he welcomed as a true friend my alien arrival on his planet.
As in the usual formula, the characters in this story, apart from Waltz, are imaginary and any resemblance to actual people is purely coincidental.
Anyone who has read this novel will have realized that there is nothing autobiographical about the title. For anyone who hasn’t and suspects there might be, I’ll leave that assumption intact, as it does me a great deal of honour.
Having said that, I take my leave with a bow and a flourish of my plumed hat.
