I opened my eyes wide; my face reddened. Suddenly I turned toward the Professor and said, 'Let's go. I don't want this.'
It happened just at the moment when my body was yielding completely… Poor Flavio, poor Muscles, poor everybody, poor me. I abandoned them all, including my hard-as-nails self. I got it together fast and, with tears in my eyes, ran down the long hallway. I opened the door and made for the car sitting in the road. Its windows were fogged with the thick humidity that wrapped the house and me.
Not a word on the way back. Only when I reached the gate of my house did I tell him. 'You still haven't said anything about the letter.'
A long silence, then simply, 'Adieu, Lolita.'
20 June
6:50 A.M.
I put my lips to the phone and heard his voice scarcely roused from sleep. 'I want to live with you,' I whispered, my voice a thread.
24 June
Night has fallen, Diary, and I am on the terrace outside the house, watching the sea.
It's so calm, quiet, pleasant; the tempered heat tones down the waves, and I hear their roar in the distance, peaceful and delicate… The moon is partly hidden; it seems to be watching me with its compassionate, indulgent gaze.
I ask her what I should do.
It is difficult, she tells me, to strip away incrustations from one's heart.
My heart… I don't recall having one. Perhaps I've never known if I do.
A touching scene at the cinema never touched me, a powerful song never moved me, and I've always only half believed in love, thinking I could never actually experience it. Yet I've never been cynical. No, the fact is that nobody ever taught me how to express the love I kept hidden inside, concealed from everyone. It was somewhere, it needed to be tracked down. I tried, flinging my desire into a world from which love was banished. And nobody, I mean nobody, blocked my path, saying, 'No, little one, you can't enter here.'
My heart was locked in a frozen cell. To break through it with a decisive blow would have been risky: my heart might have been shattered forever.
But then the sun arrived, not this Sicilian sun, which burns, inflames, belches fire, but a mild, discreet, generous sun, which melted the ice slowly and thus avoided any sudden flooding of my arid soul.
In the beginning, I felt I ought to ask him when we should make love, but later, when I was about to, I bit my lip. He realized something was up and asked me, 'What is it, Melissa?' He calls me by my name; to him I am Melissa, I am a person, an essence, not an object, a body.
I shook my head. 'Nothing, Claudio, really.'
Then he took my hand and placed it on his chest.
I took a deep breath and stammered out, 'I was asking myself when you'd want to make love.'
He was silent, and I was mortified. I felt my cheeks burn.
'No, Melissa, love, I'm not the one who should decide when we'll make love. We'll decide together if and when we do it. It'll be you and me, together.' He smiled.
I gazed at him, astonished, and he realized my stunned look begged him to continue.
'Because, you see, when two people join it is the height of spirituality, and this can be achieved only if they love each other. It's like a whirlpool enveloping their bodies, and they are no longer themselves. One is inside the other in the deepest, most intimate, and most beautiful way.'
Even more amazed, I asked him what he meant.
He replied, 'I'm in love with you, Melissa.'
Why does this man believe so deeply in what I considered an impossibility only a few days ago? Why has life shown me nothing but wickedness, filth, and brutality till now? Can this extraordinary creature offer me a hand and raise me from the cramped, stinking hole where I crouch in fear? Moon, do you think he can do it?
Incrustations are hard to remove from one's heart. But perhaps this heart can beat strongly enough to shatter its carapace into a thousand pieces.
30 June
My ankles and wrists feel bound by an invisible rope. I'm suspended in the air, and someone is pulling from below, shouting in a hellish voice, while someone else is pulling from above. I jerk up and down, weeping, sometimes touching clouds, sometimes worms. I keep repeating my name, Melissa, Melissa, Melissa, like some magic word that can save me. I grab hold of myself and cling to me.
7 July
I've repainted the walls of my room; now they're pale blue. Marlene Dietrich's languid gaze no longer looks over my desk; now there's a photo of me, my hair in the wind, as I calmly observe the chalk-stained boats in the port. Behind me stands Claudio, his arms encircling my waist, his hands resting delicately on my white blouse, lowering his face to plant a kiss on my shoulder. He seems not to notice the boats, but rather to be absorbed in contemplating us.
After the photo was snapped, he whispered in my ear, 'Melissa, I love you.'
I rested my cheek against his, breathed deeply to savor the moment, and turned around. I took his face in my hands and kissed him with a tenderness I never felt before. Then I whispered, 'I love you too, Claudio.'
A shiver, then a feverish heat ran through my body till I abandoned myself in his arms and he held me more tightly, kissing me with a passion that wasn't sexual desire, but a yearning for something else, for love.
I wept uncontrollably, wept as I had never done in front of someone.
'Please help me, my love,' I implored.
'I am here for you,' he said, holding me as no man has ever held me.
13 July
We fell asleep on the beach in a tight embrace, warmed by each other's arms. His integrity, his respect make me tremble with envy. Can I ever repay him for all this loveliness?
24 July
Fear, utter fear.
30 July
I run away, and he catches up with me. It's so sweet to feel his hands hold me without oppressing me. I weep often, and whenever I do, he holds me tight, his breath in my hair, and I rest my face against his chest. I am tempted to flee, to slide back into the abyss, to return to the tunnel and never leave it. But his arms support me and I trust them and I can still save myself…
12 August 2002
My desire for him is strong and intense; I can't do without his presence. He hugs me, asks me who I belong to.
'I'm yours,' I answer, 'completely yours.'
He looks me in the eyes and tells me, 'Little one, please don't hurt yourself. That would hurt me very much.'
'I wouldn't ever hurt you,' I tell him.
'You shouldn't do it for me, but for yourself, above all else. You're a flower; don't let them trample on you anymore.'
He kisses me, softly grazing my lips, and fills me with love.
I smile, I'm happy. He tells me, 'Look, now I have to kiss you, I have to steal this smile from you and print it forever on my lips. You drive me crazy, you're an angel, a princess, I want to devote an entire night to loving
