Authors: Manuela Pigna
Getting
out of the car, he gets a blanket out of the trunk, a basket with six beers and
a flashlight.
“Really,
your trunk is something like Mary Poppins’s bag…” I comment getting nearer and
looking inside. “You’ve already put in the scale!”
He
laughs. “Tomorrow is weighing day.”
“Yes,
I know,” I grumble while he closes it and we start to walk. I take the blanket
from his hand and walk beside him. “If I hurt my feet, I’ll ask you for
damages…”
He
laughs. “If you hurt your feet, I’ll carry you.”
“Yes,
great. That way I’ll give you a slipped disk and goodbye Ironman!”
He
bursts out laughing harder. “You think I’m that weak?”
“No!”
I reply, surprised. “It’s me that’s too heavy!”
“Oh
Olly!” He sighs as we walk in the wood.
Everything
is dark now. Andrea points the flashlight on the road in front of him and that
piece of earth in front of our feet is the only thing visible.
We
continue in silence for a little, with only the background noise of the twigs
and leaves which crunch under our shoes. He’s true to his word because, after a
little, I see a mirror of dark water - a little unsettling - and hear the sound
of the lake.
“Here
we are,” says Andrea, pointing the flashlight on a small open space. A sort of
pseudo-beach on the shore of the lake. If we keep walking, we’ll enter the
water. There is no protection, no barrier or slope. I pass him the blanket and
he arranges it, then he takes the beers and puts them in the lake, wedging them
between the rocks while I sit on the farthest corner to the right on the
blanket.
“What
is this place?”
“It’s
a quiet place I discovered with my friends a good number of years ago.”
“Are
any of these friends likely to arrive now?” I ask, hugging my legs with both
arms.
He
laughs. “No, I wouldn’t think so.” He sits on the other side of the blanket and
puts the flashlight between us, turned towards our bodies in such a way that I
can see half his face and he can see half of mine.
“Why
do you want to be a librarian?” He asks right away, point blank, without even a
second of hesitation.
I
sigh. How’d I like to have already finished this and be on the way back… “I
already told you – because I love books.”
“But
why don’t you open a bookshop, or a publishing house, or write a book? Why a
librarian?”
“Because
that way I won’t have much contact with people.”
“You
don’t have much contact writing either.”
“Yes,
but in order to write you need talent. And then it’s not something you can decide
on at the table. Like, uh, I want to be a writer, tomorrow I’ll write a book,
I’ll publish it and live off it. It doesn’t work that way. It’s hard enough to
be a librarian, imagine writing!”
“You
have talent.”
“No,
I don’t,” I say harshly. “And if you know something about physical fitness and
diet, I know something about literature and I’m telling you that I don’t have
it.”
“But
would you like to do it?”
I
stay silent for a moment before admitting, “Yes, I’d like it.”
“Then
you should do it anyway. Regardless of talent,” he answers immediately.
“Yes,
okay...” I tell him hurriedly, looking away to cut him off.
“You
should do it in order to live your life, Olly. To not let your life pass in
front of you while you stay there looking on from the sidelines. And because
the fact that you like to do it is in itself a valid reason to do it.”
I
swallow and don’t comment. I knew it would be painful.
“Why
do you want to limit your contact with people?”
As
I was saying.
“Because
I’m uncomfortable most of the time.”
“Why?”
“Because
they’ve treated me badly lots of times – lots of people.”
“Who?”
“You
want the particulars?” I ask him aggressively.
“Yes,”
he answers swiftly – calm and sincere.
“Oh,
alright. You want the goriest details… obvious,” I reply tersely, again looking
away from him and staring at the darkened ground in front of my feet. “The
first on the list is my mother, who, since I was twelve years old, has never
passed up an opportunity to let me know just how repulsive my dimensions are.
Then there have been several classmates, a few teachers, strangers in the
middle of the street, men and women of a certain age, children, teenagers,
people my age, people I knew, acquaintances and people I didn’t know at all.
They’ve said everything to me and everywhere, at the supermarket, at the coffee
bar, at the gas station… everywhere. Everywhere. There have been times when I’ve
thought that people saw only that in me and couldn’t keep that idea inside
their heads, it seems like they absolutely had to tell me to my face that I was
too fat.” I pause and then ask the darkness in front of me, “I ask you, have I
ever pointed out to the people in front of me that they were short, that they
had big noses or acne or not too much hair? That they had a single eyebrow or
hairs growing out of their nose? That they had yellow or crooked teeth? Or
elephant ears? That they had thin legs and an enormous belly? That they had
wrinkles around their eyes or on their neck or sagging breasts? No, I have
never pointed out anything about anything to anyone!”
Andrea
doesn’t say a word. I take a breath and I ask, looking at him suddenly, “Do you
want a specific story?” I don’t wait for him to answer and continue, going back
to staring at the blanket under my feet. “There are several, but I’ll tell you
the best one – Donato Poggi, my classmate in junior high.” I take a breath.
“Donato Poggi nicknamed me ‘Tub of Lard’ in the first year of junior high on
the first day of school. At the time I wasn’t even that big, but when you’re
eleven and surrounded by idiot kids who are looking for a defect because
they’re insecure about themselves and don’t know how to manage their changing
bodies, you might hear yourself called ‘Tub of Lard’ even if you’re normal.” I
sigh, still not looking at him. “Tub of Lard… Now that expression almost makes
me laugh, but you don’t know how humiliating it is when you’re little and when
someone calls you that in front of everybody and everybody laughs. Tub of Lard…
How I cried in the evenings, when I was alone in my room over that name… a
single name can do a lot of damage.” I shake my head and look straight ahead,
losing my gaze in the black lake. “In the second year Donato Poggi evolved and
began to call me ‘Moby’, from Moby Dick of course.”
Andrea
is so silent that every so often I turn my head to shoot him a quick look to
check that he’s still here.
“And
you know something? I was almost happy, because at the end of the day, Moby
isn’t as obvious as Tub of Lard. At least, not for the kids in the second year
of junior high, not yet literature experts. Can you believe it? I was happy
because he had changed the name he teased me with…”
I
shake my head again, a little disgusted with my twelve year old self. “Then in
the third year I got my period and my breasts suddenly grew. In a short time I
was wearing a D-cup, so Donato Poggi began to alternate Moby with ‘Milk Cow’
and ‘Three Heads’. Of the three heads, one is the one everyone has, I’ll leave
you to imagine the other two.” I stop for a second to breathe, because I realize
that I’m still bothered now, after more than ten years. “Then it happened that
three months before the end of school, Donato Poggi stopped teasing me
completely. On the contrary, he began to look at me in a different way. He’d
sneak up behind me and give me kisses on the cheeks. He whispered in my ears
that I was pretty and that he’d been an idiot to treat me badly.”
“Ha!
Typical. The ones who are most critical, buy… it’s the same all over the
world.”
I
turn to look at him and realize, in the half light, that he’s smiling. “Yes,
the most critical ones buy… Anyway, this went on for almost three months. Initially
I was angry at him for all the hurt he had caused me for almost three years and
I continued to push him away. But after a time, with all the compliments and
the nice things he said to me, he began to turn my head. His brown eyes
suddenly became attractive and I began to convince myself of the existence of
some sort of divine justice that had made him fall in love with me. I began to
think that, I too, like all my other female classmates, could have a boyfriend.
So, when he asked me to meet him behind the gym at break time the last day of
school because he was in love with me and wanted to kiss me, I went, all happy
and smiling. I went without thinking twice.”
I
stop a moment to take a breath and look at Andrea, who is listening without
smiling – completely immobile, completely silent.
“He
had me close my eyes and pucker my lips. I wasn’t allowed to touch him as he lifted
my T-shirt and took off my bra. The kiss never arrived. I heard only silence
for a bit until he suddenly said, ‘Hey, they really are as big as two heads!’
and someone laughed. I opened my eyes and saw Donato Poggi in front of me,
swinging my bra around with his finger, and another dozen boys.” I swallow and
see Andrea do the same without taking his gaze from mine. He says nothing.
“I
started to cry, I hurried to pull down my T-shirt and I asked him, still politely
- can you believe what an idiot? – to give me my brassiere. He came nearer and
said with a smile on his lips, ‘Come on Moby, did you really think I could fall
in love with a whale like you?’ and he threw my bra up in a tree. It got caught
on a branch. I decided to not try to retrieve it and I left, running, while all
the others laughed.”
I
pause, but Andrea doesn’t comment, so I conclude, “So, no, I don’t have any
great desire to work in contact with people.”
He
takes a deep breath and looks at his hands linked in front of him. I respect him
in this moment, because he stays silent and doesn’t tell me something like, “He
was just a stupid kid”. I prefer nothing to hearing a phrase like that.
“Are
we finished? Are you satisfied now?”
He
looks up, serious, and says, “No and no.”
“Oh,
okay. Fine. What other piece do you want now?” I ask sarcastically.
“What
happened afterwards?”
I
sigh. “Afterwards I went home in tears. I cried all afternoon. When my mother
came back from work in the evening, I told her that I didn’t want to do the
third year exams because I didn’t want to set foot in that school again. She
told me I could forget it and had me tell her everything that had happened. I
gave her a slightly edited version of it. I told her about the months, years,
of bullying, ending up with that day, but… I left out the bit about the bra
because it was too humiliating. When I finished, she told me that Donato Poggi
was just a stupid kid, that soon I’d forget all about it and that they would
too, and that if I had listened to her before, I would be thin and something as
unpleasant as this would never have happened. Then I told her that after the
exams I wanted to go and live with my father who lives in Rome, because I
didn’t want to live with her anymore. She told me fine, if he wants you. So I
called my father, I told him everything about what had happened, still omitting
the bra part, and I asked to go and live with him. He felt very bad for me. He
even threatened to come up and speak to the boy’s parents, but as far as living
with him… No, because there was no room for me in the apartment where he lived
with his new wife and his new children. So I continued living with my mother. I
went to take the third year exams beside the boys who had seen, and made fun of,
my intimate parts and I went to a high-school where some of the above mentioned
boys went. I began to eat even more and to gain even more weight.”
I
stop for just a moment to catch my breath. He says nothing and, despite the
fact that it disturbs me and humiliates me to tell these things to him, on the
other hand I don’t want to stop either. It’s as though once the dam is opened,
it is impossible to close it. “I went through periods, during high-school, when
I tried everything to lose weight. Everything… I tried vomiting after binging,
fasting, running in place in my room, jumping rope in my room, doing sit-ups
and push-ups in hiding, alone in my room. I tried every diet, every method. I
even came to hurt myself every time I wanted to eat, but not even that worked.
I’d hurt myself and eat anyway. Until one day I was tired of this torment… torment,
endless torment… and I abandoned the idea and gave up everything, and resigned
myself to being fat for the rest of my days.”
I
am silent for a little and Andrea inhales loudly, still looking at his hands,
then he jumps up. “Do you want a beer? I… think I need one.”
“Yes
please.” I grab it when he passes it to me already open.
“What
made you change your mind?” He asks me once he’s sit down in his place again.
I
sigh and drink a little before answering, “I wasn’t living completely. As you
mentioned yourself before, it’s as if life is happening around us, people are
living it and I’m standing outside watching the others… And… I’m always
uncomfortable. Almost all the time at least. And I’m tired of feeling
uncomfortable in my own body.”