Twenty‑three

“I’m going to buy some cigarettes, ” Thomas said as he left, slamming the door behind him.

I was smoking the last one, lying on the sofa, transfixed by the pictures and the voices on the television. I nodded, looking straight ahead.

When I heard the elevator door opening and closing again, it was as though a flash of lightning had suddenly passed through me and filled me with superhuman energy. I ran to the window and grabbed his mobile phone from the sill.

Frantically fingering the keypad, I dash through the messages in his in‑ box. There’s nothing there to give me any concern, although for a moment I have a sense of foreboding that he might have put another girl’s number under my name or his mother’s. Then I run through all the texts of the messages and that hint of foreboding fades away.

Suddenly a loud cough right behind me makes me start, and I feel the air stirring my hair.

I turn to see a woman behind me and say, “What the fuck do you want? I’m busy. This isn’t the time. ”

The woman smiles at me and whispers in a croak, “I like what you’re doing. You’ve got to know everything. Go on, go on checking his every move, follow his every footstep and listen carefully to his every word: he could be lying to you at any moment. I’m here to help you, to make you realize that reality isn’t as you imagined it; it’s actually very different. ”

“Really? ” I say contemptuously, “and what would you know about that? ”

She doesn’t reply but goes into the kitchen and pours a little water into her glass. Without saying a word, she turns toward me and inverts the glass of water. To my astonishment the water doesn’t fall to the ground but instead follows a precise and perfect horizontal line. A line that stops a few inches from my nose.

I look at the woman and ask her in amazement, “What is this? ”

She folds her arms and, with a smile, replies, “This is your reality. Transparent, resolute, fluid. You poured it out where it seemed most appropriate to pour it, and now you’re living in it, but the space in which you’ve liberated it isn’t one that belongs to you. What you see before your eyes is your reality, your true reality, in the place where it should be: in a perfect straight line flowing in different directions simultaneously. That line is you. ”

“So what you’re trying to tell me is that I’ve made bad choices? Is that it? ”

She shakes her head and comes over to me, sending ripples through the water that still hangs over the room.

“What I want to tell you, ” she says, “is that until now you’ve concealed your true nature because you’re attracted by the idea of a peaceful, normal life. But that isn’t what you want; it never has been. And what you’re doing now, checking up on him, is a sensational gesture on your part: the first in a long series. That’s why I say to you: enough of this nonsense, take a good look at what’s in that bloody mobile, and think hard about what you find. ”

The rapid stream of words makes her cough again, and while the convulsions make her tremble and twist, she disappears. She fades away.

The little stream that floated a few inches from my nose vanishes, as well, while the sounds and the cold of the room are heard and felt once more.

Not upset in the slightest, as though I had just opened the front door to a neighbor asking to borrow a couple of lemons, I go on running through the fascinating data supplied to me by that diabolical little machine.

A new name jumps out from among his incoming calls: Viola. So who the fuck is this Viola?

All of a sudden, sweet but forbidden features appear in my mind. Two long, well‑ manicured hands, two slender, agile legs supporting a perfect bottom. Suddenly the woman of his dreams appears before my eyes.

A thin, pungent layer of fear insinuates itself between the folds of my muscles. My mouth contorts and begins to tremble, while my heart thumps harder and harder. The cold of the room mixes with a rare sensation of warmth that makes me sweat and shiver at the same time.

While a series of obscene photographs is filling my mind, dragging me to dark and unexplored places, he opens the door.