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 A white piece of chalk in the hands of time and a blackboard.
A cloth in the hands of space and the same blackboard a few centimetres away.
A ten-minute delay in a small railway station in the country, an irregular square of strangers stuck in an ordinary train wagon. Ten minutes, what was needed to prepare a cup of hot tea; ten minutes, what was needed to decide whether to prepare it only for yourself or inviting a friend, and dial the number.
A piece of chalk and a cloth to write and then erase; time and space to live and then forget.
In one of the four angles of the square there was a girl about twenty years old, an art book in her hands, her chestnut eyes observing the stillness of the external landscape. Waiting.
Her left foot is apparently still, her right one moves to the rhythm of an out-of-tune music. It hits irregularly on the opaque grey floor and beats the time, giving a sound shape to space.
The violet sweater slides spitefully on her wrist, trying to hide the hands of the watch, the seconds and minutes her look avoids impatiently. Celeste, point A of the square.
Point B: two sixteen-year-old girls, wearing low-waisted jeans and short sweaters, complaining with loud voices between the blip of a sent sms and a received one, united by the headphones of a CD-player they share as they were great friends. Arianna end Federica, point B of the square.
Point C: a young mother and her four-year son.
Point D: an old man leaning his head out of the window groaning about the conditions of the journey, and a young woman, about thirty years old, elegantly dressed up, with a pen and a worn-out notebook in her hands.
Celeste, Arianna and Federica; Eleonora, Fabrizio, Mr Giulio and Sofia.
Four points of a square with invisible sides.
Celeste closes the book, two fingers keep her place in it, but she doesn't know whether to put it in her bag.
Suddenly a voice from a loudspeaker crackles, the sound is vaguely deformed but comforting: "The train to Serra is leaving from platform two." The train to Giustiano is arriving on platform one and their train can finally leave.
Celeste observes the people on the platform turning towards the coming train. They hear a whistle while the landscape, until that moment still, moves again, slowly, then faster and faster.
The two girls switch off the CD-player and begin to prepare, the next stop seems to be theirs. They agree to meet a few hours later to study together, to have a chat and, for some hours, close the rest of the world outside the door of their imagination.
The old man sits again, groaning, he must be about sixty years old and the scarce hair on his head, thinks Celeste with a hint of irony, seems to have remained more for a fate's joke than for solidarity. Sofia, the young woman in front of him, doesn't seem to give it too much importance. She stares at her notebook and plays with the pen between her fingers. The contrast between the impeccability of her dress and the peculiarity of her notebook could rouse a careful observer's curiosity.
But Celeste's fingers are still between the pages of the book while she looks at the other three points of the square without being particularly interested.
During the unavoidable waiting in the railway station of Argane, Fabrizio, the four-year child, gave vent to everybody's impatience standing up and sitting down continuously; now that the train runs again, the child is a volcano of questions: "Mum, why don't the trees follow us? Don't they like us?!"
"No, Fabrizio, the trees are still, it's us who move", she answers kindly.
"Mum, why hasn't granma come with us?"
"Because grandma lives in Giustiano, but she'll come and visit us soon."
"Mum…"
The train slows down, the railway station of Elsiano is a few meters away. The door of the compartment opens, two boys pass. Celeste turns, the two girls turn, the young mother, Fabrizio and Mr Giulio turn, look furtively, a superficial curiosity mingled with indifference and inconstancy. Only Sofia isn't distracted by that movement, her eyes are fixed on the notebook and her mind is engaged in useless conversations with her thoughts.
The boys go on to the next wagon, Arianna and Federica stand up. The little child heaps again all his curiosity in his questions and Mr Giulio too stands up to get off.
The square has broken. Celeste closes her book definitely and puts it in her bag, the next stop is hers. She smiles while she imagines the merciless autumn of life calling the roll of the last obstinate veterans on mister Giulio's head, and she turns towards the window. Her chestnut eyes cross two passing black eyes, swift and silent.
Unconsciously, Celeste finds herself smiling to a stranger, but she immediately turns her eyes away, annoyed: that smile wasn't directed to someone.
The train moves again and, protected by the space that advances and divides, Celeste lets herself be captured by that unknown profile, she guesses to recognize it in one of the boys she perceived a few moments ago. She only has to look at him without being noticed.
She doesn't know why her eyes had lingered on the figure, now a point with a blurred outline, and she doesn't even ask herself that until Elsiano railway station is far away, and the next one is getting closer and closer. Nothing relevant, not a reason to remember the stupid name of a stupid station. Elsiano.
Celeste gets off, the wagon is now almost void.
The train moves away.
Two stops and it's the terminus: Serra railway station. The train empties and it gets crowded again, ready to start the next journey.
Sofia lives near the railway station. A few minutes and she's at home. The elegant and impeccable dress are replaced by a comfortable and unpretentious tracksuit. Sofia sinks in the sofa and turns the TV on. She has a tub of ice cream in her lap and a spoon to dive in the cold chocolate mixed with cream; in her other hand, the remote control, her inseparable mate.
Another small portion of ice cream disappears between her lips and then Sofia decides to put the lid back on the tub and stand up. She puts the ice cram back in the freezer and throws the spoon in the sink.
She sinks again in the sofa, bored. She takes the remote control and changes channel. Nothing, nothing, nothing at all. She turns the TV off, annoyed, and stares at the black screen.
She flees from the sofa and finds herself on the balcony.
It's not a beautiful day, the sun doesn't shine, it's not raining, but there are many grey clouds that make the surrounding landscape annoyingly bright.
An unexpected movement captures her attention: in the garden beyond the dirt road Mr and Mrs Berti are bent, busy at eradicating the weeds.
Sofia observes them indifferently.
Mrs Berti straightens up her back putting her hand on her hips while a light wince of pain crosses her wrinkled face.
Sofia imagines her short white curls falling down over the forehead beaded with sweat. Her husband straighten up too and passes a handkerchief on his forehead.
Sofia sees him turning towards her wife, perceives his profile and is caught unawares by a sudden pang of envy.
He puts his hand on her arm and tells her something. She shakes her head without being convinced.
Then a smile forms on her lips, Sofia imagines, and she replies that in a few minutes she would go in and prepare tea for the both of them.
Mrs Bert bursts with laughter. Sofia didn't expect this and that pang of envy becomes stronger. Is she envying that old couple?, she wonders incredulously. She? Young, with a life full of promises? "Promises…"
Mr Berti says something to his wife and then, together, they leave the garden and go in.
Sofia looks at them while they disappear behind the small gate on the other side of the road.
Now she'll prepare the tea and he'll get the cup, and the sugar, and the lemon, and their love. She'll wait for the water to boil and then she'll pour it in the cups.
Sofia goes in: an empty house. A switched off TV. A tub of ice cream half full in the freezer. And a memory. Another memory to forget.
She sighs, embittered. She could call Elena, or Silvia, or nobody because there was nobody she wished to hear in that moment. Without being aware of it she's in front of the cupboard. She opens it and takes a sachet of tea form the box. She fills the kettle and puts it on the cooker. She puts the sugar and a cup on the table.
She takes a CD among the ones she has collected and puts it in the stereo. A melancholic melody of light and shadow diffuses in the room, the symphony of he void trying to fill itself.
The kettle starts hissing, Sofia goes to the cooker and switches it off. With the help of a pot holder she pours the water in the cup and puts the kettle back on the cooker.
The water turns to an opaque yellow when it touches the sachet of tea.
Sofia sits on a stool and blows on the cup to cool the tea.
Music keeps her company while she drinks a cup of tea that in a different situation she would have never prepared for herself.
She closes her eyes and opens them again slowly. Her hands are still around the warm cup.
She sips the last drops of tea and turns towards the balcony, towards the external immobility.
Far from the one she bears inside.
She imagines a new life, a new landscape, new people. And she imagines herself out there smiling happily. Without any desires of big prices or rewards.
She grabs a pen, her worn-out notebook she always takes with her and starts writing.
«A smile that's not mine. A look, intense eyes different from mine. Your skin, hands, face, a light that can't be mine.
I saw you smile yesterday, you were talking with a friend, your eyes met anonymous faces you wouldn't remember. You weren't the same person, I almost didn't recognize you. Did I ever notice how black your hair is? And where had your opaque whiteness gone, the one I'd always thought I could recognize in my own skin as well?
A few meters away, unaware of my presence, you were walking self-confidently.
I felt the instinctive disgust of someone who doesn't recognize herself anymore and the unconscious sweetness of recognizing the other.
You were far, your smile, your look, your life.
I felt the void of not recognizing in you anymore and then the void of you.
I always knew you were the other, the stranger, a stranger land I had come to, for a moment, without being able to savour the flavour of home. My own flavour. Desiring to savour yours… I wanted myself and I looked for you. I found myself and wanted you.»
With an angry gesture Sofia traces two blacks lines on the thoughts she has just written and then tears the sheet of the notebook. Some things aren't worth being remembered, she thinks bitterly.
Time writes and space erases. Where there was a beginning, now there's an ending. Where there was thought to be an ending, a new beginning is born.
Celeste goes back home and hides in her bedroom. Her inspired hands trace sharp and light lines. The virgin sheet of paper slowly colours with grey, white and black, a chiaroscuro of emotions and ephemeral memories.
She knows that instants don't last, that emotions are forgotten, but if time erases, space can help remember.
On the background the outlines of a railway station and, in the foreground, those of a profile, two black eyes, the breath of an instant.
Sofia is about to throw away the sheet, hesitates, opens it again undecided, the words dance in their black dresses, don't feel any shame, don't despise their receiver and love the emotions they raise. But Sofia flees from the emotions that bounce barrenly in her memory.
The blackboard of time and space is black, immaculate in its darkness. Scented with silence, it grants opportunities and chances: to accept and love, to intensely live or to forget.
The train has begun again its journey, walks, marches and then runs, the landscape is always the same, its eyes are the one of the hurried passengers. Instants flee and emotions get lost.
Celeste has replaced her sketchbook. Sofia has abandoned the creased sheet of paper on the table in the kitchen. There's an art book that has to be studied, housework to be done, gym at six thirty, papers to fill in for the following day.
And there's, on that dark blackboard, imagined or dreamed, the brief fleetingness of an instant and the bitter fear of making it last.
Story Info
- Story written by Lara and translated from the Italian by Marta, 2006
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