Read The Days of Abandonment for Free Online Page B

else.
    “Of course I’m distracting myself,” I said, assuming a smug tone. “Don’t think I’m just waiting around here. I’m writing, I’m trying to understand, tormenting myself. But I’m doing it for myself, for the children, certainly not to please you. Hardly. Have you looked around? Have you seen how well the three of us are doing? And have you seen me?”
    I stuck out my chest, I made the earrings swing, presenting to him ironically first one profile, then the other.
    “You look well,” he said without conviction.
    “Well, my ass. I’m extremely well. Ask our neighbor, ask Carrano how I am.”
    “The performer?”
    “The musician.”
    “Are you seeing him?” he asked indifferently.
    I laughed, a kind of sob.
    “Yes, let’s say I’m seeing him. I’m seeing him exactly the way you’re seeing your lover.”
    “Why him? He’s a man I don’t like.”
    “I’m the one who has to screw him, not you.”
    He brought his hands to his face, rubbed it thoroughly, then murmured:
    “Do you do it even in front of the children?”
    I smiled.
    “Fuck?”
    “Speak like that.”
    I lost control, and began to shout:
    “Speak like what? I don’t give a shit about prissiness. You wounded me, you are destroying me, and I’m supposed to speak like a good, well-brought-up wife? Fuck you! What words am I supposed to use for what you’ve done to me, for what you’re doing to me? What words should I use for what you’re doing with that woman! Let’s talk about it! Do you lick her cunt? Do you stick it in her ass? Do you do all the things you never did with me? Tell me! Because I see you! With these eyes I see everything you do together, I see it a hundred thousand times, I see it night and day, eyes open and eyes closed! However, in order not to disturb the gentleman, not to disturb his children, I’m supposed to use clean language, I’m supposed to be refined, I’m supposed to be elegant! Get out of here! Get out, you shit!”
    He got up immediately, hurried into his study, put books and notebooks in a bag, stopped for a moment as if bewitched by his computer, took a case with some diskettes, other stuff from the drawers.
    I took a breath, ran after him. I had in mind a million recriminations. I wanted to cry: don’t touch anything; they are things you worked on while I was there, I was taking care of you, I was doing the shopping, the cooking, it’s time that belongs to me in a way, leave everything there. But now I was frightened of the consequences of every word I had uttered, of those that I could utter, I was afraid I had disgusted him, that he would go away for good.
    “Mario, I’m sorry, come back, let’s talk…Mario! It’s just that I’m upset…”
    He went to the door, pushing me back, he opened it, he said:
    “I have to go. But I’ll be back, don’t worry. I’ll be back for the children.”
    He was about to go out when he stopped and said:
    “Don’t wear those earrings anymore. They don’t suit you.”
    Then he disappeared without closing the door.
    I pushed the door hard, it was an old door, so loose on its hinges that it hit the jamb and swung back, opening again. So I kicked it furiously until it closed. Then I ran to the balcony while the dog, worried, grumbled beside me. I waited for Mario to appear in the street, I cried desperately:
    “Tell me where you live, or at least leave me a phone number! What do I do if I need you, if the children are ill…”
    He didn’t even raise his head. I shouted at him, beside myself:
    “I want to know the name of that whore, you’ve got to tell me… I want to know if she’s pretty, I want to know how old she is…”
    Mario got in the car, started the engine. The car disappeared behind the foliage in the middle of the little square, reappeared, disappeared again.
    “Mamma,” Gianni called.

9.
    I turned around. The children had opened the door of their room, but they didn’t dare to cross the threshold. My appearance could not have