I kept silent, nodded, and felt I was definitely playing a supporting role in the movie. It was all over very quickly, since there were no problems with money, property or children.
As soon as we left the judge’s room she gave me another kiss, this time almost at the corner of my mouth. “Ciao,” she said.
“Ciao,” said I, when she had already turned and was walking away.
“Ciao,” I said again to the air, after smoking a cigarette while slouching against the wall.
I left the law courts when I noticed the looks I was getting from passing clerks.
Outside it was spring.
3
Spring rapidly turned to summer, but the days still ran by all exactly the same.
The nights too were all the same. Dark.
Until one morning in June.
I was in the lift, just back from the law courts and on my way up to my office on the eighth floor when suddenly, and for no reason, I was seized by panic.
Once out of the lift I stood on the landing for God knows how long, panting, in a cold sweat, feeling sick, eyes riveted on a fire extinguisher. And full of terror.
“Are you all right, Avvocato?” The voice of Signor Strisciuglio, a former clerk in the Inland Revenue and tenant of the other apartment on my floor, was a little puzzled, a little worried.
“I’m all right, thank you. I’m completely out of my mind, but I don’t think this is a problem. And how are you?”
That’s a lie. I said I’d had a slight dizzy spell but that now everything was fine, thank you, good day.
Naturally, everything was not fine, as I would come to realize all too well in the days and months that followed.
In the first place, not knowing what had happened to me that morning in the lift, I began to be obsessed with the idea that it might happen again.
So I stopped using the lift. It was a stupid decision that only made matters worse.