The Loneliness of the Spider

Chapter 5

Back when I met Giulia, there were very few things that I could offer a woman, when it came to emotional attachment. I had acquired a considerable knowledge of human nature and the complex dynamics of various emotions, but instead I invented a past in which I had amassed a number of little things. First of all, a miserable childhood, scarred by emotional neglect. It was a deep-rooted humus, from which it was difficult to free oneself. In any case, she had talked herself into going out with me. She would face a series of stumbling blocks and tragedies, and I am sure she was totally aware of this. Notwithstanding that, she did not give up. Twenty years later, our relationship is still standing.

I am a journalist, she teaches history and literature in a high school in the center of town. It is clear that even in her profession, as well as in her love life, probably because of her pronounced inclination to heroic acts, she decided to follow arduous paths. There is nothing more tedious and frustrating than dealing with teenagers. You have to come to grips with the change in the way they speak and their expectations. The myths, the heroes, what matters and what doesn"t. Giulia talks all day long about Dante, Boccaccio and the centuries that have followed each other, spilling an enormous load of beauty and pain onto humanity, while they dream of the limelight and a cone of white light where they can dance lightly under a shower of a thousand candies. It would be a long discussion, and I don"t want to bore anyone. Maybe it would be different if I had children. I would be more indugent. The fact remains that I am little inclined to socialization and this often leads me to judge the choices of the man next door too harshly. Sometimes I feel like a star in the middle of the sky that doesn’t want to mix its light even with the moon’s. Giulia is different. She is more communicative. Her confines concern other aspects. She doesn"t have a good aptitude for letters, for a start. One day she told me that she detested Bukowski. I don"t know if she just wanted to argue with me or really thought so. Not being sure, I didn’t speak to her for a whole week. After that, I got rid of every book in the house except for a novel by the old drunkard. I left it on her bedside table. I was putting her on the right track. I had to be responsible for her development. In some cases, however, it’s not enough. It’s a matter of ear. Like in music. Some time ago I heard someone say that all the sound frequencies present in the universe are contained in the jet of water falling onto the bottom of a tub. You see, you happen to read certain things and experience a similar sensation: every existing sound present in a verse, in a rivulet of words. That’s what I mean: the game, the charm, the enchantment of the sentences that follow one after the other, all in line like trained elephants: the trunk, the tail, the trunk, the tail. It must be about metrics, but maybe there"s more. Pyrotechnics, illusionist art. Music. For hot organs. Giulia doesn’t feel this. I"m pretty sure of that. There are other things that send her into a frenzy. Figurative art, for example. Well, she likes Van Gogh. What I could say about the Dutch artist is that I just don"t understand how he could spend all that time drawing sunflowers. It was an obsessive trait of his personality, that’s obvious. Even Gauguin, when he arrived in Arles, after his friend had prepared the famous yellow house and had decorated the studio with huge canvases depicting sunflowers, must have thought so. Twelve canvases, twelve sunflowers. Unbelievable! The master arrives and looks amazed at the paintings placed side by side, all in shades of yellow and blue. All depicting the same subject. He is bewildered. He flees. How could you blame him. It’s a normal reaction. A person glimpses the seed of madness and scarpers.

"I just remembered something I absolutely had to do. Very, very important..."

And down the staircase at breakneck speed.

Giulia doesn"t feel the same way. She maintains that every great painter has a theme that he prefers and that he develops it with tenacity and perseverance pursuing a perfection that in his heart he knows he cannot reach. She"s probably right. When it comes to painting she is certainly more knowledgeable than me. She has spent tons of time looking at paintings. She has never picked up a brush, but that doesn"t mean anything. She expresses her artistic side by taking photos. When she does a portrait, she takes an interminable amount of time to evaluate the background, a frame, but in the end she manages to draw out the soul from a face. That’s talent. Lately she has been experimenting with a new style. She depicts glimpses of urban landscape. She likes neglect. Not explicit or overt, it’s the foreshadowed kind she looks for. The sign that something is changing and there is no way to escape the curse. The subject matter is good, although I think that this tendency to look at the world through the gelatin of disenchantment has dampened some of her enthusiasm, and has prevented her, on more than one occasion, from being happy.