The Confessions Of A Concubine. Roberta Mezzabarba

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      From the day she died I only felt imperfect.

       3.

       And feel that I am transparent

      There are days when I feel beautiful, shining.

      I look in the mirror and see my face reflected, turquoise eyes, small slightly full lips, freckles that sully the skin around my nose just a little.

      I run my hands through my red, silky hair, dissolving thoughts with my fingers.

      In those days, to see my husband ignoring me, hurts me so much I could die: he seems to give no importance to what belongs to him by right, by contract, and like a short-sighted person does not perceive what is close to him.

      I have never made myself beautiful for others, but to be ignored in this way, to be transparent, irrelevant, less than an annoying fly, is

      demoralizing, and you never get used to it.

      Angrily I grab the usual clasp, discolored from all the times I have used it, and imprison my hair, and with the bite of those plastic teeth I wound my heart, my soul, my pride, my self-love.

      And he doesn't even understand my angry gesture.

      He gives me a quick glance, as if he can’t really bring the whole situation into focus, and as always I drown in this incomprehension, and suffocate tears that want to be freed, swallowing the bitterness and that lump in my throat that does not want to go down.

      Tomorrow it will change, or rather, I hope that I will change tomorrow.

      ***

      "This haircut really suits you, Mysia!"

      Pietro’s voice spoke those words, boiling oil to my

      ears.

      I felt my cheeks and neck flush and instinctively lowered my gaze, not knowing exactly how to reply.

      I wasn't used to receiving compliments, it had been so long that... I had wanted to hear those words from my husband's mouth, I had longed for this to happen in too many dreams, and instead here is that man who did not belong to me making my skin ripple with a shiver, making the longing for pleasure that hides inside every human being come true.

      Pietro was a colleague who worked in

      administration at the supermarket, always smiling, with slightly long dark hair, expertly disheveled.

      To tell the truth I hadn't noticed him until his gaze had begun to lock onto mine, insistently. He had started saying hello to me, looking for opportunities to start a conversation with me. And

      that’s where the first comments, the first veiled compliments began to arrive.

      I listened, unaware, eager, pitifully in need of appreciation.

      Strange, I must say, because my upbringing always prevented me from enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of being appreciated.

      In my family compliments were a rare

      commodity, then marrying Filippo had not changed the situation: he was such closed man that I often had the feeling that he didn’t even notice me.

      But I had married him.

      And now there was nothing to do, other than accept what the meal in front of me contains, without dreaming of other dishes.

      Paying attention to Pietro's words was playing with disaster, I am aware of that, but as I listen to his words, every shadow inside my heart disappears in a flash.

      But it doesn't last long: as the echo of those words fades away, as Pietro disappears from my sight, my heart freezes.

       4.

       The search for a life

      Work, home, home, work.

      That’s the life of a thirty-year-old.

      My life.

      As a girl I could never allow myself much entertainment, because it was not right to go out alone, much less in the company of my boyfriend.

      Now because my husband prefers to doze in the armchair in the living room, instead of living.

      Of course, this has not always been the case.

      We wanted a child, only God knows how much I desired it.

      Before the wedding it was almost as if I were fleeing from the idea of such a huge commitment, then as the months passed a space had formed

      between us, a void I’d dare to say, that I thought I could fill with a child.

      Filippo did not seem to have the same needs as I did, his job as a security guard was enough for him.

      My husband was a good man, he made sure I had everything I wanted, but I was dismaye by his lack of sensitivity and his aloofness.

      The menstrual cycle arrived inexorably at the end of each month to destroy my dreams, fostered in those three, four days it was late.

      Two, three, four times.

      It was too much.

      Too many hopes shattered...

      We each thought that there was probably something wrong with the other, a mechanism that did not work properly, a spark that did not fire at the right time.

      Then once I was ten days late: I did not talk about it, as if this could make my dream

      unbreakable, but it was nothing more than a soap bubble, beautiful, iridescent, carried on the wings of the wind, but destined to vanish in a plof.

      Silently I let the minutes flow by, and the days and weeks became months.

      For almost two months I cradled the idea of a baby in my thoughts, a grain of life that could give meaning to mine, that illuminated the darkness of my existence.

      For quite some time, after that night, I had no more tears to cry.

      I was awakened from sleep by pangs in my lower abdomen that seemed to want to tear my bowels apart.

      In silence, dragging myself, I managed to reach the bathroom where a horrendous discovery awaited me when I turned on the light.

      My nightgown was soaked in blood at the level of the groin.

      I remember screaming just once.

      Then nothing.

      Then only the vague memory of my husband trying to bring me back to my senses, taking me in the car wrapped in a blanket, then the doctors, the nurses like working bees around me, the bright lights on the bed illuminating my nudity.

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