Lucignano...Eté 2006

23 h 30

I'm in Lucignano with the girls. I wonder why I do not smoke. I do not smoke. For the wrong reasons. It's not cuz I'm “wise” or “serene” or any noble thing like that. If I do not smoke, it's just cuz I'm frozen, weak and numb. I'm too numb to even think of smoking. I'm too numb to lift a cigarette to my mouth. I'm not even born. That's why I can't smoke.
I think of L. She doesn't smoke either. But for the right reasons. She's thought it through.

We're heading towards the restaurant. I say it's weird for me to sit at a table without my mum. This, I shouldn't have said. Gives away my fear and lack of maturity. I almost said to the waiter “I genitori arrivano” or “Ci sono ancora due persone che mancano”, but luckily, I manage to keep my mouth shut.

They arrive and we discuss smoking. This discussion makes me sick. I pretend I have to go to the toilet. I do it to get away from that conversation. I'm in the toilet. I look at myself in the mirror. I'm wearing my new orange gilet. The truth hits me in the face : I've become fat. Tant pis. Thank God, I still have my face, my make-up and my hair to soften the blow.

I go back to the table. There is this marvellous girl sitting at the table next to ours.
Her mother is German, her father's an Englishman. I can't see her face, but I hear her voice that is like an angel's voice when she speaks English. Her words are so divinly articulated, the sound is so pure. “Daddy, three of my friends are vegetarians. They don't eat fish.”. I glance at her and I can see that she has long hair. It's blonde and tied up into a poneytail.
I figure I'm here but I'm gone.

When I had started to eat, I began to disappear. Food swallows me. Catherine is looking down at me. She's frowning. She tells me how ugly I look. How sad this is.
I continue to eat and find out I'm dead. There's nothing left of me. My plate is empty. I've eaten my soul away. I see the fork, the knife on the plate. I see blood. I see the eyes of a horse.
I go to the toilet again. I'm not vomitting. I don't do this anymore. When I get back, I see the people I'm eating with. The beauty of my mother suddenly strikes me.

They mention the “doublage” session. I start to regret my being so stubborn. I should have gone to attend. They mention the attractive boys. Marco. Domenico. They mention a bald girl from Venice. My mother said “bald”. I startle. You don't say of a woman that she's bald unless she's ill. People with cancer are bald. Or old man. That girl probably isn't. She's just shaven-headed. I'm picky with words. I'm picky when it comes to hair. I should be careful not using this world myself when I mean “shaven-headed”.
Anyway, that shaven-headed girl had to speak with the venitian accent. I missed that.. I wonder if that girl was pretty. She must have been. Girls who shave off their hair are usually so beautiful that they can afford to do that. I think of what I heard Sinéad O'Connor say on that interview, about the woman that comes from the soul. And in my soul, there is no woman. In my soul, there is a fish.
I remember my friend mentioning a girl with a shaven head, this afternoon. “Like that girl” she'd said, while she was joking about shaving one's head. I wanted to ask “What girl ?” but I kept silent, and now I know – the girl from Venice.

I have the desert. Only I take one. I enjoy it. I don't care about these things anymore. Mum asks my friend if she has ever taken an icream since she's in Italy. I interrupt the conversation to avoid the question. The girl might be embarrassed. It's intrusive to ask someone who never eats icecream why he never eats icecream. I don't want her to be in an awkward position, so I just make up a silly question addressed to my mum, to create a diversion. The girl won't have to answer. We won't intrude her world. The answer may be sacred. In any case, it should remain a secret. I wonder if anyone has noticed my subtle act of fellowship. Hey hey I saved the world today... Everybody is happy now la la la la... Give me a break, stupid, I say to myself.
My mother doesn't give up, however. “Don't you like icecream ?” she asks again. I want her to shut up.

When we're outside I sigh “Je me sens agréablement voluptueuse. Mais comme dirait Franziska 'I'll get over it'.” This sounds horribly unnatural. I want to shut up forever. We're at the fountain. My friend shows me a boy who's walking a dog. “Look” she says “That boy's huge and the dog's so skinny”. There are two women running towards him. They're shouting at him. The shouting is so violent that I'm amazed that they don't vomit their bowels or spit their organs out on him. I look at the scene with empty eyes. I get up. I walk away. Without answering to my friend, without saying a word. I walk away, like a zombie. These women, shouting at the poor boy, it made me sick. I see the boy later on. He's drowning his pain in a granita (that will make him become fatter than he already is) and I feel broken-hearted. He's like a dog. He's probably beaten at home. He's got an expression of despair, of utter humiliation, of resignation. He's like a dog that's beaten. I smile at him, kindly. He looks up, bashfully, with guilt in his eyes.
He's going to die. They're killing him. They've taken his soul away and his body gets bigger and bigger. He's going to explode. He's not aware of what's happening. He thinks he's wrong. He thinks he is to take the blame. I can see on which side the innocents are. Certainly not on the women's side. They play with him. They're bored, frustrated, hurt, so they like to pinch him, twist him, humiliate him, spit at him. They feel excited when they do it. They feel powerful afterwards. I hate them. That's why I walk away. I used to walk away like that in 3rd year at school, when my friends would say mean things about Julie. I walked away, without saying a word. It was my way of protesting. This girl is weird.

At home, I saw a spider on the cancello. I screamed and jumped and went hysteric. I couldn't think of a song with a spider in it to sing.

For the first time of my stay, I spoke. I lived. I had a wonderful time with the girls. Conversations. We shared. Music. Words. Poetry. I hated my mum for interrupting. Sinéad O'Connor. Portishead. And Baudelaire. Dead butterflies glued in a lake of wax.