49

 49

LEA FOUND A LETTER in the letter box addressed to her but bearing no return address. Inside was a card with a clipping pasted on it: a woman with red hair drawn by Modigliani. She was wearing a plain black dress with a soft-gray collar. Her eyes had no pupils, or maybe they were all pupil, because they were entirely filled with black. The curved lines echoed one another: nose, face, neck, wrist, knee. It seemed like she had no bust, a doughnut high under her armpits. Lea really did look like her, as if the painting were a calmer, tamed version of herself.

She couldn’t find any writing, much less a signature, but she was sure the teacher had sent it. Not Stefano or Gianni, not a colleague. As for her, she’d dreamed about him in one of those classic dreams, such as the one where you find a tap that’s gone dry when you’re thirsty while asleep: they met in a harshly lit, crowded conference room and tried unsuccessfully to find someplace to be alone.

Lea tucked the clipping between her underclothes in a drawer and lay down on the bedspread. The day before, Gianni had asked her why she was so convinced that she was a bad person, and she replied that she just wanted to be different since people usually make themselves out to be virtuous and go around saying that they’re good and kind, thinking they’re always right.

“I’m not that gullible,” was his reply.

The phone rang and Lea got up, tense and trembling at the thought of the teacher. It was Stefano: his knee was swollen again because of a torn meniscus and he couldn’t drive. His mother had brought over platters of food from the deli, claiming to have cooked them herself (“Vols au vent and tongue in salsa verde? As if!”), but Stefano hoped that Lea and Martino would take the train the next day and stay with him until Sunday.

“Sure,” said Lea. “Of course we’ll come.”

“But wait a sec, did you get it?” he asked.

“Get what?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I can tell it hasn’t arrived. What a jerk. I’ve ruined it now.”

“Would you tell me what you’re talking about?” she barked. “Come on, Stefano!”

“I sent you something silly.”

“A letter?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“Well you’ve said too much now, so you might as well.” She persisted so doggedly that she ended up offending him.

“A chemise. I put it in an envelope. Tell me if you like it.”

Lea offered an awkward apology, ashamed of herself and thinking all the while that the sender of the postcard really must be the teacher. A tingle went down her spine.

Once the phone call was over, she began boiling quince for jelly and mocking herself for feeling that a stranger could step right into her marriage and carry her away. She took the Modigliani card from the drawer and went to throw it in the dustbin. But she changed her mind, went back to her room, and put it in the ugly chest where she kept her woolens.