The Confessions Of A Concubine. Roberta Mezzabarba

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.

      My baby.

      My baby.

      Give me back my baby.

      Give him back to me.

      Where did you put him?

      Where?

      Where?

      Where did you hide him?

      Where did you take him?

      It was too beautiful.

      I know it was too good.

      I felt as if I had gone crazy.

      Nothing made sense anymore, nothing seemed important enough to me to live.

      Filippo was almost always sitting by the side of my bed, but he didn't look at me, he didn't talk to me.

      In those days of pain, his presence was of no comfort to me, partly because I believed that he was there only because the situation forced him to be, partly because I felt I was obliged to endure his presence.

      It seemed to me that the few times he turned his gaze to me, pointing his black eyes at me, he blamed me without the possibility of appeal for not having been able to guard the life of our son.

      One morning I woke up and Filippo was already there.

      "So do you realize that you weren't even able to keep my son. What kind of woman are you, but what kind of filth are you, that you can’t even bring a child into the world!"

      His eyes flashed at me, and I could not hold his gaze and lowered mine.

      "You don't even have the courage to look at me, do you?"

      He walked out, slamming the door, making such a loud noise that it made me jump.

      Silent tears began to slide down my cheeks, and I missed my grandmother in a painful way.

      I closed my eyes, wet with the tears and imagined her ancient hands caressing my neck and cheeks. It was as if I could smell her perfume and the feel softness of her breast where I wished I could lay my head even for an instant.

      At that moment my mother came in.

      I hadn't thought of calling her, but maybe Filippo had.

      "You must have overdone it with that work you have and here you are!"

      My grandmother's sweetness had not passed to her daughter, my mother, even the slightest bit.

      Inexplicable how such a kind person could bring a woman so different from her into the world.

      Who knows what my son would have been like?

      "Do you have everything you need? Are they treating you well in here?"

      My mother was practical and reliable, a perfect life planner, impeccable, but in terms of feelings she was completely arid.

      I answered her with a tired smile, without a word.

      "But, my star, you are neither the first nor the last to have had a miscarriage, cheer up, sulking won’t help!"

      I opened my eyes again and looked at her, to see if maybe I was dreaming everything, instead she was there in front of me, with her hands on her hips.

      I wonder if my son would have looked like her or me?

      ***

      The doctors kept saying that there had never been a fetus, that it had been an ectopic pregnancy, that I had not lost the life of a child because it had never existed, that I was so