Borderlines - Michela Wrong

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long-awaited fax from Washington stalled in mid-flow or a half-written document vanished from a screen before being saved. It was amazing how quickly one moved from self-admonition (‘This isn’t the US, adjust’) via frustrated panic (‘How am I expected to work?’) to sardonic fury (‘This place is stuck in the Middle Ages’), the process culminating, in my case, in a swift exit to kick a wall and smoke a calming cigarette.

      The metal shutters on the apartment’s windows had long since rusted into immobility, so those of us who sat beneath them were always simultaneously surveying and under surveillance. I spent so many hours gazing meditatively down the quiet street that by the end I could have drawn it in my sleep. The pavement of dimpled ceramic tiles. A blue-overalled workman digging up a decayed sewer. Local boys kicking a stuffed sock tethered to a whitewashed fig tree. A tabby cat taking the sun on the wall between the houses opposite, squeezing its eyelids rhythmically in silent pleasure. And, at the periphery of my vision, the corner where the street met the main boulevard, two soldiers, AK-47s slung over skinny shoulders, all hip bones, jutting Adam’s apples and oversized black boots, checking the papers of passing pedestrians.

       One soft spring evening, they spot one another at the opening of a photography exhibition sponsored by Hitchens at a SoHo gallery. A Senegalese musician is picking at a kora and the chilled white wine is flowing. There are no canapés, so they are both slightly drunk by the time Jake offers to walk her home. Relief floods her when he makes clear that she should take his arm – finally, an excuse to touch – and once their arms are interlocked he places a proprietorial hand over hers, making disengagement impossible.

       They toddle south like an elderly couple, disappointed that there are few excuses to stop, point and pass comment, eking out the moments before separation becomes inevitable. With slowing footsteps they reach the entrance to her Greenwich Village apartment block, her voice squeaky with anxiety because she does not know what is about to happen or what she wants.

       He pulls open the accordion door of the old-fashioned elevator – the reason she originally chose this apartment – kisses her chastely on the brow, steps back and pulls the grill shut. Phew, something nearly happened, she thinks. She smiles a polite farewell, finger hovering over the button to the fourth floor. As she presses, she realises that she has taken the wrong fork in the road. Meeting his eyes, she sees that he knows it too. Appalled, she calls, ‘Jake!’ even as he shouts, ‘Wait!’ Then she sees him running up the stairs as the elevator rises through the shaft. She is frantically pressing buttons – the elevator bounces, stalls, restarts, stops, and he yanks back the accordion door. The next ten minutes – which feel like hours – are spent kissing inside the metal cage until someone above shouts down to ask if there’s a problem. They stumble out, head for her apartment and go straight into the bedroom.

       Quite soon after that, she will hear herself saying over the phone to Sarah – who draws a sharp breath at the words ‘married man’ – ‘I know, I know. The ultimate cliché. I somehow thought – I don’t know why – that I’d had the vaccination against this one.’

       Ah, the careless, wasteful folly of it all. Looking back at my younger self going through the rambling, half-reluctant process of getting to know this older man, agreeing to meet at a cinema, then cancelling because of a last-minute assignment, scrupulously keeping options open via the occasional blind date, repeatedly applying the brakes through a mixture of caution and self-preservation, I want to give her a good shake. ‘Get on with it, you idiot!’ I want to shout. ‘There’s no time.’

       Because on the day we met, Jake had just four years, seven months and five days to live.

       7

      I called Francesca de Mello in Rome the morning after Winston had briefed me. It took three attempts, with the receptionist twice cutting me off instead of putting me through.

      ‘Signor Pibody, he is OK?’ Her voice was low and husky, and she had a very strong Italian accent, placing the emphasis firmly on the second syllable of Winston’s surname.

      ‘He’s fine. He just wanted me to say hello since we’ll be working closely together. I gather you’re due to send us some maps.’

      ‘I have four to scan and send. I will do it tomorrow from the ministry.’

      ‘Great. Winston also asked if you could resend the map you scanned last week. We think there’s a problem with the resolution – not your fault, but the file is too big for Lira’s slow internet connection. We only received half of it.’

      ‘OK, but I cannot do that now.’ She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Here where I am staying is no internet. Even with the telephone, always problems.’

      It sounded a strange sort of hotel. ‘Where are you staying?’

      And then it all came out, in a plaintive wail of hurt pride and nursed grievance. As she talked a picture of Francesca de Mello formed in my mind’s eye: a big, blowsy woman, I guessed, who spilled over both emotionally and physically. She had been directed to the Santa Elena convent, she said, by a researcher friend, who had explained that EU health and safety legislation had forced hundreds of convents and monasteries in central Rome to close their schools. The chattering gaggles of pupils in the severe black aprons and white collars of yesteryear were gone, leaving abbots and mother superiors sitting on hundreds of square metres of prime real estate. Spotting a commercial opportunity, many had carved the communal dormitories up into single-windowed bedrooms available for rent. ‘Imagine. You can stay in the city centre at a fraction of the cost of a hotel. Such a bargain,’ Francesca had boasted to colleagues in Turin, and they had congratulated her on her foresight.

      But the bargain, she had discovered, came at a price. At Santa Elena the service culture was an alien concept. The nuns radiated constant silent disapproval, with communications a prime area for passive-aggressive hostilities. From her tiny room, where the only decoration was a large crucifix on the wall, Francesca would hear the telephone repeatedly ringing in the downstairs hallway. On the few occasions a nun deigned to answer, she would bungle the simple manoeuvre required to put the call through. After a male friend had rung – I guessed this was a boyfriend – Francesca noticed that she had gone from being hailed as ‘Signora’ to what felt like a near-contemptuous ‘Signorina’.

      ‘Non sono mica un adolescente!’ she expostulated. ‘I’m a forty-year-old woman and I talk to whoever I like. I could buy a mobile phone, yes, but why should I, just to please these vecchie zitelle?’ What was more, the nuns operated a virtual curfew, making clear that late-night returns would not be tolerated.

      ‘Sounds awful. But, look, I’ll keep trying. I can be very persistent.’

      She heaved a doleful sigh. ‘OK, we try.’

      ‘Winston said you’re working towards a PhD. What’s the topic?’

      ‘Ingegnere Enrico Agostini and the contribution Lira’s sewerage system made to the history of nineteenth-century Italian colonialism.’ Agostini was one of the founding fathers of modern Lira, she explained, her voice flat. In the 1890s his workmen had built water courses and laid sewage pipes, taming the rivers that meandered across the high plateau. ‘I am in the fourth year now. The doctorate is nearly finished.’ There was no discernible enthusiasm in her voice. I felt a bubble of hilarity rising in my chest and hung up, shaking my head in amusement.

      Winston was watching me from across the room. ‘Was that the lovely Francesca?’

      ‘Yes. I see what you mean. She’s a tad lugubrious, isn’t she?’

      ‘Indeed.’

      ‘I got the firm impression she’d far rather speak to Signor Pibody than to me.’

      ‘Ah, but that would defeat the point of the exercise. With time, I’m confident you two will bond. Now, would you mind going to see Dr Berhane? He has a report for us. Background stuff, but he also said he’d stumbled

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