Free I Hadn't Understood (9781609458980) by Diego De Silva

uttering the person’s Christian name, followed by half a question mark.
    As if we wanted to prove to our friend or acquaintance that we still remember what he’s called.
    I’m glad you knocked on my door, I almost feel like telling him.
    â€œOh, Espe.”
    He drops into one of the two Hampus chairs on the other side of the desk and rubs his forehead, relaxing, as if my office were the ideal spot to unload his cares and worries. He makes no bones about making himself at home.
    â€œI have a fucking problem,” he says.
    Truth is, I’d sort of guessed that already.
    â€œActually, it’s the other way around,” he adds, looking at me sidelong, almost as if there were something inopportune about my presence.
    I don’t open my mouth, even though the presentation was unequivocal.
    The fact is that, however likable I might find Espedito (we have the same fixation with shoes that people shouldn’t be wearing, and in fact every time we go downstairs for an espresso, we run an informal competition to see who can spot the most), I’m still fed up with people coming to tell me their problems. It’s been happening to me as long as I can remember. As soon as I meet someone, I’m not saying the first time, but at most, the third time that I see them, I wind up having to listen to a minute-by-minute account of the history of their private lives.
    Okay, admittedly, I cast certain glances that are like lambent pools of profundity. I consider every word spoken to me as if it meant something, even when I couldn’t care less. So other people lose their misgivings, think they can trust me, and start leaking like faucets. It’s practically impossible to stop someone when they’re determined to confide in you. There are times when you just have to turn and run. One time I abandoned someone in a Feltrinelli book store, telling him that if he’d just wait five minutes in the DVD section I’d be right back.
    To be perfectly honest, it’s not like this talent I have of getting other people to open up to me ever did me the slightest bit of good. So I finally gave it up, preferring to chase after women with no particular interest in autobiography. Until I actually wound up marrying one whose profession it is to listen to the things that other people confide in her, though she gets paid very nicely for her trouble, unlike me. Even now, despite my VAT registration number, my business cards, and all the accompanying paraphernalia, I can’t see why it is that my clients feel entitled to update me in excruciating detail on their personal tragedies, only to be shocked—shocked!—when I ask them to pay me a retainer, for instance.
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    â€œI can’t do it anymore with my wife,” Espedito says, circumstantiating.
    â€œDo tell?” I’m tempted to reply. Instead I give him a skeptical glance, just to undercut the drama. In part because it strikes me as very odd that Espe should have any problems with hoisting the flagpole. If his wife, for it is she whom we are speaking of, had even a vague idea of the number of times—a number that he updates with the dependability of Norton Antivirus and with any woman (only those no longer drawing breath being a priori excluded) that comes within his reach—Espedito had cheated on her, at the very least she would fracture his skull with a ball-peen hammer while he was sleeping.
    â€œNo need to make that face. I can’t get it up. I can’t get it up anymore with Teresa.”
    I say nothing, then I speak without thinking.
    â€œDo you think it’s really over then?”
    He lifts his eyes to my face as if I’d just revealed that I was his father or something of the sort. But then I’m just as appalled at myself as he is, I have to admit. I’ve been surprised at the things coming out of my mouth since this morning.
    â€œEh?” he asks, rhetorically.
    In the face of his complete dismay,