Free The Interpreter by Diego Marani, Judith Landry

any purpose. I don’t even know if you listen to me when I talk to you, or whether you’ve already flown away on the wings of your impenetrable thoughts. I don’t understand what’s happening to us. I know, it’s my fault. It was all so wonderful, there was no need to say anything. We were so close, we both felt it; and that was enough, or rather so much more than enough. But I wanted to talk, to question you, to know and, by doing so, I ruined everything. Do try to understand: I know nothing about you, I don’t know what you do on the other six days of the week. I don’t know anything about your hopes, your dreams, whether you’re happy or unhappy. I don’t know what you think about when you’re not with me. I feel that I have a substitute ‘you’ beside me, someone who resembles you but is not you. The real you will come later, and I and your substitute are here waiting for you and, as we’re waiting, we don’t know what to say. We look at each other, I smile at you, you tell me fascinating things about strange languages and our meetings are like television documentaries. When we say goodbye, when dusk falls on our afternoon ramblings around the city and I go homewards with a heavy heart, I keep my mind closed tightly as a fist, so that the precious treasure held within it – my rare time with you – cannot escape. Yet when I loosen it a bit, there’s nothing there; you’ve flown away. I thought I had you in my grasp, but you weren’t there at all. All that I know of you is what you’ve let me know: a shell, a voice. All that’s left to me of you, when we part, is your voice. I feel alone; the air around me feels cold, there’s an icy feeling in my house, in my life. You broadened my mind, made me see worlds I knew nothing of; whichever language you speak, your words enthral. How could one resist the thousand visions that you conjure up before me, the imaginary worlds you set up and inhabit? But there is something false in you, and sometimes I feel that what you are giving me is not yours to give – that you have stolen it from someone and are giving it to me to rid yourself of it, as though it were some kind of proof that could implicate you in some crime. No sooner do I get some hint of you, manage to grasp something that seems authentically you in that shifting mind of yours, than you cast it off and proffer me the empty shell of what you were. I was looking for warmth, friendly affection, more, perhaps; I thought you too valued our Sunday afternoon walks. I thought you needed me, as I did you. But you have need of nothing, of no one, and you treat even yourself with strained detachment, as though you had become bored with yourself and were trying to get away, to slip out of your own head and occupy a new one – a whole new world to be discovered, filled. This is the last Sunday of the season; after that, we won’t have any reason to see each other again, unless we seek it out ourselves. We’ll nod to one another, and then I’ll never see you again. But if you want me to stay, tell me so. With words – your own, for once, not those you pluck from others’ mouths. Then all my days will become one of our magic Sundays.
    I love you.
    Irene
    A chasm opened up within me, and I plunged into a black magma which burned my vital organs without filling them. I was breathing from my throat, unable to open my lungs, paralysed by the sheer horrific vastness of my discovery. I tore open the third and last letter, the one dated 20th July, bearing a Zurich postmark.
    My cruel friend,
    Where have you gone? What has become of you? I’ve looked for you everywhere. You don’t answer the phone; you’re not at home, I’ve been by a thousand times and rung your bell, at every time of day. The concierge was starting to give me funny looks. There’s never a light on in any of your windows; I sat outside in the car for one whole night, waiting to see when you’d get back, what you were doing. In the white light