Margherita -- Part II

The point of no return

Part I is here

Photo by name_ gravity on Unsplash, rendered black & white by me

Once, on a crisp afternoon in early spring, Margherita and I were lying down on the grass at Parco Sempione, our backs flat on the ground, gazing toward the sky. Two strollers quietly passed by, side by side, and I was on the verge of dozing off, when she said something that made me think hard for a while. Freedom implies solitude. As if I was shook by invisible hands, my eyelids parted widely, shelving the idea of sleep indefinitely. When I turned toward her, she was asleep. Later, walking home, I asked her to elaborate. What, that? Isn’t it obvious? She said. I stayed silent, alluding that no, it wasn’t, and that I wanted more. 

Freedom -- real freedom -- has little to do with the physical. When someone’s free, they conduct a life without mental constraints, breaking away from social norms and expectations. This can make those around them feel awkward or uncomfortable, because the limitations they still feel, and base their everyday lives on, become ever so evident. And people can tolerate many things -- differences in opinion, lifestyle choices, even personal conflicts -- but awkwardness, feeling out of place, is something they struggle with. This discomfort can be so intense that it drives them to move away from its source. Consequently, those embracing and exercising their freedom find themselves increasingly isolated, not because of their actions per se, but because others cannot handle the disruption to their own sense of normalcy and ease.

This whole idea she laid out casually, while walking beside me with a pistachio and vanilla gelato in hand. I wanted to argue back, but didn’t know what to say. It was irreproachable, indisputable, and made perfect sense. She nonchalantly changed the subject, after a while, sensing my struggle. But I was now stuck with my head on that idea, unable to counter her reasoning with a thought of my own. And this inability disturbed me. I felt desperate to say something smart and original and brave, something “out of the box” as they say in those creative thinking circles, but nothing came. Was I experiencing firsthand what not being free really meant, perhaps?    

So, when I opened the envelope and read that the enclosed letter started with “Freedom implies solitude”, I immediately knew who it was from. I hadn’t heard from her in weeks. This happened from time to time -- she’d disappear, nobody knew where she was, her cellphone perpetually giving a 'switched off' message, and not the faintest noise could be heard from her apartment. Then she’d be back, business as usual; no questions asked, no explanations given. 

It was a short letter, plus a map. 

No one knows about this line but you and me, so I figured I’d start off with it -- even though it has nothing to do with what I'm writing below -- to give you certainty of who this letter is from. If we made it this far as friends, enjoying each other’s company, it’s because I inhibited your dopaminergic system in my presence. In brief, I blocked what drives curiosity in your brain. You would have ended up wanting to know more and more about me, and I didn’t have any satisfying answers, or any answers at all. The time has come, though, to reveal things to you. Every few months, I spend some time in a remote location, away from everything and everyone. What I come here for, I will tell you in person. I hope you trust me and decide to come. I have included a map to help you get here. Come with an open mind, if at all.  P.S.: Don’t try to call; there’s no coverage.

The map was drawn by hand, with a big red X marking the spot she was at, much like those often shown in treasure hunt movies, where there’s always a hard-to-reach island with a hard-to-climb mountain at its center covered in hard-to-navigate thick vegetation, and a valuable something buried somewhere inaccessible, that many over the centuries perished -- or plainly disappeared -- in their attempts to put their hands on. Except there was no island on her map, as the X seemed to mark some place in the middle of Switzerland.

I re-read the letter several times, as if searching for a mysterious code buried behind the words, something that would grant me access to a secret chamber or passage in some dark, unknown corner of my mind. I don’t know why, but I caught my thoughts drifting toward the idea of parallel universes. As no revelation materialized, I dismissed it, rubbed my tired eyes, took them off the page, and sank into the couch, right hand still holding the letter, gaze fixed on an unfocused point in front of me. 

Margherita came into my life by pure chance. If that day I wasn’t all absorbed in my Kafka reading and hadn’t gone up an extra floor and hadn’t tried to involuntarily open the front door of an apartment that wasn’t mine, we would have never met. And yet, it felt like our encounter was somehow preordained, written down in strange hieroglyphic-like characters on ancient parchment by ancient hands, safely guarded who knows where, who knows by whom, who knows for how long. Now, after we’d hung out for more than a year, during which she exposed me to all sorts of oddities that I was ‘inhibited’ to ask questions about but that -- admittedly -- spiced up quite a bit my ordinary, routine-infested life, she had to ‘reveal things to me’. 

Evidently, something was changing, or was ripe for a change. Part of me didn’t want this thing that we had to morph into something else. I didn’t even know what to call it. A relationship? A friendship? Certainly not a simple acquaintance: we spent time together, and although a thick veil of mystery enveloped her life, she laid out her thoughts and words and emotions in plain sight for me, as if I was permitted access to a palace with high ceilings, beautiful mosaics, and water sprinkling out of hidden orifices, its clear soothing sound gently echoing all over. Her palace. And I opened up quite a bit myself, something I’ve always been reluctant to do. It wasn’t a classic, regular, romantic relationship either. If the discriminating factor to call something a romantic relationship is sleeping together, as restrictive as it may sound, then ours wasn’t one. 

She was attractive. The kind of attractive I could lose my head over: a non-evident, unassuming, certainly non-standard beauty, made of imperceptible details like a crease near her mouth, a movement of her hands, the way she turned around while holding back her hair, the sound of certain words she used, the grace in wearing simple clothes, the innate elegance of her demeanor, a gaze so penetrating it could etch the farthest surface of your soul. Most of all, her unawareness of being attractive. I was never drawn to straightforward, confident, splattered-in-your-face beauty. Yet, not once I felt the need or desire to take our physicality to a different level. Did she inhibit this thing too, whatever its neural definition may be? Possibly. At that point, I couldn’t rule anything out. But I was at peace, content, and as alive as I had ever been.

Part of me was ready to embrace what appeared to be a pivot point and go all the way, conscious that there would be no returning. As things stood, there was no way back already. I sensed I might lose her if I turned down her invitation, and the idea of losing her made me queasy. It looked like a no-choice situation. There were too many weird things going on, too many questions still unasked. And not only was my curiosity back, but it was at an all-time high. She must have switched that toggle in my brain back to normal, before leaving. 

And when did she leave, exactly? Last time I’d seen her was three weeks prior, when we went to the Blue Note to see the Yellowjackets. I remember that we talked about how their bassist was left-handed but learned to play on a right-handed bass upside down. And she said something along the lines of “here’s what freedom’s all about”. I remember this conversation very clearly. But I hadn’t seen or heard from her since, no sign of her anywhere. So, if she left right after that night together, who delivered the letter? And why did they put it in the elevator, leaving the inner door open to block it at my floor? Couldn’t they just slip the envelope under my door, or leave it in the letterbox? The meaning to all this escaped me.

Margherita wasn’t just someone who could talk to plants, or cite entire book passages unbeknownst to their existence, or make money appear on her bank account. These superpowers -- if I could call them that -- sounded almost cartoonish relative to the depth of what had to be behind them. There had to be more to her. How much more, I had no idea. 

Who was she?  

I studied the map. From Milano, I figured I could drive up to a point. There, I’d work out how to proceed. I packed some basics, so I’d be ready to leave first thing in the morning, and went to bed. My dream, that night, was a concoction of vivid images, one of which depicted me receiving a birthday present. I hate my birthday, and I hate receiving presents, I said to an unidentified someone; please don’t give me anything. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted solitude.

[To be continued]

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