Page 86 of Two Marlboros

Ashton and Nathan had already begun to move with the music. I tried to imitate them, but I felt plastered and ridiculous even repeating their movements; I would give up for themoment. Nathan swayed his body in a very sinuous way. His movements followed the rhythm and seemed to express the same incisiveness as the music, the same dynamism. It was very pleasant to watch him; he really seemed at one with the melody. Ashton also danced all in all well, but not like him.

Nathan turned toward me, continuing to dance, and intoning the words of the song, although I could only see his lips moving; he showed me a few moves and, with a look, invited me to do the same, but I was not able to. I was fascinated by his symbiosis with the music; it seemed like he couldn’t live on anything else, cigarettes aside. He kept singing that song with the repetitive and trite lyrics, but it didn’t seem to interest him: it was enough for him to be on the wavelength of the music around him. It was the same thing I had noticed when his favorite band had come on the radio: he had turned them up loud, not to tamper with them, but to let them envelop him.

We went down to the dance floor proper and, for what seemed like endless minutes to me, I moved my body to the beat, like Ash and Nathan. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, I could see them giggling and I was pretty sure they were talking about me. Being unsociable was the least of my intentions, but gradually it had become difficult for me to even move a single muscle. It was also crazy hot in there, a factor that accentuated the discomfort I was feeling.

I motioned to the other two that I would head for the bar; Nathan only nodded, while Ashton felt compelled to show all his disappointment at my decision by rolling his eyes. He was unbearable that night.

I elbowed and shoved my way through the crowd. It irritated me to feel their skin rubbing against mine, their faces annoyed because I had interrupted their fun, real or supposed; and when I got, at last, to a spot where those boys were not sticking to me like amoebas, I had the need to repeat to myself why I was there.

It’s just for the investigation, I told myself.

I missed the couch at home and Oliver’s cuddles. It came naturally to me to turn around and look at all those people, who meant nothing to me. I no longer had the complicity and affection of anyone, not even the friendship of someone to explain to me what the little card they had given me at the entrance was for, although the words “a drink” printed on it said a lot. I had to rely on my own strength to deal with any problem, even the most trivial. If I gave in, I would eat dust. And if I could not get back up, I would fall to the ground. I was invisible to all those people’s eyes, as they were to me. Eyes that see, but do not observe, that let things go.

I managed to order a drink that wasn’t too alcoholic, but even if it had been I wouldn’t have cared too much. I didn’t care about anyone anymore, and that wasn’t a good sign. The last time this had happened I was lying in bed, belly down, one hand under the pillow. Hand that had brushed against the butt of the gun, stroked all its curves, studied the trigger. Then I had grasped it. I had gripped it. Dragged it out of its hiding place, I had observed it from every angle. I had even felt how cold the metal on my temple could be.

But then I had heard Oliver’s voice from somewhere. He was begging me to live on for him too, and I was trying to grant his wish. At that moment, however, I could not hear anything. The music was so loud that it overpowered every thought, and its pulse was trying to overpower mine, to guide it.

My drink was ready; I handed the card over and, without even knowing what the bartender had done with it, took it back when he handed it to me. I drank by inertia, not tasting anything. I simply did not care. I didn’t care about the investigation either. What justice could I seek for others if I was the first one who didn’t get it?

I clutched the glass tightly and tried to resist those invisible hands that were clasping around my neck, cutting off my air and telling me how impossible it was to get out of there. A cage, a prison that would suffocate me, because there was no escape, no hope for a purposeless future. And those invisible fingers were putting more and more strength in it, and my breathing was getting shorter and more labored, and the grip on the glass more and more painful. It was hot, my heart seemed to burst at any moment, the music frazzled me, the lights kept me from grasping reality, the background chatter tried to confuse me: I was going to die.

A hand on my back gave me, for a moment, the impression that some gaze had removed the filter of invisibility and was watching me, and that gravelly voice seemed to be calling me. I had eaten the dust, but my face was gradually moving away from that hard sand.

I was sitting on the bar bench, which I didn’t remember going to, when Nathan’s eyes in front of mine brought everything back to normal. Without me realizing it, I was imitating his breathing, which he mimicked more pronouncedly. The music returned to penetrate my ears painfully, but it was the price I had to pay for the memory of the gun to disappear and for me to feel a little less lonely.

Nathan held out his hand to me. I grasped it without understanding: I trusted him.

We walked to the sides of the club, where the music was less loud, while he looked around again and again; when we came to a large door leading onto a small square, I guessed what he was looking for.

We got out, and when the door closed behind us, I suddenly felt good. That deafening music was only a distant memory, while Nathan’s smile was more than real. He set out to find a quieter spot, and I followed him, until we settled for a lesscrowded place. Finding a space with no one there was virtually impossible: that courtyard was full of young people, mostly smokers.

We leaned against the wall and neither of us said anything. As usual, there was no awkwardness in that silence: I shook the liquid in my glass naturally.

“Are you better?” he asked.

I looked away from the lemon drowned in that greenish drink.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Maybe it’s too loud in there for you, too many people.”

“I don’t know. It’s also true that I haven’t been out that much lately.”

“I can imagine.”

For some time, I went back to looking at the drink and the volume of ice, which had shrunk.

“Has this happened to you too?” I asked.

“Yes,” he sighed. “Especially after I fell out with my father.”

I looked at him and he gazed toward the grass, but he wasn’t really looking at it.

“I have a feeling you wouldn’t go back to a few years ago for a million dollars.”

He chuckled, and shifted his eyes to the sky. “I don’t know, you know? Maybe I would change something.”

“But you wouldn’t be the person you are now.”

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