Dit verhaal verscheen eerder in Cosmopolitan, (1997):mei; vertaling: Alex Koster

Roman Video-Letters

It had all begun on an evening like this, Eva thought.  But how long had Mirko been away: a few days, a week?  She couldn't remember.

What she could still call to mind clearly was the strange manner in which she had taken notice of the video-recorder counter, the numbers which superseded one another like a high-speed train, like the last gains of sand passing through the neck of an hourglass.  It had deteriorated her bad mood further, as the endless viewing of the videos testify.

Soon I'll be old, she thought, and I'll have wasted my life with an unfaithful man.  Or are you being consumed by jealousy again, Eva?  Whoever claimed envy was a correct criterion for measuring a relationship?  Ha!  However, this is where jealousy ends, but factual observation and logical thought begins.  Crystal clear and typical: I'm not allowed to accompany him on his increasingly frequent tours, he's extremely tired when he returns, and, and… what a mess, Eva.

But then, suddenly, he was very near to her.  It was as if she could smell the scent rising from his lightweight suits.  She could feel how he put his arms around her waist and pressed himself against her.  He kissed her in her neck whilst his beard tickled, and with his lips he rolled over her ears.  She felt goose pimples and shivered.

"Daddy, that's daddy," Remieg's voice resounded behind her.  As if stung, she jumped up from the settee.

"Have you lost your mind!  What are you doing here, Remieg!  You're meant to be in bed!  Or does mummy have to tell daddy that you misbehaved while he was away?  What do you think daddy would think of that?"

She removed the two fingers he had stuck in his mouth, wiped way the snot from his upper-lip and wanted to take him by the hand back to bed, when, suddenly, she saw he was crying.

"Daddy," the little fellow sighed, making a half-turn, and he pointed, whereby his finger didn't aim straight ahead but make a bend through the room.  "Daddy on TV?"

"Remieg," she said and removed the tears with a little handkerchief and two kisses, "do you miss daddy so much?  Come; sit down for a while.  That's the video of his last journey.  Beside mummy on the settee.  Look, there's daddy.  He's standing in front of the San Angelo castle.  Yes, water, the Tiber.  And there he is on the terrace.  No, no ice cream, that’s a drink, I don't know what sort.  Yes, daddy earns a lot of money.  He makes a lot of business deals. Uh… you'll have to ask him that yourself, little Remieg.  Ooh, that was a big sneeze!  You're not getting a cold are you?  Daddy speaks Italian, very good Italian.  Oh yes, you know that, he often speaks to you in Italian as a joke.  And that's by Villa Borghese.  Yes, trees.  The sun shines more over there than it does here.  Lay your head down just here.  Haven't you got beautiful, soft hair, just like daddy."

While Remieg yawned and could no longer keep his eyes open, Eva suddenly grasped the remote control and in reflex action pressed the wrong button.  It took some time before she had rewound the tape to the fragment she had wanted to view for a second time.

Mirko stood in front of a newspaper-kiosk, under a veranda, and held a couple of periodicals in the air towards the cameraman.  Then he laid them on the counter and paid, while, in a conspicuous manner, he cheerfully spoke to the vendor, whose wildly waving hands where the only things you could see.  At the moment of the transaction, a woman moved in a strange manner at the dark end of the veranda, in the faint light of a boutique.  She appeared between two pillars, passed a couple, hand in hand, and vanished again.  Once more Eva rewound.  Yes, it was as clear as a picture that the woman had been startled.  In a completely carefree manner she lounged towards the veranda to disappear again after two seconds, after passing one pillar.  It was obvious that she disliked the camera, but why?  Why should anyone be bothered being filmed by an amateur cameraman and appearing on the video of a tourist from a far away country?  Although it might be a vain woman who did not wish to appear anywhere else in such a state.

Eva played the video through, frame by frame.  The motionless snapshots of these photographic moments where vague due to the lack of light under the veranda, the bustling on the pavement and the speed with which the woman appeared and conscientiously jumped back.  Eva could discern that the woman had long, brown, curly hair and was wearing a mantle.  At the moment of disappearance, against the light, Eva could see something of the woman's profile, of which her long nose and the smooth line it made, along with her forehead, was most striking.

She looked at her watch: it was almost eleven, enough time to view a couple of old tapes.  She lifted up Remieg.  Soon, I will not be capable of doing this anymore, she thought, and after that he will be a man, who, with a little luck, will come round now and then to see how his mother is.  She kissed him on his forehead and pulled up the duvet.  He made a deep sigh while he turned himself around.

She switched videos and nestled down on the settee.  Five years ago!  She had not seen those pictures for a long time.  Her hair had become greyer, and his wasn't as long.  The bright suites and white shirts, which he now wore, suited him better.  Mirko's figure had approximately remained the same. Although he had less time for his bodyshape sessions, signs of ageing had begun to appear.  The area around the middle button of his jacket might grow into a bulge.  He laughed less, but more intensely.  For the rest, he was the Mirko she had known at the party of her best rowing-friend of eight.  She drew the conclusion that he had become more handsome.  But perhaps, she thought, it is impossible to recall the feelings of the past because she had changed and the world around her continued unabated.

She had let herself be distracted.  Annoyed, Eva rewound the tape back.  She had to start at the beginning and ignore Mirko (which was difficult due to the leading role he played in this biographical film).  The surrounding area, the other living beings visible on the videos, that was now important.  He had fleetingly filmed each journey for ten minutes.  She suddenly remembered the quarrel, which had led to this.  She had wanted to accompany him more often, but Mirko felt that work and family had to remain separate because, according to him, they could not mix.  One day, Mirko's creed had suddenly caused her to have a jealous outburst.

"Ok," he said, when, after the end of the row, they had sat in separate rooms of the villa an hour long, "I've an idea.  I'll take a camera with me and, here and there, let myself be recorded.  There's always someone who likes to play around with such equipment.  Moreover, Italians are the best directors in the world.  Antonioni, Fellini, Bertoluci, Visconti, Comencini…"

Her face cleared up increasingly at the mention of each filmmaker.  And so, in the meantime, numerous Romans had operated the fully automatic camera, and added to the video collection, which had now taken on bizarre proportions.  Even though Eva had only been there on two short occasions, she felt that she knew her way around Rome blindfolded and the landscape of Tuscany sometimes seemed as familiar to her as her back garden.

It was ten to one when she fast-forwarded the video for the umpteenth time.  Once more, this was a part where he was doing the filming himself about the Vatican, with tediously lengthy views of gabled roofs and Swiss guards, of which, eventually, he could get only one to laugh for her.

Ah, here it gets interesting again!  Could that be the same laughing guard, filmed by Mirko standing amongst the public?  Nonsense of course, Eva!  His neo-beatle hair was long then, wasn't it, just before he was going to get his hair cut.  But what's that….!

Her heart began to beat.  Two thoughts created a chemical reaction and something began to bubble up inside her so that she had to stand up.  With shaky fingers, she pressed ten buttons, one after the other, while those two sentences continued to multiply: "all those Latin women look alike," and: "there she is, how is it possible, there she is!"

Not much later she had her eyes glued to the TV screen and followed a shadow in the crowd, behind Mirko's right-shoulder.  This time it was the camera that moved, sliding past the women.  The same profile, the same hairstyle, though now she wore glasses, so that Eva had almost missed her.  How long ago was this? she asked herself.  She worked it out with the help of an old diary: it had been in the winter.  Had he acted differently?  She couldn't remember anything of the sort.

She grabbed a piece of tracing paper and put it on the screen.  Very precisely she traced the motionless profile.

"Exhibit number one," she mumbled, "does the suspect have anything to say?"

She continued the video-journey with Mirko, took note of the cypresses, the fountains, the traffic struggling through the crowded streets, the thousands of walking people, and continuously tried to avoid his sometimes screen-filling and attention-seeking presence.

"What are you up to, Mirko, you bastard!" Now and again she mumbled more of such phrases.  For the rest, her concentration was exemplary.  The clock ticked away and her headache increased.

The third fragment was in the penultimate video-letter.  Mirko stood in the splendour of a perfume department and let him be advised by a female sales assistant, while raising his eyebrows in a quasi-surprised manner towards the camera.  But, like previously, Eva avoided Mirko until he was no more than a blind spot and she only had eyes for his surroundings.  In a corner, at the end of the marble aisle, stood three mannequins.  One of them came to life and started to try on hats.  She turned her head ninety degrees for less than a second, but, stopping the video, it was adequate enough for Eva, squat down in front of the Television, to see the black eyes of the woman light up.  Together with the two other fragments of videotape she had enough to create a drawing, like the police make of a criminal, with the help of witness evidence.  The perfect classical rounded face, the wild hair, the softness of her smile, everything about the woman seemed exquisitely beautiful to Eva and she suddenly noticed that she was on her hands and feet, panting with rage, with a stretched out neck in front of the screen.  Flagging after a long period of concentration, her gaze now slid towards Mirko's face like a loosened magnet.  He pulled faces while he raised a gold coloured crystal perfume bottle.

One morning, four weeks later, she opened the shutters of their modest room in hotel Fontana di Trevi and let her eyes glide over the Roman bed-sheets, roofs and sky.

Here you are then, Eva, she said to herself, it has cost you a lot of effort but you've made it.  The first business trip you were allowed to come on.  What do you think you will now find out?  He would never take the risk with her… but still, for lovers every delay lasts to long, the videos also thought me that.  Wouldn't it have been better if I'd confronted him with the pictures?  No.  When he's caught red-handed he'll have to keep his impudent mouth shut, and the pictures can wait.

She hadn't noticed that Mirko had left the bed.  He pressed himself against her from behind and they made love standing, in the morning: two things they had never done before.  Although she enjoyed it, in this Eva saw extra evidence that Mirko was having an affair.  He was making love to her to calm his conscience and did it in a manner, which betrayed the fact that his thoughts were already with the Roman woman.

While Mirko shaved, he said (in a very nonchalant manner, she thought):

"Today I've got a series of important appointments.  During the last trips one or two things went wrong.  We weren't able to secure the orders in the end and now I'll have to seize the opportunity and make my coup.  Otherwise I could lose my job here, Eva.  That would, undoubtedly, mean degradation, perhaps office work and a decrease in salary."

"You know money doesn't interest me, Mirko.  As long as you, as long as we are happy."  Naked and bent in front of the mirror, she brushed her rigid blond hair.  Her breast pointed to the earth, as that of a wolf, she thought, who had suckled the founding fathers of Rome.  But she had only ever breastfed Remieg, who would now, hopefully, behave himself while staying at her dear mother and somewhat authoritarian father.  Does that Roman woman have children?  The question, Eva, is, what does she have that I lack, and do you have an answer?  Her black curls, earthy eyes, perfect, elegant taste?  There must be something more than that: perhaps you will find out today.

"Of course," he said, stiffly, as he was pointing his chin up towards the mirror and moved the razor along the tight skin of his neck with firm, resolute strokes, "but Italy means a lot to me and…"

"Italy," she saw one of her long hairs lying on the tiles in the shape of a question mark.

"That way I'll be doing something with my Italian studies.  I wouldn't mind living here, oh, you know it all, the whole story."  Somewhat irritated he threw the shaving soap into the washbasin.

For a moment they shaved and combed in time.

"And what will you do today?" he asked her.

"The museo d'Arte Antico," she said straight away as if she had been waiting for the question, "we haven't been there yet."

"Yes, you must see it," he spitted, as he threw water in his face. "Although…, the weather is marvellous!  You could also go for a fantastic walk on one of the hills, in the parks.  Behind Monteverde Vecchio lies the Villa Doria Pamphili.  Do you know how to get there?"

For a little while longer they chatted.  They ate a plentiful breakfast on the balcony.  Then Mirko looked at his watch and was suddenly in a hurry.  He washed away a biscuit with a cool cappuccino and kissed Eva, who stretched herself out towards the sun.  As soon as he was out of the door, she grabbed the keys, which lay on the bed and walked down the marble stairs.  He went through the turnstile at the same moment as she took the twist of the stairs and she quickened her pace. It was extremely busy at the reception desk.  She pushed past a group of tourists and put the keys on the counter in front of an employee who, without raising an eye, sang "grazie".  She clacked towards the revolving door, the sunlight bounced off the windows, and she searched for her sunglasses, which she only found in her handbag at the shadow side of the street.  For a moment she thought she had lost Mirko in all the Roman chaos, but, suddenly, she saw his creamy coloured suit appear.  In a zigzag line he crossed the street, which was full of parked or slow moving, hooting vehicles.

Two streets away it was a lot quieter and she followed him under the shelter of hidden sunshades.  A peculiar feeling came over her the moment she realised, once again, what she was doing here.  But it wasn't the pursuit, the espionage, which had put her in a strangely excited mood.  It was something else: the feelings she had had while viewing the videos mixed themselves with everyday observations.  She was following the man in the video pictures, her own husband, and suddenly the past anger, which she had felt on the evening of the discovery, was back.  When he came home, she thought she would still be mad at him, but that had been a misconception, because her husband and not the man in the video had returned and she only had a bone to pick with the latter.

As if intoxicated, she followed Mirko.  Now and then, reality took hold in the form of a loud car horn, which hooted her back on the pavement or a sharp voice (Mario!), but just like a drug addict, who, in a flash, can experience reality in one existential moment, she once more returned to that same state of drowsy intoxication.  For a few clear seconds, she realised that her heartbeat was as fast as when in a rowing competition, that her back was damp and that she thought her light yellow blouse might have sweat stains on it.  She also realised she was now too close to him (he stood at the same kiosk, which she knew so well, but was yet so different, and brought newspapers) and quickly went back a few paces.  She blindly stared into a pasta shop, at the red, white and green worm-like fossils.

They went through a long street, bathed in sunlight and Eva mechanically trod ahead while the heat was weighing down on her handbag.  Suddenly, there was the expansiveness of a square, the splashing of a fountain and Mirko stood pontifically on the terrazzo in front of a café, shaking hands with a gentleman as if all the newspaper reporters of the world had to immortalise this moment.  But only Eva witnessed this moment and directly knew the man was a homo!

I'd never have thought it!  Mirko had always been so open about those kinds of feelings.  That's a fine bloke walking past, he sometimes said.  But he had no need to be a practising one.  A man and a woman make each other complete, he then would say.  I know what I want!  Well, it seems that's not the case.  What a revolting bloke he's chosen, with that disgusting greasy combed back hair.  A distasteful suit.  No, Mirko, that …!  What are they doing with those papers?  Just calm down, Eva!

She realised she had make a mistake and the film stopped a moment, while another film which had been projected in her mind simultaneously, continued on its own.  She noticed the sound of the splashing fountain and she saw herself standing there, in the middle of the pavement, opposite the café.  It was a miracle that Mirko hadn't seen her.  She walked towards the fountain, hid herself, sitting on the edge of the basin, and pulled straight her small red skirt.  She postponed her next period of drowsiness by putting her hands in the water, dampen her arms and face, but when she once more looked at the terrace, now through the droplets of the splashing fountain, her heart began to beat furiously.

There she was!  Her profile, frozen still for three weeks, started to move and bend rightward.  She was searching in a black leather handbag, took out an extremely small mirror and lipstick.  Eva got up and, with her eyes, tried to pull the face and body of the woman towards her.  It looked as if she had just stepped out of a perfume advert, Eva established, but she had something ordinary, perhaps because of the shiny hair or the heavy makeup.

Suddenly, Eva saw the lipstick aimlessly sliding past the woman's lower lip, without actually making contact, and that she was holding the small mirror awkwardly straight in front of her from a distance.  Fountain droplets were falling down on Eva's legs, but she didn't notice.

So, Mirko, that dame of yours has arrived, she said to herself.  I'd finish your conversation now, if I were you, because she's waiting.  She's already peeping at you cunningly.

Eva had turned herself towards the two gentlemen, leaning over and making broad gestures.  When she once more rested her gaze upon the woman, a ray of reflected sunlight, which startled her, hit.  She saw two boys, who, waving their arms in the fountain, stared at her.

She crossed the street in a wide angle without clear plans.  The woman had put away her makeup and took out a folded glossy magazine from her bag.  For the first time, Eva directly looked straight into her face.  As she sat herself down at the same table, the woman's old image conflicted with reality and forced Eva to concede that, at first, much of what she had already witnessed was verifiably true.  Only after some time did she see more detail, like the soft chubbiness of the cheeks and the marble radiance of her neck.  It was all like pouring petrol over a fire.  She shook her head, numb with jealousy.

"Cosa?"  The woman looked at her with a surprising smile.  She had put the magazine on her lap, her thumbs bookmarked the pages.

"You, you," the ability to formulate a sentence with words seemed to escape her, "you're waiting for my husband."

"Your husband?"

"Yes, Mirko… or does he use a different name?  It wouldn't surprise me…"

"Cosa vuole?  I don't understand what you're talking about.  Are you looking for someone?"

Eva made an impatient tired gesture.

"Don't bother, I've caught you on the video recordings.  I only want to know one thing from you."

What am I doing here, Eva thought simultaneously, I don't want to talk to this woman at all.  I want to hit her straight in the face, push over her chair, the bitch, the slut!  She probably tempted him with her smile, but then with a lewd version of it.

"Damn it!" Eva said raising her voice.  "That stupid denial.  Let's treat each other like adults."

"Stop bothering me," the woman said, opening her magazine and raising it as if she wished to hide herself completely in it.

Everything has its limits, nothing can hold out forever.  Like a jug of boiling milk, Eva's anger had to spill out and she could not stop herself from standing up.  In slow motion, she saw her hand move towards the cup of coffee, grab the white porcelain handle and throw the remaining contents over the woman's dress and magazine.  The woman jumped up and smothered her scream.

"Have you gone mad!" she barked at Eva and made a gesture as if she wished to hit her with the magazine, but she restrained herself.  She looked at the mess on her white dress, on which coffee patterns formed like raindrops spread on glass.

"Idiota!" the woman said, as she grabbed her handbag and, after a quick glance at Mirko,  thus firing up Eva's emotions further, walked away.  Eva also looked at Mirko and saw that he now turned himself round for an instant.  Momentarily, their glances met, then she ran after the woman.  The woman went into a narrow cobbled street, running surprisingly quickly, despite her high-heels.  The road rose upwards a little and Eva saw the shape of the woman against the light.  Her light dress flapped around her middle and plump thighs.  At the highest point in the street she turned around for an instant, saw that Eva was still pursuing her and then, with renewed energy, carried on running.

She is beautiful, a living photo reportage.  The newest fashion from Rome.  What more do you want to know, Eva?  All your questions have been answered.  The manner in which she addressed you, shows that she has character, is smart and sly, and under all circumstances remains a lady.  You thought you knew Mirko, but you only turned the first page and just now glimpsed the contents of one of the other, hidden ones.  Only now you understand what your husband really finds attractive.  What more do you want?  Do you want to hear what they did with each other?  If she's married?  What, Eva?

Panting, she reached a corner and saw that the woman had disappeared.  To the right of her there was an alleyway.  A dove flew upwards when Eva reached it.  From one of the houses an exited voice was coming from a radio, commentating a sports event.

"Hello?"  Eva moved towards the darkness of the alleyway.  "I just want to know a few more things.  I promise you: after that, you lot can do what you like.  Its finished, there is nothing more to do about it.  Natural catastrophes are unavoidable."  She chatted on as if she wished to outdo the commentator.

Rustling had preceded the hit.  She once more thought of a rat because there were overfull containers nearby, the smell of which had made her pull a face.  The woman came up from behind one of those metal leviathans. Just at the moment when Eva began to get used to the darkness, and saw the first contours of the sides of the alleyway and the woman, her fire-lit, horror filled eyes and the weapon, everything went dark again.

"Eva, Eva!"  She came round with her cheeks being slapped and Mirko's concerned voice.

"Oh!" She squinted her eyes, grabbed the back of her head with both hands.

Mirko wanted to help her up.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed.

"What's the matter with you!"  His face came out of the alleyway's darkness and once more she discovered a new page in his character book: he was an excellent actor.

She sniffed and wiped away tears with the palm of her hand.  She pushed herself upwards, wiped the dirt from her hands and began to walk.

"Can you manage?"  He followed her like a troublesome interviewer.

"No," she said, "I never thought you would deceive me."  The radio faded away, another radio with the theatrical voice of a tenor came to the foreground.  "But still, there seemed to have been so much about you I did not understand."

"Aha," he said, "I believe you've been seeing Roman ghosts.  For heaven's sake, how did you get the idea of following that woman?  I've never seen her before."

"I've never seen her before." She repeated it slowly, tried to find support beside a wall, and in a daze moved her hand through a couple of geraniums.  "Now you're also trying to deceive my eyes!"

"Eva," he said, half towering up in front of her with his arms folded, "I'm fed up.  Say what you have to say.  It seems like you're suffering from sunstroke.  First of all, instead of going to the Museo d'Arte Antico, like you said you would, you followed me.  Then you kick up a row at the terrazzo, so that I have to leave my client."

"And now you're trying to be piteous."  She felt her hair stick to the rough wall when she moved her head.  "I've seen that woman three times on the video at home and now she was waiting for you.  Yes! Don't you dare try to deny it!  Everything is finished.  She was already trying to make herself attractive with her little mirror and makeup.

"The woman…,"  Mirko moved his forefingers towards each other without them making contact. "You've seen the woman, sitting at the terrazzo just now, three times before in the videos?"

"Precisely!" Eva said triumphantly.  She looked towards the sunlit side of the street and once more her eyes filled with tears.

"That's it!"  His forefingers had found each other and were moving as if chopping something.  "That's it!"

"What's it?"  She didn't know whether to be surprised or become angry.

"Rival competition… Where did she go?"

Eva made a vague gesture.  Mirko began to jog along the descending alleyway increasingly lit by the emerging sunlight.

"Come on," he called.  "I must catch her."

While she was keeping up with him, out of breath, something began to dawn on her, which she had never dared to think in her wildest dreams.  The thought: "this is also theatre," remained strangely and stubbornly prominent, despite it being so absurd.  Only when she reached a square, the openness and light, something reached through to her being, which she couldn't quite grasp yet.  While she was standing dazed on the pavement, looking at the Coliseum at the other side, Mirko ran back and forth, looked into the streets and, eventually, returned, raising his shoulders.

"The bird has flown, Eva.  Nevertheless, I should say…" He scratched his chin. "Here's to jealousy!  You've made a priceless discovery for the company.  She was, obviously, trying to take this client from under my nose.  She would probably have used her charms!  Right, now I'll just have to contact Carbone…"

He took out his mobile telephone from his belt and, in perfect Italian, explained the happenings, apologised and made a new appointment.  As he was doing this he made excited gestures and kept watch over the street like a restless caged animal.

It's the first time you've seen this aspect of Mirko, Eva!  You'd hardly have recognised him if you'd just passed him.  He's in his element.  Isn't he handsome like that!

"Ok," he said, loosened his tie and threw his jacket over his shoulder.  "That's settled.  Now it's time for the Coliseum."

"Yes, my gladiator."

"No.  You're the gladiator here."

She pinched him.  They held a mock fight and ran across the street.