Meeting in Positano by Goliarda Sapienza

Author:Goliarda Sapienza [Sapienza, Goliarda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2021-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

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Yes, Erica felt that that strange creature with an even stranger name, whom the spirit of Positano had led her to meet, was exactly the friend she had longed for since childhood. She didn’t want to lose her, nor, with her, the completely novel sensation of peace that flooded through her after every confessional meeting. If she had been an only child, everything would have made sense. But having had two sisters, whom she had loved, too…How to explain that hunger for something else? Maybe it had to do with the role her sisters had quickly forced on her, to be the practical one, the one who’d “take care of everything.” A role that, deep down, meant being alone, with no one but herself to count on when she needed to be comforted or helped. That’s what it must have been, the “loneliness of the leader.” The more Erica thought about it, the more she understood that her very closeness to her sisters—the way they loved her or were protected by her—had in turn led her to want what Fiore and Olivia received from her: understanding and protection. Finally there was someone, and a woman for that matter, who at least understood her.

To whom could she have confessed—with the risk of not being believed, or worse, appearing vain, never satisfied—that she hated her appearance every time her image was thrown back at her in a mirror or a photograph? That was the reason why there were no mirrors in the house, besides that awful contraption in the bathroom. If only she could get rid of it! But where in the world has there ever been a bathroom without mirrors? Well, it would be the height of snobbery, she thought sarcastically, fighting back the repulsion that even now, as she combed her hair, her reflection inspired in her. Was it because she felt undeserving? No, that repugnance had clung to her since childhood. And what was it that calmed her so much after confessing this to her friend, who had done nothing but look and listen, instead of rushing to disagree or to try to make her feel better? A relief that no renowned analyst had been able to give her—she had felt it then and continued to feel it now, more than a year after she’d described the guilt that had nearly driven her mad for years: that she hadn’t been able to save Fiore.

Starting with that relief, and thanks to that relief, our friendship deepened, to the point that one day I said to her as we were walking, “I understand you so well, sometimes I feel like I am you. Do you think it can happen, this transferring of the self to another person?”

To enter into another being, how liberating that would be! To be nourished by the other, before going back to the same old self, but renewed. It was the special privilege of friendship, one that made it perhaps greater than love. In love

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