Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes

Author:Alba de Céspedes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Astra Publishing House

March 10

I went to bed early tonight, but I couldn’t sleep. The dark oppressed me; words, images crowded into my mind and kept me awake in an uncontrollable restlessness. I was afraid of lying there till morning, eyes wide open in the dark, thoughts in disorder. I got up cautiously, so that I wouldn’t wake Michele. I grabbed my bathrobe and slippers and put them on when I came out to the hall. My heart was pounding, because I haven’t resorted to such maneuvers since I was a child; I was afraid of Michele as I used to be of my mother. Then I couldn’t find the notebook, I’d hidden it so carefully in the folds of a sheet in the closet. When I finally found it, I hugged it to myself like a treasure. But if Michele wakes up and comes in here, I’m lost. I have no plausible excuse, and the idea that he might read what I’m about to write terrifies me. Yet, if I just reflect, I have to acknowledge that nothing new happened. Maybe I have too much imagination. I repeat that it’s impossible, that he’s known me for many years, that I’ve been with him since I was young, when people said I was pretty. It’s impossible that this should happen just now, and yet I’m convinced that the director loves me.

Today he was waiting for me impatiently, I’m sure. As soon as he heard the key in the lock, he must have left his desk to come and meet me because, when I closed the door, he was already in front of me in the entrance. I laughed, in a whisper, as if I had arrived after an escape. He, too, laughed, helping me take off my coat. On my desk I found a branch of mimosa. While I looked at it, to reassure myself that it had been him before thanking him, he said, as if apologizing, “We have a garden full of mimosas, they’re all in flower. So I picked a branch but I put it in my pocket and it withered.” I barely said thank you, I didn’t want to make a gesture, that after all is natural, seem important. The mimosa had a warm scent, I sniffed it for a long time, then I put it in the buttonhole of my dress. He stood before me, looked at me in silence. I looked up at him, smiling, and for the first time I thought his name is Guido.

We worked for two hours; I was very nervous. I’ve seen his signature so many times, his name on the letterhead, and yet every time he looked at me, I thought, “Guido” and, blushing, bent my head again over the work. I felt awkward, emotional; it seems to me that only starting today has he looked at me as a human being.

There, that’s it. There’s nothing else. We took care of a lot of correspondence, discussed some urgent problems, then he said, “That’s enough for now,” and it seemed to me I’d worked as a joke.

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