The Purple Room by Mauro Casiraghi Read Free Book Online Page A

anything. I never asked her how she felt about
the separation, whether she was sad not seeing me around the house, or what
version of the story Alessandra had given her. I acted like nothing had
happened. With the excuse of shielding my child from a painful subject, I
pretended like everything was just fine.
    It was Michela who finally decided to confront the problem. She must
have been about ten or eleven. It was a rainy, miserable Saturday. We had taken
shelter in a cinema and watched some boring movie. I slept through most of it.
When we left, the rain was coming down even harder than before. We didn’t have
umbrellas, so we were waiting in the lobby for the rain to stop.
    “Why did you and Mom get divorced?” she asked me, out of the blue.
    How could I tell an eleven-year-old that I wasn’t really sure? That at
night, while she was sound asleep, her father lay awake for hours next to a
woman he didn’t know anymore? That her mother felt the same way about me? One
morning, while I was shaving, Alessandra came into the bathroom half asleep.
She walked past me without a word and sat down on the toilet. She looked up and
saw me in the mirror. Disconcerted, she asked me, “Who the hell are you?”
    How could I tell my daughter that for months, once I had dropped her off
at school, I used to go and fuck her classmate’s mother? That when Alessandra
found out, she almost gouged my eyes out with her pruning shears?
    Maybe I should have told Michela, even knowing that it would have hurt
her to hear it. Instead, I shrugged off her question with stupid clichés about
how adult relationships change and fade away, how we still respected each other
and blah, blah, blah. Michela didn’t buy it. She knew there was an abyss
between my words and her mother’s resentment towards me. She could sense that I
wasn’t being honest. So she started to change her approach, too. That was the
end of our conversation and the beginning of the lies.
    In the middle of the square, Michela looks around and realizes that
we’ll never find each other in the crowd. She turns on her phone and dials my
number.
    I yell out to her as my phone starts ringing. “Hey, signorina …”
    She turns around with a smile. “There you are!”
    She kisses me on the cheek. I inhale her smell: sour sweat and strawberry
chewing gum. Hugging her, I swallow all my bitterness.
    “Happy birthday, Micky.”
    She touches my clean-shaven face.
    “Thanks for shaving, Dad. I like you better like this.”
    She’s wearing a new necklace. A silver Japanese character.
    “What’s this? A gift from your mom?”
    “No, from a girlfriend.” Girl ,
she says, making it clear it’s not from a boy. “Mom’s giving me a study trip to
Paris.”
    “Cool. When are you leaving?”
    “In two weeks. I can’t wait!”
    She hooks her arm through mine. We head towards Via del Corso.
    “So we’re looking for clothes to pack for Paris, then?”
    “No. This year I just want books.”
    I’m speechless. Michela is not the best student. She’s never cared about
books. Music, shoes, and clothes are the only presents she’s ever wanted. At
least until now.
    We walk into a bookshop. I follow her as she roams through the
bookshelves. She starts with an Italian-French pocket dictionary and a guide to
Paris. Then she heads to the Literature section. She stops at the French
classics, huge volumes I’m shocked to see in her hands.
    “How about The Little Prince ?”
I suggest.
    Michela turns up her nose.
    “That’s a kid’s book, Dad.”
    I try to explain that it’s not a book for children, or, not just for
children, at least. She’s not listening. She picks up one novel after another
and tosses them into the basket as if she were at a supermarket. Hugo, Dumas, Flaubert,
Zola, Stendhal, Maupassant, Camus, Yourcenar. She points to a boxed set of
Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and
asks me, “Have you read this?”
    “No. I’m saving it for my old age.”
    “Well, I’m going to