The end of dreams

20

When the plane took off the girls did not even realize it.
"So you've already been to Cuba?" asked Silvia soon after. 
"I used to go there often as a child. When my grandmother was still alive I used to go to Cuba every summer. My mother used to take me there as soon as schools broke up and we stayed for a couple of months. Then my parents split up so I began to go there less frequently. Now my mother doesn't feel up to such a long journey; she has no more relatives in Cuba except Carlos. But she says it's not worthwhile going there just for him."
"So you mother is really from Cuba?" 

"Yeah but she's been living in Italy fo so long a time that she's even lost her spanish accent." "What about Carlos?" asked Michelle, pretending she was interested in his cousin. 

"What does he do? How old is he? What's he like?" Silvia chimed in, getting really curious.

"Oh he is a character... you should make his acquaintance. According to what his mother used to say he is one of Che's many illegitimate children. He's probably the laziest one among them, because he doesn't nourish any revolutionary ideas or something. Nobody ever believed her but he really looks like Che Guevara. He actually has a good time just on that very account. I think the very fact that he bears a resemblance to Che Guevara is the reason why all the western female tourists prefer to choose him as their personal escort when they tour Havana." 

"You mean he gets paid to..." 

"... To drive the tourists around throughout the city. He was born in Havana, so he knows all the best tourist attractions and the nicest bars. He has a comfortable vintage car... so if the girl in question is to his taste..." 

"You're telling us he's a gigolo?" asked Michelle, incredulous.

"Gigolo is not the right word: he knows how to earn generous tips, especially when he accompanies the prettiest women" 

"And when you drop in on him you keep him company, I suppose..." added Silvia.

"Let's say my holidays with him have always been unforgettable!" went on Mark, leaving
no doubts about the subject he was alluding at.

"But tell me about you... what do you do in your lives?" 

The question was followed by a sad silence. 

"I don't do anything special. I work as an accountant in a home-building firm..." answered Silvia in a dejected voice.

Michelle remained silent. 

"But didn't you work at Visconti's ?" Mark interrupted her.

He now rembered that Michelle used to work in that little ice-cream shop near the high school in summer: he had made her acquaintance there and after a while they had got to know each other a little better. At school, on the contrary, they seldom ran into one another and when it happened he hardly realized that since he was so busy running after older girls. 

"My father never let me do it. He used to say her daughter would never be a waitress. I would even have killed to share that little summer job with my Pina..." she said, while hugging Michelle.

"Those were happy days indeed" added Michelle, low-spirited.

They spent the whole flight that way, as they kept on talking about the good old times and the situations they had been living till the present day.

"So you have a little girl who's eighteen months old! She must be beautiful, especially if she resembles you..." said Mark.

"She resembles my former mother-in-love for the most part but I love her all the same!" Michelle laughed. "Joking apart, she is my life. She's the only good thing I have done in my whole life."

"I've done a good thing in my life too, you know!" replied Mark.

The girls looked at him while getting intrigued.

"I have a child too, he's three and his name is..." 

"Nicholas" guessed Michelle, an instant before he could complete his sentence.

Mark stared at her in astonishment. 

"But... how can you know about that?"

Silvia took an astounded look at her. 

"I ain't got the slightest idea... I just knew it was so."

Mark and Silvia looked in each other's eyes, they were both dumbstruck. 

"Do you feel as if these ten years had lasted just one day too?" whispered Mark while stroking her hand.

"Excuse-me, I'll go to the bathroom" said Silvia, as if she was starting to feel one too many. She felt a little bit of nausea too. 

"Later I'm going to tell you about the bad things I have done in my life..."

They did not utter a word all the time until Silvia left the bathroom and came back. They had not even realized Silvia's absence: they had fallen into a sort of trance. At last Silvia was back, yet her face was as white as a sheet. Her nausea was oppressing her again. Fortunately the airplane did not go through any turbulence during the whole flight, otherwise she would have thrown up her toe-nails. 

"I was saying I could have done a good thing too..." she caressed her belly. 

Mark was literally flabbergasted while looking at her. Silvia would have loved to talk about her pregnancy and her imminent abortion but she realized Mark and Michelle had ended up into a world all their own, so she stood aside and slept for the rest of the flight.

Meanwhile Michelle began to talk to Mark of her Gaia again, after she got out of her brief trance; she also spoke to him about her unsuccessful marriage with Ludovico. Mark, for his part, told her about his affair with Pamela: it had been but a one-night stand, nevertheless it had brought forth results. 

"We live together for our child. Still we live separate lives. She has her relationships and I have mine. We are like brother and sister. We both know one day our cohabitation will come to an end."

During that ten-hour flight Michelle and Mark got to know each other far more deeply than they had ever done before. But Michelle never mentioned her disease: it should remain absolutely secret.