The Life of Those Left Behind

Someone called an ambulance. The doorman? A neighbor? I have no idea who had gone to the trouble.
I could tell because I heard the sirens blaring. I heard them growing nearer and then stopping, at full blast, right below my window, before turning off with a throbbing sound.
I know that it’s useless, that there will be no extreme attempts to revive him, that it’s already too late.
I am at the doorway.
From the windows, from the balconies, dozens of people are staring at me. Out on the landing, a huddle of neighbors. They say nothing, and look alarmed and confused.
I hear the voices of the paramedics climbing the stairs, their frantic footsteps. My apartment is on the fifth floor.
When the three men in white uniforms carrying a stretcher reach my landing, they’re sweating and breathing heavily. The first one looks around for a moment. He notices the idle elevator at the top of the next flight of stairs. He rolls his eyes, turns to me, and exclaims, “Why didn’t anyone tell us there’s an elevator?”
The elevator.
S. is there, on the floor, and I was supposed to advise them to take the elevator.
I don’t answer, of course. I can’t.
The first of many times.
People will ask and I won’t know what to say.
For months. For years.
Forever.

But did you know this could happen? Did you notice any signs?
Yes.
And you didn’t do anything?
I mentioned it. To his family. To his friends.
What did they say?
They said not to worry, that he was only being dramatic, that he just wanted to scare me.
And you?
I was afraid he meant it; I could feel it.

We hadn’t been living together for three months. We broke up at the end of August 1998.
S. still had my house keys. He had left behind most of his stuff (clothing, shoes, odds and ends) until he found a new place. Every now and then he would stop by to pick up something he needed.
That afternoon he called me at the office from my home. The call was short, civil. We didn’t argue or fight—unlike our usual pattern in even the briefest of exchanges.
Before hanging up he said, “Anyway, don’t worry.
When you get back, I’ll be gone.”
I heard his words as purely informational. But they were a declaration, a metaphorical statement.
They were his farewell.

A mantra is passed from mouth to mouth. A spontaneous referendum. An unwitting conspiracy. A unanimous vote. A constant plea.
Move.
That’s what everyone is saying.
My parents, my sister, my friends, my colleagues, the acquaintances who have heard what happened. Even strangers with whom I come into contact.
Move.
Get away from there.
In the first few days I’m fragile, very fragile. I don’t even know if I’m still alive.
Yet there is an adamant determination inside of me.
No, I’m not going.
No one understands. Why would I want to remain in a home that is flooded with memories? Infested with memories. The home where we lived together, where he took his life, where I found his dead body.
Seriously, how can you even think of still living there?
I realize quickly, immediately, that there’s no point in explaining. No one knows what I’m feeling. No one understands these sensations, the black hole into which I’ve fallen. They offer me advice from a higher place, but I am somewhere else.
Like offering a glass of water to a man on fire and acting surprised when he refuses.
I wouldn’t know what to do with your glass of water. Can’t you see that I’m burning? That a palliative is useless, pathetic? Let me burn. Please.
The elementary prescription they propose is that I take a physical distance: to move away from my memories. They can’t understand that I’m invaded by them. Drenched in them. Even if I moved to China, they’d still be with me. Not even an ocean or a continent between my memories and me would make a difference.
I am my memories. I am my life with him and his absurd death. This awareness is who I am.
Move.
I’m touched by their affection. They offer me advice in this competition whose rules they ignore. Like using an abacus to solve a problem of astrophysics.

When others do not or cannot understand, the only person you can listen to is yourself.
The more they urge me to leave that apartment, the firmer my resolve is to stay. How strange, at a time when I feel drained of willpower, of the ability to make a decision, when I defer every possible choice, when I can’t even take responsibility for myself.

Eat something. Okay.
Get some rest. I will.
Move away. No.

I have no willpower left, except on this one point. Deep inside I feel that I have to stay. I can tell that the burden of grief (and anguish and loss and . . .) weighing on my shoulders would not be lightened one bit if I changed my address. It’s not a home delivery you can avoid by moving, or a stalker you can shake by running faster. No: Rather than run away, I feel that I have to remain in place and confront it. What else can I do?
As if grief were a well in which to sink, a tunnel to be traveled in its entirety, until you reach the other side.
The fact that you can’t see the light at the end, only darkness, doesn’t hinder my awareness that this is the way.

I seek comfort in literature. My lifeboat in the world.
I look in the bookshop, I browse the library (the Internet is still in its early days). There isn’t much on the topic of suicide. Suicidal characters do appear in many novels. But a story dedicated to just that topic? There are, of course, psychological papers and sociological studies: where it happens the most, and why.
The only material I do find is about the victims, not us survivors.
And I am one of them. It is with them that I’d like to begin a conversation, get some help. Why doesn’t anyone write about them?
Why do they ignore the grief of those left behind?

The day I go back to the office I try to behave nonchalantly toward my colleagues, even if I am a wreck: There are dark circles under my eyes, a distraught look on my face. I’m losing weight with shocking rapidity. Hard not to notice how dejected I am, for that matter. I don’t even dream of concealing it. Everyone knows what happened, they can’t avoid acknowledging and adapting to it.
They welcome me back affectionately, with sober but eloquent gestures. Some hug me. Some shake my hand. Some even pat me on the back.

I work at a communications agency. I write ad copy, brochures, catalogues, radio promos, editorial content.
I share my office with a colleague, Tiziana.
On the first morning I make an effort to resist. Then, at one point, I don’t know why, and there probably is no reason why, I break down and cry.
Tizi looks up and sees what is happening. She isn’t quite sure what to do.
“Oh, dear . . . ,” she says. Tears come to her eyes, too, but she holds them back.
She looks toward the corridor. Someone might walk by and see me.
She stands up, mercifully, and goes over to close the door. She keeps the spectacle private, chooses to take on the burden herself.
“Go home,” she says, then she rephrases it as a question. “Why don’t you go home? You came back too soon.”
It’s been one week since the death of S.
“Staying home only makes me feel worse,” I explain, between sobs. “I need to get back to work, to keep my mind busy, otherwise I’ll go nuts.”
She approaches my chair, and from behind me she places a hand on my shoulder and gives it a slight squeeze. An ordinary gesture of closeness, of affection. Neither she nor I have ever been very demonstrative. We’ve been working together for years and get along quite well as colleagues. We like each other as friends, but neither of us is the kind of person who wears their heart on their sleeve.
We both realize that if she hugs me now, I’ll never stop crying. But I have to. I dry my tears and swallow the lump in my throat.
“You can open the door back up.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not, but open it anyway.”
Our first smile of complicity since the tragedy.

I find myself compiling a spreadsheet on grief, and not as a figure of speech. Grief really is a system with columns of how much you can bear: I manage to tolerate a certain degree of suffering, but anything more would be too much. It would push me over the edge. Toward madness. I know it can happen. I’ve had proof of it.
Some thoughts are too excruciating to pass the threshold of consciousness. They remain buried beneath the surface, in a prolonged and protected limbo.
Every so often something comes to the surface: a conversation, an image, a fight, a scene of tenderness. All of which are equally merciless.

I’m in a tram on my way home after a long day at the office. Tired, drained, sitting on a hard, uncomfortable plastic seat, I look at the city bursting with life outside the window. And in that ordinary moment, for no reason, the memory of an argument comes back to me.
S. saying, “Give me another chance,” and me replying, “I’ve already given you a million chances, enough is enough.”
The last fight the night before he left our home and went back to living with his mother.
I had repressed this exchange but now a sharp, vivid fragment of it returns. Give me another chance. No, enough.
He had asked me for an extension and I said no.
I’m a monster.
This awareness invades and shatters me.
S. was asking for help and I said no. I could have saved him and I didn’t. I’m a monster.
I feel like I’m going to lose it. Here, in front of everyone, in a tram packed with people on their way home from work.
How much farther? A couple of stops. Four, five minutes. Resist. You have to resist.
I stand up. I make my way between the bodies and approach the exit. Let the monster out. I lean against the pole to hold on to something, not to keep my balance. I make it past the first stop. My own is getting closer. Now the tram feels very slow, moving at a snail’s pace. I’m a monster. The last few feet are agonizing. The doors open, I jump out as if the tram were on fire. I walk quickly and break into a run. I want to be home, now, immediately.
I climb the stairs two at a time, insert the key in the lock, and give it a violent twist, hastily, time is running out, I’m almost there. I’m there. I’m inside.
I close the door behind me, slip off my backpack, and throw myself on the floor. I don’t fall, I don’t trip, I let myself drop toward the tiles, let the floor take me into its hard, cold embrace. Out rush the tears that I’ve been holding back for all this time. Ten minutes of struggling to breathe. I’m a monster. Forgive me, S., I’m a monster. Forgive me, world. I’m a monster. I can never be forgiven for what I’ve done. I’m a monster, a monster. Help me, I’m a monster. Somebody please help me.

Before the funeral I receive flowers and cards.
One card is from the young couple next door. They’re friends. Every now and then we would have dinner together. S. used to walk their dog; sometimes he would play with it on the balcony.
The card is simple, a single line, addressed not to me but directly to S. Which is probably right. As if I were only the go-between.
It says: “We will miss you so much.”
Three signatures follow: Lori, Mario, and Camillo.
Camillo is the dog.
I don’t know why, but this card touches me more than all the others.