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Giulia
Maria Gabriella Zampini
Giulia
translated by
Andrew Fanko
A huge thank you to all those who have been so,
so patient
with me. You know who you are!
âDammit!â
It just wouldnât budge. Giulia turned the key both ways in the lock, put her shoulder up against the door and pushed with all her mightâ¦.nothing. The damn thing was jammed.
She was a prisoner in her own home at 10 oâclock on a stifling August morning. Great! Giulia had arrived at her lovely little summer house by the sea at midnight after a final, utterly exhausting day at work.
Obviously, there had been no-one there to greet her. It wasnât as if she could expect her sons to forgo a night of clubbing to welcome their mother with open arms!
So, not even bothering to unpack her case, she had collapsed straight into bed, looking forward immensely to a whole month of peace, quiet and doing absolutely nothing, and fallen into a deep sleep. And now this â marvellous! She gave the door another shove but succeeded only in bruising her shoulder.
âFine!â she yelled at the door. âYou win! Iâm on vacation and Iâm not about to get mad at anyone, not even you!â
She wandered into the kitchen and started singing to herself as she set about making a coffee.
She had always found that singing helped her to calm down. Some people counted to ten, others rolled their shoulders. She sang, much to the annoyance of whomever she happened to be with at the time. But Giulia figured the door wouldnât mind, soâ¦
Her singing had made her husband - well, ex-husband â want to throttle her. He had told her as much on a cold January morning ten years earlier, and that was the end of their marriage. At the time, she had felt like her entire world was crumbling around her, but that was a long time ago. Now, her life was rolling along pretty smoothly: work, kids, the occasional fling, her lovely little summer house by the sea...
She shot a filthy look at the door that was preventing her from doing what she loved the most: climbing down the rocks and watching the perpetual ebb and flow of the waves, filling her lungs with salty sea air and, best of all, plunging into the turquoise sea that had waited patiently for her for a whole year.