Tre Donne — Flora

What remains of our memories are evanescent shades, blurred convictions of revisiting something we claim to have seen or experienced before. Often incomplete certainties, but no less misleading. Smells, on the other hand, help to make vivid in the memory of time what remains; thus, those dusty seats, that rubber of tires so much taller than she was as a child, give her today that same sense of nausea as back then. To the sense of smell are added images, outlined, faded, then modified over the years, but evoking the same primitive sensation of freedom, adventure, transgression, desire for escape, and even if the journey will not be as long as those she was used to with Lorenzo, it doesn't matter, it will be a journey similar to her first school trip, yet this time laden with the bitter awareness of being at the beginning of another kind of path.

The large window reflects her current silhouette, and over the blonde braids she was proud of, long silvery strands appear, not yet white, equally thin, wavy, luminous, unmistakably hers.

Lorenzo liked her hair very much; he didn't want her to cut it. Every time she was forced to do so to tidy her hairstyle, he would become sullen, as if she had deprived herself of a vital part. And then quarrels would arise, in which he would good-naturedly threaten to leave, but Flora knew he would never leave her and she would play on that. She remembers one day she challenged him by cutting it short, and he took refuge in the garage without comment, but after a few hours, he came back up and sought her out to make love to her, perhaps imagining he was holding the same woman as before.

The countryside all looks the same, the plots of land lie neatly side by side, and it seems that time has not passed, were it not for the changed fashion of the haystacks. Now perfect cylinders, once shapeless piles full of charm. Here and there, photovoltaic panels on roofs dominate the landscape, while below stand solid houses and farmhouses, which no longer tell of the hardships and toil of working in the fields. The surrounding nature, if tended by careful human hands, reciprocates in beauty, a modern, almost coquettish beauty, far from that of her childhood. Flora, her very name speaks of the desire to be part of it, has chosen to board that bus to challenge herself. She doesn't know if she will meet anyone with whom to exchange a few words now that solitude will become her best ally, nor whether she will be able to diminish, weaken, or pretend to have done so, that great void in which she found herself, just like that, out of the blue. Without warning, just to give herself time to prepare, to accept it, to organize. Flora knows very well that one is never ready to become a half that is missing the other, to at least have a sign, an intuition, a warning... Who knows? Perhaps now, if there had been preparatory discussions, symptoms, perhaps now, she tells herself, that abyss that starts in her head and invades her stomach would be more bearable. But instead, nothing. She is in it, like in a centrifuge at a thousand revolutions that doesn't allow her time to comprehend. She had heard about solitude, but it's one thing to hear about it and another to have it imposed by destiny.

Here's a service station, a stop then. Now there's no teacher to guide the line of small passengers and help them get off... Flora, an adult, knows she'll have to return to her seat on the vehicle and not take more than ten minutes, just enough time for a coffee and a stop at the ladies' room. While waiting her turn and the sound of flushing toilets, she observes the hands of the women sharing that line with her. Almost all of them have lacquered nails – this year coral is very fashionable – and a wedding ring. On her left hand, there is still the mark of the one Lorenzo placed there, searching in her eyes for the mirror of the same joy he couldn't contain. Her ring finger seems to have thinned after so many years of marriage, and she believes she will have to put on a new ring to feel less bare. Perhaps she will find one in the villages she visits; goldsmiths are an attraction there, why not, because she doesn't want to wear one of those Lorenzo gave her; she left them all in the box, knowing full well that she remembers the moment each one was given to her, its design and importance, but it's better not to torment herself; memory needs time to weaken and make wounds disappear. She washes her hands and returns to the imposing double-decker vehicle, from which every car that pulls alongside or overtakes seems like a small insect scurrying to safety.

It's better not to read the tourist guide she bought in the city, as it would increase her sense of nausea, but flipping through some images here and there certainly won't make her feel bad. She has decided it will be a cultural trip; abbeys, churches, and monasteries are everywhere, and she can complete that mystical part of knowledge she lacks. Lorenzo wasn't very fond of pilgrimaging among churches; he had little faith in the church as an institution, and if he entered one, he only did so to admire the paintings of artists who, commissioned by popes or nobles or powerful figures, had embellished vaults and walls since the fourteenth century, and if he did it, it was to please her, who never missed an opportunity to say a quick prayer or light a small votive candle. As the years passed, Flora had noticed how people's approach to any form of belief became more assiduous, almost certainly driven by the fearful awareness that earthly life had begun its countdown and therefore... you never know: better to get used to the idea and set off with all your papers in order towards the entrance of that much better otherworldly realm that churches had promised for centuries.

Lorenzo was not like that; he was not afraid to die; it was as if he had trained and prepared every day he opened his eyes, transmitting an enviable serenity and clarity. He was a balanced man, who would therefore never succumb to the blackmail of the fear of the end. Lorenzo left this way, in fact, and Flora, if she could have spoken to him a moment before, would have been ready to bet that even at that moment, Lorenzo would have had neither regret nor remorse. But that moment did not happen.

From up there, the hills look like pieces of a crocheted blanket; the perimeter rows are perfectly aligned and harmonious with the adjoining ones. Flora remembers how much her grandmother enjoyed that kind of manual work that has not been passed down to young girls for years. A real shame because it was relaxing as well as creative. She and Lorenzo had received a precious lace blanket when they got married, made with bobbin lace by about ten nuns who had worked on it for months, but they never used it for fear of spoiling it. We humans are very strange; we seek value in certain objects and their preciousness or originality, but, fearing to lose it, we keep it in a drawer without enjoying its use. And the years pass and we pass, and things remain, untouched, perhaps offended because so much veneration on our part has emptied them of meaning.

Her legs are numb; her circulation is a bit poor, which is why she has walked every day for about ten years. Lorenzo waited patiently for her, understanding how important that daily hour was for her, as if she were a prisoner, making her feel active and energetic, deluded into thinking she could still go very far despite the merciless advance of years. He, no, he didn't like walking; he preferred moving weights, inventing small jobs, cycling. How many times had she feared something might happen to him, an illness, an accident, a simple fall. His bicycle is now hidden under a tarp in the garage; it's too impactful for her to see it there, abandoned, waiting for him to get back on it. She reflects that we often fear things that shouldn't be feared and that, conversely, we underestimate other events, as if they were extraneous and not contemplated by our destiny, and then, mockingly, those are the ones that...