The Empty Streets

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This story is part of the literary competition created by In Trieste magazine in collaboration with Comune di Trieste called “Stories from Trieste to the World” which was open to all female writers living in Trieste as part of the annual “Festa della Donna” initiative by the city of Trieste.

by Rita Siligato

Walking is easier, today. Redenta walks to her husband’s home every single day: they meet in the late morning for a coffee near his home, and then they dine together.

They don’t share a house: she is ninety years old and he is eighty-six, but they still keep their own houses. It’s a consolidated arrangement. They married twenty years ago, having been engaged nearly all their adult life. When her mother passed away, they married quietly. Everyone thought they were long married already.

Redenta strides briskly, despite her age. Walking is easier because the roads are empty. No cars to be careful of at the crossings, no youngsters around with their skateboards.

At the traffic lights she watches right and left as she had been taught when she was a child. She will ring his doorbell at eleven sharp and wait for him by the front door. The weather is fine: April 2020 is a good month, despite the poetry about April.

She looks at herself in the glass: she must do something with her hair. The line of white in the parting is more than two centimeters long now, and the rest of her head is the usual red she likes. But all the hairdressers are closed. She will try the new colored shampoo she saw on the telly. They talk wonders of it. Covers the regrowth. It is easy, and the results are professional, the girl of the commercial says.

A young policeman is approaching. Redenta is not wearing her mask, she does not believe in masks, she does not even own one. She chooses to ask him something.

“Excuse me, sir!”

“Yes, madam?”

“Is it possible to drink a proper coffee in a proper café?”

“Not today, madam. You have to wait some months for this.”

“But I’m ninety, I don’t believe I have so much time…”

“I’m sure you have, madam. Have a nice day!”

He did not realize I was not wearing the mask, she thinks. Or maybe he was looking at my regrowth. Or at my beautiful face! At my wrinkles!

She looks at herself in the glass some more. Time to wear a proper dress, not the old grey light coat she is sporting today.

She knows Dario is slow going downstairs: his legs are not working properly, in the last years. Even if he is slightly younger than her.

“And look at my shoes: I never wore flats before, never! A little bit of a heel does wonders to your figure. When I was younger…”

And no one around. Trieste is a desert, today. All the shops are closed. She looks right and left: the supermarket is open. Maybe they can walk inside together and buy something fancy for their dinner.

“Dario!”

They kiss on the mouth, in a pecking motion. They never were partial to any sign of affection, in public places. Even if there was no one around.

“A young policeman stopped to chat me up a moment ago. I could have eloped with him. You took ages to come down!”

“Redenta, don’t you dare.”

“We cannot have a proper coffee today, again. Coffee machine?”

“Coffee machine it is. The nearest the better.”

Slowly, they move arm in arm to the nearest coffee machine, in a niche in Viale XX Settembre. It is not working.

“Do you feel like walking a bit more? To the Canale? There is a coffee machine there.”

“My legs. And I don’t wear a mask.”

“Me neither. If we meet a policeman, let me do the talking.”

“Naughty girl!”

Trying to keep up with his slow pace, she walks. And at the corner they bump into two policemen: one of them – surprise – is a young girl.

“Hello!”

“Where are you going, you two?”

“The gentleman is my husband; he needs to walk for half an hour every day. He has a condition.”

The policegirl smiles.

“He needs to exercise, you mean?”

“Yes, for his legs. He needs to exercise. We just walk to the corner and back.”

“Where do you live?”

“Right here,” says Redenta. “We live together right here,” and she motions with her right hand to the nearest building, crossing the fingers of the other hand.

“All right, don’t go too far. Masks?”

“Here, in my pocket,” Redenta says. She pats her side as if she were trying to show she has two masks in the pocket. And she crosses her fingers again.

“Take care, guys.”

Guys? Does she think we are her friends?

They turn the corner, and they are free. No one is around. They laugh and they kiss again, because no one is looking.

The coffee machine near the Canale is working as it should be: they never had a better coffee.