Butterflies

They say it brings bad luck to look at your hands, but I don´t think so. I look at mine with my usual joy for breaking the rules, and I trace with my fingers each and every one of their spots, scars and veins that paint the landscape of my life. This one I've had since the day he sauntered into the beauty shop, full of middle-aged women with shampooed hair, and, without any embarrassment whatsoever, kissed me on the lips and gave me a bag of mini-croissants, my favorites, saying, "You did not have breakfast today, my love." Then, just as abruptly as he entered, he turned around and left, nonchalantly strolling past the row of gasping mouths and gawking eyes, soaked with envy and desire.

And this vein, this one was badly swollen that morning when, at the beach, I cried and cried, bent, heartbroken and determined to forget him, while holding my knees with furiously clenched fists. Then he appeared without a word, with five, not one, not two, not three, but five plates of calamari from the restaurant I liked so much, where he had to state his order repeatedly because the waiters could not understand that he wanted to take his order of not one, not two, not three, but five plates of calamari to the beach, where the sand persisted in getting into our mouths as we ate and laughed and talked and cried and kissed and reconciled.

Oh, look at this light scar I got when I slipped on a rock that evening when we sneaked passed the watchman of the most beautiful cove in the world and we swam with the last rays of a sun that embraced us in gold and happiness. I remember the brown bear that, luckily, without paying us much notice, walked just a few meters behind us by the spot where we had decided to stop to take photographs of wild animals, and where we ended up with the most dangerous and passionate kiss we could've ever imagined. I remember the night we did not sleep a single second, trying to purge from our aching hearts all our past and all our sadness and all our dead hopes. In the morning you gave me the one object you had had with you all your life, and you said, "I only have this to give you." And I knew that, beyond the past hurt we had inflicted on each other and we still would, your ring would remain wrought to my hand forever and ever.

"Your hands are nice," you keep telling me, and I blush, like a young girl of sixteen on her first date. You are dozing at the other end of the bench, your left hand resting on my feet, relaxed and happy on your lap, under the fluttering of the butterflies that revive my memories, just like every other August evening for the last fifty years . 

Translated by Lina Strenio