Colours. Patrizia Barrera

       It was in that summer that I became his wife. I still remember the apple trees that looked out over the fields like celebrating soldiers and the long walkway that separated us from the woods. There was our house, and that's where it happened.

       I was young and lost in that voices noise, and in that whirlwind of colours that preceded the sunset: but I felt the night as a friend and I wished that she would come, that my still intact bridal bed would have dressed in pink and would have welcomed me in a nest, as it happens with an eaglet without plumes. I wore his sculpted face in my eyes: his high forehead, his strong gaze, his turgid lips. And then his hands. Those tireless and curious hands that knew how to imprison the world in a painting, forcing the day to appear night, turning elderly into youth. Those tender hands that knew how to cry. My life and his hands: for me that was the whole universe. It went like this for a year, long days of walking in the woods and his paintings, my glances at the river and its colours. The nature was confined there, imprisoned. That was the cherry tree that died in winter and still was continuing to live, and those were the fires of the night when we used to dance in the hills. And the unexpressed desires, the suffered emotions, everything was confused in the moment when the brush widened to discover or hide something. Sometimes he would have painted for hours. Then, as if he woke up, he looked around and watched me, and only then I know that night came down. He took me and we loved each other. His hands still drew on my body and there were no feelings in him. There were only ghosts, only colours. I didn't understand. However, it was beautiful: his magical interest in my hair, in my breasts. He looked at me, and after all, I was his wife. He told me about his confused soul, about those repressed feelings that every night came back to haunt him, about the plans for the new paintings. While he was speaking, he fell asleep, as if he was deeply tired. I don't know why, but I didn't want him to sleep. I felt like I was falling back into the darkness and couldn’t see the end. His paintings kept me company, and when I realised it, I decided I shouldn't had lost them. I swore it to myself and finally I’ve realised; now I am the colour myself.

       Sometimes he would leave to exhibit his paintings and I would have been alone; then I wandered around restlessly, not knowing what to do, in my endless days. I used to write to my mother, or go to the lake, or sleep, and stop everything without finishing anything, in distress. I looked at the empty walls, the bare canvases, the brushes on the fireplace, abandoned, without anyone to give them life. It was as if the whole world disappeared from my eyes, only crumbs were left of the dreamed universe. Everything had been stolen from me, his paintings were sold to strangers who didn't know they were buying my soul with them. I felt looted and betrayed, I had seen the birth of a child and I could not keep it.

       Then he would return, along with his magic. From those hands a rose was born, a ray of sunshine or even darkness. Out of nothing appeared angels with pure and innocent faces or unhappy children in the wombs of undone women; and bodies brushed, swollen chalices, scenes of madness, of joy, of love. Looking at those faces I realised that I had already seen them inside of me and, touching those canvases, I expected everything to return to me. The fear of losing them again assailed me, languid and fierce: what was the meaning of creating and not enjoying that life? I watched him as he invented new colours and an inconsolable despair was born in me. Powerless, in front of him I thought that if nothing can be preserved, then, it is better to destroy it.

       Slowly a treacherous snake crept into my heart, and the Creator whom I thought I was admiring, turned into a tyrant who was insensitive to the feelings of pity that inspired my creatures. I withdrew to his embraces and gave him nothing more, sinking into that bitter loneliness that welcomes dead souls. He looked at me as if he could not see me, and now I know that he was suffering; perhaps he was taken by a choice, by that atrocious doubt that later killed me. Now I understand that he was pining away without knowing how to choose between the woman and her colours.

       A new summer came, and nothing had changed, but one day he didn't paint and joined me in the woods: he seemed prostrated by something he couldn't resist, and deeply tired. I found a tenderness and we loved each other as we had never done before, putting aside our complexes and inhibitions, happy to be simply ourselves. In the end he seemed relieved, as if he finally understood what he had to do. We returned back and he took back the colours as well, but this time he had a new subject: me. For hours I remained motionless looking at his agile hands on the canvas, fast and cunning between the brushes as if they had no other nourishment than this. The day went out and he was still bent over the painting: the woman portrayed was laughing, eternally happy in her eternal youth. Looking at her was no longer me. Behind her a half-open door was giving me a sign to enter, and I wondered what could be behind it so secret that I could not see

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