WAITING IN DARK

WAITING IN DARK

When she realized that one, she knew had followed her, had entered the room where she was sitting, the rather shabby room of a cinema club in the suburbs, despite knowing that if she had gone to sit two rows farther from the screen, she should have to put on her glasses, not to mention that , moving to change row and seat, she would inevitably miss some moments of the film she liked so much, to which she was paying a spasmodic attention, ( well) Keith had stood up and, walking hunched over, so as not to prevent those sitting behind her from watching the film, she had moved back into the room, looking for another place to sit.  She had thought she should set back at least two rows, but she had to set back by three ( rows) .In fact the bald headed dude from whom someone, perhaps her ex partner, had her followed for some time, he was sitting two rows after the one in which she had been sitting. He, an almost young man, whose head was bald  as a shelled hard-boiled egg, with his muscular, square physique, when he saw Keith was going to change place, he knew that she had noticed him. Of course, that bitch had to have realized since time that she was followed. What she, that bad woman, did not know, however, still gave him, indeed to them, some considerable advantages.  She, that bad bitch, believed to be followed  always by the same man ( person). Instead there were five in charge of keeping  up with her. No, they ( five) were not identical to each other, but they resembled in characteristics___the bald head ( like a shelled hard –boiled egg), the muscular, massive physique__that ended up making them consider only one for those who were followed, or stalked  by them, as whoever had them to his/ her heels, could notice only their most evident characteristics, which were the same for each of them. And after all, those who were followed by them could always see them only from a certain distance. But what she, that fool, even bitch woman  did not know was who established she had to be followed, who kept her under control.

To him, the bald man who had the task of following that bad, fool woman that afternoon came to sneering, like ( as) all five of them who alternated to follow her, often did ( laughed)both because that very bad woman believed that she was being followed by only one man, while instead they were five ( to follow her), and because that woman, even though she was no longer young, certainly she had to believe  that to make her stalk ( follow) was or one of her ex-partners or her husband. As an elderly romantic as she was the woman had to be convinced of this. That wretch woman did not suspect that it was for no sentimental reasons that she had constantly followed, that she was subject to strict control.

That bald-headed man was very displeased that the woman he had to follow had changed seats, going to sit in a row behind him. This would have made his task more complicated . In fact that afternoon he shouldn’t have limited to follow the woman. Moreover the film that was projected on the screen , a film  d’essai, he did not like at all. He couldn’t wait for it to end. 

For Keith, instead, the film ,that was running on the sceen, was a masterpiece and, when she had decided to see it again for the umpteenth time on the big screen, instead on the television or computer screen, as she had done so many times, she hoped to be able to enjoy it in complete tranquility, ( to be able) to see it without the anguish of the constant shadowing that someone had decided to inflict on her. Ah, she had felt the blood run cold in her veins when she, by chance, had glimpsed  that bald gourd ( guy/ man) come into the room and sit behind her. Luckily she had noticed him and she had been able to change places ( rows). Now it was she who was sitting behind her stalker. Although Keith was determined not to let her vision of the film be spoiled, she couldn’t help but think about when, at the end of the film ( the screening) the lights will turn on again and she will get out of there.  Certainly she had to wait ( should wait) for her stalker to come out before ( of her). Well, but  what if he hadn’t stood up , if  he had remained seated at his place, waiting for her coming out first? Oh, she could still remain ( stay) sitting in her place and watch the film again, Keith thought….But no it was impossible, since after that screening  that film would not be screened again in a row, and no other film would have been screened after that. In fact that was a  film club and for that afternoon there was only one screening of ( that film).

 Her stalker, that bald guy, had not  until now turned his head to see where she was sitting. But here, right now, at very moment, he was moving his head to the ( right) side, so that she could see the profile of his face. Maybe even so he could see her out of the corner of his eye.

Damn him, and damn those who had put him on her heels ! She, Keith, didn’t want to lose anything of VIVRE SA VIE, even if she was watching ( seeing) that film for the umpteenth time. And every time she  watched it, that film seemed to her more great, more perfect, more true  (than the time before). She did not want to lose anything  not only of the tight , essential, tragic story of Nanà, but not even of the shots ( frames) which, still after so many years, after so many times she had seen the film, filled her with an admiration that bordered on dismay. All so perfect, so guess, such that it was impossible to imagine them better. ( made better), even when they could be considered almost daring, as at the beginning ( First picture) when Nanà and her ex-partner are ( were) filmed from behind in a bar, while they are talking, discussing and also quarelling ….. Like Nanà’s  encounters with her clients. Like Nanà, always impeccably combed and dressed, when she, sitting at a table in a bar, is ( was) discussing about love, life, and about people talking about them, with the old philosophy professor. Ah, Keith had glimpsed, by pure chance, her stalker coming into the room ( the theater) while on the screen was framed not Nanà, but the face of Dreyer ‘s Joan of Arc ( when she is about to be burned at the stake). The really intense face of Joan D’Arc ( in Dreyer’s film), that , framed in three quarts, stood out on the white sheet ( page) that was the screen, as if it was about to come out of the screen, became the mirror for the face of Nanà, who, absorbed, moved, was watching Dreyer’s film. As the story of Joan D’Arc became the mirror of Nanà’s life.

However much, once again, Keith was taken by the film (movie), as much as she was following , with tremor and participation the life of Nana , that was going on there on the screen, before her eyes, ( as it had always happened, every time she had watched that film) , from time to time ( now and then) she felt gripped by the fear she had for herself, not for Nanà. What would have happened ( what happen) when, at the end of the movie, the lights came back there in the theater and everyone got up to go out? What if that one there, the bald head, ( that someone had put on her ribs) hadn’t stood up, but had waited for her ( she) to come out first? Sure, also she could not get up and wait for he, her stalker, come out first. But…this way ( so) she had run the risk of remaining  alone in the company of his stalker ( the bald head)……Soon after each of these moments in which she felt seized by fear, Keith said herself that on, she shouldn’t think about it now….now she had only to think about watching ( following) the film . But she couldn’t be quiet. She felt that at the exit from the cinema she would not only have her stalker after her….no, not only this ( that), she felt that something else would happen. She felt that she was in danger, in danger of her life.

For his part, even the bald guy they had put on her ribs was wondering how to accomplish the task that had been entrusted to him. Since that afternoon he didn’t have only to follow ( to stalk) that horrible ( terribly bad) woman, that he hated, whom he would gladly kill. Oh, if they have just given him the simple task of killing her! But instead, ah damnation, since they, those there , his principals were ___how to say?___more sophisticated, here, more demanding, so they had entrusted him with a much more complicated task that it would have been to kill them.

Meanwhile there on the screen Nanà’s life kept on going by, moving towards its tragic end. An end that she, Keith, remembered having expected even the first time she saw the film . and she didn’t know how it ended. Since then she had think that Nanà too had to have expected that she would have ended up killed, but ended up killed almost by chance. In fact Nanà was killed not because someone had decided to kill her, but somehow because she was  in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure, Nanà  was killed also because she was with wrong people ( in the company of wrong people). Certainly the viewer, but we can think that even the same Nanà did not expect ( would not have expected) that the new protector to whom Raul decided to  sell her, following the dispute over the amount of the money to pay, he would shoot Raul, who was taking cover behind Nanà, used as a shield, so that she, Nanà was the one who took the gunshots.

And here was the final sequence of the film, with Nanà who seemed to be ( considered) a package or a suitcase , who was passed from the seller to the buyer. And , after the shooting, she was , Nanà, the one who remained on the asphalt, while the two men whizzed away in their car.

She, Keith was very worried . The spectators all left the theater, all except the bald man sitting in the row before hers. He did not hit at getting up. It was clear that he was waiting for her (she) to be the one to leave the room first. But then, if her stalker could not afford to let her leave the theater after him, it was because he had to act right away as soon as  she got out of there. He could not wait until she was out of the theater to act. This meant that he had something more urgent to do than follow her. The first thing that came to Keith’s mind was that he was going to kill her. But her stalker was not exactly in charge of killing her. Instead he had to cause an accident , so that Keith would be taken to the hospital, where she should be locked up in the psychiatric ward. In fact the psychiatrists, like they five stalkers , who took  turns ( who alternated) in following her, acted under the orders of powerful people of that city who, counting on the protection of important politicians and on the acquiescence of magistrates and police, had decided to drive crazy that bad woman, who they called a provocateur, as always she had to complain about , to criticize everything. She was one of whom it was better to get rid of for the common good, that of the city, but even that of the whole country. For the moment they had decided to have her locked up in the psychiatric ward ( of the hospital). Once locked up in there, if she still made trouble the psychiatrists would take care of killing her. And no one would be able to say that she had been killed.

That  there, the bald man still was sitting at his place, in the row before hers.  He hadn’t even turned to look at her. Soon the lights in the room would be turned off.  Keith couldn’t risk being alone in the dark room with her stalker, who was going to kill her. But she didn’t even dare leave the room before him, sure as she was that he, the bald man, was just waiting for that moment to hit her.  Keith stood up and, careful not to make the slightest noise, holding her breath, moved behind the bald man . standing right at his shoulders. He did not turned towards her. Keith was holding in her hand, into her coat pocket, a pair of big scissors. She grabbed the big scissors with both hands and hit the bald man hard between the head and the neck. The bald man dropped his head on his chest and slid to the ground. Keith left the room frightened but, at the same time , feeling a great relief. It was probable that until the next day no one would notice the bald man lying on the ground there, in the theater room.