“I wish,” I start again, “I wish that at some point you could try to do a week of office work. The whole thing: one-hour commute in the morning, one-hour commute in the evening. And then after you got home you’d have to indulge your love of books not by walking to McNally and hearing some imperialist novelist like James Murphy talk shit, but by sitting at home until four, reading and reviewing a book for free, for Alias or Nazione Indiana, totally out of love, just because you care. Only love keeps you up until four. I only wish I could see you do that.”

“Nico, would you stop it?”

“If you ask me to stop one more time I’ll throw my keys off the bridge.”

“But I only told you once.”

“I’m throwing the keys off the bridge.”

“Berengo, what the fuck, you’re forty!”

“I’ll throw them.”

“The doormen have spare keys.”

“I’ll throw myself in, then.”

I KNOW FROM his notes that James loves the way I smile in bed. Should I feel lonely? I don’t know the meaning of her smile; it might just be that she’s able to godere. He himself is incapable of godere (he’s mesmerized by the Italian verb): he may find himself content, but nothing more, he cannot experience true enjoyment, godere. When he’s actually pleased by something he feels too schmaltzy. Still, he is the Author, and people rely on him to provide descriptions of emotion for them to inhabit.

Gustavo doesn’t reply to my occasional texts—“What did I do?” or “I’ve stopped eating,” or “I am the one who can give you what you want,” or “I sleep in your blue shirts.”