Roberta Mezzabarba

       The confessions

       of a concubine

      Novel

       Translator: Barbara Maher

      A subtle fear of freedom exists,

      so everyone wants to be slaves.

      Everyone talks about freedom, of course,

      but no one has the courage to be truly free, because when you are truly free, you are alone.

      And only if you dare to be alone can you be free.

      OSHO

       1.

       The confessions of a concubine

      The confessions of a concubine.

      That is all I am.

      Nothing but the concubine of my heartaches, my dissatisfactions, my frustrations, my needs which are duly disregarded, ignored, trampled, vilified, despised, burnt at the stake.

      That is what I am, mocked, deprived of all dignity, kneeling at the altar of the wishes of others.

      Constrained

      Forced into cramped spaces that are ill-suited to my desire for freedom.

      At the end of each day, all that remains is a piercing sensation of emptiness inside me, almost

      as if they had stolen my viscera.

      And hope to still have the desire to escape and not listen to anything any more, and forget this torment that never leaves me.

      At night I daydream of being able to break free of the bonds that I have allowed to be knotted around me, and be able to do without them. Be able to do without what little I am shamefully able to get by pleading.

      Mine is a one-way life, the dichotomy between giving and receiving, between the agonizing desire to live and the existence that saps away moment by moment, in the vain attempt to have my life back, the way I wanted it.

      And no answer from the void full of people that surrounds me.

      Thus I have learned at take refuge in the solitary universe of colorless days.

      Every time I realized it too late and, trapped, became aware of the role I should have

      impersonated in that moment of my life, in that situation, while at night thoughts mingled with dreams, and dreams with memories.

      With time I have learned at leave the ME that I would have liked to be on a hanger in the closet, and my life went on inexorably, in the attempt never carried out to escape from the inadequacy which no-one had ever been able to allay.

       2.

       Memories

      As a child I always had an almost reverential fear of being judged by my family, by my parents.

      I went through my life with uncertain steps always keeping an eye focused on the reactions that my actions aroused.

      Never once was it necessary for them to tell me what they would like me to do, what my choice should be, what decision to make.

      A look.

      That was enough to carry out, unwittingly, their every will.

      Maybe I could have made different choices, but this feeling never emerged from the antechamber of my thoughts, so it didn't exist in my head.

      I just wanted to please, accomplish, also because that was all I knew how to do.

      In those days, without realizing it, the little concubine had taken shape and began to move her first steps.

      I remember that I was crazy about the music lessons I took from an elderly conductor who had settled not far from my parents' house, after retiring.

      I waited impatiently for Thursday afternoon, the day I went to the teacher's house: he welcomed me into the living room and gave me music lessons, letting me practice on his piano.

      One day, when I got home from school, while we were all gathered around the table and my sister Silvia was making an incredible racket on the high chair with ladles and lids, my mother smiled at me and said: "Mysia, your father and I have decided that you won’t be going to music lessons any longer, but starting next week you will attend the

      artistic gymnastics classes at the municipal gym.

      It’s not normal that all your peers are attending those classes, while you, with your music, withdraw into yourself more and more!"

      It was a bolt from the blue. Nothing had let me foresee that sudden change, but I accepted my family's decision, albeit with regret, without saying a word.

      I was not good at physical activity, so much so that the teacher always left me for last, and sometimes neglected to have me do the exercises which he made everyone else perform.

      I have never had the feeling of being forced to behave in a certain way, I think I did everything with extreme levity, guided by the trusted hand of those who had had brought me into the world.

      If it is right to follow the social and behavioral dictates imposed by the family in which we grow up, it is equally as right to ask ourselves questions, to interrogate