The difference between love and the agony of waiting

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dopo innumerevoli false partenze e tentativi abortiti, finalmente Nevsehir mi ha ispirata ad aprire Neve, e ad immergermi completamente. risucchiata senza speranza.

oggi riapro dopo una pausa, e piombo nel capitolo centrale, che mi sconvolge la vita.

 

Capitolo 28:

 

The difference between Love and the Agony of Waiting

Ka with Ipek in the Hotel Room

 

   But Ipek did not come straight up. And the waiting was torture – the worst Ka had ever know. It was this pain, this deadly wait, he now remembered, that had made him afraid to fall in love. Upon arriving in the room, he’d thrown himself on the bed, only to stand up again at once to straighten his clothes. He washed his hands, felt the blood draining from his arms, his fingers, his lips. With trembling hands, he combed his hair; then, seeing his reflection in the window, he messed it up again. This took all very little time, and he then directed his anxious attention to the scene through the window.

(…)

But still Ipek didn’t come.

What was the difference between love and the agony of waiting? Like love, the agony of waiting began in the muscles somewhere around the upper belly, but soon it spread to the chest, the thights and the forehead, to invade the entire body with numbing force. As he listened to the sounds from other parts of the house, he tryed to guess what Ipek was doing. 

(…)

The ice on the windows glowed orange with the light from the streelamps and the surrounding houses. Ler the snow keep falling, he thought. Let it fall for days and months on end. Let it cover the city of Kars so completely that no one will find it again. He wanted to fall asleep on this bed and not wake up until it was sunny morning and he was a child again, with his mother.

There was a knock on the door. By now, Ka told himself, it could only be someone from the kitchen. But he flew to the door and the moment he opened it he could feel Ipek’s presence.

"Where have you been?"

"Am I late?"

But it was as if Ka hadn’t even heard her. He was already embracing her with all his strength; he’d put his head against her neck and buried his face in her hair; and there he stayed, not moving a muscle. he felt such joy that the agony of waiting now seemed absurd. But the agony had worn him out all the same; that, he thought, was why he could not fully relish her presence. And why he demanded that Ipek explain her delay: even knowing he had no right to do so, he kept complaining. But Ipek insisted that she had come up as soon as her father left. (…) So Ka showed himself to be the more ardent and fragile of the two. Even at the very beginning of their relationship, he had let Ipek have the upper ahnd. And even if his fear of seeming weak had moved him to conceal the agony she’d put him through, he woudl still have to grapple with his insecurity, Besides, didn’t love mean sharing everything? What was it if not the desire to share your evert thought? He related this chain of thought to Ipek as breathlessly revealing a terrible secret. 

"Now put it all out of your head," said Ipek. "I came here to make love to you."     

 

 

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