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The Confessions Of A Concubine
Roberta Mezzabarba
One day you will be happy, but first life will teach you how to be strong
A powerful novel, charged with strong emotions, with a cadenced rhythm. A story of domestic violence, of psychological abuse that will grab you in the gut. Mysia, a young woman, and her monochromatic life that step by step will become increasingly tinged with black, a black that knows sadness, fear, mourning. And in an escalation of violence, when the situation seems to become irreparable, impossible to bear, it will seem as if there is only one solution... But life is sometimes able to surprise us, and although this will not represent a fair reward for the wrongs suffered, perhaps over time it will be able to mitigate the memories, cushioning sharp edges and opening an unhoped-for glimmer of light. Every one of us deserves a life in color, deserves to finally be the architect of our own destiny, without succumbing any longer, to finally be free to love, to love each other.
This is a work of fantasy. Names, characters, places and events are imaginary or used in a fictitious key and any reference to people, living or dead, to facts or to truly existing places is purely random Original title of the work: Le confessioni di una concubina First edition
August 2020
IL PORTO
© 2020 La Caravella Editrice
Second edition in Spanish
Publicado por ©Tektime
December 2020
Third edition in English
Published por ©Tektime
December 2021
386 pages
Roberta Mezzabarba
The confessions
of a concubine
Novel
Translator: Barbara Maher
PART ONE
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 ourselves with all the "ifs" and all
the "buts" that buzz in our heads.
But I had none, so blind was the trust in the hands that led me.
Wise guide who takes without asking, who obtains without demanding, who appropriates without thanking.
That time for example I could have told my family that I wanted to continue with music lessons, but I was not used to thinking things independently.
It all seemed so normal to me, when I think back, that if I had to make a decision with no relatives within sight I would put the world on pause and seek advice.
Advice, the stupidest and most presumptious thing you can ask and presume to give.
My grandmother used to say: "It’s one thing todie and another to speak of death. "
Perhaps only she never had the pretense to maneuver me, to shape me to her desires, dissect
me into parts and then keep the ones she liked and discard the disagreeable ones.
Perhaps only with her, without realizing it, the real "I" came out and moved dancing freely with her eyes closed.
I remember that we laughed out loud at the silliest things or that we were moved by watching the romantic movies, on television, that she liked so much.
She stroked my hair and made me feel unique in the world.
Unique... a beautiful feeling.
My adolescence was born and blossomed in the shadow of strict rules.
I never went out in the evening nor did I ever ask to be able to do so.
I took refuge in music and reading, which allowed me to escape from what I did not see as a prison, but which was that.
***
I have no unpleasant memories to erase, more a series of colorless days, spent dreaming of living a life like a tv show.
I studied out of passion and also to please my family though they never seemed to be satisfied, perhaps believing that in that way it would spur me to do better.
So I got used to believing that I was nothing special.
I rarely looked at myself in the mirror, I believed I was even a little ugly, simply because life had taught me not to trust in myself, in my potential.
Retracing my days backwards, I realize only now that the best was always expected of me, but once I attained it, it was not worth even a mention, a compliment, and the goal had always moved a few steps further ahead.
I graduated with honors, and even that seemed
like a given.
The teachers pushed everyone so that I could continue to study but my family did not sponsor this initiative, and it was taken for granted that I should look for a job.
So, from the bright future that I imagined in the evening while reading my books, I found myself accepting a position as a stock clerk in a supermarket in my city, and dating a guy that I wasn’t even sure I liked or not.
Filippo came into my life at a time when all my peers had been engaged for a long time, and my mother was continually asking questions about why I still didn't have a boyfriend.
I had not chosen him, in fact I had never even considered him before, and I had no comparisons to make.
One day at the public garden where we met on summer afternoons, with the cicadas singing their chant, Filippo proposed to me and I accepted.
I ran home, and out of breath, dragged my grandmother into her little bedroom: I told her what had happened to me and her soft cheeks went red and she gave me the sweetest smile.
"Mysia, be careful, the world is not good, but you are so dear that you deserve all the good of this world and what sparkling eyes you have!"
So I asked her, "How do you figure out who is the right person? And above all, where to find him and how?"
Then she patiently told me how she had met my grandfather, that I barely remembered.
"We didn't know each other, and I must say, my little one, that I was very lucky to meet him. But I was also good at bowing my head when the situation required it and teaching him to do the same. There is not the right person, Mysia. Two people must become right for one another, together."
A few days later, my grandmother had a stroke
that deprived her of speech, and of a good part of her body. My father's friends brought her home with her knees grazed and her glasses broken. She had collapsed and fallen down in the square in front of the parish church.
She looked at me with huge eyes, as if trying to tell me something. When we were alone, I put a hand between the bars of her cot and she squeezed it tight. From that moment I began to understand what it meant to feel helpless and alone.
