The two women mirror one another; there’s no war anymore, no antagonism.
And these new women will overturn the world, because bit by bit they’re stealing the man’s world and building it all over again from the beginning, according to their own needs and desires.
And in sex, only a woman can completely satisfy another woman, because they’re the same.
Do you want it? Vanessa asked. Do you? Tell me that you do.
I looked at the painting, then at Vanessa. My eyes were so filled with hatred that she took a step back, as if I’d hit her.
—Vanessa, I have freed myself from men. That’s why I came with you on this trip.
But I freed myself in order to be alone, not with another woman. For me freedom means solitude, a solitude full of walks in the country, solitary strolls through unfamiliar cities, books scattered around my bed at night, lying open at random pages.
And I paint my nails a dark red, but I paint them for myself.
When I’m sitting at a café, I look at my hand resting on the table, my pale hand with its long red nails, maybe I’m wearing a ring, and it fills me with an indescribable pleasure, because that hand is my hand, and I’ve made it beautiful for myself, and when I leave this café in this unfamiliar city, I’ll return to the hotel, take a hot, fragrant bath, and then fall asleep. My solitude is sacred. I won’t let anyone take it from me anymore—not Alkis, not you.
I want to be alone, to sail like a ship and stop at whatever harbor I choose, and leave again when I want.
Everything else is the real solitude: to be tied down, to a man or a woman. Let’s not kid ourselves—you’d lock me up in a prison, just like Alkis. Maybe even worse.
On the way out I bought a postcard of La Tempesta. I sent it to Alkis, with a note on the back: Only you would understand the beauty and mystery of this painting. I’m starting to get tired of Vanessa, and Venice. It’s very cold. Kisses.
That night we went to Harry’s Bar. Vanessa ordered a bottle of pink champagne.
—Drink, she kept telling me, filling my glass again and again.
By three in the morning, I was completely drunk. I climbed up onto a table and sang from La Traviata. Everyone in the bar clapped.
Antonio winked at me from behind the reception desk.
Back in the room, I collapsed onto the double bed. Vanessa lay down beside me. I fell asleep in her arms.
We left the hotel early the next morning. We walked endlessly through the narrow alleyways around the Basilica di San Marco. The temperature had reached seven below. Vanessa was wearing a Black Glamour fur, a huge wool scarf, and sunglasses. I was wearing a fur hat of Alkis’s that was too big for me and kept falling down over my eyes. I could hardly see a thing, and I looked like a Russian peasant.
Vanessa walked quickly a few paces ahead. All I could see from beneath my wide fur hat was her boots hitting the cobblestones rhythmically.
Our relationship had changed since the previous evening. Vanessa kept putting her arm around my shoulder or stroking my cheek, and sometimes she even stopped and waited for me to catch up, something she’d never done before.
Through all of this I remained silent. And when I did talk to her, there was a hostile edge to my voice. I complained constantly of the cold, as if Vanessa were to blame for the weather.
—Venice is nicer in summer, I told her. I even like the tourists. That romantic myth about Venice in winter, that it’s more beautiful or more mysterious, is nonsense. Just because Byron and Chopin liked Venice in winter, does that mean I have to like it, too? Besides, they were lunatics. Byron came to celebrate Christmas in Venice with a whole train to himself, and a wagon with lions and tigers following behind. Chopin came to Venice in winter to die. At least he died in the arms of George Sand—I like her, she smoked cigars and wrote novels. But the two of us, Vanessa, really, what are we doing here? We’re not crazy, and we’re not writers. Couldn’t we have come in summer like everybody else?
I burst into tears.
—You’re delirious, Vanessa told me, you’re delirious from the cold. Let’s go have some tea at the Café Royal so you can pull yourself together. Besides, I told a friend of mine, the writer Ilona Pearl, that I would meet her there. She and her girlfriend live in Venice now, in Giorgio Caputo’s palazzo. I haven’t seen her in years. Blow your nose, get a hold of yourself. I don’t want Ilona to see you like this.
—Piazza San Marco is so festive in summer, with the orchestras playing different songs all at the same time, I went on, still crying. Now the two of us wander through a deserted Venice, and the stairs of the palazzi leading down to the water look like they’re sinking into a frozen green muck. It scares me. Why don’t we leave today for Perugia?
—Whatever you want, Vanessa answered icily. After all, this trip is for you. If you’re disappointed with Venice in winter it’s because you don’t see the beauty in this abandoned city, with its low sky, the piercing cold and the emptiness. But I forgot, she added sarcastically, you’re a child of the sun, you sit on the beach and bake for hours on end.
It was as if she’d uttered the worst of all insults.
—You’re disappointed, too, I answered.
—By what?
I looked at her, but didn’t say a thing. Vanessa nervously took off her hat. Her red hair glowed beneath the black, steely sky.
Vanessa’s friend Ilona was waiting for us at the Café Royal. She introduced us to her girlfriend, Lazy. The four of us drank our tea in silence, watching the rain hit the windowpanes.
Ilona reminded me of Virginia Woolf a few hours before her suicide. Her friend Lazy looked like a weasel. Ilona didn’t talk at all, just gazed out at the rain, or at Lazy. Lazy looked at me, and I looked at my rain-soaked shoes.
We walked for hours through the narrow streets, all four of us silent, always moving. That endless labyrinth of alleyways seemed like a nightmare. The shops were all closed, and the rain had become torrential. There was an amusement park close to our hotel and the opera house. With the gold of the palazzi and the frozen beauty of the landscape as a background, the park, with its booths and little pink lights, looked hideous, like an abandoned stage set ready for the trash. I asked Vanessa if we could walk in some other direction, or all go into the hotel.
—No, she told me. We’re going to see everything.
That sentence revealed to me how miserly Vanessa really was. She didn’t want to miss anything, she wanted to see it all, to consume it. Even her extravagant spending, I realized, always had an ulterior motive. Now that motive was me.
At the amusement park the four of us played various games, always in silence. Rain filled the glasses at the shooting range; Lazy’s black hair dripped and shone; Vanessa’s green hat filled up like a little lake. I won a gigantic, fluffy pink bear with a red bow around its neck. It was utterly soaked, so heavy with rain that I could barely pick it up.
—What am I going do with it? I asked in despair. The three women looked at me wordlessly. I started to cry.
—Give it to Alkis when you get home, Vanessa said, in such a spiteful and bitter tone that I suddenly felt sorry for her.
—Don’t cry, Ilona said. It’s not you, it’s Venice. Everyone cries here in winter, every day.
She put her arm around Lazy’s waist and they left without saying goodbye.
I picked up the bear and, for the first time, walked ahead, leaving Vanessa to follow behind.
Back at the hotel I gave the bear to Antonio.
—Per Angelo, I told him.
—Oh! Grazie, signora! Grazie! Angelo é un bambolo. Oh! Che bella!
Antonio kissed me on the cheek.
Vanessa walked right by us. She crossed the lobby with her sleeves billowing. On her way she knocked a Ming vase of red roses to the floor. She looked furious.
Antonio whispered to me:
—Signora Vanessa… é cattiva?
That night we went to the casino.
The porter was wearing a red velvet uniform w
ith gold buttons. Vanessa had on a loose dress of purple silk with green and yellow butterflies on its sleeves. I was wearing an evening gown.
Vanessa went into the casino first, hitting the porter in the face with her sleeve. She put a cigarette in her tortoiseshell holder, asked him for a light, and gave him an enormous tip, all so astonishingly fast that the porter was overwhelmed and, in his confusion, looked at Vanessa and stammered:
—Grazie, sir!
The casino was in a Venetian palazzo. The high ceilings were painted with gold cherubs and white clouds.
The ladies, en grande toilette, were mostly elderly and heavily made up. They had handsome young escorts to light their cigarettes and bring them drinks. The young men were all wearing tuxedos and Cartier watches. The croupiers’ voices came drifting out of the various rooms in which the ladies were placing their chips on the green felt, choosing their numbers carefully.
I’d never been to a casino before. Soon I was drunk on the players’ single-minded concentration. The outside world vanished. The casino was like a cruise ship, and we were willing prisoners in a luxury-class cell. The women’s perfumes intermingled, and the din of conversation, though deafening, was oddly like silence, hypnotizing you, since all you heard was the croupiers’ voices, and the ladies calling out numbers:
—I’ll take seven.
—The same, again.
—Twenty-two.
—Put my chips on three again.
The ladies were seated at the roulette tables, their escorts standing behind them. Forgotten cigarettes burned themselves out in the ashtrays. Gold lighters and long cigarette holders just like Vanessa’s lay on the green felt. Some of the women had taken off their rings so they would be more comfortable while they played. The green felt sparkled with sapphires, rubies, and diamonds, the glitter of precious stones echoing the glitter of the chandeliers. It reminded me of an operating room when the lights come on and in the absolute silence you hear the surgeon’s instructions, the metallic clang of surgical instruments being picked up or set down on the table.
—Now we’ll play, too, Vanessa announced. Take these, and follow your instincts.
The sum was enormous. As soon as I took the chips I forgot all about Venice and Alkis; I even forgot myself. My eyes shone, like those of the other players. My cheeks burned and I shivered as if I were feverish.
As if in a dream, I watched Vanessa play and lose, bid again on the same number, and lose again.
Huge sums now found their way onto the table. Like a voracious animal, the roulette wheel devoured houses, jewels, entire estates. It was three in the morning, and the stakes had gotten high.
The women’s makeup was melting on their faces; deep wrinkles began to show like scars on their cheeks and around their eyes. Red nails as sharp as scalpels placed the chips on the felt, arranging them in combinations, or putting them all on one number, the same number again and again.
Vanessa kept losing. She was bathed in sweat and her silk dress stuck to her body, revealing her enormous belly. She was wearing her monocle and kept running her right hand through her frizzy hair, which, drenched with sweat, bristled out from her head like wire.
Only the croupier remained impeccable, without a single wrinkle in his uniform, as he repeated the same phrases in a remote, indifferent voice, like a liturgy:
—Faites vos jeux.
—Oui, Madame, je mise pour vous sur le huit.
—Je place sur le neuf, quinze et seize.
—Faites vos jeux.
I put all my chips on number nine.
—Are you out of your mind? Vanessa hissed. If you lose, you’ll lose everything. Play a combination.
—You’ve been losing all night, I retorted. And now you’re giving me advice? Didn’t you tell me to follow my instincts?
The croupier took my chips and placed them deftly on the green felt. There were so many that he had to stack them in three piles. The number nine disappeared beneath my chips.
A deep silence fell around the table. No one in the casino had ever bet such an amount, and certainly not on a single number. For that round, no one else played. The table was all mine. The croupier’s eyes met mine; his gaze held a question, and I nodded almost imperceptibly.
—Les jeux sont faits, he said.
He tossed the ball onto the wheel and gave it a solid spin. The wheel began to move more and more slowly, the ball pausing for a moment on one number, then flying out again, bouncing from number to number with increasing reluctance.
—Rien ne va plus.
The wheel made two more full revolutions, then came to a stop.
The ball was on number nine.
The crowd around the table rose and began to clap. Two of Vanessa’s friends, Pascale Orage and Marina Del Rey, kissed me on the cheek. I heard someone say:
—Mais, c’est une fortune!
I saw Vanessa staring at the ball, pale. I thought I would faint.
Later, at the cashier’s, they gave me a paper bag for the money, since it didn’t fit in my purse. Again, I walked in front, and Vanessa hurried after me. I left the casino and stepped into a motoscafo.
—Piazza San Marco, I said.
At the Danieli I bought a ticket for the train to Rome. Vanessa was crying.
—You’re leaving me, just like Esmeralda. Winter in Venice.
She sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette.
—I love you, she said.
—These are yours, I answered.
I threw all the gifts she’d given me onto the bed: the dresses, the jewels, the Vuitton suitcases. I put on my old jeans and t-shirt, and then—taking only my purse, my passport, and the paper bag full of money— I opened the door and left.
I shopped shamelessly in Rome. But this time I bought things I liked. I didn’t take my purse with me to the stores. All I took was the money from the casino, which was still in the paper bag they had given me. When I paid, I would take all the money out of the bag, lay it down on the counter, count out whatever I needed, then put the rest away and leave, loaded down with packages.
I stayed at a pensione called Casa Frollo that was marvelous, and very cheap. I got up every morning and shopped all day, and at night I would eat alone at the pizzeria next door to the pensione.
I spent fifteen days in Rome. The owner of Casa Frollo, Signora Lucia, called me bambola. She was very fat, and in the morning she would bring the most wonderful espresso I’d ever had up to my room, while I was still in bed. On my last day there, I went and bought her a silk dress from Yves Saint Laurent that was large and loose and looked just like the dress Vanessa had worn to the casino.
—Oh! Signora! Che bello! Che bello!
Signora Lucia went to try it on right away. She looked almost exactly like Vanessa, in those same wide sleeves, the same design—perhaps it really was the exact same dress.
I had bought an enormous set of beige pigskin suitcases, smooth as a pair of gloves. At the airport I had to pay a big fee for exceeding the weight limit.
I drank two bottles of pink champagne on the plane and arrived home in Glyfada blind drunk. The taxi driver shouted and cursed as he unloaded the suitcases from the trunk. Alkis watched dumbfounded as I scrambled up into a tree, singing from La Traviata. It was six in the morning. The neighbors came out onto their balconies and started shouting at me to quiet down. Only one old man started singing along.
—Let’s go for a swim! Let’s all go for a swim! I cried from the tree.
Alkis pulled me down by the feet. I fell into his arms and he carried me into the house, closing the door behind him. He was trembling all over.
—My suitcases! My suitcases! They’ll be stolen! I cried.
Alkis carried in every last one of the suitcases, trembling all the while, ghostly pale.
—What’s this? What is all this! he shouted, shaking me by the shoulders. What is it? he kept asking, looking down at the countless suitcases, which lined the hall from the front door all the way to the bedroom.
—Gifts from Vanessa! I shouted.
—So she did it, she won you over. Did you make love?
—Constantly, everywhere, we couldn’t stop. After each time, she bought me a present. And you can see for yourself, I said, bursting into laughter, there are lots of presents.
Alkis knelt down in front of the suitcases, crying.
—Did you like it? he asked through his sobs.
—I loved it. A woman knows another woman’s body better than any man ever can, or at least that’s what Vanessa told me when we were at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, looking at Giorgione’s La Tempesta. We went to Venice, to Assisi in Perugia, where St. Francis was born, and then to Rome. We saw museums, squares, churches, the Vatican. The only thing we didn’t do was go to the casino in Venice. Vanessa tried to get me to go, but I wasn’t in the mood.
Alkis, on his knees, wrapped his arm around my waist and pressed his cheek against my belly.
—Stay with me, he said. Don’t ever leave again.
40.
I knew right away, the instant I conceived. It was three in the morning on the nineteenth of July. Afterward, Alkis rolled over onto his stomach and whispered:
—I want a child so badly.
Then he fell asleep.
I lit a cigarette and went out onto the terrace.
There was a full moon.
By August nineteenth I still hadn’t gotten my period. Glyfada steamed in the heat wave. On the thirtieth, Alkis would be going to England for a veterinarians’ conference. I would meet him there in September. The morning he left, as he stood in the door with his suitcases, I told him the results of the test: I was pregnant. He dropped to his knees before me and pressed his cheek against my belly. Then I watched as his car disappeared around the corner.
The heat wave made the landscape barren, like the moon, as the temperature climbed into the forties. The sky turned completely white, viscous. The government was taking emergency measures because of the heat. I stayed alone in the house with Caesar and Lyn. The sea stretching before me was viscous, too, like oil, utterly still, and it had turned a deep green. All day long I sat naked in the sun, smoking. I never left the house. I stared at the sea, lighting one cigarette with the butt of the one before. The house filled with music: How deep is your love…, Just like a woman…, Baby, please come back… I carried the speakers out onto the terrace. The deafening metallic voices poured out into the heat and plunged into the sea. I could feel the baby coursing through my body, from my head to the soles of my feet. I no longer saw anyone at all. I was completely alone with Caesar and Lyn. At night I took Lyn on long walks through the empty city. The darkness was absolute. It was so hot that everyone kept their lights off. Only the TVs were on, glowing like aquariums. As we walked I would hear the sound of the twelve o’clock news drifting out. When we got home Lyn would flop down on the marble floor next to my bed, crossing her front legs and stretching her hind legs behind her, trying to keep cool.
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