“We’ll be left alone. My dear, good sister,” Arianna said, reaching out her arm to Eva, “I have a lot of respect for the baron, he’s an excellent man, I’ll marry him, I consent to it, but, I beg you, let’s go to Moscow! Nothing’s more beautiful than Moscow! To Moscow! To Moscow!”
The director, who was uncomfortable, intervened, saying that she’d mixed up the characters, and the general laughter increased. The writer with the white mustache coughed, as if he’d swallowed part of it, while Arianna and Eva, their eyes sparkling, bathed in their success. They sat down on the same armchair, happy, insolent, and alone.
“Tell me, Arianna,” Eva said, glancing over at me, “is that friend of yours always so serious?”
“It’s just hunger,” she said.
“This time it’s tiredness,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “I’m hungry, come with me to the kitchen.” She held out her hand and I followed her. Once again we found ourselves in a dark corridor, and then a kitchen, with me again in front of a refrigerator. Life had its still points. Arianna talked, as she stuffed a roll with leftover chicken. “Don’t think you can treat me like that, you know,” she said. “Why didn’t you phone? I had to ask Viola myself to invite you to the theater, how is that possible? No, wait,” she said, raising her free hand, “don’t answer. Let’s go to my room. I hate eating in the kitchen, it makes me feel like a cook.”
She led me into a narrow room, the whole length of it taken up with a bookcase filled with books, fashion magazines, records, and a few items of underwear, which she grabbed and put away in a large chest with a shrug. Apart from that, the room was sparsely furnished—a table, cluttered with rulers and set squares and an architecture book covered in a layer of dust, a bed, and on the walls a Klee reproduction and a blown-up photograph of Picasso at his easel. “It was the maid’s room,” she said, “but since Eva got her divorce, we’ve done without a maid.” A door led to a little bathroom. On the doorpost was pinned a small, handwritten note: 8 a.m. wake and bath, 9 a.m. breakfast, 10 a.m. university till 1 p.m., lunch then sleep till 4 p.m. without cheating, 4:30 p.m. (after cheating) read, write letters home, study especially light subjects, 6 p.m. Eva’s store, 8 p.m. freedom, 12 midnight mandatory BED!
“Don’t take that too seriously,” Eva said, sticking her head around the door. “Arianna spends her days writing schedules.”
“Excuse me, what business is it of yours?” Arianna said.
“It is my business,” Eva said, “and it’s best if you come back out. As long as you live in this apartment, you have duties as a hostess.”
“I have to talk with Leo.”
“Leo will understand,” was the answer.
They eyeballed each other, while I felt an acute desire to be somewhere else, because if there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was family scenes. Arianna took her eyes away from Eva’s face, leaving two red marks on it. “Will you pick me up from the concert tomorrow?” she said.
I asked what concert, and she told me. “If you like,” I said.
“What do you mean, If you like?” In her voice was the sound of hailstones. A cold wind blew over me, and I took the opportunity to get the hell out of there.
In the living room, I caught an amused look from Viola, but, apart from her, nobody else seemed to have noticed our absence. They’d all gathered around the Russian-looking young man, who was singing Russian-sounding songs. Coming back in, Arianna sat down in the armchair farthest from the circle that had formed around the singer. The anger had left a shadow in her overlarge eyes. I went up to her.
“Is our date still on?” I said, offering her a cigarette.
“If you like,” she said, taking it.
I noticed that her hand was shaking slightly, but by the time she leaned her head to the lighter’s flame, her face had already regained its usual conceited expression.
* * *
In the afternoon I went to the movies, to keep warm, but the film was dull as dishwater, and, for the first time, the gaunt faces and secretive shenanigans of the destitute fauna that populate theaters in the afternoon made me really sad. So I left, and started walking down the side streets, with my fists clenched. I had almost an hour left before my appointment, and I was aware, with a kind of fierce clarity, how every minute that passed was one less minute I had to live. At around six forty-five, I went and stood opposite the church where the concert was being given. Music by Mozart. At seven the front door opened and let out a trickle of people that immediately dispersed on the street. I didn’t move, just stood there waiting. The door opened again, and two young boys came out, then a few old ladies. Then it stayed closed.
I rushed over to that side of the street. Inside the church, the last musicians were putting their instruments back in their cases, and a priest was moving between the altars, extinguishing the candles. The priest saw me. “It’s over,” he said. I closed the door and sat down on the steps, not knowing what to do. The city was so empty, you could hear the buildings growing old.
Nothing happened for an hour and a half. Then she arrived. She was in a car, with Livio Stresa. “I’m sorry,” she said through the window, “we were on the bed all afternoon, chattering away, and I didn’t notice the time,” as if knowing this might cheer me up. I got to my feet, brushing the dust off my pants. “Are you upset?” she said as I got in next to her. “Don’t say no, it’s obvious you’re very upset.”
Livio Stresa was in the backseat. He put his hand on my shoulder. “One thing you should know about both sisters,” he said. “As far as they’re concerned, whatever time they arranged to meet you is the time they need to start putting on their makeup.”
The gesture irritated me. “What if they don’t put on makeup?” I said.
He took his hand away and started talking with Arianna again. About Eva, of course, and her store, which is where we were headed.
It was a store only in a manner of speaking, actually a little apartment near the top of the Spanish Steps, not overflowing with trinkets like most places selling antiques, but with just a few pieces of old furniture on display. It was obvious from the start that you only needed to sell one item to have enough to live on for a month, and I remembered my father’s shop, with its tiny, patient trade in stamps—the thick catalogs, the magnifying glasses, the tweezers, and that sweet smell of glue that stayed on him even when he was at home.
“Oh my God, is that the time?” Eva said when we walked in.
Sitting in small armchairs were the young, left-wing journalist, the humorist, and the haute couture model. She was very tall, a lot taller than the fashions called for that year. They were all drinking aperitifs, and Arianna stole two olives from a saucer.
“We’re not staying,” she said, handing me one. Eva objected, saying that we were all supposed to be having dinner together. When we left, she didn’t even say good-bye. “What a bore,” Arianna said as we were leaving. “Why don’t you like each other?”
We went to a cellar, near Piazza del Popolo, its walls covered with bottles. Arianna ordered a sherry, but was nervous and couldn’t make up her mind to drink it. “How wretched I am,” she said. “I never know what to do!”
“Why not play a game of solitaire?” I don’t know why I said that, and in that tone. I know all those bottles around us were giving me the urge to drink and I was feeling argumentative. But she didn’t react. She didn’t say a word. Her courageous face trembled a little, and she put her glass down on the counter. Then she gave me a curious nod and walked out. I didn’t move. I took her glass and finished the sherry, slowly, trying to calm down. After a while, I gathered my things and also walked out, stopping at the door to watch the people streaming along the sidewalk.
“Hey.” She was behind me, in the shadow of another doorway.
“Listen,” I said, “I think I’m in love with you.”
“Please don’t say that!” she said.
Just then, something happened. There was a soft thud, and a soft sound of
rolling, while a woman raised her voice in surprise as the contents of a plastic bag full of oranges rolled across the sidewalk. The woman asked me for help and I mechanically started to look between the feet of the passersby, with much meeting of hands and a lot of laughter.
By the time I’d finished, Arianna had withdrawn even more into the darkness of the doorway. So I turned my back on her, and we stayed like that for a long time, Arianna in the shadows, me sniffing my fingertips, which still smelled of oranges, watching the stream of people, a stream to whose banks we clung.
“Never say that again,” she said in a muffled voice. “Promise?”
“All right,” I said.
“Good,” she said, and her voice emerged from the shadows like a brief guitar solo emerging from a band, cautious at first, then increasingly bright, note to note. “Where are you taking me to eat?”
“Charlie’s?” I said. It was the trendiest restaurant in town.
“You’re crazy,” she said, laughing. Then she picked up an orange that had been left on the sidewalk and started peeling it. “Let’s go somewhere ordinary and just be close, that’ll be enough.”
“It won’t be enough at all,” I said.
I had my rent money in my pocket, and what I wanted to do was spend it all. Which I almost did in a restaurant not far from there. Elegant and expensive, with waiters in dickies, looking stiff. We ordered hearts of palm, pepper steak, and Burgundy.
“It’s wonderful to be rich!” she said. “It gives you such a sense of security. In Venice, I didn’t think about it, I didn’t realize until I came to Rome. But in Venice I had Eva, whereas here I don’t have her anymore.” Because, obviously, I didn’t know how Eva used to be! These days, she’d become a hysterical snob, but Arianna couldn’t forget how she’d been when she was younger. God, what a horrible thing it is to get old! She didn’t want to get old, she didn’t want to. It was different for us men, the older we got, the more fascinating we became. I was too young for her tastes, did I know that? But women! What a horrible thing it was for women to get old! And yet if it hadn’t been for Eva, she’d have died, or gone completely crazy, did I know that? But how could she forgive her for ruining Livio in that way? She’d forced him, with all that flirting of hers, all that obsessive night-crawling of hers, to stay up until four in the morning even when he was in training, until eventually he stopped playing, and when he stopped she divorced him. Because Livio Stresa had been married to Eva, did I know that?
That’s what she said, and I remembered how he’d held her glass, in the lobby of the theater, and I realized how fucked-up his life must indeed have been. All the same, I couldn’t help despising him a little. Why didn’t he get away? What people! All they did was try to leave each other, but they were terrified of succeeding.
“Anyway,” she said, smiling to thaw the waiter who was filling her glass, “enough of these sad things. Tell me something amusing, like that time you tried to teach the subjunctive when you were drunk.”
“No,” I said. “It’s best if we get out of here. We could develop some bad habits. How about going for a walk?”
She said that was fine by her, and so we left and started wandering aimlessly, stopping from time to time outside some lighted store window.
“Oh,” she said, seeing a colorful, flowery silk dress that seemed to have come into the world just for her, “why aren’t you rich? I love buying clothes!”
Even if there’d ever been any possibility of my becoming rich, it had receded quite a lot since I’d paid the check at the restaurant. I put an arm around her waist and she went with me meekly until we turned onto a side street, where I stopped and put my open hands on her chest. There was something poignant about her small, hard breasts beneath her light blouse. She leaned her back against the wall and looked at me with great seriousness. “I beg you,” she said, “be kind to me.” Then we kissed slowly, repeatedly, each time moving our faces apart to look at each other. It was so silent, we could hear the river flowing under the bridges.
“Let’s go to my place,” I said.
We were in the shadows once again, and once again her voice emerged from the shadows, low at first, then bright. “Are you crazy?” she said. “I don’t feel like making love, haven’t you got that yet?” She gave me a last, light kiss on the lips. “Come on,” she said, grabbing me by the arm, “a drive will do us both good.”
“Are you angry?” she said as we got in the car. “Don’t say no, it’s obvious you’re very angry.”
She was still smiling, and if she was doing it to annoy me, it worked. Without saying a word, I picked up the Proust book from the backseat. It looked as if it hadn’t been touched.
“I want to see something,” she said suddenly, turning toward the river. She drove to where all the neo-Renaissance villas were and stopped outside a two-story one surrounded by a vast garden. “Can you smell it?” she said as she got out of the car. “That’s the lilacs.” I knew the smell well, just as I knew that villa well. It was Sant’Elia’s. “Do you like it?” Arianna said. The last time I’d passed it, years earlier, I’d seen a red sign saying it was for rent. The windows had been repainted, and the garden was a lot better tended than it had been back then. It exuded an air of tranquility and privacy that hadn’t been there in my day. My general impression was that it was a different place. I didn’t like it. “Well,” Arianna said, “it may not be Combray, but it’s an acceptable substitute, don’t you think? Being in a house like this, all you feel like doing is listening to music, tending the lilacs, and making jam.”
As far as music was concerned, the place was more appropriate than she could possibly know, but I didn’t say anything about Sant’Elia’s grand piano, and in any case just then the light came on at the top of the steps and the sound of a Bach chorale reached us. Arianna was on the alert now. Before long, a man appeared in shirtsleeves at the top of the short flight of steps. He was tall and agile-looking, with a semi-halo of gray hair around his sinewy neck. He was like Picasso, only taller, younger, and harder. For a while he looked around, then gave a slight whistle. From the far end of the garden came the sound of loose gravel and barking, then two Great Danes appeared and ran up the steps. “Good boys,” the man said, but had to endure their assault. “Good boys,” he said again, more sharply, and the dogs crouched, whimpering with impatience, until the man gave them something to eat. “Off with you, now,” the man said. The dogs tried feebly to resist, while the Bach chorale grew louder through the open door. “Off with you, now!” the man said again and the dogs moved away, looking at him with infinite sadness, but he turned his back and in a moment it was all over—the man, the dogs, the light, the music. I looked at Arianna. “I come here every evening,” she said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe because it’s a ritual, and rituals always give you a sense of security. There are people who go to church for that. I come here.”
“Who is he?”
“Oh, a painter.”
“He looks too much like Picasso to be any good,” I said, simultaneously remembering the blown-up photograph of Picasso hanging on the wall of her bedroom. What a bummer, it wasn’t because of Picasso that she’d hung it on her wall. I was filled with rage. “Come with me to the car,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, surprised. “Don’t you think it’s a little early?”
“No,” I said, “I’m tired. And besides, if you want to masturbate, you can do it by yourself.”
Her face stiffened. “You could at least try not to be vulgar,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “I could.” Then I didn’t say anything more, so she got in the car and we set off. When we reached my old Alfa Romeo I got in without saying good-bye to her. She made as if to say something, then thought better of it, slammed the passenger door, and pulled out, tires screeching. I stood there watching her as she vanished at the end of the street. I was at the end of my tether, truth be told, and, to avoid going to a bar, I wen
t straight home. The first thing I did was switch the radio on, clear the armchair, and move it closer to the table lamp, then I put a cushion where there was a dip in the chair, grabbed the cigarettes that were within arm’s reach, opened a book and tried to give myself over to that persuasive inner voice with which we all read. A voice different for each one of us if our souls are different, identical if identical, but in every case perfect, with no false notes, the untrained voice we perhaps have before we come screaming into the world.
* * *
When the doorbell rang, it almost brought the house down. The electric discharge echoed through the silence of the building with the violence of a seismic shock. I went to open up, my heart thumping. There she was, at the door, smiling at me as if I were Humphrey Bogart. “God, what a racket!” she said, pointing to the bell. “I pressed the only one that didn’t have any name next to it.” She came in, glancing at herself in the hall mirror. “Oh,” she said, shaking out her hair, “I’m so beautiful, don’t you think?” I didn’t reply, and she shrugged, as she walked into the room overlooking the valley. “So, this is where you live,” she said, looking around. The apartment was a terrible mess, with the plugs out of the walls, the slats of the blinds dangling toward the floor, newspapers heaped up in the corners, the faulty TV set buried under a pile of dirty shirts. There was even a pair of pants hanging on a door handle. I took it and flung it behind the armchair, but she noticed, which made it even worse. “So this is where you live,” she said again, still looking around. “It looks like a shelter. Don’t you have anyone to help you? A maid, something like that.” She sat down on the bed. “Do you plan to say anything or not?”
“Yes,” I said. “If you don’t like it, you can go.”
She sat there for a moment, stiff and motionless, then looked at her broken-down watch. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I realize it’s late to be visiting people.” I noticed she’d taken off her shoes and had to get up to look for them under the bed. Then I went over and put my arms around her while she still had her back to me. She didn’t move. “I came here to go to bed with you,” she said, her voice a little hoarse.
Last Summer in the City Page 7
