Memory and Desire

by Lisa Appignanesi

  He looked at her strangely, ‘You miss your father. You would like to visit him?’

  ‘No, yes,’ she stumbled. ‘I want to get out of this, all of it,’ she gestured wildly around her.

  ‘Out? Of this?’ he stared at her blindly, then understood. He laughed maliciously, ‘Mia Katrina,’ he said with a threatening patience. ‘We do not have divorce here.’ His eyes pinioned her, surveyed her slowly. ‘Here, we live with our mistakes.’

  The ready tears sprung to her eyes. ‘So you agree it is a mistake,’ she said softly.

  He touched her face as if he had suddenly woken to it, ‘Come, put on a pretty dress. I shall take you out this evening.’

  He took her to the Via Veneto where the papparazi’s bulbs flashed at their passage. They sat and sipped a daiquiri, made their way to a jazz club, danced. But it wasn’t the same, Katherine thought. Carlo’s eyes flickered round the room, landed on the swing of another buttock, the lift of another skirt. Afterwards, he made love to her, but only perfunctorily.

  She realised that they had never slept together for the length of a night in the same bed.

  Her dreams grew worse, took on an obsessive intensity. Sylvie appeared in them with growing frequency, her figure blending with Carlo’s. Punishing, hitting. It terrified her. She spent whole days in bed. She thought she might call her father, ask him to come to Rome. Help. But a remnant of pride prevented her. ‘Here, we live with our mistakes.’ Carlo’s voice, haunting her.

  She thought of getting a job. After all, she had got a First. But the effort involved seemed insurmountable. She didn’t know where to begin, how to raise the matter with Carlo.

  Then she started to vomit. Regularly, every morning, after she got up. She went to a doctor. He confirmed what she already knew. She didn’t tell Carlo for a week.

  When she did, finally, he looked at her with boyish joy, swung her around the room. Her heart lifted. Then he stopped, looked at her sternly. ‘It is mine, yes?’

  That hysterical laugh rose in her. ‘No. It is Rodolfo’s, she named, the old retainer at the Castello. ‘Or perhaps, Tom, Dick, Harry’s, any man’s in the world, except yours.’

  He gazed at her curiously for a moment and then joined in her laughter.

  He kissed her with the first tenderness she had known in months. He grew solicitous, kind. He took her to shops, to antique marts, filled the apartment with flowers. It began to feel like a home, with the nursery as its point of pride. He bought her clothes to shape her pregnancy, soft little dresses with appliqué collars. He would look at her adoringly, each day checking the progress of her belly, stroking it softly. She wanted him, wanted him inside her. The continuing intensity of that desire confounded her. But from the day that she had announced her pregnancy, there was no longer any question of that.

  She had the blinding realisation that motherhood had redeemed her from whoredom. But he only slept with whores.

  She began to take an interest in her pregnancy. When the baby started to kick, she was filled with a sudden joy. She thought about how she would be good to her, hold her, cuddle her, talk to her. Always, in her own mind, the baby was a she. Carlo used the masculine. Amidst all the smiles he gave her, it didn’t trouble her.

  But she was a little bored. When the rainy, winter days didn’t permit walks, she began to read again. There were not many books in the house and she thought nostalgically of her father’s copious library. But she read what there was. One day she came across a book in French buried behind some others in the bookshelf. Justine, by the Marquis de Sade. It rang a vague bell. She read. The book revolted her and compelled her. Sexual terrors perpetrated on an innocent.

  Carlo found the book on her bedside table. He scowled. ‘Hardly suitable reading for a mother-to-be,’ he mumbled, took the book away.

  She found it again. Scanned the introduction. It was full of terminology - sadism, masochism, perversion. Terms she remembered from those months she had spent browsing through Jacob’s shelves, words that had flown through their conversations. Terms half-understood.

  Hands folded protectively round her belly, she began to muse. To think about herself. To think about Carlo. According to those terms, she was a masochist. She took pleasure in pain, in humiliation. The notion distressed her, haunted her. Her dreams came back. Sylvie’s huge, overblown form, predominant in them. Not Sylvie in the flesh, but an atmosphere, a voice, accusing, oppressive, cruel in gesture and language. Liar, cheat. Or simply absent, there but not there, unreachable, untouchable, unhearing.

  A child, a toddler, herself, Katherine, reaching out to someone not there. Arms waving in the void. Aching, longing. And then that slap, a hit. She was there. Maman was there. Oh, the pleasure. A touch, a slap. Maman saw her. Touched her. But the touch was hard. Hurt. The words, cruel, nasty. She was a liar. Katherine was a liar, a cheat, dirty. Dirty pants. But still Maman saw her, acknowledged her, touched her. Katherine cried. Sobbed. Alone in bed. Dirty. But alive. Seen. Touched. Touch. The relief. The pleasure.

  Katherine, hands on her growing belly, her daughter, mused. Thought. Lost in trickles of memory. Probed. Her father’s daughter. Her mother’s daughter. Pain, pain better than nothing, the void of non-recognition. Pain become pleasure. Escape from pain, from humiliation by making it into pleasure. Pain become eroticized. Little Kat struggling to be.

  Violette came to visit. Bustling, energetic. Katherine threw her arms around her, surprised at how genuinely pleased she was to see her. Violette was full of new plans. She was giving up her work, was going to train as a lawyer. Like her husband.

  ‘Mat, needless to say is thrilled. I think she’s always harboured a secret fantasy of herself as a lawyer. And here I’m going to fulfill it for her at last,’ Violette laughed, comfortably, deliciously.

  Violette was changed, Katherine thought, somehow less frenetic, less shrill.

  She read her mind, ‘Yes, I’m happy, for what it’s worth,’ she grinned at Katherine. They were sitting in a restaurant off the Piazza Novona. ‘And you? You look well. The pregnancy suits you,’ she glanced meaningfully at Katherine’s protruding stomach.

  ‘Yes, I’m well,’ she smiled.

  ‘To tell you the truth, the whole idea has always terrified me,’ Violette passed her hand through hair that had again grown curly.

  ‘And me,’ Katherine admitted. But she relished the secret tumble of the baby within her.

  ‘And Carlo?’ Violette gazed at her inquiringly. ‘No, you don’t have to say it. I know. He’s the proudest father-to-be in the whole world,’ she chortled, then looked serious. ‘But the two of you. Are you well together?’

  Almost, Katherine wanted to confide in her, try to air something of her feelings to another being. But she couldn’t bring herself to. Didn’t know where to begin. It was all so hidden, so dark. It didn’t belong here in the light of day. So she simply nodded.

  ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Violette gazed at her speculatively. ‘Yes,’ Violette murmured.

  The next evening Violette came to have dinner with them at the apartment. She was full of oohs and aahs about the arrangement of things, about the spectacular nursery with its hand-painted mural, a zoo replete with elephants and tigers. They chatted companionably over dinner, Violette as always full of recondite tales which made them giggle over their plates. Katherine was not unaware of Carlo’s pleasure in seeing Violette, the glances he cast in her direction.

  But he was so affectionate to her, so careful that she ate and drank and sat appropriately, that she didn’t mind. She had got used to the idea that she was the precious vessel, the sacred container of the future. It was a better role than some others.

  She retired early. It was late in her pregnancy and she was sleepy, preferred lying to sitting. As she was undressing, she remembered that she wanted to give Violette something to take to Mat. It was an article on special schools she had cut out from the Corriere della Serra and it mentioned Princesse Mathilde and Jacob and a school they had founded in Paris ye
ars ago. Katherine had never known anything about it.

  She went back to the sitting room with her package. They were standing there by one of the luxuriant palms, bodies tensed, gazing at each other. Carlo’s hand gripping Violette’s shoulder. Katherine paused, eavesdropped, despite herself.

  You will come. Later. I want you to.’ Carlo, urgent.

  Violette shaking her head. ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Katherine breathed, ‘I just wanted to give Violette this to take to Mat.’

  Violette had the grace to flush. Carlo simply looked surly.

  Katherine lay in her bed and gazed up at the ceiling, her heart pounding. It was not, she rationalized, as if she hadn’t known. Violette predated her. But now… She had no illusions about Carlo’s fidelity to her. She knew, without having tangible proof, that he went to women. It was the way of things. Sanctioned by the society. Men, real men, couldn’t be expected to contain themselves for all those months. In the abstract, she hadn’t minded terribly, had turned her thoughts away from it. But faced with the reality, with the real presence of Violette, that look, that hand on her shoulder… it made her feel sick.

  She stroked her stomach. After. After her daughter was born, all that would change. She would see to it.

  Natalie Marina Negri della Buonaterra was born on the first of July 1968. Katherine thought she was the most beautiful creature in all the world. She lay gazing at her for hours, watching those tiny hands grasping the air, that absurdly dark tuft of hair, the luminous eyes, that puckered rosebud mouth folding itself around her nipple, sucking, sucking. She stroked and cradled and held her, crooning softly, unwilling to let her go even for a moment.

  Carlo, after an initial flicker of regret that his baby wasn’t a boy, looked on adoringly. He, too, held the baby, rocked her, sang, little snatches of opera, nonsense tunes, patted, pampered. They were, for those first months, the happiest family in the world. The hundreds of pictures recorded it - the three of them in the clinic just outside Rome, at home in the nursery, at the Palazzo with the Contessa; Natalie in a dozen different poses, at Katherine’s breast, in Carlo’s arms, alone waving her legs in the air.

  Jacob came to visit, to ogle his granddaughter, to hurl her in the air. He was pleased. He had been wrong. His daughter was contented. All his anxieties, silly paternal ravings. Carlo was good to her, mad about the child.

  Katherine looked at him, looked at all her visitors, her well-wishers, lovingly. From a little distance. Her bond was with Natalie. She slept when the baby slept, woke when she woke, in a continuum which enclosed only them. When those little lips closed themselves around her nipples, when that cry ceased, she felt for the first time that she was needed. A being who wasn’t superfluous in the world.

  When Natalie was six months old, Leo stopped in Rome on his way to New York. He brought with him a beautiful black woman, tall, stately, a fellow doctor from the hospital in Tanzania. Carlo’s eyes, mesmerized, followed her round the sitting room. Katherine felt ashamed. She tried to make intelligent conversation with her brother, with his colleague, but her mind unused, refused to formulate thoughts. And she could smell their disapproval, their contempt for the luxurious apartment, for Carlo, for her, with her idle life, her nannies, her maids. She clutched Natalie to her and she thought about the world her brother inhabited, the scarcity, the illnesses containable by wealth, the children, orphaned, dying. She held Natalie more closely.

  Later she said to Carlo, ‘My brother thinks we’re decadents.’

  He shrugged, ‘In Rome we think decadence is good. We have a saying, “only with decadence can you have culture”. Bread, bread is not enough. We need beauty to live. And Rome is beautiful. We are not barbarians.’

  A moment later, he added, ‘And don’t tell me that puritanical brother of yours doesn’t screw that black beauty he brought with him.’

  She felt like slapping him.

  But after that, gradually she began to take an interest in things. She read the papers everyday from cover to cover, amazed that so many things had passed her by, student uprisings, changes in government. She began to have the need to do something, like an itch, slight at first and then as she scratched it, stronger and stronger. She wrote to Portia asking her if any of the magazines in the group she worked for might be interested in having the occasional article, a round-up of Roman galleries, say. It wouldn’t, she thought about this carefully, take her away from Natalie.

  Portia said they would give her a try.

  The letter brought relief and anxiety. She had no confidence. She looked at herself carefully in the mirror. Her figure was almost back, but she needed new clothes, a new hairdo. She had her hair cut stylishly shoulder length, bought an array of clothes, smart suits with short skirts and Edwardian jackets, loose black trousers which accentuated her height, ruffled silk shirts, Indian print dresses with swirling skirts.

  Natalie sometimes in tow she made the rounds of the galleries, meeting owners, going to vernissages. An article was accepted, then another. She was jubilant. She hugged Natalie. And she felt her mind working.

  Carlo was quick to notice the change. She wasn’t altogether sure he liked it, but he didn’t comment. Now and then, however, his eyes flickered over her. It stirred something in her, something which since Natalie’s birth she had almost forgotten. Once stirred, it bubbled and boiled. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She lay in bed at night thinking.

  Carlo hadn’t come to her in almost two years. And suddenly she wanted him, wanted his hands, his weight on her body, him inside her. But she was also afraid. She didn’t want the drug, the addiction, the humiliation, the pain. Yet she sensed somehow that she was different, that Natalie had changed her, that she had changed. And the desire, day by day as she watched Carlo lazily folding a napkin or rocking Natalie on his knee, night by night alone in her bed, grew in her.

  One night, in the early hours, she couldn’t stand it any more. She went to his room. She knocked, went in. He wasn’t there. It shocked her. She knew that when they spent weeks in the Palazzo during the hot months, or on holidays, he sometimes spent nights away, in Rome. But here at home, she had always assumed that he came back, slept here. He was always there in the morning for Natalie. She was astounded at her own ignorance of his life. And angry.

  By rights now, he should be with her.

  And she wanted him.

  She crawled into his bed, sniffed his scent, curled up, waited.

  The dial on the bedside clock showed five when she heard his footsteps. He switched the light on, saw her.

  ‘What may I ask are you doing here?’ a low voice, containing irritation.

  ‘I…I wanted to see you.’

  ‘Well now you have seen me, you can go straight back to your room.’

  ‘Where have you been, Carlo?’ Katherine didn’t move.

  ‘That is hardly any of your business.’

  ‘Being here is your business.’

  ‘Since when?’ he looked startled.

  She hesitated. ‘Since now, since always.’ She stretched out her hand to him, ‘I want you,’ she said softly.

  ‘Katherine. It is late. I am tired. Please go to your room now.’

  She shook her head, restraining tears. ‘I’m not going.’

  ‘Very well, then.’ He looked at her grimly. She suddenly noticed new lines on his face, a kind of desperation.

  He took off his jacket, his trousers, and leaving his shirt on he lay down beside her on top of the blanket. She tried to take his hand.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he said, turning his back on her. He was, within seconds.

  When she woke, he was already up, playing with Natalie. He avoided her eyes.

  ‘Carlo,’ she said to him over breakfast. ‘Carlo, let’s have a weekend together, just you and I.’

  He looked at her strangely, almost in fear. ‘Without Natalie?’

  She nodded, ‘She’ll be alright with Lina for a few days.’

  ‘Where would you like to go?’ he a
sked stiffly. ‘Venice, Monte Carlo?’

  She shrugged. ‘Anywhere. So that we can be alone together a little.’

  He didn’t say anything, but a few nights later he came to her room. She was reading.

  ‘E bene,’ his lips curled in a smile which was also distaste. He switched off the light, perched on the bed, played with her breasts perfunctorily and then heaved into her. She arched to him, sought his lips. But they were far away. She could feel his coldness, his distance, yet despite herself, her body moved with him. It was over too soon. He stood up.

  ‘Carlo,’ she called after him.

  He didn’t give her a chance to speak. ‘You are happy, yes? We will have another baby soon.’

  The next day she went to the doctor and had a diaphragm fitted. She didn’t want another child. Not yet. Not like that. Out of coldness.

  He came to her regularly now, once a week, dutifully. The child-making machine. Shielding herself from the full horror of the past, she thought that in a way this was worse than before. Before, in spite of the cruelty, the slaps, there had been passion. His and hers. A kind of love. Now, there was nothing. Only her memory of passion, which she fantasized for herself out of the shape of his body, the trace of a kiss, the rumour of a touch. Yet she waited for him, wanted even that. A new kind of humiliation smouldered. The humiliation of rejection, the lack of desire.

  In his own time, he took her to Venice. They drove and she was aghast at the new recklessness of his driving. Before she had sensed his excitement, been aware of her own. Now she felt there was only a need for obliteration, an obliteration harder and harder to obtain. It frightened her, but the fear bore no attendant exhilaration. She thought that perhaps she had changed. That perhaps he had too. But they had moved in opposite directions. She thought of Natalie, wanted to hold her. As soon as they arrived at the Danieli she phoned home, desperate for the peel of that little voice.

  The weekend was not a success. They saw friends, trailed through museums, on the surface a perfect couple. But at night, in the vast bed, he read the newspapers. She tried to touch him, lifted the silk of his robe. He moved her hand away, carelessly.