Memory and Desire

by Lisa Appignanesi

  ‘You don’t want me,’ she said, a dismal statement.

  He turned a page of his paper. ‘You are my wife. The mother of my children. That is enough.’

  ‘It’s not enough for me,’ she said softly.

  He didn’t rise to it, read on.

  Suddenly, she shouted at him. ‘You have a mistress. That’s where you take your passion. Tell me. Admit it.’

  He looked at her grimly, ‘Katrina, don’t be a child. Go to sleep.’

  ‘I’ll find out. I’ll go home. Take Natalie with me. Get a divorce there. Find a lover,’ she shrieked at him.

  He slapped her. The sound rang between them. Cold. Dispassionate. There was nothing on his face except irritation. She returned it with contempt.

  She went to the bathroom. Locked the door. Cried. Violette had warned her, she suddenly thought. What was it she had said about Carlo? His moods, power games. He must have been with Violette for years. On and off. What was it about her which fuelled his desire? Violette, so vital, always different, while she, Katherine, was boring, always the same. She looked at her tear-stained face in the mirror. People, others, found her attractive. She knew that. But not him. And yet he had, once, all those years ago. Had desired her then. She remembered his eyes warm on her, his kisses. She loved him when she remembered. It flooded over her.

  She would re-awaken that love in him. She would follow him, find his mistress, emulate her. Yes. She would try.

  She washed her face. Went back into the darkened room. Later that night, he came into her. In her hope, she clothed him in the robes of desire and clung to him.

  But after that weekend, he stopped coming to her almost altogether.

  They spent the summer months again at the Palazzo. Despite the beauty of the place, despite the grounds across which Natalie, beaming, exploring, joyously hurtled, Katherine hated it there. The formality of those endless dinners, the vapid faces of the extended family, the Contessa, herself, with her advice on child-rearing, her endless conversation about Princess so and so and Archbishop whatever - Katherine felt it would all stifle her. And Carlo, so polite, and so utterly removed, his eyes never meeting hers. It was unbearable.

  When he announced that he had to be in Rome for a few days, she begged him, ‘Take us with you. Please.’

  He demurred, ‘It’s too hot. It will be unhealthy for Natalie. You’re better off here.’

  The next day, pleading work, an article, she asked the Contessa’s chauffeur to take her to Rome. She arrived at mid-day, browsed through galleries amidst countless tourists. Carlo was right. It was too hot. She went back to the apartment. He wasn’t there. She showered. Without quite knowing why, she changed. A black trouser suit of loose silk over a little camisole. She made herself up carefully, tucked her hair into a large black straw hat. Then she went to sit in a café opposite the apartment, watched its door, waited.

  He arrived. Almost, she went up to meet him. But something kept her back. An hour later he came out again, changed, his face freshly shaven. He was whistling. She rose, trailed that graceful, sauntering stride. He got into his car. She hailed a cab and feeling like a criminal, asked the driver to follow Carlo. She thought in the traffic that they had lost him, but in the narrow streets beyond the Spanish Steps, they found him again.

  He pulled into a tiny gap between two cars. Katherine waited and then as he moved down the road, she paid off her cabbie and followed him once more. It was dark, the streets filled with strollers enjoying the breath of evening, but through their midst she saw him turn into a lane and walk into a porticoed house. She stopped nervously in front of it, paced. What was she to do now? A laughing group of people, women in long gowns, men in light summer suits, walked through the doors. Perhaps it was a club. She rang the bell.

  A man opened it, looked at her curiously, asked if she were a member. She gazed at him blankly. ‘I’m afraid this is a member’s only club,’ he said to her sternly. She almost told him she was Signora Negri, but something held her back. She waited. When another group of people arrived at the door, she took her hat off, put on a large smile and sauntered in with them.

  She followed them up a marble staircase. A large domed room, chandeliers, gaming tables. So it was that kind of club. Covertly she looked around for Carlo. She spied him towards the back of the room, his face intent on the roulette wheel. There was a glazed set to his features, a grimness in his eyes. But there was no woman on his arm. She wanted to laugh, go up to him, kiss him. But she didn’t. He wouldn’t have been pleased. Instead, she made herself small at the room’s distance from him. A man came up to her, grazed her with his eyes. Would she like to come downstairs for a drink with him, perhaps something more. His gestures insinuated.

  She shook her head, walked away, found another position. A while later, she saw Carlo making his way out of the room. She followed him from a distance, down the long staircase. But he didn’t leave. Instead he continued through another door, down more steps.

  It was darker here, arches, columns. Catacombs. From somewhere, the rhythmic din of music. Couples dancing slowly, desultorily. Smoke, smoke floating everywhere in bluish light. The high sweet reek of marijuana. She lost Carlo, almost tripped over a couple on the floor, embracing, kissing passionately. Another space, cushions on the floor, bodies writhing, a tumble of limbs, clad, bare. An arm around her, embracing her, holding her, forcing her lips. She pulled away. The man followed her with bemused eyes, lurched on. On to another woman.

  Carlo, where was he? Panic rose in her. A man waved his erect penis at her, leered, satyr-like, crushed her breast with his hand. She stumbled, cowered against a column. It was then that she saw him, standing, not far from her. A woman in front of him, on her knees, her hands caressing his hips, her hair tumbling over his loins, her tongue, licking, sucking. Another pair of arms around his chest. Another woman behind. No. No. Katherine stared. Transfixed. Not a woman, a man. A cock probing into taut buttocks. Carlo’s face contorted, straining, gasping. His eyes, bright, dilated. Pleasure. Such pleasure. He was coming. Coming into her mouth. She could feel it, hear his shout.

  She cried out over it, ‘Carlo.’

  He looked blindly in her direction. Focussed. Grim eyes, the curl of a lip. He pulled her up, over to him. ‘A new little whore,’ he turned to his friends. ‘Quite pretty, really. Look,’ he ripped off her jacket, tore open her camisole. Held her under the chin, ‘Quite beautiful in fact. A little Madonna of the Rocks. No? Look Giovanni, for you, perhaps?’ He thrust her at Giovanni. ‘I think she’ll like you. She’s dying for it. See. She’s wet already. No, no,’ he pulled her back, ‘let me prepare her for you.’ He kissed her, cruelly, painfully, his face a mask of derision, loathing. ‘There, now, she’s ready. Take her,’ he pushed her away.

  Katherine ran, stumbling, crying. Somehow, she could never remember how, she made her way back to the apartment, put on fresh clothes, found a taxi to take her the kilometres to the Palazzo. The next day she packed some bags. For herself, for Natalie, for the nanny, Lina. She made excuses, said a friend in London needed her. She left.

  Two nights later, the telephone in her Hyde Park hotel room woke her. When she picked it up, there was no preliminary greeting, only a trail of abuse.

  ‘Puta. Who have you got in your bed? Eh? Tell me. Tell me, you whore?’

  Carlo. Surly. Drunk. She could almost smell the whiskey on his breath.

  ‘In London to play at Messalina? Rome isn’t good enough for you, eh? Tell me, whore.’

  Katherine hung up without saying a word. Her hands were shaking. She reached for a glass of water, then dropped it, as the phone rang again. And again. She didn’t answer it. Forced herself to lie completely still in that room whose silence was intermittently punctured by the telephone’s insistent ringing. Finally, she took her courage in hand and as coolly as she could told switchboard that she would not be taking any more calls that night, whatever their source, no, not even from her husband. She was only grateful for the fact that Natalie a
nd Lina in the room next door were undisturbed.

  Somehow she managed to get through the next day, take Natalie to the Zoo, eat ice-cream in the park, smile attentively.

  And then late that night, it started again. She picked up the receiver and heard that harsh slurring voice, thick with insults. How dare he? Anger suddenly filled her, pulled her off the bed. How dare he talk to her like this after all that had happened? She started to scream into the receiver, ‘Leave me alone, Carlo. Don’t ring again. Let me be.’

  An odd hush met her eruption and then his voice again, cold now. ‘Let you be? Let you be with whom?’

  ‘With whom? There has to be someone, does there? Alright, I’ll tell you with whom,’ Katherine was shouting, her mind racing, ‘with Thomas, Thomas Sachs.’

  Yes, Thomas, Katherine thought. Thomas would save her. He had saved her the last time. The last time she needed to escape. To flee.

  ‘Thomas Sachs,’ she repeated stormily, ‘Yes, you can name him in the divorce. Because there will be a divorce. In America if not in Rome. I’m going home. Home with him. Now leave me alone.’

  ‘You are going nowhere,’ Carlo’s tone was menacing. ‘I am coming. Coming right now to take you back here. To bring my daughter home. My daughter.’ The force with which he hung up resonated in Katherine’s ear.

  She lay back on the pillow, exhausted. She could picture him so clearly, that sullen handsome face, the eyes desperate in their anger, the hand almost crushing the glass it held. She could see his tensed shoulders as he paced the room like some imprisoned animal. And then the leap into action. Yes, she could see him bounding into the car and driving. Driving wildly. Driving here.

  The image almost paralysed her. And then she sat up again. She didn’t want to go back. Couldn’t go back. Not to that. And he would come here and force her. Compel her with his presence. Force her through Natalie. ‘My daughter.’ His emphasis echoed threateningly in her ears. No, no, not that. She had to get away. Now. Instantly.

  Katherine threw her clothes into her bag. At the first light of dawn, she woke Natalie and Lina. With a bright smile, she announced, ‘I thought we’d go to the country today.’

  It was because of that journey into Sussex that Katherine did not hear until two days after the event that Carlo was dead. Killed in a car crash as his car careered over the Alps.

  She cried.

  Chapter

  Twenty

  __________

  ∞

  The headquarters of Gismondi Enterprises occupied a large dignified block in the heart of Milan. From his airy office at the summit of the building, Alexei could glimpse the tracery on the roof of the Duomo just a few streets away.

  He glanced at it now, then turned his attention to the briefing sheet which lay on the ebony rectangle of his desk. He read intently for a few minutes.

  A smile tugged at his lips and finally settled. Giangiacomo was at it again, casting him as the firm’s troubleshooter.

  Alexei leaned back in his chair and gazed at the single silver-framed poster on the wall opposite him. His film. La Donna del Sud. He had learned, just yesterday, that it had been awarded another prize at a festival. Pleasing.

  But now Giangiacomo wanted him to contend with the Women from Milan. A different proposition that. Alexei chuckled.

  After those years of turmoil in his early twenties, they had arrived at an easy relationship, he and Giangiacomo. During the summer months Alexei had spent in Sicily, tempers had cooled. And since there was nothing to do there but read and plot his film, he had somehow managed to pass his exams, get his degree.

  Then there had been his period of military service. Strangely, he had enjoyed that, enjoyed being thrust together with men from such different backgrounds. But Giangiacomo had contrived to have his period of military service cut short.

  Contacts. The web of contacts. He wondered whether the article he had read recently in an American paper was true: seven phone calls would bring you in touch with anyone from any walk of life in the whole world.

  And influence. Giangiacomo certainly seemed to have a great deal of that.

  He had come back to Milan to work with Giangiacomo at the headquarters of Gismondi Enterprises. Giangiacomo set him tasks. One week it was to research the viability of a small company making window blinds and write a report. The next to sit with the Chief Accountant and go through cash flow projections for the electrical appliances sector. The third to observe union negotiations at the refrigerator plant. The fourth to do a survey of what customers in a major department store looked for when they went in search of lighting fixtures. The fifth to work with an advertising accounts executive on a new campaign.

  And so it went on. Alexei didn’t like to admit it, but he enjoyed the experience, found it intriguing.

  Sometimes, when he brought Giangiacomo back a report which pleased him, his uncle would say, ‘You see. It isn’t so tedious here. Not for a young man of your natural curiosity.’

  Giangiacomo also took him along to meetings in New York, in Paris, in Milan, with various company managers, bankers, other executives, union officials. At the end of such meetings, Giangiacomo would often turn to him and ask for his impressions, his comments, his views.

  One day, after Alexei had worked with him for some six months, Giangiacomo said to him, ‘Alexei, I am very pleased with you. You are valuable to me, particularly in meetings, very particularly in those interminable negotiation meetings. You are observant, you listen, you are attentive to detail, you never seem impatient or irritated, and you sum up dispassionately, fairly, as subtly as a lawyer.’ He beamed. ‘I think I am going to give you a rise in salary.’

  Alexei coloured a little. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured. He was flattered by his uncle’s pleasure. He, too, had grown to respect him more, not for the qualities his uncle had named, but for his energy, his drive, his humour. Watching Giangiacomo at work was like a observing a well-tuned dynamo.

  But Alexei was intent on something other than being an employee of Gismondi Enterprises. He cleared his throat, braced himself for a row.

  ‘It may or may not be the moment to tell you, but I’m determined now to take up filmmaking.’

  Giangiacomo’s features registered utter surprise. Alexei didn’t let him interrupt. ‘I have found backers, a production company prepared to invest in my script.’

  ‘You have found backers?’ Giangiacomo features below the bald pate settled into scepticism.

  Alexei nodded, ‘We have a production schedule. We intend to start casting in a month’s time. Then film on location in Sicily.’

  Giangiacomo met his eyes sternly. Then. suddenly he let out a loud guffaw. ‘My secretive son,’ he embraced him. ‘We must drink to this. Bring out the best champagne,’ He clapped Alexei on the back.

  They drank. Alexei was both surprised and delighted at his uncle’s equanimity.

  ‘And tell me, Alexei,’ Giangiacomo looked at him shrewdly. ‘Why didn’t you come to me for finance?’

  Alexei shrugged. ‘You don’t have a production company.’

  ‘I see,’ Giangiacomo gazed at him reflectively, ‘I see.’ He paused ‘And how long will it take to make this film?’

  ‘About six months.’

  ‘You know, Alexei,’ Giangiacomo took a sip from his glass, looked at him ruefully. ‘I have to make a confession to you. Our argument all those years back about Fascists? Well, you were right.’ He scratched his head. ‘I was mistaken. They are the same nasty thugs today, with their bombs, and their violence, and their protectors in high places. To think that in 1972 almost 9% of Italians can vote for Neo-Fascists. I can hardly believe it.’ He shook his large round head sadly. ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Alexei murmured. ‘Thank you for saying this.’

  The film, once the editing had been done, took seven months to complete. Seven intense glorious months, a number of them in a small seaside town in Western Sicily. He didn’t know in retrospect what had meant more to him. The mont
hs on location, living and working with a group of people who created their own world in order to invent a parallel universe on the screen. Or the months spent in the dark intent isolation of the editing room, where the strips of celluloid were slowly reassembled to breathe an imaginary life. But he knew he had never before been so happy, felt so totally at ease, so sure.

  Giulietta Capistano, a young actress, had played the lead, the woman he had still at the beginning of the shoot thought of in his mind as Francesca. He hadn’t realised at the outset what an intimate business directing actors was, how keen the knowledge of each movement of the brow or lips, each gesture, became. So that one dreamt their bodies. And dream flowed seamlessly into that counter-reality which was the time of the production.

  By the end of the first week, he had fallen in love with Giulietta. Or was she simply the consummation of Francesca? He didn’t know. They made love, secretly, shyly at first and then with a heat which was an echo of the island’s. He was not unaware of the irony of that fulfilment. What had been impossible in reality, what remained impossible in his film’s narrative, was shadowily realised in the world which existed between the two of these. Gradually Giulietta’s image usurped Francesca’s, so that in later life, he could not separate out the two.

  Wanting to continue that love, he had seen Giulietta again several times in the wet autumn of Milan, but always with a sense of shock. They both realised, a little sadly, that the affair was over. Giulietta had a new part. For Alexei, she continued to exist, time-stopped, in the flickering images of his movie.

  The film finished, a project that had obsessed him for years, he was at a loose end. He started to dream new ventures.

  Giangiacomo wanted him back at Gismondi Enterprises. Was persuasive, insistent. A wave of strikes had been sweeping Italy. His uncle claimed that they were in part the work of radical infiltrators, Alexei’s old friends, he scowled at him.

  ‘If that is your analysis of the situation, then what you are saying to me is that you want me to work against my friends?’ Alexei looked at him incredulously. ‘Not a very sound move, I would have thought.’