As they were walking toward Piazza Euclide, he asked Carl if he had an American cigarette on him.
“I don’t smoke,” Carl said apologetically.
Bevilacqua shrugged and walked faster.
The house he took Carl to was a new one on Via Archimede, an attractive street that wound up and around a hill. It was crowded with long-balconied apartment buildings in bright colors. Carl thought he would be happy to live in one of them. It was a short thought, he wouldn’t let it get too long.
They rode up to the fifth floor, and the maid, a dark girl with fuzzy cheeks, showed them through the neat apartment.
“Is sixty-five thousand correct?” Carl asked her.
She said yes.
The flat was so good that Carl, moved by elation and fear, began to pray.
“I told you you’d like it,” Bevilacqua said, rubbing his palms. “I’ll draw up the contract tonight.”
“Let’s see the bedroom now,” Carl said.
But first the maid led them onto a broad terrace to show them the view of the city. The sight excited Carl—the variety of architecture from ancient to modern times, where history had been and still, in its own aftermath, sensuously flowed, a sea of roofs, towers, domes; and in the background, golden-domed St. Peter’s. This marvelous city, Carl thought.
“Now the bedroom,” he said.
“Yes, the bedroom.” The maid led them through double doors into the “camera matrimoniale,” spacious, and tastefully furnished, containing handsome mahogany twin beds.
“They’ll do,” Carl said, to hide his joy, “though I personally prefer a double bed.”
“I also,” said the maid, “but you can move one in.”
“These will do.”
“But they won’t be here,” she said.
“What do you mean they won’t be here?” Bevilacqua demanded.
“Nothing will be left. Everything goes to Turin.”
Carl’s beautiful hopes took another long dive into a dirty cellar.
Bevilacqua flung his hat on the floor, landed on it with both feet, and punched himself on the head with his fists.
The maid swore she had told him on the phone that the apartment was for rent unfurnished.
He began to yell at her and she shouted at him. Carl left, broken-backed. Bevilacqua caught up with him in the street. It was a quarter to four and he had to rush off to work. He held his hat and ran down the hill.
“I weel show you a terreefic place tomorrow,” he called over his shoulder.
“Over my dead body,” said Carl.
On the way to the hotel he was drenched in a heavy rainfall, the first of many in the late autumn.
The next morning the hotel phone rang at seven-thirty. The children awoke, Mike crying. Carl, dreading the day, groped for the ringing phone. Outside it was still raining.
“Pronto.”
It was a cheery Bevilacqua. “I call you from my job. I ’ave found for you an apotament een weech you can move tomorrow if you like.”
“Go to hell.”
“Cosa?”
“Why do you call so early? You woke the children.”
“Excuse me,” Bevilacqua said in Italian. “I wanted to give you the good news.”
“What goddamn good news?”
“I have found a first-class apartment for you near the Monte Sacro. It has only one bedroom but also a combined living and dining room with a double daybed, and a glass-enclosed terrace studio for your studies, and a small maid’s room. There is no garage but you have no car. Price forty-five thousand—less than you expected. The apartment is on the ground floor and there is also a garden for your children to play in. Your wife will go crazy when she sees it.”
“So will I,” Carl said. “Is it furnished?”
Bevilacqua coughed. “Of course.”
“Of course. Have you been there?”
He cleared his throat. “Not yet. I just discovered it this minute. The secretary of my office, Mrs. Gaspari, told me about it. The apartment is directly under hers. She will make a wonderful neighbor for you. I will come to your hotel precisely at thirteen and a quarter.”
“Give yourself time. Make it fourteen.”
“You will be ready?”
“Yes.”
But when he had hung up, his feeling of dread had grown. He felt afraid to leave the hotel and confessed this to Norma.
“Would you like me to go this time?” she asked.
He considered it but said no.
“Poor Carl.”
“‘The great adventure.’”
“Don’t be bitter. It makes me miserable.”
They had breakfast in the room—tea, bread and jam, fruit. They were cold, but there was to be no heat, it said on a card tacked on the door, until December. Norma put sweaters on the kids. Both had colds. Carl opened a book but could not concentrate and settled for Il Messaggero. Norma telephoned the lady agent; she said she would ring back when there was something new to show.
Bevilacqua called up from the lobby at one-forty.
“Coming,” Carl said, his heart heavy.
The Italian was standing in wet shoes near the door. He held his briefcase and a dripping large umbrella but had left his hat home. Even in the damp his bushy hair stood upright. He looked slightly miserable.
They left the hotel, Bevilacqua walking quickly by Carl’s side, maneuvering to keep the umbrella over both of them. On the Piazza Navona a woman was feeding a dozen stray cats in the rain. She had spread a newspaper on the ground and the cats were grabbing hard strings of last night’s macaroni. Carl felt the recurrence of his loneliness.
A packet of garbage thrown out of a window hit their umbrella and bounced off. The garbage spilled on the ground. A white-faced man, staring out of a third-floor window, pointed to the cats. Carl shook his fist at him.
Bevilacqua was moodily talking about himself. “In eight years of hard work I advanced myself only from thirty thousand lire to fifty-five thousand a month. The cretin who sits on my left in the office has his desk at the door and makes forty thousand extra in tips just to give callers an appointment with the big boss. If I had that desk I would double what he takes in.”
“Have you thought of changing jobs?”
“Certainly, but I could never start at the salary I am now earning. And there are twenty people who will jump into my job at half the pay.”
“Tough,” Carl said.
“For every piece of bread, we have twenty open mouths. You Americans are the lucky ones.”
“Yes, in that way.”
“In what way no?”
“We have no piazzas.”
Bevilacqua shrugged one shoulder. “Can you blame me for wanting to advance myself?”
“Of course not. I wish you the best.”
“I wish the best to all Americans,” Bevilacqua declared. “I like to help them.”
“And I to all Italians and pray them to let me live among them for a while.”
“Today it will be arranged. Tomorrow you will move in. I feel luck in my bones. My wife kissed St. Peter’s toe yesterday.”
Traffic was heavy, a stream of gnats—Vespas, Fiats, Renaults—roared at them from both directions, nobody slowing down to let them pass. They plowed across dangerously. At the bus stop the crowd rushed for the doors when the bus swerved to the curb. It moved away with its rear door open, four people hanging on the step.
I can do as well in Times Square, Carl thought.
In a half hour, after a short walk from the bus stop, they arrived at a broad, tree-lined street. Bevilacqua pointed to a yellow apartment house on the corner they were approaching. All over it were terraces, the ledges loaded with flower pots and stone boxes dropping ivy over the walls. Carl would not allow himself to think the place had impressed him.
Bevilacqua nervously rang the portiere’s bell. He was again rubbing the hunchback’s gobbo. A thickset man in a blue smock came up from the basement. His face was heavy and he wore a full black must
ache. Bevilacqua gave him the number of the apartment they wanted to see.
“Ah, there I can’t help you,” said the portiere. “I haven’t got the key.”
“Here we go again,” Carl muttered.
“Patience,” Bevilacqua counseled. He spoke to the portiere in a dialect Carl couldn’t follow. The portiere made a long speech in the same dialect.
“Come upstairs,” said Bevilacqua.
“Upstairs where?”
“To the lady I told you about, the secretary of my office. She lives on the first floor. We will wait there comfortably until we can get the key to the apartment.”
“Where is it?”
“The portiere isn’t sure. He says a certain Contessa owns the apartment but she let her lover live in it. Now the Contessa decided to get married so she asked the lover to move, but he took the key with him.”
“It’s that simple,” said Carl.
“The portiere will telephone the Contessa’s lawyer, who takes care of her affairs. He must have another key. While he makes the call we will wait in Mrs. Gaspari’s apartment. She will make you an American coffee. You’ll like her husband too, he works for an American company.”
“Never mind the coffee,” Carl said. “Isn’t there some way we can get a look into the flat? For all I know it may not be worth waiting for. Since it’s on the ground floor maybe we can have a look through the windows?”
“The windows are covered by shutters which can be raised from the inside only.”
They walked up to the secretary’s apartment. She was a dark woman of thirty, with extraordinary legs, and bad teeth when she smiled.
“Is the apartment worth seeing?” Carl asked her.
“It’s just like mine, with the exception of having a garden. Would you care to see mine?”
“If I may.”
“Please.”
She led him through her rooms. Bevilacqua remained on the sofa in the living room, his damp briefcase on his knees. He opened the straps, took out a chunk of bread, and chewed thoughtfully.
Carl admitted to himself that he liked the flat. The building was comparatively new, had gone up after the war. The one bedroom was a disadvantage, but the kids could have it and he and Norma would sleep on the daybed in the living room. The terrace studio was perfect for a workroom. He had looked out of the bedroom window and seen the garden, a wonderful place for children to play.
“Is the rent really forty-five thousand?” he asked.
“Exactly.”
“And it is furnished?”
“In quite good taste.”
“Why doesn’t the Contessa ask more for it?”
“She has other things on her mind,” Mrs. Gaspari laughed. “Oh, see,” she said, “the rain has stopped and the sun is coming out. It is a good sign.” She was standing close to him.
What’s in it for her? Carl thought and then remembered she would share Bevilacqua’s poor 3 percent.
He felt his lips moving. He tried to stop the prayer but it went on. When he had finished, it began again. The apartment was fine, the garden just the thing for the kids. The price was better than he had hoped.
In the living room Bevilacqua was talking to the portiere. “He couldn’t reach the lawyer,” he said glumly.
“Let me try,” Mrs. Gaspari said. The portiere gave her the number and left. She dialed the lawyer but found he had gone for the day. She got his house number and telephoned there. The busy signal came. She waited a minute, then dialed again.
Bevilacqua took two small hard apples from his briefcase and offered one to Carl. Carl shook his head. The Italian peeled the apples with his penknife and ate both. He dropped the skins and cores into his briefcase, then locked the straps.
“Maybe we could take the door down,” Carl suggested. “It shouldn’t be hard to pull the hinges.”
“The hinges are on the inside,” Bevilacqua said.
“I doubt if the Contessa would rent to you,” said Mrs. Gaspari from the telephone, “if you got in by force.”
“If I had the lover here,” Bevilacqua said, “I would break his neck for stealing the key.”
“Still busy,” said Mrs. Gaspari.
“Where does the Contessa live?” Carl asked. “Maybe I could take a taxi over.”
“I believe she moved recently,” Mrs. Gaspari said. “I once had her address but I have no longer.”
“Would the portiere know it?”
“Possibly.” She called the portiere on the house phone but all he would give her was the Contessa’s telephone number. The Contessa wasn’t home, her maid said, so they telephoned the lawyer and again got a busy signal. Carl was by now irritated.
Mrs. Gaspari called the telephone operator, giving the Contessa’s number and requesting her home address. The telephone operator found the old one but could not locate the new.
“Stupid,” said Mrs. Gaspari. Once more she dialed the lawyer.
“I have him,” she announced over the mouthpiece. “Buon giorno, Avvocato.” Her voice was candy.
Carl heard her ask the lawyer if he had a duplicate key and the lawyer replied for three minutes.
She banged down the phone. “He has no key. Apparently there is only one.”
“To hell with all this.” Carl got up. “I’m going back to the United States.”
It was raining again. A sharp crack of thunder split the sky, and Bevilacqua, abandoning his briefcase, rose in fright.
“I’m licked,” Carl said to Norma, the next morning. “Call the agents and tell them we’re ready to pay seventy-five. We’ve got to get out of this joint.”
“Not before we speak to the Contessa. I’ll tell her my troubles and break her heart.”
“You’ll get involved and you’ll get nowhere,” Carl warned her.
“Please call her anyway.”
“I haven’t got her number. I didn’t think of asking for it.”
“Find it. You’re good at research.”
He considered phoning Mrs. Gaspari for the number but remembered she was at work, and he didn’t have that number. Recalling the address of the apartment house, he looked it up in the phone book. Then he telephoned the portiere and asked for the Contessa’s address and her phone number.
“I’ll call you back,” said the portiere, eating as he spoke. “Give me your telephone.”
“Why bother? Give me her number and save yourself the trouble.”
“I have strict orders from the Contessa never to give her number to strangers. They call up on the phone and annoy her.”
“I’m not a stranger. I want to rent her flat.”
The portiere cleared his throat. “Where are you staying?”
“Albergo Sora Cecilia.”
“I’ll call you back in a quarter of an hour.”
“Have it your way.” He gave the portiere his name.
In forty minutes the phone rang and Carl reached for it. “Pronto.”
“Signore Schneider?” It was a man’s voice—a trifle high.
“Speaking.”
“Permit me,” the man said, in fluent though accented English. “I am Aldo De Vecchis. It would please me to speak to you in person.”
“Are you a real estate agent?”
“Not precisely, but it refers to the apartment of the Contessa. I am the former occupant.”
“The man with the key?” Carl asked quickly.
“It is I.”
“Where are you now?”
“In the foyer downstairs.”
“Come up, please.”
“Excuse me, but if you will permit, I would prefer to speak to you here.”
“I’ll be right down.”
“The lover,” he said to Norma.
“Oh, God.”
He rushed down in the elevator. A thin man in a green suit with cuffless trousers was waiting in the lobby. He was about forty, his face small, his hair wet black, and he wore at a tilt the brownest hat Carl had ever seen. Though his shirt collar was frayed, he looked impe
ccable. Into the air around him leaked the odor of cologne.
“De Vecchis,” he bowed. His eyes, in a slightly pockmarked face, were restless.
“I’m Carl Schneider. How’d you get my number?”
De Vecchis seemed not to have heard. “I hope you are enjoying your visit here.”
“I’d enjoy it more if I had a house to live in.”
“Precisely. But what is your impression of Italy?”
“I like the people.”
“There are too many of them.” De Vecchis looked restlessly around. “Where may we speak? My time is short.”
“Ah,” said Carl. He pointed to a little room where people wrote letters. “In there.”
They entered and sat at a table, alone in the room.
De Vecchis felt in his pocket for something, perhaps a cigarette, but came up with nothing. “I won’t waste your time,” he said. “You wish the apartment you saw yesterday? I wish you to have it, it is most desirable. There is also with it a garden of roses. You will love it on a summer night when Rome is hot. However, the practical matter is this. Are you willing to invest a few lire to obtain the privilege of entry?”
“The key?” Carl knew but asked.
“Precisely. To be frank I am not in good straits. To that is added the psychological disadvantage of the aftermath of a love affair with a most difficult woman. I leave you to imagine my present condition. Notwithstanding, the apartment I offer is attractive and the rent, as I understand, is for Americans not too high. Surely this has its value for you?” He attempted a smile but it died in birth.
“I am a graduate student of Italian studies,” Carl said, giving him the facts. “I’ve invested all of my savings in this trip abroad to get my Ph.D. dissertation done. I have a wife to support and two children.”
“I hear that your government is most generous to the Fulbright fellows?”
“You don’t understand. I am not a Fulbright fellow.”
“Whatever it is,” De Vecchis said, drumming his fingertips on the table, “the price of the key is eighty thousand lire.”
Carl laughed mirthlessly.
“I beg your pardon?”
The Complete Stories Page 31
