‘It’ll pass soon, keep sitting on the couch.’ He put the bowl down on the little table, moving aside the suspender belt and the slip. Then he opened his leather case, which was on the chair behind the little table – an elegant little doctor’s case, a gift obviously, from his father, with all the instruments a doctor needed, and a section for emergency medicines – and took out a couple of tubes and a small box, things he had bought as soon as it had been decided that he would do this prenuptial procedure.
‘Another cigarette and another drink,’ she said querulously. ‘It’s passed, I feel fine, but you must teach me what blow you used.’ She sounded like a sportswoman in the gym, eager to learn.
5
The packet of Parisiennes was finished, but she had two more in her handbag. He passed her an unopened packet, along with the lighter, and another glass of whisky, then, instead of getting ready, took a chair and sat down in front of her. ‘I’d like to know if it’s really necessary for you to have this procedure.’
She looked at him in astonishment, almost as she had when he had hit her, but immediately recovered. ‘Just do it.’ There was no warmth in her expression now, only hostility.
It was better that way, he preferred enemies. ‘All right. Lie down.’
‘Will it hurt?’
He put on the gloves and again sprayed Citrosil on them. ‘No.’
‘I’m sorry for the way I answered you.’
Without replying, he transferred the anaesthetic from the phial into the syringe, disinfected her side with alcohol, and massaged it.
‘If you only knew what I’ve been thinking about all evening,’ she said.
Still not replying, he sunk the needle into her young skin. It was in a sensitive spot, and she gave a little start. ‘That’s the worst it’ll hurt,’ he said: that was another reason he wasn’t a good doctor, he felt too much pity for his patients, he really wanted to take care of them, to cure them, to help them even when, as in this case, it was a murky and dangerous piece of nonsense, and he actually felt their pain: someone like that shouldn’t be a doctor, they should go to the park and read the newspaper.
‘All evening, even before coming here, I’ve been thinking of running away with Silvano, he’s thinking of it, too, I don’t want to marry that man, and I didn’t even want to have myself sewn up again, it’s nonsense, but he believes in it, if I’m not a virgin he’ll take one of the knives he has in the shop and cut me, he’s told me that more than once, and I don’t want to marry someone as stupid as that, I want to be with Silvano, but I can’t.’ She cursed, using a very vulgar swear word. ‘You can never do what you like in life.’ She cursed again, and now she was talking almost in dialect. ‘So tomorrow morning I’ll put on a white dress, what do think of that? Doesn’t that take the biscuit, me in a white dress? Her laughter made her jump a little on the couch. He opened the tube containing the local anaesthetic. ‘Keep still.’
‘I’d like a drink.’
All right, let her drink, the booze plus the anaesthetic would send her to sleep. He gave her the glass, waited until she had had enough, even gave her another cigarette, then bent down again to finish the local anaesthetic.
‘And you know what’s even worse? The village. It’s one thing to leave someone you like and marry someone you find ridiculous. But then I have to go and live there, in his village, the village I ran away from as a child, because I couldn’t stand it, and it isn’t even a real village, it’s just a group of four houses, they don’t even have the courage to call it a hamlet, they say Ca’ Torino di Romano Banco a Buccinasco, by the time you’ve finished writing it your pen has run out of ink. Have you ever been over that way?’
With the tweezers he took the instruments from the bowl. ‘If I hurt you, tell me.’ He checked her sensitivity by touching her: she did not react, the anaesthetic had taken effect. ‘Where exactly is it?’ he asked. He could start now, and he did.
‘What? You mean you’ve never heard of Ca’ Tarino, or Buccinasco, or Romano Banco?’ She was calm, motionless, only her voice was increasingly vulgar and tinged with dialect, and there was a tone of real bitterness in it. ‘It’s in Corsico, in other words, you go to Corsico from the Porta Ticinese, you go all the way along the Ripa di Porta Ticinese, you know I’m going to get completely sloshed this evening, and then you go down the Via Lodovico Il Moro, with the stinking water of the Naviglio Grande beside it, then you take the Via Garibaldi and keep going until you get to Romano Banco, that’s where my fiancé has his butcher’s shop, but he has another one in Ca’ Tarino, and also, and this is where it gets interesting, he also has two shops in Milan and brings the meat in without paying duty on it. They’ve never caught him, he’s made millions like that, hundreds of millions, I think he could buy the Galleria in Milan if he wanted.’
‘Am I hurting you?’ he asked. It wasn’t easy to see, in that light, but it was all he had.
‘No, I don’t feel a thing, I’d like to have a drink, can I sit up?’
‘No, you can’t sit up, and don’t drink for now, it’ll all be over in a few minutes.’
Her head lay on the hard pillow, surrounded by a halo of black hair, and she waved her arm over it in a desolate, vulgar way. ‘I don’t care if I spend a few minutes or a few hours here. After tomorrow I’m going to have to spend all my life there, the first lady of Ca’ Tarino, just like Jackie Kennedy, except that she got the White House. Can I at least smoke?’
‘No. Keep absolutely still.’
‘All right, I won’t smoke. Fortunately Silvano is going with me tonight, all the way to Corsico. If it wasn’t for this nonsense we’d make love again.’ Despite the anaesthetic, which was relaxing her and making her talkative, her erotic impulses were still strong. ‘If you only knew what Ca’ Tarino is like in winter, it’s always foggy, you feel soaked through, and in spring it’s worse, with all the mud. When I was a child I played with the other children and all I remember is a lot of mud. To go to Romano Banco I’d have to wear boots, like the men who work in the irrigation ditches. And every season is worse than the last, even when it’s really warm it rains, you can’t go out of the house, and where would you go anyway? When television came the first person to install it was my fiancé, the butcher. The whole of Ca’ Tarino would go to his house to watch it, but he’d pick and choose, he’d invite my parents, so I’d go too, and that’s how we ended up engaged. In the dark he’d put his hand on my knee, then move it up, and as soon as he could he asked me if I was a virgin, and with that hand on my leg and my mother close by I was a bit annoyed so to make fun of him I said, yes, I’d been keeping myself specially for him. And then he told me that if I really was a virgin he wanted to marry me, and that in the meantime he’d send me to Milan, to one of his butcher’s shops, to be a cashier, so did I want to become engaged to him? I didn’t have to think about it a lot, he was the king of Ca’ Tarino, and Romano Banco, and Buccinasco, and Corsico, and I was the daughter of a peasant, I slept on a straw mattress, my arms were covered in insect bites. How could I say no?’
She swore again. He had finished, but she was saying interesting things, so he pretended to continue. ‘Keep still.’
‘And so I was stuck. He took me straight to Milan, put me on the cash desk, and told everyone I was his fiancée. In the evening he’d come and pick me up in his car and take me home, he cares a lot about what people think. In the car he’d ask me for all kinds of things, and in the end I had to yield, except for my virginity, because that’s something he thinks is the cherry on the cake, to be kept for last, but he didn’t want people to know anything because then they’d talk, and so he always got me back to Ca’ Tarino by ten and handed me back to my parents. And he’s always trusted me, that’s why I feel a bit bad about it, not only because I cheated on him, but also because of the money. I started with the money straight away, because seeing all that money coming into the shop, I couldn’t resist, before I got engaged to him a hundred lire was a big amount for me. I learned the system very qui
ckly, and every day I put away thousands of lire, because nobody can imagine the money that comes in to a butcher’s shop, it’s near here, you know, in the Via Plinio, all I had to do this evening was walk here from the shop. He isn’t driving me back tonight, he’s not supposed to see the bride the night before the wedding, plus he’s having his stag party. I told him not to worry, that I’d come back with Silvano, because they’re friends, he’s the one who introduced Silvano to me. I’d already strayed a few times, being there all day behind the cash desk, in the butcher’s shop, a lot of men come in to do their shopping, though you wouldn’t think so, and every now and again there were some really handsome assistants, I can’t resist, if they insist it goes to my head, but he’s jealous of the assistants and when they’re too handsome he sends them away, but always after I’ve had my way with them.’ She laughed.
‘Keep still, or I’ll hurt you.’
She was quite drunk now. ‘And one evening he picked me up from the shop with Silvano, he said he was a friend of his and we went out to dinner together. We went to Bice’s in the Via Manzoni, and when we were in the restaurant, he looked a bit too much like a butcher in comparison with Silvano who’s such a gentleman, I really liked him straight away, he went to my head.’
So there was nothing for him to worry about. Apparently, she got excited very easily with everyone.
‘We ate and drank everything they had, and in the end Bice herself came to our table and served us liqueurs and even sat down with us for a while, and she was really nice, and very polite to my fiancé, but he was already drunk, he told her he was a butcher and criticised the meat, he told her the meat he could supply her with was better than the meat she got sent from Tuscany, and Bice was so kind, she let him talk, and then she stood up and told him he was really nice, but he wasn’t, he’d made a complete fool of himself.’
Duca dabbed with the cotton wool and stood up. ‘There, it’s all over, now I’m going to give you a pill.’
‘I want a drink,’ she said languidly, ‘and a cigarette.’
‘All right, but don’t move, stay there with your legs down and closed, like that.’ He took out the pill, and poured a good serving of whisky into the glass. ‘I’m going to raise your head now, but I want you to keep your pelvis still.’ He put a hand on the back of her neck and raised her head. She was smiling, but in a sisterly way now, all desire spent. ‘Put your tongue out.’ He put the little pill on her tongue and the glass of whisky between her lips. ‘Slowly, you have to avoid coughing.’ If she coughed she would undo the repair he had just made.
She drank slowly, but she drank quite a bit. ‘It isn’t a sleeping pill, is it?’
‘No, it’s an analgesic, it kills the pain, so although you’ll start to hurt a bit, you shouldn’t feel it.’
‘I’d like to smoke.’
‘Yes,’ he said – he already knew that, he had already put the cigarette in his mouth to light it and then give it to her – ‘but swallow your saliva if you feel like coughing, you mustn’t cough, and if you really can’t stop yourself, cough with your mouth open.’
He took the cigarette out of his mouth, and she took it greedily, and greedily smoked it, two or three gasps. ‘Then I wanted to go home, but he said no.’
He waited for her to continue, but she took another couple of drags, and then he lit a cigarette, too, a Parisienne. All the cigarette ends on the floor really bothered him, but the bother passed as soon as she started speaking again.
‘After the way he’d behaved with Bice I didn’t want to go with someone as drunk as that, and compared with Silvano, well, there was no comparison, when I was with Silvano it was like being with a prince, but my fiancé was drunk and like all drunks he wanted to keep going. Our car was in the Via Montenapoleone, but he wanted to go to Motta’s in the Piazza della Scala. God, that was embarrassing, he tried to joke with the waiter, he took out a wad of ten-thousand-lire notes, it might have been almost a million, and said, “Keep the change,” how about that, eh? Finally Silvano managed to take him outside, very politely, I remember it so well, that first evening I saw him, he must come from an aristocratic family, although he doesn’t let on, and in the Via Montenapoleone, the car was parked just in front of that jewellers’ shop and then my fiancé, it was so embarrassing again, started going tr-tr-tr-tr-tr as if he was firing a machine gun, but so loud that a lady on the other side of the street screamed and she started walking away very quickly and stopped only when he started laughing.
Then Silvano bundled him into the car and we managed to leave, but when we got to Corsico he wanted to get out and drink some more, and Silvano told me to let him drink, even urge him to drink, because it was the only way to calm him down, so we made him drink and he fell asleep on our laps, and by the time we got to Ca’ Tarino he was fast asleep and Silvano took him upstairs while I waited in the car, and then he came down again and we went on a bit further in the car and then we made love and it was better than the first time I’d ever made love, in fact the real first time was with him, I’ll always remember it.’
He put a hand on her forehead. ‘I’m going to turn out the light now and open the window, it’s hot.’
‘Oh yes, I’d like that, it’s nice here.’ Through the open window you could see the green of the trees with the light of the street lamps behind them. ‘Can you give me a bit more whisky?’
‘Yes, I’ll go and get it,’ he said and went out, into the darkness, guided by the faint light coming from the kitchen: she had already drunk half a bottle, she should have been asleep, but she must be used to it. In the kitchen, Mascaranti, who could never stop writing, having nothing to write, was doing crosswords. Duca opened the little cupboard and took out the bottle of whisky. ‘Ask Morini if there’s anybody watching outside.’
Mascaranti took the two-way radio from his pocket, pulled out the antenna, and turned the button to the minimum volume to avoid static. ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ he said, making fun of Morini, ‘hello, over.’
‘I’ll give you “over”,’ Morini said.
‘Roger. Have you seen anybody about? Dr Lamberti says there may be someone watching. Over.’
‘I haven’t seen anyone.’
‘Thanks, talk to you soon.’ He turned to Duca. ‘He says there’s nobody about.’
Duca took the corkscrew and opened the bottle, went back into the dark surgery, and looked for the glass in the dark.
‘How nice,’ she said, ‘look, the light of the street lamps behind the leaves of the trees.’
Yes, she had already said that: obviously she had a taste for poetry, as well as a taste for men. He poured a generous serving into the glass. A pity she’d stopped talking: he couldn’t insist or she’d start to suspect. ‘Drink, but slowly, and wait for me to lift your head.’ He supported her neck with his arm and with his other hand moved the glass close to her mouth. Now, with his eyes accustomed again to the dark, he could see her eyes, wet with drink, shining in the light from the window, and he watched her drink avidly: an anaesthetic makes you thirsty.
‘A cigarette. If you only knew how much I like smoking lying down.’
He lit another cigarette for her. A pity she’d stopped talking about her own affairs, about Silvano and the butcher.
The cigarette glowed in the half-light. ‘Listen, with the job you did, I’m really going to be a virgin tomorrow night?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘What a laugh!’
‘Don’t laugh, please.’
‘No, I’m not laughing, but you men are such idiots.’
Anything, provided she started talking again. Yes, idiots, what else could they be?
‘We women are sluts, but you’re just idiots.’
He liked this sweeping verdict: on one side the sluts, on the other the idiots, that’s the world, there you are. But talk, please, start talking again, tell me about your butcher, about your prince Silvano.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, smoking in the darkness, lying down, the way she li
ked, ‘you have to be idiots, I can be a virgin and still have been with two hundred men, and when you think about the things my fiancé wanted in the car, as an advance, things you couldn’t imagine, what kind of virginity is that?’
Don’t talk about virginity, talk about your fiancé, he was begging her, sitting on the stool by the window. Talk, talk.
‘You make me laugh, all of you.’ Her voice was getting blurred. ‘As soon as I see a pair of trousers, I get the urge, but I also feel like laughing.’
Duca saw ash fall from her cigarette, and he stared at that point of light, waiting for her to speak again, but there was silence and in the silence he heard heavy breathing. He got up and went to the couch and saw that she was asleep. He angrily stubbed out the cigarette, although it was still alight. He left her alone and went into the kitchen. According to the alarm clock with the pink dial and the second hand in the shape of a hen, it was after ten.
6
At half-past, after helping Mascaranti to solve almost all the crosswords, he heard a noise in the surgery and went to see.
She was sitting up on the couch. ‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Twenty to one.’
‘I was in a deep sleep, I feel as if I slept the whole night.’
It was better that way. He went and closed the shutters, then switched on the light, and her red slip burst into flame.
‘Can I go?’
He approached her. ‘Get off the couch, slowly, and try to walk.’ After all, he wasn’t a specialist in certain kinds of work, he might have made a few mistakes.
She got down, slowly, walked up and down the cramped surgery, without suspenders her black stockings slowly slid down her slim legs, and she swayed a bit, but as a joke, because she was smiling at him, and even shaking her head to make her dark, smooth hair fall straight on her neck. ‘So it’s all right?’
Traitors to All Page 4
