The Woman of Rome (28 page)

Mother sat there, sullen and bewildered. Turning around to look at her, I could not help smiling affectionately at her. “Say a little prayer — it’ll do you good,” I whispered. She shivered, hesitated and then unwillingly knelt down, her hands joined. I knew she did not want to believe any longer in religion; it seemed to her a kind of false consolation whose aim was to make her be good and forget the harshness of life. Nevertheless I saw her lips moving mechanically and the expression of suspicious ill humor on her face made me smile again. I wanted to reassure her, tell her that I had changed my mind and she had nothing to worry about, she would not be obliged to work as she had in the past. There was something ingenuous about Mother’s bad temper; she was like a child when it is refused a sweet it has been promised, and this seemed to be the most important aspect of her behavior to me. Otherwise I might have thought she counted on my profession to enable her to enjoy all her little comforts; and I knew in my heart that this was not true.

Having said her prayers, she crossed herself angrily and rapidly, as if to show clearly that she had done it only to please me. I got up and motioned to her to come out. On the doorstep she took off the scarf, folded it carefully and replaced it in her bag. We returned to Via Nazionale and I walked toward a pastry shop. “Now, we’re going to have a vermouth,” I said.

“No! Why should we? We don’t need one,” protested Mother, in a voice that sounded both pleased and apprehensive. She was always like that, afraid from old habit that I would spend too much. “What’ll it cost?” I said. “One vermouth!” She was silent and followed me into the shop.

It was an old-fashioned place, with a counter and wainscot of polished mahogany and a number of showcases filled with handsome boxes of sweets. We sat down in a corner and I ordered two vermouths. The waiter made Mother feel embarrassed, and while I was ordering she sat there stockstill and awkward, her eyes cast down. When he had brought our drinks she picked up the little glass, sipped the wine, put it down again, then said seriously, “It’s good.”

The waiter had brought a metal and glass cake stand with some cakes in it. I opened it. “Have one,” I said to Mother.

“No — please!”

“Go on — have one!”

“It’ll spoil my appetite.”

“One cake!” I looked at the cakes and chose a millefeuilles and gave it to her. “Eat this one,” I said. “It’s not heavy.”

She took it and ate it in little mouthfuls, remorsefully looking at each bite she had taken. “It’s really good,” she said at last.

“Have another one,” I said. This time she did not need pressing and accepted another cake. When she had finished the vermouth, we sat on without speaking, watching the customers coming and going in the shop. I could see that Mother was glad to be sitting in a corner with two cakes and a vermouth inside her, that she was interested and amused by the incessant movement of the people, and that she had nothing to say to me. This was probably the first time she had ever been in such a place and the novelty of the experience impeded any thoughts she might have on the subject.

A young lady entered, holding the hand of a little girl who was wearing a large white fur neckpiece, a short dress and white cotton gloves and stockings. The mother chose a cake from the stand on the counter and gave it to her.

“When I was a little girl, you never took me into the pastry shops,” I said.

“How could I have afforded it?” she asked,

“And now it’s I who take you,” I said in even tones.

She was silent for a moment, then said sulkily, “Now you’re throwing it in my face because you brought me here — I didn’t want to come.”

I put my hand on hers. “I’m not throwing anything in your face,” I said. “I’m glad I brought you here. Did grandmother ever take you to pastry shops?”

She shook her head. “I never went outside our own district until I was eighteen.”

“You see,” I said, “you need someone in a family who will do certain things for the first time sooner or later. You didn’t do them, nor your mother, nor probably your mother’s mother. So I’m doing them. You can’t go on like that for ever!”

She did not answer and we stayed there for another quarter of an hour watching the people. Then I opened my purse, took out my cigarette case and lit a cigarette. Women like me often smoke in public places in order to attract men. But I was not thinking of picking anyone up just then. On the contrary, I had decided for that evening at least to have nothing to do with them. I simply wanted to smoke. I put the cigarette to my lips, drew in the smoke, then blew it out of my mouth and nostrils, holding the cigarette between two fingers and watching the people.

But there must have been something provocative in the gesture, because I immediately noticed someone near the counter about to sip a cup of coffee he held in one hand, who stopped with the cup halfway to his lips and began to stare at me. He was about forty years old, short, with thick, curly hair, bulging eyes, and a heavy jaw. He was so stocky that he seemed to have no neck. He stood there staring at me, like a bull that has seen a red rag and stands motionless before lowering its head to attack. He was well, though not fashionably, dressed, with a close-fitting overcoat that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders. I lowered my eyes, and for a moment started to consider what there was for and against
such a man. I knew his character was such that one glance from me would be enough to make the veins in his neck stand out and his face grow purple, but I was not at all sure that I liked him. Then I realized that the desire to attract him had set my whole body on edge, like hidden sap bursting out of the rugged bark of some tree in a number of tender shoots, forcing me to relinquish my reserved manner. And this was only one hour after I had decided to change my profession. I said to myself that there was nothing to be done about it, it was stronger than I was. But my thoughts were quite cheerful; for since I had left the church I had become reconciled to my fate, whatever it was, and I felt that my acceptance of it was worth more to me than any noble rejection. So after a moment’s consideration, I raised my eyes and looked at him. He was still there, like a wild beast, his cup in his thick, hairy hand, his bovine eyes fixed on me. At that I made up my mind on the moment and threw him a lengthy, caressing glance, with all the skill I could summon. He received it full in the face and grew purple as I had foreseen he would. He sipped his coffee, put the cup down, and strutted in his close-fitting overcoat, with stiff little steps, to the cash desk, and paid. He turned in the doorway and made me a definite, imperious signal of understanding. I looked my acceptance in return.

“I’m going to leave you now,” I said to Mother. “You stay here, though, in any case we couldn’t go out together.”

She was enjoying the sights in the pastry shop and started in alarm. “Where are you going? Why?”

“There’s someone waiting for me outside,” I said as I got to my feet. “Here’s the money — pay for everything and go home. I’ll be there before you, but I won’t be alone.”

She looked at me in dismay and with a kind of remorse, I thought. But she did not say anything. I nodded good-bye and went out. The man was waiting in the street. I was hardly out of the place when he was on me, grasping my arm firmly. “Where shall we go?”

“To my place.”

So, after a few hours of anguish I gave up the unequal struggle against what appeared to be my fate. Indeed, I welcomed it with
greater love, as one embraces a foe one cannot defeat; and I felt liberated. Some people may think it very easy to accept an ignoble but profitable fate rather than renounce it. But I have often wondered why misery and anger dwell in the hearts of those people who try to live according to certain precepts and to conform to certain ideals, when those who accept their own lives — which are, after all, emptiness, darkness and weakness — are so often gay and carefree. In such cases the individual does not obey any precepts but his own temperament, which then takes shape as his true and unique destiny. My temperament, as I have already said, was to be gay, kindly, serene, at all costs; and I accepted it.

3

I
GAVE UP GIACOMO ALTOGETHER
, deciding to think no more about him. I felt I loved him and if he were to return I would be happy and would love him more than ever. But I also knew I would never let myself be humiliated by him again. If he came back, I would stand there before him, enclosed in my own life as in a fortress, which would really be impregnable and unshaken until I left it of my own accord. “I’m a whore off the streets,” I would say to him, “nothing more — if you want me, you have to accept me for what I am.” I had realized that my strength lay not in my desire to be something I was not, but in my acceptance of what I was. My strength lay in my poverty, my profession, Mother, my ugly house, my simple clothes, my humble origin, my misfortunes, and more profoundly in the feeling that made me able to accept all these things, a feeling as deeply embedded in my soul as a precious stone in the bowels of the earth. But I was quite sure I would never see him again, and this certainty made me love him in a melancholy, helpless way quite
new in my experience, which had its own sweetness; as we love the dead who never will return.

At this time, I broke off my relationship with Gino once and for all. As I have already said, I dislike sudden breaks and I prefer things to live their own lives and die their own deaths. My relations with Gino were a good example of this desire of mine. They ceased because the life in them ceased, not through my fault and not even, in a certain sense, through Gino’s. They ceased in such a way as to leave me no regrets.

I had continued to see him every now and again, two or three times a month. I did still like him, although I no longer respected him. One day he rang up and asked me to meet him at a café, and I told him I would be there.

The café was in my own neighborhood. Gino was waiting for me in the inner room, a windowless little place, the walls covered with majolica tiles. As I entered, I saw he was not alone. Someone was sitting beside him with his back toward me. I could see only that he was wearing a green raincoat and was blond, with a crew cut. I went up to them and Gino got to his feet, but his companion remained seated. “Let me introduce my friend Sonzogno,” said Gino. Then he stood up, too, and I held out my hand. But when he took it, I felt as though he were gripping me in a vise and a little cry of pain escaped me. He let go at once and I sat down smiling. “Do you know you hurt me?” I said. “Is that what you always do?”

He did not reply, did not even smile. His face was paper-white, his forehead hard and bulging, his eyes tiny and sky-blue in color; he was flat-nosed and had a mouth like a slit. His hair was bristly and colorless, cut short, his temples squashed in. But the lower part of his face was broad, his jaw heavy and ugly. He seemed always to be grinding his teeth, as though he were chewing something, and it looked as if one of the nerves under the skin of his cheek was twitching and trembling all the time. Gino’s attitude to him was one of admiring and respectful friendship.

“That’s nothing!” he said. “If you knew how strong he is! He’s got a killer’s punch.”

I thought Sonzogno regarded him with hostility.

“That’s a lie,” he said in a flat voice. “I haven’t got a killer’s punch.… I might have.”

“What’s a killer’s punch?” I asked.

“When you can kill a man with a single blow — then you’re forbidden to use your fists — it’s like using a gun.”

“Feel how strong he is!” insisted Gino excitedly, as if eager to ingratiate himself with Sonzogno. “Just feel. Let her touch your arm.”

I hesitated, but Gino was insistent and his friend also seemed to expect it. So I stretched my hand out, limply, to pinch his arm. He bent his forearm to flex his muscles, seriously, almost grimly. And then I felt beneath my fingers, through his sleeve, something that was like a bundle of iron cords, and I had a shock of surprise because he looked so slight. I withdrew my hand with an exclamation of mingled disgust and wonder. Sonzogno looked at me complacently, a slight smile playing on his lips.

“He’s an old friend of mine,” said Gino. “We’ve known each other quite a while, haven’t we, Primo? We’re almost brothers, you might say.” He patted Sonzogno on the shoulder, saying, “Good old Primo!”

Sonzogno shrugged his shoulders as if to shake Gino’s hand off. “We’re neither friends nor brothers,” he said. “We used to work together in the same garage, that’s all.”

Gino was not at all disconcerted. “Oh, I know you don’t want to be anyone’s friend — you’re always alone, on your own — no women, and no men.”

Sonzogno looked at him. He had a fixed stare, incredibly insistent and unblinking; Gino was obliged to turn his eyes away. “Who told you that crap?” asked Sonzogno. “I hang out with anyone I like — men or women.”

“I was only talking.” Gino’s cocksure air had vanished. “I’ve never seen you with anyone, that’s all.”

“You’ve never known anything about my affairs.”

“Well, I used to see you morning and evening every day —”

“What if you did see me every day?”

“Well,” said Gino disconcerted, “I’ve always seen you by yourself, and I thought you never hung out with anyone — if a man has a girl or a friend, you always get to know it.”

“Don’t be a moron,” said Sonzogno brutally.

“Now you’re even calling me a moron,” said Gino flushing, and feigning his usual bad temper. But he was obviously scared.

“Yes,” repeated Sonzogno. “Don’t be a moron or I’ll break your face.”

I suddenly realized he was not only quite capable of doing it, but that he actually intended to do it. Placing one hand on his arm, I intervened. “If you want to fight it out, please do it when I’m not here — I can’t stand violence.”

“Here I am, introducing a young lady, a friend of mine, to you,” said Gino sulkily, “and you frighten her, the way you act! She’ll think we’re enemies!”

Sonzogno turned to me and smiled for the first time. When he smiled he screwed up his eyes, wrinkled his forehead, and showed not only his little bad teeth but even his gums. “The young lady isn’t frightened, are you?” he asked.