When the Night (4 page)

WHEN I WAS younger I liked to dress up, put on makeup, and go to parties. All the boys fell in love with me, but I didn’t go steady with anyone. The important thing was not to go to bed with them, or else they thought you were theirs for life. I would have liked to know what they were like in bed, how they touched you. But you had to be careful, otherwise people thought you were easy. Sometimes, because of the things that went through my mind, I felt that way too, but I didn’t tell anyone. My father used to talk to my mother about that kind of woman.

“Good for a roll in the hay.”

He scorned them but desired them. My mother would get nervous and he would reassure her.

“You’re the only one for me.”

He didn’t convince us. We couldn’t stop thinking about the other kind of woman, the one who was better in bed than we were.

When I was a girl, I went to parties and I felt beautiful. I didn’t look at the boys, only at my rivals. The boys’ desire for me erased them.

THE BATHROOM IN the apartment is pleasant. I’m sure the bumpkin downstairs didn’t decorate it. When he cooks, I have to close the windows because of the smell. You can just imagine the state of the house; no wonder his wife left him. He has an attractive face and nice eyes, but he looks old.

There are dark circles around my eyes. I don’t sleep enough. At the end of the month we’ll go to the beach. I want to sunbathe. In the morning I’ll leave the baby with my mother and Mario and I will go out on the boat.

AFTER WE MET, Mario came to see me at the beach. We used to take the boat out, drop the anchor, and kiss. One time we made love under a beach towel. Then we jumped into the water, sweaty and hot, our heads spinning. We no longer knew who we were, our bodies belonged to the sea.

My mother used to say he was like a rooster in a henhouse. My sister’s boyfriend didn’t visit, so she left him. At first she waited, and then that was it, she didn’t care anymore. Mario enjoyed being the only man in our midst: three sisters and my mother.

My father came on the weekends. He would look at him and laugh: “Ah, you’re like a pasha with your harem.”

Mario ate with us but slept in a rented room by the port; my mother wouldn’t let him stay in the house. In the evening we would tell everyone we were going to the movies and then run to his room to make love. I didn’t go to parties. I was afraid
that I would never fall in love and that people would call me a whore. One night, a boy said something to me, and it stayed inside, like a brand on a cow in the field.

“You’re an
allumeuse
, Marina.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a tease.”

One of those nights in his room near the port, I got pregnant. We decided to get married. If I close my eyes, I know why I married him. Not because of the baby, but because of the way he held the rudder of the boat and the way he made love to me. Everything changed with the baby. I wasn’t as strong and capable as he expected. But now I’m better: I came here by myself, and at night on the phone I tell him that everything is OK. One month in the mountains by myself. After this, he will trust me and I will once again become the woman he married.

A QUICK LOOK out the window: oh no; the landlord is standing next to the stroller. I didn’t hear the car arrive. The baby is awake.

I run downstairs. He stares at me. He is tanned. He must have walked up the mountain today. His face is covered with wrinkles, his eyes are pale and hard, and he speaks in a low voice.

“He undid the straps. It’s dangerous to leave him like that, the street is right there.”

The baby stares at him and holds his breath.

I mutter, “Thank you. He was asleep so I decided to go up and make his lunch.” I pick up the baby.

He turns away. “Good-bye.”

He goes into his apartment. His boots are muddy and he smells of sweat and onion. The baby watches him until he disappears, then starts to whimper. I talk to him as we climb the stairs, to calm him.

“Now we’ll eat our lunch. Let’s hope the soup didn’t spill out of the pot! First we’ll change and take a bath, and then we’ll eat. Are you hungry, my darling?”

JUST LISTEN TO her talking to him on the stairs, the fool. “Are you hungry, darling? You took a nice nap, good for you …”

What if he had gotten out of the stroller and walked out into the street? She was cooking his lunch! What a fool. Then if something bad happens, they cry.

Luna used to do everything. Did she ever need help? And she never complained. If I were this woman’s husband I wouldn’t leave her alone with the baby. She’s not up to it, you can tell just from the way she holds him and talks to him. She’s really talking to herself, to keep herself calm. Well, it’s her husband’s problem. It’s no business of mine.

I close the door and place my ice axe against the corner of the fireplace, and then take off my shoes.

Tonight I’m going into town to visit my father. I won’t tell him, that way maybe the woman will be there and I’ll see who it is. We get soft in our old age and end up in some woman’s arms. He never needed one before.

That woman upstairs is the type that grabs hold of you when you’re young and then you’re stuck with her for life. From a
good family, raised to be idle. First you have to woo her, then you have to marry her. Now, with the kid, she’s stuck. Her husband sent her up here so he could have some peace, poor idiot. He should come and check on her on the weekends.

No breasts, a child’s face. She looks at you and you think that it might be fun to take her to bed. You’d hold down her wrists and do whatever you wanted, and she’d like it too.

If the woman from the wood shop isn’t willing, I’ll have to find someone else. Masturbating while I think about Luna’s breasts is enough for a while. But then you need a pussy; there’s no replacing it, and that’s the point, the crux of the problem.

T
HE PIAZZA IS filled with people and stands. The band plays rustic waltzes and mazurkas and the old people dance. The young people watch them, laughing. I bought a flowered dirndl with a white blouse and apron. And a pair of lederhosen for the boy. We look like two locals, even though I’m not blond with blue eyes and pale skin. I’m the only dark one in the family. My father says I look like his brother who died young.

“MARINA’S EYES ARE just like Sandro’s, dark as coal.”

Families always repeat the same words, even when it comes to describing who resembles whom. This uncle never married and constantly changed girlfriends. He was a builder and had more money than my father, who worked in a bank and had three daughters.

He used to bring us expensive presents: watches, necklaces, bracelets, rings.

My father scolded him. “You spend all your money … What will you do when business is down?”

“Your daughters will help me, won’t you?”

We all screamed “Yes!” in unison. I lived in constant hope that my mother would let us wear one of the necklaces or rings to school, to make our friends green with envy. But she would always put away his expensive presents, for “safekeeping.”

“You can wear it when you’re older,” she’d say.

“Can I wear the turquoise necklace, Mamma?”

My uncle would hold it up to my neck.

“You look like a gypsy,” he’d say.

And he loved to sing:

My father would glance over with a worried look.

“You’re just like your uncle. Let’s hope it’s only a physical resemblance.”

The jewelry was stolen by a burglar one summer when we were away at the beach. We never got to wear any of it. Uncle Sandro died of a heart attack when business turned sour. I always think of both things at once; my father was right about one, and I was right about the other. We should have enjoyed the presents while we had them; I should have worn the turquoise necklace and matching eye shadow and gone dancing.

I cross the piazza with the stroller and look distractedly at the merchandise on display. Cheese, salami, honey, local products. Around here they only sell food, wooden sculptures, loden, and Tyrolese clothing. At night they drink and go to bed early. It’s all the same to me; I can’t go out because of the baby.

The men stare; there aren’t many gypsies around here. I wonder if my landlord is here too? I doubt it. Even the town fair is too worldly for a man who grew up in a mountain lodge.

Women like to tempt fate; otherwise why would anyone marry a man like that and have two children with him? Later, his wife must have realized that he stank of onions and sweat, that he didn’t talk and that all he did was climb up and down the mountain. She probably cried at night and dreamt of when she was a girl and men courted her, asked her to dance and to go sailing. But that’s me, and Mario is anything but a bumpkin. He’s a thinking man, courteous with women, even gallant. He can talk to my father about anything and he’s brilliant at what he does.

I could have had a career, but my female colleagues couldn’t stand me. They said I dressed provocatively and wanted to
impress the boss. It’s not true: I studied, graduated with honors, and was a whiz at accounting. I could read a balance sheet faster than any of them and I was pretty, so they hated me. Then the baby was born, and that was the end of it. How they complimented me when I announced I was pregnant!

“How wonderful!”

I was no longer in the way.

The baby turns around in his stroller and stares up at me. Why doesn’t he speak? I’m afraid of his silence, it feels like a reproach.

“We’ll sit down in a minute, darling, and I’ll take you out of there. You’ll be able to walk. Don’t get upset.”

He’s quiet today, busy looking at the musicians and the stands. Last night he didn’t sleep. He cried so much that I almost lost my mind, like that Sunday.

THAT DAY, HE didn’t want to eat and he wouldn’t stop crying. He cried in my arms, in his crib, sitting on the floor. He cried if I talked to him or if I tried to get him to play. He was ten months old, and he didn’t understand words. What could I do? Mario was working in the living room and I didn’t want to bother him. The baby’s cries traveled from my ears to my brain; my heart was pounding, and I clenched my fists. He’ll stop, just calm down. If he keeps on like this, Mario will come; he’ll think that I don’t know how to calm the baby.

“Shut up!”

Suddenly the cries stopped; the air was perfectly still, as if I were underwater. His mouth was open but nothing came out,
and his nose was running. I was in a cave, surrounded by icy silence. All I could see were hazy spots. There was a light in the distance; then it disappeared. Were my eyes closed? Had I covered my ears? I don’t know.

I saw the baby on the floor and Mario picking him up.

“What did you do?”

His words broke the silence. He repeated himself, stammering. I came out of the darkness and into the blinding light. My whole body ached.

“Nothing, I swear! I don’t know how he fell.”

I started to cry. The baby was calm. He put his head on his father’s shoulder. They were both on the same side, hating me.

I took the baby from his arms, hugged him, and talked to him through my tears. A hoarse voice emerged from the darkness and the silence. “I turned around for an instant to grab a diaper, and he fell.”

Mario’s eyes stared at me, full of hatred. The baby put his arms around my neck and fell asleep. He had exhausted himself crying. I loved him more than anything in the world. How could I make Mario understand?

He is well educated, intelligent, kind … We went sailing and he rented a room by the harbor. Why did he want to be with me? He wanted to change me … he knew what I was. This was the real Mario, the one standing here, full of hatred. Go ahead, do it, I thought. “What are you thinking, Mario?” I whispered so as not to wake the baby.

He stared at me a few moments longer, then looked away. “Nothing. You have to be careful! Don’t take your eyes off him.”