I had thought, that is, that if I’d given her my number, she would have been able to call me whenever she wanted, and she certainly would have done it, one fine day, and her call would have caught me off guard, which was exactly what I wanted to avoid, I didn’t want to find myself standing there with the receiver in hand, paralyzed by my emotion. That your shyness must at all costs be masked, concealed, is the obsession of the shy. But since I had her number, I could comfortably pick and choose, both the time and the suitable mood, the appropriate day, I could ready the things I was going to say, the opening line to start the phone call, acting detached, as if I didn’t care all that much about her in the first place, which experts in matters amorous had told me was the right attitude to display with girls, because too heated an interest in them, instead of attracting them, would chase them away, it almost annoyed them, whereas they were captivated by insolent manners, that approach summarized in the advertising slogan of an aftershave of the time, intended for the type of man “who doesn’t have to try too hard,” the man who is his own boss, who doesn’t lift a finger and just waits for women to fall into his arms.
I told Pik to make the phone call. That’s right, I had Picchiatello call Monica. He improvised very well indeed, smoothly passing himself off as my secretary, saying that he wanted to set up an appointment with her. He made her laugh: then he passed me the receiver.
“Wait, who was that?”
“A friend of mine. Nice guy, right?”
“Sure . . . nice guy. A little strange.”
“I’m strange, too.”
“Of course you are. If you decide to invent a personal secretary . . .”
“Still, it worked.”
“By which you mean what?”
I took a deep breath.
“Now you and I have a date.”
“Silly. I would have gone on a date with you, even if you’d just called yourself. What, were you ashamed to call me?”
I was about to deny it, instinct told me to deny it, what are you talking about, me ashamed? Why would I be ashamed? But for once I managed to resist the impulse to defend myself, to justify myself, an impulse that hasn’t given me peace since the day I was born and to which, perhaps, I owe the fact that I became an intellectual: essentially to defend myself, to justify myself, by finding the best examples and reasons in books. After all, what in the final analysis have Italian writers been doing for the past five or six hundred years? Nothing other than defending themselves, justifying themselves.
Better to be straight with Monica, so the truth came out of my mouth like a fish leaping out of the water, instinctively.
“Yes, I was ashamed.”
“Don’t tell me that you’re shy. I don’t believe it.”
“I’m shy.”
“If you say so, then it means that you aren’t.”
The usual little game, I thought to myself. The game of catching you in a contradiction.
“Ehm . . . you wouldn’t happen to have a girlfriend, would you? A girlfriend who could come, too?”
“Wait, I’m not enough for you?”
“Not for me, for my friend. The one you talked to on the phone.”
“What’s his name?”
“Pik.”
“Is that a name?”
“Yes. Actually, his name is Pico.” Pico della Mirandola had popped into my mind. Better not to explain the real reason for his nickname. “He’s from an aristocratic family.”
“Ah . . . and is he cute, your friend Pik?”
“Well, no. But he’s really likable . . .” and here I wasn’t lying. “Anyway, it’s just for one date, it’s not like your girlfriend has to marry him or anything . . .”
“But I have to marry you?”
I fell silent. And this silence of mine turned out to be important for the future twists of the story.
14
WE WOUND UP at Monica’s house; her parents were away.
The other girl, Erika, got it into her head to be affectionate with Pik.
She had taken it as a mission.
And that way, she thought she was giving me and Monica a hand, to do who knows what.
Pik was in seventh heaven.
He couldn’t thank me enough for having brought him along with me.
And he couldn’t stop asking me which of the two girls I wanted to fuck, and which one he could fuck himself.
“Pik, cut it out. Get those things out of your head.”
“No fucking?”
“No way.”
“Fucking?”
“Don’t start any trouble, Pik, or else I’ll . . .”
“Oh, come on, I was just kidding. I was just kidding! Can you really not understand when I’m just kidding around?”
“Exactly, Pik, take it from me: no kidding around. Be a good boy. Otherwise, we’re going home.”
“Certainly, my lord, certainly,” Pik said, with a deep bow.
The real mistake was letting him drink.
Alcohol has unpredictable effects on anybody’s head and body.
Normally, I open up and become more likable.
That evening, Monica stopped posing as a heartbreaker and turned out to be much more fragile than I could have imagined.
Erika transfigured herself until she seemed almost pretty, or at least so she appeared to our eyes, though only after we had downed a bottle of one of those liqueurs with an unlikely name that you can find in the liquor cabinet in any home.
Her eyes, which were small and blue, had grown, and so had her nostrils, and even her legs were longer.
Pik . . . well, with Pik it was as if his highly carbonated mind had been shaken up and down and then the cork had been popped.
He couldn’t stop talking and laughing, and making us laugh.
Luckily, he had set aside his sexual plans, which I so greatly feared.
Or at least, he had set them aside for the moment.
Erika, sitting on a sofa, had allowed him to lie down next to her, and had taken his big head in her lap and was stroking his hair.
Picchiatello could barely contain his moans of pleasure.
“Erika, you’re the most fantastic girl I’ve ever met in my life. For real!”
“Thanks. And you, too . . . you’re really a special kind of guy.”
And Erika looked at Monica and me, with a smile that had nothing ironic about it.
I thought to myself: these great girls, who are spending the evening with us.
Who are going along with this rather strange date.
Then both of them stood up and disappeared.
They must have gone to the bathroom, I thought, together, the way girls do, who knows why they do that.
Picchiatello got up off the sofa and came over.
He kneeled down in front of me.
“Listen . . . I’ve never been with a girl.”
“Don’t worry. You’re not going to tonight, either.”
“But Erika . . .”
“Erika just likes you, that’s all. Because you, as you know, my friend, tend to win girls over.”
“You think? You really think so? For real? And what else?”
“And nothing else. That’s already plenty and enough.”
“No, it’s not enough. Don’t try to make a fool of me. I know there’s more to it.”
“There’s nothing more to it.”
“Oh, yes there is.”
“No there isn’t.”
“But Erika . . .”
“Oh, come on, Pik! She’s a good girl. And she’s cute. She’s being nice to you.”
“Exactly! So what am I supposed to do next?”
“Listen. You don’t need to do anything, Pik. You don’t need to do anything. Nothing at all, got it? Have fun. Let’s have fun, and nothing more. It’s a nice night out. We’re having a good time together, right?”
“The two of us together?”
“The two of us and our girlfriends.”
Pik laughed and clapped his hands.
“Fantastic!” he exclaimed. “They’re fantastic!”
“Right. And we are two gentlemen. Their gentlemen.”
“You can say that again!” and he clapped his hands again loudly.
“We’re lucky boys, aren’t we?”
“I’ll say!”
“Very lucky.”
“So which one of them do you want to fuck?”
“No, listen, Pik . . . please . . .”
“Do you think that I can fuck Monica instead of Erika? Huh? Monica instead of Erika? Can I leave Erika for you?”
“Oh, so you haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said . . .”
“What can I do about it? I like her better. I like Monica better than Erika.”
“Do I have to explain it all over to you, from the beginning?”
“There’s no need, I understand, I get it. It’s just that I like Monica better. That’s all.”
“Well, so what, Pik, I like Monica better, too, but that doesn’t really matter now . . .”
“Ah, so you see? We both feel the same way about it. So, what do you say, can I take her to bed? Do you mind? Can I make her get undressed? Can I tell her to take off her clothes? Do you think that Monica will let me suck on her ass?”
“Her . . . what . . .?!”
“Can I take her to bed, Monica? On top of the bed?”
“What bed are you taking about, Pik, for fuck’s sake!!”
“What did I say that was wrong? There, now you’ve gotten mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“You just made a face . . .”
“But I assure you, I’m not mad.”
“Then why are you cursing?”
“Look . . . I didn’t mean to . . . oh, listen, Pik, let’s just not start causing trouble now of all times . . .”
“What trouble? I’m not causing trouble. Never have, not once in my life.”
“Then listen to me, listen to me for once.”
“Haven’t caused a bit of trouble, not ever in my life. I don’t cause trouble.”
“I believe you, I believe you. It’s all been great up till now, right, Pik? It’s been great, hasn’t it? Say so.”
“Very. Very, very nice. I’d even say it’s been wonderful.”
“Oh, there you go! So why ruin everything now?”
“Right. Because you think it would ruin everything?”
“That’s exactly right.”
“Then what are you trying to tell me? What is it you’re saying to me?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying, Pik.”
“So are you, maybe, telling me that . . . that I shouldn’t . . . fuck things up?”
“Exactly.”
“I shouldn’t fuck things up?”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“So don’t fuck things up?”
I shook my head no, back and forth, repeatedly.
“Don’t fuck things up.”
“So I won’t fuck things up, I promise.”
“You promise?”
“I promise, I promise. Don’t you trust me?”
“No, I don’t trust you . . .!”
“And you’re right not to trust me!” Pik burst out laughing, crossing both fingers over his mouth and kissing them. “I didn’t swear, you know! I didn’t swear!”
“But you promised.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, fuck it to hell, Pik . . .!” I blurted out, impatiently, and my irritation caused me to throw back another half a glass of aquavit.
“I was just kidding, hey, I was just kidding, don’t get mad, I was just kidding. I was kidding! I swear it, I was kidding, this time, I swear, okay? ’Cause I was kidding . . .” Picchiatello begged me, putting his hands together.
At that point, the girls came back into the living room.
They must have talked things over between them, they must have washed their faces and redone their makeup, their eyes were sparkling, their lips were red.
I reflected on the fact that Monica really was pretty, not just a cute young woman, and that if I had gone to all that trouble just to allow my classmate Picchiatello to spend an evening out, away from home, then I really was an idiot.
And was I doing it all for him, really?
Just for him?
Let’s tell the truth: I was doing it because I was head over heels with his beautiful mother.
What the hell, Picchiatello could go fuck himself, fuck his nervous tics and his watery, bulging eyes: it was Coralla Martirolo, in her chaste outfits, with her heaving breasts, who was stirring my compassion.
Her red heart, stabbed with daggers ever since the birth of that mental defective.
Coralla Martirolo moved my spirit, and she stirred all the rest: thinking about her made me tremble with pity, which is the most sensual sentiment of them all, the most physical, you feel it like a shiver, a thorn in your flesh that gives you a pain that’s sharp and then sweet, so to speak, celestial.
Mercy, mercy.
Have mercy on us, oh Lord.
Have mercy on Coralla Martirolo.
Have mercy on this poor nut job.
Have mercy on Erika with the k that they stuck in her poor name.
Have mercy, oh Lord, on those who seek You and on those who don’t seek You and on those who have given up trying.
Mercy, mercy, mercy.
Have mercy on me and I will show you the same mercy.
I will seek among the Christians for someone like me, and if I don’t find him, I’ll seek him among the non-Christians, and I will find him.
Ecce homo. Behold the Man.
Pik’s face appeared to me even more deformed than it actually was.
“What shall we do now?” the girls asked cheerfully, wobbling on their heels.
They couldn’t handle the alcohol any better than we could.
Oh, yes, yes, decisiveness and indecisiveness: the two poles between which my life has always swerved.
Very frequently, in fact, nearly always, I’ve acted in a clumsy, brusque, and excessive manner, only because otherwise I run the risk of not acting at all, it’s all or nothing, either I jump out the window or else I’ll be stuck here, lost in thought in a chair, either I say nothing or I scream, there are no alternatives, it’s either inertia or head-on crash.
And so I staggered to my feet, shoved Pik aside—he was just getting in my way with his oversized, extraterrestrial head—and I reached the girls, blurry because of the alcohol, and I roughly grabbed Monica by the hand, pulled her after me, and groped and stumbled my way down the dark hallway.
Turning around for a moment, I saw Pik with a confused, alarmed look on his face, his eyes round as balls, begging me for help, but I wasn’t going to give it to him.
It was hopeless.
Monica protested in monosyllables.
“Come on,” I answered her brusquely, “come on.”
We entered a room at random, and there was a bed in it.
I pushed her onto the bed.
“Wait,” she said.
“No, I’m not going to wait,” and I jumped on top of her, crushing her into the mattress.
“Wait, not like that,” she said again, and I who could feel a roaring of water in my head ignored her because, I’m sure of it, if I had waited, it all would have ended at once, the girl and the room would have vanished, but luckily it was my own physical weight, the weight of my head and the weight of my body, that dragged me like lead on top of her.
For the third time, Monica asked me to wait.
But wait for what?
I wanted to give her a kiss, but in order to give her that kiss I would have to scale a mountain and plunge down a bottomless cliff . . .
All right then, kiss her, kiss her immediately, a french kiss, press my own bruised, dry mouth down upon that mouth aflame, right now.
I did it.
And afterward all I said was: “Oh, Monica . . .,” and the words fled from my mouth like a lament.<
br />
And I flipped over next to her, I relaxed, in a state of abandonment, as if I were exhausted, but from what, after all? Looking up at the ceiling as it swayed, slid back and forth, a white rectangle that was sliding away, going back where it belonged, and then sliding off to one side again.
My spirit had run aground in that soft and passionate kiss.
Monica’s face appeared above me, and she looked down at me, astonished.
“You’re completely crazy,” she said and laughed.
She stroked my face and she tried to give me a more delicate, deeper kiss than the last one.
Just at that moment, Picchiatello entered the room.
He seemed terribly far off, and tiny, there, two yards away.
“It’s time to go,” he said.
Behind him, Erika entered the room.
An Expressionist painting.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, “I’m so sorry . . . I . . .”
Monica in the meantime had sat up on the bed and was smoothing her skirt over her legs.
Pik was blinking his eyes and looking first in one direction and then in the other.
In a metallic voice, he repeated that he had to get back home.
“Right-a-way.”
He spoke like a tape-recorded message.
At that point, Erika burst into tears.
Between sobs, she was stammering: “I don’t know . . . I don’t know what . . . it was just . . . just . . .” then she ran across the room to grab the handle of a small door on the far side of the room, as if she were about to fall down, then she opened it and disappeared through it.
The next instant, she could be heard vomiting.
“Shall we go? I’m ready,” Picchiatello said, calm and indifferent.
His enormous eyes were glassy, there was dried slobber at the corners of his mouth, and he was smoothing his shirt with his hands to tuck it in under the belt of his too large, too loose trousers.
“Certainly, certainly,” I replied, “I’m ready, too,” and I let my legs dangle over the side of the bed.
From the bathroom came the last sounds of retching, dry heaves, when nothing more will come up.
Really, a special evening.
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