He put it on his desk, facing Margot, who signed it with an expensive-looking fountain pen that didn’t go through the carbons, so she had to sign each of the three copies separately. She rose to leave, and the commissario shook her hand.
“Mille grazie. Thank you very much for coming. And you too, Signor ’oodall.” He turned to face Woody. “You Americans have such difficult names.”
“It’s a problem for me too,” Woody said.
The commissario struggled to say w: “Doppio-vu. And we can’t pronounce English ‘acca’ either. But in any case, thank you for coming.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Woody said. “The commissario gave him a funny look. “Well, not exactly a pleasure,” Woody added.
The commissario sat down and invited Woody to sit down. “Signora ’arrington has given me her version of what happened a week ago Saturday night. Now maybe you could give me your version.” The young clerk inserted another thick carbon into his typewriter and aimed his two index fingers at the keyboard. Woody started to give his version of what happened. The commissario motioned for Woody to pause every once in a while so the clerk could catch up. When Woody finished, the commissario leaned forward.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“That turd who was torturing the dog? The stronzo?”
“Precisely.”
“I forgot about him when the ambulance came. I had to get the dog to the hospital.”
“But he hasn’t forgotten about you.”
“He’s all right?”
“Yes and no. He spent the night in the hospital. But you humiliated him in front of his girlfriend. He made brutta figura.”
“Ah, yes. Ugly figure.”
“He would like his dog back.”
“So he can cut her throat or burn her? Out of the question. I couldn’t do it.”
“I quite understand.”
“Look at this.” He showed the commissario the scars and burn marks, covered by hair now, that Dottoressa Soldi had pointed out to him. Biscotti held very still while they examined her. Woody stroked the back of her head. “This dog was very frightened of me at first. She still is. She’s been badly abused.”
The commissario held up a finger and the young man stopped typing. “Unfortunately,” the commissario said, “this young man, this stronzo, as you so precisely call him, comes from an old Florentine family.” He leaned forward and whispered confidentially, “A family of turds, of stronzi.”
“I see,” Woody said.
The commissario petted the dog. “The higher up you are in the police,” he said, “the more . . . how shall I put it?”
“Subject to influence?”
“Yes, exactly. Normally I would not trouble myself about a case of this nature, but you see . . .” He trilled his hand.
“And if I don’t give the dog back?”
More trilling. “There could be trouble. Or rather, there will be trouble. No end of trouble. For you, for the family, for me.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Criminal charges, for one thing. Assault. Battery. Threatening the ambulance driver with a knife. The driver, you know, is an employee of the state. If he were to make a complaint, then the police would have no option. You would be arrested. And this is no joking matter.”
“I didn’t threaten the ambulance driver with a knife. He saw what the stronzo’d done . . .”
The commissario held up a hand. “I’m speaking hypothetically,” he said. “I’ve spoken with the driver. I don’t think you need to worry on that score, at least not now. And I don’t think you need to worry about assault charges. Signor Romero is not anxious to have his treatment of the dog made public. But you don’t know what people like this will do if they don’t get their way.”
“I won’t give the dog back. I simply couldn’t do it.”
“I quite understand. Believe me. Which is why, if you will permit me, I will suggest another course of action.”
“Go ahead.”
“I could arrange for the dog to disappear. My sister in Calabria . . . Three children . . . It could all be done discreetly . . . One day the dog is here; the next day the dog is gone . . . No one knows what has happened . . . The dog will have a good home . . . You will be free to come and go as you like . . .”
This was the kind of solution Woody had been hoping for, and yet he wasn’t entirely happy with it.
“Have you ever been to Cerveteri, Commissario, the Etruscan cemetery outside of Civitavecchia?”
“No, I’m sorry to say that I have not.”
“Everyone says that the Etruscans had this jolly afterlife, that the spirits of the dead actually lived in the tombs, and that that’s why they had all their household things there. But this is too simple. Why is there a door painted on an inside wall of the Tomb of the Four Amphori?”
The commissario leaned forward, as if this were an examination question to which he should know the answer but couldn’t think of it at the moment.
“You can see a picture of the tomb at the Museo Archeologico in Via della Colonna. That door, it has to be leading somewhere, don’t you think? Symbolically?”
“Of course.”
“So their understanding of the afterlife . . . It’s more complex. . . .”
“Yes.”
The commissario looked at his watch. “But I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
Woody shook his head. “I guess I don’t either,” he said. “I’m sorry, but we walked past the Museo Archeologico on the way here . . . There’s a dog, a wonderful dog, in the Tomb of the Reliefs. I just realized that it looks just like Biscotti. A black Labrador. An Etruscan dog. Do you see?”
The commissario smiled. “I think I do,” he said, standing up to indicate that the interview was over. “You can’t leave the dog here now,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll arrange everything. If you bring the dog to Porta Romana at, say, eleven tonight . . .” He trilled his hand. “I’ll see to it that you’re not bothered by this stronzo.”
“I can’t do it,” Woody said. “You are a mensch, un uomo molto simpatico. I appreciate your offer, believe me . . .”
The commissario rubbed his eyes with his fists. “Why was I afraid of this? While I was talking to Signora ’arrington, something warned me, but there is nothing else I can do. Legally,” he explained, “in Italian law, that is, a dog is a cosa, a thing. I’m only a policeman, not a philosopher, not a scholar. But even I recognize the difference between the law and what we might call justice in the abstract. The courts, however, will not recognize this distinction, Signor ’oodall. And even if they did, these stronzi are very powerful. I am not going to tell you not to follow your heart, signore, but I will tell you that I foresee no end of trouble if you keep this dog. Trouble for you, trouble for me. E’ proprio cosi.” He paused. “On the other hand, you have served as vice president of the Association of the Families of the Victims of the Strage of 15 August.” This was a statement, not a question.
Woody nodded.
“Yes. Signora ’arrington told me. That’s what I was trying to think of before. That’s why I’m not surprised at your decision. I’m very sorry for your loss. You have done Italy an important service, and that will count for something, believe me. You will not be alone. You have resources, friends who will come to your aid. And I will do what I can. You must remember that you have a friend at the Questura. But not a powerful friend, I’m afraid. This uniform . . . , these symbols . . . , not an eminenza grigia, as the French say. And of course the Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali will take an interest in the matter.”
“I understand. And I appreciate it. It’s a pleasure to deal with a man like you.”
Woody had never mastered the double air kiss between men, but he was glad to embrace the commissario before leaving.
Woody was surprised to find Margot waiting for him, on the other side of Via Zara, looking in the window of a store that sold Persian carpets. She must have seen his reflection in the glass
, because she turned and crossed the street.
“I want to apologize,” she said.
Woody thought she was talking about her behavior in the Questura, where she’d hardly spoken to him.
“No, no,” she explained. “That was because I didn’t want the commissario to know that we’re old friends. Well, not exactly old friends, but something.” She looked him in the eye and then looked down. “I saw you with the dog in Piazza Santa Croce,” she said. “Out my window. You were feeding the dog cookies, but I didn’t come down because I was embarrassed. I’m afraid I made brutta figura on Saturday night.”
There’s something about a woman apologizing that’s extremely seductive, and Woody knew, just as he’d known from the beginning that he was going to keep the dog, that he had not really wanted to escape from this woman.
“I make brutta figura every time I turn around,” Woody said. “It doesn’t matter if anyone sees me or not. I’m aware.”
“Seriously, Woody. I’m ashamed of myself for wanting to run away. It’s humiliating.” She put her hand on his arm. “I would have left this poor dog,” she said, bending to pat Biscotti on the head. “It makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it. I just wanted to run away. I think I’m becoming too Italian.”
Woody was becoming uncomfortable. This was a beautiful woman. Like an actress, but not an American actress, not that fake beauty. More like an Italian actress. She looked like a real woman, full of years, full of experience. Stagionata, that was the word he was looking for. Not aged but seasoned.
“But the commissario,” he said. “There’s a good man.”
“Yes,” she said.
“He offered to find a home for the dog. With his sister, in Calabria.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“How are you going to keep a dog in Italy?”
“Lots of people have dogs in Italy. Why should it be any different for me?”
“What are you going to do with her during the day?”
“One of my students lives in Borgo Pinti,” he said. “The girl who sings like Ida Cox. Maybe the dog can stay there during the day. There’s a big courtyard, and another dog to play with. I hadn’t realized how lonely I was,” he said. “Before.”
“And now?”
“It’s good to have a dog.”
There was nothing more to say. “Coffee?” she asked.
“Let’s go to San Marco,” he said.
At the bar in San Marco they ordered their coffees and took them to a table. Table etiquette, like bidet etiquette, was one of those things Woody could never be quite sure of. If you sit at a table, you pay more than if you stand at the bar. But what if you stand at the bar and get your coffee and then sit at a table, which is what they’d done? He ordered some biscotti for the dog.
“How did your film meeting go?”
She told him about the yeshiva fire in Severiano, and about Esther Klein, and about koshering the freezer.
“You’re excited, aren’t you?”
“I’m trying not to show it, but I guess I can’t help it.”
“It is pretty exciting. I can’t imagine it.”
“Who do you think should play me?” she asked. Woody struggled, but he couldn’t come up with the names of any actresses.
“You don’t know any more about movies than I do,” she said.
“I’ve seen Gone with the Wind,” he said. “In Italian.”
“Then we’ve got something in common.” She laughed. “Francamente, Cara, me ne infischio.”
Woody laughed too. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a whistle.” He handed Biscotti another cookie. “You’ll be like Aeneas,” he said when he’d stopped laughing, “when he gets to Carthage and sees the bas-relief with the whole Trojan war laid out and recognizes himself among the Greek warriors: ‘Se quoque principibus permixtum agnovit Achivis.’”
“Which means?”
Woody translated. “He recognized himself among the Greek warriors.”
“I see,” Margot said, “but it probably won’t be quite like that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, maybe it will. Isn’t that the ‘tears of things’ passage? Lacrimae rerum?”
“Yes, it is.”
“My mother used to quote that passage. The ‘tears of things.’ I never understood what it meant.”
“You will when you see a movie about yourself,” Woody said.
“Sounds like a threat.”
“More like a warning.”
“I think I’ll be all right,” she said. “I’m writing the screenplay myself.”
“Good for you. Have you ever written a screenplay before?”
“Of course not, but how hard could it be?”
“I have to teach this afternoon,” he said, looking at his watch.
“What are you going to do with the dog?”
“She’s coming to class with me today,” he said.
“They’ll let you get away with that?”
“This is Italy,” he said. “Sometimes it’s not so bad.”
Pitch Meeting
Esther didn’t spend any time commiserating with other independent producers, or with producers who’d just been fired, or with producers who hadn’t had a hit in five years but were still hanging on. Or worse, with producers who’d given up and now pretended to be glad to be out of the business.
She didn’t have time to commiserate. She wanted to finish the exterior shooting before Easter, before Florence got too crowded. She had only three months to set up the film if she wanted to start shooting in January, but she knew what she had to do. She had to start making a lot of noise. She had to act as if she were making the film—attach a director, start casting, fake some publicity—and the rest would follow. In mid-October she took a meeting in L.A. with one of the independent-friendly studios, Leviathan, which was planning to sign a couple of producers to help supply them with movies over the next few years.
Esther had a friend at Leviathan, Dawn Carpenter, an old pal from the early days of WOMPI—the Women of the Motion Picture Industry—who’d been hired to make “pictures of integrity” with good roles for women, not just for bimbos and virgins, but for real women. They were going to hire women directors, women producers. It sounded like the same old bullshit to Esther, and yet she believed in it. She wasn’t a cynic. Appearances to the contrary, no one in Hollywood was really a cynic. They were all dreamers, romantics. Including Esther.
Dawn couldn’t green-light a project, nor could her boss, whose name was Gordon Talbot, but Gordon’s boss could. “Just be careful you don’t women’s lib him to death, okay?” Dawn said to Esther in the new commissary, just before the meet. The commissary reminded Esther of her high school cafeteria at P.S. 100 in Brooklyn: Neon lights, trays, the smell of macaroni and cheese. Women in hairnets. Was this deliberate? What had happened to the old commissary, which had been more like a restaurant?
Esther recognized the studio head at a table with a couple of minions, flunkies, including Gordon. “You can’t help being aware of him,” Esther said to Dawn. “He used to be a gofer, and now it’s like Stalin’s sitting over there, or Hitler. Or Nero or Caligula!”
“They have to eat too,” Dawn said, poking at her salad and dry baked potato. Esther was eating Salisbury steak. “Besides, he’s turned this place around.”
“Made the trains run on time,” Esther said.
Dawn didn’t say anything.
“Too many lawyers,” Esther said. “Too many execs. What do they do anyway?”
“I’m an exec,” Dawn said.
“Sorry.”
Esther was too excited to relax. She was getting a buzz in spite of herself. She was her own buzz.
“Here’s the deal,” Dawn was saying: “New Hope will be the executive producers. Frank Johnson will supervise the music, and Leviathan will advance fifty percent of the budget against North America. The other fifty percent will come from foreign rights. I
see Molly Neumann directing, or Alice Arnold. I see Meg Ryan or Heather Locklear as the female lead, and Bobby De Niro as the Italian lover.”
Esther’s heart was pumping faster and faster. This was going to be bigger than she’d anticipated. “What kind of numbers are we talking about?”
“That depends. There’re a lot of variables.”
Esther tried to keep a tight rein on her fantasies, but she let herself go a little. Just a little. It was good to be out and about, good to be on her own, feeling her own strength, dealing with this person and that person. Good people. People who could make things happen.
Gordon, whom Esther knew slightly, stopped by their table on his way out of the commissary.
“You look like you could use a hit,” he said to Esther.
“Who couldn’t?”
“I think she’s got one,” Dawn said.
“You know how I can tell when I got a hit? By how hard it makes my big dick.”
Dawn chuckled. “Esther’s got something that’ll keep you going all night,” she said. “The Sixteen Pleasures. Sixteen sexual positions. Wait till you hear the pitch, right, Esther?”
“A book of Renaissance erotica,” Esther said. “Discovered in a convent. Sixteen erotic poems by a guy named Aretino, and sixteen erotic engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi.”
“Dirty poems and dirty pictures,” said Gordon. “A good combination. I hope it makes a fucking ton of money. You got a copy I can look at?”
“There’s only one copy,” Esther said. “It was auctioned off at Sotheby’s and nobody’s seen it since.”
“I hear Harry’s film is wrecking,” Gordon said. “Makes you wonder. Harry needs somebody to keep him focused. He’s got all that dough and it’s confused him. He made a big mistake when he dumped you. You must be feeling good.”
“I feel bad about it,” Esther said. “We were a team, but what are you going to do?” She shrugged her shoulders.
“He couldn’t knock you out, could he? Tough old broad like you. You ought to lose some weight. I’m speaking to you as somebody who’ll tell you the truth straight out. Get a lift. Lose that coat too. You get it at the Salvation Army?”
The Italian Lover Page 4