The Woman of Rome (Italia)

by Alberto Moravia

I was certain now that Astarita would have Mino freed. I was so inexperienced in these matters that I imagined Astarita telephoning a servile warder and telling him in enraged tones to free the student Giacomo Diodati immediately. I counted the minutes impatiently, and when Astarita reappeared I rose to my feet, thinking I would thank him and then hurry away to meet Mino.

  But there was a singularly unpleasant expression on Astarita’s face, a mixture of disappointment and malicious anger. “What do you mean by saying he’s been arrested?” he said shortly. “He fired on the police and ran off — one of the policemen is dying in the hospital. If they catch him now, as they most certainly will, I can’t do anything more for him.”

  I stood there breathless with astonishment. I remembered I had removed the bullets from the pistol — but, of course, he might have reloaded it without my knowledge. Then, on second thought, I was filled with joy and this joy sprang from very different feelings, as I realized at once. It was the joy of knowing Mino was free; but it was also the joy of knowing he had killed a policeman, which was an action I had thought him incapable of and which profoundly modified the idea I had had of him until that moment. I wondered at the aggressive, urgent force with which my heart, usually so opposed to all forms of violence, applauded Mino’s desperate action; it really was the same kind of irresistible pleasure I had felt when I had reconstructed Sonzogno’s crime in my own mind, but this time it was accompanied by a form of moral justification. Then I began to think how I would soon find him again and how we would run away and hide together; we might even go abroad, where as I knew political refugees were welcomed; and my heart swelled with hope. I also imagined that perhaps a new life was really about to begin for me, and I told myself that I owed this renewal of my life to Mino and his courage and I was filled with gratitude and love for him. Meanwhile Astarita was pacing furiously up and down the room, stopping from time to time to shift some object on his desk. “Obviously he rallied after he was arrested,” I said calmly, “so he fired and escaped.”

  Astarita stood still and looked at me, twisting his whole face into an ugly grimace. “You’re glad, aren’t you?” he said.

  “He was right to kill the policeman,” I said straightforwardly. “He was trying to take him to jail — you’d have done the same yourself.”

  “I have nothing to do with politics,” he answered unpleasantly, “and the policeman was only doing his duty: he had a wife and children.”

  “If Mino is involved in politics, he must have his own good reasons for it,” I replied, “and the policeman should have known that a man will do anything rather than let himself be carried off to jail. So much the worse for him —”

  I felt peaceful because I imagined Mino going freely about the streets of the city, and I was eagerly anticipating the moment when he would summon me from his hiding place and I would see him again. Astarita seemed to lose all self-control at the sight of my composure. “But we’ll find him again,” he cried suddenly, “What do you think — that we won’t be able to find him?”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m glad he got away, that’s all.”

  “We’ll find him and then he can be sure he won’t have it so easy.”

  “Do you know why you’re so angry?” I asked him after a moment.

  “I’m not angry at all.”

  “Because you hoped he’d been arrested so you could show off your generosity to me and to him — and instead he slipped out of your hands. And that makes you angry.”

  I saw him shrug his shoulders furiously. Then the telephone rang and Astarita lifted the receiver with the relieved air of a person who has succeeded in finding some excuse for breaking off an embarrassing discussion. At the very first words I saw his face, like a landscape gradually illuminated by a sudden ray of sunshine on a stormy day, change from grim annoyance to a more serene expression; and I interpreted this as a bad sign, though I could not say why. The call was a lengthy one, but Astarita never said anything except yes or no, so that I could not tell what the discussion was about. “I’m sorry for your sake,” he said as he hung up the receiver, “but the first report about that student’s arrest was wrong. Police headquarters had sent their men both to his house and to yours, to make absolutely sure of getting him, no matter what — and in fact they did arrest him, at the widow’s house where he rented a room. But they found someone else at your place, a small, blond man with a Northern accent who, as soon as he saw them, shot at them and escaped instead of showing his papers as they asked. At the time they thought it was your student, but instead it was obviously someone who had his own account to settle with the law.”

  I felt faint. So Mino was in jail; and Sonzogno was convinced I had denounced him. Anyone, seeing me disappear and then seeing the police arrive immediately afterward, would have thought the same. Mino was in prison and Sonzogno was looking for me to revenge himself on me. I was so dazed that I could only murmur, “Poor me,” as I took a step toward the door.

  I must have gone very pale because Astarita immediately lost his dark, triumphant look of satisfaction and came up to me. “Sit down,” he said anxiously, “Let’s talk it over — nothing is irrevocable.”

  I shook my head and put my hand on the door. Astarita stopped me. “Look,” he stammered, “I promise you I’ll do all I can. I’ll question him myself — and then, if it’s nothing serious, I’ll have him set free as soon as possible. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, that’s all right,” I said dully. “Whatever you do,” I added with an effort, “you know I’ll be grateful.”

  I knew by now that Astarita really would do all that lay in his power to free Mino, as he had said. And I had only one desire — to go away, to leave his dreadful Ministry as quickly as I could. But he was addressing me again, as a scrupulous policeman. “By the way, if you have any reason to be afraid of that man they found at your place, tell me his name. That’ll make it easier for us to lay our hands on him.”

  “I don’t know his name,” I said and started to leave.

  “In any case,” he insisted, “you’d better go on your own to the commissioner of police. Tell him what you know — they’ll tell you to keep yourself at their disposal and then they’ll let you go. But if you don’t go, it’ll look bad for you.”

  I replied that I would go and said good-bye. He did not close the door at once but stood watching me from the threshold while I walked away across the anteroom.

  9

  O NCE I WAS OUTSIDE THE Ministry, I walked hastily to the nearest piazza, as if I were running away. Only when I had reached the middle of the square did I realize that I had no idea where to go and I began to wonder where I could take shelter. At first I had thought of Gisella; but her house was a long way off and my legs were giving way under me through sheer exhaustion. Besides, I was not at all sure that Gisella would be willing to take me in. Zelinda, the woman who rented out rooms and whom I had mentioned to my mother on my way out, was the only other solution. She was a friend of mine, and, besides, her house was nearby; I decided to go to her.

  Zelinda lived in a yellowish building, one of many of the same kind, overlooking the station square. This house of Zelinda’s was remarkable, among many other particulars, in that it had a staircase that was immersed, even in the mornings, in an all but impenetrable obscurity. There was no elevator, there were no windows, and as you climbed up in almost total darkness you were liable to bump into the shadowy forms of people coming down, clinging to the same handrail. A perpetual stench of cooking tainted the air; but it was cooking that might have been done years before, whose odors had been decomposing all this time in the dank and chilly air. My legs trembled and I was sick at heart as I mounted those stairs that I had climbed so often before, followed closely by some impatient lover.

  “I want a room — for tonight,” I said to Zelinda, who came to open the door.

  Zelinda was a corpulent woman, no more than middle-aged, perhaps, but looking old beyond her years on account of her obesity. Gouty, wit
h blotchy, unhealthy cheeks, dull, bleary blue eyes, and scant dirty blond hair, which was always disheveled and hung down in tufts like the rough ends of tow ropes, she still retained in her features some remnants of affectionate grace, as a ray of sun will linger in stagnant water at sunset. “I’ve got a room,” she said. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes, I’m alone.”

  I went in and she closed the door. She stumbled along in front of me, broad and dumpy in her old dressing gown, with her knot of hair hanging down half undone on her shoulders, and all her hairpins sticking out. The flat was as chilly and dark as the stairway. But here the smell of cooking was recent as of good, fresh food being prepared that moment. “I was just getting supper,” she explained, turning around and smiling at me. Zelinda, who rented out rooms by the hour, was fond of me, I did not know why. After my usual visits she often detained me to chat and offer me sweets and liqueurs. She was unmarried and probably no one had ever made love with her, as she had been deformed by obesity ever since childhood — her virginity could be deduced from the shyness, curiosity, and clumsiness with which she questioned me about my affairs. Utterly lacking in envy and malice, I think she secretly regretted that she had never done what she knew was being done in her rooms; and that her occupation of renting them out by the hour satisfied not so much her business sense as her perhaps unconscious desire not to feel entirely excluded from the forbidden paradise of love-making.

  At the end of the hall there were two doors I knew well. Zelinda opened the left-hand one and preceded me into the room. She lit the three-branched lamp with its white glass tulips and went to close the shutters. It was a large, clean room. But its cleanliness seemed to throw into pitiless relief the worn-out poverty of the furnishings — the threadbare carpets by the bed, the darns in the cotton coverlet, the rusty stains on the mirrors, the chips on the jug and basin. She came toward me. “Don’t you feel well?” she asked me as she looked at me.

  “I feel fine.”

  “Why don’t you sleep at your own place?”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “Let’s see if I can guess,” she said with a fond, knowing air. “You’ve had a disappointment — you were expecting someone and he didn’t turn up.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And let’s see if I’m right this time, too — it was that dark-haired officer you came with last time.”

  This was not the first time that Zelinda had asked me questions of this kind. “You’re right — and then?” I replied at random, almost choking with anguish.

  “Oh nothing — but, you see, I understand you at once! I guessed what was the matter at first glance. But you mustn’t be upset — if he didn’t come, he must have had some reason for it. Soldiers, you know, aren’t always free to …”

  I did not reply. She looked at me for a moment. Then she addressed me again in her fond, hesitant, coaxing voice. “Do you want to keep me company at supper? There’s something nice.”

  “No thanks,” I replied hastily. “I’ve already eaten.”

  She looked at me once again and gave me a little tap on the cheek in place of a caress. “Now I’ll give you something you surely won’t refuse,” she said, with the promising, mysterious expression of an old aunt talking to some young nephew. She pulled a bunch of keys out of her pocket, went over to the chest of drawers and opened one of the drawers with her back to me.

  I had undone my coat and now, leaning against the table with one hand on my hip, I watched Zelinda rummaging about in the bottom of the drawer. I remembered that Gisella often came to that room with her men friends, and I recalled that Zelinda did not like Gisella. She liked me for myself and not because she liked everyone. I felt consoled. After all, I thought, everything in the world was not police, ministries, prisons, and other such cruel, heartless things. Meanwhile Zelinda had finished rummaging in her drawer. She shut it carefully and came over to me, repeating, “Here — you surely won’t refuse this,” and put something down on the mat on the table. I looked and saw five cigarettes, good ones, gold-tipped, a handful of sweets wrapped in colored papers, and four little colored fruits made of almond paste. “How’s that?” she asked, giving me another little pat on the cheek.

  “That’s fine, thanks,” I stammered in embarrassment.

  “Don’t mention it, don’t mention it — if you need anything, just call me, don’t be afraid.”

  When I was alone once more I felt chilled to the bone and greatly troubled. I was not sleepy and I did not want to go to bed; but in that cold room where the chill of winter seemed to have been preserved for years as it is in churches and cellars, there was nothing else to do. I had never had to face this problem the other times I had come here — both the man accompanying me and I myself longed only to get beneath the sheets and warm one another; and although I felt no emotion toward those lovers picked up on the street, the act of love itself absorbed me and immersed me in its spell. It now seemed incredible to me that I had made love and had been made love to among such squalid furniture, in such a gelid atmosphere. The ardor of the senses surely created an illusion for me and my companions each time, making those absurdly alien objects both pleasant and familiar. It occurred to me that my life, if I were never to see Mino again, would be just like that room. Looking back at my life objectively, without illusions, I saw that it contained nothing really beautiful or intimate, that actually, it was entirely made up of ugly, worn, chilly things, just like Zelinda’s room. I shuddered and began to undress slowly.

  The sheets were icy and clammy with dampness; to such an extent that I had the impression, when I stretched myself out in the bed, that I was imprinting the shape of my body on wet clay. For a long time I remained absorbed in thought while the sheets gradually grew warmer. I went off on a sidetrack thinking about Sonzogno and lost myself in analyzing the motives and consequences of that whole shadowy affair. Sonzogno certainly believed by now that I had betrayed him and there was no doubt that appearances were all against me. But only appearances? I remembered his phrase, “I have a feeling I’m being followed,” and I asked myself whether the priest had talked, after all. It did not seem likely, but so far there was nothing to prove that he had not.

  Still thinking of Sonzogno, I began to imagine what must have happened at home after my flight. Sonzogno waiting, getting impatient, dressing, the entrance of the two policemen, Sonzogno pulling out his gun, shooting without warning, and running away. These imaginary visions of what had occurred gave me an obscure, insatiable pleasure, as when I had reconstructed Sonzogno’s crime. Time and time again I went over the scene of the shooting, dwelling lovingly on all the details; and there was no doubt that, in the struggle between Sonzogno and the police, I was heart and soul on Sonzogno’s side. I trembled with joy at seeing the wounded policeman fall to the ground; I heaved a sigh of relief when Sonzogno escaped; I followed him anxiously down the stairs; my peace of mind was restored only when I saw him disappear in the distant darkness of the main road. At last I grew tired of this kind of mental cinema, and turned off the light.

  I had already noticed on other occasions that the bed stood against a door that communicated with the next room. As soon as I had turned out the light, I saw that the two halves of the door did not meet properly, so that a vertical ray of light shone through the gap. I pulled myself up onto the pillow on my elbows, slipped my head between the iron curls of the bedstead and put my eye to the crack. I did not do this out of curiosity, since I already knew what I would see and hear through that slit, but fear of my thoughts and loneliness drove me to seek companionship in the next room, even if I could do so only by spying. But for a long time I could see no one at all — there was a round table in front of the crack in the door and the light from the lamp poured down onto the table, beyond which I caught a glimpse of a wardrobe mirror gleaming in deep shadow. But I could hear voices — the usual talk that was so familiar to me, about one’s hometown, one’s age and name. The woman’s voice was unemotional and reserved, the man�
�s urgent and excited. They were talking in some corner of the room, perhaps they were already in bed. I began to have a sharp pain in my neck from gazing so long without seeing anything and I was about to turn away when the woman appeared beyond the table, in front of the shadowed mirror. She was standing up straight with her back toward me, naked, but visible only from the waist up, since the table hindered my view. She must have been very young; her back, under a mane of curly hair, was thin, hard, without grace, and of an anemic whiteness. She looked as if she were not even twenty years old, but her breasts were flaccid; she may have already had a child. She must be one of those starved young girls, I thought, who hang around the municipal parks near the station, hatless and often coatless, badly madeup, and ragged, their feet thrust into enormous orthopedic shoes. When she laughed she must show her gums, I thought. All these things occurred to me quite spontaneously, without reflection, because the sight of that miserable, naked back comforted me and I felt I loved that girl and understood only too well the feelings she was experiencing at that moment while looking at herself in the mirror. But the man’s voice called out roughly, “Will you let me in on what you’re doing?” and she left the mirror. For a moment I saw her sideways, with her curved shoulders and scraggy chest, just as I had imagined her. Then she vanished and a second later the light was extinguished.

  The vague affection I had felt for the girl while I could see her was extinguished, too, and I found myself all alone once more in the big, still, cold bed, in that darkness filled with cold, worn-out objects. I thought of the two of them there on the other side of the wall, how they would fall asleep together after a while. She would lie at her companion’s back with her chin resting on his shoulder, her legs entwined in his, her arm around his waist, her hand on his groin, and her fingers lost languidly in the folds of his belly — like roots seeking life in the blackest earth. And suddenly I felt like an uprooted plant myself, thrown out on smooth stone where I would wither and die. I missed Mino, and if I stretched out my hand, I became conscious of an enormous, empty, frozen space that surrounded me on all sides, while I lay there huddled up in the middle without protection or companionship. I felt a strong and sorrowful desire to embrace him, but he was not there, and I felt myself to be a widow and began to weep, hugging sheets in my arms, pretending to myself that I was holding him. At last I fell asleep, I know not how.