Scent of a Woman

by Giovanni Arpino

  ‘C’mon, walk. Good God! Let’s go, buddy. Stand up straight. You feel like a limp rag,’ he prodded me.

  The avenue stretched straight ahead of us glazed by the sun, with tall, slender trees along the sidewalks. It was deserted, just a few clusters of young people scattered in front of a café, their mocking voices raucous. The houses followed in a row, all the same, their windows shuttered. The bamboo cane clanged blithely against the shutters over and over again.

  ‘And I complain about Rome. Bastard that I am. Nothing but jealousy. It’s open to you, Rome is. Feel it? Barbarian or not. What a day. Good for the soul,’ he said impulsively.

  He settled down in front of the lion cage. Gentle gusts of wind raised clouds of dust from the paths. Beyond some shrubs, the outlines of taller cages could be seen. From a pine tree came the shrill screeching of birds.

  He took a deep whiff.

  ‘What’s he doing. Sleeping?’

  ‘Every now and then he opens one eye,’ I told him.

  ‘He doesn’t stink,’ he said resentfully, ‘and what I really like about animals is their gamy odour.’

  He nudged me with his elbow, handed me the cane.

  ‘Try to stir him up. Get him angry. Christ, let’s hear you!’ he commanded, irritated.

  I held out the cane, shook it a few inches from the bars. The lion opened its jaws wearily without even breathing. His upper lip fell back slowly, docilely over his canines. He lowered his head again, winking.

  ‘He won’t budge,’ I said.

  ‘Goddamn world. I bet they stuff them with pills in this place. They must even kill off their fleas with flea-powder,’ he said angrily, stamping his foot. ‘That’s why he’s just lying there like a prick.’

  There wasn’t a soul along the path. The squeals of children reached us from afar mingled with the barking of seals. A yellow balloon rose up above the treeline, floating in the sunlight. I stood, flung my arms wide, let out a cry. The lion, bored, slowly looked away.

  ‘What time do they feed him?’

  ‘It says 11.30.’

  ‘Too late. I want to hear him now. Right away!’ he objected.

  I kicked at the wooden railing that separated us from the bars; I tried to lean closer. The lion shifted his haunches with deliberate voluptuousness, his head motionless, his gaze lost in space.

  ‘Big?’

  ‘Big, yeah. Male. With a dark mane. From Kenya. His name is Sam.’

  ‘Fuck,’ he muttered.

  At a corner of the railing were two signs with descriptions and warnings.

  ‘I’ll give you a good whipping, Sam,’ he threatened through clenched teeth.

  He leaned forward just a little, his right hand firmly on the railing, brandishing his wooden glove.

  The lion shifted his gaze from his distant target, and stared at him with a first quick gasp. From the depths of his lungs he drew a viscid breath that gradually grew into panting, his black eyes flashing.

  In a bound the lion was against the bars, his mane bristling. He roared, bits of straw hanging from his pale belly, his claws slashing the air ferociously, only to end up grating on the iron.

  ‘Friendly. You see?’ He calmed down immediately, nodding happily at the groans that now rumbled forth, muffled by the animal’s agitated pacing.

  ‘Smell that? You can even smell his odour now.’ He sniffed.

  The lion circled around two or three times, panting, before curling up again in the most remote corner of the cage, his teeth still bared.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he took my arm again. ‘Of course the gorillas are more easily riled. There’s nothing like the gorillas.’

  ‘Spaghetti for you. Then stuffed octopus. For me, meat. Meat soaks up the whisky,’ he decided.

  ‘I’ve never eaten octopus,’ I objected.

  ‘All the more reason. Hungry?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The restaurant was nestled in a corner of the piazza behind a low green hedge. A very fat, sweaty waiter stepped among the empty tables, moving sparingly. Heat hung in the centre of the piazza; red dots flashed before my eyes.

  ‘And afterwards? What would you like to do?’

  ‘Anything is fine with me,’ I replied.

  ‘Want to go off on your own? See a movie?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Bravo, Ciccio. A born tedious bore. Never an idea. Can’t ever make up your mind, huh? C’mon. It’s Sunday. Show some spirit or this time I’ll punish you.’

  I started when he banged his glass down, making the table shake.

  I saw him tense up, his whole face alert and rigid. He gestured with his right hand, but only after a long moment was I too able to perceive the distant tapping.

  Across the empty square an old blind man with a white cane appeared, his torso upright but his legs a little wobbly. He wore a straw hat and a garland of coloured tickets that hung from his neck down to his waist. Under his arm was a folded chair. He crept forward through the empty expanse of white stone like a fly in an overturned glass.

  ‘Do you see him?’ he asked coldly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes what? Explain. What is he doing?’

  I described the man to him. Meanwhile the old man had reached a corner and was gingerly feeling around. Two or three times he tapped his cane on the sidewalk ahead of him, but very lightly, soundlessly. He stood still, then began turning halfway around, his face and eyeglasses turned up towards the sun, his shabby hat not even shading his forehead.

  ‘Dressed decently?’ he asked.

  ‘Fairly.’

  ‘Now what is he doing? Is he moving? Is he leaving? Say something, damn it. Don’t sit there in a daze.’

  ‘He’s sitting down. He unfolded his chair. Now he’s sitting there. He’s lighting a cigarette.’

  ‘Jesus F. Christ.’

  The waiter was watching us. He made a move as if to come over and say something, then decided not to.

  ‘Go on,’ he said tensely, still cursing, as he pulled out some folded notes, ‘buy those lottery tickets from him. Every last one. Hurry up. Make him go away.’

  ‘What should I say to him?’ I asked, mystified.

  ‘Take them and pay him. Got it? And for God’s sake open that mouth of yours and speak. Are you asleep on your feet?’

  I got up heavily and to my surprise saw the waiter join me halfway across the piazza. We crossed that wasteland with our heads lowered, he grumbling a few foolish words about the heat, and that deserted Sunday hour.

  He explained it all to the blind man, while I waited a few steps away with the bills in my hand. The old man’s face was white as a candle, his lips ready to pull back in a broad toothless smile. The waiter helped him fold his chair back up and relieved him of the garland of tickets. Sticking the money in his pocket, he directed him along the wall, all the time teasing him gently about that shameful surfeit of good luck. The blind man laughed, bewildered. After a few yards he stopped, his face turned towards the sun and the piazza, the greenery of the little restaurant opposite, to raise his hat in a slow ceremonious salute.

  We returned to the table in silence.

  ‘You did a good thing, sir. A virtuous deed,’ the waiter said. ‘That man is unfortunate in more ways than one, if I may say so. When he goes home without any money, his wife beats him as well.’

  ‘You don’t say!’ He laughed happily.

  ‘A monster of a woman,’ the waiter added, wiping his sweat with a napkin. ‘She takes care of him, dresses him, but if he doesn’t earn anything during the day, she beats the daylights out of him. They live right behind here. We know them well.’

  ‘And him. Does he ever fight back? Just takes it and says thank you ma’am?’

  ‘He fights back all right. Poor man. With a bottle.’ The waiter laughed softly. ‘Capable of downing seven or eight litres a day. He’s certainly not going home now, you know. If he gets back too early, she sends him out again with more tickets. It’s greed that devours her: because
they aren’t really poor. So he goes to the church. To nap where it’s nice and cool. He’s shrewd. He comes back here in the evening after supper.’

  ‘And drinks!’ He was having a good time.

  ‘When he gets here he’s already loaded. His wife doesn’t deny him his wine,’ the waiter continued. ‘The wine is how she keeps him on a leash. Anyway: a good deed, what you did. Given what the world throws at us nowadays.’

  He sized us up with a long look, clearly meant to make out the possible degree of our kinship.

  ‘I’ll bet one of these days they’ll find her strangled to death,’ he said.

  ‘The wife? You think so?’ the waiter mused.

  ‘We’re evil. We blind guys.’

  The other protested with a calm smile.

  ‘Don’t say that, sir. We all know that it’s the hand of God. And why evil? It’s ignorant people who are evil. Would you like a nice cup of coffee, afterwards? Top quality, as it should be? I’ll bring it myself.’

  ‘Stick those tickets somewhere. Under the tablecloth, maybe.’ He then muttered half-heartedly, already bored. ‘What a drag. Being kind is so tedious. Stifling.’

  The afternoon seemed to go on and on.

  He didn’t want to go back to the hotel. We strolled through the desolate streets, angling here and there in search of some meagre shade along the walls. Every so often an unexpected glimpse of a familiar Rome would recreate a flight of steps, then another narrow street vanishing into the distance and the high overhead greenery of terraces suspended from the sky by a thread, but I had to move on quickly, his firm arm hanging on mine, the blistering Sunday ready to swallow me up in new avenues, boulevards, enormous traffic circles flattened and scorched by the sun.

  Later he decided to sit down at a café near a fountain, the roar of the water violent and monotonous. At a table nearby some guys were gesturing and shouting loudly in a heated discussion over football. Players’ names and insults clashed fiercely in the air, then dissolved in pauses of oppressive silence. The shapes of motorcycles parked along the sidewalks glinted. The umbrellas cast skimpy circles of shade. The surface of the table felt fiery under my fingertips.

  He went on at length about the water, about how noisy it was but as though out of habit, without any real enthusiasm; each sentence immediately obliterated by the next.

  I looked at that fountain, its copious chalky whorls, the streams that plunged down raising bits of greenish foam. It did not give off any coolness: my jacket and shirt were stuck to my back, my shoes had a film of dust. But strangely enough he hadn’t yet complained about the heat.

  Around us, closed shops, faded nameplates on the walls. Someone peered out through the crack of a shutter. A man on a bicycle approached very slowly, got off, and with weary gestures carelessly threaded a chain between the spokes of the wheel before disappearing into a doorway.

  ‘So: do you have at least one friend? Or not? Someone, anyone? Something to talk about? Were you born in a cabbage patch? You never say anything about yourself,’ he suddenly protested.

  ‘How do you always manage to guess?’ I asked, amazed. ‘The very instant I was telling myself: say something.’

  He nodded, but without any self-satisfaction.

  ‘One of my virtues,’ he went on. ‘For example, with me: are you a friend? Be sincere, otherwise it’s pointless.’

  ‘Yes. I think so. Why?’

  ‘Whys and wherefores.’ He shook himself irritably. ‘Why all these whys. Be direct. In short: do you feel like a friend? Do you feel that I’m a friend? Or would you rather be sitting with those others back there, talking about Boniperti and Rivera? Go on, tell me: it would only be natural.’

  ‘Of course not.’ I laughed nervously.

  ‘Do you feel different from those guys?’

  ‘A little. Not better. Just different.’

  ‘Exactly. Aside from football, do you feel comfortable with yours truly? Yes or no?’

  ‘Sure I do. Really.’

  ‘Bah!’ he made a face. ‘Let’s hope so. Look, friendship is a serious commitment.’

  I swallowed my usual ‘why?’ What came out was: ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that sooner or later, or maybe even never you understand, I could ask you to do me a big favour. Big but possible. Nothing impossible.’ The voice was only a little sad.

  ‘That’s fine, sir.’

  ‘That’s fine, sir.’ He mimicked me, the tension in his face finally relaxing. ‘Of course I don’t demand oaths. Your word is enough for me. Fair?’

  ‘Fair.’

  ‘I must say you’re not totally mute. A syllable or two does slip out occasionally.’ He laughed.

  I was embarrassed. ‘But I have so many things to say, in my head. They just won’t come out.’

  ‘Poor youth!’ He sighed, though distractedly. Then: ‘Let’s get out of here. Did you notice? A speck of ice in the whisky. Just one. That’s always the way in these tight-fisted joints. Let’s go back to last night’s bar.’

  He was already on his feet. His scrawny sunlit figure cast a lengthy shadow into the street.

  ‘You liked that bar too.’ He started walking, grabbing my arm. ‘All in all you’re a well-bred gentleman. Boy-oh-boy, are you! Why hide it? Your father: what’s he like? And you really don’t have a girlfriend? Tell me.’

  The lights began to dim one after the other until the packed room went dark. A waiter moved about with a flashlight, casting exploratory white circles around us. Then even the flashlight went out.

  There was a sharp smell of disinfectant in the stuffy place; I had my back against a rigid wall of wood and velvet. I felt his elbow nudge me.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing yet,’ I replied.

  ‘Are you having a good time?’

  ‘Actually not really, sir.’

  The glowing ash of two cigarettes rose and fell. I heard them laughing softly beside me, him and the girl with the rustling outfit. She had sat down at our table, her eyes knowing, her throat, shoulders and breasts like cream. We were drinking champagne, dubious glances thrown at us from remote corners. The total blackness all around us now provided a minimum of respite to ease my embarrassment. An isolated round of clapping broke the silence at the bar behind us. I had watched two strippers and a magician’s act, describing them to him in a whisper. The magician was an old man with a wrinkled face and painted smile who had finished his routine by balancing at least twelve quivering doves on his shoulders, hat and hands. The stripteasers had hurried through their numbers with quick, grudging moves. Only afterwards, when they left the bar and formed a wide semicircle to study us, did the creamy creature come to sit at our table, laughing and winking, chattering in broken Italian.

  The clapping resumed, loud and overly enthusiastic. In the darkness I was aware of the velvety slide of the curtain.

  A burst of piano music quickly rang out and at the back of that dark funnel-like space three phosphorescent little skeletons began to dance. Even the outlines of the top hats on their skulls glowed brightly. Disjointed shinbones, kneecaps and shoulders danced happily in sync to the rhythm of an old fox-trot that became more and more frenzied. Lightly they followed one another’s lead, barely touching, their steps crossing, the skulls rigid to provide balance. Suddenly the piano betrayed them by switching to a tango: the skeletons frantically and chaotically bumped into one another, vertebra entangled within vertebra, their top hats about to fall off. A last angry comic scuffle disentangled them in the proper arrangement, order was restored and their new steps were smoother, pelvises gently swaying in slow measured undulations, top hats in cadence. Then the music stopped: the illuminated stage broke the spell and a young man with Indian features wearing a black coverall stood behind the three limp puppets. Responding with a shy smile to the scant applause, he bowed slightly and ran off.

  ‘The only Italian she knows is swear words. As usual.’ He laughed, leaning back against the wall. ‘Good-looking, right? A heif
er from up north. Listen. Give her a try. She won’t bite. Go on. Stuff you won’t find on the Monte di Pietà.’

  He weighed her breasts lightly in his hand, delighting in fake sighs, the girl’s eyes quick to scrutinize mine before laughing and shaking him off.

  ‘I am very hungry, no? Fillet? Yes, the fillet. Please,’ she said wiggling around.

  She laughed without showing her teeth, that childish voice of hers far too affected.

  ‘I would have bet on bandolero steaks, the ones marinated in rum or bourbon.’ He continued to be amused, his fingers nervously tapping the table.

  The waiter arrived with the fillet and more champagne, while on stage a black woman with an oiled body undulated among flaming torches. From the top of each torch black paraffin smoke curled upwards.

  We had already deposited our bags in the luggage room at the station. We were to leave for Naples early the next morning.

  ‘This one here doesn’t get off until four a.m.,’ he said.

  ‘So what good is she? If we have to leave.’

  ‘She’ll come to the station with us. That’s what. Finally somebody to see us off,’ was his ready response.

  As soon as the lights dimmed, the girl moved closer to him, whispering in his ear. But maybe they weren’t words, just delicate breaths, and he basked motionless in that fragrant surge.

  ‘Here they’ll rob us. Like fools,’ I had said to him from the beginning.

  ‘So what? It’s fine just the same. Believe me. Or maybe you’re embarrassed.’

  ‘What does embarrassment have to do with it? I just think it’s dumb,’ I said angrily, an impassive waiter close by.

  ‘So then, what else should I deny myself, in your opinion?’ he retorted mildly. ‘As for the money, you’re right. Another minute of this life and I’ll end up right in the poorhouse. But we’ll think about that later on. Okay with you?’

  I had taken his arm, avoiding the attentions of the waiter. We had descended into that darkness, the sounds of the music suddenly louder.

  Now his elbow nudged my ribs again.

  ‘Hey, Ciccio. Know what she’s thinking about? A handbag. She says it only costs a thousand Swiss francs. Some bargain. Watch out: you’re holding the money, that’s what I told her. It seems the handbag is sold in a shop right near her house. Of course you’ll miss the train. Right? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.’