“Listen,” I said, pausing in the middle of undressing, “I’m going to bed.” I was at the end of my tether, truth be told. “You do what you like,” I said. “If you don’t know where to go, there’s the armchair, but stop all this nonsense, it makes me want to throw up. And don’t come here and tell me you were worried about me.”
“I really was worried about you.”
“All right,” I said, “all right. What do you want us to do? Do you want some brioches or do you want to go to the sea? Well, I’m going to bed. I’m tired of being your lightning rod.” When I said this, her eyes again filled with tears, but she didn’t say anything, and I went to bed, turning my face to the wall so as not to see her. I guess she couldn’t stand the sight of me either, because she switched off the light. The room was suddenly flooded with moonlight.
What a night! A cool breeze came in through the open window, along with the distant sound of crickets, but she didn’t move from the armchair and I didn’t call to her. We stayed like that for a good part of the night until I fell into a light half sleep filled with dreams. Toward morning, waking with a start, I looked over to the armchair. It was empty, and the room smelled vaguely of lilacs.
* * *
And yet it was nice to leave home in the morning with everyone else. It made you feel a straight-up kind of person. In my old Alfa Romeo I drove into the city, down a steep slope lined with trees so dense they gave you the feeling you were going through a forest, then left the car in a parking lot and continued on foot. The city, beneath a fresh, bright sun, was animated in a different way than the pinched, febrile animation of the night, and the traffic didn’t have the tragic cheerlessness of the afternoon. Gangs of small children released from school were playing in the shade of the monuments, and in the doorways of stores housewives were talking in loud voices, waiting for the heat of the afternoon. The cafés were being kind, in their own way, thanks perhaps to all that milk overflowing from the cups of cappuccino, and only the cold brioches made me sad for a moment. I’d given up on the pleasure of breakfast at home and had it instead in the café near the newspaper offices, where Rosario was waiting for me so that we could play pinball before going into work. Even the absolute stupidity of the work could be tolerated, especially as it didn’t usually start until an hour after we arrived and we had enough time to read the papers, smoke a few cigarettes, and chat with the girls.
That same afternoon, while I was transcribing the account of a friendly soccer match that had ended, much to our correspondent’s dismay, in a fight, I again smelled the scent of lilacs. With my eyes fixed on the keyboard, and my ears blocked by the headphones, the only thing I had at my disposal to connect me with reality was my nose. But there was no mistaking it: Coeur Joyeux. I spun around. Arianna was behind me. She’d been in the neighborhood and had thought to drop by to see me, wasn’t I pleased? “We were so stupid last night,” she said. What was I writing? I stood up to introduce her to Rosario, and keep her at a distance. We were alone in the big copy department. “Keep working,” she said, sitting down in the head of department’s armchair. “Don’t you have air-conditioning here?”
Rosario was excited. Of course—Arianna was wearing that blue-and-white-striped dress and smiling enough to dazzle him. I too was on tenterhooks, but for a different reason. I was afraid she would eventually discover that all I was in this place was a fucked-up typist. I started typing the article again, as quickly as I could. Looking up from time to time, I could see her and Rosario chatting, while she looked with curiosity at the booths, with their cork walls and obscene scribbles, the thin brown discs for recording copy, the magnets for cleaning them, the typewriters with their pedals and headsets. When one of the telephones started ringing, Rosario went to answer, and Arianna was again behind me. I sensed her presence growing heavier as she stood there reading the nonsense emerging from my typewriter. “It isn’t exactly Proust,” she said.
“It isn’t me either,” I said, performing an act of self-destruction.
“You mean to say,” she said, when I’d explained to her that I was only transcribing someone else’s article, “you never write anything that’s yours? They never send you to cover something and write about it? You never do features, in-depth articles, that kind of thing?” She may not have known anything about newspapers, but there was no way I could make her believe I was the editor. I saw a possibility for salvation in the fact that Rosario was coming back. But it was like clinging to a lead life jacket, because once he’d caught what we were talking about he offered to explain to her in detail the way the department worked. I started typing again, while still keeping an eye on Arianna. She was bravely trying to keep a smile on her lips, but every time she turned to look at me it fell to earth before reaching me. I finished my task satisfactorily and joined them. “A job for students,” Arianna was saying, to which Rosario replied that students did in fact give us a hand on Sundays, when there was more work.
“Order something at the cafeteria,” I said to Rosario. But Arianna said she had to go, she had errands to run. She’d put on her dark glasses and was searching for her purse. She passed by it a few times before she saw it. One of the telephones rang and I went to answer it. By the time I got back she’d gone.
“Strange girl,” Rosario said. “What do you think happened to her?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“She looked as if she was about to start crying, didn’t you see?”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “Don’t think about it.” But I couldn’t think about anything else and when I left I started walking the streets, knowing I’d lost her. I wanted to get drunk, I wanted the most god almighty hangover I could manage, because I could stand anything except losing Arianna after disappointing her like that. I had to find Graziano. I would find him even if it meant going around all the bars in the city and I began with the ones on Piazza del Popolo, only finding people who’d see him. From what they told me, I got the impression he was having one hell of a party. One person told me he’d seen him with two bottles in his jacket pockets to sustain himself on his journey from one bar to the next, another that he’d tied a kerchief around his thigh, and a third that he’d seen him heading for Piazza Navona but doubted he could make it all the way there.
Knowing Graziano, I didn’t take any notice of this and drove to Piazza Navona in my old Alfa Romeo. I left it in a parking lot because I didn’t know when I’d be able to pick it up again and continued on foot. The evening was cool, the temperature suitable for drinking without ice, and my stomach in good condition. It was likely to be a memorable encounter.
But I was still on the embankment when I realized it wouldn’t be easy to find Graziano. Buses were parked everywhere, which meant the square would be overrun with tourists. I hoped they wouldn’t disgust him so much as to send him elsewhere, to Santa Maria in Trastevere maybe, but that was unlikely, it would be too close to his wife. The square was indeed full of people, and what with the tourists, the painters of views, and the parties, you couldn’t walk without bumping into someone. At Domiziano’s, Enrico told me he’d seen him an hour before, looking for a free table, then asking for a glass and leaving. He couldn’t have gone far, and I started moving between the toy stands and the painters’ easels while monstrous balls shaped like caterpillars rose, whistling and twisting, into a sky illumined by streetlights.
I found him sitting on the rim of the central fountain, on the side facing the church, where there were fewer people sitting. The kerchief was now knotted around his forehead and he was sitting with his feet in the blue water. He was pouring scotch and beer into his glass, adulterating the mixture with a little water from the fountain, and drinking it. It was clear that he needed help.
“Leo, my boy,” he said, watching two tourists photograph the fountain, “how sad to feel one is part of a herd.” He raised his glass in their direction.
“From the last of the Mohicans?” I said.
“Yes, from the last and most fucked-up of the
Mohicans. When are we making our movie?”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “Let’s start tomorrow. This time for real, but right now let me take you home.”
“Home? I’m not going home,” he said, raising a finger. I told him he could come to my place if he wanted and he looked at me genuinely touched. “What would I do without you?” I tried to help him up, but he wouldn’t let me. “Impossible,” he said. “Why don’t you sit down instead? I have some things to tell you. The time has come for you to know, my boy … Have you ever watched butterflies in the spring? Well, with children, it’s different … No, that wasn’t what I wanted to tell you. For some time now, I’ve been thinking I have some things to tell you. What were they?… Oh, yes, I had a declaration to make to you. Leo, you’re a great guy. Don’t say ‘no,’ let me speak. You’re a great guy because you have to be a great guy to quit drinking. How’s it done?”
“Try to pray,” I said.
“I don’t pray,” he said. “At most I say ‘please.’”
“All right, now let’s get out of here.”
“I told you no. I told you I have a declaration to make to you first. Then we’ll go to your place. Or wherever you like. You’re a great guy, but I already told you that. You’re a cat. You keep to yourself and you could care less about this dirty, low-down, fucked-up world. You don’t need a rich wife. No kidding, I admire you a lot. If I were a fag, I’d fall in love with you. Wouldn’t we make a lovely couple?” he said as I put his shoes on him. “It’s the Appendage that bothers me, the Inert Appendage, the Irreversible Pendulum. Am I turning gay? Sometimes I think I am and I’m scared of turning gay. Why don’t you turn gay too? You can do it for a friend. What do you have to lose? We’ll turn gay and then at least we’ll be something. This way, what are we now? We’re nothing, not even fags.”
“We’ll take our time and think it over,” I said, “tomorrow,” meanwhile cursing myself for having left the car so far away. I knew I wouldn’t manage to get him all the way to the parking lot, so I got him to sit down on the sidewalk at the far end of the square, repeating to myself that he wouldn’t move. Then I ran to fetch the old Alfa Romeo.
It took me a while to get back because the tourist buses had all started to leave and were blocking the intersections. When I reached Graziano, I found him fast asleep right where I’d left him. I woke him up enough so I didn’t have to take him in my arms to put him in his seat and then I drove home. It was a problem getting him up the first flight of stairs to the elevator. “What would I do without you?” he kept saying, genuinely touched. “You’re better than my mother, that’s for sure.” I managed to put him on the double bed, the one I never used. “Christ,” he said, “I’m at the end of my tether,” and fell asleep before I even had time to take off his jacket. He still had his bottle of Chivas Regal in his pocket and I brought it with me into the room overlooking the valley. I took a glass, filled it, and switched on the radio. Then I threw myself into the armchair and started drinking, alone.
The morning after, my head felt as big as the room I was in and it wasn’t easy to get it through the door of the kitchen to make coffee. I brewed it in industrial quantities, then woke Graziano.
“Did we at least have fun?” he said, taking his cup of coffee in both hands. He was shaking. He asked for the sugar bowl and ate a few spoonfuls. “I dreamed all night about our movie,” he said. “When shall we start?”
“Not today,” I said, “tomorrow. Today my head’s full of sand.”
“Have you been drinking? Tell me the truth, you’ve been drinking. The old boy has been drinking, now that’s something to celebrate. Got any left?” he said, rubbing his hands.
I’d had some left, but I’d poured it down the sink when I made coffee because just the sight of the bottle made me want to throw up. “Let’s talk about the movie,” I said.
The problem was Sandie, but he said he would work on her in the appropriate way. He just had to hold out to her the possibility that the Irreversible Pendulum would begin working again. As a start, we established that we’d go to the movies every night to study the question from the technical point of view, camera angles, reverse shots, and all that crap, he said. We would start that very evening. For now, he had to go home and calm Sandie down. Where was the phone? He dialed his home number but didn’t say anything, just to gauge from Sandie’s hello how much venom she was spitting, then, apparently reassured, he took a bath, combed his beard, lit a cigar, and left.
I didn’t budge from the apartment until it was time to go to the office. All day long I jumped every time the phone rang. On one occasion nobody spoke at the other end, but I couldn’t be sure it was Arianna. Toward evening it got to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore—it’s always harder to stand things when evening comes—and I phoned her at home, but there was nobody there. Then I tried Eva’s store. Arianna wasn’t there either. And, no, Eva didn’t know where she could be. She was sorry, she said.
I saw Arianna two evenings later, coming out of a movie theater. I was with Graziano and she was with Livio Stresa, who looked even taller and thinner than usual, in blue jeans and tennis shirt. For a moment I thought about joining them, but I didn’t move. Maybe it was Arianna’s pale face that held me back or her head held too high, I don’t know, maybe it was the fact that they were alone and holding hands, all I know is that instinctively I stopped and stood watching them walk away through the crowd. Arianna turned in my direction before getting in the car, and her big, anxious eyes searched the crowd for a moment.
“But I know her,” Graziano said, by my side. “What an amazing leftover. What do you say? Shall we take a shower and go looking for her?”
I phoned her the next day.
“It’s you,” she said.
“I have to talk to you,” I said.
“I have to talk to you too,” she said.
I went and waited for her at the top of the Spanish Steps, as usual. But this time she didn’t arrive late and didn’t stop to make a tour of the streetlights on the way. This time she came straight toward me. She was wearing dark glasses. She stopped by my side and looked down the steps toward Piazza di Spagna. They were full of people sitting, waiting for the evening wind to start blowing, and the big bunches of azaleas were wilting in the heat. Arianna was silent for a while, holding on tight to the book she had in her arms, but her hand was opening and closing nervously. “Before you say anything, I want you to know I’ve slept with someone else,” she said.
* * *
A few days later, when the paper put me on the night shift, we started working on the movie. Graziano showed up at my apartment at nine in the morning, clean-shaven. “New life, new look,” he said. “Have you hidden all the bottles?” He’d promised he wouldn’t drink until six in the evening for all the time it took us to write the screenplay. “Oh, Lord,” he said when I put a bottle of orange squash in front of him. “I’ll never manage to drink so much water. You wouldn’t have any leftovers that are more fun, would you?”
“Don’t forget your angel,” I said.
“Oh, well,” he said, sitting down at the typewriter, “I get the message.”
And so began our battle with the thirtieth-birthday angel. It would last a long time, almost until the end of July. For a month and a half, we worked every day until sundown, naked to protect ourselves from the blasts of heat coming in through the window, breaking only for lunch, to eat some sandwiches and then sleep for an hour in the sunbaked apartment. Every once in a while, we’d take a shower, then get back to the typewriter.
The story of the thirty-year-old who killed his father was coming along well, and sometimes Graziano would get to his feet, clap his hands, then rub them together. “Good, good!” he would say. “Now, how about we have a little pick-me-up so that when we get back to work we’ll be sharper and brighter?” But he mainly said this to hear me say no, even though I knew perfectly well that as soon as I left the room he’d take the opportunity to have a slug. Then, around sundow
n, we’d go out on the balcony and look at the valley while Graziano drank his tandem. “How can you resist?” he’d say. I was at the end of my tether, truth be told, because in the evening I still had to go to the newspaper and, all in all, I never slept more than four hours a night. Sometimes I was so exhausted I’d fall asleep at the typewriter at work until I was awakened by the phone ringing.
There was one advantage, though, which was that I didn’t think about Arianna. I didn’t want to think about her, but every time the phone rang at home I’d clench my teeth until I knew who was on the other end. Since that evening at the top of the Spanish Steps, when I’d left without saying a word, I hadn’t heard from her. Then, after a couple of weeks, the front doorbell rang. Graziano and I put our pants on, wondering who it could be. It was her.
“Well,” she said, smiling in that conceited way of hers, “what are you doing, aren’t you going to ask me to come in?” I stood aside. She hesitated a moment, then shrugged and came in, glancing at herself in the mirror. “But there are two of you!” she said ecstatically, catching Graziano with a bottle in his hand.
“Shall we have a drink?” he said nonchalantly.
I took the bottle from him. Arianna recognized him even without his beard. “Why don’t we have dinner together?” She was very beautiful, of course.
“Right away,” Graziano said, looking at her spellbound. “What movie have you stepped out of?”
She smiled and collapsed on the bed. “What a day!” she said. “I got up very late, went to the swimming pool for three hours, then went back to bed for another two hours. I’m exhausted.”
Last Summer in the City Page 12