by John Fante
He did not go home to his wife and children. He stayed with Rocco again that night. With Rocco, Maria; not with a woman, but with Rocco Saccone, a man. And he slept well; no falling into black bottomless pits, no green-eyed serpents slithering after him through his dreams.
Maria might have asked why he didn’t come home. That was his business. Dio rospo! Did he have to explain everything?
The next afternoon at four he was before the Widow with a bill for the work. He had written it on stationery from the Rocky Mountain Hotel. He was not a good speller and he knew it. He had simply put it this way: Work 40.00. And signed it. Half of that amount would go for materials. He had made twenty dollars. The Widow did not even look at the statement. She removed her reading glasses and insisted that he make himself at home. He thanked her for the heater. He was glad to be in her house. His joints were not so frozen as before. His feet had mastered the shining floor. He could anticipate the soft divan before he sat in it. The Widow depreciated the heater with a smile.
‘That house was like an icebox, Svevo.’
Svevo. She had called him by his first name. He laughed outright. He had not meant to laugh, but the excitement of her mouth making his name got away from him. The blaze in the fireplace was hot. His wet shoes were close to it. Bitter-smelling steam rose from them. The Widow was behind him, moving about; he dared not look. Once more he had lost the use of his voice. That icicle in his mouth – that was his tongue: it would not move. That hot throbbing in his temples, making his hair seem on fire: that was the pounding of his brain: it would not give him words. The pretty Widow with two hundred thousand dollars in the bank had called him by his first name. The pine logs in the fire sputtered their sizzling mirth. He sat staring into the flame, his face set in a smile as he worked his big hands together, the bones cracking for joy. He did not move, transfixed with worry and delight, tormented by the loss of his voice. At last he was able to speak.
‘Good fire,’ he said. ‘Good.’
No answer. He looked over his shoulder. She was not there, but he heard her coming from the hall and he turned and fixed his bright excited eyes on the flame. She came with a tray bearing glasses and a bottle. She put it on the mantelpiece and poured two drinks. He saw the flash of diamonds on her fingers. He saw her solid hips, the streamline, the curve of her womanly back, the plump grace of her arm as she poured the liquor from the gurgling bottle.
‘Here you are, Svevo. Do you mind if I call you that?’
He took the brownish red liquor and stared at it, wondering what it was, this drink the color of his eyes, this drink rich women put into their throats. Then he remembered that she had spoken to him about his name. His blood ran wild, bulging at the hot flushed limits of his face.
‘I don’t care, Mrs Hildegarde, what you call me.’
That made him laugh and he was happy that at last he had said something funny in the American style, even though he had not meant to do so. The liquor was Malaga, sweet, hot, powerful Spanish wine. He sipped it carefully, then tossed it away with vigorous peasant aplomb. It was sweet and hot in his stomach. He smacked his lips, pulled the big muscles of his forearm across his lips.
‘By God, that’s good.’
She poured him another glassful. He made the conventional protests, his eyes popping with delight as the wine laughed its way into his outstretched glass.
‘I have a surprise for you, Svevo.’
She walked to the desk and returned with a package wrapped in Christmas paper. Her smile became a wince as she broke the red strings with her jeweled fingers and he watched in a suffocation of pleasure. She got it open and the tissue inside wrinkled as though little animals thrived in it. The gift was a pair of shoes. She held them out, a shoe in each hand, and watched the play of flame in his seething eyes. He could not bear it. His mouth formed a twist of incredulous torture, that she should know he needed shoes. He made grunts of protest, he swayed in the divan, he ran his gnarled fingers through his hair, he panted through a difficult smile, and then his eyes disappeared into a pool of tears. Again his forearm went up, streaked across his face, and pulled the wetness from his eyes. He fumbled through his pocket, produced a crackling red polka-dot handkerchief, and cleared his nostrils with a rapid fire of snorts.
‘You’re being very silly, Svevo,’ she smiled. ‘I should think you’d be glad.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Mrs Hildegarde. I buy my own shoes.’
He put his hand over his heart.
‘You give me work, and I buy my own.’
She swept it aside as absurd sentiment. The glass of wine offered distraction. He drained it, got up and filled it and drained it again. She came over to him and put her hand on his arm. He looked into her face that smiled sympathetically, and once more a gusher of tears rose out of him and overflowed to his cheeks. Self-pity lashed him. That he should be subjected to such embarrassment! He sat down again, his fists clamped at his chin, his eyes closed. That this should happen to Svevo Bandini!
But, even as he wept he bent over to unlace his old soggy shoes. The right shoe came off with a sucking sound, exposing a gray sock with holes in the toes, the big toe red and naked. For some reason he wiggled it. The Widow laughed. Her amusement was his cure. His mortification vanished. Eagerly he went at the business of removing the other shoe. The Widow sipped wine and watched him.
The shoes were kangaroo, she told him, they were expensive. He pulled them on, felt their cool softness. God in heaven, what shoes! He laced them and stood up. He might have stepped barefoot into a deep carpet so soft they were, such friendly things at his feet. He walked across the room, trying them.
‘Just right,’ he said. ‘Pretty good, Mrs Hildegarde!’ What now? She turned her back and sat down. He walked to the fireplace.
‘I’ll pay you, Mrs Hildegarde. What they cost you I’ll take off the bill.’ It was inappropriate. Upon her face was an expectancy and a disappointment he could not fathom.
‘The best shoes I ever had,’ he said, sitting down and stretching them before him. She threw herself at the opposite end of the divan. In a tired voice she asked him to pour her a drink. He gave it to her and she accepted it without thanks, saying nothing as she sipped the wine, sighing with faint exasperation. He sensed her uneasiness. Perhaps he had stayed too long. He got up to go. Vaguely he felt her smouldering silence. Her jaw was set, her lips a thin thread. Maybe she was sick, wanting to be alone. He picked up his old shoes and bundled them under his arms.
‘I think maybe I’ll go now, Mrs Hildegarde.
She stared into the flames.
‘Thank you Mrs Hildegarde. If you have some more work sometime …’
‘Of course, Svevo.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘You’re a superb worker, Svevo. I’m well satisfied.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hildegarde.’
What about his wages for the work? He crossed the room and hesitated at the door. She did not see him go. He took the knob in his hand and twisted it.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Hildegarde.’
She sprang to her feet. Just a moment. There was something she had meant to ask him. That pile of stones in the back yard, left over from the house. Would he look at it before he went away? Perhaps he could tell her what to do with them. He followed the rounded hips through the hall to the back porch where he looked at the stones from the window, two tons of flagstone under snow. He thought a moment and made suggestions: she could do many things with that stone – lay down a sidewalk with it; build a low wall around the garden; erect a sundial and garden benches, a fountain, an incinerator. Her face was chalky and frightened as he turned from the window, his arm gently brushing her chin. She had been leaning over his shoulder, not quite touching it. He apologized. She smiled.
‘We’ll talk of it later,’ she said. ‘In the spring.’
She did not move, barring the path back to the hall.
‘I want you to do all my work, Svevo.’
Her eyes wandered over him. The new shoes attracted her.
She smiled again. ‘How are they?’
‘Best I ever had.’
Still there was something else. Would he wait just a moment, until she thought of it? There was something – something – something – and she kept snapping her fingers and biting her lip thoughtfully. They went back through the narrow hallway. At the first door she stopped. Her hand fumbled at the knob. It was dim in the hall. She pushed the door open.
‘This is my room,’ she said.
He saw the pounding of her heart in her throat. Her face was gray, her eyes bright with quick shame. Her jeweled hand covered the fluttering in her throat. Over her shoulder he saw the room, the white bed, the dressing table, the chest of drawers. She entered the room, switched on the light, and made a circle in the middle of the carpet.
‘It’s a pleasant room, don’t you think?’
He watched her, not the room. He watched her, his eyes shifting to the bed and back to her again. He felt his mind warming, seeking the fruits of imagery; that woman and this room. She walked to the bed, her hips weaving like a cluster of serpents as she fell on the bed and lay there, her hand in an empty gesture.
‘It’s so pleasant here.’
A wanton gesture, careless as wine. The fragrance of the place fed his heartbeat. Her eyes were feverish, her lips parted in an agonized expression that showed her teeth. He could not be sure of himself. He squinted his eyes as he watched her. No – she could not mean it. This woman had too much money. Her wealth impeded the imagery. Such things did not happen.
She lay facing him, her head on her outstretched arm. The loose smile must have been painful, for it seemed to come with frightened uneasiness. His throat responded with a clamor of blood; he swallowed, and looked away, toward the door through the hall. What he had been thinking had best be forgotten. This woman was not interested in a poor man.
‘I think I better go now, Mrs Hildegarde.’
‘Fool,’ she smiled.
He grinned his confusion, the chaos of his blood and brain. The evening air would clear that up. He turned and walked down the hall to the front door.
‘You fool!’ he heard her say. ‘You ignorant peasant.’
Mannaggia! And she had not paid him, either. His lips screwed into a sneer. She could call Svevo Bandini a fool! She arose from the bed to meet him, her hands outstretched to embrace him. A moment later she was struggling to tear herself away. She winced in terrible joy as he stepped back, her ripped blouse streaming from his two fists.
He had torn her blouse away even as Maria had torn the flesh from his face. Remembering it now, that night in the Widow’s bedroom was even yet worth a great deal to him. No other living being was in that house, only himself and the woman against him, crying with ecstatic pain, weeping that he have mercy, her weeping a pretense, a beseechment for mercilessness. He laughed the triumph of his poverty and peasantry. This Widow! She with her wealth and deep plump warmth, slave and victim of her own challenge, sobbing in the joyful abandonment of her defeat, each gasp his victory. He could have done away with her had he desired, reduced her scream to a whisper, but he arose and walked into the room where the fireplace glowed lazily in the quick winter darkness, leaving her weeping and choking on the bed. Then she came to him there at the fireplace and fell on her knees before him, her face sodden with tears, and he smiled and lent himself once more to her delicious torment. And when he left her sobbing in her fulfillment, he walked down the road with deep content that came from the conviction he was master of the earth.
So be it. Tell Maria? This was the business of his own soul. Not telling, he had done Maria a favor – she with her rosaries and prayers, her commandments and indulgences. Had she asked, he would have lied. But she had not asked. Like a cat she had leaped to the conclusions written on his lacerated face. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Bah. It was the Widow’s doing. He was her victim.
She had committed adultery. A willing victim.
Every day he was at her house during the Christmas week. Sometimes he whistled as he sounded the foxhead knocker. Sometimes he was silent. Always the door swung open after a moment and a welcome smile met his eyes. He could not shake loose from his embarrassment. Always that house was a place where he did not belong, exciting and unattainable. She greeted him in blue dresses and red dresses, yellow and green. She bought him cigars, Chancellors in a Christmas box. They were on the mantelpiece before his eyes; he knew they were his but he always waited for her invitation to take one.
A strange rendezvous. No kisses and no embraces. She would take his hand as he entered and shake it warmly. She was so glad he had come – wouldn’t he like to sit down for a while? He thanked her and crossed the room to the fireplace. A few words about the weather; a polite enquiry about his health. Silence as she returned to her book.
Five minutes, ten.
No sound save the swish of book pages. She would look up and smile. He always sat with his elbows on his knees, his thick neck bloated, staring at the flames, thinking his own thoughts: of his home, his children, of the woman beside him, of her wealth, wondering about her past. The swish of pages, the clucking and hissing of pine logs. Then she would look up again. Why didn’t he smoke a cigar? They were his; help yourself. Thank you, Mrs Hildegarde. And he would light up, pulling at the fragrant leaf, watching the white smoke tumble from his cheeks, thinking his own thoughts.
In the decanter on the low table was whiskey, with glasses and soda beside it. Did he desire a drink? Then he would wait, the minutes passing, the pages swishing, until she glanced at him once more, her smile a courtesy to let him know she remembered he was there.
‘Won’t you have a drink, Svevo?’
Protests, the moving about in his chair, flicking away his cigar ash, jerking at his collar. No thank you, Mrs Hildegarde: he was not what you’d call a drinking man. Once in a while – yes. But not today. She listened with that parlor smile, peering at him over her reading glasses, not really listening at all.
‘If you feel that you’d like one, don’t hesitate.’
Then he poured a tumblerful, disposing of it with a professional jerk. His stomach took it like ether, blotting it away and creating the desire for more. The ice was broken. He poured another and another; expensive whiskey out of a bottle from Scotland, forty cents a shot down at the Imperial Poolhall. But there was always some little prelude of uneasiness, a whistling in the dark, before he poured one; a cough, or he might rub his hands together and stand up to let her know he was about to drink again, or the humming of a shapeless nameless tune. After that it was easier, the liquor freeing him, and he tossed them down without hesitancy. The whiskey, like the cigars, was for him. When he left, the decanter was emptied and when he returned it was full again.
It was ever the same, a waiting for evening shadows, the Widow reading and he smoking and drinking. It could not last. Christmas Eve, and it would be over. There was something about that time and season – Christmas coming, the old year dying – that told him it would be for only a few days, and he felt that she knew it, too.
Down the hill and at the other end of town was his family, his wife and children. Christmas time was the time for wife and children. He would leave, never to return. In his pockets would be money. Meantime, he liked it here. He liked the fine whiskey, the fragrant cigars. He liked this pleasant room and the rich woman who lived in it. She was not far from him, reading her book, and in a little while she would walk into the bedroom and he would follow. She would gasp and weep and then he would leave in the twilight, triumph giving zest to his legs. The leave-taking he loved most of all. That surge of satisfaction, that vague chauvinism telling him no people on earth equalled the Italian people, that joy in his peasantry. The Widow had money – yes. But back there she lay, crushed, and Bandini was a better man than she, by God.
He might have gone home those nights had there been that feeling that it was over. But it was no time for thinking of his family. A few days more and his worries would begin again. Let those days be spen
t in a world apart from his own. No one knew save his friend Rocco Saccone.
Rocco was happy for him, lending him shirts and ties, throwing open his big wardrobe of suits. Lying in the darkness before sleep, he would wait for Bandini’s account of that day. Concerning other matters, they spoke in English, but of the Widow it was always in Italian, whispered and secretive.
‘She wants to marry me,’ Bandini would say. ‘She was on her knees, begging me to divorce Maria.’
‘Si,’ Rocco answered. ‘Indeed!’
‘Not only that, but she promised to settle a hundred thousand dollars on me.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I am considering it,’ he lied.
Rocco gasped, swung around in the darkness.
‘Considering it! Sangue de la Madonna! Have you lost your mind? Take it! Take fifty thousand! Ten thousand! Take anything – do it for nothing!’
No, Bandini told him, the proposition was out of the question. A hundred thousand would certainly go a long way toward solving his problems, but Rocco seemed to forget that there was a question of honor here, and Bandini had no desire to dishonor his wife and children for mere gold. Rocco groaned and tore his hair, muttering curses.
‘Jackass!’ he said. ‘Ah Dio! What a jackass!’
It shocked Bandini. Did Rocco mean to tell him that he would actually sell his honor for money – for a hundred thousand dollars? Exasperated, Rocco snapped the light switch above the bed. Then he sat up, his face livid, his eyes protruding, his red fists clinching the collar of his winter underwear. ‘You wish to know if I would sell my honor for a hundred thousand dollars?’ he demanded. ‘Then look here!’ With that he gave his arm a jerk, tearing open his underwear in front, the buttons flying and scattering over the floor. He sat pounding his naked chest savagely over his heart. ‘I would not only sell my honor,’ he shouted. ‘I would sell myself body and soul, for at least fifteen hundred dollars!’