by André Aciman
He lowered the window half-way down.
“Would you open the inner gate for me please?” he asked quietly, gesturing to the space in front of him.
The other looked at him wide-eyed.
“Do you want to park the car in the yard?” he asked in the slow Italian he used for important occasions.
“I do,” he said, smiling. “It doesn’t seem that cold now.”
“Would you have stuff to take in?” Romeo asked, reverting to dialect.
He gathered he was alluding to the spoils of the hunt. Though it looked like he didn’t have much faith in that. His thin, violet lips had stretched into a furtive grin.
“No, far from it. I didn’t shoot a thing.”
Through the windscreen he saw him make his way toward the gate. It was obvious he disapproved. He could tell from the exaggerated curve of his back as he tried to open the gate. Of necessity, in a few hours time, what with one thing and another, he’d be making a fair bit of extra work for him. So he ought to treat him well, and keep him happy.
He drove the car through to the yard.
“And how is your daughter doing?” he asked after he’d got out of the car. “Did she call round this afternoon?”
Yes, she had come, Romeo confirmed. They’d both showed up, she and her husband.
He added nothing more, and made a grimace. He’d probably had to shell out some more money, he thought. But in any case what could he do about it? It wouldn’t do to offer to reimburse him. Apart from the fact that he only had a few hundred lire on him, it would be too tricky a discussion to get embroiled in. And as for having a talk with the son-in-law, that William, he didn’t think that was something he could promise. Making a promise he knew he couldn’t keep would have been distinctly dishonest on his part. Dishonest and stupid both.
He climbed the stairs at a fair rate, with the Browning and the Krupp slung over each shoulder. But, having arrived upstairs, he stopped at the doorway. He had clearly heard the whining tones of Nives coming from the dining room. Seeing as they were already seated at the table, perhaps it would be convenient all round to show his face at once. And later, if possible, he could go to his room for a moment to wash his hands and face.
He walked across the polished, creaking parquet, half-opened the door in front of him, and peeked his head round the side.
“I’m back,” he announced, while Lilla, his mother’s poodle, uttered its usual little stifled woof. “Good evening.”
He had taken them by surprise.
Nives and his mother were at either end of the table, Rory and Prearo, the accountant, in between, facing each other: all of them stared at him with startled looks, motionless as statues. Strange. Strange and comic. Was it possible that Elsa, who had indeed warned Romeo of his coming, had neglected to inform Nives of his phone call? No, that couldn’t be, he realized as he noticed the fact that a fifth place had been set beside Rory . . .
He came forward a step.
“My respects,” murmured Prearo, half rising from his seat and jerking back his sweaty face.
“Please don’t get up.”
“Aren’t you going to sit down?” Nives said in a complaining tone. “Go on, do, it’s late.”
Just at that moment, Elsa came in through the other door that opened onto the kitchen and the office. She was balancing the oval dish of boiled turkey meatloaf, and she, too, on seeing him, came to a sudden halt.
He took them all in with a single circular glance: Nives, Rory, his mother with the little black, curly-haired poodle curled up on a seat beside her, Prearo, Elsa. He felt incredibly rich, generous, disposed to be bountiful: uplifted by a kind of inebriation. Yet he knew, how well he knew it! All it would have needed was for him to decide to stay alive for one more day, for just a single day, and then that happiness, which for an hour he had carried shut tight within him like a treasure, would suddenly dissolve and he would once again feel, even toward his daughter, sitting there, staring up at him with her beautiful dark and wild blue eyes, the same old bitter sense of alienation, almost of repulsion, that had always stopped him feeling that she was his, that he loved her. That was it, he told himself, only by dying was he able to love her! And she? Would she remember him, her father, when she was grown up? What he looked like? Almost certainly not. He hoped for this on her behalf with all his heart. In his present state, this was the only gift he was able to give her.
“I’m going to my room for a moment” he said.
5.
HE, MORE than any of them, believed he was going to return in a moment. But after he’d left the dining room, and had begun to walk down the long L-shaped corridor which led from the entrance to his bedroom, he suddenly understood that he would not return, not even to announce that he’d decided to skip supper. To stay on his own, to undress, to think. To prepare himself. Nothing weighed on him, there was nothing else he desired.
He entered his room. He switched on the central light. He undid the cartridge belt and draped it on a chair. He slid the two rifles from his shoulders, and leaned them against the wall beside the glass cabinet. He took off his jacket, hanging it on the clothes-horse with wheels. He sat on the side of the bed. He bent down to unlace his boots. He straightened up. He switched on the small lamp on his bedside table. At last he stretched himself out, his hands entwined behind his neck. And he was lying thus, staring at the ill-lit ceiling, overcome by the feeling of extraordinary well-being which lying supine on the bed, on his own bed again, gave him when he heard someone knocking at the door.
“Come in,” he said.
It was Elsa—he knew from her smell, a blend of cooking and soap.
“What is it?” he asked without moving, and closing his eyes.
The riso in brodo is getting cold, the girl replied. If Signor Avvocato didn’t come down soon, then later, when it was reheated, it wouldn’t taste nearly as good.
He knew where she was. Just beyond the threshold, her hand resting on the latch. He saw her hand: big, with swollen and grazed fingers, but appealing, not in the least unpleasant.
“No. I won’t be coming down,” he replied. “I’m not hungry. Would you tell the Signora that?”
He lifted his body halfway up, leaned on his elbow and gave her a smile.
“Also, I’m too tired to eat.”
In the half-dark, in the lamplight that lit her healthy cheeks faintly from below, he saw her flush. Where was she from? Ah yes, from Chioggia, or rather Sottomarina di Chioggia. Blonde, rosy, sturdy, with blue eyes, just like Irma Manzoli, she was forever blushing, and he always found women who blushed easily attractive.
“Is there nothing you need?” she asked him.
He was about to say no. But an idea occurred to him. What if, by chance, there wasn’t any string in the house? That would be a real disaster. To have the wherewithal to shoot himself, he absolutely needed some.
“Do you happen to have any string in the kitchen?”
“Any string?”
Poor girl. It was understandable she should stare at him like that, caught between wonder and irony.
“Before going off to sleep” he explained “I’d like to give the rifles a bit of a clean.”
“I think we might have. But how long should it be?”
“A couple of meters would do.”
“I’ll go and see straightaway.”
“Thanks,” he smiled again. “Thanks a lot.”
Having heard the door shut, he got to his feet, took off his wristwatch, placed it on the bedside table and walked into the bathroom.
First of all he turned on the bath taps, leaning over the bath to gauge the temperature of the water accurately. And as he gradually undressed—he knew that what he wanted was to be undressed, to wash himself completely clean, to shave, and later he might even try to empty his bowels—as he gradually took off his pullover, his flannel shirt, his string vest and then, in order, the thick wool stockings, his short socks, the corduroy trousers, the long woolen underpants, the short c
otton briefs, he didn’t stop thinking about how he would shoot himself, forcing himself to plot out every smallest detail of the operation.
In the countryside, he’d often been told, farmworkers generally did it this way: they propped the gun’s butt on the ground and then, holding the barrel tightly in their hands, pushed the trigger down with their toe extended. He, however, intended to do it differently. He would take the string, knot one end to the trigger and the other to something solid and fixed, perhaps a bath tap. Then, having made himself quite comfortable, in a seated position, he would position the barrel. No, the string would be a decidedly clever device. Being seated, he could shoot himself in the chest, the throat, his mouth or in the middle of his forehead—wherever he chose. And in the bathroom, it hardly mattered if he made a mess of the floor.
He climbed over the edge of the bath, turned off both taps, and stretched out full-length in the lukewarm water.
All that remained to be decided—he returned to his thoughts assisted by the sudden silence—if anything did remain, was the question of which weapon to use. The Browning or the Krupp? But while he was posing the question, he already knew that the Browning would not be appropriate. He wouldn’t be using that. Better the Krupp. The double barrel was far more reliable. With that gun, the risk of being left half-alive, of slowly bleeding out, was minimal. If he managed to calculate exactly the right lengths of string, one for each trigger, he would be blasted by both shots together, in the same instant. He’d not be aware of a thing.
He soaped himself from head to toe. He rinsed himself. He got out of the bath. He dried himself. He shaved. He sterilized his face with a dab of cologne. He carefully tidied his hair, using brilliantine, brush and comb. Finally, having put on his pyjamas and his beige-colored dressing gown and his slippers, he went back into his bedroom.
Elsa had brought the string. A whole ball of it. She had left it in plain sight on the middle of the bed. He took the ball in his hand and examined it. Excellent. The string wasn’t too thick. Thin but sturdy, the best for the job. For tying a knot with, it would be perfect.
He leaned his elbow on the bedside table beside the Vacheron- Constantin and the Jaegar and then once more lay down in the bed, under the covers, his hands laced behind his head as before. He wouldn’t leave any note. Not a single line. What would be the point? There were no debts left to pay or to collect. As for the cemetery, even there everything was in order. Prearo had always taken care of his annual contribution to the Jewish Community, with regular payments on behalf of himself and his mother. So no one could raise any objections. The president of the Community, that Cohen fellow, who ever since his marriage had stopped greeting him, never to begin again, would find himself with his hands tied.
He remained there thinking.
Toward midnight he got out of bed, went to the door, opened it and walked into the corridor.
Not every night, it’s true, but quite often, he would go to visit his mother at more or less this time, especially if he’d come home just before or shortly after supper and had gone to his room to read the papers in peace, or to check some accounts. It was a very long-established habit. For that reason, it wasn’t impossible that his mother, troubled not to see him come in, might take it into her head to burst in on him at two or three o’clock when he’d be most in need of being alone, of not being disturbed.
He walked down the corridor, past the entrance, the dining room, the two adjoining drawing rooms which had been left unheated for a couple of years and had now effectively been reassigned as a storage room and a larder. He moved, then, from one side of the apartment to the other, opening and shutting doors, switching lights on and off, and without worrying whether the parquet creaked. If Nives from her bedroom or Elsa in her little room next to the kitchen should hear him pass, all the better. All the better that tonight everything should seem perfectly normal to them as well, no different in any respect to every other night.
6.
THE INNER happiness he felt gave a spring to his tired legs, poise and precision to his every gesture, and calm to the beating of his heart. It was truly a treasure he was guarding within. Huge, inexhaustible, yes, and yet something to be kept secret all the same, hidden from everyone in the world. His whole joy, his whole peace derived from the certainty that he was its sole possessor.
His mother’s bedroom was the last, the farthest away room in the apartment, repurposed from a small reception room which in the time of his grandfather, Eliseo, and his grandmother, Vittoria, had served exclusively for billiards. But after he had walked through the vast and chilly darkness of the second of the former drawing rooms, filled with dim presences without form, there he was at the door, lowering the latch, and opening it a crack.
“May I?” he asked as usual.
“Oh, it’s you!” he heard the familiar, querulous, wavering voice exclaiming in reply.
He entered, shut the door and, in the unexpected warmth, walked to the bed which was positioned at the far side of the room, then stretched out his hand to stroke Lilla who, having delivered her ritual little harmless yelp, had immediately curled up again at her mistress’s side, level with her hip. He behaved as he ever did, repeating the same acts, the same motions and preparing to say and to hear the exact same habitual phrases.
But for once he felt happy, and his mother caught his mood from the start.
Instead of beginning with her usual complaints, mainly directed at Nives, she lay there contemplating him with a satisfied air and in silence.
“How handsome you are,” she said at last.
“Me handsome?” he parried. “You’re joking.”
“But you are. Let your mother be the judge! You should go hunting more often. Get out in the sunshine and the wind, breathe a bit of fresh air now and then as you used to and I’m sure it would do you a world of good. See what a fine color you have.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” he replied, bowing his head. “I really ought to.”
“Good boy,” she said with a smile. “I saw it straightaway, you know, as soon as you came in, that your whole face looked different. But how come,” she went on, still smiling and speaking in lowered tones, “you didn’t want anything to eat, not even a little bowl of soup? It was very good.”
“I’m sure it was. But the truth is I ate very late today so I wasn’t hungry.”
“What a shame. Your wife wanted to make the meatloaf herself, and I have to admit that now she’s really learned how to, and so that was delicious as well . . . and where did you go to eat?”
He told her where.
“Who knows what gruesome stuff you’ll have had to swallow,” she exclaimed, with a grimace of disgust. “Let’s hope it doesn’t make you ill. But did the underwear at least keep you warm and dry enough?”
While he replied that the woolen underwear had indeed proved fortuitous, and placidly told her what he’d eaten at lunch, he was observing her closely. In bed, with two linen-covered pillows propping her up, with that graceful, loosely knitted, blue woolen shawl which covered her shoulders and breast, all so clean, the soft, cottonwool-like hair a fraction whiter than the frail parchment of her face, she too looked beautiful. Perfect.
“You’re looking beautiful yourself,” he said. “My compliments.”
She burst out laughing. Childishly flattered, she arched back against the pillows, joined together her little, knotty hands covered with veins, and shut her eyes. How old was she? he wondered. She must be around eighty, almost double his own age. All the same her arteriosclerosis was helping to turn her into a child again—even more of a child than Rory was.
When she opened her eyes again, she wanted to know how the hunt had gone.
“I guess you won’t have shot anything,” she said.
She had assumed a disheartened and at the same time anxious air, as if all she wanted was to be proved wrong. Why not make her happy? She looked as though she needed to hear a fairy tale, and he was willing to tell her one. More than willing.
/>
He replied that she was mistaken, he’d brought down more than forty ducks and coots. Only rather than carry them all back home he’d preferred to give them away. He’d given them all to Ulderico.
She was slow to catch his meaning.
“Ulderico who?” she asked.
He tilted his head toward Via Montebello, then added in a lowered tone:
“Cavaglieri?”
She nodded.
He waited for her to emerge from her bewilderment and reorganize her memory. Yes, him, he confirmed. As they’d recently exchanged a couple of phone calls, and he’d always been so kind, and as he was passing through Codigoro, he’d decided to pay him a visit.
Now she was on the alert, as though she’d shed twenty years.
“At his home?” she whispered.
“Yes, at his home.”
“And where is his home? In the countryside?”
“No, in the town itself. Right on the main square.”
“Did you see his wife as well?”
“His wife and his children too.”
“His children! How many does he have?”
He showed her with his fingers.
“Six!” his mother exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Good heavens above, what a clan!”
“And his wife . . .” she continued after a pause, again in a stifled voice, wrinkling her forehead with the effort to remember, “. . . what’s his wife like? Did you speak to her?”
“I certainly did. I phoned and went round. They offered me a nice cup of tea . . . they even wanted me to stay for dinner.”
He saw her shake her head, give an ample sigh, then throw herself back against the pillows once more. Her eyes, always a bit too damp, had filled with tears. What was she thinking about? What had got into her? For the love of God, let it not be any sadness.
To distract her, he told her about the children. The two girls were almost grown up now. Of the four boys, all likeable good-looking lads, three of them had started playing soccer in the hallway while he was there.